The drone was a silver disk, larger than a head, floating soundlessly in the air right outside of their apartment's door. There was a logo of a black 'N' with a silver line crossed through it on its form. Underneath the machine, a square of condensed mana kept a large, cardboard box protected and snugly attached to it.
Elsa Mont gawked at it as she held her chin, eyes shining. It was a wondrous creature to her, something she aspired to be able to create one day. For now, her 'One Eyes'—which could barely fly and could only send visual information—seemed like cheap imitations that could be duplicated by anyone with even some semblance of skill in Mechanical Magecraft.
'But that's pretty fine too I guess,' She shrugged. She was still growing, learning. Someday she'd reach it, even if that day currently seemed far.
"There we go." Lilias Aunbren tapped the screen of her pad, confirming the delivery of the package and the drone gingerly dropped the box, the mana disappearing, before it flew away, soundlessly into the morning's sky.
Following that, Rose Ausra effortlessly picked the package up and took it inside, placing it on their living room floor.
"Either one of you got a box cutter?" Elsa asked, standing over her crouched form.
Rose shook her head. Then smiled. "Should we use one of Lilias's swords?"
"We are not using my family's heirloom to cut open a box."
"I'm joking, joking. . .mostly," Rose said and she extended a hand forward, "If I went with that option, I would use my own sword. Probably."
"Probably?"
She chuckled. Fire spawned, flickering, then shaped into a knife; orange flames entrapped in a mana coating of thin azure. She sliced open the box.
Inside, stuffed within packets of white foam, were 3 black helmets reminiscent of motorcycle helmets. However, the entirety of their fronts—forehead to chin—were made of what appeared to be glass. While on top of their heads, separating the glass from the metal, were exposed mana cores; spherical blue orbs twisting with energy inside of them. Elsa picked one up. It wasn't particularly light nor heavy. Inside, there was padding and foam.
"Man, this thing is 50k. . .?" She muttered, flipping it around. The design was okay, that was all she could really say about it. It wasn't the sort of magitech that made her heart skip a beat. At the very least, she couldn't think of a way to turn it into a weapon, and that was an automatic point off for her.
Rose picked one up as well. "Mhmm, 50k."
It was a sum of money she wouldn't have thought she'd spend on something like this so soon after leaving the slums. It felt a tad bit wasteful.
". . .is 50k lixels going to kill you two?" Lilias asked, picking the last one and staring reproachfully at her money-pinching misers of companions.
"Nah but, that's a whole chunk of our savings right there no? And we haven't even begun looking for equipment yet! Come on!"
"Investment," The dragonian rolled her eyes and replied, moving back to the couch, "That is all."
Of course, both Rose and Elsa understood her words, but they nevertheless groaned in unison.
The helmets had sent each of them back 50k. They weren't cheap, but they were definitely more economical than a virtual pod, which could be anywhere from 250k to several millions depending on the model. The difference between the two devices? Honestly, they didn't care, they simply went with the cheapest thing for their purpose, and that already made them want to go bash in the head of the company which sold them.
'Well, investment it is then, I suppose,' Rose thought as she sat on the couch beside her two companions, resting back and sliding the helmet on.
A feminine voice immediately reached her ears and words crawled onto the glass of the helmet's screen.
[Beginning initial user configuration.]
[Please tap your pad to the VR helmet.]
Rose did as she was told.
[Configuration set.]
[Please place a finger to the mana core of the helmet and state your name.]
Rose once more did as she was told, allowing her fingerprint to be scanned. There was, as well, a flash of blue from the screen of the helmet, capturing her face and eyes. Undoubtedly for facial recognition.
"Rose Ausra."
[Security measures set.]
[Welcome, Rose Ausra.]
Just like that, it had recorded her identification from her pad, her fingerprint, eyes, face, and voice. It was fast and simple, and it would now be near impossible for someone else to use the helmet without directly hacking into it.
[There appears to be pre-existing data of your external body, scanned during your Dungeoneer Assessment Test, would you like to use it as your Main Avatar or create a new one? Before you decide, please be aware that, by law, your facial features shall remain the same as reality on this avatar.]
Rose raised a brow at those words. 'Of course, my pad.' Though she was incredulous about the notion that somewhere out there the city of Alos had data on her external body, it wasn't time to fret over it, especially given that there was a likelihood they had a hand in her creation in the first place. Seeing as her face couldn't be changed anyhow, she merely affirmed.
"Yes, I would."
[Confirmed.]
[Moving.]
Rose recognized the sensation of her brain disconnecting from her body. She could choose to fight against it, but she didn't. One moment, she was staring at their living room through the glass. The next, she found herself in a white space void of any color. Not a second had she spent admiring the nothingness of the place when a prompt entered her ears.
['Lilias Aunbren' has invited you into an instance party, do you wish to accept?]
Rose accepted and she disappeared, appearing in a new location.
The ground was barren and desolate. There was nothing as far as the eye could see but bare earth. The wind blew, blowing dust and Rose's clothing, and the sky overhead was a deep bl;ue that didn't suit an early morning. Elsa was seated on the ground in front of her, legs crossed, brows knitted tight, scrolling through a screen while Lilias stood behind her.
"And where's this?" Rose asked, walking up to them.
