Xyrin Empire
Chapter 538: A Short Trip

Chapter 538: Chapter 538: A Short Trip

A long time ago, I naively believed that schools were wonderful and classes were harmonious.

Then Erya, who used to run rampant in every class below the fifth grade of elementary school, appeared.

When I got to junior high, I stubbornly held on to the belief that even if schools were no longer pure and minors were corrupted, world peace should still exist.

That year was 2001, and Bin Laden made a resounding entrance.

As I was about to graduate high school, I thought even if this world was no longer safe, even if this planet was stirred up by those annoying big shots, surely there must be peace-loving aliens deep in space, right?

As everyone knows, that year Pandora and her 300 showed up.

I was speechless, I was freaking out, my dreams shattered, but as a half-hearted otaku, I still had a sanctuary: regardless of how filthy the world was, regardless of how the war ravaged the blue skies, at least there must be a beautiful creature called loli that could save the world, right? Even someone like Pandora is usually quite cute, aren’t they?

Then I cried—Lilina arrived.

No matter how chaotic those video clips and audio signals were, I could be one hundred percent certain that a certain naturally black-hearted Fake Lolita had really done something big this time.

"Maybe we can look on the bright side," after listening to Lilina’s fierce speech and the background cries for help from Dragon Armor A, B, C, D two or three times, Big Sister said with a nuanced expression, "After all, these are all snippets of information, Lilina mentioned robbers and thieves, and also judgment, maybe the girl is just executing justice? Just a bit vigorously, but she’s not a bad child at heart..."

Now I can only comfort myself with this explanation.

"Girl Lin, can you take a quick peek? Even if you can’t see what Lilina is up to right now, at least tell me if that crazy girl has become the public enemy of the universe!"

For the first time in my life, I was so grateful to have a Prophet by my side. Although most of the time she was just a trouble-making sarcastic tsundere, now, facing the pressure caused by Lilina, I thought Miss Lin was unexpectedly adorable.

"Well, Wood, you’re finally asking for my help," Lin Xue, who had been fiddling with a pile of little paper tickets, looked up with a smile when she heard me, then reached over Qianqian and Pandora in between, extending that pile of cards to me, "Here, draw one, Lilina’s fate is in your hands~~"

"Have you recently gotten into Tarot Cards too?" I smirked, carelessly pulling out a piece of paper from inside, and turning it over, a line of irritating big words greeted me: "Who said this is Tarot Cards! Does your Tarot Cards look as cute as me?"

I say, Girl Lin, can you not use your Prediction Ability for such trivial matters?

"Well, the recording just now wasn’t very clear and it was confusing without context," Lin Xue returned to her seat and continued to play with the paper tickets, "Lilina made a big fuss, and she attacked a Low-class Civilization that couldn’t resist, but Wood, you don’t need to worry. She knows her limits, just like Sister Chen Qian said, it was just a form of executing justice—Lilina-style executing justice."

"Trust that girl, Lilina listens to you, and even if she’s impulsive, there are calm Imperial Commanders and several mature and steady Azeroth Paladins around her, they will remember your Command, so for the time being, she won’t cause any bigger trouble."

"However..." Just as I was breathing a sigh of relief, Lin Xue suddenly revealed a mischievous, foxy grin, and from that smile, I knew trouble was coming, "Although Lilina hasn’t gotten you into big trouble, you’re going to run into a huge problem soon~~"

Damn you, sassy girl! If I weren’t afraid of you biting, I would have turned on you long ago!

Regardless, knowing that Lilina hasn’t been out there busy destroying the world, I finally breathed a sigh of relief. I then focused my attention on Sivis, who showed us an apologetic expression and shook his head, saying, "That’s all there is—we’ve only received these signals from the otherworld, but their source and the paths they’ve taken are unidentifiable. We tried calling the source address several times, but Lilina obviously didn’t receive them."

