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

The hatch of the boat opened in front of them, and the endless plains of Jestal were revealed again. The stars were sparse at night, but Sevatar's eyes could easily penetrate the darkness and see the cargo terminal standing two kilometers away.

Until now, he still couldn't figure out how the ship appeared so close without any sound. He could only deduce from the thickness and structure of the hull that he caught a glimpse of when the hatch was opened, and the fact that the hatch had no airtight chamber or void lock, that it was most likely used only for combat within the planet's surface atmosphere.

As the captain, and also the one who was more relaxed and free in his mentality, Fujimaru Ritsuka was the first to jump out of the hatch and happily bounced down the gangway. Sevatar wanted to follow him, but he couldn't help but become suspicious when he raised his foot. He looked around and made sure that a midnight ghost would not suddenly emerge from the dark shadows to drag him back. Then he stepped on the steps that were obviously designed only for mortals and were too narrow for him, and slowly went down to the ground.

Ritsuka Fujimaru stood there with his arms folded, waiting for him.

"I feel like there's something a little weird about you." She said, "I can understand that you must have a lot of questions in your mind right now, but your weirdness makes me feel like there's something weird about you, too... Why don't you just ask me what you want to ask, although I can only answer questions that are 'answerable'."

If other Sevita could think more calmly, he would have doubted whether this was a sign of silence.But at this moment, he was so curious that his desire to live had even temporarily stopped.

So he opened his mouth and asked the question he wanted to know most so far: "Why can you talk to Coze in that way naturally?"

This is a euphemism, what Sevata actually wanted to ask is "what is your relationship with Curze?" But this wording is somewhat interrogative, and now that the situation is unclear, Sevata thinks it is best for him to observe some social etiquette.

However, judging from the frown on Fujimaru Ritsuka's face, she obviously understood the meaning behind this sentence. The girl stretched out her voice a little reluctantly: "Well - have you asked Conrad this question? You must have asked, right?"

Sevatar pursed his lips slightly but did not answer.

He did ask about ten minutes ago. And after a brief thought, Conrad Coates gave an intriguing answer:

"My father gave her many titles, but I know that's not what you want to hear." The Primarch of the Eighth Legion said in an exaggerated tone that was close to an aria. "In my opinion, she is my warden. And I am both her jailer and her prisoner."

"I don't know how Conrad answered you." Fujimaru Ritsuka said in a serious tone, "But I assure you, Savita Leon, things are definitely not what he said!"

"…but can you deny that with such certainty without even knowing what he said?"

"Anyway, he himself has never experienced any normal interpersonal relationships, so he certainly can't talk about any normal interpersonal relationships. I don't expect him to say anything good." Fujimaru Ritsuka said angrily, and began to walk towards the cargo terminal. "In my opinion, we are just ordinary colleagues who 'didn't know each other originally, but had to start working together in the same combat team because of the orders of the superiors'. There is not even a clear superior-subordinate relationship - but I guarantee that he definitely thinks there is."

Sevatar sighed and followed up, "He does think so. He said you were his 'Warden'."

"That's a little better than I thought." Ritsuka snorted, "But I'm still angry."

Two kilometers is not far. When Sevatar was captured by Koze, the latter only took two or three minutes to fly this distance. But now it was Fujimaru Ritsuka who took the lead, using his short legs to measure the distance at a walking pace. This short distance would probably take about half an hour. Fortunately, it was still late at night, and no one on the deserted plain saw the two of them, who looked suspicious in the environment.

The silence lasted for about fifty meters. When Sevatar patiently took his sixty-third small step, he finally couldn't help but speak: "...So, what is going on?"

This was a very general question, but Fujimaru Ritsuka did not ask what specific part Sevatar wanted to know, but directly gave a partial answer: "Well... Anyway, the Emperor assigned the two of us to complete a secret mission, and we needed some soldiers for this, so we started trying to clean up the Night Lords and see if we could get some useful people together. In the process, we heard that the number of disappearances in the first city where the skyport on the world of Jestal is located increases every thirty standard Terran years, and we suspected that there were Night Lord warbands coming here to plunder periodically, so we came to see if we could find any clues - and we found you."

