Late Morning - Mid Summer : The Ancient Wreckage, Southwestern Holy Kingdom

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*btzzz-crackle* My ears were met with a distorted crackle as I opened up the 'Final Broadcast' video.

The screen was completely black, and the only thing that could be heard was the sound of the wind and what sounded like someone moving the camera, but eventually, it went silent, and a voice could be heard.

"My name is Friedrich al-Gobcheif. The Vice-Commander, and likely the last surviving crewmember of the S34." The voice was deep, worn, and gravelly, sounding more similar to a demihuman than a human. "It has been 8 months since the destruction of the S34, and this will be my final message. I hope for it to serve as a warning..."

The hum of the reactor slowly disappeared as I focused on the voice.

"This planet is somewhere we should have never ventured. We have come into someone else's home and made a mess we cannot clean..." The sound of crashing waves could be heard in the background as the man paused. "From our ships, the planet seems much like any other, with the exceptions of the anomalies.. namely the dragons... But after wandering around on its surface, fighting for my life over the last 8 months, I can confidently say it is anything but... *fwoosh* This planet itself is alive. It is conscious. It breathes and gives life to everything here.. and just like a mother, it is going to protect its children... *puff*"

The sound of something falling into sand met my ears as he paused again before continuing in the tone of someone who had given up.

"If any other survivors are able to hear this, do everything you can to not just hide away or blend in, but become a resident of this world. Learn the native languages and befriend the people, appreciate the beauty of what this world has to offer, and in death, become a part of it... And as for if this message is to ever reach the ears of the Mothership, I beg of you to heed my advice and leave. The dragons are far from alone, and the entity at the bottom of the Black Ocean and the gods that the natives worship are the red flags... This world is not ours, and if we do not stop what we are doing before we step on the wrong tail.. I'm afraid that..." He suddenly stopped as an unidentifiable noise could be heard before the microphone peaked.

"*pshhh-CRACKLE*" But after a moment, it quieted down, and the noise of sand and rocks falling to the ground could be heard. "*pitter-patter-puff*"

It was only a moment before another voice appeared. "|To think a rat like you would finally leave your den...|" It was the voice of a dragon, and an incredibly big one at that.

But the voice was still relaxed. "Haah.. It seems my luck has run out... If anyone can hear this, don't bother looking for me..."

"|Tch.. another one that won't even try to run... How boring...|"

"I truly pray for the salvation of our Sector, and wish prosperity for you all... I hope we can redeem our mistake before-"

"*CRRRRUN-tshhhhhh*" The noise of bones being crushed like ice echoed through the speakers before finally cutting out to static.

Seeing that the broadcast continued for another full minute, I continued to listen, but there was nothing besides an eerie static.

It didn't help my wandering thoughts in the slightest. "Haah..." All I could do was hang my head down and try to sift through countless theories and ideas.

But more than anything, my theories were falling apart.

The first thing to break was my idea of what the Acardi race was. The voice sounded and felt far too human for the humanoid but alien race I envisioned them to be.

But the possibility of them being humans only paved the way to far more volatile theories.

-First was the architecture, then the computers, and then how they act... And now even their voice...- No matter how much I wanted to deny it.. everything about them resembled humans from Earth.

-Maybe.. there was more time between my death and my reincarnation than I thought...- But even that seemed impossible. From what I knew, the most likely way I reincarnated here was by my soul being brought through the void. -But the time dilation in the void is too much for that...- The only way to explain it would be to say that my soul wandered the world after exiting the void for upwards of ten thousand years before possessing the egg I was born from. -But while that's plausible, I don't buy it...-

And that was for one reason.

-It's more likely that evolution's path to advanced sentience is through the 'human'.- It was a slightly outlandish-sounding theory that had been stuck in my head ever since I first learned of the existence of humans in this world. -If two independent humanoid species in two different parts of the universe with two vastly different surface conditions have developed an almost identical figure to one another, it cannot simply be coincidence...-

But of course, no matter how much time passed, the existence of dragons, in particular, was a wrench that prevented those cogs from turning.

At least, that was the case until the broadcast video. -For someone from a race that could explore the stars to refer to dragons as 'anomalies' while seemingly ignoring the 'native citizens'...-

It was a situation that could only arise if those 'native citizens' weren't nearly as rare as two or three civilizations in the universe.

But then it begs the question, what was the reason the dragons were labeled as anomalies?

