101 Lord's Compilation 13: Earthling Recovery 1
After finishing my four-day ocean resort vacation, I was completely dried out.
Every night, a meat-eating beast would take turns attacking me—no chance to fight back, just trampled underfoot, then gently comforted after I collapsed.
Gained a rare experience, but lost a lot too.
Naho-san, being an adult, just ignored it, but the rest of the crew and Kaede wouldn’t even look me in the eye.
My guards weren’t guards at all. I was pinned down by a Lartel—the strongest lifeform in existence. What was I supposed to do about that?
My temporary wife and sister are going to take a while to cool down.
Saya, especially, was furious. Apparently, she’d been pacing in her private room every night, heart racing.
“What?” I asked. Then I got punched. That was dumb.
Fighting practice is brutal. (Hey.)
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Back at Anoi Fortress, one report had come through.
[Report on Earthling Abductions]
After reviewing the navigation logs and official records left behind at the station, we found records showing the station had moved to another star system—just like ours had.
People who stopped their SFO pro-gamer activity around that time? That’s what we’re guessing were the abducted Earthlings.
I’d prepared myself for the possibility that my sister might be among them. But knowing it’s real? That’s the kind of pain that doesn’t go away.
“From the data, it doesn’t look like they were abducting people on a schedule. More like they waited for the right targets to gather.”
No pattern to the abductions. Just… timing.
Since the start of SFO, the Star Gamers kept appearing and vanishing, appearing and vanishing.
They were thought to be retired high-earners, having made their fortune.
But in reality? Prince had abducted them and hauled them off to the other side of the stars.
Five years had passed since the release of SFC as a VR game and the launch of professional gaming, SFO.
During that time, Earthlings taken during the early days—when the player base was small—were few, but as the number of competitors grew, so did the abductions, with an estimated total of around four thousand.
"Older cases take longer to trace. We should start with the most recent one—the one that took your sister."
They’d realized she was missing when she didn’t show up at work a week after taking her SFO vacation.
The backlash after our parents died made my sister keep her personal info locked down tight—so tight, the company never even reached out to me.
And I’d been living my usual lonely life, no big deal without her, so I didn’t notice she was gone.
Then, on the day of the graduation ceremony, my homeroom teacher, Mr. Takata, told me I couldn’t contact her anymore—and that’s when I realized she was missing.
Probably, the week she took her SFO vacation, the station moved during that time—Earth date, June 13th.
So that’s likely the abduction day.
She spent a week moving to her destination, came back to Earth, and then I took her place on the SFO.
That was July 20th. For the station to get back in time, her destination had to be reachable within thirty days round-trip.
Obviously, it wasn’t the Anoi Fortress.
Where was it? The station’s navigation data held the answer.
“Hub Dimensional Jump Gate on Planet Brybey-4. Eleven days from the Earth Dimensional Jump Gate—matches the calculations.”
Looks like we’ve found the abduction site.
“Ai-san, what about the planetary lord and system lord of Brybey-4?”
“Yes. The planetary lord is Baron Brybey, and the system lord is His Highness, the Tenth Prince.”
“What exactly is the Tenth Prince to the Prince?”
“He is the elder brother of the current Emperor.”
“Emphasizing ‘father’—so they’re not blood brothers?”
“Yes.”
Not blood brothers. Doesn’t sound like they get along well.
But close enough for the Prince to pull strings.
“Can’t tell me the Tenth Prince’s combat strength?”
“That’s a restricted topic. I can’t answer.”
“What about the system he controls?”
"The main system: Cain System, Braive System, Doom System, Jest System."
"Ah, that's fine to say."
"It's public information registered with the Imperial Geographical Institute."
"Yeah, then I gotta register my Elysion System too."
"Already registered—AKR 1 through 12 included."
"Fast work..."
"Rights kick in for whoever registers first. It's a race."
"Wait, can you block public access?"
"Yes. It's currently set to private pending Akira-sama's approval."
"Then keep it private."
"Understood."
Should we keep the main system’s location secret?
Especially since there’s an ancient dimensional jump gate—遗迹-level—there.
And the Elysion System’s dimensional jump gate is a hub gate directly linked to the solar system’s central hub gate.
And the jump time’s only five days—almost a week. That’ll make moving immigrants from Earth a lot easier.
We’d originally estimated two weeks from the Sol System to the Anoi System, one day to the Caprius System, three days to Elysion—totaling eighteen days. Now it’s down to five.
Even better, the trip from the Anoi Fortress to Earth has been cut to nine days.
All thanks to the hub Dimensional Jump Gate.
The first prince’s system—the one we’re likely to face as a hypothetical enemy—has four systems. Compared to ours, their production capacity is probably less than half.
There might be an alliance partner, but since the prince abandoned them, the connection probably isn’t strong.
Maybe they’re too busy dealing with their own problems.
Still, how the hell do I dig deeper into this?
Should I officially designate Baron Blaybee as a neutral third party and ask him about Earth’s people?
Black if you resist. Grey if you play dumb. White if you tell me everything—or hand back the Earthlings.
Gotta shake things up a bit.
“Jane, teach me how to write official documents. I want to send a formal inquiry to Baron Blaybee about the Earth people taken from the Blaybee system.”
No time for subtleties in rescuing my sister. Might end up tangled in red tape, but I’ve got no choice but to move.
Sensing another war brewing—but retrieving the Earthlings? That’s non-negotiable. Can’t just walk away.