"...That's really a coincidence." Sevatar's tone was filled with self-mockery.

"Perhaps there is something interfering in the dark." Fujimaru Ritsuka said in a relaxed tone, obviously not taking what he was saying seriously. "After all, my luck has always been good, so it's normal to find a celebrity from the Great Crusade inexplicably."

"What's the name, notoriety?" Sevatar smiled bitterly, "The Midnight Lords don't care about honor. In these years, I even wanted to throw away my past."

“…This isn’t something you can just throw away.”

"Who says it's not the case? Didn't my 'past' come to my door in the middle of the night?" Sevita shrugged in a pretentious manner, "But at first I thought it wouldn't be this 'past' that came to me. "

After he finished speaking, he pursed his lips and tightened the muscles on his face, trying not to let the little girl walking in front of him on the right notice the slightest change in his emotions.

Before he made up his mind to stay on this planet, Conrad Curz told him a little prophecy:

"If you could see what I saw, what would you choose?" When saying these words, Curze's mental state seemed precarious, but it was still a long way from making Sevatar feel that the problem was serious. "I saw you go back, and I saw you die. I saw the Dark Angels' battle barges appear over this planet, and I saw the world of Jestal burned in raging fire. I saw that no one on this planet was spared, but the destruction was still late, and the real disaster would still flow out of this wound and flow to the entire galaxy... But there are already many such small wounds in the galaxy."

These detailed but fractured descriptions unnerved Sevatar.He was certainly aware of his genetic father's prophecy gift - or curse - that the future Curze foresaw would always come to pass.What's more, his own premonition also partially overlapped with it, which further proved the accuracy of the prediction.

Although he had decided to stay here and fight a life-or-death battle with his cousins ​​from the First Legion about an hour ago, the more scenes revealed by Curze still made him anxious. The slight change in mentality was not enough to shake the decision of an Astartes, but it still made Sevatar care: what exactly did Curze mean by "the real trouble"?

Thinking about these things did not affect his conversation with Fujimaru Ritsuka. In order to liven up the tense atmosphere caused by the brief silence, Sevatar asked casually, "So, you insisted on getting off the ship to investigate the 'Chaos War Gang' that creates disappearances every thirty years? I think this is not very wise. It is always more likely that they are not on the planet at this point in time."

"It's not the Chaos Warband," Fujimaru Ritsuka replied. "Somni has reviewed all the records uploaded to the server by the planetary government within two hours. He believes there is clear evidence that the disappearances that occur every thirty years are the result of the local governor's embezzlement."

"...Can the Imperial Guards do this?" Sevatar raised his eyebrows. "Okay, I'm beginning to be curious. The governor here has always had a good reputation. How did he make this judgment?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka was silent for a while, and when he spoke again, his tone was a little gloomy: "...because the local governor, Jessamine Deville, is a good person."

Sevatar thought it was a bit absurd, but the one who made the judgment was the Imperial Guard. Although he had no good feelings towards these golden and cold guys who symbolized the imperial power, he had to admit that their work ability in all aspects was outstanding.

He decided to listen to the reason: "...How do you say it?"

"In the more than 100 years since Jasmine Deville became the governor, the local government's archives have been very detailed. Somni easily found the records of each related case - although they were very simple, with only the names of the missing persons and basic information - most of them were elderly and weak civilians, the amount of accident compensation and the date of payment. It can be seen that the local government is very diligent in this matter, and the efficiency of civil servants in handling this work is so fast that I doubt my own eyes."

Sevatar didn't hear anything wrong. Even if he had never lived on this planet, this description alone could confirm that Governor Deville was a good person.

Since the one on the throne, the rulers of the empire have mostly treated their people as consumables. Almost no one really cares about the living conditions of the common people.

But Governor Deville was different. Although she didn't have enough power to prevent such disappearances, at least she remembered - wait?

According to the definition of Imperial Law, the scope of compensation for accident compensation is generally limited to losses caused by production accidents. Are the compensation clauses on agricultural planets, or on Jestal, applicable to such man-made accidents?

