The Return

by Nathan Valerio

  Programming

  Basic 1

  The skill to design new programs for automatons and machines. This skill lets you understand better computer coding.

  +5% increase to ability when making basic level software.

  Marksmanship

  Basic 1

  The art of shooting a gun and hitting your target with precision.

  +2% damage when using a firearm of any kind.

  +2% increase in precision when using a gun.

  Machine Weapon Building

  Basic 1

  You know your way around with your tools to the point of being able to make weapons that can be added directly to your body.

  +5% increase in ability when making a machine weapon (weapons that attach directly onto robots and follow system orders).

  Seemed all my skills reset to level 1 of the current rank. That was good because I wouldn’t need to retrain so much. But the level cut sucked. Half our levels. I was a little over 50% into level 24. Really sucked, we would need to grind a lot to get back. Not only that our bodies had been nearly reset.

  Well at least we were close to the dwarf relic furnace. Just needed Rust to arrive.

  “Hey bro, when will we leave?” Nova asked.

  “Rust is coming to help. Bro needs parts to get repairs.” I replied.

  “Ok. Can I go see the giant robot?” she asked.

  I frowned and thought before I made a drone climb up the protector. “Only if you have one of my drones close.” I said.

  “Yay!”

  She helped the drone the rest of the way and I had it climb up her shoulder. She had the protector run off into the cave towards the giant robot god.

  “Jealous your sister wants to visit.” Delta joked.

  “You teach her something stupid and I will dismantle you until you are nothing but another part of this scrap mountain.” I threatened him.

  I frowned as I felt the vibrations coming from inside the cave as the robot laughed.

  After a while, I felt the system of someone outside and with a bit of pushing the doors we built opened up and two glowing eyes appeared.

  They moved closer until the lights from my eyes lit the body up.

  “Long time no see Techno. How was your sleep?” a voice said.

  “Could have been better. Didn’t you and Gaia say you would keep our bodies repaired?” I replied.

  “Your bodies were under magical influence forcing it to rust faster.” Rust replied appearing in view.

  I nodded understanding. It was then I noticed the clockwork behind him.

  “Is it ok to bring them here?” I asked.

  “They are labor robots we built to do heavy lifting. Quite a bit changed you know.” Rust replied.

  I nodded again looking at the boxes. The robots were made of steel and each were lifting large boxes with lots of gears.

  They opened the large creates and brought them over. The chest opened up releasing dozens of drones who swarmed my body.

  “These are quick repair parts made of iron. No steel since it takes longer to make and for rushed repairs it isn’t good.” Rust said.

  “Good. My level was lowered to 24 so I can’t use steel parts anymore. I will need to regain them.” I said.

  Rust blinked a few times taking it in and I noticed the scan.

  “Wow, that god’s magic sure did a number on you. Let’s get you walking more or less, I'm sure you want a new body so no use keeping this one. Want to keep the ship or scrap it?” Rust said.

  “Did you guys make newer stuff than this and will I be able to get one free?” I asked.

  “I don’t think Gaia would miss one ship. Being the queen of the clockworks now she would probably want to reward you with something.” Rust replied.

  “Then we can scrap this one. Make sure to load all the materials though. They can be reused for something else.”

  I grinned hearing Gaia was the queen. I will love shutting her out when we are going to leave. I hoped to see her stressed out wanting to leave with us only to see us deny her.

  Letting the robots fix me, I watched them take the ship apart. With the quick fix I was able to get rid of that crappy trait and then I got Hino and the turtle onto the new ship. I stored everything that was ours in my inventory and then finally I picked up Bulk’s body and got it onto the ship Rust came in.

  With the place cleared out I called Nova and we finally set out again to South Gate City ready for whatever life brought us.

  CHAPTER 5 Return Part 2

  Bulk PoV

  At the moment it's about one hour before the game launched again. What am I doing? At the moment I'm on the hardwood floor of my teacher’s dojo.

  This bastard doesn’t know the meaning of mercy. He keeps saying that because this is virtual reality, human rights can be further ignored than normal because he isn’t physically injuring me and to make it worse trainees sign a contract. Like an idiot I signed without reading and now I can’t argue because the contract states that he can train me in whatever manner he sees fit and it seems using me as a punching bag falls under that.

  “Is this the best you have brat,” he taunted me.

  “Urg ya. Like hell... I'll ever beat... a master.” I groan on the ground after my last beating.

  He snorted staring at me from the side. “Huh. I know you just want to run off to that game everyone talks about. Well before you even think of that you are cleaning the main training room.”

  I pushed myself up and glared at the elderly man in a white martial arts gi. “Like hell I will, you old fart.”

  “If you don’t want to then beat me.” He grinned taunting me with the classic ‘come at me’ taunt where he waves to come at him.

  “Do you really think I can even land a hit on you?” I cursed at him.

  “True. You have skill and talent but you’re far from being able to. Fine, if you land a hit on me in the next five minutes you are free to go.”

