Chapter 82 Firewood

Far away, two light-years from here, Yuxing still had no idea he’d already been sold out by his immediate superior. He simply felt an inexplicable sense of crisis and naturally assumed its source was this cramped, stifling cabin.

The compartment, never spacious to begin with, was now crammed with several hundred people. Those who’d managed to claim a spot at the outset could at least lie down, while the majority had no choice but to huddle together, clutching their belongings, squeezed shoulder to shoulder. Yuxing suspected that the slave ships of the Middle Ages he’d read about in books were probably just like this.

Half the journey was already behind them, and sixty or more passengers had been injured. No wonder the tickets were so cheap—conditions were appalling.

Some were suffering from the steadily dropping air pressure and thinning atmosphere inside the ship. Since they had dared to board, Yuxing assumed they should be able to adapt, but it was like a bout of altitude sickness—not fatal, but miserable all the same.

Others were casualties of conflict within the cabin.

Half of that group, in turn, were the unlucky souls who’d come to challenge Yuxing and Songuya Yu, only to be swiftly put down by the pair.

In the end, only in the earliest stage of the journey had Yuxing managed a brief nap; after that, any talk of taking shifts became pointless. There really was a core group among the crowd, seemingly specializing in extortion and intimidation specifically on ships like this, accustomed to dominating the lawless order of such cosmic isolations. They found the two troublemakers—Yuxing and Yu—intolerable.

Malice washed over, unceasing and relentless; groups of three or five would come to provoke them from time to time. Some seemed merely to strike up a conversation; others swaggered over, weapons in hand, for a more “direct” chat.

After a while, both Yuxing and Songuya Yu understood: the aim was to deprive them of rest. The antagonists, having realized these two wouldn’t kill, decided to wear them down with constant harassment before striking in earnest.

“It’s a sound strategy, but…” Yuxing exchanged a helpless glance with Yu. The truth was, neither of them were normal—at least Yuxing wasn’t. He’d been awake for thirty straight hours and felt no fatigue, only a restless excitement that left him wanting to stretch his limbs now and then.

Yuxing was energized, while Songuya Yu was nearing despair.

He’d run into Captain Posui while submitting paperwork to the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division’s logistics unit. The captain had instructed him to stay safe and, above all, to keep a close eye on Yuxing—especially his mental state.

Now, having watched Yuxing for some time, Songuya Yu was himself feeling uneasy about the young man.

At first, Yuxing had intended to deal harshly with the provocateurs, but Yu stopped him, believing such measures unnecessary. Yet the provocations kept coming. After they’d taught a few troublemakers a lesson, Yuxing remarked, somewhat exasperated, that if he’d made an example of the first by drawing blood, there would have been less trouble, and those later ruffians might have escaped a beating.

It sounded almost as if he was considering their welfare.

Yu wanted to say something then, but held back. Once, he would have been the one to make such a comment. When had their roles reversed, as though they’d swapped scripts by mistake?

But Yuxing let it drop, as though it were a joke, and fell silent. Yu didn’t press him, instead chewing on dried fish for alertness while keeping an eye on the cabin.

Abruptly, his pupils contracted.

“Yuxing!”

He called out, springing to his feet; Yuxing followed suit. At the same moment, a surge of terror rippled through the cabin.

Yuxing saw, from a distance, that amidst the churning crowd, several irregular gaps had suddenly appeared, exposing the bright white floor beneath.

The people who’d been packed there moments before had vanished.

At the edges of these voids, those left behind realized, with horror, that the sweaty, unpleasant-smelling bodies pressing against them had vanished without a trace. The “lucky” survivors shrieked and instinctively tried to shrink away—only to be shoved into the newly emptied space by the crush of those on the periphery.

The phenomenon of passengers vanishing continued, groups of three or five disappearing at a time amid the chaos. Most on board had heard of the recent strange disappearances in the universe, but each had comforted themselves: “It can’t possibly happen again,” and so had boarded.

Yet the unthinkable was happening right before their eyes.

The spectacle of living people vanishing spread outward like a wave, encroaching steadily on the corner where Yuxing and Yu stood. There was nowhere for them to run, and nothing to hide from.

Yu felt a sudden grip on his arm. Glancing down, he saw it was Yuxing, clutching his wrist tightly.

Yuxing, meanwhile, was watching the disappearing figures. His gaze fixed on each unfortunate soul as they evaporated from existence. Thanks to his enhanced vision, he caught subtle details invisible to the naked eye—their bodies seemed to swell before vanishing, the boundaries of their forms blurring as if smeared by a Gaussian filter.

Yuxing turned to Yu and found him looking back.

Almost simultaneously, darkness fell before both their eyes. A wave of dizziness crashed over them, as though the floor had turned into a restless sea beneath their feet, and they were cast into blackness like shipwrecked passengers thrown into the ocean.

Yuxing couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or closed. All he knew was the solid feedback of his grip—Yu was still there, had not disappeared. A second later, a hand grasped his arm in return; through their sleeves, he could feel the warmth of a palm.

Amid the frantic cries all around, the two tumbled together, rolling several times down a rough slope before coming to a stop at the bottom. The dizziness faded at once, replaced by the stench of earth—a raw, muddy odor utterly unlike the sweaty, fermented air of the ship’s cabin.

Yuxing shook his muddled head and looked up, finally taking in their chaotic new surroundings—

First, the environment had changed.

No longer the cramped, slave-ship-like cabin, but a vast, cavernous space, the walls marked by signs of artificial excavation and fitted with dim lamps. The lighting was so poor it failed to illuminate the whole chamber.

He and Yu were not alone. Scattered about were forty or fifty others who had fallen into this place, all struggling to their feet, disheveled and bewildered. Among them, Yuxing recognized several familiar faces from the cabin.

Yu, who’d ended up beneath him, was trying with difficulty to push Yuxing off and sit up. He looked pale, weak to the point of helplessness.

Alarmed, Yuxing scrambled upright and supported Yu, lifting his upper body and examining him closely.

Yu was clearly struggling to breathe, gulping air in desperate, labored gasps.

A glance around revealed others in the same plight.

It seemed the environment here was harsh… Though Yuxing himself felt fine, he guessed that the abrupt drop in air pressure had overwhelmed some of the less adaptable individuals. Given time, most would recover, but for now, those affected were virtually incapacitated.

“Testing, testing!”

At that moment, a crackling synthetic voice echoed through the cavern. Yuxing looked toward the source and saw a black loudspeaker set up in one corner.

“New arrivals! Look, look! Along with some firewood, we’ve even got a Red King! Even though the force field’s shrunk it down to a mere ten meters… we can’t possibly let such a menace in here!”