Before I leave the FIB, I pick up a stack of forms.

At my guild, I'm photocopying even more stacks of forms. I'm answering calls and replying to texts. I got Duchess to help me out with the workload. Flash Gordon acts as a paperweight for my finished forms.

What am I doing? Meticulously recording the breach in policy for every researcher who contacted me. I don't let them know I'm doing this. Half the time, I don't need to fish for a name or ID. They tell me everything themselves.

I double-check every form and interaction to ensure I'm in the clear while doing all this.

Free Chains pops in at one point and questions what I'm doing. I told my lawyer in detail what I was doing and why I was doing it.

"Are you sure you want to get on the bad side of an entire department?"

"Why would I worry? They are the ones who have to worry."

After that, Free Chains didn't interrupt me.

~~~

I've been sleeping every night, but not tonight. I spent the entire night writing reports. It turns out that branches outside of Auroran contacted me. If you worked for the research branch of the FIB as a researcher, there is a 98% chance you were in my inbox.

I'm pushing a literal pallet of reports in HR. Not the HR department within the Hazard branch but the actual branch office on the compound. I get looks as I pull up to the receptionist.

"Hi! How can I help you?"

"Incident reports. I'm submitting Incident reports."

"...Let me get my manager."

Then that manager got their supervisor, then the supervisor got their superior, and then that person tried to delegate the task to the department head. But the head of HR made one of her subordinates deal with me.

"...These are done properly. Fuck."

"Yes."

"Alright. You'll get an email if actions are taken thanks to your Incident reports."

Since I brought the pallet mover from home, they can't use it. This HR guy flicks his wrist, and the entire pallet's worth of paper condenses into one folder. He picks it up and walks solemnly away.

I can spot him wheeling a coffee maker into a room - kicking an employee who tried to touch the pot.

"He's certainly going to earn his year-end bonus this year."

I couldn't do it yesterday, so I'll do my acquisition request paperwork today. I stroll into the Hazard branch and do my form-filling in the lobby.

Once it's registered and I get a confirmation notice, the FIB captain of subsidiaries who keeps bugging me approaches me again.

"Did you report the entirety of the Research branch?"

"Almost."

"...This is the wrong move if you want to make connections."

"Okay. And?"

"Do you know why those people contacted you?"

"Nope."

"Do you want to know?"

"Yes."

"What would I get in return?"

"How the fuck would I know?"

"...I'll tell you anyway since you seem ignorant of what you did. Those researchers want you to sign over credit to them. They want to be the researcher assigned to the fracture, and you have the right to do that."

"Huh."

"I see that look on your face. Only a minority is trying to 'steal glory,' what the researchers are really after is the first dibs on any and all studies done on your new discovery."

"Oh, that won't be a problem."

"...you know your job can't be completed if your new discovery is not studied, right? You'll need a researcher for that. I can recommend some people."

"My job is done when I sign my fracture off to another department. I don't need to do that ever, and nothing stops me from signing off whenever I want as long as there's a borderline habitable base. The research thing you mentioned doesn't need someone from the research branch. I know what I must note down 'research-wise' to get a completion bonus. I read all the policies. What are you talking about?"

I must have pushed a few buttons because she looks like a red tomato. She bites her lip and calms down, but she's still fuming. It wasn't my intent to talk down to her, but something about her pisses me off.

Ah. It's her attitude of expecting me to fail. Who is she to expect anything from me?

I excuse myself and head to my fracture.

~~~

I'm spending today doing what I could've done on day one to call it quits. A Hazard team isn't expected to do every other branch's job because it's dangerous. But, the more jobs I take away from future people, the more credits and recognition I get.

The FIB finally signed off on proper structures that can handle this fracture. Chemically inert materials to combat corrosion with a healthy mana resistance to stop the magical acids.

Since it's a building, most poisons do nothing to it. It's airtight and has an airlock, decontamination chamber, heat, cooling, etc.

I have to build and set it up myself, but there are instructions. It's not like I'm laying mortar. I'm basically playing with large blocks.

Everything sticks together, and a buff child could do this. It is manual labor, so the better part of my day is taken to finish the first building. The first of many for this home base.

It's just somewhere you can enter the fracture safely without immediately dying. Air generation shouldn't be a problem in the future since this fracture is technically profitable. With just the new discovery, technically, this fracture is worth the investment.

I file my report and sign that the first phase of my job is done. I scouted the place and set up a shelter. I haven't signed the fracture away, just that the prep work that 99% of hazard teams do before signing the fracture away is done.

Technically, what I'm doing is a loophole, but that doesn't matter. The FIB shouldn't care as long as they get what they want. They'll probably want a research center and alchemy lab and somewhere to be a launch pad to harvest all the toxins. Maybe a few mines and quarries.

