Chapter 163
Chapter 163
47. Cosmic Disaster (4)
The prison of the pirate ship was narrow. They tied up the kidnapped people and tossed them into a space that looked like a luggage compartment; all the people kidnapped from the spaceship Lear, and the escape crafts were crammed inside. Thankfully, they could exit out into a larger space because Noct left the window bars open.
Lear approached the injured man and stopped the bleeding, but the floor was already slick with his blood. She wiped the sweat from her forehead once he was stable.
‘It’s strange…’
These people were calm and quiet for those who had been kidnapped by pirates. Lear found it strange as she regarded a red-haired woman in an engineer’s outfit.
“Are you an engineer, Ma’am?”
“Yes, Lady. My name is Harin. Please speak comfortably with me.”
“No. This is comfortable enough.”
The Lainez Kingdom had a nobility system, but the nobles respected it because titles were awarded based on ability, not hereditary. The nobles, for their part, didn’t follow formalities like that. The Lainez Kingdom was a place where no one knew when those they ignored might become their superiors.
“They seem calm even in this situation, huh?”
“About that… I think it’s because there are so many people from the Carlos Galaxy.”
“Carlos Galaxy?”
“Yes, it is the birthplace of a religion that believes in an Outer God outside the universe.”
The Carlos Galaxy was the outermost of currently reachable space, and beyond it was a stretch of the infinite and dark void. The Carlos Galaxy bordered that void, so it wasn’t at all strange that a religion that believed in such an existence was born there. A long time ago, didn’t humanity imagine a terrible monster like the Kraken while staring into the dark sea?
Most of the people were sitting in a circle and praying. It was better than crying and screaming, but the atmosphere was bizarre.
“O, the Outer God…”
“O, the name that shouldn’t be called.”
“Blood and wealth have been prepared.”
It was a creepy atmosphere. Lear shook her head. This was an era in which people freely moved around the galaxy and fought for supremacy in the universe. However, these people painted strange patterns on the floor with blood.
It was a huge eye. It was like looking into the demon’s eye.
‘…The Great Rift?’
It was identical to the shape of the Great Rift they had been sent to investigate. She had been initially excited when unknown energy was measured from it. It was incomparable to the forms of energy they currently possessed, with the ability to change the universe. She peered into the Great Rift but couldn’t find anything. It was something far beyond their existing technology.
The pattern of the Great Rift was drawn on the back of Harin’s hand. Seeing this, Lear laughed.
“Miss Engineer Harin, do you also believe in such a nonsensical God?”
“…I saw it myself.”
“What?”
Harin witnessed it three times in person. On the passenger ship, inside it, and on the escape craft. Although it wasn’t visible from the spacecraft Lear was boarded, all those who evacuated by escape craft could see the Outer God with its numerous tentacles and eyes.
An absolute existence that living things couldn’t resist, that was the true appearance of the Outer God. It was a cosmic existence that symbolized despair. After seeing such a scene, everyone had no choice but to follow the priest from the Carlos Galaxy.
Bang! Dddrrrrrr!
The pirate ship shook violently. It was in a state of emergency, so the barrier came down. Lear thought something went wrong during the warp jump.
“Ooh! The Outer God has descended here!”
“Aaah! Please kill the pirates!”
“Please give them your despair!”
The Outer God wasn’t a wish-granter. It was an unfaithful being who only brought despair and pain. So, instead of praying, it was more like they were cursing the pirates.
“Everyone is out of their mind.”
In Lear’s view, everyone seemed to have gone crazy. She pulled out her hairpin and bent it. Then a small wire came out, and she dug it into the floor. When she operated the devices hidden all over her body, a small screen popped out. Her goal was to find out what the current situation was about and to escape.
While Lear was hacking into the main system, she found herself watching footage from the bridge. She tilted her head slightly and enlarged the video. Everyone behind her turned to watch.
“I-I can’t believe it!”
Lear screamed. Before them, was the Outer God, revealing a scene that shattered common sense.
“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!”
“Aaah! Aaah!”
Those behind her started singing bizarre songs. It was a hymn of death dedicated to the Outer God.
* * *
Jin-woo wiped out the pirates neatly. It was useless to hide in the escape craft. It was equipped with a strong outer armor shell to protect against various disasters, but for Jin-woo, it was easier than opening a soda can to tear it apart.
“Gasp!”
“Eu-uaaaargh!”
The pirates screamed at Jin-woo as he kindly guided them into outer space. He took the lid off and sent it outside. The ship was currently in a warp jump, so it was very hot outside. It would be nice to leave the windows open. The escape craft was ejected as Jin-woo pressed the buttons at random. The pirates inside disappeared into dust.
