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

All too soon, the alarm clocks were ringing to get the two students out of bed for their morning fitness session.

Once she'd gotten dressed in her gym wear, Mikayla glanced at Shao. "Kinda surprised she slept through the alarm,"

Nya hummed, tilting her head and flicking her tail. "We ought to get going. After all of last night's excitement, the last thing we need is to suffer a punishment for missing morning exercise,"

"We can't just leave her here while we go off to class . . Can we?"

"I'll write her a note, telling her that we'll be back soon and to stay here," Nya decided, picking up a pen and scrap of parchment. Once the note had been gently tucked into Shao's arms, the two girls rushed off to their daily routine.

<=====}—o

It was a long and uneventful day, a morning filled with rote-learning formal manners of address and an afternoon of studying one of the spare ballistae from the Cloudfingers. Matters were made worse by the rumour mill; apparently the so-called Arsonist Armour's terrorisation of the City of Roses had become breaking news. Mikayla could only suffer in silence, not trusting herself to speak up as her class,ates debated the precious night's events, and all the while Keldryn shot her suspicious and knowing looks.

Finally, she and Nya broke off from the rest of their classmates by heading back to the dormitories after class, rather than going straight to dinner. Keldryn followed, falling into step with them. "So. What were you two doing last night?"

"Visiting my family, you know this," Nya hissed.

"Uh-huh. And the Armour Core that looked like a combination of Moonlight Rose and Black Knight had nothing to do with you?"

"Lay off it, we'll fill you in," Mikayla acquiesced, launching into a summary of everything that had happened amidst the fires. Nya cast furtive glances in every direction, but Mikayla was cautious enough to ensure they weren't overheard.

"You did all that without me?" Keldryn cast her a hurt look that was betrayed by his raised ears. "I thought we were friends,"

"Well, sor~

ry

. Next time we have to protect a child arsonist from the police, I'll invite you and you can almost get arrested too," Mikayla drawled.

They arrived at the girls' dorm, and it wasn't long until they were back in Mikayla's and Nya's room. "Shao? We're back," Mikayla called, looking around.

A pile of blankets lay abandoned on the couch. Both of their closets had been rummaged through. The balcony door was hanging open. And there were exactly zero eight-year-old yaoguais in the room.

Nya's lips pursed. ". . where's Shao?"

"Of course she did a runner. Why the hell wouldn't she?" Mikayla groaned, burying her face in her palms. "Okay, um, okay, she can't have gotten far,"

"Well, we can assume she is not in the building," Nya interjected, taking the lead and heading for the stairs.

"Why?"

"Because this building is where all of the Yevgenia students reside, and if any of them had talked to Shao, it would be on fire,"

Mikayla pictured Irin or Sendo talking to Shao. ". . Fair enough,"

"We should ask our classmates to help look," Keldryn suggested. "Lydia can fly, if Shao's outside she'll find her,"

"And have to fill them in on the chicanery we've become embroiled in? Never! Think about what that would do to our reputation!" Nya retorted.

Mikayla scowled. "Is now really the time to think about

reputation?

"

"It is always the time to think about reputation!" Nya couldn't meet her eyes.

"Hold on. If we get a bunch of strangers to look for her, she won't trust them. She'll just run off again, or burn them," Keldryn pointed out.

They got outside, and Mikayla scanned the horizon for smoke. Fortunately, it didn't seem like anything was on fire.

"We should think about this rationally. What would Shao's priority have been?" Nya wondered.

When put like that, the answer was obvious to Mikayla. "Food,"

"Then we should try the mess hall,"

". . Where all our friends are?"

Nya processed that. ". . oh, by the Ghost Hound's taint,"

<=====}—o

"Nya, you check the kitchens, Keldryn you check the perimeter, I'll check the dining hall," Mikayla insisted.

"By all means," As Nya dashed off, Mikayla breathed a sigh of relief that Nya hadn't fought her on that. She doubted her roommate was going to approve of what she intended to do.

The mess hall was quite large, which wasn't unexpected - there were many more classes in Cloudscraper than just their group of twelve first-years. At a rough estimate, there were slightly fewer than two hundred students at the school. But that didn't impede Nya from finding the table where several of her classmates were eating dinner and calling, "Hey, everyone?"

The table mostly ignored her. Lydia and Treft were the only ones who spared her glances. Geum and Sekki were absent, and so was Irin. (Irin rarely ate with them; Mikayla got the impression that she didn't want to spend more time around Nya or Sendo than she had to.)

Mikayla frowned, and she forced herself to remember how this world worked. Don't be reasonable. Be

anime.

A ten-foot-long silver-red Sword slammed down the length of the table, making plates rattle and cutlery bounce away. All eyes immediately focused on Mikayla as she released her Sword Core. "Thank you. Now if everyone's paying attention, me and Nya have a situation,"

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Oh? Something the illustrious

Nya Han

cannot handle? Intriguing," Sendo folded her arms with a catlike smile.