"So I said, the problem is that the local governor, Jasmine Deville, is a good person." Fujimaru Ritsuka's gloomy tone sounded in Sevata's ears, "She still feels guilty when she uses the lives of her people for some purpose, and to make up for this, she even amended the local law and added strict supplementary clauses to the accident compensation, which seemed to be tailor-made for this kind of disappearance case - just ninety years before similar disappearances first began to occur."

Fujimaru Ritsuka took a deep breath:

"Conrad saw some bad omens. So I thought, I have to find out what's going on on this planet."

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 14 Daily Chat is not Water, but Moon Tradition

For Alita, every day should be new.

This may sound like nonsense, but consider that she lives on an underdeveloped agricultural planet like Jestal.

Her significance here is to become a gear that maintains the empire's huge production equipment, which requires her to face the same repetitive labor day after day, watching the round wheat cycle from sowing to maturity, and then harvesting these similar agricultural products and storing them, allowing the land to complete a cycle.

In such days, not everyone has the energy to live every day as a "new day". Most people just repeat a certain period of their past life in a continuous cycle of work.

For Alita, the repetitive cycle always made her feel guilty for wasting her time. Therefore, she would try her best to find something new in the boring and heavy work. When she was young, there were clouds of various shapes in the sky, weeds with different shapes from round wheat on the roadside ridges, and rainbows projected illusorily near the atomizer nozzles; when she grew up a little, the freshness came from the complex internal mechanism of the empire's huge production machine - of course, she just followed others and peeked whenever she had the chance, and could not really understand the mystery, but it was enough to dazzle a young girl who lacked education.

She had imagined some absurd things, such as being chosen by the sage of the Mechanicus one day and being qualified to learn those profound knowledge. She also knew that this was almost impossible, but who could condemn a little girl's fantasy about the future?

But Jestal was too remote and too barren, and even the Mechanicus were too lazy to maintain the production tools here. At least in the seven years when Alita still had those absurd fantasies, she saw the Mechanicus come to heal the stopped machine souls only three times. No miracles happened in these three glimpses.

Then, Jacob appeared. This mysterious stranger was not only "new" to the whole of Jestal, but also had almost omniscient knowledge for a little girl in the agricultural world. So naturally, he was stuck by Alita, who was always eager for new things.

In the past ten years, Alita has been accustomed to getting the freshness she needs from knowledge: she has learned to read and write Low Gothic, learned basic mathematical operations, understood some basic physical and astronomical phenomena, and can even use this to calculate the calendar and calculate the approximate arrangement of the next farming season before the planetary government issues the latest version of the agricultural time guide. In the fourth agricultural production planning area, she is undoubtedly one of the best scholars, but she still feels that it is not enough - interest is the best teacher, and she still pesters Jacob every day, trying to learn something new from him.

Jacob often expressed his annoyance, but fortunately, during the harvest festival, this group of people came to the freight station on the edge of the first city from the fourth district, which they had almost never left. Alita was very happy to see everything new during these few days, and she also gave her teacher a holiday. She herself did not realize this, but old Hank laughed at her: You finally let Jacob have a few days of peace.

Alita was indeed a little angry when she heard this, but she immediately threw old Hank's comments behind her: there were too many new things, especially after entering the first city, she was overwhelmed by everything she had never seen before. She had to be busy matching what she saw with the stories she had heard from the radio communication before, and had no time to pay attention to the old man who only knew how to use all kinds of strange things to tinker with "Amasek Premium Brewing" - she really couldn't understand what was so good about that kind of thing that could almost burn through the stomach.

The grain had already been packed and stored, and handed over to the tax collectors to check and load. Their work at the cargo station had actually ended, but thanks to Governor Deville's generosity, they could still stay here during the celebration instead of going to work in the next farming season.

This made Alita overjoyed. She would wake up early every morning to take the earliest bus to go around the city and come back when it was getting dark. Therefore, when Old Hank slowly moved himself to the outdoor square at noon to bask in the sun, he found Alita nearby, which was enough to surprise him.

But in an instant, Old Hank understood why this happened: Alita was talking to a girl who was obviously from "outside".

-

"I thought you two met for the first time this morning." Jacob, or Sevatar, crossed his arms and looked down at Alita with dissatisfaction. "It's noon now, and you said you wanted to go to the city with her and stay out all night. Aren't you afraid that she will sell you out?"