  I grinned and pushed myself up. I had learned from him the whole week which was over a month in virtual reality. He beat me senseless every day I trained with him. During that time, he had beaten the proper forms into my body to an okay level. Even with talent there is a limit to how much a person can actually learn in such a short amount of time.

  His style of fighting is calm, he reads his opponent and strikes where it matters. Me, you might already know, but I'm not the calmest guy in the world. Especially when there is an annoying old fart like him grinning childishly at me. My style is to try to overwhelm my opponent forcing him to make an opening which I mercilessly attack.

  Our fighting styles are the furthest possible from one another, just like our personalities which is why I hate this guy. Still the only reason I learn from him is because both of us are too stubborn to give in or quit.

  I take a post of attack and without caring I move in.

  5 minutes later

  Guess it was not to be. That old man only blocked my assault for a full five minutes and as soon as it hit five minutes the bastard did some insane stuff that would hurt insanely in real-life. He hit my elbows making me flinch from the pain before hitting my left leg hard making me lose my balance before he simply kicked my right leg from below me and then made me kiss the floor with an unnecessary sword slash to the face, pushing my face to the floor.

  “When you can finally get up, start cleaning the room.” With that he simply left the room leaving my mashed body to slowly be restored by the VR system. In two minutes the pain was killed and what was in a strange position was put in place. The fatigue was still there but it was mental stuff. It’s like saying the more mentally tired I am the more fatigue I have here.

  A bucket and a towel was in front of me as I sat up.

  Without saying anything I started.

  I do the same thing in anime where there are dojo and martial artists. I soaked the towel and then put it on the floor before I bent over and pushed running and cleaning. Great way to get some extra exercise as well.
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  I spent two hours cleaning. One whole hour that I could have already been back inside Etheria playing and watching Techno or Nova doing something crazy was spent cleaning a virtual dojo because the bastard owner of the place didn’t want to use the auto clean service and he wouldn’t let me use it either.

  With everything finally done, I escaped from the place and headed home where I laid down before activating the game.

  I appeared in space again like the first time I logged in. In front of me was that goddess woman that helped with the character creation.

  “Don’t need to ask. I’ll go with the same character.” I said in a hurry

  “Well someone is in a hurry. Hehe.” Ariel replied.

  “What’s so funny?” I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Nothing. Pff.”

  She waved me off and my body turned into a blue meteor.

  As I fell down towards the world I could see far off over the mountains. It was awesome looking at a view like that. When I looked down, I saw the scrapyard in its full size. Falling from super far up I still had to look far to see the end.

  Looking down, I noticed I wasn’t falling straight instead I was kind of arching. I wondered why but it didn’t take long for me to find out.

  I fell right into a flying ship where my body was placed. Slowly my systems booted up and finally my vision was restored. I was sitting up against the captain's cabin on the top deck of the city.

  What caught me off guard though was what was going on up there.

  Right in front of me Techno was—without any mercy whatsoever—beating the three golems to an inch of their lives.

  The rock golem was on the ground under Techno’s boot with him grinding down onto his head while the two fire golems were being constantly smashed together.

  “This is for trying to run away from me and bro,” Nova was saying while crouching next to her brother’s foot that pinned them to the ground.

  I was baffled seeing them mercilessly beat on the three. I tried turning my neck but the rust around my whole body caused a lot of noise drawing their attention.

  “Ah Bulk you're finally up. Rust, fix him so he can help Bro with these three,” Nova shouted pointing at me while looking at Rust.

  “What’s actually going on?” I asked.

  Rust coughed a laugh. “The three sl... familiars tried to make a run for it as soon as they came back. Suffice to say, this is the result.”

  “GAHHH HELP US PLEASE!” the golem shouted stretching its arm out towards me.

  “STOP PLEASE! WE WON'T TRY THAT AGAIN!” Ena, one of the will o'wisps shouted.

  “PLEASE KILL US ALREADY I WANT TO LEAVE!” Blaze, the other flame elemental shouted.

  I looked up at their life bars and saw that Techno was being very meticulous with his beating. The grinding on the rock golem was doing constant damage but it was just below his own regeneration speed. The same could be said about the fire ones.

  I really couldn’t help but pity those three. I think they might have had their choice for a new character blocked because of Nova.

  A few robots appeared with parts and started working on repairing my body. I also took the chance to check my stats. My level dropped to 27 from the debuff and my stats also fell way down. My body was rusty steel so I was really pissed off at that. Having suffered through that bastard teacher’s stupid punishment, I wanted to relieve my stress. I looked at the three elementals and for a moment even considered helping out but then thought a bit and pushed it out.

  Simply being with Techno and Nova, something interesting would happen soon. My guess was that Techno might do something to Gaia or someone like that.

  “Hey Rust, what happened to Gaia and you during the time we were away?” I asked curious about the monstrous robot

  “Gaia became the leader of the clockworks and set up a nation together with the dwarves, gnomes, goblins, elves, humans, demons, genies and ogres. I’m kind of like an efficient servant to her.” he replied.

