TtOW! - Chapter 157 - Non-Standard Countermeasures (Patreon)

Since Colleöne couldn’t provide any actionable intel on the hostiles, NSLICE-00P turned to the next inquiry.

“Query: Does entity Colleöne possess any non-classified data regarding non-standard capabilities displayed by the hostiles? In particular, the ability of the hostiles to forcibly relocate units?”

Colleöne held her chin and tilted her head before nodding.

“Ah, you mean when they sent you to the Realms of Mana, right? Yes…I should be able to speak on that a bit. We did not intend for any inhabitants of the Material Plane to travel directly to the Source or the Material Planes, but summoning magic to call beings from the Source does exist. I suppose we should have expected someone would find a way to do the reverse.”

Colleöne’s eyes flashed with golden and silver light for a moment. She hummed and then nodded.

“Ah, I see what happened. I was wondering how they did it to you, a forcible reverse summoning should have been extremely difficult, since that means removing a being from the plane it’s most deeply connected to when it intends to resist. In the previous battle, it appears they deceived you into consenting to the ritual.”

“Affirmative. Query: Does entity Colleöne know of any countermeasures to said tactics?”

Colleöne nodded with a serious look on her face.

“Be careful what you agree to. That’s generally good advice, especially if there are magic formations in the area. But if you don’t provide something that counts as consent for the ritual, it would be significantly more difficult for them to pull off, and you would have the opportunity to respond. And even if it happens again…you now have a way back. Your ability to enter your own Material Plane is not contingent on your location, it should be possible to open an entrance even within a Realm of Mana, and then return through a subordinate dungeon.”

“Objection: If this unit must return through a subordinate dungeon, then she may not be able to return to the operational area in a tactically relevant timeframe, unless there is a subordinate dungeon within the area.”

Colleöne pursed her lips but nodded.

“…yes, that is true.”

“Follow-up Query: Are there any other methods to immediately return to the operational area?”

Colleöne took a deep breath.

“…there are no formal methods to do so that I am aware of. But traveling quickly within Aelea should be significantly easier than traveling between the Source and the Material Plane.”

“Acknowledged.”

NSLICE-00P’s robotic eye flickered. Colleöne’s eyes unfocused as she stared into the air.

“…I know where this is going. She’s going to start conquering and spreading dungeons everywhere, just to make sure she can come back.”

[Eh, I’m ok with that. Every dungeon she builds is one less for me to make!]

“And what exactly do you plan to do if we get into another Great Demon Lord scenario?”

[Heroes are your job. Besides, she’s a hero and friends with your descendant, right? So it’s fine even if she conquers everything.]

Colleöne frowned.

“Is it?”

[That’s what your husband did with all that stuff you gave him, you know.]

Colleöne glared at the message.

“No he didn’t! He was just resisting injustice and tyranny!”

[Oh sure. He totally needed to overthrow the Elteni Senate, too. And invade Utrad.]

Colleöne…averted her gaze, puffed her cheeks, and refused to read any more messages.

***

Now that Ateia’s divination training had concluded, Colleöne allowed NSLICE-00P to move her drones within visual range of Taog. Taog rested after the fight, and then began moving back towards their direction. So Taog appeared to have completed his mission, and was returning to safety, while Ateia’s condition was stabilizing and her training proceeding well. As such, the most urgent issues were wrapping up, so NSLICE-00P turned her attention back to her own affairs. Mainly, developing countermeasures for the hostile non-standards.

She had run through multiple simulations and calculations based on her and Colleöne’s conversation and come to several conclusions. If Colleöne was correct, she may not require a direct countermeasure to the forcible relocation. Now that she was aware of the tactic, she could take several preemptive actions to avoid that scenario from recurring.

First of all, she had been deceived because she assumed the gap in her perception from the Eternal Night mana was a dungeon. That was a simple error to correct, she should avoid using predictive extrapolation to identify unknown objects she has not fully investigated.

Next was a readjustment of her social interaction protocols. The existence of factions within factions was a reality she was still getting used to, her original organization had a very clear delineation between friendly and hostile forces. Here, it seemed that hostile forces could exist that were affiliated to cordial entities, and that affiliation with the Empire did not seem to obligate any given individual to act in accordance with the Empire’s diplomatic arrangements. NSLICE-00P was still determining how to handle the situation, but in the meantime she decided that as per Colleöne’s advice she would avoid affirmative answers to any requests unless she had full data regarding the requestor and the full details of the request. Likewise, she reduced the importance of cordial relations with the Empire, seeing as their value to her primary directive had dropped substantially and that the relations could not be counted on to impact decision-making by any given Empire-affiliated individual.

So the next time she detected anomalies in a meeting place for proposed negotiations, she would investigate fully before arriving, even should it threaten the negotiations.

And lastly, she could mitigate the damage of a forcible relocation by expanding her subordinate dungeons. As long as she had a subordinate dungeon in the area of operations before any engagements, she would be able to return from a forcible relocation within a tactically relevant timeframe. And there were other benefits as well. She had clearly observed Uscfrea’s subordinates utilizing the Otter Burrow gate. A network of subordinate dungeons would also act as a highly efficient transportation network, allowing her to deploy friendly forces at will who would retain access to their home base’s logistics. The tactical and strategic advantages of such a network would be difficult to overestimate.

