Otherworld Adventure

After the naming session, Angelia and Kira finally finished making dinner from what little foodstuffs they had left. They were able to replenish some meat from harvesting the meat off of the monsters in the trials, but unfortunately for them, now that they were underground, there were less edible monsters around.

The scorpion monsters' meat was too poisonous to eat, but although the gigantic earthworms that they would rarely encounter whose meat was edible, the two children, Kira and Angelia, had no thoughts or notions of eating it.

Gabriel was fine, but he didn't want to go against the two's wishes however, if worse comes to worst, he wouldn't hesitate to hunt those worms, cook their meat, and force it down their throats.

Thankfully, however, now that they found the map to the factory's power station, they wouldn't need to worry about food anymore. Of course, there was still the problem of the trial's next stage, but Angelia and Kira both hoped that it was a floor teeming with less disgusting monsters that they would be able to hunt and eat.

The other automata only remained seated or standing where they were like they were on standby mode or something. Gabriel frowned when he saw this. Even though they weren't technically human, their bodies were still human. At least that's what Hana said to him.

He didn't specifically know what those automata ran on as fuel, but surely, eating would supplement their energy cores or something.

Gabriel judged their ages based on their appearance. Of course, he knew that they were probably ancient, but since they've been under the 'ice' for so long, their appearances were preserved. From how the twins looked, it seemed that they were only around his younger sister's age. He didn't know about the specifics of automaton creation, but from Hana's explanation, they were created using live humans as a base.

The humans were modified and changed into automata, so in a way, they were like androids or cyborgs, except that from Gabriel's observation, there didn't seem to be any machinery implanted in them. The only machine-like feature that they've shown so far was their equipment. They expressed themselves normally like humans would with only Hana being the exception since she acted more emotionless and robotic than the rest of them.

The experiments and creation of these human-based automata were without a doubt considered taboo from Earth's standards. However, that might not be the case for the standards of Alterna, though Gabriel begged to differ.

From all of the information that he got about the races of Alterna through the information exchange between his family's kingdom and the beastkin kingdom of Anglaria, there were only 5 major races in Alterna, the Humans of Midgard, the beast people of Urrugdrasil, the fairies of Faerholm, the demons of Helaife, and the elementals centered around the Aizlandia continent.

In each races' history, none of them had any mentions or descriptions of performing taboo experiments and racial modifications. Whoever created the automata toyed with the humans and from what Hana explained, it seemed that the automata weren't only limited to human-based automata.

There were probably some other race-based automata out there that were still lying in their sleep inside of their 'coffins'. The ones who made these automata treated life lightly and either didn't respect it or were desperate enough to commit this taboo and sin because of some greater threat or pressure.

Gabriel was inclined to believe it was the latter because according to Hana they, the automata, were created for the sole purpose of combating against something called the Fallen. He didn't know what these Fallen were, but the people who created Hana and the rest were probably forced into a wall and were desperate.

"Still...it isn't right to use young men and women... and even children for their project..."

No matter how desperate they were, it was wrong to mess with another's life. Gabriel walked over to the twins, Pollux and Helen, and sat down next to them. They were currently bickering quietly about something, but they immediately sat down straight and proper once Gabriel plopped down next to them.

"Is something wrong, Commander?" Helen asked.

"No, it's nothing. Here, have some of this. It's good and it'll keep you warm," Gabriel said as he offered the bowl in his hand.

Gabriel handed a bowl to both Helen and Pollux. They took their bowls with a confused look on their face.

"Commander, we no longer need to eat to sustain ourse—"

Helen quickly jabbed her twin on the side when she heard his insensitive words.

"Ugh!"

"Thanks, Commander!"

Gabriel still heard Pollux's words and felt that they were somewhat pitiful. They probably had lives and a future ahead of them but now that they were turned into automata, their only future was the orders of their commander.

Gabriel didn't know their previous circ.u.mstances and background but still found that all of the automata under his command were pitiful in some ways. He hoped that now that they've been freed from their sleep, he could at least provide them with a future that laid past just listening to his orders forever or waiting for a war that may or may not happen.

After giving them something to eat, Gabriel eyed Angelia and Kira. The two got what he meant and began preparing some things for the rest. Of course, Gabriel was the one that had to give the automata the food because they wouldn't receive anything handed to them if it wasn't their commander that gave it to them.

Gabriel didn't know if it was a sign of loyalty or just that the 'program' implanted in them after being turned into automata had forcefully restricted them.

