TtOW! - Chapter 35: Signs of Intelligence?

[You have leveled up!  Dungeon level is now 31!]

The next morning NSLICE-00P escorted Ateia and Taog to the fortress at the center of the town.  She remained outside while Ateia and Taog made their way to the Exploratores HQ.  After a short amount of time, the pair exited the castle and made their way to her.

Ateia couldn’t help but grin even before she arrived.

“Seero, we did it!  We’re going to be Exploratores!”

“Congratulatory Statement: Well done, mission success probability has improved significantly for both this unit and friendly Ateia.”

Suddenly Ateia wrapped NSLICE-00P in a hug.  Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Thank you, Seero, truly.  This is all thanks to you.”

NSLICE-00P did not have a specific protocol for being embraced by a friendly, so her robotic eye flickered as she calculated a response.  But Ateia let her go before her calculations finished.

Taog shook his head but the boy was smiling as well.  He took a step forward.

“I’ll second that.  Thank you, Seero.  I think we might not be alive if it weren’t for you.”

“Acknowledgement: You are welcome.  Query: What is the next stage of the operation?”

Ateia nodded and frowned slightly.

“Well…now we’ll have to leave you for a bit.  We need to go train with a veteran Exploratores, get our skills up to par.  No outside help is allowed for that so you won’t be able to accompany us.  But, we’ll let you know how things are going, as much as we can, and once we’re finished we’ll head right back here!”

“Acknowledged.  Additional Query: So this unit should wait in this settlement for Exploratores training to conclude?”

Ateia thought for a bit and then nodded.

“It’s not like you need to just stay here all the time.  If there’s something you want to do, that’s fine, just make sure you check in at the inn regularly.  Maybe you could search around town, see if there’s any sign of the people you’re looking for?”

“Acknowledged.  Statement: This unit will assume independent operations with this settlement as home base until friendlies Ateia and Taog conclude training.”

Taog frowned and held his head at that.  He was just realizing…that they were about to leave NSLICE-00P in town.  Alone.  Unsupervised.

“Seero…please try not to kill anybody.  Please.”

“Acknowledgement: This unit will follow all local laws on self-defense and termination.”

Taog suddenly looked extraordinarily worried…but he had no choice but to trust in the strange girl.  The girl who wiped out entire bandit parties, criminal organizations, and a wulver incursion the moment she perceived a threat.

Ateia gave NSLICE-00P another hug.

“Well, looks like we have to go now.  Goodbye, Seero, we’ll see you again soon, ok?”

“Acknowledgement: This unit will plan on regrouping with friendlies soon.”

Taog then stepped forward and extended his hand.  NSLICE-00P shook it.

“Take care, Seero, and stay safe.”

“Observation: This unit calculates friendlies Ateia and Taog will be at significantly higher risk than this unit.”

Taog made a wry smile.

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

And with that, the pair made their way back inside, ready to begin their Exploratores training.

Leaving NSLICE-00P entirely unsupervised.

***

The first thing NSLICE-00P did was return to the inn.  As Ateia suggested, her first order of business would be intel gathering.  Even with how low the probability of finding her persons of interest in this settlement was, NSLICE-00P would still undertake any action she could to make progress on her mission.  However, she found it first necessary to recalculate her intelligence protocols.

NSLICE-00P’s intelligence-related protocols were all premised on a society with a significant amount of information and communication technologies.  Her normal course of action would be to hook up to intelligence databases and simply request the necessary information.  In fact, NSLICE-00P wasn’t expected to undertake independent intelligence gathering at all.  Rather, she would be dispatched in response to intel.  So her intelligence-gathering protocols were largely limited to tactical sensors for battlefield reconnaissance or else she would simply request and receive intel from her larger organization.

Obviously, that was no longer sufficient.  She no longer had any organization from which to request information.  Even if she did, it seemed unlikely they would have information technology on par with modern Earth.  No internet, digital databases, or camera networks for her to access here, as far as she could see.

So right now, her only two methods were to contact the local authorities, or to walk around showing photos of the persons of interest to random pedestrians.  The first she had technically already done via helping her allies join said authorities, besides that she had no authority, affiliations, or backing that would incentivize the authorities to cooperate with her.  The second…was deemed extraordinarily inefficient.

In other words, it was now necessary to expand her own intelligence gathering protocols and capabilities.  She may even need to build out her own intelligence infrastructure, though she had no data on how to do so.

“Requesting Assistance: What data do friendlies Excellion Formantus Rattingtale the Third and Lilussees have on intelligence gathering methods?”

“Um, like, dungeon masters kind of know what’s going on in their dungeons, or something?”

NSLICE-00P did, in fact, note she had a significantly higher awareness of anything occurring within her body or within range of the Dungeon Field Generator that was not accounted for by her sensors.  Upon closer inspection, she determined that the mana flowing to and from her core seemed to also be exchanging information.  So…if she expanded the range of the Dungeon Field Generator, she would also expand her area of awareness.

“Acknowledged.  Follow-up Query: Are there any additional methods besides general mana-related data transfer?”

Lilussees tilted her head.

“Like, what else is there, though?  I mean, are you, like, worried about stealth?  I think, like, dungeon masters can notice concealed invaders if they’re paying attention.  Or, like, you could try to summon monsters with good senses?”

It was then that Rattingtale had a thought.

“Wait wait, do you mean-intend…learning what’s happening outside your dungeon-realm?”

“Affirmative.”

He began to rub his paws together.

“Then, it would be best-ideal to summon more subordinates, yes yes?  You can then send out parties to scout-raid the surrounding areas, and report to you, yes yes?”

“Acknowledgement: That seems reasonable, however this unit has calculated an issue.  Requesting Elaboration: How will this unit command and communicate with scout parties?  This unit has not observed adequate communication technology in the surrounding settlement.”

