Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

"How did I get in? Nakai made it very clear: I used Professor Fukui's connections as a stepping stone. People valued me not because I was professional enough, but simply because I was honest... The team leader put it very well, saying that I gave others opportunities, but what I really understood was that I was honest and didn't have many hidden agendas."

Aiba Yu carefully examined the book in his hand. It was part of the reading list that Professor Fukui had given to Kinoshita Kei. Some of the more obscure books were left at home, and Kinoshita Kei planned to bring them over next time he went out for a break.

“You’re already a genius in other people’s eyes. At least I can’t understand these books.” Aiba Yu held up a book called “High Energy Astrophysics.” He recognized all the words, but when the sentences were put together, he felt like he was reading gibberish. His light particle brain worked very fast, but it was only within the scope of his knowledge. He had never been exposed to Kinoshita Kei’s major before, so of course he couldn’t understand a single word.

"It's just that the early bird catches the worm. When others were children, I used my past experiences to remind myself to read more books," Kinoshita Kei muttered. "If you really count back when it was still Mu Xiajing, I was an average student at an average university. It wasn't as bad as a diploma mill, but it wasn't a 985 or 211 university either... What kind of genius is that? He's just cheating with the soul of an adult."

"You used to study astronomy?"

“Dream on. I used to study software engineering, which was supposed to be a way to make money. But I realized I’d been scammed when I was about to graduate,” Kinoshita Kei’s voice dropped even lower. “The promises our teachers made had absolutely nothing to do with what graduates from schools like ours are made of.”

"So, how did Kinoshita Kei get into his current major? Did he find the answers to copy from somewhere?"

"

"What are you copying? If I had eyes like yours, I might be able to copy too."

"So in this respect, how are you different from others?"

Kinoshita Kei hesitated for a moment, then said, "That's different..."

Aiba Yu continued to press, "Whose work did you steal, or whose memories did you take? You didn't read these books, and you didn't write these notes yourself?"

Kinoshita Kei remained silent.

Aiba Yu is right. Of course, he has worked hard to be able to live a different life than before. But no matter how strong Kinoshita Kei is now, how much praise he has received since childhood, or how honored he is to work with the amazing researchers at the Geo base, in his own heart, he is still that mediocre, green leaf among green leaves, Kinoshita Kei.

Just like some poor kids who suddenly become rich, he can spend money like water, and act like a domineering CEO. If he doesn't like someone, he can easily fire them with a phone call. Bodyguards in suits, sunglasses, and white gloves, and girls rolling cigarettes on their thighs make his status seem unattainable. But in his heart, there will always be a former self, which will always influence him in terms of mentality and behavior.

That part of himself was deeply ingrained, like a ghost that would never dissipate. This had nothing to do with reason; Kinoshita Kei always believed that Kinoshita Yasushi was his essence and origin.

He felt that this was actually a good thing; by always thinking about his own insignificance, he could maintain a very humble attitude and always have something to learn.

“Maybe I have changed a bit, and I’m not so useless anymore,” Kinoshita Kei said. “But that’s only in the way I can cheat. You guys have been talking about ‘Uranus, Uranus’ for so long, and I still don’t know a thing or two. I’ve almost finished Gaia and Agul’s beginner’s tutorials.”

Upon hearing this, Aiba Yu turned around and said, "I haven't materialized into a physical form yet."

Kinoshita Kei suddenly widened his eyes.

"You used to only see shadows."

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Life Finally Targets the Useless One

"...Big brother, big brother, I was wrong."

A new workplace, a new job—it should have been a wonderful day, a new life beginning here. But Kinoshita Kei's hands, his heart, and every hair on his body were trembling.

Reason one: cold, in a physical sense.

After he finished washing up, he looked at the refreshing ecological park outside and prepared to try the cafeteria's heartwarming breakfast, wishing for soy milk and fried dough sticks. Suddenly, his ghostly fellow villager appeared and said, "It's a good habit to get up early. It's still early before work, why not exercise?"

The salted fish poked its head out and raised its short fins: "Yay!"

"No, I got up early just because I'm used to taking care of the café. I want to go back to sleep later..." Kinoshita Kei didn't know that his subconscious nodding had triggered some terrible program. Before he finished speaking, a cold wind swept in, and in the blink of an eye, he was already in the icy world—in the box.

Ah, it's that pirated Meta Realm, a space only a few meters square, too small to even fit a slightly larger Pigmon.