NSLICE-00P concluded that the risk of the hostile’s displayed non-standard capabilities could be mitigated to an acceptable degree. The next course of action, therefore, would be to increase her own combat capabilities, and those of her subordinates. It was possible, perhaps likely, that the hostiles possessed additional non-standard capabilities that had not been displayed as of yet, and Colleöne had implied that NSLICE-00P would require additional upgrades to handle them. Likewise, if the friendlies could be upgraded to handle all, or at least most, of the threats NSLICE-00P had observed, then the risk of unknown capabilities could be mitigated.

And there was another angle. NSLICE-00P still had no actionable intel on the hostiles, or the extent and location of their forces. The termination mission would need to begin with large-scale reconnaissance to determine the scale of the enemy, and since hostilities had already begun that reconnaissance would have to be in-force, as all participating units would be subject to ambush and retaliation. NSLICE-00P had subordinates she could deploy for scouting, but their current combat power was insufficient compared to the threats she had observed. She would need to increase the individual power of her NSLICE units if she wanted to arrange for multiple scout parties.

So her next course of action was set.

***

The next morning, Colleöne continued training with Ateia. Ateia was attempting to learn the divination sight without assistance from the NSLICE network or the emotional controls now, so NSLICE-00P and her monsters were left to their own devices. And this time, NSLICE-00P decided to take charge of the training.

“Request: This unit would like to conduct a group training with all currently present NSLICE units, save for NSLICE-Ateia. Please note that this training will require this unit to assume command of participating units’ cybernetic components as per the Loyal Wingman protocols. This unit has recently become aware of potential damage and discomfort among organic components as a result of these protocols, and so is giving all units the opportunity to opt-out at this time.”

01R bowed his head and saluted.

“We will always follow-serve you, Wise-Mighty-Gracious Boss-Queen! Every we have is offered-available to you, yes yes! We are happy-overjoyed to serve, yes yes!”

All the other summoned monsters shouted their agreement, while 00B let out a mighty roar.

Lilussees yawned in her room.

“Um, like, depends, Boss Lady. I, like, need to use up some mana, or something, but I’m, like, so not moving right now.”

“Response: Physical movement is not predicted as necessary for this exercise.”

“Oh, ok. Then, like, do what you want, or something. You, like, just need these things, and not me, right?”

Rattingtale’s ears fell flat against his head as he watched from the side of the beach.

“More horror-torture…but if I don’t, they will single me out, yes yes. Ugh, very well, I suppose I shall join-participate.”

And so all of NSLICE-00P’s cyborg monsters linked to her through the network. She deployed all the drones as well. Melion began watching, bouncing around as they waited in anticipation.

NSLICE-00P stood in the center of the monsters, arranging them in a formation around her. She then connected to each of them and had their cybernetic components form a Light Beam spell out of their own mana. She then began to form a magic circle with her own, a Prismatic Bombardment circle, only with blank spots where the individual beam spells would be. She layered her circle over her monster’s spell circles, adjusting it based off her observations of the Legion’s group barrier spell.

The spell had difficulty connecting to the individual magic circles. Even if their cybernetic components allowed them to form identically shaped circles, each of her monsters had different mana densities. Likewise, even when using the same type of mana, apparently each individual had a unique mana-signature, formed out of subtle differences in the energy.

NSLICE-00P went through them one by one, using her experiences with Mana Infusion and tuning the Equalizer to adjust the parts of her magic circle that contacted each of the individual spells, joining the mana together in a way that would let it flow between. It was a long, painstaking process, the monsters with low mana were grunting and struggling to hold their circles in place. And she couldn’t even connect to Lilussees’s spell circle within the Monster Hangar, so she had the spider drop the circle and simply used the extra processing resources to help adjust the others.

But eventually, NSLICE-00P had hooked up each of the magic circles to the Prismatic Bombardment spell, just before any of the monsters would have dropped their circle. She tried to activate the spell…

The beach lit up as dozens of Light Beams fired into the sky all at once.

[You have learned the skill Ritual Magic!]

[The skill Strategic Magic is now level 6!]

[The spell Prismatic Bombardment is now level 10! A spell modifier may now be applied to the spell as a whole!]

Author’s Note:

Been a while since we had a pure 00P chapter, huh? But we’re finally wrapping up all those side character ‘emotions’ and ‘character growth’ shenanigans, now it’s time for 00P to stress out Colleöne some more!

Don’t worry Colleöne, I’m sure nothing bad will result from 00P learning to cast ritual magic with monsters that she can summon at will and that don’t even need to train as mages to participate thanks to the NSLICE network protocol sharing and Loyal Wingman protocols!

Anyways!

Will the Aesdes end up in another Great Demon Lord scenario? Will NSLICE-00P grow her capabilities enough to handle the non-standards? Will anything that upsets Colleöne result from 00P learning Ritual Magic? Tune in next time, to find out!