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Ashen Prayers

In times of desperation, difficulty, and utter despair, who do you pray to? The gods have long since abandoned you, all the heroes and shining white knights were cowering behind pages of fairy tales, any figure of authority won't even bat an eye to you---who do you pray to in a reality that is only you? There is only you who can solve your problems in the cruelty of Mother Nature, only you who can push yourself forward under the weight of the world, only you who can pursue your dreams. But if you must pray, if you must hope in something else, if you have really exhausted each and every means possible... ...then clasp your hands tight and light your hands aflame, for there is only the ashes of your dreams, your wishes, your prayers.

ResidentMind · Seni bela diri
Peringkat tidak cukup
17 Chs

Chapter 11: The Fourth Stop (5)

A silence permeated the dark room, much to Theo and Carmina's delight.

Fernando, however, was far from happy.

[You will find that decision...] Fernando flipped a switch near his neck, [...TO BE VERY REGRETFUL]

Fernando stood from his chair and dropped the clay cat that rested on his lap, shattering it to a million pieces has his augmented saw hand spun with lethal speeds.

"Oh my God, he's back at it again with his text-to-speech voice. Well, with a little more malice, like if a dyslexic 12 year old couldn't figure out how to use him if he was a conscious text-to-speech robot."

"That's one hell of a metaphor."

"I know, right?"

[YOU SEEM TO BE INDIFFERENT TO YOUR IMPENDING DOOM. IT SEEMS THAT SIMPLETONS THAT DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF A GOOD MONOLOGUE ALSO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF LIFE AND DEATH]

"Haha, really?"

Carmina, uncaring for whatever threat Fernando was trying to pose on her, sprung up from her chair and toppled him down with a kick.

Taking advantage of this golden opportunity, Carmina followed it up with countless stabbings at every vital points she knew about the human body. From important tendons to vital organs, Carmina memorized every critical body part she could strike to get an upper hand.

"Woah!"

Piercing his sharp fingers beneath Carmina's metallic ribcage, Fernando lifted her up with relatively ease and threw her at Theo, ultimately freeing him from his chair.

"I think it would've been a lot more wiser to have cut me loose."

"Yea, well, the art of surprise!"

"What kind of surprise did you get him? Did you pull a coin out his ear? Because damn my eyes if they're wrong, but you virtually did no damage to him."

"Huh?!"

As Theo had said, Fernando had virtually no damage done to him.

Every vital point Carmina had struck with her knife had only resulted in a small groove as though she had tried to cut through hard leather with a blunt edge.

"What did you expect? That guy's a robot freak with a fetish for human skin and movie cliches." Theo spoke with a hint of disgust in his voice, summoning his fire axe to prepare for combat.

"Oh wow! You can voicelessly summon your ID weapon? I knew my junior was a talented fella!"

"Oh, you're right! That's so---"

[STOP IGNORING ME. I WILL HAVE YOUR HEADS HUNG HIGH ON A CROSS OF METAL]

"Shut up attention whore! Can't you see we're talking here? Anyways, you think you can cut through that skin with your axe?"

"I feel like I'd explode if I tried hacking at it."

"Eh, who cares? Better living with heart failure than being dead decapitated!"

Theo resolved himself, "Yea, alright, who cares about heart failure? Beat that guy up!"

"That's the spirit!"

Fernando, who had respected the golden rule of waiting for his enemies' talk to finish before he did anything, suddenly found himself being rushed at by Theo and Carmina.

[IS IT MY TIME TO TALK---]

"Hell/Fuck no!" The two of them responded in a heart beat.

Once again, Carmina threw herself at Fernando in the form of a drop kick, but without the art of surprise on her side, Fernando blocked the drop kick and grabbed Carmina by the legs to swing at Theo.

[I DO NOT NEED MEASLY WEAPONS TO SHOW YOU A THRASHING. JACKIE-CHAN STYLE]

Theo, without the proper instincts to dodge or the hands to catch Carmina, could only bring up his remaining hand to block her.

Clang!

"Oof!"

