—Noah I believe we should not be in any hurry to visit that woman. Though we have some insurance about our survival in that dimension, going to her in our current situation would be foolish.

Noah mused a little, “I have one question. Did you know Omid?”

“Omid of the Scorched Earth. I did know him but not personally. Truly a pitiful man. Once a knight and now nothing. I can also imagine what you will ask and my answer is simple.” Dorothy grinned, “Even in the unlikely chances that Omid would have been able to survive on the way to the Shadow Fortress, he would have been completely and utterly crushed once the competition started.”

Dorothy continued with a gentle voice, “You need to understand, Noah. Omid was powerful in his own right. There was no doubt about it. But his position as a pirate, having a small army and a backer were what made him truly a force to be wary of. His high bounty also does not correspond to his power and was increased because the Djinn’s Sultan wished for his death.”

Dorothy needed to make this truth clear to Noah, “Omid was weak, and as he is now, even his leader Cassim can only be said to be a mid-level threat. Dangerous enough that fighting him is simply not worth it. But not so dangerous that any of the superpowers need to bring out their full power.”

Cassim and Alibaba were interesting people. She knew very well that they had a very powerful destiny and high potential.

While not equal to the Golden Constellation, they were definitely close enough that she could not look down on them.

But potential and power were two different things. “I hope I am not vexing you. But I do not wish to see you fall soon.”

She did not wish to insult him. In terms of potential, she felt like Noah was akin to a bottomless black hole ready to swallow everything.

She knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had the potential and the luck to reach an incredible height in power and she surmised in a relatively short time frame.

Now that he had entered the wider universe, he was akin to a dragon that was now able to soar in the sky. But this was exactly why she had to remind him of his current place in the universe.

“You have so much to learn. About Dark Matter, the application of power and about Frames. A wide world was opened for you. Be careful to not burn your wings.”

Noah gave a bitter smile. He could feel the genuine concern and worries in Dorothy’s voice and in a way this made it sting even more. It had been quite a long time since someone called him weak and helpless so openly. But he had already come to terms with this reality after nearly dying while fighting Omid.

He needed to become stronger. Far stronger than he was now.

“Speaking of and before I forget. Now that you put down Omid, the news about his possible death should start spreading out. If you claim the bounty it will be confirmed and you might get targeted by the Forty Thieves. So I can give you different options.” Feeling the awkward atmosphere that was settling in, Dorothy decided to subtly change the topic.

“You can choose to claim the bounty yourself on one of the planets owned by the Mercenary Guild. Normally such a procedure is not necessary as bounty hunters and mercenaries just need to call their direct contact and present proof before receiving their money. But as you are not an official Mercenary and more importantly, do not have an identification card things will be more complicated.”

She spoke nonchalantly, “This option is the riskiest one but it might be the most rewarding as you will start with a high record in the mercenary guild, which will help you have more clearance when visiting different planets.”

Interstellar travels meant that keeping borders was extremely difficult. Not many civilizations could afford to pay for a system wide detector and planetary walls.

Because of this, some planets were extremely strict on the kind of individual they accepted. For Mercenaries who had to travel a lot for their missions, having a high clearance rank was necessary. Because of this low-level mercenaries would generally join high-ranked teams, even if only temporarily.

“What is the other option?”

“Another option would be for us to claim the kill and receive the payments to immediately transfer it to you. I personally believe that it’s the best option. As the Queen, creating an identity for you could not be any easier. Same for a universal bank account as well as a local one. The credits will be sent to you in full immediately. This would mean no honor but it would be safe for you.”

Dorothy was serious, “I believe joining Oz would without a doubt be in your best interest. It would give you a new place to call home and you would not have to wander as a mercenary to obtain an identity. Furthermore, while Oz is certainly not specialized in the art of war and we are certainly not comparable to the Shadow Fortress, we have many academies that could give you a basic understanding of the world and your powers. Who knows? Perhaps we would even discover that you have talents in Witchcraft.”

The more she spoke the more excited she became. It was like she was already able to map his future. She knew that those with a high destiny probability needed to face hardship and spread their wings, mostly alone to reach the greatest potential, but being a little coddled at the start would not hurt, right?

Why go through the hard route when you could take the easiest? She thought under her breath before catching herself.

“I…”

“Wait. I am sorry to interrupt you. I got quite excited. In the end, I am only presenting you with a choice. You should always do as you wish. But, I believe that such decisions should be taken carefully after examining all factors. Why not visit Oz first? Take a few days, rest, enjoy yourself, and finally make a choice. Oz also has a branch of the mercenary guild so it will be easy.”

“I…Very well. Thanks for giving me those options. I would be happy to visit Oz.”

The smile Dorothy sent him was shining so much it was almost blinding. The smile vanished pretty fast when a robotic voice reached them.

[Destination Reached, entering the remains of the Sol System.]

***

As he gazed at Dorothy’s eyes, Noah could not help but wonder. Why? Why was she so desperate? Why did she wish to keep him close?

