As they descended down the castle stairs, Jin took the opportunity to open a portal. The System had set the destination at the roof of the house where the explosion originated from. Unlike previously where the System was unable to portal Jin or the goblins to where they wanted, the satellite it had deployed allowed coordinates to be input almost instantaneously for the portal to appear.
The only problem with this particular satellite was that it could only handle the region of Kingdom Gob Gob, mainly because Jin had bargained for the cheapest one out there. There were no other functions other than observing for the System and its energy charge was approximately two months or so. Once its fuel had been used up, it would cease to work any longer, becoming probably the first space junk in this Goblin world or it would fall back to the planet when it happened to be in its geo-orbit. Otherwise Jin would have used the satellite to find the Orc main kingdom and immediately teleported right there to stop this stupid war. (The other satellites even with just the basic modules would cost ten times more than this stripped down bare boned version of a satellite.)
Jin grabbed Qiu Yue tightly to prevent her falling off the house when they came out of the portal. Thankfully the roof managed to bear the impact of Jin and Qiu Yue when they arrived on the scene. This gave them a clear vantage point of the area and it was evident that the Orc Raiders were killing wantonly, doing as much damage as possible.
Jin found a suitable target and jumped down into a ‘death from above’ kind of attack, surprising the Orcs. To his own surprise he noticed Qiu Yue doing the same on to the Orc Raider right beside his.
The Orc Raider Captain saw these humanoids and immediately realised they were a threat. He vaguely remembered hearing chatters and rumours from the various orc raiding groups in a secured magical telecommunication channel bestowed by the Orc Researchers. Those orc raider messages were broadcast throughout the goblin region within a day. Some of the orc raiders did not care and those who did, were already dead. (Courtesy of the cultivators from Jin’s shop.) The captain thought it was a ploy by the goblins to scare the Orc raiders. But the goblins did not know all these raids which looked like random encounters were all a coordinated plot.
Hence, instead of ordering his men to defeat the humanoids, the Orc Raider Captain commanded them to scatter around and do as much damage as possible. “I will deal with them myself.” The Orc Raider Captain said as he brandished his large axe and slammed it on the ground, shattering bricks on the road.
“Shit, most of the monsters in my possession are held up with the cultivators. There is no way I can chase all of them down even with the help of the System’s navigation –…Wait a minute.” Jin realised that there was someone else who could help out. “Qiu Yue, keep him busy for a moment. I will be right back!” Jin had no time to waste and chase down one of the Orc Raiders while dialling his phone.
“You are just going to leave me behind?!!!” Qiu Yue screamed after Jin who was already running far behind her.
“You can do it! Trust in yourself! Show them the might of the Red Panda!” Jin said as he dashed forth into the streets.
“Oh my god, I should have listened to Jin and kept one Uzi submachine as a spare.” Qiu Yue felt a little terrified by the size of the Orc Raider Captain who was more than happy to finish off the female humanoid first. He rushed forward while dragging his giant axe along the ground, breaking more of the brick road. Qiu Yue immediately went into her battle stance, preparing to parry if needed.
“Hello? Lynn! I need you and your Penguin Crew to help us out! Several Orcs Raiders are attacking the capital of Gob Gob Kingdom. I need you guys to track them down and if possible to defeat them. The System will assist in finding them!” Jin hurried to explain the situation as he finally caught up with one raider as he threw Boo forward, injuring the Orc Raider’s back.
“Some of the Raiders are mounted on wolves. It might prove a little difficult for the Penguins to catch them.” The System interjected the conversation between Jin and Lynn.
“Heh, You are underestimating my Peggies! Do not worry Jin. We will prove the System wrong.” Lynn put the phone down as she picked up her Wok Chuan (Chinese Spatula) and ladle. She subsequently knocked the two of them together constantly to get the attention of the penguins in the kitchen.
“Listen! Boss Jin needs help tracking some runaway Orc Raiders! To the Kitchen Armoury! Activate the skeleton crew on duty. Let’s kill these Orc Raiders and get back to work!” Lynn shouted as she took out her chef hat. The Penguins hailed Lynn and almost half of the penguins in the kitchen rushed to a room right beside the Kitchen.
The room lit up and an assortment of knives, cutters, choppers and even sickles were attached on the wall and the penguins immediately picked up their choice of weapons. Meanwhile, a penguin slammed the floor tile. It was used to press a button on the floor, causing the tiles on the floor and ceiling to flip. More weapons and accessories like esoteric scrolls, shurikens, chains, extendable staff were revealed.
