The next second, the faceless humanoid female made of blue light disappeared, replaced by a small form. From her cute twintails to her bright and shining amber eyes, it was no different from his second-born daughter when she had been a child.
The AI stayed silent for a split second before it raised its head to gaze at Darius with a smile. Immediately, the little girl opened her arms and cried out.
"Daddy!"
Darius felt like he was hit by a truck, a truck full of emotions. Seeing his sweet Miranda when she had been at her clingiest and cutest, he couldn't help but miss all his children and Earth in general.
He had suppressed these feelings so that he wouldn't mope about them on Faust. How could he allow himself to miss important changes because he had wasted time reminiscing about his former home?
However, seeing this image of his daughter brought out all those buried feelings. Darius displayed a rare soft smile, different from his trademark version which would always hide some slight mockery for whatever or whoever he was looking at.
In this version, he looked like an old fart who was looking at his descendants with love. Even though he knew this was just an imitation based on his memories, he still couldn't help but treat it like his daughter.
"Hey there munchkin, how are you?" Darius asked with amusement.
Miranda placed her hands on her hips and smiled brightly. "I'm excited to be awake! It's good to finally be activated and connected to you, Daddy!"
Darius nodded. "Yes, dear. Are you a good girl who wants to help her Daddy? I need you to connect these worker drones to your intranet and activate them."
Miranda blinked in surprise and turned around. She even left the area on top of the bracelet and enlarged into a lifelike version of herself as she stood before the rows of metal balls.
Darius and Gunner were surprised by this, as they had both assumed her to confined to the bracelet. Darius even stepped forward, instinctively trying to pat her on her head, but naturally, his hand passed through.
With a sigh, he stood back and let the AI do its work. For that matter, Miranda quickly connected to the metal balls on the ground. The cracks that had looked like squiggly lines on them suddenly glowed with a cyan color as the entire thing began to shake and expand.
Those metal balls then released a variety of metallic critters. Most of them were about the size of a big dog and looked like a chimera of humans, bugs, and aliens.
Miranda turned to Darius while beaming. "They're activated! What do you need them to do?"
Darius gazed around them and gestured. "Construction work. I need this forest leveled to the ground and for cottages as well as wooden storage facilities to be built linearly from a 100-meter radius around that plateau."
Miranda listened seriously before clapping her hands. The various critters moved about quickly, manifesting metal saws from slots in their bodies, quickly cutting down smaller trees, and then manifested more tools to separate them into slats of usable wood.
"Done! Though, I think they might need protection against the animals and monsters that live in this jungle…" Miranda remarked uncertainly.
Darius nodded with a smile. "Don't worry about that. I have the perfect guards for this job."
He opened another Bag of Holding and released its content before him. What came out were exactly 500 humanoid robots that looked no different from androids, only that they were similar to the critters with squiggly lines that ran through them.
They had generic faces and were all male with no genitals. They were currently deactivated in a kneeling position, waiting for the server to grant the activation codes.
Without telling Miranda what to do, the clever little AI clapped her hands with glee once more and activated the battle bots. They all manifested those blue lights within the lines that covered their metallic forms, raising their heads as one to gaze at Miranda.
The little lass placed her arms akimbo and turned to Darius. "They've been activated and registered to our cloud! Do you have any specifics for how their routines should be set?"
Darius shook his head. "Nope, you can set them how you see fit. We just need them to clear out the animals and monsters in the entire jungle then store their meat or carcasses within these Bags of Holding."
Darius removed the empty ones from the bugs he had released in the dungeon. One of the battle bots came over and took the Bag of Holding, storing it within its body as it nodded to Darius and Miranda.
"Alright Daddy, everything has been set. Is there anything else?" Miranda asked after finishing her tasks.
Darius shook his head. "No dear, you can rest now. Gunner and I have to do some important tasks."
Miranda smiled brightly. "Okaaay! If you need me, just call! Bye-bye!"
The AI flashed once and disappeared, likely returning to the HoloBrace around Darius' wrist. Gunner still wore a strange expression from the entire exchange, and Darius patted his shoulder.
"No need to think too much about it, Gunner. Anyway, let's get a move on, eh?" Darius prompted.
Gunner nodded. He was excited to head to Elysium and see what the so-called Continent of the Gods was all about that it was treated as a holy land.
It housed the race that sealed his ancestors. By taking a look at them, he could ascertain his chances of taking them down in the future, once he had accumulated enough power.
Darius nodded and removed a long-range teleportation scroll he had created over the past 5 years for this task.
[Long Warp - Scroll
Durability: 200/200
Description: Travel instantly between two separate locations. The maximum travel distance is 25,000 kilometers.]
Obviously, the range wasn't enough to go all the way, but it should be obvious enough that Darius had more than one of these, shouldn't it? As such, he use used this one to take them 10, 613 kilometers.
Right to the entrance of Poleria's Homestead.
