『Incompatible host, synchronization can not be completed.』 the distressing words rang in her ears, but then there was a glimmer of hope. 『Host’s existence can not be compared. Compatibility must be measured using an alternative method. State your goal.』
There was only one goal, and no other words could be said. She cried at the top of her lungs, tears still streaking down the front of her face. “Help me save Archlave!”
『Symbiosis Rate: 95%』 Tize’s orange light surrounded Rusa, flickering around her skin. But unlike every other host, no new outfits or armor were made, at least not traditional ones. The light compressed, getting so close to her body but never quite touching it. And it changed color, from the burning orange to the iridescent glow of Feyj’s hair and eyes.
Even though it wasn’t clinging to her body, the glow still danced across her skin, tailoring itself to fit her figure. A new dress was made to replace the one that had been lost, one made entirely of light.
【I’ve guessed we’ve never synced before, huh, Feyjrusa?】 The experience was overwhelming to Tize as well. 【And the boost I’m giving you is unlike anyone else’s. We can not properly synchronize, and I can’t tap into your mind and help with the thought process. But you don’t need that, do you? Instead, let me take care of your body. I’ll handle the controls and you just give the orders.】
【My power will let you queue up commands to execute, down to the 315th of a second. Figure out what we need to do, and I will handle the rest.】 At that moment, Rusa could no longer feel her body. She solely became a consciousness, observing all around her without the means to interact with it.
At first, it was a bit unsettling, but she still had control, just in a new way. Almost like controlling a video game character, not that she played too many since she found them ridiculously slow. And even the hardest ones were trivial to her due to her reaction speed and ability to process under pressure. Though in one life, she had taken a certain interest in breaking as many speedrun records as she could, until she got bored and retired after a week.
But this new system of input felt familiar. She’d set a list of actions and her body would complete them, in the exact order and timing specified. Required functions such as breathing and blinking remained autonomous, as that would be just too much of a headache.
First in the order list was to run over to the wheel and take control of the ship. There were likely functions in place to prevent the ship from crashing, but they needed to remain in the air regardless. Up until the start of the encounter, Rusa had been watching Mallea pilot the craft to learn the skill if needed. She just wouldn’t have guessed that the need would be so immediate.
Rusa had also done a quick study of the ship’s artillery. There were a few different types for all sorts of situations, some of which could be operated from the steering wheel. But for this occasion in particular, even she wouldn’t be able to manage the weapon she needed, even with this boost. So she loaded a command to the top of the queue for the Lesser who had mostly recovered.
“Uhh, yeah sure,” the woman acquiesced and descended the ship. She was still dealing with a bit of the allergy effects, but nothing that the rugged woman couldn’t push through.
With that out of the way, Rusa began a full analysis of their situation and started loading the command list, altering it several hundred times. She found she could focus and process even more now without having a body, not realizing how much piloting a flesh suit had weighed her down. Her full consciousness was devoted solely to figuring out the path and progression of events to come.
Rusa studied every tentacle; its angle, trajectory, weight, agitation, spasms, muscle, length. Now that she took the time to examine them properly, she found them to all be rather different from one another—not something one would assume at first glance of the monster.
The Fiend also took the monster itself into the equation—its demeanor, the damage it had taken. She also noticed something intriguing and worrying at the same time. The eye that Nachi had hit earlier had almost healed completely. Self-regeneration was not a known monster trait except for very specific species, certainly not something that was part of a squid or a swordfish.
She had a guess at the cause, especially with how Drim had been insistent about not killing the monster—which would make this encounter infinitely easier. But if it was what she believed, then she also agreed it was the correct choice to make for now. Unfortunately, there was no way to confirm it, and would just need to add this new factor into her variables.
And so began the long-drawn out process of writing out the commands. In actuality, it probably only took a few seconds. The list almost looked like lines of code and would make any programmer envious at how quickly she could create it. To anyone else, it would look like rambling nonsense or insane drivel. Rusa only hoped that it was a list Tize could follow.
With the ship on its current course, the queue was mostly filled with
That was all it took to dodge the first attack, but to get them on course to fully dodge the second, there were hundreds of lines waiting in the queue. And as the rest of the blades drew nearer, Rusa had to make dozens of micro adjustments to the commands already waiting.
“Wait, which cannon am I operating?” Nachi called up from below deck using the ship's communications. “There’s like six different types.”
So Rusa needed to input a new command near the top of the queue.
With that out of the way, Rusa looked over the command list again and finalized it for the rest of the battle, or at least as far in the future as she could predict. There were still some outstanding variables and some adjustments would have to be made on the fly. But it was ready to go, as mind-numbing as it was to read. So many commands that it couldn’t all be displayed on any screen or page.
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And now… Execute!
