Crystal Core Cultivation.

"First let's take a look around your base. Because your Master is out of the game, it should have stopped working, but I wonder if I can somehow make it work again, now that I'm here."

By what he had heard, it was impossible to take over another's base... but was that really true?

Thinking back at his other battles, Apollo had never captured an enemy camp intact. Against his first foe, he destroyed the command center himself, against Jaylee, Jaylee destroyed the whole camp in a suicide attack. Only this time he had taken out a commander outside their camp, so it was his first time experiencing such thing...

"As you wish. Is there anywhere you want to go?"

"A complete tour would be nice, but it can be done later, and it would be useless if I can't reactivate the buildings, so let's skip it directly to the command center."

"All right. Please follow me!"

Exiting from the small gatehouse, the group entered the camp and proceeded through the main road.

Different from Apollo's camp, Ector's camp had a paved stone road which made it easy to walk around instead of dirt roads. Apollo also noticed the many odd servants doing various tasks on the way like farming and transporting supplies.

"Hmm... Before advancing south, how many camps did your old Master conquer?"

"There were 5 in total."

"I see..."

"Is Master Apollo curious about the different servants here?"

"Hmm..."

Apollo nodded his head, while controlling himself to not stare at the jiggle physics happening beside him.

"Then let me explain while we walk. First, out of all the original servants of our old Master, there is only me and my four sisters left. We-"

"Wait! You are the original servants!? Not the Oni??"

"Why yes. But unfortunately Master deemed us unworthy and after the tutorial he never produced us again..."

(Is that really what happened??)

Apollo had no way to see the past, but he could guess a bit of what may have passed through Ector's head while making this decision. Maybe Ector simply didn't want to see angel like women dying in front of him again... Unfortunately his guess was shattered by Angela's next words.

"He called us defective products. Even though we have wings, we can't fly. Our wings also give us no extra protection, quite the opposite, they are a huge exposed weakness as they are extremely sensitive to pain, making us cry in pain from having a few feathers taken out and even faint if they are cut or pierced in any way..."

"Ah...ugh....I see..."

"Please don't think of our Master as heartless for saying that. He was right, as he always was..."

"No, but that's quite cruel, right? I mean..."

"Then let me tell you our story from the beginning. Maybe that will change your mind."

"..."

"While scouting during the first day we discovered another camp near us, so we waited the night arrive and did a night raid, destroying their command center. I remember that enemy Master was a coward, when the battle started, instead of mobilizing the Oni to defend his camp, he mobilized them to run away with him... quite a pathetic display sight if you ask me..."

"Hmm... yeah, well, I can't really blame him. I don't doubt I would do the same if someone attacked me on the first day."

"...Anyway, because of this, we easily got ten Oni on our team, so the tutorial was really easy, but it was also then that master found our weakness, but he still gave us a chance. Those who wanted, they could try participating the next combat operation, while those who didn't want, could stay behind in the base."

"On the next attack, all winged servants who participated died, leaving only those who stayed in the base alive. Luckily the Oni did an excellent job, so we were able to win, but if it all depended on our winged type, we would have lost... Seeing the pile of corpses in front of him, Master stood silent for the whole night, and as the day arrived again, he called all of us and told us these words."

"Maybe, at the time, that was his clumsy way to dealing with their deaths..."

"Right? That's what we thought as well. That's why we never held any grudge for being forbidden of fighting in the front lines. So don't look down on him for what he said."

"All right. I never planned to do so anyway. So, what about the dark blue haired girls?"

Apollo pointed out at some dark blue haired girls. They looked like normal high school girls, except that their hair was blue, which is not exactly normal... unless you are in an anime convention, but those doesn't count! Anyway, the girl had dark blue eyes, pale skin, her ears were hidden by her bulky hair, and she was a lot stronger than she appeared, as she was carrying a tree trunk as if it was a plank.

"Oh! Right! I got side tracked! Those are also failures. Master used to call them fake mermaids. They can transform their lower half into a fish tail, but they can't stay underwater as their lungs are common lungs and they have no gills."

"Hmm.... I can see that as inconvenient, but not to the point of calling it a failure."

"That's... well... sigh... actually there is one more thing..."

"Say it."

"They are actually afraid of water."

"What!?"

"Their first Master ended up drowning a few of them, trying to train them to stay underwater."

"That's terrible!"

"Yeah, so, the ones who survived ended up traumatized even after losing their Master..."

"That's awful! Maybe it's truly the best for them to stay away from water. But what about new servants?"

"Considering the original didn't work, Master didn't waste time making another batch of them."

"I see... What about those grey dwarfs? Are they also..."

Apollo called them grew dwarfs because not only their skin has a greyish tone, they were also even smaller then the plant girls he had made. Measuring exact 1.42cm, the grew dwarfs had strong bulky arms, short legs, and a lot of hair, not only over their head but around their body as well. The one Apollo was observing was wearing only his pants as he carried a bag of stones on his back, so Apollo could see the white hair spreading over the grey dwarf's breast and arms, covering everything like a natural t-shirt, giving a really odd feeling that he couldn't explain. What the hell was that!? WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!? Sorry, I said it twice...

