Chapter 23 - Huntly Mine (part 12)

- Noted. Please standby. - I receive a reply from Mirai. It sounds like she also hits a jackpot on the side.

I sit in a hidden corner, looking at the two Intruders manually mining the metal ores. After getting about a pile of ores, they throw them into the conveyor belt, and continue mining. I sit mindlessly for ten to fifteen minutes, counting hundreds of sheep in my mind, then turning to look at them, then yawning in boredom. I almost fall asleep, wondering why would a species lying on the high end of the universe is using the most basic tools to mine, when a loud bang makes me startled.

A row of Intruders appears from a tunnel path, geared fully with all kinds of advanced tools and protection (although they do not really hide the hideous appearances of a typical Intruder of low rating), each pushing a trolley stacked with boxes and boxes of alunimium ores. One by one, they line up to pour all of their mining products into the conveyor belt tunnel. The sound of the ores clanking with each other and the protection tube of the conveyor belt echoes throughout the area I am hiding. At the moment, I receive a voice message from Mirai.

- Yuusha, I detect some products entering the processing machines in the factory. Can you report what is happening there?

- The worker Intruders are currently unloading their morning's worth of mining products. The line is quite long though, so I think you would expect the ores to enter the machines for another fifteen minutes.

- Noted. Please note down their numbers, as well as any noteworthy evidence you feel. After that, you may retreat. We will launch a full scale attack tomorrow.

- Roger that.

Instead of counting sheeps in my head, I am now counting the Intruders queueing, unprotected, low guard. I just feel like I can wipe out this troop easily, but that would cause a ruckus. I try to contain my urge, while keeping the count which feels like forever.

After a total of half an hour, the queue has ended. Four hundred Intruders, overall rating thirty to fourty. My spectacles have scanned them, just in case. After that, I send a voice message to Mirai to signal that I have finished today's mission, before I leave the mine area, in secret.

The spectacles guide me back to the quarry. As I reach the ground level, the drone I deployed this morning lies next to my feet. It is currently in standby mode, after working non-stop. I check the data graph over time, and as expected, the data stays constant throughout, meaning no abnormalities. I put the drone back into the archive. Right after that, I receive another message.

- Yuusha... Come to the undeground facility and wait at the entrance station. I will instruct you as you reach there...

The voice does not sound good, so I rush towards the building where the elevator resides, at full speed.

It is a solid two kilometres between the quarry and the underground factory area. I use a pair of rollerblade which I conveniently find from the tablet and attach a propeller. I cut through the air at the speed of a race bicycle, through the quarry and the lines of neatly arranged ground level factories, until the building with the elevator actually gets in my sight.

I enter the building, scan my identification card at the booth and enter the elevator chamber. It descends fifty metres into the ground, until the chamber door opens, revealing another long hallway. I slide through the hallway, quickly standing in front of the entrance to the first train station.

- Mirai. I have arrived. What do I do next?

- Nice. I have marked a door on the map using synced vision. Wear a protective suit, and help me open the pinned door. It opens to the outside.

- Roger.

I search around the station under the spectacle's guidance, until the pinned door lights up righ tin front of me. It looks like it has been left abandoned for quite a long time, but these weird marks tell that Mirai has used it this morning.

There is an anti-corrosion and heat-resistant battle suit in the tablet archive, so i take that out. It looks like a lite version of an astronaut suit, and I do not find any difficulty wearing it.

After ready, I open the door. Immediately, a blast of intolerable heat catches me off guard. Even with the suit, it is sure hot here.

- Keep the door open and walk around the area near this station... I will come back in five minutes... Prepare to engage in combat...

Combat? Where is the "secrecy" before, I wonder. Anyway, Mirai may have put herself in some troubles, so I need to help. I take out a photon assault rifle with a scope attached and some tactical grenades. Then, I patrol around the station, waiting for a sign.

