Chapter 237: Slave? Humanoid [Part 2]
The gray cat’s eyes projected an image on the soup inside Cillin’s plate.
It was a luxury suite at the top floor of the restaurant.
A few bodyguards were standing guard inside and outside the suite. A young master who looked to be around thirteen or fourteen years old was enjoying a full table of delicacies alone.
The bodyguards responsible for protecting the young master all wore the same uniform. The material of their clothes were of high quality; it was pretty obvious that their backers were no ordinary people. Logically speaking this young master should be a noble of sorts, but for some strange reason none of their clothes had any defining symbols on them. It was unclear which family they belonged to.
When the youngster suddenly detected a small commotion outside, he told his subordinates to bring in whoever’s outside.
Two people were led into the suite. It was a middle-aged man and a beautiful young girl. The middle-aged man was a supervisor in the restaurant, and the young girl was a waitress who worked here. Cillin could roughly guess what had happened from the torn collar around the girl’s neck, the tears and the slap mark on her face.
The youngster obviously knew what happened too despite his young age.
When the young girl saw the youngster, she spilled the beans and told him everything about how the middle-aged man forcing her to do things like she had seen her savior.
The youngster consoled her with a smile on his face for a moment before instructing his subordinates to send her away. Then, he picked up his spoon and began drinking the porridge in his bowl once more.
The young girl was very grateful towards the youngster and took two steps forward, but the bodyguards stopped her from going any further. She gave the youngster a bow where she stood, wiped her tears and got ready to leave, but the second she turned around she and the middle-aged man who was kicked into the room and tossed against the floor produced a gun out of nowhere and opened fire at the youngster.
The youngster was perfectly fine though. Nothing except a spark of electricity could be seen in the space not far from the boy.
An invisible energy shield?!
Almost immediately after they opened fire at the youngster, the young girl and the middle-aged man’s neck suddenly bent at an unnatural angle before they collapsed limply on the ground. Their eyes turned forever glassy and dim.
What was strange was that the bodyguards around the youngster didn’t make any moves. It was almost as if the air itself had broken the two assassins’ necks.
The youngster gulped down the spoon of porridge without changing his expression even once. He made a tiny wave with his hand, and the two dead bodies were dragged to the side of the room soundlessly. Again, none of the bodyguards had moved the bodies. Looking at the footage alone, it looked like the two dead bodies had floated to a corner of the room themselves.
Cillin knew that there were invisible bodyguards beside the youngster. Those two assassins never noticed it from the beginning until the end.
From the way the assassins’ necks were broken, Cillin deduced that the invisible bodyguards had killed the assassins in one swift motion. It was clear that they were veterans from their practiced movements.
The youngster put down his spoon and looked around with a frown on his face. A bodyguard behind him asked, “What’s wrong, young master?”
“I have a feeling that I’m being watched.”
The bodyguards exchanged puzzled glances with each other. They had confirmed that there were no security cameras in this room from the start, and they had controlled every piece of monitoring equipment in the whole restaurant too. No one should be able to see them even if there was a security camera inside the room.
The youngster stood up and walked around the room once, passing by each and every bodyguard in the process. When he came to a stop, he suddenly said, “Take out all of your communicators!”
The gray cat had cut off the connection the instant he said this.
“Wow, who on earth is that kid? Isn’t he a little too sensitive?” The gray cat cried.
“Acute, you mean.”
“It means the same thing.” The gray cat flicked its ears. “I thought that there was something wrong with that room from the beginning. Now I know there are invisible people in there.”
“Enough already. Finish your meal quickly so we can leave as soon as possible. I don’t want trouble to come looking for us.” Cillin patted the gray cat’s head a few times. “Have you wiped out all traces?”
“What do you think? Of course I did. Let that kid search all he wants.”
The gray cat stopped talking about the youngster after that and worked hard to clean up its fish.
Inside the suite, the youngster stared at the communicators before his eyes and frowned silently. A long while later, he said, “Send these back and have the technical department look through all of them! Also, I want you to investigate this restaurant thoroughly!”
