The Foreigner on the Periphery

At first glance, they looked like bubbles foaming on the surface of a black sea, or perhaps the heads of jellyfish drifting listlessly on the water.

Some were so transparent that they blended into the darkness, impossible to spot with the naked eye. The longer a slime had starved, the more transparent its physical body became.

'Right, this way.'

The swarm of Golden Interstellar Floating Slimes moved in their intended direction, completely unaffected by the gravitational pull of the stars dragging at them from all sides. Or, more accurately, the direction Asiph-1 intended.

Asiph-1 smiled as he watched the mass migration of the space creatures. Their path was set to plow straight through the Endelion planet.

'Good, you're doing great.'

He had gathered tens of millions of slimes while roaming the surrounding area.

Of course, he hadn't brainwashed every single one of them. That would have been a pointless waste of energy.

Instead, he reached into the minds of a random assortment and left a few messages. For example:

Much like bees dancing to tell the hive about a flower, space slimes used primitive telepathy to share information with their peers.

By continually broadcasting the location of their daily bread—ore—the swarm's direction naturally established itself.

'I just opened the floodgates, that's all.'

The fake news was an incredibly tempting scoop, especially for creatures suffering from a recent food shortage.

Ultimately, the slimes flew into a frenzy and began their great migration across the cosmos. Waiting in their path was the terrified counterattack of the Endelion.

- Slimes? Drive them away with suppressing fire!

The artificial satellites orbiting the home planet were spherical, designed to mimic real stars. The moment they detected the slimes' approach, cracks formed down their centers, and they split open like lightbulb covers to reveal their interiors. Light gathered and boiled within firing ports that looked like hidden red pupils.

Once they finished charging.

Fwoosh!

The satellites fired red lasers in unison.

The slimes struck by the beams either split in two and reproduced through division, or missed the opportunity and were reduced to ash.

However, the attack only struck a portion of the vanguard. It was merely a warning volley that consumed little power. The Endelion waited for the slime swarm to change its trajectory, just like they usually did.

But this time was different.

'Well, we can't have that.'

Hiding in the dark void of space, Asiph-1 smiled.

The false information he emitted seeped into the mental waves flowing between the slimes. A simple information jam.

Soon, two conflicting pieces of information spread through the swarm simultaneously. One warned that something dangerous existed up ahead, and the other claimed the warning was an error and there was no need to correct their trajectory.

The truth was quickly buried by the fake information, as the number of slimes passing along the lie had vastly multiplied—the result of Asiph-1's meddling. The procession stretched across the scale of a solar system, and those in the rear had no way of verifying what was happening far ahead.

Watching them continuously march down the wrong path, Asiph-1 muttered to himself.

'Right, you guys don't understand the concept of a lie.'

Which was why they trusted whatever the majority chattered about without a single doubt.

'Lies are a human concept, after all. You really are a species far closer to beasts than to people.'

For Asiph-1, this was a fortunate thing.

'...Hmm?'

He abruptly stopped his train of thought and narrowed his eyes.

The exact reaction he had been hoping for was emerging from the Endelion home planet.

   *

The duty room of the Outer Space Surveillance Unit.

The senior officer among the two Endelion spoke.

"Orders just came down from above."

"What do they want us to do?"

There had been times in the past when the slime swarm exhibited strange behavior. This was because mineral resources—their food—were gradually drying up in the natural world. It was a natural consequence, given that the Ancient Race harvested them far faster and much more efficiently than the Dragon Race did.

But this was the first time they had gathered in such a massive swarm and displayed such dogged movement. The tentacle duty officers had requested a decision from their superiors.

The result was...

"What do you think? Exactly what we expected."

What should they do about those endlessly swarming creatures—cute in appearance, but atrocious in behavior? Two methods came to mind.

Mobilize every attack satellite under the unit's jurisdiction and completely wipe out the tens of millions in the swarm...

Or.

"We don't have to do anything."

Instead of going out of their way to clash with the slimes, the Endelion could just move.

"It looks like the royal family is just going to move the planet out of their migration path."

Rather than sweeping away a slime swarm large enough to cover dozens of stars with Photon Cannons, it consumed fewer resources to simply shift their own planet's position enough to dodge them.

