Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Chapter 82 The Ashes of the Sun

The Lightning team members reported the erroneous instructions given by operator Atsuko Sasaki, who received an order to go home and rest amidst the silence of those around her.

"I just wanted you to relax. The monsters have been appearing too frequently lately, you're just a little tired," Georgie comforted her softly, handing her a piece of chewing gum. "Come back when you're fully rested!"

Atsuko Sasaki lowered her head and quietly put away the chewing gum.

She herself was actually a little apprehensive. The illusions she saw during the mission were just like the real thing, and at the time she didn't feel anything unusual. It was as if she really thought that one second she was doing her job as an operator and the next second she was at an amusement park, meeting a girl dressed in gothic attire in front of a carousel... It was all perfectly normal.

It's obvious how absurd it is! And yet, I didn't realize anything was wrong at the time. I just thought that seeing that amusement park at the Ariel base was as normal as a person needing to breathe or eat.

Sasaki Atsuko accepted the assessment that "you need to rest," and stepped onto the Dove-Linner, which was leaving the base. "Why are you alone again?" a voice said in her mind.

……

Unlike XIG, which can give its employees time off, Lizard at the Geo base is in a state of tension. In an atmosphere where everyone is on edge, let alone taking a vacation, even Kinoshita Kei feels that it would be a sin to slack off.

The man in black was very eager to learn. Although he kept asking subtle questions that Kinoshita Kei considered as simple as "1+1=2", the group managed to roughly determine the most concentrated area based on the radio wave surveillance footage sent by Georgie.

"This place looks so familiar..." Kinoshita Kei stared blankly at the apartment building he had visited several times before.

It was an old building, located near the commercial street, although

The environment wasn't great, but because it was in the city center, the rent used to skyrocket. However, since the commercial street was desertified by Mezad and vanished in an instant, the rent of this building has returned to its proper level—even lower than the average, because the area just across the street was once haunted by monsters and was considered an ominous place by many.

The area is also not very safe. As one of the cafe's employees, Michiko, put it, "There are always thugs fighting at night."

When they got downstairs, they found a group of people already there, who seemed to have just come out. Judging from their attire, they were definitely Lizard's own people.

"What are you doing here? Weren't you on the bridge with Commander Yorinamura, helping XIG find the werewolves?" The man in black asked before Kinoshita Kei could.

The leader of the group replied, "It's the same unusual message we detected last time. We've found it again! Commander Rainuma ordered us to search. I'd like to ask you why you're here."

The two Lizard team leaders were talking back and forth. Kinoshita Kei stared at the old apartment building, then at the closed car door, and suddenly had a bad feeling.

"You're with a researcher?" The person in charge on the other end looked at Kinoshita Kei in the direction of the man in black, and grinned, "That's perfect. Help us look at some unfamiliar equipment. We arrested a suspicious person, and we need you to confirm what she's fiddling with. We dare not move it now, for fear of damaging an important research target."

"Arrest?" Kinoshita Kei's throat was a little dry.

"It's the sender of the abnormal signal. It appears when the monster appears and disappears when the monster disappears. When it spreads, it's a strange signal that seems to have crashed into another dimension," the man led Kinoshita Kei into the apartment building. "We suspect that this signal is related to the monster, and some people speculate that the person who sent these signals is releasing the monster—we did catch a rather abnormal person."

"Ding—" The elevator doors opened, and a yellowish light shone inside. Kinoshita Kei followed behind a group of men in black. The crowd blocked the light, making him feel as if he were back in the middle of the night many days ago.

That day, he rode his electric scooter with a girl who said she wanted to celebrate her friend's birthday and holiday. He safely put her in the elevator, while outside, some thugs were squatting under a streetlamp smoking.

The girl suddenly said "Happy Holidays" to him and handed him a cardboard lantern before the elevator doors closed. Kinoshita Kei still doesn't know what to do with the lantern. It looks a bit ugly when unfolded and hung up, and it gets dusty in the corner, but it was a gift from someone else after all.

Grandma said she said goodbye to the people at the coffee shop, so she should have moved away by now, right?

"The equipment is made of a rather special material. We only did a simple scan of the outer shell, and it contains an alloy that is not recorded in the database." The person in the lead pressed the 11th floor.

"Does she live on the 11th floor?" Kinoshita Kei followed her inside, staring blankly at the lit button.

The man in black didn't notice anything unusual about him, assuming he was thinking about the information he had given him. He continued, "We saw some antenna-like devices. The signal should be coming from there. The content is undecipherable and may require experts from the information department to interpret it."

The elevator arrived quickly, and the men in black filed out. Kinoshita Kei followed them out, and after turning a corner, they saw a door that had already been opened.

White, empty, doesn't look like anyone lives there.

