After the Zerg General Was Accidentally Marked - Chapter 27

Chapter 27: The Future

After obtaining verbal permission, Everett was so excited he nearly lost himself. Humming an out-of-tune, unknown nursery rhyme, he busied himself alongside the military female to tidy up the kitchen.

Sears found this incomprehensible. “You know I haven’t actually promised you anything specific, right?”

“…Is it worth being this happy?”

Everett reached out to put the dishes into the upper cabinet, “accidentally” brushing against the military female’s elbow. “I know!”

He continued to smile dazzlingly. “We take it slow. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you don’t become a fat man in one bite!”

“I am already extremely satisfied with the results of this stage!”

Everett turned around and once again bumped into Sears’ shoulder. The military female moved aside.

By the third time the little high-rank “accidentally” brushed against his lower back, Sears was finally certain: the other was absolutely not doing this by accident.

This time, Sears heightened his alertness. When the little high-rank leaned over, Sears dodged backward in time, making the other’s attempt to press against him miss.

The little high-rank’s smile vanished instantly. While tying up the trash bag, he let out an exaggerated sigh. “Sigh!”

Sears’ body froze for a moment. He looked at the now-tidy kitchen; the little high-rank was already handling the last of the trash. He decisively washed his hands and left.

Everett followed shortly after and sat down on the sofa, pressed right against Sears.

The sofa was large; after all, it served as a bed for a tall, sturdy military female like Sears it was more than enough to seat three of him side-by-side. Sears wasn’t sitting in the middle, but rather toward the right. Thus, the little high-rank’s intention in sitting flush against him was blindingly obvious.

He wanted to be close.

Sears shifted further to the side, leaving a cold ten-centimeter gap between them. However, he was sure the little high-rank would keep edging closer, and he might have to keep moving right.

Just as he was calculating this, the little high-rank made no move. He seemed to tacitly accept the existence of those ten centimeters. Perhaps he had given up, or perhaps he had regained his reason.

Sears felt relieved, but also felt a strange sense of… dissatisfaction. He chalked this up to his own incorrect prediction.

“So,” Everett asked, “about what you wanted to say, the thing you wanted to confess, did I guess right?”

The little high-rank’s long confession earlier had completely disrupted the rhythm of the conversation. Now, Sears had two choices: he could go with the flow and claim the confession he intended to make was about being unable to accept Everett’s feelings; or, he could follow his original plan and confess something else.

He hesitated for three seconds.

Then he said: “You guessed half right.”

“I indeed cannot accept your… confession. But besides that,” Sears crossed his hands over his thighs and looked into the empty air before him, “I have another matter to confess.”

“I come from the future. In that time, you are His Majesty, the Zerg Emperor.”

“Haha! Me? The Emperor?” Everett let out a laugh at first. But he quickly realized Solas wasn’t lying. The laughter died.

“Huh? Me as the Zerg Emperor?!!!” The little high-rank repeated it in disbelief.

Sears nodded, still not looking at the high-rank beside him. “You see, the reason I trust you, teach you, help you, and was willing to give up my life to save you at a critical moment isn’t without reason.”

“It’s because you are the future Emperor. Because I couldn’t let anything happen to the future Emperor.”

“I am not as good as you think. Everything I’ve done has a selfish motive. There is no such thing as unprovoked kindness in this world.” Everett would realize his feelings were misplaced; he might be sad, or angry, or perhaps break things off and kick him and Bigu out.

But this was the cruel truth.

He needed to know.

He didn’t want to hide it.

“Even though I am a Langston, still…” Everett specifically used the optical-link to look it up. “I am… the 523rd in the line of succession.”

“Do you know what that means? I have to wait for the more than five hundred high-ranks ahead of me to die before it’s my turn. If any of those high-ranks has a high-rank descendant, that number increases.”

“Over five hundred! Even if one died every day, it would take over a year!”

“The probability… is about the same as you rising from a current janitor to a Legion Commander.”

The actual, former First Legion Commander, Sears, almost failed to keep a straight face.

But that wasn’t the key point. Although he himself was confused about how Everett could become Emperor in the future, shouldn’t a normal high-rank’s first reaction be to question his motives? Or at least be skeptical about how someone could return to the past?

Why was the little high-rank’s entire focus on the fact that he couldn’t possibly become the Emperor?

Regarding the same issue, his and the little high-rank’s focus always seemed slightly misaligned.

“Are you… not angry?”

“A little, and a little sad. But…” Everett took a deep breath. “Regardless of the reason, the fact that you trust me, teach me, help me, and saved my life at the brink of death is an established fact.”

“So is the fact that I like you.”

“If we always obsess over the past and the reasons, we can’t move forward.”

“Since we can’t change the past, we can only look ahead and try to change the future.”

“And the fact that you’re willing to confess to me is a good thing. You could have kept this hidden, but your willingness to speak shows you still trust me.”

Sears never expected that a matter he considered unforgivable would be so lightly brushed aside by the little high-rank. Furthermore, how did a calculated display of kindness become a “good thing” in Everett’s mouth?

