Project Overworld

'It should be around here.' Leyla pinpointed in her head.

After connecting back into the game, Leyla started following the instructions Keith gave to her. The area near the given coordinate was pretty wild and woody.

'Did he really establish there? Shouldn't he have at least gotten rid of some of those trees?' She wondered. The further she went into the woods, the harder it got for her to localize herself. Leyla even hesitated to return to Lionheart for today and come back another time.

However, she could not give up now. The opportunity that was given to her was really special and Spacol would certainly not open its doors again in a long time. Moreover, the way Keith handled things and his current goals were befitting to her.

Finally, after several hours of searching through the forest, she spotted the grayish colorof a base. Before she could take another step, however, a turret activated in the distance and started shooting in her general direction.

Fortunately, Keith did warn her about the fact there were several turrets disposed around here. Because of this, she has been really careful upon approaching this base and avoided getting hit by any of these shot.

'Okay, I should find a specific tree now. Five large branches, a wavy trunk and dense leaf top.' She remembered Keith's instructions.

It did not take more than a few dozen minutes before she noticed a large tree resembling that of the description. She bent down near its trunk and searched through the grass for an hidden lever.

'Ah! There it is!' She exclaimed in her head.

Leyla then heard a cl.i.c.k.i.n.g sound and assumed that the turrets have been deactivated. She approached the base as carefully as ever and noticed a large metal door which must be its entrance.

It was already unlocked when she got there, and she decided to push the doors open.

- "Woah!" She could not help but gasp. The interior was much more ornate than she could have expected. Light was provided by magnificent chandeliers and the walls were painted in some sort of a spatial pattern.

Keith, who have been alerted on his computer that the defenses has been deactivated, arrived just a few moments later.

- "Hello and welcome to my humble home." He introduced himself to Leyla's attention.

She was hesitating regarding the reply she should be making, but decided on a simple greeting in the end.

- "Looks like you've traveled safely. I'll show you around the base so you get to know it better."

She was left in awe before the large hallways of this base and its well-organized rooms. It felt like this base was made for giants, and that she was just a little child discovering all of this.

Keith got her to the storage room first, letting the most important places for later on in the visit.

'I knew he was organized, but not to this point.' Leyla thought. The storage room had various compartments separating finished stuff from natural materials and refined parts, for example. There was also some sorts of conveyor belts all around the area to automatically transport the resources to where they were needed.

Afterwards, Keith led the way to less important rooms only used to find inspiration and enjoy the view. Before going onto the most used places of this base, that is the crafting -related rooms and the spatial one, he brought her underground to introduce the electrical trainway used to transport resources all the way from his factory to his base.

'Is there anything not automated in this base?!' She could not help but wonder.

Once they arrived to the forge, however, Leyla was conforted in her thoughts even more. From the underground train station to this automated furnace system, the raw resources were automatically gotten melted and routed towards the next room. It seemed like one of those futuristic movie from which robots were reproducing themselves using human technologies.

The second crafting-related rooms was full of metal-working machines producing specific sets of parts through a long and complex process.

Finally, Keith introduced his favorite room to his guest : the spatial room. There, they found Michael and Tyler working on a rocket engine. They both presented themselves to the new recruit and Michael exclaimed : 

- "Damn Keith, are you going to bring more women in her in the future? You got pretty popular didn't you?"

Keith did not even pay attention to his friend and continued with the guided tour.

Leyla was really surprised to see other faces around here. 'Were they also candidates selected from this engineering competition?' She wondered.

- "By the way." Keith interrupted her flow of thoughts. "Do not pay too much attention to those dudes. We've known each other for really long and I know they might say dumb shit." He explained.

'Oh, they must be close friends then. That explains why I did not remember them from the best candidates of the second phase.' She concluded.

After introducing her to the launching pad and the control room, Keith was finally done with the guided tour of his base. Leyla was left in even more admiration than before and was really eager to start working on those space-related projects.

- "Oh yeah!" Keith suddenly remembered. "Would you kindly help us with the construction of a building next week? I know this is not really the reason why I hired you, but this is related to the future comrades you will be working with."

- "No problem." She answered almost immediately. "What is it about?"

- "Well, you see... You are the only candidate I've recruited after the second phase of the competition. There will actually be a third test organized for those with the most potential."

- "Yeah I figured this agitation back then was part of your plan. But why am I exluded from this third phase, if I may?"

- "No reason for me to test your abilities and you determination any further. You've proven yourself enough in the past and you've withstood this joke of a competition easily."

- "Oh! Thank you." She expressed her gratitude.

With the introduction being made on both sides, Keith left her with his friends and went to his office to plan the next part of this recruitment session.

Leyla integrated to the team quite easily and even started monitoring Michael and Tyler on her own to actually teach them how to build a rocket engine.

By the end of the week, Keith came back to the three of them and presented them with the model of the fake base they would be reproducing.

This actually took them several weeks to build, but he was quite satisfied about the result. If one did not witness Spacol's official base firsthand, they would definitiely fall into the trap.

They even moved several of Keith's automated machines to improve the illusion even more before building a rudimentary spatial room.

To Leyla, this second base somewhat resembled what she has been accustomed to with her friends of the Starise group. She could not determine if this was an insult towards their work back then of if Keith was a really proefficient architect, either way this fake base was actually quite functional.

As for its location, it was even more random than their real base. Not only was it hidden away near some mountain ranges, they even built it a few hundred miles away their actual base. If is was not for Keith's trucks that he had already built beforehand, they would not have been able to finish by now.

Keith had already contacted the selected candidates a few days before they finished the building their wait would not be that long. Finally, he also sent back Michael and Tyler to their other base so they would not be revealed to the public yet.

As for Leyla, she would be feigning to be a new member of Spacol too.

The illusion would be perfect according to Keith. As for the reason why he did all of this, this had to do with his distrust towards the other candidates. He could not really resolve whether they would be discreet regarding this whole situation or not.

This was also the reason why he offically announced that their would not be any winner out of the competition, he wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible for the time being.

_______________

- "Hello and welcome to my humble home." Keith introduced himself to new recruits. "Let me show you around the base so you hopefully get to familiarize with it."

Leyla had a feeling of déjà vu after hearing these words from Keith. Nevertheless, she did not let herself be distracted by such a simple matter and continued her interpretation of a new recruit.

After touring around the base to introduce all the different rooms to the candidates, Keith explained that they would be building a much larger rocket than they did during the competition. They would be given two weeks to do so afterwards Keith would be inspecting their work.

For him, this was a really profitable situation. Not only would he be training these new recruits with the building of an actual rocket, he would also be able to see how they would react as a team and as part of the Spacol company.

'Let's see how they deal with such constraints.' Keith said to himself while his usual mischievous smile stretched his lips.