How can a retired savior be considered retired if his price drops to 40,000?

Chapter 46 Prepare to open a blind box
Many times, exploring space hulks isn't a wise move.

By the same token, exploring space hulks during subspace navigation is not a wise move.

But there are also many times when you know that what you are about to do is not a wise move, but you still have to bite the bullet and rush forward - such as when facing such a ship that clearly belongs to the loyalists of the empire.

During the subspace voyage, many devices that could operate in the physical universe experienced abnormalities, and it became almost impossible for two ships to transmit data to each other in the form of radio waves at close range.But after the Lion's Mane sent an astrological communication to the other party without hope, a correctly coded and clear astrological response came from the Iron Hands' ship.This proves something.

No matter what circumstances you see a stranded ship, you should pull it as much as possible when you are able. This navigation tradition passed down from ancient times also holds true in the remote and strange subspace.Even Lan Malok, who was opposed at the beginning, had no words to refute when faced with such irrefutable evidence, and could only start preparing for the rescue angrily.

However, having the ability to respond with astral language does not mean that the situation on the other party's ship is safe.Although the message itself transmitted by astrology will not wear out at such a distance, it is limited by the form of this psychic communication method itself, and it cannot truly transmit too detailed and accurate information.

The information analyzed by the Lion's Mane's astrological choir indicated that the reason why the opponent's ship was trapped in the Sea of ​​Souls was that it was invaded by subspace creatures after Geller's position was damaged, and the ship's power system was damaged during the battle. , the performance was greatly reduced, and the subspace engine could not be started to tear the curtain and escape.The reason for this accident is not unreasonable, but it seems strange in the current situation:

What kind of accident would have to happen on a ship of the Iron Hands before it would shut down due to mechanical failure, leaving the crew aboard helpless?
What's more, their Geller position has obviously expired.The concept of time in subspace is very confusing, and even they themselves may not be able to tell how long they have been drifting in this state without protection.

There may be some fellow Astartes in distress on board, or it may be a trap set by some unknown enemy.It's impossible to figure out what's going on without actually getting on board and exploring.

"——To sum up, this is the situation so far. I'm going to leave it to you, Enkidu!"

Fujimaru Ritsuka in the summoning room clasped his hands and said this to the young man with long green hair in front of his face, whose gender was indistinguishable.

When you're fighting in the warp, what better fighter than a subspace entity?

The initial proof of the concept of "human principles" has led to some other things. The existence form of "heroic spirits" generated from the history, legends and fictional stories of human civilization has also been recognized.The structure of the base plate makes it easier for Fujimaru Ritsuka's summoning method to operate - although the heroic spirits she can summon are still copies of the "realm record tape" from her original world, they are different from the existence and present of the local heroic spirits here. There are some differences in the implementation methods of the world.

As for the so-called "native heroes", the more widely known name is the "Bound Legion". They were originally subspace-like entities formed by the souls of the dead under the influence of the emperor's spiritual energy. Like the Chaos Demons, they have limitations when they manifest. There are many, and their performance is not very stable.Different from the familiar form of "heroic spirits dropping copies of themselves from their seats" that Ritsuka Fujimaru is familiar with in his own world, when the Emperor's cursed legions appear in the material universe, each one is equivalent to the lower realm of the body.

Obviously, the disadvantages of this mechanism are risk and efficiency, but the continuity of the memory of the parties is also an advantage.Just like now: Fujimaru Ritsuka has actually borrowed Enkidu's spirit base many times in the past six months, but those usage data obviously have not really reached the table.When facing this client who was summoned, she still had to quickly explain the key points of a series of things that happened after she came to this world.

Even if she can start from "after coming to this world", that is, after having to separate from most of the heroic spirits, it has proven that the fate between her and the heroic spirits is strong: the more common situation is that even after two During the summoning, the projection of the recording tape of the same realm is summoned. The summoned heroic spirit itself will not retain any records of what happened after it appeared in the world, but only has the memory of "lifetime".

"Well, I roughly understand the situation." Enkidu - "Lock of Heaven", a conscious divine weapon, King Gilgamesh's best friend, showed a warm smile, "This is a situation where I can help That’s great, Master.”

The Grand Master, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who is very aware of the messy nature of these heroic spirits, keenly felt some sense of violation because of these words:

"...Although this question is meaningless, you couldn't have appeared in the summoning ceremony because you stole someone else's right to appear in the world, right?"

