Chapter 13 01.0013: "Heaven and Earth"

Horatio kept smiling.

He knew that the favor Farida was talking about was not the favor in the ordinary context of everyday life, but a contract with obligations, unconditional compliance, and must be fulfilled. It was a "favor" guaranteed by credibility and honor in the context of the nobility.

"Of course, do I have any choice?" Horatio raised his eyebrows, put his hands behind his head, put his feet on the operating table in front of him, and smiled indifferently.

Considering his current situation, owing someone a favor is nothing compared to losing his life.

Therefore, he tried hard to create the confident suggestion of "As long as you help me, I will definitely give you something in return" from the beginning, just to get something for nothing and guide the girl to bet on him.

Therefore, when the Lady Huntress was willing to quote a price and negotiate terms with him, her desired goal had already been achieved.

[I am not afraid of you asking for a higher price, I am just afraid of you not asking for a higher price.]
"You must obey me in everything. I will take you to my father's study. There are no guards there. He personally participated in the investigation of the accident eight years ago on behalf of the Imperial Navy. There may be things you want to know in it. But I must remind you not to leave any traces, otherwise I will kill you before he finds you."

"It seems that the risk is not small."

"I have never been to my father's study. If he finds out that I brought a strange man in..."

"Don't want to come in or are you not allowed to come in?" Horatio raised his eyebrows and looked at Farida's face, wanting to see her expression.

"Not allowed in..." Farida looked away in panic and muttered softly.

Horatio smiled with satisfaction.

[It's pretty cute.]
"Then you trust me quite a bit. Don't worry, I won't sell out my teammates."

The huntress hummed contentedly, "Then I'll take it as your consent."

"Of course. I owe you a favor. What do you want me to do to repay you?"

"I'll owe you the money first and settle it later."

Horatio took a deep breath, adjusted the soft seat, and lay back.

"Then I'm sure the favor will appreciate in value," Horatio chuckled.

"hope so."

The shuttle suddenly stopped moving, the vector engine nozzle began to adjust downward, and the fuselage rose vertically.

Horatio looked out the window. It was dark except for a string of navigation lights that glowed silently.

"It's almost time to go to the nest, so look forward to it."

"Oh, what kind of scenery can there be..." Horatio snorted lightly, seeming to be indifferent.

Although he had not seen what the upper nest on this planet looked like, he thought of some of the settings he had seen. Since it was a hive city, the upper nest should be like that.

It is estimated that there will be towering steel forests and thick exhaust pipes everywhere, as well as a pyramid-like hive city surface. The atmosphere is polluted by various industrial waste gases, and there may even be blood-red acid rain.

[Is it a bit too much to discuss the environment and scenery with me, a Terran from the 3K era...]
The female hunter raised the corner of her mouth confidently and silently turned on the light-sensitive adjustment of the windshield. A green light film visible to the naked eye slowly spread from the area in front of the driver's seat to the entire glass.

"Three seconds to the surface. Three... two... one."

As the Huntress finished her words, a dazzling golden light penetrated into Horatio's eyes through the windshield, causing his optic nerves, which had been adapted to the dark environment and living underground in the hive for many years, to feel extremely uncomfortable and even painful.

After a while, when the photosensitive reflective film screen completely covered the glass and took effect, the light was finally not as glaring as before.

Horatio blinked his dry, stinging eyes and tentatively opened them a little.

"Ooooh..." Horatio raised an eyebrow and let out a small exclamation.

Towering structures that reach the sky rise from the ground, shaped like mountains but towering above them. They seem to be the carved beams and painted buildings of the sky itself, and the surging shock rushes straight to the heart.

The Holy Empire Sky Eagle emblem outside every building shines a dazzling golden light under the sunlight, and countless white doves flap their white wings and fly over the solemn and sacred cathedral.

Below it, high-speed tracks that are as winding as keels crisscross, and all kinds of vehicles, hovercrafts, and shuttles come and go in an endless stream.

Large-scale gardens, botanical gardens, artificial lakes and glazed palaces are scattered all over the surrounding area, making the city look quite beautiful, even extravagant.

The entire surface of the planet has been developed at unimaginable expense into the ideal future life for mankind. The air on the surface is not much different from that on Earth, and the climate is even more comfortable and pleasant.

Horatio looked up at the sky, and through the blue sky above his head, he saw countless huge ships of all kinds from all corners of the empire appearing one after another on the planet's routes. The dazzling flames emitted by the bead-like plasma engines formed a brilliant star chain.

"Abyssal Port is an artificial planet. From the day it was born, the atmosphere and habitable facilities have been activated. This is a great creation that is difficult to replicate. You will not see a hive planet so close to the Garden World in other worlds."

It is hard for Horatio to imagine that this is a world in a dark and cruel story.

Prosperous, gorgeous, magnificent, shocking, orderly, novel, legendary...all the words that come to mind to praise the greatness of human civilization can be used to describe the scene before my eyes, but it is only barely satisfactory.

Horatio could feel that even though the world was dark and without light, the indomitable human beings were working hard to keep the fire of civilization going in the darkness.

When the shuttle lowered its altitude and merged into the city track, the scene near the ground became clear.

Horatio lowered the cabin window and leaned out to look around. The huge difference between the upper and lower nests struck his heart in the most intuitive way - everywhere here was vastly different from the middle and lower nests. There was plenty of light, fresh air, clean ground, new houses, and order.

