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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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Chapter 384
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“What the fuck! Why aren’t the damn lights on yet?”
Inside the darkened control room, Frank shouted in frustration. The beam of his flashlight wavered, reflecting his unease.
“I-It seems like there’s an issue with the energy management system.”
“So?”
“We might have to check it manually….”
“What? You want us to check while those fucking monsters are still lurking outside? If we can’t get this ship moving, we’re all dead! Do you get that?!”
He had planned to escape while the mysterious ship was drawing attention, but now things had taken a turn for the worse.
After a sudden violent shake, a significant portion of the ship’s systems had gone offline. Life support was still operational for now but there was no telling how long it would last.
‘Damn it!’
The only reason they were still alive was that the newly arrived ship was keeping their enemies occupied. But luck like that wouldn’t last forever.
“You lot fix it. Now.”
“Huh? But….”
His subordinates hesitated, their faces filled with unease and defiance. Frank could see it, so he added:
“I know, dumbass. I’ll go check it myself. Just stay put.”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Hearing that the second-in-command himself would handle it, his crew let out a visible sigh of relief.
“The personal comms still work, right? Keep yours on and wait here. You two come with me.”
Gripping his plasma rifle tightly, Frank left the control room, two men following behind.
With the energy supply cut, the corridor was pitch black. The three of them walked cautiously, relying on their flashlights to guide them along the metal passageway.
“Why’s it so damn quiet?”
“Where is everyone?”
“Shut the hell up.”
Even in darkness, this was a familiar path. As long as they had flashlights, movement itself wasn’t an issue.
The real problem was the silence.
The hallway they walked through was eerily still too still.
No matter how badly the ship’s systems had malfunctioned, it wasn’t normal for there to be no sound at all.
But Frank found comfort in that silence.
‘We still have time.’
If the swarm of Metallic Gremlins had already attacked, it wouldn’t be this quiet. He had to escape before the assault began.
As he was thinking, they reached a fork in the corridor. While his men instinctively turned right, Frank went left.
“Huh? That’s not the way.”
“This path leads to the hangar, sir….”
“I know.”
“What?”
Frank knew that escaping on this ship was impossible. Even before it had collided with something and ended up in this mess, there had already been issues with the thrusters. This ship’s fate had been sealed long ago.
“We’re taking the carrier craft and getting the hell off this wreck.”
“…What?”
“You mean launching a carrier craft now, with those things swarming outside?”
His subordinates looked at him like he had just suggested suicide. But Frank was dead serious.
There were far too many Metallic Gremlins out there. And when you had that many mouths to feed, they’d naturally go after the biggest prey first.
“We just need to make a run for it while this ship keeps them busy.”
“But, uh, that’s….”
“The cartel won’t just let this slide!”
“If the three of us keep our mouths shut, they won’t know shit. So shut the hell up.”
With that, Frank leveled his plasma rifle at them. His subordinates immediately fell silent.
“Stop overthinking and keep watch...”
Just as he was about to finish his sentence, his ears caught something.
Light footsteps and ragged breathing.
Frank wasn’t the only one who heard the sound. All three men instinctively turned their flashlights toward the darkness ahead.
And soon, the source of the footsteps emerged before them.
“What the…?”
“Isn’t that the boss’s…?”
It was one of Frank’s cyborg slaves.
The naked pleasure slave ran toward him and clung to his chest.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“M-Master! There’s a monster over there!”
“What?”
The moment the word monster left her lips, all three men stiffened.
Frank signaled his subordinates with a hand gesture. The two men, tense and alert, cautiously advanced.
The moment they turned right at the fork at the end of the corridor, they froze in place.
‘Why’d they stop…?’
Following behind them with his rifle raised, Frank laid eyes on the scene and his heart nearly stopped.
The alloyed floor and walls were drenched in red. Pools of blood had seeped into every metal crevice.
And standing amidst the carnage was something with a metallic-colored exoskeleton.
A towering figure with dozens of arms was in the middle of swallowing something whole. For a moment, two human legs dangled between its bloodied appendages before vanishing entirely.
The creature, having just devoured a pirate, slowly turned its head toward the source of the flashlight beam.