After Gabriel put Angelia and Kira to sleep, he stayed up to listen to every one of the automata's stories. They didn't have much to say besides their mission that was to participate in some kind of war and their loyalty to Gabriel as their commander.

"...You guys...are quite pitiful, aren't you?" Gabriel said with a sad look on his face.

"What do you mean by that, Commander?" Hana asked.

"Well, what happens if this war doesn't come?"

"The war is inevitable, Commander. The Fallen were only sealed on this planet, they weren't eliminated."

"Then what happens after it's over? What will you do then?"

"..."

"You have no future beyond that. That's why I say that you guys are quite pitiful..."

"...Our futures will be determined by our Commander after the war is over."

"Hm, so it's my decision what to do with you all after the war is over?" Gabriel asked.

"Yes. Whether you want us to self-destruct to preserve our secrets, put us back into the coffins, or—"

"I won't have you do anything like that."

"..."

"It's good to know that everything is still my decision to make, however, since the war still isn't here. Once we get out of here, I want you all to live normal lives as a human. Do that for me until this war of yours starts," Gabriel said as he eyed the 9 automata in front of him.

He then stood up and went to his tent.

"I'll be going to sleep now. Since the perimeter is safe, take a break."

*****

The next day, Gabriel and the rest began moving around the factory complex. He wanted to clear the place of all hostile machinery and see if any more automata were sleeping inside their coffins which he could rescue.

The automata were vastly superior to the machines. Even without Angelia, Gabriel, and Kira, they were able to make short work of all hostile machines that tried to attack them. The machines' objectives changed from eliminating the automata to going after the automata's commander which was Gabriel.

However, because of Agenor, Mary, and Desmond, Gabriel was safe from harm due to their impenetrable energy shields.

The group took a few days to clear all of the factory districts of machinery and along the way, the automata were able to salvage parts that could be used to repair themselves or create better weapons.

The problem was that the squadron's Tech Model, Unit 04, was gone so it was going to be hard to create any new improvements or repairs on their weapons. However, Gabriel noticed that the automata had been dragging along a coffin since they first left the storage district where he and the other 2 found them.

"What's inside the coffin? Is it used to recharge your energy cores or something?" Gabriel asked one time when they were taking a break.

"No, Commander, our energy cores will never run out of energy since we draw in mana from the atmosphere to supplement ourselves. Also because we've been absorbing and storing the energy from the cores we plundered from the machines so we have a huge excess of energy," Mary replied.

"Then what's this coffin for?"

"After Unit 01—I mean, Hana dealt with Unit 04 because of his malfunction, we're working on trying to repair and revive him," Desmond responded in Mary's stead.

"You can save him?"

"We automata cannot die unless our energy cores are damaged beyond repair. Even if our heads or bodies are crushed and severed, we can slowly repair ourselves in our coffins as long as our energy cores are intact."

"Wait, I saw Hana take Unit 04's energy core. So how could you save him then?"

"His energy core had experienced a malfunction which led to his Ego Transplant to malfunction as well. We preserved his form inside the coffin and we're currently building a new energy core for him," Desmond said.

Desmond showed Gabriel the inside of the coffin and Gabriel was able to see Unit 04's body currently inside with his chest 'opened'.

Gabriel was able to see that the inside of Unit 04's chest wasn't that of a normal human being. Instead, the inside was filled with artificial organs, muscles, and tissues that were made from silver-colored metal.

If it wasn't because of the color then the insides of Unit 04's chest were the same as a normal human being's internals.

At the location of where the heart should be, Gabriel saw a thumb-size light cl.u.s.ter rotating in the empty spot. It was growing bigger at a minuscule pace, but this light cl.u.s.ter was most likely the slowly forming energy core which acted as the automata's heart.

"My god...what did your creators do to all of you..." Gabriel mumbled in horror.

Since they were created using humans as the base then it meant that these automata's creators had replaced each of their organs with artificial ones created by some unknown material, and transformed their muscles and tissue using the same material.

"Is something wrong, Commander?" Mary asked.

Gabriel grimaced from his thoughts, but he lightly replied to Mary's question as if nothing was wrong, "...It's nothing...so how long will it take to repair Unit 04?"

"It'll take another two weeks or so at this rate. We're collecting as much energy cores as we can that so it might take even less time."

"Okay, then let's continue clearing the factory of machinery."

Gabriel took one last look at Unit 04 and closed the lid to his coffin and walked away. He then began coordinating the rest of the team so that they could clear the entirety of the factory by tomorrow.