Teamwork

John quickly dropped both crystals and summoned the greatsword as the spider-like machine advanced on him. He brought up the wooden blade to parry the construct’s first thrust, batting away the upward strike with some difficulty.

‘Shit,’ John thought as he brought his blade back up to parry a second strike, this one a mirror of the first, only just managing to redirect the attack. ‘I can’t stop the next one!’

True to his observation, the third lance shot forward like a viper, too fast for him to attempt to block the downward strike aimed for his head. A comet of green raced into the shrinking space between John and his impending doom. Aeolia, reduced to her innate size, slammed into the electrified weapon, her own coated with a swirling tempest. Her counter knocked the lance off its target, the crackling weapon barely missing John’s head.

Before the Manager could attack again, John braced his legs and thrust the wooden greatsword at the machine’s chest, near to where shrapnel from one of the pods had pierced it.

16 DMG

The tip of the sword struck a small crack in the armor and broke through the compromised portion of zilhavrum, piercing into the **** machinery within. A cry emanated from the construct’s head, screeching as if it was in pain. One of its lances flailed towards John, slamming into his side.

-6 HP

The blow knocked John away from the wounded machine, nearly losing his grip on his sword as it was wrenched free. He stabilized his footing, readying the blade to defend against more attacks but was shocked to see the boss wasn’t moving to attack him, but instead seemed to be having some sort of malfunction.

Its limbs and head moved in sporadic jerks and a low wailing noise emanated from its speaker. It struck John not as a noise of pain, but of despair.

“What the fuck is going on?” Aeolia voiced their collective thoughts on the breakdown before them as she landed on John’s shoulder.

“Some kind of AI breakdown?” Vivian supplied, standing a little behind the others. “Given that it sent other robots after us at first, perhaps it’s not equipped to deal with actual combat?”

“Maybe,” John muttered. “We probably should try to take it out while it’s messed up, but man it feels a little weird attacking something in the middle of a mental breakdown.”

“Better to strike while we’ve got an opening,” Aeolia offered. “We’re not exactly in top shape right now so we should take any advantage we can get.”

“Right,” John said, tightening his grip. “Let’s hope we don’t snap it out of whatever is making it freak out.”

John charged towards the disoriented construct as Aeolia jumped off his shoulder, flying around to approach their foe from the opposite side. Vivian remained back, her eyes watching intently. The Manager seemed to not notice their movements in its delirium and John aimed his blade for its head, hoping that an attack there would score a critical blow.

22 DMG

The wooden sword caused the neck of the construct to bend sharply and its lower limbs buckled as the concussive **** knocked it off balance. John backed off, seeing Aeolia had grown back to her full height and was flying in to attack.

“Look out!” Vivian shouted as one of the machine’s dorsal limbs, which had been rendered immobile and limp after John’s blow, suddenly blurred into motion, flashing out to intercept Aeolia’s attack. The winged woman quickly altered course, shrinking to become a harder target, and avoided the point of the zilhavrum lance.

The rest of the construct’s limbs returned to life and it assumed an aggressive stance, lances once more sparking with electricity. John shifted to place himself between the rebooted machine and Vivian while Aeolia landed atop the smoking remains of one of the pods.

“Intruders,” it spoke with a voice that was far more feminine than before, though it retained the synthesized quality, “you will be eliminated.”

It surged towards John and Vivian, lances curled back like a scorpion's tail, poised to strike. Out of the corner of his eye, John saw Aeolia dive off her perch, racing to intervene. Putting his trust in her, John readied for the oncoming attack.

Their enemy reached striking distance and it lashed out with two of its lances. Instead of the limbs curving in slightly to strike at his flank, they remained straight and passed through empty air. John shifted his head enough to see Vivian in his peripheral vision, a look of concentration on her face and her already drained mana bar steadily approaching zero.

‘She distorted its vision,’ he realized. ‘We can’t waste this opportunity!’

John returned his attention to the construct and saw Aeolia approach striking distance, wisps of green wind gathering around her glaive. She whipped the last of her magic into a storm and thrust into the boss’s flank, right where the shrapnel was still protruding.

50 DMG. Critical Hit!

Aeolia’s strike tore into the weakened metal, and by the damage report, John assumed her attack had hit some relatively vital part. That postulation looked to be true as the construct’s left arm went limp as she withdrew. The damage wasn’t enough, however, to impede its weapon arms and a lance snaked towards Aeolia.

She dodged the counter, though her sluggish evasion betrayed that she was nearing her limit. The second left-sided lance joined its twin in pursuit, shooting out in an intercept course. John surged into motion, swinging his greatsword into the construct’s side.