Taville also stood up and added, "My research team and I analyzed other normal-state information carried by these signals, and one footnote about the spaceship status is noteworthy. This footnote indicates that the Holy Temple Army collided with a barrier when entering a brand new world. The barrier caused no structural damage to the spaceship but wiped the ship’s coordinate records. It is also very likely that this barrier prevented Lilina from locating the base and contacting us. Our initial assessment is that it’s an information blockade barrier. It sounds inconceivable, but—this is a cosmic-scale information barrier, unprecedented in its magnitude! I can’t imagine how a normal world could naturally generate such a thing!"

"Then we’ll just treat it as artificial; that’s not important," I waved my hand dismissively. "I just want to confirm one thing: Is it because of this barrier’s existence that we simply can’t find Lilina’s whereabouts, and the girl can’t hear any of our calls?"

"Technically, yes—that’s the case, of course, nothing is absolute in this world."

Could you speak without puffing so hard?

"The brief signals this time seem to prove one thing: The barrier isn’t impenetrable; it occasionally opens up. We’ve now roughly pinpointed the ’direction’ of the signal source. Avalon’s surveillance team is currently scanning that zone continuously. If a second signal leaks out, we can lock on to its coordinates and then—the problem is how to break through the information blockade."

"Go arrange that, let those Xyrin Technicians put in some hard work," I exhaled. "At least Lilina’s situation is now clear; that girl is still a lively nuisance. We must find her in the shortest possible time. Besides that—is there anything else? If not, let’s discuss settling the next batch of transmigrators, with today’s focus being on the issue of whether the persecuted Liliana can settle in Shadow City..."

***********

The fragmented information pieces related to Lilina from the otherworld left us with mixed feelings. The good news is that the girl is still alive and wreaking havoc on every creature she sees, but the bad news is that world is not so peaceful, and Lilina’s arrival has made it even less so. Maybe she just whimsically took it upon herself to act as an avenger against a group of interstellar thieves, but those arrogant statements make it hard to believe she would settle down. Perhaps the next day she would find the local government infuriating and decide to lead a "Holy War." As for the reason...

Does a natural-born troublemaker need one?

In the afternoon, Du Dao Kazuko suddenly requested to see me, diverting my attention from Lilina for the moment. Upon asking, I learned that their world had been scanned by the Space-Time Management Center six hours ago, and a stable transportation channel had now been established. In other words, the time for Little Strong’s seven-person squad to remain in this world was down to just a few hours. Although according to the original plan, they only needed to stay in the Academy Apocalypse world for a few days before returning, and let Dingdang finalize the remaining procedures, Du Dao still decided to come over for a farewell.

I really hadn’t expected it; I thought it would take at least a month or two to find a world that was not on the Space-Time Management Center’s records, but it was serendipitously scanned due to the sudden increase in power of the Avalon monitoring system.

Every batch of transmigrators is obligated to return within 12 hours after their world of origin has been located. This regulation is a strict order from Sandora, which seems quite militaristic and impersonal. Even I cannot change Queen Her Majesty’s decision this time. In fact, I myself am aware of the necessity of this rule: In recent days, the World Tree’s pressure has been rising, and ordinary people in this world have been gradually noticing abnormalities around them. It’s not that they saw or recognized the transmigrators, but the incongruity of the world itself has been affecting the real world. The information Lin Xue brought is that, lately, cases of civillians experiencing illusions and auditory hallucinations—as if peering into another world—have been occurring frequently. The most severe incident happened this morning when an overweight boy under fourteen announced on the street that he had seen the detailed manufacturing method for Dragon Balls, and he even correctly stated two key steps. Although this tragic lad was whisked away by a group of men in black suits within three minutes, the incident has forced us to be on high alert.

Near the Third Residence Area, in a sparsely populated park where only a few Misaka sisters were resting, Du Dao Kazuko sat on one side of a bench, donned in a simple long dress, and between her and me...

Sat a Miss who appeared "I don’t care" but was clearly on guard over her food.

Lin Xue ah, Lin Xue, I really... What is this girl thinking?

Loudly claiming she was here to watch a certain "brain-clouded by lust, unlimited harem with broken integrity and beastly man," a "harem boy" to prevent a naive and unaware tender grass from being eaten by an old cow, acting entirely out of care for all women in the world and in defense of the ethical baseline of humanity. But no matter how I looked at it, wasn’t this girl just guarding her food? I had seen this behavior more than once with Sandora and Qianqian, hey!

Besides, I wasn’t going to critique Lin Xue’s qualifications to talk about "human ethical baseline," but could she give me an explanation for that long string of descriptive words she hung over my head?

"I’m sending a flagship and a batch of the New Eden Federation Fleet just arrived here to accompany you guys," noticing the anxiety and concern on Du Dao’s face, I ignored Miss Lin pretending to rest with her eyes closed but prickling her ears in the middle, and confidently (at least I thought so) said, "That’s what I promised from the beginning. Apart from regular military personnel, accompanying you will be about a thousand Azeroth Dark Night Elves Druids and Beastman Shamans, along with several reliable associates sent by Sylvanas. The former excel in healing natural injuries, and the latter are called ’Pharmacists,’ experts in Undead Creatures. They should be able to handle the corpse crisis. We located your world almost two months ahead of schedule; perhaps the situation there will be better, maybe even the reconstruction of human society is not impossible."

"Yes, yes, dear Wood has no other merits, just that hot-blooded, world-saving façade that especially raises the favorability of ignorant young girls," Lin Xue said with her eyes closed, seizing the opportunity to undermine me.

"Your relationship... Although it’s strange, it really is an enviable pair," Du Dao Kazuko said with a dawning expression, as she looked at Lin Xue, who was resting with closed eyes, and a certain Leader who wore a helpless wry smile. Then she said softly, smiling warmly, "Besides, I really appreciate your concern. It seems like out of all the strangers who’ve ended up here, we are the most special group, aren’t we? This feeling is really weird."

Lin Xue reflexively gave me an accusatory glance and quickly tried to clear her name, "Who’s a pair with this guy!"

I explained to Du Dao, "Special? Every transmigrator gets different treatments. If you want to talk about special, didn’t Shadow City just get a bunch claiming to be Long Aotian, planning on grinding and leveling up by fighting monsters in the civilian zones and hitting on girls? You should see the kind of treatment they’re getting now... tsk tsk. Oh right, have you watched ’Red Blood’?"

Lin Xue immediately pinched my thigh hard, "Idiot Wood, what are you saying! You’ll scare the poor girl!"

I winced in pain and exclaimed with surprise, "Eh? You’ve seen it too?"

Lin Xue replied, "... How would I know that the damn thing my brother watches every day, ’On Human Philosophy and Conscious Development,’ was actually that stuff!"

Alright, I remembered my own dark history from sophomore year of high school when I was caught by Big Sister with a book that bore the cover ’World Political Structure and Social Construction’... those eyes of fire Big Sister had indeed left an indelible impression on me. To put it more bizarrely, back then, I had finished every single one of those evil readings with Big Sister... not one escaped her sight! Now knowing that Lin Xue had also played the role of Big Sister, could it be that the most terrifying thing in this world isn’t the Abyss, but every creature that has a "Big Sister" attribute?

"I get the feeling that you, scoundrel, have plunged into your own delusions since a while ago and can’t extricate yourself," Lin Xue said with a weird look in her eyes.

"Wood, here’s a piece of advice."

"En?"

"Those Shamans and Druids might prove very useful, but I still suggest you have them bring an EOP-03 with them," Lin Xue said, resting her hands behind her head and leaning back on the bench’s backrest, "What I saw this morning, sorry, it’s beyond saving."

