Just how many androids are there in this goddamn place?!

It’s almost like they were mass producing it or something! Is this an android production facility?!

I would have thought this might be the case but I didn’t see any production facilities here so I don’t think it’s one.

What’s more, we lost even more of our meat shields... Just great...

Should we even still push forward?

Then again... We’ve already come so far and lost so many so turning back now kind of feels like a waste.

Well, I’m talking about the pirates of course, my group hasn’t lost anything so far except for our time spent on exploring this facility.

Looking at the pirates though, despite them losing more people, they didn’t seem like they were ready to give up yet.

The Pirate Lord pointed at three pirates amongst the remaining members, "You three, switch to thermals. Make sure that doesn’t happen again."

The three pirates nodded and the Pirate Lord simply turned back to continue heading deeper into the facility.

We formed up behind him and I joined my girls, opting to whisper through our comms.

"You girls feeling a little worried yet?"

Amber turned to me, "Eh? Worried? About what?"

"This exploration of ours of course. It feels like things are just going to get worse... I’m not confident that we might get much out of this."

"Really? I’m having a lot of fun right now though? It’s not all the time that we get to shoot up a bunch of things~"

I looked at the other girls to see if they had the same opinions and Ries was the first one to answer with a grin on her face.

"Ahahaha! Boss! I get to fire this little baby of mine however I want and watch it shred those machines into pieces! I’m having the time of my life right now!!"

To emphasise her point, she lifted up the machine gun in her hands and waved it enthusiastically.

I suppose I should have expected that kind of reaction from her...

Mara shrugged, "I don’t really mind. It’s not like there’s any dangerous situations so far."

Of course the person who could just crush and throw things with her mind would say something like that...

Lea also raised her hand, "I don’t see a problem either, Mistress. I believe even if we were alone without these pirates, we would be able to clear this place out on our own."

Well sure... If the pirates weren’t here, both Amber and Mara would simply wipe this place out by themselves. We could just follow behind them and do nothing and this place would be cleared.

But it’s precisely because there’s others here that they can’t do that which makes it more dangerous for us, doesn’t it?

Wait... Are they thinking that if we have to rely on their Psionic abilities to deal with a problem, we could just kill off the pirates to get rid of the witnesses anyway?

...

I guess that could be the reason.

Speaking of which, we have been moving through this long corridor for quite a while now... And it was basically just a really long spiral downwards to reach that room we found on the map.

It feels like we’ve been walking for forever and I don’t even know if we’re even halfway there yet.

It felt even longer because we were constantly on the lookout for ambushes but thankfully, nothing happened so far.

Right as I was thinking that things were too quiet, we heard a sudden muffled boom coming from behind us that shook the ground underneath our feet.

"What was that?" One of the pirates whispered.

Another one looked behind, "I don’t know... But that can’t be good..."

"It sounded pretty far from us at least..."

"What if the entire place was rigged to self-destruct and we’re stuck here?"

Everyone looked quite worried upon hearing that but the Pirate Lord growled at them, "That means we have to move forward anyway. So let’s move it!"

We started moving again, this time a little faster than before since the last thing we wanted was to have the corridor collapse on us and leave us trapped in here.

We didn’t even take a few steps before some rumbling sound could be heard from behind once more.

When I turned, I found several androids appearing from around the bend, all of them rushing towards us like a tidal wave, no doubt aiming to tear us apart.

The sheer number of them was enough to cover the entire space of the corridor and from how there were still more of them running from around the bend, it does not look like this tsunami of androids would end any time soon.

"Fucking move!!" The Pirate Lord ordered, shooting all of his guns at the rushing horde while continuing to run.

At this point, there’s no point in moving forward casually anymore so all of us also broke into a run while shooting behind us.

None of the androids were even concerned about getting shot down and they simply climbed over their comrades in front of them when one fell to take their place.

Even with me using the miniguns on my arms to create a wall of bullets, the wave of androids were barely even slowing down as they made use of their disabled brethren as shields to continue their charge.

We couldn’t even use explosives here since the corridor was not that big and it might trigger a collapse if we were to do that.

Thankfully, as we turned around the next bend, the corridor opened up to a large space with a giant armoured door built into the wall.

The door looked sturdy enough to even withstand the blast from a battleship cannon which means whatever is behind it must be quite important, right?

And with that door... If we can just get through the door and then shut it behind us, the androids should not be able to get through right?

Feeling hopeful, all of us made the final dash towards the door, trying to look for a way to get it open.

"You!! Hurry and open it!" The Pirate Lord shouted, pointing at me. "Everyone else, just try to stall these goddamn robots!!"

All of them obeyed and they arranged themselves in a single line to start shooting back at the corridor.

In the meantime, I ran over to the side of the door, only to realise I wasn’t looking at a single console but several different consoles.

The good thing was that there appeared to be power here so everything was working and I believe I simply needed to just hack one of the consoles to open the door.

I decided to just wing it and connected to one of the consoles, doing the usual mini game that would complete the hack in record time.

But when I was done, the screen did not change to show me another menu and it simply closed itself.

Eh?

Wait... Under normal circumstances, a menu should show up right? Maybe a screen with like a big button that has the word ’open’ on it?!

No... Don’t tell me I have to hack every single one of these consoles before I can open the door?! There’s at least a dozen of them!! Even if I can do this fast, this is still going to take me some time!

Arrgghhh!! Fuck it!

I connected my Codex to the second console, also hacking it quickly and the same thing happened so I ignored it and went for the third console.

As the screen appeared for me to start hacking the third console, I suddenly felt something shove me from behind and I found myself smashing into the wall.

I spun around to see three androids that somehow managed to get past the defenses to get to me.

These fuckers!

I raised up my arms, intending to fire the weapons on my arms at the androids but unexpectedly, the two androids at the sides grabbed onto my arm, stopping me from pointing my weapons at them.

The one in the middle pulled back his fist and I had the distinct feeling that he was going to try and punch through my chest plate to get to me...

Before I could try to activate the Wave Blades on my hands to slice off both androids, there was a metallic swish before the three androids froze.

They stayed there for a short moment before their heads were separated from their bodies and they crumpled onto the ground, revealing the Matsumoto guy standing behind them with his sword out.

He gave me a nod, "Open the door, I will defend you."

I was just about to tell him I had everything handled when he slashed out his sword to the side, prompting an android to fade into existence as its invisibility was deactivated and the robot fell back onto the ground.

Shit... Should have figured they were still using invisible androids.

I’ll leave my back to you then!