Chapter 1003: Landing

Chapter 1003: Landing

[...

The "Orion" missile cruiser has been captured by the Alliance's Burning Legion! The "Celestials'" attempt to guide the wastelanders toward a future has failed once again, but clearly they have not given up. Let us wait and see how things unfold.

Additionally, the greatest hero of the cruiser's capture has refused to reveal his name, perhaps because it is too long and unpleasant to pronounce.

In any case, the truth has come to light. The 3,000 crew members of the "Orion" missile cruiser have finally been vindicated. They never carried out a surface-cleansing mission and once saved the wasteland world! The Council has proposed building a memorial cemetery to honor their contributions.

Yet, a chilling thought lingers: the Orion never launched neutron torpedoes at Earth, and the Gemini was five light-years away... So where did the nuclear bombs that rained down in the early Wasteland Era come from?

Regardless, this expedition spanning 36,000 kilometers has ended in victory!

As General McClaren said, even if the Alliance's Burning Legion were to face God as an opponent, they could not lose—and the Goblin Legion is no different.

Meanwhile, the emergency meeting of our old friends in the Ideal City Council has entered its most heated debate. It seems they will soon announce the results of their discussions!

—The Goblin Observer

]

Inside the repair bay of the Orion missile cruiser, now fitted with a buffer compartment and fully refurbished,

Ye Shi was updating the news he had obtained through his "special ability" onto a tablet.

Taking a sip of instant coffee that was two centuries old, Jiang Xuezhou glanced at the text on the tablet and couldn't help but remark.

"Are you serious?"

Ye Shi chuckled.

"You'll know if it's true when you get back."

The bookworm stubbornly refused to believe he could transmit information across five light-years, which had sparked his competitive spirit, so he decided to show her a thing or two.

Verifying this was actually quite simple.

When they returned, all she had to do was buy a specific issue of *The Goblin Observer* and see for herself.

As for leaking secrets, there was no real secret to speak of.

Relevant intelligence had long been recorded in the information briefings of the old Southern Legion's intelligence department, not to mention that ages ago, their esteemed administrator had exploited the players' cross-region communication feature to pass messages between Ideal City and Dawn City.

Back then, no stable communication channel existed between Ideal City and Dawn City, and anyone with half a brain could see something was off.

At least for the Alliance, having this known was no big deal.

Compared to other outlandish rumors, this was the least of their concerns.

Of course.

That was just Ye Shi's wishful thinking.

Watching him seriously craft an entire page of news, Jiang Xuezhou, though still skeptical, couldn't help but be moved by his persistence.

He was really going all out to keep her from feeling down.

Maybe she had misjudged him all along—he wasn't truly incapable of caring for others.

He just wasn't good at expressing it.

"Hmph, let's just pretend it's true, then."

"What do you mean 'pretend'?" Ye Shi looked up, displeased. "I've been writing this down very seriously, you know."

"Fine, since you're so convinced you're not joking, I'll play along," Jiang Xuezhou said, dropping her crossed arms and setting her coffee cup on the table beside her, a mischievous smile curling on her lips. "Let's make a bet."

Ye Shi's face lit up.

"Alright, name your terms."

Jiang Xuezhou smiled.

"If the content on your tablet has more than a 50% overlap with the real *Goblin Observer*, you win. If it's less than 50%, that means you made it all up, and I win."

6666!

Ye Shi had seen people throw themselves into a trap, but never someone who practically fed themselves into his mouth.

"Haha, fine, let's do it your way."

"Hold on, I'm not done yet." Jiang Xuezhou's grin widened as she tapped her helmet visor, unabashedly laying down her terms. "If I win, you'll be a little pig for a week, and you have to add 'oink' at the end of every sentence."

Wow.

Pretty devious.

Ye Shi chuckled.

"Alright, and if I win?"

"Then you can do whatever you want with me," Jiang Xuezhou said, a triumphant smirk on her face, speaking slowly and deliberately. "Of course, there's no way I'm losing, so don't bother thinking about it. Mm-hmm..."

That smug, almost villainous laugh triggered a flash of several gigabytes of material in Ye Shi's mind, and an evil grin crept across his face.

But it was only for a moment.

Because he quickly realized he had no tools for the job. Even if his head was full of wicked ideas, he couldn't do a thing about it—nothing was hard except his fists.

The evil grin faded, replaced by regret and irritation.

MMP!

Damn that Ah Guang!

So frustrating!

Seeing Ye Shi suddenly unable to laugh, Jiang Xuezhou completely misinterpreted his reaction, thinking he couldn't keep up the act anymore. Her triumphant smile grew even more unrestrained.

