Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

The man in the yellow hard hat rummaged through his pockets, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then grabbed a lighter. He was about to light it with his thumb when his expression suddenly changed. He put the lighter back in his pocket and then shakily stuffed the cigarettes back into the pack.

"Are you planning to work day and night to finish this?" the host asked him.

[How can this happen day and night?! This is our company building that collapsed! Luckily I was working outside, otherwise someone else would be poaching me now!]

"Beep." Kinoshita Kei changed the channel.

According to reliable sources, the formation of the super typhoon is related to a monster. We can see a black object in the footage; is it a pattern or writing on it? It…

"drop".

The silver giant disappeared along with the typhoon, only to reappear within five minutes. The black smoke from the monster's death all went to him. What's going on? Could this be an ominous sign? Let's find out!

Having practiced divination for many years...

"You really know how to advertise fortune telling." Kinoshita Kei switched the TV back to KCB TV's live broadcast program, which wouldn't take advantage of the chaos to promote charlatans, and turned his gaze to the fellow villager sitting next to him amidst Yoshii Reiko's serious announcement.

This is the third day of the planned special training. His fellow villager's plan is to start training at six o'clock every morning, then give him a set of optical therapy to send him downstairs to eat and work, and continue training when he has free time.

But his fellow villager got up later than him today.

Kinoshita Kei leisurely finished his meal, managed the first wave of customers, and even had time to go out and deliver takeout. When he returned, Aiba Yu was still fast asleep on the low stool in his room. To be honest, this half-leaning against the wall, sitting up to sleep, must have been uncomfortable, and Kinoshita Kei wanted to move him to the bed. He reached out, but his hand passed right through Aiba Yu's shoulder, his fingers poking the wall, making him wince in pain.

“You should wait for him to wake up on his own,” Salty Fish said in a muffled voice. “I smell something… dangerous.”

"what?"

It wasn't until late afternoon, when the aroma of afternoon tea was about to waft from the café, that the "dangerous aura" opened its eyes.

He immediately locked onto Pito, who had transformed into a muscular hero and was flipping through textbooks to study the content developed by Kinoshita Kei, and the Earth Consciousness.

The muscular hero, under his gaze, retreated to the corner, trembling as he held up his textbook, which offered virtually no defense, and let out a weak, listless whimper: "What are you doing? Trying to murder me? Let me tell you, if you kill one of me, there will be thousands more! I'm just one incarnation; even if you take my head, there will be another..."

Aiba Yu reached out and pulled a bag from the hero's clothes—hidden Kinoshita Kei's pea flour cake.

Then, with a cold snort in the dazed look of the salted fish, he tore open the snack packaging bag with a "whoosh".

"I'd rather die than lose my secret snacks!" The muscular man lunged forward to protect the food, but the other man held his head down with one hand.

"boom--!"

The hero's straight nose was pressed firmly against the floor, while his scarred face, weathered by time, was rubbed against the ground.

"What happened, Xiao Jing?" Grandma's voice came from outside the door. She heard a crashing sound inside.

"My wife fell to the ground!" Kinoshita Kei shouted. "It's okay, it's okay, I'll put her back right away!"

When the fellow villager shoved Pito's face into the floor, Kinoshita Kei vaguely saw a wisp of black smoke. He felt that the villager seemed to be holding a grudge, but this was not like his usual personality—and the action was too rough.

Perhaps this is what Pito meant by "danger".

Aiba Yu realized something was wrong with him. He paused, then helped the muscular man, who was on the verge of tears, to his feet. He took out tissues to wipe his snot and tears, and before the man turned back into a cowardly writh on the ground, he said, "'Assimilation' will take some time. Before that, I might be affected by the resentment of ancient creatures..."

Regarding the monsters appearing in the city, we invited paleontologist Dr. Asano to share her thoughts.

This episode of KCB's live coverage seems to have found the key figure: a woman with gentle, curly hair was sitting in Reiko Yoshii's live broadcast room.

The monster's true form is an ancient creature that disappeared hundreds of millions of years ago. I have conducted in-depth research on them. These creatures, which should have appeared in fossils, have now appeared under a mysterious force. I believe they are driven by their "unwillingness" to accept death...

“This is getting more and more mystical,” Kinoshita Kei clicked his tongue. “Do you have nightmares, Pito? Like those nightmares where a bunch of dead fossils crawl out of the ground in the middle of the night and grab your neck, trying to come back to life.”

"I would only have nightmares if I actually brought them back to life."

Aiba Yu shaped the pea flour cake into a paste, and the muscular man shrank his neck: "That's how it is. There's no room for favoritism on the path of evolution. If I took a liking to someone and 'took care' of them a little, you might grow tentacles and be reading books made of leaves in a cave, you know? If any species is allowed to escape the 'death' of natural evolution, it will send more children to hell."

