Chapter 434: Legend and Cost |
"Huh?!" Miss Silver Dragon was suddenly surprised.
"Do you have some special information?"
To this, Loren simply nodded calmly.
"Intuition."
"Is it accurate?" Miss Silver Dragon asked tentatively.
Hearing Miss Silver Dragon's question, Loren turned to look at her, thought seriously for a moment, then spoke:
"It's probably accurate."
Miss Silver Dragon let out a relieved breath, then dispelled the magical teleportation gate in front of her and magically reconstructed a new one.
"Let's go."
After casting one last glance at his Raven Agency, Loren followed suit, striding into the teleportation gate.
This time after leaving, who knew when he'd be back.
This remote planet was still too small for Loren...
---
Federal Calendar 7709, January 4th, at sunrise.
Dusk Star Domain, Main City.
The massive floating city suspended above this habitable planet remained prosperous and thriving even after the Resistance's turbulent events.
The Resistance, composed mostly of ambitious individuals, had never intended to affect the Federation's ordinary citizens from the very beginning.
This was indeed a war, a conspiracy, but it truly had nothing to do with common people.
Plus, with Marquis Oren Hunter being the core figure of the Dusk Star Domain's Resistance, this Marquis Hunter—who had been laying groundwork for years—controlled the Dusk Star Domain's Main City in a relatively peaceful manner.
The transition of power was completed smoothly with almost no disruption to order whatsoever.
The Dusk Star Domain and the Fosse Star Domain were also the two domains where the Resistance encountered the least opposition.
The deeply entrenched Marquis Hunter and the Duke of Fosse had practically turned these two star domains into de facto fiefdoms for their families.
At this moment.
Inside an extraordinary manor at the center of Dusk Main City.
An elderly man of noble bearing sat in the courtyard, leisurely savoring a cup of black tea, just as he had in the past.
The only difference was that this manor was now empty.
Countless servants had vanished without a trace.
The butler who used to stand behind him was also nowhere to be seen.
This old man kept solitary vigil in his manor, as if waiting for someone, or as if guarding the last shred of his family's dignity.
His gaze was calm, his posture elegant, as if the Resistance's failure hadn't affected his state of mind at all.
The light of the rising sun spilled across the courtyard filled with blooming flowers and exotic plants.
This old man named "Oren Hunter" peacefully admired the beautiful scenery he'd seen countless times before, and a flicker finally appeared in his eyes.
He casually picked up the cup of black tea that had already gone cold and took a gentle sip.
After furrowing his brow slightly, he set the cup down with elegant grace.
Cold black tea didn't taste very good.
After setting down his teacup, he looked toward the entrance of his manor and spoke softly:
"You came later than I expected."
"Mr. Loren, from the slums, I thought you'd be eager to come."
The moment his words fell.
A chilly figure in a black coat streaked across the courtyard filled with flowers and all kinds of plants at an extremely fast pace, arriving before the old man.
"A pleasure to meet you in person, Marquis Oren Hunter."
Loren lightly tipped his hat to the old man before him.
"My apologies, some unexpected business delayed me a bit..."
Then he reached out, pulled out a chair from the white tea table, and sat straight down.
Quite naturally, he sat across from the old man.
"Was it you who influenced the stance of the Nature Sect and the Interstellar Hunter Association?"
After Loren sat down, the old man gazed at the dazzling morning sun in the distance and asked.
"They did ask for my opinion."
Loren also looked toward the sun that had just risen not long ago, his tone calm.
"And was it that Silver Dragon you're close with who influenced the Dragon race's stance?"
"Can't rule out that possibility."
Upon hearing Loren's answer, Oren Hunter's old face broke into a relieved smile.
He picked up the teapot from the table and poured himself another cup of the now-cold black tea.
Then he picked up an empty cup and casually poured one for Loren too.
After pouring the tea, the old man set down the teapot, leaned back somewhat wistfully in his chair, his eyes looking hollowly into the distance.
"A long time ago, the Dusk Star Domain wasn't called by that name. It was called the 'Hunter Star Domain.'"
The old man's voice was thick with reminiscence.
"It was named to commemorate our Hunter family's successful pioneering of this bountiful star domain..."
Loren wasn't particularly interested in this and just shrugged silently.
Oren Hunter turned to look at Loren. Seeing that Loren had no intention of picking up the thread, he shook his head bitterly and continued speaking as if no one else were there:
"Later, the Federation entered a new era."
"As more and more powerful individuals joined the Federation, it grew stronger and stronger..."
"We pioneering nobles lost our voice."
"As early contributors to the Federation, we became roadblocks to the new era."
"Everyone considered us corrupt and ugly, rotten dregs that should be abolished..."
"I won't deny the correctness of those statements."
"After all, back then, a large portion of the pioneering noble group was exactly as those statements described. Some were even worse..."
"But our Hunter family, from the very beginning, never enslaved the Federation's citizens in the Dusk Star Domain, nor did we exploit them."
"Mr. Loren, you might not believe this, but back then, the Hunter family had terrible relations with the other old aristocracy. They thought we were misfits."
"This situation continued until the day the Energy Department's authority was infinitely expanded by the Federation Council."
"Becoming a department with real power, backed by the Federation Council, the Energy Department was placed above all the pioneering star domains."
"The Energy Department forcibly established itself in all the pioneering star domains and transported every bit of extracted energy straight to the Central Star Domain."
"From that day on, everything in the Hunter Star Domain changed."
"This star domain was once one of the richest in the entire Federation!"
"A vast number of resource planets were distributed throughout this domain!"
"The massive floating city beneath our feet was built during that wealthiest of eras."
"It was also from the day the Energy Department moved in that our Hunter family watched this star domain slide into decline."
"We watched the people of this domain go from prosperity to poverty, step by step!"
"The Energy Department left behind only some trivial compensation in exchange for incalculable resources!"
"Under the Federation's power, we were powerless to resist."
"Later, this star domain's name was changed from the Hunter Star Domain to the Dusk Star Domain."
"Our family's influence also gradually waned."
"Then, the descendant of a knight who had once served our family found us again during a certain upheaval."
"He proposed a rather dangerous plan: secretly take back everything that belonged to this star domain."
"So, we began using every means to infiltrate the Energy Department's personnel, to infiltrate every Federation official in the Dusk Star Domain."
"We succeeded."
"The resources we intercepted were secretly kept within the Dusk Star Domain."
"To make these resources clean and legal, gray transactions flourished throughout this star domain."
"The cleaned resources were mostly returned to the people of this domain through gray market deals."
"Our Hunter family only took a small portion."
"And throughout this somewhat risky process, there were inevitably some costs..."
As he said this, Marquis Oren Hunter looked at Loren sitting across from him with a complicated expression.
Clearly, the planet called "Resource Planet 17" was one of those costs.
The name "Rotten Star" had spread far and wide.