With the centrifugal force of Fernando's lankily longs arms, he smashed Carmina into Theo and sent them both backward, resulting in a loud clanging sound between metal.

[PITIFUL. YOU HUMAN-LIKE ANDROIDS ARE NOTHING IN THE FORM OF COMBAT LIKE I AM. WITH THE INTERNET THAT HAS BEEN DOCUMENT IN ITS ENTIRETY INSIDE MY MIND. YOU TWO ARE NOTHING AGAINST EVERY MARTIAL ART AND MILITARY TECHNIQUE THAT HAS LIVED]

But nonetheless, the two persevered.

Learning from her previous mistake, Carmina decided not to directly rush Fernando and instead swiftly circled around him.

With a quick hand signal, the two rushed Fernando in a pincer attack, who in which easily dealt with Theo and Carmina as though they were play fighting with him.

A single step to the side had brought Theo face-to-face with Carmina, and having already put his arms into the motion of swinging down, had narrowly redirected his fire axe away from Carmina's face, though it was mostly due to her incredible reaction speed.

However, as a consequence, Theo struck the concrete below and immediately staggered afterwards as a stinging pain ached his heart.

[PATHETIC. UTTERLY PATHETIC. YOU TWO ACT WITHOUT A SINGLE THOUGHT SHARED BETWEEN YOU TWO. IT WOULD BE TOO MUCH OF A COMPLIMENT TO SIMPLY CALL YOU BUFFOONS. TO THINK YOU WERE ALL BARK AND NO BITE]

Carmina sharply replied, "Oh, shut up!"

[IT IS LIKE YOU DO NOT EVEN HAVE THE DRIVE TO FINISH ME OFF. COME. IT IS NOT TOO LATE TO JOIN MY REGIME OF AN ANDROID ARMY]

"I'd prefer my adorable Luna over some robot freak that likes human skin. Hey, Theo, you aright?"

"Ugh, shhhhniitzeel, yea I'm alright." Theo stood up and drummed his heart to beat, slowly breathing in and out as to calm down his aching heart.

"Schitzzel? You could just say 'shit' and be over with it."

"Family values, Carmina! I'll avoid cursing if I have the sanity to do---"

Fernando, done with any kind of movie cliche he wanted to make this fight out of, ran to punt Theo far into the shadows.

Now with the two of them split, Fernando quickly grabbed Carmina by the hand and slammed her down into the ground, the saw augmentation emerging from his hand once again.

"WOAH THERE, BUCKO! WHY DON'T WE HEAR MORE ABOUT THAT MONOLOGUE OF YOURS?!" A panic-struck Carmina quickly voiced her opinion.

It was an opinion that fell on deaf ears.

Without another moment of hesitation, Fernando saw off Carmina's right arm and threw it behind him. He repeated this process until every one of her legs and arms were cut off, and once that was done, Fernando stomped on Carmina's face until its metal was dented enough to crush any kind of circuit or wire built inside her skull.

As Theo watched Carmina get dismantled in the few moments he had been thrown down, Fernando had then kicked her remaining torso and head behind him.

[THEO. THAT WAS YOUR NAME. YOU ARE QUITE PECULIAR IN YOUR FUNCTION. TO THINK THAT AXE OF YOURS WAS CAPABLE OF SUCH A BIZARRE MECHANISM. THE POTENTIAL OF MASS DESTRUCTION IF SUCH A PHENOMENON WAS TO BE STUDIED.]

"Piss off, tin can!"

[RID YOURSELF OF THE CIRCUIT ROT THOSE HUMANS HAVE BROUGHT UPON YOU> NOW THAT THE BITCHY GIRL IS GONE> I AMS URE YOU HAVE THE FREE WILL TO COME JOIN ON MY SIDE.]

" . . . why would I even join you?" Theo had a jiffy's worth of hesitation as he squinted at Fernando, and he recognized that.

