"Can't you just use that thing you use on Judge?"

  "With you four in the splash zone? Not a chance in hell! Besides, we need to see if we can beat this guy without any tricks. Consider him a warm-up for when we face Judge, because I'm not popping that thing with our sister's nearby, either."

  "Why are you the most reasonable person that I hate?"

  "Oh, put a sock in it!"

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  We should have stuck together from the start. Group up and beat Judge's face in, grab our sisters, and the get out before anything else went wrong. But no, we had to split up again, even if we agreed to help each other out. And now, Uni was missing. And I didn't need to explain why that was a bad thing. Sure, we'd smacked around one of their officers, badly enough that I doubt he would show his face again for a while. But frankly?

  We needed Uni far more than the ASIC needed Trick. And while I doubt it was retaliation for the embarrassing defeat he suffered, that was an exchange I was willing to make.

  "Stop brooding!" Ram grabbed hold of my shoulders, shaking me back and forth.

  "I. Am. Not. Brooding." I protested, careful not to bite my tongue as I spoke, despite the aggressive back and forth.

  "You kinda are, though," IF pointed out, as I slumped. I may have tried to protest, but I was being moody about the news. Not unjustifiably, given that this was yet another setback and a concerning one at that.

  "Uni should be fine," Nepgear tapped her hands against her leg. "She's pretty strong. Maybe she went out to fight a monster and just hasn't come back yet?"

  That, was the best-case scenario. Uni didn't strike me as the time to forget such important information, though. Maybe if she was in a hurry to get a monster dead? Even then, as I understood it, Leanbox's Oracle ran a tight ship at all times, even more so than Histoire, to a certain extent.

  I wasn't going to say that was the best-case scenario, or hopefully. Not out loud. As much as I preferred to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, I could tell Nepgear was not taking the news particularly well, either. And while I tended to think out my issues, I didn't think the same was the case for Nepgear.

  So I wasn't exactly going to vocalize that thinking it would just work out was a bit naive, because that was the exact opposite of what she needed to hear. I've been there, I've done that. Worry incessantly was not good for one's health, though it wasn't as if of pot calling the kettle black. I did it a lot myself.

  But what did matter was that she was missing. Trouble or not, that was a problem. Hopefully, it would be one we could quickly fix without a lot of effort.

  And my brain was well, in short, a very hot mess, even on a good day. This was only making the brain bugs even more paranoid than they already were. And that was never a good thing for anyone. It didn't help matters that I hadn't fully cooled off yet. My temper was still a bit tweaked, no matter how much I didn't like it.

  Still, Uni was ideally, alright. We weren't exactly unstoppable by any metric, but even as Candidates, we were pretty strong on our own.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  The mechanical beast exploded as Nepgear cut the creature in half, delivering the finishing blow on the monster.

  "I'm beginning to see why Uni might have had trouble with this," she panted as Compa began to work her healing abilities. That was a thing I started to notice. It wasn't a big deal at the moment, as Compa was a blessing and IF was around to run interference, but aside of Nepgear, all of us Candidates fought at range. Rom and Ram used magic, Uni had her gun, and I used a bow and arrows.

  It wasn't bad when it came to one versus many fights.

  But fights like this one? Once Compa was done with Nepgear, RED and IF, she moved over to me. The backline could quickly become compromised. Despite the trio's best efforts. And this wasn't exactly an easy dungeon, either, and the monsters mostly being machines, made it very clear on who it was that created this place.

  Or paranoid brain bugs were starting to get the better of me. Still, it felt like the monsters here were focusing on us Candidates rather than the human members of our party. Which may have been good in the case of our healer not coming under fire, but bad for us in the back. I could take a few hits, but Rom and Ram were considerably more brittle compared to me. They did not have the same hit-taking capacity that I did, but they were also children, so that went a long way to explain that.

  "We're getting close to the end though, but at this rate, I'm starting to think that we'll end up finding that Uni arrived at the Basilicom while we were out searching for her," IF frowned, as I stretched out my back.

