The next morning, all is good as we set out onto the road again. Aelynthi is behind the wheel when the security system spots something on the turret omni camera. I point the directional camera at the point and see two elves and show this to Aelynthi. Her response is to turn the vehicle away from them.

"Scouts."

"From who?"

"I do not know." Alright, best not to give them information on her whereabouts. Now we know they are searching for her in the vicinity of our home. We continue as if nothing happened.

"Are you going to tell me about your friend?"

"No, it is a surprise."

"Is it a good surprise, or bad one where I get beaten up?"

Aelynthi laughs: "It is a surprise." She is still getting pay back for the whole leave me be fiasco.

As we continue our journey I experiment with residual stress in materials, in other words trying to make Prince Rupert's Drop spherical without a tail, of course I am using diamond instead of glass but it is the same concept, theoretically it has more extreme properties if done right. I fail completely, I will need to make a few PRDs without the use of mana shaping and study them as making a PRD directly with mana shaping is beyond my knowledge. Aelynthi has long gotten used to my eccentricities, it seems the concept of an eccentric genius often appears within mage circles, but I do not count myself as a genius. I regret not paying more attention in school, maybe I would have less problems to solve now.

With nothing else to do I spend some time on improving my AMR. I double the magazine size and fire rate. Additonally I convert the AMR to accept 20mm APFS bullets which I have been delaying for some time. All of my quad turrets are missing this upgrade but their current performance is more than enough to plow through an army so I am not in a hurry. Finally I add a muzzle brake and pistons to the stock to reduce recoil. Thinking that if the weapon has more manageable recoil then I can comfortably shoot a faster bullet, I add a control for combustion size with a setting for more power than usual. After testing it out I realise I have masochistic tendencies… I promise to myself to never again fire this weapon without using the bipod. Although hese upgrades increased the guns weight from 5kg to 7 kg, it is a major weight increase, but considering that it is still extremely light for what this gun is capable of, the weight does not worry me.

Finding that we still have 4 days to go I turn my attention to my armour as I did not enjoy receiving a crossbow bolt to the shoulder. I rework the armour strengthening enchantment from being passively always on to an active detection and response system. Theoretically this should double its defensive capabilities. I also add an air filter function to the balaclava with chemical and biological filtering.

Due to our leisurely pace it takes 8 days, since we left, before Aelynthi informs me that we are here. I keep driving in the direction she points at, so far nothing, at this moment the security system informs me that it has spotted 1 target, no 4... 13... 37... 79... Error. This error should only appear in the situation that there are more than 128 unknown signatures. I tense up as I realize that we are surrounded, all of the targets are extremely small but each one is at least rank 1 in mana levels. I make a note to increase the upper count limit, I will have to expand the control core. I look towards Aelynthi, I see her smile at me, next she happily jumps up from her seat and runs out of the car. She then proceeds to yell something. All of the signatures start moving, mostly towards us. I understand that they are not hostile but my brain is already thinking about making a high rpm pistol turret as one 240 rpm quad does not make me feel safe in this situation.

Aelynthi is surrounded by tiny people with wings, fairies. This is my first contact with fairies, how do their brains work? I bury the curiosity budding within me to dissect them. They are keeping their distance from me but I already see some of them inspecting my car with interest. I spot a few them trying to paint the car, they fail miserable as the surface is the perfection of non stick and self restoration. I start thinking about the cars enchantments. I have prepared for worst case scenario like this as I have experienced how easy it was for me to erase another mages enchantment. I have back ups and back ups for back ups for a situation like this, multiple alarms for when one part loses its appropriate enchantment but I can not help but want to run around swatting fairies and yell 'get away from my car'. Now I see them mana shaping different parts of the car, the car restores itself over time but if they mana shape over an enchantment I will have to restore that manually. I look towards Aelynthi with an expression of an abused animal, she ignores me. I am not sensitive enough to understand the fairies via telepathy as the intent carried by their mana is too weak. I try sending my intent towards multiple fairies to stay away, the result is that they understand me... but more fairies swarm the car. I start thinking what if they reach the pressurized air, liquid H2 and liquid O2 containers inside of the car. I run over to Aelynthi.

"Can you stop them, that car is our means of protection."

Aelynthi hesitates as she enjoys my worry, I guess she feels safe here.

"They are just having fun, they are interested in anything from the outside world." Outside world? They do not go outside?

"Look, my car is not a toy, it was made for war."

As Aelynthi is about to respond, we hear a bang. We run over to the swarm of fairies. A wheel has been popped. There is a fairy on the ground, the fairy is not moving. The fairies swarm the fairy and I lose sight of the fairy. I send a glare at Aelynthi, I feel guilt coming from her. A slightly larger female fairy flies over to us from the distance and all of the other fairies give way for her. I spot the downed fairy again when the larger fairy flies over to the downed fairy, she casts a spell on the fairy and then says something to the crowd, 4 fairies go over pick up the downed fairy and take him away. The larger fairy turns toward me with anger on her face. Before anything else, Aelynthi says something to the fairy.

'··········'

The fairy responds: '·········' I feel relief from Aelynthi.

The fariry points at me and continues speaking: '···························' I feel surprise and then slight anger from Aelynthi.

Aelynthi responds to the fairy: '·························································'

The fairy continues speaking: '···············································································' I feel more anger from Aelynthi.