Alita put her hands on her hips and angrily defended her new friend: "How could it be! We have been talking for the whole morning. I am sure that Ritsuka is a good person! A good person like you!"

"Then I think you should reconsider your definition of 'good person'." Sevatar said self-deprecatingly.

The person he was talking to obviously didn't understand the true meaning.

"You just think anyone could be a threat!" The girl with short straw-colored hair and a few freckles on her face grabbed Fujimaru Ritsuka aggressively and lifted her up before she could react to what was about to happen. "But look at Ritsuka, she's so small and light. Even if she wants to do something bad, how can she beat us?"

——If she were to calculate using the metric system of the second millennium of humanity, which Fujimaru Ritsuka was more accustomed to, she didn't think she was actually short. She was 159 cm tall, which was close to the average height of teenage girls in the country where she was born. However, this was already the 41st millennium of humanity, and it was natural for human genes to change a little over such a long period of time:

So even though Alita grew up on an underdeveloped agricultural planet with very scarce food rations, even though she did not get adequate nutrition since childhood and had to do heavy labor, even though her living conditions were definitely not as good as those of Fujimaru Ritsuka, who came from a middle-class family and had been "reasonably" trained by many Heroic Spirits, she still grew to a height of nearly 180 cm at the age of seventeen, and easily lifted Ritsuka, who weighed more than 50 kilograms including his equipment, over her head.

Never underestimate the load-bearing power of girls who often do farm work, even if the mainstream farming method of this era is large-scale mechanized operation.

"…Um, Alita." Fujimaru Ritsuka said dryly in mid-air, "Although I am very grateful that you spoke up for me, I will really be angry if you continue like this. And, Jacob, right? Don't you think I can't see that you are trying not to laugh?"

So Sevatar no longer forced himself to hold back his laughter - he just laughed out loud when Alita asked in confusion, "Why are you angry? You are just a tiny one?"

An Imperial envoy who could confidently believe that he was a colleague of a Primarch and was guarded by the Imperial Guards when carrying out missions was suddenly lifted into the air by an ordinary peasant girl on a remote planet without any defense. For Sevatar, this might be the funniest thing he had seen in the past hundred years. Even if he would be executed for some messed-up crime later, he must have a good laugh now.

The good news was that Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't seem to think that they were lawless (in the Empire, "law" often refers to "the face of the superior") and could be sentenced; the bad news was that she began to rage helplessly in mid-air. The violent struggle made Alita no longer able to hold her steadily, so she was put back on the ground by her new friend who she had just met this morning, and then she was held in his arms again:

"You are small." Alita rested her chin on the top of Fujimaru Ritsuka's head and said contentedly, "Small and cute."

"I wouldn't be happy even if you praised me for being cute." Ritsuka protested angrily, but she couldn't say any more condemning words because of it.

Sevatar was still laughing. Maybe because he didn't laugh often, he rarely used this function, which made his laugh sound like a broken bellows leaking air. Normally, Ritsuka would have mocked him for this, but now, she just curiously rolled up Alita's sleeve, which had been messily raised because of her previous action, exposing her left forearm to the air: "What's wrong with you?"

"Hmm? Ah, this." Alita glanced at her arm, then nonchalantly loosened her arms around Ritsuka and pushed her sleeves up from the bottom to reveal a patch of gray and blue skin with an abnormal texture, like a large piece of irregular shiny scales. "This is 'blue-gray disease', a chronic local disease caused by long-term exposure to Jestal's specially formulated pesticides. It's very normal here."

Fujimaru Ritsuka stared at the diseased skin with a thoughtful expression: "…Is that so? Didn't the doctors here think of a solution?"

"Well...about ten years ago when this disease started to spread, Governor Deville issued a reward to find a doctor who could cure it." Alita tried hard to recall. After all, she was only a seven-year-old girl ten years ago, and some details were really hard to remember. "And then...and then..."

