It is finally the first time in a long while that Phillia finds herself setting foot on a terrestrial body. Even stranger to her is that the world she steps onto is the one she was plucked from, and last time she was here, her heart was filled with fear as she was to be given to an alien who without much difficulty erased the remminants of her and her fathers rebellion in a matter of seconds.

  She takes a deep breath, letting the mana-rich air fill her lungs, and feels immediately refreshed. She had spent so much time in the human ships that she had almost gotten used to the drained and empty feeling of being in a manaless environment. She can feel the heartbeat of the world's mana as it fills her to the brim; her skin immediately becomes more vibrant, and her body feels lighter. However, the second part is apparently due to the fact that humans live in a higher-gravity environment. It's like a weight has been taken off of her body, mixed with a similar feeling to drinking cool water on a hot day, or having a toasty soup on a cold day. It just feels right, a void filled that she had gotten used to.

  She had been granted permission to join the Army Engineers to come planetside alongside some other humans to begin relief efforts on the destroyed world. While she had gained some permission for leave, her main goal is to assist in the medical efforts. There was also another group of humans that arrived, apparently unaffiliated with the US military in any way. How they got here is unknown to Phillia, but they showed up in bright white vessels with blazing red crosses on them. These humans, apparently being a mixture of healers and builders, brought food, water, medicine, and shelter to the commoners of this world who were displaced by the orbital bombardment.

  The Engineers are very strange in Phillias' eyes as their armor is much different than that of the rest of the Army, and definitely different from the monstrous Marines. Their armor makes them similar in size to the marines, but it's notably slow and cumbersome, unlike the naturally graceful monsters. Their helmets are simple domes made of the strange glass the humans use that is somehow stronger than steel, and this isn't that strange but it's situated forward on the armor instead of on the top like all other helmets should, although this is most likely just a limit of the design because of the huge hunchback the engineers armor has.

  While it looks like a big hump that rises above the helmet of the engineer, it is definitely very useful as inside of it appears to be all kinds of tools, the most bizarre being a series of multiple mechanical arms that are either used for manipulating or are tipped with cutting tools. It makes the engineers almost look like a strange bug with all the limbs and the way their armor is made of multiple interlocking plates resembling an exoskeleton. According to one of the engineers she rode down to the planet with, the armor design is made with the mindset of utilizing explosives and breaching. The arms give them extra room to manipulate dangerous materials without much risk of losing an arm; instead, sacrificing the mechanical one, it also gives them more versatility when it comes to breaching obstacles. This is on full display as the engineers easily reduce collapsed buildings into easily movable pieces or to gravel, which is then fed into a strange vehicle with a massive rotating drum on the back. Even armored Manastone is cut to bits in seconds by the circular blades and torches made of brilliant purple light. The bigger buildings are destroyed with explosives, expertly placed with those mechanical arms, so no rubble is sent flying into nearby innocents.

  After large portions of rubble is cleared multiple vehicles are deployed from ships which open their backs letting out a flood of strange looking metallic fluid, to Phillias horror this fluid begins to move on its own like a swarm of chittering insects, on closer inspection the fluid is composed of countless tiny objects that flow over one another like flooding water. They reach a very specific location in the cleared area and begin climbing over one another and become rigid, forming a thin exterior of what appears to be a completely square building. The truck that had been used to seemingly dispose of the spoils approaches and hooks up a long rubber tube to the hastily erected construct before a loud buzzing can be heard, followed by a terrible hissing and popping sound. The structure made of the small metallic things began shifting and chittering again, doing something underneath their structure. After a few minutes, the swarm begins peeling off of the now completely formed stone structure. There are no seams where bricks are joined; it's as if the humans had used magic to cause lava to flow up from the ground and solidify it into a building.

  Phillia doesn't have time to inspect it further as the swarm flows into the building, a tendril of the mass reaches a pile of destroyed buildings and wood, and Phillia watches as these materials begin to disappear under the swarm as a ripple of something flows through the chittering mass. She tries to approach only to be caught by one of the engineers, who tells her,

  "Don't get too close, they can't tell the difference between flesh and usable material, and they don't care either way."

  With this warning, Phillia watches in a mix of intrigue and horror from a safe distance away. When the swarm seems done with the interior of the building, it flows out and onto another open area and begins the process again with the truck. Phillia checks with the nearest engineer if she can now approach and is given a go-ahead. She approaches and suddenly realises the constructed building, at four stories tall, now has a front door and windows, all things that weren't there before the swarm had entered. When she opens the main door, she finds a communal area with seating and long tables similar to those on the human vessels, but made of wood instead of metal, and their strange material called "plastic".

