Museum Core Chapter 100: The Best Revenge is a Life Well Lived

Chapter 100!

I think I mentioned this before, but I've decided to write this book to the end, then start writing Outrage of the Ancients 3. 

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Daedalus really had thrown open the doors to the armory and was spending the war chest as though he were on a deadline … and she was mixing metaphors, but Jaclyn didn’t care.

He really was pissed, and willing to spend whatever was necessary to get his vengeance.

For one, everyone involved was getting three rings to help them.

The first couple were basically just defensive upgrades, the Ring of Golden Immutability blocking the transmutation abilities of the gemstone dragon, and the Ring of the Skybound Infiltrator supporting their method of infiltration. Necessary, but not worldshaking.

The last one, on the other hand …

Ring of the Houndsmaster (C-Rank, legendary)

A ring formed from the teeth of an African painted dog, a species known to not even do their prey the courtesy of killing them before devouring their innards.

This ring is linked to four Rings of Pack Tactics(C-Rank, epic) and can control their function for a devastating synergy.

The Houndmaster can designate a target and any time the wearer of any ring fails to inflict appreciable damage to said target (due to them dodging or mitigating the impact), the rings accumulate a charge, endlessly stacking until the Houndmaster unleashes them to make the next attack (by any ringbearer) unmissable and unblockable as per the number of accumulated charges.

Furthermore, the activation of any ring in the pack can be paid by the wearer of any other ring, should this be required.

This ring cannot be lost or accidentally removed.

Energy draw: tiny per strike for the wearer, low if projected from ally

Jaclyn grinned. She knew exactly how powerful this ability was, after all, she’d been on its receiving end a month ago, and this was better than she ever could have imagined.

Especially for this enemy. They only needed to pull off one good hit to smash its shell, so it made very little sense for everyone to accumulate charges separately; this would be infinitely faster than would have been possible in any other way.

Although if she got too many more rings, she’d soon wind up looking like a mob princess.

Then again, with the bone-and-ruby ring glinting on her finger at the end of a fight, most likely covered in blood and clothing that was at least somewhat damaged, perhaps she’d give off more of a “wild woman raised by wolves” vibe.

She put all of them on her left hand, the index, middle, and pinkie finger, respectively. Chances were that, eventually, she’d wind up with so many of these that she’d have to put one on her ring finger, but hopefully, at that point, it would be obvious that she was wearing it as a part of her set of magical gear, rather than as a wedding ring.

Not that any of these really looked overly much like one. Steel, blueish-white osmiridium, tooth-enamel-and-ruby. Even the first one was recognizably not a material traditionally used for that function.

“Do you like them? Are there any others you’d need?” Daedalus offered via the fedora-wearing spider monkey he usually used to talk to people outside of his regular domain.

Jaclyn shook her head. “They’re exactly what we need, but I don’t think I can use any more magical items until I increase my magic.”

And that wouldn’t happen until she hit B-Rank, years from now, and got an automatic seventy-five points to each of her stats. Sure, in theory, she could just start spending her free points in that direction, but she needed those in places where they’d do far more good, by empowering her physically, strengthening her powers, and her Mind stat was already quite a bit lower than it should have been. Useful as magical items were, she had better areas of concern to empower.

“But Granger or Gula might like something,” she belatedly added.

“I’ll talk to them,” Daedalus said. “But I did build something you might find useful…”

***

The outside of the museum had barely changed, but he’d created a couple of extra buildings separately from it. The laboratory, which he was surprised to not have had to repair just yet, the museum, and now, just a few days ago, the colosseum.

It was actually not a place meant for spectator sports, but Thomas had felt that “arena” wasn’t anywhere near grand enough a name.

Because, well, it was an immense circle of white marble, the size of the Natural History Museum, with an interior that could be filled with whatever environment and monster the challenger wanted … in exchange for a fee.

And the arena was meant to be “safe,” barring accidents, no one who went inside would die; they’d have the same protections as those covered by the “power leveling treaty,” however, this was a privilege that came at a cost. In fact, anyone who wanted to take advantage would have to pay through the nose.

But in exchange, they’d be able to fight whatever they wanted, train in whichever way they could imagine, and just in general get away with trying things that would have gotten them killed elsewhere.

And just as expected, Deputy Director Abrams jumped on the offer of trying this place out and selected Cheshire as her opponent.

The being in question was Thomas’ first and favorite champion, his deadliest monster, a saber-tooth tiger the size of a Clydesdale horse and empowered with the nastiest set of abilities he’d been able to come up with. Freshly ascended to C-Rank to boot.