The answer was simple. -Because they are a species that can only exist if the beginning of their evolutionary paths had access to an extreme abundance of mana...-

It was a connection that could answer countless questions and verify a myriad of theories. -If planets that grew and evolved with mana is what is a rarity, then that would explain the Acardi's unusual fascination with this world almost entirely...-

It wasn't that mana was foreign to them or that they had never seen how life interacted with it; it was that they were curious how life and sentience evolved with it over millions or even billions of years.

Even on Earth, scientists would constantly turn to evolution to try and find answers to questions that could better the human race as a whole, be it creating some supplement or creating a cure for a disease. -But to a civilization that can modify their own genetic code, a world that evolved with mana instead of being introduced to it is a priceless gem in every sense...-

Wanting to see if I could confirm my theory, I hastily turned back to the terminal and started digging through the rest of the database, sifting through all the irrelevant garbage in hopes of finding gold.

But unfortunately, there wasn't much directly related to the Acardi; however, I was far from out of luck. -Now I know what to ask the AI in the Lab once I get it running!-

Deciding to give this database one last dig before shutting off the reactor, I returned to the central monitor and went straight to a list of logs and data entries that had previously caught my attention. -It should be in here... Ah, there it is.- *tap*

The screen quickly refreshed as a large folder opened with thousands of text documents labeled by date. -To think the earliest and latest entries would be 140 years apart... He really never gave up...-

The entries were all notes, a majority being in a diary format, written by who I assumed was the creator of this place.

According to the handful of entries that even regarded the author, they were the Head Engineer on the S34 and were lucky to have been working on the inside of a crawlers reactor that was dry running during the disaster. (Water flowing, magnetic shell on, etc)

According to him, it was the only reason he survived and was lucky enough to find a different crawler that survived the event, mainly being shielded from the blast.

But he never called himself lucky a single time.

Rather, he said he was cursed.

A vast majority of the entries were about him struggling to fight off the madness, loneliness, and despair he was left with after narrowly surviving the disaster and hearing nothing but emergency broadcasts of other survivors, just to go search for them and only find the remnants of their body scattered across the ground, with some of them even being his friends, Friedrich al-Gobcheif being a name specifically mentioned several times.

According to some later entries, the only thing that kept him sane was taking on large salvage and repair operations to expand his new home, build new machines, and dip his toes into other activities like data encoding and hardware maintenance.

But I had to attribute it to his determination to live. -Regardless, I should be thankful for that resilience of his.. because what he made is going to help me monumentally...-

I spent quite a while after that, skimming through the rest of the notes before eventually getting up to check out the 'lodging' on the crawler and explore the actual shelter.

The lodging itself was nothing too fancy, with a standard bed, sprawled-out half-decayed bedsheets, and a desk with some blueprints and drawings spread around, but besides the bed, everything looked to be in great condition.

Everything outside the crawler, however, wasn't so lucky.

At one point, the shelter was likely an incredible feat of engineering, with countless complex machines all around each of the rooms, but now they were nothing more than accumulations of rust and corrosion. -It looks like water came through the walls and ceiling at some point...-

And sure enough, after sending some aura into the most corroded section of the roof, I found a titanium pipe, likely for plumbing, with a completely solid cylinder of minerals filling the entire thing.

It was truly impressive that this place ever had plumbing in the first place, feeding water into what seemed like a kitchen and another room to bathe, but it was a shame because had it not been there, the technology in the rest of the shelter may have remained preserved like the reactor, and the workshop.

-But at least I got the blueprints for the more critical parts...- It was a bit disappointing that I couldn't see what the man surviving here managed to create over 140 years, but the database gave me what I really needed. -It was an unexpected boon to have found so many blueprints of fine electronics...-

Although most of them were basic or unusable for something on the scale of the laboratory, they were enough to help me improve my understanding of fine electronics and potentially even the device I found in Kaelallan. -The issue is I can't remember everything...-

Something I was worried about was getting stumped on some small detail I couldn't remember with certainty or something similar.

But I had a solution to that.

-What if I just took it with me?- But even with just a little thought, I realized I had nowhere to bring it.

-The Lab is off-limits. This thing would crumble like an accumulation of silt at that depth.. and it's probably not the best idea to bring it to Bahamut...-

However, there was one place that no one could stumble across, where I would also seldom have to worry about nature. -What if I brought it up to Hera?-