With the sun slowly setting in the distance Matthew that had sat down in the doorway of the wooden hut he had woke up in asked Alina that was sitting on the ground in front of him

“So where are we?”

Alina pointed towards the distance and spoke

“We are, are about 6 days of travel North of the mountain range”

Matthew nodded, while it wasn’t enough distance to make them completely secure the matter in which they had traveled this distance made tracking them almost impossible, unless

“Is there any way they can trace your mystic power?”

Alina shock her head and looked down at her metal hand as she spoke

“Before I died, or, or rather before my mortal body died, I was the most competent Displacer mystic on this continent, and my mastery have only increased after my death and getting this new body”

“A Displacer?”

Alina nodded and opened her hand where a small rock appeared

“I can move things around, before the enlightenment I experienced as I was bleeding from getting my, my left arm cut off, this, this was limited to objects… I, I never expected that I would succeed in transferring my consciousness out of my own mortal body, let alone someday transporting living people”

‘So that’s how she hacked Aea…’

Working along the non-logical logic of this world's mystic powers, Matthew figured Alina somehow ‘transferred’ her identity at the top of Aea’s internal order ranking overwriting the control BlueArrow had over him though Aea, considering this he had to praise her

“You’re great Alina”

Alina looked down to the side and spoke in a slightly flustered tone

“Praising me, me will get you nothing…”

Matthew showed a smile and rose to his feet before reaching his hand out to Alina that took his hand before he helped her up

“I, I have found a lot of things in the surrounding area while you slept”

Matthew nodded and followed her into another wooden hut where she proudly presented her loot

“See, it’s a, a lot of metal”

Matthew nodded, even if most of the metal was in the form of broken and rusting framing tool heads and other miscellaneous metal stuff the total amount surprised him, most of the small wooden hut was filled to the brim, literally up to the point of touching the roof

“That’s impressive…”

Alina nodded and spoke

“I, I made Aea help me by changing my body to easily find metal”

Alina showed off her impressive new ability by pointing the face of her palm towards the pile and magnetically attracting a broken metal shin guard which she handed to Matthew that received it and patter her on the head when he noticed something and asked

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

“How are you moving around? Didn’t your body run out of power a long time ago?”

Alina flinched, Matthew had noticed it, one of the reasons he had carried her when he fled was to conserve the energy storage of her body, the new ability of her body also used power, by all his calculations her body should have run out of power a month ago

“I, I only use power for certain things, it’s okay, but, but I get tired sometimes…”

Matthew narrowed his eyes slightly, he didn’t know the exact implications of Alina getting tired despite not having a body made of flesh and blood, but it wasn’t a sign of anything good, Matthew silently gave Aea a fabrication order

[Schematic accepted, Forge nanite 1-3 deployed]

“Matthew..?”

“Don’t worry Alina, we’ll have a generator ready in a bit”

Alina nodded and the two waited for the generator to be completed as they sat down against the wall of the log wall and waited, Alina gazed at Matthew in silence for a bit before she asked

“Why do, do you always sit like that?”

Matthew blinked a few times and looked at his sitting posture, his knees were pulled up against his chest while his arms laid down the side of his body, just as Matthew was about to dismiss her question and the rising feeling of dread it happened, in an instance the world reflected in his eyes changed, and he felt it, the single bright white LED screen that had lit up the cell he had been confined in for most of his life, even if it was only a moment he experienced it as his fragmented memory remembered it was still enough to instill a sense of hopelessness

-

“Matthew..?”

Alina called out Matthew’s name as he had been silent for a few moments after a few moments he still had not responded so she diverted some of the remaining power back to one of her optical sensors and after a moment she once again saw the real world, Matthew was pale and covered in cold sweat as he gazed directly ahead in a trance

‘Is it the lingering effect of the blue comet… No, this seems different, Aea, what’s going on with my beloved?’

[The master user’s heart rate is elevated, the increased neuron activity in his memory center makes me believe he is experiencing an involuntary recurrent memory as a result of the stress caused disorder on record]

Alina got off the ground and walked in front of Matthew where she kneeled down to meet his eyes, judging from his lack of response he was completely absorbed

‘He appears to be suffering, do something Aea’

[Current medical guidelines disallows direct neurological interference doing an episode of this nature, if I exercise control over his body at the moment it could further fracture his mind]

Alina calmed herself for a moment as if she was mentally taking a breath, even if she knew this made no sense since she no longer had lungs to fill with air it still calmed her down and heightened her focus

“Matthew”

Even when she called out again, Matthew didn’t as much as flinch, his eyes still locked firmly on an object in his past

‘No reaction huh… Any clues, Aea?’

[Medical procedure recommends—]

-

Matthew slowly returned to his sense of self, as he did the first thing he saw was naturally Alina whose metallic face was inches from his, he couldn’t remember what had happened so he showed an apologetic smile as he spoke

“Sorry about that Alina, I must have zoned out”

Alina kept her silence and her stare at Matthew’s face for a few more minutes before she spoke

“Matthew, Aea, Aea says you are sick”

“Sick? My body feels fine though”

“Not, not of body, but of mind”

“...Well from what I’ve remembered so far it's a given that I have a few screws loose”

Alina remained silent for a few moments before suddenly headbutt him

Quite hard one might add, and as Matthew wordlessly recoiled in pain she added another type of damage on top of the physical trauma already inflicted

“I didn’t hear, hear any echo? Are you sure there really is something in, in there, Aea?”

[All brain matter has been accounted for, no significant loss has occurred within the last 48 hours]

Matthew rubbed his forehead as he voiced his complaints to the abuse he suffered with a single word

“...Rude”

[Fabrication of assigned schematic completed, thermal generator completed, all Forge nanites patterns retrieved]

Matthew looked over, and sure enough the generator had been completed while he apparently had been unresponsive and bickered with Alina, he rose to his feet and quickly retrieved a log from the floor of the wooden cabin which he early snapped apart a few times before he stuffed the now small pieces into the metal box that was a 3 by 3 meter cube before he closed the hatch and retrieved a report from Aea

[Ignition confirmed, thermal generator operating at 54% capacity]

Alina walked over and sat down with her back against the generator, which began transferring power into her metallic body for a few moments before she asked

“So, what, what is the plan?”

Matthew didn’t need to consider this for long, while he still wanted to move towards an area where resource extraction would be easier to facilitate, such as the mountain range or civilized location, the incident with the mountain tribes had ruled out both options, his personally swings was too volatile to work with other people

“We make this our base of operations, first on the list is weaponry to not get chased off like in Babai, then industry infrastructure before recon of the local area which we can scale up to full surveillance… Yeah, that should be good for now”

Alina looked at Matthew that was still working on a development plan in his mind for a few moments before she commented

“That, that sounds like a lot of work”

Matthew showed a cheeky smirk and looked past Alina that followed his line of sight and laid eyes on the significant amount of remaining metal that was left over from creating the thermal generator, Matthew silently assigned a schematic to Aea as he spoke

“The amount of work always depends on the amount of hands there is available to do said work”