Lying Low

Two in a row

Outside Jupiter Transit Space Station, an entirely black spacecraft that was easy to overlook against the vast backdrop of space slowly approached and docked with the station.

A group of figures with pitch-black skin, with only their teeth and the whites of their eyes being white, appeared at the connection point.

The M14 Nebula Federation was a top-tier Sixth-Tier Civilization, and its way of thinking differed somewhat from that of ordinary civilizations. No matter how much the Stark Merchant Guild despised them, when they came to negotiate for legitimate reasons, it was impossible to deal with them the same way they had dealt with that Fifth-Tier Civilization.

Unless they wanted to pick a fight with these eccentric black uncles.

"Hi, everyone. I believe you already understand why we came here."

A Black male dressed like a chieftain spoke in a jumble of words.

Another man behind him immediately followed up.

"That's right. We came here for our vassal state."

"Oh, our poor little vassal state was colonized by you while we weren't paying attention."

"Give them back—cough, release them."

The moment they entered, they began chattering and rambling, giving everyone in the Stark Merchant Guild an enormous headache.

At first, they had said they had come to rescue their vassal state. But after arriving, they immediately changed their tune and claimed a connection with that Third-Tier Indigenous Civilization.

For fuck's sake, at this rate, you're definitely going to say that you were the ones who discovered this wormhole exit first, aren't you?

"We discovered this wormhole exit when we first took in this vassal state."

As soon as that last sentence came out, the Stark Merchant Guild members were overcome with helplessness.

"At the time, we thought this was the vassal state's territory, and planned to