Chapter 04: Introductions and surprises

Malik had opened his eyes to find Dr.Martens, 02, and the little maid girl all in front of him With faces of shock, awe, and horror. But now they weren't the only ones in the room as four more individuals stood spread out in different places of the room with the same face the other three had.

A metallic man with the appearance of a very muscular mid to late 40's African American male with eyes that glowed blue who stood an amazing 7 feet and 4 inches stood in the back of the newly arrived posse hovering over them like almost like a giant. He wore a black tactical vest armor that was heavily padded and covered everything from his neck to crotch along with black armor. For feet, he had two large metal military boots that looked as if they were attached to his legs and weren't capable of coming off. On his smooth and shiny head was no protection that Malik could see, but Malik knew if he was anything like Malik, it'd appear during combat.

Beside him was a 5 feet 4 inches tall slim woman with attractive curves who had orange glowing eyes and hair on her head with cat ears standing with her arms crossed and her orange tail slowly twirling behind her. She wore what looked like a skin-tight full-body suit with cat claws along with little to no armor if you counted her thin black breastplate, light black arm guards that only covered her forearm, and her thin black shin guards. On the top of her shoulders, a small portion of her forearms and shins rested small patches of fur. She didn't wear any kind of shoes, but she did have sharp claws similar to her hands. With her current appearance, Malik quickly confirmed that she is apparently what a beastmen looks like.

Next to her stood a 6-feet tall peach-colored metallic woman with green hair that matched her glowing eyes. She also wore a full-body suit with armor similar to the beastmen woman's, except she had a medium-sized vest armor. Nothing much else stood out other than her armor and hair except the glowing blue visor on her forehead that was attached to two rotating disks on her temples.

With as much as Malik has seen, he instantly could tell they along with 02 and the little girl were like him, Androids. Using his analysis skill, he could tell that stats were much lower, yet their Lvls were much higher.

"Malik say hello to your 'gasps for air' family. Starting from 02 that you have 'gasps for air' already met," Dr.Martens says, lifting his hand up as if t presenting someone new.

02 walks forward and says, "The doctor calls us numbers based off of our creation order as I was created after you, which makes you 01. Although we're often called our numbers from time to time, he'll call us the names we chose as I choose to call myself Aileen or bg sister Aileen by 04."

"Nice to finally know your name is just two numbers," Malik says, channeling his inner asshole.

Aileen steps back, and Dr.Marten says, "The big brute behind everyone is 03."

As Dr.Martens says that because he is huge and there isn't much room to spare in the 5x5 room they're all in, so 03 raises his hand and says in a thick Russian accent, "Hey there little bro, it's good to have another comrade and addition to our family. You can call Big Mac."

Ignoring the obvious irony in Big Mac's choice of name, Malik just says, " Good to be a comrade... bro."

Big Mac smiles while giving a nod of acknowledgment while Dr.marten begins to speak again, "This awfully quiet one here is 04, 'gasps for air' or you can call her Venessa 'gasps for air' she doesn't really speak much due to 'gasps for air' pasts trauma so please be patient with her."

After hearing that Malik kinda felt awkward after hearing about her having some kind of trauma. So not to accidentally step on a landmine with his new supposed family member; he just smiles and waves.

Since Venessa never moved forward nor gave a reply, Dr.Martens continued by saying, " This little one here is 05," while motioning a hand to her.

"Hello, I'm 05, but you can call me Kelly," Kelly says cheerfully with both hands up as if she'd just won at something.

Confused and feeling a little curious, Malik asks, "So you fight to or just clean?"

Ignoring Malik's blatant sarcasm Kelly stands a misty smoke emanates from her back, similar to Maliks Attanites, and it swarms her back. They form 8 spider-like legs and just big enough to curl around her small body.

"Yea, I fight, just not like you. These are usually much larger, but because of the room, I shrunk them just for everyone's convenience," says Kelly with her head cocked and her left hand next to her face and her pinky finger out while wearing an obvious smug smile.

Malik found that that interesting while also feeling a little disturbed by her quick change in attitude.

Without further ado, he looks back at Dr.Marten and says, "O..k doc now the last one who looks like she's about to explode."

Dr.Martens seeing how Malik felt disturbed by Kelly's sudden change from a cute and adorable android girl dressed in a maids uniform to a multi-legged smug-faced sociopath. He chuckles and gasps for air and says, "Lastly but not least, 0..."

The bouncing and jittery green aired woman from earlier interrupts the doctor and walks forward and enthusiastically shakes Malik's hand and says, "Hello there nice to reach you. The doc there was going say I'm 06, but you can call me Astrid. You were wonderful, especially when you split that troll in half. Wow, you really look like..."

Before she could say anything else, she's interrupted by the doctor when he says, "THAT'S enough 'gasps for air.' These androids are your 'gasps for air' family, and you all have the 'gasps for air' same goals."

