Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 36

I felt more than a little relieved that the System backed me up on my accusation. It would have looked quite strange otherwise. Doing a few favors for the local System node really paid out. Though I wasn’t sure those favors would carry over to the node controlling Crownhill.

Everyone who heard my accusation and then received the System quest followed my pointed finger to Lady Velicia and then examined her. The information I received was suddenly different from last time, as though the System had broken whatever defensive measures she’d been using to conceal her prior identity.

Unknown Entity (Level 279)

Lady Velicia’s true power was well into B-Grade, comparable to some of her heretic friends who’d died under my watch. Originally, I’d thought her to be a charisma class user like Lisette, but given her current level, I suspected she was more like me. She likely had a class focused on disguised and espionage, with a few charisma-scaling abilities on the side to get in the good graces of people like Prince Herius.

The moment Lady Velicia’s identity was revealed, there was an explosion of movement from the legates. Many of them were B-Grades, and while Velicia’s true power was deep into B-Grade, she was surrounded.

Thaddeaus was the quickest to act. Perhaps he had a grudge against Lady Velicia himself, or, like me, disliked the influence she had over the prince. His spear appeared in his hands and thrust forward with all the might of his newly minted B-Grade power.

Lady Velicia grabbed the head of the spear, stopping it inches from her belly with little strain. Her reaction almost came a moment to late, and it was clear that she hadn't gotten the notification the rest of us had. To her, the sudden hostility must have come out of nowhere.

“Herius, your army is full of traitors! Do something!” Lady Velicia shouted in panic. But it was too late for that. A D-Grade like the kind she’d been pretending to be would never have been able to catch a B-Grade’s spear.

Maximus soon jumped to his feet as well and drew a short blade, which he tried to bring around and press against Lady Velicia’s neck while he trapped her in a headlock.

He succeeded in getting a grip on her, but Lady Velicia proved a bit too flexible for a human and wormed her way out of his grip anyway.

Lady Velicia jumped behind Prince Herius, who stood with brows furrowed and a look of shock on his face.

“Herius!” Velicia yelled.

Prince Herius shook his head, as though to clear a hazy fog that had settled over it. When his expression cleared, his eyes were sharper than I’d seen since the start of the campaign. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much she’d clouded his judgment.

He reached around and grabbed Velicia’s wrist, trapping her by his side. Then he raised his other hand.

“Everyone, stop! We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Velicia, like Legate Carter, I’m relieving you of command. If this is some sort of trick, you have nothing to fear. None of my people will harm you.” Herius turned his gaze to the rest of the legates, many of whom already had weapons drawn. One was missing.

“Ha, the class upgrade is mine!” Legate Abesa cackled as she drove a knife into Lady Velicia’s unprotected back. Then she gave it a twist for good measure.

The wound she dealt opened wide, and thick black fluid that looked like old motor oil flowed out of it. That wasn’t blood.

When Abesa twisted her blade again, I got a good look at metal and wires hidden beneath rubbery false skin. Apparently, Velicia had just as many mechanical components as the other heretics. She was just better at hiding them.

Prince Herius looked like he’d just spotted a snake in his underclothes, but he kept his grip on Velicia’s arm. Not that it helped.

Velicia took one look down at her punctured side and knew her cover was completely blown. She pulled on the arm in Prince Heriu’s firm grasp, and everything from the forearm down separated from her wrist. The hand Prince Herius held tight deflated like a popped balloon until he was only holding a clump of warm skin.

Without the skin, Lady Velicia’s arm was mostly mechanical. Dull gray metal stood out from grease-covered pistons. There were a few scraps of biological matter that had previously anchored her mechanical components to her skin.

Her first action upon freeing herself from Prince Herius was to grab the knife in her side. The thing previously known as Lady Velicia yanked the dagger free and jammed it into Legate Abesa’s throat. The move must have cleanly severed the legate’s spinal cord because she dropped like a rock and soon oozed copious amounts of blood.

Thaddeaus lunged at her again, but Velicia shoved the spear tip aside with her metal limb. The pointed tip of her arm hardened until it was like a spike, and she turned that spike on Thaddeaus.

In another half a second, that exchange would have turned bad for Thaddeaus, but Maximus was there to keep up the pressure on the other side. Velicia tried to disengage and break away, but I wasn’t about to let that happen. She jumped clear of us, and dark, jet-pack-like thrusters appeared on her back.

