Kisuke finished his meal and paid his bill, "By the way, where is she? She's not in her usual seat."
Mia continued drying up the plates as she answered, "She went out to deal with something. She'll probably return a few days later."
"Is that so?" Kisuke then stood up and decided to leave, "Thanks for the meal. It was great."
When Kisuke was already a few steps away, Mia suddenly mentioned, "It's only me, Line from the Loki Familia and a few Deities."
It didn't have any context but Kisuke understood her. While waving his hand, Kisuke left the establishment, 'Now then... Only Mia, Line, and a few Deities, huh? I wonder what happened? In a way, this is convenient for me too. Let's get to work and set up the pod too.'
Using the cover of the night, Kisuke started repairing the formations while laying out the foundation for further expansion to match the current Orario. That took him about two hours and he decided to save the rest for later when all the parameters and technology he needed was already in hand.
After that, Kisuke directly teleported to his 'Tower of Desires' on the 48th Floor of the Dizara Dungeon. He took a quick peek outside and saw that there were already various 'villages' that spawned all around the tower and there were a large number of Mercenaries that were entering and returning from the lower floors instead of the upper floors.
'This is reassuring. At least, they won't be useless cannon fodder when the real fighting starts. They should be able to provide a bit of breathing room for the main force if it comes down to an all out war.'
Kisuke then discretely exited the tower and directly went to the 47th Floor where the Surtr spawns. While avoiding all the foot traffic, Kisuke dived into one of the lava pools and after swimming through the molten rocks and minerals, he finally reached his intended destination, a cool and refreshing cave with a small pond.
"Heyo~ It's been ages.", he greeted first while taking out various equipment to set his pod up.
[It wasn't that long... But what are you doing?]
"I'm borrowing your place to avoid his eyes."
[...] The mystery voice stayed silent and Kisuke continued working on his task. He was waiting for the voice to say or ask something but it seemed to have no interest in whatever he was doing, 'Disinterest... Maybe. But this feels more like throwing in the towel. Oh well, whatever. It's going to resolve itself once the time has come.'
Kisuke worked in silence and an hour later, a pod that is the same as the one in his Mars Base was born. Without any hesitation, he hopped in and closed the cover before activating it. But before his consciousness disappears from his body, Kisuke said out loud, "Please take care of me~ It'll be terrible if Chaos notices this."
The moment he completed his sentence, Kisuke closed his eyes and a thin barrier instantly covered the cave. But aside from that, nothing else happened.
.
.
.
Before he opened his eyes, Kisuke prepared his acting face once again. But before he could even start, he heard a woman's voice, [Oh? You're finally awake.]
Kisuke could feel something poking his cheek and slowly opened his eyes, "What are you doing?"
Of course, the woman didn't understand him and just continued her monologue, [Still, what a curious creature. Your soul goes into complete inactivity whenever you go to sleep. Are you actually dying while you're sleeping?]
Kisuke slapped away her finger with his small hand and sat up. The short white-haired green-eyed Eltoude woman beside his 'oversized' bed is called Stralit Luxeux, one of the two Eltoude representatives that were assigned here in the world with a twin planets system called Luxato Abtor.
As the name implies, the two strongest species in this world are the Luxatos and Abtors, but unlike the Draconic Deus, the two species were at war for full domination. Luxatos are short Elf-like beings with a single horn on their forehead and it seems that they are adept at using Elemental Magic. Meanwhile, the Abtors are humanoid beasts that are adept in body strengthening.
The two species had their own planets, but the two never got along. But one day, the Abtors suddenly mounted an invasion. Normally, this wasn't really a problem since they are equal in strength, however, out of nowhere, Abtors with mechanical parts suddenly started appearing on their side, boosting their strength significantly.
Thankfully, the Luxatos got outside assistance before they were annihilated.
In terms of relative strength, this world was way weaker than Draconic Deus, but also thanks to that, the Evies didn't send their strongest forces to capture it and the Etouldes didn't want to provoke any large-scale response so they could only keep the status quo until they could pull out the Luxatos from this world or expel the Abtor that had taken Evie's side.
'That sounds nice, but from the looks of it, this is just a large-scale testing grounds for the Evies for their [Mechanical Conversion] while the Etouldes are only trying to figure out this technology of theirs. In other words, a big playground for the two factions.', thought Kisuke while he's rubbing his cheek. Aside from some names, this is all that he figured out in this 'confinement' for the past week.
"I don't understand what you are saying.", Kisuke replied to her with his squeaky voice.
Starlit sighed and muttered loudly, [It's really inconvenient not to understand you. We've already gathered enough data from your language so there's that method... But the sting from it might cause a misunderstanding.]
'That method?', Kisuke wondered if it's the same thing they mentioned on his first day here, 'I just hope they'd force me so I can finally leave this place properly.'
But while Kisuke was thinking this with a poker face, Starlit was staring at him with sharp eyes, [Should I just force it?]
Kisuke tried his best not to change his facial muscles.
In the end, Starlit picked up Kisuke from his collar and started carrying him somewhere. Of course, Kisuke pretended to struggle, but not enough that she would accidentally drop him or change her mind.