World Keeper

Chapter 554: Mistakes Were Made

As soon as the sylphid cannon was ready to launch, Tsubaki hurriedly entered a new set of coordinates. They had not yet been invaded by any aerial forces, so she had to hurry to maximize the lethality for her superweapon. In order to test out the new features, she didn’t attempt to directly locate a city to fire, but rather aimed fairly close to where the first sylphid was created.

Aurivy’s super slime had not yet found another base, and was gradually expanding further. At this point, the entire map that they could see was split into either a dense forest, or the body of Aurivy’s creation.

When the cannon launched, it released another burst of green light, though this one seemed just a bit deeper than the earlier blast. However, as it sailed through the air, Tsubaki and Aurivy were made privy to a rather unsettling development near the edge of their borders. An army was being amassed, mixed between armored snake-people and even more heavily armored vehicles. They were primarily focused at the edge of the forest, at least the ones that Tsubaki had been able to see were.

Soon, the ball of light once more sank into the ground, signalling the birth of a new sylphid. Tsubaki could guess that Udona and Kathy would immediately deploy troops towards that location in an effort to neutralize the threat before it could spawn. As such, she did not wait, instead choosing to deploy the sylphid immediately when it was ready.

The ground split apart with another roar, vines tangling together and ascending towards the sky. The image of a great dragon which Tsubaki was anticipating did not arrive. Rather, the leaves were far thinner, and appeared by the dozen. The high frequency of their flapping actually created a buzz in the air that disturbed the nearby foliage.

Its body was still massive, crafted from interwoven plants. However, every beat of its numerous wings seemed to cause a yellow pollen to flutter in the air. As that pollen sank into the ground, Aurivy suddenly spoke in a somewhat worried tone. “Tsubaki?”

“Yes, Lady Aurivy?” The kitsune glanced towards the halfling goddess in curiosity, not appearing to realize why there was concern etched across her face.

“You don’t have control of that unit, do you?” Aurivy pointed towards the giant sylphid, which appeared far more like an overgrown hummingbird than a dragon.

“Is that a problem? It should be capable of destroying the enemy bases even without my commands.”

Aurivy shook her head, gulping a bit. “That’s… not wrong. But that means it’s not a friendly unit. It could just as easily attack your base.”

Tsubaki clearly hadn’t considered that, due to the lack of experience in this genre of games. “The system wouldn’t make something that bad… would it?”

The halfling thought it over for a moment. “If the sylphid is a natural path for the sylvans to develop as a bioweapon, then it would depend on the sylphid itself. It’s… possible that the base form of a sylphid is like a wild animal. Like any other wild animal, there would need to be techniques to tame it, either in magic or science development.”

As she was explaining that, thirty seconds had passed. The ground beneath the second sylphid split open, with dozens of smaller hummingbird-like sylphids emerging from the ground. The buzz of their wings intensified, but they didn’t immediately move. “If it’s truly an uncontrolled unit… it will advance in the direction of whatever unit attacks it first, like your first one did.”

At that point, the two of them could only hope that a unit was dispatched from one of the main bases to deal with the new threat. Luck, however, did not seem to be on their side. The large army which had previously been gathered to assault the forest soon appeared at the edge of the sylphid’s vision, and began launching attacks against it.

“Does Lady Udona know of this weakness already?” Tsubaki gasped in admiration at the brilliant move by Udona, while Aurivy shook her head with a knowing grin.

“Probably not… she just wouldn’t have had any troops left to send, aside from those that had been prepared to attack.” The two of them watched as swathes of fire rained down, empowered by the great gusts from the sylphid’s wings. Although a few of the smaller sylphids were slain, more were born from the spores constantly being spread from the main sylphid.

And after that army was destroyed… the sylphid truly did advance in the direction that it came from. It soon arrived at the forest, and began attacking the disguised sylvans along the border. Once they were dead, its rampage seemed to settle.

Due to the fact that the forest itself was part of Tsubaki’s forces, they were able to clearly see the syphid making itself a little nest in one of the upper branches of the tree. However, once it settled down, it continued spreading the spores that would birth more of its miniature brethren.

Tsubaki let out a sullen sigh, realizing that the sylphid was automatically producing weaponized troops faster than she herself was. “At least it makes a suitable defense against invasions…?”

“Until they spread far enough to reach one of your bases.” Aurivy pointed out, knowing that was only a matter of time. “It might be possible to lure it away from your territory the same way that Udona’s troops pulled it there. If you can circle a few units around to attack from the other side, and destroy its nest in the process, it could be enraged enough to leave.”

Tsubaki considered that answer for a moment, observing the creature in question before shaking her head. She had seen this sort of behavior in numerous creatures. It was incredibly territorial, that much was already certain. Although it could be drawn away easily before, that was because there was not a suitable environment for it to claim.

Now that it had a nest, there would be no hope of getting it to leave the domain that it had claimed for itself. Not without completely taming it.

With that thought in mind, Tsubaki once again began browsing through the research options for the sylvans, focusing only on options that directly impacted the sylphids. There were several of those that she had found, whether they reduced the cooldown timer on the cannon, increased the number of shots per burst, or even adding special abilities to the sylphids.

However, it took her quite some time to find the option she wanted, one which did not even specifically mention the sylphids. As Aurivy said, there was indeed a way to tame them, but it was not a method limited purely for this creature. Instead, it was a ‘Plant Beast Taming’ option which existed in the magic tree.

