Chapter 148

"So, is there anything you might need to keep my daughter safe?"

Now Emgyr and I were alone in the room reserved for negotiations. During the three days that the Emperor had spent in our fortress, he had already made sure that the capital could not withstand such an onslaught. Although at first he was extremely skeptical that we were often attacked.

"David..."

Lucy burst into the office and she looked a little flustered.

"Is something wrong?"

Despite Emgyr's displeased look, I decided to clarify the reason for Lucy's behavior, which was completely unusual for her.

"Yes... Panam..."

I frowned, and my heart clenched unpleasantly.

"What's wrong with her?"

"No, uh. she's fine. she just went to our world and came back five minutes ago and you're not answering the phone..."

I shrugged with a brief glance at Emgyr.

"So what happened?"

"Wild Hunt..."

I frowned slightly.

"...she made her move, there is now a full-fledged elf invasion underway in our world. They have managed to infiltrate and many mercenaries and corporate employees are already fighting on their side.

"Bad..."

I frowned slightly. It wasn't that I had a lot of ties to that world, but I did, and it wasn't just Regina and Bestia, though the latter had set up the Arasaka setup, but Judy's grandparents, too. And I don't want anything bad to happen to them.

I immediately turned on the communication device that had previously been turned off, then dialed SUZI.

"Hi..."

"No time, how are the repairs on the equipment? Is it all fixed up?"

"Yeah, are we going on a combat mission?"

"Exactly..."

I sighed.

"So go ahead and put the castle on alert. I'll need at least a dozen vehicles and a few Basilisks with crews."

"Well, after the girls robbed those bases Regina and Bestia pointed out, we can spare more. After all, our underground parking garage is packed right now. There's even a couple of working manticores..."

"Will there be pilots for them?"

I grinned slightly wryly.

"Uh, no. but I could tap into them and, uh."

"You don't have to."

I shook my head, which drew a surprised look from Emgyr, who was already staring at me in shock. My eyes were supposed to be glowing slightly now, as if to say that I was communicating with someone.

"There should be enough men left in the castle to defend it. Triss will go with the group as a mage who can open the portal."

"Understood, calculating the optimal group for a quick and accurate strike on the enemy with possible retreat."

"Thank you..."

I cut the connection.

"If you'll excuse me, I just had an emergency."

"I... I understand."

Though Emgyr's voice was hesitant, my appearance told him more than I wanted to say at the moment, so he had to agree to cut the conversation short.

"Lucy, let's go. tell me everything I need to know on the way."

"In short, there's a lot going on out there right now..."

"Okay..."

Lucy and I left the office and then Emgyr was taken out of it and went outside to get some fresh air.

"To make a long story short, Judy just found out what was going on and decided to go there anyway and protect her grandparents... and Regina has asked for help. Bestia is hanging in there, but only because she's the Queen of Postmortality and there were just too many mercenaries in the bar when it all started."

"Roger that..."

I quickly contacted Judy.

"David, I hope..."

"Shut up, huh? I know what you were gonna say, and I'm not gonna stop you. I'm just calling to say we'll be moving out in an hour and a half. If you don't get ready in time, I'll leave you here, and I'll remember to stop the sorceresses from opening a portal for you."

"You won't do it..."

"I will, so get ready and get down to the underground vault. I'll be waiting for you there."

Despite my words I didn't go to the tech, I went to get ready myself putting on my armored suit and also checked my weapons...

*** An hour and ten minutes later. ***

"Everybody ready?"

I looked around at everyone present, including Judy, who was looking at me excitedly, and heard a choral, "Yes."

"All right, the main objective is to evacuate Judy's grandparents, so Judy herself on a Basilisk and two support vehicles. Will go right after them. Now, remember. that the cars are ready, you can put the engines into overdrive, but keep the civilians out of trouble as much as possible."

"All right. (chuckles)"

Judy nodded.

"The remaining two basilisks and five cars will stay by my side in the city."

"I'm going with Judy?"

Lucy looked at me carefully. I nodded affirmatively.

"Yes, she may need help in the form of a runner and you're going with her. Judy can do it on her own, of course, but I'll be relieved if..."

"I hear you and I have nothing against you."

Lucy interrupted my explanation and I nodded at her.

"Okay, uh. those who will be with me in the city, prepare to be very hot! Panam, put the fortress guards under siege. There shouldn't be any problems here."

"Roger that."

The girl looked at me seriously.

"Everything will be at its best."

"I know."

I smiled at her after which I clapped my hands a couple times.

"Let's go!"

One shout from me and we are all sitting in the cars, after which a rather large portal is opened in front of us, through which we find ourselves in a shelter away from Knight City.

