Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

After she finished reading, Kinoshita Kei said, "We have property insurance, don't worry." Then she took the initiative to ask about the coffee shop—even though it had only been less than two days.

With someone guiding her, Kinoshita Maho, like a teapot finding its opening, began to pour out her thoughts: "Mieko is very diligent. She's a bit busy at night, but no customers complain. At noon, a customer cried, and when we asked, we found out that a friend had been killed by a monster. They like to come to our café to rest and chat on weekends. And... Hitomi said goodbye to us today."

"Onodera?" Kinoshita Kei's heart sank at what she had just said. Upon hearing the second half of the sentence, she quickly replied, "She's leaving? Hmm... Tokyo is indeed not safe. Moving to another place is not bad. Grandma, would you like to move to the countryside as well?"

"What are you saying? This is a coffee shop opened specifically for your grandfather. What will he do if I close it and he can't find it?" Kinoshita Maho scolded him gently, "Hitomi came to the coffee shop today..."

The coffee shop said goodbye to us, leaving Snowtop with lots of toys, cat food, and treats. We're going to lose one of our regular customers again.

"She's just moving out. We're here. If she comes back occasionally, she'll come over for another drink sooner or later."

“That’s true,” came the sound of pages closing on the other end of the line from Maho Kinoshita’s side, as if she had clipped the receipt and was about to call it a day. “Honestly, don’t you have anything else to say?”

"what?"

"Regarding what you said about the female pen pal, she casually asked about it before she left."

Kinoshita Kei never expected that Onodera Hitomi would remember his rambling. Back then, he only wanted to test whether she was the same Onodera Hitomi who wrote to Uranus, so he made up an excuse like, "I have a pen pal who is a woman, and I don't know how to talk to women, so I'm asking you how to talk to them," to continue the topic of "whether you write letters or not." Didn't he manage to fool her back then? Did Onodera Hitomi really take it to heart?

Only Kinoshita Maho's breathing could be heard on the other end of the microphone; she was waiting for Kinoshita Kei's reply.

Kinoshita Kei stammered for a while: "That female pen pal... I only found out later that he was a man." At the time, he was telling his fellow townsman about the pen pal information he had made up, saying that it was not wrong to find out now that he was a man.

A laugh came from the other end: "What can I say to you? Never mind, the old lady has nothing to do with your business."

“Oh,” Kinoshita Kei replied, “Then I’ll hang up? Grandma, if you miss me, just call me, I won’t bother you.”

I didn't miss you.

Kinoshita Kei, as obedient as a rabbit reduced to bone fragments, said: "Yes, Grandma is right."

……

Yushima Cathedral.

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Located in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo, a girl with her hair in a loose braid held a map and checked it several times before stepping through the door.

"Hmm... Yushima Cathedral, Tokyo Confucius Temple, a sacred place for praying for academic success, this is the last stop!" Hitomi Onodera adjusted her glasses, folded the map and put it in her bag, muttering to herself, "This really is the last place. After this, I'll go back to pack my things and get on the train."

Then she took out the map again and flipped through the areas that weren't circled yet: "I should have spent more of my coffee time traveling. I feel like I missed out on Ueno Park and Kabukicho!"

Noticing the guard's urging her not to block the entrance, she hurriedly stuffed the map back in and walked into Yanggao Gate.

There were special exam pencils for sale outside. According to the shopkeepers, these pencils were "blessed with good fortune and can soothe the mind and help with performance." Many parents dragged their children to line up and pay for them.

“But we don’t use pens for exams, do we?” Hitomi Onodera replied to the shopkeeper, drawing several strange looks once again.

Walking along the Chinese-style building, except for the blackened pillars, and passing through the Rude Gate and Xingde Gate, you soon arrive at the main hall, which is inscribed with "Dacheng Hall".

Hitomi Onodera looked around and then, imitating the others, clasped her hands in prayer.

"I'm praying for academic success... I graduated so many years ago and I don't know what to pray for anymore. I'll just wish good luck to everyone else who's taking exams," she whispered. When she noticed that the others seemed to make their wishes silently, she stopped too and thought to herself, "I'm leaving soon. The machine's been running for too long and they might find out. Their technology is so advanced. We don't have a bunch of geniuses who cheat the rules. Next stop... Europe! The farther away the better."

