Chapter 13: A Soldier’s Troubles
Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay on the chapter; I had a few things going on.
Mainly, I just did not have time to write, as well as some writer's block on how I wanted to progress a few scenes here.
This is my first attempt at writing a story, and Im glad people enjoy it.
Ill try to release when I can, but my schedule has grown more chaotic as of late and I don't know when I have time to write. Expect a few chapters per week, but no guarantee on the amount. At least 1-2 per week at the bare minimum for now, and probably more if I get time.
Regardless, enjoy the chapter, and I am glad everyone stuck around with my silly ol' novel.
I finished it at 4am so ima go to bed...gn readers
******
[Kyle POV]
This day has been utterly miserable…
Waking up in the dim, cramped confines of my condo, I found myself greeted by chaos. My old, outdated space heater had decided to stage its own rebellion, billowing smoke before nearly igniting my worn curtains. After extinguishing the fire, I hurriedly tried to make breakfast in my kitchen with the stove. Still, I had to abandon it halfway due to the strict time constraints of my job as a Silvermane guard. I was late regardless and had to clean the restrooms as a punishment. I couldn't help but wonder why they didn't just provide dorms for us.
'Why do I gotta commute across Belobog to pay my bills?'
'Join the Silvermane guards, they said; it'll be great, they said…'
If that was not enough of a bad day so far, the sky suddenly started falling as a giant mushroom(?) appeared over the horizon. No sooner did an order from the higher-ups come in that ordered us to immediately mobilize and investigate the phenomenon.
We dropped everything or in my case my toilet brush, and set out for an expedition into the forest outside the city.
'At least this would get me out of my predicament for a bit…' I thought as we trekked through the snow-covered forest trail. The walk was pretty uneventful as despite the huge "Starfall," not much else was happening. I chatted with some of the guards while Captain Gepard led the forces through this hike. While this was considered a serious situation, nobody among the group really took it that way, and many were theorizing what that thing from space really was. While Captain Gepard tried to keep us in line, there were still hushed discussions going on along the march.
Somewhere around the sevenish-mile mark, we encountered a strange man coming towards us on the trail in the opposite direction.
He had messy, long brown hair that reached the back of his neck and was dressed in a strange, entirely black outfit with a peculiar cross-shaped necklace. On the figure's face was an ominous white mask that seemed to have an unsettling smile at us while it was…crying?
He walked nonchalantly with both hands behind his back as he continued to stroll closer to us. Captain Gepard had stopped the march as his eyes remained fixed on the figure.
Even from a distance, I glanced at the figure's eyes, but those eyes…
They sent a shiver down my spine as I quickly looked away.
'What kind of human has star-shaped pupils?... They looked like a rainbow gem, but they were terrifying… It felt like he saw through me and could judge whether my entire life was significant.'
I couldn't help but tighten my grip on my halberd as many of my comrades did the same. 'I guess they feel the same as well…'
I could tell some troops were about to lose it, but the captain snapped them out by loudly addressing the "man."
He said some strange things that confused everyone, as nothing he said made any sense. When questioned further by the Captain, the strange man chuckled while reaching into his coat(?) before pulling out a peculiar black pouch.
I was too distracted by his mask before the next thing I knew, the man lobbed the black object at our group.
While most of us scattered, I was a little slow, and the bag snagged itself onto my helmet. I managed to pull it off, but as I tried to throw it away, the bag started growing.
'Just my luck…' I thought as the bag exploded, coating me in a strange red goop.
-
-
'Well, I lived… but honestly, I'm not sure I should have…' Whatever that man coated on me burned. It was so hot that I'm not sure what would have happened if I hadn't worn my uniform and armor.
It got into my helmet and into my eyes; the pain was unbearable as I tried to find anything that could help me. I was painted red as I started to strip and roll around on the snowy forest floor, not caring for anyone watching.
'...I think I handled that well…'
The man who just assaulted me was madly rambling about something while cackling as the soldiers around readied themselves. Some of the troops helped drag me away while pouring their water pouches on me to help me get this evil sludge off. I think some of the others figured it out, but that man just…threw food at us?