Little Koala, who was cleaning the room, tilted its head and stared at the two, utterly baffled by their conversation.

Meanwhile, far away in Dawn City, Chu Guang sneezed involuntarily.

Rubbing his nose, he muttered vaguely.

"Which bastard is blaming me again..."

...

Days passed one by one, and before they knew it, the two stranded near Nanmen Er had spent an entire month in their own little world.

During this time, they salvaged usable materials from the starship and repaired and improved whatever facilities they could.

Though life was tough, they managed to find joy in their hardships, staving off despair.

Especially the news and jokes Ye Shi gathered through his "special ability"—they became one of Jiang Xuezhou's few comforts in the cold void five light-years away.

And they were also the motivation for her relentless search for a way home.

After a period of searching, Jiang Xuezhou finally confirmed, using the repaired positioning device, that the "Gemini" had crashed on the third planet orbiting the binary stars Nanmen Er A and B—Gaia's surface.

Not only that, but she had successfully detected a radio signal from the black box of the Gemini missile cruiser!

The path home was gradually becoming clearer.

The two only needed to send one person to the surface in a research vessel, find the wreckage of the Gemini missile cruiser, and retrieve the fuel storage canister from its reactor. Then they would have enough energy for the next hyperspace jump.

Though the plan was fraught with risks, it was far more reliable than "improving the warp drive to reduce hyperspace jump energy consumption."

After a heated argument, Ye Shi finally convinced Jiang Xuezhou to remain aboard the Orion-class missile cruiser as long-range support, while he would descend to the surface alone.

Following the conventions of typical RPGs, whenever two people enter a dungeon together, a side quest titled "Where Did My Teammate Go?" inevitably emerges.

He had already seen through the cunning planner's "trick" and had no intention of falling into that trap.

Going solo was fine, too.

...

Beside the research vessel, now fully repaired.

Ye Shi, clad in his "Dragoon" power armor, gave his equipment and the tool kit at his side one final check, then turned to Jiang Xuezhou, whose face was etched with worry, and cautioned her.

"...If I don't come back, don't panic. Whatever you do, stay calm."

Jiang Xuezhou's eyes were red, her voice choked with emotion.

"...What nonsense are you talking? How could I not panic?"

Even through the thick EVA suit and visor, Ye Shi could feel the anguish frozen in her gaze.

"No, I mean it, really—ah, how do I put this?" He scratched his head for a long moment, still unable to find a way to explain that he wouldn't die, and finally gritted his teeth. "Anyway... you have to trust me. I will never abandon you."

Although the Player Handbook didn't mandate a unified explanation for resurrection or telepathic communication, the rule of not revealing the "game" remained a consensus among all players.

He wasn't sure if A Guang's camera was watching nearby.

And even if no GM was monitoring, he didn't want to break his promise.

"It's a deal."

Jiang Xuezhou, eyes still red, raised her thick glove and extended her pinky finger, murmuring softly.

"Pinky swear..."

"Pinky swear."

Though he found it a bit childish, Ye Shi hooked his finger around hers and gave it a gentle shake to reassure her.

That shake lasted a long time.

Jiang Xuezhou clung to his pinky, unwilling to let go.

Looking at that reluctant hand, Ye Shi felt a pang of reluctance, but in the end, he steeled himself and pulled his hand away.

He could disregard his own life, but he couldn't ignore her safety.

"If I don't come back... I mean, if! Find a cryo-pod and lie down."

"I swear, I will never leave you behind. I will come back for you!"

The emergency cryo-pods on the Orion could easily last fifty years.

It wasn't like the early days of the Wasteland Era anymore.

Even if the Union couldn't yet reach a world five light-years away, fifty years would be more than enough time to recover the warp drive technology.

"Mmm..."

Jiang Xuezhou murmured softly, lowering her hand that had been hanging in the air.

Hearing her affirmation, Ye Shi's face broke into a sunny smile, and he patted her head.

"Wait for me."

The little koala standing nearby, patting its round metal belly, waved its hand in a dazed manner.

"Safe journey."

"Yeah! I'll be back soon!"

With that, Ye Shi strode briskly toward the research vessel, passed through the hatch, and sat down in the pilot's seat.

The same seat Jiang Xuezhou had occupied.

Over the past three days, under her guidance, he had familiarized himself with the research vessel's operation procedures.

Simply getting the thing airborne and landing it wasn't hard; the onboard AI could navigate with a single command and analyze safe landing sites via camera sensors.

