Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship! Chapter 40: Kidnapping and Loss

""WHAT?!""

Both of us shouted at the sa ti, shocked by each other’s words. Eva, however, continued her words faster than . "You bastard! I misjudged you! I thought you were more honorable than this!"

"Why would I throw myself into trouble for no visible reward? Just let the authorities handle it!"

As a non-combatant, my priority in ergencies was ensuring my own safety. It wasn’t my job to go around playing hero—that was for the police and military, not .

But Eva didn’t seem to care about my reasoning. She stomped her foot hard against the pavent.

"You wuss! Then sit your fat ass over there!" She growled. "I’ll save her myself!"

"W-Wai—!"

I reached out to stop her, but she didn’t even spare a glance. In a flash, she leaped toward the alley, disappearing from sight.

Judging by the muffled voice we had heard, this was almost certainly a kidnapping. Eva, for one, had almost been kidnapped before—by black market thugs and loan sharks back in the Narlia Trading Hub.

Did this remind her of that ti? Was that why she was acting so recklessly?

’But that voice…’

Sothing about it felt… familiar. It was muffled, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had heard it before.

"No, focus! This isn’t the ti to get distracted!"

Without wasting another second, I pulled up my terminal and scanned for active lines. Finding the city’s ergency number, I quickly patched in.

"Hello?! There’s an ergency! Two blocks north of the Adventurer’s Guild—a kidnapping! We need help, fast!"

After hearing my report, a voice responded almost imdiately.

{Sir, thank you for the report. Please move to a safe location ASAP. Officers will arrive in 120 seconds. Leave the rest to us.}

"...!"

Two minutes?!

In the ga’s settings, with teleportation technology readily available under proper setups?! If we waited that long, the kidnappers would be long gone from this planet!

There was only one explanation for such a ridiculous delay—they had been bought off.

"Shit."

I dropped the call imdiately, disabling the VPN I had been using to mask my signal. Now, even if they tried, they wouldn’t be able to trace my location through my terminal.

But if these bastards had enough influence to bribe the entire police force… Eva was in serious danger.

If this had been a random street kidnapping, I wouldn’t have cared—Eva could handle herself. But against an organized force backed by powerful players? I wasn’t about to leave her alone.

Blaster at the ready, I rushed into the alleyway, carefully peeking around the corner to assess the situation. Eva stood defensively, but her left arm hung limply at her side.

Behind her lay a large sack, roughly the size of a person—the kidnapped victim, no doubt.

One man was already down on the ground, unconscious. But five others were closing in, surrounding her. I gasped inwardly. With her arm broken, she was at a severe disadvantage.

If I don’t step in now, the number of kidnapped victims would double in an instant.

"Fuck this shit…" I cursed under my breath, gripping my blaster tighter. "Don’t underestimate . I was a goddamn FPS master back in the day!"

I aid at the closest thug and pulled the trigger. The blaster humd as its chanisms activated—then, a blinding blue light shot forward.

The projectile traveled at the speed of light. A complete surprise attack. The target didn’t even have ti to react.

A clean hole opened on his forehead, releasing fresh steam. The next mont, his body went limp as he collapsed forward. The remaining thugs froze in shock, but Eva didn’t waste the opening.

"RAAAAGH!"

She lunged at the next closest man, her body a blur of motion. With her full montum, she drove her fist straight into his face. A sickening CRUNCH echoed throughout the alley.

The man’s face collapsed inward—a grotesque ss... but she wasn’t finished. With a forceful step forward, she spun and delivered a vicious side kick to the next guy’s ribs.

The impact folded him like a cracked stick before launching him into the wall. The concrete shattered as his body tore through it.

*ZIN!*

I wasn’t just standing there, either. Before the thugs could process what was happening, I fired another shot. One more down, now, only one remained!

I rushed forward, securing the sack behind Eva before raising my blaster again, firing five shots in rapid succession. Both legs, both shoulders and the side of the torso. The last thug collapsed, fully neutralized.

Confirming this sight, Eva dropped to her knees, chest heaving, drenched in sweat.

"Eva! Are you alive?!" I asked with worry.

She turned slightly, her eyes sharp but unfocused, beads of cold sweat trailing down her face.

"You’re… too slow, you bastard…" she muttered—before her body gave out.

"..."

Now I have multiple problems.