"Then the local barefoot doctors were helpless. 'Blue-gray disease' itself only caused some changes in the surface characteristics of the skin. It had no visible impact on the body's functions and lifespan, so the matter was left unresolved." Sevatar, who had finally laughed enough, added, "Jestal is not a planet with abundant resources. Thanks to Governor Todwell, the upper-level bureaucrats here generally don't care much about anything other than improving the production efficiency of the entire world. There are no nobles who spend a lot of money just to look good, so 'blue-gray disease' is still an 'incurable disease'."

"…Is this really okay? This is a chronic disease, right? It's possible that ten years is nothing for a chronic disease. Aren't there also chronic diseases that quietly develop to the late stage and then suddenly become fatal?"

Alita was stunned for a moment. The girl with limited knowledge and obvious bias had obviously never thought about such a possibility before. However, Sevatar answered Fujimaru Ritsuka's question easily: "This disease seems to have always existed, but it has only become popular in the past ten years. I am not very clear about the pathological cause and pathogenic mechanism of 'blue-gray disease', but-"

He paused for a moment and decided to save his reputation for the fact that the management of this planet had done something practical. "--But everyone knows that Raj Hastings, the Chief Agricultural Technology Officer of Jestal, is also a severe patient of Blue-Gray Disease. His history of the disease may be... 20 to 30 years? I'm not sure. Anyway, you can see him in the live broadcast of his speeches at the end of each year, and the symptoms of 'Blue-Gray Disease' are very obvious. If this disease is really dangerous, whether out of cherishing life or out of duty, an elite upper-class person like him would not be indifferent to it for such a long time."

"..."

Fujimaru Ritsuka didn't refute further, but seemed to still have doubts. Alita pulled her carefreely: "It's okay, don't worry about it. As for long-term patients, old Hank has had this disease for a long time. He said it's been more than 40 years, but he's still full of energy now."

As she spoke, she pointed to an old man who looked to be in his seventies or eighties, who was basking in the sun at the edge of the square without paying attention to anyone else. Considering that most civilians in the agricultural world did not have the conditions to receive life extension technology, this old man might actually be only in his forties or fifties. The cargo station on the outskirts of the First City was sunny today, and the temperature was mild. The old man, whose skin was almost all exposed and had turned into a shiny blue-gray color, was leaning comfortably on a pile of straw, drowsy.

"Hmm..." Fujimaru Ritsuka showed a somewhat subtle expression, "I think this level of...lesions...need to see a doctor, right?"

"I'm sorry, young lady. Civilians in such a remote place don't have the conditions to afford it." Sevatar's tone was already a little sarcastic. "Besides, even in the most stringent definition of the Empire, this is not a serious matter. Old Hank's skin has only turned blue-gray about 83% of its surface. It can't even be called a mutation."

"...But, look at his right hand..."

"Right hand?" Alita tilted her head and glanced in the direction of old Hank. Suddenly, as if remembering something, she said, "Ah, you said he only has four fingers on his right hand, right? That's because when he was young, his little finger and a small part of his palm were rolled into a machine and cut off. Later, the cut healed and was covered by the skin of 'blue-gray disease', so the scar could not be seen. That's why it seems as if he only had four fingers on that hand from the beginning."

Fujimaru Ritsuka seemed very hesitant: "...So in your opinion, there is no problem with that hand except that it has only four fingers and the problem of proportions, right?"

She asked this following Alita's words, but her eyes turned to Sevatar, which made the latter look at Old Hank's right hand again inexplicably, and then he could use Astarte's eyesight to guarantee that it was indeed the case.

After hearing the two people's unanimous "No problem?", Fujimaru Ritsuka nodded slowly: "...I understand."

She looked at Old Hank's right hand again and asked, "Let me confirm again, this 'blue-gray disease' is a chronic disease caused by long-term contact with local pesticides, right?"

In Fujimaru Ritsuka's eyes, old Hank's right hand had become a structure similar to a bird's claw - and a bird's claw only has four "fingers", which is also a very normal thing.