That’s right. The Penguins were more than simple cooks. In fact aside from being top notch helpers for the Restaurant Instance, they were also ninja trainees and Lynn was their Queen Ninja or so they dubbed her. It was a hidden function that Lynn discovered in the first few days of obtaining the Sub System. She realised that her cultivation was similar to a Ninja or Assassin as the cultivation manual, Perfectible Penguin Ruling the Kitchen Hell, was more about the use of culinary tools to kill if necessary. What better way to earn the trust of an assassination target than the allure of yummy food. Providing one with a perfect excuse to study a target up close.
Yet the training involved was all about the kitchen. The art of balancing plates, the need to dash quickly and serve the orders in time. The endurance to cook as much quality food as possible. The strict detailed instructions in recipes. The correct timing to throw a speck of salt. The use of chi and harnessing it to prepare the dishes. All this while still remaining courteous to the customers. It was a delicate and yet arduous set of tasks for the penguins. But what Jin did not see was that during all this hectic work as cooks and waiters, they were simultaneously training their ability to fight.
The penguins would duel with each other by throwing dirty plates for clean plates or when serving the food. All this while ensuring the food presentation would still be exquisite for the customers. Not a single drop of soup was allowed to be on the floor. The cooks would parry each others’ Wok Chuan and even used the Woks as a shields while ensuring the food cooking was still intact. The amount of dexterity to perform such finesse was absurd, but the penguins and Lynn had managed to get it.
In the meantime, the occasional failures did not mean the food was entirely wasted. The Sub System ensured all the food waste to be recycled. After all that food still contained spirit energy because of Lynn’s Sub System ability. Hence they were reprocessed into fertilisers for the living armour plants. (The Living Armour plants always looked forward to this since they were fertilisers that was filled with chi energy but unfortunately in recent days, it was getting lesser.)
The Penguins took their weapons and put them in their black storage scarves and wore black bandanas that covered their eyes. The Sub System initially wanted the penguins to hold those weapons in a bag but Lynn insisted on the scarf part. Contrary to a certain Panda miser, she did not mind paying more for a bit of style and flexibility. (Yeah, Unlike humans, a fanny pack would only interfere with penguin’s short body.) Besides, ever since the Restaurant Train of Delicacy instance opened up, a huge chunk of the profit the instance generated went to Lynn instead of Jin. This in turn allowed Lynn to purchase and experiment with newer ingredients as well as upgrade her beloved peggies.
“Ready?” Lynn also changed to her all new ninja attire which consisted of a full leather suit, similar to a motorcycle suit for aerodynamic purposes. Its material was very sturdy and seemed to consist of a material similar but sturdier than Kevlar. She fashioned a few pieces of black painted armour on her kneecaps and elbows while equipping a lower torso armour piece made of the same material making it stab resistant. She also donned a black scarf and a black penguin half mask on her face.
“GYOI!” The ninja trainee penguins shouted in unison while kneeling halfway.
“Your will, your pleasure, huh?” Lynn smiled when the ninjas gave their reply in an old formal Japanese way of agreement. She kindly asked the Sub System to communicate with the Main System and it opened multiple portals all around the kitchen. The penguins immediately took ‘flight’ into the respective gateways. (More like jumping with their flippers open. Lynn found them too cute to remain serious.)
One of the Orc Raider that Jin was chasing took the opportunity to throw an oil filled bottle on fire into the buildings but Jin was fast enough to use Panda Rolling to cut it into two. However, by intercepting that particular Molotov, the Orc Raider managed to further the distance by a few metres from him, forcing Jin to keep running once more.
“Darn it! Even Panda Rolling has its limits. Maybe I should also get myself a mount. Riding into the battle on top of a Panda would be…” Jin puffed as his thoughts went wild for a moment, while he tried to catch up with the Orc Raider again. The Orc Raider smirked as it prepared to throw another Molotov c.o.c.ktail but suddenly a magical portal appeared which made him instinctively throw it into that portal.
A shadowy humanoid figure came out catching the flying Molotov and shoved it on top of the orcs head. At the same time she used the hidden blade under her hand that stabbed through his mouth. Not stopping at that, a hidden blade under her boot appeared and it was directly used to puncture the running wolf. With a twirl and a kick, the hidden blade under the boot punctured a vital nerve of the wolf, causing it to topple along with its owner.
Lynn jumped off and kneeled in front of a stunned Jin while the goblins around the scene immediately hid in the surrounding houses or took behind cover. “Master Jin, your chef at your service.” She solemnly said and Jin could not help but laugh and compliment for a job well done.
