Two hours after leaving the hideout of the Russian team, Dylan was finally back on where he found the road that the giant worms had created. He couldn’t see many enemies coming and going anymore… so he wondered if something had happened to Shon or Francis’ team.
‘It is past the time I agreed to meet with Shon… I might end up wasting time trying to meet with him there,’ Dylan thought, while furrowing his eyebrows. ‘The Russian team needs to receive treatment as soon as possible, and our pod is programmed to leave in ten hours… can we afford to wait in the same spot for that long in the middle of the enemy territory?’
The answer was no… even more considering that the enemies have a super organic weapon that can locate and fire ether. Since they weren’t attacked once while on ground level, maybe the creature couldn’t find them thanks to the numerous ether wells, but that wasn’t proven yet.
While Dylan was wondering about what to do, he suddenly began to hear some static, and then he realized that someone was trying to talk with him. He changed the frequency of his suit to the old one, where he could talk with his teammates.
“Shon’s team, do you copy?” Francis’ voice echoed inside the helmet.
“Captain Francis?” Dylan asked.
“That voice… Ulrich?” Francis asked. “Wait, I have found the signal of your suit. We are close, and we are heading to where you are.”
Dylan sighed in relief… Francis and his team looked fine, and they were still looking for him and the others. Now he could share a bit of the burden that he was dealing with. He had too many questions in his mind, and he truly needed someone more experienced to talk with.
In no time, Francis and his other teammates crossed the road and approached. They looked like they had seen better days, but neither of them was too hurt.
“It seems that you found the Russian team… good work,” Francis nodded to himself while he looked at Anastasia and the others resting on the ground. “I need to hear the report of your actions and transmit them to the commander. You will have to approach our pod to talk with him directly.”
Dylan nodded and then explained everything. That he split with his team to work as a diversion, and he followed some enemies and ended up finding Natasha and the others and the things that he heard from them about the situation.
“... I understand everything now,” Francis said after a few moments of silence and while showing a concerned expression. “It seems that the Russian team was unable to report some things back to their spaceship.”
“Yes… the giant worms missed the first shot, and we didn’t realize what they could do,” Anastasia replied. “We lost communications on the second shot and became stranded here.”
“.... Regardless, we should bring you all to where we left our pod,” Francis replied after thinking deeply about something that Dylan couldn’t imagine what it was. “I don’t know how the situation is with your pod, but ours is relatively safe. Our mission in the first place was to rescue them, after all.”
Francis took the reins of the situation and began to lead the group toward the southwestern side of the region. After crossing the road, they soon found a lot of bodies lying around. Some of the monsters had been split from top to bottom. Francis sure was merciless and scary, reliable as well, since he was on the humans’ side.
“Maybe it isn’t about time to talk about that, but… can you use that bow actually well?” Francis asked. “I thought that it only fit the size and body of those creatures.”
“It is quite easy if you copy them,” Dylan replied. “Well, the suit makes us use our abilities to the maximum, so I am sure that helped as well.”
Francis wasn’t sure of that. He was pretty good with a sword, but he was helpless with a gun. That was why he only used the Sword, because it was more efficient and because he could keep improving in combat.
It didn’t take long for Francis to confirm that he wasn’t joking. When they found the next group of enemies, Dylan put arrows on the heads of two of the enemies even before Francis himself could dash and attack the other. The others who thought of attacking felt like fools, but at least they had the chance to move faster while offering a shoulder to the Russian team to lean on.
“Have you figured out the location of those giant worms?” Francis asked while looking at Anastasia. “I take it that they don’t move that many.”
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“Yes sir… there and there…”
One of the mountains was south of them, and the other was where Dylan met Anastasia. The one in the south hadn’t been investigated yet, but the other had a lot of enemies around.
Francis didn’t say which one they should attack. He was probably waiting for Felix to make his decision. They also had to look for Shon’s team, after all, since they would need all the help they could get.
In the end, the group reached the pod of Francis’ group after just two more hours. Considering the time that they used to take a break, they still had a little more than seven hours before the end of the mission.
“I have received your report, soldier Ulrich. Congratulations on a job well done,” Felix suddenly accessed his battle suit when Dylan entered the range of the first pod. “That is what I would like to say, but it looks like you all have a lot of work to do, huh?”
