Capture Target

Haaaaa… you know, I’m feeling a bit tired, today.  Maybe we could just take the day off, you know?  No storytime, just one -- two -- okay, just four fucks, really take it easy.  Maybe order out, so nobody has to cook.

That sounds fine, right?

…Hmmm?

Ooooh, I don’t know~  Are you really that interested in what comes next?

Hmmm… but I’m feeling so laaaazy today…

Maybe tomorr-EEK!

---

Okay!  Okay!  You’ve made your point!

Ouch!  Look, even my ass can be overwhelmed if you keep on spanking it!

I’ll be good, I’ll be good!

…O-okay, that’s a fair point.  I’ll be, uh.  Less bad?

Ouch -- hey!  Stop that!

Okay fine!

Ugh!  I won’t do this again!  …Probably!

Ow!

Do you want storytime or not?!

I thought so, so stop groping me and fuck me, and then we can do it!

---

Last time… right.  I had just fled from the Empress, causing part of her own palace to collapse upon her.

This was -- well.  As of that point on, I was fucked.

The Empirical Empress had a lot… and I mean a lot… of robots that worked off of code and direct commands.  Some few had some basic neural networks that let them choose specific tactics, or adjust things on the fly… but even then, they were working off of a static code base.  They weren’t alive.

The Empress had only one robot that was truly alive:  Herself.

She just had ways of stretching that.  Including one really nasty one.

Her kill-and-replace infiltrator robots?  As I found out later, when Sumiko dissected some after the dust settled, they were all clones of the Empirical Empress.  Brainwashed to serve as spies and assassins for whom caring about their own lives above the Empress's will was literally unthinkable.

And of course, she had her hundreds of non-people remote controlled empty shell copies of herself.  

She had only one ‘main’ body.  The big one, that was charging after me.  

But she had hundreds of simpler ones. They weren’t as strong, weren’t as smart, weren’t as capable as her ‘true’ self, but they were still dangerous, especially with their perfect coordination.  And the vast majority of them were in the palace.

This was, uh.

…This was bad.

There was one thing that saved me.

My combat cybernetics.  My improved eyes, and my magic engine heart. 

The eyes were a true marvel.  Everything I saw got filtered through my knowledge, and what I considered important stood out to me amongst any amount of visual mess.  In the day-to-day, this ‘merely’ had the incredibly useful trait of never having your eyes skip over something you’re looking for, like keys or a measuring cup.

In ‘running for your life’, it let me know precisely where every hidden passageway and every weak point was.

And as for the magic heart, and the [Elemental Magic (basic) - C] talent it granted me, it -- well.

Immediately after ducking out of the power room, still desperately holding onto the massive crystal, two Empress clones showed up.  They were darting down from two different hallways.

Now, fun thing about robots.  Machines in general, really.

They’re made of metal.

Typically, ‘basic elemental magic’ means ‘fire, water, earth, air’, right?

But remember, Alchemical Corruption works on the Chinese system of elements.  I didn’t have access to ‘fire, water, earth, air’.

I had ‘wood, fire, earth, metal, water’.

Oh, sure, manipulating the metal in something classified as a ‘monster’ would be absurdly exhausting.  But that was fine, because I wasn't targeting them. 

The thing about the Robolands is that everything is made of metal.

The grass is.  The 'water' in the rivers is.  The buildings are.  The very dirt is made of metal.

And so was the Empirical Empress’s palace.

I didn’t have unlimited mana.  And at the level of [C], I couldn’t do anything complicated with enough speed, nor could I do it particularly effortlessly.

But I knew this palace well.

So when I saw them running at me from two different hallways, the one straight ahead and the one to the right, I merely took a turn to the left.  There were doors that could automatically shut throughout the palace if it had power, to capture intruders.

Of course, it didn’t have power at the time.  Because I stole it.  

But the doors were still there, and they didn’t need power to remain closed.

It was a bit expensive, but I stripped a solid bar of metal from the ceiling, and the thick metal wall slammed down.  I would have tripped if it wasn’t for the fancy heels I was wearing.  As it was, I could keep on running.

