Author’s Corner: I come bearing a chapter! There may be one more today, if I can get to it!

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Following the original plan, I intended to attack the giant creepy monster of terror before anything else once the laser was finished charging up. But first… it might be a good idea to let the High Queen know the full plan. “Celeste… could you..?”

“Yup, I’m on it.” The Deus Ex nodded, and we soon had a blue screen hovering in front of us, sending a call to High Queen Maeve. We were waiting for about five minutes, and I was starting to think she might not be in the room before she finally appeared on the screen.

“Hello? Ah, you! You have this number?” She seemed surprised when she saw it was us that were calling her.

“Ah, sorry. I figured this would be a more convenient way to talk for now. I had a couple of things to say, which I didn’t go into full detail last time we chatted.”

She raised a curious eyebrow at that, but shrugged. “Well, it shouldn’t be too bad, right? If I remember, it should be almost time for your attack on the monsters, so I assume it is related to that? And probably has something to do with the large object that just appeared in orbit?”

“Ahh… yeah, pretty much. It’s a weapon from my world, an orbital laser capable of destroying most boss monsters. At least, it worked on the ones from my world, and they were a bit bigger than your calamities.”

Maeve furrowed her brows in thought at this. “Will there be any lasting damage to the surroundings if you go through with this attack?”

“Uhm… shouldn’t be? I mean, it might melt quite a lot of ice around the one in the far north, but otherwise the damage done will be significantly less than what the monsters themselves have been doing. And, with your technology, I imagine that you will be able to easily regrow any destroyed plants in the area.”

The High Queen gave a tired sigh at that. “Yes, that is true. Very well, you have my permission to fire at the monsters, and there will be no retaliation. However, I can not speak for the other worlds. I will need to converse with them regarding this to obtain their permission. How long will it take before you are ready to fire?”

I looked at Celeste, who nodded at me before she turned to answer. “It’ll take five hours for the weapon to fully charge, and then ten minutes to move into position to launch a direct attack on the first boss. Each shot afterwards will also take five hours to charge up.”

“Oh? You must be their other friend from the ship.” Maeve smiled towards the Deus Ex. “You certainly don’t look like an elf, so it seems you really are from beyond the stars. Alright then, I’ll look forward to seeing the results of the first volley.”

Celeste nodded with a slight smile of her own. “Hopefully, within two days this issue will be taken care of.”

After that, we said our goodbyes, and ended the call. Celeste turned to me with a fairly concerned look. “Do you think we should leave one of these orbital weapons for them? It has been less than two months, and six boss class monsters appeared on this world. At that rate, wouldn’t another spawn every week or so after we leave?”

I had considered this myself, and honestly we had no real need or method to take the orbital laser with us when we left. At most, we could take it apart and reabsorb it into either mine or Sharon’s groves. “How far is it until the next homeworld?”

Having understood my thoughts, Celeste’s smile brightened a bit before she told me. “The closest would be to double back and go to the halfling world. However, since we have yet to see another human pass through here, it is likely that world is already being overseen by one. So the next on the list would be… roughly one hundred and fifty parsecs away. On the way, there are two unverified worlds that could be inhabited. These worlds are supposedly home to minor races that merged with others to the point of their own culture being lost.”

“A hundred and fifty… that’s almost half a year, you know?” I felt my eyebrows knitting together as I thought about that. “How long will it take to mine enough materials to build better engines?”

“Hmm… If we use your Deus Ex form, it could take roughly two weeks, seeing that we would also have to build a better power core to support the engines, and upgrade the shields to handle the added subspace speed.” Celeste said after thinking it over, making me sigh in resignation. Two weeks of mining…

“Well… guess I know what I’ll be doing after we finish with these three worlds.” I said gloomily while making my way back towards the medbay. Celeste just smiled knowingly, following along. When we arrived, we found Yo poking a blob of goo that she had apparently separated from her body. The slime girl made sure to give me a good tackle and hug before I managed to log back in.

When I arrived in my clone body, two of the druid trainees were already waiting, having apparently finished their 5% cultivation of the various elements. Seeing that, I had the two practice their Nature Magic on various plants in order to control it enough to handle merging the element seeds. Technically, I could save time and make it all myself, and just have them absorb it. But, if I did that, then wouldn’t they be unable to teach the later generations of druids?

Leaving them alone to that, I went to check up on Sharon, and see if she had made any progress in her own training. When I got there, I found her diligently training her magic with a focused expression while sitting down. “Everything going alright?”

Hearing me speak snapped her out of her focused state and caused her to look over at me. “Huh? Oh, it’s fine. Just trying to get a handle on this magic. There was a reason that I never really bothered to train it much.”

“Oh?” I sat down next to her. “Need to talk about it? Might help.”

Sharon thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “For Summoning Magic, there are two types of summonings. The first is a contract summon, which can further be divided into ‘willing’ and ‘forced’ contracts. To create a summon contract with a creature is similar to the process of gaining an animal companion, and requires consent by both parties. I do this with my animal companions to make it easier to summon them.”

“The forced contracts require me to put a magic brand on them before they die, at which point I can summon their spirit to fight for me. This is weaker than a willing contract, but has greater control. I’ve never done one like that before, because it’s better just to put them in my grove.”

