Chereads / It Started With Devils & Artefacts / Chapter 34 - Back to The Base

Chapter 34 - Back to The Base

"Hi" Regular Speech

'Hi' Thought

"(Hi)" Speaking through a mechanically synthesised voice

"[Hi]" Marcus communicating through technology

[Hi] Quinella/Aurora talking

*"Hi"* Speech imbued with power

*Hi* Emphasis or Sound Effect

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Carmilla groggily opened her eyes as she started looking around. She was feeling fantastic… sort of. 

Her body was extremely drained in a very positive manner.

While it's good, it's bad at the same time.

[You're finally up. For an Ultimate Class Vampire you sure do sleep a lot.] The silver-haired vampire queen snapped out from her drowsiness when she heard an unfamiliar female voice.

Her eyes ended up on an extremely beautiful woman with silver platinum hair… it looked as if it was made from some sort of glass which reflects colours from it…

"Who...are you?" 

[I am our Master's Assistant, the Artificial Intelligence Quinella. I am the one  powering all the systems in this place.] The woman announced with an arrogant tone.

The Vampire queen could only frown a little bit. While she can understand where the arrogance comes from. But, isn't she a… machine?

[No I am not. I am not something as primitive as a machine. Our Master has already passed that stage when he was fourteen. Do you think he will stay in such an early stage for that long? No, by this point, I am a soul inhabiting his Technomancy.] She said while arrogantly brushing her hair.

"I see… my apologies then. Is there a reason why you were waiting for me?" Carmilla tried to get into her diplomatic persona for a second, not thinking about the possibility that this artificial intelligence can read minds...

[Apart from giving you some gadgets and telling you that we will be working together to set up security around the vampire countries. We are back at base, and you need to get a shower.] Quinella said while frowning and pointing at the Vampire Queen's current looks.

The fellow Silver-haired woman looked at herself. She was bathed in her man's seed. A consequence of her actions. She tried to play with him and, in return, got played like some sex toy.

A new experience that's for sure. For a vampire with a couple hundred years of experience… While she did sleep with a few men a long time ago, all of which turned into her meals afterwards, this was something completely new.

She was outperformed and fucked into submission. 

"I will clean myself up. Is...our Master around?" She asked about the elephant in the room.

[No, he left hours ago. You have been asleep for 14 hours. The flight back lasted less than an hour. The airships are already docked in and the S.P.B.A. alongside the crew already left the place. You and your assistant are the only people left on this ship. But don't worry, Master has assigned a maid for you two.]

Carmilla felt quite ashamed hearing that. She was out for that long!? She doesn't even sleep that long regularly! This just shows how dominated she was

Her eyes went to Elmenhilde who was sitting there with an embarrassed look. The girl looks subdued as if she was and is trying to look as small as possible.

"I see… It was my fault… the man was… hard to resist…" The Vampire Queen finally admitted that she bit more than she can chew.

[Of course he is. Our Master grew up around Serafall Leviathan and Venelana Gremory. Two of his pillars. Serafall spent years trying to convert him to reincarnate and become her Queen.]

The silver-haired Vampire queen's eyes went wide hearing that… Right… He is Solomon's successor and he has his Pillars! Wait! Serafall and Venelana? Those are like high profile devils!

[Oh, so you finally understood? Good. Master decided to play nice so you ended up as just his relief stress.]

The Vampire beauty started laughing hearing that. It was a good sort of laugh. Though her whole body is tired… she needs some blood…

"I was used as a way to relieve stress! This is amusing! And quite refreshing! Can't remember the last time I've felt like this!"

