The situation was dire. It could very well be nothing or it could end up with the entire planet being blasted into pieces if they weren’t careful.
Behind her helmet, Morgiana was starting to sweat profusely despite the current weather, and the temperature regulator in her armor. She felt like she was at the precipice of a very important decision and whatever she decided to do right this instant, the outcome would not turn out to be particularly pretty.
‘Should I say that I am lucky or cursed?’
Out of the billions of stars that existed in this entire vast galaxy, she had to choose the one planet that was filled with so much danger. She had truly hit the jackpot. It was practically as ridiculous as it could get.
Thankfully, though she was shocked, surprised, and even scared out of her wits, she did not succumb to the fear that was raging inside her head. The situation was not at its worst yet and it wasn’t the time to panic but to make the right decisions.
“Noah! We need to talk!”
She immediately disregarded all forms of decorum and entered the igloo. Now wasn’t the time to act like a naive mercenary and dawdle about. Their lives were on the line here.
The interior of the igloo was surprisingly cozy for being a dome of chilling ice. Outside of what looked to be a bed made out of solid ice, numerous pieces of meat were aligned at different places and were completely frozen by the natural environment itself.
Disregarding the interior, she could see Noah sitting and biting easily on the iced meat. A crunch filled the igloo as the ice seemed to be a non-factor in front of his powerful teeth, completely crushing and swallowing all of the frozen meat like there was no tomorrow.
“Hum?”
“Well…”
If before Morgiana had any doubt about Noah being human, now she was 100% sure that this was no human that was sitting in front of her.
But she did not care about the subtleties of his race right now.
“Noah. Do you know what this is?”
She held the piece of gold in her hand to show him, causing him to tilt his head, “Isn’t that just gold?”
“Just…!?”
Her voice became slightly high-pitched for a split instant at the nonchalance in Noah’s reply. It was as if her ears could not believe the bullshit she was currently hearing from the boy before her.
‘Calm down. Calm down… He is just a primitive man. It’s normal not to know about the value of this metal.’
Noah was about to tell her how this metal was simply used as jewelry on his planet and was honestly nothing great even though it could be quite a bit expensive.
However, he immediately chose to shut his mouth after witnessing the signs of her incredulity.
One didn’t need to be a Nobel Prize winning scientist to understand that, though for him it was just gold, but for aliens it seemed to be something completely different.
He didn’t know Morgiana and he didn’t know what she would do if she learned Earth had many such mines. So, he chose not to reveal that information and jeopardize the safety of his planet. At the end of the day, he didn’t trust Morgiana; that was the simple truth.
“What is the big deal about gold anyway?”
Morgiana took a few deep breaths, loud inhales and exhales, before laying it out for who she thought to be a primitive and uninformed man, “I won’t go into the details. You simply need to know that this small piece of gold is enough for me to live a few years without having to worry about food.”
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Gold by itself was already a relatively great component when it came to machinery. But once Dark Matter and Energy were added to the equation, Gold became one of the most sought-after metals in the entire universe.
It wasn’t as hard as Adamantium nor as versatile as Orichalcum, but the advantages of Gold and Silver lay in the fact that, despite not being the strongest material, they were the best when it came to conductivity of Energy and the inherent storage and suction capability of Dark Matter.
Mecha cores created with pure gold would outperform the same model core made with other metals by more than 200%.
It wasn’t for nothing that the main goal of Alchemy had always been to create gold. This was one of the rarest and most useful metals in the whole Milky Way.
But there was another reason why this metal was so prized and thought to be precious,
“Wherever there is gold— there are remnants of the Old Empire.”
Her breathing became hurried when she spoke of the Old Empire. Fear and excitement were warring inside of her, struggling for supremacy.
This was a critical moment. Danger and opportunities came hand in hand. All powers wanted to obtain pieces of information about the Old Empire. They were the only known Type IV civilization to date.
“Did you ever find anything like ruins? Something like dilapidated buildings or monsters entirely made out of machinery?”
“Why?”
“This is very important Noah!”
She couldn’t help but scream before quickly trying to calm herself down once again. She forced herself to do it. She did not want to act like a bastard who wanted to abuse the clueless inhabitants of a planet who did not know the worth of the resources they held.
“Noah… After what happened today, your planet will enter the radar of the Empire. This is inevitable and for that, I apologize. I initially chose this place because I thought there was no life in the vicinity and it was one of the most deserted corners in the entire Milky Way. It was a good place of hiding, so to speak.”
She took a deep breath, “The Empire is fair. The Imperial law is clear. If a native can declare a planet to the registry of the Milky Way Galaxy, even if it’s not a Type-I civilization, the planet will receive full protection, and the resources will not be stolen or sold at an unfair price. As for the individual who discovered the planet and helped the native register, they have the right to 5% of all the operations on this planet while the Empire would own 30% and the native can enjoy the remaining 65% at no cost.”
She didn’t tell everything to him. The empire was fair but also ruthless. If someone discovered a planet that was yet to reach Type I then the one who discovered it had the right to inscribe the planet in the registry and own more than 70% of all the resources. The Empire would only take 30% as a fee for the protection and development of the planet.
The Empire never lost. But this way of doing things was to encourage adventurers to explore the treacherous space and help the Empire expand its territory.
“Oh…”
Noah frowned ever so slightly at that piece of information. He was pretty sure that he was the only intelligent life on this planet or at least the only one intelligent enough for speech and communication. As for the so-called ruins, he had a feeling he knew what she was talking about. He had only briefly visited that place one time in all the years of his existence on this planet. That was the place where those weird beasts originated from.
‘Did I hit the jackpot?’
He had a feeling that he indeed did. But he also had a feeling that there would be a catch,
“So… I gather there is a small problem?”
“Yes.” She smiled bitterly. “All ruins have a defense system. The power of the system depends on the planet and some of them are only partially active after all these years. But at the very minimum— they can wipe all life on a planet.”
“Ohh my…”
Noah frowned harder.
“So I have been sleeping above a ticking bomb.”
Or rather…
“So… All planets that have gold have ruins?”
“Not always. But the bigger the volume of gold present, the higher the chances of those ruins and the Ruin Guardian existing.”
“Ohhh…”
‘Fuck! Does it mean that Earth was sleeping above a bomb for millions of years?’
He was surprised. But then he remembered that humans had higher chances of wiping themselves out before any kind of Ruin Guardian did the wiping and calmed himself down.
“So… What do we do now?”
“Change of plans. I need to recharge as fast as possible and get back to my ship. Even if I cannot move it I can at least repair it enough to send a message. Then things will be better for us.”
The situation was both grim and exciting.
Her heart was beating a mile a minute. She had the feeling that it would burst at any moment now.
She would remember this particular adventure for all her life.