About an hour before sunrise most of Kingsted were sleeping, a qiton was meditating out in a backyard. He was slowly counting the time till sunrise, with his gear he was gonna use for the day laying around him in an organized pattern. Suddenly a figure landed in the backyard, quickly drawing a knife and charged towards him with deadly intent.
"DIE!"
"Oh, good morning~ You're back faster than expected, good job~"
Stopping the attacker's knife a few centimetres from his only remaining eye, the qiton showed a large smile towards his attacker.
"'GOOD JOB' MY ASS! JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME KILL YOU!"
"And still so energetic~ For now, go to sleep, I have an actual reward for you around noon."
"AND WHY WOULD I-"
"I said sleep."
In a split second Dax balanced himself on his one arm and circle kicked Terra in the head, knocking her out, after which he went back to meditating once more.
A few hours after sunrise life was bustling in Kingsted with people going around their daily life, workshops were busy with all sorts of craft with trade ongoing in countless markets around town. Slowly awakening to those sound was Alice, she slowly got out of her bed she put on light clothing and went downstairs in search of the kitchen and food that would satisfy her hunger.
"ICI breakfahst~"
With a sleepy voice, she spoke out in the empty kitchen while sitting down at a table and rubbing her eyes
[CONFIRMED, TIME TO COMPLETION: 5 MINUTES AND 35 SECONDS]
In response to her request, a soulless and inorganic voice spoke out as 3 drones started work in a highly modified kitchen. A normal kitchen in a normal middle class residence would have a woodfired stove with a few magic enhancements, like an inscribed spell that would control the heat output or even an automatic firestarter. Meanwhile, the kitchen Alice was located in had a gas powered stove, complete with an advanced steam and air convection oven and a fridge using state of the art vibration cooling along with more specialized equipment like a dehydrator and a sous vide. 3 drones currently manned the kitchen, with 4 stoves and the steam oven working to produce a morning meal for the half sleeping Alice.
[ORDER: 'BREAKFAHST~' COMPLETE. 1 X FRENCH OMELETTE WITH FRESH HERBS.]
Exactly 5 minutes and 35 seconds after the order had been placed a plate with an elegantly engineered meal was placed in front of Alice.
"I love my job~"
Digging into the meal Alice could hardly contain her joy as she taught over her current job position.
(Not only do I get to eat fantastic meals that are sometimes handmade by Dax, but I can sleep in late and only need to work some days~ Moreover my pay is amazing! Hooray Galactic Empire hooray Dax!~)
Approaching nirvana as she ate her breakfast in bliss it was quickly finished and she went out in the yard to find her employer
"Good morning Dax! Oh and Terra you're back!"
Finding Dax, meditating in the centre of the backyard, with a passed out Terra sleeping next to him in full training gear.
"Good morning Alice~ We have work today so go take a bath."
"Yes, sir~ Can I take Terra with me?"
"Yeah sure, Terra stop pretending to sleep and go take a bath, you stink."
"..."
"I could start tickling you, come on I told you I have an actual reward for you so stop pouting."
"FINE, this better be the best fucking reward of my life."
"That will be up to you, you two be ready and dressed for combat in 40 minutes."
"Let me stab you first."
"Terra come on~"
"Alice! Just let me punch him once!"
As Alice dragged off towards the bath with the help of strengthening magic and a few drones Dax went back to meditation.
(Status on warplan indigo?)
(CURRENTLY RUNNING 5673TH GENERATION ARTIFICIAL WARGAME, CURRENT STATUS: TAKEOVER 98% COMPLETE, ZERO CASUALTIES.)
(What about civilian casualties?)
(UNCERTAIN, APPROXIMATING BETWEEN 5 AND 30)
(That's way too high, reset and try again.)
(CONFIRMED, REINITIALIZING WARPLAN INDIGO SIMULATION, CURRENTLY RUNNING ON GENERATION #5674)
(Good, report back when civilian casualties are under the acceptable margin.. And what's the status of the current delivery?)
(PARCEL #32 INBOUND ON FINAL APPROACH, ENGINES IN STEALTH MODE AND GLIDING TO TARGET, ETA 32 SECONDS.)
"Ooh there it is~"
(PREPARE FOR PARCEL DELIVERY, APPROACH VECTOR 139)
"Ready."
Standing up and looking towards the outer wall Dax spotted a patch of sky that looked slightly off, approaching him fast.
(DROPPING PARCEL.)
As the stealth drone flew over Dax it dropped a reinforced weapon case, about two and a half meters long and a meter wide, catching the weapon case a large smile formed on Dax's face.
"As the machinegun of old revolutionised warfare, victory now correlated with the sheer volume of fire..."
-
"And then he told me that if I didn't return by sunrise or dropped that ridiculously heavy backpack I shouldn't bother returning! Can you believe how mean he is!?"
"Yeah.."
"And when I ran while giving my all he kept getting monsters to attack me! Can you believe that!?"
"Yeah.."
"Are you listening?"
"Yeah... I mean yes! But didn't you complete it just fine? And even before time was up, moreover you're getting some sort of reward now so isn't it fine?"
