Chương 76: A New Path

Rowena had asked Kelly what she was, so Kelly pulled up her Status, the screen only she could see, and told her A. I. s to lay her recorded Traits and available Titles over it. A very violent résumé. [Name: Dr. Kelly Voss. Race: Human Title: Magic Tinkerer (III) EQ: 8. 7 Rank: E Traits: Mana Incompatibility (IX), The Aberration of Mana (I), Troll-Homunculi (I), Primordial Blood (I), Troll-Strength (I), Lesser-Lycanthrope, Lesser-Mimic, Lesser Null Voidling (I), Mer-Blood (I), Knight's-Marrow (I), Mana Conduit (I), Mana Attuned (I), Available Titles: Giantsbane (V), Mimic Hunter (II), Fortress of Flame (V), Fortress of Endurance (V), The Immovable One (I), Death's Foe (IV), Disciple of Deflection (III), Herald of Unending Vitality (V), Mana Vacuum (V), Mythril Fist (I), Angel Killer (I), Outrunning Death (I), Slaughterer of Men (I), Unerring Marksman (I), Mana Focused Student (II), Mana Gardener (II), Magic Tinkerer (III), Skills: Mandates: 1 (Expand…)] She scrolled through the dense text of her Titles and Traits, the chronicle of every brutal lesson learned, and all the death that hadn't been final. She smiled.

"Me? I'm a very thorough student." Kelly rose. She had what she needed, finally.

Timestamp: The next day. It was the first day of the end of the world, or as Kelly referred to it, her 1684th Tuesday. She had used the lure of her armored vehicle to take Simon hostage again. The armored truck's rear compartment was warm, dark, and full of tied-up men. Simon sat propped against the bullet-pocked wall, his hands secured behind him with his own squad's cuffs. Kelly knelt in front of him. She leaned close.

"Knock knock," she said, her voice flat. Simon stared at her. He was bruised, bound, and packed into his own mobile prison.

"Really? I don't want to—""Knock." Her voice didn't change.

"Knock." He sighed, the sound heavy with defeat.

"Who's there?"

"KGB." Simon hesitated, then sighed.

"KGB who—" Kelly slapped him, her voice a thick, exaggerated mockery of a German accent.

"Ze KGB will ask ze questions! You are ze answerer!" One of Simon's men, a younger enhancer with a split lip, made a muffled sound of protest through his gag. Kelly stopped and pointed at him without looking, her German accent resurfacing.

"You! You are thinking of escape. Zis is foolish. Your spirit iz noted. It vill be broken later." She turned her attention back to Simon. Simon stared at her.

"She… she slapped me." His voice was a disbelieving whisper.

"Wha—Why... How could you —""Hey," Kelly said, dropping the accent and gesturing at the truck around them.

"You were gonna kill me and steal my truck. What's a slap between friends?" The immortal intern turned and continued packaging hostages. As Kelly stuffed the tenth member of his crew into the back alongside her bagged, tagged, and gagged beloved criminal barista acquaintance, she considered her truck and her style.

"I understand the appeal, Simon. Truly." The truck was a constant. Her apartment was a focal point. Her various customized outfits and her lab budget were focal points. These things were central to her life, right after Jennie. She had built them. Curated them. She defended them through countless Tuesdays. Simon coveted them. This was logical. They were worth coveting.

"You want the vibe. To be the guy who drives this." Kelly patted the armored wall affectionately.

"It's a good ambition." His execution, however, was boldly terrible. Kelly walked to the front of her truck, and as the driver's seat door slid open, she stepped inside. The truck rumbled forward, its many new passengers in tow. And as it moved forward, Kelly thought about her new life. The immortal intern turned battle-maniac had drifted for almost five years in the driver's seat, armed with her favorite transforming weapon. She had survived countless firefights, explosions, and ambushes.

She had ridden over so many monsters, enhanced thugs, and the occasional regrettable mailbox.

"Good times," she sighed wistfully, slamming the rear doors shut. Kelly had a personal ranking—her "emotional anchor" ranking. It was the internal, unspoken list in her mind of what mattered most, what kept her grounded when the loops erased everything else. Her possessions were the only constants. Her stuff updated with her. Her truck, her outfits, her lab—they were hers. Permanently. They were the most important things she had, right after Jennie.

Her atom-cutting weapon, now that she could feel it through mana, was quickly moving to the top of that list. Her truck was still a solid number two. But the weapon was making a strong bid for the top. It was the partner she couldn't find in a person. People got reset; they didn't grow with her—remember who she had become. Her weapon, however, did. It remembered every fight. She was definitely starting to love the stupid thing; the way you love a favorite sweater.

Whether it was a shovel, a machete, a chainblade—it was always there. That one time she configured it into a giant spoon had been a particular highlight.

"You get me," Kelly whispered, running her thumb along the dark machete's flat.

"You always get me."

"Are you talking to your machete?" Kelly glanced at the passenger seat of her armored truck, where a human-shaped droid sat with its face a blank screen, the screen holding the live image of a man. The droid stared back with the patient calm of someone who couldn't blink even if it wanted to. It was Dr. Haider, and the real Dr. Haider was under house arrest for international crimes and allegations, so this droid was how he piloted around remotely.