She’d started out with the ability to vastly incrase the sharpness of her claws and even project slashes from them, then gained a power called “Blur” that basically just sped her up, and for D-Rank, he’d doubled down on that effect by granting her the full power of a domestic cat, which made her move as though she were practically liquid, capable of twisting and bending in ways that made people hurt just by seeing it, and even carve into someone sitting between her shoulder blades with ease.

And now, finally, he’d given her the ability of precognition. Or, at the very least, sensory abilities and reflexes so good that she might as well be able to see the future. In other words, it was the same ability anyone who’d ever tried to kill a fly had likely cursed with their entire being on countless occasions.

Sure, Abrams was C-Rank too, and a bit further into it as well … but Cheshire was a boss. This should be interesting to watch.

She’d taken off her suit jacket and was now dressed in a regular BPA uniform, complete with the unit insignia of a snarling honey badger on her shoulder.

And as for the arena, she’d selected sand. A classic, although Thomas suspected this partially came down to how it functioned underfoot. Walking on it was harder than you’d think, it shifting underfoot was annoying, and it was incredibly difficult to create much explosive force by kicking off it, the grains would simply shift and absorb much of the energy, which would be a problem for Cheshire, while Abrams could fly and bypass the issue in its entirety.

Of course, the fact that she lacked meaningful ranged attacks meant she had to get close to attack, something that largely negated her advantages, but it hardly erased them.

A single wingbeat launched her into the air before a second sent her plumeting back down, arm cocked back, straight at Cheshire’s head.

Predictably, the saber-tooth tiger flung herself out of the way, her speed power more than compensating for the poor footing, only for her to twist around and slash at the air, crescents of white energy flashing straight at Abrams’ back. It was the most energy-intensive way to use that power, but it also allowed her to attack from afar and without risking getting any of the woman’s blood on her.

Thomas hadn’t even had to tell the monster about the fact that Abrams was now part hydra; Cheshire had smelled it in a heartbeat. Otherwise, this fight’s momentum would have likely been reversed right then and there, with the dungeon boss on the back foot, trying to defend herself while poisoned.

The human duelist then whirled around and went back on the offensive, twisting her way out of the path of a claw slash by the barest of margins, then kicking Cheshire on the nose, causing the monster to jerk away. But that was the only time that trick worked in this fight.

Things went back and forth like that for a while, Abrams landing heavy punches with her entire momentum behind the strikes, Cheshire slashing her to ribbons only to avoid the vast majority of the bright, toxic, green spray that was the result, her C-Rank physical power enhancing her to be able to handle that for the most part.

Until eventually, after nearly half an hour, Abrams decided to fly skywards, out of reach, and announced “let’s pause this here” before she let herself fall back down to the ground, where she landed heavily.

Her clothing was covered in so much blood, both the magical green and magicless red, that it looked as though it had been dyed that way, and Thomas was pretty sure she’d had to cast a couple of mending spells to keep it intact over the course of the fight.

Then again, this had been a bit of a foregone conclusion. Dungeon champions did tend to have a bit of extra power over regular monsters, and this one had been stronger, faster, and heavier than Abrams, with her only having the advantage of durability and regeneration.

Perhaps if Thomas had given his tiger a different power, things would have gone the other way, but with what he’d ended up giving Cheshire, she could literally dodge Abrams’ toxic blood even when it sprayed out at point-blank range.

***

Sooooo … that could have gone better.

Jaclyn groaned in frustration as she pushed herself to her feet, then brushed herself off and finally spent the last dregs of her mana to patch up her uniform.

What the monster’s newest power consisted of wasn’t obvious, and she didn’t have any ideas that had more than the barest sliver of proof behind it, but whatever it was, it was powerful, bordering on game-breaking. The first two “active” powers hadn’t changed since the very start, and she’d started to really learn to avoid them … but the latest two, they were entirely passive and extremely nasty.

The fight had also exposed another issue, this time, with her ring. It triggered when the big cat had dodged, yes, and the same went for when it had twisted away from one of her strikes, but in the end, the effect had always discharged whenever she’d landed a solid hit, even if said hit only landed on a heavily muscled portion that could absorb the force.

In the end, the ring worked well against something too fast to hit, or too heavily armored to damage, but not against something that was merely big. And even the occasional charge building up in the ring had cost her most of her mana. It was a damn good thing it let other people charge it up too.

All that being said, increasing her Skills had been functionally impossible once they’d been pushed past level 40. Yet this had done the trick.

