Chapter 68: Flight

Yuxing referred to some missing person commission templates, copied and pasted one, and then, based on Magna’s recollection, attached descriptions of Balero and Garum in their current human disguises, without adding a single extra word of his own.

He also set the information bounty at an average value, referencing the prices on those missing person commissions—two hundred thousand credits.

Magna began anxiously feeling his pockets again. He understood the exchange rates between plasma souls, gold bars, and credits. The plasma soul crystals Yuxing had just taken—about thirty units—were worth a little over five hundred credits, maybe eight hundred at best if there were no middlemen. In other words, what he’d given Yuxing was far from enough.

But Yuxing simply told him not to worry about it.

After double-checking everything, Yuxing finally posted the bounty. Only when the “Published Successfully” message popped up and then vanished did he return to his main purpose.

“Manager, I’m here to buy a ship ticket. Could you please give me a price list? Thank you.”

Perhaps because Yuxing had just posted a bounty on the intelligence market right in front of the manager, salvaging a bit of favor, the manager didn’t say much. He simply pulled out a laminated price list and slid it across the counter to Yuxing.

...

The price list detailed departure points, destinations, departure times, port numbers, the gravity and atmosphere conditions of the destination, radiation levels, and so on—so that races with low adaptability wouldn’t drop dead the moment they disembarked.

Yuxing wasn’t worried about any of that; the passive skills from the Taiga Light Key protected him, allowing him to perfectly blend into and adapt to any environment.

His fingertip slid slowly across the price list as he searched for the shortest possible route. Since Captain Poshu had said he didn’t need a full charge, just a partial one, it made sense to pick the shortest voyage to avoid unnecessary complications.

Thinking of this, Yuxing quietly touched the bracelet on his wrist through his sleeve.

This thing was too valuable.

Although Captain Poshu had handed it to him with a casual attitude, not treating it as something requiring endless warnings, Yuxing knew perfectly well in his heart that this bracelet was extremely important.

“…No short-haul tickets left?”

After reading through the list, Yuxing was a bit speechless. All the short-haul trips he’d set his sights on were sold out. The remaining tickets were either for flights three months away or voyages that would last three to five years—he could only accept journeys of three to five days.

“Short-haul? Where’s your destination?” the manager asked.

Yuxing could only smile awkwardly. “That’s a bit hard to say. Manager, is this really all the outbound flights you have?”

...

The manager deliberated for a long moment before finally replying, “A lot of people have been leaving Earth lately. Shipping capacity is limited; there’s nothing to be done. If possible, you’d be better off changing your schedule.”

Yuxing could only shake his head. He was in a hurry—it would be best to buy the ticket in the morning and board in the afternoon.

Seeing Yuxing’s insistence, the manager reluctantly pulled another schedule from beneath the bar and handed it to him, adding, “It’s not that there aren’t any short-haul options. There’s a ship to Alpha Centauri, three days one way, and there are tickets left.”

Yuxing’s eyes lit up with joy. The look he gave the manager was full of unspoken complaint—why didn’t you just give me this from the start? Why were you hiding it?

The manager didn’t try to hide anything now, especially since he realized Yuxing already knew: “This route has had incidents. Passengers have gone missing.”

At this, Yuxing’s gaze froze.

The manager sighed. “That’s why I split the departures into two lists. One for the flights with no incidents, the other for the ones that have had trouble recently.”

Yuxing looked down again at the accident-prone schedule. No wonder it had been tucked away—there were tickets for almost every flight, plenty of options. Following his original plan, Yuxing immediately set his sights on the Alpha Centauri flight.

But… there had been incidents…

Of course, Yuxing hadn’t forgotten that this route was right inside the red circle he’d just drawn.

Some passengers had vanished without a trace…

It was like the Bermuda Triangle on Earth, only worse. The Bermuda Triangle could be explained away by ocean currents, reefs, or maritime conditions, but how did one explain passengers simply evaporating into thin air?

Yuxing hesitated, his mind already spinning with three possible plans, none of them easy to choose.

Plan one: Find some unlucky soul who managed to buy a short-haul ticket and steal it.

The difficulty lay in gathering information. Boarding didn’t require identity checks—if you had a ticket, you could get on. That meant a stolen ticket was usable, but since buyers didn’t need to provide personal info when purchasing, how would Yuxing even find a suitable target? Perhaps the only way was to lurk at the boarding point and ambush someone.

Plan two: Sneak aboard.

Yuxing dismissed this idea immediately. He’d already confirmed with the manager that the ship wasn’t docked on the ground, but hovering in low Earth orbit. As an ordinary human, he had no way to sneak aboard.

Plan three: Take the risky accident-prone route and bet he wouldn’t vanish.

The advantage was, tickets were available, and the actual disappearance rate wasn’t that high. On the Alpha Centauri route, for example, with the ship fully loaded at six thousand passengers, about five hundred had vanished—an 8% disappearance rate.

But… how could he be sure he wouldn’t be among those five hundred unlucky souls?

Yuxing frowned, conflicted, when Magna beside him called out, snapping him from his thoughts.

“Yuxing, Yuxing, you’ve got a new message!”

Magna pointed at the black market’s virtual screen, where a prompt had popped up—You have a new message.

Yuxing frowned. It had only been a few minutes since he posted the bounty and someone was already messaging him? That meant someone was constantly monitoring the listings.

The sender’s account was asd114511. With an “asd” prefix, it was obviously randomly generated. Yuxing opened the message. The contents were simple—the sender politely greeted him and then asked what sort of person was described in the missing person commission he’d posted.

Magna leaned over curiously, not understanding at first—why did this person want to know about Balero and Garum?

But Yuxing caught on immediately. His expression darkened as he typed a single question mark in reply and hit send.

When I send a question mark, it’s not because I have a question—it’s because I think you do.