Truly, there are things that I have yet to learn from this even more mysterious humanoid robot right beside me. Right in front of my eyes now, there stands a six-metre mechanical and manually controlled robot, rivalling the absurd size of the boss's robot. Before I even realise it, Mirai has one-handedly picked me up from the ground and jump into the interior of the mech, via an opening in the chest area.- Why are you so hurried? I am still marvelling at the beauty of this year 2100's creation.- We are not in a power ranger series. That boss will not spare some time watching us looking at the mech. Now, get yourself familiarised with the controls. It is just like a video game. - Mirai knocks on my head. The boss initiates the first attack. Metallic cannons mount on its right shoulder, and loads of energy spheres are hurled at us in a blink. While I am focusing on the array of buttons, levers, controls and the real-time screen in front of me, Mirai has summo
Getting ejected from the mech suddenly, I barely have enough reaction time to activate my propellers, which thrust me back and accelerate me into the air, right before landing on the ground which is now full of metallic drone scrap, as well as rock fragments and dust. - At least tell me if we are going to do something crazy. - Time is gold, Yuusha. You should have known that long ago, and it is not like you would die anyway. Mirai has gotten ready with the signature, massive Railgun that by now, she is the only one with enough strength to even raise that gun and wield it effortlessly like a knife, so my job is to clear the path for her to reach the boss's core chip and destroy it. I prepare the photon shotgun and reload it with a cartridge of slug shots. - You can just stop your imagination. There is no way that you can touch my armour. - The boss still tries to bluff. - Let's see who is imagining. We have done it once, and we will do it again
The Earth, 12 August 2079, in a small apartment in the middle of the metropolitan city of Tokyo, Japan,... - Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you... The candles flicker in the dim light of the small living room, joining the cheers of four people in the apartment who are clapping delightfully towards the fourth birthday of a certain somebody. - Wah, thank you, mama, papa, and grandma! The petite figure joins her little hands together, makes a prayer, and blows the candle. As innocent as the deep blue sky, untainted with clouds, and as cute as a button, as well as a mysterious aura of a knowledgeable scholar, the lovely child is nobody else, other than Mirai Sasaki. The clumsy hands then grab the plastic knife, her eyes look at the cake, calculating the angles in her mind. Then, she cuts the cake into four exactly equal portions. The cake may be fragile, so her mother helps her to distribute the four pieces of the cake to the family. Born in a fam
Tokyo, Japan, the Earth, Thursday, January 5, 2051. - Sixty-five... Sixty-six... About forty drones left. And we are running out of materials. - I make the probably loudest sigh ever. The thrilling one-week journey to Australia has ended, but the repercussions are just, you know, painful. A rough check on damage statistics tells me that a hundred per cent of our drones suffer from circuit damage, which is cheap. However, a third of them break down due to falling, which adds salt to the wound of my bank card. And not stopping there, a six-metre tall robot is sitting in the archive, waiting eagerly to be fixed and hurting my income. This festive season is what I anticipate the most but things just spiral out of control for this unlucky year. Pods linking from my house to my parents' house were suddenly broken down due to snow or something, and no companies were working during this period to fix them, making me stuck in Tokyo. I plan to take some rest by indulging myself
A cruise is just like a panacea that overloads my productivity. Within just two days, I spend all of my available time working my sweat out to fix the drones. The duty of robot fixing, after some negotiations, has been transferred to Mirai. She says that she can delay her research later. Soon, the day of the cruise comes like a wind. We already find ourselves carrying a backpack and a suitcase, queueing at the Tokyo Cruise International Terminal and waiting to get on board. Although it is still freezing winter in Japan and the rest of the countries residing in the middle portion of the Northern Hemisphere, again, it is summer in the south. - Why is it so cold? - Mirai is hugging herself and trembling. - How do you even feel the temperature? - Another network of sensory modules spanning across my shell. When I like, I can just switch it on. They would measure the temperature and send corresponding signals to my central processing unit, which sends s
The science area humbly lies beneath the extravagant and majestic chains of entertainment facilities. Designed specifically for researchers and scientists who must race against time to publish papers while still wanting to enjoy a meaningful holiday, the area consists of a lab with every apparatus spanning various fields, a garage-like tech room for creating inventions and fixing machines, and a field open to the public to facilitate virtual reality simulation. This self-explanatory description can easily tell you why the lab and the tech room are almost always empty. Mirai drags me to the tech room. - So, what are we doing here, specifically? - I ask. - Two things. I will be brief. - Go ahead. Mirai just stands still. In the next second, a fleet of drones appears in front of my eyes like a performance. - That is what I get from analysing the core chip. It seems to use the same technology as our BlueTooth, except that the Intruders can man
I reload my photon shotgun with another tube of photon shots. Since I can loot other players' items, I can destroy this drone. Fortunately, the other mercy the rich can offer commoners like me is that I can see hostile units on the map, except for other players. The drone is patrolling on the other floors, so after I get out of my hiding spot, I decide to go find it instead. As soon as I reach the other floor, I switch my photon shotgun to damage mode. I find the drone in a room that looks like an office. As stealthily and swiftly as possible, I use the chairs and tables' terrain and approach the drone. Before it registers my presence, my barrel is already pinned to its offensive module, and I fire my whole rounds of pure electromagnetic damage, breaking its gun with brute force. As expected, the whole tube of ten rounds vanishes within a few seconds, just making sufficient damage to break down the most threatening part of the drone. The drone, unable to attack, tries to m
As I walk through the graveyard of loot boxes, I can feel a bone-chilling breeze through my spine. There must be not less than thirty boxes here. Bloodshed. With the loot boxes, there also come lots of valuable items inside. I just go scavenger for a few minutes and I have sufficient components to fully upgrade my weapon, along with an amount of ammunition and healing items that can last me the whole game. In the centre of the big laboratory, there is a big platform with a table on top which resembles a crafting bench. It lights up when I open my stats table. I approach the table and put my gun down. There is an arrow mark appearing in my vision, so I press on it. - Let's see... Congrats on discovering this crafting bench. Please follow the instruction to upgrade your desired items. I take out the wealth gap reduction module and place it on the bench, along with other modules and components. After the bench has registered the modules I have, from the ground next