Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Having successfully fooled the review team and his superiors, Jun Sakuma's work finally settled down a bit.

Occasionally, I would go out on fieldwork to clear up coordination letters from other branches, but most of the time I would work with my fellow sufferer, Hiroyuki Misawa, to outwit and outmaneuver the files.

During the day, he's an honest office worker; at night, he stares intently at TLT's various documents and materials.

Persistence pays off. During a mission handover, he stayed at the Third Base headquarters for a while and secretly obtained some of the passwords that Matsunaga Yoichiro had using the old method. As a result, the TLT database opened up more information to him.

How could a dignified, dedicated police officer, who stood firm on his post, live like a secret agent...?

Samuel, who was curled up asleep in his consciousness space, yawned and occasionally teased him: "Hmm? You seem to enjoy watching this, but you're staying up until 3 a.m. every day now. You'll pass out at work."

...Watch your words. Our police officers are seasoned veterans; staying up all night to stake out targets is just routine for them. Don't doubt our professional skills!

Then Samuel spoke again: "Are you afraid of the dark?"

"?" We often go out at night to do "community cleaning," and you ask me if I'm afraid of the dark?

"We've located the bases of TLT's Japanese branch. We need to dive down to the one in Ishikari Bay."

According to the information they saw within Matsunaga Yoichiro's access permissions, the "Wangchuan" is a "warehouse" storing human memories of alien beasts, specifically...

The location was locked with a different password, and they couldn't access it.

Samuel missed Estend's information technology very much.

If Eistard were here, let alone breaking through a few layers of encryption, he could easily extract all the data from the North American headquarters by following the network cable!

But Samuel and Jun Sakuma were both novices in information technology, so they could only choose the most rudimentary method.

Therefore, based on Jun Sakuma's previous speculation, the plan was to search for traces of the "River of Oblivion" at various bases.

Since the alien beasts feed on fear and are controlled by the dark giants, if the dark giants also know of the existence of the River of Oblivion, then they will definitely target the River of Oblivion.

They need to first determine the location of the River of Oblivion and take preventative measures before the Dark Giants make their move.

There are currently four confirmed base locations: the first base is located in Ishikari Bay, Hokkaido, where Night Raid Team B is stationed; the second base is near Shizukuishi in Mt. Iwate, where Night Raid Team C is stationed; the third base is located locally, where Night Raid Team A is stationed; and the fourth base is located near Okijima in Shikoku, where Night Raid Team D is stationed.

The four groups are responsible for responding to alien beast incidents within their respective jurisdictions on a regular basis, and occasionally they also cooperate in operations.

Given the recent appearance of the Dark Giant, TLT-J seems to intend to rotate the four Night Raid squads, moving Group A away from the Third Base and to Ishikari Bay.

The meeting minutes concerning this matter caught the attention of Jun Sakuma and Samuel.

The change in the garrison and combat environment requires night raid team members to spend more time adapting. The fact that they are suddenly considering a rotation during such a critical period can only mean that one of the two bases is relatively more important and requires the deployment of trustworthy elite forces.

Between Group A and Group B, which side does TLT trust? And between the First Base and the Third Base, which is more important?

Trusting Group A and transferring them back to key positions for guard duty, or trusting Group B and sending them to the front lines to fight the Dark Giants, either approach makes sense.

“The third base is nearby, we’ll have plenty of time to find it. Let’s go check out other places first.” Jun Sakuma knew the importance of the River of Oblivion. Out of a strong sense of responsibility as a memory police officer, he felt it was necessary to guard the place that sealed away humanity’s fears.

He decided to make a sacrifice:

"I'll take my annual leave."

Those who have been with TLT for less than two years have only a few days of annual leave.

Ideally, you should take the holiday together with a short break to create a long, happy holiday, but this time you can only combine it with two weekends.

Nine days should be enough time for them to thoroughly search Ishikari Bay and Shizukuishi. They even have a reason in mind: to take Karin to see the beginning of spring in Hokkaido, and if the weather happens to be cold enough, they can even see the last bit of melting snow.

If we find nothing, we'll take her to Mount Iwate on the way back and check if there's anything fishy going on at the second base.

One trip, two bases secured – perfect!

Huali, Dad is going to use you as an excuse to secretly do something again.

Jun Sakuma recalled doing many similar things in the past, such as buying a lot of soda and arguing with his wife, "Ah, Karin likes to drink it," despite her disapproving looks; buying Lego sets ostensibly for Karin to play with but actually for himself, claiming they were good for his brain; and going downstairs to buy kebabs, using the excuse that "Karin wants to eat some," but actually eating the most himself...

Just do it!

Jun Sakuma decided to submit his annual leave application to Saya Shuto tomorrow.

Write another note to Karin's homeroom teacher to ask for leave on her behalf—Karin will be overjoyed, but she still needs to bring her homework.

Bring two math workbooks.

As for the destination to be filled in on the leave form...

Of course, they can't just blatantly fill in Ishikari Bay and Shizukuishi! There are a bunch of neurotic guys in TLT, and Jun Sakuma wants to live a little longer.

It's decided, let's go with the Sapporo-Morioka route. Samuel said we can take Karin on a daytime tour to create an alibi, and then search the base at night. It won't take much time to go there and back.

Jun Sakuma gave himself a thumbs up for his meticulous planning.

