Dorothy observed the plane in space where the planet had been initially coursing through in its orbit. When Noah had informed her that the planet was dangerous she had anticipated the full destruction of the planet, leading to a Supernova event.

Destroying a whole planet was nothing new in the Sea of Stars. Some of the high-ranked Gates did have that system implemented in them once they were accessed and lost their purpose. Hell, if she so wished she could also destroy entire planets if she used her Frame at its full power or brought her fleet and bombarded it with her legion’s full might.

But this… what she was witnessing… was on a completely different level altogether.

There was no sudden increase in energy that she was able to perceive, a trademark of planetary devastation. No power nor heat fluctuation could be observed, another sign of a planet in its last legs. Hell, there was not even an explosion. There was nothing. The planet was simply was deleted from the map altogether as though it had been erased from existence. “Lion, run the checks. All the checks! I need to know what happened. Now!”

“Understood, Ma’am. Should I call the Witches too?”

“Yes. Give them the coordinates of this location and tell Tin Can they are allowed to use the Tower to make the divination more accurate.”

Lion nodded his head and simply chose to ignore the two new arrivals alongside Dorothy. This situation was already shocking enough for him to be at his wit's end… a feeling he had thought to have already overcome long ago was washing over him once more.

Fear. After all, in this world, the fear of the unknown was greatest.

Once Dorothy gave her orders she took another deep breath and closed her eyes in contemplation. Using her ability, earlier had been slightly taxing on her body as she did not have her catalyst or her Knight Frame along with her. However, the phenomenon before her was making her situation worse— a massive headache was overcoming her mind.

“Well… It seems like we have witnessed something incredible.” She spoke in a subdued tone, a faint trace of nervousness hidden within.

“You don’t say…” Morgiana chortled before bringing up a display before her and started typing swiftly, “Do you know just how much money we just lost there?”

Her hand was trembling even as she crunched in the data for calculation, “Ugh…” It seemed like she was on the verge of tears even as she imagined the money she could have earned from plundering the planet of treasures. Losing her Knight Frame forever, along with the planet didn’t help in the slightest to alleviate this situation.

“You are… quite composed.” Dorothy was utterly speechless as she looked at her friend. Morgiana simply shrugged her shoulders in response, “What can I even say?” She sighed heavily… Her face gradually turned more and more solemn as she finally donned a grave look as she gazed at the orbit where the planet should have been originally.

“Dorothy. Look, this kind of shit is way above my pay grade. I can barely deal with my own problems. Wasting brain cells on something of this caliber is just wasting my time and giving me useless stress. If a storm is coming, it will be the job of the Empire to tackle and the Federation to take care of it. Little guys like us can only watch and be swung around.”

Morgiana was sure that if Alibaba was in this spot, he would have been full of curiosity but in her case, she had zero interest in such matters. Whatever power could erase a planet like this, quite literally out of existence like it was nothing, was not something someone like her could even dream of taking care of.

“Small people should learn to deal with small problems.” She grinned and Dorothy could only muster a sad expression as she looked at her friend.

“But you are…”

“Stop.” Morgiana raised her hand and shook her head before looking toward Noah. She could see that the small boy still had a serious expression on his face but behind the calm look… she was able to sense a sliver of sadness and melancholy in the boy’s eyes. The reason was quite obvious to her. And it also made her remember something she had forgotten along the way, “I am sorry. I have forgotten that you had your family there.”

“Family?” Dorothy tilted her head, but then… realization dawned upon her and she silently nodded her head with a hint of sadness as well, “Ah…”

Noah gave a small glance toward Dorothy before showing a bitter smile. It did not match with his childish frame in the least. “There is no need to worry. Everyone already died a long time ago. I am the last survivor.”

His childish voice was calm and indifferent but a somber mood befell the room after hearing his words. Dorothy and Morgiana both felt slightly awkward as they did not quite know how to address this situation. Comforting someone mourning was never an easy taskfor anyone.

In the end, Dorothy clapped her hands, “Well, everyone must be tired after that hectic string of events and there are many things I need to know and ask. Why don’t you all go rest? They will guide you. Though Morgiana, your usual room is available.”

