Witnessing the state of Viktor, Alice was understandably confused and slightly upset as she rushed towards Viktor lying unconscious in the strange machine. She didn't get close however as Dax quickly grabbed her by the waist with his only arm, and after briefly lifting her in the air smashed her to the ground pinning her in place

"Calm down Alice! I know this looks extreme but those metal spikes are stabilizing him and the only things keeping him alive. ICI what's his condition?"

[SUBJECT SUBROUTINE CORRUPTION AT 15%. CEREBRAL CAPACITY AT 92.4%. FINAL METAL CORRUPTION EXPECTED AROUND 35% PARTIAL RECOVERY EXPECTED IN 8 HOURS.]

"See~? Viktor will be conscious by this evening, but he will die if the bioprinter is disturbed so please don't touch it"

After struggling for a few seconds unable to free herself from Dax's grip, Alice turned meek and calmed down.

"I-i understand so let me go already! Also what the h.e.l.l was that trow, wasn't it way to excessive!?"

"With only one arm there's a limit to the ways i can subdue a opponent non-fatally, would you've prefered if I broke your spine instead?"

While defending his use of force, Dax released Alice from his grip and helped her back on her feet with his usual smile. After Alice was back on her feet she briefly looked at Viktor again, and quickly turned pale again.

"Is that really the best way to heal him?"

"The best currently available yeah, if my s.h.i.+p was still in one piece the medical bay could fix him up in a hour, but that part of the s.h.i.+p was one of the first to go in the attack, right after the-"

[HOSTILE CONTACT DETECTED BY UNIT 02 AT BERING 245, RANGE 600 METERS]

"What is it this time?"

Switching att.i.tude, Dax's cybernetic eye lit up as he looked towards the orb, as if looking right through it.

"Another arachnid straggler huh.. Engage and destroy, it's morning already so use of gauss rifle is allowed again"

[CONFIRMED: ENGAGE AND DESTROY. UNIT 02 OPENING UP NOW. ENGAGING HOSTILE]

As ICI sounded the report, the sound of a gauss rifle firing came from the other side of the orb.

[TARGET EXTERMINATED.]

"Check for pulse"

[CHECKING FOR LIFE SIGNATURES, NO LIFE SIGNS DETECTED. TARGET EXTERMINATED]

"Good, then reload. Sorry about that Alice, do you have any idea what we could do while we wait for Viktor to recover?"

"I don't know.. let's ask Blue Phoenix, they're most likely awake by now"

As Alice had predicted Redmond, Laura and Eduard had woken up after the drone had exterminated the stray arachnid.

"Good Morning Dax, what happened?"

"..Under….. Attack?"

"Yeah that was loud, well not as loud as that 'pistol' of yours"

While Redmond was entirely awake and doing morning exercise, Eduard was laying in his sleeping bag looking quite sleepy, and Laura was sleeping upright and for once she didn't wear her mage like hat, and on top her silver hair was two large cat like ears that were twitching and reacting to the surrounding sounds.

(So that's why she don't want me touching her head..)

"Are you some kind of beastkin Laura?"

As Dax asked about Laura's ears she froze up completely, and when Dax moved closer to see if she was okay Laura quickly ran behind Redmond to hide.

"Ah. Did i say something i shouldn't have? is this why you don't want people touching your head?"

"...Nnn"

"Are you scared that I, Viktor or Alice would hate you if we found out?"

"....Nnn"

"Is it normal for people to discriminate against demi humans Redmond?"

"Yeah it is sadly, Laura grew up in the capital's slums and was heavily discriminated against, so she's afraid that people how see her ears or tail will start hating her"

"I see…"

Dax slowly walked up to Laura hiding behind Redmond, and sat down and waited for her to calm down. After about 2 minutes Laura nervously peeked out from behind Redmond and was meet with a large smiles form both Alice and Dax

"I thought so before but Laura really is cute right Dax~?"

"Yeah she was always unbelievably adorable, but the ears adds about +50 to her 'must be sheltered from the harsh world and given daily head pats' points~"

"I've no idea what kind of points they are but i totally agree~ hey Laura can i pat your head?"

