Project Overworld

- "Alright..." Keith thought out loud. "Everything's done, I should be going." He concluded. He had just finished working on the new kind of launcher that would be able to lift off this heavy space shuttle all the way to his station, and he was really satisfied about it.

While the various parts of this rocket were being printed out by his various machines, he get really busy working out on his space suit. It was really rudimentary for now and would hinder his movements by a lot, but it would be enought to keep him alive while he was working in space. Alongside this creation, he also made several bottles of oxygen and pressurizing gas to have a constant supply for his needs.

Now was time for him to jump onto this rocket and enjoy the ride. Keith had, in fact, a lot of work to accomplish in space before the Starise group decided to conquer the Moon. He was not that concerned about his base being left alone for the time being, though.

There were multiple layers of defenses across the structure and not even himself fully equipped with steel armor could make it all the way to the main door. So he was quite confident in his base successfully fending off any attack or any curious players from getting close to it.

'Ah, what a peaceful day...' He breathed out. The week-end was just around the corner and he was very elated that he would not have to go to work for two full days. The more he attended to this job, the less he enjoyed it.

It was a lot more straining than he initially thought because his job mostly consisted of one or two specific input. The machines did the rest of the job anyways.

'I should try and find another job before I end up burned out.' Keith concluded. He climbed up the ladder on the side of his rocket and entered the tight c.o.c.kpit. The smaller this part of the rocket was, the easier is was for him to get everything else right.

A c.o.c.kpit was such a waste of space according to him. This was also part of the reason why he preferred launching automated rockets which did not need such a dead weight.

Once installed, Keith activated the ignition mechanisms. The main engines all started off at once and the structure shook incredibly hard. A few minutes later, the rocket was almost lifting off the ground, ready for take off.

'Okay, activating the launching phase now...' He said in his mind while pushing a button meant to decouple the rocket from the launching pad's pylons.

Before realizing it, Keith was already several miles away from land. He still had a long way to go, around one to two hours of travel, but he could literally log off for the time being and his rocket would do the rest of the job.

And so, that's exactly what he did. Keith disconnected from the game and went to prepare his evening meal.

'With that being done, I should be ready in time for when the Starise group goes for the Moon.' He said to himself with conviction.

_______________

After having reached an orbit with their previous rocket design, the Starise group's motivation skyrocketed. Sure, their flight ended up in a failure since they did not have enough fuel to land properly, but they had accomplished so much nonetheless.

There were not a lot of players around the globe working on rockets, and they were certainly the most developed in that regard. Well, maybe not since those players who blew up the terrorists were still progressing hidden from the world.

- "How is it going for you Leyla?" Eric asked to take stock of the situation. After the job she has done during the last flight, she was being more respected by her comrades. Well, since they have been friends for a long time, they already respected her but Eric especially changed his attitude towards her.

He has been pretty selfish recently, probably because of his job as a streamer, but he had realized he could not have made it into orbit if it was not for the trajectory optimizations Leyla did on the rocket.

However, it did not last long until his livestream took the most of his thoughts and he started disregarding his friends again. Though, the respect he had for Leyla still felt present whenever he was talking to her.

After making sure they would be ready for another launch this week-end, Eric went back to his work. They were almost finished with the rocket, but he estimated that there was still a bit of painting to do here and there.

'Damn him!' Leyla raged. 'Decoration is so pointless but he is delaying our launch for such purposes...' However, there was not a lot she could do about it. Everyone else also wanted to wait for the week-end to launch their fourth rocket of the 'Apollo' series. Most of them had jobs and had a lot more free time at the end of the week.

It was also the fact for Leyla, but she thought they could launch the rocket during an evening and start working on the next rocket during those incoming days off.

- "Whatever..." She whispered to herself. Even if the others wanted to decorate 'Apollo 4', she would be advancing on their next rocket design for the time being. Eric would not be annoying her after what she had accomplished for them anyways.

'Him and his stupid stream.' She thought while getting busy on an engine prototype.

The following day, everything seemed to have settled and Eric announced they were ready for the launch. He then proceeded to designate the people who would be part of this flight and surprisingly enough, Leyla would be joining them this time around too. According to their schedule, it should have been the turn of another one of her friends to climb onto the rocket in her stead.

'Heh...' She breathed out in exasperation. Everything he did was so out of place and so biased that she felt Eric would never be ashamed of himself.

Without pointing that out, she positionned herself at the front of the c.o.c.kpit, near the main screen and buckled her seatbelt.

'I just hope they won't be distracting me as much as last time.' For this launch, Leyla has set for herself the objective to reach another orbit around ten to twenty miles higher from last time while having enough fuel leftovers to properly land back on the ground. She felt like it was probable while having a bit of fantasy to it.

Once everyone was tighly attached to their seat, Eric started off his livestream while the others were getting busy activating the rocket's engines.

- "Hello everyone, Ericality here. Yet another launch today as we just finished working on Apollo four and..."

Leyla quickly ignoring him and focused back onto the data showed on screen. She had requested some improvements regarding this screen from the computer scientists of their group.

Before, it has only useful as a display. However she wanted it to let her interact with the structure as well, like controling the power output of an individual engine. During the flight of 'Apollo 3', she has only been able to control the rocket using the lever she had at her disposal. This thing was used to choose a direction and an overall power output so she has not been able to do a lot more to optimize their fuel consumption.

Having the power to individually control each side engine and every other output would leave a lot more control in her hands.

'Alright, let's do this!' She motivated herself.

_______________

The day following the launch of his space shuttle, Keith started off his tiring job in the weightlessness of void. It was a lot more complicated than he had expected, and has had to adapt to the situation for hours.

By numerous times, he has been really close to lose his grip to the station and drift off in the emptiness of space until he finally decided to tie himself with a rope he was transporting in his inventory. It was really restrictive, but he was certain he would not lose hours of work by deriving towards the infinity of space.

'It should be around here...' Keith thought. With his blowtorch, Keith has been really busy sealing off the various modules of his space station altogether for the past few hours.

Alongside his really slow progress in space because of that movement-hindering space suit and the confusing weightlessness he has had to deal with, his progress was kind of despairing.

Not only that, his modules were scattered here and there, sometimes at several hundred yards of distance from each other. He has had to use the fuel remaining in their launcher to get them close to each other, while using the launcher of his space shuttle to commute between each location.

Altough this was quite a complicated job to accomplish, Keith was like a fish in the ocean. This was the result of all the efforts he has been putting into this game, and he was really happy to be there all the way in space.

The scenery was really breathtaking, and he stopped every few minutes or so to take a look at this giant ball of water and land that the Earth was.

'Alright, let's move onto the next module!' He motivated himself.