Into the Cosmos (Star Rail SI, Chaos Gacha) (Patreon)

Chapter 39: A Fluffy First Impression

The fun I was having at Welt’s expense didn’t last long, however, as the next moment I received a new notification from the Gacha system, which was almost immediately followed by my phone vibrating in my pocket.

Curious, and figuring it was best to roll it now before things really got going here, I pulled it up and read it, only for my eyes to widen a bit as a shiver of dread went up my spine.

[Feat Achieved! Managed to cure your lover Firefly of ELS, something nobody in the universe has been able to do yet, cementing yourself in her heart even more than you already were. On another note, you better prepare yourself for the stern talking-to waiting for you and for a broken pelvis.]

[+1 Diamond Random Gacha Ticket.]

Sweating a bit now, since that notification was too well-timed with the moment I felt my phone vibrate, I slowly pulled it out.

My fears were confirmed as I saw a few new messages from Firefly.

Taking a quick breath in, I opened them and read them silently to myself.

[Firefly]: Caelus! I finally figured out why you randomly congratulated me before you said goodbye. It was that potion, wasn’t it?

[Firefly]: You dummy! Why would you use something so clearly precious on me when you’re in a worse-off condition than I am?

[Firefly]: Mou, when you have some free time, come and visit me. There’s a lot of things I want to say to you face to face.

[Firefly]: Make sure to give me a heads-up when you do, though, in case I’m busy with something.

[Firefly]: I’ll leave you be now even if there’s tons of things I want to say, since I know you’re busy.

[Firefly]: Please take care of yourself. Above all else though, even if I’m a little mad at you…

[Firefly]: Thank you so much!!!

[Firefly]: Farewell for now. Love you.

I could even picture the expressions she most likely had as she wrote this — cutely pouting at the phone while not sure whether to smile or cry.

One thing was for sure, though…

‘I’m definitely getting a major scolding later,’ I thought a little nervously as I sent a thumbs-up in reply along with some hearts.

‘Well, might as well see what I got for my troubles,’ I decided and mentally commanded the system to roll it.

[Rolling…]

[Fireborn]

|Legendary Trait|

You were born in the flames, molded by them. You are completely immune to all fire-based attacks, and the higher your body temperature, the faster you recover energy and health, up to 500%.

Reading the pull, I couldn’t help but think that it oddly fit. Both for the fact that Firefly’s main element was fire, and for the fact that the last major ticket I had gotten thanks to Firefly had been Ryujin Jakka, which meshed perfectly with it.

Going forward, I wouldn’t have to worry about using its Bankai form anymore, since Fireborn rendered its effects meaningless on me.

‘Speaking of regeneration, I wonder if it would help with my curse?’ I wondered and felt inwardly for a moment, but I didn’t get my hopes up.

To test it properly, I would have to release my Bankai, which was just not possible to do at the moment unless I wanted to bring the whole of the Xianzhou Luofu down on our heads and turn us into enemy number one.

There was also the fact that the trait didn’t mention anything about curing diseases or curses, which is what I had, so it was best to keep my hopes down for now.

‘I suppose I could just use the Shikai version.’

“What’s the matter, Caelus? You had a weird expression on your face just now?” the curious voice of March came from beside me.

Shaking my head and putting the trait to the test later — preferably on an uninhabited planet, or when I made a return trip to Jarilo-VI to keep working on defrosting the planet — I gave March a thumbs up.

“Nothing to worry about. Just got a good roll, that’s all,” I said simply, getting an understanding look from her.

“Oh! What did you get then?” March asked, now looking even more curious at what ability I had gotten.

“Just became immune to all fire and fire-based attacks,” I said simply with a small shrug, like it was no big deal.

March looked at me blankly for a moment before slowly blinking and then looking at me in a deadpan. “Forget I asked. Only you would get something as ridiculous as suddenly being immune to fire with such a calm expression.”

“Meh, I just roll with the punches if I’m being honest,” I said with another shrug. “If I became surprised at every crazy thing that happened to me, I don’t think I would enjoy and find such resonance with the Path of the Trailblaze.”

“…Huh, that does make an awful lot of sense,” March hummed quietly to herself while holding her chin and nodding.

“Keep your wits about you, you two. We have trouble ahead,” Welt suddenly said, interrupting our conversation.

Turning our attention forward again, we immediately saw what he was talking about as we spotted what appeared to be an injured guard on the ground.