“So that’s what you’ve been hiding all this time, isn’t it? No wonder you refused my invitation for training when I asked you.” Jin was surprised as he had not noticed how much Lynn had been growing in both power and maturity.
She blushed a little but ultimately gave a wide grin towards Jin before she stood up. “I figured I could never catch up to you. But if I stay as your shadow, perhaps…” Lynn turned her back and stared at the struggling Orc Raider that was bleeding to death while the fire was spreading out on the rest of his body.
“I can always be at your side no matter the circ.u.mstances.” She thought to herself while walking towards the Orc and ended his struggling. Lynn looked towards the dying wolf and asked the Sub System to capture it for her.
Jin was no longer the only one who was able to capture creatures, though Lynn’s capturing skills worked slightly different. If it was bestial in nature, Lynn was able to capture them to harvest them later as cooking materials. Her Sub System would preserve it with utmost ability and could even copy it’s genes and anatomy for reconstruction at a set price.
However, the monsters which the Sub System recreated for food purposes did not possess a soul in them. Instead of being classified as a creature, it was more accurate to describe them as just a sack of meat and bones. The capturing also created a problem of its own. Once the monster fell under Lynn’s domain, Jin would not be able to use said monster for his own dungeons unless he went out to capture another such creature. To avoid fighting over these monsters Jin and Lynn had decided to implement a ‘first come’ rule, since it could develop into grey point of contention for the living monsters.
Yet behind the sidelines, the System and Sub System had discussed to use the Black Goo Souls with parts of the lifeless creatures for experiments especially since Half Ghoul Lord Derek had started developing some expertise for it. (They dared to proceed forward because Jin had given the go ahead to do so. An abomination is after all a whole new type living of creature.) It seems they were playing God in religious terms but to the System, the ex Panda Elders had indeed been bestowed powers similar to god in a limited way. To avoid anything unforeseeable, Kraft’s foxes were monitoring such experiments very carefully. The crafty fox did not wish to relive an incident like with the ex Panda Lord Zhou Lin.
Jin looked at his own phone with the System’s map on it. The red targets were indeed disappearing one by one, courtesy of the penguin ninja trainees. Jin had a breather before he beckoned Lynn to follow him back to Qiu Yue.
Meanwhile the poor young woman finally realised how weak she truly was during the time she had to endure against the Orc Raider Captain though the Orc Raider Captain himself was surprised at her sturdiness. He had thrown a few punches which had proved to be very deadly against many of the Goblin Guards but against this particular humanoid, they appeared ineffective.
“Ineffective my ass, I still feel the bloody impact.” Qie Yue as if she could read the orc’s thought through his mildly troubled expression, was glad that Jin had provided her with the temporary inscription. Not to mention her upgraded outfit too, otherwise she would have probably died already. Her new weapon also proved to be a boon. Qiu Yue was using her sword to block the blows. With the nature of the ice elemental katana, it activated whenever it struck something. In this case, it was the Orc Raider Captain’s fist, which started to become numb.
“In this case…” The Orc Raider Captain started to take her more seriously and picked up his axe to furiously slam it down on Qiu Yue while she was panting for breath.
“F.u.c.k!” Qiu Yue quickly tried to block with her sword but the blow was so strong that it broke the ice elemental katana into two. She felt memories suddenly flashing past her. The steel axe blade even broke the defence inscription that was desperately trying to negate the damage… but it was not robust to withstand it.
However, at that point, a separate inscription activated and Qiu Yue got teleported out of the way, preventing the axe from splitting her into two. It had been an emergency teleport inscription fused with the defence inscription which Jin designated as a last ditch technique in case the defence inscription failed Qiu Yue. Nonetheless, she was not out of danger yet. The teleportation only put her ten metres away from the Orc Raider Captain.
“Heh. I’ve heard of such humanoids, the experienced orc raiders said that they were strong, powerful and ruthless against our kind. But look what we have here? You are like a rat who scampers away at the sign of danger. So pathetic.” The Orc Raider Captain paced himself a little before taking a big leap towards Qiu Yue.
“You think I am going to die just like that!?” Qiu Yue had no time to activate her storage ring to take out a spare sword. She just had to survive both the insults and the incoming attacks while waiting for Jin to appear again. Her eyes were a bit teary, her heart was beating like crazy but the sense of danger did not dull her battle senses. Even though it was just once, she remembered the odds Jin and her overcame in the battle arena.
