Became an Evolving Space Monster - Chapter 159



Only Noblemtl

Ep. 158

They managed to sneak onto the ship and secure a safe location.

So what should we do now?

‘We have to destroy the hypersonic engine.’

This ship is a warship belonging to the Star Union fleet. Once the battle is over, it will return to its original space station for repairs. If that happens, all of us here will be finished.

‘But if there’s a problem with the hyperluminal engine, movement becomes impossible.’

The hyperluminal engine, the pinnacle of super-scientific technology, is a very sensitive engine that matches its outstanding performance. A damaged hyperluminal engine is as dangerous as an overloaded reactor, as it can cause a ship that has entered hyperluminal travel to crash in a completely unexpected place.

‘If you’re unlucky, you might end up falling inside a star.’

If you fail to fly faster than light in the game and fall into a star, you will die instantly. Unique equipment, traits, and top-tier ships are all useless. I also died after being forcibly warped into a star while fighting Vortex One before.

‘It would be similar in reality.’

Falling into a star due to a malfunction while moving is an extreme case, but it is not impossible. It would be impossible to move recklessly unless you were defeated.

I brought the auxiliary engine up to the wall inside the garbage dump. I felt a strong flow of energy coming from the side of the ship, accompanied by intermittent vibrations.

This ship is unlikely to participate in combat due to the rockets at the front and the front of the ship being heavily damaged. It will probably retreat to the rear of the fleet and move while avoiding attacks from the cultists.

‘I don’t know when the battle will end…’

It probably won’t take long.

‘The cyborg flagship I saw earlier.’

That ship, which appears to be more than three times larger than the other ships, is a model I recognize.

‘Z2-class large battle cruiser. Looks like it’s been slightly modified, but it’ll fit.’

Star Union’s battle cruisers are commonly equipped with anti-ship torpedoes.

‘Gremlin torpedo.’

This weapon, which is one of the most outstanding inventions of the Star Union, is a type of nanomachine torpedo that, as its name suggests, only eats away at metals. Among these, the Gremlin torpedo, which is mounted on the flagship, has been specially modified to allow the user to specify the type of metal to eat.

For example, a Gremlin torpedo targeting Moonsilver will not stop until it has destroyed all Moonsilver near the point of impact.

And there is only one force that used Moonsilver to build a ship in this place.

‘There’s absolutely no problem shooting in the middle of a fight.’

The only downside is that it is very expensive and vulnerable to EMP.

‘But the cult can’t use EMP.’

Even if you have a level 26 skilled psychic power user, or even a cult prophet, it’s difficult to defend against Gremlin torpedoes with just a regular shield.

‘I’ll take the opportunity to shoot at the Imperial carrier.’

The battle will end when you fire the Gremlin torpedoes. You’ll need to deal with the engine problems before then.

The goal is set. Now it’s time to move.

[Zz zuzu zuzu zuzu zuzu (I’m going out and I’ll be back)]

“Where are you going? I want to go with you.”

“I” “Together”

“Both of you, wait. Morphbak… Ahem, ahem, the big kid has something to do.”

“What’s the matter?”

[Zuzu zuzuzuzu zuzuzu (I’m going to take a quick look around. I’ll be playing around in the meantime.)]

“Okay. Have a nice trip!”

“Me” “Greetings”

“… … .”

It was quite amusing to see the heavenly mother embarrassed at the fact that she had said certain words herself, but there was no time. I told the kids to rest and crawled out of the garbage dump.

Normally I would move with the guys, but not this time.

‘I have to move secretly, you know.’

It is only after safety is confirmed that everyone starts to run wild together.

Coming out of the treatment room, I was hanging upside down from the ceiling and moving around. There were numerous cameras in the hallway, but they didn’t notice my presence.

The hairs that were blown down by the wind while hanging upside down are thanks to the characteristics of the ‘fur of an alien creature’.

‘If I were a cyborg, would you be surprised to see me?’

Since it’s a stealth effect that avoids detection equipment, traits, and skills, a normal cyborg should be able to see me just fine. I’m not sure about androids or drones though.

‘Let’s try that later.’

It would be best not to encounter them right away. I moved while clinging to the ceiling with a total of eight arms and legs, and chose a place where I could not feel the movement of androids or drones.

The only silver lining was that most of the drones and androids were busy repairing the ship, so there weren’t many robots roaming the hallways.

As I got closer and closer to the engine room, I felt the movement of something large in the distance.

‘Is that Walker?’

