The emperor’s Office

Shirou stays silent while toying with his coin as usual, just listening to the Clan Leader of the Byrne Clan on planet Luk’tar explain the situation on Luk’tar while pacing back and forth behind him.

The Clan Leader has a short but stocky frame with long hair, a horned helmet, and gray and orange armor on as he paces.

“Tha bastards finally decided to declare all out bloody war, can ya believe it? They finally got the damned balls ta do it! I never expected them to go through with it this early!” Sean Byrne complains, the short man’s voice sounding rough and with an accent. But Shirou ignores him to continue fiddling with his coin. “They have a force o’ a hundred thou strong! We only have half that!”

The emperor of the Eternal Dynasty continues toying with his coin, letting his long-time friend rant on and on, venting about the terrible situation he’s in.

“We may have more land an weaponry than they got, but they got more manpower! An’ how’re we gonna measure up? How?! We don’ have soldiers in our clan! If they get past our walls, we’re dead as a doornail!” Sean continues, not stopping despite the emperor’s lack of attention.

Shirou and the lukian Clan Leader have known each other for over a thousand years by now, and both of them understand just how the other works.

Sean complains endlessly in an attempt to annoy someone into complying, whereas Shirou ignores them until they comply.

A rather odd mix that often leads Shirou and his erstwhile friend wasting more time than he’d like.

At the end of the day, Shirou understands that Sean never vents about something he doesn’t truly believe is important. So Shirou does listen to his rants, picking out the important details.

That along with the emperor’s prior knowledge of Luk’tar makes him perfectly understand the situation.

The Six Clans of the world have always been at odds with each other, each attempting to take the entire world for themselves. And that begins with taking one of the Gates off world to themselves. Since, while the Clans of Luk’tar have always been gifted at crafting, especially with metals and weapons in particular, they have precious few mages. And no spatial mages who could ever potentially create a Gate.

Leading them to fight over the Gates other worlds made into theirs before the Clans managed to fight them off.

But until now, all of the Clans have kept their fights to a minimum so as to not show the other worlds any weakness. Now, however, they’ve established themselves well enough in the weapons market that none of the other worlds connected to theirs would dare attack.

So they’re finally going all out against each other. And the Byrne Clan is known for having the best gunsmiths in the world, with very little interest in claiming the other Gates.

Shirou sighs after a while, making Sean peek at him out of the corner of his eye without turning his head. Something Shirou clearly sees through the window’s reflection.

“Sean,” Shirou says, instantly making the man stop ranting and turn towards him with a quick, “Ya?” and a look Shirou believes to be a little too eager on his face. But the emperor ignores the look as he raises his coin towards the sun outside the window and says, “I’m not giving you a discount.”

The look on Sean’s face says it all as the man stares at him with the look of someone whose puppy was just stepped on.

“I won’t be giving you a discount,” Shirou repeats while finally putting the coin down and looking in the direction of Hunter’s Bay. “But I do have something else to give you. And a… mercenary, of sorts, that you might be interested in hiring for your problem.”

“A merc, eh?” Sean mutters while rubbing his beard. “If yer the one recommendin’ them, they must be good. But I’ll still have to hear bout’ em. So talk.”

“Class S ability user,” Shirou starts off with, making Sean’s eyes immediately narrow, “black number to even me,” he continues, shocking Sean at this point, before finishing it with a brief, “and is a Horsewoman of the Apocalypse.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That has Sean freezing in his tracks before he shouts, “Are ya bloody insane?! Why the hell would I work with one of those three crazy bastards?!”

“Sean,” Shirou says with a warning tone without saying anything else.

The lukian pauses before likely going back over what Shirou says. Something he does often when Shirou uses that tone. Then Sean mutters with a frown, “Horsewoman…”

Shirou nods his head without a word.

Then the Clan Leader just stares at Shirou blank faced.

“Do note that Death is only level ten right now,” Shirou points out, taking some amusement in his friend’s shock. “But she’s more than ready to take on an army so long as you provide her the weapons, the right pay, and immigration rights.”

