Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
Previous Chapter
Related Chapters
The Least Common Denominator LX.II Logarithm
It burned.I mean, what else could I possibly say to the intense heat ravaging my body right now? Not that I was literally burning alive, mind you, but it was pretty damn close in the way that marshmallows didn't need to be close to a fire for it to burn. My clothes were pretty much stuck to my skin at this point, and my mouth was absolutely dry despite the amount of water I just ingested over an hour ago. I couldn't really believe it, but my fire resistance was actually helping me survive against the hellfires that this Furnace was throwing at me.Granted, I couldn't exactly speak with the amount of panting I was doing.Sweat poured out from every gland in my skin as each step felt like I was walking in a microwave hallway. My eyesight was blurred to shit while my hands kept the Firebrand pointed in front of me as a way to keep myself from burning
The Least Common Denominator LX.III Logarithm
I didn't know how long I was out, but the fact that I had my thinking capabilities back meant that I was conscious again... And that was not a sentence I did not just think to myself. Nope... I swear, I'm fluent in English.."h.y..."Then again, I wasn't really a native speaker, wasn't I... I learned English through copious amounts of reading and consuming foreign media. Constant exposure to the internet was also a massive influence in making me good at the language, I think. Well, I couldn't speak it well enough back then, but being a doctor kind of forced me to get good at speaking English at a much faster pace than I was comfortable with. And that was coupled with the unwanted presentations and research orations that I had to fucking do because I had no choice if I wanted to graduate."Yo. a..ke?"Still, I was kind o
The Least Common Denominator LX.IV Logarithm
I froze on the spot, my eyes widening as the trio all stared at me expectantly. "You do have a plan to get us out of here, right?" the Decimal asked once again, a hint of doubt now coloring his tone as opposed to earlier. "You wouldn't risk your life like this if you aren't sure that you can get us all out of here alive." I fought the grimace trying to form on my face. Now that I was actually here, I just realized that I really had no fucking clue as to how I'm supposed to get us all out of this mess. Plan... What did I have for a plan to get out of here? "What? Did Lady warrior not have a plan?" the male Den mockingly asked as he crossed his arms in wait. "I could've sworn you were supposed to save us." "Phillipe, stop it," the yellow-haired woman calmly tried to reprimand her companio
The Least Common Denominator LX.V Logarithm
A bit of time has passed since the Decimal supposedly left us out to die, and while the two were twiddling their thumbs and watching me do my thing, I was actually trying to do something with the scrap of metal we were left with. I already determined the heap to be enough to make at least one suit of armor if I really stretched it, and if my first iteration of the impromptu heat suit actually worked, then I had to at least start on making the second set of armor for these two to wear. Livia wasn't yelling at us yet, so either he died, or he was still navigating his way out of this mess.Huh... That was actually pretty fucking stupid of me, wasn't it..."How'd you do it?"I raised an eyebrow as Phillipe asked me the burning question. It wasn't even anything special; just a fairly simple copy and paste job that any decent Denominator was capable of d
The Least Common Denominator LXI.I Thermodynamics
Efficiency was something I've always preached about even back in the old world. As an avid procrastinator, the little time that I do dedicate to actually working had to be short and sweet; in a way that would enable me to do more procrastinating simply due to how little time was actually needed to effectively do all the work. Take, for example, a time-consuming errand to sort some papers out. A normal nine-to-five worker would probably make it happen in about half of their work shift by half-assing it the whole way through. Meanwhile, I'd probably do it either in the beginning or during the end of my shift just by putting in the effort into it. I mean, why waste effort not doing it properly due to laziness when you could just do it in a whirlwind and waste the rest of your time doing nothing? Wasn't that the express purpose of being the ultimate procrastinator."I thought we're making the armor now?"
