The trip back to the factory was mostly uneventful. First, we cut west onto the highway, then followed the highway down to where I had lost control of my car. Fortunately, we were decently close to the highway, so that part went smoothly. There were more bumps along the highway, but they were literal bumps, plus the occasional blockage from fallen trees or oversized roots cracking the concrete.

Seeing the effect of the system integration on the highway struck me more than the overgrowth elsewhere had. The depths of the forest were supposed to be overgrown and wild, after all, but the concrete and the asphalt, those belonged to man. But no longer, now they belonged to the green, pumping more and more erg into the atmosphere. Still, it was easy enough to dismount and head over any obstructions on foot. All in all, it took us only about an hour to make our way back to where my car had been.

“There’s a path ahead of here, but it’s not really bike ready. Should be about ten minutes by foot, though.” I packed my bike back into inventory and Jen and Artemis followed suit. I led the way along a now familiar path, while keeping an eye on my map to make sure that I wasn’t getting lost. Directions had always been hard for me.

Just as we were about to emerge from the foliage onto the base of the walls surrounding the factory, Artemis reached forward to place a hand onto my shoulder. She whispered, “Monsters ahead. At least twelve, maybe as many as eighteen. Nothing too tough, but better safe than sorry.”

Jen nodded firmly. “We should be able to handle them.” My eyes widened at that, the two of them taking on eighteen monsters! It was ridiculous.

“I can support, this armor isn’t just for show.” It really wasn’t that my pride had been injured, okay maybe it was a little that my pride was a little dinged up.

Artemis and Jen shared a look, before Artemis said, “Alright, just stay safe, okay?” I nodded and pushed forward. There, pawing at the gate to the factory, were eighteen of those deer-things. Not too tough seemed about right, though all eighteen would have been too much for me by far.

Jen curled her hands into fists, then punched her knuckles against each other. A surge of fiery energy surrounded her entire body, but focused mostly on those fists, crackling with untold potential power. This aura didn’t burn her surroundings, but rather turned inwards, burning with an almost spiritual force. She jumped thirty feet up and I stepped back astonished. I glanced briefly over to Artemis but she had somehow disappeared.

Jen fell with an audible crash that echoed through the forest, scattering the ranks of the deer-things and leaving a small crater of her own. Her aura immediately boiled into steam as she rose, flowing like water as she moved amongst the incoming blows of the deer-things, weaving her upper body alone to avoid the attacks. Then she slammed forward with all of her strength into a ferocious punch, launching with the power of a piston and sending the deer-thing flying.

A group of the deer-things moved in to attack Jen from behind and I rushed forward, to try to intercept them. Before I even got halfway there, a series of bullets rang out, each coming from different directions and each downing a deer-thing. Around then, the deer-things noticed me and I fired off a spike into one of their foreheads, before pushing myself forward and bringing my spinning drill to bear.

In an instant, it was over, the deer-thing all lay dead at our hands. I felt a brief pang at the sight of the corpses, but I banished the doubt with a shaking of my head. These were not natural beings and they would have eaten us if given even the slightest chance. When Jen and Artemis started putting their corpses into the inventory, though, I raised an eyebrow.

Jen offered a grin, her body utterly spotless thanks to the aura of steam around her keeping the blood splatters at bay. “What, you never do any post-battle harvest? No need for these things to go to waste, they’re good eating.”

“Eat?” I glanced down to one of the corpses at my feet, and shifted it into my inventory. “Do either of you have a cooking skill?”

“Don’t need a cooking skill to prepare basic monster meals,” Artemis said. “Just gotta cook it like you would normal food.” She paused and peered at me more carefully. “How have you been leveling up?”

“Uhhh…” I found myself on the back foot and glanced between the two of them. “Winning fights, completing quests.”

“And what have you been eating?” Jen added in then, turning her gaze fully onto me.

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I felt a flush of embarrassment coming to my cheeks from the attention. “Protein bars mostly.”

“What level are you?” Artemis practically jabbed at me with her words.

“I’m level seven thank you very much!” I tried to hold my indignation in check, tried to maintain some degree of poise and posture. “And what level are you two?”

“I’m eighteen and Jen is nineteen,” Artemis said.

I looked between the two of them swiftly. “I’m very confused, what does eating have to do with that?”

Jen let out a sigh. “Get us inside of this thing and I’ll show you.”

With a sigh, I nodded and opened up the gate, leading the two inside before closing the gate behind us. “Welcome to the factory. Not much yet, and most of the good stuff is inside, but this is home.” I waved my hand over the surroundings when a system message popped up.

