After that day, around three years had passed. Darian, together with the robots, had been waiting for some sort of answer from Earth, but it wasn't coming. In fact, it never arrived, and while for the first few months Darian was really worried, as the years went by, he slowly forgot about everything there, though he still never forgot his family and his closest people.
Currently, Darian is in his fourth year, and as time passed, he had slowly lost count of the years. In these years, he was able to study more and more plants. His hut and laboratory were still the same, even if Mason asked Darian if he should make them bigger, Darian simply answered no. He was happy with the buildings as they were. The only thing that he changed was the greenhouse, which became extremely huge, with multiple plants and fruits inside of it.
Until the third year, it was the biggest thing ever built by humanity on this planet, but now the robots were currently working together on a project for the first city. Even if it was just a project for now, the greenhouse was nothing compared to this city that the robots were about to build.
During these years, they simply built up an actual plan and gathered all the resources. Sonar remained for a long time inside a cave, in which he built a small warehouse so he could leave all the materials there for Ceres to grab.
While Mason was receiving all the materials, he was creating the project, which took him around nine months to finish. Together with Aegis, they searched for a perfect spot. Currently, Aegis had turned into a sort of farmer, with his extremely big ranch, he had many animal species and was currently taking care of them. Thanks to Aegis's help, everything around Darian's base was safer, and there weren't any more dangerous creatures.
Pax, in these years, always remained next to Darian. Although he had another purpose, he wasn't sent here to XERBAB-7 with the duty only to help Darian's psychological state, but also to monitor if this planet was actually safe for humanity and to see if what the other robots were doing was being done in the best possible way.
In the last few months, Pax remained away from Darian, who at first was missing him a lot, but as time passed, Darian got used to the absence of Pax. Even if he didn't have his usual talks with Pax, he usually found all the robots returning to the starship to recharge themselves.
It was currently a night right before the fourth year would arrive. Darian was with all the robots, it was extremely rare for all of them to be together in a single spot, spending some time together.
"Woah, and so the first city will finally rise?" Darian was currently drinking what looked like a beer. It had the same taste, even if this discovery was quite new. Darian had immediately asked Pax to see if it was actually edible for a human, because since he arrived here on this planet, he hadn't had a proper drink.
The moment Pax confirmed that it could be drunk by humans, Darian didn't lose any time, he immediately stopped working and took a day off.
"Exactly, Sir Thorne. We accepted your request to not make it really far from here," said Mason. All of the robots and Darian were currently in front of a fire, as they all knew the new year would soon arrive.
"By the way… now that I think about it, once I'm gone, how are you going to charge yourselves? Like, you won't even have a single battery," said Darian, a bit drunk.
"Sonar is currently studying a sort of gem that will be able to give us enough charge. Thanks to the Cryscharge gems, we might be able to charge them and they are going to last a long time; charging ourselves won't be a problem anymore," answered Pax.
"Pax… I need to get a haircut. Don't you see how long it's become?" Darian suddenly changed the topic. While Pax was talking, Darian drank another glass of beer and became quite drunk.
"I see. Don't worry, tomorrow we will cut it," answered Pax, grabbing Darian, who was slowly losing his balance.
"Hic... it has been over a year since we've cut it. Don't you see how long it's becomeee!" shouted Darian while burping mid-sentence. In fact, Darian's hair was now going even below his shoulders.
As the night passed by, the first one to go away was Darian, as he fell asleep while he and the robots were talking together. Pax was able to bring him back into the hut, and with that, all the robots returned to the rocket to recharge themselves.
The following day, the moment Darian woke up, he found Pax in front of the door waiting for him to get up. "Oh, Pax," he said happily, glad to see him there. In the last year, it was rare for Darian to see Pax waiting for him outside in the morning.
"Morning, Darian. Ready for the haircut you asked for yesterday?" Darian, hearing that, remained a bit confused, as he had been too drunk and completely forgot about everything. "What?" he said, surprised. "...Yeah, I need a haircut… but what did I say yesterday?" asked Darian, a bit scared about what he might have done while he was drunk.
Pax didn't answer, he simply turned away and walked towards the rocket. "Nothing," he said. Darian understood that it was clearly a lie and immediately shouted in panic, "Ahhhh, what have I doneee… tell meee!"
Pax didn't answer. Darian simply sat on the chair and Pax, behind him, started to cut some of his hair. "So… as always, the usual, right?" asked Pax. It was almost a tradition now, every new year, Darian would cut his hair and make it extremely short, as he said it would create fewer problems for him.
Now Darian didn't answer immediately. He remained silent before actually answering, "I was thinking of keeping it longer than what I usually did before… still not as long as this," he said.
"Mhmm, then should I cut it like this?" It felt like Pax understood perfectly what Darian was asking for. Darian, without any hesitation, nodded his head. "Yeah, I'm sure it would be perfect," he said, and Pax immediately began working.
After some minutes, the haircut was finally done. Darian had a completely new look; his hair wasn't short like before. Currently, he had it longer, and it ended right at the base of his neck.
"So? Do you like it, Darian?" asked Pax with a proud voice. Darian, really happy, could only nod his head. "It's beautiful. Thank you, Pax."
