"... What did you say? I think I must have misheard.""I"m sorry, but you didn"t. Your people were sacrificed and subjected to such terrible deaths only to make mana stones."
Being the one to bring the terrible news to lady Grishu, Xi and Chad, Dax kept a completely blank expression as he slowly and clearly told them about the findings Lux had made while she observed.
"All this suffering, for something so trivial?... Why?"
"Most likely because of me."
Directing the source of their anger to himself still while remaining completely without any expression, Dax continued explaining in a calm tone of voice.
"I"m a threat to the Empire which suddenly appeared out of nowhere, as they needed to suddenly increase their fighting capabilities while expanding their standing army, all options to secure resupply were considered… It was actually a quite logical response, to be honest."
As if something snapped inside her as she heard that, Grishu flapped her wings as she gathered the ambient mana around her and charged at Dax in a fit of rage.
"Logical!? Do you have any idea how much we suffered!?"
Creating a sword out of a bright red crystal, Grishu overworked her fatigued body as she slashed at Dax with deadly intent. Instead of catching or blocking the blade he took a half step to the side as Grishu committed, evading the strike with minimal effort Dax avoided the blade hitting anything vital before he simply grasped the blade with his bare hand, completely ignoring the blade as it dug into his hand.
"Yeah, I do. But as the person I need to be right now I can"t have something as trivial as emotions affecting my judgement at this time."
Releasing his grip on Grishu"s blade when he had confirmed she had calmed down to a point where she wouldn"t strike at him once more, Dax silently checked on the function of his injured hand, finding it to be fully operational as he left the room.
"Haaa… That was scary."
Only when Dax finally left the room did Lux seem to start breathing once more as she wiped the building sweat off her face.
"Please don"t ever do that again, Dax has an extremely short fuse when something has already ticked him off."
"Angry! I"m the one-"
"Lady Grishu, he was just about to kill you."
Being more experienced in dealing with Dax"s temperaments than Grishu, Chad was bathed in a cold sweat as he spoke in an unsteady and shaking voice which made lady Grishu realize that he was speaking the truth.
"Yeah, qiton"s a generally terrifying, but if there"s anything you need to fear then it"s a calm looking one. The more p.i.s.sed off they are, the calmer they appear on the outside."
"That"s-"
"Impossible? Or were you about to say strange? Qiton"s are made for the express purpose of fighting wars, so their brains are wired differently. Well, that"s just something to think about in the future, I look forward to a long and cooperative relations.h.i.+p between the Ta"ai people and our organization. The relocation will start in half an hour, make sure your people are ready then."
Wanting to make sure Dax didn"t smash anything too important due to his rage, Lux turned to leave when she remembered something and her blank expression turned into a grin.
"Oh, right. Chad and Xi have something to tell you, good luck you two~"
"Wha!-"
"T-that"s!-"
Making both Chad and Xi blush heavily as they involuntarily reveal what she was hinting at, Lux"s grin turned full as she finally left the new family alone to talk things over.
"Now, where did Dax go?... Over there."
Connecting for a split second to the ICI network, Lux quickly located Dax"s IFF beacon and hurried over to the outer wall, only to find something unexpected.
"..."
"Ehehehe~"
Feeling the onset of a sudden headache Lux took a deep breath as she ma.s.saged both of her temples, then took another deep breath before finally asking.
"Um, Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"What the f.u.c.k is going on here?"
"I would like to know that as well, it all sort of just happened."
While the phrase "surrounded by flowers" might always have sounded a bit pretentious in Lux"s mind, right at this current moment, it was exactly what was happening. With Solaris sitting to his left and hugging Dax"s side while letting out sounds like a love struck middle schooler while her wings were flapping so fast they were turning into a blur, Alice sitting to his right with a completely flushed face as Dax patted her head with careful motions and finally, Lilly sitting in Dax"s lap with a smug expression on her face as the tips of her ears were almost steaming red, Lux felt at a complete loss for words.
"No, for real through. How did this happen?"
"Well I was out here colling my head and they sort of just flocked to me out of nowhere."