[I WILL MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE UTMOST LUXURIOUS SEAT IN MY REIGN. FROM HUMAN SLAVES TO DELECTABLE FOSSIL FUEL. I WILL BE SURE THAT IT SHALL BE DELIVERED IN ITS BEST QUALITY. AFTER ALL. MAMA ALWAYS SAID LIFE IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES. ALWAYS SWEET AND NEVER DISAPPOINTING]

"It's 'Mama always said life was a like a box of chocolate,' first of all..."

[WAIT. DO YOU WATCH FILMS OF THE OLD TIMES - ?]

" . . . second of all, the meaning of the damn quote is how life's always a fffffffudging mystery you dumb-shit skin freak!" Theo, yelling to build up as much momentum as he can in his arms, threw his fire axe directly at Fernando . . .

 . . . he had hit his target.

[ - - - ? I WAS SURPRISED THAT YOU KNEW WOODDDLAND GROMP. BUT YOU HAD KILLED ALL TENSION BUILDING TO THAT THROW BY MISSING]

Fernando was unharmed, leaning to his side and avoiding the fire axe like it was thrown in slow motion. Disappointment came to Fernando as though he had actually expected the fire axe to hit him if not for the lack of a movie set, but that didn't matter.

[TRULY PATHETIC. I HAD EXPECTED YOU HUMAN-LIKE ROBOTS TO BE - - - WAIT.]

A sudden, but subtle realization came to Fernando as both a fear for his life and anticipation for an awesome comeback for the two was brought to his mind, but when he turned around, it was too late to witness the axe-wielding Carmina do anything . . .

 . . . because the concrete roof collapsed onto him as Lady Boss stood above Fernando's crushed robotic frame.

"You know, I had my mind blown when I heard from missy over there that you two had found the robot rebellion leader. I was even more surprised to find you two in the basement of our rundown observation tower! Oh, is that idiot still alive?"

[AAA - AA - UUG - GGHHH - TH## WAS ##T THE EXP#CT#D OU#CO#E]

Lady Boss jumped down from the small mound of rubble and met Fernando face-to-face as Carmina walked around to talk to Theo.

"Why the hell did you throw your ID weapon?"

"You did a little hand signal thing! I thought you were going to catch the fire axe and chop him down from behind!"

"That was to buy time, Theo. I panicked like hell behind there because I was trying to reattach all my limbs together with those funky metal tendrils inside my body all while trying to contact Lady Boss and caught your fire axe as to not make sound on my end, which was an even worse move. Our asses was as lucky as it could get that Lady Boss over there was hella fast."

"Haha! Yea, well, let me live out my imagination. Wait, what happened to all the assistant robots? Wasn't there, like, some dude that got Fernando his chair and cat?"

"Promptly dismantled by o' wonderful Lady Boss over there."

"Daaang, when do I get that strong?"

"We got our asses handed to by a soulless, half-meat automaton whose cinephelia levels with the obsessive stalking of a BTS fan; I don't think we're getting that strong any time soon."

"Where the hell do you pull these insults from?"

"That's the art of vulgarity, baby!"

Carmina shot finger guns at Theo.

"Oi, newbies, get over here!" Lady Boss yelled at the two, "I got something to tell to you!"

Theo and Carmina walked on over and said in unison, "Yes, ma'am?"

"I like you two, you're pretty good at what you do. When I saw your test reports, I could nearly stuff a whole pack of cigarettes in my mouth from how wide my frown was, but you two got a good head on your shoulders! Meet me at the tiptop of this building again tomorrow at 12 PM, got it?"

"Huh? Wait, why?" Carmina exclaimed.

"Hah?! You two got a problem with that?"

"Oh, nono! I thought we were done with kill Fernando . . . ?"

"Pfftaahahaha! Hell no! That bastard can clone himself as much as he wants! Well, at the expense of some resources, but so long as we can hunt down these clones faster than they can reproduce each other, we can kill them until extinction!"

"Oh.... kay?"

"Well then, I'll see you tomorrow! If you meet me at the cafeteria, I treat you to some good grub!"

