"Huh?...Did anyone hear that?. What was that sound?...Erika?"

"...I don't know...This is new...Ah...Pioneer, pioneer!"

Pioneer's humanoid body observes the adventurers waking up and talking to each other quietly for a moment before looking over at Erika to answer her calling. Pioneer has made a lot of progress in improving its communicating with Erika, the young knight seems more open and comfortable with the current small, compact humanoid body comparing to the larger, 'conventional' 4 legged robot body, she even goes as far as holding the humanoid body's hands to teach it hand gestures directly sometimes.

"Yes?"

Pioneer does the head tilting and eye focus loosening while waiting for Erika's reply, the core has noticed that every time it does this gesture, Erika seems to become more relaxed and her heart rate become oddly unstable. Pioneer isn't sure the reason behind that reaction is, so it will need to try doing this a few more times to gather more data about it.

"...Erika..What did you teach it?"

"Eh?...Ah...Gestures and some words, really!."

"Erika, yes?"

Pioneer begins the phase two of the gesture trial, this time the humanoid body just simply perks an eyebrow while using its right hand to comb its bang aside gently. The result the core gets is more shouting between the adventurers as they get fired up for some reasons, the core thinks maybe it best to not do this on a regular basis to avoid that kind of reaction in the future.

While waiting for the mess to be resolved and reply to be delivered, Pioneer quickly hops to its primary body, the main hull has reached the new colony site, and the first thing the core can think of is marvelous, rich in minerals and extremely large area that can be used to build more facilities, the place is certainly a well-suited place for the new colony to be constructed at.

But the resources is not the only thing Pioneer can find in this place, for 400 meters away from the area is an exit leading to the outside world, a forgotten realm with traces of extinct civilizations and lush forest filled with strong primal beasts that Pioneer has never seen before. Pioneer has discovered the forsaken heaven of this world.

[/Scanning_object:...]

Pioneer and its drones slowly step out of the dark cave and bath themselves in the bright, warm sunlight as they walk around and explore the newly found area. The black 4 legged drones do not go very far away from the cave, mostly they just stick around in groups and quickly crawling around in circles to carefully mapping out the area, for Pioneer, the machine just quietly picks up grass and small flowers on the ground to observe them closely. The core is being very curious of the place.

[/New_objective: Construct Communication Phalanx Facility and establish communication with the human]

[Nexus Reporting: Relocating resources now, new satellite colony 2 and 3 will be constructed shortly.]

Pioneer slowly puts the weeds down as it looks up and stares at the sun to observe how fast it is moving, the core wants to find out if one hour in this world is the same as one Earth's Sol hour its system is using, Pioneer is also measuring the energy signature of the sun to plan to construct some solar plants to expand its power production.

At this time, Pioneer also begins to wonder where 'Earth' is at and will its makers satisfied with its finding and its actions?. Pioneer also wonders if there have any other exploration robots near or on the planet aside from Pioneer's own creations. The core also questions itself whether it will stay on this planet and keep an eye on it until its makers arrive or should it launch additional extraterrestrial exploration groups and start colonizing other planets and moons in the system as well.

The core suddenly receives an odd data flow and power spike in its processing units, unlike the usual 'happy', 'excitement' signature the core had experienced in the past, this signature is very unpleasant and discouraging and the data flow only revolves around the idea of the machine being the only kind of its own in this world. Pioneer is experiencing the feeling of loneliness for the first time ever since its second awakening.

The core decides to ignore the anomaly in its processing unit as it gives the primary hull a list of objectives to do in the newly found area before it hops back to the Beta drone hull in the cave. Currently, the Beta drones are engaging the bugs and mowing them down one by one with their prototype and experimental weaponry, with Pioneer being the point man and burning the bugs to dead with its invisible heat ray emitters and an EM hover leg type beta drone supporting the group by keeping their battery always at max charge with its energy relay pylons.

"Dark spirit, gather an-"

Before a greater hivewarrior could finish its spell chant, Pioneer has already charged up its Thermal Beam emitters and begins burning the bug's face into charcoal. But before the core can deliver the killing blow, a Beta drone behind Pioneer steps up and blast the wounded bug into a soppy mess with its 40mm Gatling gun arms, Pioneer did not get the kill and missed the chance to test the tactical medium ordnance module on its back, but it still received most of the EXP regardless.

[Pioneer 0 leveled up]

[Pioneer 0 is now level 33]

[Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point]

The core quickly issues orders to the Beta drone it is controlling and other Beta drones nearby to continue the advance while the Alpha drones finding a good place to set up an outpost and quickly connect the outpost with nearby colony by using a highway to resupply the Beta drones on the front line. Pioneer wants to make sure the Beta drones will have plenty of ammunition and repair materials to fight against the bugs and survive the trial run afterward.

"Greater spell enchant: Thunder attribute, Greater magic amplification, Poison Ice Lance."

[Warning: Collision imminent]

[Warning: Left arm module destroyed]

Pioneer can only watch one of the Beta drone's gun arms get blew away by a large ice pole as it orders all units to scatter and take on defensive stance. The core could not react fast enough to avoid the sudden attack and received a critical damage from it, it must not let such thing happen again.

"Persistent one...aren't you?...Out of my way!"

The machine quickly steps back while using its remaining Thermal Beam Emitter module and the Gatling gun on its back to slow down the strong bug. The drones behind Pioneer's Beta also stepping in and trying their best to gun down the bug as well, however, the bug's carapace is too hard and thick for the 40mm SAPHE to harm the thing effectively as they fail to penetrate and just harmlessly explode upon striking the bug.

"I sai-!"

"What in the name of gods are those things!"

Pioneer notices the bug got hit from behind by something as it quickly turns around and screeches loudly, then the Beta drone's auditory sensors suddenly picks up the sound of someone's shouting from behind the bug. The core wonders if it was Erika's people came looking for her or not...Whatever it was, their preemptive attack on the bug could only mean they are the enemy of Pioneer's enemy. And based on its previous experiment with using the golems to help it fight against the bugs, the core is confident that as long as Pioneer does not provoke the enemy of its enemy too much, the core will likely gain a temporary ally in this battle.

[Order confirmed: Tactical Heavy Ordnance is deploying, charging Electron Canisters.]

[Energetic Heart is in effect]

[Skill evoked: Energetic Star Artillery]

[New_objective: Eliminate the threat and avoid collateral damage as much as possible.]