After around 5 minutes of running...

"Well, I'll be. You've gotta be kidding me."

It sounded neat to be called a man blessed by destiny, but it might have no correlation with being lucky, as once Milanor faced his reality, his fortune was in truth rather dreary.

"So how do you like my prophecy?"

"I'll have you know I hate it!" he snapped at Miledi's stony boasting.

Whether or not it was her computational prowess that led her to predict the future, Miledi was apparently quite the clairvoyant. The path Milanor took actually led him to a dead end.

The tunnel he was in was deep under the lower-class residential district of the colony. Runanthor was not an especially large asteroid, so instead of above ground, the colonist dug into the interior and hollowed the hunk of rock to make space for the city.

The tunnel was dimly lighted and unwelcoming, yet Milanor could sense that people still has a presence around there.

"You think that door will lead somewhere?" Milanor asked about an entryway he passed shortly before.

He ran through numerous branching junctions on his way, showing just how labyrinthine the underground tunnel was. A pretty inconvenient characteristic of an asteroid colony like Runanthor, where infrastructure developed in pretty much every direction.

"There is no telling what door would lead to where, why don't you just try your luck?" said Miledi with no care in her words.

"Well, I should still keep moving in any case. They could have sent a search party down here and backtracking sounds like it would be a problem," Milanor said with a shrug.

He had noticed similar entryways during his traverse through the corridor, and he chose to ignore them all. But now that he reached a dead end, he had no choice but to go through one. It was not like he could go back and check the previous ones either, so really he only had one choice.

Milanor approached the door and squinted his eyes to the wall beside it, around halfway from the floor and the ceiling. A terminal lock, it seemed. Password variety.

"This is quite old-school," he commented. "These kinds of locks would be obsolete in the Empire's core worlds."

"Well, we are not there, if you somehow forget," chimed Miledi. "It serves its purpose well enough for the lower classes." Indeed, the more common type for residential security would be a keycard and biometric combination lock.

Milanor eyed the door frame next, looking for something. "No audible alarm, but whether a remote warning is present is anyone's guess. I'm not familiar with the model. Suggestions?" he asked.

"Brute force," came a swift reply.

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Milanor instinctively readied himself into a stance. "Wait," he stopped before doing anything. "This isn't a delicate glass wall in front of me! I'm gonna break my skeletal frame well before any door frame!"

It was disturbing how immediate his reaction was after hearing such a ridiculous suggestion. Milanor was concerned he had become too dependent on Miledi lately.

"Your complaint has been noted, Captain. I will file it securely inside a folder titled 'My Master's Daily Whine.'" The sarcasm was thick and perfectly suited her voice.

"What's with the name? I'm curious about it." Milanor chose to dodge it and let it whoosh past his head straight into outer space. "Also, I need to get back to the ship safely for me to read it, so how about coming up with something that leaves my bones intact?"

"Haaah..." He could hear a heavy sigh from the PAW's speaker. Milanor was impressed. Miledi's character development during this last year was nothing short of astonishing.

Well, astonishing in all except this one crucial part called expression delivery.

"Confirm the available numbers and letters, the needed amount of digits, then use the Burst Jammer to prevent resets and hard lock. Does that instruction makes sense to you, Captain?"

'That's what you meant by brute force...?' Milanor felt apologetic for misunderstanding his maid and her well-hidden consideration.

"Alright, alright. I understand what you're trying to say." Milanor did what Miledi just instructed. "How long will this take?"

"5 seconds."

"That's fast!"

"I am equipped with the latest, next-generation processor after all," she quipped, sounding as flatly proud as she could be. "It is done."

"Oh, uh, thanks," he replied, dumbfounded.

For all his intentions and purpose, Milanor was actually an upright and honest young man. Or so the people thought of him. And while he was not unfamiliar with the act of trespassing, it wasn't something he committed every other day.

In fact, he hadn't remembered doing anything like this since he picked up Miledi, so he was quite surprised by her capabilities.

The door slid open while he mused.

"Ah, shoot, whatever. Need to get out of here," and with that, he entered the door.

Contrary to his expectation, it wasn't a corridor that greeted him, but a medium-sized room, Milanor estimated. The lighting on the ceiling was on, and he could see his surroundings clearly again.

After a quick glance across, he noticed a single cozy bed in the corner with a rectangular desk beside it. A device was running on the desk. At the corner on the other side was another door, likely for the all-essential backroom.

It's obviously someone's dwelling, Milanor ruminated in his mind while stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.

"Doesn't look like anyone home," he said, staring at the back door. He looked to his left and saw a pile of machinery of unknown origin and purpose. This side of the room was a total mess.

"Captain, I have finished the preparation for us to move the ship to the dock on the other side of the city." Determining that things have calmed down, Miledi notified him. "It would seem those ruffians would wait at the current dockyard's gate for quite a while, after all."

"So you actually did something while I was running around earlier..." Milanor felt relieved. He then confirmed the location and particulars of the port she choose.

It was hard to imagine considering her numerous jabs at him today, but usually, Miledi would act as his truly loyal servant filled with extreme compassion and excessive politeness. Emphasis on usually. Milanor's inexcusable blunder must have triggered something inside her, something that opened the floodgate of sarcastic comments and passive belligerent.

Case in point, "As an excuse, I had told Milady that you met a pretty lady at a bar and had gone along with her to her home in the city's farside district."

"You what?!"

"And the reason why I moved the ship was for convenience in picking you up."

"No one asked you to do that, Helmswoman! You'll gonna need counseling later!"

"Are you not the one who will be subjected to that?"

"Signing off!"

With irritation, Milanor turned off their communication. The morning had long since passed, but he was sure that the moment was only the beginning of his tribulation.