Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 2: Stars in Far Places

Chapter 7

Captain | 大尉

Come on, Yuki. Focus on going defensive. Get the thing tired out before you start going after it, I think through the one-way glass desperately, gloves clenched anxiously onto the sill. I wish I was allowed to teach her all of her battle strategy lessons; no matter how much I try to fix the erroneous information the monster trainer robots tend to feed her, she still ends up listening to them when I'm not actually there correcting her.

At the moment, she's being set against a giant, bronze snake that's been known to inexplicably catch fire spontaneously without ever meaning to, once taking out a whole platoon of Poppy Bros. in the process. A defect like it was sure to end up being used as training fodder, but that doesn't mean it's unable to put up a fight.

The gleaming, metallic, armored cobra towers over the tiny, dull-white, soot-stained puffball, slamming its bronze-coated rattlers down everywhere around her over and over in quick succession. I tense up nervously, scared she'll be crushed, but her diminutive size helps her as she rolls and tumbles out of the way of each strike. Now would be a perfect time for her to cast a shield spell and trick the Coily Rattler into attacking and tiring itself out, but apparently the puffball-shaped robot observing her at the moment is, as usual, encouraging her to go full offensive.

Yuki blasts the monster in the face with a blinding spell and uses its moment of confusion to make a leap at the sensitive, unprotected area around its throat that it allows it to be able to move its head. She manages to get in there with her fangs briefly, but is quickly thrown off with a whip-like motion of the cobra, sending her slamming roughly into the ground not far away. She gets up slowly with a deep wince, and I find myself wincing too as I watch.

"Defense, Yuki, for the love of Nova, defense," I hiss with nervously-narrowed eyes. The training space below, which looks rather like a giant wrestling ring, only with a plain concrete floor, is well-lit so that cameras distributed around the room can easily film the action from every angle. Not only can the trainer bots review this footage to see what the winner monster did well and where it failed, but it can also be used to figure out how to make the monster that die's species better as a whole. Figure out its weak points. Find out how to make it harder to kill next time.

That's how business works. Find where you can cut corners, and figure out where you need to brush things up, too. Balance your costs with your profits. Make a salable product that does exactly what you want it to, and does it well, even if it's not what the customer is told it will do. As I've said before, the Lord of Nightmares is an ingenious businessman. He knows how to play this game, and he plays it well.

Of course, Yuki can't hear my advice, and the robot trainer points at the snake again in a signal to attack. Yuki snarls, her eyes narrowed and her lips curled back well above her fangs, and leaps into the fray again, a cloud of darkness surrounding her as she goes.

The snake spontaneously catches fire again, just as Yuki gets close. I cover my face with my gloves involuntarily, scared she's about to be roasted, only to hear a loud explosion. The ground shakes, even from outside the training room in the empty, bland, blank white observation area. When I snap my gaze back up, all that's left to be seen outside the one-way window is black, swirling fog.

As the mix of smoke and darkness lazily clears, I frantically search the room below to ascertain the victor.

A tired-looking Yuki stands in the center of it all, more soot-black than white at this point, her eyes glowing furious crimson. All that's left of the snake is a pile of ash around her and a few chunks of bronze armor with molten edges dripping onto the ground. I can imagine the sizzling sounds the bronze makes as it hits the ground, even if I can't actually hear it.