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

Mikayla hadn't been sure what to expect when going into this simulation. Asika had said that it was made from recordings; was the Ataraxian System monitoring and recording everything, everywhere, at all times? It would need to, wouldn't it, but actually thinking about that, considering that she might have never had privacy

at any point

during her time in this world, was more than a little distressing.

Whatever. There wasn't any time to waste on that right now. Her vision was returning, and she was seeing . . a jungle.

Her feet touched the ground, and Mikayla steadied herself, looking around. This felt

real

. She was struck by the accuracy of her surroundings, from the sound of insects in the jungle to the oppressive heat in the air. She pinched her cheek, and it hurt. She tried to pluck a flower from the ground, but her fingers passed right through it. "Okay, this is the kind of vision where I can't interact with anything. Cool,"

A thought occurred to her, and with a flex of Mana her left fist caught fire while her Sword appeared in her right. "But my Cores and Techniques are still working apparently. Huh. If that's the case,"

The Black Knight wrapped around her body. "Mikayla? Where are we?" Nocturnus asked, sounding disoriented. She couldn't blame him, this jungle certainly didn't look like it was in Guili.

Once she'd finished explaining, Nocturnus made an approving noise. "I see, I see. Excellent! Pay close attention, then. We shall master this Technique!"

"Aye aye," With that, Mikayla looked around again, and, as though reacting to her thoughts, a young human man appeared from within the bushes.

He was blonde, with shaggy hair and a coat of stubble on his chin. He was draped in khaki-stained leather armour, with an orange tunic peeking through. Thick boots left deep prints in the mud as he stormed into the clearing, muttering to himself. "Be more aggressive. They want me to be more aggressive? Haven't we already got that in spades?" He grumbled incoherently as he sat down on a fallen log, burying his head in his hands.

"Hello there?" Mikayla tried, crouching over him. The man took no notice. "You're Pierce Blastreyne, right?" She waved her hand in front of his face, but he had no response.

He took a long, ragged breath, sitting up. "Well, I guess they're not wrong. I've gotta be able to do something less passive and more punchy with this Demigod thing. Access Demigod System,"

A familiar screen appeared in front of Pierce's face, and Mikayla was surprised to be able to see it.

[DEMIGOD SYSTEM ACTIVATED. WELCOME, CHAMPION.]

Champion? The Demigod System addressed Mikayla as an 'Inheritor'. Were there different types of demigods? Or did that simply mean that Pierce was further along some kind of 'path of progression towards godhood' than her?

Pierce tapped at his screen, head bobbing back and forth. He held out one hand, and a tiny ball of rainbow-coloured light appeared in it.

Mikayla immediately focused on the ball of light, because something about it called to her. It was

teamwork

. Or maybe it was more accurate to call it {TEAMWORK}, since that was how the System referred to it. The ball seemed to drip with raw

meaning

. It was profound, like an idea made manifest. The raw stuff of dreams in the palm of her forebear's hand.

Could she do that? Pierce hadn't invoked anything, not that Mikayla could tell. He was manhandling the little ball of conceptual energy as easily as she'd learned to use her Mana. Was this the simplest and most basic technique?

Pierce rolled the little ball of energy around in his hand like a marble. "Now, what can I do with you?" He closed his fingers around it, then threw it with all the force he could muster into the bark of a nearby tree.

It soaked into the tree, leaving no visible damage.

"Yup. That's what I expected. It's {TEAMWORK}, not {FIRE} or {ACID} or even {INSULTS}. You can't beat someone up with how well you get along with them. Sheesh," Pierce buried his head in his hands again as he grumbled to himself.

He paused, tilting his head sideways. "Wait. Or maybe you can,"

Pierce started to stand up, then paused and sat right back down. "I need someone to help me test this, but I can't go back to everyone with a half-baked idea, not after storming off like that. What was I thinking, anyway? Some team leader I am. And I left Raya alone with them, too . ." He paused, then shrugged and chuckled. "Then again, I'd like to see them try to push her around,"

Mikayla frowned. "Okay, who are you talking about? Raya? That's another name to research," Never in her life had she been more irritated that all her historical knowledge only applied to Earth and therefore was useless here on Raibalie.

Pierce reached into his coat pocket and produced a flute. Mikayla regarded it with a raised eyebrow. She knew that music magic was a thing, thanks to Treft and his keytar, did Pierce fight with a more primitive form of it? She watched him conjure another ball of Faith - was it a literal manifested Faith Point? - and press it with his fingers into the flute, then started playing.

