月亮播放器

Chapter 100: Resting Before Landing

The Paru was leaving the laboratory, exhausted.

Zap-

‘Geh… I can still feel my muscle twitching.’

Raya had conducted tests on his jagged skin, as well as the layer that had changed through absorbing his shell.

Both had been deemed okay conductors for electricity. They weren’t great, but passable.

‘The Crystals of the Visero don’t all store energy, yet they’re able to take lightning bolts. That’s because the Crystals that cover their bodies are incredible conductors, which allow the electricity to flow directly through the Crystals and to the ground…’

Yours isn’t good enough for that. The Crystals on your back are better conductors, but they’re too scarce. You would need a clear path for them to connect to the ground. Otherwise, you’re cooked… If hit by lightning, of course-

‘I know they were useful tests, but it still doesn’t feel good getting zapped for half an hour on different spots of my body…’ The Paru shook his head. ‘I can either wear the combinations that they brought with them for their mission… Or risk it until I Devour enough Crystals on Serolia… Mmmm…’

Tired, the Paru went back to the vault.

Since he had left it within the night, he hadn’t handed the keys back to Jay.

Even when seeing him before the meeting in the command room, the latter didn’t seem interested in them, so the Paru kept them to himself.

‘Her door stays open anyways. She thinks of it as her room rather than a prison cell, so that’s good…’

He scratched his head.

‘Raya apologized every time that she zapped me, but it did seem like she was getting some pleasure out of it…’ The Paru walked down the well-lit corridors of the spaceship. ‘Kind of why I’m not staying to help her put everything back into place in there. Al probably did it as revenge or something… Paying her back for rejecting him? Mm… Not of my business though, especially after having been zapped so many times.’

The Paru entered the vault, and before the female Granilith could even stand up to greet him, his knees collapsed against the bed, and she took him in her arms.

“Things that can keep walking after being hit by lightning… That’s a bit too much, isn’t it?” The Paru whispered. “Almost feels like I shouldn’t have eaten that Tsero Crystal.”

He sighed as the female Granilith lightheartedly stroked his arms.

“The Endurance Stat boost was nice but…”

The female Granilith suddenly chuckled, feeling a tinge of electricity each time she stroked his arms.

“This is going to be tough.” The Paru said as his back collapsed against the bed. “I fucked up their mission for an increase in Endurance… I didn’t care about them then but… Well, it’s not like I feel bad now either.”

The female Granilith lay her cheek against his chest, as she stroked his stomach and chest with a hand.

“I didn’t purposefully fuck up their mission. I just found it, and ate it. I won’t apologize for fucking it up, since I didn’t mean to. It is still my fault though, I suppose…” The Paru was mostly thinking out loud.

A couple of hours were left before they would land on Serolia.

“If it was just Visero, I probably wouldn’t doubt myself so much… But with random lightning bolts hitting the ground frequently… Dying just because I’m unlucky…” The Paru’s cheek was stroked, and he directed his gaze to meet hers. “Or someone else dying just because we got unlucky… I can’t let that happen, can I? I’ll have to go alone, like I did on Tyl. But leaving everyone here is… Tsk.” He clicked his tongue. “Giving a fuck sure has its drawbacks. Still…” He remembered how Roka’s shots had made the fight against the second Wizzo’s Alpha he had encountered easier. “Not just easier, she ended it.”

The Paru let out a sigh.

“If I hadn’t eaten that damn Tsero Crystal, we’d be going to their Planet. Peacefully… Stopping by just the right Planet so that I could acquire more and more Skills without too much risk. Without… You all taking risks. If I hadn’t… eat-”

The female Granilith lay her hands on the Paru’s cheeks.

“I’m not in the mood-”

Just as he was about to sigh, the female Granilith suddenly pulled on his cheeks.

“Uwoo!” She chuckled.

With his cheeks pulled apart, the Paru stared dumbly at her for a moment, before letting out a chuckle.

“If I hadn’t eaten it, they would’ve died on Tyl. If I hadn’t eaten it, I wouldn’t even have been able to defeat the Ornidon, let alone Wizzos, Graniliths, or their Alphas.” The Paru smiled as he lay a hand on the female Granilith’s cheek. “I’ll just have to do it again.”

She stroke the back of that hand gently, while pushing into it with her cheek.

“I’ll find a way. As long as I’m smart about…”

The Paru extended his neck, and his lips found their way to hers.

‘I’ll find a way.’

…

“What are we doing once we’re there? Once we land?” Al asked coldly while staring at his nails.

“Who knows. I was against it in the first place.” Jay shrugged.

“You-You’re not really helping.” Kris muttered.

“We chose this ship for a reason. We chose it for this mission. Inside and around it, we’ll be safe from the lightning. Even from the Species that can-”

“Safe?” Al interrupted Raya’s sentence without looking in her direction. “One of our ships is still there, remember? We won’t be safe anymore. More than forty died for us to get the Tsero Crystal. We lost half of our unit. A whole spaceship remains on that Planet because we needed to abandon it.”

“Right.” Jay nodded. “We ran away, barely escaping with our lives…”

While the Paru was in the vault with the female Granilith, the crewmates had gathered.

Roka, their Commander, was busy operating the spaceship as well as she could while Rea, the Navigator, was taking a nap.

“We always come back to this but…” Liz scratched her cheek. “We should just focus on the future rather than our losses and-”

“Of course, the musclehead would think so.”

‘Right… I’d forgotten that this is how it had gotten.’

“Soldiers are always like that. Losses… That’s how you talk about our comrades? That people that…”

‘Stuck in here, we all started hating each other, didn’t we?’

“That’s not what I’m saying! Stop twisting my words!” Liz shouted.

“Don’t shout at me! What’s next? Are you going to hit me??”

‘Ugh…’ Raya scratched her head. ‘His arrival was such a breath of fresh air… We might have ended up killing each other if we stayed just the eight of us.’

Yawn-

“What’s happening here?”