[Good that you are finding some entertainment in all this. But we have things to do.] Quinella said with some frown. She thought that she would be able to rile up this woman. The assistant wanted to put her in place for trying to use her Master. But, it appears this Vampire only found it amusing…

~~~~~~Marcus, Earlier~~~~~~

Right, so what is a soul?

In layman terms, it is a conscious energy… emotion, or something along those lines.

The best example for this would be cross-referencing the readings I got from Ddraig. 

Dragons, at their earliest forms, are just massive expanses of energy. Which developed consciousness… And when you develop consciousness you, hand in hand, starts developing emotions. 

This is what I observed from Quinella. She was the best test for that.

From using unnecessary actions like cuddling. Which she doesn't need as there is no purpose and she doesn't feel anything, It's not even in her programming to do that.

Those are signs of a soul. And now that I have the necessary data from the Graal gear, I can apply the filters for it…

Sure enough… I finally was able to see… souls…

Putting on the Aurora glasses I looked at a mirror and saw… my soul. It was… bright… and purple… Did my psionic energy do something to it?

After that, I added the filter into the Diamond Core Heart network and from then on I was able to see souls in people in my birth country.

I even checked Kouh. I was able to see the souls of devils. Like Sona and Rias. Their souls were… much darker than other reincarnated devils. In truth, I could see a darkening slowly happening to these reincarnated souls.

If I could cross-reference this… this means that Big G had quite a bit of understanding about Souls. As he used similar filters for souls. He used this to easily control the way in which souls he accepts into his Heaven and which ones he doesn't and sends them to hell.

'Well whatever… I don't care about this cliche nonsense. The dude truly wanted everything *his* way. And it quite worked. Now, however, he is gone and all his perfect work derailed quite a bit.'

Instead of thinking about the darkening and whatever, I focused on something more important. Turning numbers into souls…

The key for that is the logs of the Sephiroth Graal gear. Not the cups themselves. But how the gear records the souls.

After finding that, I added the formula to our research on souls.

"Quinella, dearest, if you would?" I asked after pressing enter; the process has started.

I watched the bar slowly raising from 0 to 0.01%

[Of course, leave this to me. I already started cross-referencing the moment we entered into our territory.]

As she said that, the bar went from 0.01% to 47%, then in the next moment to 100%, from there on out, data started flowing and calculations were being made at a rapid speed.

My beautiful assistant has diverted most of her available processing power for this. My eyes could barely keep up with the maths happening in front of me.

Instead of watching this, I went to the projects folder and checked something else.

Project: Biological Assistant Quinella: 47%

Then going up to 48%, followed by 48.5%... Yep, it's beautiful to watch that percentage slowly go up with this specific project. Other projects long ago went into part 2 or even into successor projects.

Simply put, I am leaving the bulk of work to Quinella and instead I went over to development projects.

The Docks and the last stretch of my original railway designs are almost over.

Then instead of that, I went over to something I missed… and that is where I am going to dock my airships?

So for that, I accessed the satellite images and cross-referenced them with aeroplane paths. Finding the best spot where no planes would ever smash by accident and stuff like that.

Honestly, I don't care about planes and stuff… but, the garbage will fall into my backyard and that is annoying…

To get over this, I found the perfect height I can use and it's not that far from the space centre too. 

So, while Quinella was doing her calculations and building the bridges between life, soul and body. I am designing the airship port for my airships.

And of course, checking the current project running in the Space Centre, the heart for Ars Almadel Salomonis is almost complete.

What is truly going to be interesting is launching it into space!

Unlike the others, there won't be any rockets, or something as primitive as that. No, it's going to be accelerated into space. Through a magically built mass accelerator. Courtesy of Gundam.

Sometimes you only need to watch anime to learn a good replacement method for rockets.

After checking the Space Centre I returned to my work on the airship docks. 

Taking the shape of a tower. Stretching it close to a kilometre. This is of course after checking multiple sources and making sure it wasn't going to hit any planes or other stuff.

Once the form was taken, I started drawing the building in my main workshop because, for once, I missed working here. 

The tower building quickly turned into a round shape. Making around 5 areas where a Daedalus-class airship can dock, at one level. In total, there will be three levels where it can dock.

Making it a building where 15 Airships can be docked…

Walking around the building and inspecting it from different angles, I started working on the interior of the building…

'Hmm… a centre of some sorts? A communications centre? If I were to build one here I can make Quinella be able to keep in touch with her processing power. But it is going to take time to do that with my Apsos-class station and the smaller satellites I am planning to build…'  

Without wasting any more time, I started to design the interior of this airship docks.

Well, along the way I have decided to add some more use to it after remembering the Mass magic accelerator in the space centre.

I can repurpose it and make the airship docks capable of collecting ships from space and pulling them into the docks.

Or sending them into space as well…

"Whoa! Master, you just came back and you are already working on a mega building!?" Serafall gilded next to me and hugged me. Tightly taking in my smell…

Is she a dog?

"Heh… you had some fun with that Vampire Queen?" The black-haired devil beauty asked me with a coy smile.

"I did… she is an amusing woman. I will be keeping her around." I said with a casual shrug as I made the building spin for me with a finger motion.

"Oh… I see… she tried to seduce you but she was clueless about your origins and things like that." Serafall said with a happy nod. From the looks of it, she is happy with this development…

