Emperor's Bane

Chapter 746 Daughter’s Friend

"Ding--"

"Your [Four-legged Gold Devourer] just sent you a new message."

"Transferring to voice..."

"Laodong... Ahem! Dad, I'm going to bring a new friend home for dinner tonight. Don't worry, she's a girl, so remember to make an extra portion of dinner. We're both in the business district right now and will be home around five. If you need us to bring anything, just let me know."

"By the way: remember to pay for the errands."

"Also, I have my own key, so you don't have to open the door for me."

"That's it. I'll hang up now. Let's go check out the new shoes first."

"Ding--"

"..."

Lieutenant Colonel Olperson of the Avalon Auxiliary Army, who had taken off his military uniform, rolled up his sleeves, and was holding a piece of Grox steak in his hand, fell into silence for a moment after hearing the voice of his adopted daughter on the other end of the communicator.

After a while, he stretched out his finger, pressed the communicator, and listened again to make sure he had not missed any information.

But... new friends?

He did remind Cyrene of this: it was definitely not a good thing to always hang out with those crazy nuns. Although he himself was a religious believer, this did not prevent him from keeping a distance from those "Battle Sisters" who dared to eat alien hearts as snacks.

Orperson shook his head, and after exiting Cyrene's communication channel, he wanted to take the opportunity to pay attention to whether there were any new messages from the few names in the friend list, but the inexplicable lag made the immortal awkwardly stagnate.

After tinkering with it for a long time, he had to ask his adopted daughter for help in a hoarse voice.

Cyrene's response was quick.

"Idiot~ Dad~ Did you forget to clean up the background of the communicator again?"

"How many times have I told you to cancel unnecessary programs in the background? Otherwise, they will continue to operate and block your data flow. Just do as I taught you before..."

A minute later, looking at the old thing in his hand that had finally become fluent, Olpersson's fingers struggled to spell out a word "OK" between the buttons that were smaller than his fingernails, then he thought about it again and picked an emoticon that he thought was appropriate from the browser's built-in emoticons.

Soon, his daughter gave him a look that was at least ten times more fancy: Although he had no idea what this strange shape meant, he guessed that this was the new fashion among these young people.

"Is your daughter amazing?"

"sharp."

"She's so amazing, why don't you give her some gold coins?"

"..."

Just when Olperson was silent, Cyrene sent over a picture. Even judging by Olperson's almost non-aesthetic sense, this was a very good pair of shoes: there was a discount label next to it, but the number was still painful.

Immediately afterwards, his adopted daughter sent him two more pictures: both were pictures of a crying big-headed doll, or a psychic cat begging with a broken bowl. This time, Orperson understood what she meant.

"Ding--"

After another noise, the veteran of Avalon looked at the balance of his savings account distressedly, but he was not upset: Cyrene was a very well-behaved child, and the number of times she asked for gifts was very few, and he did not want his daughter to leave an embarrassing first impression in front of her new friends.

However, for the sake of his salary, which he had just received two days ago, even though Cyrene was still sending him happy emoticons and sweet texts, Orpesson still cruelly turned off his communicator and turned his attention to the raw meat in front of him.

Picking up the knife, he turned on the TV in the living room and skillfully adjusted it to the Avalon News Channel: the handsome announcer was reading the latest information about the "Badab Crisis".

Orperson listened and cut the Grox steak into pieces. He didn't care much about the so-called news information. He turned on the TV just to make the room more lively: as an officer of the Avalon Auxiliary Army, the information he could get was much fresher than the so-called "latest news" on TV.

Moreover, judging from the host's current broadcast time, the Badab Crisis is not a super topic that can dominate the hot searches for the people of Avalon: the host only spent less than five minutes briefly introducing the so-called latest developments, and finally began to broadcast a long report on the music apprentice audition of the big singer Ms. Catherine.

Catherine?
He was impressed by the name.

The immortal looked at the wall. Although the property certificate showed that this was his house, because he had been away from home for a long time, the room was actually full of Cyrene's personal style: including the half-human-sized posters of singers on the wall with lifelike contents.

