Solar System, Starbase.
A silver-white cruiser slowly departed from the berth, carrying Setsuna and the shipgirls into the distance.
Compared to conventional starships, her speed was much faster—in the blink of an eye, they had already passed Mercury and Venus' orbits.
The first FTL starship of the Starsea Empire: Royal Light Cruiser Aurora.
Inside the bridge, the blonde, blue-eyed shipgirl scribbled and tapped away at the holographic interface, monitoring various parameters.
"Within a stellar system, we usually use sub-light cruising mode. Once we've escaped the gravity well of the star, we can enter the hyperspace corridor."
"Even the cruising speed of the FTL engine is much faster than conventional engines."
Within just a few minutes, Setsuna saw the familiar blue Earth outside the porthole.
Normally, it took the Eternal Snowfall one to two days to travel from the sun to Earth.
"Not bad," he praised.
Beyond Earth's orbit came Mars, Jupiter, Saturn...
Some Bulin mining starships were still operating on Mars and Jupiter's moons.
When they looked up, they saw what appeared to be a blinding meteor streaking across the dark void of space. Its speed was so extreme, even shipgirls struggled to track it.
Farther out, beyond the outer edges of the solar system, lay the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
Too distant to be developed yet, the region remained desolate.
"Neptune! Neptune! Look, that one's you down there!"
Cheshire pointed at the pale-blue planet outside the porthole and nudged the blue-haired, maid-outfitted, noble-looking shipgirl beside her.
"That's a bad pun. I'll fine you for it."
Neptune also leaned over, examining the planet that shared her name—the farthest one from the sun.
She never imagined she'd one day see it with her own eyes.
Once they passed Neptune's orbit, the shipboard AI issued a notification.
[Star system gravity well exited. Hyperspace corridor entry available.]
Aurora stood beside Setsuna and pressed the ignition key.
"Commander, preparing to accelerate."
"Come, choose a route. Where would you like to go?"
Shua —
A star map projection lit up in front of them.
Hyperspace navigation was essentially selecting a target location and traveling to it via higher-dimensional routes.
For their first FTL journey, Aurora felt it was only right for the Commander to choose.
"Hmm... let's start with somewhere close."
"Alpha Centauri."
Setsuna thought for a moment, then selected the familiar location.
As the closest star system to Earth, Alpha Centauri was a frequent feature in many otherworld fiction works.
It was home to alien civilizations ranging from Trisolarans, Transformers, to the Na'vi in Avatar.
He wanted to see what Alpha Centauri looked like in this universe.
"Understood."
On the starmap, a marker lit up.
[Target selected. Preparing for hyperspace entry.]
[All systems ready.]
With the AI's announcement—
Vmmmmm —
The starship shuddered slightly.
Outside the porthole, the dark void and scattered stars elongated into multicolored streaks of light.
At FTL speeds, visual effects became distorted.
The ship seemed to enter a dimensional corridor, strange images flickering on both sides.
"Physics has ceased to exist."
Formidable noticed her gear was throwing constant errors, every parameter exceeding theoretical limits.
Her analysis and targeting systems were built for sub-light environments. In FTL form, they completely malfunctioned.
The other shipgirls experienced the same—their equipment was filled with garbled data.
"No—physics has entered a new era,"
Kayo Senju said with a cheerful smile.
"Just like we moved from Aristotle's classical physics to Newtonian mechanics, and then to modern physics, we're now stepping into the age of interstellar space physics."
Click —
Soon, the blur of starlight outside the window faded, and the disorientation from hyperspace travel disappeared.
Looking ahead—a completely unfamiliar star system.
It was a triple-star formation: Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri.
Several planets revolved slowly along distant orbits.
Scans showed no signs of Cybertron or Trisolarans.
Looks like Alpha Centauri in this universe had no alien civilizations.
The starmap clearly marked the distance to Earth:
4.2 light-years.
Aurora had taken less than one hour.
"Unbelievable..."
The shipgirls stared, dumbfounded.
They could see hope in each other's eyes.
Before, the limitations of sub-light travel severely restricted starship exploration.
An interstellar journey of even a few light-years could take years—completely unacceptable.
With FTL technology unlocked, the range of civilization expanded exponentially.
They could now roam freely across the entire galaxy and even neighboring superclusters.