The second sword came flying at them, but not all attacks could be dodged so easily as the first. Rusa was still limited by the capabilities of the ship. Whenever she tried to queue up a command that would be impossible, she’d get an error, and adjustments had to be made. This list of commands wasn’t her first pass, or second, or even the hundredth. Countless possibilities and outcomes had to be explored and refined to find the ideal end—the path to the happy ending of the story.
This tentacle could not be dodged, at least not in a way that wouldn’t leave the ship without permanent damage. The princess wanted to avoid as many hits as possible since she had no concrete idea on how much of a beating it could take before it became unreliable.
But that didn’t mean the ship was weak and fragile. It was still a sturdy and mighty craft that would be the terror of the seas back in the days of naval warfare. While it couldn’t take a head-on penetration, the angular sides were still strong enough to withstand insane force.
This was an attack that Rusa herself wouldn’t be able to deflect, too dead on and low on the front of the ship. She only received endless errors when trying to factor in her own body, but it was possible with the vessel itself.
The blade came dead-on from the front, like two spears about to collide mid-flight, but Rusa’s body made a last second adjustment. She nearly toppled over when the boney sword clanged against the ship, scraping the wood as the two forces sheared together. However, she’d already slotted a few balance actions to account for it. In order to alleviate a bit of the friction, which was more than the pilot’s expectations, she adjusted their drift slightly to pull away faster since the initial crash had passed.
Next came the pivotal moment that she’d had Nachi prepare for. A giant blade was flying towards the side of the ship with the loaded cannon, poised to strike just above the opening. “Rusa, this thing’s about to hit!” Nachi panicked just a little bit over the comms.
But the princess still didn’t give the order. “Rusa!” the woman’s cry got a little more insistent as the blade was getting dangerously close.
Feyjrusa, however, didn’t share the same tension. Instead, she calmly watched the current
The command was actually a bit ahead of when it needed to happen. Rusa had taken Nachi’s response time and hand-eye coordination into account and adjusted for when the cannon would actually be fired. The shot blasted forward, deflecting the incoming blade just enough for it to scrape above the deck of the ship.
At the same time, Rusa spun the wheel as far as it would rotate clockwise, jerking the ship to drift away from the attack, but that wasn’t all that moved them. Normally, cannons were designed to move backwards slightly when they fired to account for the recoil, but the ones on this ship had the option to lock and unlock. In this case, it remained locked.
So when the cannon was fired, the ship jerked. It was probably such a small amount that Nachi hadn’t even noticed, otherwise rattled by the cannon fire. Just a hair, but a hair was all that was needed. Coupled with the ship’s drift, that little boost saved their lives, narrowly dodging a second tentacle that was cleaving down at the ship.
But that wasn’t all. Rusa rammed forward on the thrust, jolting them to dodge a third tentacle attacking them from below. Their drift to the right also narrowly scooched out of the way of a fourth tentacle once again attacking from the front.
The Squordfish was likely bewildered by those evasions, if it had the mental acuity to understand such concepts. The monster had put all its effort into that one gambit, which otherwise should have been an inescapable flurry of attacks that pincered the ship from various sides, but the little fly, by its comparison, had deftly weaved past all of them.
And that was about the extent of Rusa’s predictions. She still had a few thousand commands in the queue, but had burned through almost all of them completing that maneuver. It was time to reevaluate, analyze, and refill the list to counter whatever was to come.
She didn’t know how much more time she needed to bide, but hoped that it would end soon. Her body was doing fine, but all that thinking was draining her soul. Rusa wasn’t sure if she’d make it to midnight for her to age a year and have her exhaustion erased. For once in her many lives, she might actually feel the call of her bed. But they still had to survive this.
The next attack was a little odd. Rusa didn’t have to make any adjustments at all. Just staying the course was all that was required to dodge the tentacle thrusting directly upward. Only when it started to curl did the girl get any insight on the monster’s plan. It was trying to bind them, wrap its tentacle around and nab the ship out of the air. Honestly, it was probably the smartest tactic, given how they’d shown their ability to dodge and deflect otherwise.
Somehow, it even had the foresight to not try and wrap around any of the gunports, so they couldn’t blast it away. Rusa wasn’t confident that her strength alone would be enough to wrench the ship free from the beast, and her analysis wasn’t faring much better in trying to make the calculations. She was having much better results if she attacked the tentacle before it could grab hold.
So the princess would have to tackle this beast head on, no longer able to confide in their ship’s strength. First, a specific command needed to be allayed to set up for later, otherwise, the entire plan could fall apart.
“On it!” the trainer had gotten used to Rusa’s sudden and impulsive demands, responding like a good soldier who trusted their superior’s orders.
Then came the hard part. Rusa was so unsure about it that she reran the simulation in her head endlessly until it was time to execute. Even when she’d landed it perfectly in her mind several times in a row, she still had worries. But she was running out of time for doubt.
Her window was closing, but she also couldn’t rush it. There was a certain timing she needed to wait for, or the gap would be too big. Finally, when the tentacle had made a full curl around the ship, the blade pointing towards the sky, she made her move.