I Got a Monster Spaceship from the Tutorial Tower - Chapter 42

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 42
Episode 42
The vast expanse of the Universe.
An infinite void scattered with stars beyond all counting.
And of course, within that infinity, countless races had long since emerged, competing and clashing.
From the depths of the seas to the land; from individual contests to bitter conflicts between clans, tribes, and nations.
Before long, beings from one world waged wars staking their very existence against those of other planets.
After eons of alliance and dissolution played out across the cosmos’s great struggle,
the multitudes of life slowly began to gather beneath two flags.
The Empire and the Alliance.
* * *
‘I always thought the day would come when I learned the truth,’ Yeon-u reflected.
Yeon-u began to focus on Urelka’s account.
The other crew members likewise grew solemn, settling into seats around them.
Urelka manipulated the panel, then projected a massive hologram into the empty space of the summoning chamber itself.
A vast map woven together from countless stars, galaxies, and nebulae—something so broad that Yeon-u’s ordinary understanding could scarcely grasp it.
“The grand war between the Alliance and the Empire. What I shall tell you today, Captain, is merely a small fragment confined to the present moment. I ask your patience and understanding.”
“Understood.”
He’d heard the word Empire before.
Gudru had let it slip once, and Urelka had rebuked him for it.
But now that they’d cleared the twentieth floor, perhaps that restriction had been lifted?
As Yeon-u nodded, the true account began.
“First, allow me to reintroduce myself. I am a Special Plenipotentiary Officer dispatched by the Alliance, Urelka of the Saigor Clan.”
“Special Plenipotentiary Officer…….”
The title alone was extraordinary.
The goblins’ reaction was even more pronounced.
“Saigor!”
“The Saigor Clan, Sub-Captain?”
Torka leaned over beside Yeon-u and spoke quietly.
“The Saigor Clan is among the most storied of all the goblin families. Even when I enlisted in the Iron Blood Assault Unit, they had held the position of clan leader for three generations running…….”
“However.”
There was a force in Urelka’s voice that silenced the crew’s murmurs in an instant.
“This is not the place to extol my family’s deeds.”
“Right, go on.”
With Yeon-u’s approval, Urelka rapidly magnified the cosmic map.
One galaxy among countless others, one star system among countless others, and then magnified again and again…….
“Earth?”
At last, Yeon-u’s eyes landed on a small, familiar planet.
“Precisely. Earth has been a neglected world, sidelined from the great war between the Alliance and the Empire all this time.”
“Hmm…….”
“This Tutorial Tower is a brutal training facility the Empire constructed to turn Earth into one of its colonies.”
“!”
Yeon-u was startled by this revelation.
The crew’s expressions darkened accordingly.
“A training facility? But when the Tutorial Tower first appeared, they said it was a way for Earth to strengthen itself over ten years…….”
The warning that if Earth could not climb the Tutorial Tower within ten years, the planet would be destroyed by an overwhelming alien invasion.
Yeon-u trailed off as the memory surfaced.
Words could be twisted to mean anything depending on how they were framed.
What if the Empire truly had constructed the Tutorial Tower as a training ground?
Urelka nodded.
“You’re not wrong. But when that ten-year deadline passed, it would have been the Empire itself conducting the invasion. Or rather, not an invasion—a one-sided massacre.”
“Wait, Sub-Captain Urelka. I didn’t know much about this Tutorial Tower business myself.”
Torka, who had been sitting beside Yeon-u, stood up from his seat.
His voice and gaze were now filled with rage.
“Are you saying the Tutorial Tower is a facility designed to train the unsuspecting inhabitants of an ignorant world to fight against the Alliance?”
Meanwhile, sadness flickered in Urelka’s eyes as he replied.
“Exactly right. The ten-year grace period was given because the war situation has turned so unfavorable for the Empire. And if a world cannot complete even this degree of training in ten years, it is deemed worthless. They’ve been planting these facilities across the outer regions for roughly a hundred years now.”
“Those damned Elf bastards!”
Torka, forgetting that Yeon-u was beside him, brought his foot down hard against the floor with a bang and shouted.
“Wait, Elf? What do you mean Elf?”
Meanwhile, Yeon-u caught onto a single word in Torka’s explanation and reacted.
Until now, the enemies that emerged from the Tutorial Tower were what they called “Monsters.”
In fact, they were beings that could be easily encountered in various fantasy media even on Earth.