Lady Boss gave no time for the either of them before she left, stabbing her fish hook into Fernando's head and ripping it off as she jumped an impressive 14 feet onto the floor above Theo and Carmina.

Theo realized something, "Don't we also have to deal with distortions? Are we allowed to skip out on Distortion work because of overlapping work schedules?"

[NOPE! You two still got some distorties to deal with tomorrow.] Luna's high-pitched voice erupted from Theo's work phone, getting both him and Carmina to jump in surprise.

" . . . start praying for your sanity." Carmina solemnly spoke as though she had already resigned to her duties.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

In the following days after their incident with Fernando, Theo and Carmina worked overtime trying to both control distortions and handle the overwhelming amount of rogue androids that grouped together to try to overtake Luna Labs.

Although the mastermind hadn't been made quite clear, they both felt that trying to solve that mystery was far above their pay grade, considering they aren't being payed at all.

Nonetheless, Theo and Carmina did get something from working at Luna Labs.

Whether it was formal training by Duncan or teamwork practice with Lady Boss, it couldn't be said that this venture into this dystopian world was all useless.

For Theo, it was especially important for him to continuously push his body to be enduring towards his heart pains as well as a more efficient way to use his fire axe that doesn't need for him to put his entire body weight into one strike.

All the practice with Fernando had really given Theo the growth he needed to go from average civilian to an adequately dangerous high school goon from a Korean webtoon.

Carmina, on the other hand, had learnt a great deal on how to work with Theo to kill as many Fernandos they find in their crusade against rogue robots.

With her offensive power being nothing compared to Theo's fire axe, Carmina had to play the role of support as she tried to give Theo as much as an opportunity as she could. Not to mention that her dagger healed the things she slashed at, being rather counterproductive to what she intends.

As it turns out, Theo's fire axe was incredibly effective against all the Fernandos as they ran on some heat-based energy source to function.

So, taking it to present day, Theo and Carmina were now facing an escaped level one distortion, 'Mr. Long Face.'

It was a bipedal monster that mixed both human and horse, resembling an inbred variety of centaur whose genes were so flipped and switched that it could actually validate a transperson's thought process that men can menstruate.

Mr. Long Face had a horse-like head whose mouth had been too far slit back and a mane so long that it could reach to his hip level. Its pearly white human teeth and tearing, muddy black eyes gave a sensation of unease to the nerves of Theo and Carmina.

Moving down the body, Mr. Long Face had the naked torso of a man, though unkempt with enough body hair that it could be mistaken for actual clothing.

Even lower than that were the legs of a horse, and although they looked normal besides from a couple malformations, the thick muscle veins that ran from thigh to hooves proved that they were threateningly strong.

{Ahh... these hollow squares are nearly as hollow as my soul. It's so constricting, so imprisoning, but who am I to complain? I've trapped myself in the anguish of my mind for so long that it makes no different if the outside was the same...

...oh, endearing slaves to such a grim embrace, may you do a horse-faced individual such as myself a favor and bring the guillotine to my neck?}

[Do NOT kill him, Mr. Long Face is a valuable source of energy. Just beat him up and shove him back into his cell.] Luna intercepted the horse-faced distortion's will to die, making Theo flip his fire axe to fight with the blunt side of its edge.

"What better way is there to start the day than a suicidal horse you gotta bully into submission?"

"Straight up, a bag of fruit gummies sounds pretty good right now."

"Huh, yea, you're right. Wanna hop over to the lounge and see if they have anything?"

"Sure."

{Oh... once again, I am of no presence to be given the thought of care by others. Once again, I must seat my dear old friend, Misery...

...and once again, I must struggle in the sea of my tears to fruitlessly breath above.}

"I've only heard this guy speak two times and already know he's annoying as shit with his dramatics and pauses." Carmina bluntly spoke, uncaring for the melancholy atmosphere that Mr. Long Face was trying to set up.

"You think he'd make a good friend of William McGonagell?"

"I, uh, don't know that reference."

{You guys are so mean...} Mr. Long Face spoke with dejection, tears began welling up inside his eyes.

