Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 122: Lead

With the chip which made him invisible to the naked eye, Lucian easily moved out of the ship and landing port, bypassing the non existing security and maikh his way into the planet.

His original plan was to get a ride to the next planet, moving one step closer to D-6, but he had changed his mind to check out the surrounding planets first. Especially after what the boss of Capsized Ships had told him.

There was a high chance that the disappearances could be linked go what he was investigating.

The numbered planets were naturally dangerous and it wasn’t strange if people disappeared for whatever reason on daily basis, but just how much did the rate of disappearances shoot up to put everyone on the edge and standby.

Lucian wondered, pulling the top the cloak he had draped on himself the moment stepped on the planet, blending seamlessly into the crowd.

The air here was tense, everyone throwing suspicious glances at each other as their dirt stained hands rested on the weapons they carried in open.

Lucian moved through the tight and clustered streets, searching for a place he could easily get some information. A bar was usually the easiest, fastest and most efficient way, so he moved around searching for one and after a while he managed to stumble across a place where he heard a couple of loud and drunk voices come from.

He turned around, walking into the place which had a pair of torn curtains as doors. Sweeping that aside, he walked into cramped and loud space, having to bend his head a little to avoid hitting the dangling light bulbs. A relic from a very old age.

The smell of piss and sweat him harder than in the streets and his face scrunched up beneath the cover of the cloak.

Lucian’s presence wasn’t noticed beneath the flickering lights of the stall as the customers indulged themselves.

Scanning the room and identifying a couple of possible threats, he took a seat at the end of the room, the weak and rusty chair struggling to bear his weight.

Almost immediately he sat down, the eyes of the person in charge locked on to him as the scrawny looking woman approached him.

"How many pints of booze?"

The lady asked Lucian how much he wanted of what was probably the only thing they sold in the place.

"One is good"

Lucian said, his voice different once again. He haf fully gotten into the shoes of Rishan, his voice sounding a little rough.

The lady went back and returned a few seconds later a small kid came over to his table, his thin hands dropping a rough looking can filled with some suspicious looking content.

"Wait a little!"

Lucian said, placing a little pressure on the kids shoulder, preventing him from moving forward.

"How much, kid?"

He asked as the kid looked at him with a strange expression on his face, but answered regardless.

"Five credits"

The kid said and Lucian swiped his hand over a small orb at the center of the table.

"Thanks!"

He said letting go of the kid, before erasing his presence completely. In this state, it would be hard for even the person next to him to notice him.

In a chaotic place like this where almost everyone was drunk, their loud voices drowning out the thoughts in their heads, it was easy for Lucian to become invisible as he leaned back, his head down listening to the conversations going on in the place.

The other benefits of being an awakened, such as improved physical senses and mental faculties came into show at times like this as Lucian filtered the noise in the room, picking up on specific conversations and listening for a while to see if anything worth while was being said before moving on to the next.

For the next hour or so, Lucian sat in the same spot, listening and listening.

All he he had been getting so far were a bunch of random things irrelevant to the case at hand.

He was about to take his leave. Whatever was plaguing the other planets like C-6, it looked like it hadn’t hit the inhabitants of C-3 yet, or they just didn’t care.

Just when he was about to stand up from the creaking chair, another small group of 3 men entered, discussions something quite heatedly.

"Are you crazy? Compared to C-6, here’s safe!"

"I can’t believe you want to go face those monsters!"

"Oh, come off it, pussy! You were just scared and you created some fake monsters as excuse."

"Yeah bro, drink some booze and knock yourself out!"

Two of the three men told their companion, hitting the table getting the attention of the scrawny woman who sent a couple of pints in their direction.

Watching the small kid struggle to carry the cans over, Lucian sat back down on the chair, his hands circling the edge of the pint he had yet to drink from.

’Let’s see if it’s going to be something worthwhile!’

He thought, listening in on their conversation.

The group first went through a round of the shitty booze, letting out sighs of satisfaction before finally conversiong between themselves again.

The one amongst them who sounded alarmed earlier, mentioning something about monsters was the first to speak up.

"But seriously Dyaln. You shouldn’t go to C-6! It’s very dangerous there and I wasn’t joking when I said I saw a monster. I’m not talking some hound, it was something different!"

"Tch! Enough! C-6 is dangerous, but I’ve got business there and some imaginary monsters of yours isn’t going to stop me!"

"If you really did encounter something that terrifying, how did you escape then?"

The third member of the group asked curiously.

"I didn’t encounter it. I would’ve died. I just happened to witness as it ripped some of Zeryls men apart. They didn’t even have a chance!"

The man said, his voice quivering.

When Lucian looked to the side, he could see the fear strong in his eyes. He looked like he had witnessed something very traumatizing. Whatever he saw, it shook him to his core.

"He’s having a session again. Come on, drink it off. I’ve still got some questions to ask!"

One of them handed a pint to him to drink.

Watching him down it like a mad man, he sighed and continued questioning his companion.

"What you just said is absurd. Zeryls’ group isn’t normal at all. They’re on a whole different level. They even have more than a couple of awakened amongst them. No group goes out without at least a single awakened accompanying them. If you’re words are right, then you’re saying that the awakened was also killed by this monster!"

The man asked with a skeptical expression on his face.

"Yes. I watched it happen. After it killed all of them, someone showed up and carried away the body of the awakened along with the monster. Trust me, Zeryls men didn’t stand a chance!"

The guy said, gulping down a couple more pints of alcohol. An action that didn’t seem to do much to help his condition.

The other two seeing how affected their companion had become, taking down pint after pint of alcohol didn’t press further and just sat there quietly, each with their own thoughts.

Their previous joyous mood had taken a deep hit.

’Well, that was interesting!’

Lucian thought, taking his leave. He couldn’t get anything more from the group anymore.

Their words had clarified somethings.

Whatever was terrorizing these criminals across planets hadn’t reached C-3 yet. He had no need to remain on the planet. He should be heading towards C-6 where these events seemed to be happening quite frequently.

There was no doubt. He could definitely find something there before he reached his final destination; D-6.

Lucian looked up at the black space above the planet, his eyes catching some stars far away.

"At least I got a lead. But how the hell do I get to C-6 from here?"

"Would have been better of they had a jump terminal"

He muttered waking through the narrow streets without a specific direction on mind.

Surprisingly, he managed to find jump terminal. Even though it was a rather short one. Only linked to one planet. He would have to jump two more times to get to C-6"

’Well, they are doing quite well for a couple of criminals!’

He reminded himself that the inhabitants of these numbered planets were some of the most wanted criminals across the whole of humanity.

Having a couple jump systems for convenience sake didn’t seem too outstanding of he thought if it that way.

The jump terminal was just like the mini warp gates back in Crane City which allowed busses to cross a certain distance almost instantaneously.

Unfortunately, the mini warps and normal warp gates and systems only worked for specialized devices. Anyone who blindly stepped through them would get tron apart completely by the forces of the void.

The jump terminals were a more advances system with the same concept, capable of letting humans step through to jump space.

But each terminal had its own range and this one just had a range of a single planet close to it.

Which meant he would still have to use the terminal two more times on the other planets to arrive at C-6.

Lucian stepped onto the platform form and swiped his hand over the screen after inputing the name of the planet, and with a small flash, he disappeared from the terminal.