Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?

Meanwhile…

'Alright, I think at this point the metal bodies have cooled down and can now be worked into being proper bodies for those fragments. Hmm. I wonder if I'm supposed to slide them in while they're still in those ball… wait a minute…why do I feel like I forgot something important…'

[Uh…War Chief?] Rail Horn suddenly piped up in Zhen Liu's head, just as he was about to walk back to the forge room. [We might have a problem.]

'What kind of problem?'

[One last: fuck you from our favorite knock-off,] Pegasoar answered.

'Fuck.'

…Now back to the emotional trauma…

^That…looks like her…I think,^ Antonio muttered as he continued to look through various pictures depicting the kaijin known as Nine Claws.

To her credit, the kaijin looked beautiful and fierce.

^Where did you guys get these pictures?^

<=Don't worry about it,=> Logos and Pathos answered at the same time.

<But let me guess,> Pathos continued, while taking the form of a psychiatrist. <You have some doubts about her being your adoptive mama?>

^Yes…I have doubts,^ Antonio admitted as he finished parsing through the images of Nine Claws. ^Are you sure you don't have any means of replicating her voice? Like a special type of aether conch shell?^

=Unfortunately, we don't,= Logos admitted. =But not for lack of trying, but because of…certain permissions.=

There was a strange bitterness to his voice as he said the word "permission," but that bitterness was quickly dismissed by Antonio and Lythero.

There were bigger things to worry about.

^Alright, who is this kaijin that you believe to be my adoptive mother?

<Brace yourself, because this next one is…weird.>

^That…why do I get the feeling your definition of weird is going to be my new standard for weird?^ Antonio asked with a worried expression.

=She's exaggerating,= Logos interjected before Pathos made any weird suggestions.

With a gesture, Logos replaced the dossier for Nine Claws with a cat kaijin of a similar silhouette, but an entirely different build.

Namely, this cat kaijin looked as if she were a humanoid wearing the skin of a large jungle cat over her face like a hoodie, with the pair of long fangs hanging from the rim of the hood.

At a glance, this cat-like kaijin looked very much like a barbarian warrior woman. However, if one were to take a closer look at the limbs, they would notice that the cat pelt she was wearing seemed to stretch all over her body and merge with her limbs. Well, that and her tail looked like it had a giant hammer attached to the tip.

^Okay, she doesn't look weird but…^ Antonio trailed off as he directed a gaze in Lythero's direction. ^Why does she remind me of your girl, Kidanna?^

^I…can't tell if that was a jab or an accurate statement,^ Lythero weirdly agreed as he mentally compared this new kaijin with his lady love. ^I should send her a message soon…^

<Muscle mommies aside,> Pathos interjected, <the kaijin before you is one we used to call Wild Saber. As you can see, she was originally made from the hide of a Savage Sabertooth Tiger.>

^No shit,^ Lythero and Antonio commented at the exact same time.

^Wait a minute,^ Lythero followed up. ^I thought kaijin had to be made from stuff that had an immense amount of "value" to them. I've seen Savage Sabertooth Tigers before. They're like…2nd-tier aether beasts at best. Even their materials can only be made into equipment suitable for Acolytes and Masters at the first ring or so.^

^To be fair, I did hear somewhere once that the members of tigers could be used to make a very potent vitality potion,^ Antonio suggested.

<=Please do not attempt to castrate tigers; those recipes were banned for a very good reason.=>

^Wait, it's true?!^

<Regardless,> Pathos interrupted in order to get the conversation back on track. <What you stated about items needing "value" in order to be turned into kaijin is true, but that rule can be circumvented by the usage of items that have a lot of "meaning" to them instead.>

=The Kaijin Lord that created Wild Saber was a fellow once known to the wider world as the Savage Survivor. The pelt that served as materials for Wild Saber's corporeal form was once the blanket he had slept on as a babe.=

^Hold up, did you just say the Savage Survivor?!^ Antonio yelled in alarm at the mentioning of that name.

^Out of all the Kaijin Lords in the world…^

Once upon a time, there was an upstart king from the lands of Soaring Gryphon who had sought to unite the world under his wings and become an emperor.

The first step in doing so involved wiping out all of the local barbarian tribes, claiming their lands, and securing the resources necessary to raise an army of champions.

Several dozen tribes, with unfathomable histories and secrets that would never be recorded due to being passed down via oral traditions, were wiped clean off the face of the planet.

The survivors of these crusades were either processed as slaves or used as materials for darker rituals, with very few having been able to escape into a life of freedom… and starvation.

The Savage Survivor was a person who had managed to become the latter.

The Savage Survivor had managed to eke out a living on the edges of society, killing those who dared to try and make a profit off of him, stealing from those who would never even spare a coin to feed a child, and dreaming of revenge all the while.

Both his name and the name of his tribe became lost to the annals of history, but the Savage Survivor's title and deed would go down forever as a cautionary tale as to why one must either learn to respect their neighbors or wipe them out completely.

For a year or two after having to live like a vicious alley dog, the Savage Survivor had stumbled upon a peculiar-looking ring.

=Out of all of the Kaijin Lords we had served under, the Savage Survivor was the most...well, savage.=

<Every last one of his kaijin were created from tribal relics from both his past and the past of other conquered tribes,> Pathos explained. <And those kaijin, for whatever reason, were simultaneously the most vicious fighters in existence, as well as the most caring.>

Proving this point, Pathos began to flip through the pictures of Wild Saber to show Lythero and Antonio.

^Well...this is incredibly jarring to look through.^

Some of the pictures depicted Wild Sbser as a wild and violent warrior who used people's limbs as toys, while others showcased her taking care of elderly folks and playing with children using toys she had made from stone, wood, and bone.

Needless to say, these pictures threw Antonio and Lythero for a loop.

^How did the old End Ballads for the Savage Survivor go again?^ Antonio asked Lythero as he compared the war time pictures with the peaceful ones.

^I don't remember all of it,^ Lythero admitted.^But I remember the most important part of it.^

^Remind me?^

^The survivor rose from the ashes of his kin, and carried the scars of their rage. With their power and their fury, he walked through hell untouched, and rallied the monsters that would burn his kin's killers in turn.^

^Right...^

Many who heard the song, assumed that the Savage Survivor must've learned some strange formula or aether art that allowed him to tap into the ancestral power locked in his veins and rampage across the kingdom until he slaughtered the king and all who were responsible for his tribe's untimely demise.

But, with the added context of the kaijin and the Kaijin Lords, Lythero and Antonio managed to understand a slightly more interesting story.

^Weird question: since all of the Savage Survivor's Kaijin were made using tribal relics, what about the [Cores]? Were they also uniform or similar to one another in nature?^ Lythero asked as he noticed that in the background of some of the photos, he noticed kaijin that looked very similar to Wild Saber in terms of aesthetics and detail.

Lythero had no idea if there were any rules to Kaijin creation, since Zhen Liu's collection of kaijin were rather varying in terms of design. However, he got the feeling that a lot of the previous Lords had Kaijin that contributed to their respective moniker.

=Sort of...= Logos trailed off as he racked his brain for more information. =Many of the [Cores] he extracted and used were sourced from his fellow tribal people. Not his actual tribe, since he was the sole survivor, but I mean the people from various other tribes who had suffered the same fate.=

<Spoiler alert,> Pathos interrupted. <A lot of those tribes people either had a lot of vengeance in their heart, or a whole mess of sadness and despair. The Kaijin created from this were actually very similar to Frosttusk now that I think about it.>

^Who?^

...Meanwhile...

'Frosttusk, sorry to disturb you, but please report to the gate. We have problems.'