"I'm not, though you seem to be looking for some." I speak, while at the same time, a small pack of five level two Toxic Flies, followed by one level five Pollutant Fly approach from somewhere on the other side of the building—that's a new one, what's next Venom? Corrupt?—unbothered, one disk flies up before smashing down on one, then two, then another, till all five minions are down. Then two at once smash onto the level five, ending their lives. My words came out fluently as though nothing has happened, gotta love Parallel Thoughts!

** DING **

Combat summary

Enemies slain:

Toxic Fly lv 2 x 5

Pollutant Fly lv 5 x 1

15 syscred and 23 exp awarded

"What the hell! You're pretty good kid. Nothing on me, but good job with those annoying flies." The voice said, one of my thoughts listening to him, the other busy collecting fly's souls using Snatch'a… "Though I could've handled them fine without your help. Way to steal a kill, those corpses are mine by right."

I decided this is not worth getting angry about and turn to leave what I assume to be the typical rude, lone, maybe genius inventor to himself, may he grow senile in solitude. "You can have them." I can't stomach the looks of these flies anyways I thought, whilst munching on their souls to boost my regen, they're too mentally undeveloped to give me anything. Though, maybe at 100% devour rate, but that will have to wait until when I find a way to stop them dissipating into nothing from taking damage. Maybe an automated Snatch'a...

"Wait, kid!" He/she yelled. "Hold yer' steps!"

I kept walking, the only thing they're getting from me is this third finger on the hand I'm raising up and aiming his way. The disks, two by two are flying back and slotting themselves into their sockets on my armor.

The sound of a mechanical whirl came from behind before becoming the sound of someone footsteps, fast approaching. "Kid! Didn't cha' hear me tellin' ya to wait."

I ignore the gramps and continue walking, the area seems quite clear of enemies, could be proof that someone uses the path often. "What 'oes parents teach kids 'ese days?" He grumbled, "so rude."

"My parents told me to let go of toxic people," they didn't, the internet did. "You're toxic, so please stop following me." See, I've learnt my lesson, killing someone gives me a bad rep, not that anyone will know with this one… Will they?

"I don't recognize yer, but ere's a Trilattic Swarm wif none na'dose modified wrist gun. Ye came 'ere following de' highway. Yer be looking for the Prayogas? Might be one yer'self." I stop at his words, making him yell, "bullseye!"

"Say that's true," I'm no good liar, might as well stick to the truth. "Mind pointing me in the right direction? Green Garden or Kedoya Evacuation point? bunker? Safe house? Whatever it is… Maybe even tell me both." I added.

He giggled, "I know them two, which one yer wanna know fi'st?"

"The closest one."

"They both equi'istant, chose." He giggled again.

I look at him suspiciously and decided to text Tiffany.

Zen: Ci, you know of an eccentric old man? Lives in a half broken building with a big antenna on top. Thin, messy hair and beard, wears a white coat and has a weird grin. Maybe 1.5m tall

Tiffany Prayoga: That sounds like Acek Techno.

Tiffany Prayoga: aka. Atech. You met him!?

Zen: Yep, you call him Atech?

Zen: like, short for Acek Techno

Tiffany Prayoga: Yep, he won't tell us his name, so some kid came up with the nickname and it stuck

Tiffany Prayoga: He seems to like it anyways

Tiffany Prayoga: Where are you!?

Zen: Right, he's got this strong mad engineer vibe

Zen: Still near his…

Zen: House?

Tiffany Prayoga: Stay there!

Tiffany Prayoga: Dad says he's otw

Zen: ok

"What'cha doin' wifh yer VICOS?" He asked me after a lull in the convo. I could've talked with him and texted at the same time, but didn't bother.

"Nothing, just texting my sis. Someone's on the way to pick me up."

"Tha's fine, s'naw we wait." He said with a grin.

----

Monster Core, Rank 1. 42 mp. Monster core from a level six Mowing Mantis, a creature native to planet Argead.

Monster Core, Rank 1. 45 mp. Monster core from a level five ShadowRoach, a creature native to planet Argead.

