MRG Chapter 21.3: His Pearl (3)

Translator: onlyfornovels

Editor: yuki_shuichi

“No need for you to say it, I was already planning on doing that.” Jorah interrupted him irritably.

The atmosphere fell into silence again, leaving father and son in a wordless stalemate.

“And you? After you break off the engagement?”

Jorah finally couldn’t help but ask.

Light looked at him without speaking, as if he didn’t understand the question.

Jorah tapped his knuckles on the table, “You’re the Crown Prince, and you’re going to inherit the throne someday. Don’t tell me you’re planning on staying single forever.”

Light’s refusal was immediate and firm, “I don’t have time to think about that right now.”

Jorah, “?”

The veins on Jorah’s forehead began to throb, and the anger that had been building for so long peaked at that moment, like a volcano on the verge of erupting.

It was only because Mu Chen had advised him to speak calmly with Light, saying things like Light “responds better to kindness than pressure,” that he’d managed to hold his temper until now.

What nonsense! Light doesn’t respond to kindness or pressure!

“Take a look at this first.”

Just before Jorah was about to explode, Light pulled up a document on his terminal and sent it over to him.

“What is this?”

Jorah glanced at the image.

In the blurry picture, an oval-shaped membrane floated above the dusty ground, shimmering with a metallic, rainbow-hued sheen, like a soap bubble in the sunlight.

After recognizing the image, Jorah frowned. “You sent me this two years ago.”

“No.” Light furrowed his brow and pulled up another image from his terminal. “This is the one from two years ago.”

From nearly the same angle, it was clear that the radius and thickness of the arc had almost doubled, like a sheet of gold foil corroded by strong acid, with the eroded hole in the middle continuing to expand.

“This is the gravitational field detected under the Alpha signal band. You can also understand it as a twisted and torn space. We currently call it the ‘Konaren Wormhole.’ This narrow space-time tunnel allows for rapid material transfer, which is why the abnormal signal bypassed the detection post in the W-382 planetary belt and directly reached the Konaren Outpost.”

“At first, we discovered some black alien crystal dust near the gravitational field, then crystal chunks the size of bottle caps, and half a month ago, it was a discarded metal piece as large as the top of an aircraft…”

“The material it transmits is gradually getting larger, giving the impression that some kind of experiment is being conducted.”

Jorah looked at Light, a furrow forming between his brows. “I recall that in the last report you gave me, the border troops had already destroyed these wormholes.”

“It was a temporary destruction,” Light corrected.

“Starting six years ago, the border troops employed fifty-four different methods and conducted over a thousand exterminations on these wormholes. The most recent attempt was two weeks ago when they used the latest photomagnetic pulse device developed by the base to destroy all the wormholes that had appeared in Konaren. But no one can guarantee they won’t reappear…”

“The most critical part is,” Light pulled up another document, and a large red warning symbol immediately popped up on the blue light screen: [“This document requires the highest level of authorization to unlock!”]

He pressed his thumb on the nearby scanning area, and the warning window disappeared. In the center of the screen appeared an image of an ugly alien covered in a metallic exoskeleton with countless tentacles. Behind it, in a desolate, barren pit outlined in red, were black crystals that looked strikingly similar to those in the earlier photos.

“The base’s research institute has now confirmed that these foreign materials all come from Doyle Star.”

Doyle Star.

—The home planet of the Zerg.

No one had forgotten the alien creatures that landed on Blue Planet twelve years ago, massacring indiscriminately and even leading to the downfall of Atlantis.

The corrosive, foul-smelling liquid, the suffocating mass of tentacles, and the terrifyingly fast-replicating swarm still haunted many Blue Planet people’s nightmares.

After Light finished speaking, the atmosphere in the meeting room grew so heavy that it felt like a layer of frost had settled over everything.

Jorah typically didn’t handle military or political affairs; those were usually entirely left to Light. But even he could fully grasp the severity of the situation at that moment.

The Zerg were a brutal alien species with low intelligence but remarkable combat abilities. It had taken Light nearly four years to completely eliminate this threat, and afterward, he established the military defense line in the W-382 asteroid belt.