“Yes, young master.”
…
When the duo was finally done with their meals, they rested for a moment before returning to the starport for their flight. The gray cat quickly vanished in one practiced motion, and Cillin wasn’t worried that it would be discovered either. He got up a spaceplane and found his own seat.
He had gotten up his spaceplane an hour ahead of the takeoff time. After he sat down, Cillin closed his eyes and prepared to rest. He recalled the things he saw at the restaurant today even though his eyes were closed, however. Who on earth was that youngster? He was sure that the youngster was a noble; a high ranking one no less. How could a thirteen or fourteen years old kid react so calmly in face of an assassination attempt? This youngster was way too calm compared to Bel and Gen Xingming, and he seemed entirely indifferent towards death. A person like this had either gotten used to death already, or was born cold-blooded.
Time passed swiftly while Cillin was engrossed with his thoughts. A minute before the spaceplane stopped accepting passenger, the passenger next to Cillin finally showed up slowly. The seats here were all coupled up in pairs. Cillin’s seat was on the outside, and the guy’s seat was on the inside. There was another row of double seats next to Cillin separated by a single corridor.
The guy sitting next to him looked like a pretty optimistic person.
“Oh my god, I finally caught up. Phew——”
The guy let out a sigh of relief before he sat down. Then, he glanced at Cillin and gave him a friendly smile. “Happy journey, my friend!”
“Happy journey to you too!”
As the saying goes, you should be polite to those who are polite to you. Cillin had no reason to reject a person who acted kindly towards him.
The spaceplane went through a series of inspection and took off not long after the guy sat down. After the spaceplane flew into a starship inside a space station, the passenger cabin was transferred into the main cabin of a passenger starship just like before.
However, not long after the passenger starship departed the planet, it came to a stop before it even entered warp flight. It was because a noble transport was in the way.
It was a known rule that all commoner starships must give way to noble spaceplanes and starships.
Cillin bought a commoner starship ticket because a noble passenger starship ticket costs way too much; almost ten times the normal price. Cillin had no intention to waste his money here. A normal passenger starship was slower, and some starports and flight routes weren’t available to them either. That was why their flight times were longer and their quality of life was much lousier.
It was inevitable that a commoner passenger starship would experience many disruptive stops on its way. It was also why a lot of people chose to ride on a noble starship after deciding that they couldn’t live with the interruptions any longer.
Cillin looked at the guy beside him and discovered that he was sleeping so soundly that saliva was dripping down his mouth. Not even the loud discussions happening around him could disturb him.
When the transport was finally able to continue on its journey once more, a voice from the speakers informed the passenger to put on their sleep helmets to avoid discomfort. It also informed them what they should do in case they experienced any discomfort etc in standardized language.
In fact, it was entirely possible for someone to lose their lives if their reactions were especially severe. That was why the warning was normally given prior to every flight. However, it was mostly up to the passengers to decide if they wanted to put on the sleep helmet. After all, none of these people were nobles. It wasn’t too much trouble even if some of them were to die during the flight.
Cillin looked at the guy who was dead asleep next to him. After a moment’s thought, he ultimately decided to wake him up.
“What… what’s wrong?”
The guy looked drowsy. He made a sound with his mouth and wiped away the saliva trailing down a corner of his mouth with his sleeve. Although he was staring at Cillin with a bit of confusion, he didn’t look annoyed for being awaken from his slumber.
“We’re about to enter flight mode very soon. Are you going to put on your sleep helmet?” Cillin pointed at the people around him. Most of the passengers inside the cabin had already put on their sleep helmets except a small minority who might have gotten used to flying in such conditions already.
When the man heard Cillin’s words, he scratched his head with a smile on his face. “Oh, thanks man.”
He thanked him, but he didn’t put on the sleep helmet. Instead, he pointed at himself and said, “My constitution’s pretty good, so I don’t need to wear one.”
