The Scheme (1)
Space Survival boasted well over several thousand known non-playable species.
With hundreds of explorable planets for players to roam, it might have seemed like a lot of enemies to deal with, but compared to other online games it was actually a modest number.
Each species in the game was built with unique behaviors suited to its own habitat. Because they were all modeled on the habits of real wild animals living in comparable ecosystems, they gave players an uncanny sense that such creatures genuinely existed.
Sapient NPCs, meanwhile, drew their motifs from specific real-world cultures, which let players immerse themselves with a high degree of verisimilitude.
Still, Space Survival was a game at the end of the day, and not everything obeyed realism. There were exceptions.
The Galagons, for one.
Modeled after the dragons of myth, Galagons diverged from ordinary creatures in quite a number of ways.
Hording treasure and relics in their nests, obliterating cities near their roosts with overwhelming psychic power — these were behaviors far removed from the instincts of common animals.
Among those alien traits was a peculiar, almost obsessive affection for their offspring and their own kind.
Rather than living independently, Galagons formed prides much like lions and stayed together.
A pride typically consisted of one male and seven or eight females, and the weakest member of all — the Blue Galagon — was sheltered and protected by the entire flock.
This lore was implemented in-game as the Blue Galagon's signature unique trait.
Summoning its kin.
In the setting, Galagons were all linked mind-to-mind through their signature psychic power, letting them call to one another no matter how far apart they roamed.
The game expressed that lore as a summoning skill: a Blue Galagon could call in members of its pride at will.
As a result, while the Blue Galagon itself was extremely weak, it ranked among the most troublesome prey in the game — because you could never fight it alone. Its kin always came with it.
You might ask what the problem was; even ranker-grade players could rarely find Galagons at all, so an easy catch would be a windfall. But the kin summoned by a Blue Galagon were treated as conjured constructs, not legitimate creatures — killing them yielded no items, no Genetic Essence, nothing.
Honestly, that's why I hunted Green Galagons and White Galagons far more often than Blues.
From the Green Galagon — equivalent to a Juvenile-stage Amorph — on up, the summoning trait disappeared.
They were hardly pushovers, of course, but fighting a single Galagon beat fighting a whole pride any day of the week.
Either way, going strictly by the game's lore, I was currently in very serious danger.
Because the creature sleeping in front of me was, no matter how I looked at it, a Blue Galagon.
Though it's a bit on the small side.
A Blue Galagon never measured less than two meters, yet this one barely cleared fifty centimeters.
Small enough that anyone unfamiliar with the Galagon species might mistake it for a Fairywing.
Well, mistake or not — how the hell did anyone manage to catch this thing?
Even in my Sub-adult form, capturing one alive would be flatly impossible.
...There's something going on here I don't know about.
A Blue Galagon was not some pushover creature a lone criminal could stuff into a crate and smuggle.
It would take help from one of the upper-tier Spacedog cartels — or a Mega Corp faction at the Prime Capital level or above.
Is there some force out there trying to destroy the Special Trade Hub?
For a Galagon pride, tearing this place apart — the T&C Special Trade Hub — would be no great feat.
A massive naval fortress might repel them, but this city held no real military strength. Its defense fleet could never stop a swarm of enraged Galagons.
I called for Sander to get to the bottom of it.
"...You called for me?"
"Do you know what this creature is?"
"Isn't it a Fairywing?"
I'd asked in the voice of the man from the neighboring room, but Sander looked utterly baffled, as though he couldn't fathom what the problem was.
Galagons are rare creatures. He might genuinely not know.
Even in the game, only a small handful of top-ranked players ever encountered one face-to-face; the lower-tier users knew them only from screenshots and videos posted to the community boards.
And this was reality. The vast majority of people here had probably never heard of Galagons at all.
"Who smuggled this creature in?"
"Ah — as I recall, it was Jade. A man named Jade Russell, sir."
"Russell?"
