Unwilling Eldritch Horror of Fortune

We all stared at the thing in awe although no one besides Jae-Hyun knew what it did. I couldn’t wait for him to explain it, so I took the time to see if I could glean some information with my Arbiter skill.

Omen Machine: A machine used for training purposes. It can recreate any foe that the user has encountered before, allowing up to 10 party members to practice their skills against these recreations without the fear of death.

“This is the Omen Machine,” he explained, “It allows us to fight against preprogrammed enemies if we enter that sphere, there’s pretty much every kind of creature available in there. It’s the perfect training tool.”

Hm, so he’s not telling the whole truth there. Although it’s basically the same thing if we’re using the Regressor’s memories to power the thing. I’m pretty sure he’s faced every foe imaginable in his past life. Now that I think about it more, this would be the perfect tool given Jae-Hyun’s unique situation; he should have a pretty good idea of what kinds of creatures we’ll encounter in the future, and if we can practice fighting them before the actual trial, then we’d have an overwhelming advantage. We could even test our tactics against future bosses with this thing.

“I’m assuming that we can’t die in there?” I asked tentatively, it wouldn’t be a very good training tool if we all got killed while in it.

“No,” he answered, “but you will still feel the injuries, so we can’t use it constantly. It is otherwise safe if we limit how often we go in.”

“How about using it to gain experience and levels?” I added.

“Unfortunately it is a training tool only, so we can’t use it to cheat the system.”

Damn, there goes my hopes of using that thing to cheese killing the same bosses over and over again to level up like crazy.

“However,” he continued, “Leveling up is not the only way to improve, nor is it the most effective. Increased stats are worthless if you do not have the skill to back them up, and we can hone our abilities to the extreme using this.”

I nodded, agreeing with the reasoning behind what he said.

“Which brings me to my last point,” the Regressor said, “I’m sure everyone here, except our newest member, saw the problems that we faced in the last trial.”

Vadeem frowned, “The darkness did a number on all of us?”

“That was one of the problems,” he answered calmly, “But not the main one. Father Marcus should alleviate those types of issues in the future, even with Walter’s unique constitution.”

Oh, he was able to help me out? I wonder how that works… although my gut was telling me that it’ll be anything but pleasant. The creepy priest gave a small nod of acknowledgement which only reaffirmed my fears.

“What our real problem is that we have no experience fighting as a team,” Jae-Hyun continued, “We are not using our strengths to the fullest when we fight a singular foe, and we will be facing increasingly more challenging enemies in the future that require proper coordination and teamwork.”

Well, that’s some ominous news. I certainly didn’t want to face any more giant stone golems or six-armed giants in the future, but what choices did I have in the matter? The damn Origin Matrix had its metaphorical eyes set on destroying me and Noe, and I’m willing to bet my left feeler that it’ll send us on more bullshit Trials in the future.

“Alright, let’s try it out then!” Noel said with glee, “I wanna try out this sweet new tactic I’ve been cooking up.”

“Huh,” Vadeem added with a smile, “And I got a few moves I want to try out as well. A little bit of the Vadeem team special!”

The Regressor calmly shook his head, “Unfortunately we can’t use it at the moment.”

I frowned, “Why not? Do we not have access to it fully?”

“No, we just don’t have the fuel necessary to start it up.”

I nodded. Made sense, there’s no way something like that would be available for us to use for free, even if they never initially intended for any Aspirant to own the thing.

“So how do we power it up?” Vadeem asked as he studied the structure closer, “I assume we can’t just plug it into the mains.”

“No shit Vadumb,” Noel answered with an eye roll, “I’m assuming we put something in this little slot thing?”

Jae-Hyun smiled, “Exactly, which brings me to tonight’s meeting.”

We all turned to face him. Jae-Hyun had this uncanny ability to capture your attention when he wanted to discuss something important.

“We need the cores of monsters for this machine to function, or more specifically, processed cores,” he continued.

Wait, I think I remembered hearing about them before when Raffiel said I caused some core resonance when I used Noe on that first zombie. I’m pretty sure that the Regressor also used some to make those defective flares of his, but I never gave the subject much thought before.

“I don’t think we saw any in the second Trial,” Vadeem thought for a moment before saying, “You have any of those, Marcus?”

The priest shook his head gently, “No, I don’t believe I saw any either, although I’m to assume that there is a special method to their extraction.”

“Exactly,” the Regressor affirmed, “but we can talk about how to extract them later, it’s not difficult once you know what to look out for. Just know that we need to make it a priority to acquire as many cores as we can.”

“So, we hunt critters and get their cores?” Noel asked.

“Partly, but the eight of us will never get enough to power the machine,” he continued, “Which is why I wanted us to have a firm foothold on Pandora.”

“Ah, so we’re to buy them off the others,” I said, “Are the cores useful for anything else?”

“Minimally for now,” Jae-Hyun answered, “But they will explode in value soon. We can keep prices low while they’re still relatively useless and I’ve already made plans to have the Aspirants here collect and process them. I’ve already distributed the method to harvest cores, and the next step is to teach the noncombatants on how to process them for use.”

Thank goodness that our leader has all of this stuff figured out, but that’s the power of knowing the future for you. I’m not sure how valuable these core things will be in the future, but if we control all of the people who can process them, and have a huge hoard of it stored up, then I can only imagine how rich we’ll all be in the not too distant future. Perhaps my one hundred million will be but a drop in the bucket for the Abyss guild’s coffers in the future.