He truly lives up to his reputation as a meticulous memory police officer, quite different from those "white-coated sieves" in the anti-biological weapons disposal department.

……

Mountainous area near Tokyo.

Deciduous trees and evergreen forests are interspersed, presenting a scene where the ground is covered with withered yellow leaves, while the trees still retain green shade.

A person sat on a relatively clean bluestone in a sheltered depression.

He was rather thin, wearing a black trench coat with the sleeves rolled up, and slowly wrapping a bandage around his arm with it in his mouth.

Several pieces of used gauze lay on the ground, stained with blood.

While bandaging his wounds, Goroki also pondered the origins of the giant he had encountered that day.

He gained Mephisto's power and learned about Nexus and the Adaptors, but another giant seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and Mephisto had no information about him.

The giant's beam pierced through the darkness, and he almost thought his hand was going to melt.

The result wasn't much better. He barely managed to find a place to hide, and was unconscious for a whole day before waking up. Large areas of burns still remain on his body, and even with Mephisto's regenerative abilities, they haven't healed yet.

"Hiss—" He frowned and looked down at the outside of his arm, where another gash had appeared on the charred skin, and tissue fluid was seeping out.

"pat".

A box suddenly appeared on the bluestone beside me.

ointment.

A figure shrouded in a black cloak stepped out of the vortex. Contrary to his attire, his voice was not cold and harsh, but rather possessed a comforting warmth. (694936135)

“I didn’t tell you to go directly to him,” the man in the black cloak said. “Hurry up and heal your injuries. If you wait until Jun Himeya recovers, it will be difficult to get Nexus’s Light again.”

"Hmph." Goroki Makoto also seemed to have no liking for this person. He slowly unwrapped the bandage he had just put on and applied the ointment.

“Monk,” Gorokijin called him as well. This mysterious man in the black cloak only allowed people to call him Monk, and Gorokijin knew nothing about his real name. “Another Ultra Warrior, you should know him?”

The man in the black cloak nodded. "Ah, I know."

"The man of light whom Vitamori reveres... Lord Samuel."

Chapter Twenty-Two: Ishikari Bay (Bonus Chapter 9 for Bounty)

"Wow! Wahahaha~"

Huali took short strides and ran towards the flowerbed full of lilacs and lilies of the valley, startling a flock of pigeons that were pecking at the corn kernels fed to them by tourists.

"Huali! It's windy, don't let it blow your hat off!" the old father shouted from behind, holding a balloon.

"Oh!" Huali responded, reaching out her small hand to press down on the beige woven hat, the elongated dark green bow swaying at the brim in the arc of a pink butterfly's wings.

Karin ran off into the distance, and Jun Sakuma quickly caught up, asking the person resting with their eyes closed in the consciousness space, "Samuel, what should Karin do if she wakes up at night and finds I'm not there?"

"She's been a bit more cheerful lately, which almost made me forget that Karin became very insecure after Sakura left." Jun Sakuma had Karin's crossbody bag slung over his arm, looking somewhat out of place. He tied a dog-face balloon to the crossbody bag, finally freeing up one hand.

"Boss, give me a portion of feed." He took the paper bag of corn feed from the vendor and jogged over to hand it to Huali.

Huali's eyes lit up instantly, and she gave her father a quick kiss on the cheek.

Jun Sakuma smiled with satisfaction at being praised.

Huali is so good, she did two more sets of exercises this afternoon.

Samuel seems to be evolving into a "sleep god" lately. When Jun Sakuma is awake, he is sleeping, and when Jun Sakuma is asleep, he is still sprawled in the white space of consciousness—without complaining about the hard floor, perhaps because he is used to it.

He only perked up a little when he took Karin out, and listened to Sakuma Jun ask him questions while his eyelids were half open.

“Ah, I’m afraid that Karin will wake up in the middle of the night…” Samuel propped his cheek up, which was about to slip again: “Let her run around more during the day, so she can sleep soundly when she’s tired from playing.”

"She needs to do her homework!" The father firmly stopped her unrestrained play.

"Hmm..." His cheeks lost their support, and his head suddenly drooped, pulling on his neck, which actually brought him back to his senses: "Anyway, I just need to find something that can calm my nerves."

The elderly father, who had no medical knowledge, was bewildered: "Antidote? Do I need to go to the pharmacy?"

Then Samuel kicked him into the consciousness space.

"Hey!" Jun Sakuma angrily slammed his fist on the floor.

Samuel looked around and picked up a pebble from the path beside the flowerbed.

"If I control it a little, the alien beast's vibration wave shouldn't be detected." As he thought this, he injected a small amount of light energy into the inconspicuous stone.

Several pigeons had already climbed onto Huali. She gently stroked their feathers, afraid that the birds would fly away, but also really wanting to show them off to her father. So she carefully moved closer little by little, raised her arm to show her father: "Want to touch them? They're so soft!"

Samuel glanced at the pigeon, then patted Huali's head. After Huali protested by saying "I won't grow taller," he handed her a smooth, black stone.

The pebble, after being briefly injected with light energy, melted at high temperature, cooled, and then polished instantly, eventually became something similar to polished basalt.

Huali took it and found that it was warm in her hand, and... there was a strange, comforting feeling about it.

“Just found it in the flowerbed,” Samuel said. “Do you like it?”