Chapter 15: Man vs Machine

The watchers bombarded Basil with petrification rays the moment he showed himself.

His higher level protected him from them. Basil cut the closest watcher down with his halberd, his swing swifter than the wind. A single blow destroyed the robot.

The four others flew in his direction, followed by the gearsman on the ground. The colossal machine nearly tripped on the muddy ground; unlike Basil, who knew the bog’s trails by heart, the machine couldn’t tell solid ground apart from treacherous soil.

Plato leaped out of his hiding spot to assist his owner, right as Bugsy tossed Rosemarine’s double at the gearsman. The powerful centimagma launched the much smaller plant as if she were a living arrow.

“I’m flying, Mister!” The clone shouted mid-flight, her belt’s fuse brightly alight. “I’m fly—”

The decoy smashed into the gearsman at full velocity and triggered the explosives. A mighty, fiery detonation shook the bog. The dark waters of the nearby pool rippled, the grass sagged from the blast, and a cloud of dust swallowed the gearsman. Basil almost tripped from the shockwave, but his System-empowered body allowed him to keep his balance.

“HIGH-LEVEL THREAT DETECTED!” The four remaining watchers turned red. Their metal shells heated up. “[SELF-DESTRUCT] PROTOCOL ACTIVATED!”

“Copycats!” Basil readied himself to dodge the incoming robots when he noticed a light shining from inside the cloud raised by Rosemarine’s explosion. An electrical ray pierced through the smoke.

Basil barely managed to throw himself to the ground. The beam missed him and finished its course in the woodlands behind him, close to Bugsy’s hiding spot. The centimagma flung another Rosemarine suicide projectile in response.

“Basil, above you!” Plato shouted a warning. “Run!”

Basil raised his head to find the surviving watchers converging on him. Two flung themselves at him, only for ice spheres to hit them at high velocity. Both robots exploded in the air long before they could reach Basil.

He glanced at the source of the suppressive fire.

Shellgirl.

The clam mimic’s back-barrels peeked out of the reeds and fired projectiles at the remaining watchers, flooding the sky with smoke. She launched pearls of thick ice so quickly that they left a trail of shining dust in their wake. They looked a bit like falling stars, albeit no bigger than a fist.

This…

This was going well! Surprisingly well! The party blitzkrieged the gearsman’s escort and reduced the giant robot to a sitting duck!

“Keep at it!” Basil’s voice struggled to carry over the noise of explosions. “Keep at it!”

Another Rosemarine clone was flung at the gearsman’s position, much to Plato’s astonishment. “How long can she keep killing herself?”

“As long as she has SP left!” Basil grinned in dark triumph. “That’s right! I, Basil Bohen, have invented renewable suicide bombers!”

“The younger the better, huh?” Plato mused, only for a lightning bolt to detonate the Rosemarine decoy before she crossed half the bog. “The bot wised up to the tactic.”

Indeed, the gearsman shot down another Rosemarine decoy bomb right as it stepped out of the dust. The repeated bombardments had melted off the left side of its ovoid shielding, revealing complex gears and electrical devices underneath it. Fire spread through the machine’s circuitry and the crystal eye above the ventral cannon glittered malevolently.

“[MATTER BARRIER]!” A forcefield of bright orange light covered the gearsman’s body, from its tentacles to the core. “THE UNITY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE!”

Non-magical damage will be halved!

“Plato, target its legs,” Basil ordered his cat. His own hand searched in his bag for a Molotov cocktail. “I’ll reduce its visibility.”

“Here I go dying again!” Plato ran across the bog, claws out. Shellgirl assisted him by bombarding the gearsman from her hiding spot. The robot didn’t bother dodging. The ice pearls shattered against its forcefield and inflicted only minor damage.

Holes opened all over the gearsman’s outer shield and fired out a dozen small missiles. The projectiles rained down on the woodlands. Bugsy and Shellgirl retaliated with their fiery breath and ice pearls, but they only blew up half of the projectiles. The remaining missiles crashed on their hiding spots and set the horizon alight with lightning bursts.

