Chapter 190: The first jump
Chapter 190: The first jump
There weren't many times when Aldrich had to facepalm himself.
This was one of those rare moments. The shadows vanished and Sha came out of the ground. There was a deep satisfaction on her face, and her cheeks had become red from the sheer deliciousness.
Even though Aldrich would have given the Swordfish for Sha to devour, he thought it was better to check out its capabilities first. Now he knew why Sha had gone behind him with that weird walk. It was to stand over his shadow.
For the first time, Aldrich truly felt helpless and couldn't find any solution to counter this Shadow Blink Skill. As he approached Sha, he noticed how the creature was still with her. It meant she had taken Shu to the Shadow World along with her.
"Can you remain in the Shadow World as long as you want?"
Aldrich stared down at Sha's red face. Her head was drooping shyly, and in her arms, Shu matched Aldrich's gaze in pure retaliation. The creature let out soundless growls and bared its fangs towards him as a sweet but meek voice came out of Sha.
"No for some time."
Aldrich nodded and asked again.
"Can you take me there with you?"
"Yes"
The corners of Aldrich's mouth lifted as he heard a positive response. But soon his face became grave again.
"Playtime over. Come back and turn to Swordfish."
"Daddy Sorry"
Ouch!
Aldrich shook his head and tapped Sha's forehead with his knuckles.
"Next time, wait for me to test the Item out."
Aldrich's voice had a reprimanding tone, and despite giving him a pouting look, Sha let go of the creature and returned to his face. A vein separated itself from his mask, and as it bloomed, a pitch-black version of the Swordfish reappeared in front of him.
With the Pillar of Footprints still over one of his shoulders, Aldrich grabbed Shu by the back of his neck again, as if holding a plastic bag.
Grrr! Hiss!!
The creature let out furious growls and maddened hissing sounds through its tails, but it didn't have the strength to act out against Aldrich. As Aldrich entered the Swordfish, he noticed the absence of any kind of switches and panels for user interface purposes. Despite the lack of an obvious command module, in front of the driver's seat, there was a plain panel. And in the middle of the panel, there was a hollow opening.
There were only two passengers in a single row, just behind the driver's seat. Aldrich threw Shu into one of them and sat down in the driver's seat. He didn't know which quality of Mana core would be enough to go to the intended coordinates. So, for starters, he took out a spare Baron Mana core.
Just as Aldrich placed the bluish-green Mana core in the hollowed portion of the panel in front of him, a notification materialized.
[
Mana fuel accepted
State the coordinates for the space jump
]
Sigh!
This sigh was waiting to come out of Aldrich's mouth for a long time.
From the notification, Aldrich finally got to confirm that there was no way to stir the Swordfish like an actual spaceship. If he had to compare it to a vehicle, then a train would be more appropriate. Swordfish was like a train going from one station to another, and Aldrich was just a passenger who needed to provide a ticket to ride on it.
From the memories of the vice leader of the Red-Jackets, Aldrich gave out the exact coordinates of the next meeting point.
[
Confirming coordinates' validity
Coordinates confirmed
Activating Skill Light-Year Blink
Preparing for the jump in 9 8
]
The entire spaceship lifted and hovered hundreds of meters in the air as soon as the coordinates got confirmed.
Aowww!!!
Behind Aldrich, Shu let out howls and was about to fall off the seat when the seat belt wrapped around him by itself. The bill of the Swordfish poked the space like a dart, and a dark hole appeared at the point of the impact. It was like the Swordfish was a dart and the space was nothing but paper.
As the countdown started, the hole exponentially expanded and became big enough for the spaceship to enter easily. Ethereal black lightning cracked around the Swordfish and howling spatial winds came out of the hole. And all around the spaceship, thunderous booming sounds kept reverberating.
On the curved cylindrical viewscreen in front of him, Aldrich could see all these changes vividly. Every process and action of the spaceship got embedded in his memory for further analysis and inspection.
The countdown, not caring and waiting for Aldrich's thought process, kept going on.
[
4... 3 2
1
0
]
"Whoohooo Daddy To Infinity and"
"Shut up, Sha!"
ZzzzzzooooooM!!!
*
In the 3rd Quadrant, on a dwarf planet many light years away from Rosalia, the space rippled, and like a needle, something poked the space from within.
The entire dwarf planet was covered in Mana shield and was being patrolled by thousands of spaceships in outer space. But the pitch-black Swordfish that had come out of the punctured space seemed to ignore all the defensive measures. It was like a scientific apparition who's coming and going couldn't be detected by anyone. But as the spaceship completely came out of the hole, leaving behind black flashes of lightning and spatial winds, the equipment on the planet picked up on its presence.
Mayhem was a word that felt lacking to describe that situation.
By the time the Swordfish landed on the ground, three triangular ships had already flown over to its location and surrounded it. Hundreds of men in red jackets jumped out of the newly arrived spaceships and aimed their Items towards the strange Swordfish.
One more Dreamer came out from one of the triangular spaceships. He had a thick mustache and a bald head. His eyes were brown, but the red jacket on his body was a little different. There were golden threads embroidered on it, and as he shouted, rows of four golden teeth could be seen in his mouth.
"Come out or we will blast this ugly thing to pieces mate."
As the Swordfish's door opened, a response, full of mockery, came out and echoed in the ears of all the Dreamers.
"What? Haha! Robert, don't tell me you gonna kill your Vice-leader."
A shocked voice escaped the mouth of Viscount Robert, the leader of Red-Jackets, hearing the man's laugh coming out of the spaceship.
"Gary?!!!"