This was Kinoshita Kei's first thought, and he felt a little excited: "It looks like no one lives here, that's good, at least she's not here."

But as soon as he stepped inside, he felt as if a heavy hammer had struck his chest, and he felt as if he had been suddenly sunk hundreds of meters into the sea, the cold water and pressure making it impossible for him to breathe.

Those ugly, out-of-season lanterns.

Starting from the balcony door, the wall was stretched across the space, taped with transparent tape, and hung in the dining area. The white wall was edged with red, and there were still some balloons that hadn't completely deflated in the corner.

There was only one set of bowls and chopsticks, very few shoes, and a clean but small sofa; its owner didn't seem to know how to enjoy life.

There was a kitchen, but no pots, pans, microwaves, ovens, or anything like that. The only things in the trash can were some plastic packaging, with one package stubbornly sticking out and the words "self-heating" sticking out.

There was a water glass and a kettle on the low table, and a half-eaten compressed biscuit was lying next to it.

"She won't keep eating what she hasn't finished, will she? It'll spoil easily if it gets damp," Kinoshita Kei even had time to think about random things. "She's a bit sloppy, isn't she?"

His attention was almost entirely focused on that compressed biscuit.

How did Hitomi Onodera celebrate the holiday with her "friend" that night?

She went home clutching a plastic bag stuffed with self-heating dry food and compressed biscuits, and opened the cardboard lanterns one by one according to the instructions. She seemed to not understand these things very well; perhaps it took her some time to unfold the lanterns and assemble the tassels.

Then she blew up some balloons to create an atmosphere. There was no air pump in the room, so she probably blew them up with her cheeks puffed out, until she was almost out of breath.

Next came the candles. He saw some unused candles under the low table, small and round. Boys would buy these candles to make a heart shape in front of the girls' dormitory when they confessed their love. The colors she bought were wrong; they were all white candles, which are used to commemorate the deceased and for birthdays and holidays... If her "friend" found out, he would roll his eyes to the heavens.

She probably got hungry halfway through, so she opened a pack of compressed biscuits and started eating them. Those things were like hard bricks, and you could really use them as bricks if you held them in your hand. But what was she saying in the coffee shop at that time?

taste

not bad?

Could they have fled here due to famine...?

Kinoshita Kei's gaze wandered around the room. The man in black led him to the equipment they dared not move, and Kinoshita Kei then went across the living room to the bedroom.

Compared to the empty living room, the bedroom felt more like someone lived there. The bed sheet was light blue with a sea and cloud pattern underneath, and the lamp was crescent-shaped with some star decorations hanging down. The wardrobe was open, and inside were a row of thin sweaters and cardigans, as well as some light, flowing skirts.

The drawer was also open, and Lizard had searched it carefully. Inside were some hair ties and plush decorations, probably for wearing on the head; Kinoshita Kei didn't know much about girls' accessories. There were two pairs of glasses next to it.

"She should prepare more glasses; she loses them all the time," he thought.

There's a...doll lying next to my pillow? Kinoshita Kei saw a strangely shaped doll.

The thread ends were sticking out, and the stitching technique was breathtaking, probably at the level of "just enough to sew it up." The doll probably had a face, with yellow fabric cut into oval eyes, and the fabric on its face was surprisingly silver-gray, making it look like an iron pillar with two car headlights tied to it.

Below the two headlights is a non-existent neck, and then there's the body. The left and right hands are also different lengths, seemingly due to not being stretched flat during sewing. The pointed piece of fabric on the left hand is twisted into a clump, while the fabric on the right hand is barely closed up, with cotton stuffed inside, thankfully not falling out.

chest...

Blue, round fabric clung to the body of the chibi doll, with a circle of silver-gray thread stitched around it in a wrinkled manner.

She didn't know how to draw with thread, so she cut out a rectangular piece of cloth, pasted it small onto the side of the doll, and wrote fine strokes with a pen:

Uranus.

Chapter 83 First Meeting

While Lizard was confirming his "harvest," Takayama Gamu and the others found the escaped werewolf once again.

It wasn't really a matter of "finding" it; there was no need to search for it at all. It seemed to have no intention of hiding or evading capture, and was currently perched atop a tall building, howling at the moon like a true werewolf.

When Takayama Gamu, Kitada Yasushi of the Inazuma Team, and Okawa Genji reached the top of the building, they were panting heavily. After the werewolf finished howling, he looked back at the sticky, chewy thing and bared his sharp teeth again.

The group was already bad at shooting, and after exhausting their strength, their arms trembled even more. Okawa Genji simply abandoned his gun and went straight into melee combat. Kitada Yasushi didn't know where he got the courage to fight a werewolf who was a head taller than him, but he couldn't leave his teammates to charge in while he stayed on the sidelines, so he also roared and followed.