This was the true sea of stars.
"Want to see something farther?"
Aurora selected another destination on the holographic display.
Vmmmmm —
The starship entered FTL again.
This time, the trip took significantly longer.
After several hours, another brilliant triple-star system appeared beneath the ship.
A yellow supergiant and two main-sequence stars blazed in the void of space.
"This is Alpha Ursae Minoris, 433 light-years from Earth."
"Of course, it has a more famous name—Polaris, the North Star we see from Earth."
Aurora explained with interest.
"Whoa..."
A planet once only visible from Earth was now within reach.
The shipgirls were full of emotion.
This was the power of science and lolis!
As the Commander had always said: Strong lolis make a strong nation; wise lolis make a wise nation. Absolutely correct.
"Are there alien civilizations or life here?"
"Comrade-chan, do you think aliens will come fight us?"
Tashkent leaned in with curiosity.
"Hmm... Theoretically, probably not. At least within a few hundred light-years of Earth, we've scanned and found nothing."
Aurora activated her targeting systems and scanned the planetary bodies.
"The universe might be even more barren than we imagined. Planets that give rise to life are one-in-a-billion anomalies."
"And even if primitive life starts, it might take millions—even billions of years to evolve into a proper civilization."
"Achieving spaceflight and breaking light-speed? That takes even longer."
"Makes sense."
Setsuna and the shipgirls pondered.
For most civilizations, stepping into space was a major hurdle. FTL was an even bigger one.
Only a handful would ever explore, colonize, and conquer the stars.
They'd seen too many stories where humanity stepped out of the solar system and was immediately surrounded by god-tier alien civilizations.
Maybe most of the aliens were still playing with mud somewhere.
"I doubt any civilization developed like we did—rapidly leaping forward through multi-world coincidences."
Kayo Senju nodded in agreement.
"Even if there are ancient civilizations out there that have existed for eons, I believe we can catch up quickly."
"After all, we not only have vassal-world resources, but also technical support from all kinds of worlds."
Setsuna chuckled at the confident little loli.
"Did we just unlock the interstellar competition tree?"
He looked around at the unfamiliar starry sky.
Since arriving in this world, he had spent years farming on Earth, painstakingly pushing forward to reach the level of a stellar system civilization.
Now, he finally had the chance to explore this universe fully.
"Come, let me guess what this universe holds?"
...
Vmmmmm —
The Aurora carried everyone through the sea of stars, continuously activating her hyperspace engine as they crossed one unfamiliar star system after another.
It wasn't just for curiosity's sake, but to investigate the surroundings of Earth.
Back when Setsuna first crossed over, Earth in this world had already become a post-human ruin.
There were almost no useful records or archives left. The whole world was nothing but crumbling walls and debris.
Whether humanity wiped itself out, or some cosmic "alien godfather" destroyed them remained a complete mystery.
Given that using the spiritron transfer device in this world might cause unpredictable butterfly effects, Setsuna never bothered digging too deeply into it.
Even if he knew there were alien enemies out there, what could he do while stuck farming on Earth with no access to space?
But after the first starship launched and the civilization entered the space era, ongoing surveys around the solar system revealed no signs of an alien "043-type" civilization.
At the very least, no signs of interstellar war had occurred.
The solar system was barren and desolate—as if it had never been touched by any intelligent race.
Now with FTL technology unlocked, they could extend their surveys to much wider areas.
Click —
Arriving at a new star system,
A dozen smaller unmanned vessels launched from the lower bay of the Aurora.
These vessels were larger than shipborne aircraft but smaller than cruisers. They had no weapons—just massive probes mounted on their bows.
"Go."
At Aurora's command, the unmanned ships shot out like meteors, flying in all directions.
Once they cleared the local gravity well, their FTL engines activated, and they vanished in bursts of dazzling light.
"These are our new unmanned survey ships. Their detection range exceeds 20 light-years, and they can pick up neutrinos, gravitational waves, electromagnetic pulses, and other cosmic signals."
"Once inside a star system, they can quickly scan all major planets and determine whether any extraterrestrial civilizations or alien life exist."
Kayo Senju and her fellow research lolis earnestly briefed Setsuna and the shipgirls.
Unlocking FTL tech wasn't just about slapping on a hyperspace engine.
