Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 571: Volume 6 Chapter 42 Setting Off on the Journey_2

”That will take some talking, even three days and nights wouldn’t be enough...”

”No problem, we’ve got plenty of time on this journey. Go ahead, I won’t be annoyed.”

”It’s like this... Back then...”

Amid Carl’s endless flattery, Fatty smiled broadly and walked towards the living quarters, nodding along the way.

”Is this the Federation Hero?” Around the corner, Helen stood dumbfounded, staring in the direction Fatty and Carl had gone.

This time, Helen was visiting Chuckna as a journalist accompanying the delegation led by Vice President Flavio.

Ever since painstakingly obtaining the permission to interview Tian Xingjian in the capital Ludelit, only to miss out on the chance because Fatty suddenly left the capital, Helen had been determined to get Fatty to sit down in front of her and answer all her questions.

Originally, Helen should have departed from the capital Ludelit, but when she combed through the boarding list and didn’t find Tian Xingjian’s name, she immediately applied to board another destroyer departing from Gallipalan.

This trip required passing through small jump points, which only a destroyer could handle. Among the two visiting destroyers, if Fatty wasn’t on this one, he must be on the other.

For this purpose, Helen specially took her family’s private ship to Gallipalan, then boarded a shuttle at the Gallipalan Military Airport to join the destroyer, just to have a face-to-face interview with the Federation Hero Tian Xingjian during the journey.

As a journalist, Helen saw interviewing this Federation Hero as her professional mission. As a hero worshipper, she had too many questions she wanted to be answered.

However, just now, when she saw Tian Xingjian and hadn’t even managed to control her excitement to approach him, the conversation between him and Carl had already doused her enthusiasm with cold water.

Perhaps bound by her imagination, or perhaps the smiling Fatty on the poster had left too deep an impression. Helen could not have imagined that the hero, revered by all Federation citizens, who fought bravely in his Mecha among thousands of enemies, turned out to be such a vain, frivolous, ordinary, and silly-looking chubby guy?

”...When the battle footage aired, the entire nation was in an uproar. Do you know how many beauties swore they would marry you?” Carl spouted eagerly.

”How many?” Fatty had a blank look on his face.

”Thousands!” Carl affirmed decisively.

”So many?” Fatty took a deep breath, melancholically saying, ”How will I ever manage?”

”...”

Two idiots disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Helen couldn’t describe her feelings at that moment. The chubby guy before her and the heroic, upright, and selfless image of a hero she had in her mind were so different. The difference was too great for her to accept.

The hero she had excitedly rushed into the studio to report about, with her voice trembling with joy, because she heard he was alive, was really this chubby guy?

”Alright!” Helen bit her lip and turned to walk in the opposite direction. ”I must know the true Tian Xingjian! Let me get to know you again — ’Federation Hero’!”

The trip had been precisely arranged. Two days of space travel later, when the destroyer named [Blue Rose] reached a remote small jump point in the Leray Central Star Domain Free Star System, the other destroyer carrying the delegation and some trainees also arrived here.

This new destroyer, also named after a port and flower, called [Castle Lily], was the sister ship of the [Blue Rose]. They would be escorted by six [Trick-class] escort ships through twelve public star system jump points to reach the Chuckna Republic.

It was a long journey. The monotony might be the biggest challenge of the trip.

As for safety, no one was particularly worried. After all, the star systems they passed through were desolate public star systems. These systems had no large jump points for destroyer-sized warships. The only active vessels on these routes were passenger ships avoiding war, merchant ships, smuggling ships, and a few pirates.

And pirates simply couldn’t pose a threat to a fleet composed of two new destroyers and six escort ships.

Especially the pirates on these remote routes. Most of them were still using dilapidated armed merchant ships as their so-called warships.

The warships entered the jump point at a steady 3rd Universe Speed with all power systems shut down. Outside the portholes, the mysterious blue light of the jump channel grew brighter, penetrating the silent warships and transforming them into a dreamlike oceanic world.

Fatty lay on his bed, feeling the vibrations of the vessel passing through the jump point, listening to the hissing sound as the life-support system filled the ship with breathable air. For a moment, his thoughts wandered.

Humans had been traversing such interstellar channels for thousands of years. Yet, behind this blue light lay secrets humans had yet to uncover.

In the space between the entrance and exit, was there another passage? Why had so many ships that didn’t enter the channel at the 3rd Universe Speed disappeared without exception? Why did Boswell say that his parents had once traveled through the interstellar channel at nonstandard speed and returned safely? Before the most significant discoveries of human civilization were announced, who had dragged humans into the confines of the jump points?