"Yes. Now I have the vampires under my banner. Mostly females though. Which is quite fascinating." I said while remembering the ratio of females to males vampires that I have.

"Hehehe, vampire maid squad?" Serafall asked cutely. Oh, I know that she wants me to indulge in my sins but that can wait.

I flicked with my finger on her forehead.

"Oww!" She pulled back and massaged her forehead.

"No. Maybe in the future, after Carmilla solidified her position. Now she is going to rebuild… after getting back on her feet that is." I said that with a knowing smile.

Serafall lewdly grinned after seeing my expression.

"Right now, enough about this mundane stuff and into more interesting stuff." I motioned at the building.

"Is...that a…"

"Airship dock."

"Ohh… we are truly moving into sci-fi!" She quickly started walking around the holographic design.

"How big is it going to be!?" 

"The whole area is going to cover around 5 kilometres. The building itself is going to be around 1 kilometre in height." 

"Why... five kilometres? That's quite a bit of land!" She asked with wide eyes.

"Because of these…" I said to her as I zoomed out the design for her. Just outside the docks, a few kilometres outside the building, dagger-shaped structures are surrounding the airship docks.

"What are those!?" She asked in a super curious tone.

"Have you ever played the civilisation series before?" I asked her.

"Umm...no? Too nerdy for me!" 

I deadpanned at her for a moment. Before sighing.

"It's an elevator."

"To where?"

"Space…"

"..."

"..."

"Oh, okay…" She said that with a nod… before her eyes went wide.

"WAIT! WHAT!?" She asked with disbelief.

"Yeah. At first, I was thinking of just making docks for airships on Earth but then I realised that I can use them as truly REAL docks in multiple senses.

Meaning for both the airships and the spaceships. Honestly, there is no difference there. The Confiscator can travel space just as easily." 

"...It can!?"

"Duh… it's fully sealed. I only need to do some small retrofits and it's spaceworthy."  I casually rolled my eyes at her. Daedalus-class is the cream of the crop of designing! I spent a whole two days on that!

"Wow… just wow… So how is it going to work!? How are they going to be lifted into space!?" She asked— nearly pleaded.

"The dagger shaped buildings you see there are accelerator circles fused with space magic circles. Courtesy of my basic techniques of M.T.M. and Space motion magic from Caliburn."

"M.T.M and Caliburn allowed this to happen!?" She asked with disbelief.

"I know right? Remember me working in my garage with Castor? That's quite literally the same tech, only on a massive scale." 

I motioned for the hologram to activate. And the dagger-shaped building glowed, sending pillars of light into space. Creating a corridor, inside this magic corridor, there are several magic circles.

They are the very same accelerator circles used in almost all my stuff. From the guns, rifles, to the Diamond Core Heart.

"Whoa… so it created a corridor which is the lift?" Serafall finally connected the dots.

"A technomancy version of a lift. It completely negates gravity and accelerates the vessel right into space.

Honestly speaking, it's far more powerful than any rocket is. If one does its maths right it could easily launch the vessel into a specific trajectory right into deep space." I used the holograms to show a simulation of how Confiscator could fly off on this.

"Oh… like a slingshot or something that was ejected…" She said with an awed look.

"Yep. Abusing the shit out of gravity while ignoring it completely, at the same time." I said while chuckling, then I noticed that my favourite blonde was not here.

"And where is Latia? I thought she was with you?" I asked Serafall.

She pouted at me for a second.

"She is busy in the capital. The HQ of your mundane company is up and running. For now, it's just an office floor. But, it will be rapidly expanding soon enough. Latia is waiting for a 'reason' to expand again. Like, for example, the official opening of the shops." The current Leviathan explained to me.

"I see… Well, you can all play this game if you want. It sounds too much of a drag." I shrugged at her. I see no reason why not to just build a skyscraper. It will be the first one on this side of Europe, to be perfectly honest. Maybe as big as that Skyscraper in Dubai? wait! It's not even built yet!

"Right… I don't know why you are grinning like that but I need to return to the Underworld. A meeting. And you most likely know what kind of meeting it is." She said with a sigh. I, for a second, was confused.

"I do?"

"It's about you! Silly!" She clarified with an exaggerated sigh.

"Me? Strange. I didn't do anything to the devils for them to be all talking about me." I slightly stroke my chin, thinking for a bit.

"Your invasion of the vampires. Most of the pantheons are talking about it! Even the more reclusive ones like the Irish one are asking questions! What you did is big!"

"Big? Don't be ridiculous. It was not even an invasion. I didn't bring out big guns. I didn't even initiate offensive protocols for Quinella. You are all taking this far too seriously." I shook my head in disbelief. I haven't even prepared land vehicles or artillery, not to mention, real Gundams.

Not that I would start something like an 'invasion'. I don't do wars. Even if I decide to do that then I would simply follow what I did in Command and Conquer games. First orbital bombardment then send in some bombers followed by artillery and then send in tanks and for the last the infantry.

One needs to follow specific invasion protocol…

"...If you say so." She shook her head. It would seem the way we see stuff is different. Well, I'm gonna make her play some strategy games so that she would see how I do conquests…

"Anyway. I have to go. A meeting to attend to. While you should rest. It was a long day for you." She said that while snuggling into me. Behaving like a cat this time.

Much better than a dog. Yes, cats are the best. Especially the lions.

After a quick kiss, she walked out towards the teleportation point.

Leaving me alone in the workshop. My eyes went on the airship docks.

'This is going to be good. I will be able to do some moonwalking… no puns intended…

Now that I think about it… I punched through the moon first before even walking on it!

How strange is that!?'

Snorting for a bit. I saved up the project and started walking towards the living rooms. Time to find my cat and maids!

What an interesting day today, got the grail sacred gear, had fun with Vampire Queen and started designing a space elevator…

It's one of the more productive days…

