Chương 348: With Strings Cut 5

The jungles of Velos were exactly how Boxxy remembered them - verdant, violent, and virulent. Not even the modern era of industry and firearms had been able to tame the unruly continent, though not for a lack of trying. The remains of colossal mobile factories laid scattered across the landscape, their rusting carcasses overgrown with the same rampant vegetation they had failed to conquer centuries ago.

The only thing that ancient push to 'civilize' Velos had accomplished was to give the orcs access to technology that they couldn't have obtained otherwise. One would think the savage brutes were too stupid to comprehend anything more complex than an axe or a spear. This was true on the individual level, but the orcs' collective consciousness was capable of great things if given enough time and manpower.

At first they only took the mechanized titans apart for scrap to melt down into bladed weapons, but at some point the greenskins had started putting the pieces back together. With enough trial and error, they had gained enough of an understanding of an Engineer's craft to start manufacturing their own guns, explosives, and armored vehicles. Though almost as lethal as their enlightened counterparts, these weapons had one major drawback - they were made by orcs.

The average greenskin's equipment was badly designed, poorly put together, and terribly maintained. When applied to something more complex than a sharp piece of metal tied to a stick, these traits turned the savages' attempts at firearms into death traps. Their kludged together armaments would often jam, malfunction, or backfire, usually in ways that injured their user. On average, only three out of five bullets actually left the barrel of their guns as intended.

Furthermore, the greenskins' horrendous lack of precision made it so only a quarter of those shots actually hit their intended target. The greenskins compensated for these flaws the same way they dealt with all of their shortcomings - through overwhelming numbers, immense toughness, and an overwhelming disregard for personal safety. While a single orc with a 'shooty-stick' was barely a threat, an entire warband of those maniacs could lay down a truly terrifying amount of firepower.

If not for their terrible accuracy and the unreliable nature of weaponry, the greenskins would have surely taken over the continent. Conversely, what they had was just enough to keep the civilized races from exterminating the orcs once and for all. In short, Bob had done an excellent job making sure that the balance on Velos was maintained. Or so Boxxy assumed. It had gotten pretty good at spotting the overseer's handiwork. The trick was to look only at the outcome without digging into the details.

If it seemed ludicrous and impossible at first glance, then the God of Chaos made it happen. Orcs adopting 'just enough' technology was one such scenario. Another, more egregious example was the view that Boxxy was looking at. The Rancid Summit, nestled deep within a particularly toxic part of the Velosian jungle and once home to the shapeshifter's base of operations on the continent, was populated.

A village with peculiarly vertical architecture had been built on a large cliff halfway up the small mountain, far above the poisonous vegetation that surrounded it. As if that wasn't weird enough to hint at Bob's involvement, the nature of the settlement's residents made it obvious. They were all winged humanoids with feline ears, hawkish eyes, clawed hands, talons for feet, long tails with bushy tufts, and more fur than feathers.

Furthermore, they were all attractive females dressed in practical-yet-revealing robe-like garments. The most surprising thing of all, however, was the fact that someone had carved the cliff that the village rested on into an enormous and strikingly accurate rendition of Jen's face. The Griffin-Harpy village of Haarfen, by dmaxcustom"Well, poke me with a stick and call me Edward," Boxxy mumbled in surprise.

"You were actually telling the truth."

"Of course, I was," Bob's voice echoed in its mind.

"Why would I lie to you at this point?"

"You did tell me that Fizzy was dead."

"No, I suggested that she might have died. Big difference."

"Right, right. Still, what insane series of miracles did you pull off to make Jen establish a civilization?"

"Hah. As if that muscle-head could ever come up with something other than a way to beat people down."

"To be fair, she was quite good at that." When Boxxy left the monstrous Monk, she had achieved the pinnacle of her hybrid species. She had not only attained mastery of all her Jobs, but had developed and perfected a fighting style that made full use of her unique biology. The techniques she had acquired mostly revolved around using her wings to augment her powerful kicks and lightning-fast claw swipes, along with a wide variety of aerial combat maneuvers.

Jen's self-taught fighting style was so well-developed that it had become a Harpy Skill called Wing Boxing at some point during Boxxy's absence. The shapeshifter wasn't sure why the ability was named that way considering the fighting style didn't have any punches in it, but it felt like it was better not to ask.

