Read Novel Full Chapter 959: It’s Not Cleared Yet
Chapter 959: It’s Not Cleared Yet
I stepped out from the burrows and back onto the surface of the planet with the dogs jumping out after me.
"Hello~" I greeted them with a casual wave, like I had just gone to the store to get some snacks or something.
The corgi also leapt out behind me, carrying the head of the bug queen with her and bobbing it up and down like a trophy being displayed.
My girls immediately turned to me, their guns raising slightly for a moment before lowering them when they realised it was me and not a mass of bugs appearing from the burrow.
"Tera! Welcome back! We saw you kill that giant bug!" Amber welcomed me chirpily, her voice coming out from her Exo-Knight.
I raised an eyebrow, wondering just how they saw that until I looked down at my chest.
Right... I guess Renata was streaming my journey to the depths the entire time to the girls. Should have expected that.
I grabbed onto the rope and let myself be pulled up into the cockpit of my Exo-Knight, leaving the dogs to gather below my machine.
Nerissa was right where I left her, the Biotamer seating at the edge of the cockpit and watching me ascend on the rope to reach her.
"You did it..." She muttered, not a question but just stating it like a matter of fact.
"Well... The dogs were a big help."
"No, I mean... Sure but... You... Well... I guess that’s to be expected from a Psionic I suppose..."
She was looking at me very carefully, and it was obvious she was also choosing her words carefully as well, like she was afraid that I would also rip her head off or something if she said the wrong thing.
I shrugged, "I dare say that if the dogs weren’t there, I would have definitely had a harder time though."
She stared at me for a good few seconds before turning away to mutter almost inaudibly, "Could have fooled me..."
Not sure what she meant by that but... It would definitely be a pain in the ass for me to fight my way through all those bugs without any backup... I would have to keep my Psionic force up the entire time and that would be a bother...
With the dogs, I could at least have some time to chill and let them handle part of the bugs without worrying about being flanked.
Also... The fact that they’re cute also definitely helped since it was way better than just seeing bugs everywhere.
I turned back to look at my girls who were also gathered around me, "I destroyed their nest so this place should be clear. We should corroborate our story though."
Nerissa looked up at me with a raised eyebrow, "Aren’t we sticking to the original plan? I... Go in there and... Somehow got the dogs to kill everything?"
"Yeah... That plan isn’t going to work since we’re planning to stream what happened there too. So we’re going to say that I followed you in there as well but of course the dogs did most of the work. You watched the video, right?"
She nodded her head, "It was being played here as well... I saw you... Using your powers."
She said it as if she was admitting she committed a crime or something...
I nodded, "In case you’re worried, we’ll be editing that video so it would show the non-Psionic parts as a montage video. You don’t need to worry, we’re not killing you to shut you up."
I watched as she let out an audible sigh of relief and the tension bled out of her shoulders.
She actually thought we were going to kill her huh?
Ries’s Exo-Knight raised a hand to get my attention, "Quick question Boss... What’s with that dog dragging around that big head?"
"Ah, I thought that it might be a good idea to bring back some proof of the kill or something... Maybe they might even want it as research?"
"They would definitely want it as research material," Yumiko confirmed, her Exo-Knight shifting slightly as she stood the furthest away from where the dogs were gathered, clearly trying to avoid them.
Well... No doubt they definitely want the bugs to research their biology and I’m pretty sure the moment they figure out a use for the bugs, they would also start harvesting them.
Though I guess they’ve become a limited resource thanks to me.
I sat on the pilot seat of the Exo-Knight and powered up the machine, letting Nerissa strap herself into her own seat as well while I switched my consciousness to control the Exo-Knight.
I connected the comms to my girls and gave them a nod, "Let’s go then."
We leapt into the air and activated our thrusters to fly back towards the fort, prompting the dogs to run after us below.
The fort quickly came into view and the soldiers opened the gates for the dogs to run in without hesitation, allowing me to lead them back to the containers where Nerissa pretended to corral them back into the containers.
The corgi dropped the head of the bug queen at my Exo-Knight’s feet and gave a happy bark before she ran into the container after the others.
Ugh... I wanna pet her...
I hope I still have a chance to pet the dogs before I leave... They’re all so cute~
Once the dogs had stowed themselves away in the containers, I powered down my Exo-Knight and opened up the cockpit, allowing me to bring Nerissa back down to the ground.
As soon as she touched down, she tapped on her personal terminal to project a screen where she was trying to call up a certain person.
The call only needed a single ring to get through and the screen changed to show the admiral standing at the bridge of his ship.
He nodded at us, "I see you have both returned to the base. Am I right in assuming that the expedition is successful?"
Nerissa nodded, "Yes. We have cleared out the nest."
The Biotamer then turned to me, prompting me to step forward to confirm her words.
"We brought the dogs down into the tunnels and found they had a queen. Killing the Queen also killed the other bugs."
Nerissa shifted the screen to show the head of the bug queen to the admiral.
"I believe all the other bugs should now be dead, Admiral," I continued after Nerissa turned the screen back to face us. "The planet is now secured."
The admiral looked at me like I had just told him the bugs were friends or something.
"The planet is secured?" He repeated.
I nodded, "Yes. The death of the queen triggered a chain reaction where all the other bugs also exploded and died. So the rest of the bugs should also be dead now."
He slowly stepped aside, revealing several screens behind him that were showing various other bugs crawling around as seen from above, still alive and well.
I blinked at the screens, feeling confused at the sight because I’m pretty sure I saw the bugs exploding to death after their queen died...
The admiral stepped back into the frame, a wry smile on his face.
"I see... You thought there was only one nest, was that it, Mercenary Tera? We’re dealing with an entire bug infested planet here, I’m afraid... There’s more than one nest of them. The good thing is that the area that you are in is now secured at least, but there’s also other nests that we would need you and Miss Eventgarde to clear out as well. Our initial scans report that there are at least eighty seven other nests that need to be cleared out on the planet though there might be more that our scans might have missed due to them being too deep underground."
I blinked at him, my mind needing a few moments to catch up to understand what he had just said.
"Did you say... Eighty seven nests?" I muttered.
He nodded, "That we know of so far, yes. All of them need to be eradicated."
Eighty seven nests... Even if we clear one nest a day... That’s still going to take us almost three months of work without rest...
I only had to clear out this one nest and I was already tired of seeing bugs all around me... There was no way I was going to go through this eighty seven more times...
Is there an easier way to do this? Can’t you guys like... Take this dead queen bug and come up with some bug spray that would kill off all the bugs on the planet and leave everything else untouched?
After all, I did bring this to you guys to do something with it right?
No?
You’re really not expecting us to go down into the burrows another ninety times are you? Because unless you’re paying us a lot of Credits, you can forget about--
"Oh, and by the way, we’re paying one billion Credits per nest cleared," The Admiral continued.
....
Alright, we can negotiate this.