Isekai Speedrun

Before the throne room, there was Caliph Tze’s secret weapon room: a small room hidden behind two horse statues.

We didn’t bring much heavy weaponry with us for two reasons: because there’s wasn’t room in the Flame Tank, and I knew we could pick up wargear from Tze’s hidden stash. According to lore, only Tze himself and his closest guards knew about this emergency weaponry. And in this timeline, all the people who knew died at the top of the Rukhkh Mountain.

“Hopefully no one has found this accidentally.”

I pressed on the pedestal of the left horse statue. The hidden mechanism opened a secret door.

Jackpot. Everything inside was pretty much the way I remembered from the game.

“Rain, there’s more ammo for you in those crates. Woody and Foxy, grab some better revolvers from the corner over there.”
“Yes, Seer!” (Fox Laughing)
“Crys, the Gatling gun is there, under the white blankets.”

That’s right, there was a good old crank-operated ten-barrel rotary cannon on two wheels here. The pinnacle of Mu-Ur innovations in traditional weaponsmithing.

Tze didn’t mess around when it came to defensive firepower near the throne. His bodyguards could roll the Gatling out in the long and wide hallway, spin the crank and turn the corridor into a shooting range. Alternatively, they could retreat in the throne room and use the chunky metal-plated doors as a cover, pointing the barrels to the hallway through the gap.

“Ragdoll and Siren, do it as planned.” (Crys)
“Yes, thanks for the donos!” (Ragdoll)

Donos, huh...

Ragdoll and Siren checked and oiled the Gatling under Crys's instructions. We had trained them based on my sketchy info about this unique weapon.

Then the duo pushed the creaking Gatling out to the hallway and pointed the barrels at the throne room doors – the exact opposite way the gun was designed to be fired.

“Ready and loaded!” (Ragdoll)
“Fire.” (Crys)

Ragdoll turned the crank while Siren held the gravity-fed box magazine on top and kept loading more rounds in. They targeted the handles of the heavy throne room doors. The storm of bullets hitting the metal plates drowned every other audio under it.

After the doors started cracking and breaking from the fierce volley, Ragdoll and Siren rolled the Gatling closer and continued to shoot inside the throne room.

Their second target was the bone throne at the back of the grand throne room. The throne was empty, so they stopped shooting after a short volley.

“It seems the nobles chose to escape instead of barricading themselves into the upper floors. Rags, don’t overheat the barrels.”
“Yes, Seer!” (Ragdoll)
“Turn the gun around and shoot anyone who comes this way.” (Crys)
“By your command, lord Crystal!” (Siren)

Ragdoll and Siren did pretty well handling the Gatling considering that they were able to rehearse only with a wooden replica beforehand.

Destroying the annoying metal doors like this saved time and dynamite.

“Just a reminder, guys: I don’t like destroying works of art, so don’t aim at the horse statues.”
“Yes, Seer!” (Ragdoll)
“Woody and everyone else, you stay behind as well until we’ve thoroughly checked the throne room.”

The throne room looked like a massive multi-domed interior of an ancient cathedral.

We walked casually through the eerily echoing and ridiculously large nave. Halfway to the throne stage at the end of the room, we could hear Ragdoll and Siren laughing and shooting for fun.

That's fine; there's plenty of ammo in the secret room.

“Emperor Xil, are you home? We came to play! Autokrator, are you here? Come out, we don’t have time for hide and seek! We’re friends, we’re here to help! We come in peace! We worship his shadow! We brought rare gifts, be the first to get the best ones! Don't miss out!”

My voice echoed in the vastness of the throne room.

No answer. No reaction.

I expected Autokrator or some lower-level enemies to reveal themselves from the nooks on the walls or jump down from the high edgings, but nothing happened.

“Okay, maybe they are all in the upper floor. Autokrator is not the type to run away. In a normal setting, making noise in his territory is enough to aggro him.”

A long, gray carpet leading to the bone throne had been pushed into a pile next to the columns supporting a high cloth canopy above. It seemed like someone had been cleaning the throne room recently, but left the job half-done.

“So this is the place where I perished in your future.” (Crys)
“That’s right.”

In the anime, Crys died in this room, Sorry Man got trapped by the Reload Platform, and machine-Mirim lost the top of his skull and got launched out of the palace like a bent nail from a slingshot. Rain was the only one who continued the desperate final battle against immortal Caliph Tze.