"But!-"
"No buts!~ Now let's get you cleaned up"
Alice skillfully removed Terra's clothing in a blink of an eye with a large smile on her face but froze up when she saw Terra's bare belly.
"Wow.."
"What?... Holy shit"
"How did you?-"
"I have no clue."
The reason for Alice's and Terra's own surprise was the state of her body. After being in recovery for over a year after losing an arm and a leg along with her sight Terra's muscles she had trained up doing her time as a ranger had almost completely withered away, and now not even a bit over a month after her complete recovery dense and firm muscles had formed all over her body, giving her the look of an elite athlete.
"Well, your training has been pretty intense over the last month.."
"I-I guess.."
After 30 more minutes of girls talk and bathing Terra and Alice appeared in front of Dax again, Alice wore a black light armour like the one Dax wore when he fell to this world. As for Terra...
"Why are you in your underwear? I don't have a thing for a brat like you sorry~"
"What the hell did you do to my body!?"
"Just a bit of special training~"
"Be honest with me already!"
"Okay then, Alice we're on a schedule so go and power up your exoskeleton."
"On it~"
After Alice left Dax urged sit down with him as a drone arrived with two cups and a bottle of some sort of alcohol.
"What are we doing?"
"Celebrating, remember what my reason for not doing combat training with you?"
"You just said I was too weak.. Wait does that mean!?-"
"Jup, congratulations on reaching the minimum performance level for combat training~"
"But what did you do to me?"
"Organic engineering, the genetic limiter on muscles and bone density have been upped to nearly four times, that along with the steady supply of black matter you have been receiving have accelerated muscle growth along with integrating hardening agents and stem cell repair banks all over your body."
"So what did you do?"
"You can now sustain and heal injuries that would normally have killed you, as your body now have an automatic repair function and your skin have been turned mostly stab prof."
"like yours?"
remembering her first meeting with Dax, were her maid Elise had tried to kill Dax, Terra wondered if she had become like him.
"Not quite as tough no, but you've become stronger and more enduring than ever and is finally strong enough for real training~ Now for your reward I want you to see how strong you've become so I'll have you and Alice accompany me to one of my contracted jobs with the hunters guild. But for now, cheers are in order, come on raise your glass~"
"B-but…"
"What is it?"
sensing some sort of deep doubt had taken root of his pupil Dax's smile disappeared as he sat up straight and looked like he was paying more attention than before.
"Am I still me?"
"Absolutely."
"But-"
"You're faster and tougher than before, I know you are aware of that now. But the only reason I picked you in the first place was your mind, why would I change that now?"
"O-okay.."
"And now we drink, come on cheers!~"
"C-cheers…. Ack! Fuck what is this!?"
"Distilled alkohol~ Abv is about 55% I think?"
"What the fuck, say that earlier! Ack, feels like my fucking throat is on fire!"
"Yeah this is the good stuff right?~"
"You demon.."
"Now let's get on with the day, you might want to wear something more than just that."
"Oh yeah, that's right... So what are we doing?"
---
"He's doing WHAT!?"
Under the castle, in a damp room near the lower foundation, a noble was once more talking with a shadow.
"For now walking through town."
The shadow looked to be a human, or more like something pretending to be one. It spoke in a strange manner, its voice heavily obscured by some kind of mechanism that made it sound more like an 80's synthesizer than something alive.
"When was that?"
"An hour ago"
"Why are you just reporting that now!?"
In response to the report, the noble kicked the shadow, making it fly across the room and hit a stone wall, that cracked.
"Fucking useless.. Where were they going!?"
"I-it looks like he's was going towards the knight training ground."
"Took you fucking long enough... Lure Marcus to him and use that useless knight to kill him off, whatever the casualties!"
"Y-yes sir.."
---
"Looks like this, is it... I'm not impressed."
Standing in front of a large colosseum like structure Dax drew eyes to him like normal, but this time it was slightly different.
"What the hell is that?.."
"Looks like a suit of armour, on steroids…"
"Yeah…"
"How are you doing Alice?"
["This still feels a bit strange.."]
"Of course it is, your the first one of this world to wear an exoskeleton. The frame is slightly overcompensating, ICI is working on it."
["I mean the starring."]
"Ah that... You get used to it after about 500 years~"
["Right… Why are we at the colosseum at a day it's not publicly available."]
"Work. I've been contracted to by the hunters guild to train some new knightlings in monster avoidance and elimination, that was of course before the incident so there'll properly be someone unhappy coming at some point. If that happens extract Terra and retreat to point 4."
["Yes sir.. What about right now?"]
"Just stand by and fill me in if needed."
["So again you pay me just for standing around?"]
"Yep~ Is that a problem?"
["Nope, I love my job~ This frame is amazing by the way, what did you call it? Air something?"]
"Aircondition, or more like full environment control. A peck of working for the Empire, now let's get on with it, the spies are waiting for us to do something… ICI on overwatch, condition blue."
[OVERWATCH CONDITION BLUE CONFIRMED. READY FOR OPERATION BLUELIGHT.]