  "I'd take that outcome, in all honesty," I shrugged. It was better than any of the alternatives by a considerable margin. Sure, Uni would probably tease us over it, but I could take that. "This gives us a chance to stretch our legs and grab some stuff."

  This place was giving us plenty of experience, and while we were probably strong enough to take a lot of things, it was hardly like gaining a few additional levels wouldn't hurt. Better to be safe than sorry when it came down to such things. Better to have them and not need them rather than need them and not have them. Which I didn't think needed explaining.

  Plus, the additional little bit of quest rewards we could turn in just from killing things should be more than enough to help bump us up over the edge. Or just the things we got as rewards.

  Plus, it still dealt with ASIC assets, if only a little bit. That by itself was worth it.

  There was a decent amount of wreckage already in the area. Uni had been here at some point recently. Someone with a fair bit of strength had been, anyway.

  "That's a big one," I heard RED gaze behind us. I smile a bit. Which while familiar, almost seemed to twist as if it was glitching out. But there was only one.

  "I'll protect you, wifies!" The eccentric woman declared, already closing the range with the monster.

  "She's really just rushing in there?" IF frowned as I pulled back an arrow.

  "I'd be tempted to let her learn the lessons Leroy learned the hard way," I paused, RED and I's strikes occurring moments after the other. But frankly, keeping the tank in tip-top condition was a bit more important than childing her for reckless pulling.

  We weren't at the many whelps, handle it, point yet.

  Fire erupted from the twins' staff, joining with my more exotic arrow skills, keeping the bombardment at range. I grin as several shots find gaps in its armor, ones left behind by some previous engagement.

  What Earthshaker's I fired were aimed for these points, as I took careful aim, being sure one didn't land those fighting in melee.

  Nobody liked it when one of those ended up in the thick of it. Not that I blamed them. They were great for creating space when on my own. Indiscriminate AOE in a team fight? Considerably less so.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Still, one managed to slip into a gap in armor, a hole that only began to crack and spread as the limb began to shake. It swiftly became useless, before a flash of Nepgear's sword took it off completely. It stumbled from the sudden loss of balance, catching a fireball in the face for its efforts.

  IF leaped up, bringing her knives along what would have been eyes, causing it to scream in even more pain. Well, I presume. I had no idea if it felt any pain or not.

  It was wounded. Damaged before we had gotten here. Its body twitched as cables seemingly trying to reattach its severed arm before I put an arrow through several, pinning it to the ground. From there, it didn't take long to finish it off, as I put an arrow into its chest, Rom and Ram froze its legs, and Nepgear took off part of its head.

  That was more than enough to put the nail in the coffin of the monster. Hell, I could see some weird microchip, embedded deep inside that did not look natural. As natural as such monsters could be, at any rate. I decided against messing with it. I had no idea what it actually did by any stretch of the imagination, and while I was willing to be curious, I wasn't that dumb. Usually.

  But that was the boss of the area. And still no sign of Uni. That was a good sign? Maybe? She wasn't here at the place she was supposed to be, which was hopefully a sign she had just gotten waylaid and we'd only missed her on the way in.

  And if it wasn't? Then we were going to have a real issue. Because if she wasn't here, and hadn't gone back, then where the hell had she gone?

  "Over there!" I heard IF shout, her finger pointed to a nearby rock formation.

  Well. That wasn't a good sign. We all rushed over, Compa reaching her first, fingers pressing against Uni's wrist.

  "She's stable," Compa's words made us all breathe a sigh of relief. Still, that was all around what one would consider a very bad sign. It wasn't a monster that did this. A monster wouldn't leave someone unconscious most of the time. Someone or something else had been here.

  And the list of things that could go toe to toe with a Candidate that weren't powerful monsters? It was a damn short list.

