Chapter 348: Extra — The Marshal and An from the Original Ending (4): Tonight, I Don’t Care About the Zerg. I Only Want You

Ever since An Ruo found out that every Zerg on the street was mourning Ulysses—and that he himself had even given Ulysses a bouquet of “funeral flowers”—there was no way he could keep strolling around without dying of embarrassment.

In the end, they only ate a meal at a restaurant by the street, took a look around the outskirts of the plaza, and then headed back.

There was nothing they could do. The center of the plaza was simply impossible to squeeze into. There were far too many Zergs. They didn’t even have a chance to lay a bouquet in front of Ulysses’ statue and could only pay their respects from afar.

Not that An Ruo had seriously intended to offer flowers anyway. The actual person himself was standing right beside him.

Besides, he had already given him flowers.

He had personally handed them to the deceased himself...

Every time An Ruo thought about that, he quietly died inside.

The castle he had dug out with his toes from embarrassment today was probably big enough for him and Ulysses to move into as their new home.

On the aircraft ride back, An Ruo finally pulled himself together and asked Ulysses,

“What does it feel like to see your own ‘funeral’?”

Ulysses’ gaze fell on the bouquet, and he remained silent.

He hadn’t expected his funeral to be so grand.

Only the funeral on Capital Star had been officially organized. On the other planets, the citizens had gathered spontaneously to hold memorials themselves.

The scale was unprecedented, and so was the strength of the response.

A brief period of disorder was unavoidable. Ulysses only hoped the military wouldn’t fall into too much chaos.

He had left instructions in advance, so they weren’t completely unprepared. Hopefully those Legion Commanders could keep the military Female Zergs under them under control.

Ulysses didn’t want to see the Federation descend into chaos.

That would go against everything he had intended.

Even when he saw the marches during the livestream, all he could do was watch. He couldn’t appear before the public and intervene.

Once the fact that he was still alive became known, it would only cause even greater turmoil.

As for what the Male Zerg had asked—how he felt—

Ulysses couldn’t put it into words.

If he had to say anything, he only hoped this funeral, and this chaos, would end as quickly as possible.

The Federation must be desperately short-handed right now.

Images of Helios and some members of the resistance flashed through Ulysses’ mind, followed by the Federation’s existing administrative personnel...

Ulysses’ gaze flickered.

After a long silence, he spoke first.

“I plan to go to Capital Star.”

An Ruo was shocked.

They were currently on the Ninth Planet, located along the border within the Ninth Military Region’s sphere of influence, extremely far from Capital Star.

The reasons An Ruo had chosen this place to hide Ulysses were, first, because it was far away from Capital Star, and second, because it was relatively close to the deep-space region where Ulysses had self-destructed.

This was the nearest place within Zerg territory that An Ruo had managed to find where they could settle down.

And now Ulysses was saying he wanted to go back to Capital Star.

Back to the center of power.

Was he going back to fight the protagonists again?!

An Ruo paled in alarm.

“Do you have to go back?” An Ruo asked hesitantly.

His brows were tightly drawn together, his fingers twisting around each other as unease filled his expression.

“The Federation is currently undergoing restructuring—or rather, it’s in the process of establishing a new Federation. Everyone thinks you’re already dead. If you suddenly reappear...”

It would trigger another round of war.

The entire Zerg race could be dragged into a civil war.

Ulysses understood what he meant.

Although he still found it strange that a creature from another species would care this much about the state of the Zerg race, he explained,

“That isn’t what I mean. ‘Ulysses’ will not come back to life. At least, not for the time being. I can go to Capital Star under a new identity.”

As he spoke, Ulysses raised a hand and touched the disguise device behind his ear, then lifted his eyes and looked directly at the Male Zerg opposite him, showing An Ruo the new face he had adopted after altering his appearance.

An Ruo understood immediately and let out a huge sigh of relief.

As long as he wasn’t going back to fight the protagonists, everything was fine.

With Ulysses in his current state, An Ruo was genuinely worried that the protagonists wouldn’t be able to beat him.

The backs and palms of his hands were all flesh.

Every time An Ruo thought about the protagonists and villain coming into conflict, he felt unbearably conflicted, like some useless man caught in the middle of a family dispute.

On one side was his “wife.”

On the other were his “children.”

And he could understand both sides a little.

