"Don't even mention heresy or not," said a bystander. "It's not that big of a deal. I just heard it. It was your friend who first said, 'Those who believe in evil gods are either stupid or evil. Most of the natives of Port Alplai are idiots.' That's why the old lady spat at you. You're just a tourist, and you're making a tirade when you're clearly wrong. It's fine if you didn't apologize, but why are you trying to turn the tables?"
"What's wrong with what I said?" The fellow Omega, hiding behind the male Alpha, muttered unconvincedly. "Isn't an unofficial faith a cult? And no one can explain what happened on the spaceship. They swear that 'God saved all the Omegas'. What a joke! If he really were God, would he have the time to care about such trivial matters?"
The old man he was accusing was old, but his ears were very sensitive. He immediately questioned him, "You said it was a trivial matter? Do you think more than 20 lives are a trivial matter?"
Startled by her shout, the Omega shrank back, then quickly retorted, "Then the lives of interstellar pirates aren't lives? If there's no God, this is just an accident, a blessing in disguise for the Omegas. If there is a God, He's driving everyone crazy, which is worse than death. If He's not an evil God, how can He be a good God?"
The male Alpha next to him tried to stop him before he could speak, but failed. He could only wait helplessly for his companion to finish before replying, "My friend's words were indeed impolite at first. But this old lady came up and cursed us, saying 'sooner or later, we'll get retribution.' Her words were much more serious than my friend's. Is it too much for us to ask for an apology?"
The old lady, leaning on her cane, glared at him. "Young people, you should learn to be in awe of the unknown. First, tell that kid behind you to apologize to all the natives of Port Alplai!"
Omega: "I..."
His companion held his head down and forced a smile in front of everyone: "I'm sorry, he was too blunt."
Hearing this, Igor, who had been watching for a while, shook his head and said to Azathoth and Hugo, "Let's go first. They won't reach a conclusion in the short term."
Azathoth also doesn't like crowded places, but because this group of people mentioned the spaceship and the evil god, the half-hearted god suddenly realized - it turns out they were talking about me!
However, even so, he still had no interest in the evaluation of himself by irrelevant humans. He just glanced at them and looked away indifferently, urging: "Let's go." He missed the days when he could just bury his head in the ocean on the original desolate planet.
There are really a lot of humans on the planets within the Federation!
Hugo asked, "How did they know we saved everyone on the ship?"
"If I understand correctly, the evil god people are referring to is Azathoth. But hasn't Azathoth never entered the Federation?"
The hooded, black-haired god nodded silently.
It would have been fine if outsiders didn't know the truth, but the locals in Port Alpre kept saying that they believed in the "evil god", but Azathoth didn't feel anything at all. For a moment, he even suspected that only a follower like Igor who fully met his ideal type could establish a connection with him.
——I’m such a picky eater?
Igor paused, a bit embarrassed as he explained, "They probably don't know. Most people are just guessing. From what I understand, due to years of war in the border regions, the gap between the rich and the poor in Port Yarple and the immigrants has widened in recent years. This long-standing unequal treatment has led to a tradition of worshipping evil gods among the poor."
"I'm not sure what the indigenous people of Port Alplai call their object of worship, but they certainly wouldn't call it an 'evil god' like everyone else. However, since the Federation has an official religion, anyone who doesn't acknowledge the Supreme God and instead believes in other gods is called a heretic. They've always been very low-key and xenophobic."
"At least half of the Omega children rescued before came from impoverished areas in various places. The survivors would naturally think that this was God's blessing, because few others would be willing to help them." - The more helpless human beings are in life, the more likely they are to pin their spirits on illusory things.
Thinking of this, Igor sneered in his heart: Am I not the same?
Hugo twirled his clothes, pulled a spider-sized mobile camera from his pocket, and casually tossed it to the ground. The moment the little robot touched the ground, it extended its four legs and clattered past the onlookers' feet, finding a good view of the melons and squatting there.
"I won't look at anything I shouldn't look at," the android, who yearns for unrest, said automatically. "I just want to know if they're going to fight."
Azathoth: "...Where did the robot come from?"
He clearly remembered that Hugo took nothing with him when he left the deserted planet.
Hugo quietly lifted up his shirt. "I made this when I had nothing else to do on the spaceship. I took this useless piece of metal off. No one will notice if I'm wearing clothes anyway."
There was a square hole in its lower abdomen, through which one could directly see the neatly arranged circuit boards inside.
“…”
Igor thought that if any human saw this scene, they would be scared to death.
