Burke stood guard outside the palace gates as usual under the scorching midday sun, but he did not see a figure in a black robe.
The sunlight, once scorching, turned icy cold, eventually disappearing into the clouds rising on the horizon, leaving only a faint, blood-red blush. The heat outside the Royal Palace dissipated, giving way to a biting chill.
This time, Burke received orders to stand guard for an exceptionally long time.
He stood wrapped in his winter coat until midnight before receiving instructions to stop work, retreating back into the Royal Palace and closing the heavy palace doors.
Levy waited in front of the instrument for a whole day, but still could not detect any abnormal mental fluctuations.
Lying inside the machine, Lanny was like a completely abandoned shell, unable to attract the favor of the gods once more.
From the time the man in black arrived last week until now, Levi has been preparing for almost half a month to capture that mysterious little thing. Unfortunately... apart from the black robe, His Highness the Crown Prince has not gained anything else.
It's as if you've grasped a handful of air, or time that's invisible and intangible; in the end, all your efforts are in vain.
This kind of thing would make any normal person feel frustrated.
But Levy thought...it was fucking hilarious.
Levy left the instruments and returned to the drawing room of the Royal Palace to take a look.
The reception room was cleaned daily, but the basic furnishings remained unchanged. He remembered that before the man in the black robe fainted, he had consciously turned his body in one direction…
A sofa, a coffee table, a garbage disposal—these were the only things nearby when the man in the black robe collapsed. To be precise, these items were all some distance apart; the man in the black robe was actually lying on the floor behind the sofa.
The place is so empty that it's hardly a place to be considered a destination.
What exactly is it? A human? Artificial intelligence? Or some other conscious being?
Levi couldn't understand what he had encountered. This person—let's call him a person for now—needed to change bodies every week, conceal his mental fluctuations, and also had to tell him stories.
Yes, tell him stories.
Even though he was stood up this time, Levi had no doubt that the man in black would come looking for him again.
And... it wasn't just him. Thinking of how the black-robed man had been so careful and protective of his body during the fight, unwilling to get hurt, Levi's lips curled into a slight smile.
So soft-hearted, how could she abandon her used body here and leave it unattended?
After squatting on the clean floor for a while, Levy obviously didn't find anything noteworthy, so he got up, stretched, and left.
After he left, the dust collector hidden under the coffee table flashed its indicator light twice.
After a brief period of excitement, the Royal Palace returned to its tranquil state.
In this unsettling calm, a certain confident prince, even though he was certain that the man in black robes would still come, still "accidentally" knocked over a bookshelf in the library during the "long" wait; dismantled a precious ancient Earth model; and "shakily" sent several works of art into the garbage shredder.
This behavior is just like that of a naughty child who causes trouble when they're unhappy, but the destructive power is clearly on a much higher level.
No matter how wicked he was, a pleasingly lazy smile always graced his deceptively handsome face.
The contrast between her captivating appearance and her undisguised wickedness is reminiscent of a handsome canine that makes destroying homes its sole purpose.
With those icy blue eyes—it looks even more like him.
As time passed, a long-absent roar erupted once again from the small space station that had crashed outside the capital planet: "Fuck your ancestors! Are you a space pirate or am I? You robbed me once and that's not enough, you dare to rob me a second time?"
This time, the person standing in front of the bald stall owner was a young man of medium build.
Unfortunately, no matter whether the other person looks like a teenager or a young adult, the final result will not change.
The bald stall owner, who is over two meters tall, was tied up again.
The robbers were much more arrogant this time. Last time they only took a harmless black robe, but this time they were going to take all of his most prized possessions.
Qin Chu rummaged through the boxes under the stall for a while and only found two robes.
He thought about the recent scrap rate of these things, looked up and asked the stall owner, "Only two pieces?"
"Pah! How many more do you want?"
Qin Chu stomped on the bald man's body, without even seeing him use much force, and the stall owner let out a miserable scream. He immediately pointed in a direction and said, "Over there! The third position connects to our starship's hull. Go find it yourself!"
Qin Chu glanced at him and asked, "What's the password?"
These space stations, which function as black markets, typically have docking windows for starships, allowing pirates to unload their cargo directly. However, these windows cannot be opened arbitrarily and require specific passwords.
The bald man rattled off a string of numbers.
Qin Chu walked directly to the number three position and clicked on the password box to enter it.
Once the password field is opened, several dark cannon barrels immediately pop up on window number three.
Upon seeing this, the bald man immediately craned his neck to look. He wasn't about to be kind enough to tell the man the real password. The goods the kid had stolen weren't worth much, but it was a huge loss of face for him.
For a pirate of his stature to be robbed in the black market—if word got out, he'd be finished for life.
The bald man was seething with anger, tilting his head back and hoping Qin Chu would be riddled with holes. The cannon barrel on the window, though not very far-reaching, was still quite lethal.
As he eagerly awaited his arrival and searched for cover, the bald man glanced up and noticed the person at the window turning to look at him, their gaze knowing.
The bald man's heart skipped a beat.
Will they find out the password is wrong?
But wait a minute! If you know it's wrong, who would be stupid enough to enter the password? Would they have their brain slammed in a door?!
The bald man felt relieved again.
Hey, this kid might be tough, but he's not that smart.
He suddenly thought of his ship's captain, who was usually nowhere to be found. He was also incredibly strong, but his captain was more shameless and would definitely use him to block the cannon barrel in this situation.