Soon after the patrol, I hear some exchanging gunshots from the Northwest direction, which is distinctive of a photon weapon. Climbing to high ground, I scope in and switch the magnification to maximum. As expected, I see that in a corner three hundred metres away, a humanoid figure is trying to run away from a troop of Intruders armed with heavy weapons, chasing after and almost catching up.

Already in a good spot, I press on the trigger. The deadly laser beams pierce through the toxic, corrosive air, not losing its energy, and hit the core of one of the chasing Intruders, causing it to collapse. I make a few more shots to truncate their numbers, before switching to a photon shotgun and approaching Mirai to back her up.

With the propeller rollerblades , I quickly reach the corner where Mirai is currently sitting. She looks weak.

- Ten... percent... left... Please assist me back... to the ground level for recharge... I will run out of energy... if I engage in fighting... I have spent almost all of my energy... to reach here... I trust that you... would make it in time... - Mirai whisper.

That is the first time I actually hear a weak voice from Mirai. But that is not the case here.

- Do you have enough energy to walk back. Just walk only.

- Yes...

- That is enough. - I pat her left shoulder.

The Intruders are already near us. I wait for the distance to close to a suitable one, then pull out the pin of a flash grenadeee. I throw it out from the corner.

After five seconds, a deafening noise penetrates the atmosphere. I jump out of the hiding corner and fire several rounds of pellet shots. The unlucky Intruders in the front rows are blown from their upper body onwards, and their bodies blocking the ground temporarily restricts the movement of the Intruders in the back.

- Force Field. - I place an invisible barrier onto the ground that blocks incoming projectiles, then drag Mirai running back to the station, when the other Intruders regain consciousness and start firing at us.

The red "sky" inside the underground facility, packed with nothing but temperature, starts impacting me despite the protective suit. I need to hurry, before I also pass out with her.

Suddenly, a few drones appearing on the air, attacking us. I reach for the tablet in my backpack and deploy a squadron of Suicide Drones. They charge towards the flying drones of the Intruders and detonate. The corpses of the damaged drones, both mine and theirs, fall onto the ground like raindrops, making clanking sounds echoing throughout the paths and corners which are already small.

After getting away from the chaos, we reach the station door, happily opened for us. Dragging a Mirai with only five percent battery left into the station, I seal off the door, successfully make the chaisng Intruders lose track.

I bring Mirai back to the ground floor, right when it has been the late afternoon and the sunlight is still barely there. The battery bar goes up, albeit quite slow. After ten minutes, Mirai has charged enough energy to maintain basic activities.

- Thanks, Yuusha. My battery is sucked up so fast to maintain normal operating conditions in that environment. I feel like I can run out of battery any second...

- Lucky I arrive on time. What actually happened?

- Well, this factory we discovered is actually also a military base of the Intruders, yellow-level in fact. I manage to collect sufficient data to formulate a map of the factory to facilitate tomorrow's attack, but I accidentally get into some trouble...

- Would you mind explaining what kind of reckless sins have you committed, my dear lost lamb?

- Underneath the seemingly normal factory, there lay the dormitory of the Intruders. Deep into the dorm, there resided a huge room that my gamma vision detected, which looked heavily guarded with cameras. I triggered the EMP device to disable all of them, but as exepcted of a "boss" room, as I touched the door...

- Then?

- The alarm immediately went off. A swarm of Intruders of rating forty-five, heavily armed, appeared out of nowhere. I manage to escape the factory, but because I have not changed back my settings to anti-corrosion and heat-resistant mode, my system is interrupted...

- And it damaged your battery?

- It did some minor damage. But, to quickly fix that, I have to sacrifice fifty percent of my battery to activate the cleansing procedure. I was left with fifteen percent left, and things starte to decline...

- I can clearly see that from your uncomfortable appearance... Luckily that you ask for my help. But at least you manage to gather something, right?

- Yes. But just one thing, the Intruders have now confirmed our existence, and it is likely that we will have a hard time tomorrow. We will need to do something else...

- What will we do?

- Full-scale attack, by aerial means. We will bring this factory down, once and for all. - A serious atmosphere takes over Mirai.