Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 40: Kidnapping and Loss
""WHAT?!""
Both of us shouted at the same time, shocked by each other’s words. Eva, however, continued her words faster than me. "You bastard! I misjudged you! I thought you were more honorable than this!"
"Why would I throw myself into trouble for no visible reward? Just let the authorities handle it!"
As a non-combatant, my priority in emergencies was ensuring my own safety. It wasn’t my job to go around playing hero—that was for the police and military, not me.
But Eva didn’t seem to care about my reasoning. She stomped her foot hard against the pavement.
"You wuss! Then sit your fat ass over there!" She growled. "I’ll save her myself!"
"W-Wai—!"
I reached out to stop her, but she didn’t even spare me a glance. In a flash, she leaped toward the alley, disappearing from sight.
Judging by the muffled voice we had heard, this was almost certainly a kidnapping. Eva, for one, had almost been kidnapped before—by black market thugs and loan sharks back in the Narlia Trading Hub.
Did this remind her of that time? Was that why she was acting so recklessly?
’But that voice…’
Something about it felt… familiar. It was muffled, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had heard it before.
"No, focus! This isn’t the time to get distracted!"
Without wasting another second, I pulled up my terminal and scanned for active lines. Finding the city’s emergency number, I quickly patched in.
"Hello?! There’s an emergency! Two blocks north of the Adventurer’s Guild—a kidnapping! We need help, fast!"
After hearing my report, a voice responded almost immediately.
{Sir, thank you for the report. Please move to a safe location ASAP. Officers will arrive in 120 seconds. Leave the rest to us.}
"...!"
Two minutes?!
In the game’s settings, with teleportation technology readily available under proper setups?! If we waited that long, the kidnappers would be long gone from this planet!
There was only one explanation for such a ridiculous delay—they had been bought off.
"Shit."
I dropped the call immediately, disabling the VPN I had been using to mask my signal. Now, even if they tried, they wouldn’t be able to trace my location through my terminal.
But if these bastards had enough influence to bribe the entire police force… Eva was in serious danger.
If this had been a random street kidnapping, I wouldn’t have cared—Eva could handle herself. But against an organized force backed by powerful players? I wasn’t about to leave her alone.
Blaster at the ready, I rushed into the alleyway, carefully peeking around the corner to assess the situation. Eva stood defensively, but her left arm hung limply at her side.
Behind her lay a large sack, roughly the size of a person—the kidnapped victim, no doubt.
One man was already down on the ground, unconscious. But five others were closing in, surrounding her. I gasped inwardly. With her arm broken, she was at a severe disadvantage.
If I don’t step in now, the number of kidnapped victims would double in an instant.
"Fuck this shit…" I cursed under my breath, gripping my blaster tighter. "Don’t underestimate me. I was a goddamn FPS master back in the day!"
I aimed at the closest thug and pulled the trigger. The blaster hummed as its mechanisms activated—then, a blinding blue light shot forward.
The projectile traveled at the speed of light. A complete surprise attack. The target didn’t even have time to react.
A clean hole opened on his forehead, releasing fresh steam. The next moment, his body went limp as he collapsed forward. The remaining thugs froze in shock, but Eva didn’t waste the opening.
"RAAAAGH!"
She lunged at the next closest man, her body a blur of motion. With her full momentum, she drove her fist straight into his face. A sickening CRUNCH echoed throughout the alley.
The man’s face collapsed inward—a grotesque mess... but she wasn’t finished. With a forceful step forward, she spun and delivered a vicious side kick to the next guy’s ribs.
The impact folded him like a cracked stick before launching him into the wall. The concrete shattered as his body tore through it.
*ZIN!*
I wasn’t just standing there, either. Before the thugs could process what was happening, I fired another shot. One more down, now, only one remained!
I rushed forward, securing the sack behind Eva before raising my blaster again, firing five shots in rapid succession. Both legs, both shoulders and the side of the torso. The last thug collapsed, fully neutralized.
Confirming this sight, Eva dropped to her knees, chest heaving, drenched in sweat.
"Eva! Are you alive?!" I asked with worry.
She turned slightly, her eyes sharp but unfocused, beads of cold sweat trailing down her face.
"You’re… too slow, you bastard…" she muttered—before her body gave out.
"..."
Now I have multiple problems.