Due to this crisis, Tsubaki reluctantly began to invest in the magic research tree, aiming for that trait. At this point in time, there were only three ways that she could imagine this game ending. Either she got the option before the sylphids destroyed her base, and sent it against the enemy, the sylphids got to her base first, or…

“Found you.” Aurivy smiled, her slime coming across a large metallic wall far away from any other base. Realizing the emergency, she had chosen to focus her slime to assimilate along the road. Narrowing its expansion range naturally increased its speed, but also meant it would take longer to take over the base when the time arrived.

One down. Tsubaki cheered mentally, already considering that base as conquered the moment Aurivy’s slime found it. However, she soon noticed that Aurivy’s smile had frozen, and that the slime had not advanced further than the city’s outer walls. “Lady Aurivy?”

“They have barriers.” She muttered self-deprecatingly. “Anti-slime barriers. Udona specifically focused her research tree to counter slimes…”

Tsubaki couldn’t help clearing her throat, looking at the goddess and trying to speak as amicably as possible. “Lady Aurivy… do you perhaps use slimes quite often?”

“No, of course not. Well, I mean, maybe… they’re just so cool. They’re soft and squishy, adorable, and yet so full of untapped potential!” She flailed her arms into the air. “And thanks to that barrier, I can’t silently assimilate her base like I did the other one. I’m switching to plan C.”

“What about plan B?” Tsubaki blinked in confusion, watching the slime begin to spread its territory outside of the city’s walls.

“Plan B was lame. Plan C is… Chomp!” After she gave that command, a massive stretch of earth rose up. The entire body of the slime began moving together to form a giant mouth. Tsubaki couldn’t help but shudder as the slime’s mass dwarfed the entire city it aimed to devour.

Message from Player Udona: Heheh, couldn’t wait any longer, huh? Once I saw what happened to my secondary base, I had a feeling I knew what you were up to. Making a countermeasure for the root giant might be hard, but a slime…?

After the message came through, a beam struck out from the city, blasting against the body of the slime. And then another, and another. Dozens, maybe even hundreds of beams blasted one after the other. As each one struck the slime, its movements became sluggish. Aurivy had a panicked look on her face when her ultimate creation… no, her only unit was destroyed, sinking into a flood of juices that washed over the city.

Player Aurivy has been eliminated.

Tsubaki saw the remains of the slime flooding back into the giant hole left by its arrival, creating a colorful ocean that had not originally been a part of this map. She looked over, and was surprised to find that she could no longer see Aurivy, or the podium that the halfling goddess had previously stood in front of.

Message from Player Udona: 1v2 now, Tsubaki. If you don’t send that monster at us now, you know you don’t have a chance, right?

Tsubaki could only smile bitterly, opening up a chat window and relaying a message to the opposing team.

Message from Player Tsubaki: Apologies, Lady Udona… the creature is not fully under my control. It would take me roughly five more minutes at my fastest speed to acquire the research to command it. By which point, I have no doubt that you would have already had time to circle through the forest and destroy my bases.

Strategically, it was a failure to let the enemy know this information. However, Tsubaki did not feel that it was important enough to hide from Udona. In her eyes, the match was over the moment Aurivy’s slime was destroyed.

Player Udona has called for your surrender. Do you wish to forfeit the match? You will not be able to receive any completion awards should you surrender.

Tsubaki was just about to accept when she read the last part of the message. I can earn points in this game? Recalling her purpose of helping her Keeper amass points to increase his power, she could no longer bring herself to surrender this game. If it went on, not only her, even Aurivy and Udona would be able to obtain points for the Keeper.

Her resolution set, she firmly denied the option to surrender. Five more minutes… even if she couldn’t win the game after five minutes, it would be good as long as the last hour of her time wasn’t spent only to end with no profit.

The kitsune eyed her remaining resources, before taking a deep breath and spending everything she had to accelerate her research speed. This was her final gambit. According to Aurivy’s assessment, Udona shouldn’t have many additional troops at this point in time. Moreover, the road leading out of her base had suddenly turned into a river.

At least on Udona’s side, it should take more than five minutes for her to amass an army that can move against Tsubaki. As she was thinking that, she heard a roar echoing through the game world.

Message from Player Udona: I said it’s a 1v2… don’t forget about Kathy, Tsubaki. She’s a veteran at this game.

Tsubaki’s mind froze at that, recalling the scene of the armored snake-people. They seemed to be advancing so much more slowly than Udona’s troops that Tsubaki completely neglected them. They hadn’t even shown any special talents in magic, though that could have very well been due to the fact that they were always slain moments after they appeared on her screen.

As a massive wingbeat shook the forest, a shadow falling down from above, Tsubaki could clearly see that Kathy had taken a road similar to herself. She wasn’t specializing in magic or technology, likely having gotten her armor through trade with Udona. She specialized in enhancing her racial qualities, and arrived at a racial unit similar to Tsubaki’s sylphids.

Only, where the hummingbird sylphid was uncontrollable due to Tsubaki’s lack of prior knowledge, the dragons which flew above the forest each possessed a rider. When they let loose their breath, it was not the fire which Tsubaki had allowed her people to resist, but a chilling frost. Ice covered the forest in waves, heading straight for its heart.

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