Sigh, sigh, sigh...

Fortunately, Ulysses wasn’t going to Capital Star to continue fighting, so An Ruo relaxed.

His tense shoulders dropped, and his entire posture became much lighter and more natural. He propped an elbow on the table, lazily rested his chin in his hand, and asked curiously,

“Then what are you going to Capital Star for?”

“Work.”

An Ruo: “...”

Female Zergs were all workaholics!

They couldn’t stay idle for even a second.

And Ulysses was the textbook example among them. Model worker level!

An Ruo couldn’t exactly stop Ulysses from working.

He couldn’t overstep and decide how Ulysses should live his life for him.

Then something suddenly occurred to him.

Now that all Zergs knew Marshal Ulysses had fallen, his original identity and accounts would have been frozen along with it.

If Ulysses didn’t want to attract attention, he couldn’t touch any of the assets he publicly owned.

His money was gone.

His residence and aircraft were gone too.

Everything was gone.

No wonder Ulysses wanted to go out and work.

An Ruo looked at Ulysses with eyes full of sympathy.

Anyone would have trouble accepting it if everything they had built over so many years vanished overnight.

Ulysses’ mentality was far too stable. Even this hadn’t broken him.

An Ruo could support him, of course.

Although An Ruo didn’t have an account here either, he had plenty of valuables stored in his spatial button.

He could also write novels to support Ulysses.

In this era, with the new Federation only just established and everything waiting to be rebuilt, his novels would definitely sell well.

But he knew Ulysses wouldn’t accept it.

Never mind the fact that they didn’t actually have any relationship right now—even after marriage, a Female Zerg wouldn’t accept being supported by a Male Zerg.

An Ruo accepted the fact that Ulysses was going to work and asked what kind of job he planned to do.

In An Ruo’s imagination, Ulysses would probably enter the military.

He was a military Female Zerg, after all, and was far better at military affairs.

But Ulysses’ answer was completely unexpected.

“I plan to enter a department of the Federal Government.”

An Ruo: “???”

That wasn’t right, was it?

Ulysses wasn’t going to be a military Female Zerg anymore?

He was switching to politics?

But An Ruo understood almost immediately.

He knew the characters in the novel far too well, especially this one, the genuine main villain of the original story.

Almost the very instant Ulysses said he intended to enter the Federal Government, An Ruo understood what he was planning.

By entering the Federal Government, not only could Ulysses keep a close eye on every move Helios and the others made, but he could personally participate in the decision-making and implementation involved in building the new Federation.

If Helios and the others’ governing policies and political direction failed to make the Federation and the Zerg race better, Ulysses could even secretly begin planning to seize power...

Perhaps that was Ulysses’ true objective.

What could An Ruo do about it?

Stop him?

His Ulysses was only going to work for the government, diligently earning his keep. What had he done wrong?

As long as Helios and the others did a good job, didn’t act recklessly, and built the Federation properly, Ulysses would definitely be satisfied too and wouldn’t do anything everyone would hate to see.

At worst, several decades—or maybe a dozen years—from now, the Federal Archon would simply become Ulysses.

Ulysses under a new identity.

An Ruo silently lit a candle in his heart for the newly appointed current Archon, Phoenix.

Then he cheerfully agreed to Ulysses’ proposal.

Let’s go!

Off to Capital Star for work!

...

By the time they truly arrived on Capital Star, three days had already passed.

Both of them had acquired new identities, and they rented a house outside the Core District that was neither too large nor too small.

Compared with the Marshal’s residence, it was tiny, of course, but it was still a beautiful three-story house, comparable to the residences the military provided to mid-ranking officers.

And this was Capital Star, where every inch of land was worth a fortune.

They had chosen the house together.

It wasn’t in the Core District, so it wouldn’t attract too much attention, but the location was still excellent. The facilities intended for Male Zergs were comprehensive, and it was convenient to travel anywhere from there.

However, Ulysses had paid for the entire thing alone.

An Ruo had no idea where a “black household” whose entire identity had supposedly been erased had gotten that many star coins.

But considering Ulysses had been Marshal for so many years, even if he suddenly pulled out an entire planet that wasn’t registered with the Federation, An Ruo probably wouldn’t have been surprised.

After all, the territory Ulysses had conquered while serving as supreme commander amounted to three times the Zerg race’s original territory.