His paranoia made him think of hundreds of negative scenarios. Noah could believe in kindness without reason. He knew that sometimes people simply wished to help others without wishing for anything in return and while he was pretty cynical, he admired such a way of thinking.

But there were limits to such a form of kindness, and what Dorothy was doing broke through those limitations as if they did not even exist in the first place.

He truly wished to ask her all of this but now, his mind was more preoccupied by what he had just heard.

Sol System?

He remembered that Morgiana had called Earth, Sol III. Did this mean that they entered the Solar system?

Noah stood up abruptly, “What does this mean?”

Dorothy sighed as she stood up as well, “I believe in this world one must know their past to walk toward their future. Which is why I have decided to bring you to your home planet for you to see. Follow me.”

Noah did so almost as if he was in a trance. He knew that this was not his Earth and neither was it his home but going back to Earth had been one of his most fervent dreams for years.

Even if it was not his Earth, it was still Earth. A place that shared a history similar to his. A fog slightly covered his mind as he clenched his fists. He wished to stop and ask what happened to this Earth. But the answer was all too evident.

As such, he simply closed his mouth and continued to walk behind Dorothy in the relatively silent hallway.

He could see some humanoid robots on the way and very few crew working but Noah was too troubled to care.

Stolen story; please report.

Thankfully, the walk did not take long and Noah was able to gather his wits again.

There was nothing wrong with feeling emotional in the current situation but in no way, shape or form should he allow those feelings to affect his judgment while he was in neutral territory.

“What happened to your staff members?” He asked absentmindedly, not expecting an answer.

“They are getting a part of their memory erased; or should I say blocked? Mainly all information about the destruction of your planet needs to be destroyed and carefully handled. We do not want any leaks.”

“Oh…”

The nonchalant way she spoke about mind-wiping her subordinates was so shocking that Noah was left speechless.

“I can guess what you may be thinking and honestly you might be right. This is very messed up. But I am not a heartless monster. For one this is a very standard and necessary measure. The existence of mind readers and other such psychics made such procedures almost obligatory. It's standard for all soldiers to receive basic training in how to protect their surface thoughts from mind readers. Even so, this is not enough when it comes to sensitive information.” She shrugged, “All those who joined this ship were warned in advance and given the choice to refuse. Those who refuse will simply not have access to high profile missions.”

Dorothy knew that this wasn’t perfect but she had made sure that this would be as fair as possible. Furthermore, she had placed laws and regulations so that all those who ever got their memories erased receive a bonus in salary and rank.

“This seems like the kind of thing people could abuse.”

Noah was sure as hell that if such technology had existed on Earth, the White Room creators would have undoubtedly used it on them.

Being able to modify someone's memory means so much. Even if you couldn't outright change everything it was too easy to manipulate someone if you could mess with their memory.

“You are right. Thankfully, this kind of technology is not something anyone can use.”

This technology was even harder to access than those related to Mecha Constructions. Firstly, the brain was not such an easy thing to manipulate. Memories even more so. In most places the ones who took care of such procedures were psychics themselves. After all, who better than a psychic to block another one?

“In Oz we have Scarecrow. He is one of my three generals and a revolutionary genius. A little immoral but he was one of the main reasons I managed to ascend to the throne and he made sure that this was safe.”

Noah could feel that Dorothy was rambling but he did not try to discuss more of this topic. He could barely deal with his own problems. Trying to discuss the morality of her decisions when he did not even have the full picture of the situation would be foolish and shortsighted.

What he did understand was that Oz was certainly not an idealistic place and that at the end of the day, even an advanced civilization still suffered from internal and external problems.

Instead, he simply filed this information away in his mind…Speaking of mind.

“Why not me, as well?”

“Because there is no need to. Your mind is as opaque as your destiny. I weep for the poor psychic that will try to observe you.”

She laughed but Noah did not miss the innuendo in her words. It was clear that if she deemed that it was necessary she would have had no hesitation in manipulating his memory.

Either that or he was looking too deeply into her words and she meant absolutely nothing negative. He had always been the type to see the cup half full but sometimes it was necessary to realize that it was simply half empty.

At least knowing that he was less susceptible to psychics was a good thing. That or Dorothy was simply lying and planned to have someone read his mind later.

“We are finally here.”

They reached a very large room after taking a few elevators. One that was filled with absolutely nothing outside of a large celestial chart drawn on the ground.

“This is my place for meditation and now, it’s time for you to see Earth.” She seemed almost hesitant but knew it was necessary.

Noah felt his heart accelerate as he watched her clap twice. The roof and all the walls around him slowly started vanishing, allowing them to witness the void of space.

The first thing that caught his eye was unsurprisingly, the sun, though it definitely seemed far larger than he remembered. His attention did not stay long on it as he started to search for Earth.

And all he found was—Nothing.

Noah looked all around but all he could see, outside of the sun was nothing more than the stars shining in the distance.

“Is this a joke?” A modicum of anger started seeping into his voice. Space was large and no matter how high Noah's vision was, it would be impossible for him to see other planets with his naked eyes if they weren’t close enough.