Elves were no exception, but at least until now, they had no connection to the Tutorial Tower.
Urelka nodded and continued his explanation.
“The Empire is a nation where Elves have made themselves the royal family and rule over races with appearances similar to their own. We, as alien races, are classified as Monsters and have been ruthlessly hunted down.”
“Then the Alliance is…….”
The picture began to fall into place in Yeon-u’s mind.
The name “Alliance” couldn’t have come about by chance.
“So the Monsters have gathered to oppose the Empire?”
“That’s correct.”
Urelka reversed the holographic map that had been pointing to Earth back to its original state.
But this time, it didn’t merely show stars and galaxies—instead, territorial boundaries were marked in red and blue.
Initially, the red expanded, consuming more than half the map, but from a certain point onward, it contracted rapidly.
Yeon-u could easily guess what it meant.
It was likely a quick-motion replay of the war between the Alliance and the Empire.
At first, the Monsters, scattered and living independently, were helpless against it.
“After the Alliance was formed, the war moved beyond stalemate and gradually began to favor the Alliance. Simply put, the Empire couldn’t match us in numbers.”
“Hmm…….”
“Damn it. Back when I was clan leader, I should have cut off the Empire’s breath once and for all.”
Torka clenched his fists tight in frustration, voicing his bitter regret.
“Pilot Torka served as clan leader around a hundred years after the Alliance was formed. That was when the fiercest battles were raging.”
Torka nodded, confirming that Urelka’s words were accurate.
In other words, even after the Alliance came into being, the war had raged on for over a thousand years.
“Recognizing that the war was turning against them, the Empire began, a hundred years ago, to expand its influence even to the outer reaches of the Universe—territory that had previously been forbidden.”
“And that’s the Tutorial Tower on Earth?”
“Yes. The inhabitants here are not drastically different in appearance from us, and they can be converted into soldiers simply by providing basic training—a convenient means.”
“…….”
Yeon-u fell silent.
Honestly, since the Tutorial Tower appeared, he’d come to understand all too well that Earth’s technological capabilities were nothing to speak of.
Nothing related to the Tower could be easily explained by Earth’s technology.
But ignorance didn’t justify being trampled by others.
Especially not when the goal was to cultivate soldiers who would shed blood for their purposes without knowing anything.
Clench.
Without realizing it, Yeon-u squeezed his fists so tightly they turned white with the strain.
It felt as though he himself had been insulted.
And the truth wasn’t far from that.
Urelka shook his head and spoke.
“That said, we are not demanding that you blindly believe everything we say, Captain.”
“……Right, of course.”
This was, after all, merely the explanation of Urelka, who had identified himself as belonging to the Alliance.
While one shouldn’t jump to conclusions based solely on one side’s account, at least the pieces of this story fit together rather neatly, didn’t they?
The Empire, losing ground in its war with the Alliance, spreading towers to train people who knew nothing—creating a convenient source of soldiers.
Which would explain why Monsters appeared as enemies inside the Towers.
Yeon-u asked.
“But why do the Monsters want to attack us?”
“I mentioned before that they were ‘set’ by the Empire. That’s precisely what I meant.”
According to Urelka, the Monsters that emerged from the Tower and the Raid Portals were creatures the Empire had captured and whose data had been replicated.
Within the Systematized Tower and Portals, they were made to move exactly as they had been programmed to.
‘So that’s why Urelka said they, too, were in a position where they had to fight Monsters.’
Only now did Yeon-u understand what Urelka had meant in his conversation with Ha-yun earlier.
Though he couldn’t know for certain what kind of beings composed the Alliance, at least Urelka was a goblin who valued honor.
It made perfect sense that he would be angry—not only had his comrades been captured as prisoners, but they were being used as training materials for the Alliance’s potential enemies.
“What about the Space Battleship, then? Is that also a type of combat vessel the Empire operates?”
Another question.
If so, what exactly was a Space Battleship?
He recalled the crew members’ strange hostility toward the combat fighters.
‘That’s probably because those fighters belong to the Empire.’
Meanwhile, Urelka showed evident wonder at the mention of the Space Battleship.
Had it been something belonging to the Empire, he wouldn’t have reacted that way.
Urelka shook his head in denial.
“Relic Grade items don’t currently exist. After the Alliance became aware of the Tutorial Tower, they too endeavored to bring it down. And after digging through records from ages past…….”