Furthermore, they were currently in a desperate energy crisis, with the Mana Crystal supply cut off just ahead of the war. It was only right to minimize any waste.

The senior officer pulled away from the control panel and floated comfortably in the air.

"It's already out of our tentacles. All we have to do is sit back and watch."

   *

Asiph-1's face lit up with joy.

"Exactly!"

The Endelion planet, which had been fixed in place as if nailed down, began to move.

Asiph-1 knew that stable movement was thanks to a state-of-the-art Recoilless Propulsion Engine, even if they had stolen it from his creator's technology.

The planet glided across the darkness on its own power. The artificial satellites orbiting it naturally moved along with it.

Then, the phenomenon Asiph-1 had been aiming for followed.

Vwoom—!

He could see it with his own eyes.

The Distortion Field wrapping around the boundary of that planet's atmosphere. The barrier, meant to block external invasions, usually maintained a state as stable as the surface of a tranquil lake. At least, up until a moment ago.

But now, the entire barrier rippled like crashing waves. It was an unavoidable fluctuation caused by the artifact recalculating coordinates in real-time as the planet moved.

No matter how carefully you moved a cup filled to the brim with water, the contents were bound to slosh. Even that microscopic fissure gave Asiph-1 ample opportunity.

His eyes flashed.

'Teleport!'

Right after a slight wave of dizziness washed over him.

Asiph-1 found himself standing on a vast plain bathed in bright light.

There was no time to rejoice over the fact that he had pierced the spatial Distortion Field and reached the planet's surface.

'Whoops! Careful.'

Fwip!

Asiph-1 immediately draped a concealment Magic spell over his body and backed away from the spot.

He quickly scanned his surroundings.

'I arrived exactly where I needed to be.'

The ground was completely devoid of curves, so flat that he could see the horizon no matter which direction he faced. Decorative grass brushed against his ankles, growing densely across every inch of land in sight. There wasn't a single piece of elevated terrain—let alone the commonly seen mountain ranges, not even a small hill existed.

There was no way this planet had been in this shape from the beginning. They had shaved everything down and flattened it. All to make surveillance and management easier.

Naturally, the ecosystem had been destroyed, drastically affecting the climate and leaving not a single speck of shade to hide from the light, but those tentacles rarely ever came out into the open anyway.

There were hundreds of proverbs and idioms in the Endelion language that mentioned the word "home," and 90% of them were simply variations of the same meaning expressed through different rhetoric. Put simply, they meant this: 'Outside the house is dangerous.'

Asiph-1 raised his head and looked at their home.

'This is my first time seeing it with my own eyes.'

The homes of the Endelion were floating in the air, keeping a certain distance from the ground. Seeing them, Asiph-1 felt like an ant facing a human city. This was the residence of creatures whose body lengths had to be measured in kilometers.

Despite driving the original ecosystem to extinction, the appearance of their residential area ironically seemed to be modeled after nature. Asiph-1 thought it looked like a luscious cluster of grapes, or a fish's roe sac with its thin membrane peeled away. Round granules were clustered tightly together, completely packed. Even if those spheres looked plain, the reality was that each one was akin to a planet with its interior and exterior flipped.

Those "lumps," masses of small-scale artificial planets congregated in such a manner, densely covered the sky at a set distance.

'Now then, shall I get to work?'

There were multiple goals Asiph-1 intended to achieve through today's operation.

First of all, to imprint onto the enemy the fact that he could locate this planet's position whenever he wanted.

'I'm definitely going to leave my footprint.'

The planets where Todd and the Kavite resided were situated close to major strongholds like mining bases and Yongreung. They were essentially clustered together to some extent already.

On the other hand, only the Endelion maintained a policy of distancing themselves from the rest, because they believed this was safer.

'I need to make them realize that's no longer the case.'

To drill the concept into those tentacles' heads that they would only be safer if they banded together with the other species.

To shift their way of thinking, a sufficient threat would need to accompany it.

Asiph-1 recalled what his creator had said before he left.

- Even during the two wars with the Dragon Race, the Endelion's casualties were minuscule. At the very least, not a single tentacle died on the battlefield. Because they never set foot on the battlefield in the first place. Even the dragons failed to strike their planet.

As a result, the vast majority of those tentacles held a firm belief.