15 DMG

While not as damaging as his earlier thrust, the blow did knock the machine off balance for a second, causing its hunting limbs to lose track of Aeolia. Before it could recover or retaliate, Aeolia dived towards its head, jabbing at its lens eye.

10 DMG

The sharp sound of shattering glass was drowned out by the construct’s harsh cry, and its functioning limbs flailed around trying to strike them by chance. Aeolia managed to fly away from the blind swatting but John wasn’t as lucky as a segmented limb slammed into his midsection.

-5 HP

He fell to the ground with a dull thud several meters away, his sword slipping from his fingers. The sound of his impact drew the attention of the boss and it scuttled towards him, lances poised to lash out. The first one darted out, stabbing into the ground a meter to John’s left, followed by one striking around the same distance to his right.

John tried to reach for his fallen sword, his fingers just touching the handle. The blade scraped against the hard floor and the construct zeroed in on the sound, a lance shooting out towards it. John was **** to abandon the weapon and scurry away, pushing himself back to his feet. He wasn’t fast enough to escape the blind robot’s attack range and it sent an electrified lance straight at him.

Before John could dodge or attempt to summon Senka to defend, Vivian rushed forward, intercepting the strike with the zilhavrum shield. Electrical energy discharged against the protective circle of metal and the redhead let out a sharp cry as some of the arcs travelled through it and up her arms.

Spurred on by Vivian’s pain-filled scream and her determination to remain standing despite it, John surged towards the boss, grabbed the shard of metal that still stuck out from the machine’s side and **** it deeper into the construct’s internal workings.

18 DMG

The mechanical overseer directed one of its lances down towards John, blindly aiming at him. John let go of his improvised weapon, dropped to his knees and leaned back to avoid the attack. The lance swooped into the space he had been in and John shot his hands out and grasped the undulating limb. It immediately tried to break his hold, but the movements of the flexible limb seemed sluggish and John **** the sparking tip of the lance towards the butt of the metal fragment that still extruded from the boss’s side.

26 DMG

Electricity surged into the delicate machinery and the construct jerked back as its motor functions were disrupted. John let go of the limb and wrapped an arm around Vivian to pull her away from the spasming robot. A second later, the boss let out one final staticy cry before collapsing to the floor.

470(25) EXP

Level Up!
5 Stat Points Gained

The dead hunk of metal faded away, leaving a moderately large pile of loot and John felt a wave of relief wash over him.

“Finally done,” he said, turning towards a red-faced Vivian with a bright smile. “Thanks for that save.”

“Y-yeah,” she stammered, averting her eyes from his. “J-just couldn’t l-let you get attacked. Umm, you can let go now.”

John blinked then realized his arm was still around her waist, his fingers unintentionally brushing the soft skin of her midsection. He flinched away, his face matching hers. Aeolia glided towards them and landed on Vivian’s shoulder.

“Good job there,” she said, playfully tapping her knuckle against Vivian’s head. “How’d you paralyse that thing anyway? I figured all that anti-magic metal would make something like that a tall order.”

“Well, I,” Vivian began in a small voice before she started over in a more confident tone. “I didn’t try to directly affect it. I assumed it would have the same or greater magical resistance as the other ones you’ve fought, so I just made the array apply pressure to the air around it.”

“That’s crazy,” John said, awe in his voice. “I would have never thought about that.”

Vivian flushed. “It isn’t that impressive. The basic kind of binding effect is just creating a hardened shell around the target and I just used the air like an insulator to stop the spell from getting weakened by the zilhavrum.”

“Yeah,” Aeolia chimed in. “What is impressive was that shield stunt. Didn’t think you had it in you to rush in like that.”

“I couldn’t just let John get stabbed,” Vivian muttered, her face growing further red as she fixed her gaze on the shield.

“Ya know, he did the same kind of thing when we met,” Aeolia commented teasing, peering over to John with a sly smile. “He distracted an enemy by throwing something at it and led it away. Come to think about it, I saved his bacon back in our first Barrier run. He got punted by the boss. We might have a theme going on here.”

“Let’s hope we don’t,” John cut in. “I don’t really want to keep ending up in situations where we have to save each other by the skin of our teeth.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a better idea,” Vivian agreed with a vigorous nod.

“Alright, alright,” Aeolia relented. “I see your point. I’ll try to keep myself from damseling. So, go over the loot in here or pack up and head out?”

“Considering ‘out’ is a disused side street, I think going over things here is a better idea,” John said. “Unless you want to have to drive somewhere safe first.”

“I think a little rest before having to travel wouldn’t hurt,” Aeolia responded.

