(200 Power Stone bonus chapter)
"We can't pass through here. The tunnel had collapsed!" Enterprise said as she saw the tunnel blocked by the boulders that collapsed from the ceiling.
"Miss Jeanne, is there another way around?" The concerned Cleveland asked but Jeanne shook her head disappointedly.
"No, unfortunately this is the only tunnel leading to the core room." Jeanne replied.
"Let me handle this." Siegfried said and immediately drew his greatsword. "Balmung!" He invoked his sword's true name before he slashed at the floor instead of the boulders to unleash his Noble Phantasm.
The ground immediately cracked and fell apart, revealing a hole leading down into the core room.
"Master!" Jalter screamed and jumped off immediately when she saw the scene below.
Jeanne, Siegfried and the shipgirls too hurried and followed with a hardened expression.
———
Moments prior.
"Ha—AH!" Adam roared as he mustered his fist and collided it with the incoming Grappler's claws and shattered it despite it was boasted to be very durable and hard to break. However, Adam didn't shatter its claw that easily either.
While Adam's first and legs are covered with a black layer of steel-like skin due to his Armament Haki, he still felt his fist become numb and deformed from punching that absurdly hard claw.
Adam can feel the numbness slowly replaced with itch and warm sensation as he continues fighting. He paused for a moment and noticed it was bleeding.
"I can still continue. I shouldn't waste a heal on small injuries like this." Adam mumbles while continuing killing the BETAs with his eyes closed and relying completely on his intuition which is more accurate at this point than his own eyes and covers a 360° radius around, giving him zero blind spot to be exploited.
When a Fort-Class appeared, Adam turned his Crysis suit to Speed mode and increased his speed to parkour and performed acrobatic moves to climb up on its body before taking out Hornet and firing at its joints.
"Huff… Huff… why do their numbers just keep on increasing?!" Adam stands on top of the Fort-Class BETA's corpse and opens his eyes and looks at the core room.
"No wonder! That bastard is dumping more BETA as I fight!" Adam grit his teeth when he saw the large worm BETA with its mouth open and BETAs crawling out from it on the far side of the room.
Just as Adam slipped a little of his senses due to his anger and piling stress, a few Soldier-Class BETA sneaked close and caught him with one trying to bite his leg but Adam swiftly switch to Armor mode to protect his limbs and he slammed his fist at the one trying to bit off his legs before it's head explode, showering gore and blood but the other two isn't deterred as they immediately bite down on his shoulder and head but Adam broke the jaw of one and snapped the neck of another before he laboriously pant and heaved, trying to catch his breath as his vision turn blurry. His body had reached the limit that not even drugs can push further.
"Should have sucked up my pride and asked for help earlier." Adam sighed when more BETA was crawling up the corpse of the Fort-Class to reach Adam like ants swarming the food.
He kicked away a Warrior-Class and summoned his good ol' Ronson SG before dumping several dozen shells worth of pyramid shaped tungsten pellets into those alien freaks. Then he turns around when sensed several blood red Tank-Class climb up the corpse like spiders. Adam summoned Hornet into his left arm and accurately sprayed his shots at the blob thing that resembles its head, killing them all with a shot each. But before he could catch a breath even more crawled up the corpse trying to overwhelm him.
With no other option, Adam fight to the bitter end, knowing help is arriving soon as he saw the green dots on his minimap is rapidly approaching his location.
Three Grapplers and five Tanks approached the top but didn't rush at him immediately. Those bastards seem smart enough to not charge at the wounded lion even when it is already exhausted and helpless but this worked in his favor.
"Get off my Master!"
Adam heard the furious voice of his wive directed at the BETAs which instantly found spears shot down from below and impaled them before the baleful flame consumed their body into black crisp.
Adam's energy already drained and he could barely stand as he let his numb body fall to the ground but was caught by a pair of hands as he laboriously breathed in and out from his lungs that felt like they were on fire.
"Master! Master! Are you alright? Waah! Adam!!!" Jalter become panicked and shedding tears when Adam's disoriented eyes suddenly shut close and his body went stiff before become limp.
"Adam!!!" Jalter cried in grief when she suddenly heard a laugh.
"Hahahaaah… I didn't know you would cry like that. Still, I feel insulted that you think those aliens are freaks who can kill me." Adam laughed and sighed.
