The flying building that was slowly approaching Samantha’s Aviaton was the size of a city block. It was a massive black disk, about twenty feet thick from bottom to top, thickest in the center. I could see dozens of turrets built into its curved, sleek sides, and most of them were pointing our direction. On the top of its spherical roof was a massive Mana Cannon that dwarfed any weaponry I had seen yet. Interspersed in strange patterns around the massive flying object’s hull were large divots, almost as though the flying building had once been struck by a hundred asteroids.

It was surrounded by a powerful Mana Shield, and something told me our Mana Cannon would be ineffective against something that size.

Samantha twitched my left thumb, and two more Mana Cannon bolts flew out of our Aviaton, crashing into the Aviaton that we had just been chasing, but somehow, the Aviaton survived.

What’s wrong? Is your Dexterity failing?

Samantha ignored me.

I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these flying ships the Metans had.

The nearby enemy Aviatons started retreating towards the warship that was approaching us.

Samantha continued chasing after them, seemingly unafraid of the warship heading our direction.

I watched as Samantha fired the Mana Cannon again. The first landed, but Samantha banked hard, swerving sideways, and the fourteenth Aviaton somehow escaped.

Talk to me, Samantha. What’s going on? I checked our Status Window, but it didn’t look like we were out of mana—Samantha was only using floating points in Dexterity, so we had plenty of Mana left over.

Samantha said.

The city we had just escaped was to the south, the two armies were to the north, and now, Samantha was heading southeast—more or less the opposite direction we were supposed to go, considering we needed to get this information crystal to the Imperial General in the north.

I was used to trusting Samantha’s judgement, but after seeing Samantha’s love of flying, I couldn’t help but wonder if Samantha was taking unnecessary risks with all this.

The warship approaching us didn’t even try to fire. It simply sped up, and chased us.

Samantha sped up as well, for once, finally, travelling in a more-or-less straight line, fleeing from the warship.

Samantha said.

Off in the distance, I could sense mana-heavy explosions between the two vast armies.

But… isn’t the warship gaining on us?

It was a strange thing, thinking that this massive warship the size of a city block could travel faster than this small Aviaton the size of a Smart car.

Samantha said. Even as she said those words, our fingers twitched, and I found myself thrown against the seat harness, our Aviaton making a sudden turn to the right.

Samantha said.

And Samantha did just that, running rings around this larger warship.

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The odd thing was, the whole time, the warship never even tried to fire at Samantha.

There was a growing swarm of Metan Aviatons flanking the warship, and they, too, didn’t fire anything, either.

Samantha seemed content to ignore them.

But then the two dozen Metan Aviatons that were flying in the warship’s shadow took on a strange formation.

What are they doing? I asked. They didn’t seem to be trying to attack us, but I could clearly remember their previous attempt to create a Containment Array to trap us in.

Samantha said.

As Samantha said this, I watched as the several dozen Aviatons that had been flying very close to the warship phased through the warship’s Mana Shield, and then latched themselves in the divots on the warship’s hull.

As Samantha explained all of this, she didn’t sound particularly concerned.

So, what are you going to do?

Samantha chuckled.

Our Aviaton continued flying away from the warship, but all of a sudden, we jerked to a complete stop.

We were locked in our position, and the warship quickly closed on us. I could see a beam of mana shooting out from the warship, focusing around us, locking us into place.

Then, Samantha’s fingers twitched.

Three of the two dozen Metan Aviatons—the ones that had secured themselves to the hull of the warship, close enough to be covered by the warship’s Mana Shield—exploded.

The explosion wasn’t limited to the three Aviatons. In three different places, I could see that the hull of the warship had been breached.

The Stasis Beam that was holding us vanished, and Samantha immediately had us fly away.

As we fled, the dozens of turrets lining the warship lit up like fireworks.

I could make out Void Blasts, Fireballs, Air knives, and more, chasing after us.

But Samantha dodging with incredible speed and ease, not letting a single attack glance our Aviaton.

What was that?

Samantha explained.

We continued running away, putting more and more distance between us and the two armies.

Is the information really this valuable? I asked, after five minutes of continual chasing and dodging.

Since exploding three of the Aviatons, the warship seemed content to just follow us. A fleet of a dozen Aviatons would harry our movements, staying a mostly safe distance away from us. It didn’t feel like the warship or the Aviatons were that desperate to take us out.

But really, considering the war happening to the north, I would have expected this warship to be more frantic to return.

Samantha said.

Samantha glanced down, and I noticed the half-open tubes that surrounded the interior of the Aviaton.

Several of the tubes held Compressed Void-Attuned Mana Crystals. Others held Compressed Unattuned Mana Crystals. There were a few other miscellaneous crystals as well, but I could tell that there was far more space to hold Mana Crystals, and the number of Mana Crystals was quickly running out.

Samantha said, smugly.

I found myself at a loss for words. From the moment Samantha had left the laboratory, she had already planned this far ahead.

She had the other Aviatons take down the banks’ shields, she raided the bank, killed the General in order to access the Information Crystal, and now she is distracting the warship in order to support the human forces, using the tens of millions of coins worth of Mana Crystals that she had stolen from the bank.

Samantha said.

I studied our surroundings. We were miles away from the battlefront, now, approaching a mountain range and a densely forested area.

Behind us, the warship continued to chase us, refusing to fall behind, and the dozen or so Aviatons flanking the ship fired intermittently, determined to sap Samantha’s focus.

If this is what Samantha considered a lull, then I wasn’t looking forward to the storm.