Hugo had an extra eye and happily followed Azathoth and Igor forward, broadcasting gossip live along the way.
After settling down in the hotel room, it said in surprise, "...I didn't expect them to actually fight?"
Azathoth had been listening carelessly, but when he heard the words, his heart moved, and at this moment he suddenly felt a call from somewhere in this city.
**
Catherine Walker ran through the muddy alley.
She was panting, her forehead smeared with sweat and mud, and her elbow had just scraped a layer of skin off the wall. Any other Omega would have cried out in pain, but she didn't even have the time to feel the pain. She could only run desperately, holding the child in her arms, even if she didn't know the direction or when or where she would end up, she would never stop.
Erica nestled in her arms, looked back, and said in horror, "They're almost catching up!"
"I...I know." Katherine spoke intermittently, her long brown hair sticking to her face and blocking her eyes. "Don't look, Erica, don't look if you are afraid."
Erica's eyes turned red and she started to cry softly: "I'm sorry... Teacher Catherine, this is all my fault... I shouldn't have shown off to them."
"It's not your fault," Katherine said breathlessly but firmly. "Having knowledge and power is never a mistake."
So why do they hate me? Because I know more than they do?
Erica knew that she shouldn't distract Teacher Catherine at this time. Even though her young mind was flooded with countless questions and grievances, she still endured it and kept her mouth shut, carefully burying her tearful face in Catherine's shoulder.
At that moment, Catherine stumbled, the pain in her knees and ankles instantly transmitting to her brain. Despite her resolute resolve, her fragile body betrayed her spirit. The girl with long brown hair and a soft, gentle countenance fell to her knees with a thud, panting and struggling for a long time, but still unable to stand up.
The group of people chasing them took this opportunity to close the distance and catch up. The Beta in the lead pulled Catherine's hair and pulled her head up, asking fiercely, "You are the student who bullied my brother?"
Catherine closed her eyes silently and held Erica tightly under her body.
Erica could not see anything, she could only hear the sound of heavy objects hitting the body and the occasional tired gasps that Teacher Catherine could no longer hold back.
She couldn't hold back her tears any longer, but she was powerless to resist. She could only imitate the words of her elders and scream in vain: "You will be punished! You bunch of people! The gods will punish you one day!"
The thugs laughed heartily: "Your God doesn't exist! Heretics should be tried and executed by the Church, just like they were thousands of years ago!"
"The evil god won't save you, but if you beg for mercy, Catherine, maybe I'll show mercy. How's that?"
Catherine's face was covered in dirty water and blood from the ground. She squinted her swollen eyes to identify the direction, and suddenly spat a mouthful of blood foam at the speaker's location.
“——!”
Erica hugged her teacher Catherine tightly, and in fear and despair, she helplessly prayed to an unknown existence:
—Oh God, whoever you are, oh God, if you can hear my prayer...
I am willing to dedicate everything to you! Whether it is my life or my soul, I beg you to save Teacher Catherine, save us!
If gods really exist, could they cast a glance at the human world at this moment?
An old newspaper thrown into the alley this morning was accidentally pushed by the gangsters and came into Erica's sight.
Even with today's technological advancements, print media hasn't faded from the historical stage. A corner of this newspaper is soaked in mud, but one can still vaguely make out the small print of the headline: "Crew of Spacecraft No. 7592E Reveals the True Cause of the Incident."
This was a completely meaningless, fabricated piece of nonsense, purely for publicity. Even the newspaper editors were too lazy to properly typeset it, simply cramming it into a mess and shoving it into a corner. The only thing the newspaper wrote was:
"I learned from a special channel that a crew member on a spacecraft repeated a word over and over again in an unknown and strange language."
"Linguists believe that this word is 80% likely to be a name or title. Unfortunately, no language in the existing language system can reproduce its pronunciation exactly, so we tried to transliterate it."
“——▇▇▇▇.”
Erica's eyes happened to fall on the blurry and dim transliterated noun in the last line.
An inexplicable compulsion compelled her to reach out with difficulty, trembling as she touched the meaningless word, her words uttering incoherently. Unconsciously, tears still clung to her face, but her fear vanished, leaving only an inexplicable excitement and frenzy in her mind. A fierce hope shone in her eyes, and her cries grew louder and louder, as if by doing so, an indescribable being would answer her from the other side of the world.
Both the thugs who beat people and Catherine who was beaten were frightened by Erica's sudden madness.
The leading Beta stopped bewilderedly and asked, "What happened? Was she beaten stupid?"
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