Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship!-Chapter 54: Inverse World, Parallel Universe

If we were to imagine the Kariki Star System as a gigantic cube, with the front being the North Face, then our entry point was dead center on that northern side.

This positioning allowed the drones to spread out efficiently, clearing a conical section of the map in record time. But as the nanobots reached the farthest corners of the system, they found something I couldn’t even begin to explain.

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I pulled up the image and showed it to Eva and Cassandra, hoping for some insight.

Eva frowned, crossing her arms. "The fuck is that? Some weird crack in space?"

Cassandra tilted her head, a delicate finger tapping her lips. "Hmm... It looks like a rift? I’ve never seen one before, but... it feels familiar. Where did I...?"

"A rift…" I murmured, considering their opinions.

If it was a common rift, it would lead to another dimension—just like the one where we rescued Major Terrence and his fleet.

But this one? This one was different.

It glowed an ominous purple, faint trails of black fog seeping from its edges. My gamer instincts screamed at me not to approach—a flag would undoubtedly be triggered if we did.

And yet, there was an even bigger problem.

"Why all four corners?"

The rifts weren’t random. Each was located at the four extreme corners inside this "cube." The more I thought about it, the worse my gut feeling became.

Something was wrong.

"Let’s proceed with caution," I finally said. "I’ll send in the Stealth Bots to investigate. Meanwhile, we—"

*RUMBLE!*

Before I could finish, the entire Range Falcon shook violently.

It was as if a cosmic giant had grabbed the ship and was rattling it like a maraca!

Despite being strapped in, the chaotic shaking still snapped our necks back and forth. The force changes were so erratic that a single misstep could prove fatal.

And then—

*SNAP!*

The ship went dark.

And with it, the shaking stopped.

"...P-Power failure?" Eva muttered, her voice laced with disbelief.

I was just as confused. The main power had failed. But that wasn’t the real issue. Upon failure, the energy banks should continue providing energy for a while, until the backup generator starts. But why the sudden blackout? Why hadn’t the backup power engaged?

"What’s going on…?" Cassandra whispered, a rare note of fear creeping into her voice.

Seconds passed in absolute darkness. This was getting dangerous. Because if both power sources were down, then that meant something worse—the life support system had failed, too.

No power meant no oxygen circulation. If we didn’t act fast, we’d be dead long before we figured out what had happened.

I exhaled, keeping my voice steady. "We need to move."

"Eva, Cassandra, to the armory. Now. The powered suits have their own life support systems. If the power doesn’t come back, we’ll rely on them."

I carefully unstrapped my harness, then tapped the neck guard of my spacesuit.

A moment later, my visor deployed, enclosing my head in a sealed environment. Almost immediately, night vision activated, painting the pitch-black surroundings in a familiar green hue.

I glanced sideways. Eva and Cassandra had done the same, their visors lighting up faintly as they detached from their seats, floating like ghosts in this zero-gravity environment.

"Follow me."

I floated toward the auto door, but without power, it wouldn’t open. I wedged my fingers into the seam and forced it apart. Thankfully, most ship doors had manual overrides for situations like this—avoiding people from getting locked in—making it no harder than pulling open a heavy drawer.

Once through, I turned left toward the Armory and repeated the process of forcing open the door.

Inside, I moved toward my usual suit—the Model 2065-S Truman Suit.

Eva, meanwhile, grabbed her green-and-white model, while Cassandra reached for the closest available one. I noticed that the #3 suit—the one she’d borrowed before—was missing. Right, from what I heard, it had been disintegrated after that time in the Haerith System. It was an emergency decision, but damn, what a waste…

With practiced speed, I suited up and activated the visor lights, finally turning off night vision. Eva and Cassandra followed suit, their powered armor now fully operational.

I exhaled, nodding. "Alright. First priority—check the generators."

At that moment, we had no idea how deeply fucked we were.

---

"The hell is going on...?"

The three of us reached the main generators—the Dark Energy Repulsion Engine and the Dark Energy Exchange Engine—expecting to find some kind of catastrophic failure.

However, according to the powered suit’s diagnostic scan, both were in perfect condition. In short, they had no reason to fail.

Yet, here we were, completely without power.

"... No, wait."