“And you don’t want to have to go back into my bag,” John joked, earning a narrowed glare from Aeolia.

“How about I shrink you down and have you take a ride in the bag?” Aeolia returned fire with a half-vicious smirk.

“No thanks,” John retorted. “Offer’s still on the table for buying an invisibility accessory. So we can ditch the bag.”

“Still say there are better things you could buy,” Aeolia retorted, her voice reflecting a growing irritability.

“It might not be too hard to make one,” Vivian cut in, drawing her companions’ attention to her. Her dying blush flared up slightly, but she continued, “What makes them expensive is more the effort and materials to keep them operational. The right metals and gems to hold and conduct mana and the detail work to inscribe a functioning array to invoke the effects. I’m fairly confident I could fashion an array that can at least veil you from mundane observation.”

“And I might be able to whip up something with Craftsmanship for you to put it on,” John interjected. “What’d ya say? Necklace or bracelet?”

Aeolia sighed. “Bracelet. Can we move on to counting the loot?”

“Yeah,” John agreed, walking over to the pile. “There are better places for us to just chat. Plus, I think it’s almost lunchtime. How does getting through this and grabbing something to eat sound?”

“Certainly sounds like a plan,” Vivian made her opinion known.

“Won’t say no to food after that workout,” Aeolia remarked.

“Then it’s settled,” John announced. “Now onto the loot.”

The first thing John noticed about the loot pile was the backpack-sized burlap sack atop the boss’ drops. John’s fingers barely brushed the rough fabric before the entire bag vanished and a notification manifested in front of him.

Bonus Reward: +2 Composite Gear
+1 Zilhavrum Ingot
+1 Fire Crystal
+ $724

“Well, that’s convenient,” John said as he dismissed the display, pulling up his Inventory to confirm the contents had been added to his storage. “Glad I got another Fire Crystal. Thing’s way too useful and having two spares is really nice. More gears to play around with is nice too, but the best is the ingot. And it looks like we got two.”

John closed his Inventory sheet and picked up the ingot dropped from the boss. Like the armor and weapons he’d seen throughout this Barrier, it was silvery, his reflection greeting him as he brought it closer.

“Alchemically made, huh,” John mused, turning over the smooth piece of rectangular metal in his hands. “Think that’ll bring up some hits on the Auction?”

“It might,” Vivian responded, withdrawing her phone from the accessory’s pocket space.

“And while you’re looking that up, I’ll check what Bolstering does,” John said, tapping the unknown Attribute.

Bolstering: Metals in contact with this material have their resistance to physical and magical damage increased.

“Not really a lot of info for that one,” Aeolia remarked, flying over to John's shoulder to read his display.

“Not a very complex effect,” John retorted, shrugging. “I figure that the percentage would change depending on the amount of zilhavrum added to something.”

John closed the display and willed the ingot into his Inventory. He glanced at Vivian, her focus fully on her phone.

“Anything interesting?” he asked her, his question causing her to flinch slightly.

“Nothing yet,” she admitted. “You have no idea how many alloys can be made with alchemical transmutation of silver and mercury. Though a lot of them seem to have some degree of magic resistance.”

“You try using the name from the armor set?” John suggested, prompting Vivian to shake her head.

“Didn’t pull anything up,” she reported, putting the phone away. “Which to me sounds like you’re able to access things very few people can. Things from distant or cut off Kingdoms or isolated Natural Barriers.”

A question bubbled up inside John, but he quashed it and instead picked up the last item, idly brushing the stack of cash that rested beside it. The money vanished into his funds as he called up the information on the black basketball-sized sphere he held.

“I’m a little bummed out I didn’t get whatever the R.L.O.S. was,” John said. “If only to figure out what it stands for, but if we want to build a robot, we have the brain all set.”

With a quick tap of his finger, John pulled up the remaining info.

Memory Backup: A copy of current operation programming, as well as the last 1000 hours of recorded footage.

Command Protocol: Allows for basic commands to be given, as well as further modification to other protocols.

Combat Protocol: A comprehensive collection of combat maneuvers and tactics, compiled to create an effective fighting machine.

“So a lot of recording space, the programs to do stuff and a way to see whatever’s been recorded,” John summed up, closing the displays. “Wonder if I’d have to pull this thing out of whatever it’s in to use the Evocation or if just knowing where it is will let me use it.”

“Well, unless you’ve got a robot to jack this thing into, it’s kind of a dead-end,” Aeolia said.

“Yeah,” John replied with a sigh. “Always sucks winning something you can’t use. Well, all done. How about we head out and get some grub?”