The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet

Chapter 28: Let’s Wrap This Up Quickly

… I felt like shit. 

Espr decided to not give me any more answers about what happened. Staying absolutely silent. But I knew it was giggling at my distress.

Damn, you bastard.

Dinner was awkward, to say the least. Mum kept asking if anything was wrong, while Tyell was confused, and Mella kept giving me a concerned look. She had an inkling I encountered something based on my reaction earlier but stayed silent as she had no idea what it could’ve been.

On the second day, I managed to hide the feeling and had a lovely day with my family. We played a couple of video games, explored the ship, played some tennis, played some poker, did some sculpting, and of course, did some stargazing. 

The third day, however, the feeling came back. Small but definitely there. 

Fourth…. Erghhh…

I was feeling like shit. The memory of that moment had fully returned. 

“Fuck you Espr.” No one was around to hear me say that as I was alone in the room.

I wanted something of an answer, but I knew it wouldn’t say anything. It was just that… something like that… just existed in the universe? 

The creature itself, while it did scar me. It didn’t frighten me enough to make me continually worried, but the problem was that the fact a creature that large and powerful was unknown? Basically, non-existence to the naked eye and current technology, that frightened me. Cause I was for sure knew, there had to be more than one such creature with that capability from Espr’s reaction.

However, soon we reached the midpoint of our journey. As the ship neared, Nermoon station. The mostly white station had large diamond spots of a shiny crystal blue.

Mother was secretly holding out her camera as her other two children were experiencing a new sight. 

Tyell’s eyes widened, while Mella exclaimed. “Wow, it's so big.”

“A lot of things in space are a lot bigger when you see them in person,” I commented. Enjoying their reactions. 

Nermoon was massive. Able to dock with thousands of ships at once, it was basically a space city. It even had houses, but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone to live here. While fun for a bit, living in a space station for over a year gets boring real quick. There were a few proper space cities, that were much more fun to live in as they were made with the primary purpose of supporting a healthy, enjoyable life. While places like Nermoon were just meant to be a pitstop.

The ship was docked so people onboard could leave and come as they pleased throughout our stay. There was of course security so only those who had permission could hop on the ship.

Once we landed everyone was excited, and the family had a quick trip around Nermoon. But after an hour the group had split.

Tyell and Tella were still visiting the station while I returned to the room with Mella. Mella was tired and didn’t feel like going out and I just needed some quiet time. 

I laid on the bed and stared through our window. Thankfully we were on the left side of the ship, otherwise, the view would’ve just been the station. The stars and moons were pretty but not calming enough.

I stared at the closest nearby moon, large and empty. It was close enough to the station that the station had a storage centre placed upon it for easy refuelling of resources.  It seemed to be a nice quiet place.

I made a decision, “I’m going for a walk, be back later.” I threw myself off the bed and grabbed my belongings from the closet. 

“Okay?” Mella replied, confused. As I went into our room’s bathroom with my personal suitcase.

In under a minute, I exited wearing my full space hunting gear. The mana tank was still full, so even if I ran out of mana the oxygen system would still be able to run for over a month.

“Where exactly are you walking?”

I pointed outside, “The moon.”

“Wait how?!” 

“There’s a transport vessel. Multiple in fact, going to use one to go down for a couple hours… I need to let loose a bit.” 

Mella responded, “Well… good luck?” And looked back down at her phone, watching some videos. I noticed her discomfort though, it was always too little things. The sudden pausing of motion, the mid cancelled gesture, the quick appearance of a sad frown before quickly reverting back to whatever she was before.

“Call if you need anything, including company, and I’ll be right back okay?”

Mella smiled and nodded. “Understood.” 

Hopefully, it won’t be too long before you get them back. 

Sometimes I thought it would've been best if we just spent the money to buy her proper robotic limbs. They work just as good as normal limbs if not better… she would’ve gotten her full functionality back.

I left the room, entered the station and made my way to the bottom end of the Nermoon’s docks.

The process was simple, I paid a little bit of money, got a small pod and made my way down to the moon’s surface. I could park anywhere, but for the safety of the small ship I left in the Nermoon’s parking area. 

So, I landed. What next? Well, I just went for a run.

No skills, not even a full sprint. Just a nice run across the moon’s surface. 

My feet bounced across the grey-ish rock, I jumped across large craters and kicked away some large stones on the ground. Free and no one to interrupt my jog. 

I stopped a couple of times to look at the stars and eat some snacks I brought. Tucked away in one of my armour’s pockets.

It was nice, I had enjoyed my time, besides the fact that some pests had started to watch.

They had started during my second break, I felt some presences nearby. At first, it was one, then two, then back to one, before finally over ten had decided they were going to be stalkers today.

I didn’t make any reactions, because honestly, I didn’t care. I couldn’t see them but I could feel where they were with my abilities and skills. 

Once I stopped running again, I started to do some stretches. Hoping these would show themselves. I thought about attacking them outright but there was a small chance it was concerned staff so I didn’t.

“Hey pretty.” A female voice called out, as her cloaking fields vanished, revealing her and five others standing around me. 

[Star Mapping] and my soul pressure sense were able to detect there were another eleven still cloaked.

“You're wrong, but thank you,” I replied. I figured the one speaking was the boss, she clearly had slightly more armour adorned than the rest of the ants that followed.

Taken aback by my lack of worry, she pulled out a knife hilt from her armour and activated it by injecting it with mana. A yellow blade appeared from it. 

“Well… then. Now you're coming with us, and if you behave yourself you won’t be hurt. Much.” 

I internally complained, Seriously? Sigh.

Crooks in space. Usually just referred to as space pirates. Are the small annoyances of the cosmos. I had dealt with them numerous times as an employee, of course back then I never fought and they were usually dealt with by the fast acting authority or one of the combative members of the crew. But in this situation, I was alone on the quiet side of the moon.

Now being captured huh? Stealing money was extremely hard, so when it came to piracy the target was either goods or people. However, the latter was a million times more risky with modern tracking and recognition equipment, the moment someone was declared missing every public security would check their records to look for that person. 

I was morbidly curious about how they would even attempt to pull this off. Just the basic possibility meant this lot either had a ship hidden away on the planet or was planning to bring me back to Nermoon with some sort of restrained device. 

I sighed and raised my arms, “Let’s wrap this up quickly.”

“Heaha yeah let’s.” Their boss spun her laser knife around her fingers, and her posse moved up. 

Let’s keep this nonlethal for now. 

In an instant, I arrived by their unaware boss’s side.

Bang

And delivered a right hook straight to the stomach.

Their mouth foamed up within their helmet and they collapsed onto the ground. 

Watching their leader fall to the ground, one of these really smart crooks yelled. “Get her!” 

Out of the now fifteen standing pests, three decided to book it and run. But I wasn’t going to let them go just cause they made the smart decision.

“[Burst].” The fire launched me forward in a sudden motion and my left leg crashed into the arms of the loudest member.

“ARgh!!!!!!!!!!HHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

It was time to break a few bones.