Harem Reborn - Chapter 271
[Day 2/1825 on The Godless Green Earth A.I World]
I was back in my body, but my eyes were closed. I could feel a warm body pushing down on me, Mikota. There was dirt under me, and the air felt damp like it had just rained. I opened up my eyes and looked around.
Mikota was sleeping on my chest, still wearing my shirt and belt, looking cute while sleeping. I was in a cave that wasn’t wide but the ground was soft. After looking around a bit I could see body prints all over the floors and paired, but spaced apart. That’s right I still had more to learn, and teach, this was no time to be laying around.
There was a small bar in the top corner of my HUD that displayed what day of how many were left. Good, only a single day had passed, so I still had lots of time, but there were other problems.
Like the massive Gialazsaur that were roaming around; there would have to be some way to take them and get them back to normal. Either that or I would have to send each one back to the Pillar of souls, but there had to be some way to control the evolution. The secret could be that it was because they were incomplete A.I. so they couldn’t handle whatever it is that happens?
There was also the little part about making them complete A.I., how was I supposed to do that? I needed to figure out how to make them think for themselves, but it would take guidance, handholding, and a whole bunch of high fives. I needed them to get a good hold of who they were as individuals, and that would start with new names.
I kissed the top of Mikota’s head and she writhed on me as she stretched out and yawned. She looked up at me and grinned, then crawled up to kiss me. I wrapped my arms around her and rolled to the side, kissing her back, but then stopping.
“We have to keep this stuff to ourselves or we will end up having a problem, okay?” I asked Mikota, and she nodded in understanding.
“I know, but there is no one here, and you looked good this morning, sue me!”
I kissed her again before getting up and then helped her up as well. I shared another kiss with her, but then we separated and walked out of the cave where we were in a larger area.
Our four captors were the only ones in the area, but there wasn’t anything else around. It was just big and open with some cracks above letting light in from the morning. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet so the light in the cave wasn’t overly bright, But I could see wet spots on the ground, but it wasn’t too bad.
“You are awake now! Did you learn what you needed to save our people?” Kaz asked, walking up with the others.
“Not completely, I would like for you guys to show me around and give me a tour of what our people do every day. Before we go, I would like to change your names. Not completely, but something to make you each more unique than the other.”
The group gave me strange looks but there were no complaints. They even got into a line and waited for their turn. At least they understood order, that would be helpful later on.
“Okay, Kaz, you will be Kazuya, I think this one suits you, then for your lady, Mia, how does Mila sound?” I asked.
“Kaz-oo-ya…sounds like I am sneezing, but it’s not bad. I like it, something that is not like the others,” Kazuya said pounding his chest with one hand.
“Mila sounds nice,” Mila said with a warm smile.
Good, I think Garry and Tali will be good names for you two, What do you guys think?” I asked the other two as Kazuya and Mila moved to the side.
“Garry, not too bad, but I really like the name Tali, it suits you,” Garry said, turning to Tali who started to blush and looked away.
Uh-oh, no let’s get them away from flirting for now, but I bet Garry wouldn’t have said that a day ago. Looking at him now, he looked a bit embarrassed with himself that he had said those things, but it was good. Now, I just needed to get them back on track.
“This is Mikota, she is my partner, and you know who I am, Dav, or Dave, doesn’t matter to me. So, show me how you live each day.”
“Sure, we will go up top to the gardens and show you the people that work up there. Then we will come back down and I will show you the different places that we work,” Kazuya said, waving everyone forward.
“What about activities? What do you do for fun?” I asked as we headed through another door that led to the big chamber where I had spoken with everyone, but the place was empty now.
“Fun? What do you mean? We have to work every day just to survive. Sometimes the animals are hard to find to hunt, and sometimes the garden doesn’t give us enough food. So we must make sure we always have lots of extra for the time when we can not get it for ourselves.”
Kazuya explained leading us back out the way we had come, and I finally started to see more people. Some were working on weaving baskets, while others made or fixed tools by hand. There were no fires or fancy tools, just people sitting on the ground working in the ground.
As we walked by these groups I noticed how they would all from time to time look to see how the other person was doing it and then they would go back to their own task. It was the same for all the people, but another thing was how no one talked, but at the same time, what would they even talk about?
Work all day with no play makes for a very boring day, but these people seemed to be fine with it. Not overly joyed about it, but not complaining either or even looking discomforted or bored. They were all set to the task at hand, and now I was starting to understand what Julia had meant by incomplete programs.
After walking through the series of rooms that constantly got smaller, we finally reached the cave entrance, but Kazuya stopped us all, and then we heard a scream.
“Go back, we can’t go out! One of the Devolved is attacking!” He said, turning to push us back.
“No, you go back and take Mikota with you. I will go see this one, I need to figure some things out about why they are like this and if there is something I can do to help them,” I said, but Mikota grabbed my arm.
“No, I am coming with you! I am your guardian, not the other way around!” Mikota said, glaring at me.
“Fine, but I want the rest of you to go inside and make sure everyone is in a safe area, okay?”
“Sure,” Garry said, turning to go, but Kazuya was staring at me in shock.
“What are you going to do? They are monsters! You will just be killed like so many others of us!”
“And what about the ones screaming out there? What if they don’t make it? I don’t have time to talk about this right now, but we will talk more later. For now, just listen to what I said and get everyone safe!”
That got Kazuya turned and running back with Mila, Tali, and Garry. I turned back to Mikota, who jumped up into my arms.
“And you thought you could just leave me behind like that? Come on I want to see what being a guardian means!” Mikota said, pointing forward.
“You don’t know what to do?” I asked, a bit shocked.
It was more of a hope that she did and then disappointment when she didn’t know.
“How am I supposed to know? How do you make us fly?”
“I just want to do it, I’m not really sure how it works. I guess we’ll just have to hope you figure it out when the time comes, hehe,” I said, moving out of the cave, and pulling the ground up under me to lift me into the air with Mikota.
I could hear the sounds coming from the south, so I had to turn around and that’s when I saw the massive beast chasing down its own kind. Luckily, It hadn’t seemed to catch anyone yet, so I started to fly over in that direction.
“Hey, Boxasaurus! Over here! Pick on someone…like me!” I shouted as I tried to catch up with the beast.
It must have heard me because it started to turn, so I slowed down. The evolved Gialazsaur was green with pink stripes and almost twice the size of the ones that I had fought before. This one was looking at me like I was about to be a quick snack! I was no taller than its head, but there had to be a person inside of the beast, but how to find them?
The Gialazsaur got tired of looking at me and started to charge, and I still didn’t have a plan. That’s when Mikota started to get hot in my arms, and I looked down into bright burning red eyes.
“Put me down, she wants to hurt you.”