Quickly making our way toward him, the situation didn’t look good, as the man was bleeding a lot while mumbling nonsense about something ahead.

Quick on his feet, Welt quickly turned to March and asked her to use her Six-Phased Ice to stem the bleeding, which she was quickly able to do.

“Let’s keep searching. There might be other survivors,” Welt suggested once we made sure that the guard wouldn’t die from blood loss.

It didn’t take us long to find even more of them in a more open clearing, but thankfully we hadn’t found any dead soldiers yet.

“There are wounded everywhere…” March muttered in a worried tone.

Looking around, I could see most of them cradling their injuries, or like the one before, mumbling some nonsense that we couldn’t make head or tails of.

The only thing of note we got off them was something about some corroded monsters.

“This is starting to get really creepy now,” March muttered as we continued along, turning her head on a swivel, clearly wary of said monsters.

“We found the monsters,” I muttered several minutes later as we spotted what appeared to be a corroded knight with leaves growing out of him, along with elemental bats, or spawn as they were called here.

“Get ready, you two. Seems we will have to fight after all,” Welt said as he pulled out his cane.

“Right!” March and I repeated in unison as I lifted my trusty new lance while March pulled out her bow.

Luckily, other than the knight reviving once after we took it down, losing some of his corrupted tree branches, the monsters proved no trouble for us and we took them down quickly.

“Let’s keep moving,” Welt said, and we agreed.

Along our path we dealt with more of the same monsters before we heard talking up ahead and took off into a sprint, as whoever they were, they seemed to be in trouble.

As we came upon a clearing, we saw a group of Cloud Knights surrounding a brown-haired girl with pointy fox ears at the top of her head and a fluffy and soft-looking tail behind her. She was beautiful with soft looking features and bright green eyes.

“Look, March. We finally found an animal-eared girl!” I exclaimed in happiness, glad at finally meeting one, but internally wondering if the Tingyun before us was already the Lord Ravager Phantylia in disguise, since my memory about the Xianzhou was kind of spotty.

Still, it was best to pretend she was just a beautiful girl, as I didn’t want to face an Emanator of Destruction without preparation and so close to civilians.

“Uggh! Less fanboying about the cute girl and more rescuing! Or did you miss the fact they need help!?” March exclaimed with a bit of an angry pout as she pointed at the fact that they were obviously surrounded by more corroded knights.

Apparently our conversation was pretty loud, or those ears of hers came in handy, as Tingyun turned to us with a worried expression.

“Hey, you there! We need your help!” Tingyun, or who I assumed to be her, asked us in a polite but urgent manner.

“On it!” I said, immediately jumping into the fray and taking down two of them with my lance while March and Welt took the other two.

Once we were done, I turned to said girl and gave her a thumbs up. “One hero at your service!” I declared proudly.

“Thanks for saving beauty from the beast~” Tingyun said with a cheerful voice despite the situation, something which March immediately caught on to.

“Pleasure! But are you thanking us or giving us a compliment?” March said, looking at the girl a bit weirdly.

‘Yep, some red flags are starting to go up,’ I silently noted, but kept them to myself for now.

With the danger over for now, the Cloud Knights behind the fox girl suggested they escort her back to the Sky-Faring Commission, some kind of organization.

In return, Tingyun gently turned them down before turning to us and introducing herself.

“My name is Tingyun. I’m the Amicassador for the Luofu Sky-Faring Commission merchant guild. May I venture to know the illustrious names of my heroes?” Tingyun asked in a polite yet flattering tone as she looked at us.

“Illustrious names?” March asked while scratching her head, looking like she was not sure whether to be flattered or weirded out. “…Uhh, sure. I’m March 7th, this is Mr. Yang — oh, Mr. Welt Yang — and this is—” March said as she introduced herself before pointing to me.

“And I’m the Galactic Baseballer, Caelus! At your service!” I said with a cheesy smile. “But if you want, you can just call me Caelus for short.”

“Oh… hehe. Mr. Caelus~” Tingyun murmured with a teasing tone in her voice, but keeping her expression the same as when we arrived, with a perfect smile on her face.

‘Another red flag.’

“Don’t mind him. He likes to get a little creative with his introductions,” March said with a fond shake of her head as she patted my arm.

“Best throw them off with a witty line instead of appearing suspicious in their eyes. Don’t want to end up on another wanted list, do you?” I whispered in return to March as I leaned my head closer to her, trying to be discreet.

A look of understanding immediately passed over her eyes, and she shot me a mildly annoyed look. “Next time, why not remind me before I open my mouth?” March whispered back.