It takes a few minutes as the lukian no doubt ponders over the matter, weighing the ups and downs repeatedly. But eventually, the man lets out a sigh and reaches his hand out as he says, “The lass better be worth it.”

Shirou finally stands up, flipping the coin into the air as he turns to take the lukian’s hand before casually catching the coin with his other hand and revealing it to have landed on heads.

“She will be,” the emperor says with a satisfied smirk on his face.

----------------------------------------

Aria

I.

Hate.

Jellyfish.

This is the only thought I cling to as I wade through a cavern filled to the brim with the damned critters, getting myself shocked over and over again during my little trip. And all for a damned mana gem located down at the bottom of the cavern.

Yes, I could’ve avoided this.

Yes, this is my fault.

Yes, jellyfish apparently smell bad. Which is weird since we’re underwater.

But that doesn’t make this any less painful and unpleasant.

As soon as I grab the stupid mana gem – one of the things down here that’s worth the most in pretty much any Tier but is also very rare – I quickly make my way out of the horde of jelly zappers. My own personal name for these things.

Actually, fuck it.

I pull out my gun and begin shooting the things despite the warning not to shoot them in the guide. The reason I didn’t do it in the first place.

What the fuck can these things even do to me? They’re not big enough to swallow me.

The moment one of the jellyfish pops like a balloon, purple electricity fills the entire area, further popping the other jellyfish and bathing me in electricity as I black out.

Later on I wake up again while floating aimlessly in the water staring up at jellyfish carcasses.

That hurt.

Totally worth it though.

I stuff the carcasses in my storage ring before moving out of the cavern, briefly wishing I could whistle down here. But despite being able to sorta talk, I can’t whistle. It’s like some sort of bubble is over me that if you blow too much air it’ll pop. But only air will pop it.

Very bizarre thing.

On that note, I realize that the water breathing potion seems to be running low.

In all honesty, I don’t really need these potions. My body just doesn’t need oxygen for whatever reason, just like food. But it’s a habit to breathe. And it feels weird not doing so. Especially since reflex still makes me want to breathe.

So I down another potion. Which is odd since I have to drink it through some special straw since I’m underwater.

After drinking it, I store the empty vial in my storage ring and continue making my way into the tunnel connected to the cavern of jellyfish. A cavern that is now empty of the creatures.

Then I continue through the tunnel, looking around and occasionally nabbing shells and pearls, along with briefly stopping to mine a piece of ore. Which is an odd process considering that I’m underwater.

Tougher than most would think.

Well, without soul energy it would be. With soul energy it’s a lot easier.

Still weird though.

I continue through the tunnels until a large crab suddenly rounds the corner before briefly pausing when it sees me.

The crab stares at me.

I stare at the crab.

A brief pause ensues before the thing rushes at me while making warbling noises. And I quickly raise my gun as fast as the water resistance will let me before firing the underwater gun at the crab.

Only for the bullet to do nothing but leave a dent in its shell before the crab reaches me and closes its pincers around my legs, cutting them off from the knee and making me let out a light grunt before I fire the gun three more times at the same dent. The dent grows larger and larger with each one before beginning to crack on the third shot.

I finish it off by drawing my sword and stabbing it down on the thing as my legs finish regrowing, my armor still there over my legs without any actual damage to them.

The crab’s shell finally shatters when my soul energy enhanced blade pierces through the cracks and goes straight into its insides. Then I just rotate the blade around inside, making the creature let out a high pitch noise as if in pain.

Only for it to go silent again before collapsing, bringing me down with it until I manage to pull my sword out.

Since I’m underwater, I don’t have anything to clean off of my blade. So I just sheathe it and dump the crab’s corpse into my storage ring.

I glance at my legs, still wondering at the magic that somehow made my severed legs just float out through the ‘armor’ before my new legs regrew to take their place.

Such an odd thing to see.

Anyways. Ignoring my floating legs that are currently being burned by a red energy – one similar to the red light I let out when hurt – until the legs are gone completely, I proceed on my merry way through the tunnel.

I wonder how much that crab is worth?