The Legendary Mechanic, page 709
Gaud was in a very bad mood.
…
Outside the remote communication room of the Modo Civilization’s Emerald Star Cluster stronghold, two soldiers who were stationed there were whispering.
“How long has it been since the commander and the inspector went in?”
“Probably almost an hour.”
“Looks like the Three Kings have summoned them. I wonder when they will come out…”
“Hey, the gate’s opening. Stand properly.”
The gate of the room slid open, the two guards quickly stood straight, stopped talking, and looked straight forward, acting diligent. However, their eyes uncontrollably shifted to glance at Commander Roddick and Inspector Lagos.
Roddick’s face looked like he was on the verge of exploding, while Lagos looked borderline depressed.
As the sacrifice of tens of Calamity Grade elites was completely meaningless, they had earned a thunderous scolding from the Three Kings of Modo, as well as their direct bosses. Their image among the upper echelons fell to rock-bottom.
Although he was just executing the mission given by the people above and the death of tens of Calamity Grades was not his fault, he could do nothing but take the blame. He was so furious that he had almost exploded.
Lagos had no way of comforting him. He asked hesitantly, “Our high-level combatants have suffered heavy losses. Like the Three Kings said earlier, that cannot occur. What do you plan to do?”
“It’s all because of Black Star!” Roddick clenched his fists tightly and said with rage, “If we continue to be this passive, Black Star will ruthlessly bite off our forces. Without solving this problem once and for all, similar things will keep happening.”
If we could stop Black Star, we would have… Lagos smiled bitterly with resignation and asked, “So, what idea do you have?”
“If we could kill Black Star…” Roddick was murmuring. He then turned around and immediately saw Lagos’s unamused expression, so he swallowed what he was going to say next. He thought about it and said, “By ourselves, there’s no way we can fight Black Star, so we can only borrow external forces. If we cause the Black Star Army a lot of trouble and make them have no time to deal with us, maybe we can mitigate the current situation.”
“For example?”
Roddick opened his mouth and felt helpless.
If something like this was so easy to think of, how could they have ended up in this situation? If they did not make some gigantic contributions, their promotion would probably never come.
Chapter 1038. Recruitmen |
In a certain area inside the Emerald Star Cluster, the exploration fleet of a small financial group was flying. Organizations like this were not strong enough to occupy resource rich planets; they could only gain profit through normal exploration or getting hired. This was very common in the current Flickering World.
This fleet mainly consisted of exploration ships and transportation ships. As a fleet used for expeditions, other than the necessary crews on every ship, there were also extra people who lived in a travel ship that was specially used to transport people. This ship mainly had life facilities inside. The number of people it could hold far exceeded functional spaceships such as exploration ships. Most staff who did not have crew duties stayed there usually.
This long-term travel ship was like a portable space station. It was bigger than even the industrial transportation ships in the team. It took care of manpower logistics, food supplies, and entertainment facilities. With how intense the competition was in the Flickering World, without daily benefits, it would be very tough to hire anyone. As a commercial financial group, their crew could not be considered truly loyal, so the treatment they got was one of the important factors that attracted more employees.
The hall of the space station was a multifunctional entertainment social venue. There were entertainment facilities and all kinds of stores, where the crew could spend money. The hall was on the bottommost floor, and above it were bridges made of transparent materials. The people in the hall could see the people above them walking by when looking up. Overall, it looked like a crowded and prosperous business square.
In one area of the hall was the staff canteen, which was boisterous and noisy. Staff from all positions could be seen there.
At the edge of the canteen, Evans sat at a table by himself, slowly eating his meal. His eyes were hardly open, staring down at the table and daydreaming.
He was still wearing the yellow protective suit but with the helmet open now. He looked ordinary and common like every typical ground crew member. In fact, ninety-nine percent of the people who took this job were ordinary people. They were the staff at the lowest level of the financial group.
At the tables around him, other ground crew workers filled the seats, chattering while eating, sometimes bursting into laughter. Occasionally, some people’s eyes darted past Evans, but they did not stop and ignored him completely.
Evans was used to this. Ground crew members were mostly normal people. Their work efficiency was not high, and many of them liked to slack off. Comparatively, he was hardworking and never lazed around, often completing his tasks beyond the minimum requirements. Therefore, he was always publicly praised by the team’s manager and even received some bonuses.
Due to his attitude, some of his colleagues started to urge others to isolate him, maybe because they were jealous, or maybe because they did not like an ex-convict who had just left prison. Gradually, more and more people stopped interacting with him.
Being boycotted, Evans did not mind it at all. He had never liked socializing with colleagues to begin with. After spending many years in prison, he had learned not to care about what others thought.
“Hmm? Evans, you’re sitting alone?” A voice that he recognized appeared beside him. Evans looked up, and a familiar person stood beside him holding the meal plate. It was the manager of the ground crew team he was in.
There were many teams in the ground crew department. This team manager was just a base-level officer who did not have much power. He was Evans’ direct boss who liked him.
“Since there’s no one sitting beside you, do you mind if I join your table?” the team leader said with a smile.
“Not at all.” Evans signed for the team manager to please sit down.
The team manager sat opposite him and chatted with Evans while eating. The ground crew members could no longer ignore Evans’ table, so they turned to greet their boss.
“Manager, you don’t have to help me for this,” Evans softly said with resignation. “I really don’t care about being disliked by others.”
“That won’t do. What happens if you delay your work because of a bad mood? The quota of our team might have to rely on you to be completed.” The team manager shrugged.
Evans smiled bitterly. This manager was a normal person, and a kind one at that. Because of his high work efficiency, the manager took extra care of him and was very friendly.
After gulping down the meal, Evans bade farewell to the manager, who was still eating, before standing up with the empty plate in his hands. He then went to the recycling window of the canteen and threw the plate in.
At this time, a few people in mechanical suits walked into the canteen. They were all bottom level mercenaries, and their faces did not look normal. There was a slight redness from excitement. They were walking in Evans’ direction and attracted his attention.
“Supers… looks like they’ve consumed some kind of stimulation drug and are high.”
Evans gave a few more looks to these people, and as he was just about to pass them by and leave the canteen, he suddenly heard the voice of a mercenary increase amid their conversation. One of them seemed very emotional.
“You don’t believe I’ve invented a new way to use my Esper Ability‽ I’ll show you then!”
Right after he said that, this excited mercenary clenched his hand. The air around him gathered and formed an invisible wind sphere. It then smashed right into the ground below him. The sphere of wind exploded and turned into tiny blades of wind that scattered and spread everywhere.
The financial group had a rule that the powers of Supers were not allowed to be used in public areas. If discovered, punishments ranged from paying a fine to being fired. However, these Grade D mercenaries who had just used mind stimulation drugs were in a state of overexcitement and had completely lost their senses. They totally forgot about this rule.
The people around panicked. The floor was filled with traces of slash marks, and the staff around backed away hastily.
As the power of this sphere of wind was limited, the others were not really injured. Evans, however, was the closest to it. He was blown away by the wind pressure, and his protective suit was cut open in many places.
A tint of bright red appeared in everyone’s eyes.
“Someone’s wounded!”
Many people immediately moved to rubberneck. The staff of the ground crew squeezed in too, but when they saw that Evans was the one who was wounded, their footsteps stopped as they hesitated over whether they should help him up or not. While they were hesitating, the team manager already quickly walked up and helped Evans up before looking at his wound.
“Where are you wounded? Let me see.”
“Just a small wound, I’m okay. Tsss…”
Evans tightened his face, but the twitch at the edge of his eyes showed that the wounds were quite painful. The wind blades had slashed open more than ten wounds on his body, all of which were bleeding. Very soon, the protective suit was dyed red.
A few patrol guards heard the fuss and ran over.
“What’s going on ‽”
The team manager pointed at these mercenaries with anger and said, “They violated the rules and used an Esper Ability in a public area, causing a crew to be wounded.
The guard frowned and looked at the scene, noticed that Evans was injured, and then looked at the few mercenaries. He asked with a deep voice, “Is that true?”
After this accident, these few people were more awake. The mercenary who had thrown the sphere of wind coughed and said, “I did it unintentionally. It’s just an accident. I’ll go to ask for the punishment later.”
“Hmm, luckily, only one person was hurt. You’ll be fined at most, not a big deal.” The guard comforted the mercenary a bit. He then turned to Evans, glanced at the ground crew uniform on his body, and said casually, “You’re Evans, right? It’s just flesh wounds. Get them treated at the medical room, and you’ll be fine. You won’t die.”
“That’s it?” The team manager was unsatisfied. “Not even an apology?”
The mercenary who had caused the incident glanced at Evans and said in a very perfunctory tone filled with arrogance, “This is my fault, sorry.”
No sincerity could be felt at all.
“What kind of attitude is that?” The team manager was resentful.
This time, the guard interrupted him. “That’s enough. He has already apologized, and his salary will be deducted later too. Don’t keep dwelling on it.”
Although the guard looked like he was doing what should be done, his attitude clearly showed the different treatment he gave to the two sides. He was a Super too. Seeing that this mercenary had only accidentally wounded a normal ground worker, he did not think it was a big deal. To him, although this mercenary had made a mistake, as long as he was willing to take the punishment, it would be best to give him some comfort. This was more important than a normal person.
This mercenary looked like this was completely normal. Seeing that Evans would not die, he did not bother looking at him anymore and turned around to casually chat with his friends.
This was witnessed by the people around. Many normal people had complicated expressions on their faces.
Most Supers did not care about how affected ordinary people, and the ordinary people knew that very well. Even though the other party apologized and accepted the punishment, he still did not care at all. Seeing this, most present felt a flame burning in their chest.
