Published at 3rd of November 2026 6:25 am

Chapter 7613: Setting Expectations

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As Ves, his daughter and Lucky boarded the shuttle that would take them back to the Tarrasque, they had all fallen into silence.

The gem cat yawned and began to take a short nap while lounging on the little girl’s nap.

Meanwhile, Ves and Andraste still remained preoccupied by what they had witnessed during their tour on the Moloch.

Ves gently reached out and grasped his daughter’s small but firm hand.

’Pumpkin.’

’Papa?’

Both of them communicated with each other through spiritual means. This was a trick that everyone with a companion spirit or attainments in qi cultivation could accomplish. It was a much more secure means of relaying messages with each other, especially if they took measures to minimize their emissions by relying on proximity.

Naturally, if Ves the need to resort to this method, then he definitely did not want others to listen in on his conversation.

’When you looked at the Large Mother Crystal Fragment, what did you truly feel? I do not think that you merely sensed a lot of ’noise’ from the artifact.’

Andraste kept her mouth shut while playfully swinging her legs back and forth. She maintained a perfect facade of innocence while radiating smugness towards her father.

’Heh, I can be subtle when I have to. You didn’t want others to know too much about it, right? What I said back then was true. I genuinely felt like this crystal was some kind of mistuned communicator. However, Yaika was able to pick up something underneath it all. It was difficult for me to notice it at all. I only managed to find out several minutes after we entered the last lab. All of that noise and stuff is doing far too good a job of hiding it all. I bet there is no one else in the fleet that can do the same."

Ves tried to repress an urge. Even he and Blinky had failed to detect this undercurrent!

’Good girl. I am so proud of you, not because you are talented, but because you have learned how to keep secrets.’

’Papa is a good teacher.’ Andraste mentally preened. ’Anyway, what exactly I have managed to detect is... weird. I don’t know how to describe it to you. I felt as if my tongue had brushed against an entirely new flavor of death.’

’What do you mean by flavors of death?’

His girl struggled to explain her understanding. ’Death is... death. In my younger years, I have always known what it represents. At least I thought so. When I trample the bugs underneath my feet, I can feel their tiny lives slipping away. They just... go. That was all I ever knew. Then I started to talk to Helena and learned that death can have other forms. It’s like... you know, how different religions have different afterlives. They all try to explain what happens after you die.’

’The starting point is the same, but the outcomes are different.’ Ves mentally remarked.

’Like that! Well, I learned from Auntie Helena that death is not the same everywhere. It takes one form in the old galaxy, and a slightly different form in the new frontier. The two aren’t all that different to be honest. I think that was because the Red Ocean orbited the Milky Way for a very long time. They’re related to each other.’

Ves understood what she was trying to convey. ’I see. Messier 87 must probably come across as a stranger in comparison.’

’Exactly! That big green crystal has put up an invisible field or whatever that is rooted in this foreign version of death. I bet that it is really important to the deathborn. Right now, I don’t understand anything about it. There is plenty of stuff that feels familiar to me, but it is all wrapped up in completely new and alien rules.’

’Can you... connect to this underlying interface?’

’I can try, but... I don’t think it will end well for me.’ Andraste firmly responded. ’Just because I know a thing or two about death does not mean that I am a deathborn. I don’t know a thing about their language and other stuff.’

Ves looked thoughtful. ’That does not rule out the possibility. You enjoy a rare advantage. I am sure that if you are able to address these shortcomings, you may be able to succeed and access the true administrative layer of that Large Mother Crystal Fragment.’

’...’

His daughter did not feel all that confident about this. She actually felt scared due to his growing expectations.

He quickly grew alarmed and bent over to hug his little girl.

’I won’t force you to connect to that big crystal. I know it is dangerous. When it comes down to it, this is still a fragment of an insanely powerful and complex alien construction. Who knows how many traps and other safeguards those deathborn have left behind? There are too many risks involved with trying to harness it while blind to all of these hidden traps.’

The earlier engagements had already given Ves and the Larkinsons a good impression of the personality and habits of the deathborn.

They had already proved that they were clever. They possessed enough awareness about information warfare. Anything they built in the Red Ocean most likely possessed hidden safeguards that prevented humans or other unauthorized individuals from accessing their strange technologies at will.

This was far from the first time red humanity encountered such obstacles.

Humans always managed to break them. If there was one thing that they were good at, it was reverse engineering alien technologies. The only question was how long it would take for their best scientists to unlock the true secrets of deathborn engineering.

Ves did not want to end up with an extremely valuable alien artifact only to leave it in his vault for several decades.

It was a good thing that he already had several alternative solutions in mind.

Granted, they were all radical and may end up ruining the Large Mother Crystal Fragment on a permanent basis, but these were the risks inherent with prioritizing haste over caution.

The good thing was that Andraste would be left out of it for the most part. She did not have to take any risks until others had done the heavy lifting.

"I love you." He sighed as he patted her on the back.

"I love you too, papa."

A minute of silence later, Andraste finally chose to voice her words.

"That green crystal is way too big and dangerous for me, but those smaller gadgets were fun. Can I have them? That boot is really nice. If I had a pair of them sized for my feet, I could race across the battlefield with my sword!"

Ves almost coughed. "It is way too early for you to dream about swinging your sword against our alien enemies! Besides, there are plenty of high-tech mobility solutions that you can turn to that do not come with potential alien traps. Sure, they aren’t as compact and convenient, but known human tech is the most reliable option available."

"That’s so boring. Didn’t you make lots of use of alien tech when you were younger?"

"You are not wrong, Andraste, but those were different times. The enemies I fought against were weaker and much less sophisticated. Things have changed after the Great Severing. The rise of the mutated voribugs and the threats from Messier 87 has forced us to confront a higher level of enemies that are not easy to exploit. We cannot blindly refer to our past successes to guide our actions in the days ahead."

He knew it was easy to say those sensible words. It would be a lot harder to stay true to their meaning.

Too many people still possessed blind reverence for human supremacy. They thought that they were the destined race that would always manage to overcome one existential crisis after another.

As the shuttle returned to the Tarrasque, Andraste cheerfully ran back to their stateroom while holding Lucky.

"Make sure not to say too much about what you saw, honey!"

"I know! I am not stupid papa!"

Ves could not afford to retire yet. He still needed to handle a few responsibilities, especially now that he had gained a greater understanding of the value of all of those deathborn artifacts.

He spent the next hour in discussion with the Saint Commander and other important figures about the allocation of the spoils.

Casella possessed an ambivalent attitude towards all of the strange alien stuff.

"Our researchers are already overloaded with their current assignments. Unless we can acquire a xenotechnology-oriented research institution or two, I do not think it is worth our time to do all of the hard work of figuring out these new technologies. It is much better for us to take advantage of our existing connections and exchange most of the unusable artifacts to our closest allies. This will not only allow us to get more for less, but also secure privileged access to their results. Our clan already possesses enough technological leads. We should cling to our existing advantages rather than dilute them in our greed to master more."

The Larkinson Clan ultimately possessed too many limitations to master deathborn technology.

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