A singer with purple eyes and long flowing light blue hair, her heavy makeup and revealing clothes made the conservative believer Olperson frown, but this is the person that the new generation of young people in Avalon are chasing after, and her singing is indeed beautiful, even Olperson cannot deny this.

His adopted daughter Cyrene's fanatical star-chasing behavior has been going on for several years, but it has not affected her studies. Orperson has heard of some more exaggerated cases, including one in which two promising military academy students were jealous of each other because of Ms. Catherine's every move, and eventually one was thrown into prison and the other lay in a cold morgue.

Orpeson had also seen the cadet who unfortunately died. He should have been a rising star. His outstanding talent and the big family with thirteen star systems behind him could ensure his rapid rise.

It is said that after his death, his biological mother, who came to confirm his identity, could not accept the fact that her only son had died so young. The lady became a little crazy and threatened to worship a god of life who was said to be very miraculous in their hometown.

After she was expelled from the Aurora for these disturbing remarks, the family behind her went through a short and brutal round of competition and sent a new spokesperson to the Queen of Avalon: and had to accept a random inspection of all its family territories by the Dawnbreaker's internal security forces.

Of course, these things have little to do with Orperson: after all, no matter how popular Lady Catherine is, she is just a singing star, and her greatest influence is limited to the lower deck of the Aurora. Even meeting the Primarch is extremely difficult.

This great singer had publicly declared on countless occasions that her greatest dream in life was to meet the Queen of Avalon, spend an afternoon with her, and then use all her talents to compose a ballad for the Mother of Dawn that would be sung for a thousand years.

Of course, this dream has not yet been truly realized.

As for those so-called gods, they had been a chronic problem in Avalon and the Far Eastern Frontier many years ago: it had long been an open secret that the Primarch of the Dawnbreakers tacitly approved religious freedom in all the territories under his rule, but it was precisely this tacit approval that brought about other small problems.

The problem is: religious freedom naturally makes people like Orpesson yearn for the Far Eastern frontier, but this means that there will definitely not be a state religion in Avalon, and it is impossible to arbitrarily suppress those small sects with very small numbers that keep popping up.

After all, their teachings seem to be extremely correct: some encourage people to fight back bravely when facing injustice, some praise the significance of science and social progress, and some like to voluntarily form teams to go to the planets with the harshest environments, carry out great greening operations in the face of wind and sand, and strive to restore vitality to every wild land.

In addition, there are other sects that like to praise the actions of these friendly nations and define it as discovering the beauty of the world: even from Olpersson's perspective, he does not think there is anything wrong with these small sects.

Therefore, when his comrades habitually prayed to the Primarch in the intervals between battles, and then prayed to some unknown god, even the most severe officers would just pretend not to see it: but the Dawnbreakers would often speak out to stop them, forbidding any title of god to be heard from the mouths of mortals.

But according to Orperson's observation, even these Astartes did not know why they stopped mortals from praying to the gods: things like Imperial Truth had always been left in a corner to grow mushrooms in Avalon, and the actions of the Dawnbreakers seemed more like they were simply fulfilling the requirements issued by their Primarch.

As for Mr. Morgan...

The Immortal stopped thinking. He never thought about anything related to the Lord of Avalon: somehow, he always felt that Morgan had unimaginable control over the Aurora under his feet, and it was itself a terrifying whirlpool. If you look at it for a few more times, you will be caught in it.

However, considering the generous salary of the soldiers from the Primarch, which was helping his farm retirement plan catch up with the progress bar at a visible speed, Orpesson did not mind giving the Gene Mother of the Dawnbreaker a high impression score. She was much more generous than her father.

If the emperor had understood earlier the benefits of actively showing generosity and kindness to others, perhaps Orpesson could have stayed with Neos for a few more years: perhaps until they rebelled together...

"hiss……"

The sudden pain made the Immortal knock his head angrily. It was much more painful than a bullet hitting his skull. When he barely regained the ability to think, Orperson realized one thing: he seemed to have forgotten something that happened a long time ago.

This is not the first time. Although he is immortal, Orperson's conscious memory chain can only be maintained within a period of about fifty years. Those things that happened thousands or tens of thousands of years ago are no different from myths to him.

