“As you can see the prisoners are now under our control, with no rioting whatsoever. In fact, I think that they might be very glad to put you guys under the bus…or spaceship in this current situation.” Kraft giggled that resistance was futile.
Captain Coalran shouted towards Kraft but the Devil Fox acted not able to hear anything before turning the speaker button up on his tablet. “Mind repeating that again? I did not turn on the audio.” It was definitely meant to infuriate the captain of the ship by doing so but Kraft indeed had the upper hand in this.
As Kraft continued to toy with the Xeon Union crew members, Rei had already been teleported to this particular temporary dungeon instance and started to search for his family members.
When the System was able to take over the entire ship, it ran through the database along with Kraft to search whether Rei’s family members were there. To their fortune, they were able to find his two family members onboard their maximum security prison, calling it a done deal for this particular heist.
Aside from the main objective, everything else they brought with them was more like a bonus to the System. While granted the System initially did not have many resources to spare for handling all the new bodies, support staff like Claire had been furiously buying more processors through the black market in the past few months as reserve stock for the System. It was supposed to be used for the fight against the Demon Rats but since the situation had changed, the System determined this was the best time to use them.
Meanwhile, the Ambush party in the United Federation ship did not do as well as their counterpart. Peppers did single handedly capture a number of prisoners all by herself but it was not comparable to the entire ship falling into the System’s hands. Milk was busied being the scapegoat and the other two did not progress much through the prison ship’s facilities due to the intense lockdowns.
Rei felt that he did not do anything significant, even more so that he was not on the same ship to rescue his family members. As much as he wanted to be the hero of this particular mission, bashing the enemies and bravely saving his family members, the truth was that he was certainly far from it. He felt ashamed that he quickly accepted the fact of being in a more backward world with no war conflict and decided to use his hobby as his new talent to cope with the current situation.
If not for Jin, he did not dare hope to even think about his family. But right after he heard how his family was desperately searching for him to the point that they were willing to be spies to undermine each organisation’s military capabilities was way beyond his expectations. Their tenacity to search for the truth of their missing father, thinking that it was either one of the military organisations that did it pained his heart and soul.
“Rei.” His desperate search among the sea of prisoners made him ignore the sounds but a firm grip on his shoulder forced him to quickly turn his head, only to see that it was Jin.
“Follow me. I’ll show you where they are since they have already been registered by the System.” Jin did not say much and neither did Rei who nodded his head and followed behind.
What seems like a few minutes of walking felt like an eternity to Rei, desperately looking around in hopes that he could catch a glimpse of his family before Jin did. But unlike Rei, Jin was the System’s user and now Rei’s family were part of the Panda Lord’s extended family of monsters and misfits. To Jin, it was basically turning on his System’s radar and walking towards the objective.
“Rei…?”
That voice. That sole voice was the only thing that sounded like a melody from the heavens.
“Charlotte?” Rei tried to move his head around to search for it, looking at the front thinking that Jin had already led him to her without any warning. But his wife’s voice came from the back, surprising him all the more.
“Dad!” Hathaway squealed as well as both wife and daughter pushed through the crowd as gently as they could, allowing the family to be reunited. The three gave themselves a great big hug as Rei unreservedly use his strength to squeeze the both of them as tight (and gentle) as he could.
“Guess, my work is done here for now,” Jin said as he purposely walked a round route instead of going straight to his wife. After all, he knew how Rei had been thinking of them the moment he realised that he was able to have a chance to return to the Mecha World.
“User, the objective has been completed. Both Rei’s request and the System’s side mission.”
“So, my reward?” Jin asked as he quietly walked away for them to converse among themselves.
“Artist Rei will continue the spacecraft for you and its design would later be incorporated into Lord Wolte’s new form when it is done.” The System replied.
“You mean I will have a flying space dreadnought as part of my army?!” Jin’s eyes lit up like a star twinkling in the night sky. (Quite literally as well since his eye bags were not to be scoffed at.) “That is good enough for a reward, especially when now money and manpower is not exactly the issue.”
“Money might not be an issue but materials are. While the money made could be used to buy materials, our vault is not a bottomless pit. With the revelation of the defence minister being a Banned Emperor supporter, the System believed more precautions are needed. In fact, the System recommends starting the Great Demon Rat War as soon as possible.”
“You think it is a protracted war?”
“Not a chance that we could clear it within a week as the System and others had planned for Pandaverse. The technology incorporated from the Mecha World had allowed the System to improve its detection technology.”
“What?! That’s way too fast of an incorporation of their technology!” Jin said as he immediately returned to the Dungeon Maker to check the latest information. And to his surprise, the Demon Rat numbers were off the charts that they had initially predicted.
“Thus, the System recommends starting the Great Demon War as soon as possible.”
