CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Although Jason was excited to access the enemy data, he only bothered looking at the salvaged head once he'd returned to the very peak of the trees.

Jason didn't see any predators nearby.

However, he knew to take the dossier's notes seriously. He had no interest in throwing the game due to impatience.

Losing to the map's natural predators would make him look like the biggest moron ever.

Once he'd nested the Red Lamia at the peak of a tree, he brought the dog head cockpit high into the air so that it faced his own. The Red Lamia stared straight into the dead dog's eyes.

After that, he gently cut open the dog's head with the Red Lamia's sharp claws. He peeled away the upper layer until he exposed the dead cyborg's brain cockpit.

Unlike Jason's luxury car inspired design, the watchdog Grunt Mech used a standard stainless steel cockpit.

From their chair to their control board to their panoramic view screens, the pilot's accommodations were a universal monotone gray. The dull color was standard for low-ranking Grunts from various organizations.

Jason took another look around him, then locked his Mech's position in place. It was rather similar to parking a car so that it wouldn't move.

Right now, the Red Minerva was coiled around a tree with its head bowed so that it was directly touching the dog.

Jason opened his own cockpit, and the Red Minerva's eyes dimmed as it automatically went to sleep.

Most Hemoborn had an essentially symbiotic relationship with their pilots. They could not operate without someone inputting commands.

Jason hopped directly into the other cockpit.

The other pilot was lying in the chair, but there was no problem tossing him aside. The other pilot avatar stared back at Jason with totally vacant eyes. The resonation of the Ghostfire Dagger had instantly killed him.

Pilot avatars in Overdrive were extremely vulnerable.

They died instantly upon taking any damage from a Mech.

However, the Ghostfire Dagger's second attack shockwave typically wasn't enough to kill a pilot.

However, Jason's stab to the heart had instantly powered down the enemy machine.

Stopping the dog's heart had removed the protective forcefield shrouding the brain cockpit.

Jason accessed his opponent's keyboard, powering up the guard dog Mech's computer. Although the dog had died, the mechanical components were still operational.

A few quick commands later and a set of steel cables emerged from the dog's brain. The skin and fur on the forehead gently parted aside to accommodate the emergence of the transfer wires.

The cables snaked through the air before linking up with the Red Minerva's own systems.

With one last click, the neural uplink process began.

A notification appeared on the dog's screen.

NEURAL UPLINK

1% COMPLETE

Transferring data - including battle plans, weapons information, and past combat video - was a fairly simple process.

The two Mech computers simply linked up and started exchanging information.

In the case of Hemoborn, the data transfer took the form of a neural uplink, a brain-to-brain information transaction.

However, it was normally impossible to order a remote data transfer.

It could only be done from the other machine's cockpit. Indeed, most neural transfers were done under consensual circumstances.

While there were a few hacking-focused Mechs, the sheer Credit cost of hacking systems meant that those machines were few and far between.

With the neural uplink initiated, Jason returned to the Red Minerva's cockpit.

Once again, he ensured that the transfer of his avatar from Mech to Mech occurred as swiftly as possible. It only took him a second to reappear inside his machine's seat.

With the neural transfer initiated, it was time to get a move on again.

Although he didn't have access to the enemy data yet, he could still perform some rough backtracking of his opponent's steps. The minor damage to the trees wasn't enough to follow closely, but Jason still had a good idea of the general direction.

The Red Lamia returned to swiftly slithering through the trees.

Jason's partner advanced in a strange and awkward manner.

The left hand held the decapitated guard dog's head against the Red Minerva's, allowing it to continue transferring data as he moved.

Meanwhile, he held his right hand aloft to be ready to attack at any time.

It was an awkward and significantly slowed gait, but it was better than staying in place.

However, Jason found no enemies.

He carefully marked the area as blank, but his brow was furrowed with confusion.

The guard dog Hemoborn and bandit Kingbreaker Grunts had clearly left base from this direction.

Even if the actual camp was far away, Jason should have seen a few more opponents.

But once the neural upload finished linking, Jason realized what he was missing.

Unfortunately, this mission wouldn't be so simple as hacking a single Grunt Mech and backtracking their trail.

The bandit camp was constantly on the move.

Clearing out the forest as devoid of enemies still helped Jason gather intel, but now he knew he had far longer to go.

Hacking the opponent's brain computer had given Jason a general idea of the enemy's organizational structure.

However, none of the individual bandits had the full picture.

The bandits sent out four patrol teams every thirty minutes, one for each cardinal direction.

Each patrol team was split up into groups of three.

Two of the patrol groups were minor teams which consisted of one dog and one guard.

The group Jason killed was an example of a minor team. The patrol group had another minor team.

However, the organization was led by a major team consisting of two dogs and two guards.

The Illusionists were not allowed to communicate through voice channels on any of their stages.

As the Tournament of Assassins targets, the guild had judged that giving themselves constant global communication was simply too unfair. The Mechs still had megaphones to call for help, but they couldn't access a traditional comms wire.

It would make it impossible to kill off guards without anyone noticing.

The different guard teams compensated for their lack of global communications with a set of pre-arranged meet-up points.

The minor teams were supposed to regularly check in with each other to ensure that they hadn't seen any enemies.

Meanwhile, the major teams were responsible for rotational shifts.

Once a new set of guards were sent out, the new major team would immediately find the major team of the guard rotation that'd gone before them. They would inform the departing guards of the new base's location so they could return for new supplies.

These regular meet-ups were both a threat and a boon to Jason.

He needed to kill the enemies before they reached the abandoned meet-up point and saw that nobody was there. That would blow his cover right away.

However, ambushing the central team would allow him to gain intel on the King of Thieves's current camp location.