“We aren’t at full power yet. Before deciding anything, we need to meet Shon and the others,” Francis declared. “Before deciding anything, we need to check their conditions.”
“That is true… as long as either of you are close to the pod, I can make the second pod depart manually, so there is nothing to worry about,” Felix nodded. “First of all, find Shon and the others. Still, before that, you need to optimize your pace, Francis. You can’t leave the Russian team behind and alone, either.”
“... We landed somewhere where we can use some ether wells. For the time being, you guys will stay here and harness some more ether and protect the Russian team,” Francis declared, and then he saw the look of his subordinates that were about to protest. “We will focus on speed now. Just the two of us will be able to find the others faster and with fewer chances of being found. Once we check their conditions, we will decide our next course of action.”
In the end, that had been enough to silence all the members of the assault team. Besides, they respected Francis too much to ignore his orders or opinions or even try to disagree with him.
In any case, Dylan felt that Francis was putting too much faith in his skills with the bow… or maybe he just had that confidence in himself. Regardless, Dylan received some extra ether from each of the assault team members, even though he was barely using any. It might come in handy later, so he accepted it.
“Those arrows are pretty durable, huh?” Francis asked when they were about to leave. “None of them broke until now?”
“That is right,” Dylan nodded and then grabbed one of the Arrows that was the same color as the bow he was using.
“Hm, we will fight like this. You will attack the enemy first and then attack again if you have the chance to do so,” Francis declared. “Once one of the enemies gets close enough, I will surprise them and attack.”
Dylan nodded, even though that kind of strategy didn’t look like it would work that well against more than three enemies. Either way, he had to focus on getting rid of the archers first.
Without wasting time, Dylan and Francis began to move. It didn’t take long for them to notice that something was off. They managed to run for half an hour without meeting any enemies, after all.
“Do you know anything about this, second in command?” Dylan asked. “This feels pretty suspicious.
“The second in command can’t see the enemies that well because of the large number of ether wells around,” Francis explained while still looking around and also feeling suspicious. “The Russian team didn’t report to their base because things only got like that after the second attack of the ether cannons. Apparently, that increased the ether level in the atmosphere, complicating heat signatures, and other forms of life detection.”
That was indeed a massive pain in the ass… Dylan couldn’t help but wonder why problems were so easy to emerge in any world they arrive.
“You make me sound so incompetent when you talk like that…” Felix said and then sighed. “At least we are gathering enough data and making sure to come up with countermeasures against this kind of trouble in the future.”
That was good. Dylan could only hope that they could make that much progress between missions without risking causing the death of some members of the research team due to overwork.
“By the way, I can check the footage of your battle suit now, soldier Ulrich, and you are surprisingly good,” Felix said while showing the image of himself on Dylan’s monitor. “I hope you don’t mind if I use the data of battle experience on this mission to create a special simulation. While we probably can’t mine for the materials that made those arrows, we can study it and develop something similar. It will be more useful to have a bow in certain situations since it won’t consume that mana.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to create something like a gun using the basis of the solar cannon?” Dylan asked. “Still, now that I think about it, a single mistake might turn such a gun into a ticking time bomb under certain conditions.”
“As expected, you do understand that such a thing can happen,” Felix said and then smiled cheerfully, even though Dylan and Francis were busy running and looking for the others. “Ether is a much safer form of energy to be used. Unless you try to concentrate large amounts in a dangerous way, the chances of something going wrong with it are extremely low. We are trying to create a better option using the core that you brought in the previous mission since that one keeps emitting magic energy, but we are still in the early stages of development. Not to mention…”
Felix started to blab on and on… Dylan wondered why the second in command of the dreadnought would reveal their military secrets so easily and in the middle of the mission when they needed to focus on the task ahead. Maybe the commander was someone who couldn’t judge the others well when it comes to their usual behavior.
In any case, Felix decided to shut up around the time those two began to hear some noise ahead. They headed in a straight line toward the direction Dylan believed the second pod was, so it made them assume that they were getting close to the others. Still, they had to slow down since they couldn’t afford to mess up.