~~~~~~Latia Astaroth~~~~~~

The blonde beauty looked around at her new office. There was some satisfaction on her face. She thought that she would have one of these kinds of offices one day. Maybe when she is in her thirties or forties. Knowing how hard it is to please devils which are too attached to their old style of bureaucracy.

Where one needs to work twenty plus years to get some sort of promotion to even get an office of your own.

Even though she is a member of the pillar clan. Her being from a branch clan requires her to work extra hard.

Nonetheless, she brushed those thoughts aside and focused on now. Her being summoned like that and then being contracted to Marcus was the golden ticket to the top.

Now she is the Head executive of Goldman Industries. Even before becoming twenty years old! While she had to fake her age to eighteen as she needs to be an adult to work full-time, it doesn't really matter.

She was at the head of a company that will dominate the market in many things. Well, she would have preferred that this company would be worldwide. But, Marcus only cares about his small country. Honestly, he was just being petty.

Latia knows full well that many people will ask and even insist that he should open its branch stores all over the world but Marcus won't do it. Simply put he won't be selling any of his stuff outside his county boundaries.

Why? Because he decided so. And what can she do about it? Honestly, the blonde tried bedroom tactics, seducing, persuasion, reason… nothing worked. She even told him that he doesn't even need to care about the mundane side of things.

Yet, he decided that for once… the world shall spin around him… instead of money…

After hearing that she banged her head into the wall. And decided not to question him anymore… arguing with a nut inventor is pointless…

No wonder her uncle doesn't have a wife or anyone he likes...it's hard to work with people like that. It's scary enough that they have the firepower to be stubborn and unreasonable.

