Chapter 87: Debt Settlement
Cillin stared at the cat who was despising him from not far away. He seriously did not remember reading anywhere in those documents that a cyborg could speak. However, it could just be that he had not accessed the real core content of the study. Regardless, this type of lifeform was truly astounding.
“I can’t believe you can speak.”
“I learned that more than a hundred years ago!” The cat lifted its hand, no, its paw and pointed at a direction, “I remember that there weren’t that many buildings over there back then. The entire planet only had a single aircraft landing zone.”
It was more than a hundred years ago when GAL gave permission to hunt on this planet, and there weren’t that many human buildings back then. The direction the cat’s paw was pointing at was exactly where their aircraft were parked.
“I can’t believe you can live for such a long time.” Cillin sighed emotionally.
“You don’t say. I may not know how long I can live, but I certainly didn’t feel like I’ve grown up much after so many years.” the gray cat was very dissatisfied with Cillin’s doubting his own lifespan.
“What’s with your look just now then? Was that sickly appearance where you’re so weak that you’re about to RIP just an illusion?” Cillin said disdainfully.
“There will always be such a period every dozen of years or so. I will become weakened at the time. My state will become extremely unstable, and both of my forms will become very difficult to control. Moreover, I will also let out a kind of magnetic wave that attracts a lot of ill-intentioned species to attack me. Those wolves are an example of that.”
Cillin abruptly came to realization. So this is why. They were unstable, but it did not necessarily meant that their lifespan was short. The reason those researchers said that their life was short was probably referring to their periodic phase of weakness, and if they attracted a more powerful species to attack them during that time, then they would be dead for sure.
The cat continued to speak on its own, “In the past I do not understand why my body would let out that kind of magnetic wave uncontrollably, but I finally understand now that it is to attract that white ball. I do not know what that white ball is; I only know that it is useful to me and is able to stabilize my chaotic state.”
It was true that Cillin could not sense the white ball’s existence any longer. It seemed that a cyborg’s ‘coincidental’ birth also included the white ball. Without it, even if a cyborg could switch flawlessly between two forms, they would not be able to maintain stability.
“It feels like you’re the same kind of lifeform as I am.” The cat looked at Cillin. When he arrived at this world, he already knew that he was different from the lifeforms around him. However, right now Cillin was giving him a very strange feeling; an unspeakable sense of familiarity.
“I am a normal carbon-based lifeform and a pure human. Pure.” Cillin said definitively.
“I know that you’re human, that’s why I’m only saying that you feel the same like me. Hey, why don’t you come with me. Now that I’m stable, I no longer have a weakness phase like before. On this planet I stand on the apex, you know.”
“Not interested.” Cillin turned around and left. He had better take his backpack and search for Dias and the rest.
“Hey, don’t leave man. How about I come with you then?” The cat ran after Cillin eagerly from the back.
Cillin paused his feet and looked at the cat. This time he didn’t tell it to stop and allowed it to walk in front of him.
“You want to leave?”
“Yeah, I’m tired of this place. I wanna go out and get some knowledge and experience.”
“You can look for someone else. There are plenty of people who hunt here. Maybe you can enter a certain aircraft sneakily and enjoy a free tour.”
“No no no.” The cat head shook with all its strength, “They’re unreliable. They’re either too weak or too immoral.”
Cillin crouched and stared seriously at the gray and boring-looking cat before him, “Speaking of which, you did remind me of something important.”
“What?”
“It took me quite a bit of effort to get that white ball. If I sold it to those crazy researchers, I could’ve maybe gotten a few hundred million credits, but now you’ve robbed me of it. You just have to compensate me no matter what. You can come with me, but you have to settle your debt then.”
“Settle my debt?”
“Yeah.” Cillin took out a knife and began carving some numbers on the ground,
“You know about the polar bears of this planet, don’t you? One polar bear can be sold for around ten thousand GAL credits each. If we convert the money you owe me to a polar bear, you owe me at least ten thousand polar bears then. Of course, some alien beasts are more valuable than the white bears, and certain species are even valued over a million credits. If we hunt those down then you’ll be able to save yourself some energy.” At this point, Cillin paused for a second and looked doubtfully at the cat that’s staring at the ground intently and listening to him count, “Of course, maybe you won’t be able to deal with that kind of alien beasts...”
Can’t handle them?! Claws and hair puff, on!
“I’ll prove it to you! I’m telling you, I haven’t met a beast that can take two swipes from me!”
“If you’re just going to demonstrate how you can swallow a wolf then forget it. It only shows how big of an eater you are and how much food money you’re gonna cost me.”
The cat scoffed and huffed through its nose before looking at its surroundings, circling around Cillin one time. Then it raised its paw and pointed at its own head, “Take out your gun and shoot here.”
Cillin did not object to the suggestion. Theoretically a cyborg or whatever should be pretty niubi (amazing), so maybe it really could take a bullet and a shell; fly into the air or drill into the ground.
Bang!
The gun roared, and the cat was blasted right off its feet. The gray clump of shadow flew way back into the distance.
Cillin: “...” You call this a proof?
However, very soon the gray cat ran back unhurriedly and spat out the bullet in its mouth. The bullet itself was perfectly intact, and the drugs sealed inside it did not leak out either.
The most amazing thing was that Cillin had aimed and fired at the cat’s forehead, not its mouth. The cat’s head was perfectly undamaged, but somehow it managed to spit out the perfectly intact bullet from its mouth instead. Moreover, this type of bullet was specifically made to deal with large alien polar bears, and a single shot was all that it took to penetrate the skin. He didn’t think that this fellow would actually be capable of taking the shot without any injury.
“How is it? Not bad, eh?” The gray cat said complacently.
“Yeah, there’s certainly no shame in getting blasted right off your feet in one shot.”
“If I switched a form I wouldn’t be blasted off, okay!”
Cillin put away his gun and asked curiously, “How do you change between the two forms exactly? Even the elements have changed.”
When a cyborg was in a biological form, it was also a carbon-based lifeform. The composition of its elements was no different from the average organism. However, the moment it switched to a machine-like form, its elemental composition would change entirely. Despite learning under Mo Heng about machine assembly for such a long time, Cillin had never seen this type of metal before.
“I don’t know, I was born with it. I can easily undergo elemental directional transition.” It continued to act complacent.
“Why don’t you let me see you change something into gold?”
“Do you not understand what is called directional transition?”
The gray cat put on a teaching appearance and drew a circle on the ground with its paw, “This is the elemental composition of my current form.” It drew another circle, “This is the elemental composition of my other form.” Then it marked the center of the two circles with a bidirectional arrow, “This is the so-called directional transition.”
Cillin said disappointedly, “So turning into gold is impossible.”
The grey mouth’s ears flicked backwards in depression. Suddenly, it felt that it was scorned to the point of utter uselessness.
“Never mind, I suppose this will have to do. Just follow me for now and repay your debt slowly. This way you may yet run into something like that white ball again and improve your constitution. Plus, if you come with me you won’t have to worry about being sold to research institutes, lying on operation tables and be dissected into tiny parts by crazy researchers seeking to uncover your secrets.”
The gray cat that was about to object to the first half of Cillin’s words immediately turned meek the instant it heard the latter half. In truth, it wasn’t that bad after it thought over the situation. It’s just a few hundred million GAL credits; a few valuable alien beasts later and its debt would be settled right away.
It didn’t take long before the gray cat realized that it was too naive.
Translator’s Note: ... AND IT CAN TAKE A BULLET TO THE HEAD! Oh, and owe several hundred millions of credits. You think that’s it? THERE’S MORE! It can also...