Plato reached the gearsman and scratched a telescopic leg. The cat’s claws somehow managed to cut through the barrier, leaving a scar on the metal underneath. Basil had no idea how overgrown nails could cut through steel as if they were made of diamond, but they did anyway. Plato’s overwhelming Skill stat allowed him to inflict damage all the same.

The System made no sense!

The robot retaliated by pointing its ventral cannon at Plato. The cat ran away to avoid a deadly beam of lightning, the ray pursuing him relentlessly.

I spoke too soon, Basil thought grimly as he tossed a Molotov cocktail at the gearsman. He prayed his allies had survived the missile bombardment. The real fight starts now.

Basil didn’t have a lighter nor needed one; the flames on the gearsman set the cocktail alight on impact. The gasoline burst out of shattered glass to cover the gearsman’s crystal eye. With its visibility diminished, the machine missed Plato. The lightning beam only vaporized grass and reeds.

Basil exploited the machine’s blindness to flank it. His halberd smashed through the forcefield and the steel. Both felt like flesh bending to his halberd’s blade. He cut a large gash across the gearsman’s body and adjusted his position for a second strike.

“THIS WORLD TOO WILL BE PACIFIED!” The gearsman grabbed mud with a metal claw and used it to smother the flames covering its eye. The crystal orb glared at Basil and pointed the cannon at his face. A swing of his halberd sliced the weapon in half a mere moment before it could open fire.

Basil didn’t have time to enjoy his success, for the gearsman swung a telescopic tentacle and hit him in the chest. The blow cracked ribs and sent Basil flying head-first into the bog. The safety goggles Shellgirl gave him prevented mud from infecting his eyes, but some of it traveled up his nose.

Basil saw stars; specks of light at the edge of his vision. He coughed out dust and grass. His ears picked up confusing noises which his mind struggled to assemble into words. The damp woods prevented the battle’s fires from spreading, but smoke tainted the skies and made his mouth dry. Basil used his elbow to lift himself up, struggling against the sharp pain in his chest.

The gearsman’s shadow loomed threateningly over his head.

Plato leaped on the machine and furiously sliced the machine’s eye. His attempts to save his owner were for naught: the forcefield weakened his claws so much that he barely scratched the crystal underneath.

The gearsman stomped on Basil with its metal claw before he could get back to his feet.

Considering the sheer size and weight of the gearsman, Basil was pretty sure the blow should have split him in two and spilled his gut all over the ground. His high Vitality meant that he lived to suffer through the attack. When Basil coughed again, it was blood that came out of his lungs rather than air.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn't move. His hands held on to his halberd but the sharp pressure on his chest prevented him from moving his arms. Basil didn’t feel his legs either; he could only feel the pain. He saw Bugsy and Rosemarine rush out of the smoke at the periphery of his vision right as the gearsman lifted him above ground.

Next thing Basil knew, he was underwater.

A putrid, rancid liquid filled his mouth and nose. The cold infiltrated his clothes, dulling the pain a little. The more Basil struggled, the tighter the metal claw’s grip grew. His head hit the surface of a buried helicopter’s broken windshield.

The gearsman was drowning him in the bog pool. It would squeeze the last bit of air out of his lungs and leave his corpse buried under the bog.

Basil failed to swing his halberd. He wasn’t even sure if he still held it. His body was cold, he couldn’t think, couldn’t see. His heart pounded in his chest and a terrible headache seized his brain. System alarm messages flooded his vision with ‘critical health,’ ‘critical health,’ ‘critical health!’

Basil’s survival instinct took over and made him blurt two words, two simple words without considering the consequences.

“[Warp Spasm].”

Bubbles came out of his mouth, but the System listened.

His vision went red, literally. His eyes burned with crimson light reflecting in his safety goggles. The pain in his back and limbs vanished, replaced with a new sensation.

Rage.

Pure, unyielding berserker rage!

Basil’s blood boiled in his vein and steam came out of his lungs. His muscles burned with newfound strength and fury. He forced the metal claw holding him back with a burst of strength and swam back to the pool’s surface. The heavy halberd in his hand felt lighter than a feather.

