New Life

New Life

On the morning of December 23, 20412, Panshi Planet—half gray land and half blue ocean—was bathed in the light of the Gia Star, while the atmosphere enveloping the planet shimmered with shifting colors.

Even from space, the land below looked utterly ravaged. Years of fighting had left countless scars; little green remained, and most of the surface was a lifeless gray.

Only the blue ocean showed that this planet had water, one of the basic resources needed for life.

Though the ever-shifting colors of Panshi Planet looked dreamlike from afar, in truth it was merely a low-habitability administrative planet within the Interstellar Federation.

Low-habitability administrative planets were the lowest standard among planets where humans could live. They provided the necessities for human survival, such as oxygen, fresh water, and food, but their poor environments made it difficult for people to survive in the wild.

High above a stretch of Panshi Planet, a tranquil sky—calm, cloudless, and bright with sunshine—was shattered by a piercing sonic boom.

Brilliant points of light appeared in the sky. As they drew closer, they revealed several aircraft in pursuit.

At the front was a silver-white personal flight shuttle. Behind it, four Interceptor Drones from the planet's Skynet defense system were close on its tail.

In the single-seat flight shuttle, Abbott piloted with a grim expression. His hands worked the controls from side to side; these sharp turns were already pushing the personal shuttle to its limits.

He had a feeling that if he kept making such violent turns, the personal shuttle—designed for spaceflight—might break apart even without an attack from the Interceptor Drones. But he didn't dare hesitate for a moment, and he kept accelerating and changing direction.

He tried to shake off the Interceptor Drones behind him by accelerating and veering, but the four drones clung to his shuttle as if glued to it. There was no escaping them.

"Damn it, I never should've brought this piece of junk here!" Abbott cursed.

Abbott was an interstellar mercenary with the notorious Sirius Mercenary Group, and a wanted criminal in the Interstellar Federation. He had a long list of serious crimes to his name, including multiple murders, repeated attempts to resist arrest, assault, and robbery.

He had killed dozens of civilians. On their previous mission, the Sirius Mercenary Group had successfully robbed an interstellar cruise ship. The mercenaries had earned a fortune and gone off to enjoy themselves.

Abbott had also received quite a few Credit Points, and had used a fake identity to come to Panshi Planet for some relaxation.

He'd thought nothing would go wrong on such a remote planet, so he hadn't brought any weapons or equipment. He'd simply slipped in aboard his personal flight shuttle.

This sort of infiltration was common among interstellar fugitives. Even the most convincing Identity Bracelet couldn't pass an official checkpoint inspection; counterfeit bracelets could only be used for simple Credit Point purchases.

What he hadn't expected was to be spotted by the Interceptor Drones as soon as he entered the planet's atmosphere.

"Those pieces of garbage should be dealing with the Zerg. Why are they chasing me?" Abbott glanced at the Interceptor Drones on the central display and continued cursing.

These Interceptor Drones were part of the planet's Skynet defense system. Their main purpose was to detect and attack Zerg flying through the air, not to deal with intruders.

If they detected a powerful Zerg, the drones would report it to Skynet and keep it under surveillance. If the Zerg was weak, they would attack it directly.

Abbott was simply unlucky. He'd run into a team of Interceptor Drones on a mission and ended up in their sights.

If he'd had weapons and equipment, he wouldn't have worried about four Interceptor Drones. But he was in a personal flight shuttle, and even escaping was difficult.

"Warning. Stop flying immediately and submit to inspection! Warning. Stop flying immediately and submit to inspection!" The warning came from the personnel monitoring the Interceptor Drones through Skynet.

Although the Interceptor Drones were unmanned, personnel at Skynet's remote operations center monitored them in real time.

Abbott's situation had already been reported, and an attack could begin at any moment.

Fortunately, the Interceptor Drones were programmed to target Zerg. Otherwise, they would have attacked without warning.

Abbott ignored their warnings. He'd seen plenty of Interceptor Drones and knew their capabilities inside and out.

Though he couldn't shake them, Interceptor Drones usually only forced illegal aircraft to land; they didn't attack outright.

Only a human with the appropriate authorization could order an attack on another human. This was an ironclad rule, the final solution adopted after countless incidents involving malfunctioning artificial intelligence.

Abbott spotted the Map beside the personal shuttle's controls and saw that Peilan City was not far ahead. His heart leaped. Once he got close to the city, the Interceptor Drones wouldn't be able to pursue him. Their top priority was protecting citizens' lives.

The personal flight shuttle sped toward Peilan City. The four Interceptor Drones behind it continued issuing warnings while activating their high-powered scanners to scan the shuttle.

"David, did you skip breakfast? Hurry up!" Jessica, her short brown hair swaying, urged David on from ahead.

Jessica wasn't especially pretty, but at seventeen, she had the youthful vitality unique to her age.

From the way she treated him, David could tell that she hadn't been particularly eager to invite him along.

Jessica knew that if she hadn't been unable to find anyone else to go with on a winter-break morning, she never would have asked someone as withdrawn as David to join her.

"Okay!" David replied curtly.

When he said the word "Okay," he felt an indescribable strangeness. He could use this language instinctively, yet it also felt utterly unfamiliar to him.

This had happened because he'd arrived in this world only yesterday. He hadn't inherited the body's memories, though fortunately, he'd somehow acquired its knowledge of language and writing.

In his previous life, his name had been Li David, a "successful" IT engineer. The quotation marks were there because he had only been an IT hotshot in a fourth-tier city. In a first- or second-tier city, he would've been a nobody.

The place where he'd been hit was a downhill road called Fangong Bridge. He hadn't been driving his little car, nor riding his electric scooter with its dying battery. He'd been walking.

When the heavy truck went out of control and hurtled toward him, he and several other pedestrians were on the sidewalk.

The truck hadn't veered toward the heavier cement mixer on the road. Instead, it had charged toward the far more vulnerable crowd.

David didn't want to assume the worst about the truck driver, but looking back now, he couldn't help but suspect that something was wrong.

With the runaway truck bearing down on them, there were pedestrians on both sides of David, including several students who had just gotten out of school.

He hadn't had time to think. With people on both sides, he had nowhere to run. He did something he still couldn't believe he'd done: he shoved the people beside him out of the way.

Then came the crushing impact. He didn't know how many people had died, but he clearly remembered managing to push several students away from him.

When David came to, he was in the house of the person whose body he'd taken over—a bizarrely furnished basement.

A damaged Altar, unknown chunks of meat burned black, an open book in strange, ancient writing, and his own naked body—it looked like the scene of some evil ritual.

If not for the ceiling lights spanning the entire basement, the high-tech exercise equipment, and the metal walls, he would've thought he'd ended up in some primitive, ignorant world.

It took David nearly an hour to slowly accept that he'd gone from being an Asian man to a tall, pale teenage boy.

It took another hour to find a way out of the basement. The exit only required a simple palm scan, but since he'd inherited none of the body's memories, he'd had to figure everything out by trial and error.

Once he'd left the basement, though, he no longer had to worry about the unfamiliar surroundings.

The Smart Butler of the house, a humanoid domestic robot, was waiting outside the basement.

Outside the basement, David was astonished to find a vast underground vegetable-growing facility. Then, guided by the Smart Butler, he returned to the bedroom upstairs.