But I quickly changed my mind, because the closer I got, the more certain I was that it wasn’t Walker.

I avoided the bastard by turning away from the fork in the road and hiding behind the hallway wall.

Soon, a spider-like machine appeared across the hallway. It was a robot with a human head and torso, but with six robotic legs in place of its arms and legs.

‘Are you a screamer?’

“Kuuu” “Kuuu”

The hideous-looking Screamer was breathing heavily through a tube attached to its mouth. The tubes attached to its mouth and back rattled and injected chemical solutions, causing cold sweat to flow ceaselessly from its body.

The thing glanced around the hallway with bloodshot eyes, then quickly disappeared somewhere, wagging its six legs, which were nothing but a metal frame.

‘Why does it smell like sweat?’

I thought it was the less modified cyborg soldiers sweating from nervousness, but it was the Screamers.

The Screamer is a being that clearly shows the tastes of the Space Survival developers. To summarize the settings of this strange machine creature, it is a being similar to a penal unit operated by communist countries in the past.

Star Union turns the worst criminals or anti-government figures among the cyborgs into Screamers instead of sending them to prison. They don’t waste the useless ones on society, fearing that someone might say they’re just machines, but instead turn them into combat weapons and use them.

When you become a Screamer, you lose all control over your body and become a puppet with only your mind remaining. No wonder they are nicknamed Bio-Drone.

They say that they will be restored to normal cyborgs after their sentences are over, but most of them die on the battlefield before that happens.

‘There’s a Screamer in the elite fleet. How strange.’

From the perspective of the Machinery Committee, they are all criminals, so they are not often assigned to such a good fleet. As far as I know, there is a unit of the Star Union’s elite forces made up entirely of Screamers, but this ship is not part of that unit.

‘Screamers are annoying enemies, so be careful.’

He is a fearless being similar to an android, and his fighting prowess is incomparable to that of a combat android.

When he sees an enemy, he bites them like a mad dog and grabs their ankles. At a time like now when you have to sneak around and hunt down enemies one by one, he can only be a nuisance.

After that, I confirmed that there were two more besides this one. The Screamers would come and go periodically, so I had to take a long detour to get to the engine room.

It took longer than expected because of them, but that doesn’t mean it was a waste of time.

‘Let’s assume that we have learned the ship structure in advance.’

We have checked the information necessary to attack this ship, such as the security level of the communication facilities and the location of the auxiliary terminal that can check the output of the propulsion engine.

After some detours and gathering information, we were finally able to reach the upper level of the engine room.

The reason why it’s the floor above and not the engine room is simple.

‘It’s dangerous to go straight to the engine room.’

As it is a warship, the level of security in the engine room is incomparably higher than that of the research ships that used to roam around during the old Hatchling era.

The most important facility on this ship is guarded by 10 heavily armed androids and 20 combat drones. They are on strict surveillance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to keep a close eye on any unauthorized intruders.

Not only that, but the hallway leading to the engine room is also covered with all kinds of sensors.

It’s true that the fur of the alien creature is not captured by the camera, but it’s probably not omnipotent. It would probably be caught by something like a motion sensor that detects vibrations.

So I don’t plan on attacking the engine room directly.

‘You just have to break other things that are needed to run the engine.’

For example, the cooling system in the engine room, the circuit that supplies energy from the atoms, etc.

I adjusted the direction of the cameras installed above the hallway and jumped down to the floor. I landed lightly, then crouched down and placed the auxiliary organ under my chin on the metal plate on the floor.

Intense heat and shallow but stronger vibrations than elsewhere are detected within the dark gray inner walls.

‘Is this it?’

The camera was just turned around, so this area is out of the picture. I dug the metal plate on the floor with my sharp nails. I scratched carefully, in case someone came because of the noise.

After a while, I saw a hole in the plate, and inside it was a tangle of wires and tubes. I stood over the hole and opened my mouth wide.

‘It would be difficult to recover what has melted, right?’

The acid fungal glands located between the back of my throat and my esophagus became activated. Soon, a cloud of highly acidic fungi poured out of my mouth.

–

“Imperial carrier 78% damaged. Incapable of action.”

“Phew.”

Keynes Q sighed as he watched the video feed coming in through the cable connecting to the ship.

In the center of the image he was watching was what was ‘the Imperial Carrier’.

The cult’s proud absolute weapon, the Imperial Carrier ‘Gormos 03’s Condemned’, is sinking after being hit by a Gremlin torpedo.

“It was intense. Really.”

