The Second Departure

The Planning & Preparation Phase continued without any bigger surprise.... Oh wait! Cross that out! There were a few!

First, the expedition that went to get material to construct the lab came back later that afternoon with more than just material. Can you guess what they brought?

If your guess was cat girls, you guessed it right! Not one but ten of them, ready to serve! Actually there were more willing to come but their leader feared them being rejected so she let only ten come in the end.

It seems like they are having a hard time over there, even more than they expected since they had no experience on how to work without the instructions from the system or the SoW Facilities helping them out.

Then you might be asking why did they gave Apollo the crystal cores if it was going to make all those facilities stop working and make their lives enter Hell mode all over again?

Well, that's because, no matter if they have the crystal core or not, without a HQ connected, the facility simply stops working.

Then what about using the crystal core to make another HQ? But the factory is not working as well! How are you going to make the SoW? By hand?? Best luck with that! It's pretty much impossible!

That's why giving Apollo the crystal cores didn't worsen their situation at all, and even paved a path in case they were unable to sustain themselves just like what was happening right now!

Enough about that, let's go back to the main topic! As the night arrived the ten new cat girls were registered in the new barrack that had just finished being upgraded right after being constructed during the afternoon, turning them into the first ten cat girl soldiers Apollo had. Apollo wanted to test them against his plant girls soldiers but because the battle was right on the corner, he thought it was better to not risk injuring anyone.

Talking about injuries, the five new plant girls who had just born in Apollo's lab were registered as nurses in the medical camp. Yes, you read it right, nurses, not medics. Say hello to the brand new nurse outfits!

Analyzing the news Apollo theorized that there may be other medical professions, including medic, but they need to create another more advanced medical facility to unlock them, and upon further inspection in the Factory's list, he discovered a new option named Clinic had been unlocked, proving his theory was probably true.

Unfortunately there were not enough materials to build a clinic, so it was impossible to prove his theory right now, but he made sure to add it to his "to do" list so that he would remember it again once more resources were gathered.

All right but what can nurses do? Basically they can sew small wounds, apply medicines and bandage the wounds to lower the chances of any infection happening. They also have knowledge over many medicinal plants and know how to make simple medicines for common diseases like cold and to lower the temperature of someone with fever. This news brought a smile to Apollo's face as it was exactly what he needed to raise the chances of survives in the battle to come.

A little before dawn Alyssa invaded Apollo's room to announce the beast form research had been completed and the cat girls needed to be upgraded to acquire the new form. That's great but the upgrade process would take 8 hours and the upgrade center only allowed five girls to be upgraded at a time, so it would take a whole day and multiple rounds to upgrade everyone, and time was a resource that they didn't have...

Apollo decided to leave the cat girls doing their upgrade and join the battle later as reinforces as he thought the beast form would play an important role in their conflict, but leaving them behind would make it impossible to fill the number of troops he promised Negi, so he decided to add some non-combatant to the list...

As the Sun started rising behind the mountain, Apollo's troops were already organized and waiting for his commands.

"Let's check one more time before depart!"

Standing in front of them, over a cart filled with weapons and supplies, Apollo made sure to speak in a loud and clear voice as he started the last roll call.

"Alice!"

"Here!"

"Alyssa!"

"Here!"

"Beatrice!"

"Here!"

"Briony!"

"Here!"

"Catears!"

"Here!"

...

One by one each plant girl participating answered his call, adding a total of 13 soldiers, 5 Rangers, 5 Maids, 5 Nurses, 3 Farmer, 1 Scientist and 5 Engineers.

As for the cat girls, 7 soldiers, 5 rangers and 5 miners would arrive the next day if nothing went wrong.

"All right. That's all. Time to visit our neighbor! Depart!"

""YEAH!!!""

Just as Apollo commanded, the 31 girls and the two carts started moving, following straight in the direction of Negi's Base.

Watching his base getting smaller and smaller as they distanced themselves from it, Apollo couldn't help but feel a bit worried in leaving the base with practically no fighting forces. If a wild boar attacked, maybe the people there would be able to take care of it, but, if anything stronger attacked....

Apollo shivered at the thought of the scene he saw at the ruins repeating itself in his base. He looked to the sky, exactly in the direction of a certain bright spot that was orbiting the planet, and wished from the deepest parts of his heart.

"Please don't let anything happen to them while I'm away."

Even though the bright spot was observing him, Apollo received no answer.

Realistically speaking there was no way anybody in the space station would be able to actually hear his wish, and even if they could, why would they bother to answer? After all, this was their plan from the beginning. Isn't that right?

And so the cart continued to move, taking Apollo, who was inside it, to a new battlefield.