Fantasy Galaxy: Why Are There Goblins and Orcs in Space?

Chapter 3 : Combat Simulator

「There's no way I can fight monsters like that.」

Sario laughed when he heard that.

「We don't fight bare-handed. We ushe powered shuitsh called Mobile Armor to fight.」

That said, the Mobile Armor manufactured by the Goblin race were apparently the lowest rank available.

「Is the Mobile Armor easy to learn to use?」

「No, it requiresh rigoroush training. What we're about to shtart ish that very training.」

Sario brought out an actual Mobile Armor. Its appearance resembled the white-armored soldiers from a space war movie I'd seen on TV. Wearing this Mobile Armor supposedly tripled the user's physical power. For example, even someone my age - fifty-five - could clear a hundred and twenty centimeters in a standing vertical jump. Under Earth-equivalent conditions, of course.

The Mobile Armor I'd been given, however, was apparently a modified version of the training equipment the Goblins had manufactured. A standard-issue Mobile Armor was said to amplify power by at least eightfold.

Mounted on the back was a thruster pack for maneuvering in zero-gravity space. Roughly the size of a small backpack, it could reportedly provide about twenty minutes of continuous gas propulsion.

「All right, let'sh try putting it on.」

First, I donned a spacesuit called a 『bio suit.』 A skin-tight, full-body garment that compressed the body to prevent it from expanding in a zero-pressure environment.

Then, with Sario guiding me, I put on the Mobile Armor. It apparently allowed fine-tuning of its size, so fit wasn't an issue. I activated it using the switch on the hip section, and text appeared on the transparent armor lens in front of my eyes. It seemed to be running a startup diagnostic.

Finally, the text 『Diagnostic complete, no anomalies detected』 appeared. I relayed this to Sario.

「Then let'sh shtart with training to move in a gravity environment.」

The new training regimen began. The Mobile Armor sensed the user's movements and tripled their strength, which caused me to fall over again and again. Part of the problem was the Mobile Armor itself, which weighed roughly thirty kilograms.

「Haa, haa……uwah」

I'd run about fifteen kilometers in the Mobile Armor before collapsing, unable to get back up.

「Zen, you're putting in too much forshe. The Mobile Armor providesh the shupport, sho you don't need to exshert yourshelf that hard.」

Until now I'd been called Banatsū, but as Sario and I grew closer, he'd started calling me by my real name.

「Haa, haa……I'm not used to it yet, so cut me some slack.」

「We're out of time. At thish rate, you'll loshe even to an Space Jellyfish.」

「But even with more strength, there's no way I could take down an Space Jellyfish that's ten meters across. What kind of weapons do we use?」

「Shpace machine gunsh.」

In Gapan, the term literally meant "machine gun capable of firing at zero atmospheric pressure," but the language element nanomachines in my head had apparently translated it as "space machine gun."

「A machine gun? The kind that uses gunpowder to fire bullets?」

「That'sh right.」

When he said machine gun, he didn't mean anything like what existed on Earth - these had apparently been modified for use in outer space.

「But bullets are so small. Can something like that actually take down an Space Jellyfish?」

「Shpace machine gunsh ushe exploshive roundsh for ammunition. They explode on impact, sho if you aim for the Space Jellyfish'sh core and shoot, you can take it down.」

「I see. Still, machine guns? I figured we'd be using something more advanced.」

「Shuch weaponsh do exisht, but they're expenshive, sho the Goblin race won't let shubordinate sholdiersh like ush ushe them.」

I asked how advanced Goblin science was.

Sario explained the civilization levels of the known worlds. In this region of space, civilization levels were expressed using characters from Gaban, the common language, and when converted to the alphabet, they looked like this:

Level G: A civilization that has not expanded into space.

Level F: A civilization that has expanded into space but has conducted almost no space development.＜Earth＞

Level E: A civilization that has developed other planets but cannot achieve interstellar travel on its own.

Level D: A civilization that has developed low-level interstellar travel and controls multiple star systems.

Level C: A civilization that has developed advanced interstellar travel and controls hundreds of star systems.

Level B: A powerful civilization that controls ten thousand or more star systems.

Level A: A civilization active across the entire galaxy but unable to reach other galaxies.

