Chapter 315

The Angel Express, Calais, France - 4:23 PM Central European Time

The ride across the Atlantic Ocean was smooth and fast. Most of our speed was gained through magnetic levitation when we made our own path, but that changed once we were back on land. The Angel Express could travel without tracks for a short time, aided by what was essentially magic, but it needed to attach to something once we were in France.

I had pumped quite a few points into the safe zone, not just in terms of amenities but in terms of functions. It was now one of the fastest trains on the planet, beaten only by a handful of conductors and engineers who had classes that pushed their vehicles to the very limits. The Angel Express had automatically changed wheel sizes to fit the new tracks and thus couldn’t hit those speeds anymore, but the slower pace gave us time together.

While a good chunk of the journey was spent training and going over what the Mills should be doing in England, we also rested. Everyone except for Ash, because she was obsessed with her job, sat in the dining car and watched the water stretching over the horizon on either side of us.

If we had been traveling by boat, everything would have been different. The storm we went through in the middle of the Atlantic caused waves over 40 feet tall, and we were completely unaffected. Instead of getting tossed around we simply tunneled through. The Angel Express was one hell of a beast.

That event lasted for a couple of hours as lightning illuminated the choppy waters, and everyone did their own thing with a comfort beverage and meal. I would never say that training was a waste of time, but there came a point where people needed to rest and let their new experiences settle. That’s why I always mandated decent sleep schedules and blocks of rest for everyone except Ash and myself.

Me because I didn’t have nearly as much to learn, and the Monstersmith because she wouldn’t listen to me about it, anyway. Plus, she wasn’t in any life or death situations so she got a pass.

While we weren’t heading to England to drop them off directly, I was kind enough to stop near the Channel Tunnel. From Calais, they could hop on a train heading under the water to get to their destination, and it would be up to them to figure out where to go from there.

I hugged Kayla at the subspace depot’s doors while Corwin was getting all the pets he wanted from the Langston siblings.

“You both be safe, and bring our favorite boy back with you,” I told the Double Agent as I pulled away.

“Don’t worry, we’re going to be fine,” Kayla said with a tired smile. I had pushed her unusually hard during training, but that was just because I had seen how much she had improved. She had grown by leaps and bounds compared to how she fought Talspra in Etson National Forest. “Besides, I have all of the notes we’ll need on how to navigate England and get our class pieces. If we can’t survive this, then we don’t deserve to be in Sol Ligatus anyway.”

“Nah, you’ve both earned a place here. I’m glad things went differently this time,” I replied, reaching up and tousling her hair. She knocked my hand away before childishly sticking her tongue out at me, and I returned the gesture in kind.

Until Jeff wrapped me up in a bear hug and tried to pick me up again. I didn’t budge, just like last time. My Constitution was too strong. He received a hug back, though.

“We’re going to do everything we can to catch up,” he said, patting me hard on the back. “Then we’re going to kick your ass when we come back.”

“After we pick up Jamie,” Kayla added.

“Yup, right after that,” Jeff agreed.

“Can’t wait. I would have preferred to do it on the trip over, but her mission was for the good of all,” I said, stepping back once he let me go. Corwin jumped at me, but I caught him midair and, with a quick flourish, flipped him over so that I was holding him upside down. The look of surprise on his face as he licked his nose and glanced down was hilarious. “Didn’t you get taught not to do that?”

I arched an eyebrow at the golden labradoodle, but he just leaned forward and tried to lick my face. Before he could, I shifted him and set him down before scratching above the base of his tail. He started dancing back and forth from paw to paw.

“Don’t reward him for that kind of behavior,” Kayla said.

“You’re right. He jumped when he wasn’t supposed to, so no reward,” I replied, and stopped scratching. Corwin paused for a moment before leaning against my legs with his tail wagging quickly. I began petting him again. “Yup, that seems a fitting punishment.”

The Double Agent rolled her eyes, but she was more amused than she let on. Jeff snapped his fingers and Corwin immediately perked up. There was no hesitation as he went to sit at his master’s side.

“You guys have fun in England,” Mercury said as he stood next to me with Bethany at his side. “Bring us back something cool. Like Excalibur, or something.”