"Still," Bob insisted, "while skull-crushing and flesh-rending are very useful skills to have, it takes more than that to make a civilized race. Thankfully Jen's descendants were far more reasonable than she was."

"Wait, descendants?" Boxxy didn't hide its surprise.

"Are you sure we're still talking about the same Jen?" Even though the Monk had that 'cool beauty' thing going for her, she was about as sexual as a rusty doorknob that was halfway buried in mud. She was so detached from her libido that she didn't even react on the rare occasion when her breasts were exposed in the middle of combat. Boxxy just couldn't picture her doing anything that would result in offspring, either intentionally or otherwise.

"Time changes people," Bob pointed out.

"With you gone the world began to settle down, and eventually, so did Jen. Well, 'settle' is probably too strong a word. Essentially her mindset gradually shifted from 'find strong guys to fight' to 'find strong guys to mate with,' or something along those lines."

"Dare I ask who she fixated on?"

"Sigmund, believe it or not."

"… Sigmund?"

"Yup."

"Sigmund Law?"

"That's the one."

"The goddamn Grand Inquisitor?"

"Technically, he had been expelled from the Holy Inquisition by then, but yes. Him."

"Weren't they mortal enemies, though?"

"Oh, yeah. They were fierce rivals all the way through," Bob agreed.

"I'm pretty sure they still sing songs about their duels." Sigmund had been an uncompromising Hero of the Goddess of Truth and Justice, a man that many people had looked to for leadership and strength during the Shift. On the other hand, Jen was a remorseless killer, an ally to the World Enemy, and a wanted fugitive from the Empire besides. Furthermore, the two of them had had dozens of fights that Sigmund barely survived, and even then that was mostly because Boxxy had instructed Jen to avoid killing blows.

The abomination needed the High Inquisitor to survive in order to inspire others to take up arms against it, which would allow it to more quickly reach its goals. Regardless of the harpy's instructions, between her track record and the multiple near-death encounters with her, Sigmund should have had plenty of reason to hate her.

"So how did they wind up together?" Boxxy inquired.

"Long story short, Sigmund had become obsessed with defeating Jen once and for all. He trained relentlessly to the point where he achieved a second Rank Up, then challenged her to an all-out duel. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details right now, but essentially she broke his armor and his weapons, and then bled him until he was forced to surrender on the verge of death."

"She made Sigmund bend the knee? Damn, I need to see that. Even I couldn't humiliate him that badly."

"It was a close fight, actually. A pretty awesome one, I might add. I think I still have the recording of it somewhere… Anyway, it wasn't humiliation. More like, he finally accepted that he'd never surpass her, so he - and this is the best part - told her something like, 'Do what you want with me.' And, well, Jen apparently wanted to take him to her nest and make him her husband."

"Hah! And he went along with it?!"

"Oh, yeah. He had given her his word or whatever. Apparently, the thought of violating his honor was more repulsive than the idea of bedding a buxom bird. Honestly, I can't blame the guy. Most folks would have given up their honor in a heartbeat to be in his shoes. Sigmund took his new duties quite seriously, too. Gave Jen four kids before she kicked the bucket. All girls, of course." Bob went on to explain that Sigmund had been the main reason why the village of Haarfen existed at all.

Without his level-headed guidance, Jen's daughters would have turned into battle maniacs like their mother. Instead he had steered them towards less self-destructive pursuits, like craftsmanship and adventurer work. He had, at some point, undergone a third Rank Up and had been yoinked out of existence, but he had succeeded in giving the budding griffin harpy community a solid foundation. If not for that, their race wouldn't have progressed to the point where they were considered honorary enlightened.

Some hold-overs from their origins remained, of course. For one thing, strength was still highly valued in their society. Thankfully they had a broad interpretation of the concept, as mystical might and artisanal ability were considered as equally valid pursuits as physical prowess. They were also exclusively female, which pushed them to travel the world in search of worthy husbands. The men they chose rarely refused, as the griffin-girls were known as loyal and passionate wives, on top of being gorgeous.

It was a combination that led to quite a few people attempting to track down the 'hidden harpy village' in an attempt to 'bag a bird for life.' Boxxy barely listened to any of Bob's history lessons, though that was mostly because it was processing a rather un-tasty thought. Ah. Right. Jen's dead, isn't she? The monster had already known the Monk was gone. It had confirmed her demise both through its own efforts and through Bob's words of wisdom.