Name: Jaclyn Abrams

Race: Human

Class: Anima Monk

C-Rank, Level 3/20

Class Abilities

Spirit Bond: Honey Badger (F-Rank)

Spirit Projection (E-Rank)

Ancient Bond: Haast’s Eagle (D-Rank)

Mythic Bond: Lernean Hydra (C-Rank)

Statistics (0 points available)

Body: 410

Magic: 40

Mind: 279

Spirit: 410

Skills

Pugilism 41 -> 42

Fist of the Indomitable Badger 41 -> 42

Athletics 41 -> 42

Situational Awareness 40

Bullshit Radar 33 -> 36

Martial Arts 41 -> 42

Alternate Skill Set (currently inactive, switch available)

Mana Control 13 -> 20

Utility Magic 15 -> 20

Ballance 16

Breathing 12

Inspect 16 -> 23

Movement 10 -> 12

***

Well, her utility Skills had grown, no surprise considering what she’d been doing lately, but the combat Skills had been stuck since the battle against the Hunger. Though at this point, every level was worth as much as five in the very beginning.

But she couldn’t have kept this up even if she’d wanted to, she’d outright run out of steam, her regeneration slowing down, her wings growing less substantial, claws becoming weaker.

“I’ll be back,” she told the tiger, then looked over to where Daedalus’ avatar was waiting. “So, what’s next?”

Planning was next. Lots and lots of planning. Potion loadouts, summoning tokens, materials for better combat uniforms, and so on. And then, they talked about the future, after all, they only had five months left to hunt down three more anchor beasts, two once the dragon was dead.

All told, it was a couple of hours before they were done. Then, Daedalus went off to stock the Befast, which had apparently been transformed into a submarine that was both titanic and stealthy, while Jaclyn took this as her cue to finalize the team she’d take into Siberia.

She was going, obviously, as were her left and right hands, Wyatt Granger, and Lukas Henderson.

The former was barely twenty years old, whom she’d taken as her assistant when this entire mess had started, and had then turned into an immensely capable mage.

And the latter was one of the most powerful Anima Monks in the world, second only to her, an indomitable tank with bonds for the grizzly, ankylosaurus, and phoenix.

Gula Worldstrider would also, of course, accompany them, as would Harjaz, a third Anima Monk, though he was also an orc. As such, he’d never really gone all in on mad “get great or get dead” power leveling binges and was only peak D-Rank despite having had access to the System longer than any of them. However, instead of power, he had knowledge and experience, and in many ways, that was even more valuable.

Between the pair, the group could scarcely have been better prepared, even if they’d brought along every single person on the planet who was looking into magic.

They’d also bring along Müller. The German sniper had the system attached to the jungle, which had granted him a couple of powers that would make their assault a hell of a lot more viable.

The first was the ability to overcharge a shot to the point where his D-Rank wouldn’t be nearly as much of a weakness as it might have appeared at first glance.

And the second was the ability to predict the results of any given choice for the next five seconds. Which meant he’d be able to tell her the instant the rings had charged up enough to crack the dragon’s shell, minimizing the potential for wasted time.

Without him specializing in durability, he would absolutely have to be protected, but at the same time, his fighting style alone would keep him far from the action. A little extra caution, and things should be fine.

Of course, the Russian military had been trying to kill the dragon for months and failing miserably, but that more likely stemmed from their weakness rather than their opponent’s strength.

Because, well, the more information she’d been presented with, the lower her opinion of the whole affair had gotten. As for why the supposedly second-strongest military was so much weaker than it was supposed to be, there were a whole lot of reasons.

To start with, the obvious one: a nation that controlled its own media and had a stranglehold on the flow of information in general could easily lie, both to its own people and foreigners.

If the President of the United States declared tomorrow that the US now had forty aircraft carriers and six of them were also the helicarriers from the first Avengers movie, he’d be called out on that, publicly, by everyone who cared to do so.

You couldn’t do that in a dictatorship. Or, at the very least, no single person could do that more than once.

Then there was the fact that the military officers were … well, they were, on average, fundamentally less useful in a dictatorship. Nepotism and corruption were the obvious issues, but so was the fact that someone under threat from tyrannical superiors was less likely to report issues, instead preferring to quietly resolve things … except that with every failure they’d be digging themselves deeper and the cost of coming clean would just keep on rising. Meaning the person in charge of the whole affair would likely never hear of severe and systemic issues affecting their army.

That was also a problem concerning advanced equipment. When honestly reporting bugs and glitches could cost you your head, would you really contribute to make your gear the best it could be?