Basil leaped out of the pond with murder on his mind. Even though he drank water by the gallon, it didn’t quench his thirst for blood. He rose up and roared to face the monsters on the surface.

Goblins.

There were goblins everywhere. Goblinflower, centigoblin, giant robot goblin, and the worst of all, the goblin furry! All of them were disrespecting him with their very existence!

True, the goblin robot had metal skin and a broken cannon for a snout. It didn’t matter. Basil knew it was a goblin in disguise who would kill his rabbits, rape his chicken, murder his pets, and set his precious house on fire!

The goblin furry scratched at the robogoblin’s eye, which brawled with the centigoblin in the mud. Both were heavily wounded. The goblin flower blew dirty dust all over Basil’s clothes, enraging him. How dare she dirty his pants!

“Go back to Monsanto!” Basil snarled. He swung his axe at the goblinflower. He missed, his halberd blowing a crater in the ground. “I’ll make you run, little goblin!”

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The plant promptly fled. Basil would have promptly weeded it out, if the goblin robot hadn’t said something that pissed him even more.

“YOU ARE SO POOR THAT EVEN YOUR MOTHER IS ASHAMED OF YOU!”

It angered him all the more because it was true.

Basil screamed and charged.

The furry goblin wisely leaped out of his way. As for the centigoblin, Basil backhanded him with enough strength to send him reeling backward. His halberd sliced one of the goblin robot’s mechanical limbs and shattered the forcefield protecting the body.

“YOU DIDN’T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SUCCEED!” The robogoblin taunted Basil with its booming, metallic voice. “SO YOU HIDE YOUR SHAME IN THE WOODS!”

“Shut up, cyclops!” There were no tactics to Basil’s swings, no thoughts given to his attacks. The skills ingrained in his head by the System guided his hand. Automated technique and wild savagery combined into a deadly dance of steel.

He hacked at the robogoblin’s body, dismembering it limb by limb. The machine managed to tackle him in response, but Basil didn’t feel any pain at the blow. Rage was one hell of an anesthetic. The blood dripping from Basil’s mouth fueled him.

“DEEP DOWN, YOU ARE AFRAID OF THE OUTSID—”

“Enough!” Basil shattered the robogoblin’s single eye into a thousand pieces with a mighty swing. “I’m not afraid of anything!”

The machine stopped moving, but Basil kept going. He sliced and smashed and kicked and roared. Gears flew and bolts broke. Only when Basil ran out of breath did his rampage finally end. He stood victorious, drenched in oily blood atop a pile of scraps.

[Berserk] ailment lifted.

Your party earned 11000 experience (2100 for you). You earned 2 levels!

“Ah… ah…” Basil gathered his breath. The adrenaline rush receded alongside his inhuman strength. He felt so tired that he had to lean against his halberd to stand upright. The pain in his chest returned, albeit weaker than before. “Ah…”

“Basil?” Plato walked into sight. He kept a respectable distance between his owner and himself. “Are you… are you okay?”

“I’m half-dead,” Basil replied. He coughed out a mix of mud and blood. “And I don’t know… what the other half is.”

“Looks like you calmed down.” Plato looked over his shoulder. “It’s okay guys, he’s back to his stupid self again.”

“Don’t call me stupid…” Basil took a healing potion out of his bag, nearly spilled the content in exhaustion, and swallowed the drink whole. It made his chest hurt less. “Are the others okay?”

“No,” Plato replied bluntly.

Basil’s eyes scanned the area. He found a stunned Bugsy laying on the ground next to the gearsman with one of his mandibles broken. Rosemarine applied pollen to repair it and shuddered upon meeting Basil’s gaze. “Mister, you’re very scary…”

“Oh my God.” Basil covered his mouth in shame. He suddenly realized what he did under the influence of his berserk rage. “Rosemarine, Bugsy, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay, Mister,” Rosemarine kindly reassured him. “I killed myself five times today, all on my own!”

“Boss, I don’t want to say it,” Bugsy muttered once his mandible held back in place, “but you have serious anger management issues!”

Basil wanted to protest, but wisely kept his mouth shut. He should forswear Warp Spasm except for the direst circumstances. The Perk filled him with incredible strength at the cost of making him a danger to everyone else.