"May I pray for a smooth journey? I don't know if it will make a difference if I say it here, but I wish Lord Uranus a safe journey."

As he was leaving, people were coming and going. He was looking around when a man with a goatee leaned up and whispered, "Look at this. It's a ema (votive plaque) made of the finest wood, blessed by a master. Doesn't it feel exceptionally smooth to the touch? It's been meticulously crafted!"

Hitomi Onodera, confused, asked, "Does it mean it's very effective?"

The man with the goatee nodded repeatedly, drawing out his voice: "Of course! If it doesn't work, come find me, and I'll compensate you!"

Onodera Hitomi took the ema and thought it felt quite nice. Not really understanding the intricacies of it, she was about to reach for her wallet when a security guard suddenly appeared and shouted, "It's you again, you liar! Young lady, you didn't buy anything from him, did you? You liar! Get out of here!"

With his goatee and slippery feet, Onodera Hitomi stared blankly as he scurried out the door like a mouse seeing a cat, clutching the ema (votive plaque). It took her a while to finally lift it up: "Hey! You don't want your stuff anymore?"

The security guard laughed at her: "Come on, those are fakes. He has at least a hundred in his bag, each one a 'treasure' blessed by a master. If you really want one, just ask for a fortune slip."

Onodera Hitomi thanked them and followed the crowd to queue up for the fortune-telling. She didn't control her strength well and a lot of fortunes fell out, so she put them back and shook them again.

The girl closed her eyes and silently recited the wish she had just made. Right in front of her, a...

A man wearing a patterned haori hakama is holding a folding fan and staring at the fortune-telling container in her hand.

Despite wearing a formal suit, he showed no awareness of its importance. His haori hung casually on his body, the sleeves drooping, and the sash loosely tied, making the suit look carefree and dissolute. His long, dark blue hair was loosely draped over his shoulders, only tied at the end with a ribbon. Only his eyes, like the rippling waves of a spring mountain, were serious, revealing a hint of earnestness.

Strangely, it seemed that no one noticed him, including Hitomi Onodera, who was right in front of him.

“You’ve made a troublesome wish,” the folding fan tapped in the palm of the hand, then stopped abruptly, indicating that its owner had made a decision: “Fine, anything outside the scope of business is not permitted.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a wish slip fell to the ground, and the man's serious eyes suddenly relaxed, blending in with his overall demeanor.

Hitomi Onodera crouched down, eagerly flipping the fortune slip over, but a chill ran through her as she read the words on it; a thunderbolt seemed to strike her ears:

"Aaaaaaah, this is terrible luck!!!"

The man remained unmoved by the girl's shouts, continuing to tap his folding fan and wait for the next person to draw lots.

The master in charge of the divination sticks sat in the center, with a kind and benevolent face. The true master of Tangdao Temple stood beside him. If he didn't want to stand anymore, he would go and sit on the incense table, crossing one leg and casually "listening" to people's wishes.

When Onodera Hitomi returned from interpreting her fortune slip, she looked dejected. She had wished for Lord Uranus's safety, but her hand had trembled, and she'd drawn a terrible one. She felt incredibly uneasy about it. She found a kind security guard standing by the temple and whispered, "What should I do if I drew a bad fortune slip?"

The security guard pointed to a white wooden frame and said, "Just tie the fortune slip to it, and Guanyin will bless you."

The man turned his gaze to Onodera Hitomi, who was running to tie a fortune slip: "There's no Guanyin here."

Before him, the next person to shake their fortune slip had already begun silently reciting their wish: "First in the grade! First in the grade!"

The man looked away, sized him up for a moment, and scoffed, "Study for half a day and play for three days, dreaming of guessing all the multiple-choice questions right? I'm not taking this one."

A wish slip was issued in response.

The student flipped the slip over, his tense, sweaty face turning deathly pale: "Very bad, oh no..."

Chapter 75 The Out-of-Control Bats

With a nervous heart, Hitomi Onodera left home, deciding not to blindly draw fortune slips and to hurry back to pack her things and leave.

The fortune slip might be saying that this trip is going to be very unlucky.

Halfway there, she received a call from a telecommunications company demanding payment for an unpaid bill. "Okay, I know. I'll stop using this number soon and pay it off before I change it," she said, hanging up the phone somewhat irritably. After all, it was the last stop before her farewell, and she had drawn a very bad fortune stick, only to receive a call from a debt collector. No one would be in a good mood.

