Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
I should have thought about this sooner…
Pandora had already told me when we first met. She was a Xyrin General.
What was the essential element of a General? Obviously, it was not a General-belly. What’s more, this Lolita—who could just reach the dining table in her household—would never have something like that. Thus, the essential element of a General was soldiers.
Therefore, in actual fact, that immortal big sister named Gaia did not just send me one Xyrin Apostle, Pandora. Instead, she sent me an entire established army, including its General!
Even though these things were very easy to understand, Pandora’s appearance made me subconsciously neglect the fact that she was a General of an entire Empire. In addition, since she did not think that I would not have understood something as simple as this, she naturally did not bother explaining it to me.
It looked like I underestimated the amount of trouble that those unknown life forms would bring to me… an entire army! Providing for them aside, where was I going to find a place big enough to accommodate all of them?!
Chasing them to Shanxi Province and making them dig for coal did not sound like a bad idea, but I was worried that they would dig all the way from Shanxi to Paris. According to the way Pandora moved, I guessed that the Xyrin Army would be just as mental.
The old lady in front of the class was already speaking as quickly as a bullet train in her pure London accent. In my mind, I was chatting with Pandora at an equally fast speed.
“Pandora, can you prevent your army from coming? I feel like… it’s an exaggeration…”
“They cannot stop midway through the spatial transition.”
“Well, can we send them back the moment they arrive? Er… I have nothing against them; it’s just that I don’t have a place to accommodate them. We could also organize a three-day tour around the world once they come before we send them back to their own homes… so they wouldn’t have traveled over here for nothing.”
“There is no outpost on this planet. The home-star has not completed adjusting its facilities. Thus, the Empire’s Expeditionary Force is only in transit in a single direction now. If you’re sure that you want them to send them back as soon as possible, please build a Xyrin Outpost here first. Then, you can initiate battle whenever you want and turn this world into the Empire’s new frontier.”
… Why did I feel like we talked about this before?
In the world today—where peace and harmony were encouraged for development, I felt incredibly stressed to have an unknown being around me at all times, constantly thinking about building Outposts and starting wars.
“In other words, no matter what, your army is coming?”
“Yes.”
“Then… how many of them are there?” I began to calculate how much money I needed to provide for an entire army. At last, I came to the conclusion that I probably could not even afford to feed them a single meal, much less provide for them. In order to provide for them, I first needed the right to earn money.
Unexpectedly, Pandora kept quiet for a long time without responding to me. Cold beads of sweat began to form on my forehead as I thought: Have you not finished calculating? Given your processing speed, are you also unable to count clearly?
“Three hundred.”
This was an unexpected number. At that moment, I was at a loss as to how to react.
“How many?”
“Three hundred.”
“Three hundred thousand?”
“Three hundred; just three hundred people,” Pandora repeated without sounding in the least bit frustrated. She remained calm as before.
“Three hundred! You’re kidding, aren’t you? Your so-called Xyrin Empire’s Expeditionary only has three hundred people?”
I felt like an unlucky b*stard who had been given the death penalty a long time ago, but just as I was about to be executed, a panting and groaning eunuch ran in and held up a paper from the Emperor, saying, ‘Drop that sword and leave him alive!’
“‘Three hundred people’ refers to the number of people before we expand.”
“Expand?” I asked curiously. Ever since getting to know Pandora two days ago, I had not improved much in many areas of my life. However, hearing many weird terms had improved my vocabulary considerably.
“Large-scale armies consume a lot of energy when they transmit through space. Before battle, such wastage must be avoided. That’s why we adopted this way of superimposing our army. The foundational soldiers are all puppets without any sentience. While the army teleports through space, they will be stored in a space-crack created by the Commander.
“Since they cannot think independently, we do not have to worry that their battle skills would be affected by the development of any mental issues due to the long teleportation duration. Once they arrive at the destination, the Commander can use this method of spatial teleportation to quickly set up an outpost. Then, the soldiers hidden in the cracks can be allowed to go out. This is what we call expansion.”
“In other words, the three hundred people on the way over here are all Commanders and your real soldiers are hidden in space-cracks?”
“Yes.”
“That’s great! That’s absolutely great! Listen, Pandora. No matter what—before I give my orders, do not allow those three hundred people to expand their army. If there are only three hundred people, I have a way of arranging accommodations for them…”
…
Although there were only three hundred people—instead of the thousands or tens of thousands I originally imagined, I was still feeling the pressure.
