Chapter Nine: Unexpected Joy (Part Two)

Strange as it was, Glutton also realized these were treasures. Whenever he found the head of one of those Mysterious Ice Fish, he would spend half a day carefully knocking out the teeth. Glutton always felt that anything able to withstand Little Black’s corrosive power could not possibly be mere trash.

At that moment, Glutton had no idea just how wise his actions were. The teeth of the Mysterious Ice Fish were indeed rare and precious, and this was precisely why the monsters that hunted them discarded the fish’s head. The teeth, utterly indigestible, would never be swallowed by the more intelligent creatures of the Forgotten Star—why seek trouble for themselves? Along with the teeth, the entire fish head became refuse for those beasts; otherwise, how could they abandon the Mysterious Ice Pearls they desired just as much?

On this day, as Glutton carefully searched a hollow by the lake shore for the tenth Mysterious Ice Pearl, a sudden thunderous roar erupted in the sky—a phenomenon entirely unnatural for the Forgotten Star, where lightning simply did not exist.

Glutton looked up just as a fiery ball, like a falling meteor, hurtled toward Weakwater Lake right beside him.

Through the crimson blaze, Glutton vaguely discerned a massive cosmic battleship within the fireball.

The moment he realized it was a battleship, Glutton lost all composure.

In ancient times, perhaps a meteor crashing from space would have been more destructive than a falling battleship. But now, such battleships had energy systems not only to propel them but to power their weapons. If one crashed or self-destructed, the devastation was roughly a hundred times its rated attack power, depending on how much energy it had left—if not much had been spent, the destruction could be even greater.

Seeing a large battleship plummeting towards his location, Glutton spun around and fled at top speed, desperate to get as far away as possible, heedless of direction or whether there might be powerful monsters ahead. Survival was all that mattered now.

Gone was any trace of his usual short legs and rotund body—Glutton dashed like the wind, while Little Flower wielded several long vines, beating the ground to assist his escape.

As he ran, Glutton cursed himself—why did he come to this area now, of all times, when the battleship was crashing onto the planet, into this open, exposed plain?

He also began gathering his energy, making final preparations and bracing for the worst. Not only did he sling his wine gourd behind him, he summoned Battle Dragon as well—better some buffer than none.

With a deafening crash, Glutton let out a long sigh. The sense of impending doom had weighed so heavily he could barely breathe, but now that disaster had truly arrived, he felt oddly relaxed; he knew he had done all he could, and the rest was up to fate.

With this last thought before losing consciousness, Glutton felt a pain as though his whole body was being torn apart, and instantly blacked out.

In those final moments, the only sensation left was his left hand exploding before his body shattered. Then, nothing.

When Glutton finally woke, aching all over, he saw nothing but a sea of red light, and heard the fierce hiss of flames consuming everything.

His senses returning, the first thing he saw was Little Flower’s head, missing nearly half its petals.

Glutton managed a bitter smile, enduring the pain as he turned his head to look toward the wrecked battleship.

---

The ship had landed right in Weakwater Lake, and only then did Glutton realize how lucky he had been to survive. If not for the lake’s strange energy, he would never have lived through such proximity to disaster.

Struggling upright, Little Flower finally caught her breath and spoke weakly beside Glutton’s head: “Master, are you all right?”

Amazingly, Glutton smiled, though his face hurt with the effort. “I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. In such circumstances, keeping one’s life makes everything else trivial!”

Little Flower nodded feebly, then dissolved into energy and returned to Glutton’s body.

Once he sat up, Glutton examined his condition.

All his clothes were gone, except for the large leather pouch Money handed him on leaving Homesick Town, crafted from some unknown beast hide and said to contain Mysterious Ice Pearls without leaking their cold aura. It lay quietly nearby.

The fiery red wine gourd he used to carry now lay at his side as a broken shell, only a third of it still intact.

Glutton had no idea how much that gourd had helped him; if not for it and the Ant Blood Wine he had always hoarded, he would have been nothing but scattered ice shards now—even his left hand would not have saved him.

After half a day of healing, Glutton finally felt able to move; his internal injuries were no longer serious. The Battle Dragon Arts, though lacking mental cultivation in the early and middle stages, were renowned for healing—an accepted truth in human society. Thanks to this, the warlike Glutton Clan dared to rampage unchecked; otherwise, their casualties would have been far greater.

Glutton struggled to retrieve the leather pouch—his hard-won treasure, not something he could abandon.

He counted—nine Mysterious Ice Pearls, not one missing, and hundreds of Mysterious Ice Fish teeth of various sizes.

The pouch fit around his waist, serving as a makeshift covering. Though he knew no living soul would be found in this region, he still felt more comfortable with something covering himself.

Originally, he meant to return to Homesick Town or seek a safe place to recover from his internal injuries.

But greed and curiosity won out, and Glutton headed opposite his home, slowly walking toward the burning wreck of the cosmic battleship.

Centuries later, when someone asked Glutton what his life’s most important and dangerous decision was, he answered: “This moment, this very step I took now.”

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Later, when asked what his most painful and regrettable choice was, Glutton’s answer was the same: “This moment.”

The battleship had crashed squarely in Weakwater Lake, its tail nestled against solid ground.

The ring of golden strange sand by the shore was gone.

Nearly half the battleship was submerged in the lake, revealing at last just how deep Weakwater Lake truly was.

The ship looked intact, at least its hull had not broken apart. Though flames and acrid smoke still poured from the exposed sections, Glutton could see the fires slowly dying and, through them, a swarm of busy robots. He knew it was only a matter of time before the blaze was extinguished.

Seeing this, Glutton sat down to patiently wait for the fire to be put out.

But before the flames were gone, he found by a fallen ship plate a nearly ten-meter-long Mysterious Ice Fish, roasted to perfection.

When the battleship entered Weakwater Lake from space, it had thrown scores of lake creatures ashore, and these beings could not survive the land, especially with a massive furnace radiating heat nearby.

Countless lake creatures perished, and from their bodies Glutton harvested a wealth of Mysterious Ice Pearls and similar objects, along with fish teeth and other strange components from lake dwellers.

With so many treasures, Glutton eventually found a natural cave to stash what he could not carry.

When he returned to the battleship, the fire was out, and the choking smoke had vanished.

At the gaping hole in the ship’s tail, the entrance yawned like a monstrous mouth.

Inside, all was pitch black; it seemed the lighting system was gone, or perhaps destroyed by the earlier fire.

For a moment, Glutton hesitated—should he enter and explore?

He had already gained rewards equal to the risk, and the battleship harbored untold dangers.

A ship of this size carried automatic defense systems—Glutton had no wish to be attacked by energy weapons still functional inside the wreck, like being struck by a scythe the moment he stepped in.