Just as he was happily anticipating Qin Chu being blasted into dust, the bald man looked up and saw that the man hadn't continued entering the password at all. Instead, he picked up a tool and set his sights on the four cannons on the window.
Bald man: ...What are you trying to do?
Before he could even ask, he saw the unassuming young man, with one hand holding a tool he had picked up, snap and snapped down the four cannon barrels on the window.
That wasn't all. He reached his hand into the hole where the cannon had fallen, twisted, and pulled, and just like that, he pulled out four makeshift ignition devices...
The bald man's chin had already fallen to the ground; I never expected there to be such a reverse weapon disassembly operation.
Aren't they afraid the cannon will misfire and blow their arm off?
Qin Chu completely ignored the bald man. He disassembled the weapon in a couple of moves, randomly entered a string of numbers into the password box, and then kicked the window lock hard.
With a "crack," the entire door of window number three fell down, exposing the enormous starship storage compartment to Qin Chu.
Qin Chu climbed inside without any hesitation.
The layout inside the starship cabin and the style of the ship's hull outside are always somewhat related. After walking around the storage compartment, I looked out at the ship's hull through the window again...
General Qin: ...Why does this starship look somewhat familiar?
Chapter 55, Fourth Story (1)
Qin Chu never actually boarded a space pirate's starship.
He was stationed on the border; strictly speaking, the task of hunting space pirates was the responsibility of the Interstellar Security Force. The Security Force was subordinate to the Cabinet, directly overseen by the Minister of Defense, and not part of the military.
Their military has always looked down on the bunch of useless people the cabinet has been supporting, and therefore doesn't like to do anything underhanded, unless some space pirate group really does stray into their garrison area.
However, Qin Chu had only encountered such a foolish thing once before.
Qin Chu didn't have many memories of the chase, only recalling later venturing deep into the Star Beast territory to rescue people. As for his impression of that starship that brazenly barged in…
They're probably just incredibly fast runners, and they even secretly hang other space pirate groups' flags; in short, they're utterly shameless.
Thinking about this, Qin Chu felt even less guilty about his current "robbery" behavior.
He found a few more black robes in the cabin, took them all, and walked to the stall.
The bald stall owner, still with his jaw dangling to the ground, looked at Qin Chu's hands gripping the black robe and felt as if he were looking at some terrifying, inhuman weapon, not just hands.
"You..." The bald stall owner pulled his chin back, looking at Qin Chu hesitantly, feeling like he'd kicked a hornet's nest. If he had known earlier that this man had the ability to dismantle cannons with his bare hands, he would have knelt down and offered the robes to him with both hands.
"You're clearly not afraid of the weapons at the window, so why are you asking me for the password?" the stall owner asked cautiously.
Qin Chu glanced at him and scoffed, "Just kidding."
Bald stall owner: "..."
Damn it, that icy expression, that chilling tone, coupled with those two concise words, was incredibly insulting! He's even more infuriating than their trashy captain!
Unable to suppress the urge to curse again, before the stall owner could even speak, Qin Chu placed the items he was carrying on the stall:
"Check out, six items in total."
He seemed quite polite, which immediately soothed the stall owner: "Hey, you should have said so earlier... You just grabbed me without warning, I thought you were here to rob me again. We're brothers now, I'll give you a discount, six robes for 5,500 each, and I'll waive the one you took last time, just untie me..."
As he spoke, he moved closer to Qin Chu, and just as he was about to speak again to express his friendliness, he saw the person opposite him lift his thin eyelids and find the IOU from last time on the stall.
Then, without moving his hand, he simply raised his chin and said, "Put it on the tab."
"On the books? On whose books?" The bald man was stunned, then exclaimed in a strange tone, "Don't fucking tell me it's Qin Chu's again?"
"You fucking tricked me! Do you think I'd dare go looking for that kind of person?!"
Seeing his reaction, Qin Chu thought about it and unexpectedly had a change of heart.
It did seem a bit odd to think of proactively seeking out the commander of the First Legion. He was also afraid that if he saw this guy coming to collect a debt, he would simply hand him over to the interstellar prison.
After thinking for a while, Qin Chu wrote another address on the slip of paper.
He quickly wrote down the address, and the bald man curiously peeked over and saw that the note read: "Roy Palace, Line 175, Central Garden, Capital City."
It wasn't specified who to ask for the money from, but the bald man's face was already contorted with rage: "You fucking want me to run to the emperor's palace to collect a debt?"
Qin Chu said matter-of-factly, "Just go directly to the owner of the Roy Palace."
Anyway, it was that idiot who lost the robe, so there's nothing wrong with asking him for the money back.
After writing the IOU, Qin Chu turned and left. The bald man stood behind him, stunned for two seconds, before finally bursting out with a string of curses: "You're fucking too arrogant! Kid, let me tell you, don't get cocky. Our boss contacted me a few days ago. Once he gets here, you're fucking doomed! Our boss is super strong, super freakish, you're dead meat!"
Qin Chu turned and gave him a look that said, "Oh."
Then he turned around and continued walking out. Just as he was about to leave the space station, he suddenly heard a rumbling sound coming from the top of the space station. It was the sound of a spacecraft parking.
The bright red spacecraft docked at the space station, and Kamin opened the hatch and entered the access passage.
The passageway was transparent, and standing inside, he could clearly see a massive starship parked on the side of the space station. The moment he saw the starship, Kamin couldn't help but yell and lean against the passageway wall: "Damn it, thank God, my home is still here!"
They weren't on the ship when they were trapped in the virtual world, so when Kamin woke up, his biggest worry was that the starship would be stolen by someone else.