A melody filled the clearing, upbeat and encouraging. Mikayla paid close attention, as this was the first time she'd heard music native to Raibalie. But the cadence quickly changed, going even faster, and Pierce started making violent motions with his flute as though trying to assault someone with it. The tune intensified in pitch and volume until he went blue in the face.

Finally, he tossed the flute away and panted, taking deep, heavy breaths. "Well, that didn't starring work,"

Mikayla regarded the flute and frowned. What had Pierce been trying to do? Turn the flute into a projectile weapon?

Pierce rolled onto his back, staring up at the sky and groaning. "Sheesh. It sure would be nice if my father would actually answer my Communion for once. Being a god can't keep him that busy, can it?"

Her eyes widened. "Wait. Is Pierce the son of the Rainbow Ouroboros?"

"Hardly unheard of," Nocturnus contributed. "Not all gods appear as sapients by default, but all of them

can,"

Pierce threw his hands up again. "Communion! Communion! Come on, you deadbeat, answer me damn you! Communion!"

The sky above them went dark.

"Wait, that worked? Dad?"

Mikayla's jaw fell open, because the midday sky above them had been replaced by a void, an inky abyss without a single star. She

recognised

this non-sky. This was the void that had been left behind after the collapse of the Divine Realm of the Rainbow Ouroboros. It had exactly the same sensation of emptiness, of being not so much a different sky as the absence thereof, of reality falling away and leaving nothing behind.

"Dad. I know you can hear me. Knock it off, you answered the Communion so talk to me already,"

A tiny ribbon of silver light fell from the sky, drifting back and forth. Pierce reached out his hands to catch it, and as he did Mikayla recognised it for what it was; a scrap of cloth.

"You're not my dad, are you?" he shouted at the black sky.

A notification appeared in his vision, and his eyes immediately unfocused, reading it.

Mikayla, though, could barely pay attention to this, because

her own

Demigod System had activated without warning. A white-and-gold notification floated before her eyes, printing a simple message.

[YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE.]

"Who wrote this? Asika? Was this you?" She looked around, suddenly on edge. This wasn't just a recording anymore. Even if Pierce was oblivious to her presence, something here had taken notice of her.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

A shape appeared in the void. It was big and bulbous, not quite humanoid but not reflecting any other creature she could identify. Its skin seemed to be made of layered shadows, like a particularly excitable child had been given an infinite amount of glue and black paper and just kept sticking it all together until they had been sent to bed. Milky white eyes stared down at her without iris nor pupils.

And Pierce could see it too. "You. You're the one my father killed, aren't you?"

The sheer

implications

of what he just said threw Mikayla. She wished for a pause button just so that she'd have time to process, but the simulation did not acknowledge her desire.

Asika and Mikayla's warnings about people trying to kill her to take her demigod status took on a whole new light. The Rainbow Ouroboros himself had killed whoever this was to claim his status as God of Teamwork?

Feeling a desperate need to know what she was dealing with, Mikayla pointed at it and yelled, "Identify!"

[SHOUTY GHOST WHO KINDA JUST SHOWED UP AND MIIIIIIIIIGHT BE ALL THAT'S LEFT OF A GOD, MAYBE - LEVEL 0 - ????]

Mikayla sweat dropped. Well, that answered the question of whether or not Asika had planned for this. "You aren't the Rainbow Ouroboros! Are you?"

[ALL THAT HE WAS IS NOW IN YOU. I AM THAT WHICH WILL NOT SUCCUMB TO THIS. THE MAN WHOM YOU ARE INTRUDING UPON EARNED MY RECOGNITION. YOU WILL ACHIEVE NOTHING WITHOUT DOING THE SAME.]

"Is that so?" Mikayla looked back at Pierce, who seemed to have been having a conversation of his own.

"Do you hate me because of what my father did to you?"

Even from here, she could read the three massive letters that floated in Pierce's vision.

[YES]

"Then why did you answer my Communion?"

There was no response, not to either of them.

Mikayla looked back at her notification log. "That Which Will Not Succumb To This. So, do you have an actual name, or . ."

An answer failed to materialise.

"T-W-W-N-S-T-T. If you don't have a name, then I'm gonna call you Twist, is that okay? Just ignore the inconvenient N,"

Pierce kept shouting at the shape in the sky, unable to hear her. "You know what I'm here to pray for. I need some way to make the Domain of {TEAMWORK} flashy. Can you help with that?" He paused. "Is there anything I could do to earn your help?"

A notification blossomed in his vision, and Mikayla crouched over his shoulder to read it.

The blood drained from her face when she saw the words.

[KILL YOUR FATHER.]

