Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Once inside the house, the concept of "bare walls" immediately came to mind.

Bao Lucao chuckled dryly, "The furniture was all mortgaged and auctioned off by the previous owner. What they actually bought was this land. The original plan was to demolish it and rebuild it before I got old and moved back here..."

Runping said quietly, "Land is more expensive than houses."

"The murder and burial were supposedly done by pouring concrete into the foundation, so it was actually hollowed out and then filled in."

Qi Xia suddenly got goosebumps all over her body, wondering if she should hop around to reduce the chance of stepping on something she shouldn't have.

"As long as it's a place to live, don't be so picky," the room was spacious, and Bao Lucao's voice echoed, which only added to the eerie atmosphere. "After tidying up these few days, this will be our base. Mr. Genlai, you should try to go out as little as possible. Leave the shopping to us. If the organization that is searching for you finds this place, we will have to move again."

Genrai Shinzo nodded, accepting the fact that he had to stay home and avoid the limelight.

“I need to send a notice to the newspaper staff that I, uh, am going to do a large-scale industry interview,” Genra Jinzang immediately thought of the finishing touches: “Let the deputy editor-in-chief take over my duties for now, so as not to implicate them.”

"Then the blocked news... was still disguised as a submission to the 'Fantasy Story' section, and sent directly to the newspaper under the guise of me 'admiring a story writer'!" Genra Jinzang adopted a do-or-die attitude: "This way, my employees are not involved, and if they want to investigate, they can only investigate me."

“Then let’s set up the ‘base’ first.” Bao Lucao leaned against the wall and put down his backpack. The thick dust was immediately stirred up by the movement, and he waved his hand repeatedly, making his nose itch.

Then he began to worry about the empty house: "It will take a few days to get things done. After shooting the spring fashion show, I still need to find some work. My savings will run out sooner or later."

Qi Xia was already planning the cleaning: "Don't just stand there, put down the equipment and hurry up and buy a broom or something, otherwise you won't have anywhere to sleep tonight."

……

Meanwhile, at Jun Sakuma's home.

Huali quietly opened the door again, revealing the unfinished homework spread out on the small table behind her.

She felt that Uncle Himeya was acting strangely after he came back.

Dad never likes to keep the curtains drawn, because it makes the room dark. But yesterday, when she was catching moths and feeding mantises behind the house, she saw that the curtains in Sakuma Jun's room and guest room were drawn tightly shut, and she couldn't see anything inside.

Karin instantly thought of a million terrible things. Her father always lied about working overtime but actually went to an izakaya. Could he be gambling at home now?

Drinking and gambling—books often conflate these two terms when describing people as decadent.

...Could it be that Uncle Himeya is his gambling buddy?

Then, her wandering mind recalled the white figure she had seen that day, which resembled an "elf lady." Her father had even scared her by saying that a witch was brewing a magic potion.

Following the book's formula of "seemingly frightening nonsense that is actually the truth," could it be... that there really is a bubbling potion cauldron inside, with a long-handled spoon stirring it day and night?!

She tiptoed out and confirmed that Jun Sakuma was struggling with ingredients in the kitchen, while Uncle Jun Himeya was on the balcony watching the sunset with his ever-present white dagger-like toy.

"Squeak-"

The guest room door was quietly opened a crack.

"Karin, don't barge into guests' rooms!" Sakuma Jun reacted with extraordinary speed, his figure flashing into the kitchen doorway with a spatula in hand.

The line stretched across the living room, staring at her daughter who was clinging to the guest room door.

Huali was so startled by his shout that she lost her grip on the doorknob. Instead of trying to pry open the door, she slammed it shut, tripping on the low threshold with her right foot. The door swung open, and she collapsed with a "plop," half hanging on the door and half dragging at the entrance like a pancake.

"Where's the witch's pot?!"

The guest room was very clean, the bedding was specially folded, and even the desk was spotless, completely different from the slovenly gambling den or witch's lair I had imagined.

Karin rubbed her sore knee, her head darting around and her eyes scanning the surroundings.