As the melee dragged on, at some point the Imperial Carrier began to take cover. This was probably because they knew that they would be finished off with Gremlin torpedoes. The other Cult warships also tried to keep the Imperial Carrier out of the torpedoes’ striking range.

‘It was more annoying than I thought.’

The flagship also had a hard time firing the Gremlin torpedoes as the cult warships sacrificed themselves to block them.

“Cult warships retreating.”

“Tch, why didn’t you run away a long time ago? You fucking idiots.”

When the cults became more troublesome than expected, the Nemean fleet commander, Sanadaev, adopted a very Star Union-like strategy.

They had torpedoes land on friendly ships, coat them with nanomachines, and then charge at the imperial carrier.

This resulted in the loss of about 10 ships, but it saved the Imperial Carrier from being hit by the Gremlin torpedo’s nanomachines.

The result is what Keynes Q is seeing now.

“No need to pursue. All fleet members will return to the ESS-22 system.”

The short battle was over. Keynes Q doesn’t know how big the repercussions of the battle will be in the future.

‘It has nothing to do with me anyway.’

All decisions are made by the higher-ups on the Mechanical Committee. Fleet Commander-in-Chief Sanadaevna, I wonder if this battle will bother you.

“Give the repair drone the order to return, and prepare hyper-light engines.”

“check.”

The computer on board ship 98 relayed Keynes Q’s orders. In the meantime, he checked the information on the ‘special machines’ on board the ship.

‘Tch, why are you testing the new Screamer on my ship?’

Originally, all of the Screamers of Star Union were managed by Pira Eleven, an android belonging to the Machine Committee.

Normally, they would have been the ones to take charge of the Screamer experiments, but this time things were different. The idea came from above to test whether the Screamers could get along well with regular soldiers on the ship.

Currently, only a few completed prototypes are being tested to see if they can be deployed on regular ships, and Keynes Q’s ship was one of the ships carrying the Screamer.

‘I wonder why they put those criminal kids on the boat.’

No captain likes to have criminals roaming around the ship, no matter how well they are controlled. And he hates it even more when he has to constantly monitor and report on how well they are adjusting.

But Keynes Q could not complain.

Pira Eleven’s rank is Supreme Councilor. He is the commander-in-chief of the Nemean fleet, and the highest member of the Mechanical Council, the same rank as Nemean Five. He has no way of saying anything to an android who is far above the acting fleet commander, Sanadaev.

“Ugh, if you want to go, go for it. 98, is it still far? Why aren’t you leaving?”

“There’s a problem with the hypersonic engine.”

“What? What’s the problem?”

“Cooling function not working. Energy supply rate from the reactor has decreased to 40%. There is a 63% chance of error occurring when jumping at superluminal speeds in this state.”

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

Why was the superluminal engine, which had been working fine, suddenly causing chaos? Keynes Q was dumbfounded.

At that moment, a communication came from the flagship.

“Ship 98, what’s going on? Why aren’t you returning?”

“Oh, there’s a problem with the hypersonic engine. If we continue to jump like this, there’s a 63% chance of an error occurring, so it’s dangerous.”

“JP-99 The constellation may be attacked by enemies at any time. Move to a nearby constellation and repair it immediately, then return when the probability of an error drops to 10%.”

“All right!”

Keynes Q, who had ended the call, called number 98 again.

“Where is the nearest constellation from here?”

“This is the AD-100 constellation. With the current propulsion system, we will arrive within 3 days.”

“Okay. Let’s go there and fix it first… .”

As Keynes Q was about to give his order, the image floating in front of him suddenly cut off. Not only that, but the lights in the situation room where he was sitting all went out.

“What? Number 98? What’s going on here?”

The ship remains silent despite his cries.

A moment later, power returned to the ship’s situation room. Number 98 sent another message through the cable connected to him.

“Chick, an EMP has occurred for an unknown reason. Currently recovering.”

“What? An EMP all of a sudden? What caused it?”

“Unknown. Searching.”

“Connect with Starlink and investigate the cause.”

“Impossible. Communication function is currently disabled.”

“What the hell! What the hell is going on!”

Communication function disabled. That meant one thing.

Distress.

The place they were in was enemy territory where they had been fighting until just a moment ago. They had been left behind in such a dangerous place, with their hyper-light engine broken.

That wasn’t all.

“EMP source confirmed. Presumed to be inside the ship.”

“… Inside?”

After hearing the 98th report, Keynes felt a chill run down the back of his neck.

It’s a problem enough that they’re left behind, but there’s something unidentifiable going on with them.