Behind his spectacles, Urelka’s eyes gleamed.
“We discovered that in ancient times, the Empire’s Elves and humans, along with the Alliance’s Monsters, developed technology under a Unified Power.”
“……Then perhaps?”
Yeon-u felt a chill race through him at the thought flickering across his mind.
The Space Battleship was indeed formidable beyond measure.
Operating on an entirely different scale from the fighter jets that flew through the Tower before.
“After the collapse of the Unified Power, the Space Battleship’s data scattered and lay buried as a relic. We collected all the data within Alliance Territory, and managed to recover roughly the other half from the Empire’s Database.”
“By the Goblin’s grace…….”
Only then did Torka, catching Urelka’s true meaning, mutter the words in a dazed voice.
“Infiltrating the Empire’s Systematized Tutorial Tower, completing the Space Battleship’s data and covertly installing it—that is precisely why you awakened the Space Battleship, Captain. Similar operations are underway in other Towers we can access.”
“…….”
Yeon-u fell silent.
The rest of the crew did the same.
Assuming everything Urelka said was true, Yeon-u had essentially thrown himself into enemy territory as a special envoy with full authority.
What manner of courage and audacity would such an undertaking require?
“Then what about Macross, Hwaryeon, and Gudru?”
Yeon-u turned his gaze toward the others.
Hwaryeon shook her head.
“No, sir?”
“……?”
Then what was it?
“I just signed some special operations consent form they told me to. Then after a while, I was summoned here.”
“They said I’d get food if I pressed my finger as a Troll, so I did.”
“Surika and I were also just told to sign a consent form, sir?”
“The Macross pilot apparently took off the moment he signed—thought it was vacation paperwork, he said.”
“…….”
It seemed the Alliance wasn’t exactly running things with humanitarian principles in mind.
At the crew’s successive accusations(?), Urelka cleared his throat.
“Ahem! One must read the consent form properly before signing it, mustn’t one? And strictly speaking, the form was merely a declaration of consent to have your information infiltrate the Empire’s Database. Whether you’d actually be summoned was entirely random.”
“Hmm.”
Even so, Yeon-u’s misunderstanding wasn’t entirely cleared up.
Still, judging by the crew’s reaction, they didn’t seem particularly aggrieved about it.
“I didn’t even get consent—I just revived on my own.”
“In the case of Relic Grade, they were already fallen soldiers in the Empire’s Database, so there was nothing we could do. Our apologies.”
“Haha! It’s fine! I never thought I’d fight the Empire again in this life. Might as well set my second one ablaze gloriously!”
In any case, to summarize what Urelka had said:
The Tutorial Tower was a facility created by the Empire—currently at war with the Alliance—to replenish its forces.
Urelka was a special operative who infiltrated using the Space Battleship to bring down that Tower.
“The Space Battleship itself can continue growing as you ascend the Tower. What you do with that power is entirely your choice, Captain.”
“This has gotten enormous…….”
In other words, Yeon-u was in a position where, unlike the other pilots, he would someday have to make a choice.
After all, on Earth, only Yeon-u knew of this secret.
“But Macross probably has no idea about any of this—what should we do?”
Yeon-u turned to look at the capsule where Macross slept and asked.
And soon, he and the crew reached a unanimous decision.
“It would be best to explain to the Macross pilot later.”
“Yes, Captain. I’ll brief him myself once he wakes.”
“All right, that’s good.”
Yeon-u nodded lightly.
“Oh, but Urelka.”
“Yes, Captain. Is there something else you’d like to know?”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Ah.”
Urelka wore the expression of someone who’d just forgotten something himself.
“According to Command’s analysis, there’s a high probability the Empire will become aware of the Space Battleship’s existence when it reaches the 20th Floor.”
“……What?”
Yeon-u’s fingers trembled.
“We’ve been… discovered?”
To the Empire—one of the two great powers locked in struggle with the Alliance for supremacy of the Universe?
To that vast force capable of hurling a Tutorial Tower onto Earth on a whim?
Urelka nodded, his expression unchanged from the moment on the first floor when he’d warned that the Space Battleship would detonate first if things continued as they were.
“Not with certainty, but—”
Yeon-u’s face drained of color.
He should have heard this first!
Much had changed during their ascent through the tower aboard the Space Battleship, yet Yeon-u remained small-minded by nature.
Standing at the center of this vast, tangled epic of cosmic warfare still didn’t sit right with him.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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