Ryner was sitting on the ground with his back pressed against a boulder and a silver revolver in his hand. The sound of rocks being crushed and projectiles whizzing through the air filled his surroundings. Next to him, a fifty centimeters long spike just embedded itself in the ground like a bullet and more came pouring down on him as they tried to penetrate his cover.
He was in a life-threatening situation where it wouldn’t be weird for a grown man to break down and cry from fear. However, the person in question just ignored the danger and was taking his time reloading his gun with a sleepy-looking expression. It looked similar to a 500 magnum, but it was a six shooter that was slightly bigger with a rectangular barrel. The loading mechanism was like an Enfield No. 2, so it split down the middle to allow him to put the rounds in the cylinder.
The ones trying to kill him were Spiked Lizards. Ryner knew them better as Raptor class War Puppets designed for ranged combat. In short, Range type Raptors. When they arrived at the vast room, all of the War Puppets were dead because of the adventurers from before.
The creator of the ruins wanted to see his security system reboot after losing. So, the two waited at the entrance for about an hour before they heard multiple sizzling sounds coming from the other side. As they got on their guard, the corpses were melting while releasing white smoke and completely evaporated like water on hot asphalt in thirty seconds.
Then, Raptors suddenly crawled out of the ground like zombies. There were originally seventy-one of them, but only fourteen were left because when they appeared, Maya charged in first and slaughtered most of them. Ryner followed after her and hid sixty meters away from the action, thinking that he wouldn’t have a turn.
But, after a while, the beastman returned to sit next to him with a bottle of alcohol in hand even though there were still some enemies left. “I left you some preys, Master~” was what she said as she happily drank. So, Ryner was now hiding behind a boulder while under fire.
“You know, this kind of reminds me of the time I fought in a rebellion before.” [Ryner]
He casually said while putting a bullet in the sixth chamber. He then pulled the barrel up to close the gun with a clicking sound and held it in one hand.
“You did? Who did you fight for?” [Maya]
Maya, who was sitting on his right, was calmly drinking from a bottle of alcohol. It wasn’t often that she heard his past, so she was interested in his life as a rebel.
“It doesn’t really matter. We lost.” [Ryner]
“Really? Even though they had you on their side?” [Maya]
Maya asked with disbelief as she stretched her right hand out to the side and grabbed a yellow spike mid-air. She got up, leaned out of the boulder and threw it quickly before ducking back behind cover. The spike that she threw pierced through the eye socket of one of the enemies that were attacking them.
“Yeah well, our useless leader went and fell for the empress, so he changed sides. We couldn’t change the tides of war when that happened.” [Ryner]
Ryner got on one knee, poked his head out and shot once. The gun jerked back from the recoil, the bullet flew through the air and a Raptor got its head blown off. He hid behind the boulder just in time before a spike stabbed into his throat.
“That’s why you should get a psycho as a leader if you want to lead a revolution. Cause then, you only have to worry about him after you win… Well, that or a person with strong morals.” [Ryner]
He tried to fire again, but he quickly leaned back and covered his face with one arm when a spike grazed the side of the boulder right in front of his eyes, sending chunks of rocks flying.
“You weren’t the leader, Master?” [Maya]
Maya drank a mouthful from the bottle, put it down and grabbed two fist-sized rocks. She jumped out and threw them at the ruin dwellers with all her might, not caring that their attacks hit her in the process. When she sat back down next to Ryner, she didn’t have a scratch on her while two Raptors had more than half of their bodies crushed from the impact and turned into chunks of meat.
“I don’t like being the leader. It’s full of troublesome work.” [Ryner]
Holding his gun in his left hand, Ryner only stuck his arm out and fired blindly. Guessing their positions from the directions of the spikes, he managed to hit one and blew its front, left leg off. The poor lizard-shaped War Puppet fell off the boulder it was on and laid on its back while waving its legs around as it began to bleed to death.
“Anyway, we got sixty-seven out of seventy-one. There’s four left, we should stop playing around and finish this.” [Ryner]
“Understood~.” [Maya]
Maya answered playfully and gulped down the entire content of her bottle. Then, licking her lips, she stood up, jumped out of cover and ran at full speed towards the remaining opponents. She completely ignored the spikes that hit her as they harmlessly bounced back off her skin.