Perhaps still half asleep and his mind foggy, Kinoshita Kei blurted out his thought: "A freezer!"

Thus, he arrived at the second reason for feeling cold: a chill in his heart, in an abstract sense.

When Aiba Yu heard him refer to the pirated Meta Realm, he remained expressionless, but Kinoshita Kei inexplicably felt the place grow even colder.

The salted fish laughed and rolled around on the ground, then froze into an ice sculpture again when the next gust of cold wind blew by.

"Big brother, big brother, I was wrong!" Kinoshita Kei instantly slid to his knees: "I have to go to work later, and you've made me freeze. I can't face my wife in the workshop!"

"Wife?"

"When I saw that telescope, which I had never seen before, I was captivated by its exquisite coating and 'eyes,' and I fell in love with it at first sight! I decided that she would be my new wife!"

“Oh,” Aiba Yu said slowly, each word like an ice dagger stabbing into Kinoshita Kei’s hot little heart: “You couldn’t last more than a few seconds here last time, but you can talk to me for this long now. You’ve improved.”

"It's good to make progress, but you can't bite off more than you can chew. You have to eat one bite at a time. Rome wasn't built in a day. Can you let me out now?" Kinoshita Kei nodded frantically, ice shards falling to the ground with a rustling sound as he did so.

"This shows that the exercise method is effective. Continue to practice like this every day. In addition, I need to determine your physical training time based on your work intensity."

"……What?"

"The physical condition of the human host also affects the performance of the Ultra Warrior. Further on, there is also the training of combat awareness and skills." Aiba Yu glanced at his arms and legs, and Kinoshita Kei saw a hint of disdain in his eyes, especially when his gaze lingered on his own one-piece, tightly knit abdominal muscles.

"Let's focus on physical conditioning first."

"Big brother! Big brother Uranus hasn't woken up yet. Aren't you supposed to be training your mental strength first? Be civilized, be civilized." Kinoshita Kei took two steps back and sidled up next to the salted fish's ice sculpture.

Damn, what comes to mind when you talk about exercise in the Ultraman world?

When climbing a hill, he would get hit by rocks several meters high, slip and fall flat on his face, and then he would have to carry someone on his arm. Since he didn't have any good teammates, he was likely to be asked to carry this burden of a salted fish on his arm.

Or stand in front of the waterfall and you can cleave it in two! This underground base doesn't have a waterfall, but there's a sea outside, an ocean floor, the kind with incredibly high pressure.

Or... a jeep...

The squadron next door does maintenance on the Hercules team's vehicles; perhaps what comes next to us won't be a Jeep, but a Hercules.

The team's hunky guys' happy car.

Kinoshita Kei's thoughts raced through this place where the cold could freeze a person to death, and at the same time, frost began to form on his eyebrows.

Aiba Yu just stood there with her arms crossed, watching him as if silently counting down the days until his small body would freeze into ice crystals.

After confirming that Aiba Yu was unmoved, he suddenly hugged the frozen salted fish: "Save the child, your Uranus is going to be frozen to death by some guy from outside!"

The salted fish was stiff, with only its dead fish eyes moving, turning around through the ice shell.

“@……＃＆＃%！@~” (No pain, no gain! Dad is here to support you in spirit~) Pito said weakly.

Kinoshita Kei found that once he hugged the salted fish, he couldn't let go, not because of true love, but because they were frozen together.

He struggled to turn his neck, which seemed frozen to the bone. Aiba Yu had already walked over, casting a heavy shadow on his face.

The elder brother stretched out his hand, a hand that Kinoshita Kei had seen before. It was the same hand that he used to grab Mezad by the neck and burn him alive.

"No, it shouldn't be like this..." Kinoshita Kei tried to shrink his neck, then everything went black: "I'm just a useless...match..."

……

Kinoshita Kei woke up half an hour later.

Indeed, he got to take a nap as he wished, and the timing was just right, enough for him to finish breakfast and go to the workshop to study.

"This isn't the nap I wanted!!!"

Kinoshita Kei leaped up like a carp, while Aiba Yu was still stretching the stiff fins of a salted fish.

Salty Fish cried, "That's great! Xiao Jing held on much longer than before. I'll be able to see Uranus again soon. I'm very pleased."