She pointed toward one of the soldiers in the room. Morgiana nodded her head and spoke, “I need to call Alibaba and explain what happened.”

“You should wait until you see him face to face.” Morgiana stopped for a moment before nodding at Dorothy's suggestion, “Very well.” She waved away the guide assigned to her and went further down into the ship.

Once Morgiana left for her room, only Dororthy and Noah were present alongside a few soldiers that were making sure not to disturb their queen. They knew she could be quite moody at times and disturbing her never led to a good outcome.

“Sir Noah, could you follow the guide? I am sure you must be tired more than anyone else,”

“No questions?”

“Questions can wait and you do not have to answer any question if you wish to stay silent. I would never force you to talk against your will.”

“Hmm… You are very kind.” Noah gave one last look through the window. Only the immensity of the endless void and the light of the three suns greeted his vision, the once orbiting planet lost to all existence.

For a moment, his expression became vacant as he remembered all the things he went through on this now non-existent planet.

The bad things, the good… Well… There weren’t many good things now that he thought about it. But he had gotten used to it along the way. In fact, in a way, one could even say that this was his second home and now that home was also gone.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He was all alone in the vast universe and had no one to rely on. At least on the desolate planet, he knew he simply needed to survive. But now, his goal had become abstruse and blurry. He knew what he needed to accomplish but not how he would be able to accomplish such a hefty task. Moreover, he was still in the dark about so many things it was infuriating.

— Seems like you forgot about me once again.

You have been strangely silent so I had to provoke you one way or another.

Noah grinned inwardly. His slowly worsening mood vanished like a lie. He was indeed lost and he truly did not know what he should do to find the truth outside of searching for more ruins.

But all those worries were for the future. Here and now, he knew exactly what he wanted.

“So, Miss Dorothy…Do you have anything to eat?”

One should always ask the important questions first.

***

Someone else in her position might have missed the small shift in Noah’s aura but Dorothy was definitely not so careless that she would not be able to pick up on it. Even though the shift lasted but an instant, she had the feeling of being stared at by a small starved beast who wanted nothing more than to pounce at her at any moment.

How interesting.

Dorothy had to fight the smile that was trying to stretch her lips wide. The more dangerous Noah was, the more depth of potential he showed off and the more she became sure of her conjecture. Noah was indeed the Golden Constellation, the sole star she had been searching for so desperately.

“If you are hungry then you should visit the kitchen. I will have someone send you there.”

Noah nodded his head eagerly, “Thanks. Though I gotta ask. Is the food some kind of nutritional ration or something?”

“No. Do not worry. Though we do have such rations, this ship was loaded with the best food and ingredients from our planet and the chefs are also top-notch.” She gave him a thumbs up and was happy to see a large smile fill his childish face giving him a hint of innocence. It made him look like a proper child which was a heartwarming display.

“Then excuse me. I just hope your reserves are big enough.” Noah said,to which Dorothy shrugged nonchalantly.

“You wouldn’t be able to eat everything even if you tried. We have enough for years of travel stored in the ship. Eat as much as you want.”

“Hah… Haha. I like your confidence. Then, thanks, I won’t hold back.” Noah waved at her as he left alongside a robot guide, leaving a confused Dorothy who started to wonder if she had really made a mistake there by giving him free reign.

In the end, she simply shrugged her shoulders. It didn’t matter even if he truly emptied out all the food reserves today. The Lion Pride was not a fleet designed for long space exploration in the first place and they could replenish the food once they reached Oz.

Now I guess I should take care of the important matters.

After sending out Noah so that he could eat to his heart’s content, Dorothy showed a grim countenance,

“Lion.”

“Dorothy.”

The shadow around Dorothy moved and Lion appeared behind her in all his majesty. It was impressive how a man of his stature could advance so silently. His ability to walk through shadows was even more impressive and one of the reasons that made him so deadly.

After all, who could ever expect that the giant armored warrior they were facing fought more like an assassin in reality?