Its face was mesmerizing so much so that, if not for the blood at the corner of its lips, one might not have believed it had just eaten a man whole.
Those bright, sky-blue eyes stared at them for a moment before its jaw opened wide far wider than a human’s, wide enough to easily swallow a person.
Two massive, hook-like fangs jutted out.
“H-Hiiiik?!”
“AAAAAH!”
The exotic, almost alluring visage twisted into the form of a grotesque monster, sending the pirates into a panic. They tried to raise their laser rifles but the creature was faster.
In an instant, it lunged, using its long, snake-like body to coil around both of Frank’s subordinates at once.
Its many arms tore into them, shredding their flesh apart as if it were nothing more than fabric.
“Ghhk—!”
“P-Please….”
Even as their bodies were reduced to bloody pulp, the two men couldn’t scream.
The monster’s constriction had squeezed the air from their lungs before they could even react.
And just like that, Frank understood why the ship had been so eerily silent.
“F-Fuck…!”
His plasma rifle felt useless in his hands. There was no way he could win.
Instead of saving his men, he chose to run.
“Here! Have this instead!”
“Kyah—kugh?!”
He shoved the cyborg slave forward with all his strength.
As she stumbled forward, the monster’s tail, lined with sharp spines, pierced through her.
“……?”
The monster tilted its head, seemingly puzzled as it looked at the impaled slave on its own tail.
That was all the distraction Frank needed. He spun around and bolted in the opposite direction.
“I can’t die! Not after everything I’ve survived! I’ll never die!”
Fueled by desperation, he sprinted like a madman, reaching the hangar in no time.
The monster didn’t follow it was too busy dealing with the discarded slave.
Wasting no time, Frank climbed into a small fighter craft, setting it to open the hangar doors.
“I won’t die. I won’t die.”
He had survived the collapse of the Marcio Cartel.
Someone as lucky as him wouldn’t die in a place like this.
That’s what he told himself as he activated the hangar’s external doors.
As the doors slid open, the outside world came into view.
A single ship floated in the near-lightless void of space.
It was one of the pirate vessels under Frank’s command and behind it… was a ship he had never seen before.
At first, it looked like the strange vessel was simply docked against the pirate ship.
But on closer inspection, that wasn’t the case.
The unfamiliar ship was devouring the pirate vessel.
This wasn’t like a large destroyer or battleship carrying a smaller patrol ship inside its hull.
No this was something else entirely.
The unknown vessel had massive jaws lined with teeth, tearing through the pirate ship as if it were nothing more than scrap metal. Floating metal fragments scattered from the wreckage, only to be absorbed by the swirling silver cloud drifting nearby.
Frank stared at the sight and let go of the controls.
***
The owners of the ships that had been attacked by the Metallic Gremlins were not who I had expected.
[ZZ ZZZZ ZZZZ ZZZZZZ (That guy is the second-in-command of the Shinomitsu Cartel?)]
"Yeah."
Isabelle confirmed my suspicion.
I had heard rumors that pirates were active in this region.
Thinking that pirates might know something about the Shino Union, I had asked Isabelle to infiltrate one of the ships and gather intelligence while I was in the process of consuming another vessel.
Honestly, I hadn’t expected much.
There were no Space Dog markings on the hulls, nor did the ships look like the usual messy, makeshift pirate vessels. I had assumed they were just a small fleet of merchant ships.
‘And yet, they belong to the Shino Union?’
I had nearly devoured them all without realizing it.
Looking down at the cartel’s second-in-command, I was glad I had sent Isabelle in first.
The man was sitting there, blankly staring at the wall, his mind seemingly shattered.
[ZZZ ZZZ ZZZ (What’s wrong with him?)]
"I didn’t do anything to him. He was already like this when I tried to capture him."
Up until now, people who had faced my main body had only ever reacted in two ways:
Either they trembled in fear, or they ground their teeth in hatred, wanting to kill me.
Frank belonged to neither category.
｢I think I know why.｣
｢Gruu…｣
The Mother of the Sky, who had been feeding alloy fragments to the Mountain Crawler, joined the conversation.
｢Judging by the smell of blood on him, he must have been scared out of his—｣
"There were slaves on the ship. And that bastard threw one of them to the monster just to save himself."