A fainted Eva. A mystery person in the sack. The bribed police, who could show up at any second from the sirens I could hear approaching. And the neutralized kidnapper I was planning to interrogate. Then there was me—stuck in the middle of this mess.
As if to urge me to decide, sirens echoed from afar, approaching rapidly.
"Shit. This is why I hate playing the good Samaritan."
I secured my spacesuit and activated its power enhancements. Then, without another thought, I hoisted both girls over my shoulders, stomped on the last man’s head, flattened it like a pancake—and ran like hell.
---
Somewhere in the vast, barren expanse of space, a lone colossal vessel drifted silently. Had Arthur been able to see it, he would have recognized the design instantly. A moon-like sphere, its surface bristling with hundreds—no, thousands—of turrets.
One of the most powerful ships in existence. A ship that could not be bought even if you pile mountainloads of money. The EX-Class Super Dreadnaught Vessel—The Eclipse Sovereign. A relic from an era before recorded spacefaring history. Its design was an unsolvable mystery, constructed with ancient, indecipherable technology far beyond modern understanding.
And the force currently commanding it? Shrouded in absolute secrecy.
Inside the dimly lit bridge, a single red light pulsed in even intervals. On the main screen, multiple surveillance feeds flickered in real-time.
Each displayed a different camera angle—sprawling streets, shadowed alleys, and the remnants of a violent struggle.
In one alley, lifeless bodies lay strewn across the pavement. Nearby, "police" units worked quickly to clean up the scene.
"So they failed." A voice broke the silence. There was no anger, only mild disappointment. "Well, with how protected the package was, this outcome was within expectations."
But just as the speaker rationalized the failure, a nervous voice cut in.
"S-Sir, reporting…!"
The analyst sitting at one of the side terminals had gone pale, eyes flickering between lines of data. "After reviewing the footage… It’s confirmed that it wasn’t the knights who secured the package!"
He paused before continuing. "It was an unrelated third party!" And then, silence.
"…What?" The man in the captain’s chair slowly narrowed his golden eyes, now locked onto the analyst. He took a sharp intake of breath. "Explain."
The analyst swallowed hard before continuing.
"Our insider received a kidnapping report from that location. As they tracked the caller’s signal… it was suddenly cut off." He hesitated, then pressed on. "Given the timing and coordinates, the caller and the one who took the package… must be the same person."
A low hum filled the bridge as the crew absorbed the implications. The captain tapped his fingers against the armrest, his expression unreadable.
"Do we have any visual confirmation?"
One of the other officers quickly shook his head.
"Negative, sir. The surveillance cameras through our planned escape path were disabled to avoid leaving traces. All surveillance feeds in that sector went offline at the time of the extraction."
A frustrated sigh escaped the captain’s lips.
"So our own covert efforts ended up blindsiding us?" He clicked his tongue in annoyance, then, his voice turned cold. "Fine. We adapt."
His gaze swept across the bridge, settling on his officers.
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"Analyze every person who came near that alley. I don’t care if the list is in the thousands—or the hundreds of thousands."
He stopped for a moment as if to let everyone digest what he said. Then, his next words fell like ice.
"Identify them all—" His golden eyes flashed, voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "—and silence them."
"Sir, yes sir!"
The bridge erupted into a synchronized reply, hands moving to terminals, with their computer systems firing into overdrive. The captain exhaled slowly, sinking back into his chair. His fingers curled into a tight fist as he lifted it before his gaze.
His expression darkened. ’Soon… soon, I will have the key.’ His grip tightened further. ’And with it… I will reclaim my rightful place.’
Beyond the vastness of space, a storm was gathering—one that Arthur and his allies remained blissfully unaware of.
At least… for now.
---
It had been an hour since the sudden rescue mission, and we were now holed up in an abandoned warehouse roughly 50 kilometers away from the site.
The best course of action would have been to return to Eva’s ship and escape before the enemy could track us down. However, I couldn’t just waltz into the space elevator carrying an unconscious girl—let alone another one stuffed inside a sack.
"Phew…" I let out a soft sigh, leaning against the wall while keeping my guard up. My eyes remained fixed on the two sleeping figures before me.
One was the sharp-tongued redhead—Eva. The other… I had pulled her out of the sack about half an hour ago. Even now, looking at her, I found it hard to believe.
"The Crazy Princess…" I muttered under my breath.
Realizing the implication of her presence, one thing became painfully clear—things had completely gotten out of hand.