"Team building," Kelly replied as she pressed a button on the dash, hoping the explanation sounded more technical than "arguing with a blade." A heavy thunk echoed from the back as the armored rear compartment—the boot—sealed shut. It protected her truck from anything that might want to eat Simon Lang and his band of would-be raiders, their lives too, she guessed. Dr.

Haider was in her truck because Kelly had decided to mix things up this iteration; the last run-through had been getting a little predictable, and she was allergic to boredom. Saying goodbye to Buster hurt more than it should, though. Dr. Haider was heading to Genecorp on her behalf; she would drop him off at some point, then pick him up later.

She had also tipped off Jackhammer about the Genecorp intruders hours ahead, which gave Jackhammer time to prepare a massive response while his security staff were still safe. She had captured Simon with her new capability, planned to hand him over to Jackhammer, and then continue her mission, which would likely alter future events. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Now she was delivering Simon's gang to him, hand-wrapped, as a favor to Dr. Haider.

A little casual heroism he could conveniently take credit for—something to nudge his sentence in a friendlier direction. Naturally, Jack wouldn't appreciate the extra work, but that was hardly Kelly's problem. No sir. This reset came with no life-debt clauses for her—she didn't even get out of the truck. Absolutely not. This loop, she stayed well outside Jackhammer's scanner range and let Dr. Haider's droid drop off a fresh batch of samples and would-be thieves.

Her EQ was far too high, and the prospect of potentially having to fight off the monster that was Jackhammer from apprehending her would be a major time sink. Using Dr. Haider's droid allowed the company to view her in a positive light—without discovering a need to chase her across the city with a capture-or-kill order. It was a win-win.

After delivering a bound barista to Vaughn Private Security—and receiving a begrudging thank-you message from Jack, plus the unsettling discovery that someone higher up at Vaughn had been cc'd—the scientist considered her next course of action. Intending to return to the Genecorp route, Kelly planned to skip the usual disasters: no mini war in a staircase, no several-block-wide monster stampede through the HQ, and no flashy demonstrations of her abilities.

Teleporters, phasers, and future sight would stay out of it too, leaving Genecorp to arrive in full force—Reggie's crew, retrieval teams, and most staff still alive—tilting the political playing field and strengthening their hold in the race for the cube. First, though, Kelly took a quick trip to the Mist Market to retrieve the DeadTech construction sphere. Naturally, Luigi wasn't very forthcoming.

His mind changed when a few mutated portal creatures—creatures Kelly definitely hadn't pre-captured, timed, and baited—barreled toward his store, screaming about retribution. Outside of Luigi's Universal Parts, Kelly deflected the first claw strike with her forearm, the toxic fumes of the Mist Market swirling around her movements. Her Giantsbane title kicked in, speeding her up between motions. Death's Foe flooded her system, boosting her strength, her reaction time, everything.

Projectiles at the speed of sound eviscerated anything she looked at wrong. Her will sent walls of force crashing through creatures blood. Her weapon was an electrified plasma coil chainblade. Instant shielding sprang to life around her with a thought, then disintegrated like a mirage. She was, objectively, overpowered. She barreled through the things. A superheated fist of hardened metal—courtesy of Mythril Fist—deflected another blow before landing a counter strike.

The Title's critical hit multiplier did its job. The creature exploded. Wetly. The fight lasted maybe four seconds. Mid-battle, someone—probably an Obsidian goon with a grudge—had tossed a stack of grenades into the back of her truck. The adhesive was military-grade, the kind you can't peel off. It should have worked. She promptly placed it in her shadow.

"Weird," she said to the last dissolving creature. She looked at the empty space where the grenades had been. Her shadow rippled, then settled. One of these days, she would have to spend a loop wiping Obsidian out. Luigi was now very forthcoming. After that, and with a few parting gifts and a more flexible agreement, he handed over what she wanted. That decision came especially easy once he watched her climb into her truck and somehow cram an explosion into a piece of 'tech' he didn't even know existed.

All that remained was a visit to Genecorp, and somehow avoiding a miniature staircase war while magically baiting half the creatures within a mile. After abandoning the Mist Market and meeting up once again with Dr. Haider, Kelly's truck rumbled forward, its many new passengers in tow. Haider had brought company.

"I'm bored," Kelly complained, stuffing mutated extradimensional pieces into her shadow before they could regenerate. She'd managed to get almost everything done, and it wasn't even 12 p. m. yet!

"Being bored today is a good problem to have, if you haven't noticed," the droid piloted by Dr. Haider replied calmly from the passenger seat. Its screen showed the doctor's face.

"That means things are running smoothly. I would rather have boring monotony during a magical portal apocalypse than chaotic excitement. Chaotic excitement would usually be accompanied by grievous harm." Kelly listened with a look of profound, earnest consideration. Then, with complete sincerity, she replied:"I have noticed. And you're wrong. It is a bad problem. In fact, I've been compiling a list of superior problems. Boredom is currently ranked third, just behind 'the portals closing and everyone being saved.'

