Editing Tytania:Volume 1 Chapter 2 (section)

=== I ===
Mr Fan Hyulick, “the most heroic unemployed person in the universe”, was dining alone at a cheap restaurant in the central spaceport of planet Ementhal. It was the 29th of May, 446 SY.

He wore a carrot-coloured hairband, a khaki combination suit, a jumper draped over his shoulders, and a rucksack at his feet. No one would have guessed that he was the famous commander who had defeated the Tytanian great armada at the Battle of Cerberus.

Generously sprinkling the seasoning called misfortune, Fan Hyulick alternatively shovelled hash browns and ham steak into his mouth. He chewed with his white and healthy-looking teeth through the unpleasant memories as well as the ham steak.

“Good grief, that son of a bitch of a mayor…” he muttered bitterly.

Fan Hyulick wasn’t the kind to crave medals, but he had expected at least some words of praise as well as a pay rise. But upon returning to his home city, Euria, after defeating the undefeatable and ever-victorious Tytania, all that awaited him was the murderous glance of the mayor who had combed his sparse remaining hair backwards.

“You bloody fool! Who told you to win?”

“Huh…?”

Fan Hyulick blinked. He couldn’t instantly grasp the meaning behind the mayor’s words. Was he joking? Confused, he lowered his voice.

“Er, was I supposed to not win at all?”

“Exactly!”

Fan Hyulick was rendered speechless with this assertion. While he stood frozen, the mayor unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of angry shouts, sarcastic remarks, and complaints. Fan Hyulick had apparently ruined the mayor’s painfully devised political tactics. The short-statured mayor, who reached about Fan Hyulick’s mouth, aimed thousands of barbed insults straight at his heart.

“Telling me to wage war but not to win, that’s just heartless.”

Fan Hyulick thought to himself without saying it out loud as he reflected on the recent events.

Indeed, he now suddenly understood. Had the command core been formed of only inexperienced youngsters like himself, only being a ploy to give a “youth running amok” feeling and make their actions easier to justify both to Tytania and the other interstellar cities? It turned out that they hadn’t discerned and plucked Fan Hyulick’s military talent from among a crowd of ordinary commanders.

“For crying out loud, you should have just raised both hands and fled immediately, but you engaged an enemy who had numerical superiority. Furthermore, you won. What the hell were you thinking?”

Fan Hyulick thought that few men had ever endured so unjust a rebuke, but that fact gave him no comfort. The mayor demanded that he leave the city before Tytania’s arrival.

“But you know, our city Euria is not ungrateful.” The fact that he could even say that was a testament to how wretched their relationship was. “We don’t intend to let you starve. We’ve prepared cash and credit cards. It should let you live comfortably for three years or so.”

“I am most thankful.”

That wasn’t gratitude but sarcasm. And yet, the mayor nodded solemnly as if he were determined to receive nothing but thanks from the young tactician. As he prepared to dismiss the Cerberus battle victor, the mayor acted as if he forgot something important.

“Oh, hey, you. Don’t sign any receipt. We need to handle this properly to avoid any trouble later on.”

“Would you prefer a fingerprint?”

That second bout of sarcasm proved just as inefficient.

And thus, after shattering the myth of Tytania’s invincibility during the Battle of Cerberus Sector and achieving a monumental feat as a tactician, Mr Fan Hyulick found himself driven out of his home city, bearing the hatred of the Tytanians, and forced into exile in frontier sectors.

“What a marvellous calamity. Why must I suffer such misfortune?” he muttered.

It was the course of events that led Mr Fan Hyulick to bear aimless freedom and heartbreak as he became a passenger aboard the carrack ''Try Your Luck''. He had originally intended to go to Kafir, not Ementhal, and had declared as much before departure but changed his mind. He realised that the mayor might sell him off to Tytania. After changing ships three times, he finally set foot on Ementhal’s soil.