  The huge area can easily hold dozens of people, and a giant human-style kitchen is attached to this room, easily capable of feeding all potential occupants. Phillia is gently moved out of the way by one of the white-suited workers with the big red sign. The human then goes around inspecting the interior, and Phillia asks,

  "Pardon me, I haven't had the time to ask, but who are you people?"

  The person pauses and turns to the alien woman, and the human female responds,

  "Oh, we are the Red Cross. We are a relief organization dedicated to helping those harmed and displaced by disaster, be it caused by politics or nature. We are also what we call a "watchdog organization," which means we look over all the actions taken by military actors in a conflict and make sure no unjust treatment of non-combatants happens, as well as making sure both sides follow the rules of warfare.

  While technically we don't follow any nation, we are closest in relation to the USA due to most other human nations not liking us telling them that they're doing something wrong. Of course, the generals don't like us because we make their jobs harder sometimes, but the people of the USA prefer to know if their military is acting in a way they wouldn't support."

  Phillia asks,

  "Are Rear-Admiral Hollander and his men acting in a way their people would support?"

  The woman taps her visor in thought for a second before answering,

  "Yes and no.

  So the Admiral is right in wishing to engage in military action against the Eternal Kingdom as a means to arrest the ones responsible for the tragedy that happened on this world, and his initial attacks after the civilian vessel was destroyed were also seen as just and well within his rights to do. He has also technically not used too much force when dealing with enemies, mostly focusing on decapitation strikes and avoiding prolonged and far more deadly engagements.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  On the other side of the fence, as we say in America, are those who believe we are punching down too hard. This group says any conflict with the Eternal Kingdom is wrong,g and we should seek further political means to coerce the Eternal Kingdom to hand over those responsible.

  We, as the Red Cross, hold no official stance on the conflict other than that the one responsible for the direct targeting of civilians should be held accountable, and there are talks in the Red Cross to potentially upgrade the situation to a genocide, but we need more evidence. Although according to international and national law, Rear-Admiral Hollander is justified in his actions to both arrest the responsible ones, and for the reason that he believed military action was the only means to avoid genocide or further killings of civilians.

  So yeah, that's about it. We just observe and pick up the pieces. Luckily, the Army Engineers are here to quadruple our rehousing efforts."

  The woman ends the conversation there by going back to inspecting the building before Phillia asks,

  "What is this building for? You can't just be giving people places to live for free."

  The woman shrugs, responding,

  "This is a communal living space; it has enough bedrooms for multiple dozen families. This one is of military specs, so I'm having to make sure it has all the needed civilian amenities, as the military can be a little bare bones on things like this.

  And no, we aren't permanently rehousing these people. These living spaces are meant to be temporary until the locals are able to rebuild a semblance of their original homes. Although right now we are worried that our fabrications could be much nicer than the local standard of living. This means they may wish to never rebuild and become dependent on our constructs. We have a philosophy to never let an affected person become dependent on charity; historically, we found out the consequences and paid in blood.

  Our current problem is that we have standards we have to guarantee as an organization, and many of those standards appear to be unimaginable luxuries for some of the survivors here since most who survived are in the peasantry of this planet, and the Eternal Kingdom is a repressive government."

  Phillia pauses and agrees that the Kingdom is a tyranny, but then she remembers her father's reasons for rebelling, and elevating the rights and treatment of the peasantry was not one of them. His only goal was to expand the rights of nobility against the crown, and the peasants and commoners would simply go on as they always have. Phillia does not word this belief, but she does begin calling her stances into question slightly, understanding now, the human equivalent of peasants lives a very cushy life compared to theirs. She makes a mental note to ask about the human peasant classes later, since they don't have nobles or kings, she hadn't been concerned about the poor underfoot, the difference in leadership was far more strange to her.

  Phillia shakes her head and then asks a question she has wondered about, because the information Rear Admiral Hollander never fully explained it.

  "If you have organizations like your own... how bad do things get back where humans come from?"

  The woman pauses and laughs, it's not a laugh filled with any humor, it's high-pitched and mocking. She then explains,

  "Bad. Worse than you can imagine... well, not entirely... for the most part, massacres like the one that happened on this planet rarely happen and are largely done by non-government groups like terrorists and rebels with less than good intentions.