"No, it's just that as a king, Gil has the reserve of a king."

Enkidu returned the gesture with a warm smile as usual.

Fujimaru Ritsuka probably understood, and then she decided to change the topic.

"Although Chaldea's summoning system will also give you some 'modern' common sense knowledge while carrying out the summons, there should be no problems with language and basic common sense, but the world itself... well... Seeing is worth hearing a hundred times." She carefully chose a rather euphemistic term, "The impact of 'simply knowing' and 'actually seeing' many things are not of the same magnitude. I hope you can be as calm as possible when the time comes. We should deal with it appropriately. Most of these things have very complicated reasons, and they are not problems that can be easily solved by making a big fuss."

"...That doesn't sound good. You are facing some complicated situations again."

"Haha, hahahaha." Fujimaru Ritsuka laughed dryly, "Enkidu, you are joking. There is no easy part in the work of saving people."

"That's true, but it's really easy for you to get involved in all kinds of situations."

In fact, Fujimaru Ritsuka, who jumped into "various situations" by herself, looked away guiltily.

This time it was Enkidu's turn to chuckle.

"It doesn't matter, everyone has long been used to you messing around anyway." When Divine Weapon mentioned this topic, he even showed a look of nostalgia and emotion, "After all, you have no pursuit of the 'root' itself, but you The thought of solving the problem by 'getting to the root cause' shocked everyone. When the plan was actually launched, everyone thought that no matter whether it succeeded or failed, they would never see each other again. Unexpectedly, you He was able to fall through the source vortex into an unrelated world."

"Actually, I originally thought that I would stop in the root and never appear again... By the way, the structure similar to the 'Vortex of Roots' in this world is called the 'Well of Eternity'. When I emerged from that place, It feels really bad."

"After all, it is a journey to the root. You are the only one in the history who can live to tell about your feelings. No matter how you feel, it is undoubtedly worth remembering - so how about it? Have you gained any knowledge from the process of contacting the root?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka thought about it distressedly and ruffled her hair in pain: "No, I can't remember anything. I don't even have the impression of meeting Miss Eryi and Sieg, let alone how I ended up here. It came from the side. It feels like the whole process has been deleted from my mind with one click." Enkidu nodded indifferently: "Probably the self-protection mechanism of the human brain is operating. Because of your knowledge of taboos. Instead of pursuing it, you are very persistent in your human identity, so your brain instinctively deletes memories that are 'unnecessary for humans' through subconscious judgment. This is why you can remain the same after the impact of that level of information,' Fujimaru "Ritsuka' can still exist as 'Fujimaru Ritsuka' (basket), which is good."

"I don't think that's entirely the reason——"

Before Fujimaru Ritsuka finished speaking, a loud bang on the door of the summoning room abruptly cut off her unspoken sentence.She glanced back instinctively, and then wanted to speak to smooth things over, but at this moment, Enkidu had already walked forward enthusiastically, transforming into a sharp temperament that was like a "fighting posture", summoning The door to the room opened under his control——

In the next moment, Enkidu raised his hand, and with his seemingly unprotected body, he firmly caught the fist that was viciously smashed down from the door and was wrapped in dark blue power armor with lightning patterns, and then lifted the weight as lightly as possible. With a sudden push, the Terminator Armored Night Lord standing solidly at the door slammed hard into the wall opposite the corridor.

"Hello, according to the records, you should be the kind of transformed human warrior named 'Astartes', right?" The god-made weapon looks human in appearance, but its self-perception is far from human. He asked a question to which he already knew the answer, and then made an understatement:

"From the tentative exchange just now, in terms of performance as a weapon, I am the stronger one."

Across the corridor, the former Black Armored Terminator who was rushed to call for help struggled angrily in the pit in the wall.
-
Not to mention how Fujimaru Ritsuka asked the two people to suspend their fighting and start working together.During this period, the Storm Boundary has arrived near the subspace hulk as a temporary landing craft for the Lion's Mane, and can carry out gang-hopping exploration missions.The participants of this mission, in addition to Fujimaru Ritsuka and Enkidu, who are naturally going to go, also include Konrad Curze and a temporary formation of ten Night Lords excluding Sevatar.

——As a psyker whose knowledge and control of psychic powers is still insufficient, Yago Savitarion was tragically excluded from the list in this gang-hopping battle inside the subspace, along with most of the Together with Jeanne Alter, who was partly composed of extreme emotions and therefore highly susceptible to the effects of the Warp, she had to stay on the ship with the Emperor's statuette for company.

