Chapter 38: Chapter 37: Orbital wish fulfillment

“Any ideas?” asks Gottlieb as Grunheide waddles after him. She’s still having some trouble adjusting the tiny boots of her new spacesuit. “I mean, I guess being alive is new to you and all, but… you know, the sun is kind of an important thing.”

 

Grunheide thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. “The actions of the gods are beyond my understanding,” says the goblin. She looks up at one of the emergency lights above her head in the hallway and lifts a hand over her face, obscuring her sight of the bulb. “Perhaps there is something blocking it from our view?” she suggests.

 

Gottlieb shakes his head. “That’d have to be a pretty big something,” replies the man. “You think we’d have seen it by now if that’s the case,” he adds. “From the observatory.”

 

Grunheide lowers her hand and looks at him. “If the lights are out, how can you see something that’s the same color as the darkness?” she asks.

 

The man looks at her for a moment, pondering the surprisingly terrifying question.

 

— Could there be something physically blocking the sun? Just, purely logistically, ignoring the questionable reality of such a theoretical creature even existing.

 

Or is the issue grounded in something more fundamental? Some misfiring in the sun’s constant thermonuclear reactions?

 

Hell, now that he thinks about it, this isn’t the same sun as it was back in his old universe, right? It can’t be. If there’s a whole new world, then it stands to reason that it has a new sun too. This sun is an entirely different sun than the one he had experienced during his old life. So maybe it runs on ‘magic rules’, like the rest of the world, rather than pure, gritty, physical reality?

 

Could it be that there is some odd, magical influence affecting the sun then?

 

It’s another theory.

 

There just isn’t enough data yet to be sure. What matters most right now though is getting the station patched up, so that they don’t become a useless heap of space junk waiting to crash down in a raging fireball into the world below.

 

“Come on,” says Gottlieb, nodding his head toward the door to hydroponics that they’ve arrived at. He readies the rifle that he had slung over his shoulder. “Ready?”

 

“Ready,” replies Grunheide.

 

Gottlieb opens the door, expecting to see some fresh wave of zombies or some slimes or whatever — some kind of monster that is contaminating the station’s supply.

 

The door hisses, reaching its apex. The dimly lit metal of the corridors, washed over in a sickly orange tone that looks much like rust, paints a vision of something unexpected.

 

“…The hell?” mutters Gottlieb, looking into the room.

 

He turns his head, looking at the signage by the door

 

You are reading story Planetary Orbital Weapon – [An orbital-particle-cannon based litRPG!] at novel35.com

‘Hydroponics’.

 

Gottlieb looks back into the space, confused. Hydroponics was always just a fairly simple room. There were basins on either side of it with a row in the middle that two robots, one on each side, went back and forth through. That was about it, barring a desk and some stuff of that nature.

 

However, instead, he sees something that was clearly never here before.

 

The ‘room’ behind hydroponics stretches on further than he can see in a long corridor that breaks off in many directions. It’s a labyrinth.

 

He can’t explain it, but it certainly lends some weight to the magic universe theory.

 

Grunheide stops him. He looks at her, and then his gaze follows her pointing finger toward a message scratched into a wall by a fearful hand.

 

‘Beware the minotaur’.

 

Gottlieb lowers the rifle. “Grunheide” says the man, looking down at her as he gives her the gun. “Take this and go back to the others,” he orders.

 

“Huh?” asks the goblin. “You’re going in there?” She looks at him and then at the rifle. “I was born a few weeks ago, but even I know that minotaurs are super dangerous,” she explains.

 

Gottlieb stops a few steps down the corridor and looks back over his shoulder at her. “Grunhausen,” says the man. “All of us have a dream. This one is mine. If I don’t make it, take care of Blauhausen and Rotwald.”

 

“- Heide,” she corrects.

 

“Yeah, sure,” replies Gottlieb, waving her off.

 

She tilts her head. “This seems a little dramatic. If I could make a suggestion?” she offers.

 

Gottlieb lifts a hand, stopping her.

 

“It’s okay,” he says. “Our friendship was short, but good,” he says, looking up toward the ceiling. “Mourn me if I die, Grun,” says the man, turning to walk down the labyrinth, his steps echoing out as he vanishes into the darkness.

 

The door closes behind him.

 

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