Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Umoch. Wulf's stomach plummeted. What was he doing here? How had he even found them?

At the moment, it didn't matter. They just had to get away, and Umoch didn't even have a crew. He couldn't go far, even if he could get in an Oronith.

[Emerald Vanguard (Low-Iron Tier Oronith) has activated. Systems diagnostic complete. Main functions in good order. Arms integrity 50%]

Good enough.

Wulf pushed forward. He pressed against his harness and linking apparatus, his feet swung back and forth in the tracks, and he lurched forward. The Oronith moved with him, dream-link aligning his golem with the main mech body.

They pushed away from the dock, this time with nothing in front of them and nothing holding them back.

Emerald Vanguard's new arms were almost the exact same as the old, but the hammer was nowhere to be seen.

It didn't matter, really. The hammer was too heavy, and it would slow them down.

With each step, he pushed off faster, and a rhythm built. The Oronith thrummed beneath him, the floor pulsed, and stone groaned as he urged it to run. It began moving faster and faster, until eventually, it was jogging along across the fields.

"Watch out for the border grove this time!" Irmond called. "Or Kennet will have your head."

Wulf craned Emerald Vanguard's head down, watching for the border. At the moment, he just had to get away from the academy—then they could head south.

From his vantage, the border grove was just a thin line on the ground ahead. The trees glistened with snow and frost, trembling in the last deep chill of the year—and probably because an Oronith was running toward them, sending enormous tremors through the ground. But Wulf's own body shook just as much with the impacts, and it was hard to tell.

But before he could reach the border grove, Irmond shouted, "Uh, Wulf! Wulf! Umoch's doing something?"

Wulf scrunched his eyes. "What's Umoch doing?"

"I don't kn—"

A screech and a crack rolled through the air, like thunder in the distance, but mixed with the faint windchime like tinkle. That was the sound of Umoch's spells!

A beam of shadow blasted through the air toward them. It was as thick as a Low-Copper (as Umoch now was) could make an attack, which…for any Low-Copper, wouldn't have been enough to harm an Oronith.

But their Oronith was weaker than most, because Wulf was at a lower tier than most Pilots. And Umoch's magic was stronger than most Low-Coppers.

The beam of shadow smashed right into Emerald Vanguard's arm, bit into it, then cleaved through. Stone, gravel, and dust plumed forward, ripping through the shoulder. Pain twinged in Wulf's mind, and he clenched his teeth and shouted. It wasn't his shoulder, but the dream link made sure he felt it.

Still, he was used to pain like that. He didn't break stride. If he stopped moving just because a twinge of pain ripped through his arm, he'd have died many times before his final death in his last life—in the last world.

"Seith, damage report?" he requested.

"I'll get on it." She ran to the hatch and pushed past Irmond, then climbed out. As soon as she was outside, she activated a communication construct, which linked up with the rest of the crew.

Another crack echoed through the cockpit, like a sheet of ice cracking. The arms were already weak, and…

"He hit a critical joint," Seith called back after a few seconds. "I'm not sure if I can fix it while we're moving."

"Seith, get away from there!" Irmond shouted. "He's launching another!"

Wulf winced when the communication construct screeched with interference, but he pushed through it. Seith needed a warning.

Not a moment later, another beam of shadow blasted out from the dock. Wulf pushed to the side, trying to dodge it, but it still scraped past the shoulder plate and blasted off another chunk of Emerald Vanguard's arm.

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This time, the pain was much worse. There were more cracks, and they rang out continuously, until finally, the arm crumbled away. It fell in a heap off to the side—and dragging a pile of stone and debris right through the border grove.

"Whoops," Wulf gasped, if only to keep the pain at bay. His mind still thought he'd just had an arm blasted off by dark shadow magic, and that wasn't exactly comfortable. Still, he used Vanguard's legs to launch the rest of him over the grove wall.

No more spells shot out. They had to be out of Umoch's range by now.

"Seith, are you alright?" Wulf called.

"I'm alive," she panted. "Just trying to get back to the arm."

"There's not much left," Wulf warned.

"Yeah…" Her voice was practically wincing, though Wulf couldn't see her face. "I'll patch up the rune lines, or this thing is going to start bleeding your mana dry even faster than normal. And then we'll be dead in the water."

