Go Big To Go Home: A Kaiju-Fighting Isekai LitRPG (Book 1 Complete!)

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"Well, I'm here," Mikayla looked around, searching for her friends.

Banki had told them to meet in a rather strange place; the Red Mausoleum. It was a small site on the far edge of Cloudscraper Academy that was home to a large and ornate building with a massive statue built into its frame, depicting a human with a long and matted beard, wearing a crown and leaning on a broadsword. A pair of doors between his legs led into the building, which was partially sunk into the earth and no doubt descended underground. It was one of the most impressive feats of architecture she'd ever seen.

Which was probably because this was the final resting place of Nicholas the Red.

The leader of the Four Heroes. The founder of the Goliath Guard. The former king of the City at the World's Peak, who had led his people all the way across the continent until they were safely in Guili while fending off countless attacks from the earliest Kaijus. The man who had slain the First Monster King.

Mikayla could practically feel the history oozing from this place just by standing in the shadow of that massive statue.

Which made her wonder why Banki wanted to rehearse the student show here of all places.

Nya followed, dragging her feet. It had been a few days since the ill-fated exercise, and the previous morning's mail call had brought with it a scathing letter from her parents. Nya had been despondent ever since reading it, and refused to respond to Mikayla's assurances that it was completely unreasonable for her mother to be disappointed in her for

not

being able to single-handedly best a creature that was intended to be fought by a group.

"Hey! Guys! You made it!" Following Banki's voice led them to a large open space at the side of the Red Mausoleum with small bleachers around it. Mikayla somehow wasn't surprised that Nicholas the Red had ordered an arena built right next to his tomb. Now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered reading something about an old cultural belief in Guili that fighting near the graveyard of an honoured ancestor or hero would allow the strength of the deceased to suffuse the combatants.

Banki was bouncing towards them. A glance around found Lydia, Treft, Kaizen and Geri had also been talked into this, as well as several other students whom she only vaguely recognised.

Of course Banki was so prolifically social that she'd established relationships with the students of other classes. Why had Mikayla not anticipated that.

"Hey! Glad you're here! Welcome to the party!" Banki rushed up to greet them, waving with both hands as though she thought they somehow hadn't noticed her. "Come in, come in, everyone else is already waiting,"

The tigerkin's hand found Mikayla's, and she gently tugged her aside as Keldryn's nd Nya continued onwards. "By the by, something weird happened that you should probably be warned about,"

"What's up?"

"Sekki and Geum

were

gonna be here. Sekki couldn't muster the energy and I mean fair enough. But earlier this week Geum asked if

you

were gonna be here, and when I told him you'd already agreed, he said he didn't want to be part of anything involving you. Did you do something to piss him off?"

Mikayla frowned. "It's Geum. He's always been weirdly mad at me. But this sounds drastic even for him," She paused, thinking. There . . there was no way Geum had for some reason decided to blame

her

for his mother being arrested and jailed, was there? That didn't make any sense at all . . but then, Geum had never really come off as the logical type . .

She shook her head, banishing the thoughts. "I'll worry about whatever

that's

about later. Let's figure out our performance!"

"Aight!" Banki let out a piercing whistle, drawing everyone's attention. "Everyone, gather around! We are here to have some fun! Who's with me?"

A ragged cheer rose up from about half the assembled students, and Banki beamed. "Alright! We're going to need four teams. Light crew, trapeze acrobats, mock gladiators and dancers!" She pointed in various directions, effortlessly wrangling the miscellaneous students. "Oh, and Mikayla, I want you specifically on the lights crew!" Banki instructed.

"Huh? Why?" Mikayla checked.

"Because of that awesome rainbow sword thing you can do! Remember?" Banki beamed. "It'll be a total show-stopper! It's not too hard to use, right? Because we're gonna need a lot of practice!"

Mikayla grimaced. Banki didn't realise what she was asking. Using When Many Hands Wield One Blade that often would chew through her Faith Point reserve way too quickly. Fortunately, she'd expected this and come up with an excuse. "Oh. Right. Um . . sorry but that's not an option,"

"Huh?" Banki's smile dimmed, confusion filling her eyes. "What's wrong?"