Huh, I guess the Roaches have more of a mage's build---I first feed the Mantis's Core to my ring, raising it by one mana point, then the other two Roach Cores, giving one more point each, upgrading this ring is gonna be a chore ain't it… I grin, though that just means I should hunt stronger enemies.

"Whazzat ya got?"

I look at him, "just a ring." My Trilattic Swarm once again covers the magic item. "How long do you reckon they will take to arrive?"

"Prox' quarter hours, tops." He replies, "mind showin' me 'ose chakrams ya use?"

I control one to flow out and hover before him. "They're disks, actually."

"Similar 'nough." His face turns serious as he obser---scrutinizes, the magical construct. "Dey work like circular saws? High RPM, cut inta' dem hostiles?"

"Yeah."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"Dat work?" He grins.

"I feel it works fine so far."

"Yes, yes~." He nods. "Make it spin fas'er."

The disk speeds up from a lazy spin to its normal speed without additional mana. I never really gave that part of it any details—it just—spins on command. "Ohoho, Fas'er!"

"You're starting to sound creepy, old man." I tell him warily. "That's as fast as it goes, if not provided extra man—."

"Zen!!"

"—na." I turn my head to see a group of ten people in heavy armor… my Trilattic Swarm armor, with one glaring difference. On every one of them, and on at least one of their arms. They have a wrist-arm gun-like attachment on the upper forearm, occupying the whole space. I love it already!

"Zen! Is that you?" My dad's voice came out of the lead-most person. His face armor opened to show a stubbled face. He used to have a bit of a beer belly, but seems to have lost it. Slightly shorter than me, he is now standing straighter and looking stronger too.

My armor mirrors the action. "Hi~," I grin.

"You better not be attacking Atech?" One of the guys behind dad tells me in a challenging tone.

"If I am, that disk would be flying at him, not hovering in place." I roll my eyes, there are guys like this everywhere.

"You mind your manners!" He exclaimed, taking a step forward and pointing his arm at me. Making me grin a cheshire.

"Zen says, stop and drop!" I yelled at him. I never really got the chance to try this failsafe feature. In an instant, all ten people before me were dumbstruck, as too was I. When their armor just began crumbling down onto the floor, inert.

"Hohohoho-ahahaha-HaHaHa." Behind me, the mad engineer started laughing uncontrollably. And that made me grin even wider, he might not be so bad after all.

"What? No! My gunn, my armor!!!" The bully was a teenage boy, maybe not even past twenty years old. "What did you do?"

"Did you never read the spell description?" I ask him, before making quote gestures. "Beware, utilize against creator at your own risk."

"I like ya kid!" Atech slapped my shoulders, "creatin' failsafes, who even thinks o'that wit' magic."

"Thank you, I kinda learned that the hard way," I look at him.

"Ah~, sumwen' used ye-spell on ye." He cut me, "nasty."

"Alright that's enough," my dad said. "Give us back our armor now Zen."

—

Well, it seems my failsafe didn't have an off command, which meant they all had to reconjure their swarms. These inert ones would—probably—gradually fade into ambient mana. Atech is totally enjoying this too much with all the laughter he's been making.

"So you can just disable our armors?" My dad asks me as we were preparing to depart, the engineer has decided to come with, expecting a good show he said.

"Yeah, it's a failsafe. Just in case someone decided they wanna use it against me. I had someone do that to me with Magico Disk." I tell him, "it was not pleasant."

"I heard." He has a thinking face on, "now everybody's gonna know you can just off our battle potential with a few sentences."

"I guess so," wasn't there a whitelist or something, how do I access that? How did I even make that work in the first place? There must be a way for the spell to detect who is giving the command, as behind me, Atech is shouting the failsafe sentence at the rest of dad's team and it's doing nothing besides making them uncomfortable, and making himself jolly.

"People are not gonna trust you, imagine being near someone who can just disable your main form of defense." He said.

"Well," I make sure to speak slightly louder, and slightly tilt my head in the direction of his team so as to indicate to my dad that I'm speaking louder on purpose. "The solution is simple, don't use it against its creator. I'm trying to keep us, humanity, alive. Which is why I shared the spell with you and let you do as you wish with it. Willingly harming fellow humans kinda beats that purpose."

If they heard, no indication was shown, my dad too, allowed the topic to drop.