For now, Fan Hyulick didn’t have any trouble putting food on the table, but he wasn’t yet mature enough in character to add some depth and substance to his spirit during these idle days. In the first place, he couldn’t accept his current situation. Shouldn’t words like “victory” and “endeavour” correspond to terms like “reward” and “gratitude”? “Exile” and “consolation money” were somewhat unsatisfactory, and above all, contrary to social norms. If success isn’t properly recognised, wouldn’t it be detrimental to education?

Fan Hyulick skipped his coffee, which was tasting increasingly appalling as it was cooling. Putting social and educational theories aside, what should he now do? In his home city, Euria, the possibility of being promoted to commander of the city fleet had vanished.

That was fine. He had enough of being some palace attendant. As a civilian he was chasing around menial tasks as a clerk, but as a soldier he had found unexpected talents only to be driven out from his home city with nothing but his clothes on his back. Without a job, a lover, or even a permanent home, and seeing already the twilight of his life on the horizon at the age of 28, even Fan Hyulick could feel a touch of melancholy.

How about starting up a business of his own? If he did that, Fan Hyulick would go from being employed by others to employing others. During the Battle of the Cerberus System, he had commanded more than ten thousand soldiers as a commander-in-chief. It had been a matter of life and death, and the military hierarchy proved invaluable. “Obey my orders if you don't want to die” settled it all.

Recalling a few fellow officers of his own age who had assisted him, Fan Hyulick sighed. There had been no time for farewells; were they safe? They might as well have been sacrifices to Tytania, but since he, Fan Hyulick, the commander-in-chief, had somehow survived, surely they should be able to escape execution. Still, it was deeply regrettable that Fan Hyulick’s tactics, which would surely go down in military history as defining a new era, would likely never receive proper recognition.

His own life seemed destined to be neither golden nor rosy. Fan Hyulick swallowed that thought along with his last potato. As he reached for his cup of coffee, a voice called him out from behind.

“Hey, you carrot-head young man over there, could you move a bit? I can’t reach the counter.”

With his cup still in hand, Fan Hyulick turned his head over his shoulder to see who had spoken.

The figure materialising before him was a girl who was 17 or 18 and who bore neither angel wings on her back nor devil horns on her head. Her hair was a subtle shade of dark, but not pure dark, her green eyes were framed on an oval face, and she haphazardly wore a worn white and orange attire that evoked the uniform of a spaceport labourer. Her head didn’t quite reach Fan Hyulick’s shoulders, although his was mainly because the heartbroken youth himself was quite tall.

Fan Hyulick shifted his tall frame to clear the counter for her. His facial cells didn’t move a hundred times faster than his brain cells, so he must have looked confused. “Thank you” said the girl with a wink before leaning into the counter to ask if they had iced mate tea. When told that they didn’t, she clicked her tongue and brushed past Fan Hyulick, her well-proportioned body almost rubbing against him as she left.

Then, once in the streets about twenty paces from the restaurant, she had a mischievous smile and tossed an object lightly into the air when her victim grabbed her wrist.

“You were almost there, young girl.”

Fan Hyulick’s voice carried a hint of suppressed amusement.

Mr Fan Hyulick’s wallet slipped from the girl’s hand to settle into its owner’s palm. Fan Hyulick carelessly stuffed it into his back pocket. He looked back at the pickpocket with an expression that seemed to say, “Well, what should I do now?” With embarrassment, the girl asked with curiosity:

“How could you tell? Seriously, you don’t seem like the type to figure me out.”

“I’m the type to get easily worried, and I don’t trust luck or beautiful women.”

An expression of annoyance brushed over the young man’s face.

“What an extremely unhappy way of thinking.”

“Experience has made me wiser.”

“You poor thing, dumped by a woman, were you?”

“No… that’s not… Shut up, you have no right to criticise me!”

Struck where it hurt, Fan Hyulick was flushed crimson with indignation. The pickpocket lifted her chin haughtily and gazed up at the young man who had thwarted her plans.

“So, what are you going to do? Take me to the police? Go ahead. I’m not scared of the police.”

Ignoring the girl’s words, Fan Hyulick nonchalantly said something unexpected.

“More importantly than that, could you take me to the employment centre? I need a stable source of income.”

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