Wulf tilted his head. He'd had a full storage core before leaving, and given how much time he'd had to prepare, he'd expanded the core to nearly thrice the size it had been when they saved Arotelk, but it still wouldn't be enough to get them all the way to Clegghold. Especially if it began leaking.

Still, he had to let Seith work.

He turned the Oronith and marched around to the south, skirting the border. A few students gathered around, watching from rooftops and dorm windows, but they were too far away, and even if they wanted to do something, there wasn't much they could do.

"Irmond, can you get out there and keep an eye on everything around us?" Wulf asked.

"Got it," Irmond replied. He climbed out the hatch and shut it behind him, then said through their communication construct, "Gotta keep you two warm in there. Some might even say, steamy."

"Oh, shut it," Kalee snapped.

"That's what I just did."

"Not what she meant," Wulf replied.

"You know, I still can't get over the fact that you guys are old enough to be my grandparents," Seith said.

"How're the repairs going?" Wulf asked.

"Not great. You lost an arm."

With his right arm, now completely free from the pull of the Oronith, he reached up and rubbed his forehead. The golem barely resisted his movement with his right arm.

This wasn't good, and he knew it. Even if he'd had enough mana to get them to Clegghold, which was completely unrealistic (he'd have to take many, many breaks), Emerald Vanguard was in no condition to fight off a horde of colossal fiends.

"Yeah, chief…" Seith said. "You lost an arm. I can seal up these rune-lines and pipes and cords, but I'm no mountain giant healer."

"It's dying?" Wulf asked.

"Yeah, the inner core of the Oronith, it's dying. Don't worry, it doesn't feel pain anymore, and it doesn't even think, but if it dies, no amount of mana is going to keep us moving."

Wulf turned his head, urging the Oronith to look over at its damaged shoulder—and at Seith clinging onto the damaged stub. She swayed with each step, while patching the stone with a quick-drying mortar and chiselling in ending runes. A few mana sparks sputtered out, but overall, there was no sign of immediate damage.

But he knew well enough that the Oroniths didn't bleed. They could still die. The mountain giants stored bits of the Field in them, sealing it within. Though Wulf couldn't see it, the wound was now leaking those out. Without the professional repairs of the Academy, Emerald Vanguard was going to stop working.

But Wulf couldn't go back, and he had no real connection to this Oronith. At best, it was a method of getting where he needed.

He deactivated his communication construct, then turned to Kalee. "I'll take it as far as we can, but we're going to have to abandon ship at some point."

Damned Umoch. Throwing problems into all Wulf's plans, and now, actively—and effectively—working for the demons. When payback came, nothing was going to feel better.

Umoch's life was going to be be ruined, and it'd be the best feeling yet.

"Are we going to have to fight the fiends without an Oronith?" Kalee asked. "Or do we steal one from Clegghold?"

Wulf was about to shake his head, but stopped himself. No need to move the entire Oronith. "No. In both cases, we don't make much of a difference. We might be better fighters than Clegghold's defenders, but we're weaker Ascendants still. And on foot, we'll get squashed by a fiend at our level."

"You're talking like you have a plan," Kalee said. "Spill it."

"You know the Slumbering Peak?" Wulf asked. "Where Clegghold gets all their minerals from?"

"Yeah."

"It's called the Slumbering Peak for a reason. In our last lives, everyone was attempting to get Silent Wraith running and under control, but no one could. But now? The dwarves should have just stumbled upon it last year."

Kalee shut her eyes. "If no one could get it active in forty years, what makes you think you could?"

"Because we have to." Wulf kept looking forward. "We're ready, we're determined. It's our only shot, but a legendary mountain-core Oronith from the first invasion…would be an excellent addition to Clegghold's defenses."

"Alright, I agree with Irmond. You're crazy."

"Yeah, but it's our only shot."

"Sadly, you're right."

Wulf turned his construct back on and spoke to the whole crew. "We have a plan. We're going to walk Vanguard as far as we can, get as far from the academy as we can, and then we're ditching it. We'll head to Clegghold on foot—there should be time if we go fast. And then, once we're there, we're going to activate Silent Wraith."

As expected, Wulf was met with groans. Irmond sputtered, then said, "I want to think you're joking, but knowing you, you'll like actually find a way to do it. Ughh, by the Field, I'm in."