I was suddenly taken aback, while Du Dao Kazuko curiously looked this way, "E... OP-03? What’s that?"

My inquisitive eyes fell on Lin Xue’s face, and she could only offer a helpless wry smile in return.

"It’s a type of weapon, a Star Melting Bomb, a zero-vector force field containing a ghost energy wave diffusion source capable of initiating a chain reaction. Once released, it will spread at the speed of light throughout the entire planet, turning it into a glassy state within an hour..." I slowly explained the function of the EOP-03, and Du Dao’s face grew paler with each word, "In the Kepulu Star Zone, we’ve used it to destroy planets infected by the Insect Race..."

"A cheap and efficient purifier of infestations," Lin Xue added quietly, "Your world is done for, not worth saving."

"Hey, really? How can it happen so quickly?"

I was somewhat in disbelief. Having located Du Dao’s world so soon, how could it be that it wasn’t resilient at all?

"The spread of the dead bodies grows exponentially," Lin Xue shrugged, "And more importantly, they’ve evolved... Sheesh, such a third-rate plotline."

"How could it..." Du Dao found the reality hard to accept. At that moment, she could only mutter softly to herself, "Could it be... in such a short time, everyone’s dead..."

Reality and anime are not the same.

In anime, we can say someone is a side character or a minor character, appearing briefly once or twice and never seen again. No otaku would focus their attention on every high school girl who flits across the corner of the screen. But for Du Dao, those were living, breathing people, perhaps even friends and family. Everything she knew had vanished into thin air. She might even have to lead a fleet equipped with "Star Melting Bombs" to destroy the world she once lived in. Even if she had already decided to live in Shadow City from now on, such a thing was still unacceptable.

At that moment, I suddenly understood why Lin Xue insisted on following along. She wanted to tell me this... I had to say, she knew me too well. She knew that only by saying it in this atmosphere could she make the entire incident seem a bit easier to accept.

But...

"You probably haven’t finished talking, have you?"

I gave Lin Xue a sidelong glance. I knew every curve of her smirking lips too well. She was definitely up to something sneaky.

"Wood, do you want to take a trip there?"

Sure enough, Lin Xue had more to say, but what she said took me by surprise.

"Go there... to the ’Academy Apocalypse’ world?"

"Ah, that’s right. I won’t tell you the reason, but there’s definitely a benefit," Lin Xue leaned forward, playfully wagging her finger at me, "Although the planet is beyond saving, you’d better go take a look. Maybe you can save some refugees. More importantly, you’ll encounter something interesting."

I looked at Lin Xue, puzzled. This girl who always seemed to know everything but never said anything straight, was becoming harder and harder for me to read.

In any case, I trusted Lin Xue’s words. Since I had nothing better to do, a short trip wouldn’t be much trouble. Only...

"Hey, why do I have to be with this guy?"

Three hours later, at the Royal Starport boarding area, a certain 92.3cm was throwing a tantrum, unwilling to board the spaceship.

"I won’t go anywhere unless it’s to see Father!"

I cast a puzzled look at Lin Xue—okay, I couldn’t remember how many times I’d expressed confusion at this babbling Girl Lin.

"If you’re there because the destruction of a planet requires the presence of a high-ranking leader, then what’s the meaning of bringing this Doll along with us?"

"Entertainment for you," Lin Xue said as she grabbed the harness of Mercury Lamp’s Doll dress and threw the little figure into the shuttle, "For such an inconsequential mission that even Qianqian is too lazy to bother with, you’ll need a Doll to keep the solitary man company—unless you prefer a different type of Doll?"

Great, I knew this Girl Lin wouldn’t talk straight.

"Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll take her—after all, what you say always makes sense."

With that, I pushed the Mercury Lamp, who was trying to crawl out, back into the shuttle hatch and led the boarding team away from the starport. (To be continued. For the following story, please visit www.qidian.com. There are more Chapters available and your support for the author and legitimate reading is appreciated!)