  We needed to get her back to the Basilicom. The faster the better.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  I loved flying. I hated having to carry people when I flew. The human body plan was not made with ferrying other human beings through the sky in mind. But it was doable. Not expectly pleasant, given that Uni had to be carried herself, something that made things even more difficult, given how it meant Rom and Ram also had to carry someone. We had to fly pretty low too, just in case someone got dropped by accident. It was far less subtle, but we managed to go undetected until we arrived at the Basilicom, landing on the upper levels. It didn't take long to alert Kei to our presence on the, leading to the Lastation Oracle making her way up to see us.

  Kei was tiny, and one of the few people I'd mistaken to be a man when I first met her. Which wasn't exactly hard to do, and I doubted I was the only one. She didn't give off tomboy energy, despite her preference for suits and short hair. Her short stature made it easy to underestimate her, as she looked far more like a child than the calculated businesswoman she very actively was.

  I knew the least about her otherwise. Frankly, I'd heard more about her from working with businesses than I had from Histoire. And most of what I'd heard from them was a mixture of being impressed by her skills, and utter terror. What I did know was that Uni was very lucky to have a woman like that at her back.

  Her eyes flickered between us, before her eyes fell on Uni, Kei's expression softening slightly.

  "I guess that explains why she hadn't returned," I detected a bit of edge under the woman's voice as if she were about to find the responsible party and stab them. Not I could blame her for such an expression. Uni was still out cold. I didn't doubt that she would wake up, but the situation was, not great. Thankfully, nobody saw us on the way in, so no diplomatic incidents. Yet.

  That always felt like a thing I had to say. Yet. No diplomatic issues yet.

  "I'm guessing you found her like this?" Kei curtly said, fingers tight against the palms of her hands.

  "I'm sorry, but we did. We don't have any idea what happened," Nepgear nodded, who was still clearly concerned about her friend. All of us were. Uni wasn't weak by any stretch of the imagination. So something that had been able to knock her out like this was a bit, concerning, to say the least. Monsters wouldn't do this. They wouldn't just knock someone out in the first place. Some smarter ones might, but there was nothing to show that was the case this time around.

  Compa continued to treat the multiple bruises on Uni's body, focusing entirely on her work.

  "At least she's safe now," Kei slumped slightly, rubbing her forehead.

  That was the upside to this whole mess. At least Uni was now safe from whatever it was that caused this.

  Of course, we had no idea what the hell was going on. And likely wouldn't until Uni woke up. Speculation was likely not going to get us anywhere, though it wasn't like I had a fairly short list of suspects.

  Come on. Who else would be involved in something like this? This had the ASIC written all over it. How much it involved our little adventure in Lowee was unknown. Given the close timing, probably not. Maybe we should have just stuck together at the very least. We couldn't blitz the Graveyard, not yet, the Oracles were still working on the final things we needed to free our sisters. Sure, we needed to protect our nations, but splitting up had left us completely exposed to counterattack. Thankfully, I checked in with Chika, and everything was fairly calm. Slightly increased ASIC activity on the fringes, but I could deal with that when I returned.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  "I have to admit, I'm almost impressed." There was a shattering of steel, chains breaking with almost a casual flick of the wrist. "Almost. I do not understand why you seek to waylay me on this matter."

  Or even how they thought they could be anything else than a nuisance, after all. Not even one worthy of his attention, either. They were slowing him down, yes, but only just. It wasn't like they could do anything to him. Other than be a minor annoyance.

  "Objective, keep subject in Lastation for confrontational testing. All other objectives secondary."

  Confrontational testing? Surely, they had to know that he was strong if they had been able to pull something like this. They had to be watching for a while. Long enough that they should know he was strong enough to beat a Goddess on his own.

  "A pity." He smashed the drone to pieces, the last of the chains trying to hold him falling away like dust on the wind. They hadn't even needed to take such a step in the first place. He wasn't exactly planning on leaving Lastation in the first place. But still, if their goal was to keep him here, to test something in combat.

  Well, he wouldn't be opposed to obliging just this once.