While I was getting cleaned off, the strange man just immediately surrendered before dropping all his madness.
I decided to go back with the group to Belobog as the others strip-searched him for any more "weapons." It was almost comical how they carried him as six soldiers decided to hold him with each limb with the other two underneath and left him suspended between them as we marched.
I followed alongside them, and while I tried to help, the others said they wanted me to take a breather from that "traumatic" event. Which I kinda understood…but I was okay. 'Well, at least I get some kind of break…'
-
The man talked nonstop along the way as the guards dangled him between themselves.
The strange man had been preaching something about "being in a gacha game(?)" and was asking where all the big "honker" women were? He was upset that he had only seen one so far…
He was clearly showing some signs of insanity as he kept throwing random "quotes," as he called it, along the way.
After we returned the seven miles we had just come from to get back home, the guards brought out all the heavy-duty restraints we had for this "thing." I hadn't seen the others act this quickly as they threw every kind of restraint we had on him.
There were even some weird ones as this guard pulled out this weird red ball before strapping it to the man's mouth. Whatever that was, the man seemed to recognize it and started flailing before finally quieting him when it got strapped on.
As odd as some of the restraints were, they seemed to do their job…although the look of surprise on his face was pretty funny. He glared at the guard, who brought out the gag as he resisted for the first time, but for some reason, I felt he could escape if he wanted to…
Regardless, I split off from the group as they took him to get an audience from the Supreme Guardian, and I wanted to go home to shower.
As I made my way home, the smell of smoke filled the air. Panic hit me as I sprinted towards the source. In front of me was the Belobog fire squad, and a building was burning in a blazing inferno…
"..."
It was my house…
"..."
I left the f-cking stove on…
"..."
[Aster POV]
I was restrained in a mountain of chains…I couldn't even see anything below my neck as they wrapped me like some kind of breakfast burrito.
'This is a little overkill, no?' I thought as I watched a guard begin to pull out something that sent a shiver down my spine. "Did…Did you just pull out a f-cking ball gag?!" I screamed as I almost accidentally broke free out of pure instinct.
'These guards are freaks…Who keeps a ballgag on them?'
As they approached me with the clearly used mouth gag, I debated on whether I should just break out or not while I was flailing my head around to dodge the red ball of cringe.
'I must resist the urge to break free…
Must see cliche hot gacha women president… '
Eventually, I relented as the weird guard put the gag on. 'Wtf is this? I should have just driven the nuke here…'
Anyway…Mapo tofu man ran away at some point as these strange guards carried me toward their leader's office. They carried me up these ridiculously long stairs as they huffed and puffed while I got a free ride up.
'They really did not think about the extra weight these chains bring, huh?'
Anyway, eventually, they brought me to what looked like the office of the big boss in charge.
The guards positioned me in front of a large table with a nice window behind it. There was lots of natural lighting, giving the decor a professional vibe. They yanked the red gag out of my mouth.
'I don't even know why they did it in the first place…We went up a flight of stairs…That dude just wanted an excuse…'
Taking my gaze to look at the figure behind the large wooden desk and…
"..."
'Oh…my…gacha…'
In front of me was a gorgeous blonde-haired woman in a military-like outfit. Well…military I guess if the military somehow incorporated tight leotards and leggings into their uniform. She had lots of medals and emblems on her and was honestly very attractive. I don't know what kind of military outfit exposes the hips like that, but…
"Would."
"Excuse me?" She said as she raised an eyebrow before crossing her arms beneath her chest.
"Would."
She looks at the guards that dragged me in. "Did you break him?" she said while scrunching her eyebrow. "Who even is this?" She asked, confused at the strange man in front of her.
"Madam Guardian, we found this man in the vicinity of the "Starfall." A soldier decided to speak up.
"And?"
"Well…He attacked us…" The soldier said hesitantly.
"Was he alone?" She said more seriously.
"...Yes."
"So you are saying that this lone man attacked a whole unit of Silvermane Guards…Were there any casualties?"
"...well, not really?"
