Chapter 1040: We Get Job Opportunities Down Here Too?

We decided to just follow along anyway to see what they wanted with us.

I mean... The worst that they could do was to try and kill us and I don’t think they would be very successful in that endeavor.

Besides... I don’t think we’ve seen anything or done anything that would warrant them trying to kill us over. And the fact that they still let us in when we have a hundred and one dogs accompanying us was probably a sign that they have no intention to fight.

Unless... They have a hundred and two dogs stored here and they were counting on that to kill us?

Nah... That can’t be it. If it was that easy to get so many dogs, I think you would be seeing them wherever you went.

The guards led the way with me following behind them and the dogs accompanying my sides and behind me.

My girls had to cover the rear because of the crowd of dogs but having them watch the back gave me a peace of mind anyway so that was fine with me.

We moved through the outpost, which I thought calling it as that term would be a disservice to begin with, and we specifically moved towards the far corner where a cone shaped building was placed.

The guards stopped outside the building and turned back to face us, the leader gesturing towards me.

"I’m going to need you to step out from that Power Armour and the... The dogs will need to remain outside."

Right... Of course they would want us to disarm and leave our weapons at the door... How did I not see that coming?

"Why do you need us to do that?" I asked, turning myself so that I was facing him directly.

He gestured towards the building behind him, "No offense but I’m not going to let a walking tank and a hundred monsters walk into such an enclosed space."

A hundred monsters?!! You take that back!! More like a hundred and one fluffy and adorable ’monsters’!!

"Right... Don’t suppose you need us to disarm our weapons too?"

The guard blinked at me before slowly shaking his head, "No, that won’t be necessary. You can bring your weapons in. We don’t have a place to store your gear anyway since this place isn’t really designed to receive visitors, as you might have figured out."

Oh? I was already half convinced they were going to ambush us by getting us to disarm but him telling me that made me believe they weren’t going to ambush us after all.

Unless this was because he already knows our weapons wouldn’t matter inside anyway and he’s saying all this to get us to lower our guard.

Well... Either way, it didn’t matter to us even if we were disarmed anyway so whatever.

I moved myself to the side and let the hatch on the Power Armour’s back slide open, allowing me to climb out of it and leave the machine behind.

This was all performative of course, since the Power Armour was Renata after all.

Ries also did the same, leaving her Power Armour beside mine while she hopped out of it, but that of course left Patricia who was unable to get out of that armour she was wearing.

The guard gave Patricia a pointed look and I decided to step in for her, "That’s an autonomous suit. It’s not a piloted suit."

I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell them the truth about the suit being controlled from orbit since that might also raise questions about how we’re doing that and who might be behind the controls... So it’s easier to just let them think this was controlled by an AI instead.

But that kind of backfired a little on me as the guard nodded, "In that case, you can leave it outside with the dogs."

I don’t even need to ask to know that Patricia was on the verge of passing out the moment she heard that.

I looked at my other girls for help and thankfully, Renata volunteered herself.

"I will keep her company," She declared with a bow.

Thankfully, the guards didn’t even question why we have someone wearing a maid uniform in our group. Though I would say the fact that she was carrying two machine guns in her arms probably showed she had every right to be there, maid uniform or not.

Patricia turned to give Renata a grateful look. At least... As grateful of a look she could with that robotic head of hers.

I told the dogs to wait outside and Freyja made a whining sound, clearly not happy about it but she still sat down and waited in place obediently.

Seeing that we had complied with his request, the guard turned to lead us into the building, though he was the only one who stepped in with us as his men all stayed outside to wait for him.

When the door opened, I almost thought we had stepped into a teleporter or something and had tollok back to make sure we were still underground in the tunnels and not in a civilised city.

The interior of the building had a completely pure white colour scheme and it looked like I had just stepped into some high tech facility.

I was even a little concerned that we would trek dirt into the building and looked at the floor, only to see that there was not even a single dirt mark despite us trekking through the tunnels for the past few hours.

Interesting...

The guard continued down the corridor, prompting us to follow behind him as we went deeper into the building through the white, featureless corridor.

There was a soft hum in the air and the air kind of smelt like antiseptic but I couldn’t be sure. I just know that somehow this entire building is constantly being sterilised.

Eventually, we reached a part of the corridor and the guard turned to face the wall, making me wonder what he was trying to do.

Then that part of the wall slid open, revealing it was actually a door but there were literally no markings to show that which meant we could have passed by several doors on our way here and not even realise that.

Stepping into the room, I jerked in surprise at what I saw inside.

There were multiple glass vats filled with greenish liquid and each of these vats... Had a bug inside of them.

Well... I have to admit I wasn’t really surprised and I already kind of expected to see something like this after Yumiko had warned me about it... But seeing it in person is still something else...

The Guard continued guiding me inside until he stopped in front of a group of people wearing white lab coats.

"Where is the professor?" He asked.

The group of people didn’t even turn back to acknowledge him as they were busy inspecting one of the vats and recording down something on their terminals, though one of them did give him an answer.

"The professor is overseeing one of the experiments right now. You can contact him through the console."

The guard barely even batted an eye at the frosty reception and merely went over to one of the consoles by the wall to press one of the buttons.

A screen popped up with the words ’Connecting’ on it and it blinked for a few moments before switching to the word ’Connected’.

A gruff voice spoke from the other end of the call, "Hello? This better be important."

The guard leaned over the console, "Professor. I have with me Captain Tera of the Teran Merce--"

"I don’t care," The one known as the professor interrupted. "I’m in the middle of something really important right now. If this is about that tunnel thing we dug out, handle it yourselves. There’s no need to bother me about it."

The call then disconnected before the guard could get another word in.

If he was surprised by this, he did not show it and merely turned to look at us.

"Captain Tera. It seems like we have a job opportunity for you if you are interested?"

Oh, he’s really taking what that professor said literally.

I raised an eyebrow at him, "What job opportunity?"

"As you might have guessed, this place focuses on the research of these bugs that are native to this planet. So far, the people here have to work on dead bugs to research on them, so..."

I read between the lines, "You want us... To bring back a live bug for you guys to experiment on?"

"That is correct. We recently dug out a fresh tunnel at the back of the facility which seemed to lead to another section of the bug’s nest and if you can get in there and extract a few live bugs out without alerting the military, you will be generously compensated for such work."

"How generous are we talking about?"

"How does five times the market price for a dead bug for each live one you bring back sound?"

You son of a bitch, we’re in.