"A few more blows and I'd be dead!" Kinoshita Kei exclaimed as he hurriedly put on his shoes while denouncing his fellow villager's misdeeds. "No time, no time! I wanted to enjoy my breakfast at a leisurely pace... Life has finally turned on this honest man like me. Nothing is more ruthless than my fellow villager's knife!"

Then his hand stopped.

The salted fish's tears lingered on its eyeballs, not falling for a long time, about to be dried by the wind.

"King Salted Fish? Pitu? Was that you speaking just now?"

The Salted Fish King immediately burst into tears: "It's me! Waaaaah, my dear Uranus! You can hear your mom and dad now!"

"King Salted Fish, why does your voice echo? Is this some kind of Earth consciousness effect?" Kinoshita Kei asked, somewhat intrigued. "It sounds like thunder."

The salted fish opened its mouth, and a torrent of hot tears soaked the hands of the person holding it. Aiba Yu stared at it for a while, then stuffed the slippery salted fish into Kinoshita Kei's arms.

“It seems to be working very well,” Aiba Yu said. “Let’s keep it this way and hone the light on your body in the domain every day.”

"No, the key is that I didn't feel any light at all... I didn't feel that 'warm current surging in my dantian' thing!"

Meanwhile, the other person had already found a rag to wipe the salt water dry, seemingly ignoring Kinoshita Kei's explanation: "You need to get off work early tonight and rest for a while to build up your physical fitness. The pebble path in the ecological park is nice; you'll enjoy long-distance running."

Chapter Thirty Study

Kinoshita Kei once thought that he had joined a high-end research group, and that every day he would be like the researchers on TV, wearing a white coat and looking serious, doing work that no one could understand in a brightly lit laboratory, with all the papers in English, and using abbreviations with his colleagues when communicating about technical terms.

Ideally, the screen should cover an entire wall, displaying precise 3D graphics of the equipment, with each component clearly labeled. Data observed by these components should be imported into another screen and refreshed in real time. The colors should be sophisticated with low saturation, the background should be dark, and there should be a calm, mechanical alert sound. Any abnormality should trigger a series of preset alarm messages.

Then the researchers would systematically analyze the causes, propose solutions, and send out a short message. The external execution team would then move like a well-powered gear, demonstrating their strategic planning and decisive action from afar. This can be summed up in two words: professionalism.

Nakai Ryoya skillfully and professionally handed him a wrench.

“Data analysis is for later. Let’s familiarize ourselves with the equipment the research group relies on first,” Nakai Ryoya said, twisting his chubby body into the workshop’s makeshift staircase. “Our current main equipment cannot be mass-produced on a large scale, so sometimes we have to screw together components that don’t fit perfectly. The parts are ordered from multiple external manufacturers and then transported here for assembly. The core components are produced by ourselves. Um… the factory location is confidential, so you don’t need to be curious.”

Kinoshita Kei raised his hands in surrender: "I understand, I understand. The more you know, the faster you'll cool down."

"Haha, I don't know the location of that factory either. Anyway, if we have any requirements, we just need to report the data to the general affairs department of the base, and they will make the contact."

Ryoya Nakai led Kei Kinoshita to the second floor, where there were solar panels around the telescope, one of which was set up right where they were standing.

"Is this intended to be transported into outer space for observation?" Kinoshita Kei asked.

“We have two models. One is for ground-based observation, which is currently located in the Andes Mountains. The other is this one, which will be sent into geostationary orbit once the testing is confirmed.” Nakai Ryoya looked at it as if it were his own beloved child: “If ‘human unity’ is my greatest dream, then sending it into space and building more arrays on the ground is my ideal.”

"Dreams and...ideals?" Kinoshita Kei noticed Nakai Ryoya.

Two different words were used.

The latter opened the manual, found the page number related to solar panels, and handed it to Kinoshita Kei so that he could study it.

“I agree with what Team Leader Fukui said,” said Ryoya Nakai. “An ideal is a wish that you might be able to achieve with some effort; a dream is a wish that is slim but you hope it will become a reality.”

Kinoshita Kei remembered what he had said to him yesterday, and the crunching sound of the mints being chewed. He thought for a moment and comforted him, "At least we are making progress. Look, so many people are working at the base, from all over the world. Yesterday I saw a black guy and a white guy playing cards in the cafeteria. When I asked them, I found out that one of them was from Burkina Faso and the other was from Iceland. They reached a consensus on shark meat, both of them thought it was really stinky. Even if it's a traditional snack, they would say it's stinky."