Approaching Showdown

Hailey walked through the dim-lit corridor, accompanied by her own two elite drones. Her body was supposed to decompose due to her lack of any circulatory system besides the endoskeleton she possessed, but surprisingly, the research AIs have found a way to use M1(Magic) as a way to prevent decomposition by injecting the liquid form directly into the flesh.

With further help from Hailey with her prewar knowledge, it has been rediscovered that Magic was indeed the energy of the fantasy world in which they were in, similar to the Earth's passive Gaia. Though for now, they could only use this M1 as a way to maintain the wormhole which serves as the bridge between Earth and this planet, dubbed Fiorg. And using it as a form of preserver for bodies which lacked essential functions such as a circulatory system.

But, it's only a matter of time before the Machine Empire finds a way to weaponize the M1 against its world.

Hailey has been no short of a mystery for One. Her sudden appearance and her mysterious nature of being sadistic yet sympathetic to those around excluding the machines was enough to maintain One's suspicion of her.

Nevertheless, she has contributed so much for the past month since her integration as One's second in command. The Machine Empire has begun to reverse-engineer lost prewar technology in the hopes of finding a way to improve themselves further and undertake research on how to transfer M1 to Earth via the wormhole, most importantly, how to extract M1 from the continent at an industrial scale.

So far, little progress has been made for the latter while significant improvement has been made for the latter. The newly improved Hovercrafts were now indeed prewar hovercrafts unlike their previous versions of just being upgraded ospreys. The hovercrafts still followed closely to the design of the osprey but possessed much more powerful engines and a more flexible aerodynamics system which allowed them to perform flexible maneuvering mid-air.

They could now reach speeds of up to Mach 7 if allowed to do so; their engines have been redesigned to be as silent as possible when the situation for such action arose.

The drones themselves have seen their fair share of improvements. Through the use of reverse-engineered prewar tech, they are now deadlier than ever before. 10x as efficient as a regular human soldier, the drones now had the power to punch through a few inches of metal and obliterate said metal in a fraction of second.

To avoid implications such as temperature problems, several modifications were made to the drones to adapt to temperatures ranging from 80 degrees Celcius and 90 degrees Celcius. This was a response to the death of S213 during her encounter with Vilvintine with her frost magic.

Speaking of Vilvintine, Hailey took a liking to the girl. Her traumatic past, as presented by her harmless memory extraction by Hailey, gave her the idea she'd switch sides if promised for a place in the utopia for humans, which was to come.

Utopia.

A Utopia is an idea of a near-perfect society. An ideal community in terms of laws, government, and social conditions. A place where every human shall experience a paradise which has never been done before, even in prewar Earth.

But Hailey took note of One's preposition and found out that he just wanted humanity to live on, regardless of whether or not it was the same humans from Earth. Hailey knew One was the only original human from Earth left, all the others? are dead.

Everything from Earth is dead.

Hailey was once a human, but can she still be considered as One? She only possesses a puppet but nothing more, she is but a complete machine with the consciousness of a human bounded by the people and technology which were used on her.

She still remembers prewar Earth, she still remembers the war, she still remembers who One was, she still remembers how One came to be. The horrors of the past still lingered at the back of her human soul encased by complex wiring and programming which she has done herself. The site of total human destruction would periodically haunt her.

"The past is a nightmare," She always thought. She did not want One to remember what happened. One? she disliked that name, she much prefers calling him by the name she remembers still, Johann.

Again she was lost in her thoughts; she stood still in the corridor with her drones behind her frozen in place.

"Tsk,"

She continued her walk towards the facility where the adventurer was held. Two days ago, they arrived masquerading as merchants from a faraway land; such bullshit was so obvious it nearly made her laugh. By orders of One, the drones let them into the city.

They were flabbergasted when they entered; they saw houses and structures made from materials they've never seen before. Pristine architecture which seemed sturdier than what the dwarves of the land made, the entire wall of the city was replaced by a shorter and thinner wall which glowed in the night.