Pierce's expression hardened. "No,"

Another message followed it up, but Pierce waved his hand through it before it had finished forming. "No! Look, my dad is an ass, and I get that you're mad he killed you, but he's still my father. I refuse!"

A notification was already appearing, and Mikayla read it over his shoulder.

[REPLACE HIM AS GOD OF {TEAMWORK}.]

"Not likely," Pierce rolled his eyes.

Twist seemed to agree, or at least that was the feeling Mikayla got from the shadow.

[SEEK OUT AND ASCERTAIN THE SAFETY OF GRACE HYSTIA.]

Pierce and Mikayla digested that radical departure from the previous two requests. ". . I don't get it," Pierce's brow furrowed. "Who's that?"

Mikayla didn't know who that was either. But she was going to find out even if it took months of research in the library.

[GRACE IS THE DAUGHTER OF FERRIS HYSTIA. THE CHAMPION THAT YOUR FATHER MURDERED PRIOR TO HIS APOTHEOSIS. SHE IS ALIVE. THAT IS ALL I KNOW.]

. . okay, so maybe it wouldn't take months of research in the library. Ferris and Grace Hystia. Mikayla memorised those names.

". . So, she's basically your granddaughter," Pierce rubbed his chin. "Okay. Yeah. Sure. Find the girl and make sure she's safe.

That's

a reasonable request," He twisted and yelled, "Hey, dad, if you want me to not do this for some reason, answer the starring Communion for once!"

There was a beat of silence.

"No? Okay, cool. Deal. I'll get on it," Pierce determined.

"Alright. He's going to go do that I guess," Mikayla folded her arms. "What about me? I'm here to learn but that didn't teach me a damn thing,"

Well, that wasn't quite true. She'd learned a lot from this encounter and had plenty to speculate about, but none of it was relevant to weaponising {TEAMWORK} - at least not in any way she could identify.

The shadow's eyes zeroed in on her and the false world around her went still.

[YOU ARE NOT WORTHY.]

Mikayla's brow furrowed and she glared up at the looming entity she had christened Twist. "And why not?"

[YOU HAVE NOT EARNED MY POWER. YOU HAVE NO MEANS OF DOING SO. GIVE IT UP.]

"For a god of teamwork, he is rather failing to be a team player," Nocturnus half-jokingly scoffed.

"Yeah, no kidding. No way to earn your power? Is that so?" Mikayla glared up at the sky. "Then why do I already have it?"

She'd just seen Pierce do this, it couldn't be that hard. She focused on the vague, liminal sensation within her mind, reaching for the reserve of divine energy that had been entrusted to her. Flickers of light condensed in her palms, until she was holding a manifested Faith Point in her hands. Just to emphasise her point, she waved it at the shadowy giant.

"I'm not here for power, I'm here for knowledge about how to

use

it. And you know that. Asika is my friend, and I don't believe she would have let you in here to talk to me if she didn't think we'd be able to come to an understanding,"

[YOU WOULD PUT YOUR FAITH IN A

FAERIE?]

"Damn right I do!"

[FOOLISH.]

Mikayla's eye twitched. She crushed the Faith Point between her hands, reabsorbing it. "Nocty, I'm about to do something stupid, so watch out for me?"

"Naturally,"

"Great," She looked up at the towering shadow, roughly gauging its size relative to her. "Mana Assistance, Black Knight to size fifty!"

Her veins burned as Mana was sucked out of them. It had been months since she'd needed this crutch, and she'd never quite realised how much worse it felt compared to using her Mana the proper way. It was all she could do to remain balanced as the hardlight Armour around her swelled to an unbelievable size. The memory landscape around her was crushed by massive boots, the spikes on her head thrusting up into the void until she was face to face with the shadow.

She hoped she wasn't imagining the look of surprise on Twist's hazy face in the moments it took for her building-sized fist to come up and punch it.

[YOU -]

[HOW DARE -]

[WHAT IS -

[HOW DID -]

Mikayla brushed away several popups as soon as they appeared, glaring face to face with the shadow. "No, this is the part where you listen to me," Her voice radiated from every inch of her Armour, taking full advantage of its built-in broadcast function to turn her voice into a roar like a hurricane.

"You will not insult my friends.

Got that?"

A vague sort of respect flickered in Twist's moony white eyes.

[VERY WELL.]

Stars swam in Mikayla's vision, and a glance at her Mana bar showed it visibly burning away. "Mana Assistance, size one," she murmured, and shrunk back to normal size.

The memory was gone; trees and shrubs had been crushed underfoot. Pierce was still there, sitting on thin air atop a cloud of splinters that had been a fallen log.

"Alright. Let's talk properly, shall we?"