“You said we were looking for vines, branches, and—palm leaves?” Boko said, eyeing the forest. “How far in are we going?”

“Not that far,” August admitted, watching as Haiko emerged from the hut alongside Kalter. “The palm leaves are about fifty meters in. That’s the furthest we need to go—the vines are pretty common, and the branches are pretty much everywhere.”

Kalter came to a stop beside Rittan, tossing a glance back over her shoulder as Haiko slipped past her.

“The process we used last time seemed to work well,” Rittan said, drawing attention to himself. “We find a good spot and then begin collecting everything in the area, placing it into a pile. August then deposits everything into his inventory—we continue until the area is cleared before moving on.”

“This inventory of yours is sounding more and more useful every time I hear it,” Boko said, nodding. “What will you be doing, August?”

“I’m going to be walking around with one of my skills on, looking for plants. It only covers a meter, so I’ll be walking a series of lines back and forth until I hit something,” August admitted, “I’ll leave Morningstar with you guys and take Ladybug with me; that way, we’ve both got protection.”

“Leaving you on your own is probably not a good idea,” Boko said, shaking his head. “The terrain here isn’t exactly easy, and if you end up breaking a leg or something, you’ll be dragging yourself back.”

“I’ll go with him,” Kalter said, speaking up. “We’ll rotate back through the collection area every couple of minutes so he can pick everything up.”

“Isn’t that perfect?” Haiko said, smiling. “I suppose our strategy for any rogue Efkini encounters remains the same?”

Considering the earlier discussion and Haiko’s immediate acceptance on his behalf, August was left feeling a bit wary. Boko looked interested in the new topic, however, and any chance of revising the group split vanished.

“How did you handle it last time?” Boko asked.

“We had no issues last time, but the agreed-upon strategy in the event of an encounter was to flee the area while trying to keep something in between the attacker and us,” Rittan admitted, “They don’t have quite the same mobility out here in the open, so the goal is to make it back.”

“Pretty straightforward. You only had one of these—Efkini—and it fought the other one to save you? If you think these two will do that again, we should probably adjust the strategy,” Boko said, looking a bit hesitant, “If there is an attack, I’d suggest grouping back up as fast as possible and letting these two handle the threat together with us playing support.”

“Why is that?” August asked.

“Because repeated close calls will give them the impression that there’s more of us here than there actually is, which ends up incentivizing them to move into the area,” Boko said, nodding. “The old versions used to stick together in little groups, so these ones definitely have the potential for group cooperation—better to try and wipe out any that come after us to save ourselves some future headaches.”

“Alright—if any Efkini makes an appearance, we’ll move to regroup and do our best to take them down,” August said in agreement. “Unless there is any opposing thought?”

There were a few shared glances, but nobody put forth any type of counter-argument—August felt comfortable enough in following Boko’s advice here; he clearly had a rich history in dealing with experiments, even if they were the exact same species.

“It certainly sounds dangerous, but it may just be the best course of action,” Rittan said, speaking up. “I suppose we’ll just have to put our trust in Ladybug and Morningstar.”

Ladybug gave a trill at the sound of her name, causing the other Efkini to perk up in response. August ducked down for a moment, beckoning them over to him, and then addressed them.

“We’re going into the forest again, and we’ll be counting on you to protect us, alright?” August said, speaking to them directly. “Ladybug, you’ll be escorting Kalter and me. Morningstar, your job is to protect Haiko, Rittan and Boko while they collect stuff—got it?”

August received a pair of trills in return, and he gave them both a moment of attention in gratitude. Boko shifted slightly at the exchange, enough of a movement that August glanced up at him and found an odd expression on his face—he looked almost disturbed.

“Names, long-term direction, structured tasks,” Boko muttered. “I thought the taming thing just made them friendly? Do they actually understand instructions like that?”

“They seem to understand most things we tell them—including some pretty complex directions,” August said, eyeing him. “Is that unusual for this species?”

“It’s unusual across most species; language, long-term memory, and everything else needed to recognize and understand something like that are expensive, not to mention dangerous,” Boko said, frowning. “It’s the type of thing you include with the final product when you expect them to actually interact with the public—not catalogue filler like these things.”

“Catalogue filler?” August murmured.

Boko touched the back of his hair for a moment, stretching his neck until it gave an audible crack.

“I’d say about eighty-per cent of the things being churned out of the Automaton Array were randomized combinations of traits,” Boko said, “They were mapping out all the variations, how they interacted with one another, all to figure out what type of changes were compatible with each other, and exactly what they could get away with.”

“Building a catalogue,” August said in understanding.

“Right, and because these types of experiments were usually only kept around long enough to study the results, giving them the ability to function at that level was considered a waste unless it was specifically a part of the trait clusters being tested,” Boko said, nodding. “These guys weren’t all that common an assignment for guys like me because these ones are usually considered low-risk—they generally only got out of confinement when something else caused enough damage to free them by accident.”

“If these ones can all function at that level,” August asked, frowning. “Would they still be considered low-risk?”

“Absolutely not,” Boko said, shaking his head. “This level of intelligence means they should be capable of learning and long-term strategy—they are definitely high risk.”

“Neptune, the other monster I’ve tamed, is just as capable of taking direction as these two,” August said, narrowing his eyes. “That makes two different species that have the same upgrade. Maybe it’s not them, maybe it’s me.”

Haiko tilted her head at the words.

“You think it might be a change you are making to them when you tame them,” Haiko said in understanding. “Some facet of the tame ability makes changes their physiology in the same way that it produces a drastic shift in personality.”

“You’re somehow editing these experiments on the fly?” Boko said, scrunching his face up. “That kind of thing takes resources, rune systems and technology to accomplish—you shouldn’t be able to manage something like that out here when you don’t even have plumbing.”

“This isn’t something we need to waste time thinking about right now,” Kalter said, shaking her head. “You can talk about it later—we’ve got a job to do.”