Another few days passed and Paula and her father were invited to a meeting. It was a lot smaller than the first general meeting Dave had been part of. only a few people were physically there and those connected on screens were mostly to listen. Talking points were local fauna & flora, the signal from the cores and some preplanning for the future. Rainor talked about a slime he had found and a small frog that looked like what he called a cheeseburger. Bertha and Sniper had a discussion about the sandworms and Jack had his opinions on some flowers he saw which Paula's recognised as poisonous. As for the core signal it was compared to a video game status screen minus a leveling system. Paula would have to ask Clara what a leveling system was later. the screen gave info about the person it originated from. name, gender, age, job, some notable skills and a stat pentagon with a person's power,intellect, agility, endurance and mana.

The commander grabbed his chin while thinking “This seems like a resume mixed with a health chart.”

Jack noticed something “It seems unlike most games i played, mana is a separate stat and not under intelligence.”

Dave interjected “Of course not. technically with a bit of practice anyone can use a skill requiring mana. The problem is figuring out or finding someone to teach you how to do it.”

“Figuring it out like Jack and Paula might've ended worse than Jack getting knocked on his ass.” Sniper added. 

“can we forget that happened?” Jack whined embarrassed. 

“Not likely. It is an integral piece of initial information” Clara stated. 

Paula could actually see Clara show some emotion as she grinned a bit while Jack groaned. 

The commander went back to the topic at hand “We'll have to test and compare these with locals, civilians and soldiers from the ship as well as any we encounter. until Clara can estimate its accuracy. we cannot use these in the field yet.”

“Dang i was hoping to act like i was in an rpg.” Jack laughed.

“you plan on walking like you need the bathroom. like the really old ones?” Bertha said as she smiled at Jack.

This kind of meeting felt a lot more relaxed than anything Paula could've imagined for an official meeting. She expected the commander to stop these moments more often as they brought the subject of track. Instead he simply let them play out for a bit and brought them back to the main topic when he felt it needed. “We'll have Dave and some scientists compare a few of these and make a report.”

Dave was sweating bullets “but i don't know how to make a report.”

 “Just ask Clara to record and collect some things you want to mention. she'll help you make an adequate report.”

“Isn't she too busy? you tell this woman to help so many people.”

Rainor laughed and slapped Dave's shoulder “If her cpu is too burdened she'd tell you...wait how do i explain this.... she's like a magic assistant spirit of this place. if her main spirit has too much to do. a lesser version of her will tell you.”

Bertha chuckled “That's one way to say there's small programs of hers in everything in case of cpu overload.”

Paula comforted her dad saying “don't worry i'll help out when i can” She had gotten used to life on the crashed ship quickly. 

the commander continued “as for what your report should be about. try to take note of anything that seems abnormal to you. It helps to have a local perspective. finally the patrols. for now we're lucky not to have any foreign locals approach the ship but the town has been seen so we can expect something to happen soon.”

Paula held up a book about noble etiquette she brought back from her old house “Yes. When I read books like these, it was noted that any slight against the king and his family is treason and it will um…”

“It will evoke an aggressive response regardless of the reason behind it.” Clara helped her. 

Upon hearing of the meeting. Paula wanted to contribute something. with Clara's help she had prepared a small report the night before.  “Yes thank you Clara. as you can guess they'll want to find and punish Jack for regicide.”

“I'd like to see them try,” Jack muttered as Bertha shushed him.

Paula continued “I did notice something that could help a bit. Technically the destroyed village was at the border of the kingdom. beyond st Baalz there's now no other city or village belonging to the nobletalon kingdom. This means they have no marked border beyond the dark forest. making everything beyond it free land.”

“Are you suggesting we call the crashed ship a city and start our own country on this planet? Just to say the guy we killed caused international conflict? all to prevent them from demanding we hand over jack?” sniper summed up.

Jack raised his hand “genius! Obviously we’re not going to use it like that but I'm all for it.”

 “Starting a country sounds like fun,” said Bertha.

“What about the other kingdoms? can't believe they'll just accept a new kingdom popping up.” Rainor chimed in.

“Probably not. but initial intel suggests that they are not in a good position. Perhaps we can convince loose nations to join us. our tech would seem very desirable to any of them. we can make it a federation under us. the star federation sounds nice.” Jack said, looking hopefully at the commander. 

“We may not be a federation yet but it does sound nice. as long as there's no severe culture clash it should pose no issue. As for the navigator, we might as well rename it since it won't be navigating anymore.”

Clara popped up on the commander’s screen “that opened up a lot of cpu for me and may i note that doctor Yoshiko has mentioned the ship feels more like a citadel now. I would prefer it to be called that.”

the commander smiled at her “Well it is technically your body after all. I guess it is now just called the citadel."

Bertha leaned over the table to Paula “that's gonna cause confusion if we find another citadel here.” she whispered.

The commander noted a few more things from other meetings like the creation of doors to the outside so people could enter the citadel would be planned on both the desert side where the training camp was set up and the slope on the other side where they had found Paula. who after the meeting stayed behind with the commander.

“You need something Paula?”

“I'm very grateful for what you have done for the others, my family and me. I know you took a big risk bringing us in and even gave us so much.”

The commander had a modest chuckle “Any risk we take is calculated. and with so many unknown variables I'm glad we have a supercomputer like Clara. There's no need for thanks. how are you enjoying life with us these past weeks?” 