And run I did.

The palace was big, and full of Empress clones.  I couldn’t afford to stop, as I had Things To Do.

So I ran.  

All the while carrying a massive fucking crystal in my arms.  

I downed the mana potions that Sumiko had smuggled to me.  I had to quickly dodge into side corridors as bullets started firing at me, and I had to jump into a crawlspace to avoid getting surrounded by Empress clones, and I nearly ripped my skirt!

Yes!  Thank you!

It was awful!

On top of that, I was still tired, hungry, and thirsty, and by the time I stumbled out of the palace, I was exhausted.

That was where the first person was supposed to meet me was, Takeo.  And he…

…Ugh.

…

He performed admirably, okay?!

He was there, hidden using a particularly fragile camouflage cloak, and when he saw me dart out of the palace he discarded the now-useless cloak and immediately jumped forward with a massive barrel-shaped bomb.

This was a bomb that I tended to avoid using.

Because it was too goddamn powerful.

If you didn’t throw it away far enough, it absolutely would damage you.  Heavily damage you.  

So he didn't throw it, he was at the top of a hill and kicked it rolling downhill toward my pursuers.  

I almost wished the heels I was wearing weren’t so goddamn balanced, because I wanted to trip and fall so I could rest a bit.  Instead, I just slowed down, panting, giving Takeo a glare for daring to be useful.

…I really didn’t want to change my mind about him.

He looked at me, snorted like he could read my thoughts, and then helped me get the crystal into the backpack Sumiko had brought me, since this was the first spare moment I had to even do that much since the chase started.   

We didn’t bother speaking as we moved; we both knew time was of the essence, and I needed every breath I could take.  He gave me a satchel bag that contained a plethora of bombs.  Bomb-bombs as well as smoke-bombs!  Plus he passed me a handful of nutrition pills and stamina, and even if they tasted like trash, I needed the calories and energy, so I downed them as fast as I could swallow.  

And then Takeo spoke.

He said, “You’re late.”  With a stupid, hot, smug smirk on his face -- the ass.

I, naturally, flipped him off.  I asked, “Can you take care of things here?”  And when he nodded, I slumped a bit.  Taking a moment to catch my breath.

He then said, “Wait.  There’s been a change in plans.”

That, uh.  I admit, I didn’t take that too well.  I didn’t like having my plans changed, even if my plan wasn't really -- good.

The core problem was that the Empress is a hard fight.  She had a special attack in the game that represented her calling in an artillery barrage, and she had tons of health and armor.  On top of that, her troops would never rout, because they were robots.  For Kaizer and Big Bull’s, forces, they’d run away if they got too damaged.  Because they were alive and sane.

We had planned to have all sorts of weapons at the ready.  A small army from both Kaiser and Big Bull, ready to clash.  Potions and bombs that we were still creating to cover every possible event.

…All of that was down the drain, now.

Thankfully, we had Hayato on our side.

The Kingdom's Royal Champion with the [Tactician - S] talent.

The new plan was fairly simple:  The old plan, modified for both sides bringing less to the fight. 

Hayato, it came out later, knew the moment he heard that I hadn't come back from the Empress's palace that the pitched battle would come soon.  Not at the end of year three, the immediate future.  

But ultimately the plan had always been to recruit Big Bull and Kaiser, then set a trap in the landmass center.  Help the locals bleed the Empress's forces during her march there, then spring an ambush with three armies, one each from the Wildlands, Farmlands, and Kingdom.

Hayato was of the opinion that if anything, things worked out better this way.  Sure, the Kingdom's military preparations weren't all Hayato wanted.  But because the Empress would only be chasing me, she wouldn't be marshaling her artillery cannons because they were slow to haul around.  Hayato thought of them as more dangerous than even the Robolands cyber-dragons, because at least when they wanted to kill you, they had to get close enough you could fight back.

