Chương 146: Steely Den

Since the place's only method of security was currently lying face-first in a puddle of his own blood, progressing further was easier than stealing candy from a newborn–Well, there were a few reinforced doors in my way, but those fools always reinforced with steel! That was like trying to lock someone in a cell made of food which never spoils. Anyway… Hidden behind this series of reinforced doors was exactly what I had been looking for. There was no need to step into the wide open space.

The winged transport creatures were all right here… I had been wondering where in damnation such giant beasts could possibly be kept, but as it turns out, whoever owned this place had the means to make the creatures shrink to the size of house cats… I once heard about how high-level beasts often had the ability to increase or decrease not just their size, but even their mass through some sort of skill…

And I also heard that this was a skill tamed beasts often learned earlier than their wild counterparts because it was very convenient for their master to teach them how to do this. All this to say, I don't know whether they are shrunk because they can just do that on the regular, or if a third party is involved. What do you think, Nara? I can sense a rather intricate sigil drawn upon each of them directly upon their flesh. It seems more likely that they were artificially made to be capable of shrinking…

After all, it is probably far less expensive to do so if you know how to draw the sigil compared to raising and taming a beast from scratch Mmh… Can you tell more about it? Can they choose to go to their giant size of their own volition? I wouldn't want to get flattened because one of them woke up and felt threatened. It seems more likely that this is purely something that needs to be activated by someone. I sense no way for the sigil to be activated by the bearer Perfect! Then, let's get to work.

I had already assumed my 'Base Form' to dispose of the guard's body and to chew through the doors, so I only needed to poke the shrunk creatures to see if I could apply "Remember Me?' upon them. I outstretched my index finger and reached for the closest one, some sort of bird that looked like a vulture due to the shape of its beak, but had brightly coloured feathers all over its body… Most of the creatures kept here were birds. A handful looked a bit like dragons, and just a few were hairy. …

It is a wonder where one was able to find so many giant creatures capable of actual flight. There were a lot of crazy things out there, but still, proper giants weren't common at all, and flying giants? Even less so… Most of those who would fit the description had to be considered 'beasts' or 'monsters', the 'animal' class was much more rarely capable of such extremes. Say, Nara, did I ever mention to you how there is no real sense as to how things are classified?

I mean, if you showed me an elephant without any prior knowledge, I would at least call it a beast. I mean… What are they talking about? Those things have a damned tentacle extending from their face! You did mention it in the past As I spoke with Nara, my finger made contact with the slumbering creature, and I felt it. It does work… Will they appear in the final trial as their giant selves? I wonder how the trials will adapt to them. Most of those take place in rather confined places…

I guess I'll see in the future. I cursed every single creature inside this place without missing even a single one. I was about to leave the city for good by warping over to one of the plushes I had left hidden in a forest beyond its walls, but I found myself strangely intrigued by another steel door down the other end of the room, where the carrier beasts were situated. The door wasn't actually visible. It was obstructed by crates and barrels, some of which had become spider nests…

I could only sense the steel it was made of. Mmh… A hidden door? This is tickling my curiosity. You know, Big Sis. I think I understand why that one trial turned you into felinefolk specifically Huh? Oh. That's a funny joke. I worry a lot about your boldness sometimes, you know? Of course, I know. You always tell me when you are concerned. Isn't it great that we can say everything and anything to each other without problem?

I do understand why you worry so much, but trust my instincts, and also trust my outrageously high survivability. I am very hard to kill… Props to being a Vengeful Spirit and Steel-Bound Curse, I suppose. Don't you worry about me, though. I'll be careful. What kind of big sister would I be if I failed to always be here for adorable little girlies, heh? I moved the obstructions out of the way, and after getting closer to the door to listen and focus on my senses…

I ate my way through it, revealing what I had expected. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. This place was filled with steel in the form of pipes. A long hallway extended in front of me, the walls and ceiling utterly covered in tangled pipes made out of different kinds of steels and metals, bursts of compressed steam would sometimes be ejected from them. It didn't bother me, but the temperature in there was scorching hot.

For a moment, I thought that, somehow, Leton had been involved in this place, but I quickly retracted the thought. This was far too sloppy, impractical, and unsafe. Leton would never allow himself to build anything so needlessly convoluted. I know him. He would have arranged all of those pipes very neatly in a way that would allow for easy access if any of them ever needed to be fixed or replaced… And the bursts of stream? He would never make something this dangerous be in the way of where people would be walking.