They had already conducted countless experiments before retrofitting Aurora.
"Aren't these just science vessels?!"
Setsuna felt a bit disoriented.
A normal civilization's spacefaring journey usually starts with scientific exploration vessels, followed by engineering ships to stake claims and extract alien resources.
Only after gaining enough materials would they begin building fleets.
But his progression had gone... sideways.
He first mass-produced an absurdly massive fleet.
There were hundreds of starship-class shipgirls at the Port Area, each capable of soloing fleets in space.
The number of Siren and Azure Lane mass-production ships was practically uncountable.
Science vessels for exploration?
Never had them. Always been busy spamming warships.
Now, only after constructing planet-killing starships were they finally conducting basic alien-world surveys.
Just like back when he focused on maxing out military tech before ever tilling his fields.
"Got any engineering ships?"
Gudako asked.
"Bulin-class starships are the most badass engineering ships in the galaxy,"
Setsuna replied.
Shua —
Aurora and a dozen research vessels launched together, conducting meticulous surveys around Earth.
One star system at a time, they combed through the nearby cosmos without skipping a single stellar body.
The shipboard AI continuously reported data and analysis results, flooding the holographic interface with streams of information.
"Epsilon Eridani, 89 light-years from Earth. Main sequence star with six orbiting planets. No detected signs of alien activity..."
"Kappa1 Ceti, 31 light-years from Earth, an A-type star. No rocky planets in the system..."
"102 light-years from the solar system. Red dwarf with six planets, liquid water present, no signs of alien life..."
...
One by one, countless entries streamed into Aurora's main control console like status reports.
Setsuna and the shipgirls stared at the data, afraid to miss a single detail.
Some systems had liquid water. A few planets even hosted basic single-celled organisms.
But no trace of any alien civilization.
5 light-years. 10 light-years. 30 light-years...
100 light-years. 300 light-years...
After more than ten days, a scan radius of five to six hundred light-years around the solar system had been mostly covered.
Still, nothing.
Not a trace of spacefaring civilizations—not even primitive ones that could barely be called "civilized."
The planets were barren. No signs of alien ruin or post-civilization remnants.
No ships encountered either.
Occasionally strange signals were detected, but further analysis showed they were just cosmic noise caused by stellar activity.
The space surrounding the solar system was empty. Utterly empty.
Setsuna and the shipgirls let out a breath of relief—but also felt a twinge of disappointment.
"Could we really be the only intelligent civilization in this galaxy... or even this universe?"
Gudako posed a bold theory.
"No machine gods? I was kind of hoping we'd bump into a doomsday alien fleet..."
"Ehhh—"
Setsuna pinched her cheek.
"Olympus Machine Gods, huh? Once we get back, we'll go farm the Third Singularity and you can meet them."
"Still, this might actually be a good thing."
Formidable twirled her hair as she spoke.
"If we ran into bizarre alien races, dealing with them would be a pain."
"Friendly ones are fine, but if they follow something like the Dark Forest Theory, we'd be forced into conflict."
"Nope."
Setsuna shook his head.
"In a world with FTL travel, this place is a bright open prairie—not a dark forest."
"Maybe our location is just too remote?"
Kayo Senju highlighted the solar system's position on the star map.
It lay near the edge of the Milky Way, within the galaxy's third spiral arm—the Orion Arm, about 25,000 light-years from the galactic center.
If the Milky Way were a city, the solar system would be the boondocks.
"Er... 25,000 light-years. Just getting to the city is a hassle..."
The shipgirls clicked their tongues.
On a cosmic scale, spatial distances became incomprehensibly vast.
Those who seemed all-powerful on a planet were just specks of dust in space.
"Let the research vessels keep scouting further out. At least our immediate neighborhood is clear."
Setsuna thought for a moment, then gave the order.
He would actually prefer if the whole galaxy was uninhabited—then he could freely harvest resources however he pleased.
No need to outwit or battle alien factions.
Of course, having some distant civilizations could be useful someday.
Great for biological power generation.
"Also, just in case—once we get back, we should start investing in FTL-tier military technology."
"Any progress on neutron annihilation, particle lances, or quasi-stellar annihilation arrays?"
"???"
Kayo and the research lolis stared in shock.
"Commander... are you talking about extremely dangerous things?!"
...
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