I will handle the research center and then sign off on the fracture. I could delegate other teams to help set up the other buildings without signing off the fracture due to another loophole.

Actually, I don't have a non-disclosure agreement right now. So, talking about a discovery - I personally found - wouldn't be an issue. Yes, I found it on FIB property, but as a member of the hazard branch, I'm technically not an employee they can silence.

I'm assuming the Auroran branch has all the paperwork in order, all the non-disclosure agreements signed - and better benefits. But I am some delegated scrub from Bluefield, a place that doesn't even have a second team. (Or any team. Sorry Nelson)

I signed everything I was required to to work here. If other things existed, I was never told nor requested to sign additional fluff.

I tell my PR manager about this, and she's practically vibrating. I then learned from her that finding a new species is more significant than I thought. I'm not like the guy my fracture manager said, who found a new *type of* species. (Some armadillo.)

I'm someone who found a new species. Full stop. And that's different. Most of these creatures were named long before we even knew they existed. Most of them came from the other planet where all the elves and dwarves and shit lived before that planet merged with ours.

I discovered something that the long-lived elves couldn't find. Something that the roaming orcs could never think of. Something that the dwarves couldn't get their hands on.

Or maybe I didn't. My [Toxic Gas Purifiers] haven't been researched yet. Maybe there's some weird offshoot of the fungus somewhere, but if they are a new species, I have made a massive discovery.

In hindsight, that makes sense as to why I had thousands of requests to take part in research from every branch in this country.

My PR manager says she's gonna try to get me in some famous magazine or in the news. I asked if people still read magazines, and she said, "There's an online version that's extremely popular." It's some magazine about fractures... and famous people I don't care about. Guild-related things and Rankers.

Oh yeah, I own a guild. Yeah, that would be a great thing to be on.

I take the rest of the day to train my beasts. I head in the next day.

Word must have gotten around the office because people are not hiding their stares. I acquired the materials needed to build a research center, which includes a cable that goes through the fracture and connects me to the outside world. I am going to have to set up cell reception and internet in the fucking fracture.

I requested additional workers to help with the manual labor, the loophole I mentioned earlier, to get delegated teams to help. I then head into my fracture with the materials I requested.

They basically gave it to me before I could finish my sentence. I don't have to worry about setting up the cables and connections from outside. That's my fracture manager's job. I only need to worry about what's inside the fracture. I head in and establish cell reception and internet first thing.

It's much faster than last time, but it leaves less time for me to research my creatures. I fly up on Duchess using the air shield technique to preserve my mana.

I ride on her while she flies around in the pocket of air. I spend the rest of my time using [Scientific Insight+] To learn about these creatures.

It's my first time researching a specific species so well. One of my [Lexicon]'s original purposes is to document species and let me look at it for future reference. That portion of the skill reactivates. Over the hours I stay there, a whole slurry of information is recorded.

I didn't go home that night. If people need to contact me, I have reception. I go home at the end of my next day, and on my 6th day of work, I get met with a nasty surprise.

An office party.

And people are looking at me happily. My name is on a banner. I gotta get out of here!

The FIB lady approaches me and starts speaking.

"It's an unofficial policy that we hold a party for the team that successfully finished their hazard fracture without any casualties."

I'm visibly panicked, and the woman slowly notices and looks confused. I leave the office and flee the compound.

Parties? No parties. A god I know shows up to parties, and I'm not meeting him for a third time.

Once I'm off the property, I calm down my two racing hearts and turn back around. Instead of entering from the Hazard branch, I enter my fracture from the containment branch.

There was more security, but it was worth it. That was a close one.

I spent the day learning how these creatures breed and seeing if the process could be replicated. It's a complicated process.

They merge the mouths on the top of their head together and use their tentacles to wrap themselves around each other's bodies. Then they fuse into one oblong mass of veiny, meaty, floating flesh.

They are still two individual creatures. In this form, they swap circulatory and respiratory systems. From there, they unfuse and die, which sounds about right.

Their bodies don't fall to the ground. Instead, they float. Before their body can rot or decay, hundreds of tiny versions of them spew out from the top holes. Most of them immediately die, some are unlucky and starve to death, and the rest float away and probably get killed by the specters.

Only a few survive. Except that's not the case. I have a title that I got from hatching Prometheus.

[Life Bringer A

The user has ushered a new or old form of life back into the world. Creatures of life appreciate your contribution.

Nurturing and healing others is more efficient. (x2)

Infants are protected under your gaze.

Gain affinity with life and nature.]

These things count as infants. 2 sets of hundreds of newborns are floating around me. I note that their survival rate has been boosted considerably, and outside damage doesn't affect them.

I'm sure there's a limit to this protection, but I'm pretty sure I won't find out what that is today. I might accidentally make this whole goddamn fracture habitable, depending on how quick these things grow. I guess that's the next thing I'm researching.