Covering sixty meters in a second, Maya reached the nearest Raptor and swung her bottle down on its head. The skull broke, blood spurted out and its huge mouth full of spikes closed shut from the powerful impact.
However, her bottle of glass didn’t break because it was reinforced with her mana and she did the same thing to the other three. She swung it around like a club and slowly covered it in blood. Satisfied with her work, she tossed the bottle away and headed for the corridor.
With the fight over, Ryner stored his revolver away, left his hiding spot and went to join Maya at the exit. As he crossed the field of corpses, he arrived next to the Raptor that had its leg shot off and it struggled to aim its mouth at him. Opening it to the limit like a snake gobbling up bigger prey, its mouth was slowly being filled with spikes and it got ready to pierce its target full of holes.
At that moment, without turning around, Ryner quickly pulled out another weapon from his pocket dimension and pointed it at his own creation. It was a pistol shotgun, one of the many weapons in Ryner’s possession. In his hand was a black handgun that had an octagonal barrel with the muzzle in the middle.
Before any spikes could fly, he fired it at close range. The head was cleanly blown off by buckshot and turned into bloody pieces of meat. The entire barrel spun around once and a clicking sound was heard, signifying that the next round was loaded.
Continuing on as if nothing happened, Ryner reached Maya who was waiting for him in front of the corridor that led to the next teleportation circle.
“By the way, Master, you didn’t tell me when we left. Which floor are we aiming for?” [Maya]
“This one. We’ve reached our goal.” [Ryner]
Contrary to her expectations, her master stopped walking after five meters in and looked at the left wall of the corridor.
“Maya.” [Ryner]
“Yes?” [Maya]
While she was tilting her head, puzzled, Ryner turned towards her with the pistol shotgun still in his hand.
“If you’re gonna keep following me around, you’ll need to see this. So, I’ll trust you with this just like I trusted you with the gloves. But…” [Ryner]
He raised his gun and pointed it at her, greatly surprising her.
“If you betray me, I swear, I will kill you while crying.” [Ryner]
His expression was serious, something that she rarely saw and from the tone of his voice, she knew that he wasn’t kidding around. Whatever she would see next was a secret that he wanted to keep hidden and this gave her mixed feelings. On one hand, her body tensed up faced with her master’s threat, but on the other hand, she was happy that he was willing to share with her another of his secrets.
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“Don’t make me cry.” [Ryner]
Ryner commanded in a soft but firm voice. At the same time, it almost sounded sad, like he wasn’t ordering her, but begging her. In response, while sporting that easygoing smile that she developed after being with him, Maya got down on both knees and looked into his eyes.
“I am Maya, your slave, your sword and your shield. My life is yours. If you tell me to die, I will gladly do so.” [Maya]
Her cheeks became red and her smile turned gentle.
“I won’t make you cry. I love you, Master. Or, maybe I need to show it more in bed~?” [Maya]
The next moment, her playful smile returned and she began to tease him. Seeing that, Ryner silently put his gun in his pocket dimension, looked at her for a while and scratched his head. His sleepy expression returned.
“You know, I was just expecting a ‘sure, no problem’ from you. What’s with the confession at gunpoint?” [Ryner]
“Oh my, Master, are you feeling shy~?” [Maya]
“Nooot a bit.” [Ryner]
Maya got up and looked at him with a teasing smile while Ryner turned around and faced the wall again. He put his hands on it and started patting around until he stopped at a certain spot. Then, he pushed in that part of the wall. A square measuring twenty centimeters long began to sink in the wall with a rumbling noise. Next, he went a bit to the right and did the same thing again. Another part of the wall sunk in before Maya’s surprised expression.
After repeating the step two more times for the other secret switches on the top and on the left, he said a few words that Maya never heard before and the wall split opened before moving to the sides. Behind it was a passageway with no lights. Turning around to see a stunned Maya, Ryner held his hand out and called out to her.
