Star Rank Hunter

Original and most up to date translations are posted at volaretranslations.

Chapter 191: The Robot ‘Czedow’ [Part 2]

After Cillin took Czedow back to the team, Eudy and Beaver put down the stuff they were working on and waited for them.

“The commander agreed?” Eudy asked.

“Of course.” Cillin was still pretty confident that Shawton would support him.

“Er, LC Cillin. There’s something we’d like to ask you.” Beaver moved over with a smile on his face, looked at Czedow before turning back to Cillin, saying, “Can we spar with him for a bit?”

Naturally, Cillin knew what Beaver meant by sparring.

Nodding, he said, “Sure. You’ll work together with Eudy as a team. If long as you can break through the first line of defense and control any part of Czedow’s body, then it’ll be your victory.”

Eudy and Beaver looked at each other before saying, “Okay!”

Since the contest happened within the team itself only, they didn’t let anyone else know about this.

Inside the virtual combat room, there was a microcomputer each in front of Cary, Eudy and Czedow. All three microcomputers were exactly identical, and they had been procured by Beaver.

Beaver and Eudy sat on one side while Czedow sat on the other. There was a desk in the middle of the two parties, and at the center of the desk there was a projector.

All three microcomputers were connected to the projector. Whoever controlled this projector first wins the contest.

Not far away from the desk, every team member was watching from the sidelines.

Naturally, Dough was on Eudy’s side. However, Czedow had the gray cat’s support. Both Snowball and Scarlet Wind were hesitant to voice their support for either party, so they kept quiet instead.

The gray cat jumped onto Czedow’s legs after he sat down. Its lifted chin seemed to say: come, give me a scratch.

And so the crowd watched as Czedow very naturally scratched the gray cat’s chin with one hand while petting his hair with the other. The gray cat was so comfortable that it closed its eyes, ignored the battle and let out comfortable wheezing sounds. In reality, the gray cat already knew the results without needing to look at all.

“Are you guys ready?” Cillin asked.

“We’re ready!”

Eudy and Beaver’s fingers got ready to act the second the order to start was lay down. Meanwhile, Czedow nodded with a faint smile on his face as usual.

The gray cat once said that cat is a race that loves to smile. Therefore, it told him not to build Czedow like he had facial nerve paralysis. However, Cillin thought that his team was a little too noisy, and that it might be better if he built Czedow to have a calmer initial personality. He did, and so Czedow currently appeared unusually calm no matter what the occasion. Those who didn’t know the truth would’ve absolutely thought that he was a show off.

“Beep——”

As the Eudy and Beaver’s fingers danced the second the signal sounded. They were a blur in Udoze’s eyes, and he couldn’t catch up with their finger movements at all. I had no idea that they have an ability like this! No wonder Cary said that the two of them stands at the pinnacle of technology in the entire Sixth B Squadron. They’re so cool!

Then they looked at Czedow and became dumbstruck.

Eudy and Beaver spared neither the time nor effort to pay attention to Czedow’s performance at all. This was because they thought that his performance would be obvious during the process of their network battle. They would naturally know about either party's’ ‘actions’ through the network.

If Cary and Beaver could spare even the slightest bit of attention to look at Czedow, they would’ve raised their hands in surrender immediately.

Czedow had maintained the same posture as before: scratching the gray cat’s chin with one hand and petting its hair with the other. However, the programs that flashed across the microcomputer’s screen before him was so quick that even Cary couldn’t capture them with his eyes. He could only see a series of symbols and programs flashing rapidly in the blink of an eye.

Rikulab cast a glance at Czedow’s eyes, but he couldn’t find anything in them. He looked exactly the same as he was before.

Rikulab had presumed himself to be fairly knowledgeable in all kinds of high-end robots ever since he was young, but they were all just backdrops compared to Czedow.

Robots were mysterious and unfathomable. It was at least possible to guess a human’s feelings through some of their body languages or expressions, but such weaknesses didn’t exist for robots.

How on earth had Cillin created such a weird fellow?

Beaver and Eudy’s heads were sweating, and their fingers looked like they were going to quicken even further. However, it was obvious from their expressions alone that the situation wasn’t going well for them.

It was a difference in strength that even an amateur could distinguish with their two eyes.

Czedow was just too relaxed to the point of absentmindedness compared to Eudy and Beaver.

Slowly, the projector at the center of the desk projected a 3D hologram.

It was an incredibly comical hologram. There were plenty of people who saw the image of a skull sitting on two crisscrossing bones, but while this hologram borrowed the same design it wasn’t entirely the same. Instead of two crisscrossing bones, there were now two crisscrossing fish biscuits instead. What was supposed to be a skull above the fish bones wasn’t a skull either. It was none other than the gray cat’s head.