Besides, Jiang Xuezhou was watching from above.

The Orion's command system had established a direct link with the research vessel's communication module.

That way, even if he encountered a problem he couldn't solve, Jiang Xuezhou could take remote control and bring him back from the surface.

"...Activate anti-gravity, start plasma engine, switch to autopilot."

Reciting the procedures he had learned, Ye Shi pressed all the necessary buttons.

With a faint hum, the research vessel, parked at the edge of the damaged hull, slowly lifted off the alloy deck, then separated from the massive starship, propelled by a pale blue plasma plume.

The view outside the cockpit window flipped, shifting from the Orion's hull to the dark green planet wreathed in wisps of mist.

Gazing at that magnificent, awe-inspiring world, Ye Shi unconsciously held his breath and pressed the back of his head against the seat.

That was Gaia!

The place where the Human Union Aerospace Force had once fought—

"Time to go!"

Jiang Xuezhou's voice came through the comm channel. Ye Shi took a deep breath, dispelling his nervousness, and replied firmly.

"Roger!"

At his response, the deep blue plasma plume swelled, guiding the research vessel in an arc toward the nearby planet.

As the distance shrank and the orbit lowered, the gravitational pull on the vessel increased until it balanced with the anti-gravity system.

Meanwhile, the research vessel, descending from geosynchronous orbit, had already grazed the edge of the atmosphere, its silver-gray hull glowing with searing heat.

But that fiery glow didn't last long.

With the combined effect of anti-gravity and the plasma engine, the vessel's speed quickly dropped below Mach 3, and before entering the troposphere, it slowed to Mach 1.

Inside the cockpit, Ye Shi felt every nerve taut, a mix of tension and exhilaration.

It felt like riding a drop tower—except he was falling from outside the atmosphere!

The speeding research vessel pierced through the clouds in an instant, and at the same moment, it released four folding-wing drones, which shot off in the four cardinal directions, carried by inertia.

Under the dual scan of radar and visual sensors, the surface data was quickly collected by the research vessel and relayed via its communication module to the starship in geosynchronous orbit.

Strange, broad-leaved plants covered every inch of the planet, stretching out like an endless, dark green ocean.

Just like the aerial footage seen from orbit!

Ye Shi took another deep breath, selected a landing site from the holographic display—one that was relatively high and seemed safe—and flew toward it.

Carrying a massive gust of air, the silver-gray ship blew away countless vines and leaves, settling onto the soft grass.

A moment later, the hatch opened, and Ye Shi, clutching an assault rifle, stepped through onto the surface of Gaia.

This was probably the first time in 215 years that human civilization had returned to a world five light-years away.

If there really were no survivors left here...

Ye Shi had a strong premonition that the history he knew and the true history were somehow "skewed."

There are many possibilities for deviation.

It was like how the residents of Boulder City always felt that Ideal City had once launched an expedition against them, spreading the tale with great conviction, yet the residents of Ideal City had no memory of such an event at all.

It was not until the inner city collapsed that the truth came to light.

Those orally transmitted memories were merely one of the histories fabricated out of thin air by the inner city nobles to manufacture the legitimacy of their rule.

The species here were even more abundant than on Earth; the lush forests looked nothing like they had been scoured by nuclear bombs.

Or rather, the Human Union's Aerospace Force had indeed bombed this place, that was true.

Only, the ecological environment here was far more resilient than Earth's, and over the past two centuries it had already recovered to what it was before human civilization set foot here...

"Ye Shi!! How are things on your end?!"

Jiang Xuezhou's voice came through the communication channel, filled with anxiety and urgency.

Hearing Jiang Xuezhou's voice, Ye Shi immediately reached up and tapped his helmet.

"I've landed successfully, feeling good... What about you? Have you located the position of the Gemini-class missile cruiser?"

The four fixed-wing drones in the sky were being operated by Jiang Xuezhou.

Soon, an image was projected onto the tactical visor of his powered combat helmet.

"The signal source has been locked to a valley, about three kilometers from your current position... The vegetation there is too dense, with an average height of twenty to thirty meters."

As she said this, Jiang Xuezhou's voice was tense.

"Ye Shi... you must be careful. The situation here is completely different from the data in our database. Along the way, I've seen many strange animals."

"I know."

Ye Shi cast his gaze toward the shadows under the forest nearby, his index finger already flicking off the safety of his rifle.

A killing intent silently coiled around him.

Without a doubt.

That was the murderous intent of a predator.

He could feel that an eye was hiding behind that shadow, watching him.

"...The flora and fauna here are as abundant as if they had never been hit."