Led by her guards, Anna arrived at a strange, fractured shard resting in the dirt.
“There’s some kind of unfamiliar energy radiating off this piece,” one of them reported. “First Seat, what should we do?”
Anna studied the jagged fragment in silence. After a long pause, she made her decision.
“Our priority is to reestablish contact with the outside and ensure our honored guests depart safely.”
“As for this thing… seal it away. We’ll leave it for the Interastral Peace Corporation to deal with later.”
Anything related to the Antimatter Legion demanded extreme caution.
With the matter settled, Anna turned to leave.
But the moment she took her first step—
Whoosh!
A piercing sound ripped through the air behind her.
“First Seat!”
Cries of alarm rang out—but Anna already felt something was wrong.
Schlick.
Pain bloomed in her abdomen.
“Ah…”
She froze mid-step, eyes wide in disbelief as she looked down at the shard now embedded in her stomach.
Blood spread rapidly across her uniform.
She could feel it—some foreign force, leeching away the strength that connected her to the planet.
Everything had happened so fast, no one had time to react.
And even when they did—there was nothing they could do.
An orange shield had flared to life around the scene, locking everyone else out, trapping Anna inside.
Moments later, the shard withdrew and shot into the sky.
The ground quaked.
A wave of black mist surged outward, smothering the light over all of Camille.
In the blink of an eye, the entire planet was plunged into darkness.
—
“The First Seat is awake. You’re cleared to enter.”
The doctor’s voice snapped Sora out of his daze.
He stepped inside, where Anna—pale but smiling—greeted him with a nod.
“Forgive me,” she said softly. “That was… less than dignified.”
“It’s fine. How are you feeling now?”
“I’m no longer in danger. The wound was… just a clean puncture.”
She pulled back the blanket, revealing her bandaged torso—layers of gauze wrapped tightly around her waist.
Seeing her stable, Sora let out a breath of relief.
In this world, so long as it’s not instant death, most injuries could be treated.
Now, though, there were more urgent concerns.
“What’s the situation outside?”
“The planet is entirely covered in black mist,” Anna answered. “That’s why I wanted to ask—what happened out there?”
Sora let out a long sigh.
All I did was casually toss out a death-flag… and it got collected immediately.
And now this whole apocalyptic darkness outside? He felt like he’d wandered into a completely different franchise.
Next thing you know, an eldritch horror’s gonna wake up… maybe an Ultraman should be punching it back underground.
“I see,” Anna said, nodding gently. Then she offered him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll handle it.”
“Will you really?” Sora raised an eyebrow.
Still, he remembered Camille was a semi-sentient planet. Could it summon some kind of guardian spirit—or destroyer?
…Honestly, that sounded way too plausible.
“So, you guys got a plan?” he asked, eyes gleaming with curiosity.
But Anna didn’t take the bait. She simply looked at him and said, “We’ll make sure your departure vessel is ready.”
“For now, please rest.”
Sora tried again, poking around for hints. Was she hiding a kaiju-class trump card somewhere?
But Anna only smiled, tight-lipped and mysterious.
This planet’s got secrets, he thought, a little disappointed.
Having hit a wall, Sora could only leave the room, resigned.
Behind him, once alone, Anna’s always-composed expression finally cracked.
“The authority to commune with the planet… has been stolen.”
“Forgive me, Sora. I can’t drag you into this again.”
And with that whisper, she let exhaustion take her.
But between her brows… flickered a shadow of despair.
—
Days later, Sora received a card—sleek, matte black, with gold-stamped edges.
“The First Seat said this is your compensation,” Ouja explained, placing it in front of him.
“What is this?” Sora asked, eyeing the card. “Looks like one of those CEO-grade credit cards from cheesy webnovels…”
“I’ve seen it before,” Robin added. “It’s a physical savings certificate issued by the Interastral Peace Corporation. This one’s obsidian-tier.”
“That good, huh?” Sora leaned in, intrigued. “How much are we talking?”
Ouja shrugged. “No idea. Those are handled by the Treasury—we don’t even see their faces.”
“It’s equivalent to about… five million credit points,” Robin added. “They only issue obsidian cards to clients with balances higher than that.”
Five million?!
Sora blinked, stunned.
He had no idea what that translated to, but five million anything sounded pretty impressive.
“We can check the exact balance, actually.”
Robin pulled out a portable terminal. “This one’s offline, so if the card had its balance stored before my ship went down, we can read it.”
Sora’s eyes lit up. “Let’s try it.”
Something about this had real lootbox energy.
Robin slid the card into the reader and input the code.
Lines of data began to populate the screen.
“Let’s see… Account holder: Anna Bergalo. Looks like it’s her personal card. Balance is—”
Robin paused, squinted at the display, and rubbed her eyes.
Then she tapped the refresh button.
“What’s wrong?”
“I… think it glitched. Let me check again.”
Nope.
The numbers remained unchanged.
Sora leaned over to look.
And saw the rows upon rows of zeroes.
Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands…
He stared in silence.
Was there a decimal point bug in the system?
“What’s wrong with you two?” Ouja asked, puzzled by their deadpan silence. “Why do you both look like someone just rewrote math?”
Sora turned to Robin. “Hey, am I crazy or are those commas actually decimal points?”
Robin gave him a long, unreadable look.
“No, Sora. You’re not wrong. That’s your balance.”
Sora fell silent.
32,867,418,750.00
Thirty-two billion, eight hundred sixty-seven million, four hundred eighteen thousand, seven hundred fifty credits.
At first, he thought this war-torn planet couldn’t possibly have much wealth left.
He was wrong. Spectacularly wrong.
“…So, uh,” Sora asked sincerely, “you guys hiring in planetary security?”
Because he was absolutely submitting his resume.
—
T/N: THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a fan translation of 星穹铁道，骑士力量每周刷新 by 想吃手枪腿 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!
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