The real problem would be if we had a good problem. Like a dragon... a flock of flying metal dragons with complimentary bar service." She nodded once, as if having delivered a sober and insightful analysis, and slowly looked toward the sky.

"That doesn't even make sense," said a voice from the backseat. Kelly glanced in the rearview. Reggie sat there, wedged between two of his own quiet goons. The hoodie-wearing, genetically enhanced fellow immortal shook his head.

"Boredom is the goal. It means you're winning without getting your organs rearranged. I'm with the Haider on this one." His two grunts chuckled beside him. Reggie being in her truck at all was new. This reset, she'd arranged a special deal with Genecorp using Dr. Haider as a proxy: a single mana crystal strain in exchange for their full logistical support. Not the good stuff, but it was enough to make them go all out. Part of that support was assigning Reggie as her dedicated tail.

They claimed it was to secure an asset's safety during a planetary crisis. Kelly knew it was just to spy on her.

"This is a unique form of Karma. I feel seen. And attacked. You two are a real blast," Kelly said, as the droid's screen-eyed face looked between them with concern.

"I'm beginning to regret introducing you."

"You didn't introduce us," Reggie corrected. Dr. Haider was something of a pariah in the scientific community—not for lack of talent, but for how he used it. Too clever to ignore and too valuable to exile outright, he had a reputation that teetered somewhere between "criminal mastermind" and "unlucky coincidence magnet." Rumors clung to him like a persistent cough: competitors' labs blew up, rivals went missing, and deals veered sideways in ways that always seemed to benefit him.

Nobody could prove anything, of course, which suited him perfectly. The UK revoked his doctorate; America reinstated it, because America understood a mind that sharp was more useful lining their pockets. Somewhere, a small village in Switzerland was still refusing to rent him an apartment, but that was just minor collateral damage.

She suspected that because of his wide network and her past, he had taken an interest, perhaps considering her a useful investment yesterday because of Jennie, and an asset today—acting like an uncle in his careful, unreadable way, although you never really knew with him. He carried himself with calm inscrutability, and she had long since stopped trying to read him. Either way, he'd cut the deal.

Her organic magic crystal tech, in exchange for almost all the profits going to him, a sanction protecting her work, and a contract for a chunk of Genecorp's private security. They would be her personal army, on demand. It was expensive. She could only afford them for one very deadly mission. Once would be enough. She was using the deal money to hire some of their forces for another reason. It would be interesting to work with Reggie's crew instead of slaughtering them.

She had killed Reggie in far more horrible and gruesome ways than he had ever killed her—and he had killed her a lot—so they were kind of even.

"Why do you have a ladybug-shaped drone following you?" the Haider-piloted droid asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"It's my portable spotlight," Kelly said. She'd added mana-sensitive cameras to the butterfly-shaped drones to make them inconspicuous. They shined light to cast her shadows, but they also had mana sensors. One had just revealed something flying past—or was it teleporting? —and tailing them in the sky. It kept appearing and disappearing.

"Something's hunting us," Kelly announced. One of Reggie's goons leaned over to peer up through the windshield.

"A bird?"

"Birds don't blink," said the other goon.

"Some do."

"Not like that." Reggie sighed, a long-suffering sound.

"Can you two shut up? It's probably a drone."

"It's not a drone," Kelly said.

"How do you know?"

"It feels annoyed." The droid's screen-face displayed a faint, knowing smile.

"Don't worry about it. It's one of my organization's packages." Everyone fell silent for a moment. The goons exchanged a look. Reggie stared at the droid.

"You have flying blinking packages?" The droid did not elaborate. They had questions. No one asked. Kelly unbuckled her seatbelt, rolled down the window, and stuck her head out into the rushing wind, squinting up at the empty sky. Reggie pulled out a case. Three gas masks and a smaller inner case with something gaseous inside. He and his goons started strapping the masks on. Kelly watched, one eyebrow creeping up her forehead. A gas mask. Not a full sealed suit.

That meant the stuff in the little case wasn't a real pollutant. Nothing less than a hot-zone miasma could even tickle her. Her titles would heal her. Her bracelet could rebuild her from a stain. She could stop him. She could shove the whole kit into her shadow and be done with it. But this was a new path. The sheer novelty of not knowing what came next was a genuine thrill. She wanted to see the play. Maybe she'd even get a new title out of it. Kelly crossed her fingers.

"Hey Voss," Reggie said, his voice tinny through the filter.

"Gotta ask you something. Quick procedure." He opened the smaller case. Working the Genecorp buddy-cop route, Kelly started to feel woozy. Something was up. She ran an internal diagnostic. The report came back: drugged. By Reggie's team. Truth gas. Of course, most Thresholders had lungs protected from basic contaminants. But this wasn't gas exactly. It was particulate. Part biological, part nanotech, adapting on the fly and difficult for her current systems to purge. It was expensive stuff, beyond Elite-grade.

She'd almost missed it, if not for her newly improved and heavily augmented body.

"Standard Genecorp procedure for new rival assets, Voss—truth nano serum. Gonna have to ask you a few questions. Hope you don't mind."