"..."
The blonde lady stood up and propped her arms onto the desk. "What do you mean by "not really?" Speak up, soldier!"
"Madam Guardian…This man threw…food at us…He hit Kyle with it."
"..."
"Get out!" She yelled
The soldiers quickly started to scatter as one of them tried to grab onto me.
"Except you…" she points at me. "You stay…"
"Would," I say while nodding my head. 'Gacha women are truly built different…and she's not even a 4 or 5-star. Truly criminal.'
"Are you messing with me?" She said as she narrowed her gaze at me.
"Yorokobu, josei," I said in my Kirei voice as I was practicing on the way here while squirming in my chain burrito I'm stuck in. "You are one beautiful woman…How the hell did Hoyoverse fuck this one up?..."
"Wha?... What madness are you spouting!?" She said before she started to hold her head like she had a nasty migraine.
"The will of the previous guardians are screaming at me…in fear?! Begging me to run… What are you?!" She said as her eyes widened as if she had a revelation.
"A gacha gamer."
"..."
******
[Accessing Database]
[Accessing Database]
[Welcome Admin]
[Asters Bat Log]
[Bat-352 | Codename "The Bat-Frost"]
Description:
" Eat my shorts, Batman! You are not the only one who can name things "- Aster
Bat-352, or the "Bat-Frost," is a strange bat from Aster's collection. A bat in the "Utility" class allows Aster to travel to any area he desires. Its powers are still not fully understood, but a giant rainbow appears when Aster stabs Bat-352 into the ground. This rainbow serves as a means of transport as Aster had been recorded using the bat to travel across the world instantly. Other times, he disappeared to an unknown location outside of our observation range.
It looked like a standard longsword with golden ornaments before Aster decided to "improve" it. Aster deemed the former design to be "lame" and smelted it down before reforging it into a classic 2.61-inch-thick, 42-inch-long baseball bat. This sword-turned bat looks, for all intents and purposes, like a regular metal bat; however, the metal has a strange tint to it. If one gazes deeply into it, you can see a kaleidoscope of colors swirling around the surface.
The method of slamming the bat into the ground works still the same as Aster would use it whenever he wanted to go on a "vacation" or pick up gacha merch.
This bat was also shortly discovered after Aster's outing in Scandinavia. This and Bat-351 were among some of the items Aster had acquired in his adventure. According to Aster, when asked by a foundation planted worker at Aster's favorite Sandwich shop, he stated that the original owner wouldn't need it anymore.
Quote from information gathering operation:
"Oh, this ol' thing? Yeah, no, it's mine now. A bunch of stuck-up fools up there gave me some issues, so I made sure they would never disrupt my grind again. Can you believe it? A bunch of weird European people started freaking out over some fire guy. It was funny, anyway Steve, how are the kids? I know working part-time as a sandwich guy at 60 must be hard, but man, I don't know how you do it."
"Wha? What happened during my trip? Well… I guess I crashed some dude's costume party, and I think I burned their treehouse down? They deserved it, tho! They made me miss my FGO daily login!"
It has been reported that the status of Scandinavia has been in turmoil since Aster's "trip," and many odd occurrences have occurred in the area since
Edit: 4/24/2024
Shortly after the incident with Bat-9000, Aster utilized Bat-352 extensively to travel across the world in search of a Japanese novel series, "Highschool DXD." At this time, his gaze looked empty as he proceeded to purge any media he came across in this time. The amount of media lost in this period is incalculable; however, it is safely assumed that Aster somehow purged every source of that content from the globe. Afterward, he went to all the national museums and destroyed any relics mentioning the scourge of Europe, "Aphos Oda." When asked why he went out of his way to do this, he said he was "doing the world a favor."
It is unknown why he resorted to such measures, especially since any threat related to this topic is nonexistent. Researchers are still trying to find a link to a fictional Japanese series and infamous super terrorist "Aphos Oda."
This just further demonstrates Aster's absurdity and makes many of us glad we came up with the idea of creating "gacha" games to keep him distracted. The world would not be ready for Aster to be bored.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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