“But,” the Regressor continued, “We cannot slack off either, the other Aspirants might be able to get us a lot of cores, but the quality of the ones that the masses can get will be low. In order to do what I want with the Machine, we’ll need to hunt down foes that they cannot.”

“Right,” grumbled Vadeem, “You did say that there’s enemies that we can destroy outside these walls. We’ve been cooped up here for so long that I almost forgot. Man do I need some proper exercise.”

“Alright,” I added, seeing where this conversation was going, “So what’s the first mission for the Abyss guild?”

Jae-Hyun flashed me one of his rare genuine smiles, “We go on an expedition, of course. However, I will have to ask you to stay back, Father.”

The Priest nodded, “I understand, there is still much chaos that needs to be quenched with the Aspirants, and they will need a guiding hand in the coming days.”

“Thank you, I apologize for having you work after just joining.”

“It is not a problem,” he answered with a smile, “I am just glad to be the guiding hand that leads the masses.”

The meeting concluded quite quickly after that. The Regressor had to make plans for an extended absence, but since our Guild was so new, it wasn’t that big of a deal if all of its core members left for a while. The few production workers we had hired were already busy with their various assignments, and they could be trusted to work independently for a week or two; the creepy Father could take care of the rest.

Jae-Hyun told us that this would be the only time that we could afford such luxuries, unfortunately, and I can only imagine how much his little organization will grow in the future. Either way, it did take another two days to get everything set up for our voyage, and as always, our quiet leader chose not to enlighten us on where exactly we were going. Apparently, Yoona didn’t know either, although we did our best to bribe some information out of her.

“You sure you can’t get doe-eyed for your brother and get him to tell us where we’re going, bestie?” Noel pleaded, “You know he’s got a soft spot for you!”

“I can’t, Noel,” Yoona said with a sigh, “And he has enough things to worry about, he doesn’t need me to get in his way.”

Vadeem had gone out with the twins to get some last-minute stuff for the trip, while Marcus was gone doing whatever creepy thing he normally does with the Aspirants, so it was just the three of us hanging out in the lounge right now. Without the internet and modern technology, there just wasn’t a lot to do for fun other than chat and relax.

“And plus,” Yoona continued, “We’ll all be leaving in a few hours, I’m sure my brother will tell us his plans then.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Noel grumbled, “Just wish I knew what we were getting into so I could prep better. All we know is that it’ll be a long trip.”

Yoona looked confused, “But Jae-Hyun told you what to bring.”

“I know that,” Noel answered with a pout, “But I want to bring stuff myself this time. Our leader’s like, omniscient, but that doesn’t mean that he should have all the fun when it comes to choosing what to bring!”

Yoona sighed.

“And I say we take some board games with us!” Noel continued, “And maybe some snacks for when we get hungry, I don’t want to rely on Vadeem’s stupid suitcase for everything.”

And on and on the two went, although it was mostly Noel talking with Yoona was doing her best to keep up with the other girl’s ramblings. I tuned out of their conversation quickly and just wished there was something else for me to do other than wait. There weren't even any books around here to read; you’d think that you could buy a nice novel with everything else available here. I swore I’d use my wealth to commission proper literature later on.

However, before too long, the Regressor completed whatever last-minute planning he had, and called for everyone to meet up in front of the building. Noel all but jumped out of the place, while Yoona and I followed behind. I knew that it would take us a few days to get to whatever destination Jae-Hyun had in mind, so I expected transportation of some sort, maybe some sort of carriage or the like, but I wasn’t expecting what I saw.

Outside of the guild building was a square, bus-shaped object that looked like it had enough room to more than comfortably house the eight of us. It wouldn’t have been strange if it was pulled by horses or some other four-legged creature, instead, it was tied to the underside of a goddamn dragon. A big red one at that. Where the hell did the Regressor find this thing?

The massive creature was at least the size of any modern commercial aircraft and maybe twice as wide. The thing seemed docile enough, although every twitch and breath it would take would shake the air around it. A person was riding the impressive creature’s head, nestled away on a comfortable-looking seat, but he was so far away that I couldn’t make out any features.

Wrapped around the dragon’s stomach with various ropes and chains was the traveling compartment, and I was a little dubious about the safety of such a setup. We all looked at our transportation in awe, well, Marcus didn’t seem to have any reaction to it, but that was mainly because nothing seemed to faze the guy and he wasn’t getting on it in any case.

“Uh…” I muttered, still not believing what I was seeing, I couldn’t find the right words to say, so I just remained slack-jawed.

“Wow…” Noel added with as much awe as me, “I always wanted to ride a dragon…”

Vadeem looked a little dubious, “Is that, uh, safe? Look, riding a dragon’s cool and all, but I, uh, I don’t do heights or flying really well.”

The twins looked on with mouths hanging open, and they didn’t need to speak for me to understand how much they wanted to ride the thing. However, when they noticed Vadeem’s hesitation, they gave him gentle pats on the back, letting him know that everything would be fine. It looked honestly pretty funny seeing them comfort someone so much bigger than them.

“It’s completely safe,” Jae-Hyun answered, “And it’s the only way to get where we need to go. Hop in, we’ll talk more on the way.”

“Right…” I muttered as I stepped into the housing area, “And how did you manage to rent a dragon of all things?”

He shrugged as he forced Vadeem on, “You can do a lot if you have the necessary funds.”

The rest of the party stepped on calmly, and that was the start of our first expedition via dragon. If only I knew that our method of transportation would be the least outlandish part of the trip.

 

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