Chapter 44: Macross – The Third Travel Through
On the Archangel's bridge, the main display lit up with the image of Major General Duane Halberton, who spoke.
"Everyone aboard the Archangel, you've all worked hard…"
At the same time, Tolle Koenig's mind echoed with the voice of the system.
"Host, the artifact's energy is now fully charged. You can initiate another travel through at any time."
Tolle Koenig once again slipped away under the excuse of a bathroom break, finding a quiet spot alone. In his mind, he asked the system,
"System, tell me—aren't you actually charging yourself by altering the storyline? It's such a coincidence—twice now, as soon as the plot finishes, you've got enough energy for a jump."
"Host, please stop overthinking. This artifact does not need to absorb energy from changing the storyline.
Even if you simply bask in sunlight, moonlight, heat, radiation, or even hold on to an electrical plug directly, I can still absorb and restore energy.
As long as it's energy, I can absorb it. But there is no such thing as 'energy from altering the storyline.'"
Tolle Koenig didn't fully believe the system's words, but without proof, there was nothing he could do.
Besides, it wasn't really a big deal—it didn't affect him much anyway.
Monty Hill had recovered part of the neo DG cells from Kira Yamato's body and asked Nami to help analyze and replicate Kira's "burst mode" ability.
Once preparations were complete, he said to the system,
"System, let's go ahead and travel through again."
"Roger, Host. Initiating travel through…"
Tolle Koenig's vision went black, then light returned. When he came to, he was no longer aboard the Archangel—he was somewhere else entirely.
The surroundings were dim; above him twinkled the bright night sky.
He found himself in a small grove, and nearby came strange noises.
Curious, he moved closer, and the more he listened, the more suspicious it sounded. Curiosity got the better of him—he sped up to see for himself.
When he arrived, he found two people discussing "the matters of life."
The woman, startled by his sudden appearance, squealed and dove into the man's arms.
The man shouted at Tolle Koenig,
"What are you looking at? Can't you see we're busy here? Beat it, brat, before I give you a beating."
Then he began cursing fluently. Hearing his mother tongue spoken so fluently made Tolle Koenig feel oddly at home.
Still, stumbling upon a live performance—how could he pass that up? He chuckled wickedly.
Nami instantly transformed into a camera, and Tolle Koenig began snapping photos in rapid succession.
The camera's flash kept firing over and over.
The couple scrambled to dress themselves. The man, both embarrassed and angry, shouted,
"Stop taking pictures! Who told you to come and sneak photos? Hand over the film right now!"
Film? Tolle Koenig smirked. Looks like the technology here was still pretty low—no digital cameras yet, which probably meant no developed internet either.
That made him even bolder. With a sly grin, he said,
"What? You dare to do this kind of thing out here and are afraid of being photographed? Besides, I'm taking pictures openly—how's that sneaking?
Believe it or not, I can print these and send them to every major newspaper. How about seeing yourself on the front page?"
"Kid, fine—you win. I give up."
The man fished a wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a stack of ten bills.
Tolle Koenig saw they were blue 100 notes. Bingo. This might be a parallel world version of his original Earth.
Maybe he should check if another "him" existed here.
"Here—this is a thousand yuan. That's not a small amount. Take it and hand over the film."
Tolle Koenig shook his head.
"Heh, you think I'm a beggar? Just a thousand? I could get more than that selling it to a paper."
The man, clearly reluctant, pulled out all the cash he had and waved it.
"Kid, that's enough—don't push it. This is every cent I've got, three thousand seven hundred in total. Take it or leave it."
Tolle Koenig snatched the cash, swapped the camera's film, and tossed it to the man.
"Alright, there's your film. Money for goods—we're done here. Bye!"
Then he darted off toward the other side of the grove.
When he emerged, he realized he was in a small park.
No wonder people came here to "meet" in private. And thanks to this misunderstanding, he'd managed to extort a tidy sum.
Not a bad start—at least in a world with low-level technology, he wouldn't need to rob anyone to get money.
After all, it was hard to get money in worlds that were either too advanced or too primitive—otherwise, the police would invite him in for "coffee," which wouldn't end well.
The real problem was that he didn't have an ID card. His fake-ID tool only worked in his main world—it was useless anywhere else. A total dud.
Tolle Koenig left the park and found a nearby internet café. Inside were old desktop computers.
Worse yet, only a few were connected to the internet, and even then it was via dial-up phone lines.
It was infuriating—he had to wait hours for a turn, and the connection speed was painfully slow.
Sigh… even looking up basic information wasn't easy.
At that speed, Nami wasn't much help either.
Synchronizing with the phone line and transmitting data to a server would take forever—better to just search slowly himself.
He started up one of the offline computers and played a few games, but the outdated operating system constantly threw "illegal operation" errors and ran sluggishly.
In frustration, he had Nami assimilate one of the internet-connected PCs, turning it into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Closing his eyes, he began browsing through his mind.
Then it occurred to him—what if he got infected by a computer virus?
Would he become some sort of nano-machine vegetable? The thought alone was terrifying.
He immediately ordered Nami to develop antivirus and malware protection, install it, and only then began online searches.
The date was October 25, 2008, and he was in Hangzhou.
From what he could find, China's history was identical to his own—Qin, Han… Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing—
Even the modern timeline matched:
1945 – First use of nuclear weapons.
1969 – Apollo 11 lands the first humans on the moon.
1981 – Space Shuttle Columbia makes its maiden flight.
…
The only difference was that around the year 2000, a world war had taken place—but civilian networks had no details on what caused it.
Troublesome—public internet couldn't dig up anything truly useful, making it hard to pin down exactly which world this was.
It might not even be a mecha world… ←_←
At least prices in 2008 weren't high yet.
Combined with the supplies in his storage space, he could last for a few months.
As for the ID problem, Nami could simply forge one—as long as no one examined it too closely, he'd be fine.
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