Climbing ever so higher, my hands were actually starting to hurt the longer I gave it my best to cling to the charred remains of the facility. Beneath me, Shizu and Guidance were considerably lagging behind, hours upon hours of constant activity starting to take a toll on their physical health.
Well, I couldn't really blame them. It had probably already been around thirty hours since we last had some downtime.
"How... much further... up is this..." Guidance whined beneath me. "C-Can't we... take a break?"
"I kind of agree," Shizu audibly approved, her voice also starting to show her fatigue as she panted beneath me. "We're... Surely we won't need to be there right now anyway, right?"
"Yeah," I nodded, my fingers digging into a particularly jagged piece of molten metal. It hurt, but my passive regen was good enough that it didn't even matter much. "Let's stop by the next floor then."
Leading the way, I climbed up and out of the crater and into an open awning that was once one of the many floors in this dungeon-like facility. Sitting on the metal ground, I watched as Guidance and Shizu practically fished themselves out of the smoking crater, their chests heaving as they laid upright on the ground.
"That was... unpleasant," Guidance breathed out, her cheeks flushed from exhaustion. "I... I don't wanna do that again..."
"Well, too bad. We still have a few floors to go before we get to rest," I sarcastically answered. "And even then, I don't think we'll get much rest up there, what with all the authorities probably frothing at the mouth to go and arrest us."
"Which we won't let happen, right?" Shizu eagerly asked as she sat up, her enthusiasm never leaving her despite her sweat-riddled body. "We can't let them stop us, especially now that we know that this weapon exists."
"A weapon that we can't break at the moment, mind you," I reminded her. "The moment this all blows over, they might just use it before it's ready just to prevent us from spreading the news of its existence."
With this supposed weapon practically unbeatable, I wouldn't put it past anyone if they just up and used it right here and now. With the element of surprise now thoroughly shattered by us knowing it exists, Marquee was now on a clock to go ahead and demonstrate just what this thing could do. The shock and awe of its potential power would have much more impact if their enemies didn't know it exists. The moment they did, an arms race would inevitably follow, causing the possibility of Marquee losing their advantage quicker than they would want it.
"But wouldn't that be bad?" Shizu curiously asked. "If this weapon isn't ready, then wouldn't it just not work?"
"I'm pretty sure I've more than demonstrated the fact that it does," Guidance weakly mumbled from the floor. "It's even doing its thing even now, emitting millions upon millions of whatever energy it has into the air without so much as a sense of purpose or direction."
pαпᵈα-noνɐ1·сoМ "So you're saying that this isn't even this ball's full power then," the princess frowned.
"That's what she's saying," I shrugged with a sigh. "I can see it too. If this thing had an actual target, or if the Marqueans somehow managed to focus all of this power into a single point, this thing can essentially obliterate everything that might be in front of its path."
And wasn't that an interesting thought to imagine. I could already see it functioning more as a ball of death shooting out rays of light at anything that might stray near its range. It didn't seem to have any sort of targeting systems on it or even a way of containing all of this excess energy in the first place, but it was only a matter of time until somebody managed to do so. Marquee was clearly capable of things that not even modern technology was capable of doing, and if this thing was indeed some kind of nuclear reactor, then I could only assume that anybody barring Marquee's path would just be smoke and ashes by the end of this small nation's attack.
"Then all the more reason we have to destroy this thing before it can be used against the Empire," Shizu grumbled in determination. "And even if we can't do it now, nothing's saying that we can't just devastate the city above, right?"
My eyes narrowed at what Shizu was implying. "Are you saying that we should terrorize Centrax?"
Shizu blinked, her mind clearly whirring as she took in my words. A few seconds later, she gasped as she shook her head. "W-Wha- No! W-Well, maybe? I don't know... Can't we just try and slow them down?"
"I think what she meant is that we hit that administrative building fast and hard," Guidance chimed in, saving Shizu from her verbal flub. "If there's anything that can slow down the development of this thing, it would be located there."
"Which would still mean hitting the heart of an enemy nation," I trailed off. "Kind of a massive undertaking here."
"Then what else are we supposed to do?" Guidance scoffed aloud, sitting up before scooting over to my side. "We can't just leave them free to retaliate with all of their resources intact. Sure, they'll be crippled by whatever damage this explosion caused, but their anger at us causing it in the first place will probably make them all the more determined to strike at us the moment we show ourselves."
"And as if doing more damage to the administrative building would stop them from doing that?" I chuckled, playing devil's advocate to Guidance's words. "If anything, hitting that place might just galvanize them to hate our guts even more."
"Well, yes, but at least their leadership would be crippled enough for us to run away and relay our findings," Guidance pointed out after a bit of thinking. "I'm sure Shizu here would rather sail back to Kattleyna than continue on to Vestyge after everything we've seen."
In unison, the two of us faced the princess, our questioning looks clearly affecting her as she inwardly thought to herself.
"I really have to choose, don't I," Shizu awkwardly smiled. "This is technically a detour though, with our real mission still being to strike deep into Vestyge and try to end the war."
"And that's still on the list of things we have to do," I reassured her. "It's just that something bigger came up, and we can't exactly leave this thing alone lest it just blows up before we even have a chance to disarm it."
"Still, it's your decision, Shizu," Guidance hummed out. "While we're kind of running the show so to speak, you still have the final say in regards to important stuff like this. Moriya and I will never impose our wants... much..."
I lightly elbowed Guidance at her final words before I chuckled. "Yeah. You're still the showrunner here. We're more like your advisors. You still have full say to veto our decisions if you think it won't help you succeed."
The fact that we had nothing else to do went unsaid between Guidance and I. Seeing as Shizu here was our first contact with this world, she became our primary attachment to this world. Well, technically, Guidance was more than attached to this world, what with it being her creation, but it didn't seem like she held any sort of attachment to any one of the three nations. She was partial to her characters, sure, but never to any nation.
"If you're sure then..." Shizu pensively nodded. "In that case, I think I agree with Lady Guidance."
I nodded in understanding. "We're going to hit the administrative building then. I don't think we're ready to do that right now with all of us still separated, but I think we can do it once we're all together."
"Yeah, that's gonna have to happen first," Guidance quickly nodded in agreement. "If we'll launch an assault, we'll have to plan ahead as well, which might be impossible to do if we're coming out there with a lot of attention on our heads."
"So we'll have to somehow sneak out and find the others," Shizu nodded. "Isn't that the first plan anyway?"
"Well, yes, but now we have something else to work on while we do it," I chuckled. "Before, we were just planning on not getting caught while finding the others. From there, we'll just wing it until we end up running away or captured."
Shizu cringed. "That's really the plan?"
"He's joking," Guidance scoffed, shoving an elbow right in my ribs as she explained. "Anyway, if that's the plan, then we might as well see if we can somehow plan ahead before we reach the top."
I shook my head with a smile before I went and looked up at the nearing surface. With a smirk, I added, "We'll have a lot of company up there. Think you can use your eyes to see if there are any gaps up there, Shizu?"
"Right! I can do that easy!"
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