"Please let us stay here!"

"We promise we'll be productive in the meantime !"

"Why the h.e.l.l do you hate being outside so much Iris? You can stay inside the AEHWP for most of the time."

"The AEHWP?"

"You mean inside a reinforced container right next to a miniaturized fusion reactor?"

"With no tertiary backup reactor cooling?"

"Do you want me to die?"

The day had come, it was time to set off from Kingstead, and Lux was in progress of collecting the last personal for the job, even if the person question was extremely opposed to the very concept of 'outside'.

"Jesus since when have you been this strong!?"

As Lux had dragged Iris out of her room while she slept, Lux had only managed to reach the doorway before Lux had woken up and grabbed onto the door, as if holding on for dear life.

"Strength is just an expression of how well one is motivated at using once body!"

"And we are really motivated!"

"And also able to completely control our body!"

Seeing how Iris took complete control of her body just to avoid the deadly 'great outside', Lux lessened her offence for a moment, allowing Iris to escape back into her laboratory.

"We thank you for understanding."

"As thanks we wíll work hard while you are aw-"

"Iris let me teach you something important."

Stopping Iris in the middle of her gradditue Iris quickly redoubled her defenses against the 'evil outside', by grabbing onto a nearby table as Lux continued speaking.

"You see the history of my world is distorted."

"Distorted?"

"How?"

"In what way?"

"Please tell us."

"Is it some sort of s.p.a.cetime anomaly caused by frequent s.p.a.ce travel?"

"... While there are many ways to explain it the most simple one is that intelligent life is wicked."

"...Wicked?"

Looking at Lux that had a difficult face like she talked about the great shame of her people, Iris got a bit closer.

"Master override. Lux Jameson registration code: 0405663117, Alpha level 44 master override."

[ICI OVERRIDE CONFIRMED.]

"Eh?"

As her own ICI unit spoke out Iris' body froze in place at the same time she realized the horrible truth.

"I have control… You see Iris, history is written by the victors. Now this will only be temporary but let's practice, try saying: I love the outside."

"No…-"

"Say: I'm so happy to finally be out of my laboratory.

"- Not like this….-"

"Say: I really love the outside."

"- Please…"

"Now let's practice walking, come on, don't resist, the outcome will be the same after all."

Showing a cold smile Lux controlled Iris' body trough her own ICI unit, making her walk towards the demonic outside.

"Nooooooo!!!"

And so the last bastion of the holy and sacred inside, fell to corruption.

---

"f.u.c.k! Why are there so many of them!?"

"Fall back!"

"Gha!-"

"s.h.i.+t, we lost Sam!"

Looking around him Jack realized that this was the worst day since he became a monster hunter. Having spent 5 years climbing through the ranks and had reached a place that could not quite be called the top, but it was still far from the bottom. He and his party was in no way weak, but against what they were facing they might as well be flies. It was a group of 12, standing at about 6 meters tall in bodies made of the elements that loosely resembled a human figure nature elementals was the worst enemy of mid and low rank hunters. Jack and his party had been ambushed in an open field when the elementals sp.a.w.ned up the ground having sensed nearby food. Elementals were golem type spirit monsters, with a central core that feeds on mana contained in living creatures, and catches them by gathering the nature around it into a loose form around itself.

"s.h.i.+t! We can't locate the core! Just run for it!"

"But-"

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"They're already dead! Besides if he run to a place with thin mana we might survive!"

What makes elementals hard to kill is their body, or the lack of it. Elementals in essence are only their core, which is a small bright blue gem, that is located somewhere inside the body they make for themselves when hunting. No two elementals are the same, or even form the same way each time, making the act of locating and destroying the core of one extremely hard unless one has an extreme amount of strength, or enough knowledge to locate the core. So their only choice was to abandon their fallen comrades and run towards an area with less dense mana, even if that was several kilometers away through rough terrain.

"f.u.c.k! RUN FOR THE TREELINE!!!"

"But that's still a kilometer away!?"

"Just DO IT!"

"FUUUCK! SAM I'M SORRY!!!"

Being forced to abandon their fallen comrade the party of 3 surviving desperate hunters ran as fast as they could, they didn't even realize they were being watched.

[ALL MIRV WARHEADS a.s.sIGNED TARGETS, SPLASH 3, 2, 1-]

Suddenly the elementals stopped moving, and as Jack turned around while running he was struck with mix of awe and confusion.

"What the f.u.c.k!?"

"No idea, keep running!"

"Look!"

Stopping his comrades in their tracks and forcing them to look back.

""What the f.u.c.k!?""

Looking back the monster hunters saw all 12 elementals had stopped moving, they were completely dead. Upon further examination the now dead statues of rock and dirt had each been struck through their cores with some kind of extremely thin projectile that had burned priced straight through their outer protection, and had melted part of their cores and killed them.

"Have you guys ever seen something like that before?"

Looking at the dead elementals Jack had never seen or heard of a weapon or attack spell that could melt directly through 4 meters of rock.

"Like that matteres at all! Hurry up and help us remove the cores before whoever did it comes to collect their reward!"

"But that's against the rules!"

"Like I care! Whoever they f.u.c.king are they most likely used us as bait, and that is also against the rules and just f.u.c.king wrong! Therefore we're getting what we need before they arrive!"

"What we need? What are you talk-"

"We need to put Sam in the ground! And do it properly! Not like that other hunter that just got dumped in the street!"

"... Okay."

Seeing the larger picture and realizing that they needed to properly bury their comrade Jack agreed to break the rules, so Sam could get a proper burial.

-

"So somebody saves your life and you thank them by stealing their stuff?"

After Jack and his two surviving comrades had removed 5 of the 12 cores from the dead

elementals they were suddenly surrounded by cloaked figures. The leader of the cloaked figures appeared to be a woman in her late twenties, she wore what looked like a hardened leather jacket with a strange metal/acrylic vest with hexagonal grid of some sort of unknown purpose. Her red eyes and short white hair gave her a slightly foreign look, but her aggression and short temper was something the hunters were quite used to.

"Hey we got these first, it's abandoned kill so we have the right to it!"

"So if you feel like a kill is abandoned you can take it?... That's perfect then, it's time for you people to leave."

Raising her hand above her head the cloaked figures around her suddenly raised their weapons, allowing them to be identified.

"Golems!?"

"And so many!?"

"Okay we understand, let's go."

Acting as the mediator between the two factions Jack moved in between the woman and his fellow hunters.

"Here's the core's we've already removed, please let us leave alive and with our fallen comrade."

Flat out surrendering Jack handed over the elemental cores while asking for mercy.

"So hunters can be reasonable…"

Not having expected the de escalation the woman looked like she pondered something for a bit before handing 3 of the cores back to Jack.

"Eh?"

"For that one's burial."

"T-thank you very mu-"

"But, it on one condition."

As Jack was about to thank the woman from the bottom of his heart she grabbed his wrist with such strength that he couldn't move an inch as she put on a cold smile.

"a condition?"

"Yeah~ Now that I've seen you people I'll never forget you, and will always be able to find you. I'm on a trip at the moment, but when I return trough here I'll check if you guys properly buried that guy over there, and if you didn't…."

"If we don't?"

"I'll skin you guys alive, one millimeter at a time~"