The expectation that no matter how much the tide of war worsened in the future, the royal family would prevent the worst-case scenario. The hope that no matter how much Todd and the Kavite pressured them, they alone would remain safe.

The optimism that the rough, brutal fighting would be carried out by the other two races just as it had been until now, and that the Endelion only needed to work hard at making weapons in the safe rear lines.

- You must brutally shatter that expectation. You have to instill the fear that their homeland is no longer a safe zone either. That is your job.

Fwip!

Asiph-1 opened his sub-dimension. He pulled out a flat object from within.

It took the form of a thumb-sized red crystal at the center, surrounded by mechanical devices acting as connective parts.

He tilted his head as he looked at the item.

'It's not perfect... but for the Repatam Tribe's level, they really put effort into this.'

This was an item manufactured in the Mana Crystal production line operated by the three-eyed ones, following Minjun's instructions.

Instead of converting a Dragon Heart into a stable form of a Mana Crystal, it was an object modified to react as sensitively and intensely to heat and pressure as possible.

In short, a Dragon Heart Bomb.

Click!

As he brought it to his shoulder, the mechanical parts shifted and firmly locked into place, just like the shoulder pauldron of a suit of armor.

It didn't stop there.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

Click! Click! Click!

Countless identical bombs poured out of the sub-dimension. Asiph-1 attached them to various parts of his body. The joints between the bombs interlocked like cogwheels, connecting seamlessly.

A moment later, he looked like a warrior clad in armor assembled from red crystals.

If anyone who knew the true nature of those crystals saw him, his appearance would make them tremble in terror. Compared to Earth's civilization, it was no different from strapping dynamite all over his body.

Of course, the destructive power couldn't even be compared to such conventional explosives.

Covered in bombs from head to toe, Asiph-1 gave a deep stretch, rolling his shoulders and neck as he lightly shook out his body.

'Brings back memories.'

In the past, the Committee called Asiph-1 this:

The worst terrorist in the universe.

Most of his sabotage operations back then were conducted through brainwashing, but...

'I can't take the easy way out like I did back then, so I have no choice.'

The crystals covering his body emitted a sinister glow. It was as if they were saying:

'Attack me if you dare. That is, if you're prepared to blow your nest to hell along with me.'

The bitter feud between Minjun and King Endelion was escalating into an extremely violent form, exactly as expected. Retracing the information Dell had given him in his mind, Asiph-1 estimated the locations of his target facilities.

'This should be roughly the right route.'

The decisive reason Asiph-1 was caught in the past was that his physical capabilities weren't nearly as outstanding as his brainwashing abilities.

But now?

'Things have changed quite a bit.'

Furthermore, there was one more thing those tentacles hadn't predicted yet.

The fact that even if this planet stepped out of the path and made way, the slimes wouldn't just continue on their original route.

"Well then, shall I show off my skills for the first time in a while?"

Asiph-1 was fully prepared to drive those safety-first, self-preserving tentacles completely insane.

   *

"Your Majesty! I—I have an urgent report!"

King Endelion felt a surge of annoyance at the voice that interrupted her while her consciousness was submerged in virtual reality.

Again?

She had been in the middle of discussing future plans with Committee members from other planets in a virtual conference room.

That grotesque video letter sent by Asif-666 was as good as declaring that there would be no negotiations going forward. Even though the broader direction had been decided, the Ancient Race still squabbled over trivial details, creating endless discord.

Her head was already throbbing, but it was just one problem after another. She had even been forced to ask for their understanding and temporarily pause the meeting because of the space creatures approaching the home planet.

It hadn't even been that long since she gave the order to dodge to avoid wasting Mana Crystals and resumed the meeting, yet here was a retainer intruding again.

The king severed the connection between her consciousness and the virtual reality as she spoke.

"What is it now? If it's about those slimes, I already gave the order. I told you to move the planet..."

Before she could even finish her sentence, the king felt a bewildering mental wave. It was a resounding pulse from the artificial intelligence.

- Warning! Warning!

"What is the meaning of this?!"

It didn't take long for the king to grasp the situation.

"An explosion of unknown origin has occurred in the 707 Research and Development District?"

It was the opening arrow signaling the start of a nightmarish day.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!