D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

Chapter 1592 Cracking the Ice

--- Kamiko ---

"... and that's everything we picked up," finished Hunter. Meg was off to the side with a clipboard and glasses for reasons Kamiko didn't understand and Bower was dutifully ignoring. Hunter hadn't even noticed.

"So what is it your suggesting here?" asked Bower.

"Kill them all?" asked Meg with a grin.

"Stop trying to turn that into a joke," grumbled Bower. "We all know you were serious the first time. Repeating it every time it's vaguely applicable will not turn it into a running gag, nor make us forget that you mean what you're saying." Once done with that Bower turned back to Hunter.

"I was mostly hoping for you input. This is your world after all," said Hunter.

"What I'm hearing is that you want to push this decision onto me," grumbled Bower.

Hunter shrugged, "Despite Meg's blasé attitude towards consequences quite frequently... she's got the right idea in this case. We won't be around to deal with these people once we leave. I am unsure how much we will even have to do to get them out of the mists. We'll leave... and you won't be able to. You'll be at least somewhat responsible for them all,"

Bower groaned, "So much for my vacation plans I guess. Whatever, I guess I can come up with something if I really have to... but I get the feeling that you have an idea, otherwise you wouldn't be back in front of us,"

"You are correct..." admitted Hunter. "I suspect that the best course of action will be to wake Corela and fill her in on the details assuming Meg can open the pod," Meg of course nodded, "Once she's out we just... allow her a large amount of influence on our final decision.

Frankly, everyone in the compound is some mixture of anxious and scared but the only person who wants to force a decision, like really force it, is the youngest around and I am unsure if we should allow that pressure to fall on her shoulders. Additionally, if she were to wake Corela herself it would drastically limit our approach options."

"I'm not against it in principle... and in practice I suppose I can't find a reason not to go along with it. I'm not happy with it, not completely but I can accept it for what it is. The fact we're on a bit of a time limit does force things... but we didn't exactly want to spend long on this anyway... so why not let's go," confirmed Bower.

Kamiko just stood off to the side awkwardly as she remained blended into the background. She hadn't been entirely forgotten because Meg would look over and smirk at her at slightly irregular intervals but that was it. She wasn't even entirely sure if they wanted for her to come along on this trip.

Kamiko was assuming so, she didn't want to remain here by herself where she could get caught alone... but nobody had exactly addressed it.

We could of course simply take the object and leave, open a gap in the shield around the place and let whoever out who wants to go... or we could ensure that any issues acquired from coming into contact with the object were dealt with in a more thorough fashion," stated Meg.

"Ah, so killing everyone and burning the facility to the ground. It would certainly be less hassle for me if you went that direction," said Corela with a sigh. "Yet you've come to me... so not every one in your little group was up for the whole murder... hmm... is it the old man? He doesn't feel like a demon,"

"I'm a native of the planet actually," said Bower. Meg turned around and shot him a glare but Bower kept going. "This is what essentially everyone sentient looks like now. Well, it's possible the distant kingdoms have their own unique appearances but as you can see, scale coverage is a bit more... complete now,"

Corela turned her gaze on Bower, and for a split second Kamiko shivered. It was clear Corela was here as a researcher and not as a relative because for just a moment Kamiko could see Corela's attempt to rip apart Bower with her eyes and study all of the changes involved in his anatomy.

For Bower's part, he didn't flinch... though if that was due to his old eyes missing the glint, or not Kamiko didn't want to know. Nor did she want to know why his lips seemed to twitch in that moment.

"Welp, I suppose it's still better then that time I was getting woken up once a year to fix the oven. Gonna need to ask a whole bunch of questions though. Though I guess the first thing, is the world even inhabitable at the moment?" asked Corela. "For us I mean,"

Bower shrugged while looking at Kamiko and Hunter. "I noticed no reason for you to be excessively worried though the tech level has been significantly reduced. This is likely the most advanced facility still remaining," admitted Hunter.

Meg pointedly did not glare at this but she did step forward a slight touch and confirm it. "Hunter there is correct.

I know of no reason for the outside world to be intrinsically fatal but there are political and social realities that need to be recognised should you chose to leave... of course the generators outside are slowly falling apart and the ones inside are likely going the same way so it's unclear for how long you could remain here safely anyway,"

"Of course. Suppose the robots are doing maintenance on them?" asked Corela.

Meg shrugged, "There is a small glade of treants living on the exit,"

"Do you mean glade as in glade, or is a group of treants CALLED a glade?" asked Corela

"The second," confirmed Meg.

"Not sure that makes things better..." grumbled Corela.