The next day Lily gets dressed and sees Rate " Lily , I heard you plan to go up " Lily nodded " You wanna come ? " " Uhm no " ' I'll have to do that thing mom told me ' " But do you still have time for one more ? This time I'll be able to do it I've been practicing hard "
Lily listens to Life what Rate plans to do " Hmm , okay I'll enjoy it while it last " ' Life , make sure to keep him safe at the distance . " Rate's body lies still on his bed, and Melda comes and carries his soulless body to preserve it " This is the least I can do to help " Rate enters Lily's body and starts to venture into it to get rid of the fake thoughts inside .
Lily walks to the station where a spacecraft is waiting " Welcome commander " a descender says " How is my request going ? " the captain recalls the outrageous request that Lily made " There are some willing to sell but it's expensive and not many are willing to give it for free "
" I don't expect it to be free , although do you have any files about it ? " " You can delve into the details when we get there " Lily sighed and decided to sit patiently in the spacecraft and the descenders operated it to take it to the sky and then through a portal .
...
The spacecraft arrived on a very distant solar planet and Lily looked at a point in the map and faced towards the direction of the Labyrinth after some thorough investigation ' It's like home but there are some new landforms and other colors than the usual green , blue , brown and white '
The descenders remained quiet and refrained from talking to Lily hearing rumors about her demanding attitude " Commander the banquet still hasn't been prepared so we hope you will be fine with waiting "
" I can wait I do plan to explore this normal society that the dispatched descenders call " " Then you will need some money we will process your account points for it " Life sensed a hint of jealousy and told Lily about what she found .
' That kind of conversion rate seems amazing , Is that just so that they can make sure the station doesn't overload from a big number ? " ' Possibly " Life said and Lily thought about the portal that they went through " Will it be a problem if I walk around looking like this ? "
" You don't have to worry about your attire commander many civilizations are part of the " " I don't mean my attire I mean my title " " Oh no they will not disturb you , however , they are willing to help you because of your position "
" As long as I am not bothered I will be fine " " Don't worry they won't unless you go to them and ask " the spacecraft landed and Life sensed the people that were waiting for her ' Looks like it's time for greeting who do we get? "
' Just some security although one of them seems to be the one in direct management with supplying the station's purchased products " Life said " Hello commander , I am Ryson I have been facilitating your purchase and information that goes through it "
' He's unaware of the shady business " Life told Lily " Is that so , I'm glad those Elixirs didn't have anything dubious in them , are you the only one here ? " " Yes after all I am the one who took care of most of the technicalities "
" So are you like a CEO ? do you own the entire operations ? " " No I operate it the owner is someone else " " Sounds familiar to me " the captain told Ryson of what Lily wanted to do " How about I bring you to your temporary residence so that you have a place to leave your things " " I will take it then "
" But first we need you to go through security it's not something I do so you'll have to follow what they say " Lily walked into a room " Answer my questions with simple yes or no questions " ' They have a lie detector " ' Hence the simplicity " Lily thought ' You can just trick yourself " Death said .
" Do you have anything dangerous on you ? " ' I have dangerous things in me and life and death don't count as things ' " No " Lily dodges several questions and allows herself through the security and the officer records her mental state submitting it to their superiors as "Brainwashed" .
' How ironic that the businessman is less corrupt than the officer ' Lily took a car with Ryson " Isn't amazing an automatic car ? " Ryson said " Why would it be ? I expected this much from an advanced civilization like you descenders "
' Wow , she's hard to impress ' " Then what do you want to use your money for ? " " Maybe learning about your history , it will prove useful to my plans for the Labyrinth " " Oh you mean your plan to bring your brother back ? I can tell that you have tried a lot to get them , he must mean a lot to you "
" Why wouldn't he ? He means the world to me " ' And yet he's gone and I'm still mentally stable so I guess he doesn't but ... I do miss him sometimes ' ' There's no convincing her out of it ' Ryson thought " Are there other candidate commanders that came up here "
" Yes although the only reason they are early is because you came now " " Are they supposed to participate in this banquet ? " " Yes , there was already a previous banquet made for just the two candidate commanders but for you commander a bigger banquet will be prepared in a week by the sponsors of all the candidates "
" I guess I should raise my expectations a little bit " " It's definitely gonna be big , the suppliers of your station have invested a lot of money even a few academy students would like to visit you to get to know "
" Is there only one academy ? " " Yes however the libraries you have been purchasing come from one big library you can visit and buy more " " Considering the massive storage for each library I'm expecting a very big library although it would be lovely to find some understanding of why the Labyrinth drags people into this world "
' So she did read a bit of history ' ' What a good cover you have a convenient scapegoat to throw all your evidence away , it's like that annoying temple that uses the name of god too much ' They arrive at a tall tower .
