168: Heartless Enterprises, Part Four

Heartless Enterprises, Part Four

Erin met the three robotic enemies at the center of the spacious room. As she began to fight up ahead, Neve took a couple of steps back, trying to make use of an accessory she'd picked up from Thomas's corpse. 

Prowler's Ring

{Accessory}

{Unique}

{Effect: Makes the wearer harder to detect to anyone more than 5 meters away. The farther they are, the harder they are to detect} 

{Val: 10000 WST}

This ring wasn't of much use to Thomas, given that he was a close-range assassin, but when she'd picked it up Neve immediately understood that if he was capable of archery, he may have just killed her the moment she walked out onto that intersection.

[Oh well. He wasn't, and he didn't.] 

Eyeballing the distance, Neve allowed Erin to do her thing while using {Flash Shielding} to make sure she didn't take any blows from behind. 

An android circled the lamia. Erin, whose hands were currently busy keeping one of its allies at bay, saw it move but couldn't do anything about it. As the opponent behind Erin dashed up to stick a laser-outlined sword of some sort in her back, Neve activated {Flash Shielding} and its blade bounced off a blue barrier. 

Its round, lifeless red eyes turned toward Neve, having noticed her as a result of that spell's usage, but Erin pushed away her main opponent so that she could wrap her snake-like body around the one that had just failed to flank her. 

Dragging it with her back to the other two androids, Erin used {Rorvan's Flurry}, becoming a cloud of claw swipes, slashing in every direction, scraping against the metal surfaces around her. She only hit the two androids in front of her a couple of times before they backed off, but the Technique was not canceled as all of her attacks landed on the android she was currently wrapped around. 

With just a few hits, she chipped away at it until Neve received an EXP message. She couldn't exactly celebrate, though, as she saw something rather concerning the instant the android officially died. 

Its red eyes began blinking, synchronized with a loud, ominous beeping sound. Neve's instincts quickly suggested what this could mean, and, if she was right, she didn't really have the time to warn Erin. 

So, she cast {Sacred Ground} under Erin and hoped for the best. 

The dead android exploded. Shards of metal flew into Erin's body, knocking the wind out of her from shock. She was not dead, though, but even with {Sacred Ground} under her, that explosion had resulted in massive amounts of damage. 

The other androids moved to rectify the situation immediately. One of them backed up, figuring that an up-close and personal approach wouldn't cut it, and pulled out what looked like a minigun. The other, perhaps enraged by what it just saw, produced two long laser swords and ran up to Erin. 

Neve thought of a solution somewhat quickly. 

She marked Erin and then marked the android with the minigun. That android began to fire before its ally had reached Erin, producing a spray of laser beams aimed at the lamia. She let them land, causing Erin to cry out in pain, but activated {Equivalent Exchange} immediately. 

The android ended up taking all of the damage it dished out, killing itself and causing another EXP message to appear and the android to explode like the other had. The one that ran up tried to use the brief moment where Erin was hurt to its advantage, but the lamia recovered quicker than it expected. 

She wrapped herself around it like she'd done with the first android and put her palms over the android's head, before letting draconic flames wash over it, at point-blank range. 

Disintegrated, this one didn't even get to explode before dying. 

EXP Gained: 290

EXP: 840/650

Level Up!

WST Gained: 580

WST: 91680

Neve resummoned Erin before her timer could expire, and let out a deep breath as the battle concluded. 

"I'll be honest, when you allowed me to get shot by those beams of light, there was a part of me that briefly wondered if you just dislike me." 

"Heh," Neve snorted. "If I did, I wouldn't have healed you." 

"I suppose that's true. Though, I wouldn't mind it if you show me just how much you *don't* dislike me from time to time." 

"Hm?" Neve arched a brow in her direction. 

"Never mind," Erin told her. "Is there anything important in those metal buckets?" 

As Neve looked through her loot, she found that the answer was no, once again. 

[More stuff to sell, but that's about it... Tamira.] 

It hurt to call out to the snake, but Neve wanted an answer to this. 

"Oh? Finally done with giving me the cold shoulder?"

Neve inhaled sharply, trying to remain calm. 

[You said 50% of all loot would be healer-specific. Is our deal gone? What happened to that?] 

"Indeed," Tamira replied. "The purpose of that deal was to give you a reason to fight monsters as you progressed through the Main Dungeon and each of the 10 Floors. Now, however, you've beaten your target. You have no more need to become stronger, so I've adjusted the loot settings accordingly," Tamira told her. "You will still get healer loot from time to time, but at the normal rate." 

Neve nodded, not saying anything in return. 

"Hehehe, by the way, I'm glad to see you've moved on from Ahlakan so quickly~" She whispered in Neve's ear. "I'm sure she'd understand it if you shifted all your attention to that journalist, or even Erin, instead of mourning her. After all, she didn't matter that much, right?" 

Neve bit down on the insides of her cheeks hard as she tried to keep her mind quiet. She didn't want to give the snake the satisfaction she was looking for. 

"I know you're curious about them," Tamira told her. "Sure, keep wondering about just how hot that journalist thinks you are. Keep remembering how Erin's lips felt when they touched yours. I'm sure Ahlakan wouldn't mind at all." 

---

{Erin}

The lamia sighed as she traveled alongside her host. 

[Once again, my summoner becomes rather cold out of nowhere. What happened?] 

Ever since they walked out of that weird place with the black poles all throughout it, Neve had barely said a word to the lamia, even as she tried to make some small talk. 

"Is any of this reminiscent of your world?" Erin asked as they proceeded to move toward their next location. 

"Some of it..." Neve replied, so silently that even with her relatively great senses, Erin almost didn't hear her. 

"Like what?" Erin asked in hopes of keeping her talking.

She wanted to lift Neve's spirits. After the horrible event that had unfolded a few weeks ago, this was all the lamia felt she could do for her, but every now and then, Neve would go back to being like this, erasing any of the progress Erin had made in doing so. 

To be honest, she had also been trying to lift her own spirits. Erin liked Ahlakan quite a bit herself. Not as much as Neve had, but, still. As fellow props in this System-made world, there had been a certain camaraderie between them. 

Now, though, with her being the only product of this System around Neve, well... At times, Erin really did feel like a prop. 

Battle usually helped with not feeling like that. So, as the two of them found an android wandering this city's streets aimlessly, Erin breathed a sigh of relief, pushing the existential anxiety away. 

She showed her claws and slithered forward, ready to make short work of this enemy and, hopefully, impress her host just a little. Erin liked to show off, after all. 

But, before she could do that, a laser beam was shot from someplace to the left, going straight through this enemy's head. 

Erin flinched and quickly turned in the direction the beam had been shot from, trying to make sure she wouldn't be next. 

However, a voice projected into the air let her know she wouldn't be. 

"Sorry for scaring you two. That was me," Andromeda said.  2

[How the hell is she speaking in my mind like this? I hate it.] 

"Like I said before, I can see some parts of the city from this tower of mine, so I'll be backing you up every now and then if you're in my line of sight. Best of luck." 

She stopped speaking and Neve walked over to the corpse to inspect it, like she usually did. 

Crouched over it, Neve's eyes sifted through things that Erin could not see. However, as the seconds stretched on and on, Neve remained in that position for a bit longer than normal. Curious, Erin moved over to her and lowered herself so that she could place a hand on Neve's shoulder and ask: 

"What did you-" 

Neve pulled away instantly. 

The reaction caught Erin off-guard. She looked into the eyes of her summoner, wondering why'd just acted like this, and found... 

Guilt. 

"...?" Erin just stood there, baffled. 

"There's nothing in there," Neve said quickly, walking ahead. "Let's keep going." 

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