Ch.384Wanderers (4)

“Damn it! Why isn’t the power back on yet?”

Frank shouted in the dark control room. The flashlight in his hand trembled, reflecting his agitated state.

“W-well, there seems to be a problem with the energy management system.”

“And?”

“I think we need to go check it directly…”

“What? With those fucking monsters roaming outside? Check? If we can’t move the ship right now, we’re all dead! Got it?”

They had tried to escape while the mysterious vessel was drawing attention, but this was the result.

After the ship suddenly shook violently, many of the internal systems went dead. The life support systems were still functioning, but they couldn’t feel at ease.

‘Damn it!’

It was fortunate that the newly appeared ship was buying them time, but who knew how long that luck would last.

“You guys. Fix this until it’s back to normal.”

“What? But…”

Anxiety and defiance flickered in his subordinates’ eyes. Frank knew this, so he added:

“I know, kid. I’ll go check it myself, so wait here.”

“Ah, yes sir!”

The anxious subordinates looked relieved when their deputy boss said he would go check personally.

“Are your personal communicators working? Keep them on and wait. You two, follow me.”

With a plasma rifle in hand, Frank left the control room with two subordinates.

The corridor without power was truly dark. The three relied on flashlight beams as they walked along the metal passage.

“Why is it so quiet?”

“Where did everyone go?”

“Shut up, you bastards.”

Though shrouded in darkness, this was a familiar path. As long as they had flashlights, moving around wasn’t a problem.

The issue was the sound.

The corridor they were walking through was eerily quiet.

Even if there were problems with the ship’s facilities, it wasn’t normal for there to be absolutely no sound like this.

But Frank was actually relieved by this silence.

‘There’s still time.’

If a swarm of Metallic Gremlins had attacked, it wouldn’t be this quiet. They needed to escape as quickly as possible before the assault began.

While thinking this, they came to a fork in the path. Unlike his subordinates who were about to go right, Frank headed left.

“Huh? This isn’t the right way.”

“This way leads to the hangar…”

“I know.”

“What?”

From Frank’s perspective, escaping with this ship was impossible. Even before the ship collided with something and ended up like this, there had already been problems with the propulsion system. The ship’s fate had been sealed from that moment.

“We’ll escape using the carrier aircraft.”

“What?”

“You want us to board a carrier with those things crawling outside?”

His subordinates looked like they’d heard a nonsensical joke, but Frank was serious.

The swarm of Metallic Gremlins outside was numerous. With so many mouths to feed, they would naturally target the larger prey first.

“While this ship buys us time, we’ll get the hell out of here.”

“Uh, that’s…”

“The cartel won’t let this slide!”

“If the three of us stick to the same story, we won’t get caught. So shut your mouths.”

Frank aimed his plasma rifle at his subordinates as he spoke. They fell silent.

“Stop thinking useless thoughts and just keep watch…”

While warning his subordinates, he heard something. Light footsteps and panting breaths.

He wasn’t the only one who heard it. All three flashlights pointed toward the deep darkness ahead.

Soon, the source of the footsteps appeared before them.

“What the?”

“Isn’t that the deputy boss’s…?”

It was the cyborg slave Frank had brought along. The naked sex slave ran up and clung to her master.

“Why are you here?”

“M-master! There’s a monster over there!”

“What?”

At the word “monster” from the slave’s mouth, all three froze.

Frank signaled to his subordinates. The two advanced tensely toward the front.

The moment they turned right at the fork at the end of the corridor, they had to stop.

‘Why did they stop…’

Frank, following with his rifle, felt his heart nearly stop when he saw the scene.

The alloy floor and walls were soaked in red blood. Something with a metallic-colored skin was standing there.

The entity, which seemed to have dozens of arms, was in the process of swallowing something whole. Between the blood-covered arms, two legs were briefly visible before disappearing.

The monster, having just swallowed a pirate in an instant, slowly turned its head toward the flashlight beam.

The creature’s face was as captivating as the sex slave Frank was holding. If not for the blood around its mouth, one wouldn’t have thought it had just devoured a pirate.

The monster with sky-blue eyes stared at the pirates for a moment before opening its mouth. Its jaw opened wide enough to easily swallow a person, and two hook-like fangs reminiscent of canines protruded from inside.

“Eeeek?!”

“Aaaagh!”

As the exotic-looking face transformed into a hideous monster, the pirates screamed. They tried to attack the monster with their laser rifles, but the monster’s movements were much faster.

In an instant, the monster approached and wrapped its snake-like long body around both of Frank’s subordinates simultaneously. The numerous arms on its body tore the subordinates apart as an added measure.

“Kek!”

“S-save…”

Despite being covered in blood from head to toe, the subordinates couldn’t scream. Probably because the monster’s constriction was suffocating them.

Only then did Frank realize why there had been no sound.

“F-fuck!”

Despite having a plasma rifle, he didn’t think he could win. Frank chose to flee rather than save his subordinates.

“Eat this instead!”

“Kyaaaa…kuhek?!”

He shoved the cyborg slave who was clinging to him. As she fell forward, she was impaled by a sharp spine on the monster’s tail.

“…?”

The monster tilted its head, looking at the female slave impaled on its tail. While the enemy was distracted by the slave, Frank quickly ran in the opposite direction.

“I can’t die! After all I’ve survived! I will not die!”

Thanks to his frantic sprint, he quickly reached the hangar where the carrier aircraft was located. The monster, busy eating the slave he had abandoned, didn’t pursue him.

After setting the hangar door to be opened from the fighter, he quickly boarded the small combat aircraft.

“I won’t die. I will not die.”

He had survived the collapse of the Martio Cartel. Someone as lucky as him couldn’t die in a place like this.

Believing this, Frank opened the hangar door.

When the door opened, the outside view became visible.