｢…You should have done more than just scare him. Torturing him would have been better. Or just killing him outright.｣
｢Gruu?｣
Both of them had been slaves or nearly became ones so they had no mercy when dealing with Space Dogs.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter if he’s lost his mind. I’ll just infect him with a parasite.’
The great thing about parasites was that they didn’t care about their host’s mental state.
One of my parasites slithered out from my body and easily found a new home, meeting no resistance.
‘Now, let’s ask some questions.’
"The Shino Union is said to be made up of six cartels. Do you know where each of them operates?"
"I don’t know precisely, but I have a rough idea."
Mimicking a human voice, I questioned Frank. He meekly bowed his head in response.
Was it because his name had ‘Three’ in it? Frank seemed to know more than the boss of the Shinoroku Cartel I had met before.
"Do you know who leads the Union?"
"I don’t. But I do know where they are."
"You don’t know who it is, but you know where they are?"
"The Union holds meetings periodically. The leader of the Union always attends those meetings."
That was very interesting information.
‘It might be a good idea to target Megacorp’s colonies first and then move on to them.’
The current leader of the Shino Union was highly likely to be a player or someone connected to one.
Their faction was almost certainly Dominionist.
Of course, there was a slim chance they were an outsider like me but that was unlikely.
‘If they were, they wouldn’t have formed an alliance in the first place.’
Space Dogs were hated by intelligent species even if they weren’t as infamous as the Amorph.
Forming a union would only draw more attention to them.
Most likely, the leader was being protected by the Dominionist faction, allowing them to openly operate the alliance.
‘Perfect. I have a score to settle with the Dominionists anyway.’
If Isabelle had a grudge against the Returners, then the Dominionists were the sworn enemies of the Mother of the Sky and PS-111.
Eventually, I would have to face off against the Dominionist Rankers in Megacorp and Star Union.
Before that happened, gathering intelligence through a pirate player would be a huge advantage.
I ordered PS-111 to log all information related to the Shino Union’s player members.
Then, I sent Frank back to his broken-down ship just as I had done with the Shinoroku Cartel.
I had to ensure that no one suspected I had made contact with the pirates.
‘I came here just to resupply my ship… but I ended up gaining a lot more than I expected.’
The Metallic Gremlin army not only did it provide information about pirate players, but it also granted a new type of trait.
‘Well, to be precise, it's a trait I had obtained before.’
By devouring the Metallic Gremlin swarm indiscriminately, it had managed to reacquire the Warp Creature trait. This was a rare trait that could sometimes be gained from a Warpboy, so one could say it got lucky.
The side effects of the Hunger trait had left it in a foul mood, but now that irritation seemed to fade away.
There was still a lingering sense of unease, as if something or someone was following, but it wasn't enough to be a major concern.
‘Alright, let’s eat just a little more before leaving.’
It could manage, but the Mountain Crawler was probably getting hungry.
After letting the Mountain Crawler feed on some floating space rocks, it began preparations for another faster-than-light jump.
｢■■■｣
The Tita Boss and its swarm, who followed Number 26, also entered faster-than-light travel alongside it.
‘An Amorph traveling in faster-than-light with Metallic Gremlins…’
Back in the game, every time it saw one, it thought of them as rare genetic essences and got excited. Never did it imagine actually flying alongside them like this. The universe was full of surprises.
The Warp Creature trait halved the time needed to initiate faster-than-light travel.
Thanks to that, it left the star system at a far greater speed than before.
A vast, empty void. Suddenly, a Queen materialized.
Her outer shell had shifted colors to blend seamlessly into the blackness of space. As she emerged, she scanned the lingering energy traces left behind by the Predator.
｢The 'Predator' encountered the 'Beasts' and took unexpected actions.｣
｢Tracking is difficult due to the 'Beasts' leaving behind residual traces.｣
｢The Empress and the 'Great Nemesis' remain unaffected. The 'Second Trap' is still in place.｣
｢The 'First Bait' has made contact. The 'First Trap' remains operational.｣
｢Reporting to the Empress.｣
｢Ceasing pursuit. Returning to base.｣
With those final words, the Queen slowly dissolved back into the darkness of space.
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[Translator – Seraph]
[Proofreader – Draxx]
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