The morning sun shined through the curtains. It was another new day for him in this world.
*YAWN*
Lucius got up from his bed and went straight to the bathroom. After inventing soap, shampoo, and toothpaste, his mornings became much more enjoyable.
This world was highly lacking in hygiene. So prior to becoming a duke, he was actually bathing without soap, much less shampoo.
After he got out of the bath, he brushed his teeth with toothpaste. Before this, he had to use charcoal powder instead of toothpaste. And for some reason, toothbrushes were already a thing in this world, though the bristles were made out of horse hair.
As soon as he was done brushing his teeth, he quickly wore his daily outfit, a white buttoned up shirt, long black dress pants, and black leather shoes.
Today was quite an exciting day for him. It was finally time to visit the meteorite that had landed just yesternight.
On the way walking to his office, he met with Sebastian, who was also heading the same way.
"My lord, shall I immediately brief you with our current affairs? Or shall we wait until we reach your office?"
"I was walking to the office to wait for you to come and brief me, but it seems that there's no need to anymore. Let's head to the crash site while you brief me."
"As you wish, my lord."
They both then rode a carriage that headed to the crash site.
While they were in the carriage, Sebastian quickly started to brief him about the current affairs.
After a few minutes, there was only a single topic left to brief. It was the one pertaining to the meteorite situation.
"My lord, it seems that the meteorite wasn't an ordinary one."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Meteorite landings are quite rarely seen in this worlds, so we still don't know if this is a normal occurence."
"So, what was wrong with it?"
"My lord, forgive me, I am unable to explain it. It is out of my expertise, and I think that my lord has to see it in person to understand why."
****
"What the fuck?"
Lucius instantly dropped his jaw.
What he witnessed was a tad bit too stimulating for his brain, and he quickly called for Sebastian to bring out his armor suit from the carriage.
'Looks like it was a good idea to bring my suit with me for this trip. Good job me!'
The supposed meteorite wasn't actually a meteorite. It was a giant spaceship.
More than half of the ship was constantly spewing flames and smoke. There was also a big chunk of the ship gone, possibly caused by a huge explosion.
'Holy moly, this thing must be at least a kilometer in length!!'
After wearing his suit while the police force guarding the perimeter were looking at him with glistening eyes filled with awe, he headed straight to where the police chief's tent was located.
"Good morning, my lord."
"Good morning, Chief Gregory. I'll go straight to the point, call as much backup as you can."
"Is there a reason why, my lord? My men have guarded the perimeter since last night and there looks to be no danger aside from the fire."
"No, you don't get it. Just call all the backup that you can, leave just a tiny bit for the city's safety. Make sure to call all the soldiers in Oppen as well."
After the quick discussion, Chief Gregory quickly went to the city with one of his subordinates.
Lucius left the tent afterwards and walked closer to the giant spaceship. One of the police officers guarding the perimeter quickly moved out of Lucius' way.
'Are these the same fuckers as before, or are they from a different one?'
'This suit should not be damaged from the fire, so I think I can enter it through that large opening.'
'Hmmm, let's wait for reinforcements first. I need to mitigate as much damage as possible.'
****
A police officer suddenly yelled out loud.
"Reinforcements have arrived!!!"
Lucius, who was drinking tea inside of his tent, was alerted by this and soon exited his tent.
"Ah, Chief Gregory, good to see that you're back. How much reinforcements did you manage to gather?"
"I'm sorry my lord, this is all we could muster."
Lucius then looked at the number of police officers and soldiers that the chief had gathered.
There were no knights visible in the vicinity, as they were now absorbed into the police force and the military.
With the advent of guns, knights became useless. Thus, after Lucius had his duel with Dragul, he finalized his decision.
The former knights had the ability to choose whether they wanted to join the military, the police, or the guardians.
The result was a 6:3:1 ratio. Most of the knights joined the guardians, as it had the highest status among the three.
The second place was the military, as a lot of the knights were formerly soldiers. As a result, only 10% of the knights joined the police force.
And since most of the military was focused on the fortification of the Storm Fortress, only a few of them were able to join the reinforcements.
To top it off, more than half of the police force were left behind as they couldn't abandon their job to secure the city.
As a result, the reinforcements only consisted of 310 men. Among those 310, 260 were police officers, and 50 were soldiers.