Also, no one person, especially no competent person, could be allowed to have too much power and influence, for fear of them eventually supplanting the leader. Because in a dictatorship, the ability to kill the leader was often all you needed to replace the leader.

Of course, the people in charge of the military of the United Kingdom could potentially take over; they had the power, but that would almost certainly not work out.

To start with, anyone who gave an order like that would probably wind up arrested, shot, or in an insane asylum on the presumption of a mental break. Soldiers were, at least in theory, loyal to the populace over their military leader.

Yet even if there was a sucessful takeover, keeping a hold of that power would be a hell of a lot harder, because doing so would have required the cooperation of the majority of the police force, which hadn’t become officers of the law to suppress dissent, and the whole thing wasn’t set up for such in the first place. At least not in the way a brand-new military dictator needed.

And so on, and so forth.

But did all that mean the dragon would be easy to kill? Sadly, no.

***

The Belfast’s new form was quite impressive. Nearly two hundred meters long, shaped like a bullet, smooth save for the occasional propeller set deep into the hull or outline of a closed hatch, and so dark it seemed to suck in the light.

It sat in the River Thames like a fat, placid, tadpole, though Jaclyn had seen the plans. This thing had enough firepower to take on the entirety of the Royal Navy, and the durability to eat everything the RN could throw at it, at least if you discounted nuclear armament.

Jaclyn slung her bag over her shoulder and walked towards the only gap in the exterior hull, a wide cargo hatch that allowed entry into the inside.

The ambassador monkey was already there, waiting, wearing a captain’s uniform and looking adorable as always.

“Do you have everything?” he asked. “I’d have to kick everyone off to summon more supplies.”

Oh, yeah, that was something that should definitely be avoided at all costs, considering the ship would be deep underwater at that point. She’d be fine, being able to survive underwater just fine, but the others wouldn’t.

“Yep,” she nodded.

“Come in then, I’ll give you the nickel tour,” the monkey said and waved her in.

Jaclyn followed, keeping the frown off her face. It was weird, listening to the Dungeon Core speak. Not his voice, not his accent, but his choice of vocabulary. Sometimes, he sounded all too human, using phrases or idioms she was pretty he hadn’t heard from anyone.

Or at least she’d have been able to definitively say previously, before they’d started getting international visitors.

Now … now it was just weird. She should probably mention this to someone. There were several explanations for it, certainly, but most had uncomfortable implications.

Jaclyn gritted her teeth. Not to mention that most would likely alarm Daedalus, were she to bring up the possibility.

“Let’s do this front to back,” the monkey offered, hopefully oblivious to her internal musings. She just nodded.

After walking through surprisingly wide corridors for nearly a hundred meters, Jaclyn found herself in a room far larger than she’d have ever expected inside a warship, let alone a submarine. Easily twice the size of her apartment, walls marked with several signs that indicated there was sports equipment within.

“Do you really have enough spare space for a place like this?” she wondered.

“Magic does everything. It’s not a matter of finding the space to put something, it’s one of finding something to fill the space,” he shrugged. “Besides, I figured this should help you guys avoid going stir-crazy. It’s not like any of you guys are trained submariners.”

That was also true. Jaclyn certainly knew that she hadn’t been looking forward to the cramped confines like those one saw in the Imperial War Museum, and doubted the others saw things too differently.

“In this configuration, the Belfast has a magical oxygen recycling system powered by me, as well as several additional, clearly marked, magical oxygen candles you can power in case of an emergency,” Daedalus explained as they walked, pointing out the devices in question, as well as emergency hatches and so on, until they reached the mess hall, where he proceeded to proudly explain the stove, which was a simple gas stove, with a manual valve to activate it as well as an incredibly basic “ignite gas when powered” enchantment that anyone with even a drop of mana could activate.

A simple warming enchantment would have likely been easier to use, but required far more mana than half the people in the team would have had.

There was also a fridge filled to the brim with incredible ingredients, even Jaclyn’s newly increased paycheck would have barely covered a quarter of what she could see. It made sense with what she understood about the powers of a dungeon core, wagyu beef should have cost the exact same amount of energy as the shoe leather that Sainsbury’s occasionally had the temerity to claim to be “steak.”

Getting stuck in here during the journey to Siberia would be tough, but with food like this, she doubted anyone would mind.

But they soon moved on from the mess hall and past hte various accommodations, which were incredibly spacious. Aboard a warship, one shouldn’t even count on having a bed you could sit up in, let alone a cabin such as this one, which would hardly have looked out of place aboard a cruise ship.

