Ch.106106. The Year 10,000 CE

Year 10,000 CE.

Humanity’s sphere of activity had expanded to the cosmos.

After leaving Earth for Mars, humans encountered special Martian indigenous species living there. By absorbing and developing their technology, humans finally perfected instantaneous interstellar travel using psychic abilities, allowing them to venture beyond the solar system.

Countless planets were pioneered and claimed as human territory. For about 6,000 years, humanity encountered various alien species across the universe—fighting, cooperating, and trading with them.

Having established itself as the dominant species in the Milky Way, humanity maintained a unified force under the name of the Human Federation.

During humanity’s space pioneering era, when psychic dimensional technology was still inadequate, the common methods of space exploration involved generation ships where successive generations operated the spacecraft, or ships with crews in suspended animation.

The problem was that these colonized planets had no means of communication with each other. By the time psychic communication technology developed and reconnected them, most planets had essentially become independent nations.

It was common for civilizations to decline to pre-medieval levels. Some were destroyed by nuclear wars resulting in apocalyptic conditions, while others became slaves or livestock to alien species.

To reclaim human rights in these extreme situations, hundreds of nations capable of interstellar travel and communication, centered around Earth, united to form the United Humanity.

Under the leadership of Seri Choi, the president of the pan-universal corporation Nano-Tech, which held hegemony on Earth at the time, they led massive fleets toward regions where human contact had been lost, bringing these human territories into the Federation.

Since most human territories without interstellar travel/communication capabilities were either colonies of hostile aliens, targets for space pirates, or dying planets, there were very few human factions that desperately opposed joining the Federation.

Yes, “very few” opposed.

The most notable group refusing to join the Human Federation was a planet whose civilization—or more precisely, whose entire society—had regressed to medieval levels, known as the Old Planet.

In most cases, high-level psychic users with advanced technology from the past ruled as nobility or royalty, exploiting numerous serfs below them. To justify their rule and control, they claimed their psychic abilities were divine blessings, while persecuting as witches any serfs who happened to develop psychic abilities.

There were also planets with civilizations equivalent to World War I, World War II, or the Belle Époque era, but under the firm decision of the Human Federation’s leader, Seri Choi, they were swept away and incorporated into nearby planetary systems.

While some resisters could be overwhelmed by force, other planets had established their own defense systems.

Most such planets were reasonable enough to negotiate, eventually accepting incorporation with guaranteed autonomy. However, there were also planets that would never be permitted to join even if they requested it.

For example, there were nations of life forms that had undergone such extreme genetic divergence that they could no longer be considered “human.”

These could form friendly relations with the Federation, but under no circumstances could they become members of the Human Federation, which was fundamentally a federation of “human” nations.

Similarly, planets where aliens and humans coexisted were also excluded.

This wasn’t so much alien xenophobia as it was based on the Federation’s fundamental principle of “cooperation for fellow humans,” though the exclusionary public sentiment resulting from encounters with numerous hostile alien species was also a significant factor.

Despite these hardships and challenges, the Human Federation diligently expanded its influence, eventually declaring about one-third of the Milky Way as its territory and gaining recognition from other major powers. However, its internal affairs were in complete disarray.

Seri Choi, humanity’s rallying point, had passed away after living for about 500 years, unable to withstand further life extension treatments. Without this central figure, the Federation’s political landscape fell into chaos.

Moreover, subtle conflicts instigated by other alien species had brought the Human Federation to the brink of fragmentation, but—

—Around that time, the Human Federation’s territory suffered massive damage from an all-out invasion.

The cause was an attack by an unidentified life form fleet—monsters that humanity had been confronting since Earth’s early days.

These monsters, which had spread like a plague throughout the galaxy, were the primary enemies of this era. They were horrific creatures armed with the highest level of bioengineering technology and excessive ferocity known to any civilization in the galaxy.

Believed to have first appeared on Titan, Saturn’s sixth moon, these monsters established themselves on various planets—they existed on Earth too but were eventually eradicated by Seri Choi’s cleanup operation. When people speak of monsters, they typically refer to monster clusters controlled by a psychic entity called the Hive Mind.

These monsters are divided into literal massive living organisms—fleets consisting of dozens of bio-ships—and monster planets that produce these fleets. They establish bases throughout space, continuously infecting nearby planets and expanding their influence.

During the early stages of the Human Federation’s fragmentation, their activity had decreased significantly, causing most to underestimate their threat—

Mocking this underestimation, the Hive Mind gathered hundreds of thousands of monster fleets during its period of reduced activity and launched an all-out invasion of the Human Federation’s territories.

At that time, over 2,000 massive Hive Ships were confirmed—ships so large that even a single one was considered a “monster fleet,” comparable to the Federation’s current flagship Independence-class battleships, which were so rare they were stationed only at the most critical strategic points. Smaller vessels were too numerous to count.

Moreover, to directly invade Earth, the heart and most strategic point of the Federation, they brought their strongest monster ship still active today—the “Doomsday”-class Hive Ship.

This spherical vessel, with a diameter similar to Mars, approached the solar system through the monster fleet’s unique spatial jump capability, crushing all approaching human fleets with at least 50 super-large Hive Ships.

The “Doomsday” withstood a direct hit from the Armored Moon—Earth’s defensive fortress created over thousands of years by converting the entire moon into a massive weapon—and then destroyed the Armored Moon with a single main cannon shot before retreating with its damaged body.

With such invasions occurring throughout human territories across space, humanity lost about 20% of its territory. The crisis prompted them to reunite under the Federation’s banner, and they eventually managed to halt the invasion after losing an additional 8% of their territory.

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Since then, numerous hardships have assailed the Human Federation.

The great war between the Human Federation and the Johandi Empire—the second largest single-species power, consisting of semi-mechanical aliens with natural semiconductors growing in their heads that function as brains; seven invasions by the “Doomsday”; attempts by Federation supremacists to revoke autonomy; the rebellion of the wealthy Intra star system; and various other incidents.

Yet, as we approach the year 10,000 CE, the Human Federation continues to exert significant influence over the Milky Way as the galaxy’s greatest power.

And somewhere in the Human Federation’s territory in our galaxy…

On a cargo transport fleet belonging to the pan-universal corporation Nano-Tech—essentially a nation that claimed the Solar System, the core of the Human Federation, as its territory.

In a secluded smoking room on a heavily guarded cargo ship at the center of this fleet, a man with a cigarette butt in his mouth stared blankly into space.

With black hair and black eyes—colors rarely seen in this era where genetic coloring had become commonplace—he wore an outfit that looked like a mix between fantasy and science fiction.

Black metal plate greaves over loose synthetic fiber pants, a leather belt with numerous holsters around his waist, a brown sweater on his upper body—and particularly striking, metal plates of the same material as the greaves over the sweater.

But most noticeable were his long leather coat embedded with black scales and a greatsword secured to his back with leather straps, giving off a sci-fi vibe.

Dressed like someone who might have stepped out of a cyberpunk game, his name was John Feller.

He was a ship guard hired by Nano-Tech, the owner of this cargo ship, and a solo-operating Class 3 mercenary.