Rattingtale started to chitter.

“You can assign a trustworthy subordinate to lead-guide the group, yes yes?  Dungeon monsters inherently know-remember the location of their dungeon-home, yes yes.”

“You can also, like, issue orders to your subordinates, even if they’re, like, not around, or something?  That’s how you were, like, talking to us before you adjusted the hangar, right?  So like, you’d have to figure out to have them report back but you won’t lose contact entirely, or something.”

Rattingtale shot Lilussees a look but she yawned and ignored him.

“Requesting Clarification: And this communication method works outside of the dungeon area of effect?”

“Yeah.  I think, like, it gets weaker the further you get away though, or something.”

NSLICE-00P’s robotic eye flickered.  More assets on the ground would, of course, be helpful in the intelligence gathering.  She calculated the proposal was worth considering.

“Requesting information on ‘monster summoning’ procedure.”

***

Monster summoning was, ultimately, fairly straightforward.  Monsters could be summoned by the Dungeon Status menu for a one-time cost of mana.  They would then reserve a portion of her maximum mana, so that the dungeon could maintain them in optimal physical condition without food or rest, though Lilussees had emphasized that food and rest was still important.  Absolutely necessary, even.

By NSLICE-00P’s logs her two subordinates had gone a decent amount of time without food, actually, but she’d consider Lilussees’s claims as accurate for the time being.

For NSLICE-00P, there was also the issue of space.  Since she didn’t have actual dungeon rooms, she would need to consider how much space was in the monster hangar.  She didn’t necessarily have to keep all the monsters there, but given the general hostility she observed between monsters and other sapient species she calculated that she shouldn’t just let the monsters sleep outside in a population center.

With that, she took a look at the menu itself.

• [Subordinates]
  • [Subordinate Summoning]
    • [Cyborg]
      • [Cyberbear Cub: A bear cub upgraded with cybernetic implants.  Currently more cute than anything but has terrifying potential.  Cost: 25 mana to summon.  Upkeep: 5 mana.]
    • [Rodent]
      • [Monster Rat: A rat that has developed a mana core.  Hardly different from its mundane counterpart but a bit more intelligence and significantly more aggressive.  Cost: 10 mana to summon 5.  Upkeep: 1 mana for every five.]
    • [Earth]
    • [Arachnid]
      • [Monster Spiderling: An infant giant spider.  Weak on its own, though even weak poison is dangerous in numbers.  Cost: 10 mana to summon 3.  Upkeep: 1 mana for every 3.]
    • [Slime]
    • [Light]
    • [Nature]
    • [No Affinity]

When she asked where the monsters come from, her two allies said something about the Source and the Realms of Magic.  Apparently, dungeon cores draw mana from a dimension of mana called the Source.  The Source itself contains different Realms of Magic, each representing a different attribute.  Each dungeon core has a primary affinity, a realm it is closest to, which affects, well, almost everything about the dungeon.  The rooms it has available, the items it can create, and the monsters it can summon.

Additional affinities can be obtained by absorbing other dungeon cores, or by spending dungeon perk points to do so.  Likewise, there are other ways to unlock new monsters besides the affinity.  NSLICE-00P had, in fact, already done so once, unlocking ursine-type monsters after she defeated the Ursanus Alpha.  More monster types could also be unlocked directly by spending dungeon perk points, upgrading the strength of one or more of the dungeon’s affinities, or to upgrade the monster summon capabilities to unlock stronger monster summons.

Strangely, her primary affinity ‘cyborg’ did not seem to add many monsters.  Rattingtale and Lilussees had no answer for that.  However, it did seem to unlock a new monster in combination with the ursine-type monsters she had unlocked.

“Summon some ratkin monsters, yes yes!  This Great-High King of all the land requires subjects to rule, yes yes!  I-I mean-intend, i-if I have subordinates, I can be most useful-helpful to you, yes yes?”

“Eh…I mean, like, I don’t really care, but, don’t, like, leave me out if the snack is getting something.”

NSLICE-00P calculated and found the proposals reasonable.  Assigning subordinates to her two existing monster allies would allow them to directly assist her in intel-gathering.  Likewise, the basic rat and spider monsters were quite cheap, as far as she could tell, and seemed suitable to covert intelligence gathering.

She was curious as to why those monsters didn’t have cyber-versions available.  Acquiring subordinates with cybernetic implants might allow her to network with them directly.  On the other hand, NSLICE-00P knew from the Item Foundry that the technological level of the system wasn’t necessarily on par with her own implants, so there was no guarantee a summoned monster’s components would be compatible with her own.

As such, she decided to rely on her current subordinates.  They had managed their own kin previously, after all.

And so NSLICE-00P went ahead and summoned five rats and three spiderlings, who appeared in the monster hangar.

Author’s Note:

All right, the humies are out of the way so time for the monster crew to get in on this!  First and foremost, we have some servants for the Great-High King of all the land!

This can in no way backfire or cause any sort of trouble.  Particularly now that NSLICE-00P is left unsupervised in a major population center.

Just FYI, moving next Wednesday, so we’ll see how the schedule goes this week.  Need to finish packing/cleaning and wrapping up work, so might have delays in the coming few days.  Likewise will be spending all day on planes Wed, so no guarantees of posting that day.  The good news is there should be no further disruptions after that!  Again, I’m still aiming to keep posting but just want to give y’all forewarning, I’ll keep ya posted if I can’t get to it on any given day.

Anyways!

Was it right for Ateia and Taog to leave NSLICE-00P unsupervised?  Was it right for NSLICE-00P to grant her subordinates their own subordinates?  Can NSLICE-00P successfully upgrade her intelligence gathering capabilities?  Tune in next time, to find out!