"Okay, that right there is exactly why she didn't want me to ask for your help," Mikayla paused for a moment, then returned the smile. "Really, not only are you demeaning yourself by being so petty, you're acting exactly how Nya

expects

you to. Are you really going to give her that victory?"

Sendo mulled that over, then chuckled. "I see, I see. Go on then,"

"We're looking for a runaway yaoguai, eight years old ish, orange skin and black hair, about fifty-fifty odds that she's on fire,"

More than a few of her friends were mystified by this. "I haven't seen her, but I'm happy to help look," Lydia offered, standing.

"There's got to be a good story behind this," Sendo raised her eyebrows.

"I'll fill you in later if you help us find her," Mikayla promised.

Treft cleared his throat and offered a thumbs-up, then stood and raised his arms.

"High Keytar, tune up!"

his Core Controller announced as the hardlight keytar fell into his hands.

"Echo Locate! Tune up!"

His fingers danced across the keys and waves of sound spread from the High Keytar, soaking into the ground. Treft pressed one hand to his ear and closed his eyes.

His classmates watched him, confused.

After a few moments of this, he opened his eyes and waved his hand, and suddenly Mikayla's Local Map opened with a marker added to it. "Did . . you just . ." Mikayla trailed off disbelievingly.

Treft just nodded and sat back down.

"Okay that is a huge help. Thanks! Talk later!" Mikayla waved, already rushing off.

Lydia started after her, then hesitated. "Then, do you still need me?"

<=====}—o

A bit of shouting drew her two teammates back to her, and while they were on the move Mikayla explained the progress they'd made.

"The kitchen staff did also confirm that she came in here earlier. They figured she was one of the orphans from the Nursery trying to scavenge free food and they filled her belly. Unfortunately, we missed her," Keldryn weighed in.

"I didn't have any luck . . but that would have been plenty to go on with," Nya gave her the stinkeye.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Mikayla snorted. "You're being silly, trying to keep our friends out of it, and look at how helpful Treft was,"

"

If

his information is reliable," Keldryn pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but it's a better lead than anything we came up with,"

It only took a few minutes that were filled with Nya's grumpy silence until they arrived at the place Treft had indicated; a large and well-tended-to garden.

"Why does Cloudscraper need a garden?" Mikayla idly wondered as they entered.

"One part growing rare herbs, one part as a place for noble guests to hold meetings," Nya shrugged. "Shao! Where are you?"

"Do you really think she trusts us enough to come running when we call?" Mikayla skeptically asked.

"Considering that we've been running all over the place trying to find her because we're so worried about her!" Nya kept shouting. Mikayla was about to ask what she was doing, but then it hit her; Nya wanted to make sure Shao heard them. "I should hope she does!"

They kept walking, circling around the garden, but there was still no sign of their missing little firebrand. Mikayla was on the verge of giving up hope when, suddenly, Keldryn let out a high-pitched yip.

"So soft," Shao murmured, clutching Keldryn's tail in both hands and pressing it to her face.

Keldryn's ears flicked upwards, higher than Mikayla had ever seen them to before, and a violent shudder ran through his whole body. "No touchy!" he squeaked, trying unsuccessfully to pull himself free of the grabby child.

Shao yelped, panicked, and caught fire.

Her screams was rapidly drowned out by Keldryn's own as he shoved her away, twisting in frenzied circles while trying to grab at his tail and pat out the fire.

"Uh, whoops," Shao had the grace to wince as she clapped her hands to extinguish her fire, leaving Keldryn nursing an ugly singe mark.

"Shao!" Mikayla hugged her, breathing a sigh of relief.

"What are you doing?" Nya demanded as Shao squirmed.

"Was gonna surprise you. But I've never seen anything so soft. Wanted to cuddle it!" the eight-year-old defended herself, and Mikayla let her down once she was reassured that they had indeed found their missing little arsonist. Unfortunately, that just made it easier for Nya to shout at her.

"Why didn't you just stay in the room? We told you to!"

"No you didn't!"

"I certainly did! I left you a note!" Nya wrung her hands in exasperation.

"A note?"

"Yeah! Did you not see the piece of paper I left next to you?"

"Oh, that. You're being silly! Paper doesn't talk!"

"It was clearly written on it, 'We'll be back before sunset, stay here until then'!"

"Written?" Shao shrugged. "I dunno how to read,"

"You . . you don't . ." Nya spluttered.

Mikayla buried her face in her hands. "Okay. That should have occurred to me. Of course you don't know how to -" She paused. "Wait, then how do you use the System?"

"It talks to me! Doesn't yours?"

"No, it . . Nevermind," Mikayla groaned. "Alright. We clearly need to sort out permanent accomodations for you. Come on. We're going to see Wujing again, right now,"

"You do that," Keldryn scowled at the singe marks in his tail. "I'm going to go clean up,"