The backdrop can also be propped up.

After leaving the impoverished planet Cladda, Maria Elisa piloted her spaceship to the garbage planet Dabry.

This time when Maria Elisa came to Dabrer, she brought protective clothing and gas masks, and after confirming that they could withstand the suffocating smell of the garbage planet, she found an open space to land on Dabrer.

A garbage planet, as the name suggests, is a planet piled high with trash. Besides actual garbage, it also contains refugees that the Federal Empire doesn't want to deal with. Almost all the trash in the entire interstellar space is piled up on garbage planets.

As soon as Maria Elisa opened the hatch, she felt that Dabry was even more gloomy than she had seen from the spaceship: thick or thin black smoke drifted in the distance, probably from some chemical reaction; the land was black, not the fertile black soil that could grow crops, but black soil that had been dyed with toxic agents and almost nothing could grow.

When Maria Elisa arrived, it was already late; the sky had turned a purplish-black, and dense, dark gray clouds drifted across the heavens. A few distant stars, as if out of pity, crossed tens of millions of light-years to let their light, weakened by the vast distance, reach this abandoned planet.

Maria Elisa turned on her flashlight and looked toward the distant pile of garbage—because she heard rustling sounds coming from there.

The flashlight shone on a bipedal creature standing upright. Maria Elisa looked closely through her gas mask and saw that it was a child with long hair.

The child was blinded by Maria Elisa's flashlight. Having been in the dark for a long time, the child was not used to the sudden light and instinctively shielded his eyes from it.

After the child got used to the light, the child slowly lowered his hand.

Maria Elisa lowered the flashlight slightly so it wasn't pointing directly at the person, and waved to the child, hoping he would come over so she could learn about the current situation on Dabry Star.

The child shrank back, watching Maria Elisa warily.

Maria Elisa waved to the child again, but the child turned and ran away immediately.

Maria Elisa had no choice but to put her hand down when she saw the child run away. She looked around and chose a group of children whose flashlights reflected purple light when shone on them. She walked over to them.

Maria Elisa stepped over all sorts of large pieces of trash and finally climbed onto the pile of trash that emitted a purple light.

Maria Elisa tried to walk directly onto the pile of garbage, but as soon as she stepped on it, the garbage scattered and rolled down.

Maria Elisa had already thought of this. She returned to the spaceship, took out a long stick with a hook from the cabin, and went back to the pile of garbage to try to hook down the purple-glowing thing.

Maria Elisa successfully hooked down the purple-glowing object. Upon closer inspection, she saw it was a dark wooden box inlaid with purple gemstones.

Maria Elisa picked up the black wooden box. It felt a little sticky. She shook the box and found something inside.

The wooden box looked cheap. Although it was inlaid with amethyst, the amethyst actually had many impurities. The box was black and sticky because it was covered with a lot of black, sticky stuff, the nature of which was unknown. However, the hazardous substance detection system on the protective suit didn't trigger, so it probably wasn't anything toxic.

The box was tightly shut and couldn't be opened no matter how hard they tried. Maria and Elisa took the box back to the spaceship.

After closing the hatch, Maria Elisa took out a small knife and tried to pry open the box.

The box wasn't pried open, but a small knife was stuck to the black slime on it.

Maria Elisa had no choice but to temporarily abandon her plan to pry open the box and placed it on a shelf specifically for miscellaneous items. She then donned her protective suit and continued her exploration of Dabry.

After Maria Elisa brought back a bunch of things she felt she needed to study, she piloted her spaceship to the other side of Dabry. There, she saw a red and black river on the ground, and a group of people on the riverbank, holding all sorts of containers and scooping water.

Maria Elisa found a relatively large open space to land the spaceship. After locking the spaceship, Maria Elisa walked through the small, high pile of garbage and headed towards the river she had just crossed.

Maria Elisa didn't go directly over; instead, she hid behind the garbage heap where she could see the most people, watching them scoop up sewage with whatever they had in their hands and then drink it.

Logically speaking, this water is undrinkable—because it contains various kinds of sewage. Drinking just one type of sewage for a long time is enough to kill a person, let alone a mixture of different kinds of sewage.

People wore dirty clothes, each garment showing signs of patching. The people along the river were men, women, and children of all ages, and although they were of different ages, they all had one thing in common: they were thin.

Phrases like "skin and bones" or "emaciated" don't seem quite accurate in describing them. Those terms actually describe someone who is a bit overweight compared to their actual size.

Maria Elisa looked at their bulging, lifeless eyes, their branches-like arms, their claw-like hands, and felt as if they were skeletons drinking a poison that could melt their bones—a poison that was deadly to them, yet they had no choice but to drink.

Maria Elisa suddenly felt short of breath, so she went back to the spaceship, took off her protective suit and gas mask, and piloted the spaceship away from Dabry.

Maria Elisa flew back to Itana and carried the things she had picked up on Dabry back to her lodging on Itana.

Maria Elisa put on gloves and picked up another knife—the first knife she'd used on the way to pry open boxes, but she couldn't lift it as soon as she touched the wooden box. She almost ruined her gloves too. She took out the wooden box covered in strange black slime and used the second knife to pry open the unlocked but tightly closed box, which was also covered in slime.

Just a second before the second knife was to be glued to the wooden box, Maria Elisa picked it up and rinsed it in hot water, which only washed away a little bit of the black adhesive.

Maria Elisa completely gave up on prying open the wooden box with a knife. She tilted the box, and the contents rolled to one side.

Then, Maria Elisa took out a laser gun and made a hole in the center of the top of the box.

After the box was opened, it became much easier to take out the contents. Maria Elisa turned the box upside down and shook it, and the little thing inside fell out. Fortunately, it wasn't hit by a gun and was still intact.

Inside the box was a small pocket watch.

Several large patches of the gold paint on the small pocket watch had peeled off, exposing the brass underneath. Upon opening it, it turned out to be one of those small pocket watches with a photograph on it, featuring a very beautiful picture of a woman.

Maria Elisa isn't exactly beautiful in any particular way, but she exudes a kind and gentle aura that makes you want to get close to her, even if it's just in a photograph.

Maria Elisa set the small pocket watch aside, filled a bucket with hot water and put the box in to soak. Then she started prying open a metal can she had picked up. As expected, she lost patience halfway through and used her gun to open it. There was nothing inside the can.

Maria Elisa threw the can into the trash can, noticed that the laser gun was out of power, took it to charge, and then decided to be more patient and go back to retrieve the items.

But when the third item she opened was still truly rubbish, Maria Elisa completely lost interest in opening more.

Maria Elisa pushed aside the other items she hadn't yet seen from the junk planet, throwing anything that was definitely junk into the trash can. Finally, she picked up the pocket watch and began to examine it.

Besides the woman's photo, the only other thing you can see on the pocket watch is its dial.

Although the dial looks very ordinary, it is indeed very ordinary. Maria Elisa simply pried up the dial to see if it needed batteries. If so, she would insert the batteries to remind herself of the time.

Unexpectedly, while prying open the watch face, Maria Elisa discovered a name engraved on it. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be Belladonna.

"She looks familiar," Maria Elisa thought, but couldn't place her name. "Maybe I know someone with the same name."

After putting the pocket watch back, Maria Elisa played with it for a while before remembering where she had seen the name Belladondia before.

This seems to be the name of Hewlett-Packard's first wife.

Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maria Elisa thought to herself, even if they were faking it, they wouldn't have thrown all of each other's belongings onto a junk planet, especially in such an ordinary box—after all, this is Otolay's territory—besides, the fact that I found it just like that is a bit too much of a coincidence.