[Chapter 72. I Do It Myself]
Searanox stepped from the travel drone onto the rooftop balcony, the metallic surface of the platform vanishing into a shower of light beneath him as the unit was dismissed. His boots made no sound on the polished, weather-resistant stone as he crossed toward the railing, his gaze sweeping across the vast forest canopy that stretched toward the horizon. The day was dying; the sky was bleeding from a vibrant, fiery orange to a deep, bruised purple. He turned his attention upward, squinting as the omnipresent System countdown glowed against the darkening firmament.
He mused, the thought flickering through his mind with a cold, analytical edge.
Satisfied with the timeline for now, he turned on his heel and entered the rooftop foyer. His gaze swept across the empty, vaulted space to his left before he stepped into the familiar tactical room. The hexagonal sunken floor lay before him, a marvel of ancient or alien geometry. As his boots met the pit's surface, a soft violet light flared along the recessed edges, casting a dim, atmospheric glow across the chamber's walls. In the very center of the floor stood the same seven hexagons he had observed before: a singular blue core surrounded by six interlocking gray pieces.
The formation rose from the ground with a low, stopping at waist height as he approached. He leaned in to examine the device. To his disappointment, it looked entirely unchanged from two days ago.
He reached out, his fingers brushing against the semi-transparent surfaces of the hexagons. They felt cool—almost liquid—to the touch. They slid smoothly beneath his fingertips, shifting their relative positions with ease, yet they stubbornly refused to rotate or expand their scale. It was essentially useless. A handful of glowing tiles revealing only the immediate vicinity provided no actionable intelligence, especially when his own recon drones could already cover far greater distances.
A careless, frustrated tap on the central blue tile brought up a new holographic display: five distinct icons representing the tower's autonomous drone complement. After several minutes of tedious experimentation, Searanox confirmed his initial assessment. Only one of the tower's native units could venture beyond the current tile, and even then, it was merely a recon drone with a severely limited operational range and a primitive sensor suite.
His lips curling into a thin line.
He turned to leave the room, his boots echoing softly on the hexagonal floor. "Still," he muttered to the empty room, "a physical, static map would be better than the fragmented one I’m currently forced to keep in my head."
He paused at the exit, his hand lingering on the door handle. A spark of an idea took hold. "I could just draw my own. It can't be that difficult. Can it? I just need the basics: paper and a pen."
Searanox mentally commanded the System to display a comprehensive regional map. Silence stretched. No window materialized; no holographic grid filled the air. A flicker of genuine annoyance crossed his mind. It would be incredibly irritating to waste time and effort drawing a map by hand only for the System to suddenly conjure a high-fidelity version the moment he finished. However, the immediate problem remained: where to find paper?
The tower offered many things—security, power, and storage—but it offered nothing as mundane as stationery. In this new world, paper had never been a priority for him. Food, shelter, raw strength, and dungeon clears—those were the metrics that mattered. Mundane office supplies did not.
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"The prefab house," he remembered. If luck was on his side, the abandoned structure might hold something he could repurpose. He would be passing near it anyway before his next scheduled dungeon clear.
The travel drone settled near the house, vanishing into sparks as his boots met the forest floor. The search inside the prefab structure was quick and largely unproductive. He sifted through drawers and cabinets, finding nothing but dust, until he came across a few framed pictures and two large canvas paintings hanging in the hallway. With a quick mental command, they all vanished into his storage ring.
"They'll have to do," he said, stepping back out into the humid air.
As the sun continued its slow descent, casting long, skeletal shadows across the forest floor, Searanox's travel drone drifted through the high canopy. His enhanced vision picked up frantic movement below—a small group of figures locked in desperate combat. He directed the drone to hover momentarily, its silent engines keeping him hidden above the treeline.
Below him, he saw Iris and the four women engaged in a chaotic struggle against a mana-infused deer. The creature was a blur of shimmering fur and glowing antlers, its movements fluid, erratic, and deadly. Blue energy crackled between its points, threatening to discharge at any moment. For nearly a full minute, Searanox observed the scene with a cold, detached eye. He noted Lana's faltering grip on her shield and the way Vanessa’s hands shook as she unleashed wild, ineffective bolts of arcane energy that struck trees and dirt more often than the target.
He shook his head, a flicker of genuine contempt crossing his features. "They have a long, painful way ahead of them," he muttered. Without another word, he directed the drone to continue its flight toward the tower, leaving the sounds of the struggle behind.
Inside the tower’s war room, he arranged his scavenged materials on the polished, dark wood table. He set the two canvas paintings aside; their surfaces were promisingly textured and durable. The four framed photographs presented a different challenge; their glossy, chemical surfaces were completely unsuitable for charcoal or ink. Only one, a family portrait printed on a heavy, matte paper stock, seemed potentially workable. He carefully removed it from its frame and tested the surface with a thumbnail.
"Still too slick," he whispered, tossing it aside with a sigh. He turned his attention back to the canvases. If he stripped them from their wooden frames, their backs would provide the raw, porous surface he needed for a large-scale map.
Now, only one problem remained: a drawing implement. He didn't have a pen, but he had something better and more primitive. Coal. Simple, dark, and effective.
With a thought, a cargo drone materialized beside him. With another mental command, it zipped out of the room, flying over the balcony and descending into the dark forest below on its mundane but necessary errand to find firewood or coal deposits. While the drone was out, Searanox made his way down to the tower’s ground level.
He appeared in the vast, echoing atrium next to the central stone. Just as he turned to exit toward the clearing, the group of women trudged in through one of the main entrances. They looked exhausted; their clothes were torn, matted with sweat, and stained with a mixture of dark dirt and drying blood. Lana leaned heavily against the rim of her shield, her face pale and streaked with salt-lines from her earlier tears. Vanessa moved with a rigid, defiant posture, though her fingers still trembled violently at her sides. Sarah kept her head down, avoiding all eye contact, while Carmen walked with a protective arm around Lana’s shoulders, her own expression grim and aged.
Searanox watched them for a moment, his expression unreadable behind his shades. His gaze eventually settled on Iris, who stood several paces apart from the others. Her silver eyes were sharp, tracking his every move with an intensity that the others lacked.
"Iris," Searanox said, his voice flat and projecting easily across the atrium. "How was the training?"
He asked the question not out of social curiosity, but as a commander checking the status of a combat asset.
"They are weak. But they are starting to learn. Pain is a very effective teacher," Iris replied, her tone as devoid of emotion as his own. "They survived the encounter. For now."
Searanox gave a short, curt nod of acknowledgment. With a flick of his intent, a swarm of small healing drones materialized in the air around the women. They hummed softly, casting a soothing, bright green light over the group, beginning the process of closing wounds and knitting flesh.
"I need charcoal for a project, so I was planning on making a bonfire outside," he said, a slight, rare smirk playing on his lips as he looked at Iris. "Would you like to roast some fresh meat while the wood burns down?"
Iris's eyes met his, and for the first time that day, a genuine spark of predatory joy flashed within their silver depths.
