Fated to Die to the Player, I'll Live Freely with My SSS-Class Ship! Chapter 54: Inverse World, Parallel Universe

If we were to imagine the Kariki Star System as a gigantic cube, with the front being the North Face, then our entry point was dead center on that northern side.

This positioning allowed the drones to spread out efficiently, clearing a conical section of the map in record ti. But as the nanobots reached the farthest corners of the system, they found sothing I couldn’t even begin to explain.

I pulled up the image and showed it to Eva and Cassandra, hoping for so insight.

Eva frowned, crossing her arms. "The fuck is that? So weird crack in space?"

Cassandra tilted her head, a delicate finger tapping her lips. "Hmm... It looks like a rift? I’ve never seen one before, but... it feels familiar. Where did I...?"

"A rift…" I murmured, considering their opinions.

If it was a common rift, it would lead to another dinsion—just like the one where we rescued Major Terrence and his fleet.

But this one? This one was different.

It glowed an ominous purple, faint trails of black fog seeping from its edges. My gar instincts scread at not to approach—a flag would undoubtedly be triggered if we did.

And yet, there was an even bigger problem.

"Why all four corners?"

The rifts weren’t random. Each was located at the four extre corners inside this "cube." The more I thought about it, the worse my gut feeling beca.

Sothing was wrong.

"Let’s proceed with caution," I finally said. "I’ll send in the Stealth Bots to investigate. anwhile, we—"

*RUMBLE!*

Before I could finish, the entire Range Falcon shook violently.

It was as if a cosmic giant had grabbed the ship and was rattling it like a maraca!

Despite being strapped in, the chaotic shaking still snapped our necks back and forth. The force changes were so erratic that a single misstep could prove fatal.

And then—

*SNAP!*

The ship went dark.

And with it, the shaking stopped.

"...P-Power failure?" Eva muttered, her voice laced with disbelief.

I was just as confused. The main power had failed. But that wasn’t the real issue. Upon failure, the energy banks should continue providing energy for a while, until the backup generator starts. But why the sudden blackout? Why hadn’t the backup power engaged?

"What’s going on…?" Cassandra whispered, a rare note of fear creeping into her voice.

Seconds passed in absolute darkness. This was getting dangerous. Because if both power sources were down, then that ant sothing worse—the life support system had failed, too.

No power ant no oxygen circulation. If we didn’t act fast, we’d be dead long before we figured out what had happened.

I exhaled, keeping my voice steady. "We need to move."

"Eva, Cassandra, to the armory. Now. The powered suits have their own life support systems. If the power doesn’t co back, we’ll rely on them."

I carefully unstrapped my harness, then tapped the neck guard of my spacesuit.

A mont later, my visor deployed, enclosing my head in a sealed environnt. Almost imdiately, night vision activated, painting the pitch-black surroundings in a familiar green hue.

I glanced sideways. Eva and Cassandra had done the sa, their visors lighting up faintly as they detached from their seats, floating like ghosts in this zero-gravity environnt.

"Follow ."

I floated toward the auto door, but without power, it wouldn’t open. I wedged my fingers into the seam and forced it apart. Thankfully, most ship doors had manual overrides for situations like this—avoiding people from getting locked in—making it no harder than pulling open a heavy drawer.

Once through, I turned left toward the Armory and repeated the process of forcing open the door.

Inside, I moved toward my usual suit—the Model 2065-S Truman Suit.

Eva, anwhile, grabbed her green-and-white model, while Cassandra reached for the closest available one. I noticed that the #3 suit—the one she’d borrowed before—was missing. Right, from what I heard, it had been disintegrated after that ti in the Haerith System. It was an ergency decision, but damn, what a waste…

With practiced speed, I suited up and activated the visor lights, finally turning off night vision. Eva and Cassandra followed suit, their powered armor now fully operational.

I exhaled, nodding. "Alright. First priority—check the generators."

At that mont, we had no idea how deeply fucked we were.

---

"The hell is going on...?"

The three of us reached the main generators—the Dark Energy Repulsion Engine and the Dark Energy Exchange Engine—expecting to find so kind of catastrophic failure.

However, according to the powered suit’s diagnostic scan, both were in perfect condition. In short, they had no reason to fail.

Yet, here we were, completely without power.