The ten people who were allowed to act as the original bodyguards in this mission were the ten people with the highest scores who were selected based on their overall performance in the previous simulation training.It's a pity but it's reasonable. They are all veterans from the Great Crusade. Even Sevatar's old Black Guards accounted for eight places.These people were therefore allowed to receive their original power armor - which had been basically repaired by various means on the Storm Frontier and all "inappropriate" decorations had been removed.But if their mission is to "protect the original body"...

Looking at Conrad Coates now, Ritsuka Fujimaru decided not to comment.Just smile at this time. There is no need to make it too clear that "everyone is actually a tool to expand the scope of exploration", right?
After holding down the divine weapons that were once again eager to "test their performance" with the artificial gods like the original body, the gang-hopping battle began in an almost barbaric form: after Somni's detection and detailed calculations, The Holy Sword weapon on the bow of the Storm Border was activated with low power, aiming at the ship with the Iron Hands Chapter logo on its surface, and appropriately cutting a hole in it. Subsequently, the participation in this mission The team will be dropped to the target location through here.

The process was far from comfortable, but no one complained.This level of harsh environment is commonplace for the original body, the Astartes as a war machine, and Fujimaru Ritsuka who has to walk on a difficult road, so there is nothing worth mentioning. .

——Similarly, the next process of advancing to the center of the ship is commonplace and not worth mentioning in the eyes of everyone in the exploration team.

Not that nothing happened during this journey.They did confirm that the ship was corrupted by Chaos in the process, and got rid of some messy warp creatures.If an ordinary Astartes team were to conduct this kind of exploration, they might be damaged by these mental chaotic effects and attacks that violate physical laws, but for a team that includes the original body and divine weapons, and also has A team that can use the Emperor's spiritual power to deal with the mental pollution caused by Chaos at any time... It can only be said that this time the Chaos Demon kicked the iron plate.

"That's it so far, but it won't necessarily be true the closer you get to the interior." Fujimaru Ritsuka deduced, "There was an accident on the ship that made it impossible for the Iron Hands to repair the power system. I don't think the situation inside It’ll be as easy as outside.”

"Although I really want to question it, now is not the time to spend a lot of time questioning your criteria for quantifying whether a situation is critical or not." Conrad Coates said this with a bit of boredom for no reason. "According to the original plan, you Take five people to check the navigator and astropath on this ship. I will take five people to check the situation in the core power room. As for this one——"

He looked down at Enkidu impolitely, and the latter smiled at him tepidly: "Search for hostile individuals and eliminate them, right? I can do it alone."

Seeing that the atmosphere between the two became tense again, Fujimaru Ritsuka interjected in a neutral tone:

"Enkidu and I have no problem, but what about you? Don't you want to see the soldiers of the Iron Hands being treated as enemies later, and being suppressed by heavy firepower after the war begins?"

"--To shut up!"

"In short, don't be so aggressive when you first come up. You also know that Mr. Ferrus is easily angry, and his descendants must be the same. Try to start the conversation when both parties are calm-"

Conrad Coze no longer paid attention to Fujimaru Ritsuka's nonsense, turned around angrily, and gave a firm order to the five-person Midnight Lord team that had been separated at the beginning: "Let's go!"

In a strange atmosphere, the ten-man Terminator formation was divided into two.The five people who followed the original body on the expedition left unnaturally, turning back three times a step. The five people who were left behind were also enveloped in a strange atmosphere and remained silent.

Enkidu didn't care about the wonderful atmosphere created among the legion's children, and smiled at Fujimaru Ritsuka indifferently: "Thank you for daring to provoke him like that."

"It's not a provocation, it's just to divert his attention. After all, if you two really fight here, it will be in trouble - we are here to rescue, not to enmity. I am weak enough. And it's important enough that he won't actually do anything to me."

Fujimaru Ritsuka really felt so, so she said so.However, Enkidu looked at her with an incomprehensible look, as if she had just said something strange like "Don't one plus one equal three?"

"how?"

"It's nothing." The green-haired man smiled inexplicably again, "You were always like this, and it's good that you can still be like this now - then I will act alone in the direction of the strong smell of something wrong, so be careful. .”

After saying that, he transformed into a spirit and disappeared, leaving Fujimaru Ritsuka and the five Terminator Night Lords there.

Then, the atmosphere inexplicably became weirder.

(End of this chapter)