Genetic Ascension

Chapter 1277: Fugitives

There was a shudder and the star ship took off.

Sylas stood by a window, looking out as the planet receded from his sight. All around him, there were what were meant to be luxuries, but **they** seemed a bit dim and dull compared to what he should have received considering how much they had paid.

Of course, at least for now, money was no object to Sylas. The Golden Grove might be a medium-sized power in this Sector, but they were still a merchant guild. In addition, the entire wealth of a power in the hands of just one person would always be quite a pretty sum.

But after his time with Andromeda, Sylas had a strong understanding of the market and pricing systems in the Sector. He had specifically dedicated time to exactly that. Not understanding how much things should cost seemed like an unimportant weakness, but in action, it might be life and death in many situations.

Not only did understanding this allow him to know how much someone of his standing should be capable of spending, it also helped him not to get scammed.

Now, however, he felt like he was getting a bit scammed. It took 90,000 C-Grade Aether Stones to take this ship. Of course, they were fragmented as this Sector didn’t seem to have any above that Grade, but even so, that many quality Aether Stones was absolutely ridiculous.

You could buy two Level 151 C-Grade Treasures for that price in the FF+ range.

In the entire Golden Grove, one of the three largest merchant guilds in the whole Sector, they might only have a couple dozen or so of those weapons to sell a month. But you needed to be able to buy two of them just to ride this star ship for a month.

This was clearly the Beast Warlord Sanctum’s method of making money. Though, to be fair, Sylas had picked up the most luxurious room they had.

Even if he hadn’t, though, the lowest price there was only about half the price Sylas had paid, and yet the only thing you got for that was a chance to huddle up in a hall while hoping pirates didn’t attack.

All of those candidates joining with D-tier handlers were down there.

Sylas looked toward the door before the knock came.

After a moment, he slowly stood to his feet and opened i. On the other side, a certain big cat ship captain stood, towering over Sylas.

Sylas had grown quite considerably the moment he got his Human Simioid Gene Class. By now, he was already approaching seven feet, but this man would have towered even over Tiere, standing at almost nine feet tall.

On Earth, a person with those proportions*would seem almost, well, disproportionate. But this man was built solidly, his muscles a wiry mesh of thin steel cords that pulsed with a radiant power. It looked like he could shatter a hole in the void with a flick of his finger.

Looking at him up close, he could see those delicate teardrop pupils reminiscent of a feline, and his hair was no less wild than Sylas’ own, but shaggier and far less well-kept, making it look more like the mane of a lion than the hair of a man.

But aside from this, he looked quite... human. In fact, he reflected Sylas in a lot of ways, even down to his clawed nails.

”Yes?” Sylas asked.

”I’m Captain Herrs, as you’ve probably already heard. I came here today to let you know that there’ve been some reports of some potential... well, stowaways on that ship that might be related to the pirates.”

Sylas understood what he meant immediately. They weren’t real stowaways, but instead people who had probably bought tickets. They were lying in wait for the time.

What Sylas actually found interesting, though, was that the captain had come to tell him this. This captain had also been the one to inform them of the ticket prices.

For a captain, he sure had a lot of time on his hands.

”Old Brama,” Sylas called out.

”Mm.”

The old man was lazily reclining on a couch, a hat covering his head.

”Those three pirate groups you mentioned, how much information is there about them?”

”Mm...” Old Brama nodded a bit as though trying to arrange his thoughts. ”Two are led by fugitives, one is led by a beast as far as I understand it.”

”Fugitives? From?”

”Oh, you might not know. But Sectors like ours are powerful enough to help people grow, but not strong enough for real powerhouses to care much about. Fugitives are people marked by systems of higher Sectors with Demerits. They rush down from the higher Sectors so that the difficulty of weathering their Demerits becomes lesser.”

”The system won’t care about petty crimes like these. Why are they fugitives, then?” Sylas asked.

The system definitely wouldn’t waste time punishing pirates. You got Demerits for doing things against the system’s wishes, not just attacking your fellow man.

If that was all it took, Sylas would be swimming in Demerits.

Though, it was a shame that Sylas was back to neutral ground after helping Cassarae out. He missed having his Progenitor Merit. It had helped him out considerably before. But this was still much better than having Demerits.

Old Brama shrugged. ”Who knows. In all likelihood, poor bastards got tricked or offended the wrong person. If they had really done something bad, the system would have smited them on the spot. But now they’re our problems to deal with apparently.”

”And you said that one of them is a beast? What kind of beast?”

Old Brama chuckled. ”A scorpion. More accurately, the fiercest Race of Scorpion in the Sanctum’s galaxy. They say that it descended from the King Scorpion your Warlord Armor is based on. The Black Ray Scorpion.”

Sylas had actually been hoping to hear that it was a snake, but if it was a C-tier like Old Brama said, even if it was, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to it.

Finally, Sylas looked back toward the captain.

”Why did you come and tell me this personally?”