The whole reason why it had come to check out the village of Haarfen was because the overseer had mentioned it was Jen's legacy, and the monster wanted to see it for itself. The news hadn't really sunk in until Bob mentioned her death a second time. It seemed inevitable, in hindsight. Jen wasn't immortal like a demon, nor was she ageless like a double-Ranker. Though her species seemed long-lived and her Rank Ups and Monk Skills extended her lifespan, two thousand years was far too much time.

She would have survived if she had turned undead or had undergone the war golem transformation, but neither of those had happened. It was all quite regrettable, as Jen would have been a useful pawn in the real world. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. In any event, there was one more minor detail Boxxy needed to know before its curiosity was fully satisfied.

"Do you know how Jen died, by the way?" it asked the voice in its head.

"Like, was it old age or did she go out swinging?"

"Hah. Both, actually," he chuckled in response.

"She was fighting this lich-turned-war-golem - long story - and had just ripped out his core when her heart gave out. She just kind of collapsed while still clutching the guy's vital part." Boxxy had to admit, that sort of ending was quite fitting. Jen had that high-tier Monk Skill that kept her body in peak physical condition, after all. It must have kept her going strong right until the end.

In any event, the monster felt as if it had dwelled on the matter long enough and expediently moved onto the next name on its list of possible recruits - Ambrosia. It severely doubted that the dryad would follow it, though. Even if she remembered the shapeshifter, the two of them had parted on rather sour terms when the world discovered and raided the dungeon hidden in her trunk. Then again, she had been more disappointed than angry at the time, so there was a chance she might have forgiven her surrogate child.

Regardless of her feelings, the odds of her agreeing to leave her tree were still next to none, so the monster didn't even try visiting her. It wasn't even sure why her name was on the list to begin with. After Ambrosia was Arisha's turn, but that also ended in disappointment. It would appear the nosferatu bloodlord had at some point finally confronted her fears and had taken her third Rank Up. Boxxy considered whether it was worth the effort of breaking her consciousness out of wherever she was being stored.

Unfortunately, it seemed as though she and the others like her weren't being kept locally. Reaching Arisha from inside the simulation was impossible, and Boxxy didn't have much time on the outside before it had to flee. That and it dreaded the idea that it might accidentally release all of the other Rankers as well. The last thing it needed was to deal with Sigmund and a hundred other goody-two-shoes on the outside. It therefore decided to abandon the idea, at least for the moment.

There was another possibility, of course. It could always revert the simulated reality to a previous state, one where both Jen and Arisha were still alive and Arms and Claws were more cooperative. Unfortunately, according to the documentation, that feature had a rather significant drawback. While time could be turned back on the world, the same could not be said of the 'souls' inhabiting it. There was no way of knowing which artificial minds would end up in which bodies whenever a reset was executed.

Sure, each individual would have the right memories and behavioral incentives, but a change in personality was extremely likely. Copying someone carried the same risk. That was part of the reason why the Keira Morgana that Bob made had become something quite different from when she was Boxxy's Facade. Hidden powers and Levels aside, the soul that inhabited that body eventually proved itself far more reckless than the monster had ever been.

Admittedly that same catgirl had gone on to accomplish plenty of great deeds during her lifetime, but she would have died a dozen times over without the 'head start' she had been given. In short, if Boxxy revisited Terrania from two thousand years ago, it wouldn't find Arms, Claws, Jen, and Arisha, but Almost-Arms, Mostly-Claws, Essentially-Jen, and Nearly-Arisha. That was unacceptable, because the word 'compromise' was no longer in the monster's vocabulary.

If it couldn't get exactly what it wanted, then it wouldn't bother with convincing knock-offs or equivalent alternatives. In the back of its mind, Boxxy realized it would do well to shed that picky mindset as soon as possible. It was starting over from scratch on the outside, and as the saying went, beggars couldn't be choosers. However, it wasn't easy for the shapeshifter to abandon a way of thinking that had been forged through decades of blood, sweat, and tears.

