"You mean you can track me?" he asked.
She nodded.
Cipher wondered what kind of ability was that. It sounded pretty useless. And how did it even work anyway? "Wait, when you said world... did you mean you can track me across the world?" he asked.
She nodded slowly.
"How can you do that?" Elaine asked.
Elara shook her head.
"You don’t know?" Elaine asked. She then looked at Cipher. "Maybe she’s still connected to that skill you took," she said.
Cipher nodded. That made some sense. Well, it would make much more sense to track a skill than having the specific ability to track a specific random person. He exhaled. Well, he had gotten nowhere. He didn’t believe this was her domain ability. After all, tracking a skill belonging to her seemed like a thing she could do intrinsically.
"What about fragment? Have you ever heard of the word fragment? Particularly relating to a god?" he asked.
She looked at him, then pointed at him. "Fragment. Time," she said.
Cipher froze for a second. "You know about the time..."
At that moment, the door swung open and Iris walked in, scratching her hair and clicking her tongue. "Oh, you’re here," she said as she noticed Cipher.
Cipher looked at Elara and then sighed. He didn’t want to ask about the time thing even with Elaine here, let alone another person. He decided to let it go for now.
He turned to face Iris. "Yeah, I was looking for you actually. Did something happen?" he asked.
"Nothing. I was just meeting a friend," she said.
"A friend?" Elara asked.
"Friend?" Elaine asked.
"A friend?" Cipher also asked.
"What?" she asked, noticing their strange expressions.
"Ah, nothing. I was just surprised is all," Cipher said.
"What’s so surprising? Anyway, what did you want?" she asked.
"There were a few questions I wanted to ask," he said. "Those robots, the ones we captured - can you tell me about the behavior of the ’holy’ magic inside?" he asked.
"Behavior? I guess we could study it, but I don’t think it’s useful. After all, at my current level, I can’t recreate it," she said.
"It’s fine. We just need to study the behavior," he said. "Do you still have them left, or did you use them up?" he asked.
She shrugged. "I used them all up to practice the Creation skill. And even if I hadn’t, we still couldn’t use them. I told you the magic dissipates once they die and can’t be put together, remember?" she said.
"Oh, right," Cipher said. "So, what now. Should we go into a gate together?" he asked.
"Why not? I’m also interested in it anyway," she said.
She took her lab coat from the hanger and put it on, then grabbed an energy gun from the table. "I’m ready," she said.
She turned to Elaine and Elara. "Take care of the lab," she said.
Cipher turned to them and waved. "Goodbye. I’ll talk to you again later," he said.
...
Outside, Cipher was busy on the phone, trying to call someone but with seemingly no success.
"Who are you calling?" Iris asked.
Cipher sighed, putting down the phone. He wasn’t getting through to any of his teammates. He particularly wanted Maya to accompany them so she could create a barrier for them to conduct their research in peace. Well, since he wasn’t getting through, he decided to just do it his way.
"Never mind, let’s go," he said, jumping into the air. She followed him.
A while later, the two appeared inside the gate.
"It’s that thing again," Cipher thought, looking around him. He then noticed Iris, who wore a difficult-to-read expression as she looked around her.
"What’s wrong? Do you feel it too?" he asked. He had thought it was just an uneasy feeling before, but if Iris also felt it, then something was definitely wrong here, he thought.
"Yeah, something is definitely wrong here," she said, walking up to the golden walls and placing her hand on them. She then turned around. "Anyway, we have work to do. As for this, we’ll need to plan for it next time - it’s definitely not simple," she said.
Cipher nodded. If even Iris said that, then something was definitely going on.
"Alright, let’s focus on the goal then," he said.
He walked over to the door and slowly pushed it open.
As he opened the door, it seemed as though time was slowing down around him. "Julie, I don’t know if you feel this, but you’ll have to forgive me for this. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve done it anyway," he said silently before jumping out and instantly chopping off all the limbs of the initial robot that always charged on gate opening.
He didn’t waste a single second and charged towards the others before they could even begin to notice him. In just a few seconds, he had completely immobilized all the robots in the room.
"Are these enough?" he asked.
Iris knelt next to one of the immobilized robots. "They’re low level, so the mana concentration won’t be high, but I guess the quantity makes up for it somewhat," she said, beginning to perform some inspections Cipher didn’t understand on the robot.
"Well, do your thing and I’ll keep watch for the others," he said as he shifted and was now hanging upside down from the ceiling.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Lookout, of course," he said.
She wore a strange expression. "Can’t you just go ’lookout’ outside? Or just sit like a normal person?"
"I have no choice. The monster eating up the world can protrude its tentacles to attack from the ground, so I have to be high so I can notice it in time," he explained.
"What about me?" she asked.
He smiled. "That’s why I’m lined up with you. Since you can’t do your research upside down, I am lined up properly with you. So when I detect the slightest bit of movement, I will charge and catch you, moving with you into the safe zone."
She gave him a weird look, but he reassured her with a smile. "You don’t have to worry about me missing. Trust me, my aim is pretty good."
"That’s not really the issue here... never mind," she said with a sigh, continuing her experiment.