However, there are some things that he will remember no matter how long it has been. He must remember them. He has a very fatal reason to remember them: Having said that, in fact, he has long forgotten these things that he must remember.

Now... another one...

Olperson shook his head and couldn't help but blame himself in his heart.

Why do you have nothing better to do than to bother with that old pervert Neos? Whenever he is mentioned, something bad is bound to happen. It's been so many years, haven't you learned your lesson yet?

But: Anyway: that guy definitely can’t find him now.

Thinking of this, the Eternal Man's mood improved a lot. With a new mindset, he threw himself into preparing dinner. At the same time, he switched channels several times and finally stopped in front of a military news channel that specialized in reporting the latest developments of the Badab crisis.

Ah, crisis.

A crisis is imminent.

This feeling was so familiar to him that it reminded him of tens of thousands of years ago: he remembered that at a certain time on Terra, there were two superpowers with nuclear weapons, and a crisis almost broke out that could have wiped out the entire human civilization from the face of the earth.

He was deeply involved in it.

At that time, he was serving in one of the nuclear submarines, responsible for patrolling in the waters where the crisis broke out, and would launch a deadly nuclear bomb if the situation changed: Fortunately, the officers standing behind him at the time never said that simple but crazy number.

Olpersson glanced at the television.

Although the memory was already fuzzy and although there were countless stars between them, the imagined scene was combined with the one in front of him: how similar the two crises were, and their race had not made even the slightest progress after so many years.

No: maybe even retreated?
The Immortal smiled.

In the following time, he listened to the true or false information in the news, quickly prepared a table of dishes, and finally wanted to open a bottle of fine wine from his collection and have a couple of drinks in this rare night of rest: but after hesitating again and again, he decided not to embarrass his daughter in front of her new friends.

Anyway, the room is not big. If the two girls sleep together tonight, he will have to go out and find a tavern: to be able to find a tavern where one can drink by oneself and while away the time with half-cold dishes in a busy but not noisy downtown area is a small dream that is hard to come by for a middle-aged man like him.

Amidst the laughter of anticipation, the Immortal prepared the last dish in time: there were less than three minutes left before her daughter, who clearly had the key but never liked to open the door herself, knocked on the door.

It was just enough time for him to tidy himself up, wash the grease off his hands, find some extra slippers and a fruit plate, and then solemnly open the door for his little money-eating beast.

"father!"

As soon as the door opened, Cyrene, holding a shopping bag, rushed towards him like a cannonball, jumping twice in joy before giving up: After sniffing the air and confirming that the aroma wafting from the kitchen came from his favorite dishes, Cyrene proudly moved away.

"Come!"

"Come meet Lucy!"

"My best friend!"

"Ah."

Olpersong smiled and nodded, then looked at his daughter's friend.

"Hello, Lu..."

"..."

The next moment, the entire group of immortals fell into a deathly silence that was rare in a thousand years.

His eyes widened, his eyeballs were like white and round boiled eggs, his lips opened in astonishment, revealing the black coating on his tongue caused by long-term smoking, blue veins unknowingly occupied the corners of his forehead, dense beads of sweat flowed from their roots, dripping into his heart that was engulfed by shock.

It had been a long time since Olpersong had been so shocked.

same……

He hadn't seen this damn face for a long time...

damned……

This time it’s after plastic surgery!
The Immortal said nothing, his silence making the air around him turn cold, and standing opposite him: his daughter's new friend, a brown-skinned girl whose height might just touch his chest, had an expression almost exactly the same as his.

But her reaction was much faster.

After just a moment of surprise, Lucy's face showed a smile that made Olperson shudder. It was a kind of enthusiasm and intimacy that only appeared in his nightmares: she quickly stretched out her hand and grabbed Olperson's hand without saying a word.

"first meet……"

"Mr. Olperson."

"..."

The Immortal did not speak, and instinctively wanted to pull his hand away, but the small palm that seemed to be able to only grasp three of his fingers burst out with unimaginable strength. The pale skin that was clenched and the pain in the wrist that was almost dislocated made the Immortal hold back the cold sweat.

"Ah...hello..."

He organized his words and managed not to say the roar in his heart.

------

damn it.

Why did this old man take out his skin again?
(End of this chapter)