"You remember how that Technique was an experimental thing that my faerie friend gave me? Well, after I got my Neidan it went kinda screwy. I can't use that Technique safely anymore, not until Asika gets back to me with a new and improved version that accommodates my Neidan. And she's a busy Moderator so who knows if she'll have time for that before the anniversary," It was a lie, one that Mikayla felt a bit bad for telling, but as much as Banki was her friend, she just wasn't sure that she trusted the tigerkin with her most important secret.

"Ah. Stars," Banki snapped her fingers in irritation. "Oh well, nothing to be done then. You wanna take a crack at it anyway?"

"Sure," Mikayla did her best to look contrite.

"Aight! Be right back,"

Mikayla glanced at her friends.

Nya grimaced. "I believe my skills would be best suited to acrobatics,"

Mikayla noticed her discomfort. "You don't have to,"

"Nonsense. My aptitude is clear, and it would be remiss of me not to lend my skills to such a pursuit,"

It wasn't long until Banki had organised everything, and returned to the group that Mikayla had joined. "Aight, everyone! Let's make this snappy. Your first job is to learn this Technique," She raised a hand, and bright green light spilled out of it, dancing across the floor. With a snap of her claws, it changed to yellow, then purple, then red. "Crude should be good enough. Gather round, gather round, feel what I'm doing with my Mana to make it work,"

Mikayla let her Mana flow into Banki's veins, feeling the Technique. At this point, she'd done this in class enough times and developed her fine Mana control for Engraving that picking up a Technique that was being demonstrated for her was simple and intuitive.

Spike and valley, spike and valley, zigzag and swirl, and modulate the swirling to control the colour of the emitted light.

Mikayla beamed, quite literally, at the notification that had appeared for her after just a couple of minutes practicing.

[NEW TECHNIQUE SAVED: CIRCUS SPOTLIGHT (Faulty)]

"Great work!" Banki grinned. "Help the others get it down pat, I gotta go wrangle the acrobats,"

<=====}—o

"Hey, Allis. What's this?" Mikayla asked, poking what looked like a robot costume from the 1970s, which lay abandoned in a corner of Allis' workshop. It was once again time for their regular sessions that mixed 'teaching the tips and tricks of Engraving to Mikayla' with 'Allis using her as a sounding board for ideas and double-checking her work'.

The object of her attention was a pile of boxes of metal that ended in tank treads, with vacuum-tube arms and a square head. One of its hands ended in a giant whisk, the other in a three-fingered claw. Two large dials and a grille for a mouth formed its face.

"Oh, that's one of my non-Core projects. There are inherent restrictions to using Core projections, and I wanted to make something with a bit more

permanency

," Allis joined her, reaching into an open panel on the robot's back and doing something to its insides. There was a burst of static, and the grey machine straightened up, its eye-dials ticking upwards and glowing like searchlights.

"That is so awesome," Mikayla drank in the sight of the big, boxy robot as it stared back at her. "Does he talk?"

"I like to use a whisk!" the robot shouted.

"Yeah, we're, um, still working out some kinks," Allis awkwardly admitted. "But I'm sure that with just a few more improvements he'll be a lean, mean, Kaiju-killing machine!"

"Well, what does he do now?"

The whisk in the robot's hand span into a blur of motion. "I like to use a whisk!" the robot repeated.

"He, well, likes to use a whisk. That's about it," Allis sighed. "Say hello, Whisker,"

"Hello! I like to use a whisk!"

An expression that was half amusement and half exasperation settled onto Mikayla's face. "He doesn't do anything else?"

Allis sighed dramatically. "Nope. Just whisks. I'm this close to putting an oven in his chest so that I can sell him as a cake-making robot, since

apparently that's the only thing this piece of junk will ever be good for!"

Whisker's head rotated to face her. "I like to use a whisk!"

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Whisks don't kill Kaijus, you bucket of bolts!"