" This tower will be your residence " Ryson said " It's really big what exactly do you expect me to do with this ? Surely residence is just one thing " " I'm not sure either " Ryson said ashamed of not having more information than what he was going to tell .
" According to the suppliers they wanted to give you this tower they all pitched in to do so " Ryson said " I truly apologize for not being able to provide more information but maybe they're just grateful that you enjoyed the elixirs after all there aren't many purchases of such things and not many people are willing to buy their products "
" Did they give you a list to appease me ? " Ryson takes out a tablet and hands it over to Lily " Here " Lily skims through the names " Understood I will accept this gift " Ryson was surprised by Lily's quick acceptance " Then what about how this tower operates? "
" Give it to me and I'll figure it out on my own " Lily put on some glasses while Ryson handed it over " Can you leave ? I value my privacy , especially with people I'm not too familiar with " Lily said ' So what is in this tower ? " Lily asked and started to scroll through the tablet's contents .
' There's a lot of security cameras to interrupt your privacy " Life said ' Then I'll use Argus to hack everything and make a proper firewall " ' Are you sure about it? " Life asked worried about the potential advancements of AI that may hinder Argus's hacking .
' That's where you are wrong Life " Death said with pride in his voice ' I've been researching Lily's body for a whole week and I can say I have bought satisfactory results " Life wondered why Death suddenly sounded so confident .
' I've been able to teach Lily how to exploit that unique ability so now all we have to do is hack the whole tower's computers by using Argus and get that AI enhanced by Lily's soul " Hearing Death's research which had been something he had put so much effort on made Life wonder about how it could work .
' There's a private lounge I can leave the cane over there and strengthen Argus while beside it " ' But " Death interrupts Life ' Go on I really wanna see the results of my effort of teaching you " ' Wouldn't it '
Lily sat on the lounge and left the cane beside a computer allowing Argus to secretly spread wires to the computer and connect itself to it ' Now I just have to enhance it ' a pulse echoes to the cane and Argus begins hacking the system .
Lily scrolls through the tablet to search for the map of the place " I'll have to check the mirrors " Lily takes her cane and Argus continues to hack the system " Hmm this is quite a lot for one person , this level of generosity is extremely suspicious " She enters an elevator to go to the highest floor .
' Lily Rate is slowly destroying the fake feelings I've implanted " Life said ' Then I'll have to act like I was brainwashed " Life continues to sense any lifeforms around ' There's not even a single bug in here '
" I wonder how long I'll be staying here , I'll have to get used to this tower " Lily walked out of the elevator and sat at a bench near the rooftop " I don't get this kind of view here " Lily rest her arm on the armrest and waited for Argus to finish hacking .
The rooftop starts to cover itself and Argus appears " Hacking complete , Privacy setting is turned on " " Oh Argus didn't gain a self " Life blurted out .
" Wait he could gain that ? " Death asked in surprise " Maybe because you didn't gain one the same way as me but maybe he didn't gain one due to the lack of any material that could truly be related to a soul "
" Argus is an AI and a human brain is supposed to be the greatest mystery even greater than the galaxy so it wouldn't be a surprise if Argus never gained Sentience through it " Lily said .
" Hey is there a reason you named them Argus ? " Death asked trying to change the subject from his blunder or lack of consideration " I just heard the meaning of the name and thought it was fitting "
Lily went to the bedroom and threw herself on the bed " Hmm these computers are amazing " Lily started accessing her station's account and found plenty of privileges that followed being a commander as well as some restrictions .
" Where is the restriction ? " Death asked " Having people aware of what you do is more annoying than beneficial , I've been able to do what I like back at home but if I were to do something controversial the people would be at my throat "
" Hmm sounds unfair " Death said " None of us would understand since our old world never developed something akin to an internet " " Yeah cancel culture is harsh , although to me it's more like a modern version of "Burn the Witch" "
" But sometimes the witch is right and other times wrong " Death said " Yeah but most of the time I'm the villagers that burn them " Lily said " Since I'm the commander I don't have to worry about lies that they try to post although I should find a way to set up a business "
" How will you do that ? " " I have quite a businessman mindset embedded on Argus already so I'm sure I can leave all the trading to them plus with a massive tower like this they'll finish most of the information they can access much faster "
" But isn't it beneficial to earn through the station ? The exchange rate of a single point you earn is astronomical in this kind of economy " " Yeah but it limits me to a few suppliers most of which have already proven themselves untrustworthy "
Life and Death wondered how the economy of the descenders would go considering the diverse backgrounds between different civilizations ' Maybe I should learn about the culture , there's a reason history has story in the word '
" Say, can you buy the library of history ? " Death asked " sure I got a bit from Reimor history but with this I'll be able to know more about it " Lily said and threw it to the virtual cart " So what will you do now ? " Life asked .