Takeo, as our hunter-gatherer and troubleshooter, had been helping Hayato survey the terrain for all of year three.  And when I broke free of the Empress's drone brainwashing, they were almost done with preparations for a smash-and-grab rescue mission into the Empress's palace.  Complete with a fighting retreat plan to try baiting the Empress into the pitched battle trap.

My breaking free on my own just made everything that much smoother.

Takeo gave me a list of areas to go to, and in what order to go to them.  They had entire resupply locations set up and everything!

What I needed to do was simple.  Run the route I was given from location to location, ensuring that the Empress continued to chase me, trailing her through ambushes to bleed her and her forces so she showed up at the landmass center with as little fighting ability left as possible.  

That was why Takeo was here.

Oh, sure.  When the Empress burst out of the palace riding a massive three-headed cyber-dragon that breathed lightning and death, he couldn’t do a thing about that.

What he could do something about was the small army of robots that was flooding out of the palace.

With his royal shield and his [Stamina - S] talent, combined with knowledge gained from over a hundred loops, he could absolutely shred the robot army while the Empress wasn't micromanaging them in a tireless running battle.

…Though from what I saw as I started running away from the massive cyber-dragon chasing me, he was mostly using bombs with a maniacal look on his face.

To be honest?

I related to that.

---

First stop:  A canyon area in the Robolands.  

I felt like screaming as winged metal death with a crazed robot on top of it was chasing me.

And that was when a metal lance the length of a fucking car flew through the air and impaled one of the three heads.  The cyber-dragon jolted, fumbling and flapping its wings to counterbalance the impaled head just dropping and dangling down at the end of its long serpentine neck. 

My head whipped around until I spotted Royal Champion Hayato atop a big metallic hill, holding a red-metal bow half-again his already massive height.  He was surrounded by steel-hafted spears impaled into the false soil, and he was already stringing his next shot onto his bow by the time I saw him.  

Then he shouted at me, "Kaiser fucked up handling his infiltrator problem!  Use the Farmlands route!"

I swore, loudly, and ran.

The Empress tried following me on her cyber-dragon, but it shuddered and flew clumsier with every arrow-spear Hayato launched into its body and wings.  It wasn't long before the Empress turned her dragon around, clearly intending to try making quick work of Hayato, which gave me a precious few minutes where I was able to flee out of sight of her into a metallic forest.

I didn't get twenty steps in before my legs were grabbed by tentacles, fleshy tentacles, and I was lifted off the ground, dangling upside down.

I started to scream in alarm when a tentacle rammed its way into my mouth.

---

Yuki said that the roper tentacle into my mouth was to shut me up, but considering she thrust and rammed it into me until it gushed tentacle cum into my mouth and belly, I didn't and don't really buy that.

Shimizu didn't buy it either, but told me that sex was the best recovery for me, and then ordered me to ride her cock with my pussy.

…I'm still kinda embarrassed by how right Shimizu was.  I felt like I'd gotten in a full power nap, for how rested I felt after that marathon, by the time Yuki suddenly jolted and said we needed to start moving again.

A few minutes later, the Empress, now minus her dragon but accompanied by combat robots, ran forward into the forest using the same path I had -- and blindly charged straight into a tripwire trap that sprayed a sheet of alchemical rusting solution over her and her robots. 

It was time for a rousing game of Whack-a-Mole, with Yuki and Shimizu as the conductors!

I wasn't there for it, mind.  The whole thing was to buy me time to continue fleeing at a measured walking and jogging pace, not at an exhausting 'I need to run away from a dragon' sprint.  But I went to the forest after the dust settled because Yuki and Shimizu wanted to show off the traps they hadn't used.

They set hundreds of those things!  

Or, well, Yuki did.  

Shimizu wasn't a trap-user the same way, but what she was, was super lethal to the combat robots.  Her presence meant that the Empress couldn't just send robots ahead in ones and twos to sacrifice them on triggering traps and clear the path that way, no, it was a running battle.  

Shimizu was constantly scything down combat robots with flicks of her sword and clashing with the Empirical Empress head-on.  Yuki was constantly fishing for sniper potshots on the Empirical Empress with the Atlantean rifle and, after it ran out, her crossbow, snaking shots past the Empress's bodyguard robots at her.  Around them, the combat robots kept stumbling into traps and snagging on the dense metal foliage, only able to advance with any speed along the path the Empress was clearing.

