Cillin didn’t know if Gleason Dodge noticed that he and Wheeze were the ones who spied on him the other day. But he was sure that the boy was starting to pay attention to them.
He wasn’t even fifteen years old, but his intuition was scarily developed already. Cillin had no choice but to bring forward some of his plans.
The atmosphere relaxed after the young master and his men were gone, but they remained the subject of everyone’s gossip until a long time later. As for Cillin, he was long forgotten.
Lunani excitedly told Cillin all about the legendary boy genius that was Gleason Dodge. Dodge had never joined an educational institute his whole life. Not only did he taught himself from basic all the way to the advanced level, he was taking middle level courses when his peers were just starting their education. Not long after that, he moved on to high level courses, and he occasionally visited reputable schools to listen to the lectures of old RAS professors. He wasn’t putting on an appearance, he really understood what they were saying.
Lunani told Cillin many things about the young genius that was Gleason Dodge. While the authenticity of the gossip was difficult to verify, smoke doesn’t rise unless there is fire somewhere. Even if the rumors were all untrue, something similar must have happened to give birth to them in the first place.
Countless people came and left this self-service resting spot. The newcomers immediately joined in on the topic when they heard that Gleason Dodge had shown up not long ago.
Suddenly, Cillin saw a familiar face walking towards his direction.
“Libero!” Cillin called out to him.
Libero was one of the five people Cillin stayed with while he was taking the exam to enter AF1. He was a hybrid between a human and an alien. Right now, the tired-looking young man was shambling on his feet.
Libero didn’t tell Cillin his background at the time, but it seemed like his father was quite the prestigious figure. The reason Cillin came to this conclusion was because Libero was wearing the Rolle Family’s insignia on his shirt.
Libero looked up when he heard someone calling out to him from a distance. When he noticed that Cillin was waving a hand at him, he immediately brightened up and strode towards Cillin with a smile.
There were others who noticed the running Libero, but their attention was centered on the family insignia on his shirt, not his person. That was how they determined if a person was worth speaking to or not.
There were people who wanted to speak with Libero when they noticed that he was a member of the Rolle Family. However, they were stopped and whispered to before they even took their first step. After that, their gazes became completely unfriendly and even disdainful—if Libero wasn’t bearing the insignia of the Rolle Family, if they were in a different location or setting, they might have chosen to bare their disdain completely. As of now, they were standing on the Rolle’s Family private planet. It would be unwise to disrespect a member of the Rolle Family in their own territory.
Libero was used to this type of attitude and didn’t care for them. He took a seat immediately after he reaching Cillin.
“Heh, what a surprise, I wasn’t expecting to see you here!” Libero was very happy to see Cillin. Cillin was one of the few people who didn’t discriminate against aliens, and they used to be housemates. This was the first time Libero saw Cillin after they parted ways back then.
“A friend gave me an entry card, so I came to enjoy a free meal. Honestly, I don’t really know the people attending this wedding,” Cillin said.
“You think I’d believe that? Who’s the little girl beside you? Shouldn’t you introduce her to me?” Libero winked before looking back and forth between Cillin and Lunani. It was like he was saying: Not bad, brother. She’s pretty fresh, isn’t she?
“What are you talking about? It’s not what you think,” Cillin said before introducing Lunani and Libero to each other. He only said that Libero was his old housemate when he introduced him to Lunani, however.
“Speaking of which, I have had no idea that you're a member of the Rolle Family,” Cillin said.
Libero gave him a helpless smile before replying, “I wouldn’t even qualify to be here if I wasn’t accepted by AF2.”
“AF2?! The best high level educational institute of the RAS?!” Lunani exclaimed in surprise. To her, entering the affiliated schools was almost like a pipedream. Only nobles with powerful connections had the right to enter AF3, and the entry barrier for AF1 and AF2 was only higher. It was rumored all the geniuses in the empire were assembled there.
“Yeah. Did Cillin not tell you?” Libero asked before noticing Lunani’s confusion. He added, “Cillin and I were housemates while we were taking the entry exams to join AF1. I joined AF2, and this guy joined AF1.”
Lunani’s eyes were instantly filled with envy and admiration. She had no idea that the people she was speaking to were geniuses from AF1 and AF2! Connections and status were useless in these schools, only those who had real skill and knowledge were allowed to enter!
Libero looked a little embarrassed by the girl’s admiration. He scratched his head, let out a cough and quickly changed the subject. “You busy lately?”
“I just finished a big exam, so I’m relatively free right now. My teacher hasn’t given me many missions either. What about you?”
“Same here. I was supposed to go on a mission, but my old teacher knew my assigned teacher at AF2. So I was released earlier to attend this wedding.”