“That’s still in the hands of the Lady of the Lake, and don’t go searching for it,” I warned, looking directly at Jeff. “I don’t want to risk you being the one to pick it up, even if that risk is really low.”

“I wouldn’t know what to do with it, anyway,” the Queen’s Knight said with a grin.

“Caliburn, then,” Mercury corrected.

“That’s just Excalibur, but under a different name,” I said.

“Except for the versions of the legends where that’s the sword in the stone,” Kayla quickly pointed out.

“Doesn’t matter,” I returned. “Any swords of legend you find aren’t going to be rapiers, which came from Spain and Italy, or anything remotely close to what a ninja would wield. If it’s Arthurian in origin, assume that the best thing to do is leave it where it lies.”

“Even if it’s something like, say, the Sword with the Strange Hangings?” she asked, tapping her chin in thought. “It could only be drawn by Galahad, the most worthy of the court, but what if Jeff can?”

“Yeah!” Mercury agreed. “If anyone could be called worthy, it’s definitely the Golden Retriever Knight.”

Jeff straightened up a little at the praise, even accepting the ninja’s nickname, and put his hands on his hips.

“Don’t you pose,” I told him, rolling my eyes. “Fine, if you can pull the Sword with the Strange Hangings from its scabbard, which only Galahad could do, then feel free to use it. Hope you like longswords.”

“Oh, uh. I mean, I do,” the man admitted, rubbing the back of his head. “But not as much as I love rapiers. I think I’ll sit this one out.”

“Man, if only we thought about that from the beginning,” I said with amused sarcasm. “It’s not like this would be the first time”

“The first time for what?” Mercury asked before turning to Jeff. “Have you already pulled some sacred sword of legend?”

“It wasn’t a sword, but…” he trailed off, scratching his cheek with a grin.

“This guy,” I said, thumping the knight on the chest. “Pulled a pair of rings from Arthurian legend from a damn gacha box all the way back in Etson.”

“Wait, for real?” the ninja laughed. “That’s hilarious!”

“The Twinned Rings of Gareth and Lyonesse,” Kayla said with a half-smile, more amused by Mercury’s words than anything. 

“That was a really good pull, too,” Jeff said, nodding. “She got 10 percent of my stats as a buff, and vice versa.”

“Pretty strong,” Mercury remarked as he looked at their hands, but both were wearing gloves that would conceal any rings. “Can I see them?”

“No, we don’t have them anymore,” Kayla answered. “They were powerful, but they had a drawback Jeff decided wasn’t important enough to tell me about.”

“Only because I love you, honey,” he protested.

“Mmhmm,” the Double Agent replied, giving him a look that made him sigh. She turned back to Mercury. “After I figured out that the rings would kill Jeff and give me his hit points if mine ever reached zero, we sold them off to the Dealer for a hefty sum with some advice from Sara. Got these new rings, too. I couldn’t have that possibility hanging over my head.”

“Damn, that sucks” the ninja swore, rubbing his chin. “I can see why you’d give it up, then. Good call, Kayla.”

“And he got it from a gacha box,” I repeated.

“Some people have all the luck,” Mercury said as Kayla leaned against her husband.

“You can say that again,” I agreed. I checked the time before nodding towards the door. “Alright. Y’all should get going. The next train across the Channel Tunnel should be leaving soon, and we still have a long way to go.”

“Be safe, you two,” Kayla said with a soft smile before turning to Bethany. “And thank you for the going away package. We’ll put it to good use.”

“I’d rather you not have to use them, but they’re there to be used. Come back safe,” the Tea Witch signed back with a bright smile on her face.

With a wave, the Mills turned and started heading out. I put a hand on Mercury’s shoulder when Jeff opened the door leading out of our little extradimensional space for his wife, bowing and gesturing that she should go first.

The moment he had done so, the ninja had taken an involuntary step forward. I gripped his shoulder tightly, causing him to flinch from the pain, and he didn’t move any further. Jeff nodded and waved one more time, which I responded to normally so he didn’t realize something was up. I had to Lift Mercury’s hand as well. The door was soon shut, and I let him go.

“What was that?” he asked, reaching up and rubbing his shoulder. “Your grabbing me and that pull I felt.”

