Chapter 11: Exposed

"Instant regeneration? Is this really supposed to be a backwater planet?" Cassian pondered to himself while the two humans started fighting once more.

The result of their battle still hadn't changed, though.

"Since you don't stop irritating me, then let me put an end to this for good. I will keep killing you every time you respawn, until you have no levels left to lose."

A sword stabbed through the chest of the man, who had just healed from all his injuries after disappearing for a brief second.

"You bastard!" The loser of the battle respawned and summoned a sword from an inventory.

The scene made Cassian frown. First, it was Instant Regeneration Technology, and then it was spatial storage. It was something that even the Higher Civilizations had barely learned to control.

"Esme, I want you to hack into this planet's digital mainframe and get me any information that could be useful, especially regarding these strange humans."

"Reporting to the Captain. It will consume 1 Ether Unit. Should I proceed?"

"Go ahead." Without taking long to think, Cassian gave the authorization.

There was so much about this world that was unknown. There were so many things that defied common sense and surpassed the normal growth trajectory of a world like this.

If he wasn't worried about having to spend too many Ether Units, he would have even asked Esme to scan the entire planet for any threats.

Fortunately, the consumption for just hacking into the digital mainframe wasn't too much.

As soon as Esme received permission, she started accessing the signals used by the cell towers.

She used the signal to open a backdoor into the digital mainframe and entered an even more secure infrastructure to gather the information she could.

Even the most secure systems, belonging to national intelligence agencies, were hacked by Esme within a matter of seconds.

Not a single warning was raised in those systems. There was only a slight increase in memory usage, but it wasn't enough to raise suspicions.

The hacking progressed smoothly. As an advanced AI belonging to a higher civilization, it was child's play for Esme to keep her presence hidden.

There was only one small problem that Cassian hadn't considered.

Esme hadn't exposed them through her hacking. Still, they were exposed before the entire world.

"Wait, what is that?"

"Is that a... spaceship?"

"The heck? They also had a space theme? Why wasn't this in any of the promo materials?"

In the city, many were looking at the sky where the sun was covered by a giant metal ship, casting a deep shadow over their cities.

Even the cities that couldn't directly see the spaceship were alerted to its presence as various live streams started covering it.

Within minutes, the presence of the ship had become a matter of national news across various countries.

"Is it a secret weapon created by our country? Or is it some alien civilization trying to establish contact with Earth?"

"Are sci-fi movies coming true? Soon, we will be joined by an expert on the panel. Please stay tuned."

"Reporting live from Ciesta, where a massive spaceship has appeared out of thin air. As you can see, there seems to be no movement."

"Hmm? Why are they all looking towards the sky?"

Through the screen, Cassian noticed thousands of people looking toward the sky. Even the two youngsters who were fighting looked up.

Cassian started to have a really bad feeling.

Although he could connect to the ship and control it from a distance, that was only when he was actively trying to.

It was like being able to transmit his thoughts to another person. It didn't happen automatically.

It was something that had to be willed by him, unless there was an emergency warning being transmitted by the ship's system to him, or Esme was trying to contact him.

If that weren't the case, he would've already noticed that the ship's stealth was turned off the moment a high-energy system was used.

It was part of the limitation. However, Cassian had only thought that the limitation was talking about high-energy weapon systems. He didn't think that it would apply to a mere hacking attempt by Esme.

He closed his eyes and accessed Fenrir's system to check for himself. Immediately, his face fell.

His bad feeling had come true. The humans below weren't looking at some hot air balloon or bird.

They were looking straight at Fenrir.

Cassian's lips started twitching. So much for trying to approach this world stealthily. Now that he was already exposed, there was no point in turning on the stealth again.

"Reporting to the Captain. All the data from Earth has been gathered and arranged according to recent events and priorities."

Cassian tossed his head back on the chair, his long hair covering most of his face, showing only a glimpse of his eyes.

"Esme, prepare the shields. Activate them if you see any danger to Fenrir's existence. Although the weapon systems haven't been completely repaired, ready what we can use to counter if needed."

"If anyone tries to attack us, respond as brutally as possible. But if they don't attack, then just stay on standby."

Cassian didn't plan to kill people on this planet. But he also didn't want them to think of Fenrir as easy prey, especially since they seemed to have some connection with a higher civilization.

Cassian left Esme to react to the ever-changing situation, while he immersed himself in the data that was gathered from Earth.

A screen had materialized before him, which held information that spanned hundreds of billions of lines.

Fortunately, he could precisely search, select, and summarize what he wanted to know in this massive swarm of data.

Cassian started going through the history of this world, especially from the last thirty years.

On the other hand, the world leaders were scrambling to contact each other to see if this was a weapon created by one of their countries.

A few even suggested nuking the hell out of this spaceship. Others suggested that they should try to establish friendly contact.

The one who was most worried was the leader of the country where this spaceship had appeared.

Even though their country was considered the strongest military power on Earth in this era, they also didn't know the right way to deal with this situation.

"Sigh, first those strange humans appearing in the thousands all across the world, and now this spaceship... Just what is happening to our world?"

The President sat with his head on the table, looking exhausted.