Adding it up with the 30 police officers that were guarding the perimeter, they only had 340 men.
Seeing the terribly small amount of people, he decided to increase it in the future.
'I've been too complacent after inventing guns. There needs to be more police officers and soldiers. Oh well, I guess I should get them ready now.'
Lucius then brought up his left wrist. As if the armor suit sensed what he was going to do, it quickly opened a sliding compartment.
Inside of that compartment was a screen, and after fiddling with it, Lucius' voice was suddenly amplified.
"Mic test, 1, 2, 3 ....check, check."
"Ahem, can you guys hear me loud and clearly?"
The 340 men gathered, with the addition of the Chief Gregory and Sebastian were all confused.
Just how was Duke Lucius able to do this?
Most of them were thinking that it had something to do with his magic armor, which was half-true. His armor suit wasn't the product of magic, but science.
"Men of our beautiful Heimer territory!! Today will be the day that all of you would realize just how tiny you are!! This giant object right here, will soon propel us into a new age!! But before you all get too excited, you must understand that nothing is free!! To reach that age, we must take a risk first!! I will be going inside of this big object alone!! You all should be vigilant for what's going to come out!! If anything other than me comes out, use your guns to shoot them down!! Do not let a single rat outside of this thing!! And if nothing happens, then it's your lucky day!! That will be all."
After the quick speech, he immediately went into the ship through the large burning hole. Meanwhile, Chief Gregory was busily sorting out the confusion Lucius had caused outside.
'Now let's see what's inside of this thing. Only a third of the ship was undamaged on the outside. I don't know about the inside though, so let's hope that all of them have died.'
'Hmmm, everything looks destroyed in this place.'
Everywhere he looked, there was only burnt places and objects covered in soot and ashes. Occassionally, he would find certain rooms still burning.
After around 30 minutes of exploring the ship, he finally reached a place where there seemed to be no traces of burning.
However, it didn't mean that there was no damage. Wires still sparking with electricity covered the entire place.
"Ugh...."
Lucius heard a groan. That groan seemed to have come from a room not far in front of him.
When he walked closer to the room, he noticed that there was a hand sticking out of the door leading to the room.
The hand didn't look to be human, so he readied his stance, expecting some type of danger.
He opened the room's door, which was a sliding type.
The blast proof metal sliding door revealed a spacious room in tatters. As usual, bits and pieces of the room were sticking out.
The room was littered with bodies, possibly the crewmates of the ship.
But there was something unusual about the bodies, among the alien bodies were human bodies.
'Why are they wearing the same uniform? Did things change? Wait, these guys aren't the same bastarfs that I know.'
The aliens that kidnapped Lucius looked different from the aliens that were dead here. Moreover it seemed that they're on the same side as the dead humans. There was also no traces of battle inside the room.
"Euggh..."
He heard the moan again, and found the source of it. It was a human.
The human was badly injured, as there was a big and deformed thick metal sheet crushing and pinning half of his body.
The big metal sheet was a piece of ceiling that was ripped from the ceiling due to a big object hitting it from the other side.
The man, who was obviously dying due to being crushed, opened his eyes after hearing the room's door open and saw someone standing in front of him.
"Ah... help me!! Please... it hurts so bad!! Y-you must've received our distress signal. Which means that.... we've reached.... the correct place. Please, save me!! It h-hurts..... urrghh...."
*COUGH COUGH*
The injured man coughed up blood after straining himself to yell.
To Lucius' surprise, the man spoke perfect English. So Lucius concluded that the man was from his homeworld.
However, Lucius could see that the man was a lost cause. He had no way of helping the man, as he knew that the man's insides were practically a mush by now, and he didn't have anything that could heal an injury that severe.
It was a miracle that the man had survived this long.
Seeing as the man was rapidly weakening, as if he was already at death's door, Lucius quickly had to ask something.
"Are there more survivors?"
"T-the.... refugees. They're.... all.... in the cryogenic chambers.... Urggghh...."
"Is that place unaffected by the damage?"
"It.... it.... it should be.... urhhkkk. I-it's where the explosion didn't reach..... T-the captain checked it himself.... a-and went there.... after... wards...."
*COUGH COUGH*
The man coughed more blood up.
"P-please.... save me....."
After he said this, the man's eyes suddenly closed. He had died.