At first, the his tears that could be seen puddling down onto the floor were few, but as time went on, those deep-blue droplets soon became a stream of tears as Mr. Long Face began hyperventilating.

{NEEIIIGGGHHHH!!!!!!!}

Immediately after Mr. Long Face's war cry, a sudden, oppressive force wrapped itself around Theo's and Carmina's neck as it began to strangle them.

Theo pointed out, "What do you think guy is doing?"

"Getting into touch with his inner fursona."

"Hahaha, yea, you're right. Hey horse head! What does a horse with a bad attitude always say?"

{NEIGH!!! NEIGH!!!!! NEIGH!!!!!!}

"You are so right---!" Theo spoke with gleaming smile as he ran to dropkick Mr. Long Face with all of his heart and knocked him backward, but was still on his feet due to his muscular build.

Carmina, who trailed right before Theo, was also giggling, "Pfftahahahahahahahaha! H-Hey, I wanted to, hehe, do the d-drop kick!"

"Too bad! People with the punchline will always get the kick out of it the most!"

"Hahahahaha!" Carmina, whose laughter seemed to contradict the very nature of her mechanical body, followed up Theo's attack with high kick that knocked Mr. Long Face's head back forth into a rebound from her foot.

While that was happening, Theo got back onto even flooring and swung the blunt side of his fire axe to keep Mr. Long Face from leaning too far in one direction.

Carmina responded to that with another kick to set Mr. Long Face into Theo's direction, who, in turn, also swung his fire axe like a baseball bat to knock the distortion's head back at Carmina.

If the scene were to ever be described from a third-person perspective, it looked like Theo and Carmina were playing an intense game of ping pong.

"Ora! Take that!" Carmina yelled as she deflected Mr. Long Face's head back with the back of her dagger.

Theo kindly returned the horse head with a hard punch, "Kachow!"

The two of them were relentless in their beating, fully knowledgable of a distortion's more-than-durable body. Yet, it wouldn't be until a couple more punches or kicks thrown in the air that Mr. Long Face had fell on his back.

Whether is was because the distortion had lost the leg power to hold himself up during the thrashing or that Theo's or Carmina's gears are too dry to act as fast as they could, Mr. Long Face fell down to the floor as his tears puddled a considerable amount of fluid.

With the momentum of their ping pong game finally over, Theo gave a little nudge with his foot and said, " . . . we didn't go too far, did we?"

"Whaaaat? Nah, this horse guy'll live."

"No, like, y'know, don't we have an image to uphold? Weren't you criticized for being too barbaric during our exam?"

[Theo Rukuos and Carmina Myosotis, please come to my office, I have something to discuss with you two.] Luna spoke from each of their work phones, insinuating a dreadful feeling from the two of them.

"Oh shit, we're not in trouble, are we? Luna? Luna?!"

[No, I couldn't care any less about how you decide to control distortions so long as it doesn't destroy the laboratory.]

"Nice! See? No worries!"

"Hm, well, alright then . . . " Theo half-heartedly agreed, as though he wasn't comfortable with the violence he had shown just a few moments before.

But seeing that it wasn't the most important thing to prioritize at the moment, Theo sucked it in and began walking his way to Luna's office, following close after Carmina.

Although the two only had a couple days worth of experience, Theo and Carmina was easily capable of navigating through the extensive lab, though it was mostly Carmina. In fact, the more the two walked through the laboratory, the more they saw the efficiency that its architecture had.

From making shortcuts to fitting immense amounts of technology inside its walls, the lab was the pinnacle of having no room wasted.

In a matter of minutes, Theo and Carmina had quickly navigated the laboratory hallways and made their way to a grandeur set of doors that warned off anyone who dared to enter without permission to do so first.

[Come in, the door is unlocked.] Luna spoke, prompting the two to open the doors with a tinge of nervousness.

Immediately upon entry, the atmosphere of Luna's office had completely enveloped them; well, Vint's office too, as he was also working there.

