Chapter 1050: Striking A Deal For Their Escaped Bug

Vier had a private call with whoever was in charge and all of us just waited around for the result of the call.

I could have listened in on the call but I decided to just let Vier handle it without any distractions as I trusted her to deal with it better than I could.

Truthfully, it didn’t really matter to me if the deal got through or not since I wasn’t really the main beneficiary for this deal anyway.

I believe Vier would know what was best for us and make the deal accordingly to our needs and wants.

It took about ten to twenty minutes before a call came from my Codex again, the caller being Vier of course.

Judging by the large smirk on her face, I can only assume that the negotiations went in her favour.

"How was it?" I asked.

"As well as I hoped, Tera. They accepted my offer where they will be granting us the Premium Distributor license in return for us helping them search and recapture the bug that they have let loose."

"What if the bug is no longer here or if it’s dead?"

"Won’t be a problem either, since the bugs of that nest have already mutated according to the reports, no doubt from their bug being integrated into the nest itself, as long as we help them capture the Queen and some of the humanoid bugs if the original bug is no longer around, we would still be considered successful."

"Huh... I’m surprised that you even got them to agree to something like this. Isn’t this heavily stacked in our favour?"

"Technically, we are doing them a big favour already by keeping this a secret from the military. After all, we could very easily just report that they have essentially just jeopardised the entire expedition and put everyone at risk. We are providing them an alternative where we solve this problem for them and they pay us to keep quiet about it."

"I’m more surprised that they didn’t just try to hire some people to kill us to shut us up or something..."

Vier raised an eyebrow at me, "Hire who? If there was someone who can deal with a Mercenary group who currently has a hundred dogs as part of their team, then they wouldn’t even need to have dogs around anymore."

Well... That’s true... I mean... The dogs don’t belong to us to begin with but I guess the people in GenoTrend don’t know that.

Otherwise... I’m pretty sure they would have definitely tried to shut us up long ago by killing us with their security forces here.

"What’s stopping them from agreeing to our demands but then refusing to pay up afterwards and killing us inside the tunnels to claim that it was the bugs that got rid of us?"

"I doubt risking the dogs going wild without their handler is something they would risk. The dogs pose an even greater threat than the bugs do after all. If it wasn’t for the fact that the dogs could do way more damage than the bugs if they were left unchecked, the military would have already just dropped a couple of dogs on the planet and leave them there to do their work before coming back in a year or two. By then, the planet would be completely barren aside from the dogs that had been dropped there."

I raised an eyebrow, "Would that actually work?"

Surprisingly, it was Yumiko who answered my question from behind, "It’s been tried before... There was another planet with a hostile alien species that was a hassle to kill so they decided to just drop a handful of bugs on the planet’s surface and let the dogs kill those creatures. They came back after a year and not only were the creatures dead, everything else on the planet was also dead, including the other wildlife that were not a threat to us."

I hummed, "Then... That sounds like it wouldn’t be a problem to release them here right? Since the planet is already barren to begin with?"

"The dogs might eat the Prisma Crystals," Yumiko explained as a matter of factly. "And there’s no telling if they would mutate into something even worse if they were to eat them."

Ok... I guess trading a bug species that they can at least kill for dogs that they could not would definitely not be worth it.

And this company already released a mutated bug into the nest which in turn made the bugs mutate into an even more dangerous variant, they would definitely not want to be responsible for letting loose a hundred dogs into the tunnels and potentially destroy the entire planet as well.

At least... I hope that’s what they’re thinking about. Because with those kinds of executives, they might not even have the foresight to see that far ahead and just decide the short term benefits outweigh the potential long term problems.

"We should just be careful, just in case," I told my girls.

They seemed to understand what I was hinting at and nodded their heads.

I turned back to the guy in the white lab coat and moved towards him, "I take it that the payment has been agreed upon?"

He didn’t look too happy about it but he nodded slowly, "Yes... We shall follow your lead."

Since that was already settled, we led the way towards the main gate that would open up to the deeper tunnels of the nest.

The soldiers guarding it did not hesitate to open the doors for us as they watched from the safety of their walls and towers walk past their gates with the dogs leading the way.

I had my girls accompanying the GenoTrend group as they followed behind me, keeping a set distance between us since they also didn’t want to walk close to the dogs as we advanced.

The tunnels were empty for a good dozen or so metres before we met a group of bugs that seemed to be patrolling through this part of the tunnels.

They did not even stand a chance as the dogs immediately set themselves on the group and tore them apart before they even got a chance to try and run.

We encountered another group shortly after that but they were also quickly dispatched by the dogs before they could run off.

Our primary goal right now was to look for another suitable location to set up another outpost deeper into the nest. The secondary goal was, of course, to look for the escaped bug and also capture any humanoid bugs we might come across since humanoid bugs would no doubt be the mutated variants of it.

But even after an hour of walking, all we’ve seen were the normal variants of bugs with not a humanoid one in sight.

That was strange since we even managed to find one near the tunnels beside the GenoTrend outpost so I’m guessing that they might have been moved to the ’front lines’, with the front lines being where the military was currently pushing with their war machines that were making a lot of noise.

You could still feel the tremors in the ground from all the fighting and stomping the machines were doing in other parts of the nest.

I made sure that our clients were doing fine since I figured them being scientists and stuff, they wouldn’t be that used to physical activities like this but it seems like they were doing fine for now.

But as we moved to a part of the tunnel that seemed to open up to a larger cavern, a single humanoid bug stepped out to block our way from the shadows.

I almost thought that it was the same bug that we were looking for since it had the same shape and everything, but then I realised that instead of being black in colour, this one was green.

I turned back to look at the guy in the lab coat, "I don’t suppose your specimen is able to change colours?"

He shook his head quickly.

Great... That means they really spread the genetic mutation to the rest of the bugs and they have already started producing them...

"Do you want it alive?" I asked, just to be sure.

There was a moment’s hesitation before the guy in the lab coat nodded, "Yes... Please take it back alive."

I turned back to look at the dogs, prepared to give them the order to capture the bug alive.

But the bug then clicked its mandibles and started speaking in an almost understandable voice that sounded like someone with a raspy throat was talking.

"Enemies... Enemies of the hive... You... You have come... To your deaths... We... We will take back our world... We will drive you out... We will eat you... Consume you... And leave nothing behind... You will be our path... To the stars..."

Great... They seem smarter than before now... This is going to be annoying...