"... No, wait."

A nagging thought surfaced. There was still one possibility.

Without hesitation, I activated my environntal scanner, searching not for sothing, but rather for the absence of sothing.

A second later, my worst fears were confird.

"There’s no Dark Energy in the surroundings!"

That shouldn’t be possible.

Our generators operated by absorbing Dark Energy from space itself, making them effectively semi-perpetual engines. There was no need for fuel cells, and no reliance on external energy sources—as long as Dark Energy existed, the system would function.

But now? It was gone. A total disappearance.

An anomaly of impossible proportions—considering that over half of the known universe was composed of Dark Energy.

There was only one possible explanation.

"Could it be… We drifted into a parallel universe?!"

The realization hit hard. The only anomaly we’d encountered before the blackout was the glowing rifts at the edges of the system. They had to be connected.

Of course, parallel universes existed in TSO’s story—a fact that beca obvious if you played certain side stories. Those missions always took place in alternate realities, with slight or drastic deviations from the main tiline.

What? The ga developers just forgot their own lore and created plot holes?

No. It’s parallel universes. Definitely.

However, despite their existence, there had never been a way for players to move between them. The only way to "switch dinsions" was through the main nu, selecting a side story, and then exiting back into the main tiline.

’But it’s not like I can access the main nu. After all, this is my reality now.’

Long story short? We’re screwed.

But that didn’t an I was giving up.

I turned to Eva and Cassandra, their worried expressions mirroring my own, and forced a grin.

"Alright, let’s do this. Eva, check our food and water supplies. Cassandra, go with her and catalog everything else in the cargo bay—without missing a single thing."

Right now, survival depends on our available resources. The longer we could stretch our supplies, the better our odds of finding a way back.

"As for … I’ll try to modify the backup generator into a fusion generator."

We had no Dark Energy, so our current engines were useless. But if I could change the fuel source, we might have a fighting chance. Even if that chance was paper-thin.

Eva gave a sharp nod. "Got it. Let’s move."

She grabbed Cassandra by the wrist, practically dragging her along, and disappeared into the connecting passage.

I turned to face the lifeless generator, rolling my shoulders.

"Now then… ti to work."

Thankfully, the Dark Energy Exchange Engine shared similarities with a Fusion Reactor. But that didn’t make this any easier.

I had to:

1. Modify the interchange system

2. Add a radiation shield

3. Increase the heat barrier threshold

4. Reconfigure the energy output regulators, etc...

And that was just the bare minimum.

I worked tirelessly, tackling one problem at a ti, making sure not to ss up anything crucial.

Soti later—though I could not track how long—Eva and Cassandra returned with their report.

"We have about two months’ worth of food and water. If we ration it carefully, we can stretch it to half a year."

That was better than expected, but still not great.

Cassandra took longer to speak, slowly listing everything else we had onboard. I took ntal notes, searching for repurposable materials for my repairs.

"...That’s all," she finally concluded after several minutes.

"Got it. Now, bring the discarded armor, one of the spare Justice MK3 Beam Turrets, and—"

I rattled off a list of materials I needed, and the two imdiately got to work, leaving alone once more.

Ti blurred as I focused entirely on the modifications. I wasn’t keeping track, but judging by the number of als I had, I’d been at it for at least a full day.

Eventually, I leaned back, popping my visor to wipe the sweat off my forehead before sealing it again.

"Alright… ti for a test run."

Now, I wasn’t going to pretend I was so chanical genius. Sure, in-ga, I had maxed-out engineering skills, but in reality? This was more like… educated guesswork.

I was 75% confident it would work. The other 25%? That was pure fear that it would explode in my face. But hey—if it failed, catastrophically or not, we were screwed anyway.

Using electrolysis, I extracted pure hydrogen from our water supply, feeding it into the converted fusion engine as fuel.

With our current water reserves, combined with the efficiency of both electrolysis and fusion, while still keeping a month’s worth of water as ergency backup…

We had roughly 350 hours of operational ti—about one Galactic Week.

Not much. But enough to start exploring this strange, Dark Universe.

I exhaled slowly, staring at the now-powered engine. To my surprise, it worked without any hiccups—100% functional.

That’s one major problem solved.

Now, the only question was…

"Where do we even begin searching?"