"...No…"

"Hey i claimed her first Alice, don't worry Laura I'll keep you safe, come here~"

"...No!....you… can't...trick..me...I..don't.. trust..you..guys"

"Laura I don't think they mean any harm…properly"

Showing a wry smile, Redmond gave his honest opinion

"Well enough about that, Viktor will be able to move some time this evening, so i suggest we move back towards the city then. As for the droids I'll have them start breaking down the orb and recovering useful rare metals and intact circuits for reprocessing, so I'll take over on overwatch, you guys are free to do whatever until then, but stay close because there's likely still some arachnids around the area."

"What about the monster cores Dax?"

"The what now?"

For once it was Eduard's turn to teach Dax about something

"When a monster dies its leftover mana crystallises somewhere in its body, typically around the brain or heart, that's what we refer to as a monster core. You can sell them for quite a lot depending on the size and purity of the crystal, and since most of these arachnids around us died instantly without getting to fight back I reckon the cores are worth a small fortune."

"A small fortune you say..? Okay if you recover them I'll give you guys half of the cores from monsters I killed."

"Half you say!? guys we're rich! come on let's start!"

When Eduard heard Dax's offer he instantly got out of his sleeping bag, graped a knife from his backpack and ran towards the closest arachnid corpse, in his underwear.

"Off he goes…. Won't he get cold at some point?"

"Are you really sure about giving us half Dax? We'll be have more than enough with just the ones we killed ourselves"

"Yeah it's fine, I can make all the money I need now that I have some equipment and are no longer dying, besides i don't really have any expenses"

"If you say so.. I'll go join Eduard"

Redmond quickly grabbed his own knife and a pair of pants for Eduard and went to help him extract the monster core from the dead arachnid, leaving Laura alone with Dax and Alice.

"...Stay… away.."

"Do you really think that we'll hurt you, just because you're a bestkin?"

"No… Maybe..? Don't…. know…"

"Then observe us and make a decision. There's not a lot we can do to change your mind, so judge us by our behavior, for now we'll leave you alone if you want us to, and if you can't come to trust us we won't ever hate you for it…. come on Alice let's give her some s.p.a.ce"

As Alice and Dax left Laura alone and gave her some s.p.a.ce, Laura looked conflicted with as her ears flikered rapidly displaying her internal conflict. Dax went back towards the orb with Alice following behind, as he reached to orb, Dax went inside, graped a spare gauss rifle and tossed it to Alice.

"Wanna learn how to use one of these?"

"Eh? can I, are you sure?"

As Dax suggested out of the blue that Alice could get to lean how to use a gauss rifle, her eyes lit up like a child being handed a new toy.

"Yeah it's fine, if you lean how to use it my array of usable tactics will expand greatly."

"But can I use it? it's not gonna break my arm if i try to shoot it?"

"No, the recoil is minimal since the projectile is powered almost entirely through magnetic acceleration, unlike my pistol. And the fire control system is also quite user friendly so even a child could fire it. First place the stock against your right shoulder and grip the metal part of the grip with your left hand, then place your right hand on the grip at the trigger and place your ring finger extended at the trigger"

"L-like this?"

"No that's the magazine you're holding.. Hey don't point it at me!"

"S-sorry, then like this?"

"Lesson 1, don't point any gun at something you don't wanna kill, always a.s.sume that a weapons is live and ready to misfire. Hand it over I'll show you"

After handing back his rifle, Alice observed how Dax handled the rifle.

"See? if I hold this grip here and press it up to my shoulder I have great mobility and I can quickly adjust and target where ever I feel like. Now you try"

"O-okay.. Like this?"

"Yeah that's better, okay let's try shooting, do you see that rose near those trees over there? remove halv of its pedals"

Having handed back the rifle to Alice, Dax pointed to a single rose about 500 meters away near some trees. As Alice pointed the rifle towards the general area a red see through gla.s.s like sight popped up and a small black dot appeared in the center and some alien looking text appeared in the top left of the sight.

"What the h.e.l.l is that?"

"A auxiliary sight, the rifle read your fingerprint and biosignature, determined that you're friendly and without an ICI unit so it provided you with aim a.s.sistance."

"And if it determined I wasn't friendly?"

"Then it wouldn't work, or just self destruct. The black dot in the center is where the slug will hit, at the top left is additional information such as capacitor charge level and magazine count. Let's try firing now, match up the black dot to the target, then push the trigger forward to disengage the safety, yeah like that. As you can see on the sight where a green dot has appeared in the top right, green means good to go while a one red means there's some issue. Then now that the safety is off slightly press the trigger and the primary capacitor will charge, when the rifle is ready to fire the black dot in the middle will turn white."