At least they won without casualties. Basil examined the gearsman’s remains. The crystal eye was smashed to pieces, but multiple alien gears and devices survived the fight. A few oddities stood out from the wreckage: a pile of colorful blue dust, shining stones covered in rune symbols, and yellow crystals. Shellgirl’s Moneymaker Perk must have caused them to appear.

“We won and nobody died,” Plato said. He didn’t sound like he believed it himself. “Wait, do decoys have souls?”

“I hope they do,” Rosemarine said with enthusiasm.

“I swear this incident won’t happen again,” Basil promised his pets. “I’m truly sorry, Bugsy.”

The centimagma shrugged. “It’s fine, Boss. You scared me a lot more the first time we met.”

Basil didn’t know how he should take that remark.

“I can’t believe we missed a helicopter crash so close to home,” said Plato. The cat examined the rotors unearthed by the gearsman. “How did I fail to hear it?”

“It must have happened last night, when we received Shellgirl’s visit, and the bog’s vegetation dampened the sound,” Basil replied. “The Unity probably damaged the rotor and it couldn’t land safely in the city.”

What did it mean about the state of Dax? Did the army retreat from it? Basil learned his lesson and wouldn’t approach the town unless forced to, but it made him wonder. The Unity might escalate its attacks after losing a gearsman in the field.

“Speaking of Shellgirl, where is she?” Bugsy asked. “She stopped firing pearls at the gearsman after you backhanded me, Boss.”

How strange indeed. Basil would have expected Shellgirl to claim her share of the loot at the first opportunity. He surveyed the area that the gearsman bombarded and realized the fires had died out.

“Could another robot have ambushed her?” Basil asked.

“Nah, I smell her,” Plato replied with a frown. “Blood too.”

Slightly worried, Basil walked towards Shellgirl’s hiding spot with his other pets in tow. They could salvage the gearsman’s remains later.

The party didn’t have to search for long. They found their missing teammate amidst the ashes of reeds and lopsided trees. Shellgirl’s hands scratched out at a mass of rotting herbs and dirt.

“Hey, Partner!” Shellgirl smirked upon sensing the group’s approach. “Victory is ours!”

“Thanks for the suppression fire,” Basil replied coolly. He was slightly jealous that she alone appeared unharmed from their struggle. “I worried that you perished from the bombardment.”

“Yeah, sorry to have bailed on you. I extinguished the forest fire when you started trouncing the robot. Couldn’t allow flames to destroy our HQ, ya dig?” Shellgirl’s grin grew sheepish with embarrassment at Basil’s glare. “But don’t fret, because look at what I’ve found!”

She tapped at the pile of rotting grass.

It moved slightly in response.

Basil immediately moved to unearth the creature hiding underneath: a humanoid with tangled, mid-long light brown hair sticking out of a riot gear helmet. The rest of the armored uniform belonged to the French police, as did the gun in her hand.

It was a woman.

An unconscious, dying woman. Two iron pieces of shrapnel stuck out of her bleeding left flank. Her skin was so pale Basil could have mistaken her for a corpse were it not for the slight, nearly imperceptible breathing sound coming out of her lips.

Plato’s eyes widened in surprise. “A survivor?”

“A future corpse to loot!” Shellgirl replied while rubbing her hands.

“Not on my watch!” Basil snapped, his icy tone making the mimic freeze in place. He checked the woman’s pulse; though he was no doctor, he couldn’t let a fellow human die without acting.

“I can barely hear her heart, Boss,” Bugsy warned.

“She’s still breathing,” Basil whispered, his voice trembling from the sheer astonishment. He couldn’t believe it. She should have bled to death already! Her Vitality must be through the roof! “Rosemarine, heal her!”

“Yes, Mister!” Rosemarine immediately showered the woman with healing pollen, but her wounds were so large it did nothing more than stabilize her. They needed to surgically remove the blades or the treatment would only delay the inevitable.

“Bugsy, help me carry her to the house!” Basil ordered. “We’ll need to tap into the potion reserve as soon as we can!”

There was no time to waste.

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