Behind the throne, there was a secret staircase leading straight to the upper floor without any labyrinthine bells and whistles. Since Tze wanted Rain alive, he retreated to the staircase and Rain followed, and after a series of dialogue scenes during the chase sequence, Mirim returned back in, and the sisters were able to escape from the Sun City together.

For the second time in the series, they had failed to kill Tze. For the second time, they had managed to escape wounded.

When speedrunning the final boss battle against Caliph Tze in the game with one of the twins, you had to clear Tze’s first stages in this room as fast as possible (which meant helping Tze to kill all your friendly sidekicks) and then you could follow him up the stairs to lose the third stage AFAP, which then triggered the final Sun City Escape sequence.

“...Yeah, this is where the last desperate stand against Tze happened. It was team versus one, but Tze’s Starcutter skills were too OP.”
“Fascinating.” (Crys)

Crys stepped on the stage and kicked the bone throne full of bullet holes. Although the grotesque throne made of animal skulls and human bones looked feeble enough that it could crumble from one kick, it was internally reinforced and securely bolted to the floor.

Crys frowned. He looked around with the eyes of a tactician, perhaps trying to recreate the battle in his mind the same way I had described it to him before.

“It wasn't a skill issue. Tze used his overpowered weapon and had Easter egg invincibility cheats on. You guys were wounded and high on drugs, so it wasn’t a fair fight from the beginning. You would’ve won in a normal situation, I'm sure.”
“There’s no need for words of pity or comfort.” (Crys)
“No, of course not.”

In the original timeline, Crys was mostly driven by vengeance against Suleiman, but then Caliph Tze became a bigger threat and dealing with him became the driving force of Crys’ personal story arc. Viewers never got to see how Crys would’ve lived if he had reached his original goal.

In this timeline, I have greatly influenced Crys’ way of thinking, maybe even changed his most basic goals in life. I can’t know what Crys would’ve done with his life without me.

Well, if you don’t know, ask.

“Crys, if you had never met me and killed Suleiman alone, and Tze didn’t exist, did you have any plans on what to do afterwards?”
“Suleiman has family. High Hats are still loyal to Suleiman. They must all be eradicated.” (Crys)
“Yeah, figures.”

The game doesn’t stop after the big boss is dead. A new hat to shoot is born every minute.

“You never wanted to become Caliph in Caliph’s place?”
“No. It’s better to be a hatter than a hat.” (Crys)
“Better to be a hatter than a hat... Another great quote from our local Genghis Khan.”
“A name you have not mentioned before.” (Crys)
“Oh, Genghis was just this dude in my world. He said it’s easier to conquer the world on horseback than to dismount and govern, or something like that.”
“Indeed. All nobles still loyal to Tze must be purged and replaced with puppets who are loyal to us.” (Crys)

Oh-kay... Totally sounds like a fascist dictatorship when Crys puts it like that. But in the grimdark world of Mu-Ur, a normal puppet dictator is already a step up from totalitarian slavery state.

People need to learn how to walk on fire before they can run on water, metaphorically speaking. A new aphorism from me – no relation to our Flame Tank our Rainwoman.

“Kimono died in the throne room as well?” (Crys)

I glanced at Kimono. Let’s quickly change the subject.

“Everyone died here. Bad end. But it seems like they’ve abandoned this area, let’s continue to the–”
“You have come! The prophecy of the old soothsayer was true!” (Autokrator)

Oops. I spoke too soon.

Mid-boss Autokrator appeared wielding a sword-spear.

He was here after all, silently hiding behind the secret door to the stairs.

I guess he forgot that the whole point of ambush is to surprise your enemies and shoot them before you show yourself. I imagined him giggling by himself, holding his breath, thinking that we don’t know about the secret door, trying to contain his excitement like a child ready to pull a prank.

I aimed my revolver at Autokrator’s neck and fired.

---

There were three heavily armored mid-bosses collectively known as Death Lords. Autokrator was the strongest of the three.

Autokrator was one of Caliph Tze’s weird whims: a big, strong gorilla-like deviant lord who was forced to wear super-heavy armor and burdened with the title of a noble knight in the new system, except he had zero underlings and servants, and his demesne was the size of a supermarket parking lot outside the Sun Palace.

