translator: loop
proofreader: roki
Carlos Black was the most famous wanderer leader in the alpha and beta star regions. If it were a hundred years ago, his fame wouldn’t have been limited to these two star regions, but would’ve been even more prominent. He had dealt with government and military forces from various planets. Sometimes they fought, and sometimes they chatted, sometimes they collaborated, and sometimes they were enemies.
He wandered between different planets, neither too close nor too distant from anyone. He always maintained the beliefs that a competent wanderer leader should have— supremacy of freedom, lack of restraint, and… that there was nothing that couldn’t be solved by force.
He once had an extremely luxurious spacecraft, obtained through a life-and-death transaction with Aquila Gamma’s White Eagle Military Department. It instantly became his new favorite thing— the facilities inside were as perfect as a city’s, and the level of intelligence its system had was comparable to that of Aquila Gamma’s famous galactic exile spacecraft— the Space Prison.
He even gave the spacecraft a name— Bird of Paradise, symbolizing freedom and eternity.
But that spacecraft was ultimately destroyed in the hundred years of chaos, destroyed in the gunfire of the City of Silver, along with nearly ten thousand aircraft on board that had not been evacuated in time.
With a bang, it was transformed into a cluster of light among the sea of stars.
So from then on, he followed an additional rule— absolutely no cooperation with the City of Silver.
This made his days difficult. After all, the City of Silver was extremely wealthy, and loved to stir things up. If he hadn’t severed their cooperation, Carlos Black and his people would never have to worry about not having a job.
But Carlos still insisted.
So these past few decades, they had to make stops along the road to salvage useful things when their supplies were scarce.
Carlos passed by the alpha star region three months ago, when he received the news of Aquila Gamma’s explosion.
As a wanderer, he traveled in space all year round. Traveling through various star regions without a fixed location held some advantages— one of them being that news came quickly.
Due to the hundred years of chaos, interactions between planets were plunged into a cold war. On one hand, they were trying to find ways to capture information about other planets, but on the other, they were striving to ensure the dynamics of their own planet were not known to others. This tug-of-war between confidentiality and theft ran on for decades, but ultimately ended up benefiting the seemingly harmless wanderers.
For a while, just by selling information, wanderers made a huge profit.
However, what surprised Carlos was that Aquila Gamma’s explosion wasn’t the same as a usual explosion. It wasn’t completely destroyed, but was instead forcibly divided into countless small fragments and scattered across the vast universe.
If it weren’t for him leading a small team and accidentally encountering two fragments, he would’ve probably never believed there was such a way of exploding.
This was definitely not a natural occurrence, and some human force must’ve interfered.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
But what surprised him even more was that when he encountered a fragment, there was no indication on the star map inside his aircraft. Even if the fragment was right in front of him, visible to the naked eye, that part of the star map still remained empty.
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Some of his subordinates tried to move two cyro-capsules, but perhaps they had some hidden mechanisms, because after more than two hours, they still couldn’t open them from the outside, and in the end, they could only give up.
No matter what, their trip was quite fruitful.
They had tasted sweetness once, and wanted to taste it again.
Carlos Black and his team of a hundred had just left that fragment when they started thinking about their next fragment.
However, no matter how many search methods they used, it was like those fragments were wrapped with stealth cloaks, and their locations were unable to be found.
But fortunately, his luck was amazing. In less than half a month, a fragment appeared in front of him again.
The fragment before should’ve been the edge of a city. The fragment in front of him now must’ve belonged to deep mountain forests.
When he first landed, he was a little regretful, but he very soon discovered the fortress complex in the center of the fragment. That fort was very familiar to him, as he had once made a transaction with Aquila Gamma there.
“This was once their largest super base station, called Fort Barney. Don’t expect ordinary supplies, but there are even better things here, maybe it can even help us find other fragments! Everyone, get excited!” Carlos Black bit his cigarette and clapped.
The interconnected internal communication channels of the aircraft rang with cheers and shouts: “I bet we can definitely find other locations, they most certainly can’t cloak living people, how would they live, then?!”
“Go, go, go! I can’t wait!”
“Fuck, we’ve struck gold this time!”
“Hello? Hello? Boss! Remember to bring your weapons with you. When we swept over from the side just now, we found a house. There might be people in this place, and they might not be lying in a cyro-capsule, but awake!”
“Did you hear that?! Grab your weapons!” Carlos Black called out into the channel again, grabbed the single-shoulder particle cannon at his feet, and opened the hatch of his aircraft.
Even though he had learned there might’ve been people awake there, his mood remained surprisingly good.
The last thing they were afraid of was a fight. For wanderers to travel in space for so many years, they obviously didn’t depend on just their words.
“Even if I’m old and helpless, I’m still full of gunfire and a beating heart…” Carlos stood by the hatch, ready to jump down. He even flicked the ash off his cigarette and hummed a song passed down through their group of wanderers.
Someone’s voice rang from a communicator: “Boss, we’re all ready.”
“Same old plan as always. Drunkard, take forty of them and split half-and-half to circle the perimeter of the fort in two directions. Scar, you take twenty to guard the aircraft. Everyone else, follow me!” Carlos bit the cigarette in his mouth, squinted, and picked up the particle cannon. “Get ready—”
Just as he was about to move, he suddenly heard a slight movement.
