Star Rank Hunter

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

Translator's Notes: Easiest update of my life. Everyone's redacted yay!

Chapter 218: Imperial Capital Accent? [Part 1]

The magnetic changes occurring around Cillin were growing stronger and stronger. In fact, space was literally starting to distort around him.

Cillin finally understood what that strange feeling he had been feeling was.

The time vortex was reacting to the leaf patterned ring on his fingers. It was pulling Cillin in with great force.

More accurately speaking, it was trying to pull the leap patterned ring in, but the leaf patterned ring was completely stuck on Cillin’s fingers right now. Therefore, Cillin was pulled along into the time vortex.

Green light appeared from the leaf patterned ring and wrapped all around Cillin.

Cillin stood at the back of the group. He consciously chose such a position because he knew that people like Jiada and Ji Feng should be at the front. But because everyone was looking at the time vortex in space right now, this also resulted in no one noticing Cillin or the anomaly when it first started.

When the gray cat turned around to look at Cillin, the light had just stretched out of the leaf patterned ring and wrapped around Cillin. The light frightened the gray cat greatly. The gray cat was an animal of instinct, so a single line appeared in its head the second it saw the light: Cillin’s about to go to the other side of the time vortex!

The gray cat immediately jumped over to Cillin, clinging to his arm with both paws and tail.

Despite appearing in this world for many years already, Cillin was the only person the gray cat ever truly trusted. Not even the members of the Sixth B Squadron had gained its full and unconditional trust. But what would happen if something were to happen to Cillin, or if he were to suddenly disappear? Would it be captured and dissected by those mad scientists? If Cillin was around then it wouldn’t starve, but if Cillin wasn’t around then it would have to return to its former life.

That was absolutely unacceptable!

In reality, the gray cat’s actions were faster than its thoughts. Everything came to its mind only after it held onto Cillin.

Czedow was a step too slow compared to the gray cat. The light had wrapped around Cillin and the gray cat completely by the time he tried to reach them. He was pushed away by the light immediately.

Not even Ji Feng and everyone else was able to get close to Cillin. By now the magnetic fluctuations surrounding Cillin and the gray cat was getting stronger and stronger, and their figures were starting to blur out of existence. Therefore, the group gave up trying to approach them by force.

Seeing that Czedow was pushed away by the light, the gray cat spat out the ring in its mouth so it could leave something behind for it. It wondered if Czedow would be lonely if Cillin and it weren’t around, if Czedow would be taken advantage of by the other members of Vanguard, if Czedow would go hungry and so much more. Regardless, the items inside the ring should be enough to support Czedow’s independence.

It was amazing this cat could think of such things during a critical moment like this. In fact, the gray cat was thinking that Cillin = food for life, so its life would definitely be better than Czedow’s no matter what. That was why it thought to help Czedow, especially since Czedow was its ‘own kind’.

Originally, the gray cat wanted to say something to Czedow, but it wasn’t even given the chance to speak at all.

The brighter the light grew, the blurrier Cillin and the gray cat’s figure became. Then, the light moved and carried them straight into the time vortex above everyone’s heads.

When the light entered the time vortex, the vortex slowly weakened until it vanished completely.

Everything returned to normal just like before, but dead silence had replaced the usual chatter instead. No one was talking, and everyone was staring blankly at the time vortex.

Did the ‘Shortcut’ they were looking forward to for such a long time just vanish right after its activation?

Czedow cared nothing for everyone else’s thoughts. He stretched out his hands and caught the ring slowly falling from the sky after it was spat out by the gray cat. Then, he wrapped his fingers around the ring and gripped it tightly. This ring had been taken off Oskulos’ body, and the gray cat had thought of it as its precious for as long as it had it. Cillin was even going to turn this ring into the gray cat and Czedow’s reserve ‘granary’, but now Czedow was the only one left in this side of the world.

Czedow tried to contact the gray and the Cillin once, but he couldn’t detect any signs from them at all. He could neither connect to Cillin’s communicator, nor communicate with the gray cat. It was as if the duo had suddenly vanished into thin air.

They were just… gone.

He might just be a robot, but a strange feeling he never felt in his life until now suddenly assaulted Czedow’s senses. Words couldn’t describe this feeling because of how complex it was. The only way he could describe it was that it hurts. It really hurts.

Sigma always expressed its thoughts in full, but Czedow was more reserved than it was. Although his expression was as stiff as ever, his eyes spoke a completely different language. It was just that no one could see it because it was looking down at the ring in his hand.

“Eh? Eh!!!!” The blue strips on Sigma’s face turned into large vertical bars as it let out a cry of absolute confusion.

Sigma’s cry woke everyone from their daze.

“They… went inside?” Xin Zhao asked.

No one answered his question.

“This shouldn’t happen, this shouldn’t have happened!” Sigma yelled while waving its arms wildly. It then rushed back into the tunnel to check the machine.

Ji Feng and the others followed behind it. They too wanted to know what the f*ck had just happened.

Sigma clutched its head with both arms while the blue strip on its face flashed erratically after it went back into the room. It showed just how upset Sigma was right now.

The energy that powered the time vortex was completely depleted, and some errors had appeared in the node connection program. Some of the machines were experiencing major or minor issues after the activation such as breakdowns or program errors. It would take a long time to repair them to full.

Before the gray cat was sucked into the time vortex, its presence had caused a ‘radiation’ of machine language that affected even the likes of Czedow and Sigma for an instant. However, both Czedow and Sigma had endured the effects of the radiation because they were pretty special existences. The rest of the machines couldn’t say the same, however. Be it the spaceplanes parked near the area or the instruments that made up the planet, they were all experiencing program errors.

Even the Grim Reaper starship that had retreated some distance away from the planet because of the time vortex had lost control for a short period of time.

Sigma ‘cried’ when it looked at the machines. It turned around and looked at the approaching Czedow, asking, “What do we do? ‘Shortcut’ won’t be coming online for a while.”

“How long will it take to open ‘Shortcut’ once more?” Czedow asked. Ji Feng and the others were paying attention to the conversation too.

“It’ll probably take at least three to five years. I can’t give an accurate estimate. But…” Sigma stared at the characters and the flashing dot at the center display. In the end, it didn’t explain the ‘but’ part of its sentence and concluded its explanation with a sigh.

Both Jiada and Ji Feng had asked Sigma some questions after that. The conclusion they received confounded them both.

“Cillin and Wheeze may have been transported to the other side of the time vortex, but I don’t know why this had happened to,” Sigma pressed two fingers together while looking confused and aggrieved. Not only did its wish to go home just went up in flames, even Cillin and the gray cat were gone from this side of the planet. It would be lonely.

Cillin had no idea what the others were thinking after his departure, for he felt as if he was isolated in a different world altogether the moment he was wrapped by that green light. Also, he lost his consciousness the second he was carried towards the time vortex.

A long time later, Cillin finally regained his consciousness. He felt as if he had been put through a grinder before being reassembled at the end. It was about as painful as the imagery would suggest.

There were a lot of noise, the sound of thrusters and flying cars, a yelling voice, the sound of metal hitting the ground…

Things slowly quieted a little.

A while later, Cillin opened his eyes, and looked.