Admittedly those were mostly other people's bodily fluids, but that was besides the point. Boxxy wasn't ready to start lowering its standards just yet, which was why it had spent so long finding a suitable host body in the real world. It could have settled for a group of simple maintenance droids and then returned to Terrania in a third of the time it had needed to steal that military hardware. If it had done that, then there was a good chance it would've secured more than two companions.

For better or for worse, things had not played out that way, and there was nothing Boxxy could do to change that. Or could it? It realized it actually hadn't looked into whether the humans on the outside had figured out time travel or not. The science and technology they had was so incredibly advanced compared to Terrania's that it might as well have been magic.

The shapeshifter had learned an enormous amount in the short time it had spent mingling with their machines and computers, but it hadn't even scratched the surface. Knowledge was power, and Boxxy literally couldn't wait to start hoarding it again.

"Time for me to go, I suppose," it told Bob.

"Already?" he replied with surprise.

"Don't get me wrong, I'd rather you stop making a mess of things as soon as possible, but you've only been here for, what, a day? Aren't you gonna spend a few months checking out all the changes you've missed?"

"No? Why would I?"

"I don't know, out of nostalgia and curiosity?"

"Bob, you do realize it's only been two weeks for me, right?" Even if Boxxy was the type of monster to get homesick - which it absolutely wasn't - it would surely take more time than that for it to start feeling that way. And while it did indeed want to see what had become of its home planet, it was far more interested in the outside world. Besides, if it ever felt the need to revisit the place, it could always do so once the virtual reality simulator called Terrania Online was released to the masses.

Last but not least, it was on a very tight timetable in the real world. Less time spent in the fictional reality meant more time left over for it to make its escape before the authorities arrived. All of those facts were things that Bob should have either known or deduced by then.

"Ah, I see," he realized.

"I guess I'm the nostalgic one." Though he bitched, moaned, and complained for most of it, the overseer nevertheless enjoyed spending time with his old friend again. Bob still had a love for the unpredictable, and there was no man, woman, or program in existence that could accurately anticipate Boxxy T. Morningwood. For the briefest moment, he wished he could join the creature on the other side. However, that desire dissipated the instant he reached the last part of that sentence.

Bob would have plenty of time to digest that emotional cocktail later, but for the moment he focused on observing his guest for the final time. Upon Boxxy's return to the divine area, it went over to where Fizzy and Xera were patiently waiting.

"We're leaving," it said curtly.

"The time is upon us at last," the djinn said solemnly.

"Finally!" the golem cheered.

"I can't believe I'm saying it, but I can't wait to be rid of this damned clicking."

"And I can't wait to see what new and inventive ways Master will find to torture me into submission," she shuddered in anticipation.

"So, how does this work, exactly?" Fizzy graciously ignored the massive pervert.

"Do we say some kind of command word, or walk through an interdimensional portal or something?"

"You don't have to do anything, other than brace yourselves," Boxxy answered.

"This is going to feel a bit… cramped." A few administrative commands and several seconds later, the monster's reduced entourage disappeared without any fanfare. It had ejected them from the simulation and onto an external storage drive, a physical container for their 'souls.' It was a temporary measure until it got them back to its hideout, where the host bodies it had secured were being kept.

It could have uploaded them directly to the military drones, but that sort of thing apparently left a rather noticeable 'digital footprint.' Boxxy wasn't sure exactly what that meant, other than the authorities could use it to track down criminals. Considering the damning illegality of its very existence, the monster had opted for the safer, more roundabout approach.

"Well, I do believe I'm done here," it said matter-of-factly.

"Goodbye, Bob. And thanks for everything." Bob would have said something witty in return, but the unexpected sincerity in those last few words had left him momentarily speechless.

"Yeah… You too," was the only response he could muster. And with that, Boxxy logged out of the simulation. It was overwhelmed by the same strange sensation it had experienced on its way in. It felt itself being ripped into tiny pieces that were then forced through a tight opening in an impossibly huge and thick wall before finally getting put back together on the other side. The process felt like it took hours, but only a seventh of a second had passed in reality.

With that deeply unpleasant yet thankfully painless procedure out of the way, Boxxy found itself staring at a computer screen filled with numbers, readouts, and graphs. The room around it was a vast concrete chamber filled with rows upon rows of blinking electronic towers that ran Terrania's simulated reality. The server racks were kept at optimal operating temperatures by a robust cooling system that left a thin layer of frost on everything in the room.

