The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Chapter 82: Stealing Is Fine

Chapter 82: Stealing Is Fine 

To knock in a nail, one should use a hammer, which was very sound and reasonable logic, but just by strengthening one’s hand with mana, they could punch it in themselves. Of course, the logic flipped back on itself when one talked about reinforced material, then you would need the proper tools again.

“What are you doing?! Disable him!” 

“I am! Now shut up and blast the fucker!”

“What do you think I am doing with the fire!” 

To finish the analogy, even if there are ways to shortcut the race, every job still has the right hammer to use. Even if not everyone who was actively participating in the pest extermination session was good at their job.

(“ I don’t believe that is an analogy ”)

Quiet.

I’m glad the party of hunters was around, they had the strength and the skills to detain the escapee without an unfortunate incident happening.

“He's trying to kill himself!”

“No tonight; he will be good as new in a moment!”

“Don’t fully energise him!”

(“ Are you enjoying the show? ”)

Yes. I am even learning a few things as well.

(“ That’s good to hear ”)

For all my strength, I wasn’t good at keeping human opponents alive. Except for the soul pressure blast, I didn’t have any way to incapacitate my foes. Soul pressure was really good at doing that to an extent, but if I wanted to capture someone strong, I would’ve had to do a little bit more. Creating a starlight cage would work–definitely, none of my fire skills or constructs would do the job–but after the initial potential knockout, I wasn’t sure what to do. All these theories went out the window in mass combat situations like the one now, too many people, no time to worry about one measly rat.

The simple fact was that I had no training in human versus human combat and incapacitation; all my experience–besides the fights with Dominous Hood–was with monsters, and the humanoid monsters were certainly no substitution. I certainly could kill humans; besides their armour, most were very squishy.

The escapee was caught and brought to the ground. The ‘fight’ didn’t last too long. There was only a little bit of coordination between the capture crew, but they were mostly smart enough to not get in each other's way.

The situation was still a right mess; the escapee tried to kill himself multiple times but was stopped by the quicker reactions of the healers and restrainers. It was those attempts on his own life that actually made the people who were unsure about the situation change their minds and help out with the capture.

Afterwards, the interrogation began which unsurprisingly, wasn’t going that well. The man wasn’t saying anything while the crew of people were trying different methods to get him to talk, simultaneously.

A young man who was crouched down next to the tied-up and handcuffed crook asked, “Come on, you can tell us anything.”

The man didn’t immediately reply, so not even a second later.

Wack.

“Spill the deets!” He was smacked in the helmet with a woman’s large rifle.  

They weren’t able to remove the armour, but someone was coming over to solve that.

Meanwhile, I was taking a quick look around the other crashed ships, and from a quick look, good news, no one else seemed to be alive. Three ships crashed into the docks, one that was ripped apart by the mech’s rifle, and two others that couldn’t recover in time. 

Moving through the wreckages, I didn’t find anything too interesting, just a lot of scrap and waste.

Wait a minute…

However, scraping through the last ship, I found the burnt but still functional remains of a large solar rifle.

…This is a custom job… and I recognise it.

It was one of the many items that were sold in the first three days of the auction. It was one of the few items I wouldn’t have minded buying if I had the funds.

This ship must’ve already been at the docks…

I doubted the pirates would have or even could have stolen only one item in the short time since emerging from the transport tunnel.

That meant either this ship was an ally ship that was thrown down or a pirate ship that arrived before the large invasion fleet showed up. The latter option was a bit more worrying as it proposed that the attacking fleet was larger than initial guesses based on the number of ships arriving.

The items that were sold on the first three days had already been shipped off to those onsite; due to all the transport and storage requirements needed, shipping off some of the items immediately was a great way to avoid future potential issues. Most of them were given to their buyers soon after the purchase was made. So, whoever had this item on the ship could’ve been the one to have brought it or stolen it, but even if they were pirates, buying straight up seemed like the more likely option.

(“ You want to steal it? ”)

Espr noticed my eyes staring at the oversized rifle.

Stealing is a strong word.

(“ Okay, ‘Borrow’ it ”)

No. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to take it, just that stealing was a strong word.

(“ Well I guess in this case it would be grave robbing ”)

Eh, potato, potahto.

I decided to take the now potentially ownerless weapon and make better use of it.

Neat. It even has charge in it.

The solar rifle, as the name suggested, was a weapon that utilised Sun energy. This weapon in particular could charge itself up, convert mana into sun energy through a slow process, or be directly charged if the user had that energy.

I couldn’t see myself charging it up now, but I would be using it until it ran out of energy–it was about fifty percent full.

I turned back, and the interrogation was still going poorly. The person who was supposed to come to help remove the armour hadn’t arrived yet, but the helmet had already been partly smashed.

Yep, it’s 100% a Hood fucker. 

(“ Wording ”)

Who cares; They probably do it anyway.

No normal pirate would stay this quiet, so I made the bet that this person was from Dominous Hood. This meant that the ships were filled with a mix of pirates and Hood members. I had no idea what stupid protocol they had decided for this; some ships had none, others a few, and maybe somewhere only Dominous Hood members were on board, but I had no idea how to confirm that.

I’ll let them deal with that.

The docks were still in chaos—considerably less chaos, but still a mess. Medical staff from each company had arrived to try and save the few lives that were dangling by a thread.

I walked to the other side of the dock, where one of the G2 Mech–mechs that were four times the size of a human–with flight equipment was preparing to take off. 

Most of the mechs had either made the decision to take off earlier or stay on the ground shooting, but this one had apparently changed its decision.

“Hey!” I waved to the man inside the open hatch. “Can I catch a ride?”

I wasn't sure what company he was a part of–I didn’t recognise the blue rabbit symbol on the side–but that didn’t matter.

The man paused. “Sorry? But there is no room inside.”

I shook my head. “Not inside; you are about to fly up, right?” I pointed to the left shoulder of the mech. “I want to get a closer shot.”