"We're already in Encore's Shopping Space. The environment itself is an artificial terrain for the purposes of testing weapons," The dragonian said, "I chose it."
Rose understood only half of what the girl said but nodded either way.
"Aha! I've found one!"
At that moment, Elsa leapt up with a yell. She grinned, stared at the two, then tapped the screen floating before her. The display disappeared and, in its place, light shined and a silver pistol appeared in her hand.
". . .a pistol? I thought you wanted more fire-power?" Rose looked incredulously at the grinning girl. Not only that, the weapon itself looked a bit too bulky for a pistol (why did a pistol even have an attached scope of that size?), and she didn't even spy a mana core attached. All in all, she was puzzled.
"Tsk tsk, a pistol? Course not. This is a rifle!" Elsa said.
The girl pushed a button on the weapon and Rose watched it glow blue for a moment, its bulky form expanding, breaking apart like segments until it fell neatly in Elsa's hands, becoming a silver rifle with a mana core embedded in its side. That transformation took all of 3 seconds.
"Oh oh oh." Elsa beamed at the weapon, caressing it gently, eyes shining. She went so far as to smoothly run her finger over the purple insignia of a howling wolf's head on its buttstock.
Obviously, Rose knew nothing about guns and she doubted the star-struck girl would be explaining anything soon. Instead, she turned to the dragonian.
"Why are you looking at me as if I exist solely as an encyclopedia?" Lilias asked, raising a brow.
"Well?"
"Honestly. . .alright."
The dragonian sighed while Rose smiled.
"The weapon is a compact, Pulse Rifle, called Wolf's Howl. It's coded to work with most common and uncommon wolf-type Spirits. Popular among newer Dungeoneers, the weapon is designed for ease of carry, usability, and repair," Lilias stated as if she were reciting an item description she already memorized, "Its maximum effective range is 300 meters when firing in its base semi-automatic form, and it has enough fire-power to send a bullet through one and a half inches of stone with no issue, and rip apart a tree in a burst form of 150 meter range. Using a spirit, its range decreases to just shy of 100 meters, but its firepower and added ability increases based on said spirit."
Apparently done with her admiration for the gun, Elsa took aim with it, placing its buttstock to her shoulder pocket, holding and pointing the muzzle into the distance with her left hand, and looking down its scope with her right eye. Her feet were spread apart, left slightly more forward.
"Alright, and what's this?" Rose asked.
"A basic shooting stance in a standing position."
"Yup yup," The girl in question said quickly, still grinning. "Hit me with a test."
The dragonian nodded and brought up a display.
"Let's see here, I'll set the parameters as. . ." Lilias spoke as she began tapping at the screen, "Enemies: Shadow Wolves. Quantity: let's go with 50. Distance and Location: Approaching from 300 meters forward. Aggressiveness: Chase. Environment: Destructible. Gore: Realistic. Alright, that should do it. Ready?"
Rose watched as Elsa nodded, tapping the mana core of the weapon with a flick. It shined and mana rolled into the gun.
"Ready."
[Weapon's Test Activated.]
A band of howls rose in the distance. Rose squinted, her eyes rolling over the horizon before them to see wolves, black as the night's shadows, running towards them in a pack, several hundreds of meters away.
Yet, not a second had passed and Elsa's first shot ring.
A small dust cloud rose in the distance. She hit nothing.
"Tsk, rusty," The girl muttered, shifted her aim slightly, and squeezed the trigger again.
A wolf dropped, slamming against the ground. Then another. And another. Certainly, the wolves could become mere shadows, but that change wasn't faster than a mana bullet. Though Elsa didn't accurately hit all of her shots, she ripped them to shreds anyway at a calm rate of 1 shot per second. She simply kept going as they approached closer.
A wolf found a hole in its chest, falling to bleed to its death. Another's skull was blasted apart right before it transitioned into its ethereal form, knocking it out of its ability.
At what seemed to be about 150 meters, when there were about 30 left, Elsa flicked the mana core of the weapon once more with a finger.
There was a spray of pulses cutting through the air and blood splashed in the distance as each pull of the trigger sent five shots flying. Try as they might, the wolves' ethereal forms weren't permanent, and they dropped like flies. Ordinarily, they would have certainly tried to escape another way in a normal situation, but Rose figured they still kept coming in a straight line due to Lilias's set testing parameters.
Then the remaining wolves, less than ten, reached a distance where Rose could smell their blood. At that point, Elsa's abdomen shined white, the energy of her spirit rolled straight into her hands, and lightning crackled around the weapon.
She grinned and pulled the trigger.
"Bye bye~"
A zap of lightning flickered through the air, shot out of the weapon's muzzle. There was a crackling roar and Rose watched the element morph into the head of a wolf, its jaws opening as it howled. The attack struck the cluster of Shadow Wolves, then exploded, lightning ripping apart a thirty-feet circular area. Even as the wolves were immediately stunned in place, frozen then electrocuted to death, the attack continued to crackle for several more seconds before it finally died down.
The dust settling to reveal only battered and fried corpses, Elsa grinned, relaxing her stance and lowering the weapon.
"Yup," She said, eyes glazing with love as she stared at Wolf's Howl, "That's it, we're done here, I'm taking this one."