Nodding and motioning for them to follow after me, I turned and started heading back to the dining car. It took the ninja a couple of seconds, but he was right behind Bethany. The doors closed automatically once they were on board, and I started putting in our next destination.

“Are the rails set up so that we can get to where we’re going?” Bethany asked after getting my attention. She clutched the apron of her maid outfit with both hands, which she enjoyed wearing when she wasn’t brewing. “Or did the system add more so people can go all over the place?”

“Good question,” I said and signed with a smile. “A lot of the infrastructure was already there given how much freight is sent around, but the system did add a lot on its own. Several places that weren’t accessible by train can now be reached, which was one of the biggest reasons I decided on the Angel Express as my mobile base of operations. Between the sea and the rails, we can get pretty close to anywhere we need to go.”

“That’s cool. I love trains,” she replied. “I like how they feel, and I don’t mind the noise.”

“They really are the best,” I agreed before taking a seat. “I have to talk to Mercury for a bit about what’s coming next. Think you can give us some time?”

Bethany nodded, but didn’t leave right away. She put down two cups of tea, each one still steaming, and gave Mercury a hug. The ninja had been staring out of the window as the Angel Express started moving, the subspace depot falling away around us to show us the town we had dropped the Mills off in. He quickly returned the gesture once he was knocked out of her thoughts, and she went off to her workshop.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked, Pulling the front of his shirt so he’d come and join me.

“Those aren’t worth anything these days, just like how they were actually valued less as a finished product than they were as, like, just a lump of metal,” he replied.

“True. The nickel wasn’t far behind, though,” I told him.

That made him pause for a moment. “I hadn’t heard anything about that. I just knew about the penny thing.”

I smiled as he sat down. “That’s okay. It was rhetorical, anyway. I already know what was passing through your head.”

“I figured as much,” Mercury replied, taking a sip of his tea. “What was that, anyway?”

“That was your class calling to you, and not in any way that you would be happy for,” I answered, and he grimaced.

One of the things I had promised Mercury when I was recruiting him for Sol Ligatus was that I would show him how to win the game his headband set up. As a Mystic Ninja, which really drew more from anime and video games than historical accuracy, there was a simple way for him to get stronger. Because it was based on things from pop culture, there was one thing that led directly down the path of power.

The Conservation of Ninjutsu. It stated that an army of ninjas is cannon fodder, but a single entity is a deadly threat.

Every time a Mystic Ninja was near another of their kind, they were drawn together by a basic connection. Sometimes it was something as simple as finding yourself walking down a street you normally wouldn’t, but for someone like Mercury it needed to be more blunt about it. It was almost a compulsion because he had more than enough self-discipline to notice when something was awry.

Swallowing, he reached up and adjusted his Ninja headband, which was the item he had gotten his class from. “I was about to go out there and kill someone?” he asked.

“No, you would have never made it that far,” I told him honestly. “You’d have either stopped yourself or I would have. Plus, Emma never would have made it inside the depot to initiate the event. This is a safe zone, so your headband wouldn’t have been activated.”

“Emma?” he asked.

“Emma Martin,” I answered. “She’s the Mystic Ninja here, with one kill under her belt.”

Mercury stared at me for a moment, and I sipped my tea. “I’m really surprised that this is the first one we’ve come across,” he said after processing my words. “And that she’s already killed someone? I guess?”

I nodded. “This is the first one we’ve come across because I know where they are and how to avoid them. Trust me, that’s something I looked into heavily over the years. The feeling gets more powerful despite the distance if you haven’t come across another of your kind. She could be on the other side of the country and you’d have felt it. The last thing I want is for you to be forced into a death game with someone who shares a class and put you through that.”

“I could handle it, I just don’t want to,” he defended.

“I know, Merc,” I told him with a reassuring smile, even though I knew better.

Throw armies of monsters at him, even if they looked like people, and he was fine. Cool, even. Give him a couple of Player Kills on his status screen and he couldn’t handle it. No amount of toughening up either by me or Jamie kept him as the same man as he was. At his core, even as a gentleman thief stealing from others, he was the protagonist of his own story. The hero.

Killing others shattered this belief in himself, and there was no coming back from it. He was a good kid.

