Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 164

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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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164
“I never expected to end up in space.”
I ascended higher and higher until I completely broke through the atmosphere. Earth gleamed blue below me, while space stretched endlessly black above.
[Chairman, can you hear me clearly?]
“Yes, loud and clear.”
[How does it feel to be in space?]
“It’s beautiful. Can you see the feed alright?”
[Yes, we’re receiving it well. But the screen doesn’t quite capture the feeling, does it?]
I continued communicating with Jae-in as I flew toward the Moon. With no atmospheric resistance and only the vitality within my body burning as fuel, I accelerated endlessly.
[Faster than expected….]
“Faster?”
Without resistance and nothing around me, I barely felt the sensation of speed.
[You’ve broken fifty thousand kilometers per hour.]
The number felt surreal.
[At this speed, you’ll arrive in six hours.]
“I’ll accelerate a bit more.”
Six hours felt like an eternity.
“Should we talk on the way?”
[About what?]
“Why don’t you get married?”
[…Why are you asking that?]
“I got scolded by Deputy Director Chae Ji-hae. She said I keep dragging my boyfriend to Telus.”
[Ahem…. She said that?]
“Apparently she’s been complaining to Bae Na-young about wanting to get married soon?”
[You’re one to talk—you’re not married either.]
“…Should we talk about something else?”
[Right. When will we ever get married….]
Bae Na-young’s sigh-laden voice drifted through the communicator.
I’d dug my own grave.
To hear less of Bae Na-young’s complaints, I pushed my speed to the maximum.
[Chairman, you need to decelerate now. We’re approaching landing.]
I gradually slowed down and, following Jae-in’s guidance, touched down on the Moon.
The landscape was entirely gray and barren, yet thinking of what Jae-in would research here, it looked like golden ground to me.
By conducting research and development here on things difficult to study on Earth, I could build the strength needed to fight the Destruction God in the future.
As a last resort, I could even construct a facility here to escape to another dimension and flee from the Destruction God.
“Now to open the Gate….”
[Chairman?]
Just as I was about to open the Gate, a woman in white cloth garments fluttered in the distance. She had short white hair, and her entire frame was delicately slender. With large eyes, a small mouth, and a petite nose that suited her porcelain-white face perfectly, she possessed a captivating beauty that ensnared the eye.
[A person!]
Her voice resonated directly in my mind. She was a being like Eres or Gaff.
She charged at me.
I sensed no killing intent, but reflexively unleashed a torrent of aura forward as an unidentified and clearly formidable presence rushed toward me.
Though I wasn’t concentrating, my aura was pierced through as easily as smoke parting, and she flew straight at me.
“Stop….”
I raised my fist to strike her approaching head, then realized she wasn’t attacking me and halted, allowing her to embrace me instead.
[Big brother!]
[Chairman, what’s happening?!]
She clung to me so tightly that she vanished from the helmet camera’s view, and static crackled loudly in my ear.
This mysterious woman held me in an iron grip and wouldn’t let go. The sensation of her body felt no different from any human’s.
“Wait…. Let go!”
I exerted force and pushed her away.
Despite her impressive speed, her physical strength wasn’t overwhelming, so I pushed her back easily.
[Sorry…. It’s been so long since I’ve seen someone, I got excited. Hehe.]
At first glance she seemed cold, but watching her laugh carelessly suggested her temperament wasn’t particularly grave.
“Who are you?”
[Me? Luna.]
“Luna, do you live on the Moon? Are you alone?”
[Yeah. I’ve always lived on the Moon. There’s only me here.]
I sensed no hostility from Luna, nor the ominous feeling I’d experienced with the Angel.
[Big brother, are you okay? Open the Gate! Let me go!]
“Bae Na-young, she doesn’t seem hostile. Calm down.”
I soothed the agitated Bae Na-young.
“Luna, we’d like to establish a settlement on the Moon. Would that be alright?”
[Sure…! Wait, no! If you beat me in a bet, then it’s okay!]
Luna had been bouncing excitedly at my words, but suddenly remembered something and changed her tone urgently.
“A bet? What kind?”
[Whoever circles the Moon and gets back here first wins. If you do, I’ll let you build a settlement.]
She possessed tremendous power. If I could gauge her abilities and nature through this contest, I absolutely should.
“I’m in.”
[Exciting!]
Luna bounced with unbridled enthusiasm.
[Ready…. Go!]
At her signal, we both bolted forward. I didn’t exert my full strength from the start to observe her abilities—a mistake. The speed difference was as vast as between a car and a person.
With each step she took, her body seemed to stretch and elongate.
“Damn it….”
I flew low across the surface, propelling myself through space to catch up with her.
[That’s amazing?! How are you doing that?!]
Even as she spoke, her speed continued to accelerate.
“What exactly are you….”
Regardless of her lack of hostility, without the aid of this apparent Moon resident, any attempt to establish a proper Research Facility would be futile.
I discarded my physical form and transformed into a spiritual body, pouring all my strength into accelerating.
My speed was now double what it had been when I ran moments ago, and it surpassed even the aura I unleashed.
I was close enough now that a mere extension of my hand would reach her.
[You’re fun!]
Luna turned to look at me with a radiant smile on her face as I caught up to her.
Her flowing garments clung tightly to her body, and the white cloth near her head was drawn taut, streaming behind her like a ribbon.
From a distance, it resembled the ears of a rabbit lying back against its head.
Now that Luna was serious, she increased her speed and ran slightly ahead of me.
Her footsteps were light, and while she could have run faster, she appeared to be toying with me.