"Ring ring—" The phone rang again.

"Hello? I just said I would..."

The number you dialed is not in service.

Hitomi Onodera inexplicably put the phone back: "I answered the phone, not the other way around. Did the line get crossed?"

She continued walking. Today was just too unlucky. She decided to change her plans and leave earlier. When she looked up, she found that the sky had suddenly darkened, but the crowd seemed oblivious to the change and continued to flow slowly down the street as if nothing had happened.

Hitomi Onodera stood stunned in the middle of the crowd, like a stone standing in a river, the water flowing past her but not into her.

Firefly-like golden specks of light descended from the sky. When she saw them, she felt a moment of disorientation; the scenery before her blurred and then cleared again. Everyone who passed by was a passerby, even she herself was a passerby in this world.

The dizziness came on quickly and disappeared just as fast. Onodera Hitomi regained her senses in the next moment, as if what had just happened was a hallucination.

"What?" The sounds of the world returned, and she could hear the clamor of the crowd again. The sun was high in the sky, and the daylight was bright. "Let's hurry up and go."

……

M91 Nebula.

After solidifying the space of the Gobu Hatchery, Aiba Yu pushed aside the juveniles that were jumping on his head and planned to go to the nest of Bats on the other side of the planet to deal with their passage.

It is daytime here in Gob, but it should be nighttime in the settlement of Bazis.

Aiba Yu looked up at the stars whose brilliance was obscured by the sun. There were three suns: blue, white, and red. From the line connecting the white and red suns, down to near the horizon, a familiar star was shining regularly.

Kinoshita Kei had explained to him that its name was Delta Cepheus, also known as Cepheus I. Although it appeared incredibly dim in the M91 nebula, it was so unique that Aiba Yu used it as a reference point and observed it closely. It was likely a star in the late stages of its evolution, its light flickering with a stable cycle.

When the outer temperature rises, gas is ionized, the outer shell becomes opaque, photons are obstructed from passing through, and internal pressure increases. At this time, the star's brightness decreases, and the star expands from small to large. After expanding, the outer temperature gradually decreases. When it reaches a critical point, the gas is no longer ionized, and it becomes transparent again. The light and heat inside burst out all at once, the star's brightness increases, but its volume begins to shrink again. When it collapses to a critical point, the star's brightness reaches its peak, and the temperature rises again to ionize the gas, thus repeating the previous phenomenon. This is the first type of Cepheid variable star.

Now, looking up at the familiar stars, although their positions have changed and the distance in light-years has altered, making their appearance slightly different, the cycle of change never lies, and he immediately realized:

This is the same one!

So, could the portal opened by the Root Destruction Entity be located within the same universe?

If that's the case, then the intensity of the turbulence he felt in the passage can be explained—compared to the spatial turbulence that traverses the universe, what he encountered this time was really nothing. Even with two huge monsters, he only had his energy depleted and some minor injuries. But when he traversed the universe, he almost burned half his life!

It seems he could fly directly back to verify his guess, instead of tearing open the passage on Bats' side, solidifying it, and then trying his luck to find his way back to Earth from there!

“I’m leaving,” he said, looking down at the Gob larvae he had nudged back to the ground. “If anyone takes you to Earth again, don’t be afraid, I will find you.”

"Ouch? Huff!" The juvenile probably didn't understand his words, and opened its disproportionately large mouth to bite into his trouser leg and grind its teeth.

Aiba Yu felt a headache coming on. He turned to look at the seventy-meter-tall white Gobu, who finally showed his big brother posture among the juveniles and nodded to him.

For some reason, Aiba Yu thought of the phrase "great comfort in old age".

White Gob bent down, trying to bring his nose close to him, but the size difference was too great, and Gob didn't have the flexibility to bend down. Aiba Yu chuckled, a flash of light appeared, Samuel patted Gob's head, turned and flew into the sky.

They flew from the midday sun overhead to the twilight glow, traversing the twilight zone, until they reached the star-studded settlement of the Bats.

This planet is much larger than Earth, which makes sense, otherwise how could it accommodate two monster clans living together peacefully without interfering with each other? There are other species in between, but at the top of the food chain are Gob and Bats, that's for sure.