Aelynthi interrupts whatever the fairy was saying, goes over to me and holds my hand as she proceeds to glare at the fairy as she continues to speak: "······················································································································" Aelynthi points at the fairies, the car and me then back at the fairies then at the larger fairy. This goes on for about a minute, the larger fairy says a few words and leaves. I feel slight irritation from Aelynthi. I send a questioning look at Aelynthi.

"The fairy is alive, but unconscious. The elder wanted to put the blame on you for hurting the fairy. I explained the situation but she would not listen and started spouting nonsense about humans using you as an example. I informed her of your status and called her out on the nonsense she has spoken, she said the high elders will decide your punishment." I feel a headache coming on, great now I have to deal with politics? Good thing I brought 100 kg of carbon, I can make a few pistol turrets with that. I do not plan on using them, but better safe than sorry. My grenades should be highly effective against the fairies, also I will need to... My thoughts are interrupted by Aelynthi.

"I am Sorry." For? The fairy?

"I am not the one that got hurt." I feel guilt and shame from Aelynthi.

Aelynthi nods then shakes her head and says: "I know, sorry for screwing up again."

I sigh and proceed to hug her and kiss her on her head.

"I am going to check up on the car, what about you?"

"I will go and find my friend before this grows out of proportion."

I nod and start inspecting the car. It takes me 2 hours to comb through every possible aspect of the car but I still do not feel satisfied because I could have missed a hole or enchantment somewhere. So far what I had to fix includes: one headlight, 2 small cameras, 3 wheels, a suspension piston and the steering on 2 wheels. Luckily the inside was left untouched, they did not have enough time to shape a whole through which they could enter I guess.

The first thing I do after feeling somewhat satisfied that the car is not compromised is add another firing mode to the aiming system of the AMR turret for small targets, so each barrel has its own aiming vector as in the original aiming mode there was a 10 cm radius spread, which is no problem for human targets and larger but when the target is only 10 centimeters high... I look at my grenades, they are the only thing that can save me if fairies decide to attack me en masse.

Now I set about making pistol turrets, good thing I have 5 spare pistols in the car. It takes me only 1 hour to setup a pistol turret, even though it has hundreds of rounds it only has 48 air tanks, so 48 shots, which it will empty in 6 seconds. The annoying part is that with these small volumes of air if I make an air tank further away it will be less efficient as the longer hose will make the pressure drop and a longer reaction time will make the RPM drop even if just by a bit. I think of using one large air tank to refill the turret air tanks then I remember the car already has an air tank for the air suspension and steering. I make my decision to connect the turret air tanks to the car air tank. Firstly, I need to upgrade the car air tank a bit by increasing its wall thickness. Furthermore add an intermediate tank between the main tank and the vehicle steering & suspension that will replace the previous function of the main air tank. I add another 3 pumps to the main air tank and start working on another turret. I scrap the pumps from the already built pistol turret as we do not need them anymore and redundancy would not be efficient in this case. It takes me another 2 hours to finish the second pistol turret and set it up.

It has been 5 hours since I parted with Aelynthi, the sun is setting. I concentrate on my bond with Aelynthi, she is fine judging by the happiness I feel from her. I take a break and start planning out my next course of actions. I am low on pistol ammo, by my estimations the turrets will run out within a minute of firing. Of course within that minute it will fire over half a thousand rounds but the truth of the matter is that the air tank will only be enough for less than half of that. From this my current priority is adding another air tank and upgrading the control core. I spend 10 minutes updating the control core for a large amount of targets.

As I am about to build another air tank, I see a group of larger than average fairies flying over to me. If the previous ‘large’ fairy was 20cm compared to an average fairy of 10cm then these are about 30cm. I take a quick look at my camera to see their mana levels. The 30cm fairies are rank 3 it seems, but that is not a matter to be afraid of as even if their mana levels are so high they probably have less total mana than a peak rank 1 human mage. Though, it will be a different story if their spell efficiency is many times better than what I have seen so far, however that is very unlikely but I should not assume anything. I can't help myself from thinking about the speed at which a bullet leaves my AMR, I have no idea but I suspect it is over mach 2 and what will happen if said bullet hits the fairies that are coming towards me with faces covered in anger and displeasure. Right now in front of me are two rank 3 fairies and a bunch of rank 2 fairies, my guns are on standby and ready to follow a simple command of firing hundreds of bullets on non registered signatures.

One of the leading rank 3 fairies says something. Judging by the way he looks he should be hundreds of years old. I suspect he thinks I should understand his words but obviously I do not. I answer by sending my intent via mana as always, hopefully I can receive his reply.

"I am Anton Ippolitov how can I help you?"

'································' I do not answer his gibberish and look at him, I am pretty sure he received my intent by his reaction.

"Do not play games human, there is no need to use telepathy." Oh great, what excuse should I use to explain away me not knowing the human tongue.

"Alright." Is what I sent to him, next I smile and proceed to talk in English, I think Aelynthi would enjoy my joke.

'Hello again, I am Anton Ippolitov. You have yet to introduce yourself. You wanted to speak publicly well here I am speaking. As you did not ask why I used telepathy, you presumed I was doing so on purpose. I bet your arrogance will blind you from seeing the obvious, I am speaking an unknown language to you and I did not understand your language in the previous conversation.'

His anger intensifies, it looks like he is on the border of outright attacking me. I hear a laughter in the distance, I recognise one of the sources, it is Aelynthi but not the other. As the fairy is about to explode with anger, all of the fairies bow in the direction of the 2 newcomers.