I Married A Degraded Alpha
Chapter 33: Missing Tuss

Chapter 33: Missing Tuss

Ender had vanished, along with over a thousand second-year students from Military Academy No. 1.

People from the school have been sent to look for them, even the army had joined in.

However, even after searching for ten days, they still couldn’t find any trace of Ender and the others.

In his desperation, Rei thought of Tuss and that mysterious Yuri who had helped them out on Planet 814. After some hesitation, he called Tuss on his opticomputer.

"Where did your brother and his friends disappear?" Tuss asked.

"All we know is that they were in the northern part of the Gamma Galaxy. We have no idea which specific planet, though. The second-year mission was to get the tail of a Dreaming Scorpion, which are commonly found on Planet 694." Rei answered.

"Are you on Planet 694 now?" Tuss guessed.

Rei responded with a nod, sounding down, "I’ve seen Dreaming Scorpions, but no sign of my brother and his friends."

Ending the communication, Tuss turned to Yuri, "Ender, Daleks, and Kilana are all good friends of mine. I need to find them."

"When do we leave?" Yuri glanced at the time; it was three in the afternoon.

"Immediately." Tuss said, turning to gather his things, "Wait for me here. I’ll return once I find them."

Over a thousand second-year students had vanished and ten days of army search yielded no results. The situation wasn’t simple. He didn’t want her to take risks.

"Why don’t we go together? I’ve been wanting to take a walk anyway." Yuri said casually.

"It’s dangerous." Tuss sounded serious.

"If we run into danger we can’t handle, I’ll just escape in the mecha." Yuri said lightly.

After some thought, Tuss agreed, "Fine. If anything happens, run first. Don’t worry about anything else."

The mecha was a single-pilot mecha. It could only be controlled by one person, but could fit two people, even three or four if needed.

Tuss piloted the mecha while Yuri studied at his side. When she got sleepy, she would go sleep in the safety cabin. The cabin was placed vertically inside the mecha, but it felt horizontal when you lay inside. It was quite magical.

After sleeping for six hours, Yuri woke to find Tuss still intensely focused on the control interface.

"You should go rest, I can take over the mecha." Yuri suggested.

Tuss didn’t decline, "I’ve set the destination. You don’t need to do anything else, just maintain the current speed and direction. Call me if anything unexpected happens."

Yuri took over Tuss’s job, "If you don’t trust me, you can watch for a while."

Tuss did indeed stand at the side and watch, much to Yuri’s annoyance.

"Am I really so bad at this?" she thought to herself.

After Tuss had stood for half an hour, and just when Yuri was about to protest, he finally entered the safety cabin with a hint of a smile on his lips, which quickly disappeared.

Two days later, they reached Planet 694 early on the third morning.

Planet 694 was a harsh environment, 80% of its surface was covered by desert sand. It had very little rainfall, scarce vegetation, and water, making it unsuitable for human habitation.

The mecha landed on the sandy surface.

Yuri barely stuck her head out of the mecha, saw the endless desert, and immediately pulled back in, "Why don’t we use the mecha to search slowly?"

Tuss activated the mecha’s scanning function. Maybe due to his fondness for metal, he set it to find living beings and metal.

Yuri, watching from the side, raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

Tuss controlled the mecha to hover low over the ground, flying slowly. Yuri stood by the window, visually scanning all around.

The two of them took turns resting and kept searching non-stop for two days and two nights. In the middle of their search, the detection alarm went off a few times, but the results were either metal or creatures native to Planet 694.

The alarm blared out once again, louder and longer than any previous time, "Alert, alert, large quantities of unknown metal detected. This metal can block electronic waves, light waves, quantum waves, infrared..."

The electronic voice only sounded once and then went mute, no matter how much Yuri tried to get it to speak again.

"The first-time activation function has been used up." Tuss explained from behind Yuri.

Yuri knew about this first-time activation function; it was like a powerful move that could only be used once.

"If they’re on Planet 694 and the army and school have been searching for over ten days without finding them, then they must have entered a place where signals are blocked—" Tuss began, his eyes growing brighter.

"Are you saying they’re underground?" Yuri jumped out of the mecha, landing on the soft sand which gave her an inexplicable sense of comfort.

Following right behind her, Tuss confirmed, "I can’t think of any other explanation."

"I’ll give it a try." Yuri said, using her psychic power to send her senses into the ground.

Tuss tried to do the same with his psychic power.

Five minutes later.

Yuri frowned, "The metal layer is very thick. I can vaguely sense that there are living beings under the metal ores, quite a lot of them, but I can’t detect anything more specific."

Tuss stared at Yuri in astonishment, wondering, "We are both at level three with their psychic powers, so why can she detect other things, while I can only detect metal?"

"Because my psychic power is stronger than yours. My control over our psychic abilities is more precise," Yuri answered his.

Feeling a bit down, Tuss admitted, "It seems I lack natural talent when it comes to developing my psychic power."