Mikayla patted Allis' shoulder consolingly. "Well, I'm sure that with a few more iterations he'll be everything you want and more. Isn't that right, Whisker?"

"I like to use a whisk!"

Allis sighed and mumbled, "I'm not sure I share your optimism . . but thanks. Hey, come over here, time for you to learn something,"

Mikayla joined her at a table that was similar to an Engraving Table - she'd at first mistaken it for a backup - but upon closer inspection it clearly had an entirely different function. "What's this?"

"It's a Pearl refiner,"

"A what?"

"You've probably wondered why, even though we can get massive Pearls like this that look like they're big enough to make dozens of Cores out of them, we only ever make them into a single Core?" Allis offered a Pearl that was the size of her hand. Just in terms of raw material there should indeed have been enough to make at least six or seven Cores from it.

Mikayla had been wondering that. The Giant Roc's Pearl, after all, had to have enough material for a hundred Cores. And yet no one had ever even suggested it. "Yeah, I'm guessing there's a reason we can't make multiple Cores from the same Pearl. So what is it?"

"It's because only the centre of a Pearl is the actual Core. The rest is just layer after layer of crystallised Mana packed onto it," Allis clarified. "It's like how a tree grows more layers of bark as it ages. Only the core - no pun intended - of a Pearl can be made into a Core, every external layer is just condensing and refining the Core. The bit at the centre is a really good Core, everything around it is just junk," She hesitated.

"Ah, gotcha," Mikayla nodded. "That's a shame, it's pretty,"

"Oh, some interior designers and artisans buy up Pearl shavings to use as decoration. It's a good source of extra cash, helps recoup the costs of buying jewels from Dwarves or paying rangers for the Pearls they collect,"

"Is that a concern?"

"Not really, thanks to a simple accounting trick. Always multiply your projected costs by pi. Because that way the budget is irrational,"

Mikayla had learned the hidden price of being Allis' student; she had ten years' worth of awful puns bottled up that no one else in this world understood because they only made sense in English. (Apparently Allis had scried on her world often enough that she'd picked up the language despite the Ataraxian System's translation.) And Mikayla had to suffer through all of them. Allis had reportedly tried that one on her sisters only for them to ask what

pie

had to do with maths.

She shrugged. "But enough about that. Time for you to learn how to refine a raw Pearl into a Core!"

She slotted the Pearl into the centre of the table, and Mikayla placed her hands on the intents, feeding her Mana into the machine.

"It's not like with other gemstones, you can't just hack it into chunks. It needs to be condensed," Allis narrated, placing a hand over hers and guiding her Mana to a tool within the Table that Mikayla had never used before, something that looked almost like a microphone. "This is a Mana repeller. It pushes the Mana out of a chunk of the Pearl, after which point you need to cut the deadened bit away before it can flow back. Rinse and repeat,"

Mikayla nodded and did so, carving off a flat chunk of brittle crystal that had lost its luster after the repeller had pushed around the Pearl's Mana. "Great, well done!" Allis grinned. "Now keep doing that until it's the right size and shape to be carved into a Core,"

It took half an hour of laboriously repeating the process, but finally Mikayla was done. "And now we do that again while cutting it into the shape of a raw Core, yeah?"

"Correctamundo,"

That took another twenty minutes of careful cutting, as well as etching tiny, precise runes into the screw and surface of the Core.

"So, what are we going to do with this one?" Mikayla finally questioned, wiping sweat from her brow with one hand and holding up the refined Pearl with the other.

"Good question," Allis frowned, flipping around one of her blackboard to reveal a mess of equations and diagrams that made Mikayla's head hurt. "There is a project I'm working on, but I'm stuck on part of it and kinda stumped,"

"Oh yeah?"

"I've been contracted to upgrade the sewers in Murkpond - yes, that's what they called their city for some reason - without doing anything to damage the existing infrastructure. Apparently it's historic. I need to design mechanisms that can both block off particular tunnels in their entirety while still collapsing down to small enough that they won't impede the flow at other times. And without making it retract into any hole I could cut into any of their precious sewer walls," Allis rolled her eyes. "The only way I can see to make it work is to have this wall here," she gestured to a part of the diagram that Mikayla would not have been able to pick out, "grow to twenty times its size. But of course, I can't just do that because making things grow to more than ten times their size with the Goliath Engraving is illegal," Allis rolled her eyes.