Autokrator was the red knight stationed on the front yard, blue knight Leopator stood as the high commander of the palace paths, and green knight Meridator strolled around the back gardens.

They each had a different set of special skills: green knight used Poison Arrows, blue knight used Star Dagger, and red Autokrator used a sword-spear. But they all had the same weakness: their intelligence was low and their twin-full-plated armor made them slow. If you ran far enough outside their boss area, they gave up following you. Deviant Lords were territorial by nature.

Our airship crew should’ve killed the other two Death Lords with dynamite at this point, but we can’t know for sure yet because I avoided hitting their areas when we entered the palace with the Flame Tank. I kept us in the Autokrator’s area, so if Autokrator had been outside like in the game, he would’ve attacked us and Flame Tank would’ve smoked him.

Unlike in the Sultanate where deviants were simply annihilated, Caliph Tze didn’t hesitate to use physically strong and mentally docile deviants as cannon fodder. These particular Death Lords were also known by their deviant monikers “were-jaguars” because their over-sized gorilla bodies were spotted with black rosettes and they had catlike incisor teeth behind the double-visors of their heavy helmets.

So here’s the thing, kids: do not try to attack Death Lords normally. Even if they are stupid and slow, their strength, defense and stamina are far above regular humans. A better strat is to cheese them by setting up explosive traps on doorways and narrow alleys in their areas and lure them in, or –

---

Crys and Rain fired their revolvers at the same time I fired mine.

Yep, shoot immediately to skip the villain monologue.

Autokrator’s pseudogothic armor was heavy enough to ward off bullets, but we systematically targeted the joints and rivets of his bevor and gorget.

After six quick shots each, we stopped shooting and started casually reloading while backing up.

“Your puny weapons are nothing to this one! Your death approaches!” (Autokrator)

Yeah, yeah, keep talking and slowly walking towards us like a monster in a B-movie.

Kimono had already slipped behind Autokrator. She thrust her long poison daggers under Autokrator’s neck guard which was incidentally loosened by our gunfire.

The command poison took hold immediately.

“Eat your tongue! Remove your helmet!” (Kimono)

Autokrator stopped and dropped to his knees, gargling his own blood and trying his best to carry out Kim’s simple commands.

We didn’t want him to swallow the berserker pills and trigger his second boss stage, so the first command was to make sure he was chewing something else. When cornered, the Death Lords executed a classic second stage move by shedding their armor, ingesting berserker pills and turning themselves into animalistic-demonic monsters.

When Autokrator half-removed his helmet, he suddenly snapped out of the command poison’s influence and tried to resist, but Kimono was already stabbing his neck repeatedly like tenderizing a steak.

Ah, Kim-chan... bringing poisoned knives to a gunfight since -1 AT.

Autokrator died. Not-so-great enemy felled.

Routine mid-boss fight. Easy and fast, just the way we like it.

“Put some pants on a scarecrow and give it a name. Still a better character than Autokrator.”
“He mentioned Caliph’s soothsayer.” (Crys)
“Tze kept a slave soothsayer in the palace, but he was basically a blind quack sorting animal entrails and spouting spontaneous nonsense that pleased Tze. Well, if that guy is still alive here, maybe we should ask him what kind of tale he spun to Autokrator. Autokrator wasn’t the brightest bulb in the shed, maybe he used the quack’s prophecies as a basis for ruling the empire.”
“I see. The ultimate overseer pulling the strings behind Xi and Autokrator was a blind fool. An unexpected supporter in hastening the demise of the palace.” (Crys)
“Ooh, finally our Crys admits he wasn’t able to foresee everything.”

Crys and Kimono examined Autokrator’s corpse.

Leave the sword-spear, take the berserker pills, eh?

“Woody and Foxy, you can come in now! We’re going to the next floor!”

---

The floor above the throne room was called Emperor’s Floor.

This floor contained Caliph’s living quarters, so the whole place was filled with Field of the Cloth of Gold level opulence. Every single thing in the main hallway was made of elaborately carved precious metals and jewels, and golden door handles had decorative platinum gargoyles with ruby eyes. Decorative full-plate armors in the corners were made of silver, gold and platinum, and covered in jade ornaments.