The expansive room of their office was barely lit up by the incredible amount of computers and technology on Luna's side that ran 24/7 to make constant calculations for God-knows-what they were trying to find, leaving the corners of the office to have an incredible depth of darkness.

Yet it didn't even come near the sheer awe that the two had for the other, darker side of the office, lit up only by a single lamp.

It was Vint's side of the room, and despite the convenience of technology right at his hands, he scribbled numbers and notes at light speed without a break to his attention. But what had really captured Theo's and Carmina's attention were the towers of papers that resulted from Vint's ambidextrous hands.

Luna spun herself on her office chair to face them, "Hey, welcome to our office. Depressing, isn't it? To be working barely without light. But hey, what makes you focus, makes you focus!"

Carmina said in a stupor, "No, far from that, how much work are you two doing in here?! You could actually make a one-to-one scaling of this lab with that amount of paper! Well, with a bit of exaggeration, of course."

"Hm? No, we can actually make a one-to-one scaling of this entire laboratory with Vint's handwritten work. It's just that, when the office is filled with paper, we stick them into a big ol' machine and record what's on them before stuffing 'em into a giant furnace. Also, don't yell in here, Vint needs all the focus he can get right now."

" . . . wouldn't it be easier with some supercomputer, though?" Theo interjected, also captivated in sheer amazement of the sight.

"Nah, he works better than any wacky supercomputer, though he might not be able to match the speed in which it can present information because he does it all in handwritten form. Anyways, I'm not here to give you a tour. Carmina, you had the ability to 'adapt,' right?"

"Well, more or less, because I don't know much of an effect it has on this current body of mine. Wait, did I ever tell you my ID ability? Didn't you just hire us on the spot when you heard we were Manifestors?"

"It was on your job resume."

"Then why didn't you just hire us as actual employees in the first place?!"

"Anyways! As much as I'd like for Vint to focus on his work, we can't exactly do what we're about to do in case of some third party happened to hear us."

"Okay then, answer the---"

Bang!

Without so much as a second to register what was about to happen, Luna shot Carmina with a bizarre device as she twitched and jerked around on the floor.

"Woah! Wait, don't point that---"

Bang!

Theo, too, was shot immediately after.

As the two of them spasmed on the ground like fishes out of water, Luna began counting to time how long they were going at it, and once it had reached 15 seconds, Theo and Carmina had stopped.

"Agh! What the hell was---" Carmina exclaimed as she sat up, only for her and Theo to be shot down once more.

Bang! Bang!

Yet again, they began spasming the moment they were hit by whatever bullet was shot out of Luna's gun, but this time, Carmina had cut her 15-second convulsion short by two seconds while Theo had stayed the same.

"Hoho, it absolutely works for you."

Bang! Bang!

Luna shot the two of them once again, timing and checking whether her hypothesis was correct, and she certainly was.

"...ugh, getting shot by an actual gun was better than this."

"Hehe, sorry, it's just that time is a bit valuable around here and I wanted to see whether your body could adapt to malware put inside your body. Anyways, I have a job for you two; more specifically, Carmina."

"What job could possibly entail shooting a fucking epileptic seizure straight into my head?"

"Woah, no need to curse around here. I know it sucked for a bit, but know that you'll be rewarded for this." Luna stuffed her gun into her lab coat and turned around to face her many computer screens, "You see, there's going to be a very troublesome inquisitor coming our labs soon, and he has a very annoying to deal with."

"And what would that be?"

"Well, first, he's extraordinarily skilled in martial arts, considering he is an incredibly advanced AI. Second off, he's connected to a hive mind of other government robots and can easily get pull a military force in an instant if we're not careful. Are you two aware of the war effort we're trying to pull against The State?"

"Yea, it was the biggest piece of propaganda we saw during our rogue robot extermination quests."

"Then you should know that we will imminently lose that war without a second's hitch."

"You don't sound concerned with that statement."

"Of course not, because that entire thing is going to be used to buy us some more time to get energy. It's all apart of my master plan to..." Luna took a moment to think, "...overrun this horrible place and give the people what they really need."