“The Pirate Union, huh…”
The leader of the Pirates Union was the Red Blade Latica, a sexy female captain who fought with a long sword! She was one of the heroines of the sci-fi world made to match Young-hoon’s taste. Her backstory was that she went into space to find freedom, but a pirate was just a pirate anyway.
‘Is the main bridge over there?’
It was closed off, but that didn’t prove much of an obstacle. Jin-woo approached the bridge, lightly smashing the barrier. Finding the main bridge wasn’t difficult, as he smashed everything in his way. The main bridge was blocked off by a thick layer of metal. It was a barrier designed to withstand the latest beam guns. However, when Jin-woo touched it, it burned red and melted.
Zzzt!
The molten metal flowed around Jin-woo’s feet. With a light push, a huge chunk fell out, creating an opening he could climb through. Jin-woo slowly climbed through.
Each of the pirates on the bridge turned to look at Jin-woo in terror. Jin-woo’s eyes fell on the tallest of them, with a fake eye and a captain’s hat. He was even wearing an impressive officer uniform with a skull mark.
This was One-eyed Noct, a supporting character that appeared when the protagonist joined the pirates. They became close as the protagonist rescued him from an explosion, but he was loyal to the pirates. He was a pirate, but seeing him like that, Jin-woo had no choice but to think of him as a two-faced man. Of course, Young-hoon probably wrote it like that without thinking much further.
‘Come to think of it; no one died in the side story.’
Noct survived to the end and became close with the protagonist. But was it necessary to let things slide just like that? The black flame around Jin-woo disappeared, revealing his form. When Jin-woo looked at Noct, the pirate faltered and stepped back.
A moment later, Noct managed to find his courage.
“W-why the hell… are you doing this to us?”
“You attacked first.”
“T-that’s right… b-but…”
Jin-woo sat in the captain’s seat. It was quite fluffy. He thought it would be nice to bring one of these to the moon. Although the pirate ship was damaged, this piece of furniture was intact.
“Uh-uargh!”
Some pirates tried to run away while he was distracted, but with a glance from Jin-woo, black flames consumed them.
“Hugh…!”
“A-arrgh…”
The rest didn’t dare to run away. Jin-woo looked at Noct. His jaw trembled, and his pants grew wet. There was something like a car’s wireless key in his hand. It was a little bigger and more complicated but similar in appearance.
“Is that the ship key?”
Noct flinched when Jin-woo lifted his finger, and he politely handed the key in his hand to Jin-woo. Jin-woo smiled and put it in his subspace.
The pirate ship was currently on its way to Noct’s base; Jin-woo planned to raid the pirates. Since it was difficult to return it to its original owner anyway, wouldn’t it be more righteous to take it than let the pirates use it?
Jin-woo waited leisurely while Noct and the pirates trembled. After waiting for a while, the warp drive stopped, and the ship returned to normal space.
“Oh, that’s cool.”
The pirate base was a movable fortress, looking at a distance almost like an asteroid. Although it was slow, it had a warp drive granting it long-distance travel capabilities. It was currently empty as most of its battleships had been deployed, and only a skeleton crew had been left behind. Of course, nearly all those ships had already disappeared by Jin-woo’s hand.
The pirate ship entered the base, and Jin-woo swiftly disarmed the pirates. The pirates tried to rebel, however.
Baang!
When one part of the pirate base was cooled down by the void of space, everyone grew calm. The rest caught themselves and quietly waited in the corner.
Meanwhile, Jin-woo had Noct guide him around the pirate base.
“T-this is the w-warehouse.”
The warehouse of the pirate base was enormous, containing goods looted from various galaxies. There were also several rare accessories and luxury vehicles.
“These are?”
“T-these are classic cars.”
They were common cars on Earth, but they were treated as precious antique cars here. Noct desperately showed everything in the warehouse, quickly moving onto the ancient food of the Earth, treated as a very precious traditional food only consumed by high-ranking nobles. As odd as that was, that wasn’t what surprised Jin-woo.
Several large battleships were lined up inside the next warehouse.
“W-what I gave you is the key to these b-battleships.”
The new battleships of the Lainez Kingdom, masterpieces of the century developed by a genius noble! They were the battleships that Noct and the Pirates Union had tried so hard to acquire. Jin-woo took out the wireless key from the subspace and pressed it.
Tick tick bwoooooong!
The engines started. It felt like he had bought several new cars.
“It’s nice.”
There were also other warehouses, each with a completely different landscape. In the next one, thousands of people were trembling behind iron bars, kidnapped to be sold as slaves. This was the true appearance of pirates not expressed in the side story.
‘It’s the same in every world.’
Whether it was Earth, another Earth, or the world in the novel, it was the same. Jin-woo felt a little bitter.
