Ch.125The Great Escape

# Chapter 125: The Great Escape

Although our power source had returned, the situation wasn’t exactly favorable from the start.

Of course, we weren’t in any immediate danger.

With the Extinction Core destroyed, the powerful defense systems had ceased functioning.

Rather, as a result of the nano-machines that formed the structure shutting down—

*Fsssssh…*

The “nano-machine blizzard” of deactivated particles made it difficult to see the path ahead.

“Argh, it’s in the way!”

“Fire the main cannon.”

Similarly, massive structures had collapsed due to the deactivated nano-machines, blocking our passage.

As we continued to lose time, I felt my blood running cold.

“Structure falling ahead, approximately 3km in size!”

“Fire!”

Despite my inner anxiety, the Leviathan diligently carried out its duties and steadily pushed forward.

“Minister, we’ve finally located the main gate hatch!”

“Good! Concentrate firepower and blast through that damned gate!”

*Dudududu…KWAAANG!*

Shortly after, our Leviathan successfully made it outside, escaping the explosions surging from the planet’s core.

Of course, the timing was extremely close.

*KWAAAANG!!!*

The main gate hatch we had barely managed to break through was blown away, unable to withstand the massive explosion that had begun at the planet’s core.

“Wow, everything’s really blowing up.”

“Hmm.”

Riel and I were watching this spectacle from the best seats at the front of the bridge.

Well, more accurately, only Riel was sitting and enjoying the view.

While I was facing the right direction, I was actually checking the event message.

[Time Remaining: 29 days]

‘…That’s tighter than I expected.’

The unexpectedly sturdy structures of the Extinction Fortress had cost us precious time during our escape.

‘Can we reach the warp gate at this rate?’

I tried to roughly calculate the time it had taken us to get here from the moment we entered through the warp gate, but…

‘This is impossible.’

No matter how much I pondered, my brain could only conclude that it was impossible.

‘Is this some kind of event where I die and the ending credits roll?’

So, with the Extinction Fortress creating a fireworks display behind us, I decided to consult experts about this matter as our ship pressed forward.

“So you’ve come to ask me about this, Minister Arto?”

“…That’s correct, Minister Vermut.”

“Ah, so that’s why you called me here as well.”

Naturally, I turned to Minister Vermut, the Empire’s greatest intellect (and madman), and Levia, who served as our calculator with her tremendous computational power.

But to my concern, Minister Vermut waved his hand dismissively.

“Why worry about such things? There’s really no problem.”

“…”

Had this madman reached the point of disregarding even his own life?

As I silently stared at him with such thoughts, Minister Vermut made more emphatic gestures and began explaining the situation.

“The previous exploration, and the time it took us to get here this time… to be honest, we took the slowest possible route.”

“The slowest route? What do you mean?”

“Ah, Minister Arto doesn’t understand.”

After saying that, Minister Vermut sent Levia away, saying this conversation didn’t require her presence.

“Let me just show you directly.”

He took out his terminal pad and displayed a map of our universe.

“Look here, this route is the path taken by the research battleship when we acquired Ash.”

Minister Vermut confidently marked points and drew lines with his pen.

“And this is the route we used during our infiltration this time.”

After adding more points and lines, Minister Vermut looked at me with a smile that seemed to ask if I understood now.

Looking at the “routes” that Minister Vermut had drawn by hand, I could only offer one comment.

“It’s complicated.”

“Exactly, that’s it!”

Minister Vermut continued with a happy smile, like a professor pleased with a graduate student who had solved his assignment.

“As I’ve shown you, our movement path until now has been twisted, circuitous, with detours and even U-turns, resulting in distances that were 2, 3, or even 10 times longer than necessary!”

Tapping the routes he had drawn with his pen, he then switched to a different color and began drawing a new line.

“But our return route now? Since we have nothing more to explore or detour around, we can head straight to the gate by the shortest distance!”

As he spoke, he drew much more vigorous straight lines.

I could see that the route to the warp gate was drawn much faster than the previous routes.

“Oh…”

“No matter how slowly we go, it will definitely be faster than when we came here, so there’s no need to worry too much!”

Seeing his confidence, I nodded with satisfaction.

“I see. I didn’t realize it could be shortened this much.”

“It can’t be helped. People who aren’t familiar with this field often get confused.”

Reassured by Minister Vermut’s bold claims, I leaned back on the sofa and spoke with relief.

“That’s fortunate. With that much of a shortcut, we should be able to escape through the gate before everything here is destroyed in 30 days.”

But the moment I said this—

Minister Vermut erased his previous smiling demeanor and leaned in close to me, questioning the date.

“Wait, Minister Arto? Did you just say 30 days?”

“Yes, to be precise, we have about 29 days left… Is there a problem?”

At my response, Minister Vermut’s complexion changed dramatically. He began frantically operating his terminal pad on the table while taking notes on the side.

His intense expression made me wonder if I had triggered some kind of episode.

But the reason for Minister Vermut’s behavior was…

“This is a serious problem! Even with the shortest route, it seems impossible to make it in less than a month.”

“…What?”

It seemed our ship, heading toward our rosy future, was likely to burn up before we got there.

‘Is this for real?’

——————————-

And 28 days later.

Fortunate, if you could call it that.

“Oh, finally, I can see the gate…!”

“We’re going to survive!”

During those 28 days, we pushed to the absolute limit and finally managed to reach the planetary system where the gate was located.

Although in the process, one main engine completely failed due to excessive strain.

And the auxiliary engines were also starting to malfunction due to extreme energy concentration.

We even had to perform an inertial drift in a planetary swing-by orbit midway…

Anyway, relieved that we had arrived, the high-ranking officials, including myself, sat down to observe the situation.

But at that moment.

*Krrrrrr…KUGUGUGUGUGU!!!*

“Massive energy reaction detected from behind!”

“Oh my.”

Through the hyperspace jump route we had just traversed, an unexpected explosion of energy was surging up.

No, beyond surging—it was radiating from the entrance of the jump route like an explosion.

I immediately checked the event message, wondering if the status window was playing tricks on me since the explosion had arrived earlier than expected…

[Time Remaining: 1 day]

‘Ah, I see.’

I realized that the “deadline” in the message was purely calculating the moment when the explosion would “reach” the gate.

“…Engage all engines again, proceed at full speed to the gate!”

“Understood, Minister.”

Our Leviathan began advancing at high speed, accompanied by the screams of its battered power and propulsion systems.

Of course, there were also minor incidents like the people in the engine room screaming.

But this time, the massive explosions and shockwaves erupting from all directions in this universe were about to overtake us.

*KUGUGUGUGUGU…!!*

Accepting that some external structures and armor plates would be scorched, we poured all the energy that had been forming our shields into the propulsion system.

And finally—

*FWAAAANG!!!!*

With explosions enveloping nearly half of our hull, we at last managed to return to our beloved Milky Way galaxy.