The purifying water kept in clay containers near the entrance to Emperor’s Floor was filthy, which meant it had not been replaced for a long time, but there were still markings of it being used. All servants entering Caliph Tze’s living area had to wash themselves, like before entering a traditional tea room back in the day: you had to wash both your hands and feet as a proof that they were not poisoned.

It was a realistic worry. Assassin groups like Dark Murderers used the same skin-penetrating poisons Crys applied on his equipment – except in their case, the assassins themselves were one-time use kamikaze drones. While still in his vulnerable mortal form, Tze had to put up with many safety routines and rituals similar to this.

The slave servants here had probably continued their purifying rituals even when the reason for the rituals was already dead and gone, and the water women whose job was to replace the dirty water had died at Rukhkh as well.

Now all these luxurious living quarters were empty, quiet and abandoned because the Moving Palace and most of the servants never returned from the north. Some of the intricately decorated partition walls left behind were lying on the floor or leaning against the walls, dirty and broken.

These partition walls were manipulated by groups of slaves 24/7 in such a way that Caliph Tze was always surrounded by beautiful scenery. The slaves behind the walls were immediately executed if they were seen by Caliph Tze. If Caliph Tze started doing something intimate in public during a banquet or a ball – like grabbing a random aristocratic lady – a group of slave servants immediately surrounded him with red privacy curtains to hide his acts.

Anyway, this floor had sub-areas like Tze’s bedroom, Caliphate treasury, palace library, multiple kitchens and dining halls, and a direct route to our main goal: the forbidden Strangers wing in the White Palace.

“It’s strangely quiet even in here. There should be more audio cues. Everyone, continue checking the secret passages as drawn in the map. And remember: do not to touch any of the food in the kitchens! The wine has arsenic and the bread is whitened with chalk and alum. Eat only your own rations, no matter how tasty the royal cakes and cookies look.”
“Yes, Seer.” (Woody)
“Very few traps. I would have trapped every corner in their situation.” (Crys)
“Well, luckily they don’t operate on your level. They just have these badly baked sweets as traps, spawning naturally out of ignorance and negligence.”

It felt like we were touring a set of some high-budget historical movie. We saw luxurious bedroom after luxurious bedroom with nothing but furniture, curtains, tapestries and partition walls; nightstand cabinets and treasure chests at the feet of canopy beds cleaned of clothes, jewelry and krúricks.

Even Woody and others, who were first eager to collect some shiny pearls into their pockets, stopped caring about the garish profusion around them.

The heavy furniture, stone statues and marble pillars here were still here in their original form. In the Moving Palace, these were obviously lighter replicas made of wood and cloth. But all the precious carpets and paintings in the Moving Palace were authentic items, so there were rows after rows of empty spots on the real walls.

Double Shadow, Violet Cloak and Eight Under returned from checking a number of side rooms.

“No strong enemies, lord Crystal! Not many enemies at all! We found three holding swords and killed them!” (Violet Cloak)
“Good.” (Crys)
“Either the palace guards here were sent somewhere else or they ran away. Maybe we missed a trigger and none of the enemies in this area loaded? No, it was probably that by killing Caliph Tze so early, it led to these guards not spawning at all, hehe...”
“Stop that creepy fake laughter.” (Kimono)
“Yep, yep... Violet, check the secret passages behind those tapestries and one under that elephant statue.”
“By your command!” (Violet Cloak)
“Hats have flown the palace. It was expected that most would flee, but this level of cowardice is highly amusing.” (Crys)
“Yeah, rats have left the sinking ship.”
“The beast in a cage was starved to its bones, but it realized that it can fit its starveling body through a small hole at the bottom of its cage.” (Crys)
“Are we having a metaphor competition now?”

The High Hats in the palace must have immediately moved their feet after the fire bombing started. They collected their krúricks and trinkets and aimed to escape through the secret underground tunnel system to their family lands outside the city.

Well, they were in for a surprise. You can’t escape from a pro.

The other ends of the secret tunnels were already poisoned and trapped by members of our local side branches. By poisoning selected tunnels, we forced them to use specific tunnels that weren’t as obviously trapped – which meant that they ended up crawling out from more distant exits where our associates were waiting in ambush, ready to take both their hats and their heads.

