Over a hundred years ago a small mining company named Space Moles discovered a special ore mine on an uncivilized Planet.
While I'm calling it uncivilized, this didn't mean it had no owner nor that it was never touched by human hands, it's just that it had no city established on it yet.
The Planet's real owner was the neighbor system government who had plans to make an entertainment colony on it, but, because of the lack of money, they had to postpone their plans until their financial situation recovered.
The Space Moles contacted the government asking for mining rights over the newly discovered mine but they were refused... at least officially. Behind the scenes a deal was made that allowed the Space Moles to mine in exchange of an abusive monthly donation directly to the governor's account.
Their deal continued through decades until a sneaky journalist got a hint of the corruption from an anonymous source who supposedly worked as an unregistered slave for the Space Moles.
One illegal search here, another testimonial there, and suddenly the whole case come to light as one of the biggest corruption scandals of the century, instigating enough public outrage to stop the work of 5 big colonies for a whole week.
Feeling the public pressure, the authorities were forced to act, dismantling the Space Moles company and punishing their owners with life imprisonment. The governor was also punished, but because of his many contacts, he only had all his belonging were seized and a few years of imprisonment that were soon reduced to almost nothing thanks to his excellent group of lawyers working day and night to find all possible legal means of freeing him.
After this the Planet became a symbol of corruption and nobody dared to start anything on it until it entered Golden Fang's eyes as a possible ground for the game he was developing.
-/-
"Hypocrite!"
"Thief!"
"Betrayer!"
"It's your fault!"
"How dare you!?"
"Die!"
"Die!"
"Die!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Master!? Are you okay!?"
Apollo woke up screaming on his bed covered in sweat with Rose holding his hand by his side.
His memories felt vague, like waking up after getting drunk, with only bits and pieces but not the full picture of what had happened in the past night.
His feet were throbbing, he felt his legs wounded as well, he looked at his hands and they had their palms scratched, making him conclude that he had fallen or fainted somewhere.
While little he knew about what had happened in the last night, the nightmares that haunted him were pretty clear and their words, their feelings, their despair still echoed inside his head.
It didn't matter if he consciously thought they were wrong, that he never had such intention at all and it wasn't his fault. The fact was that their pure feelings affected him way deeper than he himself acknowledged, and while it made little sense it to his logic, he couldn't just shake it off his mind.
Seeing Rose worried face by his side, Apollo did his best to act as normal. He shook his head and faked a smile.
"I'm okay. It was just a nightmare. What time is it now?"
"Master, please rest a bit more. You are pushing yourself too far."
(NOT FAR ENOUGH!)
Apollo held back his scream, not allowing it out of his mouth. He knew it better than anyone else how unfair it would be for him to direct all his anxiety at her. Even so it felt suffocating to hold it all inside, this was his responsibility as the one in command.
(Oh, yeah, the bracer!)
Since Rose wouldn't answer, he checked the bracer on his arm.
[18:41]
[Unregistered drone detected. Would you like to register it now?]
(Fuck! I wasted a whole day!)
Temporarily ignoring the warning displayed in bright yellow, Apollo turned back to Rose to ask the question under priority on his mind.
"Rose, how are the girls who were poisoned?"
"They are... still recovering... The poison spread through their bodies but they are strong girls and didn't surrender. Mint said if no problems occur they should be saved, but it will take a few days to get rid of all the poison and recover their strength."
"Good...Tell Lumina to take over Cindy's position in the HQ. Since we don't know when the Oni army will arrive, we have to remain vigilant at all times."
"Yes, Master."
"Also... have we captured any servant from Jaylee?"
"Eh?? No, we let go of the only survivor because you left without saying anything last night...If you desire, we can head back and capture right away."
"She didn't follow us?"
"Hmm... It's possible, but I didn't feel anything, and she was still fainted when we left, so it would be hard for her to catch up..."
("Hard for her to catch up"? what does this mean??)
Leaving this random question in the back of his mind, Apollo opened the mini-map and searched around.
"It seems like we have some visitors approaching the farm from the East. Gather some soldiers near here and go greet them, then bring them to us."
"Master, Daisy is..."
"Then gather the ones who are healthy, let the ones hurt take a rest."
"Yes!"
It didn't take long for the pretty boy with blue hair to appear in front of Apollo.
"Hayate? So, you survived!"
"Greetings Ped- I mean, Master Apollo. Thank you for taking care of the betrayer for us."
"Hmm, no need to thank me. I did it for myself. He also attacked me."
"Even so, you did a service to us. I wish I could have done it with my own hands, but unfortunately when I woke up it was already too late..."
"Enough of that. Why did you come here. I doubt it was just to thank us."
"It seems I misread you before. I never considered you as someone who would also be ho-"
Before Hayate could finish talking, a sharp knife was pressed against his throat.
"I-It's a joke! Sorry! I won't do it again! Can you please lower you knife now?"
"Rose, forgive him this once."
"As you wish, Master."
"Cough! Cough! Man, that's a scary one... Anyway, I wish to propose a deal!"
"..."
"While it's true that out Master lost to Jaylee, it's also true that such thing would never happen had the Oni Master not attacked us. You, on the other hand, never betrayed us and even got revenge on our behalf, so I have a good impression of you. Please allow me to join your army to fight the Oni Master, and, in exchange, you can have all intel I collected while in Negi's side."
(While I have my doubts over how much intel that would be, just adding him to the army is good enough...)
"All right. I have no reason to refuse. Just keep your tongue under control, or someone will cut it for you."
"Yes, sir!"
[Registration Complete! New drone recipe acquired!]
(Good. I'm not forcing anyone. If they wish to join themselves, it's not my fault, right?)
"All right, then, tell me what you know."
-/-
Exiting from the kitchen, Alyssa patted her belly feeling satisfied after eating a whole bunch of preserved food. This odd metalclad cave she found had all kinds of facilities inside it, from kitchen and bedrooms to toilets and maintenance rooms.
Sure, the machinery was quite outdate, something from half a century ago, but despite being twice as old as her own Master, they were well preserved and she could bet that as long as Leilani could take a look at them, they could be restored to be as good as new.
"Now the only problem as these arms...."
While her arms had started recovering, restoring broken bones is not something that can be done in a single day, even for a being like her who had accelerated regeneration modeled inside her DNA.
"Ugh... If only they were tentacles... they would recover way faster...."
That's... right, but, well, let's ignore it, please, I don't want to see any tentacles sprouting from any girls.
"We have already explored everything around here but the huge tunnel in the back... The tunnel leads down, so I doubt it will take us outside, and looking at all these giant drill armed mechs... this place is probably a mine, right? Or were they expanding it to make a whole colony under the ground? But why is the entrance a vertical hole? This really makes no sense to me..."
After finding out a few answers, more and more questions sprouted in her head, and while many of their answers were hidden in the old computers around her, without the correct password it would be hard to find them out.
"Vertical entrance... vertical entrance... vertical entrance... The only way this would make sense is if it was some kind of elevator, right? Hmm... did I miss something while looking there? We got plenty of time, let's have another look!"
Fueled by her curiosity, the carefree Alyssa continued her exploration, now a step closer to the truth...