“Besides,” the little high-rank continued, “I also have many things I’m hiding from you. I have my own secret identity. Will you blame me when you find out?”

What secret identity could a little high-rank have? Most likely the leader of some underground Sears fan content group. Sears assumed the other was just trying to cheer him up. “No.”

“It’s normal for His Majesty the Emperor to have secret identities.”

Everett let out a laugh. “Solas, look at me.”

Throughout this conversation on the sofa, Sears had been looking forward, not sparing a single glance for the high-rank beside him.

Thus, when he turned his head and truly looked at the little high-rank, he found the other’s face practically screaming one word: aggrieved.

The little high-rank wasn’t crying; in fact, the corners of his mouth were still turned up. But the drooping corners of his eyes and the unshed tears, an expression of trying his hardest not to cry, clearly expressed his hurt.

A beautiful face, when looking aggrieved, is exceptionally lovely and exceptionally pity-inducing.

Sears took just one look and felt as if his heart had been bitten hard, the flesh torn away in a sour ache.

It turned out Everett wasn’t as firm and indifferent as his words suggested. Those words were more like a form of self-consolation for the little high-rank than an answer to him.

Yet, he still hadn’t become disappointed, dissatisfied, angry, or hateful toward him as Sears had imagined. Instead, he retracted all his thorns, pricking only himself.

Why would a high-rank go to such lengths?

Did he really… like him that much?

“Can I… sit close to you?” the little high-rank pleaded.

Sears found himself completely unable to refuse him now and could only nod.

“Can I hold your hand?”

Sears agreed, and his left hand was immediately seized, fingers interlacing.

“Can I kiss you?”

Sears was silent for a moment before saying, “Do you know the phrase ‘give him an inch and he’ll take a mile’?”

Everett: “Then do you know the phrase ‘as the priest climbs a post, the devil climbs ten’?”

“Fine, if you won’t let me kiss you.” The little high-rank yanked Sears’ left hand over, cupping it carefully, and began to knead Sears’ fingers one by one like a toy.

Sears endured it for a while. Just as he was about to pull his hand away, he unexpectedly heard the other say: “But I don’t want to be the Emperor.”

“I only want to be a leisurely, ordinary high-rank.”

“I don’t doubt the future you saw. But, if I don’t become the Emperor you envisioned…” Everett hesitated. “Will you be disappointed?”

This was something Sears had never considered. In his view, the future was set; the possibility of change did not exist. Character determines destiny, and the destinies of countless individuals converging determines the future of the Empire.

Even with minor deviations, it should remain largely the same.

But thinking carefully, Everett—at least since they had known each other—indeed showed none of the ambition matched with becoming the Emperor.

Sears thought for a moment and said: “Then… it’s probably my fault.”

“In the previous life, I didn’t meet you, nor was I marked by you. This time I’ve entered your life; it’s normal for the future destiny to change.”

“Besides, I also think your chances of becoming Emperor are slim. You would need to overthrow the existing regime. So, first, you would need massive financial support. But you are exceptionally poor.”

Everett thought of the vast wealth he had accumulated through the Magic Lamp Company.

“Second, you would need a powerful military force. You have none.”

Everett thought of his increasingly large mercenary army.

“Finally, you would need strong personal strength. While you are talented in using mental power, being only B-grade is far from enough.”

Everett thought of his strange mental power that could stop time.

“In summary, I believe the probability of you becoming the Emperor isn’t completely zero, but it is indeed infinitely close to it.”

Hearing the military female’s analysis, Everett shouted in his heart: Holy crap! Why do I feel like I actually have quite a bit of potential to be the future Emperor?

“So, just be yourself.”

“That future Emperor, the future me… did you like him? Because you said just now that the reason you trust and protect me is because I’m the future Emperor. So, he the future me must be an Emperor you liked?”

“It wasn’t so much ‘liking’ as it was admiration. He truly made the Zerg race better.” Sears thought for a moment. “Similar to how one feels about an idol?”

“So, whether you like me or not actually has nothing to do with whether I’m the future Emperor?” Everett counted on his fingers. “Even if I’m a total failure in the future, a little nobody, you’ll still keep living here, keep cooking, keep chatting, and keep raising Bigu with me, right?”

“Yes,” Sears admitted. At least for the time being, he had no plans to change the status quo.

“Then everything is fine.”

The matter that Sears thought might lead to an immediate break-up was smoothly put behind them. The little high-rank still wouldn’t let go of his left hand, playing with his optical-link with one hand.

Sears couldn’t move, so he glanced over and found the little high-rank was searching: Who is the current Zerg Emperor?

Sears: …Did he even pass his history class?

Just then, the little high-rank’s optical-link pinged. Everett opened it; it was Walter, who had sent the address of a restaurant.

“Oh, right, one more thing. A military female submitted a request to date me. He’s a military officer.”

Everett had almost forgotten about this and showed the chat history with Walter directly to Solas. “Give me some advice. How should I shut him down?”

But after carefully reading the message Walter sent, the military female said:

“I think you should agree.”

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