Chapter 202: Chapter 171: Airliner of Despair
RUMBLE~
Dark purple lightning flickered in and out of the clouds.
Lisa stared blankly out the window at the pitch-black curtain of rain, illuminated by the aircraft’s lights. A dim, yellow glow appeared outside.
Spilled orange juice, passengers who had tumbled to the floor, and even the vomit some couldn’t hold back during the violent turbulence—all of it was being acted upon by an unseen power, suspended in mid-air.
"Daddy, are we... are we still on Blue Star?" Lisa licked her slightly pale lips, unable to stop herself from asking the middle-aged man beside her, whose face was just as white as hers.
The man was silent.
TAP TAP TAP~
Grayish-black rain pattered against the windowpanes as the emergency lights inside the cabin illuminated a sea of panicked faces.
"The plane... has... stopped."
"Is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt?"
"Hiss... That hurts."
...
One hundred teachers and students from the academy, along with their numerous Soul Beasts, stood on swampy ground one kilometer northeast of the academy. They watched as the enormous Egg Pancake, its entire body radiating a bright yellow halo, enveloped the whole plane. It gently cradled the aircraft, setting it down softly on the muddy ground not far from them.
"GRUUUHHH!"
Using Super Gravity to lower an airliner almost larger than itself was no easy feat for Egg Pancake.
After Egg Pancake set the plane down, the molten lava patterns swirling across its body gradually faded. Its form slowly shrank from just over fifty meters to thirty, and then it suddenly shot over to Han Ning’s side.
"This is a Boeing 737, about forty-three meters long. The writing on it... is German. Lufthansa?" Dean Wu, clad in a black raincoat, muttered to himself as he used the aircraft’s lights to examine the lettering on its outer paint.
"A Boeing 737 is a small to medium-sized airliner. Fortunately, it’s not too large. If it had been a bigger jet... I suspect that even Egg Pancake would have been helpless against a powerless aircraft."
As Han Ning was speaking, a message from Egg Pancake echoed in his mind: ’Landed smoothly.’ He announced to the crowd,
"It’s landed safely over there. Let’s hurry."
The Soul Beasts accompanying the 100 people on this expedition were all twice-evolved Tree Spirits or Tree Demons.
The transport-type Blue-Ringed Bees had not yet been cultivated in large numbers.
For now, everyone had to rely on Tree Demons and Tree Spirits for transport. With vines wrapped around their waists, the Soul Beasts carried the group toward the plane’s landing site.
Under the pitch-black curtain of rain, a blue-and-white airliner lay silently.
When Han Ning and his group reached the aircraft, the cabin door was still closed. Through the windows, they could see panicked faces staring out.
The humans inside the airliner stared out in amazement, their eyes scanning these black-haired, yellow-skinned Easterners.
Dean Wu produced a megaphone, likely scrounged from the academy cafeteria, and shouted in English to the passengers inside the Boeing 737:
"Everyone on the plane, you are safe for now! But for your own safety, please do not leave the cabin! The outside air is highly toxic. This... is no longer Blue Star."
"If you believe me, please open the cabin door and allow me to come inside to explain the situation."
Standing to one side, Han Ning thought Dean Wu was being far too polite. ’If it were me,’ he mused, ’I’d probably just smash the door open, walk in, and explain things that way.’
...
「Inside the cabin.」
The cockpit door stood open. The two pilots, the flight attendants, and a dozen or so dumbfounded-looking passengers from business class made their way into the economy cabin together.
"Captain, I presume you heard what those Easterners outside said. What is your decision?" a man with a distinguished air, dressed in a suit and flanked by several attendants, slowly approached the pilot.
"No, absolutely not! What if those Easterners outside are bandits?"
"My God! They’re accompanied by terrifying fiends! I think that even though those Easterners wear human skin, they’re actually monsters!"
"That’s nonsense," a young, black-haired, yellow-skinned man interjected. "If they meant us any harm, they would’ve ordered those monsters to swarm us already, not stood outside waiting for a reply. We have limited food on this plane. We can’t stay here for long. I want out."
"Heh, you’re an Easterner, so of course you’d side with them. Can you guarantee they don’t have ulterior motives?"
"I agree with this young man," an elderly, blue-eyed man with white-blond hair suddenly stood up and retorted. "They saved us. Is this really how you treat your saviors? With such callousness?"
"I think we should try communicating with them. The man who spoke seemed like a gentleman; his words and bearing were very proper," someone else opined.
"Don’t tell me this is all a conspiracy by you and the flight crew! Did you secretly change our route and land the plane here on the Asian Plate to kidnap us for some backward tribe?!"
Another passenger’s imagination ran wild.
"Ma’am, the flight from Berlin to Lutetia takes less than two hours. We’ve only been airborne for a little over half an hour. It’s absolutely impossible for us to be flying over the Asian Plate..."
The young, handsome pilot shot the wildly imaginative passenger a speechless look, then paused to think for a moment before saying,
"Mr. Louis, I’m responsible for the safety of the two hundred passengers on this plane. I think we should keep the cabin door closed for now. We can make a decision after observing for a while longer. It won’t be too late."
