Dimensional Descent

‘Is my luck really that bad?’ Leonel smiled bitterly.

The issue with the Milky Way Guild obviously wasn’t that Leonel was an enemy of them, but rather in what they might or might not know.

Leonel was certain that the fat, jeweled man was among the lowest ranking members of the Guild. He might even be selfish enough to keep the information to himself in hopes of making it rich on his own. But the issue was that this was only the best case scenario.

In the worst case… Well, Leonel might as well start picking out his casket now.

In this time, he had pretty much ignored the threat of Shield Cross Stars. But, that was only because right after those events happened, his talk with his grandfather took up the vast majority of his mind. He simply didn’t care about Shield Cross Stars because his thoughts were focused on something completely different.

Now that Leonel was quite confident in the response he would give to his grandfather, he suddenly remembered just how big of a deal being a wanted criminal of Shield Cross Stars was. If it wasn’t for the structure of this police force and the approach Scithe and Anared’s fiancée had taken, it could be said that Leonel would already be finished.

‘… Really such bad luck.’ Leonel shook his head.

Aina, who was standing right beside Leonel, didn’t need him to explain what the problem was. The moment she saw him pause and felt the shift in his emotions, she connected the dots. She had been there when they met the fat merchant and definitely knew that the fat merchant had still been on Earth when Leonel’s face was projected to everyone.

It was quite funny too. Had Leonel not dropped White City onto Earth, the fat merchant might have never known. But, who knew how many other Milky Way Guild merchants there might have been at the time?

As for where this fat merchant was now? Neither of them had anyway of knowing. But at this point, she knew to brace for the worst.

Aina’s grip on Leonel’s hand involuntarily tightened.

Leonel looked over and smiled, the wrinkle between his brows having long since calmed.

The Milky Way Guild? Weren’t they just a Quasi Silver Organization? Leonel remembered very clearly, their highest ranking member, Augustus Ovilteen, had still not even stepped into the Sixth Dimension yet.

This was still far beyond Leonel’s current level, but what did it matter?

If they wanted to come, let them come. They’d be a nice and shiny stepping stone.

Of course, in all of Leonel’s thoughts, he felt that the odds were still quite low. This was a high level planet and the people that frequented this place obviously had the status to match it. What were the odds a Merchant that had to do business in a small place like Terrain could ever be here?

What he didn’t know quite yet was that his luck was indeed that bad.

…

In a control room located in a hidden department of the pillar were several monitors projecting images from all over the Two Star Disaster World. From a single look, one would have thought that this place was plucked right from Earth to be deposited here. But, upon further inspection, the reality was far more complex than this.

The images were projected onto thin glass sheets that hung about at all sorts of angles. There were clearly no electronics or wires to be seen anywhere in the room whatsoever.

It became clear fairly quickly that the ‘technology’ being used here were related to a complex branch of Force Arts. These Force Arts allowed the Milky Way Guild to monitor the whole of the planet for any activity of interest.

It was quite a complicated task to handle a Disaster Rated planet. There was more required than simply mining its resources. The location had to be protected, the weather had to be analyzed and predicted for safe and dangerous times, and any unexpected activity had to be properly reported.

As such, while there were a large number of high level workers, there were also a fair share of low level ones as well, many of them tasked with observing these monitors and passing on the necessary information to higher level officials for final decisions to be made.

It wasn’t that Leonel didn’t notice he was being monitored. He obviously had. The difference back then was that he thought it was only natural, not only because of the reasons just mentioned, but also because the Milky Way Guild wouldn’t be a very good ‘Third Party’ if they weren’t doing at least that much.

But now…

There were hundreds of men and women in this monitoring station, each of them focused on the four to five fluctuating images before them.

The task was usually monotonous. Most spent nothing but days on end watching winds whip across of rocks that had already evolved to not be very affected by their surroundings.

The ones that had it worst, though, were the pillar monitors. At least those who were tasked with watching the mines could observe powerful warriors breaking stone and shattering gems from time to time. But, those on ‘pillar duty’ only had the task of ensuring that none of their ‘roadways’ ever failed.

With the sturdy build of these roadways, such a failure might only occur once a decade. So, most of the time, those tasks with this job just watched as the pillars waved back and forth in the same, endlessly repetitive motion.

The Milky Way Guild had long since done that math, and hiring this drone of people to monitor for failures was far more cost efficient than hiring a Force Crafter to automate the whole process.

Those working here weren’t complaining, though. They were paid decently and their jobs weren’t dangerous. What more could they ask for?

However, there were still some among them that had no intention of staying in such a place for a lifetime, some among them who aspired for more and greater.

Within this group, there was one young man who was very obviously not the fat merchant Leonel had met. He got lucky on this day, getting to watch a competition on his section of pillars.

But, when he saw Leonel, his eyes narrowed. Leonel’s luck was indeed quite bad.