Part 10: Update IX - Featuring: Government Oversight
Update IX - Featuring: Government OversightMusic: Atlantica - The Emerald Afterglow

Nine updates and a full dungeon later, we finally have some actual on-field dragons to murder.

~
Atlantis Soldier: Begone! I shall not let you scoundrels through!
Unfortunately, the cost of such a thing is the inability to go pester Ulania some more.

But first...
Music: Battlefield - Atlantis

A Bloom Seed!

Sorry, 'Dragonsbane Seed.' They give oodles of SP when killed, but have 999 in both defensive stats and like to run away.

Thanks to having twice the hits of the single sword's Whirlwind, Cyclone Dance absolutely shreds them.

One of the few things to get nerfed in VFD is, surprisingly, chip damage. In the 2020s, any attack that couldn't beat the target's defense would deal a minimum of 1-2 damage. VFD cuts that down to just 1.
Music: Finish Them Off

Now that's a good haul!

And here's our very first field dragon.

And much like every other game...

Music: Battlefield - Furious Predator

Starting a fight from behind gives you a free turn.

As babby's first dragon, the Ancientus finally gives us an enemy with two actions, and can try to hit the entire party with Freeze using Frost Breath.

I just use this free turn to get some hits in.

A surprising number of enemies are weak to aerial-type damage! Between that and Maple Tear's fire, Inoue has the advantage on pretty much every enemy here.

Before it could even move, the Ancientus has lost about a full third of its HP.

And to rub salt in the wound, Yuno manages to stick it with Paralysis.

Which then locks out one move.
Which is far more likely than you would think, considering that
Welcome to VFD.

Our first actual dragon manages to get in one attack.

Before Opal breaks it in half.
Now, the Ancientus has a good plan going, having low Speed but using Freeze to drop everyone even lower. It's just that Quartetto has priority so Opal's Speed doesn't matter.


I run into the next one in an awkward spot.

But it managed to hit me twice, which is more than the last guy could say.

But look at this! Even a dragon can barely put a dent in us!
Even if a fight did go bad and leave the party near death, there's a heal spot in this area I could easily run back to!
Music: Finish Them Off

And that makes three.
Music: Atlantica - The Emerald Afterglow




Those legs... could it be?

Ah hell, the army is here.






Opal wants to hoard the time machine to herself, naturally.


~


~~









So, like, why did no one give Nagamimi a heads up on them? They're our Navigator for this mission, you'd think it'd be good to know that someone else is coming in.


Now, I could leave.
Music: Battlefield - Furious Predator

But there's just two dragons left in the entire dungeon.

I never have to come back here for the main plot either.

So the only thing I would get for leaving is having to come back later to clean up.

And I might as well save myself a trip and do it all now.

And that makes 5 Dz.

And that's the entire dungeon! An entire zone dedicated to a measly five dragons! No boss fight or anything! Quite literally the only thing of import that happened was Unit 13 meeting Ulania!
What the hell is this pacing, VFD!?
Music: UE77 Tokyo

Just think, we're 2% of the way to killing every last dragon!
Music: The Daily Grind





Well, as long as there's no human rights violations I'm fairly sure you still pull ahead of Murakumo.
~


~~

Okay, the Portal I can understand, but why 7th Encount? Sure, Nodens is using it to Last Starfighter people, but that won't matter without a time machine to send them after True Dragons.





We get some quick tutorials when we head up to the counter.
Music: Let's Get to Work!!


We have a decent chunk of sidequests starting out, but almost all of them are DLC. Seed Outbreak and Gold Rabi Outbreak are the Obligatory Sega Grinding DLC, the Code missions unlock alternate character portraits, To My Beloved Unit 13 is a postgame quest that gives a fourth DLC portrait, and Allie's Death March is a post-postgame boss rush.

I can do that first quest now, but we're here to build stuff. Plus more quests open up tomorrow so I might as well knock them all out at once.








I'll give Nodens this, our room is much fancier than Murakumo's Unit 13.
The perks of not working in an apocalypse, I guess.




I'm sure that energy bar can't be th-

She didn't lie, that energy bar do be crummy.

Anyways, factory upgrades give a new gear tier.

And some new items.
Music: The Daily Grind

Let's go check out our new digs before we say hi to the bosses.

Right off the bat, the entry part of the floor has a much different layout.

Let's see what's behind door number 1!

As they say in my Japanese animes:

Umi da.

Door number 2 has...

A common room.

With a bunch of beds. Six, to be precise.

And door number 3...

...is locked.

Fiiiiiiiiiine, I guess we'll go say hi.
Music: UE77 In Ariake



Well somebody's mad.



The funny thing is that despite ostensibly being our boss, Julietta does not have nearly as much pull over Unit 13 as he thinks he does.

A business with a time machine. And also a complete disregard for the timeline.
We could probably, I don't know, go back and kill you as a baby or some shit.



...Okay, but why would they agree to something like that?

I mean, Yuma could solo us, and I don't see any backup dragon hunters around to stop the ISDF from taking the sample by force.






Music: The Daily Grind





Oh, because God forbid the military keep an eye on a private company that has, again, an actual time machine.




~



~~













Oh look, Mio came back what are the odds.

Julietta she is 14 years old what the actual fuck!?


Everyone else agrees!


Next time: THE! HERO! IS! HERE!