The same went for the absurd levels of heat in there. This was the work of another, lesser mechanist… The question was what the point of this place was. I walked down the hallway, uncaring for the steam that would strike me like punches. This place could definitely kill a person if they weren't very careful. I soon arrived at another door, which I promptly claimed as a meal, which brought me into a wider room with a low ceiling.

I had to hunch over to fit in there–I may be pretty tall, but I wasn't absurdly tall either, so this place really was weirdly small, especially when the hallway leading there didn't have the same problem. I could have stretched my arms upward and barely touched the ceiling there. Regardless, apart from this room, there was only one other door leading to another room, which would be the last one. This hidden place wasn't that big, which made me wonder what the point of so many damned pipes was then.

I didn't have to wonder for long. There was literally a notebook filled with notes about nearly every single day, going back as far as five whole years. Most of the entries were boring, but the purpose of this place and the room adjacent to it quickly became obvious. The person working here was being secretly funded by the owner of the trading business, who owned this building. Apparently, the mechanist had been hired based on a theory he had put out concerning recreating one of my brother's own inventions.

Leton had invented a whole bunch of things, and he kept on constantly improving and adding onto his inventions while also coming up with new ones. I heard a little bit and had recently gotten to interact with his 'monitor' invention as well as some of his 'systems'. The rabbit hole went much deeper than this, however. Leton seemed to be literally capable of making anything through mechanical creations. In fact, he had proven himself to be a real patriot.

He had presented several inventions which could compete with and even ruin several types of businesses with ease. He hadn't actually made these inventions widespread… Why? Because he would have too strong a monopoly over several sectors, and as one should know, especially when said monopolies were ripped away from other big players in the domain, it wouldn't exactly be great for anyone's economy, especially when Leton was known to use automatons he himself created to produce things.

In short, it wouldn't do much good. Nonetheless, he had shown that he had the means to do so to sort of take many into a chokehold and allow himself to actively protect the interests of the entirety of Rootriska. … I swear, what a goody two-shoes. In any case, the mechanist here thought that he could recreate one of the inventions Leton had presented in the past. Namely, the 'steam engine'. I was fairly certain that SHLAD-01 had one of those…

Apparently, it could allow something to provide power or motion using steam as its power source… I honestly didn't get it, but this guy certainly thought that he did, and this was why this place was covered in pipes. They all connected into the adjacent room, where the mechanist was building his own steam engine–That thing was huge, way larger than me, in fact, if that thing fell on me, I would probably be flattened. It was outrageous how humongous it was.

The copycat himself admitted that his design was significantly larger than Leton's… It certainly was, considering that my brother's was described as being carriable by a grown adult man… The lesser mechanist's? I doubt ten wild orcs with more muscles than intelligent thoughts could lift that thing for even a second. This guy was definitely not on the right track at all. It had been five years of being funded, and this was what he had produced? I might as well put an end to his misery…

I just so happened to be thinking that I hadn't been eating enough steel lately. I first figured out how to stop all of this steam from going around, getting it to all be evacuated through the spots where it would often randomly burst, and then, I feasted upon literally every single piece of steel available, leaving nothing behind. When I emerged back out of here, I found my little sisters petting the shrunk beasts.

This makes me wonder, would these creatures be eligible to become a part of the farm that manifested alongside Ophelie? That's something else I would have to see in the future… For now, I gathered my little sisters and warped out of the city. I soon crawled out of a tree's canopy. Since Ophelie always made new plushes, she already had the maximum amount she could have inside the mindscape, so I left the extra plush I had hidden where it was.

It would serve as another place I could warp to in case I needed to retreat one of these days. Anyway… Where the hell should I go now? Should I try to find another place to torment in Heldinot, or should I go back to the teleporting array and return to Rootriska? SHLAD has probably made some progress toward me by now, and I would rather not have to wait until I see him directly before slipping away… Mmh…

I guess it is better to let the beastfolks search in circles, trying to figure out what caused the sudden surge in murderous nightmares. By now, all of my victims in Rootriska should have either died in the final trial or been 'cured' by a professional. The only risk is that the caretaker girl spoke about what she saw, but with some luck, her words didn't reach the ears of anyone capable of connecting the dots. Then, I guess I'll head back home for now…

I waited a little while, and then warped again, this time over a much larger distance, and immediately after I appeared inside that hidden cavern containing the array, I heard the sound of familiar voices outside… Seriously, what are the odds? Do they have a meeting every week?