Jin-woo instructed Noct to move all the prisoners and those left in the base onto a ship that could warp and emit a rescue signal. Jin-woo captured and imprisoned all the pirates except for those with useful knowledge. Those kidnapped were left to do whatever they wanted, whether to spare or kill the pirates. With everyone sorted like that, only Noct and the pirate engineers were left.
‘Will I bring all of these? I should bring the battleships, shouldn’t I?’
The subspace was big but not unlimited. It appeared like it would be full if he put a battleship in. Jin-woo thought for a moment and looked at Noct.
“Can you move the base now?”
“Yes! I-it is possible.”
They could move it, so let’s just take them all. Jin-woo was originally only going to take the ships, but he thought this would be better. He could take it all through the Demon’s Eye. Jin-woo instructed Noct to warp to where the Demon’s Eye was. Noct and his crew hurried to comply.
Before long, the pirate base warped to the portal. When Jin-woo lightly gestured, the Demon’s Eye opened.
“G-gasp!”
“A-aah…”
The pirates looked devastated when they saw the Demon’s Eye. Unlike a normal portal, the rift tore apart, and red smoke gushed out like blood. Numerous hands sprouted up and grabbed the eye and tore it open even wider.
‘Umm…’
It was a terrible sight even for Jin-woo to witness. But it worked just fine, so it shouldn’t be a problem. The pirate base continued through the Demon’s Eye, though Noct and his crew couldn’t suppress their despair. They were already halfway through, but they thought it would be better to die.
Soon enough, the pirate base exited out the other side of the Demon’s Eye. Jin-woo commanded the base to approach the moon base first. Yoo-na, Arcana, and his other subordinates came out to watch his approach as a large shadow fell over the base.
Yoo-na’s expression went blank. No one wouldn’t be surprised to see this gigantic spaceship. Had an alien invasion started? It was fortunate that Arcana felt Jin-woo’s energy; otherwise they might’ve attacked.
Dddddrrrr!
The pirate base landed next to the moon base. Jin-woo clambered off and walked to the moon base. Yoo-na blankly stared at him all the while, up until the point he stood beside her with a smile.
“What is that?”
“It’s a pirate base. It’s a big spaceship.”
“How did you…?”
“I picked it up on my way here.”
The Great Emperor was the only one who could say that he picked up a spaceship with such nonchalance.
* * *
Jin-woo was planning to call his men to study the pirate base, but there was something he had to do before that. Jin-woo first gathered the members of the Golden Women’s Association to give them the gifts he bought on the passenger ship.
“I didn’t know what you would like, so I just bought them all. Pick something yourself.”
When he took out all the things he had shopped for, the room was filled to the brim.
“Oh! There’s so many!”
“Awesome!”
Maze and Luna were happy, raising their arms. Maze chose a kickboard that could float through the air, though Maze just sort of flopped over it and hung on. Luna chose a new game console, and Arcana was pleased with the kitchenware he had purchased. Heo-young only grabbed a few bottles of liquor. The others – Arina, Hee-yeon, and Se-yeon – chose clothes.
Only Yoo-na remained still next to Jin-woo.
“Why don’t you choose one?”
“All right.”
Yoo-na thought for a moment and then nodded. She always wore a suit, having insisted on wearing one to the extent that it was frustrating. Arina and the others handed Yoo-na clothes that would suit her, but Yoo-na refused each one. Eventually, however, she found an outfit that caught her gaze. It was a formal secretary suit. It might feel boring normally, but Yoo-na was comfortable wearing this kind of outfit.
Everyone tried on their new outfits, but Jin-woo focused on Yoo-na. The secretary’s outfit looked pretty good on her.
‘That outfit… I think there’s something about it.’
Jin-woo tilted his head, feeling something was off. Yoo-na was satisfied in her way, but as she checked the outfit, she noticed something in the pocket. It was a switch.
“This is…?”
The moment Yoo-na pressed the switch, Jin-woo remembered what the clerk had shown him.
“Oh, that’s…!”
He hurriedly tried to stop her, but it was already too late.
Psssaaash!
The secretary’s outfit was torn apart. As the clerk said, it looked hot. Arina nodded with approval as the rest watched in shock.
“As expected… you have a secret weapon.”
“S-so Master has such taste…”
Arcana took out her notebook and began to write while Choi Hee-yeon fiddled with her fingers and blushed. Then, taking a step back, she rummaged around to find a similar outfit. Maze continued to float around, and Luna was busy stopping them from floating away.
Jin-woo couldn’t think of what to say.
“It looks good on you.”
“Haah…”
Yoo-na sighed. This was the moment she began to wear slightly different clothes besides suits. Anyway, it was a good change.