A fainted Eva. A mystery person in the sack. The bribed police, who could show up at any second from the sirens I could hear approaching. And the neutralized kidnapper I was planning to interrogate. Then there was —stuck in the middle of this ss.

As if to urge to decide, sirens echoed from afar, approaching rapidly.

"Shit. This is why I hate playing the good Samaritan."

I secured my spacesuit and activated its power enhancents. Then, without another thought, I hoisted both girls over my shoulders, stomped on the last man’s head, flattened it like a pancake—and ran like hell.

---

Sowhere in the vast, barren expanse of space, a lone colossal vessel drifted silently. Had Arthur been able to see it, he would have recognized the design instantly. A moon-like sphere, its surface bristling with hundreds—no, thousands—of turrets.

One of the most powerful ships in existence. A ship that could not be bought even if you pile mountainloads of money. The EX-Class Super Dreadnaught Vessel—The Eclipse Sovereign. A relic from an era before recorded spacefaring history. Its design was an unsolvable mystery, constructed with ancient, indecipherable technology far beyond modern understanding.

And the force currently commanding it? Shrouded in absolute secrecy.

Inside the dimly lit bridge, a single red light pulsed in even intervals. On the main screen, multiple surveillance feeds flickered in real-ti.

Each displayed a different cara angle—sprawling streets, shadowed alleys, and the remnants of a violent struggle.

In one alley, lifeless bodies lay strewn across the pavent. Nearby, "police" units worked quickly to clean up the scene.

"So they failed." A voice broke the silence. There was no anger, only mild disappointnt. "Well, with how protected the package was, this outco was within expectations."

But just as the speaker rationalized the failure, a nervous voice cut in.

"S-Sir, reporting…!"

The analyst sitting at one of the side terminals had gone pale, eyes flickering between lines of data. "After reviewing the footage… It’s confird that it wasn’t the knights who secured the package!"

He paused before continuing. "It was an unrelated third party!" And then, silence.

"…What?" The man in the captain’s chair slowly narrowed his golden eyes, now locked onto the analyst. He took a sharp intake of breath. "Explain."

The analyst swallowed hard before continuing.

"Our insider received a kidnapping report from that location. As they tracked the caller’s signal… it was suddenly cut off." He hesitated, then pressed on. "Given the timing and coordinates, the caller and the one who took the package… must be the sa person."

A low hum filled the bridge as the crew absorbed the implications. The captain tapped his fingers against the armrest, his expression unreadable.

"Do we have any visual confirmation?"

One of the other officers quickly shook his head.

"Negative, sir. The surveillance caras through our planned escape path were disabled to avoid leaving traces. All surveillance feeds in that sector went offline at the ti of the extraction."

A frustrated sigh escaped the captain’s lips.

"So our own covert efforts ended up blindsiding us?" He clicked his tongue in annoyance, then, his voice turned cold. "Fine. We adapt."

His gaze swept across the bridge, settling on his officers.

"Analyze every person who ca near that alley. I don’t care if the list is in the thousands—or the hundreds of thousands."

He stopped for a mont as if to let everyone digest what he said. Then, his next words fell like ice.

"Identify them all—" His golden eyes flashed, voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "—and silence them."

"Sir, yes sir!"

The bridge erupted into a synchronized reply, hands moving to terminals, with their computer systems firing into overdrive. The captain exhaled slowly, sinking back into his chair. His fingers curled into a tight fist as he lifted it before his gaze.

His expression darkened. ’Soon… soon, I will have the key.’ His grip tightened further. ’And with it… I will reclaim my rightful place.’

Beyond the vastness of space, a storm was gathering—one that Arthur and his allies remained blissfully unaware of.

At least… for now.

---

It had been an hour since the sudden rescue mission, and we were now holed up in an abandoned warehouse roughly 50 kiloters away from the site.

The best course of action would have been to return to Eva’s ship and escape before the enemy could track us down. However, I couldn’t just waltz into the space elevator carrying an unconscious girl—let alone another one stuffed inside a sack.

"Phew…" I let out a soft sigh, leaning against the wall while keeping my guard up. My eyes remained fixed on the two sleeping figures before .

One was the sharp-tongued redhead—Eva. The other… I had pulled her out of the sack about half an hour ago. Even now, looking at her, I found it hard to believe.

"The Crazy Princess…" I muttered under my breath.

Realizing the implication of her presence, one thing beca painfully clear—things had completely gotten out of hand.