Thankfully she likes and even loves her boyfriend. In the end, she doesn't care. The only thing she cares about in this situation is her clan profiting and fulfilling her boyfriend's orders.

Speaking of orders…

She just received an update on land acquisition…

Using her fancy laptop she went over and checked this update.

Her eyebrow slightly went up.

"What in… he wants that much land!? Why does he want that much land? Aurora do you know?" Latia spoke without restraint. She knows well enough that the A.I. is always listening and ready to assist.

[Yes. Our Master in all of his haste forgot that he doesn't have a place to dock his ships so he started planning for this.] That moment the screen changed and the blonde saw the design for airship docks.

"This… this is going to be humongous…" 

[The main docking building will be around 1 kilometre tall. It will be able to hold 15 Daedalus-class airships. In three levels. While the true reason for such large land is the space elevator…"]

"..."

"..."

"...excuse me? Did you just say… space elevator?" Latia needed to double-check on the last word. She just heard 'space elevator'!

[Correct. I think it's about time we build something like that. Space is vast and there is an ample amount of things to discover!]

The blonde beauty just leaned into the leather chair. Her brain tried to process what she just heard…

They will be going to space soon! And it won't just be a one-time thing. No, this thing will make space travel a regular occurrence. Making it normal to travel in and back from space with enormous vessels as well. Daedalus-class airships can be easily transformed into a cargo ship too. It was built in a way that the hangar section can be changed into a cargo hold.

Meaning that they can easily visit other planets and collect rare or even never seen before resources. 

Honestly, she knew she would have to go to space or some parallel dimension soon, especially when her life is tied to someone who can casually design a space elevator… 

However, she thought that it would be much later. Maybe when Marcus does something down to earth first…

"How long… how long is this going to take to be built, according to your estimation?" Latia asked curiously.

[Less than a year. Even with my capacities.]

The blonde beauty slightly raised her eyebrow. That's… fast! 

A kilometre tall building! With smaller twelve buildings which are hundreds of metres tall… and it is going to be done in less than a year!?

She is not even mentioning the ritual like carvings on the surface of this place. Or the underground stuff he is going to build which is a massive station for the gathering of soldiers or other equipment…

[I am still going through multiple sets of calculations and running simulations to make sure it's possible and that the space elevator won't mess with the planet.

Nonetheless, I suggest you start acquiring land for our Master. He is quite embarrassed that he forgot about the docks and wants to fix that problem soon.] Aurora said with an amused tone. Assuming she finds a blushing Marcus cute.

"I see… then I will start with this. Most of my jobs are already done. Now it's just daily management." Latia said with a nod, she had a thoughtful look.

Honestly. The land acquisition of this scale is going to be annoying. For one, she is barely keeping herself under the radar as it is. The amount of land she bought is already staggering.

If not for the fact that she is free to use any means. Which is hypnosis and mind-altering. She would have been under a magnifying glass. Their company already owns more than any other company or private person in this land.

'I suppose sinking my claws into the government is not out of the question.' The blonde thought to herself, she needs the minister responsible for land management under her control.

Thankfully, she can use any means and no one is going to say anything. Vampires rule their lands with hypnosis for hundreds of years. She can do that too…

Honestly, she would prefer if they would take over the country.

'I should bring this up to Marcus. He wants to do things in the open. Taking over the nation would be much better than just market control…' Latia thought while stroking her chin. Honestly, doing this kind of thing is much, much better than staying in the Underworld and doing some boring stuff in a barely moving government.

