[/Drone_standby]

[/Scanning_lifeform]

[...]

[/Lifeform_match_lifeform5_in_datalog]

Pioneer quickly scans its surrounding and the familiar lifeform in front of it and the drone army as the Battle Drones stand in line formation behind its maker with their weapons armed and shield capacitors fully charged. They are readied to mow down everything in front of them to protect their maker.

"Should we attack?"

"Don't ask me...Arc!. Should we attack?"

"N-no, no...Not yet...Not just yet...Maybe it just watching us...Erika...Erika!. Someone go find Erika!"

The core listens to the familiar lifeform's conversation and observes their action closely, Pioneer can not understand what they are talking about yet, and it has lost most of its old detailed data record about those lifeforms. However, the core still has that 30 minutes recording of Pioneer 0's last moment, and based on the data pulled out from the record, the core presumes all those beings in front of it are the same species as Erika, maybe a bit more or less of the same since the core notices the magical energy around and inside those lifeforms are not entirely the same.

As one of the adventures runs off to find Erika and others. The core decides to order its temporary bodies and the drones to get a bit closer to the lifeforms. Pioneer 1 is intended to continue Pioneer 0's work as it prepares a few simple pictograms to try communicating with the group, however before it can get close enough, one of the adventurers becomes terrified by the eerie look of the drones as the readied arrow slips off her fingers, she has accidentally shot an arrow at one of the Battle Drone.

"What are you doing?!!"

"EEEK!"

[/Hostile_action_confirmed]

The core quickly takes notice of the sudden event as it orders all the drones to fall back quickly, the arrow did not cause any damage to the battle drone as it just harmlessly pinged off its armor, however, a threat is a threat. The core won't take any chance risking itself like Pioneer 0 once did, and since there have no limit nor guide how the core should react in this kind of event yet. Pioneer 1 decides to return the threat with an equal threatening action.

[/Target_marked]

[/Target_deleted]

All the Battle Drones quickly run up and take defensive stance in front of its Maker in line formation before aiming their Tactical Light Ordnance Modules at the woman, then they all fire in single shot volley at their designated target.

"A....A..."

"R-Run!. Get back!"

"DAMN YOU!"

After witnessing the young human archer turns into splattered bits in less than a second, all the adventures nearby snapped immediately, some of them raised up their weapons and charged at the drones, some of them turned tail and run away, and some were just so shocked that they could only stand and watch motionlessly.

The SAPHE shells did not detonate their payload as they simply ripped through the soft organic obstacle that got caught on their trajectory before slamming hard onto the ground behind it violently. The core ordered the drone to fire like so to limit the collateral damage as it only wanted to kill the one threatening it and the drones. But now as Pioneer notices the ones threatening it have been separated from the innocent, harmless one, the core issues the order to allow the drones to set the HE filling fuze and delete all possible threats as soon as possible.

"Wha?. WAIT!, STOP!"

Erika has arrived a step too late, the charging furious adventurers have been tagged as a threat and marked for termination by Pioneer. The Battle Drones execute the order with extreme prejudice and no mercy as they use both their machine cannons and lightning rods to mow down the charging adventures in less than 3 seconds.

[/All_threat_terminated]

[/Lifeform5_threat_reevaluation: Mild]

[/Non_aggreesive_protocol: Limitted]

The drones scan the aftermath of the short battle to find any possible threats to remove while Erika backing off in shock, she did not remember seeing anything like this when she was with Pioneer 0, the thing back then was more docile and passive, its weapon focused on the threat deterring and self-defenses. Not the eerie being of destruction like the one in front of her.

Erika suddenly remembered something back when she was summoned by Emperor Hito, the man who believed her story and gave her a warning that she could not understand.

"Stay vigilant, for not all good are without evil. Especially for a tool of world invader."

The young paladin slowly looks around before she carefully moves toward the stunted adventures to pull them back from the bloody mess between themselves and the unknown army of destruction while Lilica is casting 'Divine Barrier' spell to create a wall of light separating the two groups.

[/Line_of_sight_lost]

The core looks at the bright photon wall in front of it as it orders the drones to stay put and guard the tunnel, then Pioneer leaves the area as it continues its way toward the nuclear-glassed chamber for the planned inspection.

The core has failed to re-establish communication with the unknown lifeform and Erika, perhaps the core will have to change its non-aggression protocol again to fit the situation it is in, so far most, if not all lifeforms Pioneer has met are very hostile toward the machine in one way or another. The core keeps thinking about how the drones and Pioneer should act when it come into contact with other unknown lifeforms, certainly, extinction of the lifeform should be avoided and the environment should not be affected by its actions too much. But those actions are only for the large scale evaluation, the core does not have any specific directives for small-scale evaluation. Perhaps the core will try looking into the problem further in the future.

[/Collecting_sample]

The core watches the general purpose nanite digging up small chunks of soil samples and bringing them back to the 2 reduced size temporary bodies, the core will leave the sample analyzing work to the Research Facility back in the colony, Nexus and EQF 8810 should be constructed and operational by now.

By the time Pioneer returns to the drones, most of the adventurers have left the blood splattered tunnel and only a handful of them remains to keep an eye on the drones, Erika is one of those adventures who volunteered to stay behind.

The female Paladin watches Pioneer slowly moving past the Drones as other adventurers nearby shudders slightly, they are being watched by the drones on the other side of the tunnel, some of which can be seen walking around and collecting the remnants of the dead adventurers for some reasons.

"What are you exactly...Pioneer..."

Erika calls out the core's name quietly as Pioneer stares at her quietly for a moment before it turns around and continues its way back to the colony.

Meanwhile, the Arachnid is preparing for their ascension, soon the queen will order its children to leave the deep cave and expand her hive on the surface of Auraxim. At the same time, the guild master is quickly writing and sending letters to the Empire of Azuria and the Dwarven Kingdom to request their aid in securing the tunnel and pushing back the unknown army of the unliving beings in the cave. And the Human's convoy is also about to enter the mining town, a new challenge is awaiting for the colony to overcome.