Horatio took a few deep breaths of the clean air with the scent of flowers, and a refreshing coolness rushed into his lungs, dispelling the filth in his lungs.

The shuttle passed through the consumption area. Outside the high-end tea restaurant, the noble ladies of Shangchao brought their children, serenely and leisurely enjoying afternoon tea and tasting all kinds of fine wines and beverages. The whole family was happy, talking and laughing, and there was no trace of sadness on their faces caused by the pressure of life.

The enthusiastic service staff provide thoughtful guidance and services to the distinguished people who come to travel and vacation with a smile. Even the Nest City bailiffs, who usually have a stern face, have a gentle smile on their face and provide services to any Nester who needs help.

"how?"

Horatio sat back, sighed, and nodded slightly: "Amazing."

"Your choice of words is quite exquisite." The female hunter snorted lightly, but there was no smugness on her face. Instead, there was a sense of solemnity.

"I have never seen such a huge difference in impact. They are all devout citizens of the empire, but their lives are completely different..."

Horatio tilted his head to look out the window. As a person who grew up in Ancient Terra in the 3K era, it was the first time for him to see such a huge and bloated giant society.

As an artificial planet with a vast area, complex structure and huge size, Abyss Port's theoretical living area is enough to accommodate trillions of people.

Today, referring to the results of the most recent census a century ago, the registered permanent population of Abyss Port is only 50 to 60 billion. Even if one adds another 100 billion unregistered residents to the already counted population, it is still just a drop in the bucket compared to the theoretical full-load population.

Under the pleasant climate, the entire surface is the exclusive living area for more than 10 billion Upper Nest people and nobles.

The nobleman's canvas, architecture and urban planning will naturally not be clustered together like some hive cities with harsh climates, forming bloated and messy hive megastructures, but will be evenly planned and arranged on the entire surface of the planet.

To put it in a metaphor, the surface style of Abyss Port is more like Coruscant in Star Wars rather than the hive planet in the Warhammer world.

"My mother, a political official, once lobbied the Governor to support her plan to expand the surface livelihood, and persuaded my father to set up a foundation and set up a poverty alleviation fund of 10 billion Gothic coins to allow the people of Zhongchao to move to the surface as much as possible, reduce the development of underground residential areas, and further improve the utilization rate of surface public facilities and population coverage."

[Wow, what a bold idealist.] Horatio couldn't imagine how great the resistance would be.

“The resistance must be considerable.”

"The Mechanicus objected because their underground forging enclaves required a large amount of labor; the representatives of the Upper Nest objected because they planned and constructed all the projects on the surface of the entire planet; the nobles objected because they were the main investors in the construction and did not want the ants to breathe the same air with them."

"What about the Imperial Navy?"

"The Navy supports it, and it's not out of favor with my father."

"It seems that they are quite humane. After all, many navy people are self-made."

"Not exactly. They support more strategic considerations. All starports and cargo areas are not far from the surface, and they will not go down to 100 meters underground. The migration of population will make it easier for them to recruit sailors."

"...Okay, then, did your mother's plan finally come into effect?"

"With the support of the Navy, a part of the port area was piloted. But with her death, no one has taken over this work in the past eight years. Those who moved up were either driven away or conscripted for military service. Now only the 'Vegas' area is left, a... half-dead mess. It's the place you just passed by, and it's also the area you are most familiar with."

"Hmm...it's both familiar and strange." Horatio was a little dazed.

It was a vast area, so large that Horatio had farmed there for years and was only familiar with one percent of it.

It was also the proudest achievement of the political officer, Farida's mother, when she was alive.

It was once synonymous with ideals, hope, future, harmony, beauty and unity.

It is the only place on the entire planet where you can see the lower, middle and upper nests at the same time. It is opposite the three-dimensional high-density population living and consumption area of ​​the planet's government district, and is integrated with the giant star port cargo area of ​​PW-P-15, the largest civilian port on the planet.

And now, eight years of management absence.

Although the Vegas area is full of bright lights and neon lights, there is also a huge gap between the rich and the poor. The poor police force is only enough to protect the communities where the rich live. The public security is non-existent, and it has become a huge crucible, a microcosm of the entire Abyss Port society.

Rakes, thieves, murderers, pickpockets, and prostitutes prefer to call it 'Las Vegas Elysium'.

Because there, murder, prostitution, robbery, epidemics, theft, fraud, rape... lawless crimes are happening all the time in every corner of this big crucible.

It is no exaggeration to say that the current 'Vegas' is an oversized replica of Night City with hundreds of millions of people living there.

Well, all that glitters is rotten inside. Even if the surface looks bright, it still cannot change the fact that this is a garbage world.

Okay, this is very 40K.

The immense depression and darkness extinguished the little bit of surprise that had finally ignited in Horatio's heart.

Perhaps I shouldn't have had any unrealistic fantasies about this dark and cruel world from the beginning. After all, this is the desperate world of 41K!

The shuttle's altitude gauge continued to rise as it drove into a man-made platform that could be described as a sky garden world. It was obvious that it was the living area for the Celestial Dragons, who were more noble than the Upper Nest people.

"We're almost there, put on your helmet and pretend to be from the Law Department."

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(End of this chapter)