Ever since Libero was enrolled in AF2, the discrimination he suffered within the family hadn’t changed, but at least it wasn’t shown in the open anymore. After all, the affiliated schools are incredibly famous in the empire, and he had made it in by his own strength. That was why he received the entry card from his family; also a token of admission that he was a part of the family. And as a member of the Rolle Family, it was his natural duty to participate in a big wedding like this, even if the bridegroom, his paternal older half-brother, never treated him too well. Internal strifes were allowed, but everyone was required to behave properly in front of other nobles.
There were many nobles close to the Rolle Family who knew about Libero. Not only was he a famous joke in the family a long time ago, he would’ve been killed if his teacher hadn’t helped him. The biggest reason Libero tried all his might to enter an affiliated school wasn’t to obtain the Rolle Family’s acknowledgement, but to repay his teacher’s kindness.
The trio were talking when Cillin’s communicator suddenly rang. This time it was a voiced message instead of a live call. Obviously, Gen Xingming was too busy for that right now.
As expected, Gen Xingming was urging him to come over.
Cillin responded after reading the text message: I ran into two acquaintances, I’ll come over once I’ve spoken to them.
Gen Xingming: Who are they? Male or female? Just bring them all over unless they’re a hundred years old or something. We’re all young, and we’re not doing anything shady. Grandpa two once said that the young should have fun, also that’s how you start a relationship blah blah blah blah…
Now Cillin was sure that Gen Xingming had had too much, and judging from the noisy laughter that was garbling Gen Xingming’s voice it must be pretty crowded over there.
“My friend’s asking me to head over for fun. Do you guys have any plans after this? If you don’t, would you like to come along?” Cillin asked Lunani and Libero.
Lunani was slightly afraid of course, or more accurately she was afraid of the eye rolls she was going to get from the big nobles. But she was completely unfamiliar with this place, and she didn’t want to leave the side of the only reliable friend she had encountered so far. Cillin’s friends shouldn’t be too hard to interact with, right? In the end, she trusted Cillin because she trusted Chang Four. Lunani left together with Cillin after informing her father about her excursion. Her father stared at her company with dissatisfaction until they were gone from his sight.
As for Libero, his thoughts were the same as Lunani’s: If these people were friends with Cillin, then they shouldn’t be too hard to interact with.
“Did you guys bring your own car?” Of course, Cillin’s hoverboard wasn’t nearly big enough to fit three people. They would have to get a car somewhere.
Lunani shook her head. She didn’t bring her own because her father was driving. Libero didn’t have a flying car either; the poor dude actually came over on a taxi.
Since no one had a car with them, they had to rent one at the Rolle Family’s rental car spots. Cillin showed his admission card to the staff and borrowed one. It wasn’t an impressive vehicle, but it definitely wasn’t low quality either. After all, all nobles valued their faces highly. To put up a lousy car for rent was the same as slapping their own faces.
Cillin sat on the driver’s seat while Lunani and Libero sat at the back. Wheeze was sitting on the front passenger seat and eating its biscuits. After everyone was ready, Cillin started driving towards the coordinates Gen Xingming gave them. He didn’t drive quickly because he wanted to enjoy the sceneries around them. Lunani was also looking at her surroundings with yearning. Every young girl had a bridal dream after all.
Libero didn’t feel the same. He was the one who set up some of the decorations the duo was seeing, and the sight of them only reminded him of the days he toiled away like a laborer and left a dull pain in his stomach.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh—
While they were travelling at leisure, a couple of flying cars suddenly flew past them at high speed. One of them was so close that the shells of the cars were brushing against each other. Worse, a couple of bullets at the trunk of their car. If the flying car’s protection was any poorer, the attack would’ve resulted in serious consequences.
Lunani was shocked by the unexpected event, and Libero didn’t fare much better. He looked outside the window and said angrily, “Those young nobles are all insane!”
“Who are they?” Cillin asked after steadying the car.
“I don’t know, but I know they often raced around this area. Maybe I could’ve ignored them if their driving skills were good, but that isn’t the case at all! The Rolle Family’s cleanup robots had to clean up dozens of car wrecks every day because of these people, and at least some innocent people were hurt in the process. The reason this wasn’t blown up was because the wounded weren’t anyone important.” Libero’s anger rose the moment he started talking. Obviously, no lives except a noble’s was important to these people. Not only that, they were so rich that wrecking a bunch of luxury cars did nothing to dampen their mood at all.
Cillin decided to switch a lane after watching the unsteadily flying cars and the passengers opening fire at each other. It was better to take the longer way than to get caught up with these people. His idea was sound, but unfortunately the nobles seemed to have taken a fancy for them. They immediately caught up to him while hooting like mad.
Wheeze asked while eating, “Should we teach them a lesson?”
They were more than close enough for it to disrupt their cars’ control system.
