Chapter 196: The Hacker and the Shinies
Back on the Stellaron Hunters' starship, Silver Wolf surveyed the interior of her new, assigned quarters.
"Hmm…"
She kicked her door open and tossed her bag onto the bed. The room was... ordinary. Offensively so.
It was clean, minimalist, and sterile, all polished chrome and cool, recessed lighting. There were no wires snaking across the floor, no server racks humming in the corner, no glitch-art posters flickering on the walls. It was a high-end dormitory, not a den.
"More ordinary than I imagined," she muttered, slumping into the ergonomic chair. It was comfortable, clearly designed for posture. She hated it. "I was expecting at least a super-sized game room. Maybe a direct-neural-feed VR rig."
She spun in the chair, her silver-grey hair fanning out. "Forget it, as long as there's internet…"
Her gaze then landed on you as you walked past her open door. You paused, giving a polite nod.
"Oh, by the way," she called out, stopping you. "What's your name again?"
"Orion."
"Orion, huh…" She stood up and walked around you, her bright eyes analytically scanning you from head to toe, as if assessing a new character build. "Hmm, he looks alright. Decent character model, I guess."
She then broke into a grin, holding up the ancient, brick-like Game Boy Advance you'd given her.
[Inorin's Note: The GBA (Game Boy Advance) is an "ancient" handheld game console from long before the Star Rail era, considered a priceless antique by collectors like Silver Wolf.]
"But the most important thing is…" She held up the GBA like a trophy. "He has excellent taste in games!"
"Is that your only standard for judgment?" you couldn't help but laugh.
"Of course!" she said righteously, as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe. "Aether-editing, hacking, rewriting reality... that's all just a game. Your taste in games reveals your soul."
She suddenly perked up, her eyes gleaming. "You said you bought this at a flea market? Are there any other good things? Any rare cartridges?"
"There is one more," you thought for a moment.
"What?!" Silver Wolf's eyes lit up. She was on you in an instant, her previous boredom completely gone. "Another GBA? Or a cartridge? What is it? Quick, let me see!"
"It's in my room, I'll give it to you later."
"No! I want to see it now!" she tugged on your sleeve, all pretense of a cool, detached super-hacker vanishing, replaced by the raw, unfiltered eagerness of a true gamer.
Nearby, Firefly, who was walking down the corridor, watched the scene. She saw the newcomer, Silver Wolf, practically hanging off Orion's arm, her face bright and excited.
Firefly felt an inexplicable, sharp pang of annoyance. 'She's way too familiar, isn't she?' She frowned and walked away, her steps a little heavier.
Silver Wolf's room was arranged right next to yours. From the first day, the tinny, 8-bit theme music of Pokémon FireRed constantly drifted through the bulkhead.
That night, just as you were settling in, a sharp, loud knock echoed on your door. Bam-bam-bam!
"Orion! Open up! Let's link up!"
You opened the door, confused. Silver Wolf stood there, bright-eyed and holding her GBA and a coiled-up Link Cable. You glanced at the ship's chronometer: 02:30.
"Games know no day or night!" she declared, correctly reading your expression as she righteously squeezed past you into the room. "Hurry, I need to trade a Haunter so it evolves into Gengar. And then I'm going to challenge the Elite Four."
You sighed, but sat cross-legged on the floor, connecting the two ancient consoles. It felt anachronistic, a low-tech ritual on a high-tech starship.
"Wow, your Pokémon are such high levels!" Silver Wolf stared at your screen as the trade completed. "A level 70 Charizard? And... so many rare ones! How did you...?"
"Just good luck."
"Wait… what is this?!" she suddenly shrieked, her voice cracking. She snatched your GBA from your hands, her face pressed close to the screen.
"Is that... Is that a Shiny Dratini?! You actually have a shiny Pokémon?!"
"Oh, I just caught it casually in the Safari Zone," you glanced at the screen, not understanding her excitement.
"Casually?!" she looked at you as if you were a monster, her voice filled with a gamer's sacred awe. "Orion, do you know how low the probability is? In this generation, it's 1 in 8,192! You don't 'casually' catch one!"
