"Home sweet home." I said as I breathed in the cold fresh air of my Sanctuary.
(I've missed this place.)
Things here had changed quite a bit to say the least, in fact the little town that I had built before had now grown significantly overall. The old homes that I had made with the help of the system had been torn down and replaced with far better ones with roads and pathways connecting everything in between. Honestly I was a little annoyed about how quickly everyone was to demolish my hard work, however I couldn't blame them, after all those old things weren't exactly structurally sound.
Anyway, it wasn't just houses and roads that had been set up, in fact the Synthetics had been hard at work during the time that we had been out on our little expedition. They had even built a miniature power plant of sorts, it wasn't anything ground breaking but the thing was good enough for what we currently needed at the moment.
Right now though they are working on a kind of massive greenhouse of sorts that should help with stopping any food shortages in the imminent future as well as a kind of research centre. Said research centre would be used for, well, researching various things such as the CRISPR pathogen. Both of these structures would probably be the largest we would end up building for now, at least until we get enough manpower to work on bigger projects.
Moving on though, as for the rest of the Sanctuary, well, it was still mostly the same to be honest. I hadn't yet added in any of the creatures or plants we had gathered during the expedition, for now I planned to wait to do all that until after the field trip or whatever you want to call it. Additionally most of the mutants were also being stored away for now with only a few currently wondering about.
I had also taken this time to expand my Sanctuary space just because I could, I had spent a hefty chunk of my newly acquired reward points to expand the space in question rather significantly. In fact you could probably fit the whole Earth as well as several moons into my sanctuary now and still have plenty of space to spare, this was only possible because buying space in the sanctuary was so dang cheap. Of course I hadn't actually done anything with that space just yet mind you, my followers and thralls probably hadn't even noticed a difference to be honest.
Anyhow, despite the large increase to my sanctuary space, it wasn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. Just imagining how much it would cost to actually buy a galaxy's worth of space made my brain hurt and my blood pressure rise.
Honestly though, despite only being an Alternative for about three months or so in Nexus time I was already starting to feel more and more like a god, something I really didn't know how to feel about. The fact that I had been told before that given time I could potentially surpass even god-like beings wasn't helping my anxiety to say the least.
On one hand the prospect of potentially designing a galaxy to my own personal specifications was absolutely amazing, especially considering my love for terrariums and natural ecosystems. It was basically a dream come true for me in the simplest of terms, I was feeling giddy just thinking about it. Best of all I hadn't even scratched the surface of what the system would let me do, there were so many more options that I had yet to experiment with.
On the other hand however, I found the idea rather terrifying honestly, I didn't trust myself not to go crazy and develop some kind of god complex, after all I wouldn't trust anyone with that kind of power let alone myself. Considering all of the blood and death I had been responsible for up until this point it wouldn't be too unaccurate to call me a monster, I wasn't exactly evil mind you but I definitely wasn't good either. In the end though, if I could go from a normal person disgusted by the idea of murder to someone who could, and had, ordered the deaths of thousands of people without much of a care in such a short amount of time, well, then I don't even want to imagine what I could become with god like powers and the ability to potentially shape galaxies with a wave of my hand.
Back to reality though, right now I was walking through the streets of the slowly developing town. (I should relax for a bit before I get to work.)
"Wonder what everyone's up to right now." I hummed to myself before suddenly stopping.
"Huh?" Out of the corner of my eye I noticed something off in the distance. "Is that...?" I muttered as I changed direction slightly.
Walking over I found myself looking at quite the sight indeed, a sight that immediately melted my heart because of how cute it was. Laying in a kind of makeshift park area on the edge of town was Ralph, his tail wagging as several children scurried around him.
"So...what exactly is happening over here?" I said as I approached, the person who answered was the one currently in charge of watching the kids.
"Well, you see..." She trailed off somewhat as she watched the scene with clear concern on her face.
"So fluffy!"
"Who's a good puppy? Who is it?"
"Good boy, good good."
"The children have taken quite the shining to...Ralph is it?" She responded after a moment of hesitation.
"Yeah." I mused in amusement as I walked forward. "And I can definitely see what you mean."
"Having fun, are we?" I chuckled as I approached them.
"Big sister Carmen." Mel, who was currently sitting on top of Ralph's head, waved when she noticed me. "We're playing with the big happy puppy."
"He is really cute and nice!" One of the other kids giggled.
"I'm glad you're all getting along, just be careful okay." I smiled as they all cheerfully responded.
"Okay!"
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I ended up sticking around for a bit afterwards, I just enjoyed the moment before I had to get going. It was fun just messing around for a while but I had work to do, so after a bit I got up, said my goodbyes and headed off towards the massive Weyland Yutani space ship that was still parked on the edge of town.
The ship had just been sitting there all this time, unfortunately it had sustained some internal damage during the trial but it was thankfully still operational for the most part. I had honestly been putting everything related to it off for a while now and it was about time that I stop procrastinating.
(Welp, let's get this done then.) I thought as I picked up the paste.
"Anyway, this should be interesting at the very least."
"I wonder if there's any way to indoctrinate them while they're still in the storage space?" I mused to myself. "It would make my job way easier after all."
(Only one way to find out I guess...)