I Woke Up Piloting the Strongest Starship, so I Became a Space Mercenary-Chapter 544: 「I’m Innocent, I Tell You!」

「I can tolerate a bit of scrambling the moment I return to this fleshly prison, if the goal is to get me under control. But what I cannot fathom is why they all so blithely presume it shall be an easy task.」

Sitting cross-legged atop a Holy Empire citizen with thick panda-like fur, Kugi let out a long sigh as she tapped the ash from her elegant pipe onto the man’s head. No, it’s not that Kugi’s turned into a delinquent—her hair has turned golden and around her eyes there are vivid red lines, plain signs that this isn’t Kugi. This is Tamamo.

「What the hell happened here…?」

「They are but nobodies, scarcely worth the trouble of remembrance. I have spared their lives, so be at ease. Their lives only, mind thee. Kufufu…」

Tamamo let out a wicked chuckle. Hearing that kind of laugh from Kugi’s face is… how do I put it? The dissonance gave me chills, in a weirdly pleasant way.

So how the hell did things end up like this?

It all started with a certain comment from Konoha.

「There’s no way this is my fault! I’m innocent, I tell you!」

Or so she claimed. But not even three minutes after she said that, I got a telepathic alert saying, ‘Kugi’s missing’.

I mean, yeah, I get why she’d want to protest, but the timing was just too perfect. Hard to believe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe things were already in motion before she triggered that flag, but still—it’s a tough sell.

After getting the alert, I immediately had the others escorted back to the ship under guard and headed straight for the last known location where Kugi had been seen—deep within the Ministry of Divine Affairs. With the help of ministry personnel, I traced the connection between me and Kugi and dove into a nearby cave system.

The cave had supposedly been sealed off due to a risk of collapse, but apparently the ones who kidnapped Kugi had secretly renovated it for their own purposes.

I fought through the swarm of monsters they’d set up—some kind of psionic lifeforms, apparently—and pushed forward, straight into a group that practically screamed ‘we’re doing a shady ritual here!’

Before they could complete said ritual, I stormed in to rescue Kugi—and instead found Kugi, or rather Tamamo, standing over a pile of bodies, having flattened the cult and its ringleader all by herself.

「So? What exactly were these guys trying to do? Who even are they?」

Sure, I was curious what they were up to, but more than that, I wanted to know who they were to have the guts to secretly renovate a sealed cave under the Ministry of Divine Affairs’ nose and try to tear Kugi away from me. To try to take away Kugi from me after all the veiled—and not so veiled—threats I’ve been making since I’ve come here. They must be some of the bravest souls of the Holy Empire.

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I mean, come on. If I’d lost control of my psionic powers, I could’ve gone nuclear and erased this whole damn star system—including the capital planet Vehl—off the universe chart. And they still went through with it? What the hell did they want to do?

「Those fools are the remnants of the imperial bloodline.」

「The imperial line? I’d heard almost all of them were wiped out… Ah, right. Almost.」

So, not all of them, huh. But why the hell would these noble relics of oh-so-glorious imperial lineage want to kidnap Kugi—or rather, enslave Tamamo?

「They sought to bend me to their will, to seize the finest future attainable by wielding mine own Spiritual Power. The finest future for them alone, mark thee. With the power of the Third Spiritual Form, one may tamper with fate and the very fabric of space and time—at least, in theory」

「That’s a hell of a ‘in theory’ you just dropped.」

I glanced down at the former imperial family being bound and dragged away, and took Tamamo’s hand to help her stand from her impromptu panda-chair. The military officers waiting nearby looked like they wanted to haul him off, so it was probably time to vacate the seat.

「Aye, in theory. Even I possess mine own limits. To tug upon the threads of fate and draw forth a desired future is to pluck but a single strand from the countless forks that lie ahead. ‘Tis true, fate doth branch infinitely, and drawing forth an unlikely path is not so difficult. Yet there existeth a main current—what one might rightly call the stream of destiny itself.」

「Ah… So if you’re trying to go against that main current, it’s a whole different level of difficulty.」

「Just so. Picture, if thou wilt, a river. Within its flow lie eddies and diverging paths—choosing ‘twixt them is no great feat. But to alter the course of the river entire? That is quite another matter. One might breach a levee and cause a flood, aye, but—」

「Sounds like that leads straight to catastrophe.」

「Aye. And thou canst well imagine what befalls the fool who dares punch such hole.」

Tamamo shot me a sidelong glance and spread her hand open with a casual flick. Whether that gesture means ‘boom’ or ‘dispersed into flower petals’, I ann’t say—but either way, the caster wouldn’t be walking away from it intact.

「So… Can I go kill them now?」

「No need, no need. ‘Tis not worth staining thy blade with their blood.」

Tamamo clung to my arm and waved it off with a giggle. Still, kidnapping Kugi and trying to use her until she broke? That definitely crosses a line. That’s a full-on ‘we need to have a talk in a dark alley’ kind of situation.

「…I’m still going to say something about their punishment later. Anyway, what was the endgame here?」

「They sought to restore the sanity of that fool and to reclaim their standing as members of the imperial line.」

「That fool? Oh—you mean the Emperor, huh.」

The Emperor of the Holy Vuelzarus Empire—whose power came from forcibly inheriting the abilities of his predecessors, eventually going too far and causing a massive catastrophe. What remained of him now was a fused spirit housing the memories of generations of emperors.

Their goal was to restore that chaotic spiritual entity to sanity, and thereby resurrect the rightful emperor.

「Still, this whole thing is a major screw-up on the Holy Vuelzarus Empire’s side.」

「A grievous blow to their pride, no doubt… yet let us regard it as a favor owed. A favor of such weight may well prove useful, someday.」

「If you say so, Tamamo… Just tell me one thing. Kugi’s okay, right?」

「But of course she is. I am well enough, am I not? Fret not—she merely sleepeth for now.」

Tamamo gave me a wide, devilish smile.

She better be okay. I’ll ask her later to be sure. Also, that pipe’s getting confiscated. Just so you know.