And the Empress was, of course, a murderous crazy person.  

She didn't even try to back up and go around the forest, she just kept plowing ahead through, screaming insults and promises of revenge at the two of them.

The Empress got through in the end, after the main force of her combat robots arrived. Traps or not, Shimizu or not, they could drown everything with an ocean of angry metal.  So they sprung a bunch of last traps and ran away, fleeing out of the Empress's path to me.

But they bought me enough time to get to the Farmlands border, and wound-up the Empress enough that she led her main force straight into Big Bull's trap.

---

The Farmlands was full of wide, open areas.  Farms and fields for growing all sorts of crops.

In other words, it was impossible to hide any kind of big ambush.  

Takeo's ambush only worked because the Empress hadn't been paying attention to anything outside her palace at the time.  Hayato's ambush only worked because he's an absurd monster.  Yuki and Shimizu's ambush only worked because of their trap-filled metallic forest.

And all of those only worked because it wasn't the Robolands main force they fought.  

Even Kaiser and Hayato together couldn't fight a good sized army by themselves and do more than take a chunk down with them before they fell.

So when the Empress arrived at the border and saw nothing but me and a small unit of Farmland troops around a cluster of tents, she commanded her main force to charge straight in.

And once it was clear that it wasn't a feint, that the Empress had committed, Omori came out.

Well, uh.

She was carried out.

By two bulls, one on each side of her.  

She was so massively pregnant I wasn't sure she could even stay standing without help, her tattoo was almost entirely filled in, and she had a big drunk smile on face as she giggled and cooed at the two bulls carrying her.

Because this field was prepared in advance.

Do you remember the porcine flora?

The giant plant-monster boar plants that surrounded the minotaur village back on the first landmass?

They were planted, en masse, in this field.

And Omori had [Nature Magic - B].

What was previously a peaceful farm became a pig-based arena of destruction.  Metal shards and shredded lettuce were everywhere within seconds.  

All Omori had to do was accelerate the growth just a bit, and enhance their aggression just a touch.

Sure, that many pig plants drained all the nutrients from the field, so it’d have to lay fallow for something close to a decade to recover, but it caught and wrecked the Empress's densely-packed main force.

When the remnants of the main force finally disentangled and retreated, it was all too easy for me to imagine the Empirical Empress screaming and fuming.  

I knew she wouldn't give up.  That she'd been pushed too far.  That even if I went back to the mainland, she'd just awaken every single one of her cyber-dragons and attack the Kingdom itself to get at me.  I couldn't even take the chance to truly rest because of the timeslot system.  

But at least I would be able to walk to the landmass center at a leisurely, restful pace. 

But just as I was moving to leave, Big Bull stepped out of one of the tents  

He looked at me with intent, smoldering eyes.  He walked forward with a calm, confident gait, and said, “Elizabeth Ambrosia, after seeing your actions during this time of crisis, I would be honored if you would become my fiance.  I swear to treat -”

I do not remember the rest of what he said.

My mind got stuck on the ‘fiance’ part.

I was tired, hungry, and thirsty.  I could really only stay balanced due to the magic in my heels.  And I was trying to process what he just said when he gave me a full bouquet of roses.

And a ring.

I stared at them.  Trying to process.  Trying to label what I was feeling.

And then I felt a familiar warmth wash through me.

[Blessing:  Romance Obsessed]
[Requirements:  During a moment of intense danger, realize that the most important thing in life is a romance between two fated partners -- while not having the blessing ‘Easy Prey’ or the blessing ‘Hard Predator’.]
[Effects:  You always know when one has true affection for you.  Those that would be a good match for you will have an easier time romancing you.]

…I melted on the inside.

And then Big Bull stopped talking, brows furrowing as he squinted at me.

Then he relaxed, leaned in, and whispered, “...I’m going to want that ring back tomorrow.”