Notes:

1.其实30K到40K理论上来讲帝国语言至少在语音上是有讹变的，也有摄政短篇小说提到摄政醒来之后其实听不懂自己鹅子在说什么只能猜个大概，但大家也不是来看30K赛维塔掉出亚空间和40K的7岁小女孩鸡同鸭讲的，所以语言问题被我吃了（而且将会持续吃下去）。

2. I copied Tohsaka Rin’s figure data for Gudazi, while Devil Muscle Rin (you can’t say she doesn’t have muscles without exercising, right) was only 17kg (eyes closed) when she was 47 years old.All problems are caused by mushrooms.Liren, you really have no idea about height and weight (close your eyes).

3. I want to write about shopping and I want to push the plot, the two are fighting, and in the end the plot wins (closed eyes). I really need a swimsuit episode (??????) where I don’t have to think about any plot clues and just use some bickering, quarreling, bullying bats (?), playing with corn (??), and persecuting cans (???), but my bats need to be cured of their mental illness first, the corn needs to be peeled first, and the cans need to appear first... (closed eyes)

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 15 Why does everything come to interfere?

"Are you sure you want to let her enter the city alone like this?" Conrad Curz asked in the somewhat resentful tone he often used recently. "I thought your duty was to protect her life."

The golden figure who was mocked or questioned by him showed no sign of wavering. Somni's face, which was always hidden under the golden helmet, was blocked by the layers of holographic light screens projected into the air. He was motionless, like a statue that had merged into the background, indifferent to the provocation of the Primarch of the Night Lords.

Even all the sounds he made were processed by the helmet and had a flat tone with a mechanical texture. Some people with rich imagination might speculate that there might be an abomination intelligence sealed inside the golden armor.

"We have not detected any situation where the captain needs military support." Somni said emotionlessly as usual. "The relevant records in the star zone planning and planetary government show that as an agricultural world with weak general security, there is no armed force on Jestal that is worthy of vigilance. After cross-comparing the data sent back by the Auger array and the Sheba lens, the conclusion we reached can also prove this point."

"But we all know that 'something is wrong' on this planet, even if we don't know exactly what the problem is." Curz crossed his arms, "Even if you don't believe my predictions, the instruments on the Storm Edge that we don't understand the principles of have also issued alarms about this."

"After observing with the Sheba lens, the 'Humanity Foundation Value' here is rated C. The subspace energy level indicator is stable in the yellow zone, and Trismegistus has no abnormal alarm. Considering the subspace environment around the star field, the above values ​​are defined as within the 'normal' range. Assuming that this ship has not received a clear request for support, I will continue to perform my duty of intelligence collection while on standby."

"..." Somni's mechanical attitude finally made Coze stop pestering, and he was finally willing to speak frankly what he was going to say: "The communication device on Fujimaru Ritsuka's exoskeleton armor has been connected to the Storm Edge in an open mode. You also heard that she found some clues after contacting the locals."

He waited for a while, but Somni didn't react to his words at all. Coze couldn't even tell whether he was waiting for his next words or simply ignored the hint that was clearly placed under his nose. Ten seconds later, he finally couldn't help but continue to add: "So, you don't plan to check the source of the pesticides on this planet?"

Somni finally showed some reaction, but unfortunately, it was only a tiny bit.

"No clear request for support has been received." He repeated his previous words like a machine that could only output preset voice. "Under this premise, I will continue to perform my duties of intelligence gathering while on standby."

Conrad Curz narrowed his eyes dangerously and picked his nails with a clanging sound as if unintentionally - under the care of Fujimaru Ritsuka (or Curz himself preferred to use the word "forced"), he had maintained relatively good hygiene in his second life, but some of his old habits that were deeply rooted in his bones had obviously not faded away with death and recasting.

Sometimes this made him feel sick, and sometimes it gave him an absurd sense of comfort that "I am still myself."

He pushed these messy thoughts out of his mind and deliberately asked in an elegant and noble High Gothic voice: "If you decide to nail yourself to the main control room as a pure decoration, I wonder if I have the honor to trouble you to check the location of the Jestal pesticide factory - if it is indeed on this planet?"

"Negative. There is no clear command or cooperation relationship between you and me." Somni answered immediately, "My duties here are to obey the captain's orders and protect his personal safety. Before receiving clear instructions on 'transfer of authority', other people's orders or requests have nothing to do with me."

——He seemed to have no emotion at all, but when he said this, he deliberately used Nostramo.