"Yo-You!" Jalter immediately know she was played and her face turn crimson red.
"AAAAAHH! SORRY! SORRY! IT WAS JUST A PRANK!" Adam screamed when he felt Jalter suddenly bite him.
"Hmph! Since you can still joke. That means you are alright." She drops him on the floor before walking away to join Siegfried on the clean up with a harrumph. Although Adam didn't miss the little smile she tried hard to hide.
"Geez, commander. You shouldn't do this kind of prank. Even I was shocked and devastated when you faked your death." Cleveland said as she put Adam's left arm on her shoulder before supporting him to stand up.
"Clevebro worried about me? Well, sorry about that prank. I just couldn't help it. Besides, I'm lightening up the mood since everyone looks tense." Adam said while lightly jabbing Cleveland with his elbow.
But the truth is he blacked out for a split second and woke up to his suit administering life support after he overdosed on the performance enhancing drug and got a cardiac arrest with how much of it is in his system. He didn't want to make them worry needlessly so he made that joke.
"Ouch!" Adam felt something hit him and he saw Cleveland holding a fist.
"That's to keep calling me with weird nicknames." She said and still holding her fist as if telling Adam that she will hit him again if he keeps calling her Clevebro.
"Alright, alright. I'm not trying to insult you or anything. I call you a bro because I see you as a br— *Cough* Nothing." Adam shuts his mouth at the sight of the fist and turns to look at his Servants and Shipgirls wiping out the remaining BETA. However, that worm bastard escaped.
"Commander, the HQ is asking for our situation. Should I reply back to them?" Enterprise approaches Adam after releasing a wave of airstrike on the enemies.
"Just inform them that the core is destroyed." Adam said.
"Yes, commander." Enterprise nodded and did as she was told.
When the news reached the HQ, everyone across the battlefield cheered with tears that their hard fought battle ended in victory.
For the first time in history, humanity achieved a victory against BETA with an all time low casualties considering this is a battle to destroy a hive.
Once the battle concluded, Adam retrieved everyone and the surviving mechs back to the Orbital Fortress to rest after a weary battle and prepare for his departure back home since he also already obtained his reward.
———
On the Orbital Fortress.
"Haaaahhh… This felt like heaven after a really exhausting day." Adam sighed pleasurably as he dip himself inside the artificial open air hot spring bath in the Orbital Fortress which had a room which mimicked an open air bath with night sky on the ceiling and wall and artificial environment to pair up.
It's part of his reward, the Orbital Fortress Modification Function that allows him to essentially edit the Orbital Fortress like a base in game. Which is just the bonus as the real functions is to upgrade or replace its armaments, armors, etc. He already added the Rutherford Field Gravitation Shield on the Orbital Fortress to add a layer of defense on it and Charged Particle Cannons as additional armament which is second strongest besides the Laser Main Cannon.
"Hmmmhhh!" He stretched his body before dipping his whole body into the water as he sighed comfortably.
"I should do this more often… Work hard till I'm tired and then take a hot bath." He said before dipping his whole head into the water and blowing bubbles.
Then suddenly the sound of door sliding made him surface his head and check who entered his bath that he just made which no one should know about.
He heard faint humming of a song he didn't recognise and someone was washing up in preparation to enter the bath. Adam poke his head out and saw who it was.
"Siegfried?" Adam saw and recognised the only other male in his crew.
"Hmn? Master? Oh, I didn't know you were using the bath. I stumbled upon it when going into the laundry room. I didn't know it was occupied. Should I return later?" Siegfried asked, already prepared to leave.
"No. No need to leave. This is an open bath meant to be shared anyway. I was just not expecting you to be taking a bath." Adam admitted openly which made Siegfried frown a little.
"Why would you not be expecting me to take a bath, Master?" Siegfried asked, sounded a little offended or was it angry?
"No… Pretend I didn't ask." Adam quickly changed the topic. "Anyway, I'm just wondering though. Do you want to meet your wife? Or maybe correct your past mistakes? With my power which is basically a bastardized Kaleidoscope, fulfilling this request isn't impossible."
Siegfried immediately fell silent and his head lowered along with his eyes. He of course knew of what happened after his death, what had become of his wife resulted from his mistakes in the Throne of Heroes.