Supers having privileges was a rule silently accepted in the entire universe, and there was nothing they could do about that.
This time, Evans pulled the team manager a little and stood up by pressing on his knees. Blood dripped onto the floor, splashing around everywhere. He endured the pain and said, “It’s okay. It’s just not my day. Bring me to the medical room.”
The team manager gave the other side a glare and gave up on arguing. He then assisted Evans and walked out of the crowd.
“It’s all settled. Nothing more to see here.” The guard waved the crowd away.
However, at this instant, a sudden change occurred!
Bang!
The spaceship suddenly trembled as if it had stopped in an instant. Even the internal shock absorption system could not eliminate the enormous inertial force. Everyone present staggered and fell onto the ground in panic.
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like the spaceship was forced to stop!”
“Did we meet galactic pirates‽”
While everyone was getting up anxiously and was about to rush out of the canteen to take refuge, the speaker inside the spaceship suddenly sounded and echoed through the entire fleet. Everyone could hear it.
“This is the Black Star Army. Your spaceship has been forced to come to a stop by us. There’s no need to panic. Our goal is only to find one person. His name is Evans. He works in your ground crew…”
As soon as the sentence ended, all eyes focused on Evans.
Swoosh!
In an instant, the area around Evans became empty. Everyone hid with shock.
The Black Star Army is looking for this guy by name‽
How did he get into trouble with the Black Star Army? And why are they putting in so much effort to find him? Does he have a secret identity‽
This time, Evans’ most ordinary appearance suddenly became mysterious in the eyes of everyone around him.
“Black Star Army?” Evans was stunned too.
Isn’t that an advanced organization I’m far from being able to encounter? Why are they looking for me? They probably have the wrong guy.
He turned to look at the team manager, but the team manager had let go of his hand long ago and hid to the side with fear on his face.
Evans was just about to say something when he suddenly realized that these guards and mercenaries had walked toward him and surrounded him.
“What are you doing?”
“Preventing you from escaping. Since the Black Star Army wants to see you, you shall wait here,” a guard said coldly.
Evans clenched his teeth. He breathed rapidly a few times, and only after a while did his fists open again. He then said with resignation, “Don’t worry, I won’t run. I want to find out what this is about too.”
The people waited there for a while. Suddenly, footsteps appeared outside, and a group of people walked in. The upper echelons who were usually arrogant and mighty were now all walking beside this group of Black Star Army warriors with their heads low. The warrior leader leading the group gave off a powerful energy wave. He was a Grade B, and he was considered a very powerful person to these bottom level workers.
The scene was so silent that no one dared breath heavily.
The group of them walked to Evans. The fleet’s commander pointed over and said, “He’s the person you’re looking for.”
“Hmm.” This Black Star Army’s Grade B warrior sized Evans up with a poker face. “You’re Evans?”
Evans took a deep breath. “That is indeed my name, but I have no past interaction with the Black Star Army. I think you might have found the wrong person.”
Hearing this, this Grade B team leader took out a resume and showed it to Evans. “Is this your resume?”
Looking at it closely, Evans nodded with shock. His face was filled with doubt and confusion.
The Black Star Army really is looking for me?
The Grade B team leader nodded. “That’s correct then. You’re the one we’re looking for. Follow me.”
“Wait a moment, I would like to know, why did you guys come for me?” Evans asked.
Everyone perked up their ears to listen to the reply.
They also wanted to know the answer to this question.
The Grade B team leader suddenly smiled, reached out his hand, and said passionately, “You’re a talent His Excellency Black Star asked to recruit by name. Brother, welcome to the Black Star Army.”
The entire venue became silent for an instant.
Boom!
Then, like a bomb, roaring voices exploded!
“What!”
The team manager shivered with his eyes wide open. The earlier guard and the mercenary were completely frozen with shock.
Everyone present was stupefied. Some even thought that they were hearing things. Countless looks of disbelief focused on Evans.
Did we hear that right?
That famous Beyond Grade A Black Star is recruiting a normal person by name‽
Could he be so talented that even a Beyond Grade A is tempted to recruit him‽
He’s definitely been hiding his talents, which is why we did not notice it all this time.
You really can’t judge a book by its cover!
Admiration appeared in everyone’s eyes.
That was especially so for the colleagues who isolated Evans. They were filled with regret and hastily looked down covered in sweat, worried about being noticed by Evans.
“Recruit… me?”
Evans was stupefied.
At this instant, he fell into a deep state of self-doubt.
What’s so incredible about me that even a Beyond Grade A is interested in me?
Could it be that it’s really like what I fantasized about when I was young?
That my body has sealed the power of the evil Universe Overlord, the Master of Destruction, Black Devil‽
…
At the same time, inside a mysterious base in a distant Ancient Star Desert, a few silhouettes were discussing the news about the appearance of the Primal Chaos Mysterious Energy inside the private conference room.
