A New Base

Kisuke, Serafall, and Ophis entered a stone building that is only composed of a single room with a big complicated magic circle drawn in the middle of it.

"This is... A teleportation magic circle?" asked Serafall.

Kisuke nodded and answered, "Indeed. This will take us to the place where I would create my new hideout." He then brought up the magic circle and made some necessary adjustments to it.

While watching him work, Serafall continued to implore in confusion, "But isn't this too big? Is it overly complicated so no one will be able to trace you? Couldn't you just destroy any information from here after the transfer?"

However, Kisuke shook his head, "You got it wrong, Sera-chan. This is just a basic teleportation magic circle without unnecessary complications to hide its destination. Take a closer look."

Serafall approached the magic circle Kisuke was working on and observed and calculated it for a few minutes before scratching her head in confusion, "...Huh? Just where is this going? And the destination isn't the Dimensional Gap..."

Kisuke grinned and said as he put back the magic circle on the floor, "Yosh~. The adjustments are done~." He then faced Serafall and Ophis, "Are you ready to go?"

Ophis walked to his side and grabbed his right hand, citing her intentions. Serafall, on the other hand, hesitated, "Is it really fine to bring me? This might become detrimental to you. If you wanted a hideout for yourself, you shouldn't really invite me over."

Kisuke smiled and replied, "As I've said, I trust you. As simple as that," Kisuke then started smiling wryly, "Besides, if I didn't trust you, Sona-chan will probably sulk."

Serafall froze for a moment before smiling back, "Is that so? Then let's go! I'm really curious as to where this is going~," Copying Ophis, Serafall grabbed Kisuke's free hand.

"Y-you..."

"Hmm?"

Shaking his head, Kisuke activated the magic circle, "No, it's nothing. Let's go."

The three of them then disappeared in motes of light.

A few seconds later, the group reappeared on a reddish ground and the first thing they noticed is the red sandstorm in their immediate vicinity and the black sky that is peeking through it along with the distant sun.

"...What?" muttered Serafall as she looked around and saw a black totem beside them, emitting a gentle warm light along with its magic inscription. She figured out that there's an invisible barrier around that separates them from the outside, "J-just where are we?"

She doesn't recall any place like this exists, 'A night sky while the sun is still up? Just where did Ki-tan find this space? And that sun... Why does it feel like it's the real sun but only a bit distant?'

But instead of answering her, Kisuke reminded Serafall, "Sera-chan, as a precaution, please put up a magic barrier around your skin and filter the air you're breathing in."

After Serafall followed his instruction, Kisuke then proceeded to inspect the vicinity of the barrier and the totem beside them, "Hmm... I guess this is a success? I should first stabilize the atmosphere and do another round of disinfection."

Kisuke then put out several pieces of equipment from his inventory that would purify the air around them further and kill any microbes that could possibly be around them.

Serafall was incredibly curious about where they are right now, but she waited for Kisuke to finish his work. Half an hour later, Kisuke nodded in satisfaction and Serafall immediately assaulted him with questions, "Hey! Ki-tan! Why is this place so strange!? Just where are we!?"

Kisuke stood proudly and feigned a cough, "Ehem... I don't know if we're the first ones, but welcome to Mars, Sera-chan~! More specifically, on the top of the highest volcano on Mars, Olympus Mons~!"

"...Mars?"

"Yep~!"

"The red planet?"

"Yep~!"

Serafall suddenly grabbed Kisuke's shihakusho and yelled at his face, "How!?"

"Uhmm... We teleported?"

"Ughh!" Serafall knew that she asked the wrong question due to shock and released Kisuke, "Seriously? You want to establish your hideout here?"

"Yep~, what's wrong with it?"

Serafall sighed before answering him, "Indeed, this is one of the best places to hide if you don't want others to find you, however, since this place is not stationary, one has to continuously adjust your magic formula to teleport here."

"Just teleporting here is risky enough because with one wrong calculation, you may end up teleporting to an empty space and if you're unlucky, you won't be able to teleport back to Earth since it's on the move too, making you stranded in a hostile environment until you die."

"Not just that, with the hostile environment on Mars itself, you have to continually stabilize it. There's also a problem with the logistics since it's very complicated to come here in the first place. Aside from the secrecy, it's even harder to maintain a base here than in Dimensional Gap.

"To top it off, there is barely any magical energy here for you to use and your only liable source are magic batteries from Earth which will dramatically increase the cost of staying here. I only oversimplified everything, but there are a lot more complications and problems in doing this."

"Besides, you're not sure if you're the only one who established a base here despite the difficulty of making one. After all, factions that have enough power and technology should be capable of the same thing," Serafall put her hand on her forehead. This might sound an incredibly good idea, but it's impossible that Kisuke is the only one who had such. In hindsight, he might be even more exposed here than in Dimensional Gap. Though it's true that once he's teleported here, it'll be very hard to follow him.

"Ah, please don't worry about those. I got my bases covered even before coming here~," replied Kisuke with a thumbs up.

Serafall gave him a look of suspicion, "Hmm... Like what?"

"First of all, to arrive here, I sent this totem a few days ago to establish a foothold in this place. But not just that, I didn't stop sending out probes that will act as my data points to keep the real-time location of both Earth and Mars. As we're speaking, I'm still continuously sending out these probes around the inner Solar System."

'Probes, huh... That's indeed a good way to keep things on track. Though if he doesn't have at least a hundred of these, it won't be reliable.' Crossing her arms, Serafall asked, "And how many probes are we speaking?"

Kisuke rubbed his chin and thought for a moment, "Just a few minutes ago, it broke through the 50,000-mark."

"I see, 50,000... Wait... What!?" Serafall froze on her spot.

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Editors:

28th00: I wonder how long it's been since Phis-chama wandered Mars? She has to have wandered around the solar system at some point in her probably millions to billions of years of lifespan. Serafall is copying Phis-chama, I'm not sure if she's a good role model to emulate there Sera-chan…

Goyya: Ophis wouldn't bother the space. Humans have been blasting radio waves through that place. It's noisy as fvck.

28th00: Can't you hear Earth from a few AU away? It's massive in the amount of noise we generate.