The life-sized "stone sculpture" seemed to hide itself, and Jun Sakuma breathed a sigh of relief, but then immediately became anxious again!

Samuel!

What are you doing?!

The little silver figure, who was resting and recuperating in its new home, heard the noise, passed through the wall, and happened to see Huali turning its head back and forth.

"Huh?" Karin looked up at the ceiling.

Samuel circled behind her head, wondering what kind of crazy outburst this curious little girl had come up with this time.

"Ugh..." Karin suddenly turned around!

Jun Sakuma opened his mouth silently, stretching his neck out as far as it could go.

The little silver figure had moved behind her again, and was now looking at her strangely with its arms crossed.

"Even the fairy lady isn't here..." Karin said disappointedly, shaking her hand.

The little light-hearted man remained directly behind her and gave a thumbs-up to the human host who had almost suffered a cardiac arrest from fright.

"Don't worry, I react quickly," Samuel said confidently.

Huali left the house looking dejected, and Samuel watched her go.

The moment she stepped out the door, the little girl whirled around! She dared to say that this was her fastest turning speed, to the point that she almost lost her balance and bumped into the door again.

But the room before her was still simple, with the curtains drawn and the dull, old-fashioned table and chairs sitting in their original places. She couldn't see even half of the "elf lady's" wings.

Jun Sakuma had already come up, carrying a spatula in one hand and Karin in the other: "Stop reading your storybooks and review what you learned in class!"

On the balcony, Jun Himeya, who had been silently watching the commotion, breathed a sigh of relief.

The Evolution Truster lay in his arms, which had occasionally flickered before, but now looked like a real, unpowered toy.

Samuel peeked half his head out from behind the door and watched as Jun Sakuma, sweating profusely, shoved Karin into his room to do her homework.

"Om-"

Stone Wing reappeared. Originally lying casually between the bed and the desk, it has now turned around and stood upright against the wall. If Jun Sakuma were willing to add a base to it, it could become a true "stone sculpture artwork".

Jun Sakuma turned around and met the gaze of his guest, each seeing a strange sense of crisis in the other's eyes.

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Root of Distortion

If Karin's intense curiosity was the source of trouble, then for Jun Sakuma, the obsessive-compulsive tendencies of the conservative upper echelons of TLT were the more profound root of trouble.

"Huh? Interrogating a mentally ill person?"

Because of the attack on Arakunai, some survivors developed mental problems, but they were direct witnesses to the Ultra Warriors and Alien Beasts, and some people in TLT hoped to get some information out of them—especially about Shinya Mizoroki.

They adhered to the spirit of making the most of every little detail, unwilling to miss even a single description, for fear of missing important information.

"What could those workers possibly know?" Jun Sakuma stared at the task list, hoping to glean something from it, or perhaps he was just seeing things.

Hiroki Misawa said, “Anyway, they’re going to ask. Just keep writing down everything you write down and bring it to me for filing.”

"Most of it is redundant data," he added, sighing deeply at the ever-growing mountain of archives.

Jun Sakuma circled the tasks he needed to do as a marker, then put the task list away in a folder: "It's more about form than substance."

“They like it,” Hiroyuki Misawa slammed his hand on the file, then immediately picked up his palm to check if the paper was damaged. His voice grew increasingly dissatisfied, perhaps because he had been buried under a pile of pointless work and had nowhere to vent his anger: “You say we are a secret agency protecting the people, or a corrupt bureaucracy?”

Jun Sakuma stopped tidying up and turned to look at him.

With the workstation partition blocking his view, he couldn't see Hiroyuki Misawa's expression, but his tone was clearly not pleasant. Shintaro Hirata next to him had already lowered his breathing and deliberately suppressed even the movement of flipping through documents, probably startled by his sudden words.

Hiroyuki Misawa started by saying, and then the rest of his words flowed out: "Many things don't actually need to be done so absolutely, but they just don't want to take any risks, calling it 'protecting lives,' but do they destroy more or protect more? Do you know how many people in these files are on the verge of having their memories erased?"

