Future Knight [EN]: Chapter 7

3. The Fallen Red Mars

Three months had passed since he opened his eyes.

Having learned their language and culture to some extent, Kang Chan visited Arteon.

She seemed a little taken aback by Kang Chan’s sudden visit.

“Welcome, Kang Chan. What brings you here? Is there anything you need or anything that makes you uncomfortable?”

“I have a favor to ask, so I came to see you, Arteon, despite my rudeness.”

Arteon was surprised to hear his fluent Erkandor Common language.

‘I heard that he has been working day and night to learn our language for the past few months, but it’s amazing that he can speak Erkandor Common language so fluently with such perfect pronunciation in just three months.’

She really wanted to applaud his excellent learning ability, but she pretended not to know, as she roughly guessed what he would ask her.

Her expression was very coy, not befitting her age.

“What is your request? I will help you if I can. Tell me.”

Kang Chan paused for a moment before slowly opening his mouth.

“I want to go to the crashed spaceship.”

As his words matched the answer she had expected, Arteon slowly smiled and said. Since it was expected anyway, she readily agreed.

“Okay. Then let’s take a look together early tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Kang Chan bowed his head again, left Arteon’s room, and headed home.

‘Finally, I will find out why the battleship crashed.’

The truth that has tormented him for three months will be revealed tomorrow.

His heart was very complicated as he returned home.

* * *

The next morning, Kang Chan set off for the crashed battleship early with ten Elven warriors brought by Arteon.

Jaina seemed to want to follow, but it was impossible, so she could only groan alone without saying a word.

The distance taught by the computer was only 15.513 kilometers, a short distance, but as they crossed the dense forest area, they arrived at the monster long after lunchtime.

“Well, we have arrived. This is where the monster you were riding crashed.”

‘Monster? I can’t see anything?’

No matter how much he looked around, he couldn’t find any trace of the battleship.

However, only the traces of destruction that seemed to have no end implied that something had crash-landed here.

“Wait a minute.”

Arteon took out a small crystal from her chest pocket and walked forward.

Then, numerous rays of light and magic circles were activated around them above the ground, and a door made of magic circles appeared about 2 meters in front of them.

As Arteon calmly entered the magic door, an Elven warrior who was following behind guided Kang Chan, who was standing blankly, into the magic circle and whispered to him.

“This place is hidden by a magic barrier created by Arteon, a Ninth Circle user [a mage of immense power]. Come inside.”

“…….”

Kang Chan didn’t feel very good at the thought that they had freely placed a barrier on his battleship.

Following the Elven warriors inside, a huge metal structure that overwhelmed his gaze came into Kang Chan’s view.

On the upper part of the huge metal structure, a red, blood-colored phrase was clear.

「RED MARS」

‘Finally… I’m back on the battleship.’

The crashed Red Mars was severely damaged here and there, and the hull was melted by the high heat received when passing through the atmosphere, turning into a crumpled, miserable appearance.

The battleship, which had turned into such a miserable appearance, was half-buried in the cliff and sleeping peacefully, and Kang Chan, who was looking at the battleship, became impatient and tried to approach the battleship urgently.

Then an Elven warrior stopped him.

“You can’t. Please wait a moment.”

“Why is that?”

The escort Elf took out a bracelet from his pocket and put it on Kang Chan’s wrist.

“From now on, another high-level magic is installed inside that only those who have this bracelet can enter. So you can only enter if you are wearing this bracelet.”

Kang Chan grumbled inwardly as he watched the Elven warrior put a magic bracelet on him.

‘They’ve installed so many things on someone else’s spaceship.’

“Then can I go inside now?”

“No. Not yet.”

The Elven warrior stopped him again.

Kang Chan couldn’t hate the Elven warrior who kept grabbing him so much when his heart was already inside the battleship.

“What else is left?”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“…….”

At his words, Kang Chan looked around with a blank expression, and the ten Elven warriors who had come with Arteon were already busy preparing for a meal.

“You will enter the monster after the meal.”

The Elven warrior, who spoke firmly once again, hurriedly helped the other Elves prepare for the meal.

They spread out mats in a shady place and sat around, taking out the food they had brought.

He wondered why they were carrying so much, but it was all lunch boxes.

They looked like they were on a picnic.

In Kang Chan’s view, the Elves were too relaxed.

It was the unique leisurely attitude of the Elves who had lived for a long time.

But the most important fact here was that only Kang Chan didn’t prepare a lunch box.

He was starting to feel hungry too.

When they finished lunch and entered the Red Mars, a long corridor with emergency lights turned on came into their view.

“Emergency power system. Is the main power off?”

Kang Chan’s eyes were filled with despair.

If the main power was off, it meant that it was impossible to revive it on its own.

The Pluton engine installed in this battleship required enormous energy to restart, so the energy of a normally operating Pluton engine from another battleship was needed.