That was RNG, though. There were simply too many tunnels in too many places. From our perspective, the escape system under the city was like a Pachinko-style slot machine: we had to guess the most probable exits – the ones leading straight to the western territories of old system nobles, or the gates that weren’t heavily guarded by Death Squads leading to north territories where the diversion battles were happening.

Hopefully we get good RNG and catch the golden balls.

By the way, the escape tunnel system was one-way only. Entering the city using the system was practically impossible because there were multiple barriers which could be disabled and unsealed only by moving from the inside to the outside. The designers of the Sun Palace tunnel system who were digging solid bedrock weren’t as stupid as the designers of movie villain lairs full of navigable ventilation shafts and/or pristine and spacious sewers.

It’s inevitable that some High Hats will slip through our fingers, but hopefully our ambush groups catch the fattest rats. It would be pretty hype to bag the traitor-uncle Wingarrow for Korryndin, and at least one of the old hat overseers of the Bone Dune Station for Rain to kill as a revenge.

Some half-cooperating High Hats may have leaked our plans beforehand and allowed their family members to fade from the palace. Even if they were kept in the dark about the details, the smart ones must have realized that something big was coming.

I glanced at Rain. She seemed to be doing well still. I keep expecting that she starts sweating in pain like in the anime.

“Brother, two people hiding in the room ahead.” (Kimono)

Kimono’s sudden announcement interrupted my inner monologue.

Yay, could we get one project overseer for Rain and see some nice justice served, please?

---

When I entered the luxurious bedroom, there were two people on the floor: a young man in colorful robes kneeling in the middle of the room, but acting like he was the head the palace, and an older man on his knees and bowing his head next to him.

I didn’t recognize either of them, but their clothes told me the basics: a lesser new system noble and his slave valet.

“How dare you walk into my private chambers and treat me like this?!” (young noble)
“Someone you know?” (Crys)
“No idea. Minor background character.”
“We don’t need him then.” (Crys)
“I am Orvos Veduca! I am the lord and master of –” (young noble)

Kimono punched the arrogant young noble in the face with a push dagger. He died instantly.

“Eight, check the room.” (Crys)
“Yes, master Crystal.” (Eight Under)

The old slave valet mourned silently for his dead young master by burying his face in the bloody robes.

Crys grabbed the valet’s throat and pushed his revolver barrel right into his eye socket.

Ouch. Crys, you’re being unnecessarily brutal again.

“Anyone else still on this floor?” (Crys)
“N-n-no… Lord Veduca was the only one who stayed here and I stayed with him... They all left, even the guards, yet young master insisted on staying… He didn’t understand what was happening, I tried my best to help him…” (slave valet)
“Where is puppet emperor Xil? Where's Autokrator's soothsayer?” (Crys)
“C-Caliph Xil said… he said that the heavens are crying fire, and then he smoked tears of poppy and cut his own throat… And then Autokrator cried and left... I-I don’t know where he went... I don't know about the soothsayer, he hasn't come here for a long time...” (slave valet)
“Ah, drugs and suicide. The traditional way of the fascist dictators.”

Crys kicked the valet down and holstered his revolver.

“The puppet learned to move without strings. Where is Xil’s body?” (Crys)
“T-t-the servants took the body... I-in the hidden passage that leads to the crypt...” (slave valet)
“Crypt?” (Crys)

Crys was asking me instead of the valet.

“Yeah, the crypt, I know where it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find more High Hats who dashboarded with tar and mushrooms there.”
“W-w-what shall I do when my master’s gone? Young lord from afar, w-will I serve you from now on...?” (slave valet)
“You want to serve a lord who took your eye? Cloak, take this man crying for his dead master to the throne room. Force him to sit on the throne until Korryndin arrives.” (Crys)
“Yes, lord Crystal!” (Cloak)

The compliant slave valet holding his bleeding eye was taken away by Violet Cloak.

Weird and unexpected decision from Crys. Maybe he reminded Crys of the old butler in his family home?

I wanted to ask Crys' motivation for this, but then I heard Rain clicking her tongue behind me.

“This is taking too long.” (Rain)
“Yes, agreed. Crys, let’s skip the treasury check and Tze’s bedroom. We should head straight to the library and Strangers wing. If there are any nobles hiding under garderobes, they’ll starve to death or surrender. We can leave them to Korryndin’s men.”

Crys nodded in agreement.