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“…”It took some time for me to process the slew of revelations Floater just dumped on me. “So what you’re saying is that there are exosuits ready to go? And even custom exosuits normally reserved for ace pilots?”

“I can’t say for sure if they are ‘ready to go’, given that when I left, they were still discussing something important…”

I immediately had a bad feeling about the idea. What if… and that was probably a big ‘if’ -but still an if- we were to go there and discover a bunch of half-finished goods instead?

“Regardless, I think we should still have a look.” Bitong pulled up a chair for herself next to the table before tapping said table lightly. “If we don’t take the chance, we will never know if what we need is there.”

“Qiaoqiao feels we should check it out too.” Qiaoqiao enthusiastically stuck her hands up and waved it about like a kid answering a question. “It’s not like we have anywhere else to go.”

“Roads are meant to be paved by men.” Lixiang nodded her head.

Looks like everyone’s on board then. I guess we’re heading there.

With our course set, we left our room, suited up, then left in the direction of the factory, roughly ten kilometers away.

Floater was our rearguard this time. As a precautionary tactic, she had six of her detachable bits to act as scouts. Should they spot a lone skeletal beast, she would deploy the rest of the bits to attack it.

For the most part however, there weren’t many targets for her to deploy her bits. The road ended up being a relatively smooth one.

Ironically, the girls weren’t all too happy about that. Because of Floater’s efficiency, they ended up losing the opportunity to farm points. To outsiders, this probably looked like mere sulking.

“Ah… she stole the kill again…” Qiaoqiao griped into the comms channel, which Floater wasn’t a part of… Well, at least she had the sense to do so discreetly.

Throughout this entire trip, Qiaoqiao could only sit back and watch Floater continuously snipe down any enemy that popped up like an unfeeling machine. Just when she spotted the rare zombie rearing its ugly head from a corner, a beam of laser would suddenly pierce its brains, even before she even got the chance to move a limb…

Infuriating! For them, anyway. I was nonchalant about this entire affair, mostly thanks to the small fortune the system gave me after completing that mission of slaying those skeletal Coatls.

The mission reward was sizable enough to clear my previous debt, and with spare to boot. In fact, I was even given a strange bracelet. But due to its feminine design, I ended up stowing in my inventory instead.

Alright… I lied: that wasn’t the only reason. And it wasn’t because it was ugly either. It was crafted from one large and three small red gemstones, weaved together with silvery chains. The three small gems formed a triangular pattern in which the large gem rested in the center… Strange, but still nice.

I had initially intended to give the bracelet to Bitong, but apparently this was a bound piece of gear. Seeing as I couldn’t give it away, I decided to store it for now.

On a side note, it had a decent name as well. Lion’s Majesty, it was called.

Unfortunately, this bracelet was in a sealed state; that was the main reason why I kept it stowed for now. Its use wasn’t large till I could farm enough points to unlock its true potential.

According to the system, the bracelet, at its peak, could easily wipe out all the undead in the city in one day. Assuming, of course, I had the energy to power it.

I will half-believe her for now… can’t really put too much stock into that unreliable system’s words…

As I was busy fiddling with my new gear, Qiaoqiao was slowly descending into madness. “Qiaoqiao… wants… to… kill… something… Points… Qiaoqiao wants her bloodline… Qiaoqiao wants…”

Unfortunately, Floater was just too strong. Any monster who dared approach us were slain in seconds. All that was thanks to the overwhelming power of her exosuit, and her own strong will.

To her, companions riding in entertainment exosuits weren’t really suited for the battlefield at all. After all, toys were toys, not actual weapons fit for war.

To us, however, she was just wasting our precious points. She hadn’t signed a pact with me, so no points were being generated from her killing.

“Okay, okay. Floater is just trying to be nice. Just relax, Qiaoqiao.” By this point, Qiaoqiao’s whining was all I could hear on the comms channel. It was getting to the point where I finally had to placate her myself before proceeding. “Once we get some new suits, I’m sure Floater won’t be so zealous in protecting us.”

“Okay…”

Qiaoqiao finally settled down, albeit unwillingly.

Even if she quietened down, that did not mean she was about to sit still either. At times, I would spot her breaking off from the group to do some side-hunting. Thankfully, any Scorpids were already cleared up by Floater, so the rest were just free points for Qiaoqiao.

“Sis, look after Qiaoqiao for me, just make sure she doesn’t overdo it.”

To begin with, Qiaoqiao wasn’t one to sit still, so I couldn’t keep her locked up forever. With that in mind, I could only have Bitong look after her.

“Got it.” Bitong understood Qiaoqiao’s nature as well, thus she accepted the request without saying much. “We will reach the factory soon anyway, just let her have some fun.”

A few minutes later, we arrived in front of a towering building.

“Follow me.”

Floater led the way through the doors. A few zombies tried to stop her from entering, but they were summarily sniped in the head by her detachable bits.

Upon entering the building, we were greeted by a bunch of zombies who were immediately alerted to our presence and leapt at us. They were all low-level undead, so they didn’t stand a chance to begin it.

Strangely enough, she did not employ her laser guns this time. Instead, she pulled out a pair of daggers from her exosuit.

This was the first time I had seen her engage in melee -she wasn’t bad, to be honest. She executed a set of swings and slashes with practised ease, easily slicing apart any zombie head that came within range.

Naturally, these weren’t special daggers or anything, merely sidearms at the level of a normal shortsword. Still, they did well against small targets like these. Against that Coatl, they weren’t even a consideration. Which was fine -Floater’s exosuit was meant to be a long-ranged unit. In close combat, these daggers weren’t even worthy of being toothpicks.

Shameless Self-promotion

Announcement: I’ve re-opened my Patreon in case anyone wants to sponsor more chapters. Every end of the month, those chapters in early access will be released for free for all to read. If you sponsored a chapter, you will gain permanent early access to these chapters. Essentially, everyone gets more chapters to read, but those who donated get to read earlier. More chapters will then be translated at the start of the month. Explanation on the Patreon itself.

LINK HERE