[Standby… First unit crossing now!]
Standing in a recently cleared grassland field, Liz remained vigilant as she heard the approaching mechanical roar of a Lynx transport. Continuing to watch out for monsters as she heard the Lynx approaching, tearing up dirt as it continued accelerating. Flinching slightly as it passed, Liz turned to see it rip past as it ignited its rockets and flew over the 12 meter chasm which separated the two flying islands of the floor.
[Told you guys it would make it fully laden.]
"No way…"
Muttering under her breath as she watched the massive gun carrier land and spin around a few times, Liz realised she had lost a bet the same time as the rest of her party.
[Woah!]
[No way!]
[It really flew! Must suck to be you, sis!]
Hearing her brother's smug voice come through the necklace Liz had never wanted to toss something as much as she currently did, but as she was already in trouble she abstained.
Over the next hour or so the other 9 Lynx transports and other gun carrier jumped over the chasm to join the other one and Mac decided to make camp there on the chasm as the day was getting late. It had been a week since Mac and the adventurers entered the dungeon, and by now they were 30 floors deep, which was slightly slower than Mac had planned, but still within margin. The reason for this middling progress was above normal monster activity, but also the need to jump over multiple chasms that also took a long time to screen for and set up.
"Now about that earlier bet of ours."
Sitting around a campfire at the centre of the camp, Mac watched Elizabeth visibly flinch when he brought up a bet they'd made earlier in the day.
"... I was hoping you'd forgotten that."
"Baby loser says what?"
Looking like she had just bit into a lemon at that comment, Liz decided to not throttle Mac for it and instead accepted defeat with honesty.
"Fine, you won, happy?"
"Not until you give me what you owe me~"
Again Liz really wanted to punch Mac in his smug face, but she restrained herself as her party members started jeering.
"Come on sis, it is good to keep your promises."
"Indeed, as the party leader it shows integrity that benefits us all."
"Fine!"
Finally caving to Jack's and Carl's words, Liz reluctantly handed Mac her second most precious possession (after her new sword).
"Thanks Elizabeth, I appreciate it~"
Accepting the white chocolate hazelnut candy bar with smug grace, Mac wanted to really savor the moment with a few more snide comments, but restricted himself as he saw tears of frustration was starting to well up in the corner of Elizabeth's eyes.
Elizabeth had gotten this candy bar in her second ever ration pack and absolutely loved it, so since then she had been looking for another one without luck, but it seemed the monkeys paw had curled, for after finally trading with Ula to get another one a week later, she instantly lost it in a bet with Mac.
"Y-you can call me… Nevermind, goodnight."
Deciding to eat the rest of her meal alone, Elizabeth retreated to her tent.
"She'll bounce back, don't worry."
As his brother, Carl quickly reassured Mac that Elizabeth wasn't all that angry, but the rest of the evening was mostly silent as the rest of the adventurers ate and then turned in for the night, leaving Mac on night watch.
"... Hmm."
Sitting on top of one of the Lynx transports with a SOD-09 by his side, Mac held the candy bar he had won up to the faux moonlight as he thought back to the earlier exchange.
(I guess I'll just hold on to it for now.)
With no actual need to eat thanks to the nutrient battery in his gut, Mac stuffed the candy bar into an empty magazine holder on his plate carrier before looking to the sky again.
"What the fuck is that light?"
Now a few days deep into the dungeon, Mac wished he had packed more sensors and scientific equipment as the ever present sight of a moon and sunlight cycle was starting to bug him. From what Mac's own enhanced sight told him the light wasn't coming from any celestial body, and its gradual change like a mood light from daylight into simulated moonlight all but confirmed this. Then there was the entire concept of dungeon floors, these open floors with islands situated in an empty void were also highly irregular to say the least, but even when he had sacrificed a few surveillance and mapping drones early on Mac only confirmed that whatever subspace these dungeon floors were located inside were more than 20 kilometers in diameter.
(I guess a proper ranging laser could confirm if these floors are enclosed or straight up infinite, but I didn't bring any rail or coil artillery with me and the raven cannon's FCS is spec'ed for close range so their lasers don't have the power to reach out more than 10 clicks…)
The more he found out and saw of these dungeons the more Mac realised there was something larger at play on this planet. With how stable the entrance and portals between floors were Mac was starting to realise they had to be synthetic in nature.
Something, or someone must have constructed these dungeons at some point.
(In that case I'll have to start looking at the monsters in a far more critical manner… Speaking of.)
Raising his rifle as the local sensor net informed him of movements, Mac shouldered it, switched off the safety to single action and pulled the trigger, downing a bird-human hybrid with the face of an eagle.
"Tissue sample collection… Tch, I didn't bring anything like that either…"
As the mission Mac had left on was for all intents and purposes a military campaign he didn't think to bring any scientific equipment, which he was currently beating himself for not doing.
"Mac? Is everything alright?"
Putting scientific matters aside as he heard Elizabeth approaching, Mac lowered his rifle and sat back down when she jumped up onto the Lynx and joined him.
