The Return

by Nathan Valerio

  I remembered what the others told me and nodded.

  “You offered the blueprints for a clockwork engine. I will take that for one ship. The other will require something else,” I told Techno.

  “Hey Rust! Who said you would…” Gaia began

  “Quiet Gaia!” I glared at the old ancestor with brightly glowing eyes, “You are going to screw up our connection to someone who makes his own tech. Stay quiet while I deal with this!”

  She shrank back while everyone stared in shock but Techno was grinning on the verge of laughing.

  “What else did you develop or have prepared?” I asked.

  He thought a moment.

  “I have repaired my main coding to around 70-80%,” he said.

  “Ok that would be really useful. Though everyone’s codes are different but the core processing programs are the same so if you give us a copy of it then I will accept it.” I nodded agreeing.

  “Prepare the ships and I will give it after some people take the ship up to the races,” he said.

  I agreed and we shook on it.

  “I don’t agree with this! For me you still need to do more!” Gaia complained.

  “But it’s not up to you. I’m your main adviser and the clockwork that keeps you from doing things wrong. Negotiations are also mostly done by me so don’t think you will get your way after you screwed up so badly already!” I pointed behind her and she shrank again.

  I called the dock master and had him prepare two caravel sized ships for the new races. There weren’t many people who owned larger ships than a junker which everyone had been calling a dinghy.

  Techno was the only awakened until then to get a ship like that.

  “Can I at least request something that has been popping up quite a bit recently?” Gaia asked.

  Everyone looked at her, curious. She wasn’t using that arrogant tone and was using a more political tone she uses during the meetings.

  “Between here and the shipyard city where the humans once lived there have been many reports of pirates. They are many people who didn’t stay around here and left,” Gaia explained

  “So awakened who took up bandit life?” Bulk asked.

  “No instead it’s both awakened and those native to Etheria who attack transport ships taking fabricated parts to the shipyards. The first time they used really bad ships and attacked in large numbers with small ships. Now they got parts and the ships improved. Eventually it became a full-on pirate group with well over 15 small ships and three caravel sized ships.” Gaia told us the scale of the problem. “It's gotten to the point where it's too difficult to handle unless we send a large group to hunt them down. To make it worse, the pirates focused on adding defense and making weaponry.”

  “If they are so strong why ask us?” Greer asked

  “Come on. This idiot has led his group through much more dangerous stuff than a pirate group of this size. I’m sure his sister’s sky fishing skills also wouldn’t go to waste in this case,” Gaia scoffed.

  “Yes, I agree. Anyway, this has become too much of a nuisance and because they have small but fast ships, it's hard to catch them without a good sniper. We have some good long-range fighters but none can really outmatch your sister. Can you kill them off while we prepare the ships? We can even build completely new ships for them?” I asked.

  They looked at each other and then at Techno who was thinking.

  “It would be bad to leave that amount of trash loose. Still, we need time to prepare. Besides the two girls who just joined, the rest of us have reached between levels 65 to 70. I need to upgrade our gear so I think at least a day maybe two would go into that. Then we need to prepare proper ship artillery. We used mini-guns before but we lack any cannons and stuff besides that cannon Gaia made for sky fishing. We will take it but will only do it when we are ready. I’m not going to go on a suicide mission,” Techno said.

  “Good. We can invest some material for it since it was a request. It will be sent to the ship so be ready for it,” I said.

  They all nodded and after that they left splitting up to look around and do their own things.

  I sighed tiredly. “That was difficult.”

  “Tell me about it,” Gaia said.

  I feel my gears spin fast, “you are the worst of them! Why aren’t you more mature? You’re ancient yet you act more immature than the newborns! why are you like this!” I shouted.

  “bahahahaha this is too good. I love it when Techno visits you guys.” Delta suddenly messaged.

  “you shut up ass well, delta! you are just as bad!” I shouted into the air feeling I needed a break as my engine was pumping fast and I was losing too much steam.

  Steaming in my built-up rage I stormed out and met the constructors and gave them the orders to begin before I went off to handle more important things than babysitting Gaia. It would be a while before quiet and peace returned to South Gate City. While Techno was there, things would only be noisy for a while. I needed to get things ready before hand in case anything happened. What a long day it had been.

  CHAPTER 18 The Deadliest Weapon, Innocence

  Greer PoV

  Ever since we logged back into the game, Alex and I had made it our duty to properly teach Nova to be a proper girl. We still had to remain in character but being ‘princesses’ we had higher education than the other NPCs so though it looked weird at the start it was quickly put out of their minds.

  We were thankful for that so we just went about it. It did surprise us when we entered her room and found Techno yelling loudly at her and scolding her intensely while she sat in a chair shrinking back.

  The shock lasted until he noticed us and after he gave her study materials, he said we were to give her hints but not completely help. She had to learn herself.

  I didn’t know what he had in his mind to ask us for help. We were considered NPCs so why did he think we could help her. He did hand us two helmets at that point as well so we could ‘talk’ with him properly. We both complained about it messing up our hair which we worked a lot to keep neat. Even here we had to look nice to keep the princess look intact.

  Still it was nice to see that he was open enough to scold his sister properly. When I saw her yelling at Menthol, I thought I would have a heart attack.

  Anyway, the days passed quickly and soon we arrived at the clockwork’s scrapyard.

  The golem Brock was still sleeping from the race changing quest. His body at the time was at full size but soon after it became a small earth doll. There were a lot of darker spots but not many. He would take a long time to gain enough minerals to get full size again. The earth spirit subrace was all black iron golems. He needed to become completely compact with obsidian and iron but at least he would be able to take his whale form soon after he woke up.

  At level 67 his form would probably end up being the size of a real-world whale but double its width like Menthol. The whale body was quite flat and wide but as he leveled up, he would get bigger. But it would take a long time before he got to Menthol’s size even if he reached his level someday.

  After we landed, we went down and the fought with that ogre, I could only say I was afraid for my life. Ogres are a brute strength race so when Techno crushed him brutally with a single punch I couldn’t help feeling fear towards Techno and pity towards the ogre.

  It was even more surprising when he started fighting Gaia. Everyone at the company knows Gaia and knows of her strength as a synthoid so when he kept her at the defensive for such a long time by pressuring her I could only feel fear of him. I called my superiors wondering what was going on but it seemed they said he trained in Virtual Town and formed some real skill with the sword and gained some basic martial arts forms which probably helped him push harder.

  After all this happened it ended just like that after Rust appeared, stopped their fight, took control of the situation and finished the negotiations just like that, I had to feel respect for the clockwork. Not only that, he scolded Gaia who we compared to
a mid-level boss monster.

  After we left, Techno trusted Annabeth and I with Nova because he had business to take care of.

  We asked where she wanted to go to and strangely she asked to go to a tinker’s workshop. There she asked for various scraps and broken machinery which they didn’t want. They didn’t care and simply gave it to her. She took them and then asked us to help her carry the stuff outside of town near the scraps.

  We didn’t know what she was up to but we went with her since we had to keep her safe.

  Out there we placed all the iron scraps we dropped down. We both sat down on some large flat metal and watched her. She took several round metal robots that looked like spiders and ripped the legs and body off leaving only the abdomen she then removed all the circuitry from them and using the few tools she had, she cut the pieces apart and then began building several gear systems that connected to each part until it made a perfect sphere a bit bigger than a basketball which opened up.

  Then she took the circuits and stuff she took apart and started to build inside the ball. It lasted nearly an hour and Annabeth went into town to buy us some food while I watched.

  When Nova finished the first ball, she started another and continued until five were in front of her. The final ball had a half meter diameter and had a strangely complex yet simple build inside of it.

  “Finally done. I can’t wait to show Bro this toy,” Nova grinned.

  “What did you make Nova?” I asked curiously.

  “Mn? Oh, a new toy that will help Bro a lot. We need to catch bad guys so I built a toy to help Bro out,” she said.

  Annabeth was already back so she looked at the five balls confused. “How does it work?”

  “Like this!”

  She turned to the big ball and pressed a button and it opened up. She then grabbed another one which had a big number two drawn on the side and in a slot that was extending up she inserted the ball. It slid into place just right and as soon as it dropped right into place it opened up and its parts fell into place and connected into several other pipes and connections.

  The first large ball opened up more. She continued in order with the balls and when she fit the last ball in. Neither of us could help but facepalm. As soon as the final one was placed, a small cannon barrel extended in three sections. We had seen her build it but couldn’t understand it until then. She had just built a five section turret with a functioning steam engine.

  “Um... Nova... h-how did y-you know how to build this?” Annabeth asked with a bit of sweat on her forehead.

  “I wanted to make something to help Bro and after seeing those toys we have on the boat I thought Bro would want something cooler and stronger. I then started to feel that strange hurting in my hand and couldn’t calm down until I finished this,” she said.

  I connected to the helmet Annabeth was using.

  “No way! She has a tinker’s twitch. How the hell can a kid do something like this? Isn’t her brother supposed to have one as well?!” I quickly typed at the shock.

  “Definitely, it’s definitely a twitch. Maybe it’s a family thing. The game system must have helped a lot but the idea was probably totally hers,” Annabeth replied.

  We unconsciously took a step back in fear of the girl that could make a siege weapon as child's play and in such an unorthodox method.

  Distracted we didn’t notice until we heard the noise but she seemed to have loaded the machine with some trash and took up the handles and turned the turret away from the city and pressed the fire button. The massive release of steam sent the scrap ball easily 200 meters.

  We gulped. This thing was made with trash and without much skill or stats but if we took this to Techno, he would make a proper model with good metal or even alchemy metal. The power would be too destructive. This was beyond the scope we GMs or anyone in the company could ever think of.

  With a smile the girl jumped around at the success and after pressing a few buttons all the parts started to close up and disconnect before falling down until only five metal spheres that have a number from 1-5 remained.

  She grabbed balls 4 and 5.

  “Come on! We need to take this to bro. Maybe he will let me have some of my toys or Proto back!” Nova exclaimed with a smile on her face.

  We snapped out of it when she talked and with Annabeth picking up ball 2 and 3 while I pushed ball 1 which was the largest, we returned to the city.

  Victor PoV

  We all split up after we left that comedy act Techno did with Gaia. Boy I couldn’t help laughing when it started which probably made it worse but who cares.

  Anyway, after we left I went my own way because I wanted to meet some friends.

  When I entered the workshop in the middle of the training ground, the guys looked over and soon I was assaulted by my old work mates.

  “Oi Victor! I heard the brat you went with was the one that brought that flying beast over. What the fuck were you doing after you left?” one of them shouted and slammed my back as soon as they saw me.

  I laughed at them and explained what happened after I left. They all stood like idiots with their jaws hanging. I’m sure they thought half the stuff was a lie but then again all of them were my classmates in university, so with a simply copy of the video feed and I would prove them wrong.

  “So what are you going to do now?” one of my friends who was a clockwork asked.

  “Came to see if anything new appeared tech wise,” I said.

  One of the others snorted. “Hasn’t been much time. I would guess you and that guy would think of something faster than us. I’m sure with that guy’s creative head he could help you make something like a huge battle suit robot you can get in and drive.”

  I made sure to take note of that for future plans. They might have been saying it as a joke but I wouldn’t consider it a joke when you took Techno’s unorthodox ability to make something like that come true.

  They ended up not having much else left but I did buy some earth and fire golem cores since we didn’t have any left but it cost me a copy of the blueprints for a mini-gun we used on the ship, obviously I gave them the weakest model. Like hell I would give them anything good.

  I ended my day by taking a walk around the robot training yard and scanning several interesting models which I would take the time to build later on.

  Afterwards I returned to the ship and found Techno in the workshop. In the corner I saw Asura while next to him and a new robot was the protector.

  “Hey Techno, what'cha building?” I asked.

  “I heavily needed a new type of robot. It’s a new model of protector,” he said.

  I looked and saw how the engine was similar, but it looked a great deal stronger since it had lots of parts being made of alchemy metal. The stock we made was lasting us quite a while, but to be safe I headed off and started waking up the two new golems and took them to train them and gather minerals we needed for the upgrades.

  I really wondered what he was making. Still getting materials was just as important as building and as a dwarf I couldn’t neglect the unstoppable quirk, I needed to do it at least once in a while.

  Techno PoV

  When I got back to the ship, I began thinking of some kind of weapon or gun that would help out. Though I needed cannons, there was a limit to them since we needed good range and power so we needed an alternative.

  When I entered my workshop, I saw the locked up Proto in the corner. The words ‘they have fast small ships’ rang in my mind and instantly I knew which weapons would cause the most destruction no matter how few I made of them.

  I gathered a lot of the alchemy metal we had in the stock and with the fire steel I began making a new protector engine but with a better design where much less fuel was used but the pressure of steam built faster but circled around back to the tank instead of being released.

  Victor returned earlier but didn’t stay long and went to gather ores for us. I was nearly done with the engine so when I finished I moved to earth
steel. Because it is harder, it's also heavier but after going through a process to make the steel lighter, the earth steel was thinner and weighed less than regular steel plate but it was just as strong as normal steel.

  It was important to keep this as lightweight as possible but I wasn’t too worried. This protector model wouldn’t have as much metal as the regular one anyway.

  I then started building the head and arms but that was it. Around the arms that were permanently set at a 45-degree angle with the elbow part facing forward with the hands completely as mini-guns that couldn’t return to hands, I started building wings. They were a meter long on both sides and at the middle was where the arms connected.

  At the end of the exhaust pipes that were built to let out steam in case of the engine overheating I built a single propeller that worked like a plane’s engine. The system of the propellers was separate from the engine and it had a separate gear system that took the steam that came out and passed it under pressure through the system spinning the gears and propellers at a scary speed. I made a single larger one under the protector which gave it lift and finished it up by making the thin but strong earth steel armor plating. I think that was hardest part because I needed to make it aerodynamic. As I placed the plates, I sent Asura with some robots to gather sand at the shores near the lake outside the city and then I brought a bag back and melted it to make glass which I then curved and put it just behind the head in a backwards curve shape which made a barrier for the wind. I didn’t make it too large because the rider would need to look out and fire but in all it was all done.

  I filled up both tanks and finally started it up. Most of the programming was done while I was building the body and it was installed when I built the head.

  Just as I finished the sun had set. Nova and the girls returned around that time and I heard Nova calling so I covered the new robot before climbing up stairs. Outside Nova was smiling and around her were five spherical metal balls with numbers on them.