My dragon wings formed on mine, and taking a shortcut through the shadow realm, I caught her before she could slip her away. I pulled her into a tackle and sent her back to the ground.

By now, all the legates had a chance to react, and what followed was a frantic haze of stabbing and chopping as everyone pulled out weapons. I wasn’t a legate anymore, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t join in, which I did.

“W-wait! P-prince Herius!” Velicia cried as our comrades chopped her to pieces, revealing more mechanical components with every swing. Were class upgrade tokens truly that valuable? The System had given me half a dozen upgrade tokens of various sorts since the integration. But perhaps I was the exception.

For his part, Prince Herius looked down on Velicia with hard and clear eyes. His hammer-staff was in his hands now, and he waved the others aside.

“I recognize the disguise you wear. A flesh suit, as you heretics call it? Tell me, when did you kill and replace the original Velicia?” Herius asked.

Velicia hesitated a moment, likely trying to think of the response that would get her out of this situation. I recalled Herius mentioning an ability to tell truth from lies. No doubt she was thinking about that as well. While he waited for an answer, Herius tightened his grip on his hammer.

“The real Velicia could still be saved. Her flesh still lives, after all. But if you want to keep her alive, you need--“ she began, but Herius hesitated no longer. He brought his hammer down on her head.

The sound of crunching metal echoed through the manor’s garden. It was less like a cracking skull and more like a crumpling can.

And just like that, my last loose end had been cut clean off. Plans rarely came together this cleanly for me, so I planned to savor the moment.

"A lie, sadly," Prince Herius said as he wiped Velicia's blood and oil from his hammer. The quest reward appeared before him in a flash of light, and he grabbed it and stared at it with a complicated look before stuffing it in his pocket.

“You probably want to talk about how I knew she was a heretic in disguise, right?” I asked the prince. That was the obvious follow-up question to this situation, and I’d prepared several natural and truthful follow-up explanations.

Herius gave me a dull nod while he stared at the mess before him. Then, he turned to the smear on his hammer. “E-excuse me...” he said under his breath, then stepped out into the garden.

He took two turns behind some hedges, and I thought he intended to speak with me away from the others. His actual intent became clear a moment later when he bent over and vomited into the bushes.

“She was a flesh puppet machine thing... and I...” Prince Herius choked off his own words with more retching sounds.

The situation had suddenly turned awkward, but leaving now would be even more awkward, so I placed a comforting hand on Herius’ bent over back.

“I’m sure it was a very anatomically correct disguise. You couldn’t have known. She had some powerful charisma abilities, too. You were a victim in this. Don’t beat yourself up over it. I blame myself. I should have found a way to get rid of her sooner.”

Prince Herius vomited more in reply. Amidst all the puking, the answers I prepared proved completely unnecessary. He didn’t even ask how I knew Velicia was a heretic in disguise.

“I just hope the real Velicia was at peace. She was such a shy and tender girl...” Herius muttered.

“I’m sure...” I simply nodded along as Herius tried to convince himself that he’d been sleeping with the real Lady Velicia, and that the robot doppelganger hadn’t come in until later. I had to admit that I’d probably do the same thing if I was in his situation.

“The only thing I’m truly upset about is the insults toward Myrina and Cyra,” I said, and the prince nodded in agreement.

“Yes. I should have known that wasn’t the real Velicia the moment I heard that. I will ensure things are made right." The prince regained more of his composure as he grew increasingly convinced of his own words.

I gave Prince Herius a few minutes of camaraderie. Thankfully, the book I’d received from Ted, the strange homeless man on Glacia, covered a situation amazingly similar to this. As luck would have it, I’d just gone over that passage the previous day, so I had plenty of words of encouragement to share.

“Every ending is a new beginning. You’ll pull through this.”

Prince Herius rummaged around in his pocket and produced the class upgrade token he'd gained from killing Velicia.

He looked at it one last time, then looked at me.

"By way of apology for recent events, take this." Then he flicked the token in my direction.

I caught it in one hand and analyzed it.

Class Upgrade Token (Legendary)

Suitable for upgrading any class below legendary to the legendary rarity.

"Are you certain? Can't you use this?" I asked.

Herius shook his head. "By the grace of my father, the king, and considerable political jockeying on my end, I was granted a token just like that one. Had I known I'd find another here, I could have saved myself years of work. Alas, such is life. Take it. I do not wish to see it again."