"Is that so? I have others." You took the console back and scrolled through your PC box list. "Shiny Gyarados, of course... Shiny Onix, Shiny Pikachu… oh, and a Shiny Magikarp I'm still training."
Silver Wolf: "..."
She just stared at you, her mouth opening and closing silently. She looked at you as if you had just violated the fundamental laws of the universe.
"Are you a 'Luck King'?! Did you use a cheat cartridge? No, this is an original... How is your luck this broken?!"
She hugged her own game console, looking at you with the most pitiful, pleading eyes you'd ever seen. "Can you… trade one to me?"
"No," you shook your head, enjoying this a little too much. "They were hard to catch."
"Please~" she tugged on your sleeve, her cool-hacker persona completely gone. "Just one! Any one! Just a shiny! As long as you give me a shiny Pokémon, I'll do anything!"
Your hand paused on the console. You slowly raised an eyebrow. "...Anything?"
"Mm!" she nodded vigorously, her eyes fixed on the Shiny Dratini. "Anything. Just name it."
"Then…" you slowly leaned closer.
Silver Wolf's face instantly turned red. She hadn't expected this. She instinctively leaned back, her hands flying up to cover her chest.
D-d-does he want to...
Her mind, which could process petabytes of data in a second, was now completely short-circuited.
Is this... is this the 'reward' he wants? For a Pokémon? W-well, it is a shiny... but...
Just as she was lost in a spiral of increasingly flustered thoughts, you spoke, your voice serious.
"Help me look up some people's information."
"...Eh?" she was stunned, her hands still frozen in their defensive posture. "That's... that's it?"
"Otherwise?" you looked at her, genuinely confused. "What did you think I wanted to do?"
"I thought you wanted to… No, n-nothing!" she waved her hands frantically, a strange, unidentifiable sense of... disappointment... welling up in her heart. She quickly shook it off. "Information! Right! Hacking! Who needs hacking?"
"Silver Wolf," your voice interrupted her fantasy, pulling her back. It was quiet, and the playful, light-hearted atmosphere vanished.
"Ah? I'm listening!" she snapped to attention. "Who do you want to look up?"
You paused for a moment, your gaze turning distant. You slowly, word by word, spoke three names, as if pulling them from a deep, painful place.
"Feixiao. Neergul. And… Jiang Li."
Silver Wolf, for all her eccentricities, was a genius. She keenly sensed the shift, the immense, cold weight you put on those names. Your usual calm, amnesiac composure was gone, replaced by a raw, ancient grief you didn't even seem to understand.
She became serious for once. "Are these people... very important to you?"
"Mm," you nodded, your voice tight. "They are."
Silver Wolf nodded, her expression now all business. "Leave it to me." She pulled out a small, sleek personal terminal, her fingers flying across the virtual keyboard.
"Forget just their current status. Give me ten minutes, and I can dig up their family tree for eighteen generations, their credit scores, and what they ate for breakfast."
"No need for that much detail," you said, your voice barely a whisper. "I just want to know… how they are doing now."
"Understood." Silver Wolf's fingers danced. Holographic screens and data streams flickered to life around her, reflecting in her focused eyes.
"Hacking into the Xianzhou Alliance internal network... bypassing Cloud Knight security protocols... simple... Cross-referencing names..."
"Hmm… Feixiao… that name sounds a bit familiar…" she muttered, her eyes scanning the data. "Ah, here she is. Feixiao, formerly known as... Saran... Status: Active. Current rank... oh. Impressive. She's the Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou Yaoqing."
[Inorin's Note: The Arbiter-Generals are the seven leaders of the Xianzhou Alliance's main fleets, second only to the Marshal of the Cloud Knights. This is one of the highest military ranks in the galaxy.]
"Okay, next one," Silver Wolf continued, her fingers flying. "Neergul... also from the Fanghu, rescued by the Yaoqing... Enlisted in the Sky-Faring Commission, pilot... and..."
Her typing slowed. Her brows, which had been relaxed, suddenly furrowed.
"What's wrong?" A bad premonition welled up in your heart.
Silver Wolf was silent for a moment. She didn't look at you. She just handed you the electronic tablet.
"You… see for yourself."