"How is getting all this energy stuff going to help with that?"

"As you guys are Manifestors, I'm going to trust that you two know about 'waves' and 'resonance'; after all, it's the entire source of your powers. Anyways, distortions are incredible sources of these 'waves' because they, too, are Manifestors, by definition.

But instead of mastering a concept to utilize as a result of the quality of their character, distortions become the concept themself, which is why you will ever see a human-like distortion, unless they are extremely weak in expressing that concept."

"Are you saying you can distort into being British?"

"No, he was a knight in some fantasy land who represents a small portion of the concept of 'etiquette.' You don't need to show them sympathy because distortions will always be beast without a sense of self and in the world of Manifestors, that is the greatest crime to commit.

But, nonetheless, they are still technically Manifestors because Manifestors are people who are able to utilize waves to resonate with reality in order to impact it with an abstract thought.

You see, us scientists at Luna Labs store those waves produced by stimulated distortions and store them into containers together in order for them to 'clash' each other. The reason for this is because we need them to resonate in order to make a 'concept of character' that's capable of changing someone, and as a byproduct, we get a shit ton of energy because of how physical those waves can get.

But our real purpose here is to get those wave-resonate 'character concepts' and explode them all over The State. You've heard all the rants that the Fernando clones have about society, yes? About how he's more human than any of them?"

Theo and Carmina both replied at the same time, "A bajillion times over!"

"There is truth to that statement, as those with an actual personality or character are nearly nonexistent from how dystopian this world is.

Civilians are brainwashed by advertisements burning their candied words into brains, working unfathomable hours to the point of death despite being robots just to eat up those candied words once more. The State is responsible for this nightmarish era of brain rot and there's no one but me n' Vint to put a stop to that.

We're going to spread around those 'character concept' containers all around the cities and make them explode, resonating their waves with the brain-rotted civilians to make people with actual personality and character.

But the inquisitor that's coming here has a job to snuff out any signs of rebellion and we need him to delete his system 32 file because, by God, he's good at his job.

The first step is to incapitate him, which is already hard enough. Not only does his quick wit and absurd strength make the inquisitor difficult to destroy, he has an UDPE field---don't ask me what that means, it'll take too long---that's capable of deflecting every single bit of technology we can throw at him.

Oh, and if we use humans to approach him, the UDPE can also fuck up the synapses and electrical signaling in human brains to really just make them into life-long veggies.

And, not only that, if we were to even reach the possibility of that happening, the inquisitor is, as I said, connected to a hive mind of governmental robots capable of teleporting a fucking army on our labs! Like, holy shit, how do we even deal with that?!

Except that, we can certainly deal with that with you, Carmina."

Carmina, who was surprised at the once-known-cute Luna to be cursing so loudly, spoke during a moment of shock, "Huh? Oh, yea, yea."

"Yes, with you and your adaptability factor, we can slowly get you used to that UDPE field and completely fuck him up with a surprise he'll never forget! Anyways, after you chop off his head, it is crucial that you put this chip---" Luna presented a small chip on her fingertip, "---on him as soon as possible before he can contact for help.

But that chip alone won't finish the job, as you'll need to bring over his still-functioning head over to a class-four distortion cell known as 'The Portrait Of God' and have the inquisitor look directly at the painting inside the room.

It is crucial that you do not look at the painting under any circumstances, unless you have a thing for eldritch insanity creeping into your mind."

Theo sheepishly asked after Luna's grand speech about the work Carmina needs to do, "...what about me? What do I do?"

"You'll be staying here with Vint and guarding our main office for as long as you can. I'd like to explain it some more, but times cutting short here, so I this is the best explanation I can give right now."

"But don't I have a quota to fulfill until then?"

"Yes, but that 'then' has already happened."

"Wait, what?"

"The inquisitor here, so get off your ass Carmina, and follow me! Theo, you can keep you ass sitting down on the floor."

The two of them were immediately put into a daze as the situation had escalated to an extreme with one word, Luna marching out of the office as Carmina tried to follow after her.