Paula had a spark in her eyes when he asked "it's amazing. I've never seen so many lights. All the shops are amazing. Every day after training I find so many new things to tell mom about.”

“How is she?”

“Mom is still not talking or moving but she's clearly awake.”

“We'll figure it out tough. If it's something from our world, doctor Yoshiko will find it. anything else we'll find out as we discover this world. how does it look out there anyway?”

“I've been in Dagos most of my life. I've only seen St Baalz shortly before we headed to the outpost.”

The commander had Clara pull up some images from the city they had spotted shortly after landing “That's the nearby city across the forest right? what's it like?”

Paula tried to remember but it had been a few months ago “I only stayed for a few days to stock up on materials. but there were quite a lot of beastmen compared to dagos”

“Slaves?”

“Probably. I cannot remember ever seeing a free beastman since the war ended.”

“You just accepted that?”

“Dad said it was just how things ended up. He’s seen bad people be enslaved his entire life too and recently the majority seem to be beastmen.”

 The commander stared at the image of St Baalz while thinking how it was only natural if the idea of slaves had been ingrained in their culture. “How long was that war that made them the majority of slaves.”

Paula thought deeply about it “I was too young to pay attention to the war  but mom also told me the history a while back. When I was born the main continent was still shared by both beastmen, elves,dwarves and humans. The beastmen got hunted down and enslaved; it was still considered a war. until they lost st baals their last city.”

“And their capital?”

“hmmm clara how far north does your map reach?”

Clara showed a topographical map on a nearby screen. “So far our scans reach an unknown town to the north of what your father pointed out as Dagos.”

“ah yes! That's tradebreak. about northwest of that should be it. It's now called edgehelm. the guild city.”

“Must be an important guild.” 

Paula got excited again “This is where the adventurers guild put their main office. There's a cave system in the mountains behind it where all kinds of adventurers go to…” she stopped as she saw the commander stare, indicating she was diverting a bit much. “ahm... the capital was captured about 6 years ago and from then on they took the last remaining villages quickly. now you only see enslaved beastmen.”

Some images of elves and dwarves appeared on screen. The images were not quite the same as the ones Paula had seen before. 

“elves and dwarves? these seem a bit different.”

“Our world has had the idea of them. but they never existed.”

“No elves or dwarves? then you had beastmen?”

“Like the others only in fiction or the closest one we found was some half squirrel half man race.”

Paula looked at the pictures again. She had not seen many because of the bad treatment some humans gave them. However she could not imagine a world without them “you wanted to ask about them?”

The commander nodded "they let this war just happen?"

"Not quite when the capitol fell the beastmen started fleeing and turned to them.” Paula pointed  to the elf picture “the elves were said to just let both humans and beastmen fight and only interfered when a village of theirs was involved. they did not provide the beastmen shelter though.”

“They tossed them out to the wolves... sorry bad phrasing.”

Paula gestured that it was fine and turned to the other image “as for the dwarves they sheltered those they could but most beastmen are uncomfortable in their tunnels. Now their only option was either run to the desert behind the...citadel. After a while it was too much and the beastmen had to leave Brinthorn through a passage in the mountains behind it towards the icelands.  The last interaction between humans and the dwarven capital was about 4 years ago when they…”

“Locked down and blocked all passage to this day. Bob told us that.” a bit of silence filled the meeting room “what do you think? do we have a chance to convince them to join us?” 

“I have no idea.”

“you can make an educated guess.”

“Well the dwarves might be easy to convince. the tram system alone might convince them to become part of the federation.”

“The mechs might be more interesting.” looking at paula he remembered. she had never really had a good look at the mechs “anyway that was informative. thank you and” he turned to the screen “Clara, how was her performance review during training?” 

Paula saw her registration image, some footage from training and several files pop up. Clara began "it has been barely a week but she has outperformed basic troopers and sometimes kept up with pilots during hand to hand combat. no wins as of yet but that's to be expected. she's still learning but she picks up things quickly…”

Paula interrupted Clara “Am i being graded?”

The commander nodded “you're a fast learner. more so when it comes to combat. I'm considering putting you on the patrols. Because we hit a problem with Bob's disguise.”

“what happened?”

Upon Paula's question a video popped up that was recorded 2 days ago. in it, a party of adventurers was approached. They were tense seeing rainors mech the rainmaker but tried talking. when a mage attacked Bob and shouted “he's not enslaved it's a trap”. After a small scuffle the rainmaker that was recording mowed down the party with its machinegun. 

Clara explained “a small group calling themselves adventurers came past the ruins of the outpost. when Rainor, Natlee and Bob approached. they stuck to the appointed story but then.”

“The mage attacked.”

“Indeed. It seems he can detect if a slave chain is fake or real. sadly none survived so we could not interrogate them about it.”

“I didn't know mages could do that. but what does that have to do with me?”

The commander stood up, went over to her and put his hand on her shoulder “we're considering giving you a more active role. You're the only local enlisted but in a mere week you picked up the basics. It helps that your fitness is above average. in other words make sure you at least manage to handle a pistol because we're offering you to go along with patrols in bob's stead.”

To Paula, the hand on her shoulder felt as if she was just appointed knighthood. Of course she agreed.