Chapter 215: Jing Yuan: I Have a Bad Feeling About This...
March 7th strolled back into the room, casually balancing two swords over her shoulder. One on the left... another on the right...
She had spent the last little while getting somewhat acquainted with Topaz.
"By the way, Miss Topaz," March 7th piped up, her bright eyes blinking with curiosity. "I'd like to know what material the Interstellar Peace Corporation uses for their absolute best safes? Do you have any recommendations?"
Topaz paused, her professional smile unwavering. "A safe?"
"Mm-hmm! Preferably a massive one."
March 7th thought back to the existing safe back on the Express. It was already bursting at the seams with the various highly dangerous, reality-bending blueprints Rekka had churned out during his stint on the Path of Erudition. Just thinking about it made the corner of her mouth twitch.
"How much capacity do you require?" Topaz shifted smoothly into her business persona. "Are there specific security protocols you need? The Corporation offers specialized high-value item storage services. If you require the absolute highest security level, I highly recommend the vault at our Pier Point headquarters..."
"Oh, no need for all that. We just need the safe itself," March 7th said, shaking her head firmly.
She certainly wasn't going to disclose what they planned to store inside, and Topaz, being a seasoned executive, knew better than to pry.
The unspoken truth was that if those apocalyptic blueprints were left in the Corporation's custody, the IPC would absolutely let some unrelated third party sneak them out for the Intelligentsia Guild to reverse-engineer the very next day.
"This particular model uses an internal quantum matrix and requires the highest level of biometric and conceptual verification," Topaz explained enthusiastically, gesturing to a holographic catalog. "As long as it isn't targeted by something with the destructive output of a Doomsday Beast, it will hold out indefinitely..."
"Then that's the one. I'll take it."
"The highest security tier?"
"That's right."
Topaz immediately seized the opportunity to offer it as a complimentary gift. After a brief, polite tug-of-war of words, March 7th finally accepted the gesture.
The IPC executive was truly a master of negotiation.
"Miss Topaz, this is far too great an expense," March 7th said, rubbing the back of her neck. "We merely wanted a recommendation. We fully intended to pay for it ourselves."
"How could this possibly be considered an expense?" Topaz smiled warmly, her tone smooth and practiced. "Just think of it as a small return favor for Mr. Rekka's incredibly generous gift from earlier."
She deliberately downplayed the exchange, carefully evening out the scales of favor to ensure she wouldn't be at a complete disadvantage in any future negotiations. This was the ingrained habit of all Corporation elites—there was no such thing as a free lunch, and absolutely no such thing as a favor that didn't demand repayment.
"Then I won't disturb your rest any longer," Topaz said, dipping her head slightly. "If there is anything else the Corporation can assist you with, please feel free to contact me."
Watching the door slide shut behind Topaz, March 7th immediately turned her attention to Rekka.
"Rekka, what exactly did that little cube you gave Topaz do again?"
"Simple Retrospection," he replied, entirely unbothered.
"Ah? What... Retrospection?"
"I said, it's a Simple Retrospection Cube."
"No, I heard that part! What do you mean by Simple Retrospection?"
"It's exactly what it sounds like," Rekka shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "It resets a planet's local time to exactly thirty seconds ago. It has a thirty-second cooldown."
March 7th stared at him, her brain working overtime to process the sheer absurdity of that statement.
"A literal regret pill?!"
"Pretty much."
Her first, second, and third reactions all merged into a single, deep thought.
Holy cow.
If an artifact like that fell into the hands of the Corporation, they would undoubtedly pour endless trillions of credits into replicating it.
The Intelligentsia Guild had a history of successfully reverse-engineering the inventions of Elias Salas, such as the synesthesia beacon and ultra-remote sensing technology. But the sheer cost of replicating something that manipulated planetary time would be astronomically impossible.
Certain technologies were destined to remain nothing more than personal toys for Geniuses, entirely incapable of entering the Corporation's mass production lines. For instance, a certain eccentric Genius had once constructed a marshmallow machine using a contained, simulated black hole.
As it stood now, the only Genius the Corporation could possibly beg for help was Herta. Out of the entire Genius Society, only three members had ever been willing to cooperate with the IPC: Polka Kakamond, Elias Salas, and Herta. Given that the first two were long dead or missing, the burden fell entirely on the master of the Herta Space Station.
"What happened?"
The heavy wooden doors suddenly burst open. Two little girls—one sporting bright pink hair and the other blue—marched into the room, dragging a massive, suspiciously lumpy burlap sack between them.
"Where did you two go to play?" Rekka asked, raising an eyebrow at the wriggling luggage.
"We caught a super suspicious-looking guy!" Rozaliya declared, planting her hands proudly on her hips. "He seemed to be some kind of sneaky spy for the Abundance. Anyway, he kept muttering weird stuff about the Merciful Medicus and the Arbor's growth, so we knew right away he definitely wasn't a good person."
Liliya nodded slowly, her expression deadpan. "Liliya was in charge of recording the video, and Rozaliya was in charge of bagging him."
"...Well, that is quite the efficient division of labor," Rekka noted dryly.
"Rozaliya beat the sack with a really, really big stick, and this guy still hasn't passed out." Liliya lifted a small foot and delivered a solid kick to the side of the burlap sack. A muffled groan echoed from within.