However, the sudden appearance of wormholes changed everything.

Jorah flipped through the documents repeatedly, his brows furrowing so tightly that they could almost catch a fly. “What are your thoughts at this point?”

Light responded, “If the eradication strategy works, given the speed of the fastest warships, it would take a month to travel from Doyle Star to Blue Planet, which incurs extremely high transportation costs. With the support of the three military defense lines at W-382, Doyle’s alien creatures won’t pose a threat to us… But if the wormhole eradication strategy fails and the wormhole expands further, we have to prepare for the worst-case scenario, where the Zerg might invade en masse from the Konaren border instantly.”

He closed all the files on his terminal and, with a calm expression, looked at Jorah. “This might be my last vacation for a while.”

If it weren’t for Mu Chen’s birthday, Light wouldn’t have returned at this time.

“As for what you wanted me to consider, we’ll talk about it after this situation is resolved.”

……

Leaving the stifling atmosphere of the meeting room, Light tugged at his collar with his fingertips. Handling military affairs in compressed timeframes and then enduring a flight of over ten hours back to the capital had left his mind feeling somewhat sluggish.

Light slowly walked along the palace corridor, searching for Mu Chen.

It had been two years since he returned from the border to the capital, and he hadn’t had a proper conversation with Mu Chen yet. Their first meeting by the artificial lake had been awkwardly abrupt, and he hadn’t had time to say much when delivering the gift.

Light didn’t have anything particularly important to say; he just wanted to ask how Mu Chen had been doing recently, to chat like they used to. In the past, when the little merman would cling to him and talk, his lashes would always curve, and two shallow dimples would appear at the corners of his lips. That kind of smile made even the most mundane topics seem a little sweeter.

Just then, faint voices came from around the corner.

“How about this one?”

It was Lance’s voice.

Light followed the sound and saw Lance with his arm around Mu Chen’s shoulder. The two of them were sitting on the velvet-carpeted steps, legs stretched out like street buddies.

“How about I wear this to your birthday party, hmm?”

Lance’s fingers swiped across the screen, seemingly asking for an opinion on his outfit.

Mu Chen glanced at the pure white suit on the screen and said, “It’s okay, just a bit too white.”

Lance, “What’s wrong with it being white? I’m not dark-skinned.”

Mu Chen, “It looks like you’re going to a wedding.”

Lance, “…”

Forget it, he wasn’t planning on getting married young anyway.

“How about this one?”

Their conversation reached Light’s ears word for word. When Mu Chen was chatting with Lance, his expression seemed completely natural, like two peers joking around, completely different from the nervousness he displayed when he was with Light.

Light looked at the two of them, arms around each other, and recalled how Mu Chen had avoided him earlier when he tried to check his injury. A slight pang of jealousy crept into his heart.

It was normal for younger siblings to grow independent as they age. He and Lance had reached such an understanding during their teenage years; it felt like a natural part of life. But when it came to Mu Chen, everything felt different.

It was like cutting a lotus root in half, with countless sticky threads holding it together…

Neither able to fully hold on nor let go.

At that moment, two voices clashed in Light’s mind.

One voice told him that the young merman would eventually grow up, just like now, and that he should learn to adapt.

But the other voice painted a picture of the two of them drifting apart, becoming strangers. That bitter feeling returned to his heart, weighing him down like a ton of bricks, making it hard to move.

Light stood there with his gaze lowered, fingers unconsciously pressing a deep crease into his collar.

“Hey, Da-ge? You’re back today?”

It wasn’t until Lance’s slightly surprised voice called out from below that Light snapped out of his thoughts.

He lifted his eyes and responded with a calm “Mm.”

Lance glanced at Mu Chen, noticing that he seemed unsurprised. Lance shook his head and clicked his tongue, “Tsk tsk tsk, didn’t even tell me.”

He quickly bounded up the stairs, giving Light a pat on the shoulder. “Finished chatting with the old man?”

“Yeah, all done.”

Light’s voice remained calm, betraying no emotions.