In the nearly lightless space, one ship was floating. It was the pirate ship under his command.

And behind it was an unfamiliar ship. This ship was very close to the pirate ship.

“Huh?”

Looking again, it wasn’t just close.

To be precise, the strange ship was devouring the pirate ship.

This wasn’t like a large destroyer or battleship carrying a small patrol ship on board.

Literally, the unknown ship was chewing up the pirate ship with its huge teeth and jaws. The scattered metal fragments floating around were being processed by a silver cloud hovering nearby.

Seeing this, Frank let go of the control stick.

–

The owners of the ships being attacked by Metallic Gremlins were people I hadn’t expected.

[Zz zz zzzz zzzz zzzz zzzzzz(That guy is the deputy boss of the Shinomitsu Cartel?)]

“Yes.”

Isabelle confirmed my question.

I’d heard there were many pirates roaming around this area.

Since pirates might know about the Sino Union, I asked Isabelle for help. While I was devouring the ship, I asked her to infiltrate the other ship and read their information.

Actually, I didn’t have high expectations since there was no Space Dog mark on the ship’s surface, and it wasn’t messily modified like typical pirate ships. I thought it might be a small fleet of ordinary merchant vessels.

‘But to think they’re pirates affiliated with the Sino Union.’

I almost ate them all without knowing.

I was glad I sent Isabelle ahead as I looked down at the deputy boss. He was staring at the wall in a dazed state.

[Zzzz zzzz zzzz(But why is he in that state?)]

“I didn’t do anything to the deputy boss. He was like that when I tried to catch him.”

So far, people who have encountered my main body have had one of two reactions: either trembling in fear or grinding their teeth wanting to kill me.

The pirate named Frank belonged to neither category.

「I think I know why he’s like that.」

「Groooo」

The Sky Mother, who was feeding metal fragments from the ship to the tamed Mountain Crawler, joined the conversation.

「Judging by the blood smell on his body, you must have properly scared…」

“There were pirates using slaves on the ship. This bastard even threw a slave as bait to save himself.”

「…You could have done more than just scare him. Or just killed him.」

「Groo?」

Both of them had memories of being slaves or nearly becoming slaves, so they showed no mercy when fighting Space Dogs.

‘Well, even if he’s not in his right mind, I’ll infect him with a parasite, so it should be fine.’

The good thing about parasites is that they don’t care about the mental state of the host.

The parasite flowing from my body found its new body without much resistance.

‘Now let me ask a few things.’

“I heard the Sino Union is a group of six cartels, do you know where each operates?”

“I don’t know exactly, but I know roughly.”

When I asked, mimicking a human voice, Frank obediently bowed his head.

Is it because his name has a “3” in it? Frank knew more than the boss of the Shinoroku Cartel I met before.

“Then do you happen to know who the leader of the union is?”

“I don’t know that. But I know where they are.”

“You don’t know who they are but you know where they are?”

“The union holds regular meetings. The union’s leader also participates in those meetings.”

That’s quite interesting information.

‘It wouldn’t be bad to target them after dealing with the Megacorp colonies.’

The current leader of the Sino Union is very likely to be a player or someone related to one. The faction is probably the Dominance. Of course, they could be an outsider like me, but that’s probably not the case.

‘If that were the case, they wouldn’t have formed a union in the first place.’

Though not as much as AMorphs, Space Dogs are hated by sentient species. In such a situation, forming a union would make them stand out to others.

The opponent is under the protection of the Dominance, so they’re openly running a union.

‘That’s good. I have some calculations to settle with the Dominance too.’

If Isabelle has bad blood with the Returnists, the Dominance is in a vendetta relationship with the Sky Mother and PS-111. I’ll eventually have to fight the Megacorp and Star Union rankers belonging to the Dominance. Before that, getting information about the Dominance through pirate players would be a great help.

I had PS-111 record information about the Sino Union’s player. Then I sent him back to the damaged pirate ship. This was to avoid revealing that I had contact with pirates, just like I did with the Shinoroku Cartel.

‘I just stopped by to fill my stomach, but I gained quite a lot unexpectedly.’

Not only did I get information about the Metallic Gremlin army and pirate players, but I also gained a new type of trait.

‘Strictly speaking, it’s a trait I had obtained before.’

Thanks to devouring the Metallic Gremlin swarm indiscriminately, I was able to regain the “Warp Creature” trait I had before. It’s a trait that can be obtained with a low probability from “Warp Boys,” so I was lucky.

The bad mood caused by the side effect of the “Hunger” trait was completely lifted.

There was still some anxiety, as if someone was chasing me, but not enough to worry about greatly.

‘Then I’ll fill my stomach a bit more and leave.’

Even if I’m fine, the Mountain Crawler must be hungry.

After feeding the Mountain Crawler some rocks floating in space, I prepared for another FTL journey.

「■■■」

The Titanobos and its group following No. 26 also entered FTL travel with me.

‘An AMorph traveling FTL with Metallic Gremlins.’

In the game, I always thought of them as rare genetic essences whenever I saw them, but to think I’d be flying with them like this. You never know what life will bring.

The Warp Creature trait halves the time it takes to enter FTL travel.

I left the star system at a much faster speed than when I came here.

–

The Queen suddenly appeared above an empty space.

The Queen, who had been changing her skin color to match the black space, confirmed the residual energy left by the “Predator.”

「’Predator’ meets ‘Beasts’ and acts erratically.」

「Tracking difficult due to traces of ‘Beasts’.」

「No hindrance to Empress and ‘Great Enemy’s’ plan. ‘Second Trap’ still valid.」

「Contacted ‘First Bait’. ‘First Trap’ also valid.」

「Report to Empress.」

「Discontinue tracking and return.」

With those words, the Queen slowly dissolved into the darkness of space.