By now, Eudy and Beaver had already stopped whatever they were doing as they looked at their opponent. They nearly spat blood when they saw Czedow.

Had he maintained that posture from the very start?!

Eudy and Beaver turned around to look at Cary’s group. They were all shooting sympathetic looks from their eyes.

Eudy stretched his aching arm and fingers for a bit before smiling helplessly and said, “So this is what it means by species advantage!”

Beaver felt the same thing as Eudy. If he knew this would happen he wouldn’t have competed from the start.

At the same time, both Eudy and Beaver noticed that the little contest had lasted exactly - not a second longer or shorter - one minute from start to finish. It was not a coincidence; neither Eudy nor Beaver refused to believe in such coincidences. This also meant that their opponent had in fact not gone all out against them.

“We concede.”

In reality, both Eudy and Beaver had attempted to hack into Czedow’s core control program while they were fighting for the projector’s control rights at the same time. However, not only could they not intrude into his system, they couldn’t even find his signal link at all. They had no idea how Czedow operated his programs.

Eudy and Beaver weren’t sore losers. In fact, they were quite happy that an amazing helper had joined their team. There was no doubt that the progress of their defense network would hasten with such a fellow on their side.

Hunters interact through strength. They used strength to win each other’s respect, even if Czedow was just a robot. In this team, both humans and nonhumans were extremely capable in their own rights. Even Dough was a little expert at certain aspects, much less Snowball and that little rabbit.

Dias was very happy at this outcome. It had been a wise decision to pass down his responsibilities to Cillin.

“Big brother Cillin, I have a question to ask.” Tang Qiuqiu said.

“Ask away.”

“Why is he called Czedow? Are you the one who gave him his name?”

“No, it was Wheeze.”

Originally, Cillin was going to call him ‘X’ or ‘Shadow X’. Later on, the gray cat said that Shadow X was a shitty name, and that he should just call him ‘Czedow’ instead.

And so, Czedow was born to this world.

The moment more people in the Sixth B Squadron began to accept Czedow was when they were mining at a rank D planet.

Perhaps both squadrons had used up all their luck at the beginning, but after the initial jackpot, they were unable to find anything for a long period of time. After all, Sector U wasn’t as dangerous as Sector Z, and there were plenty of people who came treasure seeking just like them. Every person who came here were hoping to get valuables that others might’ve missed, so the fact that they were able to find that precious mineral on that planet was absolutely a super stroke of good luck.

Thankfully, the scanners finally picked up something again after a period of quietness.

While the minerals they discovered this time weren’t as precious as the last ones, they were still worth quite the satisfactory sum of money.

As usual, everyone was wearing protective suits except the two oddballs, gray cat and Czedow.

The situation at the time had turned out like this.

While mining for minerals, Shawton discovered some pretty high quality energy blocks at his place. However, the energy blocks happened to sit at a spot rampant with magnetic interference. When the planet’s geomagnetic field came into play as well, the mining machines stopped working when they reached the energy blocks.

There was no way Shawton was letting these energy ores slip by. After all, it wasn’t easy to come by energy ores of such high quality. After discussing the matter with his LCs, Cillin had contacted Czedow right away.

And so Czedow nimbly dug his way into the mining hole under Shawton, the LCs and a few other surrounding members jaw dropping gazes and tossed out the machine stuck inside the hole. Then, he dug out the energy ores with his bare hands. While the energy ores might appear to be small in bulk, their combined weight was absolutely comparable to that of a small spaceplane.

Czedow calmly put these energy ores into a long-shaped bag and drag them out of the hole easily. He didn’t use any machines at all during this process.

The scene caused everyone’s eyes to twitch involuntarily. Goddammit robots sure have it good!

Everyone in the squadron was tolerant of contributors. Moreover, Shawton was looking at Czedow like he was looking at some extremely precious minerals.

After all, while Czedow was also a machine, he wasn’t affected by the interferences in the slightest. He didn’t even experience any aftereffects common among machines from the magnetic fields.

A treasure. He was a precious treasure!

After he was done moving the energy ores, Czedow patted his clothes and restored himself to his former pristine condition. He didn’t look as battered as the rest of the people entering the mines at all.

Over time, Czedow was accepted by more and more people in the Sixth B Squadron. He officially become a part of the Sixth Squad.

T/N: ‘Czedow’ is pronounced ‘Chedov’. While the name isn’t translated to my best satisfaction for reasons that you will learn during the next few chapters, at least it’s an existing name, I guess.