It seemed our efforts were meaningless, though, as I caught Tingyun’s ears twitching, having obviously caught what we said. Being a good host — or at least pretending to be one — she let it slide.

“I see. Well, thank you for coming to our aid. Although, there is one thing I don’t understand. Starskiff Haven is under lockdown. Since none of you are Xianzhou residents, may I ask how you came to be here?” she asked, finally noticing the elephant in the room.

“If you can’t offer an explanation, I’m afraid these Cloud Knights will have to escort you out,” Tingyun finished while moving her head and pointing to the guards behind her, who were looking at us quite intently.

“Busted.” Having the same thought, March and I whispered between ourselves before adopting innocent expressions while trying to see if we could spot an escape route.

Luckily, before we did anything dumb and looked even guiltier in their eyes, Welt came to the rescue.

“We called for port transfer and got no response, but then someone opened the Jade Gate for us. When we arrived there was no one to be found, so we started to make our way through,” Welt explained with a calm expression.

“How can that be? My ship was the last one into port before the Jade Gate was shut. The Sky-Faring Commission has already locked Starskiff Haven entirely…” Tingyun added with a confused tone of voice, but once more keeping the same expression.

“We’re telling the truth. You could verify it yourself by checking the access history of the Jade Gate,” Welt continued in the same calm manner.

While they were talking, I found my gaze naturally wandering toward Tingyun’s fox ears and tail and got an indescribable urge to touch them.

‘They look so soft…’ I inwardly thought as I found my fingers twitching beside me.

A moment later, I winced as I felt someone pinch my side and turned to see March with an annoyed expression and a frown on her face.

“Stop staring, you dummy!” March hissed to my side quietly.

“…Sorry,” I muttered, not really meaning it at all as I rubbed where she had pinched me.

As I focused again, I saw to my relief that Welt had managed to actually convince Tingyun that we weren’t here with bad intentions to help.

“Hehe, your actions have already revealed your kind hearts to me! Sadly… I can’t make you any promises. You’re outsiders, and only Madam Yukong has the authority to consider your offer,” Tingyun informed us with a soft tone, and still no change in expression.

“Don’t worry! Madam Yukong is kind-hearted too. Come on now, I’ll lead the way.”

As we followed behind her, my gaze once more almost magnetically going to her tail this time, Tingyun informed us about the monsters with branches growing out of them.

According to her, they were Mara-struck. It was something like a disease that afflicted long-life species like those in the Xianzhou at a certain point in their life cycle, involving cell transformation that resulted in bodily growths and loss of sanity.

From what I understood of it, though, it was a tradeoff for gaining their semi-immortality when the residents of the Xianzhou followed Yaoshi the Abundance in the past.

Along the way to our destination, we were forced to deal with more Mara-struck soldiers that we were quick to take down, and then a puzzle dealing with moving some containers around that were in our path.

Welt decided to leave all of the work to myself and March for some reason, calling it getting experience or whatever, even if I could tell that he just didn’t want to be bothered doing menial things.

Another thing of note was that Tingyun was quite chatty as she talked to us nonstop, with March throwing shade her way here or there, still holding a grudge from earlier.

“Y’know, you sound sweet enough, but you were talking about getting us escorted away by your Cloud Knights. If it weren’t for Mr. Yang…” March said, leaving it hanging.

“You misunderstand. If you were in my shoes right now, wouldn’t you want to keep your guard up~?” Tingyun said in return, sounding sorry for what she had done, but her expression not budging at all.

‘Aaaand the flags keep rising,’ I thought silently to myself. ‘Seems March has some good instincts. She was also wary of Cocolia and wasn’t afraid to badmouth her behind her back.’

“True… But we came here to trailblaze, not jailblaze.” March said while letting out a reluctant sigh.

‘…Maybe not.’

Eventually, and after defeating a bunch of enemies in our way, we finally reached our destination, with a starskiff waiting for us at the end. It was basically a flying vehicle/ship that people used to get around this place.

“Haah, finally. Look how many tail hairs I lost on the way. Tsk, my beautiful tail…” Tingyun murmured in a sad tone as she brought her tail forward and slowly caressed it.

Once more my gaze immediately zeroed in on it with some intensity as the urge from earlier returned with a vengeance.

‘Is it bad that I don’t really mind if that’s the real Tingyun or Phantylia in disguise, and I just want to ask her if I could touch her tail?’ I silently wondered to myself.