I granted Herius' wish by taking the token and stuffing it in my pocket. I wasn't about to refuse him, though it made me feel bad about leaving him.

"Thank you. I should give you something in return..." I rummaged around in my things before coming across a set of Mark One power armor. I'd picked a few more up to finish while traveling, and I'd done so. Perhaps I could have handed them out already, but the moment never seemed right.

"Take this set of armor, from me. Your sister, Myrina, can teach you how to use it. I think a warrior-mage like you will find it useful. The boost to physical stats are considerable. They are currently quite popular in the Mucaria Pocket Realm.

Truthfully, the armor I was handing Prince Herius was less a Mark One and more like a Mark One-and-a-half. I'd been thinking about what kinds of upgrades I was going to make now that I was a Kindling Architect, and this was the suit I'd been experimenting on.

"I will certainly try it. Thank you for the gift, brother-in-law."

Prince Herius eventually recovered his princely decorum, and after righting himself, he returned to the gathering of legates with a demeanor that at least halfway resembled his usual confidence.

“The enemy has made a fool of me, and by extension, the entire crusade. I only had eyes for the cultivators, unaware of the other threats lurking in the shadows. This mistake will not happen again. I will be important specialty equipment meant for dealing with heretics and their usual strategies. We must be just on guard against them as we are against the cultivators. Together, we will drive them from this world and liberate its people!” Herius thrust a fist into the air. A few legates even cheered.

“Brothers and sisters in arms, let’s banish the disunity the enemy sought to sew in our ranks. They feared what we could do when we were united in purpose. Now let us show them why we were afraid!”

I clapped. It was a decent speech. Unfortunately, this was a rough crowd for it. Also, we had more practical concerns to address.

“You’ll need a new legate for the third legion since Abesa’s dead.” I nodded in the direction of Abesa’s corpse, which was sitting in a pool of her own blood. A few of the other legates had tried to save her, but the dagger she’d been stabbed with had some sort of poison on it. Lodged in her brain as it was, it had done more damage than anyone had been prepared to heal.

Someone might have been able to save her if a few of my wizards with healing magic had been summoned right away, but that had strangely slipped my mind with all the chaos. Funny how things like that happened.

“Any recommendations?” Herius asked.

“Roll them into Myrina’s regiment for now. They’re undertrained and under-strength. Myrina’s got control of the fifth and the eleventh. Merging the three legions under her will fix the latter problem, and she’s already doing drills with the other two legions to correct the former problem.”

“Done. And I’ll place you in charge of oversight,” Herius said.

“Actually, you’ll have to go to acting Legate Asimi for that. I’m not a legate anymore.” I shrugged, tilting my chin at the missing badge on my shirt collar.

“You’re still resigning? Even though...” Herius gestured to the mess on the ground between us, which was covered in Abesa’s blood and Velicia’s oil.

“Sorry. I’m clocked out. But between you and me, I think you guys will have an easier time clearing the rest of the planet than you think. There’s not much left to fight for at this point. Good luck!”

I’d come, arranged for a bunch of people to kill one another, consorted with the System to do who-knows-what, revealed someone as a secret robot, and ruined the prince’s relationship. If I wanted to leave without explanation, now was the time.

“Huh?” Herius frowned, but didn’t protest when I left to give out a few last gifts before taking off for home. Bridget deserved that magic frying pan, and I figured Sakura could make the best use of the job upgrade token I’d given to her, considering she had just picked up a new job and could benefit the most from boosting it.

“Thanks, Carter. I am pushing up against the limits of what a basic manager job can do,” Sakura said.

“And I will put this pan to good use!” Bridget said.

Next, I met with Cyra and Myrina.

"I'm also returning your Feisty Redhead armor to you, Myrina, but I've painted it green so people won't recognize you."

"Aww..." Myrina grumbled.

"It's probably for the best." Cyra smirked as she ruffled her little sister's hair.

"I have another set of armor for you. I just gave one to Prince Herius, so if you and he want to learn to use them, you'll have to get Myrina to teach you," I said as I handed Cyra one of my improved Mark One armor sets.

"Thank you, Carter. I'm still not really sure what's going on. Are you... going home?" Cyra asked.

"For a bit, yes. I have some things to take care of back in Crownhill, so this is a convenient time for me to leave. But don't worry, I don't think I'm done with this crusade yet." I shared a smile with both of them and a warm embrace.

After, I opened up my bag of holding to them and let them each pick a few swords from my recent raid. There were plenty of good ones to choose from after going through the private vaults of so many B-Grades.