They were even greeted by a few civilians, all of whom seemed to be accustomed to their surroundings.

And the facade ended, the drones surrounded the adventurers and subdued them before they could react.

They screamed helplessly.

No help would come.

The adventurers were dragged off to the Central Base, deep underneath the surface, they were placed inside chambers and their memories extracted.

They screamed, wailed, and begged for mercy from their captors.

But none replied, their captors stared at them with glowing eyes. Seemingly uncaring of the torture they felt, were they men? Were they beastmen? It was there mistake.

Adventurers? They were not.

Mercenaries? Yes.

Alive? No.

Only the Lion's Alliance most stalwart adventurer managed to roll through the extraction process. Except he no longer possessed any essential human intelligence and has been left in a state of dumbness.

-

The metal door rolled open, and Hailey walked in, followed by her drones.

Similar to previous specimens, the room the adventurer was in was a purely white room with monitoring equipment and a special glass on one side of the walls for observation. In the middle of the room was the adventurer, still clad in his blue armor, he was chained on a metal chair, and continued to bang the back of his head with the headrest. His sword lied near his right side, his mouth was not covered because there was no reason to, he ripped off his vocal cords.

Hailey waived the drones to go out, the drones left and closed the door behind her, leaving her with the specimen.

Hailey walked towards him, his eyes met hers, and they began to bulge.

Hailey stood just a few meters from him, staring at him with her cold eyes.

"Sigh... One has one of the strangest ideas," She whispered underneath her breath.

She took out a syringe she had been keeping in one of the back pockets of her dress and made her way towards the adventurer's right shoulder. The syringe she held possessed a condensed liquid of M1, and One was curious if the M1 would return the adventurer's intelligence if administered through the blood.

he could've just asked for the other drones to do the job, but he wanted to see how Hailey would handle it, and how she'd fair if the M1 caused the adventurer to indeed regain his strength and abilities and attack her.

They already knew their abilities; One was just curious as always.

The madman began to shake and panic, his bulging eyes fixated on Hailey.

"Drone, reporting" A voice ringed in her ear.

"Yes, what is it?" Hailey replied via the neural link.

"Report on the subject; eyes are fixated on your chest, we also detected blood circulation sped up on the lower parts of his body. It has been hypothesized that the subject's animal behavior of breeding remained after complete removal of basic human intelligence. Confirmed right now, subject possesses animal behavior."

"Huh, noted. Continue observation,"

Well, it was an unexpected surprise but a natural one at best.

She placed her right hand over his shoulder and crushed it easily with immense force, paralyzing his right arm entirely. She then carefully injected the syringe's contents to one of the major blood vessels; the blue liquid slowly went inside until the last bits disappeared.

Hailey then removed her grip on his shoulders and jumped back, there was already a reaction.

"Subject appears to be reacting, monitor suggest injected liquid is circulating faster than anticipated. Heart rate has skyrocketed, nervous system continues to 'reboot'"

The adventurer's body began to bulge, his skin slowl became blue as it bulged further and further from its natural state. His eyes popped out and his brain grew out from his skull. The whole ordeal lasted for a minute, and the man was reduced to nothing more than a blob of dark-blue substance with a horrendous smell.

"Subject's life signs have disappeared, uploading results to mainframe,"

Hailey was silent, she expected to be attacked by a powerful beast of a man but expectations would often betray.

"What a waste," She uttered.

-

The sun was brimming hot, the eastern winds blew, and the grass danced in harmony, forming pleasing waves as far as the fields of grass went. One looked through his enhanced eyes, observing the approaching group, which was about to enter the plains.

He was at the tallest skyscraper in the city which towered 15 stories high, from the balcony he observed the surrounding landscape.

"Walking calamities, quite a good show you gave us at the swamp. I wonder what show you'll show us next,"

A smile appeared on his face.

For some reason, he was excited.