As the adrenaline was rushing through her and time seemed to slow down, her brain was trying to think of a way to get out, when she realised she still had Jin’s old gearbox boots. As if the boots were reading her mind, they actively moved her legs upwards as the Orc swung his axe towards her once more.
Qiu Yue could feel the impact of the axe attack even more since she no longer had the temporary defence inscription protecting her. Her spine was strained, and her legs were trembling from the attack. Yet, the gearbox boots were able to withstand the attack and did not break like the ice elemental sword.
“I might have a chance!” Qiu Yue used her might to push the axe sideways with her legs and got up with a jump before gaining some distance away from the Orc Raider Captain. The Orc did not give any quarters as he rushed forward with all his strength. That was when Qiu Yue used her gearbox boots to boost ahead as well.
With speed at her side, she managed to dodge the incoming vertical slash and she knee strike the Orc Raider Captain to the upper right chest before utilising the momentum in her to kick his face. Sadly, the Orc Raider Captain had enough experience in battle and seemed to have anticipated this kind attack and attempted to grab her.
“Don’t you dare you filthy orc!” In an instant, the Orc’s Right arm was severed, and Jin grabbed Qiu Yue from behind before twisting and spinning to deliver another slash to his left arm. Before both of his arms managed to reach the ground, two hidden blades were plunged into the sides of his neck and Lynn used her strength to slash it out of his nape.
“You okay?” Jin panted as holding Qiu Yue in his arms once again. Qiu Yue was also breathing crazily not just from the exhaustion but her heart was jumping all over the place. She thought she was a goner when Qiu Yue saw the evil smirk on the Orc’s face.
“You Stupid! So slow! So …Waaaaaaaa” Qiu Yue softly punched Jin a few times before she took the initiative to grab on Jin and cried quietly. Lynn saw that and sympathised with her. If she were in that same situation as Qiu Yue, she would be equally scared too.
In the meantime, Pei took the liberty to take the memories of the orc before his brain was totally dead from the loss of blood. “Hmm. Boss. The situation might be worse than we thought.”
“Speak freely, Pei.” Jin sent the voice transmission to Pei while asking Lynn to take care of Qiu Yue for a moment. He proceeded near the dead Orc Raider Captain and began to search his belongings.
He then saw a machine like artefact and according to his memories from what Pei described, it’s a Lost Technology Artefact. The other orc raiders that ran away were trying their best to portray this whole thing as a suicide terror raid. But in actual fact, they were planning to plant these machine like artefacts to transport troops from the Orc territory directly into the capital.
“The Thunder Army from the north is a ruse, forcing us to bring the best of our goblin army there. The Orc King Hamu was planning to bring the fight into the capital all along. The Kingslayer Ambush and the ship carriers were their initial plan, hoping to get rid of all the kings simultaneously and catch the unarmed goblins as slaves once more. Since that was no longer an option, they decided to bring their armies forward. They showed off their flying lost technology so that none of us will even thought about them coming from underground. Little did we know that this was their backup plan and everything was a calculated ruse. They purposely sent more raiders for this attack to scatter and activate the lost artefacts.” Pei deciphered the Orc Raider Captain’s memories.
“Lynn, send the word out to your penguins to retrieve all these lost tech artefacts. System, analyse these. Perhaps they will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I have an idea which might allow us to encounter the Orc King Hamu faster than we thought.” Jin ordered and Lynn complied. The System immediately took the item into its possession and began to analyse the part of the artefact.
“I’m leaving Qiu Yue to you, Jin. I will assist my penguins in finding the lost artefacts.” Lynn nodded her head before she suddenly ran and disappeared into the alleys of the house and asked the Sub System to reverse analyse the paths those dead orcs had taken. They would then be able to get an approximate location where the lost artefacts could have been placed in case the penguin ninjas did not find them on the Orc’s belongings. However, she was doing all this to deflect herself from thinking too much about Jin and Qiu Yue since she had decided just to assist Jin from the sidelines. (for now.)
“Sub User Lynn should be more assertive. System has confirmed to Sub System that those two are not a pair yet. Sub User Lynn should not give up.” Sub System tried to console Lynn, while giving her advice, but got not reply.
“I will get the military advisor to assist in the search for the lost tech artefacts.” Qiu Yue steadied herself as they too went into an alley before teleporting back to the castle to prevent ciivilian goblin eyes staring at them wildly.
“Are you sure you are okay? I can do the explanation for you while you rest a little?” Jin replied with concern.
“It is fine. We went through worse, right…?” Qiu Yue tried to crack a joke as she dusted her coat a bit before proceeding to the meeting room of the area, yet Jin insisted on accompanying her.
