Chapter 237: Slave? Humanoid [Part 1]
They had to change flight routes if they wished to head to the imperial capital star region from Old Chang’s planet. That was why Cillin checked the starports they must go through and booked all the necessary tickets ahead of time so that they wouldn’t need to wait after they arrived at a certain starport.
The benefits of being a noble showed when one was booking a ticket. Nobles had their own flight routes, starships and spaceplanes. They didn’t need to follow the transport stations like commoners.
Cillin had booked a ticket at the biggest transport station in the twenty third star region. The transport station was also known as an important transport hub of the twenty third star region. Of course, it was only important to a normal person. Nobles had their own flight routes and starports, so they wouldn’t use the same transport stations and spaceplanes as the commoners. They believed that the act would degrade their own worth.
From Old Chang’s planet, Cillin and the gray cat must ride on a passenger starship to the transport station first. Unlike the time Cillin and Bel flew to Baelenbaatar, this flight route would take longer time than usual.
While sitting inside the passenger cabin, Cillin pulled out the foldable display in front of his seat and observed the scenery outside.
It was not a direct flight. They would be stopping at a couple of stations midway, and each time they did a passenger spaceplane would leave the starship to fetch the passengers to their destinations. The starship would only depart once more after the spaceplane had left.
This was exactly why the passenger seats were arranged by stations. All passengers who were headed to the same transport station were put in the same cabin. Once the starship had reached their destination, they would be transferred into a passenger spaceplane and transported to several smaller terminals.
Cillin watched the scenery on the display. A passenger spaceplane was detaching itself from the starship and flying towards a smaller terminal. From the top, he could see that the planet it was headed to was pretty small. It wasn’t the only planet within the vicinity though. Cillin could see another planet that was even further away from where he was. However, that particular planet was currently crawling with warships. Yes, they were warships and not passenger starships.
He zoomed into that planet after he adjusted the visuals for a bit. Maybe it was because the display had a fixed setting, but he wasn’t able to catch a clear look of that planet. He could only guess roughly the general situation from its external appearance. Still, it was enough for him - for anyone - to guess a lot of things.
A war was happening on that planet.
It was clear from the occasional flashes of light and obvious black mushrooms covering the surface of the planet. Not only was a very large scale war happening on that planet, weapons of mass destruction were being deployed without restraint too. The weapons’ potential to leave everlasting marks on the planet was clearly not a concern. Who on earth was fighting over there?
The gray cat informed him of the truth not long after. It was a race war.
As usual, the gray cat was hanging out in a spot that wouldn’t be noticed by the humans, the starship’s defense systems and sensors. It had logged into some connected networks to understand what was happening on that planet.
Cillin had an earpiece in his ear. It was used specifically to communicate with the gray cat, and it couldn’t be detected by the passenger starship’s sensors. If Cillin wanted to say anything to the gray cat, all he needed to do was to write on the electronic panel provided to customers for leisure and entertainment. The gray cat would then pick up the message written on the electronic panel through the starship’s network. After the communication was complete, it hacked into the network and wiped clean all traces so that the monitoring crew wouldn’t notice anything.
The gray cat actually wanted to converse with Cillin through machine language instead, but Cillin’s understanding of machine language was surface level only. Machine language was far more difficult than human language, so for now human language was the language they conversed in. That being said, Cillin and the gray cat knew each other very well. Most of the time, they would use incomprehensible symbols that that no one else understood but them to communicate with each other. This way, an outsider might not necessarily be able to understand what they were talking about even if they saw the conversation.
The gray cat’s voice rang from the listener inside Cillin’s ear. “It’s a conflict between the army and the locals. Oh? Those locals don’t look the same as us. They’re humanoids! Wow, that’s a big bomb…”
Cillin more or less figured out the situation the second it mentioned “humanoids”.
Cillin had investigated into certain parts of Mist Bodhisattva Empire not long after he arrived, and one of the things the empire massively differed from GAL was its treatment of humanoids.
GAL prioritized genotype rank over race. In fact, humanoids were the majority of many Sectors in GAL such as the Binger Family of Sector H and especially people like Warsaw, the “Mermaid Princess”. There were also Ba Dao, Scarlet Wind… they could all be categorized as humanoids. However, they all led good lives in GAL because they were very capable in their own right. In fact, the Binger Family led better-than-good lives and was very influential in Sector H. Here’s another example. People like Ba Dao and Scarlet Wind could also walk in the busiest streets of the most prosperous planet of the ten business Sectors and not be criticized at. At best they would draw some curious glances from the crowd, but they wouldn’t be openly rejected.
Things were different in Mist Bodhisattva Empire though. Here, a clear line was drawn between races. The rulers of Mist Bodhisattva Empire - the one emperor and three kings - and the nobles were mostly your average humans. Even when there were some differences, these people didn’t look as clearly humanoid as a beast-type humanoid. Speaking of the latter, they were absolutely the object of oppression. Most of the empire’s slaves were made up of humanoids, and those humanoids who looked too different from an average human were even labeled as a “repulsive race” by the nobles.
Zanny technically was an humanoid, but there were two reasons that separated him from the norm. One, his normal appearance was very similar to an average human and thus didn’t draw attention to himself, and two, he had joined both AF2 and Wings, which elevate his status to much greater heights. Even if there was a noble who disliked him, they could only criticize him in private. That being said, if Zanny were to run into another humanoid who looked a lot more like those beast-type humanoids, he likely wouldn’t feel any sympathy towards a fellow ‘humanoid’ like himself.
This is how strange a human heart is. The barrier between races and gaps between blood were like a deep crack on the ground that was nearly impossible to heal.
