[Note: The Talia Star System is a setting I added myself. While the current official lore describes the Duchy of Thieves, Talia, as a planet, I've simply named the star system where this planet is located the Talia Star System. If there are discrepancies, just treat it as a coincidental name sharing; after all, there can't be only one space junkyard.]
[The beginning is all about laying the groundwork; the real momentum starts later.]
[This book isn't easy to 'backstab' because the protagonist has lived through three different IF main storylines.]
Abandoned Planet No. 1145.
The specialty of this planet is the junk regularly delivered by spaceships.
And some trash cans.
Or, it also includes some resilient... Scavengers.
The residents here are generally Scavengers and Exiles.
"Grey Hair, you can't take half the junk this time! You're only one person, what's the use of hoarding so much trash!"
"Talk to me after you can actually beat me."
"Ugh... bastard."
Every time this hooded Grey Hair comes, he takes away the metal from the junk, or the trash cans... If you ask him what he's doing, he doesn't know himself. If you ask his name, he doesn't remember that either. So, the Exiles and Scavenger tribes of the abandoned planet simply call him Grey Hair.
Some were dissatisfied with Grey Hair's ways and tried to gang up on him with weapons. At first, Grey Hair just turtled up and protected his head, but then he picked up a baseball bat from the trash and started swinging wildly, single-handedly taking down about fifty people.
So now, after the junk is dumped, Grey Hair is the first one to go up and pick through it.
On this abandoned planet, strength is the only language, and Grey Hair used a baseball bat to teach them to Shut Up.
Grey Hair stood at the peak of the junk mountain, the howling wind whipping up metal scraps that pelted his worn-out hood. Below, the Scavengers were fuming but dared not speak, forced to watch as he took first pick of the newly delivered junk.
He didn't know why he did this. It was just that every time a ship dumped junk, he felt an indescribable urge. Especially those trash cans—those rusted, variously shaped containers always evoked some vague idea deep within him.
He had collected a lot of metal, mountains of scrap metal. He couldn't remember how he had gathered these materials, just as he couldn't remember his name or his past. He simply combined and pieced together the scrap metal by instinct according to his imagination, as if someone were whispering instructions in his ear.
Until today.
Bzzz... Grey Hair put down the improvised blowtorch in his hand and glanced at a salvaged electronic watch.
"What's that over there? The sun is setting so early today... isn't it noon?"
The sallow sky seemed to be torn open by a crack, and dark shadows emerged on the horizon at midday.
It wasn't that night had arrived early.
Rather, it was a dense, black mass of... bugs.
Bugs that were essentially as tall as a human.
- Breaking news: a massive swarm of True Stinging Insects has approached Abandoned Planet No. 1145. All Corporation ships passing through this star rail will be rerouted... "True Stinging Insects... hiss, luckily it's on an abandoned planet."
"Yeah, yeah, there are only some exiled guys on the abandoned planet. The Corporation will be able to control that swarm of bugs soon."
People on other planets listening to the Interstellar Peace Corporation's news laughed and chatted as usual, while the abandoned planet was already being invaded by the bugs without resistance.
The True Stinging Insects were like a black tide, instantly submerging the nearest Scavenger camps. Their shells shimmered with an ominous iridescence under the sallow sky, and the clicking sound of their mandibles mixed with the desperate screams of the people.
Those homemade axes and rusted firearms were no different from crackers before the bugs' hard shells; in just one encounter, the resistance collapsed.
"Run! Run!"
The crowd instinctively fled toward the depths of the junk mountain.
And at the highest point within their sight, Grey Hair still stood there, motionless.
The wind blew his hood back, revealing half of a slightly pale face.
His eyes were no longer filled with the usual hollowness and confusion, but were sharply scanning the bug swarm surging like a tide. He didn't run, not because of fearlessness, but because some deeper instinct was being activated.
A reaction where the body moves before the brain when facing a 'Bad End'.
"Why play... to keep a heart from sorrow?"
He uttered these words, and then, the green eyes of the giant robot behind him suddenly lit up. As if remembering something, Grey Hair took a deep breath and climbed into the cockpit in the giant robot's chest, the hatch slowly closing.
The pungent smell of rusted metal and engine oil enveloped him, and surprisingly, this smell brought a brief moment of clarity to his chaotic mind. The dashboard was cobbled together, and several exposed wires sparked from time to time.
"...Activate, Galactic Super Hot-Blooded... Junk Scrap Machine, Crackling Trash King!"
Vroom—!
He slammed a control lever all the way forward.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The giant began to walk, its feet made from salvaged spaceship landing gear stepping deep into the junk mountain. Every step shook the earth and swayed the mountains, leaving the Scavengers below dumbfounded.