But Cillin shook his head. Almost none of these nobles had real driving skills; he could tell just by looking at their trajectory.
“Sit tight!” Cillin informed Lunani and Libero before tapping away at the control panel. To his surprise, he discovered that the vehicle was equipped with a scanner, a monitoring system and a report system. It was just underused because not many could make use of them.
Of course, a rental car was going to be slightly inferior compared to a custom made car, but a good driver could definitely close a small technological gap like this.
Meanwhile, the youngsters circled around Cillin’s rental car like they were watching a joke. They were waiting for the passengers to show their pitiful appearance and beg them for mercy. However, their arrogance only lasted for a moment before the rental car slipped through an opening like it had an injection.
“That rebel! How dare they escape?!”
“Fuck! Chase them!”
The reason these youngsters were this fearless was because their target was a rental car. They had done the same thing many times already, and they never failed to derive a sick sense of accomplishment every time they successfully made the passengers beg for their life.
However, these youngsters soon discovered that the “worm” was flying like it had several pairs of wings on its hull. Even worse, its flew unpredictably and was impossible to capture even with their numbers.
Some of them were even shooting at Cillin’s car, although the latter was always able to dodge out of the way in time. Since the rental car wasn’t equipped with weapons, Cillin lured the shooters next to the forest before rolling out of the way at top speed, causing their shots to hit only trees or rocks.
“What the hell, is that driver can’t be a fighter pilot or something?! Isn’t he afraid he’ll run into a hill at that speed?” Someone complained.
“I don’t care if they’s a pilot or not, we must shoot them down no matter what! What are we going to say to the others if we lose, tell them we lost to a rental car driver?!”
“That’s true.”
But some people hesitated because they were in someone else’s territory. It would be bad to take things too far, not to mention their vehicles only had basic weaponry. The deadlier weapons had all been removed by their family for safety reasons, and it didn’t look like shooting the rental car with simple weapons was going to work.
Cillin almost never slowed down as the nobles pursued him. Although their cars were mechanically at least as fast as his, their drivers flew like headless flies whenever they hit a corner. They were unable to make use of their vehicle’s superior technology at all.
Cillin spun the steering wheel and passed a ninety degree corner without warning, throwing off the car behind him and causing them to crash into the lush forest. He didn’t check how the driver was doing since he was certain that their vehicles were sturdy enough to keep them all alive. At worst, they would suffer a bit of a hard time.
Sometimes, Cillin felt confused by the people around him. Gen Xingming, Ulaganuo and Bel were the three kings’ descendants, but they never went this far or applied their twisted sense of pleasure on unrelated people. Naimi was an upper noble, but he never did such a thing either.
People said you haven’t lived until you’ve done something insane, but people who took things this far could only be warped at the core. Cillin also refused to believe that these people had better backgrounds than Naimi. Where on earth did they find their confidence to act like this when even people stronger than them knew to control themselves?
Bang! Bang!
When two more cars crashed into the forest courtesy of Cillin, his pursuers could no longer surround him with their remaining numbers. All he needed to do now was go full speed ahead, and he had no intentions of entertaining these people any longer.
And so the rental everyone initially thought was “pitiful” easily overcame the trees and buildings in front of it and flew away like the wind. Its pursuers could do nothing but watch it vanish from their sight.
After confirming that he had lost the irritating nobles, Cillin checked his directions and continued towards their destination once more. Suddenly, he noticed that a strange atmosphere permeating inside the car and looked at the back mirror. He noticed that Lunani and Libero were completely white, and they were holding onto the handrails like their very life depended on it. Libero’s legs were still shaking.
“Hey, are you guys uh, alright?” Cillin asked.
A long time later, Libero finally replied, “I’m… I’m fine… maybe…”
Cillin: “...”
Cillin stopped the car at a nearby grassland so that Libero and Lunani could catch their breath. The moment he stopped, Lunani and Libero finally returned to themselves and rushed out of the car, emptying all the contents of their stomach on the ground.
Cillin rubbed his nose in embarrassment. He supposed he went a bit too far this time. When he noticed that Wheeze—still stuffing biscuits leisurely into its mouth—was about to say something, he immediately covered its mouth. He was sure the gray cat was going to say something terrible like “your bodies are weak”.
Somewhere behind Cillin, the young nobles also stopped their cars after losing track of their prey. After meeting up with the ones who crashed into the forest, one of the youngsters took out his communicator and told them to find out the rental car’s identification number.
His communicator rang again right after he was done laying out instructions.
“Hey, when are you guys coming over?”
“Sigh, can you not remind me? We ran into a bit of trouble.”
“Oh come on, who are you trying to fool? Who in the world is crazy enough to give you trouble?” The person on the line sounded disbelieving.
“Well there is one now, fuck! A rental car driver no less!”