And so Cillin ignored him and went about his business. Cillin himself wasn’t wearing a sleep helmet; he preferred not to put it on when his surroundings were somewhat quiet himself. It was a somewhat suffocating equipment.
During the flight, the guy beside him woke up once and asked for a set meal because he was hungry.
The robot woke Cillin up when it was delivering the set meal.
“Sorry for waking you up.” The man looked a little embarrassed when he was accepting the set meal.
“It’s fine.” Cillin ordered a set meal himself. “This is a good time to replenish some energy anyway.”
The guy chuckled, unwrapped his meal box and started eating. He seemed to be very hungry because he was eating rather sloppily.
After he was done, the guy chatted a while about the positives and negatives of the set meal with Cillin. He might have rushed through his meal, but his review of the set meal was pretty much spot on.
Cillin pointed at a corner of the guy’s mouth while he was listening to the review. “Leftovers.”
“Oh.”
The guy wiped it with his sleeve.
Cillin pointed at his nose again, and this time the guys licked it off with his tongue directly.
Cillin: “...”
If his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, the guy’s tongue grew longer just now…
The guy only noticed his mistake after he licked away the leftover. But after he noticed that Cillin wasn’t showing any signs of discrimination, he did it again and stretched his tongue almost all the way to his eyebrows.
Cillin only raised his eyebrows and commented, “You have a pretty long tongue.”
The guy’s mouth fell open. “Isn’t it strange?”
“It is.”
“Don’t you think it’s… er…” The man opened his mouth again and pointed at his own teeth.
Cillin watched as the guy ground his teeth together and forced out the food trapped between the gaps of his teeth.
Cillin fell silent for a moment before commenting again. “That’s pretty special.” He could save on an electric toothbrush.
When the guy confirmed that Cillin really felt no discrimination towards him, he smiled happily and said, “My name is Libero! I’m very happy to make your acquaintance!”
“I’m Cillin.” He went back to devouring his own food.
A humanoid. Libero was without a doubt a humanoid. Although he looked almost the same as an average human being, there were a few small details that highlighted their differences. For example, a careful look would reveal that Libero’s pupils were oval-shaped instead of round. Libero’s fingernails could also elongate and shrink to his will. These were just the differences that Libero was willing to show.
“You actually don’t discriminate against humanoids. How strange,” Libero said.
“I have no reason to discriminate against you. I’m not a noble.”
Libero shook his head. “In the empire, both nobles and commoners strongly discriminate against humanoids unless you’ve climbed to untouchable heights!”
Libero’s eyes lit up brightly when he said this.
Cillin nodded but didn’t express his opinions on the subject.
Libero was very happy to find a rare human who didn’t discriminate against humanoids, so he and Cillin chatted about all kinds of things throughout their flight. It was mostly Libero doing the talking and Cillin listening to his words though.
The journey became much quicker with a companion to converse with.
The final destination of this starship was the imperial capital, but very few people actually landed in the imperial capital transport station. A lot of passengers began changing out of their common clothes and put on bright and expensive clothes when they arrived at the imperial capital star region. It was almost as if those expensive clothes could enhance their confidence if even a little.
Cillin and Libero simply stared at those people and did nothing. They never thought that they would run into a situation like this, so they hadn’t prepared as such.
All those who sat in the same cabin were heading to the imperial capital, but neither Libero nor Cillin had explained in detail what they were doing in the imperial capital. Libero simply said that he was here to learn, while Cillin said that he was here to try his luck.
A lot of people came to the imperial capital to try their luck. There were plenty of nobles and opportunities to be found in the imperial capital, but the ensuing pressure was just as big. Most of the people in the cabin had come to try their luck too.
After parting ways with Libero, Cillin met up with the gray cat and began pondering about their next step.
A moment of consideration later, Cillin decided to head to AF1 first. Right now the Gen Family was a conundrum he couldn’t solve easily.
To his surprise, he ran into Libero again at the entrance of AF1.