The cultivators weren’t that good at enchantments, but they were very good at collecting powerful and exotic materials. I wouldn’t have thought dragon bone would make a good sword until Myrina sliced through a building with one.

“Can you make it so it shoots fire and roars like a dragon?” Myrina asked, batting pretty lashes at me.

“Sure.” I chuckled as I quickly visualized the enchantment pattern that would create her requested changes, then cast them onto the magic bones with Lightsculptor’s Brush and a few bright Mana Bolts.

After, I turned to Cyra. “It looks like I’m taking special orders. You want anything?”

Cyra looked embarrassed to even ask, but she mustered her courage.

“I could use a shield better suited to B-Grade attacks. Something that can really take a hit. And maybe repair itself, since you’ll be gone for a bit.”

I nodded along and spent about a minute figuring out what that would look like. I ended up taking a page from the Samhain family bloodline and tied an enchanted shield to a hidden extradimensional pocket realm. It would be full of extra metal and materials for the shield to repair itself, along with a few full replacements in the case of catastrophic damage. It wasn’t as fully self-repairing as I’d have liked, but I was proud of it for something I crafted so quickly.

Now, if I wanted real self-repairing items capable of rebuilding themselves an infinite number of times, I’d have to chase my magical nanobot idea a little more. But that was a project I’d have to sit down for, and this would do for now.

After giving away my gifts, I gave the lot of them temporary goodbyes, though I was pretty sure the System would call them back to Crownhill soon enough. Meanwhile, I hunted down Mimiko. Unlike the others, I’d need to get her home the hard way.

“Come on, Mimiko. I promised to take you somewhere your cultivator friends would never find you. Now I’ll make good on that,” I said.

“This one lives to serve.” Mimiko bowed low, then gathered her belongings and trailed behind me. She seemed more distant than she had when we raided the Black Beast Sect headquarters, and I was pretty sure my rejection was to blame. This scenario was what ‘Interpreting the Fairer Sex’ called the Cold Shoulder tactic.

I had a few ideas about how to warm her up. Alas, most of the book’s suggestions culminated in expanding your imperial harem, which was something I was trying not to do. No imperial harems for me. A regular-sized one would do just fine.

We arrived at the teleportation array and were soon teleported to Glacia. Mimiko had no paperwork at all, which meant getting her through took me flashing my jade medallion status with the Dragon Lodge, along with paying a few unexpected fees.

Thankfully, I was able to use the same trick of claiming she was a concubine, which got her through customs easily enough, just like it had for Bridget and Sakura. Mimiko had even held my hand to help sell the idea.

“You can let go now,” I said as we stepped onto the teleporter to Themyscira, where we’d meet up with Thulga, check out my workshops in Shadefall, and then take a trip home.

“You’re back. And I see you brought a new friend!” Thulga said when we reappeared. A quick look around told me we were in Valkyrie’s Watch. With Myrina and Cyra away, there was nothing for me to see here, so I opted to go straight for Shadefall.

“Mimiko, this is Thulga. Probably my oldest employee and the one who gets me and my goods from one place to another.”

“I see. So you’re a traveling merchant by profession, then?” Mimiko asked.

I realized then I’d never told her what I did. To be fair, what I did was a lot more complicated than a job title.

“A merchant, craftsman, wizard, and shardking. I do a lot these days,” I shrugged.

Thulga took us to Shadefall, where my enchanters had more several sets of Mark One armor done and ready for the final stage of enchanting. That was a good thing, considering I'd given away my current stock just before leaving. I completed the construction process and told Mimiko to try one on.

“Here, hop in and see how you like it,” I suggested.

She obediently stepped into the suit, which closed around her. She took a few unsteady steps but soon got the hang of the controls and moved with increasing smoothness.

“A strange armor design. It reminds me of the strange warriors from what your people call the heretic territories,” Mimiko said from inside the armor.

“Yeah? I guess it would be reminiscent of them. Though I like to think my handiwork is a bit cleaner.

We played around a bit, and I gave Mimiko a crash course on living in the System. She’d already changed her clothes to avoid standing out, but her mannerisms might also need changing. But eventually, my desire to return to Crownhill got the better of me, and I could delay our return no longer.

I stepped back on the teleportation array, and from there Thulga took us home.

<Note>
So yeah, we'll be spending a bit of time with Mimiko and Reluna while back on Crownhill.