Level S: A civilization active across the entire galaxy and capable of reaching other galaxies. ＜Tenjin Race＞

Earth fell under Level F. The Tenjin Race had established a rule designating civilizations at Level F or below as intelligent life forms to be protected, making interference strictly prohibited. Using an Earthling like me as a lower-class citizen would ordinarily subject the Goblin race to punishment, but the vastness of space apparently made them confident they'd never get caught.

「So the Goblin race is Level D? More impressive than they look.」

Sario shook his head in denial. Gestures like that were the same as on Earth.

「No, no. The Goblin race ish Level E. Thoshe guysh can't even build shpacecraft capable of intershtellar travel on their own.」

「Then how do they travel faster than light?」

The Goblin race either purchased faster-than-light travel equipment from species that possessed the technology, or utilized commercial FTL travel services.

I continued training, and once I could move freely in a gravity environment, I began training to move in zero gravity. Once I'd mastered that as well, it was back to sparring with orc-type robots while wearing the Mobile Armor.

That training went on for days until we finally progressed to weapons training. Live ammunition wasn't issued, though, I trained with blank-loaded guns. On top of that, we also conducted training using simulators.

As a result of all this training, I could move remarkably well for a fifty-five-year-old.

「Still, why would they think to make a soldier out of someone my age?」

I asked Sario.

「For a Human Race member like you, living to three hundred ish normal, sho your fiftiesh are shtill barely getting shtarted.」

In this world, the fifties were apparently still considered young. The dark syndicate that sold me to the Goblin race, however, had to have been running a con. A simple examination would have revealed how far my aging had progressed.

In the simulator, I'd reached the point where I could beat Space Jellyfish and a pill bug-like monster called the 『Kyōga Bōru』 about half the time. The Kyōga Bōru was a monster roughly four meters long that resembled a giant pill bug - it closed in on its prey and attacked by biting.

「Today'sh another combat shimulation.」

「We're still doing this?」 「Commander'sh ordersh.」 「Haah, fine.」 I put on just the bio suit and stepped into the simulator. Inside, it was dome-shaped with a diameter of about five meters, and photorealistic three-dimensional holograms were projected throughout its interior.

Without warning, my surroundings transformed into outer space. I was drifting through the void wearing Mobile Armor, a space machine gun in my hands, approaching an asteroid. Suddenly, an Space Jellyfish burst out from behind the asteroid.

I raised the space machine gun and searched for the Space Jellyfish's core. Inside its gelatinous, puyopuyo[wobbling] bulk - roughly six meters across - a red sphere floated. That was its core. I took aim and pulled the trigger.

No sound reached my ears, but I could feel the space machine gun vibrating in my grip. This was apparently the simulator tricking my body through weak electrical currents to create the sensation.

The instant I shattered the Space Jellyfish's core, I let out a breath of relief and dropped my guard. That was a mistake. A Kyōga Bōru launched itself from behind the Space Jellyfish and sank its jaws into me.

「Uwah!」

Its enormous mouth clamped down on my head - pakuri[chomp]. The instant it did, everything went pitch black and an alarm blared. The lights came on and Sario's voice reached me.

「You're dead. You mushtn't let your guard down.」

I heaved a sigh and turned my face toward the camera Sario was watching from.

By the time the simulator training had continued long enough for me to reliably take down Space Clione, Space Jellyfish, and Kyōga Bōru, the supply ship Brava had arrived at its destination - the Gorgona Star System.

The Brava had apparently made several faster-than-light jumps between star systems en route, but since we'd been put under in sleep capsules, we had no awareness of any of it.

The Orc Race held the third planet of the Gorgona Star System, while the Goblin race controlled the fifth. The supply ship Brava approached the fifth planet and docked at a space station under Goblin control.

Sario and I had been infiltrating the Brava's information network to spy on the state of things in space. The tool we'd been using for that was the simulator.

Lower-class citizens weren't allowed to carry personal terminals, so we'd exploited the simulator's communication functions to break into the supply ship's information network. Sario was apparently well-versed in network technology. My smartphone, incidentally, was missing. Probably thrown away.

On the holographic display, a brown planet and a six-hundred-meter-class space artillery warship were projected amid a sea of stars glittering against the pitch-black void. That warship, he said, was the Goblin race's flagship.

「So this is the Gorgona Star System. This is where we'll be fighting, huh.」

「That'sh right. There should be monshtersh on the planet, too.」