Contact

It had been a week since Astarte and Carys came to visit and everyone had already acclimated themselves to the Dizara Region and the new Dungeon. Within just a short week, the Adventurers of Orario already made a name for themselves as Mercenaries of the Hestia and Artemis Familia's.

The Astarte Familia's situation, on the other hand, had worsened from last week. The previously open for everyone Pandemonium became a foreign place for them as they couldn't easily resupply as before. The problem of supply was not unsolvable, however, they would need to dedicate more manpower for acquiring it which would weaken certain sectors of their Familia.

This became possible because of the unchecked smear campaign that the Aruna Familia was doing, swaying the masses' opinion against them for 'monopolizing' the path to the deeper floors. Of course, most people were unaware that it was the Aruna Familia who was spreading negative rumors regarding the Astarte Familia, and pointing at them without concrete evidence would only backfire.

One point the rumor made was the high price to go through the transfer. Although the Astarte Familia lowered the price, another one popped out saying that it was still too high so from then on, they knew that it would only be futile to do anything if their goal was to take the circle.

They also thought of blocking the members of the Aruna Familia from using the circle, but decided against it since it would most likely backfire at them, too.

Another thing that infuriated the Astarte Familia, was the utter disregard for the hunting spots which they previously frequented. Since the population on the deeper floor went up exponentially, competition for good hunting spots would worsen. However, their situation was that they were being harassed to leave somewhere else. And it wasn't just the Aruna Familia who were doing this.

Outnumbered, they had no choice but to hide their activities and avoid dangerous spots in fear of ambushes.

Fortunately, their situation wasn't completely bad as their fortune also grew from all the fees that they could collect. Even though they had to spend more on supplies, their income became a lot higher to offset that and they were still profiting. Thanks to that, everyone from the Astarte Familia received better equipment which made their hunting a lot easier.

Of course, Sona and the rest also received some harassment for being connected with Kisuke. However, although they fought back, they didn't do it too much and pretended to struggle against them. As for why, they did it so that they could lure out the masterminds and clean them up when they get a chance.

Nevertheless, they also enjoyed fighting all sorts of people and 'luckily' trashing them when they got bored and couldn't learn any more from them.

"We're home~!" Aika yelled after entering the living room and immediately noticed Claire fidgeting while watching Kisuke set up some sort of equipment on the table.

Koneko, who came home with Aika, asked curiously, "What's that?"

"The communication device I promised to Claire. I'm setting it up now.", answered Kisuke and looked up, "By the way, where are the others?"

Aika sat down beside Kisuke and looked at the device curiously, "They were all taking Sera-chan's Magic lessons and that included Tenestra. Though I feel bad for the latter one since she couldn't keep up, not just about the concept, but also common sense. Thankfully, Line was there for her."

Koneko exited the room since she heard Medusa preparing some tea and snacks and intended to help her.

"But it sure took some time, huh? Did some unexpected problems crop up?",asked Aika while bringing Tanis to her lap after getting too close.

"There's that, but I also added some nifty features since the equipment on the other side could support it."

Aika hesitated for a moment before asking, "By the way, can I contact my parents through that, too?"

At that moment, Kisuke's hand landed on her head, "Of course. And the first thing I would do is apologize to them."

Aika became silent for a few moments before replying, "So they already knew what happened to me? I'll do it with you then."

Kisuke nodded, "Before I returned, I asked mom to disclose everything to them since there was no point in hiding it and it might actually be dangerous for them."

"How did they react?"

"I don't know. I left it to mom how she'll break it to them and I didn't really have time to go around when I was there."

A few minutes later, Kisuke was finally done setting up the communication device. Aika thought that it would just be a single thing, but she was surprised to see that it consisted of four parts and each of them was placed in the corner of the room, "Yep. It's done."

Kisuke then turned to Claire, "I'll ring them up now, however, I don't know if they're going to be too busy to answer. So don't get dejected when they fail to answer, alright? We can always try again later."

Claire nodded happily, "Understood! Please call them now, Kisuke-niichan!"

"Alright." Kisuke then started operating the console in front of him to establish a connection, 'Let's see... Space stability, check. Magic power output, check. Encryption, check...'

While Kisuke was busy, those in the room, namely Aika, Koneko, Medusa, Claire, Tanis and Ophis, were looking around for any signs of the communicating device running up.

On the floor where the core of the tower was situated, a clear transparent metal alloy cylinder started lighting up as barriers simultaneously appeared around it. A few seconds later, invisible to the naked eye, several nanoscopic holes in the space were created, revealing the void beyond it.

On a similar device in the base that Kisuke created on Mars, after months of inactivity, came alive for the first time and started doing the same thing as the device in the tower, creating nanoscopic holes in space.

'Looks like there's no problem.' Kisuke thought as he started up the second phase. Controlling the equipment that he'd put down prior to leaving, Kisuke was able to start up everything without any problems. All he needed to do is to send a signal using the base on Mars as a physical medium.

A few seconds later, a transparent screen showing a loading screen appeared in the middle of the room. And not long after that, a familiar figure appeared as a hologram, [Ah, it connected.]

Without being able to wait anymore, Claire jumped to the hologram while shouting, "Mama!"