"Yes. He was being held in the detention block, but I'm told he broke out not long after."
Russell. The name itched at my memory — I'd heard that surname somewhere before.
Ah.
After a moment's thought, I remembered where I'd heard it.
Arnold Russell.
Sihyeon Yujin's right-hand man, who had served as Crisis Management Team Leader aboard Yuseong's research vessel.
Sihyeon Yujin, when she fought me, had wielded the traits of a Galagon's claws thanks to an implanted White Galagon gene.
She would never have raised a Galagon with her own hands — which meant her faction had to know where Galagons lived, and where their nests lay.
If so, having her subordinate smuggle one in would hardly be a difficult task for her.
Which meant, in other words, that a servant of the Noble Capital's Yujin family had been plotting to strike a city belonging to the T&C family — a house of the same caste.
Now where have I seen this before?
I had run into situations almost exactly like this one all the time in the game.
The event Mega Corp players anticipated above all others.
The civil war.
By the setting, Mega Corp was ruled by seven great houses.
Five houses of the Noble Capital and two of the Prime Capital competed endlessly to become the sole ruler of it all — and every so often, that rivalry boiled over into armed, bloody warfare.
"Is there a festival happening in this city?"
"Pardon? Do you perhaps mean the Board of Directors meeting...?"
"Board of Directors meeting?"
"Yes. The Prime Capital directors are scheduled to assemble to decide the next CEO of Mega Corp. As of today, twenty-three days remain until the convening of the Board."
With Sander's words, the pieces clicked into place.
Mega Corp's supreme leader was chosen by election. The five Noble Capital houses put forward their candidates, and the directors of the two Prime Capital houses cast the votes.
In the game, Mega Corp players reaped enormous benefits if the house they belonged to produced the CEO, so they worked by any means necessary to elevate their own faction's candidate to the seat.
Or, failing that, they'd rig things so the opposition couldn't even field a candidate.
If players did it in the game, it went without saying that it happened here in reality too.
Most likely, Sihyeon Yujin had smuggled the Galagon in through her subordinates before the Board's announcement was even made public. And then, timed to the convening of the Board itself, she intended to have it killed.
The T&C family were, after all, rivals of the Yujin family. Her course of action was hardly difficult to understand.
Not that she's anything but dead now.
Twenty-three days remained until the Board convened.
Jade Russell, who was said to have vanished, was probably holed up somewhere in this city right now, waiting to kill the Blue Galagon on the very day the Board convened.
His master was already dead — but whether the plan itself would still be carried out, I couldn't yet say.
So what do I do with it?
Handing it back over and walking away was a problem. But eating it myself was also a problem.
The Galagon's traits were enormously tempting, but timing was everything here. If not for the Board of Directors meeting, I would have devoured it and fled to another planet immediately — but at this precise moment, that wasn't an option.
As I mulled it over, the tail of the creature that should have been frozen solid gave a little twitch.
｢Baby, it's moving.｣
[Zzzzzzz (I saw it too)]
I hurried to close the cryo-pod again, but the Galagon opened its eyes.
Ah.
Amethyst eyes rolled in their sockets, sweeping the surroundings before locking onto my face. Then the creature began to shiver uncontrollably.
Oh no.
I snatched up No. 26 and pulled her behind me in an instant.
｢Fear｣
Young as it was, it was still a Galagon — a powerful psychic shockwave tore through the air and lanced across my body.
My psionic resistance trait shrugged it off without so much as a scratch, and thanks to my shielding, No. 26 took no harm either.
"H-hurk, gahk...!"
Poor Sander, with no guardian to shield him, caught the Galagon's shockwave head-on. He convulsed as though electrocuted, trembled from head to toe — and then simply collapsed, unconscious.
[Zzzzz (Calm down)]
｢Black｣｢Dark｣｢Terror｣｢Death｣
[Zzzzzzz (I won't hurt you)]
At my words, the creature stopped firing its shockwaves.
