I Hate Systems

Chapter 90: Pillars of Fektra

“What the…? Seriously?” Compass Carburettor got goosebumps as he saw the Fektra within the forest pile up atop one another and stack up a tower to reach their height. When he passed over a tower, they were only a couple of metres below him.

“Let’s increase the altitude further!” Duchess said.

“No, the time we spend increasing our altitude would only give them more time to prepare. They can pile themselves faster than we can fly higher. So, let’s just fly forward at our fastest speed.” Compass Carburettor quickly warned her, preventing her from wasting time unnecessarily.

They swerved through the air, moving sideways from time to time to move away from the pillars of Fektra. Otherwise, if they simply proceeded in a straight line, the pillars of Fektra would be erected prior, allowing them to reach them easily.

Only death awaited them beyond that.

But they had no other choice but to embark on such a dangerous route. This was the only way for them to reach the Great Megwest Empire at the fastest pace. After all, the Heroica Empire prevented anyone from ever setting foot in the monster territory.

If they didn’t pick this route, the only other way would be to head north-west, cross the border into numerous kingdoms along the way and use a path between a kingdom and another Empire up north. And only through a dangerous mountain pass would they be able to enter the Great Megwest Empire.

The journey alone would take them over a year. Such a loss of time was simply not worth it. By then, Regriel would have grown tremendously powerful. And at worse, he would have also obtained the treasure in the Mohart Dungeon, as the Slave Harem System had originally planned.

“Damn!” Compass Carburettor screamed as he retracted his legs, watching a couple of Fektra barely reach his clothes before falling down.

Even though they were evading, the Fektra were adapting to their movement patterns, creating grander structures high up in the air to catch them.

“Let’s increase our altitude! It’s getting increasingly dangerous now!” Duchess shouted, proceeding to increase her altitude.

“It’s dangerous! Let’s return first and reorganise our plans.” Compass Carburettor shouted in return as the two of them made an arc in the air, turned around, and returned to the hilltop they had been at the start.

“That was too close.” Compass Carburettor patted his thumping heart, thanking himself for deciding to retreat. After all, the Fektra had almost managed to touch his feet when he exited the forest. He also noticed something else, sighing, “If we were to travel normally, we would have reached the other end. But adding on all these diversions to avoid the Fektra, I’m afraid my Darlac isn’t enough to cross the Bureta Forest.”

Sighing, Compass Carburettor deactivated his Katia, placing it within his bag as he looked at Duchess, “Let’s see if your Katia can bear the weight of both of us.”

“Alright,” Duchess nodded, wearing her bag on her front, watching Compass Carburettor climb onto her back, grunting at the weight as her arms were strained. But she was able to hold on, activating her Katia as it whirred into life, slowly taking off to the air.

The speed this time was only a fourth as compared to before. But, it was able to lift them up and travel.

“This would be enough.” Compass Carburettor said, holding an Armament in his left, “I’ll swat all the Fektra that would try and swarm us. Just focus on proceeding forward. Do you have enough Darlac?”

“Even with the current expenditure, I have enough to make four round trips.” Duchess said, increasing their altitude, “Let’s first reach as high up as we can. That way, the Fektra would need a longer time to create a wider base and reach our height. It would also be easier to disrupt their structures.”

“But, don’t try to head too high up. The rotor might stall. We have yet to experiment and determine the ceiling height for this Katia.” Compass Carburettor warned, intuitively judging based on what he felt, telling Duchess to stop going higher once their altitude reached 150 metres.

He could feel faint hiccups in the rotor’s sound, feeling that they had arrived at the limit it could fly at. Duchess then began to proceed in a straight line, frowning as she noticed the massive squirming within the Bureta Forest the moment they arrived above their airspace.

“Let me take care of them!” Compass Carburettor said, summoning Anthozoa in his right hand upon noticing a massive structure being built a hundred metres before them. It was in preparation to capture them as the structure began to resemble a hand that wished to grab hold of them.

Slowly, as they approached the massive hand, Compass Carburettor continued to patiently observe them even though he was sweating in tension. But, he dare not act rashly, aiming accurately at the group of Fektra in the structure that acted as its keystone.

He pressed the trigger, shooting forth a bullet that accurately landed at the targeted area, killing a couple of Fektra while sending the surrounding ones flying from the momentum behind the impact.

As they formed the keystone of the structure, their displacement caused the entire hand to collapse as all the Fektra crashed towards the ground like a sandcastle that collapsed under its weight.

“Impressive!” Duchess remarked in admiration, “How did you do it?”

“It’s what we call a Keystone in architecture. It is an important piece of material that bears the brunt of the structure. So, if it gets damaged, the entire building collapses. And, the structures the Fektra make all have a Keystone in them. So, the moment I disrupt the Fektra taking up that role, their entire structure collapses.”

“How do you find a keystone?” Duchess asked as she had nothing else to do apart from making the Katia fly straight.

“I’ll teach it to you later. You need to learn a lot of architecture principles to intuitively spot a keystone in any structure.” Compass Carburettor said, aiming with his gun as he shot at the second structure of Fektra, causing it to collapse similarly.

Now that his hands were free, he had enough time and patience to plan and act accordingly. As they had planned to cross the shortest stretch of the Bureta Forest, they managed to reach the other end after thirty minutes had spanned.