"Alrighty, group up everyone. We're moving soon." One by one, all twelve of us join the lose formation and began moving. "We got no guns, so any hostiles will be eliminated using our back up weap—."

"Dad," his head turns to me. "I'll take care of them if any shows up."

"Ye! Fi'ld data, field'ata."

Ignoring yells of glee from Atech. My dad, Antonio, or just Anto pondered for just a moment before saying, "... sure Zen."

We make our way, all of us following my dad's lead. Once in a while, one or two of my disks would fly out to eliminate a hidden enemy before returning to their sheathe. Most of the time, still embedded within the corpse, can't let these Monster Cores go to waste.

"I see this is Magico Disk, Mr Herman mentions them every once in a while. How are you detecting the enemies before we see them?"

"I can sense Mana now." I tell him, describing the skill.

"A sixth sense then, interesting." He says. "Wonder how much they cost."

I proceed to lecture him about getting the skill through effort, making him promise to at least try meditation with me, which will hopefully also unlock mana sense, before buying anything. After less than twenty minutes, we arrive.

The Kedoya Outdoors Center.

The largest sports center in the area, it started off as one 45 x 30 meters building that contains about six indoor badminton fields. Before its owners slowly expanded by making two new building for futsal, then two basketball courts in a other, then golf simulator screens, then this and that, growing to be the giant it is now. The center occupies slightly more than three kilometers square for its various buildings.

Once through the door into the badminton building, which is like the all purpose room for everyone, all ten members slightly relax, their face armor opens up and they do a short debrief before separating to do their own things.

"Follow me Zen," my dad said. He started walking deeper into the building. We past a few kids playing with a few balls. Honestly, this was not what I had in mind when Tiffany said not much fun stuff.

"Dad, this is a lot of space, a lot of privacy if set right. Those kids are playing with at least five different balls, they can't be that bored." I say.

He grins at that. "Well, things have improved from our last contact. Still kinda boring though, if that's all you can do all day."

"ZEN!!" My sister tried to tussle my head, but changed her mind and knocked on my helmet instead. "What is this rumor flying around that you can disable everyone's Trilattic Swarm with a yell?"

She is about half a head shorter than me, a neat pigtail on her head. Hovering somewhere in between fit and having a mom bod. Currently she has on, her serious face, her gentle eyes staring daggers at me.

"Uhh, how did that spread so fast?" I ask her.

"They also mention something about saw disks that fly on their own to attack enemies before returning to you." She added.

But, that moment, I noticed my niece hiding behind her. Carmene Hartono, or just… "Mini! Hi! You've grown taller, how old are you now?"

Approximately one meter tall, her cheeks are plumpy like a baby's. She mostly takes after her dad, but has a bit of her mothers gentle eyes. Mini shyly lifts her hand showing four raised fingers, keeping her pinky bent instead of her thumb. "Four! So awesome. Soon, you'll be taller than your mom."

"Yes. I gonna hide my 'ookies where she canna find them." She nodded, "do you bring me toys?"

I put on a sad face, "you see, when you asked me for them. I had just won a dangerous fight, I had to rest."

She mirrors my expression, just millions of ways cuter and says, "is okie acek."

"Go play with yo—"

"But the next morning, I was all healed up and healthy. So I went and got you this!" I swung my arms and manifested several dolls for her, "also this, this, and this." Followed by sweets, chips, and various toys. Then I took out a few packs of beer for my dad, as well as several stacks of female clothing for the two ladies in our family. With this many, I just hope they can find something they like.

Mini's blissful yells attracted the other kids over, which in turn dragged one or both of their parents, which furthermore caused the non-parents to get curious about the crowds and approach. And all of a sudden, it feels like we were transported into a market.

"Mine!" "No that mine!" "Don't fight kids, there's plenty for everyone." "Oh my where did these fine dresses come from?" "Can I have one can?" "Me too please." "Where's my cat~" It's chaos, but I kinda missed it. Which does not translate to staying right in the middle of it. So I slowly made my way out of the mess, after engaging my swarm's camouflage. Then sat on a chair and grabbed some candy bars to watch the show. I hope this will get their minds off of me.