And it was no lie. I couldn't kill it right now anyway. If I was going to eat it, I'd have to wait until a chance to slip out of this city presented itself.
｢You｣｢Adult｣｢Trust｣｢Calm｣
Whatever my inner thoughts, the creature seemed to have decided to trust me. The Galagon's psychic waves, which had crackled moments ago like an electric guitar, settled into something calm and quiet, like gentle ripples across water.
Adult?
In the game, Galagons communicated solely through psychic waves, holding conversations by transmitting words and concepts one at a time. Judging by the words it had sent, it apparently saw me as an elder of its pride.
Is this why?
The 'Monster's Tentacles' stretching from the back of my skull.
Different in placement, perhaps — but in appearance, they looked exactly like a White Galagon's tendrils.
Come to think of it, maybe it's the Monster's Tentacles that let us talk at all.
In the game, Galagons sometimes spoke to players, but the reverse was never true — a Galagon could never understand what a player said.
Ordinarily, conversation with a Galagon would have been impossible for me too. It seemed the Monster's Tentacles had changed that.
Anyway, this thing apparently takes me for a White Galagon.
For now, I decided to make judicious use of its misconception. I addressed a question to the creature, calmer now than before.
[Zzzzz zzz zzzzz (Why did you come here?)]
｢Me｣｢Body｣｢Small｣｢Home｣｢Exile｣
The creature had said something unexpected.
Exiled... because its body is small?
As far as I knew, mutant variants existed among the Galagons.
These were monsters warped into grotesque forms from overdosing on psychic power, and their own kind cast them out. The fallen, corrupted dragons that filled myth and popular media were a good touchstone for understanding them.
But it doesn't seem like a mutant.
A Blue Galagon was a hatchling — it would have had no occasion to overdose on psychic power in the first place. Judging by how much smaller it was than its kin, it had most likely been born innately weak and driven out for it.
So Sihyeon's people botched the job.
If this creature had been exiled from its home, then summoning its kin would accomplish nothing — which meant their entire plan was dead in the water.
Wait a second. Then it wouldn't matter if I ate it after all?
It would still possess the summoning trait, yes. But if its kin wouldn't come when called, I had no reason left not to eat it.
Sensing the shift in my mood, the creature hastily fired off another burst.
｢Me｣｢Survival｣｢You｣｢Promise｣｢Payment｣｢Treasure｣
[Zzzzzz zzzzzz zzz (Spare me, and I'll pay you with treasure?)]
Treasure meant nothing to an Amorph — Genetic Essence was what mattered, not relic gear. When it sensed my skepticism, the creature pressed on.
｢Me｣｢Memory｣｢Dragon's Nest｣｢You｣｢Guide｣｢Possible｣
At those words, I lowered the tail I'd been readying to strike.
It knows the Dragon's Nest?
Treasure I didn't need. But the Dragon's Nest was another matter entirely.
Once I reached my Young Adult stage, I would have to hunt Galagons. Without question.
It was a requirement for evolving into my Adult form — and the key to acquiring their rare traits.
The Dragon's Nest was where Galagon prides made their home, the single most optimized location in existence for farming Galagon genes.
Information on the Dragon's Nest is top-tier intel.
I weighed my two rewards.
With the risk of a kin-summoning gone now, eating the creature wouldn't spell any real disaster.
I was currently lacking in psionic-related traits, so consuming it wouldn't exactly be a bad move.
Of course, there's no guarantee the Predation Effect would even trigger.
On the other hand, if I kept it alive, I'd gain knowledge of the Dragon's Nest. I couldn't imagine how a hatchling knew such a thing — but Galagons did not lie.
What it says is true.
The creature simply waited, quiet and still, leaving the choice entirely to me. Not a flicker of resistance, not a trace of hidden schemes — nothing.
Kill it? Or spare it?
My tail swayed back and forth, as if mirroring the war inside me.
I wrestled with the question for several minutes. And then, at last, I made my decision.