He looked up, and Jun Sakuma could finally see the burning anger in his eyes: "In Shinjuku alone, 34 people have reached the red line of having their memories erased 6 times. We have to find all sorts of reasons to send them to the hospital for close observation! But what are those records that caused their memories to be erased?"

“Saw an unidentified dark figure, possibly near the cordon area… He might have even forgotten about those things himself, but our operational procedures have inexplicably included them, who are within the warning range, as mission targets,” Hiroyuki Misawa pushed the file in front of him forward:

"This is just Shinjuku; Tokyo has 23 such wards! Tokyo is only part of the Third Base's jurisdiction!"

“We know it’s wrong, but we can’t refuse what our superiors order. Ruisheng has to apologize to every target he deals with. Can apologies restore their damaged brain cells?”

Hiroyuki Misawa's voice echoed in the office, and his colleagues watched him vent his anger in silence.

What he said is true; some of the practices of TLT Japan can no longer be explained by the reason of "protection".

Just as Jun Sakuma had discovered before, the higher-ups were more afraid of the alien beasts than anyone else. They were all bark and no bite, hiding themselves in the shell of a powerful executive body. Any move by the alien beasts would trigger a frightened counterattack.

Sakuma Junkei Himeya Junkei was enlightened and thought of the approach of "slowly releasing information" to let the public accept the existence of the alien beasts. The best way to deal with fear is to face it. Would TLT not have thought of this?

They could certainly think of it, but the higher-ups dared not, because no one could bear the risk of total failure.

Therefore, blocking and isolating all information became the simplest approach. As for the potential consequences for some people, such as "brain damage caused by repeated memory manipulation," this became an unavoidable "sacrifice."

These sacrifices may seem insignificant on a large scale, but for an individual, they represent a lifetime.

If people are to be sacrificed, at least the follow-up support should be provided, right? At least those who suffer work-related injuries receive compensation, but the nature of TLT's work means they have no grounds to directly provide compensation to those who have suffered brain injuries.

But are those politicians who are good at twisting and turning a matter into a series of convoluted schemes really helpless?

If they wanted to do it, they could take a more comprehensive approach: for example, establishing a donation fund specifically for people with brain injuries. However, this would be too costly in terms of human and financial resources, so due to concerns about expenses and the extent of the damage, higher-ups did not include this protection work on their agenda.

What Hiroyuki Misawa didn't know was that Jun Sakuma didn't find any information about rehabilitation research for people with brain injuries in the project overview of the biological research department. In other words, this part of the research was given to ordinary hospitals on the periphery by TLT, and they might be treated as patients with early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what TLT has done.

The biological research institute has many specimens of alien beasts, as well as many specimens of alien beast infected individuals.

Most of the infected individuals are registered as accidental disappearances, and their relatives have their memories erased, so they naturally do not know what happened to their loved ones. The research institute does not need to worry about ethical issues at all, which will inevitably lead to some inappropriate and bottom-line-breaking research.

Are you saying these researchers are doing something wrong? They are indeed contributing to the eradication of the alien beasts.

However, they are also conducting unnecessary and inhumane experiments. There are no laws in the industry to restrain them because the industry is completely unaware of the existence of the alien beasts. Will they restrain themselves? In addition, it is hard to say whether certain forces are behind the scenes instructing them, with a strong intention to compete.

Those working at TLT are well aware of these things.

To put it bluntly, TLT is a violent organization independent of laws and regulations. Naturally, the countries that fund and support TLT will not let a violent organization with alien technology go unregulated. Therefore, while various departments of TLT are nominally TLT, the key departments are more willing to be at the behest of the countries they are located in.

For example, the technical department of the Japanese branch actually has a military background, and the relationship between TLT-J's upper management and them is more of a cooperative one than a superior-subordinate one.

This disconnect between departments within the organization meant that TLT's top management focused more on strategic maneuvering, leaving little time to investigate minor sacrifices. To keep the organization running and maintain its fighting capacity against the alien beasts, the actions taken at the grassroots level inevitably became simplistic and brutal.