Sworded Affair

Chapter 175: An Eye For An Eye

[WARNING: You have committed a crime against Arcadia. You are now marked for death.]

Despite the scary message that now repeated itself periodically in her notifications, Emma wasn’t worried. Sure, Security Droids were swarming her location from every direction, but they were still Level 15, and despite the declaration of lethality, were quite lightly armed. More importantly, they had no way of dealing with her defences, which made them as good as sitting ducks.

[Security Droid x7 defeated.

350 EXP gained.]

Emma wasn’t going out of her way to farm them, as her first priority was still to clear the timed dungeon, but she made sure to destroy any that wandered within arm’s reach, as she headed towards The Liberation at a brisk walk. One solid blow was enough to deal with each Droid, after which she immediately returned to intangibility, safe from any reprisal. It was calm, soothing work, reminding Emma of her early adventures, back when the biggest threats she faced were a bunch of possessed trees.

[Security Droid defeated.

50 EXP gained.]

It hardly needed her full attention, allowing Emma to consider the words of the Idol, at the conclusion of the Hall of Beginning. It was capable of completely nullifying magic, like her own Null Zone but on a far bigger scale, and came into being as a result of what Emma could only describe as an apocalyptic death cult, complete with black robes and chanting in hidden caves. The scale of it painted a worrying image; the mention of cells seeded across multiple planets in particular.

“Are aliens a thing?” Emma had to ask. “I wouldn’t have thought so, but until recently I’d have said the same about magic, so, just making sure.”

[The Empire, as far as I’m aware, has never encountered alien life on Earth. At least, not according to the classical definition of alien, being an advanced, sentient extraterrestrial species arriving from another planet, many light years away. Some would consider the summoned demons and their kin, like the fae, to be extraterrestrial, but that’s largely a misconception. They may occupy pocket dimensions on different layers of reality, but in terms of space and time, they are overlaid with Earth, and only Earth. You wouldn’t call someone who lives at the top of a skyscraper an alien, just because their feet rarely ever touch the ground.

Security Droid defeated.

50 EXP gained.]

“No War of the Worlds scenarios, then.”

[No little green men in their flying saucers. Unfortunately then, humanity has never needed other species to make them go to war. Once you hit the 2300s, and there’s different branches of humanity heading off to found their own societies on separate, terraformed planets? Well, it’s safe to say none of them particularly liked the idea of staying subordinate to Earth, just because that’s where their ancestors came from.]

“Oh.”

Yet another Security Droid tried to apprehend Emma, diving and falling straight through her intangible form like many before it. A precise cut took his head off, and that’s all she wrote.

[Security Droid defeated.

50 EXP gained.

WARNING: Due to persistent refusal to surrender, the Warden has been deployed.]

“Is that bad?” Emma raised an eyebrow, looking around for a larger and deadlier droid to spawn.

Moments later, a familiar sight came into view on high, the massive eyeball that had blasted her down to 1 Anima in a single attack, earlier on.

It tracked Emma unceasingly, prevented from attacking only by the layered intangibility and anti-magic at her disposal. Not wanting a second encounter with the eyeball, Emma kept Ephemera and Null Zone active from that point onwards, ignoring the remaining Security Droids by simply walking through them.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 9 hours, 44 minutes.]

Slowly but surely, Emma trudged her way to the next building on her list, The Liberation. This particular building was a massive chrome spheroid, built in the proportions of a rugby ball lying on its side. Only the middle of the building touched the ground, with either side suspended in the air through an impressive feat of engineering.

“Still not the ugliest building in London,” was Emma’s only quip, as she reached the door.

The door which refused to open, no matter how much she poked and prodded at it.

“Huh. Alright then, Duplicate, it's time for you to take one for the team.”

[Ephemera (Toggle: OFF)

Null Zone (Toggle: OFF)

Duplicate defeated.]

Emma called her summon and deactivated her defences at the same time, stepping through the now open door immediately. As planned, her summon took the eye’s attention for just a second, long enough to slip through without eating a second shot. By definition, this plan had fifty-fifty odds of success, but Emma still preferred to lose one summon, rather than having to waste One With Everything before even starting the next scenario.

As before, her surroundings faded to black, reassembling themselves moments later into a foreign environment. This time, Emma found herself strapped into a cockpit, a truly bewildering array of symbols before her. The language was unfamiliar, and even the System’s translation didn’t really help. Oh, it rendered the symbol-based language into English, sure, but that didn’t help when none of the words meant anything to her. A dictionary, in this case, brought only clarity, not comprehension.

The best Emma could do was look around, taking advantage of her unit’s excellent field of view to examine her surroundings. Dozens, if not hundreds of similar machines surrounded her on all sides, though their occupants looked to be adult men wearing proper flight uniforms, complete with goggles and breathing apparatus. Her radio was beeping incessantly, one of the few buttons that made sense, but which Emma was hesitant to use, lest it betray her complete lack of understanding to her fellow pilots.

[Oh, this looks to be the obligatory vehicle level.]

“Do you know how to fly this thing?” Emma hissed, as her surrounding mechs began to take off.

[Um. Good luck?]