NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter-182 Stormfalcon
He scored a jackpot. Unless the Governor deceived him again, which had a meagre possibility due to the lack of a motive, the contrast in the information they both possessed sealed the win for Ewan. But before the Governor ingested the fruit, he couldn’t take his prize, he couldn’t even show his bubbling emotions for it would give away his intention and his advantage. So, he quelled his excitement and focused away from the tree—the husk of the fruit still hung on it, and it would come to him in due time.
“Whose idea was it?” he asked, turning to the two troublemakers. If their actions had pissed the old man off, they all would be kissing their lives goodbye right now.
“His.” They both cried at the same time and pointed at each other.
“Don’t lie, you said you couldn’t sit still and wanted to help Ewan,” Stefan said. “Y-You even gave me a kitchen knife.”
“You brought out the knife yourself! It was your idea to come here and see if Boss needed help,” Kidd said with tears at the corner of his eyes, and his hair ruffled in a mess. “Boss you only hit me, but you didn’t do anything to him.”
Ewan smiled. “Come here you two, it’s all in the past now, let’s rejoice that we lived.”
Kidd ran to him, beaming, and Ewan fixed his hair for him.
“E-Ewan, I’m fine here,” Stefan said, backing away.
“Come,” Ewan said, the smile still tugging on his lips, but his nostrils flared.
When Stefan walked over with hesitant steps, Ewan uttered a dry chuckle and grabbed them both in headlocks.
“You two fuckers, we almost died because of you two idiots,” he said with a ferocious expression on his face and held them down. “Did you come to help me, or did you come here to die together? Huh?”
“B-Boss I can't….breathe…” Kidd struggled with the hold, clawing away at Ewan’s arm.
“E-Ewan, I won't….do it again…. It was his fault…”
“B-Boss, don’t listen…to him… It was his…”
“You two really need a good beating.” Ewan let them go and cracked his fingers and his neck. “Let’s wrestle.”
….
After minutes of wails and squeals, the chamber fell silent again. Stefan and Kidd kneeled on the ground, roughened up and beaten, while Ewan toured the Warship and checked its condition.
“Boss, what are we waiting for?” Kidd asked. His voice was quiet, but its echo reached Ewan on the top deck of the Stormfalcon at a height of about fifteen meters.
“Just a little bit more, it should be soon,” Ewan said under his breath.
“Ewan, we should start digging the Warship out if we’re taking it, it’ll take time,” Stefan said.
“Not right now,” Ewan said, checking the thrusters for any significant damage. “Stefan, come check these, see whether they’ll work or not. I’ll go check the bridge.”
“Boss, what about me?” Kidd asked.
“Go check the buried parts, see whether the outer layer is intact or not, look for any major holes at the bottom.”
“Got it.”
The stairs took Ewan down from the deck to the upper floor, the metal steps and the metal passage clanging against his boots, and the door slid open to the standby room. A cloud of dust welcomed him to the dirt-ridden benches and the collapsed shelves. The room that once acted as the waiting place for the troops now barely held any resemblance to its past. Following the length of the Warship, the corridor led him to the meeting room in the middle, then the bridge came at the end.
Time was of the essence, so Ewan didn’t delve too deep into the details. When he punched the red power button, the system took its time and flickered but came alive in the end.
“Please confirm your authority,” a soothing voice matching a nightingale’s pitch said in Kaaleria tongue, and the screens lit up one after another with all sorts of details.
“Ewan Ayres,” he said, and cast the spell from Perceval’s book.
“Spell check, pass,” the voice said. “Please confirm the password.”
“Conqueror.”
“Password check, pass. Please register your blood.”
Ewan completed the process in minutes, received the authority, and became the sole owner of the Stormfalcon. Though it was meaningless at this point, he had to check and confirm its operation before the redo happened, it would save him minutes the next time.
“The Rigen point, show,” Ewan said in a broken Kaaleria tongue.
“Authority check, pass. Main tank, empty. Sub-tank, empty. Backup storage, running low,” the system said.
He expected it, but the affirmation still gave him a headache. How would they take this metal-mammoth with them if it couldn’t fly or move…
“Do you carry a name?” he asked, rubbing his forehead.
“Nightingale, Mr. Ayres.”
“Quite fit.” He chuckled. “Call my first name from this on.”
“Affirmative, Sir Ewan,” Nightingale said.
Yet, when her last syllable fell, the world froze. The wind stopped blowing, the sun didn’t burn, and the rivers halted their race. Not only Airadia, but even the whole star system stilled into a deathly silence. And with a blaring tick of the clock, time ran backwards. The ocean flew black, the clouds backtracked their paths, the sun retreated on its arc, and the world reversed its lived life.
Nightingale shut down as Ewan retraced his steps and passed the moment when he punched the power button. The doors opened and closed again, and he walked backwards in the corridor, to the standby room and then to the top deck.
The rewind took them all back an hour into their lives, leaving only a fuzzy memory of what happened. When the effect ended and Ewan came to, there was no sign of the Governor around him. Kidd and Stefan hid at the entrance of the tunnel, ready to ‘distract’ the Governor. And he found himself standing before the tree that had also reverted back to the point before the Governor plucked one fruit away—it still had only one left, but it shined brighter than ever.
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