Some of the people sitting in the cabin knew what was happening on that planet too, so as they chatted and laughed about the subject words such as “those humanoids”, “those disgusting creatures” and “ugly monsters” were thrown about casually…
Cillin had always thought that GAL was in many ways a cruel master, but Mist Bodhisattva Empire’s situation inflicted in his heart an even greater sense of helplessness.
In Mist Bodhisattva Empire, an humanoid might not even measure up to a pure beast in the people’s hearts.
Once this war was over, many of the humanoids of this planet would be turned into slaves and sold to people of various places. All those who resisted them would be killed, and all those who obeyed would be left alive. They might not necessarily be able to lead long lives, however.
The gray cat sent some images to Cillin’s electronic panel, and he saw the humanoids on that planet for the first time. They had brown skin, no hair, and some hard bumps growing above their heads. They had many hard wrinkles on their epidermis like tree barks and very long feet… In short, they didn’t look like an average human other than the fact that they had a head, a pair of hands and legs, eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
Even if they had their own civilization, language and words, a humanoid was alien to a denizen of Mist Bodhisattva Empire. It was one thing if they obeyed the empire’s plans like an obedient slave, but any signs of dissent were met with harsh retaliation.
Cillin wasn’t in the mood of listening to anyone’s discussion in the cabin. Should he be glad that he looked almost the same as these people?
Cillin pulled down the sleep helmet above his seat and closed his eyes. It was a wordless sign to the person who was getting ready to pull Cillin into their war discussion: I’m going to sleep, so don’t disturb me.
The starship finally reached the transport planet as he hoped.
It was obviously a busy planet even from the outside. Countless starships and spaceplane went in and out of the planet be it day or night.
When Cillin and the passengers arrived on the planet, it was daytime - or more specifically, morning - at the region he landed. The next flight Cillin booked was during the morning too, so he had a bit of time to find a place and comfort his stomach.
The moment he stepped out of the door, he was left with only one impression - people, there were people everywhere!
If he said the starport was crammed full of people, then this density didn’t change by much even after he walked out of the starport. There were people rushing about their business everywhere, and they all shared one common characteristic: a humble, common identity.
It couldn’t be helped. The nobles had their own private starports, and they would never come to a place as crowded as a pig farm like this.
More people also meant more thieves. Not all people who were dressed in ragged clothes like they were fugitives were necessarily poor people, it was just that they knew that they shouldn’t show their wealth openly even if they were rich. The reason they dressed like a fugitive was to avoid catching the attention of scoundrels.
Cillin was slightly more well dressed than the others; he didn’t expect to run into a scene like this when he first landed on the planet. To avoid unnecessary trouble, Cillin punched a guy who was going to steal his stuff and quickly left the starport. After putting a fair amount of distance between him and the starport, he and the gray cat looked around for a restaurant to eat in. Unfortunately, the few restaurants they went to were all full of people.
They still had some time before they had to return to catch the next flight, so Cillin and the gray cat hopped into a taxi and searched further away from the starport.
There were some elegant places after they left the bustling starport, but the prices of these restaurants were downright obscene. Worse, the gray cat’s attention was glued to a large chef’s special advertisement display outside a restaurant.
“Fish! Such a strange-looking fish, and a tasty looking one too! Let’s go there, Cillin!” The gray cat pointed at the restaurant’s direction.
Cillin knew that the place would be pricey the second he saw its building design.
“Wheeze, let’s make a deal. We’re not as rich as we are at GAL right now, so we gotta spend our money carefully. You can order that Four Sea Fish Platter, but let me order the rest of the dishes, okay?” Cillin didn’t have the heart to turn down the gray cat seeing that its eyes were completely glued to the unknown fishes swimming about on the large display. He knew that the gray cat would probably get angry if he turned it down, and every time it got angry it was inclined to do stupid things.
“I know I know!” The gray cat nodded repeatedly.
Cillin took it into the restaurant after he obtained the gray cat’s promise.
The restaurant’s service was pretty great. There was even a pet corner where all owners who brought their pets were arranged inside.
They immediately saw a large mastiff the second they went through the door. It was likely that the pet animals in the pet corner were acting unusually obedient because the mastiff was around. Not only did they not let out a peep, they were cowering inside their owners’ laps while eating the food their owners fed them.
The gray cat was an exception though.
The gray cat walked proudly at the front and took a spin in the hall before it found a table it was satisfied with. Then, it jumped up the table, patted the furniture with its paw and motioned Cillin to come over.
The big mastiff let out a series of low, intermittent growls to assert its dominance when it saw that the gray cat was ignoring him.
The gray cat was probably feeling good today because it teasingly stuck out its tongue at the mastiff after hearing its warning growls. The big mastiff wasn’t stupid though. It was the biggest animal in the restaurant, and every pet that came it had chosen to submit to it obediently. However, the gray cat had acted impudently right in its presence. The cat might be fine with this, but not it!
A small cat-and-dog quarrel later, Cillin led the gray cat into a small room. Not only were they the only two in this room, and the restaurant attendants were the ones who invited them here without charging them a coin. It was because the restaurant would suffer far greater losses if they were to leave them at the pet corner. For example, the big mastiff at the pet corner had a couple of clear scratch marks on its nose.
The gray cat didn’t keep the animals it labeled as idiots in its mind. It was busy eating the “Four Sea Fish Platter” beneath its feet. Still, it would flick its head left and right occasionally like a radar. It was constantly paying attention to its surroundings and telling Cillin about them.
Suddenly, the gray cat stopped eating and looked up. After licking its mouth once, it said, “Something’s going on inside that room.”