"Here we go..."

One single command and all the engines roared to life, driving the cars out of the shelter and in the right direction. And I decided to call Regina first.

"Hey, you okay?"

"That sucks..."

You could hear the slight doom in the girl's voice.

"...I'm only hanging on by the fact that I have my own electrical system in the building and also a very good security system."

"Need a hand?"

"I... thank you. I'd appreciate it."

"Then wait, soon the cavalry will arrive and we can take you away."

"Got it, I'll get ready so the big-eared things don't get my databases.

"Come on..."

I grinned and after the connection broke quickly dialed Bestia.

"Look who showed up."

"How are you doing?"

"I'm hanging in there. Regina's worse, but I can't send her help, so you better help her."

"Uh..."

"What?"

"When did you two become friends?"

"Well, you know. it's actually your fault!"

I could hear the resentment in Bestia's voice.

"I?"

My voice was full of doubt from the information I'd heard. I wanted to believe that I was the cause of the two fixers' friendship, but I wasn't so sure.

"You, you, you... when the same highly paid solo with a team works for two fixers, who so-and-so even separately keep quite impressive parts of the city, then they want not to, but have to somehow negotiate among themselves. So.

Bestia's voice was indifferent to the words she'd just spoken. She wasn't complaining or angry, just stating the fact that I had forced her to keep in closer contact with Regina, which had led to their... well, maybe friendship. well, maybe friendship.

"Okay... I'm on my way to Regina's."

I handed the address to Becca, who was now sitting behind the wheel, while I myself continued talking to Bestia.

"How much longer can you hold out?"

"Well..."

A slight arrogance was heard in the voice of the queen of all Knight City fixers.

"...I'm queen for a reason, and I've changed my approach to bar security since the Arasak bastards' prank. So I can hold out for a long time. Just make sure that one asshole doesn't cause any trouble. Or he's gonna die for the second time."

"I take it Johnny's back in our world?"

"Yep...btw he managed to get attached to that chick who carried him in her socket and he's very unhappy that you zeroed in on her."

A slight sneer could be heard in Bestia's voice.

"Well..."

I, on the contrary, was completely calm and even indifferent to her words.

"...I don't care about his pleasure and desires."

"Ha, that's what I told him, and he threatened to break your nose for what you did to that girl."

"Yeah, yeah, your silver-haired rocker suddenly developed a conscience after he detonated a nuclear bomb in the elevator shaft of Arasaki Tower and killed thousands of people. And I'm talking about those who died immediately, but how many received a shock dose of radiation and suffered from radiation sickness? And how many died from it?

"Tsk... you're not talking to me. I had nothing against that girl's death. I may have worked with her a couple times, but I saw her for what she was. She would have betrayed me without a second thought if it meant profit."

"Yep...unfortunately she was just that, but I think we started talking about a topic that shouldn't be brought up in decent society..."

"Couldn't you have just said you didn't want to talk about whores?"

"You know me. I'm not a fan of direct insults."

"Yeah, yeah..."

A slight sneer could be heard in Bestia's voice.

"So you help Regina, you can get to my bar, we can all wait out this mess the pointy-eared things made.

"I just don't understand... what do they want?"

"Hmm? They're looking for that Swallow of theirs, aren't they?"

"So she's already back in her world..."

I shrugged, and a satisfied snort was heard from Bestia's side.

"I knew you had something to do with this."

"Sinned, sinned, sinned. but I have a plan and I'm smoking it. And yes, the Eeyore's know where it is, as they lay siege to my base on a daily basis, there was even an attempt to capture it using not only the obscure monsters of their portals, but also their warriors, and solos from our world... or not solos, who the hell those guys and girls were."

"They just want to take over our world. Only they're gonna get their teeth into us."

There was a threat in Bestia's voice, but it wasn't directed at me, but at Wild Hunt.

"Clearly everything..."

"All right, let's go to Regina's..."

"Yeah, bye..."

The connection was broken, and I turned my attention to the real world, where our small column of equipment was flying through the streets of the city, which was empty at the moment, pushing the abandoned vehicles. And it was flying in the direction of the house that was Regina's base...

Here and there, pillars of smoke, icy buildings were seen and gunshots were heard...

"Kiwi, what's going on with the network?"

"The network is almost lying down... and it's obviously being deliberately breached. Fortunately, the Watch does not eat its bread for nothing, so the network will be able to hold out for another three hours, and then such a massive attack will bring down the wall that separates the new network from the old one and a lot of old AI will get access to our cities..."

"It sucks..."

"Let's go!"

One order from me and the cars accelerated a little harder...