Chapter 31 In space with a junkyard ship

As I was about to leave, I noticed that the Adventure Association’s quantum computer was nearly done initializing. It was at 95%, but it had taken nearly three days to make it this far. My adventurer card is currently in the only card reader. It's apparently needed to complete the setup.

The computer itself is completely sealed off, and breaking that seal would brick the computer. Apparently, they don't want anyone messing with it. It came with a monitor that you also couldn't change, and a keyboard.

The funny thing was that the monitor was a CRT, which I’ve only heard about or seen in old movies. It also has a green-ish tint to it, with the entire UI being in the green colour scheme. I don’t know if I like it or not.

When it’s done initializing, I should be able to accept quests that are available for my area and my current adventurer rank, which is Novice G—the very bottom of the ranking.

This time, instead of walking the entire way to my destination of that whiskey establishment, that would take many hours, it was time to try the public transport.

After I got off the lift, instead of going down the stairs to the city, I went up. The corridors here were painted metal, with different designations and lines on the floor to help you navigate.

It didn't take me long to reach a train station—or perhaps a metro station would be a more accurate description. It didn’t matter.

There were quite a lot of people up here, and it seemed like the corridors went off in many different directions, so I guess you could walk to places as well. Some of those corridors had weird red lines, but there didn’t seem to be anything indicating that you couldn’t walk past them.

The trains themself were basically the same as the one I took in the arm to get close to the station proper. This time, there were a lot more passenger cabins and even some that seemed to be more high-end. Their doors didn’t open up when boarding began.

The train I was currently looking at wasn’t mine. I would need to wait about 30 more minutes, and then it would just be a quick trip of 15 minutes to my destination.

The train trip itself was uneventful. There was a bit of a wait for an elevator to get down to the city, but I decided not to take the stairs this time.

When I made it to the city floor, I was actually in the corporate section—but just barely. This was the closest station to my destination, and I would only have to do a 20-minute walk, going past another main street, this time intersecting the corporate section and the regular section.

Everything here was so clinically clean, but there were a lot of advertisements everywhere. It all looked more high-tech, with many people openly displaying cybernetics that usually had some sort of fancy design to show the wealth of the person.

These types of displays and the way this society works just didn’t fit me at all.

There also seemed to be a lot more vehicles here, not just for transport but for personal use—unlike the other two sections.

Not wanting to stay here for too long, I made my way towards my destination. Although some of the shops seemed interested in a sense of looking at what kinds of stuff they sold, and not in the sense that I wanted to buy anything here, because everything was way too overpriced.

In the end, I was so close to getting out of this section, but I noticed a car slowly approaching. When I say a car, I don’t mean something that looks like a car that is alien-made—no, it was a car design I recognized, usually driven about by extremely rich people back on Earth.

It stopped beside me, and because I was waiting to cross the street, since there were traffic lights here, a couple of big security guards that were obviously human got out of the vehicles middle doors and blocked my way forward.

They didn't say anything—typical corporate security guards—but I was surprised that they didn’t have to wear face masks, as usually those corporate big shots didn’t want to humanize their servants.

It was so weird to see humans once again. It had been a really long time since I saw alive ones.

One of the bigger security guards held out his hand, blocking me from moving forward. He obviously had cybernetic enhancements.

It was annoying to have to look up, but he was a head taller than me, quite dark in complexion, and unfortunately, I couldn’t see his eyes, as he was wearing sunglasses that were obviously not just sunglasses.

Another thing that struck me was that he was obviously mana-reborn and, in fact, ranked higher than me.

“Get into the car,” he said to me in perfect English.

“I’m sorry, I do not know who you are,” I said back in the common language.

From the car, an annoyed voice came that sounded quite old, but there was still power behind it.

“Don’t play us. We know you're from Earth.”

“Fine, you found me out. I’m still not getting into the car, so if you have anything to say, say it now.”

The security guard moved his hand toward me, obviously wanting to push me in. My hand landed on my revolver as I took a half step back.

“We just want to talk, so get in the car,” he said, stopping his current movement of trying to shove me in as soon as my hand landed on the revolver.

“Yeah, I’m not that stupid. Try to do anything to me, and there will be a shootout. So once again, if you have anything to say, say it here, or I’m leaving.”

“You think you can take me? You think you can take all of us?” one of the other security guards asked.

“No. I will most likely die in this exchange, but so will some of you,” I said it with such finality that the smug looks on their faces were replaced with blank ones.

