Despite the rumors, Krahe’s re-emergence into the city went unnoticed. She simply appeared from a particularly well-hidden door in a random basement safehouse, one of over a dozen possible exit points for the tramline. From there, she wasted no time in putting her affairs in order. When she went to pick up her order of upgraded lenses for the Prospector’s Eyes, the craftsman remarked that she was late. He hadn’t sold them — if anything, he grabbed them from right under the counter, as if he had been waiting for her all this time, and just as quickly accepted her second half of the payment, without even bothering to count the money. It was clear he wanted her out of his shop as quickly as possible. She didn’t mind.
She didn’t return to Gashward Road, instead spending a few days at Sorayah’s home as she considered how to proceed next. The fact of the matter was, Firminus had wanted her to stay at the compound for another week. It had been her own choice to return to civilization before she was back to full fighting form. Even if her capabilities right now were in fact greater than during the raid, she was still only at 70% at best. The Adamas Organ had yet to fully settle in, and the various aftereffects of her numerous surgeries still made themselves known often enough to interfere.
Seeing as she had no intention to join up with an agency, Krahe had decided to create her own. A detective agency, that is, a simple front-office, a public face. Not only was this possible within the legal framework, it was fairly easy. From what she had learned, Audunpoint had a decent number of smaller agencies, it was just that they usually ended up as subcontractors — glorified proxies — for one of the big five or the church. The existence of such a front agency, inevitably, presented an issue by its very nature. A public office, one where she would be with some frequency, would inevitably become a target. In the end, Krahe intended to turn that problem into a benefit by turning her office into a trap for those foolish enough to wander in with hostile intentions.
The true problem, then was that she didn’t have the skills or resources needed to turn a civilian building into a fortified death trap without making it obvious.
For this purpose, none other than Yao Fu came to mind.
Then, there was the matter of the hunt. She now had more specific details regarding what beast she would need, and that she would likely need to hire a trustworthy tracker. For this, she expected to need to pry some intel out of Nozar… And once she did find a possible target, she would need to consult with Yao Fu to confirm that it would be suitable, given that woman’s involvement. She decided to make partial copies of the soulbeast intel memslate, total out to around half a dozen memslates with varying amounts of information, each of which she made three copies of.
As she went down her mental checklist, grinding a beetle-like bean between her molars, Krahe arrived to her need to rectify her lack of barriers and wards. Astro Diving, Astro Skimming, her biosuit, the Adamas Organ, all these were potent defensive measures, but Krahe had already grown used to wards. Barriers, she could do without if need be, but she wouldn’t feel comfortable without wards.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The answer, once more, led to Yao Fu.
The Atomica. The Shardkey of Heshmad Abbasi. The fragments of Eutropia’s Gulf Key.
All in all, Krahe had all the parts necessary to assemble something extraordinary — perhaps the only missing ingredient would be a voidkey with exceptional barrier characteristics. Perhaps something entropy-light, fulfilling the role of a supplementary defense than a typical barrier. She was certain there would be another catch, that she would need to get some extra special material to allow for the unification of all these voidkeys as one, but that was a problem for the future.
Almost without thinking, Krahe glanced inwards, towards Barzai, and saw that the eidolon remained dormant. There had been a change, however. He was no longer “gestating” — instead, his system readout simply stated that he was ready for the evolution ritual. The problem, of course, was that she didn’t know what that entailed. This… Also pointed towards Yao Fu. In this case, it was because she had a great deal of influence over Zachariah Ahmadi, the Speaker of the Lost Sun Society. With each path of least resistance that turned out to have that old monster sitting at the crossroad, Krahe grew more and more uneasy. Not because she distrusted Yao Fu — if anything, out of all her acquaintances in this world, she was the most comfortable with their relationship, as she knew it to be simply transactional in a manner that neither side could afford to break. The number of threads leading back to that woman just made Krahe keenly aware of how lackluster her network of connections was.
Last in order of how heavily it weighed on her thoughts was the matter of her clothes, and especially of the biosuit. Upon her departure from the compound, Firminus had handed over the first fruits of his experimental labour — a specimen of newly-cultured biosuit material, of a sort. It was different from that which made up her biosuit somehow, the reason for which she wasn’t sure of. She wagered it to be somewhere between the circumstances of her rebirth and whatever Firminus had done with her sample, as he had mentioned having made efforts to improve it in some vague manner. Regardless, she had a fairly significant amount, and after going through a few options, Krahe simply used the extra mass to directly expand her biosuit. Despite this intention, the original biosuit retained clear lines of separation, with the system recognizing the new mass as “Type-38 Firminus-pattern Recultured Biogel”. Its properties were generally the same as the Type-37 had been upon her initial transmigration, but slightly inferior in all aspects, with an armor protection rating of E2. By comparison, the Type-37 Biosuit’s armor protection rating had grown by two increments — E3, to D2.
When it came to the issue of rising temperatures, thankfully, her biosuit and Firminus’ copy both helped mitigate it to an extent. As part of its core functionality, the biogel absorbed her sweat and used this excess moisture for its own form of evaporative cooling, effectively amplifying Krahe’s ability to naturally cool herself down — it truly fulfilled the descriptor of “second skin” in all aspects. Furthermore, the gel’s structural makeup meant that its surface, despite being black, absorbed very little heat from the sun. This property also caused it to glisten a purplish shade when the light hit it just right.
Art:
Odds are I'll find a place to fit it as an actual illust. but for now here it is as-is.
If you’d like to read ahead, consider heading on over to the ! You get up to 20 advance chapters for both Retribution Engine and Cherno Caster.
I’d also greatly appreciate it if you could rate my story, maybe even leave a review or advanced review! Advanced reviews count for more in the eyes of the algorithm, so that pretty much means they determine the success of my work.
For a link to the discord, check the synopsis.