“This is sadly not a joke.” Dorothy placed a hand on his shoulder before snapping her fingers with her other hand, prompting blue screens to appear all around them, “From the current coordinates, we are exactly where the moon of Sol-III, or rather Earth, should have been. From such a distance, Earth should have been visible but as you can see…There is nothing.”

The screen moved and showed different planets. Only five planets to be exact.

“We discovered information about Sol-III on Sol IV. The remains suggest that the Earth vanished or was destroyed approximately 50,000 years ago after a prolonged war against the Parasites. A war that they lost. Earthlings were able to save the seed of their civilization and these were sent into space, they did not have the technology necessary to keep them alive past a certain point. The ships we found were full of nothing but corpses. Mostly intact corpses but still corpses.”

Image after image appeared, showing everything to Noah. All he could do was watch silently. The corpses in particular were quite haunting to see.

This was an Earth. An Earth with a different history. An Earth with different people but truly similar circumstances. There was just one very little thing he needed to know.

“Did they…In the history of Sol III, how did they fight against Parasites?”

Dorothy looked up, “Well, they didn’t. They weren’t able to put up much of a fight. We discovered they had a very limited understanding of Mecha. But those were standard Mecha compared to those we have now. They were not even able to use Dark Matter. As you can imagine this didn’t end well.”

She shook her head, “When the council discovered the incursion of Parasites in this solar system it was already too late. The Parasites had already left the inhabited planets. Which was another mystery for us since this usually doesn’t happen. But we judged that they did so because they erased and assimilated all life. Furthermore, while they control the Triangulum Galaxy, their control on the Milky Way was not enough for them to push too much.”

Parasites were the worst pirates that could exist. Protecting an entire galaxy was hard. It was even more so when all the major forces found ways to oppose each other.

Parasites would slip through the crack, attack reclusive planets, assimilate them, then go on their merry way.

They were like locusts or pests that were nearly impossible to get rid of.

Not all Parasite hives were enemies. Some had very good relationships with the different parliaments. There was even talk of accepting them in the galactic alliance.

This was a rather complicated and sensitive topic.

“Well enough about the Parasites. What matters is Earth. Honestly I am surprised that your colony managed to reach so far. The planet you were stranded on was four light years away from Earth.

Four light years might sound relatively small but this translated into a distance of 25 trillion miles which would need approximately 148,000 years to cover.

Doing so in a third of the time necessary was extraordinary.

Dorothy asked, her voice was filled with solemnity, “Going back to the topic. All this time, what happened to Sol-III had been a mystery. A mystery no one cared about outside of a few enthusiasts.”

The Sol system was just a small system in a very big universe. Every day millions of inexplicable things happened in space and no forces had the resources necessary to care.

Oz was in much the same situation. The only reason she even cared about Sol III in the past was because the Sol system was only a few dozen light years away from Oz.

She had been worried Parasites had discovered some antimatter technology and would go on a killing spree but slowly lost interest when she realized the destruction was just the work of a small hive.

Now though,

“After what we witnessed not long ago. It isn't much of a mystery now is it?”

What happened to Earth might have been the same as what happened to the lone planet. Which would mean that Earth was related to a White Gate.

Noah closed his eyes and thought deeply. It was possible that this Earth was occupied by one of the Constellations and that one also started the destruction protocol.

Honestly, Noah did not know enough to formulate a proper hypothesis.

“I only see five planets. What happened to the others? Only Earth vanished, right?”

New screens appeared, showing two different planets,

“Sol II and Sol IV also known as Venus and Mars respectively by the Earthlings. The two planets were moved by the Imperial Family and placed in their museum.”

“Museum?”

Noah was wondering if he heard things wrong and Dorothy could only give a bitter smile.

“The Imperial Family has many interesting hobbies. One of which is adding planets with particular histories to their collections and placing them in artificial solar systems of their creation. The expositions are generally not open to the public, outside of very specific dates or specific occasions.”

“What is the name of the royal family?”

“Imperial Family. Be very careful. They do not play around with this title. As for their name, the current King is—Arthur Pendragon.”

Noah could only let out a dumbfounded laugh. This seemed so fitting he was not even surprised.

After laughing for a while, Noah smiled. He could feel a certain weight off his chest.

He had been wondering what should be his next goal after all this.

How could he find the next gate? Where should he even go?

Now though, the answer was a little clearer.

Planet Mars.

He had a feeling that he would be able to find more answers there.

But before going there, he needed to become stronger. He needed to become better.

After all who knew what would happen.

This was why, “Thank you.”

He took Dorothy’s hand and bowed his head slightly. It was quite awkward with how small he was but Noah did not care.

“Truly thank you.”

He continued to utter. He did not know Dorothy's goal in approaching him. He did not know if she was someone he could really trust and believe in.

But she was a benefactor. She helped him escape the planet before its destruction and decided to help him in finding his bearing in this new world.

Noah was many things. An arrogant idiot, a prideful bastard, and a crazy maverick.

But he was not an ungrateful bastard. This day would be forever carved in his memory and one day, he would pay back everything tenfold.

Thus Noah swore.