章 59: (1)Mysterious Boxe

As Apophis set out to join his group in the docking bay, two players from the SuperGuild Hyrule rudely bumped into him! They were about the same level as Apophis, which meant that they were probably elite players.

Apophis turned around and glared at the two players, who also seemed to want to fight with him. This was, of course, because they'd heard how rude he was to their guild leader, Zelda—not to mention the huge bounty on his head.

Yet none of them wanted to make the first hostile move. After all, they were in a very lucrative zone for the Federation, who would surely neutralize them all at a moment's notice if they caused a scene. However, if they goaded Apophis into attacking first, they'd be only acting in self-defense if they killed him!

Apophis glared at them and snapped, "Look where you're walking, you morons!"

One of the two players smiled. "You dare insult a SuperGuild member? On your knees, you vermin! Apologize immediately, or say goodbye to your account! Maybe I'll just knock you down a level to teach you some manners!"

Apophis didn't answer, knowing that neither of them would actually try anything. Instead, he noted their nicknames and left the two standing there.

He quickly found a patrol of Federation guards and said to their superior officer, "Hello, Captain. I'm Major Apophis, reporting two individuals wanted for drug trafficking, loitering near Hangar 8."

He revealed their names and appearances, after which the captain thanked him and Apophis headed back to the hangar where his team was waiting.

On the way, he saw two troublemakers being arrested. Apophis smiled arrogantly at the fools while the guards handcuffed them and took them into custody. For their parts, the two players screamed copious insults at Apophis, but he just ignored them and rejoined his ship.

If those players wanted to get anywhere in Horus, they needed to realize that there were plenty of NPCs more powerful than themselves! And Apophis, thanks to his political maneuvering, could bring that power down upon them in such a way that their SuperGuild was helpless to do anything about it.

Now it was time for his crew to begin their quest, "Resurrection of Enclabossa," and head to complete their first IronMan Dungeon! Its difficulty rating showed that it was intended for LvL 10-20 players, but Apophis was confident they'd be successful despite the high level range.

He remembered a Dungeon of this type lying near to their current location, so there wouldn't be much of a delay in their mission. Before they could reach it, however, the MK.1 would need to penetrate the border of the Commonwealth of the Lizardmen, since their destination of Planet Asur lay within it.

The Commonwealth of the Lizardmen was politically allied with the Federation of United Planets, but the population was viscerally hostile to humans. The Lizardmen saw humans as a threat against their civilization, and Eternals had the "Genocidal" trait that would make it wise to avoid contact with the Lizardmen if possible.

It was, of course, true that the Lizardmen would consider players to be human, even if the Galactic Auction didn't recognize them as such by putting them in their own species box.

The MK.1 exited the Isirus Space Station and sped off.

However, a small fleet of ships soon followed them into hyperspace.

***

While everyone else went to sleep on the MK.1 after their exciting exploration of the space station, Apophis went to the ship's mess hall and took out the mystery box he'd bought for 100,000 GC. He set it on the table and inspected its sinister appearance.╔══════════════╕

╟─╼ITEM

║　╰╼[Name] : Mystery Box

║　╰╼[Quality] : ???

║　╰╼[Summary] : A very mysterious box.

╚══════════════╛

Apophis rolled his eyes. "Wow, thanks for all the information. I don't know what I'd do without your help!"

The box was a beautiful, perfect cube of metal that was as black as a starless night. The golden lines on its surface seemed chaotic, following no rational pattern or design at all. There wasn't the slightest hint as to how to open the box.

Though he knew it would be futile, Apophis started by trying to force the box open with sheer strength, then shook and rattled the box, trying to listen for any mechanisms that might move inside it.

Nothing. The box was completely silent.

Then Apophis put his hands on it and seared it with the hottest flames he could conjure, but this was also useless.

Apophis used every ability he had, as well as all the maintenance tools which had been fabricated alongside the MK.1, to try opening the mystery box. After several hours of unsuccessful attempts, Apophis was losing hope that he'd ever get it open. "I should have known better," he muttered to himself. "Whoever found such an elegant mystery box such as this surely would have tried everything I can easily attempt before selling it at a small cost to the Galactic Auction!"

But just when he was about to go to bed and try again another day, the ship shuddered with slight turbulence.

The cube lit up with a brief, blue light that illuminated the entire room, then disappeared just as quickly!

Apophis paused and stared at it. "What just happened?" he asked aloud. Had something within the cube caused their turbulence, or was it the other way around? Was it possible that the mystery box was on some kind of time delay, and that he'd succeeded at unlocking it after all?

He got up and checked the ship's system logs, quickly finding his answer. Just moments before, the ship had experienced turbulence when it passed through the gravity shadow of a pulsar star!

It was, of course, a common occurrence in hyperspace to pass through the locations where stars and planets existed in normal space. Black holes were the only things one needed to avoid if one wanted to remain alive.

Apophis looked through their flight plan. Apparently, the ship would cross another pulsar star in only a few minutes. Their hyperspace vector had automatically adjusted to take them through a cluster of pulsar systems, the first of which had just jostled the MK.1.

Apophis stood in front of the cube as they approached the next gravity shadow, observing it—until, once again, it lit up with blue light and shut down just as quickly as before!

Apophis disengaged the ship's autopilot and pulled them out of hyperspace in the same system where they'd crossed the second pulsar star.

Now bathed in the pulsating electromagnetic radiation of the system's star, the cube radiated a continuous blue light. The closer they got to the pulsar star, the stronger the radiation became...