Jaclyn also realized someone had to have bought incredibly expensive and high-quality bedsheets and the like for the sole purpose of giving them to the dungeon, because she was likely looking at several thousand pounds worth of furniture.

But even amidst all this luxury … this thing was the largest, fastest, toughest, and stealthiest submarine in the history of warfare.

“This thing would be terrifying if used as a nuclear launch platform,” she mused. Especially if it had been created as an actual submarine, rather than a dungeon champion, which would be able to be equipped with advanced electronics.

“Jup,” Daedalus said. “I actually have the plans for something like that, but I’m not building one just to give to the Royal Navy.”

“Why not?” Jaclyn asked. “I’m sure they’d be able to find something you’d like.”

“I know they do, but if I become the springboard that recreates the British Empire of old … it won’t just be Russia that comes for me,” Daedalus shrugged. “And to be honest … do you have any idea how many history books I’ve read since winding up in the Natural History Museum? I’m not sure it’s a good thing for it to come back, entirely separate from the fact that people would blame me for it.”

Books.

Jaclyn did a double-take at that. It actually completely explained her earlier concerns.

And with that done, she continued to explore on her own. Most things were covered by magic, but not everything could simply be “magicked” into working properly.

One of the biggest issues posed by current circumstances was that of communication. Primitive, and that meant primitive, radios did work, but they were, well, terrible, any transmissions would have to be so powerful that they’d be blindingly obvious to everyone in the area, and encryption would not be possible the way it was with modern communications devices.

And any analog cyphers would wind up so simple that computers could crack them in a matter of seconds, even if they’d been willing to risk a transmission.

Thankfully, Daedalus would be able to easily send messages to and fro, without the risk of detection or interception, but that would also leave them entirely dependent on the Dungeon Core. And that thought was making Jaclyn surprisingly nervous. But it wasn’t like there was any other way to do this …

***

“Oh hell ...” Jaclyn whispered as she realized what Daedalus had cobbled together as their method of ingress.

The bow of the Belfast had irised open above the gym, revealing the night sky … but what had her concerned was the massive monster sitting there, a giant sloth with a sash that read “catapult” slung across its chest. And a brief Inspect told her that this thing was near the peak of D-Rank.

“And here I was hoping the ring was merely misdirection,” Müller commented from behind her, tone dry as the Sahara desert.

“My pranks are usually funny,” Daedalus commented flatly, sounding almost … hurt? “So, who’s first?”

Jaclyn sighed and volunteered by stepping forward.

“Did you power the ring?” he asked, and she nodded … only to suddenly be jerked off her feet as a giant hand closed around her waist and she found herself airborne a split-second later, landscape rushing past beneath in a truly surreal display that felt false simple due to that fact that there wasn’t any wind, any air rushing past, any sign of the fact that she was, in fact, moving at a speed that absolutely had to surpass that of sound.

And then, she entered the transformation zone, the change immediately visible as snow changed into crystal, plants transforming into sparkling rock formations, the area beneath somehow appearing colder despite lacking even the barest speck of ice or snow.

It just all felt cool, clinical, soulless. And nothing in here felt more stark and uninviting than the spire of crystal that rose in the distance. Their target, the home of the monster they were here to kill.

***

Thomas watched them all fly off into the distance, then turned around to go in the direction of the nearest Russian warship for some shenanigans. Nothing that would kill anyone, nothing that would directly expose his presence, just lots and lots of “evil” little pranks.

Specifically, he’d created a whole lot of supremely nasty barnacles that would rapidly corrode whatever metal they attached to, while losing all supernatural effects when directly observed, meaning they’d swiftly break those ships in a way that would seem natural to anyone who wound up investigating.

Of course, a sudden cluster of barnacles damaging paint and the ship beneath rusting away, right as a “super-secret” operation took out the Russian’s “prize” but there wouldn’t be proof about this any more than there would be about the people who should currently be in the process of killing the dragon.

They’d suspect, but they’d also know why this was happening. In order to make an accusation in the court of public opinion, they’d have to reveal the motives, which would, in turn, bring light to their own crimes.

“Yeah, we tried to kill the British dungeon core and actually did kill a bunch of British soldiers, but they’re the bad guys for damaging our ships” would fly like a lead balloon.

Ultimately, there were limits as to what he cou- … no, on what he should do, and perhaps doing nothing would have been the best thing for him, but right now, he was just waiting for other people to do the job he’d have rather done himself.

Doing something, even if it was slightly juvenile from a certain point of view, simply felt better.