The Least Common Denominator LXI.II Thermodynamics
I found myself sitting on the ground as I let my fingers run through the improvised suit of armor Phillipe made. Observing every unnatural seam I encountered for any sort of weakness or holes, I licked my lips as I held the hammer in my right hand; my mind already running through a dozen permutations of the same few runes as I weighed their pros and cons for the given situation.In such a scenario where the suit of armor was a literal piece of shit hacked together with duct tape and sheer force of will, the number of runes this thing could possibly support was drastically reduced due in part to the lack of actual stability and sturdiness of the armor in question. The seams were doing a spectacular job of holding it all as one cohesive unit, but it will never be as good as making the entire thing in a single cast of pure iron. Not that it was bad by any definition. It was still the best thing we'd ever get
The Least Common Denominator LXI.III Thermodynamics
It wasn't much, but it was an honest attempt, all things considered."It wasn't enough for two..."Looking at the situation from a logical standpoint, it was obviously not going to be a pretty ride for the one person that would go without the armor. With Livia clearly out of breath from even staying out in the heat for too long, I'd be remiss to send her out there again. Not to mention the fact that I was feeling rather lazy in terms of actually waiting for another material run just to make a suit of armor that would clearly be mine to use, and you'd get a recipe for infighting that my sister would be remiss to lose despite my pleas for her to calm down."What do you mean it wasn't enough?!""I mean it wasn't enough!"I sighed in the background as I watched Livia tear the two poor Dens a new
The Least Common Denominator LXI.IV Thermodynamics
Hello, dry heat. We meet again as you sear my face straight into my skull.While it wasn't as bad as the first time that I traversed this hellscape, the scale of 'bad' in this current situation was more like dunking my face straight in a glowing oven than bracing for a rather dry midday desert. And even then, I think that analogy paled in comparison to the amount of pain I was currently experiencing. Every pore in my body felt like it was shriveling up to the heat as I took one step at a time into this orange-laden landscape, my eyes stinging with every second I spent trying to completely open them to see where I was going.Well, at least the people following behind me weren't going through the same experience. I can take satisfaction with that."S-sis..." I heard Livia pant behind me. "C-c-"I slowly raised my right ha
Latest Chapter
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.V Cotangent
I don't even know what's happening anymore..."Huh... That looks far too complex even for you, Crimson," Phillipe snarked at my work. Technically Anne's as well, to be honest. "A square rune with that many parts? I don't think that'll work out in the long run.""You and me both," I rolled my eyes with the sarcasm of an overflowing dam. "Seriously, why are you here?""You're being annoying."I raised an eyebrow at the blunt delivery of his oh-so-important announcement. Giving him the best sarcastic inquisitive eyes I could muster, I let out a scoff as I began whatever this talk was going to end up as.'Right behind you there.'You always are, Ica. "And?"Phillipe smirked at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking, "You're wasting
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.IV Cotangent
"Let's go crazy..."With a borderline manic whisper, I let my imagination cut loose as my hand moved on its own. Traps within traps, earthen sigils meant to sprout at a moment's notice, the world was my oyster as the goodies slowly accumulated with each stroke of my charcoal.'Don't get too carried away, Master.'I know. I'm not dumb enough to overload the thing before it even came to fruition.And that was the biggest risk to such a massive array as well. With so many moving parts, any wrong line or overlapping rune will pretty much make the whole thing explode. I couldn't stress it enough, even to myself. Do not make this thing more complicated than it already is.'And yet here you are having fun with it.'Don't test me, Ica. Or maybe I'll just assert me being
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.III Cotangent
Fiiiineee... You win, my precious Ica.The stuttering that ensued at the back of my head was like a soothing tune as I looked over my work. The communication arrays were gonna stay, as would the Essence storage runes at strategic parts of the palace grounds. Hmmm.... Wouldn't the communication arrays be two-way anyway? So why even bother with surveillance runes like last time?My hand moved to remove the minor additions I added on the dirt parts of the grounds, leaving me with more space to work with in terms of... well... anything, really. What kind of runes would even work on shaky ground? Dirt couldn't hold anything beyond the basic types of runic arrays. Anything more complex than a three-layered circuit would blow up instantly from the strain. I could maybe run- wait... why not just do that?The charcoal streaked across the outskirts of the pa
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.II Cotangent
*ruummbbllee...*The sound of a sputtering engine echoed from behind me as I drew up yet another set of circles on the board. While I kind of put the general purpose of the massive multi-circuit array at the back of my head, I really should try and solidify that stuff properly before making the main control array, shouldn't I...'Good thing you remembered that, Master.'I grumbled through the dull pain I was feeling at my knees as I focused myself back on the doodle that was supposed to be a defense system for the palace grounds. It was far too small of a circle, now that I thought about it. The size of the drawing did little to help me ascertain the types of circuits that I drew on it in the first place. Squinting even further, it felt as if I was reading my own handwriting from how jumbled and nonsensical it all looked with hindsight.