"Yeah, everything is fine. Couldn't sleep?"
"Nah, I got a few hours in so I'm fine."
Sitting down next to Mac as she scratched her neck, Elizabeth appeared to be fully rested despite only sleeping 4 hours.
Gathering her courage as Mac shot down another monster flying too close to the camp, Liz spoke up while minding her volume so the others didn't overhear her.
"You know, you can call me Liz too. If not friends, I consider us at least comrades."
"Thank you Liz, I appreciate the sentiment."
Shooting down another monster as he kept his focus on the conversation, Mac didn't miss Liz's face redding slightly in the moonlight.
"W-when did you learn to fight with a sword? I've been wondering about that for a while now."
Given Mac's skill and preference for using rifles or other weapons from his own world, Liz had started wondering how he was also so gifted with a sword.
"I learned the basics as a child, then after I got assigned to my current mission of making first contact I picked up a few things over the past years."
Omitting the unfortunate childhood trauma involved in that to keep the conversation pleasant, Mac started explaining how he had seen countless different styles of sword fighting and CQC over time and taken things from those styles to create his own system that he was still working on to this day.
"Simply I got to the level of mastery by continuing to learn and adapt, but the learning I've done might be considered unobtainable."
"I see…"
While Liz wanted to ask more about Mac's long travels, her attention was drawn to the sky where monster activity was starting to increase.
"Mac."
"I see them. Go wake the others."
As Mac spoke, multiple half human half bird monsters started materialising a kilometer above their camp, while they could simply pass right by Mac and the others without attacking it didn't seem likely. Raising his rifle as the monsters started screeching, Mac felt multiple eyes settle on him as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
"FUCK!"
Sensing clear malice Mac opened fire as he also put himself under significant mental strain bringing every single weapon system he had brought with him online. Continuing to shoot with his rifle Mac also took direct control over the 9 armed Lynx transports creating the outer wall of the camp and brought their 14.5mm turrets online, lighting up the sky with tracers as multiple monsters continued spawning above them.
"Hard contact! I need help out here!"
Calling for help as he continued firing, Mac estimated it wouldn't be more than half a minute before his current location was overrun. Luckily he was traveling with gold rank adventurers.
"On it!"
"I'm getting my pants back on!"
"Give me 10 seconds!"
"I-I'm here, leave the lights to me!"
Running out of her tent with her staff, Ula was the first adventurer to respond and quickly started weaving together a spell, creating countless bright orbs of light that she launched at the attacking harpies.
"Harpies, and an entire swarm of them! How do you want this handled?"
Assessing the situation instantly as he left his tent, Jack also figured he would be of little use in the upcoming battle and instead focused on coordination between his party and Mac.
"Force them down and away so I can start using the 61 mills to deal with them! If this continues as long as I suspect it will then running out of ammunition is a very real possibility!"
Relaying his intentions as he continued shooting, Mac also took direct control of the human type drones that had just finished deploying from their transports, equipping teams with the two 61mm shoulder mounted recoilless rifles he had packed and set them up in stationary 5 person teams, with a 61mm gunner, loader and 3 point guards. As the drones were free to point their rifles straight up compared to the gun carrier turrets it wasn't long before the sky was lit up by 61mm high explosive dual purpose rounds detonating like anti aircraft flack.
"I'm taking to the sky, don't shoot me now!"
Seeing the situation as he emerged from his tent and judging it as dire, Carl didn't hesitate to act and materialised his pair of wings before launching into the sky with his new two handed sword in hand. Maneuvering with speed far above what Mac had expected, he quickly realised he had to halt 61mm bombardment anywhere near Carl as the half dragon zipped around the air like a 11th generation drone fighter, cutting down monsters with ruthless efficiency.
"Force them out and down, Roger that!"
Also taking to the sky like her brother, Elizabeth almost appeared like a blur as she flew around, bisecting a dozen harpies in the blink of an eye before appearing above where the monsters were spawning.
"Clear out!"
Warning her brother before inhaling sharply, Liz's chest started glowing brightly, illuminating her rib cage from the inside as she built up a mass of mana. From one second to the next night became day as Liz spewed fire like an actual mythical dragon.
"Holy fuck!"
"Ghahaha! That's our leader!"
The plume quickly spread out wide, blanketing the area above the monsters with fire and forcing them down where Dexter could finally start being useful.
"Leave this side to me!"
Shouting over one of the gun carriers firing both its 61 and 6.5 mill, Dexter notched an arrow made entirely of wood as his eyes flashed green. Letting the arrow fly there was another flash of green light, and the wooden arrow fragmented, with each of its 20 fragments finding and downing a harpy.
(So far so good, but sustaining this isn't viable…)
Paddling out his spent magazine, Mac rocked in a fresh one and charged his rifle as he changed the targeting profile of the Lynx's facing the chasm, instead of kill shots they would aim to simply maim or injure multiple monsters in one shot to save ammunition, letting their fall into an endless abyss do the rest.
(Always good to remember that it's never a war crime the first time~)