All of Ulysses’ assets on paper might have been reduced to zero, leaving him unable to use any of them publicly, but what his actual situation was...

That was hard to say.

Which meant Ulysses definitely hadn’t come to Capital Star to work because he needed money.

So he really was here to seize power after all...

An Ruo secretly muttered to himself, but still had no intention of stopping Ulysses.

Ulysses was also surprised that An Ruo had followed him to Capital Star.

Then again, it really was more reassuring to keep an “unknown creature” like this directly under his eye.

Even if An Ruo hadn’t followed him, Ulysses would still have occasionally used the spatial passage to return to the Ninth Planet and check on his things.

Now they were living together again.

Since this creature wanted to play the role of a “Male Zerg,” Ulysses treated him according to the standards for Male Zergs.

Everything, from the location of the house to its interior design, was chosen according to Male Zerg preferences.

Even An Ruo’s bedroom was the room traditionally assigned to the Male Lord in a Zerg household.

As for Ulysses himself...

He had initially intended to keep his distance and live farther away to avoid impropriety, but under the Male Zerg’s intense insistence, he eventually moved into the room next door.

In a household, that room belonged to the Female Lord.

Of course, both of them knew perfectly well that they did not have that kind of relationship.

They weren’t even the same species.

Only occasionally, when Ulysses saw the Male Zerg’s beautiful face—so beautiful that it blurred the boundary between reality and illusion—he would momentarily lose focus.

The instinctive wariness toward Male Zergs engraved into him seemed not to work at moments like these.

Perhaps precisely because he knew the other wasn’t truly a Male Zerg, his guard had loosened.

But excessive beauty still foretold danger.

That faint sense of danger would always catch Ulysses just before he was about to fall, pulling him back and restoring his rationality.

“You start work tomorrow, right? I’ll go with you. I’ll see you off.”

An Ruo sat on the sofa hugging a cushion, casually chatting with Ulysses, who was sitting opposite him drinking tea while reading documents.

“Mm.”

Ulysses responded instinctively to the first half, only to realize a moment later that the Male Zerg had said he was going with him.

The hand holding his teacup paused slightly.

He set the cup down, raised his eyes, and looked seriously at An Ruo.

“There’s no need to see me off. I’m very familiar with the route to the government building.”

It also wasn’t customary among the Zerg race for a Male Zerg to see a Female Zerg off to work.

It wouldn’t help the other party’s attempt to play the role of a Male Zerg, and there was no real point to it.

Besides, Ulysses wasn’t some tiny hatchling who needed another Zerg to accompany him everywhere he went.

“But I just want to go with you. You can treat it as you accompanying me instead,” An Ruo said cleverly, immediately reversing the logic.

Male Zergs accompanying Female Zergs might be unusual, but Female Zergs accompanying Male Zergs was extremely common.

It was also perfectly reasonable for a Male Zerg to demand a Female Zerg’s company.

Ulysses thought about it for a long time and still couldn’t find a reason to refuse.

In the end, he had no choice but to agree.

An Ruo was delighted.

He simply wanted to spend a little more time with Ulysses.

Even if it was only the short trip to work, that was enough.

The next day, An Ruo rode the aircraft with Ulysses and personally escorted him to the Federal Central Government complex.

Calling it a government “building” wasn’t entirely accurate.

It was actually an enormous complex of magnificent buildings.

The tallest structures were two neighboring skyscrapers, connected in the middle by transparent glass corridors.

Seen from a distance, they looked like a gigantic “H.”

Ulysses worked in the building on the left.

After seeing him there, An Ruo was preparing to leave when he happened to notice a special recruitment notice in the lobby on the first floor.

Recruiting...

Male Zerg clerks.

After the new Archon, Phoenix, took office, he reversed Ulysses’ previous policy of restricting Male Zergs to their homes and instead encouraged Male Zergs to go out and work, contributing to the construction of the Federation.

Everything had only just begun.

The Male Zergs were still traumatized by the high-pressure policies of the previous years, so not many were willing to respond during the early stages.

An Ruo decided to take a look.

He could consider it giving the policy of his protagonist a little support and adding one more warm body to the numbers.

He had planned to go through the motions.

And somehow, that was where things went wrong.

He merely answered a few questions at random and used his psychic power to process some documents and files in front of the interviewer.