Malik noticed that Astrid went back to her original spot as the doctor interrupted her with his raised voice. At this point, Malik knew that she was going to divulge something that the doctor wanted to be hidden from him. He just stared at the doctor, wondering what Astrid meant by her comment before she was cut off.

"Now I know you 'gasps for air' questions, and I'm willing to answer some 'gasps for air' but not all at least not yet," Dr.Martens says with a face of worry as whatever Astrid was going to say would've put his other foot in the grave with the one that's there already there.

Seeing that most of the things he was going to ask were cut off, he takes a less than a microsecond to think of the things he was going to ask and says, " Ok."

Malik begins by asking, " So from seeing your expressions while I was in the simulator tells me that either what I did shouldn't be possible or that what's capable by other androids is far less am I right?"

Noticing that Malik is talking about the other androids in the room, he says, "Correct, 'gasps for air' they are all capable of 'gasps for air' taking on 3rd class 8th rank knights on by themselves. But the 'gasps for breath' strength and power you displayed in the simulator 'gasps for air' you can potentially take on a 5th class 2nd rank knight. 02, please explain to the boy about ranks and levels 'gasps for air' for me."

Aileen steps forward and stands firmly with her arms to the side and facing Malik and says, "You gain experience from either training hard or from the life force of monsters and people you kill, and when you reach a certain amount you receive a level up, raising your stats and skills and a notification from your menu from within your data core. Humanity discovered that after usually around 10 levels, people and monsters gain a significant stat boost. They marked these certain levels with classes and ranks to indicate their strengths within adventurer parties and their armies. Ranks indicate their levels between the number of 1 through 9, and once every 10 levels, they gain a class. The regular level of a civilian is around 1 to 3 while the average level for a knight is around 20, hence a second class knight. For you to easily kill level 30 to 40 trolls means your overall stats are around 50."

Nodding his head at the information he just received, he used his current understanding that it would have taken around 10 to 12 level 20 knights to take down one troll around the level of 30 or 40. And guessing that his body or unreadable skill and race in his menu has something to do with stats being abnormally high for a level 1 android.

"What about Androids? What's our average level?" Malik asks, wondering since the other 5 Android are in the room just to gauge their strengths.

02 looks back at the others and says, "Each of our levels is 40 if you do don't include your self in the mix. Now captive Androids levels are dependant on what their roles are in human society from guards who are usually level 20 to servants who are left around levels 3 to 6."

With this, Malik saw each member of his family with a different perspective but considered them each individually weaker than him.

Everyone except Malik, the doctor, and Aileen left while Aileen begins giving Malik the information he requested. Several hours go by, and Malik says, "Oook, so the reason we can use magic like humans is because we have a mana core that acts like the soul that humans monsters have would have within them. And the reason Androids within this secret base can walk talk however we want is because within our data core we have a strand of code made by the Marten's deceased son in the hopes of giving free will and sentience to the last remaining androids. Ok, so the last question where exactly did mana come from because you guys make it seem like it's still brand new.

"That's because it's only been around for 'gasps for air' only been around for about 80 years. When it first appeared, everything 'gasp for air' normal until the first dungeon appeared in the middle of New York. At first 'gasps for air,' no one knew that they should've run 'gasps for air' for their miserable lives. But they found out 'gasps for air' when a little girl was snatched live on television 'gasps for air' and bit in half by a giant 20-meter long red centipede that crawled out and began 'gasps for air' killing people by the hundreds of thousands along the flood of monster that 'gasps for air' flowed through endlessly. Regular guns, bombs, and nukes could stem the tide of monsters 'gasps for air' that came until a few humans came and fought tooth and nail to the dungeon core and killed what most called the boss." Dr.Martens says as if he were there.

He continues and says, "The world was forever changed as entire cities crumbled, whole landmasses 'gasps for air' morphed and shifted as several smaller dungeons appeared after the defeat of the Colossal Dungeons. Two new ones emerged, The Kingdom of Terra, a corrupt 'gasps for air' oligarchy that puts a figurehead upon a throne so they can blame someone for when something goes wrong."

Malik could only guess that they had something to do with his son's death as Martens clenched his fist tight as if he'd smash a mountain.

Martens continue and said, "The other government is the Mars 'gasps for air' Conglomerate as which came to be after the mars colonies had to fend for themselves while the governments on earth that once controlled them 'gasps for air' crumbled. Nowadays, the anomaly that made the mana appear along with dungeon has 'gasps for air' never really been discovered but, has been coined the name of The M Anomaly.

"That's enough for right now I'll take my leave now, 02 will take me back to my quarters you should remember how to get back. I know you more intelligent than that bravado you've been putting on all night to find your way to your room," Dr.Martens says before 02 wheels him out the room.

Going over everything he'd learned in a flash, Malik looks up at the two leaving and yells, "Well damn, you could've just left without blowing self-esteem away."

Before the door closes, Malik could hear the doctor chuckle a little at his comment before it shut.