The Inferno Battleship

Dante kept his eyes to himself most of the time. It couldn't be helped since she practically walked a few meters in front of him and walked like she was on the runway.

However, the cold cyborgs by her side with their white coating and glowing laser rifles certainly made him not really enjoy the experience. Getting shot by metal was one thing but getting hit by pure energy? Dante feared that even more.

Soon, they reached a teleporter nearby that was cleared for their use by even more cyborgs. There were no living organisms that seemed to be a part of this woman's squad, which was an interesting thing to note.

Beatrice turned to him with that smirk of hers still on her face. "Come on, you know how to use a teleporter right, mister 'my superpower is being able to teleport across planets'?"

Dante shrugged. "I never said that I could teleport across planets."

Beatrice laughed mockingly. "Right, so you, who does not exist in any public or private database, have no citizen registration documents throughout the entire Etranet, and don't even have any documents regarding Planet Etonia, got here from where? The planet's core?"

Dante frowned but remained silent. He simply observed the teleporter carefully and tried to understand what he was looking at. It was a simple circular platform that could house about 3 people side by side with strange energy waves emitting from the base into the air, up to about the height of four men.

"What? Scared? Get in boy, we don't have all day." Beatrice mocked as she unceremoniously pushed Dante into the teleporter, which startled the fellow. But before he could make any reaction towards this, the energy waves swept over him and he felt weightless for a second before landing on his feet.

He almost fell forward due to the sudden change, but threw his right leg forward and stopped himself. Meanwhile, Beatrice appeared behind him, walking out of the teleporter with a laugh.

"Ha! You're really strange and suspicious, you know that? A teleporter is the most basic public amenity in the universe, yet you actually inspected one and almost fell! Are you a child?"

Dante sourly turned to Beatrice and glared at her, but she just grinned back.

"Come on, let's go." Beatrice took the lead once more, but Dante paused as his eyes narrowed.

He was starting to get a dangerous feeling from this woman in terms of her disposition. Her constant smarmy grin, beauty, and sexiness made one feel at ease and interested.

She felt like a fun person to be with and one wouldn't need to feel uptight or worried in her presence. That she was 'chill'.

But so far, her every word and action since Dante met her was not 'chill'. She had constantly been probing past his origins and pointing out his flaws that made it clear he was not familiar with anything in this world.

She also constantly mocked him for thinking his flimsy verbal defenses would work. Not only that, but when he first appeared, she immediately grabbed him by the throat so fast and lifted him up that he couldn't even process it.

She said something about Civilian Bionics and Psionics? Then, were there special military or professional Bionics and Psionics?

As an Admiral, she would likely have top-tier Bionics and Psionics right? So putting aside his low indexes, she probably had stats that he couldn't even fathom as he stood here.

What was most interesting was that the moment she lifted him up, Dante sensed in a split second a tension on his neck as if she was about to squeeze the life out of him.

However, she paused when she identified him as not only a pure human, but a male and a young one. Ever since then, her charm has been turned up to the max, where it was flaunting her chest or her ass when she was walking then and now.

Was this a sort of thirst trap? To keep Dante from running away?

So did it mean she couldn't do anything to stop him from teleporting away? They didn't have technology that could lockdown space? Or even track him to his home dimension and invade?

That was the main reason he hadn't jumped back yet. If he rashly did so and gave them the coordinates to the home universe, rather than take over anything, he would be the one facing a takeover.

Following that same train of thought, could she be acting like this to lure him into using his power out of wariness, and then obtain the coordinates? Maybe the power behind her invaded worlds like his for fun and she would be rewarded?

She was human, and military too. The simple fact was, Dante didn't know shit about this world. The AI had the language, culture, and general history of this world, but it was only enough to make him equivalent to a first-worlder entering the third world for the first time: all you know was that it was bad, but not how bad and why it was bad.

"Hm? What, are you having second thoughts now?" Beatrice asked as she noticed Dante wasn't following her anymore.

Dante glanced at her and made a decision to follow her. She had presented a generally non-threatening front, was of a similar likeness to himself, and seemed to have some vested interest in his survival.

From him, she would gain an understanding of why he was here and whatever else the faction behind her wanted, and he would gain some knowledge of this world.

Dante silently straightened himself and followed along behind Beatrice, who exhaled lightly. He now had time to observe the spaceport he was in and saw that while there were many different spaceships of all sizes and makes parked, there was hardly anyone around.

Only the familiar cyborgs with rifles patrolling the place and cordoning it off.

Dante was awed by the technology here. He saw rows of duty-free shops by the side selling clothes, gadgets, and even weapons. What was interesting was that the items weren't actually put up on display, but rather a holograph of them.

There were many terminals in the ships where buyers could likely input what they wanted, pay for it with their AI chips, and then have it either delivered to them here or wherever they wanted it to go.

Dante wanted to browse through the various items desperately, but he did not even have a single cent of their currency. He did not even know what currency was used on Planet Etonia and it definitely wasn't in the basic information the high-dimensional lifeform gave.

What the AI chip was given was basically a confirmation of this universe's structure, concepts, laws, and most importantly, its science. Biology, chemistry, and physics were confirmed to be the same as the home universe with some slight differences.

It was given a universal language translator and some basic cultural knowledge like dressing, music, food, and basic philosophy across all races.

Dante continued to inspect all corners of the large and magnificent spaceport that was straight out of the best CGI sci-fi movie and then noticed that Beatrice had stopped.

She then turned dramatically to face him and gestured behind her.

"Say hello to your new prison- uh, I mean home, The Inferno!" Beatrice exclaimed grandly.

Dante looked up to take in the sight of the floating mega battleship that was about as large as Dante could fathom. It was painted blood red and seemed to glow with scorching flames.

In terms of design, it was most similar to the Falkenhayn Dreadnought from the earth. The sheer amount of mounted guns and engines on the goddamn thing gave Dante a surreal feeling, especially the giant thruster at the back which was big enough to swallow a whole city with ease.

While Dante admired the beastly machine, three cyborgs came over and greeted Beatrice.

"Admiral Portinari, the ship has refilled and is ready to move. What are your orders?" The cyborg asked in a standard masculine voice with a deep edge that was clearly AI-generated.

"Send down a shuttle to pick us up. Also, prepare for launch, we don't plan to stay here once we board." Beatrice answered, her usual smile thinning significantly and an element of seriousness entering her tone.

"Understood. What about the restriction?" The cyborg pressed calmly.

Beatrice glanced at it askance and smiled slightly. "Naturally, release it. You don't need me to teach you the obvious, now do I?"

Beatrice then ignored the cyborg that left with its other fellows and looked up to the left with her arms folded. Dante followed her eyesight and saw a small ship hurtling towards them, coming to a stop before Beatrice and opening its compartment door.

Beatrice clambered into the white shuttle and then turned to Dante with her smarmy grin right back where it used to be.

"Come on in, it's pretty comfortable, trust me."