I wanted to slap her face out of frustration, but she showed no hostility, and I lacked sufficient reason to make an enemy of a being with such mysterious power.
We completed a full lap and returned to the starting point, but I couldn’t catch up in those final moments.
“Huff….”
[Hehe! I won!]
Luna bounced about with a childlike smile.
“So… I can’t come to the Moon?”
[Let’s do it again! If you win even once, you can come!]
My competitive spirit ignited.
“Fine, one more time.”
This time, I transformed into a spiritual body from the start and ran.
But I lost again, and again, and again.
“Sigh….”
I tried boosting my physical form and transforming spiritually as well. Thanks to this, my high-speed movement technique improved, but no matter how many times I raced, I couldn’t defeat Luna.
I released my spiritual form and reconstructed my physical body.
[That looks fun… Can I do that too?]
“Who knows?”
Luna circled around me, observing me with curiosity.
“I suppose I should give up. I have no intention of building a lunar base while fighting with the native inhabitants.”
If I were to seize the Moon by overpowering Luna through force, I would be no different from the Destruction God.
[Huh? You’re giving up? Let’s race a bit more. I’ll run a little slower.]
Whether she was doing this intentionally or not, her words gently scraped against my pride. Yet I felt no malice from her whatsoever.
“…Since it seems I can’t win through racing anyway, there’s no helping it.”
No one else could defeat Luna. Perhaps if someone of Eres or Gaff’s caliber came, but that was unlikely.
[Then shall we do something else? Hide and seek? Or treasure hunting?]
“…Treasure hunting?”
[Yes! Let’s see who can find the biggest moonstone!]
“What’s a moonstone?”
[It’s a stone like this.]
Luna picked up a stone from the ground and held it out to me.
“Just a stone…. Or so it seems.”
On the surface, it appeared to be an ordinary stone. I didn’t know much about its composition as it wasn’t my concern, but what the stone contained was far from ordinary. Its mana content was so high it was indistinguishable from a mana stone.
“The mana concentration here is incredible.”
[Whoever finds the biggest one wins! How about it?]
“Fine. The biggest one is this, right?”
[Ready~ Let’s go!]
The surroundings were covered in lunar stones. I couldn’t detect the faint mana, but that actually worked in my favor. I only needed to sense the large concentrations.
After wandering around for a while, I found a massive boulder.
A colossal rock that must have been at least ten meters across was brimming with mana.
If I tried to lift the rock in my current state, my hand would either sink into it or the rock would shatter, so I enlarged myself before picking it up.
“…That’s cheating! How is growing allowed?!”
Luna cried out, holding a boulder the size of her own body with what looked like white ear-shaped cloth.
“You never said it wasn’t allowed.”
[I see…. I suppose there’s no helping it. If you come here, will you keep playing with me?]
“When I have time.”
[This is so much fun!]
“Jae-in.”
[Yes. I’ve been standing by. I’ll create a rift in front of you, Chairman. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!]
As Jae-in’s countdown ended, a blue rift appeared before my eyes.
“I’m opening it.”
[You can’t open that.]
Luna stopped me.
“But you said it was okay? Have you changed your mind?”
[No, it’s not that. Earth has no mana, right? The Moon has so much mana that if you just open it, the people from Earth will get sick. The people from Earth who came before got sick quickly and went back.]
“People from Earth came before?”
[They left a flag behind.]
Luna pointed to the United States flag in the distance.
“… Jae-in, is what she said about the mana correct?”
[It’s certainly possible. Mana is continuously leaking out, even from Telus and the Gate. If the Moon’s mana concentration is significantly higher, it could happen as she says. Chairman, can you feel the mana concentration?]
“It feels somewhat dense, but as you know, I’m not very good at sensing these things.”
[Hmm…. Bae Na-young and I would be fine, but if large amounts of mana flow into this area, the number of people suffering from mana addiction will increase.]
“What should we do?”
[We need to establish countermeasures, so you should return for now.]
“Understood.”
[Wait…. Wait! You’re leaving?]
“Yeah, thanks for telling me. I’ll come back soon.”
[I…. I can help!]
“Huh?”
[I can block the mana from flowing through the rift.]
“I’d appreciate that.”
She seemed reluctant to let go of someone she’d met after so long.
[Just trust me!]
White aura coalesced in Luna’s hand, forming a staff. She brought it down with a heavy thud against the ground.
“…Not a rabbit and mortar. Really, who looked at this and decided to make up such a story?”
White light spread outward from where Luna struck the earth, enveloping the space.
The sensation of everything turning white felt similar to Eres or Aither’s Origin.
“You can open it now!”
Luna placed her hands on her hips and spoke with confidence.
Upon entering the space she had created, I could distinctly feel the mana density drop dramatically.
Without her, I would have recklessly opened it and suffered the consequences.
“Jae-in, shall we open it?”
[Bae Na-young is preparing on this end too. If mana overflows even slightly, Bae Na-young will temporarily block it and close the Gate immediately.]
After hearing Jae-in’s words, I tore open a rift and opened the Gate.
[Sending the cargo first.]
I grasped the Gate from above and below, pulling it open, and equipment boxes came flying through in succession.
Luna watched the boxes coming through the Gate with wonder. Living in this desolate land, anything would seem remarkable.
After the boxes, Jae-in came through wearing a spacesuit.
“The Moon! I’ve actually come to the Moon!”
Jae-in was moved to tears.
“You like it?”
“I do! Isn’t this the dream of every scientist?!”
Bae Na-young came through next, positioning herself between me and Luna while remaining wary of her.

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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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