The interviewer immediately grabbed his hands in ecstatic delight, hired him on the spot, and arranged for him to start work that very same day.

His position was as a member of the Archon’s secretarial team, responsible for some written documents and materials organization.

Just like that, he became Phoenix’s personal secretary.

Everything happened so quickly that An Ruo had no time to react.

By the time he came back to his senses, he was already sitting inside the small office that had been assigned to him.

An Ruo stared blankly at the completely empty desk.

He had clearly come here to see Ulysses off.

How had he somehow found himself a job?

He had never done this kind of work before.

Could he even do it?

An Ruo had already imagined the worst possible scenario.

He would work for three days, everyone would discover that he knew absolutely nothing and couldn’t do anything, and then he would be fired and sent home with his things.

If that really happened, he might actually feel relieved.

It would just be a little humiliating.

And extremely awkward if Ulysses found out...

If Ulysses knew An Ruo had been fired immediately after starting work, he might look down on him, think he was useless, and An Ruo might lose his qualifications as a potential mate because of it...

An Ruo had already imagined countless terrible outcomes.

Then he discovered that the Zergs on the secretarial team had never expected him to be useful in the first place.

A smiling, gentle sub-female secretary introduced him to every Zerg on the team, brought him candy and snacks, chatted with him, and showed him television dramas...

Only at the very end, almost as a procedural formality, did they assign him some data sorting and filing work that even a tiny hatchling could do.

And even then, a huge group of Female Zergs and sub-females fought to do it for him, telling him to simply rest.

An Ruo: “...”

Was this how Male Zergs went to work?

What do I do?

It suddenly feels like even I can handle this.

An Ruo still had at least a tiny bit of self-respect.

He couldn’t allow himself to sink into depravity this thoroughly, so in the end, he completed the work himself.

For someone with psychic power as high as his, this kind of document work was as simple as breathing.

Even though he deliberately slowed himself down, worked carefully, and reviewed everything several times to make sure there were no mistakes, he still finished all of it within a few short minutes.

Although the amount of work was so absurdly small that it made him question reality itself, An Ruo wasn’t the sort of person who would voluntarily go looking for more work.

He would do whatever was assigned to him properly.

As for anything else, forget it.

He hadn’t actually come here to build a career.

He had no desire for promotion either.

He would simply coast along.

And so An Ruo spent half the day scrolling through StarNet videos.

Then, after growing bored again, he opened a document and worked on ideas for a novel for a while.

At long last, it was finally time to get off work.

The only regret was that he hadn’t seen Phoenix today.

But that wasn’t anything particularly important.

An Ruo hurriedly shut off his light screen and headed outside.

He still had to go to the building across the way and find Ulysses so they could leave work together.

He had to hurry.

If Ulysses left by himself, An Ruo was going to become extremely emo.

The instant the clock reached quitting time, An Ruo slipped out as fast as the wind.

The Female Zergs and sub-females who had originally intended to ask the Male Zerg Lord to leave together after work and find an opportunity to curry favor with him were all left dumbfounded.

Meanwhile, the other Male Zergs on the secretarial team breathed sighs of relief.

An was simply too outstanding.

That bright, elegant aura and that face could perhaps only be matched by the Archon himself.

In a Zerg society where appearance was directly tied to rank and everything revolved around reproduction and courtship, that kind of attractiveness was far too powerful.

Almost from the moment he appeared, the Female Zergs and sub-females in the office could see no one else.

The other Male Zergs on the secretarial team hadn’t exactly been planning to start office romances either.

But watching every Female Zerg and sub-female rush to curry favor with that newcomer still left them feeling somewhat uncomfortable, as if they had all been completely outshone.

All right.

There was no comparison at all...

Which was even more depressing.

Still, judging from the way An rushed off the instant work ended, he definitely already had someone he liked.

Those Female Zergs’ plans were probably doomed from the start.

Once they thought of it that way, the Male Zergs immediately felt lighter.

The frustration that had been building inside them all day inexplicably vanished.

And so they happily left work together in a group.

They also planned to ask their families when they got home where exactly this “An” had come from.

How had they never heard that Capital Star had such a high-ranking Male Zerg before?

...

An Ruo neither knew nor cared what the other Zergs were thinking.

All he cared about was whether he could catch Ulysses and leave work together.