Carlos raised a hand: “Wait!”
He tilted his head to distinguish what the sound was. The sound seemed like a dozen or so mosquitoes flying around him from afar. He listened for two seconds, furrowed his brows, and swept his gaze around in a circle again. Just as he was about to speak, he heard Drunkard’s hoarse voice coming from the communicator: “Boss! Something’s wrong with this fortress! I saw something moving in the corner and roof closest to me!”
Drunkard and Scar had served as his deputies for a hundred years. They were both experienced, and had walked through a sea of flames and swords to get here. They dared to fight, but were also cautious.
“I saw it too!” Scar said. “That’s… fuck! Is that an electric cannon?!”
Fort Barney was huge and complex. Inside there were more than 4600 monitoring points, each equipped with a pocket-size cannon. Each cannon had a metal wire extending from it, like a thin lightning rod atop of a building.
When launching an attack, this type of cannon would carry electricity, stretching out like forks of lightning. Its range could reach nearly a hundred meters.
At this moment, in all corners visible and invisible to Carlos’ wanderer team, more than 4600 electric cannons simultaneously received a remote control command. In the blink of an eye they turned around, their pitch-black cannon muzzles like dense honeycomb.
Carlos Black instantly understood the other party’s intentions. He didn’t even have time to spit out his cigarette before he roared: “Return to your cockpits!!!”
But it was already too late…
On the distant hillside, Sa’e Yang reached out a finger and gently tapped on Chu Si’s holographic screen.
Bang—
More than 4600 electric cannons were instantly fired. Their grand flames were all directed towards the center, colliding into a brilliant fireworks display that could illuminate the entire star region. The electric current emanating from the metal wires of the cannons was like branches that suddenly protruded from all directions, intertwined and interconnected, forming a huge net that covered the entire wanderer group and their aircraft.
This scene was too brilliant and shocking, and had a magnificent and grand sense of beauty.
Those on the hillside were stunned and silently sighed at the magnificent view.
Sa’e Yang tilted his head towards Fort Barney and asked, “Isn’t it pretty, Executive?”
Chu Si said in a monotone voice: “Very pretty.”
“Perfunctory.” Sa’e Yang gave a sneer.
Chu Si: “…”
He couldn’t help but glance at Sa’e’s waist.
Sa’e stepped to the side, and said with a smirk: “What are you doing, acting so indecently in public? I didn’t know Executive had this kind of hobby.”
Chu Si frowned: “You brought SkyEye out, how can you still use remote control?”
In the base, remote control was achieved through SkyEye. After SkyEye was unplugged, one could only view the pre-adjusted star map on the holographic screen and monitor wanderer positions. It was impossible to control the specific facilities of Fort Barney, let alone create such a large situation.
Sa’e Yang shrugged and bragged shamelessly: “While everyone was carrying their bags and wandering around aimlessly, I calmly entered another program in the surveillance room, and connected to all monitoring devices in Fort Barney.”
Chu Si: “…”
He looked at Sa’e Yang with a complicated expression for a long time before impolitely extending his hand. “Return it.”
Sa’e squinted at his outstretched palm: “What?”
Chu Si said unkindly, “Is the calm Mr. Yang going to return my earplugs?”
Sa’e raised his eyebrows, took off the earplugs, and was about to directly place them in Chu Si’s ears, when Chu Si raised his hand halfway and intercepted him.
Sa’e didn’t insist, either, throwing the earplugs into Chu Si’s hand and watching as he inserted them himself. Then, without a care for anyone, he lifted his feet and walked downhill without any hesitation, like he was taking a stroll, towards the sprawling electric net of Fort Barney.
Chu Si watched his back for a moment before gesturing to the others: “Don’t just stand around foolishly, let’s go.”
This was the first time Carlos Black had encountered such a humiliating scene in his life. The moment he entered the aircraft, and as he was pulling the handle to close the hatch, the huge net encompassing the sky and the earth fell down, flashing dazzling blue and white, almost causing his eyes to briefly go blind.
Before he could adapt to the sudden brightness, he felt a tingling electric current rushing from his fingers to his entire body, whipping his nerves and clattering into his brain—
He, Carlos Black, the famous wanderer leader in the alpha and beta star regions, along with his 137 subordinates, couldn’t even get out of the hatch. Nailed to the spot by the electric current and grabbed by a seizure, his white rolled-back eyes were about to fall out.
Just as he thought dying would be better than this, he faintly heard a languid voice greeting: “Wow, isn’t this the former King of Wanderers? The way he’s greeting me is quite unique.”
“…” No matter who this son of a bitch was, Carlos wanted to grab them, pull out their oxygen, and jump into the starry sea together. Damn it!
I love Sa’e Yang’s humor 🤣🤣🤣
didn’t the planet explode in 5713? but the chap mentions that carlos received the news about explosion 3 months ago (current year 5763) and considers it quick? how is it quick? 50 years too late rather??
nvm, keep reading to anyone who sees this
Plz explain why, I am also confused