  This conflict against the Eternal Kingdom is officially considered a policing action rather than an actual war, and all the casualties done so far, even including those mindlessly slaughtered on this world, are about equivalent to a few hours during an open conflict between human nations. We as a people give rules to our wars because we know what we are capable of; if there are none, we have seen the consequences of such in the past. Entire worlds burned, and we have multiple classifications of ships describing how they can destroy an entire planet.

  We do not do this anymore, but the threat of it always remains present when nations become too greedy or prideful. Humans like us at the Red Cross are simply those who pick up the pieces once the killing stops...

  But yes, things can become really bad in human space, but because of people like us at the Red Cross, those who try to follow rule to the letter when it comes to war, and the cooler heads to seek diplomacy rather than conflict we are able to live, most of the time, in peace and prosperity."

  Phillia stands there absorbing the information before the woman pushes past her, saying,

  "Alright, miss, I'm gonna have to ask you to leave the immediate area, we are about to hook this fab up."

  Phillia follows her obediently as the Human soldiers finish digging what is obviously a well into the ground. They top it with a strange machine that comes off the back of a wheeled vehicle. Then another wheeled vehicle leaves a large trailer behind, which the soldiers then run long lines from into the machine on the well, which is connected to the building by pipes. With the flip of a switch, the building comes alive, and throughout the interior, lights come on, and the sound of water flowing can be heard from the well. Amazed even further, Phillia watches as part of aid, the humans gave the impoverished flowing water and those strange lights the humans use... unimaginable luxury meant only for the nobility previously, now offered freely as relief aid...

  Later, far away from the ongoing relief effort, Phillia finds Dr.Mengel working alongside multiple others of the "science team"; they are taking more plant samples and appear to be bringing some samples from home. Unsurprisingly, the small plant samples from human space immediately turn crispy before dying in the mana-saturated air. This happens, notes are taken, and then more tests are run, comparative samples are taken from local flora, plants that look similar or seemingly fill the same role. These are tested, portable genetics testers are used, and more notes are taken.

  To Phillia, this strange ritual is... well, strange. Watching these people act like churchgoers or ritualistic magic users. Watching them, she does note something about how the humans do research since they can't see the very obvious flows of mana around them. No one had explained this to her, but slowly the pieces come together, the humans are alchemists... nothing more and nothing less. Everything they do is just a far more advanced form of alchemy, not using the mana itself, instead using the materials affected by it... or in their case, not affected by it. The random vials the human scientists use and all the equipment help confirm this idea in her mind, as they are similar to the potion brewers she had met with before. To sate her curiosity, she approaches the doctor with the odd accent and asks,

  "Doctor... is the basis of human...ummm.... technology a derivative of alchemy? A process of mixing different ingredients rather than utilizing mana?"

  The doctor pauses, Phillia assuming there may have been a translation error, the look on his face similar to all other humans when she used words that didn't translate to their language correctly. From what she was told, the human language is far more simplistic than the one spoken by the Eternal Kingdom, usually having only one or two words for something rather than the dozens of unique words for almost every object in the language of His Majesty. The Doctor then responds,

  "Ahhh, yes. If I am correct about your terminology, then that is a rather astute observation, Fraulein Phillia. We do not have... eh... magic as you would put it, of course, although based on an entirely scientific standpoint, we do have something similar to your mana, but it's the opposite of what your kind utilizes. Our technology is entirely based on interactions of materials, as well as certain behaviors of things like energy, to make our technology work...

  But my work and the technology I utilize are based on how living things work. My work is how we humans work to try to explain and understand how life moves and grows. Right now specifically I am trying to understand how the life here works and seeing if life from our part of the universe can somehow exist here. Both of these research points are probably going to take a few years at least!"

  Phillia stares at the man as he continues gathering more plants, as she has gained yet more insight today on humanity, but this one is less eye-opening, as she had already somewhat known humans are using something similar to alchemy; it's just how advanced into alchemy they are. They not only focus on the interactions of material, but somehow can understand and wield the interactions of energy, which requires mana in almost all forms. Strangely enough, this revelation makes their study of life easier to understand, as most of the way life works is through the interactions of materials and the properties of energy; it's just that humans can do this without magic.

  Before Phillia can ask another question, both she and the Doctor straighten up in surprise as their communication devices crackle to life, telling a single warning,

  "Potential enemy vessel spotted in system. Everyone, planetside right now, bunker down until the situation has been handled."

  Phillia looks to the Doctor, who, in response to this news, simply shrugs and tells her,

  "Well, since you have nowhere else to go. Help me with this research, real quick, Fraulein..."