"It might be because you’re an alpha." Tuss was far from dumb; in fact, he was extremely intelligent. The only reason she could think of was his physical condition. Alphas couldn’t enter their own Sea of Consciousness, nor could they control their mental threads.

This inevitably meant that Tuss wouldn’t achieve much in developing his psychic power.

"But alphas have keen senses, extraordinary physical fitness, and pheromones as potent as neurochemical drugs. You’re not at a loss." Yuri tried to comfort him.

Tuss gave her a glance, saying, "Being a beta isn’t bad either. As a beta, you’re twice as efficient at developing psychic power."

Yuri: ".....Can we stop with the mutual compliments and start looking for people?"

Tuss: "Sure."

Meanwhile, over a kilometer underground in a dim cave, over a thousand students had been trapped for more than half a month.

"Have the insectoids outside left yet?" one of them asked.

"Dream on, would they let the prey that’s right at their doorstep escape?"

"We’ve been stuck here for over half a month, they haven’t given up yet?"

"It’s been half a month and you haven’t given up on living yet either."

"Can you stop being so sharp-tongued? As if you swallowed a load of gunpowder. I didn’t provoke you. If you’re anxious and irritable, go vent it on the insectoids outside."

"Fine, I will. Move, move."

"We’re on a shift system here, what are you causing trouble for?"

"Let him go, he’s angry, let him vent a bit."

"....."

The cave was quite large, about a thousand square meters. The entrance was small, only allowing one person to pass through at a time, a perfect bottleneck for defense.

Over a thousand students were hiding in the cave, taking turns in groups of ten to guard the entrance. This had been going on for more than half a month.

"We can’t keep going like this, we’re running out of Nutrient Fluids."

"I finished my last bottle of Nutrient Fluids two days ago. Rather than starving to death, I’d prefer to fight the insectoids outside."

"You mean, go out and serve ourselves up as snacks for the insectoids."

Thinking about thousands of level-three insectoids, everyone fell silent.

"So we’re just going to starve to death here?" someone said resentfully.

"We’ll wait a little longer. People are looking for us outside, we can’t give up."

"We’re surrounded by a thick layer of insulating ore, can they really find us?"

"There’s always a way. Don’t give up."

As the voice fell, everyone once again fell silent.

"I wonder how Tuz is doing now?" Daleks suddenly said, "Before we left, I wanted to send him a message, but I was afraid to remind him of his sorrow. I held back. Now I regret it. I didn’t even get to wish him a happy marriage. Actually, Yuri isn’t bad either, I’ve accepted her."

"It’s Tuz getting married, not you. Whether you accept or not has nothing to do with Tuz." Ender rolled his eyes.

"How can it not have anything to do with me? If I accept her, I’ll consider her as a friend of mine and treat her the way I treat Tuz. I’ll be her big brother too. Other people can only wish for that in their dreams," Daleks spoke arrogantly.

Ender twitched his mouth, "First get out of here then we’ll talk. We don’t know if Yuri wants a brother as weak as you."

"Humph, I don’t believe it. I’m at least in the top ten of my grade." Daleks lifted his chin.

"Okay, okay, so, big brother, do you have a way out of this predicament after being trapped for half a month?" Ender joked.

Daleks choked, angrily turned his head to the side, and stopped talking.

"You know, without Tuss, this semester feels kind of dull." A tall, thin young man spoke.

"Delamak, you’ve been suppressed by Tuss for over a year, and now you’ve finally ascended to the top position. Instead of feeling elated, you want him back?" Someone joked.

"I’d rather win against him fair and square, not like this. Besides, without any opponents now, it’s lonely." Delamak made a profound expression.

That sounded arrogant. However, what Delamak said was true. His theoretical class scores were dozens of points ahead of others.

"That was a horrible accident. It’s a shame for Tuss." Delamak sighed.

"No, I kind of envy Tuss. At least he still has his life and he’s married to a wife that’s so pretty. Unlike me, I’m about to die young, I haven’t even touched a girl’s hand. I can’t accept this."

"We’re all the same. I’ve never had a girlfriend, still a virgin. I feel like crying."

"Me too."

"Same here."

.....

They all looked at each other and couldn’t help but group together, crying out loud.

Yuri, who was struggling with the metal ores, suddenly stopped her actions. She looked at Tuss and said, "Listen, there seems to be some noise."

Tuss also stopped, then his face became solemn.

They heard mournful crying, wondering where it came from.

Tuss immediately quickened his pace.

Yuri didn’t dare to delay either, controlling Enova to group the metal ores together and throw them on the ground.

At the same time, in the underground shelter...

"Should we leave a will?" someone suggested.

"Didn’t you guys write a will? I’ve already prepared mine."

"I’ve written mine too."

"I not only wrote one for my parents, but I also wrote a letter to the girl I have a crush on."

"Damn, you didn’t even remind me. I want to write one too, not just for my crush, but also for Tuss. I want to challenge him in my will," said Daleks.