"That's right! We shoved him in the sack and beat him up for half an hour straight, and he still didn't faint. We knew right then and there that he definitely wasn't an ordinary bad guy and required heavy-handed justice!" Rozaliya nodded vigorously, her tail swishing behind her.
"Where exactly did you catch him?"
"We originally wanted to film some spicy, exclusive content we usually can't find to upload to our social media account," Rozaliya explained, gesturing wildly. "Then we saw these two super suspicious guys whispering about Abundance stuff down by the seaside. We bagged one of them, gave him a good beating, and dragged him all the way here. Unfortunately, we didn't catch the other one. He jumped straight into the sea and swam away."
March 7th blinked, utterly bewildered. "You two were dragging a squirming human-sized sack through the streets and weren't stopped by the Cloud Knights?"
"Cloud Knights? I don't know what those are. There didn't seem to be any Cloud Knights in that area," Rozaliya hummed thoughtfully. "Only at the entrance, some guard asked us for our entry permit. He didn't ask about the sack."
Rekka stared at the two gremlins in silence.
"Oh right, these two guys were actually really strong," Rozaliya added as an afterthought. "Luckily we had this neat little cube you made that can catch people!"
She pointed a finger at the glowing Force Field Cube securely attached to the knot of the sack.
"Let me see."
Rekka reached out, deactivated the cube, and peeled back the opening of the rough burlap.
Inside, groaning and bruised, was a figure sporting prominent, aquatic-looking horns.
"Pointy ears..." March 7th murmured, leaning in for a closer look.
A Vidyadhara?
But upon closer inspection, this Vidyadhara had twisted, unnatural tree branches sprouting directly from his scalp and horns.
Rekka immediately knew exactly what kind of faction this guy belonged to.
"Let's go. We're carrying him straight to the Seat of Divine Foresight," Rekka announced, pulling the sack's opening tight and tying a firm knot. "You two wait here for a moment. I'm going outside to catch a couple of Twin-tails."
"What are Twin-tails?" Rozaliya asked, tilting her head.
"Space cockroaches."
March 7th took a step back, her face scrunching up in disgust. "...Why on earth would you catch those?"
"To throw them inside the bag. Let him have some intimate, quality time with the local insect life."
The Vidyadhara trapped inside the sack began to thrash violently at those words, struggling with renewed, desperate vigor. However, after Rekka ruthlessly tightened the binding rope, the man realized his efforts were futile and eventually stopped moving, resigning himself to his dark fate.
"Alright, let's head out now," Rekka said, hoisting the heavy sack over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing.
"Isn't this a bit too much..." March 7th trailed off, looking at the lumpy bag with a mixture of pity and hesitation.
"When Liliya was recording them earlier, they were talking about letting the Denizens of Abundance into the Luofu to do all sorts of terrible things," Rekka pointed out casually. "Plus, those annoying kobolds from before? That seems to be their handiwork too."
March 7th's expression instantly hardened. All traces of pity vanished from her eyes.
"Oh... then let's go find two more cockroaches to put in."
Inside the quiet, incense-scented halls of the Seat of Divine Foresight, Jing Yuan slowly unscrewed the lid of his favorite thermos.
He had a terrible feeling about today.
"General, good afternoon! Have you eaten yet?"
Rekka's clear, overly cheerful voice drifted through the grand entrance, shattering the peaceful atmosphere.
Jing Yuan, who had been in the very middle of shifting his posture to achieve maximum slacking comfort, froze completely. His hand hovered in mid-air, gripping the thermos tight.
He let out a long, silent sigh. Here he comes again.
Absolutely nothing good ever happened when this particular outworlder showed up at his doorstep.
It wasn't exactly that Rekka actively caused trouble for the Luofu. In fact, it was quite the opposite. This chaotic individual always managed to dig up some deeply hidden, highly distressing crisis from the darkest corners of the ship—crises that made Jing Yuan feel incredibly relieved they were exposed, yet deeply troubled by the massive mountain of paperwork they generated.
Maintaining his signature, unbothered smile, the General's golden gaze drifted past Rekka to land on Rozaliya and Liliya, who were trailing closely behind.
More precisely, his eyes locked onto the massive burlap sack the two girls were carrying between them. A sack that had suddenly started wriggling and thrashing with violent intensity.
The sisters unceremoniously heaved the sack forward, dropping it onto the polished floorboards with a heavy thud. The bag rolled twice, and the muffled, desperate whimpers coming from inside grew significantly louder.
"These two kids went out to film a video today and just so happened to catch an Abundance spy plotting sabotage down by the seaside," Rekka explained, gesturing to the squirming package. "I figured a major security breach like this should be handled by you personally, General. So, I brought him over right away."
"There is quite a lot of movement happening inside this sack," Jing Yuan noted, his tone mild but cautious.
Setting his thermos aside, the General stepped down from his desk and gracefully untied the thick rope binding the top of the bag.
The moment the fabric parted, a slippery, cold, multi-legged entity scrambled frantically out of the darkness and crawled directly onto his bare hand.
Jing Yuan's golden eyes widened a fraction of an inch. Operating on pure, honed warrior instinct, he subconsciously pinched the giant space cockroach between his fingers to crush it.
But before he could apply pressure, a second one scurried out of the sack and aggressively crawled onto the back of his hand.
In that fleeting moment, the Arbiter-General of the Xianzhou Luofu felt true, unadulterated despair.
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