It was already 11:30 at night. Seeing three hundred people appear in space would definitely give the human race a huge shock. I told Pandora to secretly adjust the army’s spatial transition duration and set their destination as a desolate and inaccessible place, far away from the city.
Pandora quietly stood there. Her original black hair turned into a translucent, icy-blue. Under the night sky, she looked as beautiful as an angel who had stumbled into the world. The only difference was that this angel was always considering how to slaughter the United Nations.
Faint energy waves spread outwards from her body. Through Pandora’s sharing of information, I could feel that the waves were effective through a radius of more than ten kilometers.
“I have already activated the information interference. In two hours, any targeted being with sentience would be constantly disturbed once they enter the warning region. Big Brother, are you feeling better?”
I was lying on the ground like a corpse.
“I’m sorry…”
“I’m fine…” I answered weakly. “However, don’t hold me to the standards of the Xyrin Apostles from now on… I will die… I really will die…”
In the past twenty minutes, I felt like I had been in hell.
Pandora had placed me on her shoulders and traveled at two hundred and ten kilometers per hour, diving through pathways and walking on walls. By the time we arrived at the destination, I felt like all of my internal organs had swapped positions. Yet, even in their new positions, they could smoothly complete their original job.
I quietly lay on the ground. A while later, I finally felt the pain all around my body dissipate slightly. However, I did not want to stand up at all. Instead, I looked up at the sky full of stars.
“So peaceful…” I muttered to myself.
Away from the capital and abandoning all the complex thoughts, I quietly lay on the ground in silence under the black-blue night sky. Suddenly, I felt a sense of peace that I had never felt before.
If not for Pandora, I might never have allowed myself to lie down in the middle of the ground in a desolate suburb at night. I might also never have experienced such peace.
The things that happened in the past few days had been beyond my imagination. My tense mind had never relaxed, even for a second. Yet, now, I suddenly felt much more relaxed.
“Big Brother, the external temperature is extremely low now. It might be harmed—your body,” Pandora’s robotic voice sounded. Even though it sounded as emotionless as ever, I heard a hint of concern in it. Perhaps I was just comforting myself. After all, this lady had just carried her Emperor, His Majesty, at two hundred and ten kilometers per hour, from a crowded city to a quiet suburb.
“I’m alright, but this is a rare chance for me to relax. Don’t just stand there. There’s still twenty minutes. Come and lie down with me.”
Pandora nodded and lay down beside me.
Although I knew she was not human—once I felt her lean in towards me, I throbbed a little.
Calm down, calm down. She isn’t human. What’s more, even if she was human, she was only a Lolita!
At that moment, a thought surfaced in my mind, illuminating my soul: if race is not a problem, why would age be?
I realized that my thoughts were spiraling in a direction that I had no control over…
“En? Pandora? What’s that smell?” Pandora’s body was emitting a fragrance that caught my attention.”
“This is the smell left behind by a certain compound when Big Sister bathed me. Personally, I don’t really understand the purpose of this smell. During battle, these additional signals will only expose me quicker.”
“Heh heh, Pandora, you don’t have to always talk about battling. There is not much fighting in this world. You can try to live in a more relaxed manner.”
The girl next to me suddenly stopped responding. Instead, she remained silent. I guessed that the difference between our worlds was too stark. She was finding it difficult to understand what I was saying.
“Pandora, I’ve always wanted to ask you: what is everyday life like for the Xyrin Apostles? Of course, I mean before you unexpectedly fell into a deep sleep.” I was slightly curious as to what the Xyrin Empire, which had now made countless connections to my life, was like. My own imagination of it was extremely foggy and cloudy.
Pandora remained quiet for a long time before she finally said five words: “For now… I don’t know.
“We have lost a significant amount of foundational data. We’ve lost almost all the records of life before we fell into a deep sleep. Perhaps we will be able to compare the relevant information once the other home-stars of the Xyrin Empire awaken. Otherwise, maybe as time goes by, the data will automatically be recovered.”
“I see…”
A while later, Pandora spoke again. She still sounded emotionless as she said, “Maybe we just kept fighting. That’s all I remember: fighting, constant fighting. We are beings who live for battle.”
“That may not be true,” I replied, suddenly recalling that—in my dream—I saw the gray world become colorful. I did not believe that such a lively world like that was built by a race that only knew how to fight.
Later on, both of us fell silent. That was up until I received an orderly wave in my mind.
The freeloading army from the faraway Xyrin home-star was finally here.
“Pandora, get ready.”