  I looked over at Techno and noticed him chuckling while his steam pipes were puffing out steam in a rhythm. He was totally planning something against Gaia, no doubt about it.

  After a bit, the robots finished replacing the broken parts. They also helped me start my systems. I was finally able to move around.

  I checked my movements, but most of it was really twitchy and slow. The rust sure took its toll on our bodies.

  As I checked out my limits, I noticed Techno dropping the fire elementals and removing his foot from the head of the earth golem.

  He sent a message to everyone. “Rust pass this. Try that again and see how nice it will be next time. Give up trying to escape, unless Nova gets bored you will stay aboard.”

  I could somewhat hear the muffled sounds of sighs and whimpers from them. Again, I couldn’t help but pity them. They probably had the worst gaming experience someone could get. The bottom of Techno’s metal boot and being Nova’s pets.

  I looked away because it was too pitiful to keep looking.

  Looking around, I noticed how new the ship was. It was much better than ours. First off it wasn’t old, the metal all over it was not rusted. Looking over the side, I saw that the propellers were like on an airplane instead of underneath.

  “Hey what happened to our ship?” I asked.

  “Scrapped it, the thing was old. I’m sure I can squeeze a medium-sized one out of Gaia. :D.” he said even surprising me when he sent the text emoji.

  “So that’s what he is planning.” I thought.

  “Speaking of her and a few other things, why is it that the robots behind you have much more advanced tech all based on the stuff I made, Rust.”

  “What could you mean... heh?” He shrugged timidly.

  “He’s a dead man.” I said to myself.

  Just as I predicted, Techno was even more ruthless towards Rust. He made the clockwork cough up what he knew. Seems they scanned all our weapons and gear while we were away so they would have weapons to fight off monsters that were appearing.

  When I looked at Techno, all I saw was evil intentions. I think the more questions he asked Rust, the more ammo he had for attacking Gaia. I kind of feared her reaction to his demands… though I wouldn’t miss seeing it for anything in the world.

  The rest of the trip to South Gate City was ‘calm’ to say the least. Techno just sat on the top deck with that air of evilness around him. Gaia really fucked up when she flipped him. Payback was coming and 100-fold.

  Bianca/Jeopardy PoV

  My time in the virtual space was more like spending time in jail than being inside Etheria. I couldn’t walk around without remembering what happened. It caused me to stay inside. I simply read lots of books and left my home very little.

  When I go out, I would always go to a bookstore and buy several books on machinery stuff which worked partially with constructs who are like androids.

  They aren’t completely perfect, but they have machine stuff which I don’t really know how to properly work.

  Finally, the time to return came and I logged in. I wondered how the merfolk and sirens were.

  I appeared in the character creation space floating above the world in space.

  “Hmm well the girl who brought us gods the best of entertainment we have had in years. You’re back for more fun in this broken world.” Ariel said smiling.

  “What entertainment are you talking about?” I said solemnly.

  “Well obviously we are talking about Nathaniel or Techno in here. The boy is a marvelous source of fun. Well I'm sure you want to get started. Want to continue with your old character or make a new one?” she asked.

  “What races are actually available for me?” I asked.

  “Let’s see, it’s easier to say the ones that aren’t. Human, dwarf, gnome, goblin, ogre, genie, clockwork, demons and elves. All of these joined together and made their own nation and since you are prohibited from starting your adventure near him, you will have to deal with all the other races.” she s
aid.

  I felt extremely down. To be denied so many strong races right off the bat without chance just because they were close to him.

  “I’ll continue with what I have.” I said.

  The goddess nodded and waved her hand. My body began descending and soon it landed in my old body inside a large merfolk village.

  As I started moving, I noticed the people looking at me with smiles. An elderly man appeared even though he is old I know it. It was someone I knew and the merfolk village chief.

  “Good to have you back my girl.” the chief merman said.

  “Good to be back.” I said weakly.

  Nathaniel/Techno PoV

  The ship was docking onto the docks built into the scrapyard wall. To hover, the large propellers turn and point down stabilizing the ship in the air. It’s some nice stuff like that I intended to rip out of Gaia’s annoying little hands with a smile.

  We left the ship once the path was connected and headed inside. Rust escorted us while our stuff was unloaded and sent to a separate warehouse reserved for us. It was good to have ‘friends’ in high places.

  I was sure Gaia was itching to get out of there and go places.

  We left the wall and walked through the town. I noticed a lot of NPCs with steel bodies while players were all the weaklings with rusty metal bodies that looked to be about to breakdown.

  We headed to the largest building where the central government was kept. This building was where the leaders came to decide stuff. The government was based on race decision. Kind of like a parliament. Each race sent a representative who spoke for the race. Sometimes the king or queen would come themselves. In Gaia’s case she was always there so she must appear or send Rust in her place.

  We headed in. The place also works as her home and workplace.

  Three floors well made of treated steel, so it didn’t rust so fast.

  We go up to the second floor where she was waiting. She was grinning and so was I.