This was the biggest disadvantage of the high-performance Pluton engine, but the enormous energy and stability that could be obtained from it were incomparably safe and superior compared to the nuclear fusion reactor using Helium-3, which was used in space navigation in the past, so all but a few old spaceships were equipped with commercial Pluton engines.

Although the latest battleships use a more advanced latest engine called an antimatter generator, the material of antimatter itself is so rare and difficult to handle that it has only been put into practical use in super-giant space battleships such as the Temerel, the flagship of the Space Federation Defense Forces.

“If the main power is off, there is no way to save the main computer.”

The main computer was a supercomputer specially designed to pioneer trans-space space routes, and it consumed as much astronomical energy as its enormous processing capacity, so it couldn’t even be started without the power of the main engine.

Therefore, that meant that he could never return to his home, the solar system, on his own.

Kang Chan shook his head violently at the desperate thought and walked down the corridor with a gloomy expression.

Arteon looked at him with sympathetic eyes, but she didn’t forget to keep a close eye on him.

He should have felt like he had returned to his hometown since he had come to this cold and hard corridor where he had lived almost his entire life, but he felt like he was suffocating.

It may have been because the indoor air was polluted because the air purification filter was not working, but more than that, the memories of when he was a killing machine came to his mind.

Those memories that he couldn’t forget even if he wanted to.

He struggled to shake off the bad feelings that seemed to be suffocating him, and began to carefully deduce why the battleship had crash-landed, examining the traces of battle scattered here and there.

‘The bullet marks scattered on the wall are not from our 5.56mm, but from the Empire’s 7.62mm plasma gun. And considering the power and range of destruction of the scars caused by the high-frequency blade that crosses the bullet marks, this is definitely not a human, but a combat droid. The blade scar spacing does not match what all of our droids use that are stored in the computer. It also does not match the enemy Empire’s droid information in storage, so this must be the Empire’s new droid.’

As the enemy’s culprit gradually appeared before his eyes, Kang Chan gritted his teeth.

The details will come out if you investigate the computer that records the navigation log in the data room, but since it was clear that the Empire’s droid was the culprit, Kang Chan began to feel angry.

At that time, Arteon’s voice was heard from behind Kang Chan, who was staring blankly at the wall.

“How can small holes be made in a row on such a solid iron wall? Is this also due to a weapon made with science?”

In response to Arteon’s worried question, he silently nodded slowly and got up from his seat and headed to the sleep capsule room, his last memory location.

He was curious how he survived alone.

On the way to the sleeping room, there were traces of fierce battles here and there, but the corpses were all cleaned up by the Elves.

And the moment he passed through the destroyed green door and entered the sleep capsule room, Kang Chan let out a groan.

“Hmm…….”

As expected, the enemy’s new droid was stopped with its entire body destroyed.

“This guy was the culprit.”

It was indeed a droid of a type he had never seen before.

It looked like a spider, and judging from its armament, the front feet were high-frequency blades and the second feet were 7.62mm plasma guns, making it a typical anti-personnel killing droid.

This damn droid in front of him killed 9 of the 10 Red Mars members and seemed to have stopped functioning without being able to kill himself in the 10th capsule.

If he hadn’t entered the 10th capsule, he would have been killed by that killing machine a long time ago.

Kang Chan’s expression turned as cold as frost in an instant.

Kang Chan, who was looking through the sleep capsules that had been brutally destroyed by the droid one by one, stopped in front of one of the sleep capsules.

“Dick…….”

He was a comrade who made him feel camaraderie, even in the special forces Red Mars, which consisted only of killing weapons with no camaraderie.

He was a black friend who tried to make him laugh with ridiculous jokes even in the tension of being dropped into the atmosphere on an assault boat towards the target point, but he felt so resentful that he had never laughed at that time.

He wanted to cry for him, but no tears came out.

“Dick, I’m sorry.”

Kang Chan said a prayer of condolence to him and turned back to the data room.

The black box [flight recorder] installed there would have everything stored about how the Red Mars crashed.

The Elves silently followed Kang Chan, who was moving his heavy steps.

The data room was on the floor directly above the sleeping room, and Kang Chan, who arrived at the data room, restarted the computer in the situation room.

The computer in the situation room, which did not need to perform astronomical calculations for space navigation like the main computer, was sufficient with emergency power alone.

Numerous monitors began to turn on one after another in the dark situation room.

As various programs began to operate in a dizzying manner, the Elves standing behind Kang Chan widened their eyes and stared at the mysterious sight.

Arteon couldn’t believe everything in front of her, that all of this was a product of science, not magic at all.

When the booting was finished, Kang Chan rolled up his arm and plugged the computer’s USB cable into his arm.

Then, Kang Chan connected the battleship’s black box to his bio computer and began to carefully examine the navigation log in the black box.

Then a cry of anger burst from his mouth.