“Rick!
Hurry up and think of something!
We have to get out of here!
If we stay on this planet, we’re completely screwed!”
“No!
We have to find the Mega Fruit before we leave.
Otherwise, tracking it down again won’t be nearly this easy!
Do you have any idea how rare the Mega Fruit is?!”
Thanks to Rick’s painfully well practiced escape skills, honed through at least several decades of experience and elevated to an almost godlike level, the two of them fled deep into the planet by digging tunnels, crossing underground rivers, blowing up oil reservoirs, and detonating natural gas deposits.
Unfortunately, the Cthulhu family of four, now enlarged N times over, clearly weren’t the kind of NPCs who would stand around like idiots the moment their target escaped their attack range.
Rick had run underground right in front of them.
What were they supposed to do?
Wasn’t it obvious?
Hollow out the whole damn planet!
And so, four legendary beings from the Cthulhu universe became a team of miserable miners, creating a scene so absurdly out of character that the civilization living on the planet had only one thing to say.
“Fuck this…”
What the hell had they done to deserve a disaster like this?
Their planet had spent countless years developing from ancient times to the present day.
An untold number of people had bled and wept to unite everyone under a single banner.
They had finally left the Age of the Earth behind and begun advancing toward the Age of the Sky and Space.
Then four things, each 8,846 meters tall, suddenly showed up.
Were they trying to bring about the apocalypse?!
“Someone get out there and blast those bastards!”
They still had a massive stockpile of weapons left over from before global unification, and they had never gotten the chance to use them.
This was the perfect opportunity to clear out the inventory!
“And…
prepare a Space Cruiser.
We senior officials need to relocate somewhere safe so we can command the operation.
That’s right!
Our command will only be effective from a secure location!”
But whether they used energy weapons or gunpowder weapons, they only managed to fire two or three volleys before Cthulhu’s maddening gibberish brought the attacks to a stop.
After searching through their memories, the four discovered that this planet had an enormous population.
It also had technology.
What the hell was technology?
As the very embodiment of the Unnameable Realm, Cthulhu was far from stupid.
After spending a little time figuring out what all those things were used for, he immediately turned them against Rick.
Countless ground based sensors were activated.
Satellites in space began scanning the planet’s surface.
Meanwhile, the people across the planet who had been converted into Cthulhu’s followers spread out in every direction like swarming ants.
Morty and Rick weren’t sitting around waiting to die either.
Rick was absolutely determined to leave with a Mega Fruit seed.
If he couldn’t, he would rather stay and have a proper fight with those four giants.
Morty, on the other hand…
He had only seen ten episodes of the show, yet the very first episode had already been twisted by Cthulhu into an adventure so insane it barely made sense.
It was like living inside an online game and finally reaching your character’s first job advancement, only for a boss meant for players on their third job advancement to suddenly drop in front of you and start attacking.
And if you died, you wouldn’t even get the chance to delete your character and start over.
The whole situation was so ridiculous that Morty had no intention of letting Rick off easy.
He spent the entire trip bitching at him.
Finally, while the two of them were making their way through an underground river, Rick snapped.
“Fuck!
Morty, you shit brained little bastard!
One of the unwritten rules of the Cthulhu universe is that you never say their names out loud!”
“I’ve told you that before!”
“I already gave you a chance to drop it, but you, you worthless piece of garbage with a brain the size of a fly, have been whining in my ear this whole time.
Do you seriously think none of this is your fault?”
“Why don’t I remember that?”
Morty searched his memory, only to realize that everything related to that warning was completely gone.
No.
That wasn’t right.
He didn’t forget things that easily.
But Rick clearly had no intention of giving him more time to think about it.
Using a laser drill to tunnel through the ground, the two of them had already traveled roughly seven or eight kilometers.
Once Rick figured they had reached a safe area, he had no reason to keep crawling around underground.
The two of them returned to the surface.
In the distance, a group of people spotted them.
They had human faces, horns growing from their heads, and bodies that made each of them look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
They immediately charged.
Rick dropped them one by one with his energy gun.
Morty, who had long since developed a smooth rhythm with Rick, took the opportunity to run ahead.
Of course, he wasn’t abandoning Rick.
In a world with such an advanced civilization, even civilians were bound to carry a few common personal devices.
Communication was essential to any civilization.
Once a society entered the technological age, communication technology would inevitably develop along with it.
Morty ran over to one of the bodies and, sure enough, found something that looked like a cell phone.
The problem was that it was cylindrical, and he had no idea how to use it.
But with Rick around, that wasn’t worth worrying about.
Morty brought the object back, took the gun from Rick, and continued shooting the enemies who had been turned into Cthulhu’s followers.
Meanwhile, the ever resourceful Rick began studying the cylinder.
Morty picked them off one shot at a time.
As he watched Rick focus intently on the device, he sighed inwardly.
[Honestly, if he weren’t deliberately training me…]
[He could handle all the thinking and problem solving.]
[Then I could figure out how to turn my adventures into nothing but eating, drinking, partying, and screwing around across the universe.
Now that would be a damn good life…]
Morty fired several more shots and dropped a few burly men.
He was in a fairly decent mood until Rick unleashed another torrent of profanity and ruined it.
“Morty!
You primitive life form who’s worth less than dog shit!
What the hell have I been teaching you this whole time?”
“Alien stuff is different from ours!
Different!”
“Buying a pair of Huili canvas shoes doesn’t mean you can walk around telling everyone they’re Converse sneakers!”
“You picked up this crappy thermos and handed it straight to me without even checking it.
What, were you expecting me to connect to this planet’s network with a thermos?”
Morty said, “…”
Rick had already unscrewed the lid, revealing the warm water still steaming inside.
After spending half a year getting verbally destroyed by Rick, Morty thought his face had become immune to embarrassment.
Yet this time, he actually flushed.
He had traveled through countless worlds and fought alongside Rick.
And he had still made such a rookie mistake.
It would be humiliating if anyone ever found out…
“Looks like once this is over, we’re going back to Planet Grant IV in Dimension C-167!”
The moment Rick mentioned Planet Grant IV, a shiver ran down Morty’s spine.
If he ranked every world he had visited during the past six months by how terrifying it was, Planet Grant IV would take first place without question.
The planet produced the most powerful warriors and assassins in Dimension C-167.
To improve Morty’s combat ability, Rick had claimed they were going there to discuss business, then kicked him straight into training.
Morty had no problem with becoming stronger.
But Planet Grant IV?
What the fuck kind of place was that?!
It trained both the body and the soul.
He fought on the battlefield during the day and fought in his dreams at night.
It never stopped.
Day and night, without a single break.
Morty could have endured it if it had only been nonstop fighting.
After all, no matter how bizarre his opponents were, he just had to face them head on.
But there were warrior training courses…
And assassin training courses…
And through the worst stroke of luck imaginable, Rick had signed him up for a counter assassination course.
Every day, three hundred assassins came at him from every possible direction, covering all 365 degrees without a single blind spot.
So the moment Rick said he was sending him back to Planet Grant IV after this, Morty immediately panicked.