“Let’s go.” [Ryner]
The two walked in the dark with Ryner leading the way. Besides the sound of their footsteps, silence filled the air. Ryner didn’t say anything and Maya didn’t know what to say as she tightly held onto his hand. Eventually, they reached the end of the passage as a gentle blue light entered their view. It was a teleportation circle. In front of it was a podium with a green crystal on top that was the size of a baby’s head. Ryner touched it with his hand and said a few unknown words again.
The two then walked towards the teleportation circle. After a bright light filled their visions, they were in darkness once more, but from what Maya could tell, they weren’t inside the narrow passageway anymore. Her master said something she didn’t understand for the third time and suddenly the place was flooded with light. What she saw next took her breath away.
The two were standing inside a huge room that was much bigger than the other floors and an enormous door was completely covering one side. Unlike the rest of the place that was made of grey stone, the door was made of steel which became rusty here and there because of old age.
Ryner once more gave another command in a mysterious language and lines in the door lit up in response. The ground rumbled as it split in two and slid to the sides. Air rushed into the room behind it, violently blowing Maya’s and Ryner’s hair as well as ruffling their clothes. The slave used her arm to block her face and closed her eyes because of the strong winds.
When she opened them, she saw an imposing object that left her speechless. Easily a kilometer high, it was a ridiculously long, metallic structure similar to a board that was white and red. It had small, blue wings on both sides and there was a half oval-shaped protrusion on top and near the back that she assumed to be the head… If it even had a head. Giant steel beams and pillars were holding it in place like a prisoner in chain.
The front of its left side was black as if it had been burned and the surface of the foreign body was covered with a strange, blue light that was slowly moving around like fog. A black, rectangular platform that was just as long and wide as the massive structure was right beneath it. The glowing, blue fog seemed to be coming from it as it flowed out of holes placed in the corners and in the middle.
Maya was slack jawed and had to look up to see the top. On the other hand, Ryner was carefully examining the gargantuan bulk and nodded contentedly.
“Not bad. The stasis field is somehow still holding, so that’s one good thing. Hmmm, not a speck of rust. She’ll need some serious work, but the years were kind to her.” [Ryner]
“(As expected of the best engineer, you’re a real mad scientist.)” [Ryner]
The monster that travelled through countless worlds silently gave his thanks to the old man that was in charge of this monstrous ship’s production. He was glad to see that it looked just like how he left it all those years ago.
After winning against Alice, he planned on using his fortress as a base in case he ever needed it. As such, it was built to last for a long time and to store away the many equipment that he couldn’t put in his pocket dimension since it didn’t have an infinite space. However, since he always found a way to get by, he completely neglected it after the fight along with his damaged goods.
“(Taking out something sci-fi like this in a magic world would be bad, but… Whatever, they already took my magic-based weapons and I’m known as an otherworlder. I’ll just be careful and blame any problems on miracles.)” [Ryner]
Before checking out the state of his fortress, Ryner decided to pay a visit to his armory, or rather, the ship that contained his armory. He was most likely going to need all of the weapons that were left on board if his War Puppets kept attacking him. He also wanted to make sure that no one got to it.
Although damaged, there were a lot of dangerous weapons and advanced technology that he didn’t want to spread around. One of them was in the shape of a dragon and another was a fast moving vehicle comparable to a tank. It really wasn’t a good idea to have people examine them closely when they were still using horses as transportation.
“Master… Just what…” [Maya]
Maya finally managed to speak again and she pointed at the thing that vaguely looked like a ship, though she doubted it could float in water.
“We might die in the future if we continue like this, so you need to get acquainted.” [Ryner]
Her master wore a small, nostalgic smile as he made the introductions. Something like this happened to him once as well. Imitating the macho man in military uniform from back then, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, stood with his legs shoulder-width apart and spoke loudly.
“Kid, meet the dreadnought-class battleship, Avalon. She’ll be our home away from home.” [Ryner]
That was how Maya took another step into Ryner’s crazy world.
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*Author* For Avalon, just imagine the generic shape of a spaceship, like the Eternal in Gundam Seed and the Argonaut in Heroic Age. It's not circular like in Star Trek.
Also, anyone expected him to keep something like that in his beat-up fortress?