“Is everything alright and under control? My guards have yet to give me an update.” King Sol had even taken off his coat and was assisting the advisors preparing the doc.u.ments.
“There is a new development which gravely concerned us. This was not a simple terror raid as we expected it to be.” Jin explained the situation to the entire group of advisors and King Sol. Afterwards Qiu Yue ordered the military advisor to help out Lynn with searching.
“Where the hell did they get those artefacts from?” King Sol pondered before shaking his head.
“Your Majesty, should we send the word out now or continue to suppress the news of the attack?” Home Affairs advisor asked which resulted in Qiu Yue interjecting with her own opinion.
“Do not say anything directly about the Lost Artefacts. However do inform the public that if they discover any suspicious packages or sightings of orcs, they are to report the location of those to the guards immediately.” Qiu Yue went on to explain it would be more beneficial to pretend those being possible dangerous magical contraptions left behind by the Orc Raiders.
“I understand, I will proceed to tell my department to distribute the news.” Home Affairs told the secretary and they continued to look at the doc.u.ments. Jin, on the other hand, decided to return to the Dungeon Maker and left the care of the government advisors for Qiu Yue to handle.
“Kraft, anything major?” Jin returned and Kraft lazily looked at the screens.
“Nah, just a large mega laser cannon that fired through the gates of the Valley Town Gob Gob Bu, allowing the Orcs the chance to go in. Peppers would probably give it something like a 3/10. Oh, and those Orcs were enchanted with some kind of No Pain or High Endurance magic spell. They are rushing forward with no fear nor regard for their own safety. Some of them were marching forward with missing hands or bleeding torsos. Pretty sure I even saw one crawling on with his guts leaking out. So you know, the usual.” Kraft leaned back and munched on some potato ch.i.p.s near the console.
“So in other words…everything is under control?” Jin smiled bitterly as he looked at all these screens.
“Meh, you can say that. Surprisingly almost all your regular customers were free enough to join this particular fight. You seem to have gathered a pretty loyal mercenary troop of your own, The Pandawans. Your enemies will shake in fear after hearing that mighty name. Hahah.” Kraft pointed and Jin could see the list of Pandawans that had entered the Raid Instance. It was no longer simply Se Lang the Wacky Wolf, Deng Long the W.o.m.bling W.o.m.bat Style, Bu Dong the Angry Ape and Kong Xian the Towering Tortoise that had entered right before the second wave had started.
Yue Han the Blind Bat, Yue Wen the Healing Maiden, Jia Ying the Sanguine Stag, Shi Hui the Shadowy Swan and Jing Ru the Gunning Giraffe had seemingly entered the fray as well during his absence. It was becoming a significant battle with that many cultivators in one particular region.
Kraft had even allocated some cultivators to assist with the citizens moving away from Gob Gob Bu so that the rest of the goblin army could enter. He purposely gave out a bunch of extra raid points to those cultivators and even promised to send them to other missions for free. Jin was surprised that Kraft was able to think of something so kind and meaningful.
“You doubt my sincerity after all this time?! Your thoughts truly hurt me!” Kraft gave a fake annoyed face, but Jin ignored the theatrics and simply created a chair from the Dungeon Maker to look over the situation with Kraft.
“You sure about this? Too many cooks spoil the broth you know.” Kraft asked as he figured Jin’s intention.
“Two heads are still better than one,” Jin replied as he extended his hands out for some ch.i.p.s.
“I can do that in your head too.” Kraft smiled and summoned out a new bag of ch.i.p.s instead.
“Argh, spare me. I only got like six hours of sleep from the sleeping capsule. I still feel like crap alright.” Jin complained before he started to discuss what to do with the lost artefacts.
“Heh, do you really want to hear my opinion? Your eyes already tell me that you have thought up a crazy plan of your own, don’t you?” Kraft smirked and Jin laughed.
“It’s unrealistic to be honest. I was hoping we could put the artefacts on top of the volcano and expect a whole lot of orcs to teleport in there. However I fear, this will only work once. Since chances are that they are going to teleport in batches. So if the first batch does not respond, they will probably not send more afterwards.” Jin revealed his idea.
“So what? Just build a fake city on top of the volcano. Pretend to struggle there for a while, until no more reinforcement arrives and then let the volcano do the rest.” Kraft took the last few ch.i.p.s and threw them in his mouth.
“So shall we call it Operation Pompeii?” Jin suggested and Kraft liked that idea as they nodded spiritedly together.