He and Ulysses worked in two different buildings, but the buildings were connected by corridors in the middle, so traveling between them was very convenient.

Following his psychic perception, An Ruo made his way over.

Ulysses was still in the office.

The Zergs on this side seemed to leave work later in general.

Even though working hours had clearly ended some time ago, quite a few Zergs were still slowly putting away their things.

Ulysses hadn’t even gotten up from his seat.

His brows were drawn together as he flipped through documents, looking very much as though he intended to work overtime late into the night.

A Female Zerg near the door was the first to notice An Ruo.

The moment he saw the Male Zerg standing outside, he nearly forgot how to speak.

His tongue almost tied itself into knots.

Then he noticed the employee badge hanging in front of the Male Zerg’s chest, and his eyes widened even further in shock.

A Lord like this was actually an employee here too?!

It took him a long while before he recovered his ability to speak.

The Female Zerg hurriedly asked with great enthusiasm,

“L-Lord, are you looking for someone? Is there anything I can help you with?”

The other Zergs in the office heard him mention a Male Zerg and turned around.

The instant they really saw the Male Zerg standing by the door, their minds went blank.

They forgot everything.

Objects slipped from their hands and fell to the floor, yet no one even noticed.

Ulysses had discovered the Male Zerg’s arrival before any of them.

He quickly put away the things on his desk, rose, and walked outside.

An Ruo was responding to the Female Zerg beside him.

When he saw Ulysses approaching, his face immediately lit up with a brilliant smile.

He still didn’t forget to tell the kind Zerg beside him,

“Thank you. He’s already coming over, so there’s no need to help me look for him.”

The Female Zerg, witnessing the Male Zerg Lord’s smile from such close range, became completely dazed.

He didn’t even know how he responded.

Then a powerful, icy wave of pheromones drifted past him.

It felt like a blade grazing his throat.

The Female Zerg shuddered violently and instantly came back to his senses.

The other Female Zergs in the office weren’t doing much better.

Their expressions had all turned somewhat unpleasant.

This newly arrived Female Zerg had a completely ordinary face.

He looked exactly like the standard Female Zerg—so standard that he could have been used as the default model for a game character.

Who would have expected his pheromones to be so powerful?

His rank was definitely not low.

He was probably close to breaking through S-rank.

In the understanding of ordinary Zergs, S-rank was already the absolute limit beyond all limits.

Anything higher than that?

No one dared even imagine it.

Ulysses and An Ruo walked away side by side.

Only after they had gotten some distance away did Ulysses ask,

“What are you doing here, Lord?”

Hearing the formal honorific normally used toward Male Zergs, An Ruo tilted his head.

“I came to pick you up from work.”

Picking.

A Female Zerg.

Up from work.

In Zerg society, the combination of those words was practically bizarre.

It was unheard of.

Ulysses knew this person wasn’t a true Male Zerg and shouldn’t be judged by Male Zerg standards, but his feelings were still somewhat complicated.

He also noticed the employee badge hanging from An Ruo’s chest and raised his brows slightly.

“And this is...?”

“Oh, this?”

Following his gaze, An Ruo looked down at the badge on his chest, lifted it, and showed it to Ulysses.

“I passed an interview in the building next door and became one of the new Archon’s secretaries. So from now on, I guess we’re colleagues too!”

They could go to work together.

Leave work together.

Go home together.

Maybe they could even eat lunch together.

Thinking of lunch reminded An Ruo that they hadn’t prepared much food in their new home.

So he dragged Ulysses to the supermarket to go shopping.

After finishing a full day of work, a Male Zerg and a Female Zerg walked side by side through the mall in the evening, browsing as they went, choosing household necessities and food.

It really did feel a little like a young couple living together.

Caught up in it, Ulysses pushed the shopping cart, listening to the Male Zerg chatter away beside him.

He watched An Ruo place one thing after another into the cart.

Some were things the Male Zerg had chosen for himself.

But many of them were things he had chosen for Ulysses.

For some inexplicable reason, Ulysses’ heart became exceptionally peaceful.

At this moment, he stopped thinking about the Zerg race.

He stopped worrying about those divisions and confrontations, about the accumulated conflicts, or about the distant future.

He only wanted him.

He only looked at him.

If they could quietly live an ordinary life like this...

Perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad.