?

  The little female forgemaster turned her head to watch in shock as my spear flew over her shoulder. It was a good thing she did as the

  [Over-Surge Green: Scavenger Drone]

  [Level 3]

  was already throwing itself at her with three of its four tool-tipped arms extended.

  The spear dug deep into the chest of the drone, and the drone knocked Ha-Rin from her feet. Utterly ignoring the spear jutting from its mid-section, the drone came down hard atop Ha-Rinz and immediately began to tear at her in a mechanical frenzy.

  Dropping my right hand to my side, I activated [Man Within Ogre] and called the weapon back to me. Thanks to the angle at which my red-bladed spear was sticking from the drone, I couldn't carve this one apart like I had the previous scavenger. That was alright, I hadn't expected it to.

  The green scavenger drones might be made entirely of worn metal, but they were spindly things, far thinner and less threatening than partially organic drones the dragon had created from human corpses.

  The drone was easily light enough for my spear to drag it off the girl and off the balcony. Which is what the empowered weapon promptly did, as it tried to return to me. The bug-eyed drone flew from the overlooking terrace towards me, with the straining spear still impaling it. Setting my stance, I launched a kick reaching a little above my own head height just as the drone flew, flailing into range.

  My attack was obviously timed perfectly, and I grasped the spear haft at the same moment my kick connected with the drone’s head. The combined force of the spear returning to my grip, along with my heavy kick, was more than enough to shatter the glowing eyes of the drone, and the metal creature dropped to the ground and began spasming.

  Unwilling to give the drone a chance to recover, I span my spear to cut the creature’s head from its scrap metal shoulders.

  [Soul Expansion Gauge: 116/500]

  In the few heartbeats that all this had taken, Ji-Ho had begun to sprint towards the balcony, holding his still-prone sister. I couldn’t tell how injured she was from down here on the ground, but from the scream she had let out when the drone began to claw at her, I didn’t think she would be in good shape.

  [Ability Activation]

  [Magnetic Leap]

  [Source: Class-Engineer]

  [Select for more information]

  The words appeared on my HUD next to the tiny portrait of Ji-Ho. I didn’t ‘select for more information’ as what I needed to know about the ability and who was making use of it was blatantly taking place before me.

  The male sibling had thrown himself into a jump towards the balcony, holding his sister. Initially, the man’s leap seemed like it would fall pitifully short when his shoes began to glow a bright purple. The nearby scrap scattered upon the ground seemed to respond to the glow and instantly flung itself up to meet Ji-Ho’s boots, creating a small carpet beneath him. The metal chunks lifted the silver-haired man the rest of the way to his destination.

  “Fuck.” He said quietly enough that I could only just hear the man, even with the ‘call’ ability active.

  “Oh, don’t be a bitch.” replied Ha-Rin, lifting a hand so her brother could help her up. “It isn’t as bad as it looks.”

  Once her elder brother helped Ha-Rin to her feet, I got a better look at the girl and concluded that she was either lying to her brother or lying to herself. The drone might not have had long to attack her, but you can get a lot done in a very short amount of time when you have four separate arms.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The little weapon crafter’s front was a mess of blood, torn flesh, shredded armour, and…were those wires? I really think that I could see a couple of metal cords sticking from a wound near the girl’s ribs.

  I know I'd already had it explained to me that the people of this world replaced parts of themselves with machines that made them stronger, but it was another thing entirely to see it for myself. I have never once been shocked by blood or savagery, but peering into that bloody gash and seeing further machinery was an experience that stopped me in my tracks.

  “Unlucky, but that's all the hunting we are doing today.” Said Ji-Ho gravely.

  “I told you, it's not that bad.” His sister protested as the pair of them descended from the balcony with a second Magnetic Leap.

  “Yeah, bullshit.” Grunted Ji-Ho when his sister practically collapsed upon their landing.

  I was never a doctor, and I knew even less about medicine in the afterlife, so I simply dragged two of the corpses of the drones we had been hunting over to the boxy metal creature that served the siblings, and tossed them into its cart-style back.

  “Forget the rest,” Said Ji-Ho in a tone that I wouldn’t have put up with if he weren’t hefting his increasingly less lucid sister into his arms. “The buzz saw nicked one of the nullifiers on her lung enhancers; they are too new, so now her body is rejecting them.”

  Come to think of it, once I was paying attention, it was quite clear that Ha-Rin’s breathing was getting shallower and more labored by the moment.

  “I need you to guard me while I carry her back.”

  “I’m fiegls” slurred the girl in his arms.

  “Go,” I replied simply and followed the silver-haired man as he ran back the way we came. Mule turned and slowly followed, but there was no way it could reasonably keep up with the pair of us in the thick of the steel jungle. Hopefully, the clumsy yaogui would be able to make it back alone.

  “I need a path home, fast as you can make it,” Ji-Ho ordered his A.I. in between breaths. “Send it to Bu as well, then call Doc Cenna.”

  A moment later, the option to accept a set of directions appeared on my HUD, just like it had when we were first heading into the hunting grounds. I accepted the ‘waypoint’ and a path of light that only I could see appeared on the ground before me.

  Next, a new portrait joined the tiny ones, depicting Ha-Rin and Ji-Ho on the right of my vision. This one displayed an older man with tan skin and dark hair streaked with grey. Interestingly, the eyes of the man that the portrait listed as [Doctor Cenna] weren’t eyes at all, but a pair of golden metal rings with what looked like dark crystal at their center.

  “Hey, Ji” Rasped the voice of the doctor over the ‘call’. I admit that I was surprised that this miraculous communication ability that everyone here seemed to possess had so much range. We were still deep in the metal jungle of the hunting grounds, and yet I could hear this man as clearly as I could the siblings.

  “If this is about that rotator cuff I need to pay for, I promise I will get you in a week, two tops.”

  “I don’t care,” Ji-Ho replied between increasingly heavy breaths. “Rin got hacked up and is rejecting her lung enhancers.”

  “Oh dear, alright, I can validate Mrs Magilicutty’s hypochondria tomorrow. Get your sister to my clinic asap.”

  I saw Ji-Ho begin to shake before he replied to the doctor.

  “Too far.” He grunted. “Get your operating shit and meet me at my workshop.”

  “I don’t kno-” The silver-haired man did something, and Doctor Cenna’s voice and portrait both vanished.

  “Jeoseung, connect to Ha-Rin and run whatever diagnostics you can, send the results to Doc Cenna as soon as you have the results.” I didn’t hear his A.I. respond, but he usually couldn’t hear Diaochan either, so I assumed his dark-cloaked spirit had gotten to work.

  “Can you do that?” I asked my own A.I. under my breath.

  “ I probably don’t have the same level of permission from Ha-Rin as Jeoseung does, but yes.”

  The false Diaochan hadn’t said anything about the weapon crafter’s injury, but I understood that her personality was a sort of recreation of the real one based on my memories. That, combined with the clipped tone she had replied to me with, told me everything I needed to know.

  “Go on, you little bitch.” I snapped at her, making sure to look away from Ji-Ho so that he didn’t think I was insulting him.

  “Hmm? What do you mean?” Asked my A.I with a tone so dripping with honey, I thought my teeth might start to ache.

  “Zhīrén zhī miàn bùzhī xīn” I muttered to myself in irritation.

  “Don’t play games, I know you are desperate to tell me how you warned about those apartments being unscouted.”

  “Well,” Diaochan said slowly in that same appallingly innocent voice.

  “I exist only to serve your needs, but now that you mention it.”

  The woman launched into a very in-depth explanation of why it had been a mistake, which included not just a series of worse injuries Ha-Rin could have sustained, but also how many drones the apartment buildings could have held, and even a series of things we could have done to check them with minimal loss of time. The tirade didn’t end until we had almost left the hunting grounds.

  If that had been the last irritating thing I’d had to deal with that day, the war I was a mere few months from plunging Abeyance city into may never have taken place.

  Ever had a girl be all "I told you so?" Now imagine its inside your own head hahah.

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