" I plan to replace the suppliers , the black text can wait since I need to plant the seed another time so I can't be traced and I still don't know about their ways to retrace evidence to me yet "
Lily finished her purchase and walked to the elevator " What are you planning to do now ? " " Looking for some employees " " But how ? " Life asked " You will be helping me obviously " Life stopped Lily from going further by pulling away the pendant with her physical form .
" I don't think that's enough " " What ? " Lily asked taken by surprise by Life's disagreement " Relying on my ability to get the memories of anyone nearby takes too long to process you should understand the society first , even Death here wants to learn about the culture of other civilizations so you should at least try to make an effort "
Lily looked Life in her eyes despite having a lack of expression on her face her intent was given through her words " Hmm I guess you're right I do have to relax " " Good " Lily thought about the time it would take to finish the material .
" This is gonna be a long day " Lily sighed and waited while reading an ebook and heard from Argus " You have a delivery " " Is it what I ordered or another gift from the sponsor of the supply ? " " It is a gift "
" Guess I'll have to do the reading while at the lounge now , might receive more from them " Lily went down while Argus sorted the gifts sent to her " This is an amazing assortment " Lily looked at the potions that were given to her " None of them are elixirs or contain any brainwashing contents "
Lily checked the letter addressed to her "Please try our new product they will be useful to you when you get back" ' so they want me to test it and give it a rating , is that it ? ' She looked at the description amazed by the contents .
" An evolution potion , if it is not consumed properly can cause any other lifeform to evolve " " Ain't this like some of your medicine ? "
" Oh yeah it's been a long time I forgot , we had to replace that medicine with with magic considering how useful magic is but I don't like where this is going really " Lily said and the two wondered while Life listened to her thought .
' She discovered that it was made of the medicine that the dragon riders sold " Life told Death " I did remember wiping out the memory of me so they think of the medicine's source as somewhere different "
" So it would be incredibly pointless for you to drink these ? " " Yeah but I could tell them I have the source and can supply it , could just say the mysterious traveler gave it to me but there's the problem about how much they know ... which isn't much since most of my information isn't confidential just not known "
Lily takes the grimoire out " I could use this to learn their understanding of me much more easily " " But it requires a debt to be formed " Life mentioned " Hmm this one is difficult to use since debt is hard to form "
" Then get the debt from the desperate corrupt they know they can communicate with people outside " Death suggested " Plus with your background as the commander they'll be more than happy when you show them a little favour "
" I could use some employees for the business and I could use the indebted people to gain an upper hand when I open for business " " Yeah but there are a lot of legal things you have to go through which they will probably be useful too "
" Who knew making business was this hard " Lily complained " Then how did you do yours ? " " Like the vampire , the rich approached me hearing about what I could do and offered me riches to get a long life "
" And ? " " They failed and I got their fortune through their will " " But that won't exactly work here , would it ? " Lily nodded " I could sell the product of the evolution potion , there's demand for being stronger among the descenders lifespan is not a problem to them considering how they have the death extraction already "
Lily thought of how she could get a business by spreading the products that enhance strength " Well I could say that the source of this stat enhancement potion is from the mysterious traveler who is my scapegoat for espionage "
" But if you sell it to others they might get suspicious because they could buy the source at a higher price " " So should I just make a legitimate business of evolution potions ? " Lily asked " What's stopping you ? "
" Nothing apparently except for delivery cost " " But you can always make some monthly visits to deposit the source don't you ? " " Hmm yeah I could " " More gifts have arrived " A cart delivers crates of gifts and Lily checks them one by one .
" It's hard to keep up with this so I'll have to focus on the evolution potions " " You planning to send someone here ? " " I'll send Scyan to this place to manufacture them although he probably won't like it unless I tell him he gets a salary to buy whatever kind of knowledge that he like "
" Why not send the manager of the Lab ? " Death said " Scyan is the manager of the lab " " Explains a lot about him " " But still it's so difficult to move Scyan over here however if I think about the problem with staff "
" Didn't you make that reincarnation plus cloning device which Scyan still hasn't completed ? " " Reincarnation ? " Life asked curiously " Oh that's right she also has the souls of the living from back in the old world "
" It would be great if you had told me about that I could have left them before we departed " " Aha Yeah my bad " Death apologized " So I will let Scyan stay here he might be curious about the people of your old world too "
" You want to employ them as staff ? " " Why not ? I can call them through the station and inform them about the changes " " You did leave a few people on the station , so how should you go with it ? " Death asked .