- The Least Common Denominator
CV.I Cotangent
Plans upon plans upon plans. I feel like I'm repeating myself whenever I say that I'm obsessed about things going right, and if not, to have plans to be able to properly react to the failure. Fool-proofing something small was easy. Doing it again for something on the scale of a war, however, was a completely different beast. The number of variables at play, hundreds to even thousands of moving parts to look over and take into account. The time, the weather, morale, even individuals that might have other ideas and could stray from the plans put into place... It was so much to think about that hours or even days of pouring over the relevant information wouldn't be enough to take everything into account into one's plans. And even if you think you somehow managed to achieve this impossibility, there will always be something so monumentally out of left field that could just absolutely destroy any and all plans along with its sub plans and
- The Least Common Denominator
Interlude XXXIX: Grigori
GRIGORI⬛⬛⬛*RRRRRUUUMMBBLLEEEE!!!! RRRRUUMMBBLEEEE!!!*"What's wrong, Lord Stone?! Finally getting tired in your old age?!"Grigori grumbled in annoyance as he found himself standing his ground in his self-made fortress. Truth be told, the former Prime expected his fight to be over over ten minutes ago. However, he severely underestimated his enemies' hidden tenacity and downright stubbornness."I'm just getting started, kid!" he boisterously replied. "I'm far from being done!"Still, even as he said those words, Grigori was beginning to feel more tired than he initially expected. His reserves were starting to run dry from the constant back and forth that the combined forces of Lords Breeze and Inferno were throwing at him. And that's not to mention the current
- The Least Common Denominator
CIV.IV Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛"So Lord Iron truly took care of the problem?"Olivia held her breath as she found herself taking in the state that the young Num was just found in. Broken, battered, and bleeding all over, Tesla had clearly taken a beating of a lifetime as her head lolled in her unconscious state, her face marred with cuts and bruises as her white hair was stained brown with dried blood."Damn... I guess the ranking in the Prime Thirteen's not a joke, huh...""Lord Iron's the Sixth, after all. Lady Static's the Thirteenth...""Fuck..." Olivia swore under her breath, her teeth gnashing as she watched the Imperials gawk at her fallen friend. "How the hell do I get her out of there safely..."The warrior Den tuned everything out as she focused on the unenviabl
- The Least Common Denominator
CIV.III Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛*c..crackle....*The faint sound of electricity seemed to crackle from the distance as Olivia stood in the middle of her self-made carnage. The lack of common sense that she was witnessing honestly made her feel more irritated than amused as she slowly walked towards the panicking commander. Olivia had places to be, and possibly someone to save depending on whether or not Tesla could somehow relay to her that she was okay."No matter," she sighed. "You idiots wouldn't understand, I guess.""No!-"*SLASH!*With a quick step, the commander didn't even stand a chance. His sword fell with an unceremonious clang onto the ground as his head rolled off his neck like a piece of meat. Olivia didn't flinch as the idiot's terrified fa
- The Least Common Denominator
CIV.II Transistor
OLIVIA⬛⬛⬛*CRACKLE! CRACKLE! KRAKATHOOM!*Olivia ran through the streets of Mathema like a woman possessed. Wreaking havoc across every Imperial contingent she came across, lightning followed her path as she relied on Tesla's ever-encompassing presence to deal massive damage on the enemy while despite being outnumbered by at least a hundred to one. She knew that Her Sister would no doubt disapprove of her current tactics, but if it worked, then why bother changing it?"If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?"*KRAKATHOOM!*"AAHHH!!!!""IT BURNS!"With a smile on her face and blood on her blade, Olivia uttered her Sister's own words out loud as a reminder. Lightning crackled behind her, screams of her fallen enemies saturat