A neural transfer from the major team would be far more valuable than gaining info from a minor team.

Jason took another look at the schedule, then made his decision.

Jason would have preferred stalking the major group right away, but the group he'd killed was scheduled to meet up with the other minor team in a few minutes.

Even worse, he'd gone in the wrong direction by backtracking the guard's original path.

Normally, following a patrol party's path was a good idea.

The camp had moved from its original location, and Jason wouldn't find the new location until attacking the major group.

Jason considered his options, then nodded.

He needed to hurry.

It was a bit of a risk, but climbing through the trees wouldn't work.

He rapidly returned to the ground, then morphed from the Red Lamia back into the Red Minerva.

His partner dove deep into the ground.

He hesitated for a moment, then nodded as he rapidly filled the earth back behind him.

Covering his tracks was worth it, even if it took him a bit of time.

While the outline was still imperfect, returning the dirt in place would throw off most perfunctory glances.

After all, plenty of forests had missing patches of grass.

The Red Minerva streaked towards the meeting.

Jason ordered his partner to obliterate all the dirt in front of her.

Dodging through the trees forced players to move slowly. The need to sneak around silently was even worse.

However, the newly empowered Red Minerva chewed through the dirt like it was nothing, and Jason was so deep in the ground that nobody could hear him.

Jason reached the meeting point with two minutes to spare.

Instead of leaping out, he hid underground.

After hacking the dog head computer, Jason knew exactly where his opponents were going to meet. That advanced information allowed him to plan the perfect ambush.

Meanwhile, Jason's so-called ally still hadn't moved from their position.

Jason shook his head in disbelief.

The other player's absurd behavior was enough to temporarily jolt his iron-like focus.

What the hell was he doing?

The game had been going on for twenty minutes already!

Was he AFK?

Jason didn't bother asking.

It didn't really matter.

He would win the mission with or without the other player.

Of course, having a freeloading ally wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

The seven other players were usually competitors. In comparison, caving an AFK player was actually advantageous for Jason.

With a minute to go, Jason clawed a hole in the earth, creating an impromptu tunnel for his machine to travel back to the surface.

Afterwards, he transformed back into the Red Lamia.

As a cave dragon, the Red Lamia had similar digging abilities as the Red Minerva.

However, Jason had preferred to use the physically stronger version of his partner to dig out the tunnel.

But now that the tunnel had been finished...

Jason pressed the triggers on his control board thruster and held them in place.

The Red Lamia's throat began to swell.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The second minor group was coming from the left.

Jason waited a moment longer, then briefly glanced out. The Red Lamia's head barely poked out of the tunnel, too low for his opponents to see properly.

The Red Lamia's keen night vision told Jason his opponent's exact positions.

He aimed his shot, and then the Red Lamia reared up to its full height.

In its elongated snake form, Jason's partner easily towered over the opposition.

Jason twisted, then fired.

PESTILENT SNIPE: MAXIMUM COMPRESSION

Haaaaaak!

The disgusting noise resonated briefly through the air as Jason's carefully aimed bullet burst from his partner's mouth.

Although the Pestilent Snipe was loud, it was still much softer than an actual gunshot, especially now that the sound was no longer echoing through a sealed vault.

The shot first pierced the Grunt's cockpit before passing through the other way and blowing off the dog cyborg's skull.

The precise attack had killed both opponents.

The tricky shot was only possible by the Red Lamia's flexibility. Jason had twisted his partner until she had the perfect angle.

Jason had targeted the tanky Kingbreaker first because he knew he needed more momentum to destroy it.

Meanwhile, his experience with the naturally squishy Hemoborn class meant Jason was confident that even a slowed-down Pestilent Snipe would be enough to kill the dog.

The Red Lamia's shot strength varied on whether or not she had enough time to reach her full power, but the charged-up blasts her second to none.

Jason smiled at the sight of the two dead opponents.

His battle earlier had taught him the best way to deal with the Grunts.

It wasn't worth fighting them head-on.

The risk that they would set off a warning was too large. The watch dogs' barking would immediately bring an entire hunting posse on him.

Instead, he had to kill them immediately with powerful attacks delivered with maximum force towards critical weak points.

Jason's new Mech allowed him to battle like the experienced mappers who'd repeatedly farmed the Red Minerva for loot. When played skillfully, the awakened Red Minerva could kill his opponents without giving them any chance to counter.

After killing the minor group, Jason filled up the hole he'd left in the earth.

He was careful to pay attention to the small details. He didn't want to leave any additional hints of his presence.

There was nothing he could do about the two Mech corpses, but Jason didn't want to provide any unnecessary information about his machine's capabilities.

He might need to use his partner's digging prowess to kill the King of Thieves.

Suddenly, the other player cried out on Jason's line.

"Alright. Awesome! I'm on my way! Just keep playing your game, and I'll come help!"

The dot blinked and began steadily moving through the forest.

The machine was still going at a slow and steady pace to avoid opponents. On top of that, its speed was still very poor.

Jason took another look at his teammate's profile.

The Mech was bizarre and heavily imbalanced, reminding Jason of a fiddler crab.

One arm was utterly massive - larger than almost the rest of the machine combined.

The other arm was thin and weak, just like the Mech's skinny legs.

The machine's stats were terrible, but...

Jason's eyes widened.

What the hell?

His opponent's Melee stat had been a C the last time Jason checked.

Now, it'd jumped all the way up to an S.

His opponent hadn't lied.

His Mech had a mysterious power that allowed it to grow stronger.

Maybe they wouldn't be useless after all.

Well.

Jason would find out what that ability was once he met up with the other machine.

The Red Lamia slithered back up to the trees as Jason headed for the final meeting point he'd pulled from the dog head's data dump.

And now for the major team...