“There had to have been one in Chicago or New York, right?” he asked. “Another like me, I mean. Both cities were huge.”

“There was one in New York City, but they didn’t make it,” I answered honestly. “Not everyone has the common sense to run away from fights they aren’t equipped to handle, even with all the tools a Mystic Ninja provides. If we had gone there right after you joined Sol Ligatus, we would have caught them, but we would have had to have been quick.”

“Dead, then.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Guess it’s better than me killing them,” he admitted quietly, looking down. “I remember, you know. You said you knew a way to win my headband’s game without taking any lives.”

“That’s right,” I confirmed, gesturing up towards his head. “If you get close to someone who has your class, then you’re taken into this dark, twisted dimension. The laws of physics aren’t quite right there, and you’re given a quest to kill the other. They’re given the same mission. Whoever wins gets to empower their class.”

“You never did tell me how you’d help me rig that game,” he said, leaning forward on the table. “I always assumed we’d get to it eventually and didn’t push, but I think I’d like to know now.”

“We would have gotten it by now if it weren’t for everything changing,” I replied before taking another sip.

“Aaron and the administrators ruining the timeline again?” he joked.

“Yeah, it’s all their fault and definitely not mine,” I snorted. “It’s just not in the cards. The places we’re going will be ninja-free aside from you, so I knocked it down on the priority list. Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s cool. So long as I’m not forced to kill anyone, I’m good,” Mercury said honestly.

“I know. You’re a good dude,” I returned with a smile. “But, to answer your question, there’s a skill out there that lets you temporarily steal people’s classes.”

His gaze jerked up to meet mine. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yup. You learn it from an old man who’s set up a martial arts temple on the peak of Denali, over in Alaska,” I explained. He nodded like this knowledge made complete sense. “It takes most people about a month but, with the way you’ve been prepared and trained, it would only take you a week at most.”

Mercury nodded along with my explanation, thinking it through. It took him a short time before his aura became excited, and I knew he had figured it out.

“Oh! Because the game requires two ninjas, but if I knock the class out of my opponent then there would only be me!” he exclaimed.

“Got it in one,” I told him with a grin.

“So I take their class, which is already my class, and then they fall out of the dimension or space or whatever we were supposed to be in, which was already vague, and then I’m the winner by default,” he said. “That’s so much easier than just killing them.”

“It is, but there’s a reason why this works so well,” I replied, adjusting to be more comfortable in my seat. “You strike them, take their class, and then that’s it. Nothing changes for you because you were already a Mystic Ninja, and they’re supposed to get it back. However, whether by glitch or design, they don’t because they’re no longer in the space when the skill wears off. The class has no one to return to.”

“So it misses the timing,” Mercury guessed.

“Yup. They’re free to get another class since they’re not getting that one back, but the odds of finding another Mystic Ninja headband is next to zero.”

“Damn, that’s a good workaround,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the seat. “It still astounds me how on top of everything you are, boss.”

I shrugged. “I’ve put a lot into trial and error. That’s all this amounts to, anyway. In the end, it worked out enough.”

“Still, I can’t imagine it. Going through what you did. Being a regressor,” he continued, then shook his head. “Actually, I can imagine being a regressor. Used to a lot, actually. Just, seeing you in action blows any thoughts I had on the matter out of the water.”

“I get you, Mercury,” I said as I stretched. Taking another sip of tea, I glanced towards the back of the train. “You want to get back to work?”

“Can I get one more question?” he requested as he stood up.

“Sure.”

“Have I ever gotten more powerful than Jamie in any of your runs?” Mercury asked, sounding hopeful. I grinned as I stood up and started heading towards the training car.

“Yes,” I answered, and the excitement in his aura started to rise before I put my hand up. “But you’ll have to put in more effort than you are now. She’s a big hurdle, my man, and you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

“You got it, Warmonger,” the ninja said with a broad grin. “Put me through the training from Hell. Or Heaven. Whichever will get me there. I’m ready to cross the mountain.”

“Alright. The Anthony Franklin special,” I replied with a serious voice, letting some of my Tyrant’s Will suffuse the train. “You have courted death, Mercury. Let’s see how far you get.”

A chill went down his spine, but it did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm.