In the blink of an eye, two days passed.
During this time, Byrne did not give up. He continued to move between the markets of various Ship-Nations, inquiring about the whereabouts of Natalie's squad. Over these two days, he had visited nearly seventy percent of the market sectors, yet he still came up empty-handed.
To Byrne, it seemed impossible for Natalie and her team to vanish into thin air. When the Apex crashed, they had clearly successfully ejected in escape pods. Even if they were scattered by the storm, there should have been at least some word of them.
Just as Byrne finished questioning a stall owner and was about to stand up, an aged voice spoke from behind him.
"Young man, still not planning to give up?"
Byrne turned around to see Liam's grandfather standing behind him, leaning on his cane. Unlike before, Liam was not by his side this time.
Byrne turned to face the old man. "Those people are companions who came here with me. As long as there is even a sliver of possibility, I cannot give up."
"I know you are unwilling to accept it." Liam's grandfather sighed. "Over the past two days, I've also asked around on your behalf. During that period, you were indeed not the only traveler from the stars to arrive."
"Really?" Byrne's eyes lit up instantly, but the old man's next words quickly doused his rising hope.
"Unfortunately, the people they saw don't match your descriptions at all."
"Thank you, elder, for going to such trouble for me." After a brief chat, the two parted ways.
Half an hour later, Byrne arrived at the final sector of the market he had yet to visit. Perhaps due to its remote location, there were far fewer Louvielle people trading here. Most of the stalls displayed damaged equipment salvaged from the deep sea, twisted metal parts, and unknown machinery covered in dark green algae—all clearly long-standing secondhand goods. The stall owners were either focused on polishing their wares or scanning the surroundings with the corners of their eyes; none of them actively solicited business.
Byrne kept his head down, his gaze quickly scanning one item after another. Before long, he spotted something familiar. He stopped in his tracks, changed direction, and walked toward the target stall. As he approached, he crouched down to examine it closely.
The object lay in a corner of the stall—a grey-black metal casing with a prominent company logo on top and "N-057" printed on the side. This was the specific serial number of the optical computer worn by Natalie.
Byrne immediately performed a scan of the device. The feedback showed that the main structure was relatively intact, though it had short-circuited due to seawater immersion. It could be restarted with some simple treatment.
The stall owner was a dark-skinned Louvielle man with several scars across half of his face. "Customer, see something you like? Everything here was just salvaged recently."
Byrne picked up the device and asked, "Where did you get this?"
The scarred owner glanced at it and said dismissively, "Fished it up near the Eye of the Storm sea to the east. It's not great quality. If you want it, I'll sell it to you for three White-Spotted Shells."
While most trades between Ship-Nations were barters, people couldn't always find exactly what they wanted. In such cases, they needed a medium of exchange—money. These White-Spotted Shells were the universal currency of the Ship-Nations. Three shells was a very cheap price.
"Fine. Deal."
Byrne did not pull out the shells immediately. Instead, he asked if the owner had seen any outsiders like himself in the area where the item was salvaged. The scarred man scratched his head and shook it, indicating he had seen no one.
An hour later, Byrne returned to his cabin. Given the waterproof design of company-issue gear, as long as the core chip wasn't completely fried, a short period of immersion wasn't enough to render it total scrap. He took out the basic repair tools he had traded for at the market, found a dry soft cloth, and meticulously wiped away the sea salt and moisture from the casing.
Fifteen minutes later, Byrne pressed the power button. A flash of pale blue light flickered, followed by a faint hum of electricity.
[System self-checking...] [Core data undamaged. Battery at 17%.] [Restarting...]
Lines of pale white text slowly appeared, and Byrne's heart climbed into his throat. A few seconds later, the device lit up completely, and the familiar company interface appeared. Although some functions at the edges of the screen were greyed out and unavailable, the basic communication and recording modules were functional.
He first opened the communication logs. Scrolling to the latest entries, Byrne discovered that Natalie had sent him messages, but they had failed to deliver due to signal interference. He browsed through them. The first few were nothing major—words from Natalie after her successful landing, attempting to contact other squad members.
However, when he reached the final message addressed to him, Byrne's eyes narrowed.
[Specialist Byrne, I have successfully landed and made contact with a local Ship-Nation. Per Director Aventurine's instructions, I am informing you that it isn't just us from the Strategic Investment Department; members of the Marketing Development Department have also come for the Azure Crystals.]
[Additionally, I have learned from the locals that the location of the fleet that settled in Lusaka years ago is known to them as the Tears of the Mother Goddess.]
[Specialist Byrne, I wish you luck. We will rendezvous at the Tears of the Mother Goddess.]
The message ended abruptly. The timestamp showed it had been sent on the third day after Byrne was rescued by Puspe's fleet.
After reading the message, Byrne remained silent for a long time. The people of the Marketing Development Department were ruthless and would stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Back then, Aventurine's Sigonian tribe had been wiped out because of a trap set by that department.
Thinking of this, Byrne turned off Natalie's computer. Aventurine had pushed him to the forefront as both a pawn to find the Azure Crystals and a lure to distract the Marketing Development Department. Byrne leaned against the wall of the narrow cabin, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.
Hopefully, Natalie is safe.
Meanwhile, in another remote sea area of Lusaka.
A ship, entirely black and vastly different in appearance from the local vessels, was sailing across the water. It had no masts and flew no flags of any Ship-Nation; only the Interastral Peace Corporation logo was printed on the side of the hull.
Inside the cabin, a man in a white suit with a cold aura looked at the holographic screen before him. At that moment, the door opened, and a person in combat gear walked in.
"Team Leader, the latest intelligence shows we have located the person from the Strategic Investment Department. He is currently in the Market Sea where the Ship-Nations gather. Do we need to eliminate him?"
The man in the white suit shook his head.
"No need. Let him scout the path first and trigger all the potential dangers for us. Wouldn't that be better?"