C-Rank Ranked Match — One Golden Shot

I leave the base, El Dorado, and head east.

My real objective is taking down the Golden Tanks. Sure, a heck of a surprise event landed in my lap, but I can’t lose sight of what I’m actually here for. Leveling up and earning money. And to do that, I’ll clear the mission I’m on right now: subjugate twelve Golden Tanks.

I don’t know what the Golden Tanks look like or where they are. Probably something tank-shaped, and they can’t be far from El Dorado. Maybe I should’ve looked into it properly before I left town.

Still, what weird ground.

The Gold Planet’s ground is thin, gold-colored crystal, with no soil anywhere. Maybe that’s why there’s not a single plant in sight. Crystal mountains, crystal towers, crystal coral. Everything here is cut from the same stuff.

“Hm…”

Three Machine Beast icons blink onto my radar, tucked behind the giant crystal coral up ahead. Judging by how it felt underfoot, this crystal is pretty hard, so punching through the wall is out. I’ll wait for them to come to me.

“Huh. Cute…”

Three rabbits made of gold crystal, like something spun out of glass. Cute. I want one for my room.

They’ve got beam antlers and thrusters on their backs. Firing those thrusters, the little golden bunnies pick up speed and move to surround me.

“Forming an encirclement, and you’re nothing but beasts? You really are adorable.”

ARR-2. Assault rifle, equipped.

I focus fire on the Golden Bunny in front. The two on my flanks leap, lunging to skewer me, but I punch straight forward on a Thruster boost and slip past.

Their durability’s low, but it drops slow, too… their Armor’s hard. Every game has its high-defense, low-HP monsters.

Until I get the feel of it, an assault rifle just won’t land every single shot. A few rounds go wide. And then…

“Whoa!”

My stray laser rounds strike the crystal ground and pillars and come ricocheting straight back. I barely get my Shield Pieces up in time to block them.

“So the crystal reflects lasers, huh.”

In this environment, and against a hard-shelled opponent, maybe an assault rifle isn’t the play…

“Maybe this one.”

I draw the pistol from the holster at my hip.

The M1911 G-AGE.

“Time for a test shot.”

The Golden Bunny’s durability is 100 on every part.

Now then — let’s see what you’ve got.

I loose a round. It catches the Golden Bunny square in the head, a ragged bullet-wound blooming open. In a single shot, the head’s durability drops to 0 and the thing vanishes.

“One shot…”

So once you take Armor value out of the equation, this gun shaves off more than 100 durability in a single shot.

Which means… if I land this round on a Space Girl, I can destroy that body part for certain…?!

Every Space Girl has all her durability values standardized to 100. So far I haven’t found any way to raise durability. And the M1911 reliably strips off more than 100. In other words, land a hit on a vital point and I can shatter a Space Girl for certain. The description wasn’t lying.

Its Muzzle Velocity and Range fall short of a laser gun’s, so it comes with one weakness: I have to let the enemy close in before I can land a hit. But the Power more than makes up for it!

And that’s not all. A Shield Piece is a solid, physical shield with its own Armor value — and if the G-AGE can ignore that too, then it’s a serious thing. Shield Pieces are the same as these Golden-type enemies: high-Armor, low-durability armaments… their durability is a mere 20. Depending on the G-AGE’s Power, I could punch through a Shield Piece and destroy the Space Girl behind it…

I sweep the remaining Golden Bunnies away with the G-AGE, too. Cleanup complete. 2,190 chips off three units. That’s a lot.

150,000 chips is the target, I guess. That much would get me what I want.

My level went up twice in the process, too. I’m at 13 now. I’ll dump the status points I earned into Armor.

Before I can even catch my breath, a Golden Tank shows up.

“The Golden Tank…”

Durability on every part: 150.

“Now then — how much will it drop?”

I fire the G-AGE at the Golden Tank. And then…

“Huh.”

In a single shot, I’ve shaved the Golden Tank’s durability clean away.

Wait, wait! Something’s off!

The Mecha Dogs back on the Sand Planet had 100 durability, and even though I never learned their Armor value, I couldn’t delete one without landing ten M1911 rounds on it. And yet I just tore through 150 durability in a single shot…?

Maybe live rounds take a much heavier Power falloff from Armor value. It’s entirely possible that laser rounds, which melt Armor, and live rounds, which break Armor, have different Power-decay values against it.

After that, I ran all sorts of experiments on the Golden-type enemies: damage against high-durability Machine Beasts, Power falloff on penetration (punching a single round through two of them at once), and how a round behaved when it struck a laser weapon.

First up, damage: 160. I hit an enemy with 200 durability and had 40 left over.

Next, Power falloff on penetration: there was none. Normally, both laser guns and live-round guns bleed Power when they punch clean through an enemy. That’s a given. But the G-AGE didn’t. Which tells me Power decay is governed by the target’s Armor value. For matter with no Armor value (lasers and the like), the falloff is probably calculated off some other number, I think. In other words, the G-AGE ignores Armor value, so it loses no Power whether it hits a wall, a Shield Piece, or a Space Girl. The round just keeps driving forward. As long as its Power beats the target’s durability by even 1, the bullet passes through like it’s sailing across open air.

Laser weapons, though, are its natural enemy. The instant the round touches a laser, it melts. Send it head-on into a laser round and it loses outright. If the enemy meets the shot with a laser saber instead of leaning on Shield Pieces, the round just melts, easy. But when the enemy braces behind a physical shield and plants their feet, that’s the moment the G-AGE comes into its own.

“All twelve Golden Tanks — subjugation complete.”

Level 13 → 20. 13,560 chips. Status points: 21.

I’ll set my Armor value to 30, then pour the rest into Thruster Capacity and Precision.

Armor stops here. Precision still isn’t where I’d like it, but it clears the bare minimum, I’d say. From here I’ll push EN Capacity up to 100. Ever since I started running the assault rifle, my EN consumption’s been climbing.

My quest status flips over, too: ‘Incomplete’ → ‘Ready to Report.’ Guess I’ll head back and turn it in for now.

“…”

I feel eyes on me…?

“Nice work out there. Rookie Space Girl.”

A lone Space Girl steps out from behind the gold crystal. She’s got a stubborn set to her face…

“Leave your gold and get lost.”

“Ngh… wh-wha… who are you?”

“I’m the leader of the PK Army Konpeitou¹.”

Gold hood, gold mantle slung over her shoulders. Flashy. She’s plainly hostile. Then again, nobody who sneaks up on you like this is out to make friends.

Why didn’t she show up on my radar…? Oh — she’s poured points into Stealth, and on top of that she’s got a Special Cloak equipped, same as me. But after going to all that trouble to move in secret, why step out so boldly—

Tension shoots up my spine. I’ve got the kind of body that seizes up the moment it’s watched. Which means…!

“Loner Radar, ping! Enemy behind me!!”

I whirl around. Two Space Girls, sabers at the ready. I leap backward, twisting clear of their strike.

“Ehh?! And here I thought I’d caught you completely off guard!!”

“…Good reflexes. She’s the real deal.”

The two saber users have gold hoods and gold mantles, too.

I knew it — she was a decoy! Th-this is bad.

Two in front, one behind. I’ve ended up inside a triangle.

“I’m Alpha!”

“And I’m Beta!”

“…I’m Gamma.”

“We three sisters — the power of the Golden Triangle… savor it, and savor it well!”

Let’s flip it around. This is an opportunity. A chance to test the G-AGE against real, live Space Girls.

With only this many of them, the tension’s just barely inside my tolerance. I’ll come out no worse than a little dull. I’ll have them be my G-AGE test subjects…