Grey awoke with a gasp, his body practically breaking apart with phantom pain. His Neural Frame reacted as though it was suffering the worst wave of cramps known to man. Well, if those cramps were also filled with the kind of jolts only someone struck by lightning would have been able to understand.
He couldn’t help it. Between the vomits of metal pouring out from his throat, he screamed so violently that his throat was torn apart, blood pooling from the wounds and out from his mouth. The crimson filed in between his teeth, and by the time he finally got any sort of hold of himself, Esmeralda was standing over him in silence.
’Shit.’
Grey cursed inwardly. He hadn’t had the chance to top back up to 10 units of energy. If Esmeralda killed him right now, it really would be over. There would be no coming back from this.
The realization made him understand just how much he was playing with fire.
No. He had always been playing with fire. Things had just been going a little bit smoother recently, smooth enough that he had almost forgotten just how frequently everything in this world had conspired to make his life a living hell.
And now he had yet another problem to deal with.
His Neural Frame was too weak to complete the Prosthetic Mech. His attempt to visualize and forge its body alone had left him in a completely fried state, so much so that he had lost consciousness for an entire half day.
But that was the least of his worries.
Not only was there no easy solution to this, but the fact he would be killed for taking too long was yet another wrinkle to the endless avalanche of problems he was facing.
Even if he somehow managed to slow the forming process enough that he didn’t immediately Overload his Neural Frame—something that probably wasn’t even possible in the first place—he knew that he would run into a problem of time.
Every direction he looked, there was another roadblock.
And this witch’s face was really starting to piss him the fuck off.
Grey slowly pushed himself back up to his feet, meeting Esmeralda’s gaze as she stared right back at him. There was a deeply unimpressed light in the depths of her eyes, her thoughts not so easy to read, and yet plainly obvious to Grey.
She was wondering if she should just kill him now and get it over with.
From her vantage, it looked like Grey had just tried to quickly raise his strength and failed to achieve anything significant. In fact, it looked like he had ended up harming himself instead.
Grey twitched, last bits of phantom pain still running through his body.
’Fuck! This shit hurts. Couldn’t that piece of shit system kill me in a more humane way?’
Grey took a breath, trying to wipe the memories of what he just experienced. It was like he had been burned from the inside out. Unfortunately, those scars wouldn’t be disappearing anytime soon.
Somehow, it had been even worse than melting himself into the Last Goblin Swordsman.
"Sorry, upset stomach." Grey said. "I’ll get back to it."
He took a step past Esmeralda and went back to the table. But the moment he had stepped to it, he found that she had stuck to his side like a shadow.
Grey reached for the Cyber Core again, wanting to replenish himself back up to 10 units, but a single finger landed on it first.
"I think that’s enough playing around, don’t you think?" Esmeralda asked gently.
A cold sweat matted Grey’s back, but he forced himself to remain calm.
After the last loop, he knew what Esmeralda really wanted. She thought that she’d find the Mechanical Jaw Lineage in his Cyber Space and was just looking for an excuse to kill him.
For whatever reason, she was also a bit of an eccentric who liked to pretend to be a good person, and that was at least half the reason she kept giving him these chances.
The other half of the reason was because she was hoping there was a small chance that he would actually be able to do it.
But, Grey had a feeling that even if by some miracle he was able to do exactly that, she would kill him for the chance either way. After all, why would she be satisfied with a Proving Class Prosthetic when she was well beyond that level?
"I will need to replenish my own mech. Otherwise, this won’t go well." Grey chose to say.
Grey didn’t have the time for this. He had to figure out how to finish this Prosthetic, escape Esmeralda, and somehow clear this instance all before time ran out for his Canon Event.
’Fantastic. Just fucking fantastic.’
At the end of this he’d have a splendid death waiting for him.
"Your mech helps in your crafts?" Esmeralda asked slowly.
Grey’s heart was slowly accelerating under her glare. Had he said something wrong? Did mechs not do this?
But it was too late to backtrack now.
"Yes. It does."
"Is that so..." Esmeralda smiled. It was light, almost delicate. But the scarred half of her face became just a little bit more red, just a little bit more rouge and violet. There was a pulsing in it that gave off waves of danger.
The resplendent blue in Esmeralda’s one remaining good eye seemed to glow even brighter and her gaze landed on Grey’s jaw. An odd tingling sensation ran through his entire body, his hairs standing on end.
It was like every aspect of himself was being seen right through, his body laid out on a stainless steel board just to be dissected piece by piece, step by step.
"I’ve never heard of such a mech from the Mechanical Jaw Lineage."
"Maybe it isn’t from there." Grey replied, his entire body taut with tension.
"Yes? Then why is it that I can sense you only have a single mech?"
Grey’s jaw set.
Esmeralda’s head tilted, her smile remaining with the very same gentle hue, but it somehow felt far darker nonetheless.
"Why don’t you show me how it works?" she asked.
Veins popped along Grey’s jaw and he tried to reach for the Cyber Core again in response, but Esmeralda rolled it away.
"No, no. I’m sure your mech still has a little bit to work with. I’d like to see what it can do. Show me."
The last two words came out as far more of a command than any of the others, part of her mask slipping just the slightest bit.