“Fine, have it your way,” came a voice from inside the car, while at the same time, the back door window cracked open an inch or two, revealing the eyes of the person who had spoken.

“Do you have any idea what your actions have brought? You have damaged the position of the human race in this galaxy with your idiotic insistence that the Terran Cooperative is not humanity’s nation!”

I believe he was about to continue his monologue, but I just straight up laughed out loud.

“You self-centered assholes. 'Damage the position of humanity'? Don’t make me laugh. You guys were the ones who damaged the position of humanity.”

“You corporations always got too much leeway—but as always, when you push too far, you get your lessons. So let me give you another: you guys pushed too far. If it wasn’t me, it was going to be someone else—and at least this time, there won’t be a war.”

My words seemed to shock him, but a moment later, I could see anger.

“Listen here, you ignorant pup. Corporations are the reason humanity reached as far as it did and will continue to reach. Capitalism is the only way forward.”

That actually threw me off.

“Capitalism? What the hell are you talking about?”

He was about to speak, but I raised my left hand to stop him from doing so, which made the security guards quit jumping.

“Actually, I don’t give a shit. You can do whatever you want to do, but as always, never push too far. Because as always, the rest of humanity will push back.”

“See, that's the problem there. You don't know what's good for you. You communist bastards—always the same, ruining everything. I want you to go to this station’s authorities and recognize the Terran Cooperative as your species' nation and say that your glad do to it.”

Once again, it was hard not to laugh, so I just laughed.

“You're blaming communism again? Wait, are you one of those old bastards still alive from before the 21st century? If you are, that's impressive. But dude, most of the problems are your own making. You will never be able to get humanity to agree with you on your little nation being the species' representative in this universe. You guys really are morons.”

“So asking nicely didn’t work. We can always find your family, no matter where they're hiding, and we can most certainly get you.”

Now that annoyed me.

“What family are you talking about? You already killed them all. Or are you not aware of how you left Earth?” I said as I walked close to his window.

He flinched back a bit, and when he realized that, it made him even angrier.

“As for you being able to kill me, you better make sure you finish the job. Do you understand?”

With that, I simply pushed aside the weakest security guard that was to my left, blocking me from going back the way I came from. Instead of going back to the train station, I used this opportunity to walk across the street.

The other security guards wanted to follow me, but our loud voices had gathered quite a crowd, and now I was inside that crowd, leaving them no opportunity to try to do anything.

It was only a minute after that and I reached the main street, leaving them unable to follow me.

Yeah, that was going to be a problem. Seeing an old bastard alive was actually kinda amazing. Being able to survive that long will make him a strong and willful obstacle that was going to make trouble for me.

It didn’t seem that they were following me, which was actually a bad thing. It meant that they had other ways of keeping track of me.

Just in case, I did a scan of myself, but there weren’t any bugs planted on me, not that I wouldn’t have noticed them planting them.

Of course, then there was still the magical side of things. If they were using something like that, then I would have no way of stopping it.

Should I change my destination? No, I need that contact, and I’m pretty sure if I’m correct about the size of their operation, they have nothing to fear from the Terran Cooperative—especially because there’s no way they have a large presence here.

Just the fact that they sent one as old as he was to deliver a simple message means that there's basically no one else here besides him from the Terran Cooperative.

The other side of the main street, and just beyond it, had a more relaxing atmosphere with people having fun. A lot of places to just eat and drink made me relax just a bit.

It only took a few minutes for me to get further in, and all of a sudden, the atmosphere changed. No longer was there that relaxing feeling; instead, there was tension in the air.

Did they actually follow me and are trying to do something? That would be quite bold of them.

My hand was close to my revolver as I was ready for anything.

What I didn’t expect was to see—down an alley—an elderly couple being harassed by different kinds of rough-looking aliens.

It wasn't even half a second after I noticed them before one of them spoke to me, so obviously having waited for this very moment.

“So, here you are. Follow us, or these two innocent bystanders die because of you?”

He spoke Common, but with quite an accent. There were about 20 of them, spread out basically throughout the entire length of the alley.

The one who spoke was a bit more refined than the rest of the rabble, but they were obviously not with the Terran Cooperative.

Then I noticed, thanks to being able to see through a bit of some simple fabrics, a tattoo of a symbol I recognised.

It was the same symbol those pirates had—the ones that almost destroyed my ship.

So I guess the Crivordid Pirates did hold a grudge.

This day just wasn’t going my way.