Chapter 408: The World Is Already Dead

Takumi's world held immense appeal for many.

Cheap housing and land were one reason.

Another was the advanced technology.

On top of that, you could learn all sorts of magic in Takumi's world. And then there were sights you'd only see in science fiction settings—elves, angels, dragons.

They all existed in Takumi's world.

There were even talking slimes.

Some could shapeshift into humans and go out shopping for game consoles.

Because of that, Takumi's world was incredibly lively and fascinating.

Many who visited never wanted to return home. For them, it was a paradise.

Some countries in the linked worlds even tried controlling their own housing prices to stop people from leaving.

But that didn't work. People came anyway.

And now that Takumi's world had entered the interstellar age, people were preparing to colonize Mars.

Who would still want to live in the countryside?

That was the general sentiment.

Hearing Miori Shiba's summary, Takumi nodded.

"Prometheus."

"Make sure we don't let in too many people with questionable behavior."

"If someone shows up with a hidden agenda, have the mechanoids toss them out."

"We may need people, but that doesn't mean we'll take just anyone."

Prometheus responded immediately.

"Understood."

"Miss Velvi asked me to inform you to drop by later. She knows you're back."

Takumi nodded.

"Got it."

He didn't even need to guess—Velvi had probably heard that Takumi brought back something new again.

Most likely Bronya had told her. After all, Velvi wasn't in the group chat.

Thinking of that, Takumi glanced at Bronya.

"I was studying with her earlier, so I told her about the world you discovered," Bronya said, understanding his look.

"Knew it. Otherwise, that woman wouldn't be looking for me," Takumi muttered with a slight groan.

Only new tech could catch her interest.

"Speaking of which," Bronya asked, "you didn't find any tech trees in that broken world, did you? Just the spaceships, right? Did the databases inside have anything useful? If they were planning to leave their world, they must've brought some data."

"Some, but not comprehensive," Takumi replied after sorting through the information in his mind.

There was data, but not much.

"Then, does their technology share any similarities with the alien tech we've found before?"

Bronya's eyes lit up. They hadn't forgotten the anomalies discovered in alien tech.

Now that Takumi had gathered technology from another world, were there any overlaps?

Or perhaps they followed a similar evolutionary path?

Takumi paused.

He furrowed his brow, then replied:

"No. Completely different routes."

"Their tech isn't aligned with the ones we've encountered. It follows its own set of physical laws."

There were no similarities.

That world's civilization had fully unified their planet before attempting interdimensional travel.

Reaching that level of technological development was terrifying in itself.

Their warship main cannons couldn't be called mere planet-destroyers.

They were capable of wiping out entire star systems.

Unimaginable firepower.

Even though Takumi had acquired tech from many worlds, this was the first time he'd seen something this powerful.

Perhaps that level of development was exactly what led to their downfall.

They'd exhausted all resources in their universe.

The abundance of black holes might have been a side effect of weapons research.

Otherwise, Takumi wouldn't have seen what he did upon entering.

Their universe had advanced so far, even an entire cosmos wasn't enough to sustain them.

"It's a shame I couldn't get all their tech," Takumi said. "But the warships alone are enough. Each one is a crystallization of their civilization. We can extract plenty of new tech from them."

Bronya's eyes gleamed.

"Let's head to Velvi later. We'll let her tinker with the ships. I'll upload the collected data to the mainframe."

With that, Takumi started eating faster.

Bronya perked up.

"To carry an entire civilization's legacy beyond their world—that level of tech is terrifying. Maybe it's rare even among different world-lines."

"What kind of weapons did their main cannons use? Particle beams?"

She couldn't hide her curiosity.

"No, not particle-based. Spatial-type."

"One shot causes a collapse in space itself. It turns the target area into a fixed point of collapse, pulling everything around into it, creating a black hole."

"Those black holes I saw in that world likely came from those weapons."

"These aren't like the ones caused by the Eden Star. These are real cosmic black holes."

Bronya nodded in understanding.

"No wonder that world ended up like that."

"Do you think they destroyed themselves? Maybe they tried to abandon their world, but it backfired?"

"Could it be something like a world will?"

"Kind of like in the Nasuverse? Both sides perished?"

What had caused that civilization's extinction?

What force could've annihilated them all in an instant?

Questions began to form in Bronya's mind.

She was deeply curious.

"No idea. The world is dead. I can't retrieve its records."

"Everything's ruined. I can only get fragments from the ship databases."

"I'll sort through them later and see if I can uncover anything."

Takumi, too, was curious.

He'd already stored all the ships.

But he hadn't explored them thoroughly yet.

He'd get around to it during the next phase of organization.