Kinoshita Kei's gaze towards the lazy bum finally changed: "Now I think... you really are like a planet."

Pito glared at him: "The planet owns humans, not the other way around. Even if it becomes a place full of broken rocks, I will still be me."

"Then how come you produced so many geniuses on the Alchemy Star?" Kinoshita Kei muttered. He still harbored resentment towards the hordes of chosen ones above him and deeply doubted the future of his scientific research.

"That's because of external threats!" The muscular man crossed his arms. "If it's an internal reason... like if humanity decides to drop a nuclear bomb and kill itself, I won't stop them."

“Dropping a nuclear bomb would also harm other species,” Aiba Yu threw the empty snack bag into the trash can, looking like he wanted to punch him again, but he pulled his restless right hand back with his left: “You really don’t care?”

“Oh, then throw it away,” Pito stubbornly said. “There will always be strong kids to take over the ecological niche. I said, even if we become stone stars, Earth will still be Earth. Besides, you have no right to say that I’m biased towards humanity, the light of the planet!”

Pito leaned closer, the scar lengthening with each movement of his lips, looking both terrifying and cold: "It's because Aiba Yu is human, that's all that matters, I can understand—but you'd better maintain your current stance and not be so biased as to do anything out of line..."

"Even if I am pleading with you for help, I hope you will not interfere too much with my children's own decisions, and you too! Uranus!"

"If anyone dares to act as a 'judge' who can arbitrarily control fate, I will 'fight back'."

Aiba Yu looked at him intently: "There was once a self-proclaimed 'god' who acted recklessly. I hunted him down in two worlds. You can rest assured about that. The Root Destruction Induced Entity is our common enemy. Humanity's internal problems should be left to humanity to solve."

“That would be best. If they kill themselves, then let them go extinct. Maybe the next generation will be smarter,” Pito said with a grin. “Anyway…anyway, I will remember every single one of the children.”

"The atmospheric composition and temperature were different during the time when those ancient creatures lived, as I have studied in the fossil samples..." Asano Mirai's answer was long, and Yoshii Reiko nodded from time to time while listening attentively.

“I like smart kids,” Pito said. “They will actively seek out the remnants of species that once existed here, so that, besides me, others will remember that my dead kids were once here.”

"I am very happy."

Chapter 58 Transformation Device, Do You Have One?

"I'm not happy!!!"

The muscular man desperately tried to shrink into the corner, but the "devil" wouldn't let him go.

"Demon" is that fat cat with snow-white feet and a snow-white head. It lies on the ground like a domestic pig and is quite old, but it's always more accurate at smelling salted fish. When you pass by, you often see it licking its tongue and pouncing on Pito like a hungry tiger.

A muscular man like him shouldn't be afraid of a cat. He should be like the protagonist of "The Swordsman," exceptionally tolerant of furry things, turning a blind eye. If the fat cat gets too rowdy, he'll grab it by the scruff of its neck and force it to reveal its true feline form.

But after all, a salted fish lives inside.

Pito had nowhere left to hide, so he chose the lesser of two evils and, with a heavy heart, sneaked away like a thief to someone who was fast asleep.

Influenced by the resentment of the ancient creature, Aiba Yu couldn't stand this Earth consciousness no matter what, but at most it would glare at him and snatch his private snacks; it wouldn't stretch out its claws to scratch his face. Pito felt that his place was still the safest.

The muscular man shrunk to the side of the low stool with a "whoosh," his nearly two-meter-tall body curling up into a ball timidly. The old cat followed him, then suddenly braked three meters away from Aiba Yu.

"Meow!" The fat cat bristled, looking like a bucket with a fur collar, and its voice became high-pitched and thin, as if someone was choking it.

It came quickly and left even faster, letting out two startled cries before turning and running out of the house. Pito breathed a sigh of relief.

He moved his hands that were hugging his knees, turned his head, and stared at me with a blank expression.

“I, I’ll… wake you up,” Pito said. “You fell asleep again after training Xiao Jing this morning. If you don’t get up, the training will turn into evening. Um… ah, if you’re really sleepy, I’ll take the test on his self-study book first?”

Yuu Aiba resisted the urge to slam that head to the ground and looked at Kei Kinoshita, who was squatting on the bed with a pouty face.

"What are you doing?"

Kinoshita Kei snapped out of his reverie upon hearing this. Seeing that his fellow countryman had woken up, he rushed over, his posture clearly indicating he wanted to hug his leg and cry: "Fellow countryman, fellow countryman, you're finally awake! Didn't Uranus appear yesterday? I wanted to try and recreate that feeling! But he ignored me! What did I say? 'You little brat, wake up!' I repeated that for almost the entire afternoon. I thought I was using the wrong posture, so I switched to the posture I used when I was hugging the burned guy, perfectly recreating the scene!"