“Your ability always impresses me.”

“I am an Apex predator, you know? I don’t fight. I hunt.” He grinned at her with his jagged maw, showing his impressive row of sharp teeth.

The atmosphere between them was warm but Lion knew that Dorothy would not have called for him if she hadn’t been worried about something in her heart.

“What did you find?”

Lion sighed, his flaming manes wavered and twitched, showing his unease, “No report yet from the witches but from the receptors, there was no fluctuation in space-time. No disturbance in gravity flow. For all intents and purposes, this planet has never existed and no machines could prove the opposite.”

Dorothy started biting her lips hard. She was not surprised by those results even though she hoped desperately that they would have been different.

Dorothy had always been worried about one thing all her life… ever since she had obtained her Silver Boots and changed the course of her destiny forever.

For most historians, the previous Galactic Empire had most likely destroyed themselves through a Civil War.

This was nothing new as the more advanced a civilization was the higher the chances they had of simply destroying themselves in their search for further progress and prosperity.

But Dorothy had another theory in her mind. They did not self-destruct— they were destroyed by an outside force, far more terrible and beyond anyone’s imagination.

She knew this sounded crazy and she knew that her theory held no grounds outside of her suspicions. To drive it home, the few beings who thought remotely like her were considered crazy conspiracy theorists and were even deemed lunatics.

If she was right, then those outsiders might have been greatly wounded when fighting against the Ancient Empire and were recuperating or were destroyed alongside them.

In the end, Noah was definitely a key to the truth of that time and a very important one at that. She could not let anything happen to him but he was too weak at the moment. If the Empire or the Federation caught wind of his existence as he was now, things would be more than just a bit problematic.

In a way…

Should I say that the destruction of this planet is a boon?

Dorothy contemplated quietly and once her thought reached there she couldn’t help but stop and wonder about an important point.

The destruction of the planet had been extremely frightening, but when one stopped and thought about it, such clean erasure seemed a bit too much of an overkill. Why bother erasing something from existence when you could simply blow up the planet normally?

Unless the main goal wasn’t just to destroy the planet itself but to make sure absolutely no trace remained. If so then… perhaps…

“Dorothy?”

Dorothy stopped herself. Her thoughts were indeed going a little too deep. Even for her, it was hard to fathom what kind of link Noah could have with such powerful and old Civilizations. But, just in case—

“Destroy the pirate ships.” Her expression became cold and resolute. Dorothy had never been a kind woman and she had always been very decisive. If she gathered her resolve then there was nothing she was not willing to do, “Kill all the pirates and make sure all the records about our fight are erased altogether. If the Empire knows we entered in contact with one of the theorized Supreme Gates, they will keep bothering us.”

“What about our crew?” Lion was quite surprised by her words. After all, even for Dorothy, this was a radical decision.

But he knew that when she was in such a mood, it was easier to simply shut up and do as she ordered. Everything would work itself out if they didn’t deviate from the course she set.

“Erase their memory. Their minds are too weak and a telepath will be able to glean information from them quite easily. Make sure Tin Can erases all records from our ships as well. I want everything to be clean as though it never existed. No mistake is allowed.”

She sighed and started walking with a clear purpose in her steps.

“Does it mean the boy’s mind is strong? To be honest he seemed quite weak.” This was not him looking down on Noah because of his appearance.

Lion was someone who prided himself in his carefulness and while the boy definitely had a dangerous scent on him, it did not seem like he could cause any mischief.

“Oh…” Dorothy snickered, “You have no idea.”

She laughed. She herself did not know how weak or strong Noah was but sometimes, a leader had to act mysterious and smart. Sadly for Dorothy—

“You don’t know anything either it seems.” Lion knew her too well and could see past her pretense.

Dorothy simply coughed and walked away, hiding her reddening cheeks. “Forget about it. Let’s move the ship after we destroy the pirates.”

Lion fell back exactly one step behind her and asked, “What is the destination? Home?”

“No. Not home. Our destination will be— Sol III.”

With the way the current planet vanished, some information she had obtained in the past became extremely clear.