Mikayla squinted at the plans, dissecting them in her brain. It looked like Allis was planning an entire array of pre-made Engraved conduits and Cores that all linked back to a central control panel; modular and easy to both deploy and remove. It was almost like electrical wiring controlling a network of projectors. "Any ideas for a workaround?"

"Make the Cores cycle on and off?" Mikayla suggested.

"Not possible to do remotely. And no one wants to wade through the sewers to flip switches manually," Allis shot her down.

Mikayla hummed. "In that case, then . . how does the Goliath Engraving work, anyway? I know it's illegal to make a Core that can grow to more than ten times its default size. But . . is there a reason you can't just do that anyway?"

Allis groaned and rolled her eyes, then fished around in a box until she brought out a large poster. "Here, take this home, you'll need to memorise it eventually,"

Quirking an eyebrow, Mikayla unrolled it, discovering that it was a diagram of how to create the Goliath Engraving itself. "As you can see," Allis explained, gesturing at what looked like a sequence of ten shapes all linked together in a jagged pattern, "it's not simply a matter of 'enter a number as a multiplier'. The common-use Goliath Engraving is a smaller and crippled version of the original Goliath Engraving that Astralia invented. Supposedly, the original version of the pattern could warp itself, changing the flow of Mana on the fly into a runeform that matched whatever size was put into it, because every possible permutation was already included within the physical Engraving. The

safe

version that's been proliferated today, though, was created by extracting the patterns for sizes one through ten and creating a new pattern from those,"

Allis groaned, rolling her eyes. "The original version, the one that can escalate to any size by exponentially increasing Mana draw, is highly restricted knowledge. Even I don't have enough pull to access it. I'm expected to be smart enough to come up with workarounds or something. And, sure I could, but every workaround there is makes the Mana cost skyrocket. It's

such

a pain. They keep calling me the greatest Engraver of the generation or whatever, but it doesn't

mean

anything when they don't trust me worth a damn,"

Mikayla digested that. ". . Hey. If you did have the original version of the Goliath Engraving, could you use it as a reference to design something that does what you need without actually

being

the illegal design?"

"Oh, yeah, easily, all I'd need is thirty seconds to calculate and extract the right permutation . ." Allis trailed off and cast her a suspicious look. "Wait. You said you visited Astralia's Spear. Don't tell me,"

Mikayla looked down at her Core Gauntlet, and unscrewed the Ruby of Sword. Her very first Core. "Take a look for yourself,"

Allis caught it and immediately slotted it into her Engraving Table. Her Mana tore into it, and Mikayla watched with morbid fascination as lines of silver energy caressed her Core with all the tenderness of a lover's embrace.

". . I'm gonna want that back, if that wasn't clear, it's still my Sword,"

"Go ahead. I can already see how to make one ten times better," Allis absently replied. "Er, not that I'm going to . . wait, you've just been carrying this around? It's super illegal,"

"Don't worry, it's a Weapon Core. I've been passing it off as one of the Yevgenia-style imitations that can grow up to thirty times the size. As long as I don't go any bigger than that no one will notice," Size-changing weapons were a core part of the Rosebush Huntress fighting style, and apparently when the law that delegitimised the original version of Goliath came into effect, there'd been enough pushback from the City of Roses that a special exception had been made just for weapons, only up to size fifty. This had, of course, spawned a subsection of the market that took advantage of the legal loophole to push the use of all types of Weapon Cores that could grow to massive sizes, with varying degrees of practicality.

Mikayla winked somewhat self-consciously, trying to give off a mischievous air and failing completely. "Don't tell anyone where you got that design?"

Allis cast her a reassuring smile. "No sweat. You're talking to the greatest Engraver of the generation. If anyone even figures out that I have this, I'll eat my hat,"