When the smoke clears, Peppers realised that Jin was protected by a magical shield barrier by Milk. She was instantly summoned by the System as an emergency response when it noticed there was a build up of magical energy within Peppers. Predicting that there was a high chance to hit Jin, the System reacted preemptively to block the attack.
The only people left stunned were the rest of the monsters in the meeting room.
“Why! Why can you not let me hit him!” Peppers pouted, and the System stated that this is a very critical period for Jin.
“There are times for fun, games and explosions. Unfortunately, Bellator Peppers, now it is not the moment. User has too many pressing issues to do for you to land him in the hospital for even an hour.” The System concluded, and Milk went forward to hug Peppers’ head.
“Other days, alright?” Milk said gently to Peppers, and surprisingly the little Demonic Queen Sage nodded her head. If the System and Milk chose to intervene for Jin, there was nothing much she could do either.
“System, buy Peppers an assortment of her favourite candies and Milk a 500ml of Lynn’s sake wine. Put the tab on my personal account.” Jin said, and Milk winked at Jin as a sign of thanks before moving off.
Hamatarou checked his fur while Edwardio inspected his tail to see if they were burnt in any way. After which, Jin continued to discuss some minor details of the plan with the two of them, but Edwardio continued to point out the various pitfalls of the operation. While Jin found it very irritating he was being shot down at every turn, it showed that the Salamander was very concerned for the success of the plan.
When he was finally done with many revisions of the plan, Hamatarou also felt that it was time for his master to take a break and thus, they left. However, all Jin did was took a cup of Blue Mountain coffee while his mind was filled with details they talked about.
And even before his cup was empty, the dungeon supplier called upon Que Er, the Magpie Queen to check if she had any new details with regards to the whereabouts of the Mecha World.
“I managed to pinpoint some information but you are not going to like it.” Que Er said as she noticed the mess in the Dungeon Maker room. Jin quickly asked the System to revamp the area, and with a blink of the eye, the meeting room’s table was all brand new again.
“Why what is wrong? Is the base too heavily guard or something? You should at least have aerial surveillance of the place, right?”
“I don’t have any at the moment …And although I technically can do that…it will be too supicious, so I can’t.” Que Er did not know how to put it properly, and it only made Jin felt even more anxious. The Magpie Queen decided to put it as bluntly as possible to break the news for him.
“The Mechanical Titan is placed in a spaceship. Like those sci fi films you watched, ehhhh “Moon Wars” kind of massive cruising spaceships.”
“I know I should not be surprised but damn. I did not expect that at all.” Jin sighed as he asked she had any images of it. Que Er shook her head in dismay as she said her birds may be magical in nature, but for a bird to fly that high into space, it would just bring too much suspicion.
“However, I might have a bit of good news for you. One of the places of interest where Amura Rei had taught included an Air Force School. My birds had picked up some chatter that a spaceship is going to have maintenance near the Mecha World’s atmosphere. I might not have the coordinates of the spaceport, but the Air Force sure does.”
“You believe that spaceship would be the one that carries the Mechanical Titan?” Jin queried, and the Magpie Queen laughed.
“Hardly! But at the very least, I thought this will provide you with some insight. I am just an immortal, not some mechanical whiz with all the knowledge about those metal carriages flying around. Your world I can still handle, but their world? I nearly vomit birds at the sight of the technology that they used. My birds barely able to blend in.” Que Er complained, and Jin had no choice but to summon Amura Rei in.
“What time would it be in Japan right now?” Jin asked the System, but in no time, Rei was already sitting across the meeting table, drawing something. Only when he realised the table and chair he was sitting at was so different, he decided to take a look around. Que Er smiled at him, but Jin was equally shocked to see Rei.
“I must apologise, I was hoping to ask the System to teleport you with some notification, did not expect the System to do this. Name is Jin by the way.”
“Yes I know, we met once during the Grand Feast,” Rei said as he calmed himself down. This was not the first time he got teleported abruptly by the System. He could only wish that it would be more pleasant. At the very least, there was no one in the office when the teleportation happened.
“So I assume you called me here is because you needed information about the Mecha World,” Rei asked, and Jin nodded his head slowly.
“And I also assume that you had been briefed quite a bit by your new erm… colleagues during the Grand Feast as well from the System?” Jin made an effort to get the rest of the monsters and bellators in the loop to inform Rei about his roles and responsibilities.
Rei knew that the United Federation had always wanted to create superweapon in order to counter the one by his nation, the Xeon Union, but he did not anticipate it to be so soon. The last he heard from rumours were that it would take another 15 to 20 years more. Now he understood why they were so eager to enter another war.
“We found out that the Mechanical Titan is in tucked in a spaceship, and we want to hear your expert advice on how to counter it. Que Er here had suggested that a spaceship would be docked to a spaceport near the Mecha World soon enough for maintenance. I guessed she was hinting that we steal something to fly up to the spaceport and hijack the spaceship.” Jin explained the current situation to Rei.
“Impossible. If I am assuming that you are talking about the Air Force Academy, their rockets are for training purposes. While I agree the security could be lax compared to other military airports, their training rocket’s top speed is not fast enough to reach space. You will be dead by then.” Rei warned and already took the time gap he was not in Mecha World into account. Yet, he felt that even though the Air Force Academy might have been too complacent and cheapskate to change their equipment, they should not take any chances to bet on it.
“You mean it does not have the capability to reach space?”
“Argh, I phrased it wrongly. The anti air defences will shoot you down before the rocket is able to reach the spaceport.” Rei emphasised that that plan was not feasible from the start.
“Then have you been to any spaceports before? We might be able to use you as a proxy to point our portal coordinates.” Jin queried, seeing how he got shot down again by his minions
“I erm…the last spaceport that I had been was the one I was supposed to die in,” Rei mumbled his words slowly. “I do not know how, but I was teleported to this world and found myself lying in a hospital bed. With debts, if I must add. Took me a long time to gain a name and repay all the debts.”
“Wait, what? You were really teleported to this world without any probable technological aid from your world?” Jin had also known but never had the chance to clarify this part of Rei. It seemed like there were other forces that were in play, and the System was not the only unique one that could work with interworld portals.
“Are you a natural interworld traveller?” Jin asked Rei seriously.