A nagging thought surfaced. There was still one possibility.

Without hesitation, I activated my environmental scanner, searching not for something, but rather for the absence of something.

A second later, my worst fears were confirmed.

"There’s no Dark Energy in the surroundings!"

That shouldn’t be possible.

Our generators operated by absorbing Dark Energy from space itself, making them effectively semi-perpetual engines. There was no need for fuel cells, and no reliance on external energy sources—as long as Dark Energy existed, the system would function.

But now? It was gone. A total disappearance.

An anomaly of impossible proportions—considering that over half of the known universe was composed of Dark Energy.

There was only one possible explanation.

"Could it be… We drifted into a parallel universe?!"

The realization hit me hard. The only anomaly we’d encountered before the blackout was the glowing rifts at the edges of the system. They had to be connected.

Of course, parallel universes existed in TSO’s story—a fact that became obvious if you played certain side stories. Those missions always took place in alternate realities, with slight or drastic deviations from the main timeline.

What? The game developers just forgot their own lore and created plot holes?

No. It’s parallel universes. Definitely.

However, despite their existence, there had never been a way for players to move between them. The only way to "switch dimensions" was through the main menu, selecting a side story, and then exiting back into the main timeline.

’But it’s not like I can access the main menu. After all, this is my reality now.’

Long story short? We’re screwed.

But that didn’t mean I was giving up.

I turned to Eva and Cassandra, their worried expressions mirroring my own, and forced a grin.

"Alright, let’s do this. Eva, check our food and water supplies. Cassandra, go with her and catalog everything else in the cargo bay—without missing a single thing."

Right now, survival depends on our available resources. The longer we could stretch our supplies, the better our odds of finding a way back.

"As for me… I’ll try to modify the backup generator into a fusion generator."

We had no Dark Energy, so our current engines were useless. But if I could change the fuel source, we might have a fighting chance. Even if that chance was paper-thin.

Eva gave a sharp nod. "Got it. Let’s move."

She grabbed Cassandra by the wrist, practically dragging her along, and disappeared into the connecting passage.

I turned to face the lifeless generator, rolling my shoulders.

"Now then… time to work."

Thankfully, the Dark Energy Exchange Engine shared similarities with a Fusion Reactor. But that didn’t make this any easier.

I had to:

1. Modify the interchange system

2. Add a radiation shield

3. Increase the heat barrier threshold

4. Reconfigure the energy output regulators, etc...

And that was just the bare minimum.

I worked tirelessly, tackling one problem at a time, making sure not to mess up anything crucial.

Sometime later—though I could not track how long—Eva and Cassandra returned with their report.

"We have about two months’ worth of food and water. If we ration it carefully, we can stretch it to half a year."

That was better than expected, but still not great.

Cassandra took longer to speak, slowly listing everything else we had onboard. I took mental notes, searching for repurposable materials for my repairs.

"...That’s all," she finally concluded after several minutes.

"Got it. Now, bring me the discarded armor, one of the spare Justice MK3 Beam Turrets, and—"

I rattled off a list of materials I needed, and the two immediately got to work, leaving me alone once more.

Time blurred as I focused entirely on the modifications. I wasn’t keeping track, but judging by the number of meals I had, I’d been at it for at least a full day.

Eventually, I leaned back, popping my visor to wipe the sweat off my forehead before sealing it again.

"Alright… time for a test run."

Now, I wasn’t going to pretend I was some mechanical genius. Sure, in-game, I had maxed-out engineering skills, but in reality? This was more like… educated guesswork.

I was 75% confident it would work. The other 25%? That was pure fear that it would explode in my face. But hey—if it failed, catastrophically or not, we were screwed anyway.

Using electrolysis, I extracted pure hydrogen from our water supply, feeding it into the converted fusion engine as fuel.

With our current water reserves, combined with the efficiency of both electrolysis and fusion, while still keeping a month’s worth of water as emergency backup…

We had roughly 350 hours of operational time—about one Galactic Week.

Not much. But enough to start exploring this strange, Dark Universe.

I exhaled slowly, staring at the now-powered engine. To my surprise, it worked without any hiccups—100% functional.

That’s one major problem solved.

Now, the only question was…

"Where do we even begin searching?"