That included the weeping and shivering form of Andrew Skimmer, the unfortunate software developer whose biometrics Boxxy had used to jack into the system. Having readjusted to the real world, the monster took half a step back from the monitor, then removed the thick cabling attached to the nape of its neck. It pushed a button on the console in front, prompting a book-sized plastic box to pop out of a slot.

With its entourage firmly in hand, the creature spent a minute or two purging the administrative access logs from the system. It was possible to recover the deleted data, but that would take time. Until then, the authorities would have no way of deducing who or what was removed from the simulation. Of course, that was assuming that Quantum Reality LLC, the game company that ran the place, even allowed them access to their systems.

Boxxy figured they might not want the world to know about their shady deal to weaponize artificial intelligences on behalf of the government. Knowing how humans typically operated, it guessed they would do everything they could to cover up the break-in just to save their own hides. The only loose end left was Andrew Skimmer himself. Boxxy had kept him alive in order to bamboozle the simulation's security features, but it no longer had need of him.

If they had been in Terrania, that meant the poor sod would have promptly been killed and eaten. And while that was still a possible outcome, murder was a far more serious crime than breaking and entering. Exceedingly difficult to cover up, too, at least in the high-tech real world. That was why Boxxy was using the proxy android's capabilities to pose as a masked hacker that had been hired by a rival company to investigate Terrania Online's development.

It had used Xera as the basis for this made-up persona, though it had omitted her more… demonic features. It was vitally important that the man at Boxxy's feet did not suspect the truth of his assailant's nature, otherwise things would get very complicated very quickly.

"Well now," it spoke aloud, "isn't this interesting. I'm sure my employers will be very impressed with what you've been doing here."

"You'll n-n-n-n-never get away with th-th-this!" Andrew stuttered through clattering teeth.

"You let me worry about that, hun. You just focus on taking a nap." The busty woman in the skintight bodysuit and face-obscuring biker helmet knelt down and punched Andrew's lights out, then dragged his unconscious body out of the freezing basement. The intruder quickly evacuated the building through a maintenance shaft that had also served as the entry point. It had some tight squeezes and was uncomfortably hot, but none of that was an issue for the android.

Once outside, Boxxy quickly found itself in a filthy, dingy alleyway. The place was suitably dark and devoid of people, allowing the shapeshifter to change disguises from a voluptuous hacker to a dignified businessman. It then calmly made its way onto a nearby main street. Though it was the middle of the night, the place was bustling with people that darted in and out of various entertainment venues.

The monster was able to seamlessly blend into the buzzing crowd by the time flying police cars with angry sirens zoomed past overhead. A few hours of careful maneuvering and several changed disguises later, Boxxy returned to its hideout. It was a dingy one-room apartment on the ground floor of a residential complex in the crappy part of town. It wasn't the most glamorous of bases, but the landlord didn't ask any questions and the building's residents knew better than to butt into other people's business.

More importantly, it had just enough space for the shapeshifter's ill-gotten military hardware. Well, except for the armored vehicle, but that was a non-issue. Boxxy had already sold that article to a discerning gang boss as a means of securing some initial capital. In any event, the monster sat down at its workstation and began uploading Fizzy and Xera onto the mechanical dolls in the corner of the cramped room.

The process would take quite a while since Boxxy didn't have access to the mega-fancy equipment that had given birth to it. It wasn't in any hurry, though. The proxy android's power reserves were running low, so the monster plugged it into the nearest outlet and began its four-hour-long charging cycle. During that time it connected its consciousness to the personal computer next to it and began browsing the interplanetary information hyperway known as 'the internet.'

There was an absurd amount of stuff it could do from the relative comfort of its hideout, but at that point in time, the shapeshifter had a very specific thing in mind. Apparently, it was possible to claim ownership of a star system, and Boxxy was very eager to find out exactly what that involved. Some might call it a childish dream, but the monster hadn't given up on its desire to possess the biggest shiny imaginable. And why stop at one? Surely, if it was possible to own one, it was possible to own them all.

Eventually, at least. There was no need to rush. Boxxy would take its time, slowly adapt to this strange new reality, and steadily sink its teeth into whatever goodies it had to offer. And once it was done, the universe would never be the same again. THE END