ERROR: Chosen

Hidden Quest Complete

Gathering the Chosen (1/?)

You have gained the alliance of another Chosen.

Additional bedroom opened on third floor.

Choose facility to activate.

Store

Cafeteria

Processing Bay

Research Lab

Gym

Pharmacy

I immediately selected the Research Lab, knowing that it would be vital extremely soon to help with the planning operations.

Selection made.

Research Lab opened on second floor.

While we have made as many preparations, ultimately we will not know what you know, and what you can contribute to our plan. The Research Lab will be an opportunity for you to apply the knowledge you have of the world and the system to the problems you face, both immediate and long term. You are our hope, and we trust in you.

I really wished that the path makers understood how much pressure these notes were putting on me. Maybe if I talked to the librarian he could turn things down a bit, but maybe not. There was a lot about everything that seemed fucked up beyond the point of functionality. Before I headed inside, I first activated my mines and discovered that I could just barely fit three of them into the crater with maximum operating efficiency. I did so with the earth, fire, and air mines, figuring those three to be the most valuable in the immediate future.

Next, I found a place for the third ergon condenser, nearly at the far opposite end of the crater from the factory. Unfortunately, the quest didn’t complete there, so I became extra thankful for the hidden quest. “Alright.” I turned to face Artemis and Jen who had been poking around at the crater, specifically interested in the ergon condenser deployed there. “Let me show you to your room, then I’m going to get some facilities set up on the floor, then we can chat about, well, a lot of things.”

After they nodded in agreement, I led the way up to the third floor, a little jealous to see that they were not nearly as winded as I was. On the plus side, I was a lot less winded than I had been during my previous climb up the stairs. The newly opened bedroom was pretty clear, and while still fairly sparsely decorated, was still a lot better than sleeping out in a tent. From the way they gushed over the bathroom, I suspected that Jen and Artemis agreed.

I left them to it and descended down to the first floor, spending my time setting up the foundational facilities. Part of me wanted to go right away and check out the Research Lab, but I knew that would be better served with more information from Jen and Artemis about the sort of things that they would need. These new foundational facilities were quite enticing though.

They resembled cutting edge engineering tools, but only in the aesthetics. Most of the work seemed to happen inside of a viewing area with a clear lid, but the only input and output indicators were large holes on the side of the facilities, which seemed far too large to be practical. To test it, I pulled a couple pieces of lumber out of my inventory and tried to feed it into the input hole of the sawmill, to no luck. After returning the lumber to my inventory, I tried to add them to the sawmill directly from my inventory, which succeeded. Perhaps the input and output were for these conveyor belts I could now make. That would need to be tested later.

I concentrated on the sawmill and a menu popped up, allowing me to choose a schema, though in this case, only planks were available. I selected that option and then activated the sawmill. It worked extremely quickly and five seconds later, it had produced a new plank, which I pulled from the menu directly into my inventory. Next, I canceled one of the projects from the end of my queue, and instead loaded up those materials and schema into the forge. Sadly, it did not work sixty times faster, as nice as that would have been, but it did work five times faster, which I was more than happy with.

Finally, I removed another of the same recipe from my queue, and tried to start it up in the forge. It accepted the materials and added the production to the back of its internal queue. Satisfied, I stepped back and looked at my collection of machines, a grin coming to my lips. This would work very indeed to increase my productivity, and I could always increase further. The bottleneck was rapidly becoming materials, but even that might prove surmountable. My thoughts drifted to the new automation items and I queued up twenty-five unattuned cogs, wanting to have those ready as soon as possible to start working on that.

With no sign of Artemis and Jen, I decided to move ahead with a personal project. I removed my battle harness completely, leaving me in the clothes that I had left the factory wearing, or at least what remained of them. Removed from my armor, I suddenly felt fragile in a way that I hadn’t in a while. I also returned my helmet to my inventory, letting me look like a person for once. Next, I fed the materials into an assembler to make the power armor core. Hopefully it would prove a sufficient upgrade to countenance the cost.

I realized then that I completely reeked. I didn’t know how long I had been away, but it was long enough for me to really need a shower. Figuring that Artemis and Jen could use some more relaxation time, I returned to my room for a long and very necessary shower. Blood and grime washed down the drain as I leaned my head against the title, allowing myself to drip into that space of nothing, that calmness without thought or sensation. I breathed out and with that breath came the weight of my labors.

After putting on some fresh clothes, I found Artemis and Jen waiting for me in the hallway. “Well then, let’s get started. I have a lot of questions and I’m sure you do too.”