Why.. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME???

The sound of teeth grinding could not be hidden while I ignored the hologram screen full of red exclamation marks.

Despite that, I sighed heavily since I could only sit and wait in this situation, “Hahh… I guess, you reap what you sow would be perfect to portray my situation after finding this place.”

My eyes closed and I began recalling memories from almost a month ago.

“.….”

The bleakness of space, grains of light brightening the hollow empty space, was what filled my vision when my spaceship emerged from hyperspace. Although this twilight was portraying a perfect picture of tranquility and stability, it did not make me fawn over it in the least.

I looked around the control room of my ship; the rusty paint and scratches here and there reminded me that it had not been fixed for quite some time. The lack of damage and dents on the ship, however, proved I had the ability to maintain it.

I scratched my light-blue hair as I approached the giant glass window in the control room. It has been a habit of mine to sightsee when reaching a new place. As I was subconsciously going into a daze, the reflection of a quite handsome Asian-Western face filled my vision.

A hawk-like eye, a deep black-abyss pupil, and a quite sharp-nose made up the face. Although the face was that of a bold and mature 18 to 19-year-old teenager, I knew it was the face of someone older. After all, the face was mine.

I, Victor Petard Asterisk, am the master, owner, and captain of my ship. I am an explorer that aspires to make a name for himself and be recorded in history.

Out of the blue, I opened my eyes wide and tried to rub them multiple times. “Is that… No, that can’t be. There’s a distortion in the middle of nowhere?!”

Hurriedly running back to the hologram stand, I ran through my hands across the holo-screen to make sure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. Noticing an unconscious twitch on my leg, a grin formed on my mouth. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing, but the computer can’t lie, right?”

“There’s a lot of golden-colored specks of dust just gathering around here despite not being close to any terrestrial object; no stars, no planets." I tilted my head, bewildered by this phenomenon.

Suddenly a picture showing a golden-colored round hole in the middle of space was projected in the hologram. A cloud of golden dust was spurting out from it just like a person vomiting.

“Is that a wormhole? A wormhole this large, and also stable? It’s my first time seeing anything like this.” A tingling sensation somehow began to encompass my whole body and made my hair rise. No one’s ever seen this kind of wormhole, since they’re supposed to be tiny and disappear shortly after forming.

This strangeness made me want to explore the wormhole because my desire and ego as an explorer had always been to explore the unknown. But then, I cast that desire aside, as it was too dangerous to explore a wormhole with an unknown endpoint.

“ATA, collect and determine what kind of exotic material this is!” I commanded after casting that vengeance thought aside.

Just then, a frosty female voice resounded within the control room, [As you command.]

Hmm… having ATA or Artificial Technology Assistance always been convenient in helping me navigate space. I should be thankful to it for accompanying me in this vast space.

Subsequently, the spaceship began collecting the golden-colored dust aimlessly floating around after spewing from the wormhole. A few moments later, a single set of data appeared on the holo-screen, projected clearly in front of my eyes.

“Golden Stardust?! If someone were to rummage through a nebula star, they will only find a handful or two.”

Golden Stardust is a material used for enhancing F.T.L travel of a spaceship and one of the basic materials to make exotic weaponry. It was highly sought after by the military and explorers, but alas, the pegs were many times bigger than the poles.

The amount here is more than a thousand metric tons… no… even that was an understatement. If the wormhole were to keep spurting material non-stop, didn't this mean I had an endless wealth waiting for me to acquire?

Power, beauty, anything I could buy, anything was available with this amount! Owning a solar system and-or having a private planet is a dream for countless people.

Vengeance! Yes… I’ll also be able to do that now. With that thought in mind, I had my eyes scrutinized sinisterly and a cold flash glimmered across my eyes.

Realizing the gravity of this matter, though, cold sweat trickled slowly down my back. I cannot reveal this secret to anyone, or I might get into serious, deep trouble.

“Screw that, I’ll just collect as much as I can and sell it!" I said while clenching my hands into fists and brought them up in front of me.

A solitary person I was, but that didn't mean that there weren’t any channels to sell all my spoils from my exploration. I am, after all, a veteran explorer. I’ve had years of experience exploring the unknown parts of the galaxy, even though I’m only a 25-year-old man. Sadly, I’m still poor since I used all my funds for space-exploration necessities.

“ATA, take us to ‘Blue Moon Station’ in sector 79!”

[Affirmative.], ATA said and before long the ship started to move its direction facing the part of space where sector 79 was located.

[Initiating Space-Warp Travel… Hyperspace line connected… Initiating jump from sector 837, to sector 79.]

Sounds of the hard-working engine at the back start roaring fiercely. The hologram projector of the ship started showing the camera footage at the back of the ship. There, blue light began to glow from the Warp engine and the space warped. Before long, a transparent bubble encroached the ship and a black void formed in front of the spaceship before the ship blinked out of existence, disappearing into space. The void then closed into the calm state of before.

The racing blue-shifted light of the stars colored my eyes before it changed into blackness. Since the ship was moving inside a hyperspace and not just using a Warp-Drive, no visible light could make it from outside. Not even the faint light of the stars could be seen, making anyone gazing at this scenery felt lonely.

Just when I was gazing at the outside space with my eyes that accustomed to the scenery, a frosty female voice cut of my reverie, [Estimating the travel from sector 837, to sector 79 to be 5 days 7 hours and 28 minutes!]

So, the distance is about 500 light-years from here, huh? I could say that a close distance is what makes Blue Moon Station popular around here. After all, with the combination engine of Warp-Drive and Hyperspace travel, a hundred light-years could now be crossed within just a day.

Still, with the newest model, it would just take at most 2 days. Hah… Now that there’s some time to spare, I think it’s a good time to gather information.

With that, I began rummaging the folder on the ship’s database. But when I was about to open something entertaining, I miss-clicked and instead opened the folder about the recent history of Human Civilization. Curious by the content that explained the forming up of U.G.E., I kept reading till the end.

It had been a millennium since the human race began colonizing space. It started with the private companies that colonized and terraformed planets and moons within the inner solar system. It may sound absurd, but the reason U.G.E. was formed in the first place was because of mankind's fear of extraterrestrial lifeforms, thanks to a bacteria discovered under the ice layers of Jupiter’s and Saturn’s moons.

Human's greed, however, had no limit. Just colonizing the solar system couldn't satisfy them. By the end of the 23rd century, humanity finally invented the first Faster Than Light drive. As that line crossed my eyes, I grinned in amusement. I was very thankful for having been born in this era, as — had I been born half a millennium ago — it would have taken years just to travel to a nearby solar system.

Fantasizing further, I would have been going with a generational ship to a star system with an Earth-like or Goldilocks planet. Once arrived, I had to wait for the completion of terraforming said planet, until turning old and leave it to the future generations.

But then my smile disappeared as I scrolled down the holo-screen. There, the question that had been enveloped humanity was written: “Are humans the only intelligent life in this Universe?”

The human race never found a lifeform as intelligent as them. Even the rumored Dyson Sphere located at the Tabby star wasn’t real. It was only a cloud of dust together with lots of meteorites blocking the imperfect telescope visuals that humans had at that time.

The question of how unique the Earth was made an explorer such as me determined to seek out the answer in the vast reaches of outer space. I had my hands clenched in front of my chest before declaring full of determination, “I shall be the one to discover all of it!”