"Failures? No. They are quite good. They got strong arms, but their lack of reach is a bit troublesome so they usually use long weapons to compensate. They got tough bodies, and their special skill is metal skin, making them even tougher. Winning against them was quite hard, and many Oni died in that battle. The only real motive they were not produced or used in battle is because they eat metal, and we have no excess metal to give to them."

"What??? Eat metal!?"

"Yes. Copper, Bronze, Silver, anything metallic, the harder, the better."

For a second Apollo tried to imagine the scene...

"That's...crazy..."

"Is that so?"

"...hmm."

"Well, they are quite good miners. Whenever they find a rock that is too hard to break with normal tools, they bite it and their teeth do the job..."

"Ha...haha...hahaha...ha..."

Apollo forced himself to laugh, thinking she was joking, but upon seeing the seriousness on her face, he noticed it was real, so he decided to change subject quickly before the situation got even more awkward.

"Are those boars your servants as well?"

"Eh? They are servants??"

"Well, yeah. Bacon here is a boar as well."

"What!?"

"Bacon, can you transform for a second."

"Of course..."

Seeing Bacon turn into a giant boar, Angela's eyes almost fell off her eye sockets, and then, as if something had dawned upon her, she started to mutter incomprehensible things before turning around and starting to vomit.

"Wait!? So I, all this time!? People!? Ugh! Bleeeghhhh!!!!"

--------------------//--------------------

Due to various motives, please watch this rabbit eating grass....

...5 minutes later...

Thank you! And now we are back to our regular program!

--------------------//--------------------

"Sorry..."

"That's... not all right, but I understand."

"Ugh..."

"Damn, you made a mess... Are we going to just let this like this?"

"Hmm, no, wait a moment."

Putting two finger in her mouth, Angela whistled in a strange rhythm, almost as if using Morse code.

"We can go now."

"...All right."

Apollo continue to walk, but after walking a few hundred meters he felt something and turned around, and all the vomit that had dirtied the road had been completely cleaned.

"How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"...Nothing...So, is there any other type of servant here?"

"There are the green lizard folk who stay all the time in the research lab."

As if remembering something unpleasant, Angela voice turned a slightly bit colder. The change was so subtle that Apollo didn't even notice, so continued to ask unafraid of the repercussions.

"Hmm, what's special about them?"

"Nothing much. Their original master never researched any of their innate skills and our Master also never troubled himself either as there were other priorities."

As if thinking they deserved this kind of treatment, the coldness in her voice vanished for a second, allowing Apollo to satiate his curiosity.

"Like what?"

"Like Crystal Core Cultivation."

The bored tone that Angela answered was a complete contrast to the excited reaction demonstrated by Apollo upon hearing such words.

"...Crystal Core what!?"

"Crystal Core Cultivation. It appeared on the research options list after upgrading the research center to level 5. Master said it was an essential technology, so he focused all the research resources on it."

"If it does what I think it does, I have to agree with him. So, did you finish researching it?"

Apollo's eyes shined, thinking his crystal core problem would finally be solved, but her next words woke him up from his daydreaming state.

"No, unfortunately the Research Center stopped working before the project could be completed."

The dream was broken... but not all hope was lost. At least he knew there was a pathway now, so all he had to do was trail this same path and he would find the answer. But all this still left a single question on his mind, that he recklessly let out without a care.

"Then what are the lizard folk doing in the lab?"

His question acted like the spark of a flame that gave birth to a huge explosion. Angela's turned red from shame for just a second before transforming again into rage.

Angela considered her lack of control over the lizards a sign of incompetence. This was a shameful display before her new Master, and this was just their first day together, and the last thing she wanted was to be considered incompetent from the get go, having her role reduced again once more.

That's why she was ashamed. That's why she was enraged. That's why she couldn't let this go!

(How dare you damn lizards make me appear weak before my new master on my very first day!)

Making sure to say word by word in a calm tone that only made it more scarier, she appeared like a reaper denouncing the sins of those she would carry to hell.

"...lazing around, refusing to work on anything else!"

(Did I step on a landmine??? Better run away!)

"Hahah... I see... Oh! It seems like we have finally arrived! I can see it from here!"

Trying to run away from the burning aura of rage emanating from Angela, Apollo hurried his steps in direction of Ector's old Command Center that was now in front of him. The rest of the group also followed, hurrying their steps as if stepping in blazing ember, leaving only Angela behind.

Alone once again, Angela stood still for a minute before making a decision. She slowly brought two finger to her mouth and whistled a message to her subordinates. Tonight those lizards would be reduced to snakes! They would pay the price for shaming her in front of her new Master. It didn't matter if they didn't know, it didn't matter if it was unintentional. Tonight they would pay!