Adam, seeing Siegfried's silence, didn't force an answer out and instead took out a wooden tray, small ceramic jug, drinking cups and a bottle of sweet sake. He poured himself some and enjoyed it in silence.
Adam sort of understands Siegfried's hesitation. According to the FGO lore, his wife went mad with revenge and tried to kill her brother, King Gunther and Siegfried's best friend, Hagen. In his wish to resolve the conflict he created after helping King Gunther to marry Brunnhilde, he staged his death but that caused his wife to become blind for vengeance for Siegfried. Had only he never tried to help King Gunther, none of this would happen. However, because of Siegfried's personality and nature that helped without question, he didn't think his actions were wrong to help King Gunther. But he also regretted helping King Gunther because of what befell his wife, Kriemhild, after that.
Adam himself also likes to help. Being a hero that saves the world, mostly due to his childish wish. But even he had the mind to understand that helping anyone without question asked is plain stupidity because there will be people trying to exploit him which is what happened to Siegfried. He was exploited and facing the brunt of his action driven by the wish of another.
Adam snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the sound of water dropped by Siegfried on his head to wash the soap away. Siegfried later joins Adam in the bath wordlessly. Seems to still be affected by his question.
"Want some?" Adam offers the sake to Siegfried who ponders for a moment before taking a cup from the floating tray and Adam pours him some sake.
They silently drank for a moment before Siegfried broke the silence and asked.
"Why would you want to help me, Master?" Siegfried asked, genuinely curious.
"Hmn… I just felt like rewarding you because you had been following me faithfully and helped me a lot. So, I feel it's only appropriate if I reward your effort."
"I see…" Siegfried said but didn't answer the earlier question yet as he seems to pinder further.
"It's alright, Siegfried. You didn't need to answer that immediately. Or perhaps you would like something else? You just need to tell me what you want. As long as it's within my capabilities, I will try to fulfill it." Adam waved away the question because the atmosphere is getting tense and he wanted to relax here and not further add to his stress.
Adam and Siegfried soak in the hoth bath and drink for nearly an hour before they leave when Adam is called and reminded by Agent that dinner is ready.
———
That same night, in his bedroom.
"You might be able to trick the others but not me, Master. You actually died during the battle, right?" Agent pinned Adam down on the bed and sat on his hip.
"I guess, there is no way for me to hide any secrets from you. Haah…" Adam's facade crumbles immediately when seeing the worried and slightly teary eyes of his wife. "We-Well, yes. My heart did… stopped beating for a moment. But! It was a calculated move. My life support is capable of keeping me alive and even if it couldn't, my skill can resuscitate me upon death." He said while avoiding her eyes.
"You idiot! Just because you can revive yourself doesn't mean you should normalize dying! Do you know how worried I was when I learned that your heartbeat suddenly fell flat? I couldn't even contact anyone or check if you were alright because I was occupied with piloting Susano-O II."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry… I made you worried." Adam hugs her closer and lets her lay her head on his chest so she can hear his heartbeat which reassures her that her fear was baseless and he is still alive and kicking.
They hugged each other and stayed just like that for a long while until a question suddenly emerged in his head.
"Hold on a second. How would you know that my heartbeat stopped?" Adam frowned and caught her red-handed, doing something to his body or maybe his suit.
Agent's respite arrived when Winter entered the room in a nightgown and yawned before making a beeline to the bed and lay on his vacant side.
"Hmn? Where is Jalter?" Winter wondered when she noticed her missing sister.
"Ah… I made her angry and she said she will sleep with Tina and Alice." Adam awkwardly scratched his cheek and laughed sheepishly.
"Is that so? Well, more space for me then." Winter smiled and hugged his chest while laying her head on his shoulder before closing her eyes.
Everyone had been tired today fighting the whole day. Even Adam yawned and forgot about the question before he said goodnight to his wives and shut his eyes.
Agent peek at Adam and see that he already fallen asleep instantaneously perhaps because he is very tired. She sighed in relief that Winter saved her because she can't exactly explain that she secretly uploaded her Neural Cloud into Adam's armor secretly because she selfishly wanted to be the only person closest to him and no one else but for herself.
"Forgive me, Master. I had been a bad maid." She whispered her confession with a flushed face for the thought of harboring a secret from her Master. "But I am also your wife. So it should be alright, right." She said while caressing his face but received no reply. So, she rested her head on his arm and shut her eyes.
—————