" I'll just leave the supply management to Argus " " Won't they be suspicious because you're doing this kind of business " " I have plenty of excuses to make for it " Lily closes the tablet and checks the dates .
" Although I would like it to keep the descenders in check and get to the extracted deaths " " Oh yeah you do have that kind of plan to rescue them " Death said " You could try to kill the guards who are likely those who already lose their death by letting me extract their life " Life said .
" So I'll have to go ? " " You do , but you'll also need a vessel " Life said " I can go inside Lily's body " Death mentioned " Then you'll have to be careful about Rate being inside " " I know " Death said .
" I'm sure you can relax inside her body for a while with what she will be doing " Life said " I will but until then you don't know where you could get the reapers yet so maybe we should do some investigation work ? "
" Yeah the banquet is still being prepped so I would have to make some preparations , Might need to disconnect it again " " Again ? " Death said with disbelief " Yep so Death and Life please teach me how to extract the lifes out of the descenders who can't die and carry the deaths they extracted "
" So you are going to call Scyan over ? " " Why not I have plenty of money for a delivery " Lily sent a ship to pick up Scyan and sent over some instructions to him " Let's call our mysterious traveler Viator "
Lily sent the message and Ryson ignored it but someone else closer to the stockholders checked it " She plans to set up a business is it ? " " Yes Ryson had spoken to her but hasn't told anyone anything else "
" Perhaps she wants more control , that is what most of us would do " " Don't compare her to us , we know what kind of person she is although to think she had lived for that long the only good thing we know is that she can't penetrate our protection "
" However she already took down the AI on the smart tower we gave her " " It wasn't our best one but if she does act like that was something goof she'll be in for a rude awakening " " But if she rebels it could drive the people to panic "
" She won't notice a thing , not the fact it was us who brought the outcast to this world " " She will be enraged by it " " But it won't matter if she never hears about it "
' I can't wait to have the heist of the reapers conclude with that I'll be able to spy on them as freely as I like ' " Lily are you listening ? " Life asked her " Oh yeah I am " " This is a very difficult skill that I took years to develop due to the scale so you better listen " Life said .
" I will " Lily patiently listens to Life's tutoring while Death sits on a chair watching them thinking about the irony of Life teaching Lily the skill that kills immortals ' I mean Life did take all of the lives of the old world out of necessity , life ain't worth living without killing '
Death started talking to himself " No wait what I mean is , it ain't worth it if you can't eat ... Ugh why is that so hard ? " Lily looked at him while she practiced " You should talk to people you NEET " " Says the girl who stays inside a glass dome only talking to a robot "
" Occasionally I do take to real people maybe I should find a way to seal those abilities of yours to kill and take memories " " That would be good , gotta give a girl like you privacy " Death said " I could learn it now , my account is updated so I have the electronic copy "
Life stopped Lily " The banquet won't be ready until a week you will spend half of that with me and a quarter for storing the deaths with Death and the last with the sealing art after all you do plan on staying while we leave with a clone of you right ? "
Lily thought about the time that it would take " Another week of preparation again " " You have been progressing through this world too fast it's not like you can compare it to a farmer's economic growth with how many different variables exist in this world "
" Yep this world is like a giant buffet filled with civilization trying to survive " " Wouldn't you call that a food chain or the like ? " Death said " You know what I mean " Lily said .
...
" You did great " Life said observing Lily's handiwork " You've cleared the living mass and fully taken out all of its life " " Yeah I'm not sure if this one was good " " It is , that was the same outcome I got when I took all of their lives and sent myself to the Labyrinth "
" Speaking of the Labyrinth how did you enter this world ? " Lily asked and Life figured out what she had planned to do " I will tell you by the end of your week of preparation think of it as a reward " Life said .
' I shouldn't let her worry too much about things allowing her to be more capable will make her less susceptible to stress ' Life observed Rate traveling through Lily's body slowly but surely .
Lily continued to work through the week and by the end of it she applied the seals restraining Life's memory reception power and Death's killing area " You guys can test it out once you are back at home I'll go back through some cargo "
" So tell me how did you enter this world ? " " I will do that tomorrow " " I have memories of that too " Death said and Life shut him up " We will tell you that tomorrow for now get some rest " Life urged Lily " Okay "
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