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Then, she shook her head and continued. “The other type of summoning is an artificial summon. It’s a more advanced method, but lets me summon anything, as long as I meet the prerequisites. Mainly, I need to be able to understand the mana requirements that spark the birth of a monster in order to summon it. There are other ways to summon things, such as long and boring rituals, but those aren’t usable without a lot of time and training.”

“So, you’re having trouble with that last type of summoning?” I asked curiously, and Sharon nodded her head. “That’s not too much of a problem. Why don’t you start with slimes? You weren’t there for it, but I created Yo by just drawing in excess water mana to a Seed of Water.”

When I said that, Sharon looked at me blankly, before nodding her head. It seemed that she understood something with that. I watched as she focused, and I could sense a magic welling up around her. It felt almost like water mana, but not quite. It should be water mana imitated with Summoning Magic. After a few moments of focus, a blue light emerged in the air in front of Sharon, before water seemed to surge into it from the surroundings.

When this was all over, a small blue slime sat in front of her. Inside of the slime was the typical slime core, but when I observed it with my Mana Sense, it didn’t feel like a real Seed of Water. Sharon, however, seemed extremely pleased with this success, smiling wide and jumping at me to give me a big hug while thanking me repeatedly. Now it was just a matter of her studying and experimenting to get the right combinations to summon other monsters.

“Oh, by the way, the first shot will be fired pretty soon. Hopefully, the monster will be destroyed with that.” I spoke up after she had calmed down, watching her dismiss the slime she had summoned.

“Oh? Cool. Might be interesting to go up and watch it later.” I nodded my head when she suggested that. I had not seen an orbital weapon fire before, so I had to agree that it would be pretty interesting. I then talked about leaving the orbital cannon with them, and Sharon seemed confused. Not because she couldn’t understand why we were doing so, but because it seemed only natural to do it.

Anyways, after leaving Sharon, I found Yang excitedly talking with one of the craftsmen elves. Even though it’s been over a week and a half, Yin has still not come back to the area. I can still feel the companion link with her, so I know that she is not in danger, but still.

Moving over to see what was going on with Yang, I found that she was learning some new carpentry techniques from the elves, which would go towards her improving her own craft skills. It seemed that she was still extremely eager to prove helpful, so I decided to let her do what she could. I had to admit that I was fairly interested in seeing what she would be able to make once she finished adapting to her class.

The next few hours passed fairly slowly, with me occasionally going to check on the two druids I had left to train. Once I thought they had practiced enough to get started, I told them how to make the element seeds, and instructed them to make one for each element out of fire, water, earth, wind, and light. That should keep them busy for a while, I imagine.

Once the time came for the laser to be fired, Sharon and I each found somewhere to log out. After arriving back on the ship, we made our way to the bridge, where Yo was apparently playing another game on the console while Celeste moved the orbital weapon into position. “Here for the show, I take it?” She smiled over to us, and we nodded. “Alright, let me just finish moving it first.”

Sharon went over and sat down in her seat, looking around the bridge. “Too bad we don’t have popcorn or anything…” The Deus Ex giggled lightly at that, while Yo just looked up from her console for a moment.

“What’s popcorn?”

“Uhm…” Sharon smiled wryly before explaining to the slime girl about the best treat ever invented for watching movies. Yo’s eyes gradually went wide as she heard about it, before she was practically begging Celeste to get her some popcorn.

“Maybe later. I can’t split my processing too much to focus on that right now.” She said while patting the slime’s head. Why did it feel like, if I was the Papa in this situation, that made Celeste the mother with how Yo acted.

“Aaand we’re there!” Celeste commented, though she sent a mischievous grin in my direction that likely had everything to do with my former thought. “Starting up the firing sequence.”

The big screen lit up, showing the orbital weapon. Six tiny lights slowly began glowing, before they shot out at the center, all striking the same spot to create what seemed like a ball of red light. Then, a seventh, thicker beam emerged from the center of the satellite and struck at the ball.

“Target acquired, and firing!” The power of all seven lights joined together, and a thick red laser shot down at the planet, seemingly becoming smaller and smaller as it moved into the distance. Naturally, that was because it was going further away, and it was still a very powerful attack. “And impact!”

I looked towards the cheering Deus Ex and decided to ask. “Is it out?”

Celeste smiled, nodding her head. “That was a direct hit that encompassed half of its abdomen. I’ll continue monitoring, but for now it seems to have stopped moving, with a considerable hole through it. The shockwave from the blast seems to have dealt with most, if not all of the ‘children’. Just to be safe, I’ll keep the satellite in position while it charges and scan for any abnormalities. But… I don’t think it will get back up.”

Before I could ask why, Celeste showed me an image from her perspective, which included a blue window that had appeared in front of her.

You have slain the continental-class boss monster Twilight Widow.

Due to the methods used, experience is unable to be awarded for this kill.

I smiled slightly as I saw that method. “Good… one down, five to go… then two more planets to go.”

Celeste and Sharon nodded their heads as we went back down to report to Talia that the monster had been destroyed.