Gao Shan Gamu paused for half a second before deciding to continue aiming his gun. However, with his two teammates swaying left and right, he felt that firing his gun might hit one of their own. After a brief moment of thought, he also ran towards the werewolf—it was a relatively normal-sized creature, not one of those monsters that was five or six meters tall and could slap a person with one hand. Surely the three of them could outmuscle it, right?

The werewolf preferred linear thinking and acted swiftly and decisively. He kicked away the two who pounced first, and as for the one behind, he made it easy to aim at him as he ran over with his hands free. The werewolf delivered a swift and accurate punch, hitting the opponent squarely in the stomach. Takayama Gamu was sent flying before he could even touch him, Kajio Katsumi crashed into the wall, and he crashed into the iron railing.

However, his physical condition was not as good as before, and with Gaia's light protecting him, he did not faint on the spot.

The werewolf was indeed short-tempered, and these people squatting on the rooftop were really annoying him because they were preventing him from missing home. The werewolf roared and prepared to throw them all off the roof.

Thrown from that height, it would be a miracle to survive. Takayama Gamu was still nauseous when the werewolf grabbed him by the collar and yanked him up, nearly strangling him. Takayama Gamu struggled to breathe, sensing something was wrong. He immediately struggled to break free, but the werewolf's claws were tight and sharp. The slightest movement tore open his uniform, the stinging pain shooting from his skin to his central nervous system.

"I really should train with the Hercules team." This thought popped into his head. With the idea of ​​taking a gamble, he gripped the edge of the railing tightly. Okawa Genji and Kitada Yasushi were approaching the werewolf from behind, hoping they would quickly fire a burst of bullets at him so that he would have a chance to counterattack.

If they both fainted, there would be no need to worry. Falling from this height, the free fall time would be about two seconds, nearly twenty meters, enough time for Gaoshanwomeng to activate the Blue Treasure Cone. But they both had their eyes wide open, and one of them was even giving him a wink, as if asking him to cooperate in the attack.

He wondered if his transformation when he actually fell would be captured by XIG's extensive surveillance system. For the first time, he began to hope that XIG's equipment wouldn't be so advanced.

"Crack—" The iron railings and bones groaned under the strain, and Gao Shanwomeng's forehead was covered in sweat.

Just as he decided to let go and transform while he was in the blind spot of Okawamoto Satoshi and Kitada Yasushi, a leisurely voice came, reminiscent of smooth plum wine.

"If you just throw him down like that, that scoundrel will be crying in front of me," the voice said.

The white shadow filled his entire field of vision. Takayama Gamu felt the claws gripping his collar loosen, and he quickly took a deep breath while raising his head.

A folding fan.

The fan handle was as black as jade, held by a pair of equally smooth hands.

Literally, "glowing" refers to the slight luster on his hands. If combined with the haori he casually draped over his body and his flowing black hair, it might be described as "spiritual light."

The folding fan tapped the werewolf's wrist "lightly."

The latter cried out and staggered back as if his wrist had been broken, clutching it.

Unlike Takayama Gamu, who looked astonished, Oogawa Satoshi and Kitada Yasushi couldn't see the haori fan. They only knew that the werewolf had suddenly retreated with its back to them, and assumed that Takayama Gamu had kicked it. They rushed up and each punched the werewolf's broad back.

The werewolves didn't take their attack seriously at all, only keeping a wary eye on the people who had suddenly appeared.

As the opponent raised his folding fan again, the werewolf reflexively took a half step back, turned around, and jumped down. His exceptional jumping ability was perfect for climbing high places and for escaping.

Seeing that the enemy had fled, Okawa Genji and Kitada Yasushi did not pursue them. Fearing that Takayama Gamu would suffer the same fate as their captain, they both surrounded him to check if he was injured.

Gao Shanwo didn't have time to wonder why they couldn't see the man in white. He looked at the man with a questioning gaze and thanked him. His two colleagues assumed he was thanking them, one patting his shoulder and the other ruffling his hair, saying, "It's alright, it's alright."

The man in white easily slipped between the two team members. He turned around, his white robes bathed in moonlight, his eyes reflecting the starlight, truly resembling a celestial being.

“Gaia,” said the celestial being, “you can indeed see me, um…do you drink?”

Gao Shanwo was taken aback. He was only recently an adult and hadn't actually had his alcohol tolerance tested yet; this kind of question...

"Looks like you're not going to drink," the other person seemed a little disappointed. "Then I'll come find you next time I want some tea."

After speaking, the man in white stepped into the moonlight and disappeared. As if there were invisible steps beneath his feet, he "stepped" up the steps and entered the air, his figure gradually blurring until he vanished.