"By the way… you were telling me that you have started to fish?" While Darian was looking at himself in the mirror and Pax was cleaning all the hair off the ground, Darian talked about what they were discussing during the haircut.
"Oh yeah, to be honest, I find it really relaxing," answered Darian. "You remember that not far from here there is a really big lake, right?" asked Darian. Pax nodded his head.
"I find the fish really good on this planet. I'm eating them almost every time at dinner," said Darian while he and Pax went outside the rocket.
"Well, I think I'm going, Darian. I just received a text from Mason… they need me," Pax said.
"There is no need to worry, Pax. You'll always find me here," said Darian. Pax waved at him one last time before going away.
"Well, I don't want to work today… it's the first day of the year." Darian entered his hut and grabbed the fishing rod together with an old bucket that he had asked Sonar to create around ten months ago. As always, he took his small hat and headed towards the nearby lake.
In less than ten minutes, he was able to arrive, and he sat down there waiting for some fish to arrive. Darian, while waiting for the fish to be caught, began thinking about his next experiments and the next thing he had to study tomorrow.
In these four years, he had already been able to study the most common plants that could be found on this planet, but with the years, he discovered so many other things about the plants that he had already studied that it felt amazing to him. For example, he recently understood that if the Corange grows without any water, the plant doesn't die; the fruit will still grow, but with a totally different shape. He discovered it because he completely forgot about the garden behind his laboratory, and while he thought that there wasn't anything left, a Corange was still growing.
After some hours, Darian was finally able to catch some fish. There were only two. "Today was very unlucky…" he whispered, annoyed by this. With the bucket in his hands and the rod, he headed back towards the rocket.
"I forgot lunch today too… damn, I'm starving," he said. It had become rare for him to forget lunch, but because this morning he was together with Pax, it had completely slipped his mind.
While he was walking, the air around him suddenly became colder. 'Brr… weird. It shouldn't be time for winter yet…' he thought, confused. It wasn't natural for the air to turn like this normally. Scared, Darian began to walk faster. Suddenly, in front of him, appeared a creature. This one had the shape of a fox, but it was totally different.
This fox had a beautiful white color, while there was some purple on the tails. Darian remained shocked because he had never seen anything like that on this planet before. Aegis hadn't found anything similar to this ever, and in all his walks together with Pax, he had never encountered anything like this.
But still, Darian understood that this creature wasn't dangerous. It was looking directly at him. Curious, Darian left the bucket on the ground together with the fishing rod. "...What are you supposed to be?" Darian tried to speak with the creature. The moment he got too close to her, the fox jumped right into his arms.
"What!!!" he shouted, confused, as he saw the fox entering into his arm. With that, his body started to change; it became made of snow, and his hair turned to ice.
Darian didn't even have the time to think and realize what was actually happening when his arm slowly raised up toward the sky. Suddenly, Darian felt his whole body become colder and suddenly, what looked like ice was coming out of his arm.
In less than five seconds, an extremely powerful shard was thrown from his right arm. This shard was so big that it could be seen from anywhere on the planet. In fact, the other robots saw this huge ice shard forming in the sky and they remained confused, until Pax shouted, "Hey, that's where Darian's base is!" He dropped the thing in his arm on the ground and rushed towards the point where the shard was forming.
'Hel—' Darian barely had the time to form a thought when the powerful shard, as big as a skyscraper, was shot from his hand and headed towards space at extreme speed. After the shard was launched, some seconds later, a sort of scream could be heard.
The moment this scream happened, Darian was slowly losing his consciousness as the small fox went back outside his arm. But Darian, and the robots, would never forget that scream. After the scream, everything turned dark for a moment, it felt like something big had passed between XERBAB-7 and its sun.
Darian could barely remember anything after that, and he passed out. The moment Pax arrived, he found Darian unconscious on the ground. The fox wasn't there anymore.
"And with this, you at least know something more about my past… and more about the encounter with Snowy." Darian finally stopped speaking while he touched Snowy's head; the creature was currently still sleeping.
He had spoken non-stop since the start of the travel from Yalemba to Therya. During this time, Liro, Vane, and Lily always remained next to him listening; sometimes other people would come and listen to him, too. Even Enea, while always being shy, remained a bit far away so that he could listen to them.
"But what happened next… don't leave us with this cliffhangerrr!" shouted Liro, as he wanted to know more about what happened once the robot found him.
"Well, Pax took me inside the hut and I explained everything to them…" It felt like Darian was about to tell other important stuff about his past before Vane interrupted him.
"Guys, you should not talk about this anymore… we have important stuff to talk about." Everyone stopped. These days had been extremely long; luckily, no one died in the travel and everyone was still alive, even if all the people were extremely tired.
"Have we reached Therya?" asked Lily, extremely excited.
"Let's go see," said Darian, walking at the head of the crowd, where Kael, Tauren, Enea, and Naluri were. The moment Darian and the others were able to see in front of them, as they passed through the crowd of people, they were able to see the entrance to Therya, which was exactly as they had left it.
"Let's hope we won't have any problems… you know, every time we return, there is always a problem," whispered Darian to Liro next to him.
"I'm sure it will be alright… but now we have a bigger problem." Liro turned around and he focused his eyes on the crowd. "Will we be able to make them live here without any problems?" said Kael behind them.