"But he didn't say a word, not even a spark, let alone a firework!" Kinoshita Kei was on the verge of tears: "I just remembered, when other protagonists meet Ultraman for the first time, the other party always gives them a transformation device or something, but when Uranus appeared yesterday, he didn't give me one! He didn't even give me a ball of light to put in a test tube!"

"Either I missed the newbie gift pack, or I'm too bad at the game and he doesn't want to give it to me..." Kinoshita Kei warmly shook his fellow villager's hand: "How did you get the transformation device? Did you have to have a dream or go to some kind of dark room? Do you have any experience with getting into the dark room, fellow villager?"

Aiba Yu was full of questions: "The dark room? The transformation device?... If you're talking about the Medal of the Light Chaser, it was given to me by an Ultra Warrior."

"Give it to me? In person?" Kinoshita Kei grabbed the other person's hand and shoved a copy of "Astronomy Tutorial" into their hands with a "thud": "You mean something like this?"

"More or less," Aiba Yu replied.

“No toy black room? You know, the kind where you get it, find yourself in a small space, and your... what’s-his-name, is floating in front of you. Then you know how to use it: swipe your card, insert coins, open the box, and then you become a giant!” Kinoshita Kei gestured in the air, sometimes grabbing something and stuffing it into his other hand, sometimes grabbing something in the air and swiping it around.

“Or you can open it up and hold it in the air, Ti… ah, anyway, that’s it,” he said, his right hand clenching towards the ceiling as if holding a torch, which would make him look like the Statue of Liberty if he stood up straight. “There’s no tutorial for this toy, no, a transformation tutorial?”

Yu Aiba and Pito, two audience members, looked puzzled.

“Just concentrate and circulate your energy,” Aiba Yu put down the incomprehensible “Astronomy Tutorial” in his hand. “Without the small space you mentioned, you don’t actually need a transformation device.”

"It sounds like 'open the refrigerator door and stuff an elephant in.'"

Kinoshita Kei felt that his future, whether it was a path of scientific research or a path to becoming a giant and saving the world, was bleak:

"To be honest, I've never been able to sense the 'energy' you're talking about. I didn't feel it when Uranus appeared to me either; it just suddenly lit up like a light bulb being switched on."

"Logically, it should be something like 'a warm current flowing from the dantian to the limbs,' and then you should start learning the Small and Large Heavenly Circuits, the third and fourth levels of Battle Qi, and then the Spirit Platform, and so on. But my Uranus... I hope it's not the kind of crazy blade that only shows its face when it's on the verge of death..."

Although Aiba Yu was still confused, he understood what Kinoshita Kei meant: "Unable to sense energy, therefore unable to draw upon Uranus's power?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" Kinoshita nodded vigorously.

“Since Uranus responded to you yesterday, it means that his power is not inoperable. In my perception, the light on your body should be enough to support giant-sized combat, and the fact that you cannot transform so far... may just be missing a ‘key’.”

“Yeah, the key, the transformation device,” Kinoshita Kei shrugged. “He didn’t give it to me.”

“I know what to do,” Aiba Yu stood up, the room’s furnishings disappeared, and the surroundings slowly turned into a snowy wonderland: “You at least have a self-defense mechanism. If you don’t have a ‘key,’ then pick the lock!”

"Pry open what?" Kinoshita Kei felt a chill run through his body, unsure whether it was from the temperature of the area or from a bad premonition. He covered his head with his hands: "Pry open the top of my head?"

Aiba Yu was already in position, and Pito transformed into the Peace Diva once again, her smile both healing and radiant: "Go for it, Kinoshita-kun! I'll keep singing for you!"

"No, no... It's a bit sudden. What are you planning to do? Tell me clearly first, I'm scared!"

“I haven’t used any energy during our training sessions, but now I think that the intrusion of external energy might trigger Uranus’s defense mechanisms. If you pay close attention, you should be able to feel the presence of the light,” Aiba Yu said, as an invisible wave of energy blew out the moment he raised his hand.

Do you expect me to truly experience what it's like to be beaten up by an opponent with buffs?!

Kinoshita Kei opened his mouth as if to say something, but the background music for "Peace Diva" started playing, and what he wanted to say turned into: "Hahahaha! Come on, let's have a fight!"

The lines were quite cool, but Kinoshita Kei had no time to boast about how cool he had spoken. The moment he charged forward to meet the opponent's fist wreathed in silver light, tears streamed down his face.

Chapter 59 Kinoshita Kei, Shining Brightly

Time: Midnight.