With a smirk worthy of a devil she started writing emails to her clans-men. She needs to discuss the best way of doing both things at the same time.

~~~~~~Marcus~~~~~~

Once I was back in the living room, I was having a hard time deciding what to do next. Should I go to my bed and read some stuff? Or watch TV?

Thinking for a bit I decided to watch some TV. After spending several hours designing the method of uplifting ancient recorded videos and showing them in full 8k resolution. I haven't used the TV much for anything else…

'Oh yeah we had some movie nights, but those are recorded movies, not tv…' 

Without wasting much time, I dropped on the couch and took some pillows. Making it into a makeshift seat. After getting comfortable I looked for the remote…

It was on the other side of the table…

"Right… improvisation it is then…" 

Lifting my hand and pointing at the tv remote, a purple glow surrounded the remote and it started to float towards me.

"A couch potato dream… psionic powers… I could make a fortune from that alone…" As I mused to myself, the remote ended up in my hand. I pressed the TV button and the black screen came to life.

The first thing I saw was the first channel… it was my birth country's first channel… or as I used to call it, The Old men channel… The only thing I used to remember about it is the concerts and some national events… or even the pope election stuff happening in Italy… uhh...even the reporter used to be bored talking about those events…

So, without wasting time I flipped to BTV or also known as the Baltic channel, the only thing I could remember about this one is Pokemon at 16:00 and WWE in the late evenings on Friday night…

Switch…

TV3… Simpsons and Friday movie night…

Right...switch, switch…

Eventually, I ended up on the Scandinavian channels… then, Germany channels… skipped French altogether. Their language makes me laugh… while I have nothing against laughing, I want to watch something interesting…

Eventually I ended up on the Discovery channel…

Yep… at this moment I remembered that I was living on 2007 Earth. And the tv shows are old and well new to this period. But they were too old for me because I saw them a long time ago…

So, it was strange seeing stuff like West Coast Customs. It's a kind of good tuning car show. Based in LA… 

Without wasting any more time I decided to watch this…

It feels nostalgic and quite amusinG watching things being done in the old style. No robotic hands. No holograms, no A.I. assistants. No changes to the engine. If it was me I would tune it up to my standards and put more electronics just to increase the overall performance of the car.

This does remind me that I have not fixed the BMW in my garage…

In the end, it was nice seeing classics on tv like that. After that I watched some dudes getting gold from the bottom of the lake…

Reminded me that series like that exist…

"Meh…" 

I would rather collect old ships...wrecks…

Oh, oh, OH…

A 'smile' appeared on my face… oh yes… This is going to be *Good*…

I brushed my finger and a hologram appeared in front of me.

Quickly going to google I entered something simple.

Bismarck sink location…

And yep… it's right there… even on the map… these guys… they like giving away such free info…

Opening another window this time. A project…

Project Scavenger… collecting shipwrecks… because why not?

Going through more known ships like

Musashi, Yamato, Bismarck, the world's biggest warships. Then of course the most cultural ship of them all. The Titanic…

All of them were tagged and added to the Project after that I did go to Wiki and started looking for famous ships like the trio of the worlds largest warships.

"Hmm? What in… Enterprise? Wait… hold on…" thinking for a bit… I tried to recall this ship being sunk… my eyes widened for a bit… no It was not sunk in my previous life… a butterfly effect? Or is it because the supernatural is real? I bet Susanoo sank it because he wanted to figure out how unsinkable it was.

A God's petty revenge for being conquered by Americans...

Nonetheless, after tagging such a legend of a ship for collection, I went to others…

Noticing another wreckage by the name Belfast…

'Well, you won't end up as a museum exhibit in London that's for sure…' 

Tagging this ship as well, I continued to look for more…

Eventually I decided that, for now, these are enough as I will need to adjust my docks and turn them into drydocks as well as a shipyard…

But, for now, I need to re-learn my history. It seems some facts are different. So, for that, I went to the video library on the tv and went over some documentaries.

More specifically, sea battles, which ships sunk, how different the wars were because of those.

With a smile, I noticed an American documentary about their Legendary Aircraft carrier Enterprise… with a smirk I started watching it. Oh, yeah tell me where it sank and stuff like that… 

I will need that…

After getting myself into the show, I felt a couple of presences. Before long I was surrounded from both sides.

A familiar smell assaulted my nose. It was the smell of wild nature… 

"You would make good friends with Ares. That brother of mine likes everything which makes things explode." The Moon Goddess said softly as my hand wrapped around her while my other went around the lion girl on the other side.

"No doubt… it is art," I said with a smile as I looked at the massive ship in action.

She snorted after hearing that.

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