"Then what?"

As Alice felt like she had returned to Ranger training she carefully listened to Dax's instructions

"White means ready to fire, when that happens release the trigger again and the real sight should appear."

"I did it!"

"Yeah you did good job. The rifle is now live, that means it no longer cares what is in front of it when it shoots, be that an enemy, your childhood friend or a random bystander."

As Alice released the trigger the sight switched from a deep red to completely transparent, with none of the information from before and the only thing was a single red dot in the center, as she aimed at the rose in the distance the sight magnified and gave her a clear view of the target.

"This is extremly cool."

With the rifle ready to fire Dax told Alice to sit down and rest her elbow against her knee and take a deep breath before emptying her lungs and slowly pull her trigger while keeping the red dot on the target. After a second of squeezing the trigger the rifle finally fired and Alice was extremely surprised by the loud sound and the rifles kick.

"There! I hit right..? huh it missed?"

"Of course, you jerked the trigger. Calm down and try again"

The morning quickly turned to evening as Alice was trained to use the gauss rifle by Dax while Blue Phoenix extracted monster cores from the dead arachnids in the surrounding area, by the time the sky had turned orange Alice was able to shoot at and hit small moving targets at a range of 600 meters. Blue Phoenix had recovered all the monster cores, even from the two arachnid queens, as they had been escorted there by some of Dax's drones.

"Dax, I think we recovered all the cores!"

"Ah Eduard good job, Redmond and Laura too"

Having returned from the arachnid nest followed by two Cyclops drones, Blue Phoenix lead by Eduard with Laura hiding behind Redmond. Eduard showed Dax two purple gems, about the size of a handball, and a leather bag with about 60 orange sized ones.

"Some of the cores were ruined by rifle fire but most were intact and in good shape."

"That's good, as i said earlier you guys can keep half, I'll share the rest with Alice and Viktor. Pack up your stuff, we leave for Black Hollow as soon as Viktor is able too"

Redmond and Eduard quickly went to pack up their stuff, with Alice following to pack up her and Viktor's things, leaving just Dax and Laura behind.

"Did you find an answer?"

"....Nnn.. I'll...trust...you"

"Can i pat your head then?

"..."

What followed Dax's question was about a minute of silence as Laura looked extremely conflicted as her silver tail swayed, having been freed as she no longer needed to hide it. After a bit Laura took off her hat and moved closer to Dax.

"...Nn.."

Laura closed her eyes as she stood right in front of Dax as she slightly quivered, showing her nervousness.

(She's so.. Adorable)

Dax carefully extended his hand and slowly placed it on top of Laura's head, and gently started patting it.

(So soft!)

"See? you can trust me~"

"... Nnn…. feels… good"

"You're so adorable Laura~ how is your hair so soft?"

"....Don't…..know~"

(Ah I'm healed, she's almost cuter than Alice)

What followed was about 5 minutes of uninterrupted bliss and trust building between the one armed, cybernetic and scar riddled super soldier and the small beastkin fantasy mage. But as all things must come to an end ICI's cold voice sounded in Dax's head

(SUBJECT 'VIKTOR' REPAIR COMPLETE. FINAL MENTAL CORRUPTION AT 14.45%, STAGE 2 MINDBLEED CONFIRMED, READY TO REVIVE)

(Stage 2 mindbleed, so some missing memories replaced by mostly intact foreign data… That's better than i hoped, well let's get him out of the printer and get some pants on him)

"Sorry Laura I need to go get Viktor now"

"...Okay…..I'll...pack..now"

Looking mostly satisfied with a mix of laziness and loneliness showing in her eyes Laura went to pack up her things. Dax quickly made his way to Viktor that was still encased within the bioprinter but now one piece as the repair had been completed. After getting him out of the bioprinter and putting pants on him, Dax placed his his hand on Viktors head and gently pulled him out of coma.

"What.. happened?"

"Good morning Viktor, you suffered from mindbleed after helping me crack the orb. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I remember using strange magic without the help of my staff…. was that your work Dax?"

"Yeah it was, let's get you home"