The first wave of the bug swarm was about to arrive.
Controlling the robot, Grey Hair raised the weapon in the giant robot's hand that looked like a massive rocket launcher.
To be precise, this wasn't a weapon.
It was an Imaginary energy emitter, powered by one's own imaginary energy reserves.
"Can I level them in one hit?"
This thought flashed through Grey Hair's mind.
How would I know if I don't try?
"Activate."
A murky pillar of light plowed through the earth. Wherever it passed, the hard shells of the True Stinging Insects were like ice cubes thrown into a furnace, instantly vaporizing and decomposing. The pillar of light wasn't continuous but intermittent, accompanied by crackling explosions, truly looking like a super-giant trash heap had been ignited, releasing destructive energy in the most savage and unstable way.
With one hit, a massive gap was torn through the black tide of bugs, and the pungent smell of charred remains and molten metal filled the air.
The Scavengers below forgot to run, their mouths agape as they watched the giant cobbled together from junk and the miracle-like destruction it caused.
"...It's effective."
But the True Stinging Insects knew no fear. The death of their kin only triggered a more violent ferocity. More bugs bypassed the charred trench and swarmed in from all directions.
Grey Hair had a splitting headache. But along with the pain, a deeper instinct awakened.
"Maximum power."
This thing had absolutely no high-tech sophistication; compared to other powerful weapons, it really was just an Imaginary energy emitter.
But for the current Grey Hair, who couldn't remember how to use imaginary energy at all, it couldn't be more perfect!
He pressed his hands onto the energy input device. A cold sensation came through, followed by a powerful suction as if his soul were being pulled out.
Some energy within him, that force that had always made him feel confused and gave him headaches, now found an outlet. A steady stream of golden energy was violently drawn out through his arms, and the veins under his skin seemed to light up, tracing golden patterns.
A blinding pillar of light erupted from the cannon's mouth, exploding like a tsunami of imaginary energy, a scene visible even from outside the planet.
Viewed from the space outside the planet, a brilliant golden band of light suddenly bloomed on this dim, abandoned planet, rapidly expanding and finally forming a brief and beautiful planetary ring before slowly dissipating into the deep universe.
And a portion of Abandoned Planet No. 1145, along with those True Stinging Insects, was carved away by this strike.
The molten metal and bug remains mixed into a colorful, vitrified ground, emitting rolling heat waves.
Charred marks like scars on the earth stretched from the robot's feet to the end of the horizon. The swarm of True Stinging Insects that had been like a black tide just moments ago now only had a few stragglers squirming on the edges before being completely consumed by the high temperature.
At the same time, this giant robot also made a sound of being overstrained. Thick black smoke billowed from its entire body, and dense electrical sparks shot out from every joint. Those already fragile connections began to break, and metal parts fell off with a clatter.
Rumble—
The giant robot lost its balance, its massive body tilting backward and crashing heavily onto the slope of the junk mountain, then rolling down and finally coming to a complete standstill amidst a mess of wreckage.
And Grey Hair opened the hatch.
He remembered.
As a... Deliverer, Captain, trailblazer... which one was he?
Who was the true self?
"I am Caelus."
Caelus spoke, a light of realization flashing in his golden eyes.
I am Caelus.
Leave?
Return to the Astral Express, return to the Path of 'Trailblaze'?
The Path Echoes remaining in his mind urged him; that was the road he had once chosen, where his... friends and family were.
"You want me to go to the Express, so I go to the Express?" The corner of his mouth curled into a rogue-ish arc, "Wouldn't that make me lose a lot of face?"
I'm not doing it.
You want me to go to the Express, so I go to the Express?
He had had enough of playing the protagonist who sprints along a predetermined Path only to rush into the abyss. The memories of Bad Ends were like rehearsals over and over, telling him that following the old road might not change the outcome.
His gaze swept past the Scavengers below who were looking at him with a mix of fear, awe, and confusion, and turned toward the distance—that boundless sea of stars hiding countless possibilities.
He bent down and precisely broke off a palm-sized Core circuit, still flickering with unstable imaginary energy sparks, from the twisted metal wreckage at his feet. He rummaged through the nearby junk pile a few more times and pulled out a half-buried metal trash can that looked relatively intact.
He patted the dust off the trash can, opened it, and found it empty. Then, he casually tossed the Core circuit inside.
"Clang."
The crisp sound was exceptionally clear on this dead, charred land.
This was the feeling.
He didn't need to return to the Express and become part of the main storyline.
Then, he pulled a battered spaceship out of the trash can.
Heaven knows how he pulled out this scrap spaceship that looked to be in the same style as the giant robot from before.
It was time to leave this trash can and go to a larger junkyard.
"Cosmic Junk Company, opening for business today!"