Galaxy's First Ruler

"Have you packed everything?"

Aldrich heard her mother's words as he put the bag in the car. The early morning chill of the old town had yet to recede and Aldrich's eyes kept wandering from the alleys to the distant ridges' tops.

"For the hundredth time, Mom, yes! Where is Dad? I am getting late, you know."

"He's coming… call me after settling down there, Ok?"

Mrs. Guo kept tucking Aldrich's white jacket. Aldrich could vividly see the uneasiness in her eyes, as it would be the first time for Aldrich to be away from his home for a long period.

Huff! Huff!

The rough breathing of an old man made the pair of mother and son look towards the entrance of the shop. Mr. Ben came running towards them, huffing and puffing balls of white fog. The sun, below the horizon, had yet to make the surrounding air bearable for the old man.

"Hah! Hah… Here I am!"

"Ben, you couldn't put away that wooden carving even now? Look how nervous our Alu is?"

Mrs. Guo rebuked the strange habit of Mr. Ben. The old man had spent the entire night shut in the basement, whittling the small piece of wood. Aldrich brought his hands up to look at them. The slight shake in them made him realize he indeed was a little nervous.

"You… What do you know? I had to do it."

Mr. Ben replied and took out the product of his night-long efforts. Aldrich looked at the tiny, round wooden seal. It was around 4 cm in diameter and almost as tall from top to bottom. Mr. Ben shoved the seal in Aldrich's front pocket and tapped the pocket two, three times, making sure it wouldn't get lost anywhere.

"Don't forget our roots."

The weary smile of the tired old man was unbearable for Aldrich. He took a deep breath, which made his lungs feel the surrounding coldness. A stray orange and yellow ray of sunlight lit up his face.

"I should go now."

Sniff!

Aldrich opened the car's door but the slight sobbing sound jolted his entire body to its core. The ever-present howls of the creature of Darkness lost their presence in Aldrich's mind. Aldrich turned around and fell to his knees. His head touched the cold pavement as he gave a deep kowtow to his parents. The acknowledgment of the debt for nurturing him did not need to be said out aloud.

"I told you he is not entirely hopeless. Humph! Now would you just stop crying?"

Mr. Ben said, snorting at his wife as he held Aldrich's shoulder and lifted him.

"I… I am sorry. I couldn't help it."

"Bye Mom, bye Dad."

Thump!

Aldrich closed the car door. The engine had already been running, warming up the old vehicle. His foot on the gas pedal struggled to put strength in it. And the blurry faces of two old people were still visible in the rear-view mirror.

Aldrich reached into his pocket and took out the tiny wooden seal. The bottom of the seal had a Chinese character carved into it.

The Guo family had a small history in the town called Leavenworth. The Chinese character 'GUO' had a massive history everywhere else.

*

Mayhem had replaced everything at the HQ of the World Space Administration.

The incredible piece of news that Mr. Santino had received 24 hours ago had shaken his entire existence. The only contrast was that the news itself was laughable despite the gravity of the topics involved within it.

If the news hadn't come from the two most powerful Dreamers of the world, he would have discarded it, too. The idea of someone coming up and claiming to stop the inevitable doom looked like a child's fantasy. Even bizarre was the man who had claimed it, the infamous Masked Menace.

Mr. Santino approached the towering Japanese swordsman who hadn't left this place since he had come. Baron Matsumoto Sho was eyeing the thousands of workers, engineers, and scientists working on a rocket.

"Baron Sho, do you think he can do it?"

Mr. Santino looked at the Dreamer, considered as the pride of humanity. The middle-aged Baron had long black hair tied in a bun on his head. His left hand had never left the butt of his sword and his thumb kept rubbing it, which seemed like it was pacifying a child.

"It doesn't matter, Mr. Santino. If he can, then there would be nothing better than that. And if can't, then let's consider this rocket as the last achievement of humans. The question is, can it go to a safe distance within time?"

Mr. Santino heard the question and looked at the outline of a rocket-like spaceship, glimmering with an ethereal blue glow. It was a prototype WSA had been secretly developing on the demands of a joint table of many governments. He still remembered the anger on the faces of Baron Sho and Baron Edmund when he had let them know about it. There was no way around it. All lives on earth depended on Mr. Santino's decision.

"Yes, it can. Our research team had found a method to modify the fuel and structure of the rocket using Mana cores and other Items from the Crawlers. It should be able to take him to a distance equivalent to the moon within 6 hours. I…"

Mr. Santino stopped amid his sentence, but looking at the Baron raising his eyebrows, he continued.

"I don't think we should trust the Masked Menace. Maybe it's one of his repulsive plans to escape the planet before the impact."

Just as Mr. Santino finished his sentence, a snowflake dropped from the skyless dome onto his nose. Cold, incredible cold, and terrifying sadness shuddered his entire being. He struggled to raise his chin and looked at the calm in Baron Sho's eyes. Disgust was written in bold letters within them.

"Trust, Mr. Santino? I'd rather trust my most villainous enemy than my dearest friend. If the 'Trust' you spoke of could be counted on, humanity would have been doomed to dust hundreds of years ago."

The intense shame made Mr. Santino dare not look at the Baron. As he turned his eyes away, shivering from the uncalled Cold, he saw the words blinking on the screen by his side.

Time Left to the Impact: 35 hours