"Okay then… Dax."
Hardly able to accept the current situation, Lux seemed to zone out for a short moment before a proximity alert snapped her out of it.
"Yeah I see it, sorry I need to get back to it."
"Eh, wai-"
Before Lilly even managed to complain Dax had removed her from his lap, then he jumped down from the wall and after a brief delay to time it correctly he jumped up and latched on to a pa.s.sing CAS-7A and disappeared off into the distance.
"We need to get to it again, take up defensive positions, we"re going to have company in a moment. Solaris I need you up high, Lilly and Alice go find Terra, move out to the secondary landing zone and secure it immediately."
Sensing the sudden urgency in Lux"s voice as she had completely killed her emotions and went into full combat mode, none of the girls doubted her commands as they got to it immediately.
"Got it, I"m going!"
Collecting a ma.s.sive amount of mana in her wings, Solaris put on her Reaper"s mask as she shot off into the sky, quickly disappearing from sight, at the same time Lilly and Alice also sprang into action and jumped out over the outer wall without hesitation. Creating a wind magic spell, Lilly killed most of her vertical speed and increased her horizontal as she went into a full on mana enhanced sprint. Alice chose to rely on technology rather than her vastly enhanced body as she was caught mid air by her exoskeleton which she had gotten rather skilled at operating remotely, entering the suit mid air as its boosters lit up and started a low glide over the ground towards the secondary landing site where the GE-05"s landed.
"... Dax really found some great subordinates. How does he keep doing that?"
Reminiscing for a short moment as a series of Viper cruise missiles were launched behind her, Lux had a thin smile on his face for a moment before returning to the task at hand.
"ICI confirm strike mission, task 540 mills for ultra long range terrestrial type strike, send mana disruption payloads in creeping wave fire pattern on relative coordinates +01 +29 -11, dispersion level 19."
[FIRE ORDER RECEIVED, COMMENCING BOMBARDMENT.]
"Hopefully that buys enough time for you Iris, it"s all on you now…"
-
"Show us the spell formation again."
"And modify the base element, we want to isolate the fourth layer in the formation."
"Got it."
"02, work on stabilizing some more patients in the meantime, you know how the med bays work by now right?"
"I do, they are extremely fascinating."
Inside a tent set up in the middle of the Ta"ai castle, Iris was currently working at the most important part of the operation: Gaining an understanding of the crystal parasite by making a perfect copy. To that end, she was working closely with the homunculi twins 01 and 02 as they were what one could describe as subject matter experts, having created the parasite themselves. After having finished up a.n.a.lysing the base from and samples collected from the field, Iris now tried to exploit a suspected weakness in the spell"s fourth layer which was not an easy task as the formation itself had over 900 layers. Luckily those kind of problems were perfect for Iris as she had an insanely high apt.i.tude for lateral thinking due to the subprocessor which had been installed in her spine just after birth, allowing her brain to develop while depending on its advantages.
"Like this?"
Creating the extremely complex spell formation from memory, the homunculi 01 extended out her claws as she created a compound spell so complex that its overlapping runic formations made it look like a black sphere.
"Yeah, that"s perfect."
"As we suspected there"s something wrong with that layer."
"Why is it so sloppy when it"s integral to forming the crystalline structure?"
"Because the old master was busy with some other project when he was made to do this instead."
"Ah, well that works out perfect for us."
"The unmodified biological mind really is something sloppy by nature."
"Good thing that race"s like Dax"s creators were smart enough to improve upon the design."
Having found an exploit she could work with, Iris started using the ma.s.sive server farm which had been transported on site to test her results.
"Wait, was Dax created?"
"Yeah, just like you and your sister."
"His creators were just way smarter."
"Instead of improving in an already flawed formation, they created something from scratch."
"And as far as I know, qiton"s were not the only race they created."
"So that"s why…"
Having learned that their new master was a type of homunculi just like herself, something slowly started to change within 01, suddenly the words he spoke to her and her sister inside that dark room held an entirely new meaning.
(What is this?... I thought my old master completely removed that functionality from us. It seems he really was a fool.)