Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Even the most seasoned veteran would be caught off guard in this situation, let alone Daigo, who was no seasoned old man.

monster.

In his anxiety, a warm current suddenly surged from the timer, halting the petrification that was about to spread to his chest. Daigo exclaimed in surprise, "Soruka?"

There was no response, but the petrification had indeed stopped. Daigo calmed himself down and directed Tiga's arms to move. He then used his waist to forcefully push through Tiga's numb legs, causing large chunks of petrified material to fall off, and dust to blanket the ground.

It's unclear what went wrong with the monsters, but they ignored this golden opportunity. Alpha lay motionless, probably in great pain from its broken horn, while Beta, though able to move, was only concerned with comforting Alpha. To onlookers, the monsters' soft growls still sounded like thunder in the height of summer.

After a few beeps, the general language translator finally came into use, and Horii pointed it at the monster.

A thunderous roar came, then turned into a whisper somewhere between a boy and a young man: "He's about to break free, you'd better run."

"Brother!" Beta clung to its side, "Wait until I turn him into stone again..."

"Idiot, you don't have the strength to use it again! If he can escape once, he'll do it again. He's clearly helping the little bug!" Alpha roared at it. "The little bug emptied our warehouse, and we turned it into stones to fill it, and this big guy came for revenge! Look, he's been protecting the little bug's territory!"

“We can’t beat him,” the monster called brother stood up again, a simple action that seemed to have taken all its strength. “I will stop him. Go to the other side of the sea and find our new home.”

"I'm afraid of water, I want my brother to come with me."

"You're afraid of water, but not afraid of dying?"

β shook her head: "I'm more afraid of waking up and not having my brother."

Horii was stunned by what the language translator said, so much so that he only reacted when Shinjo called him by his name.

"Horie, Horii! Horii Masami—!" Shinjo yelled in his ear, "Shut this machine off!"

The child who cried out for the giant's revenge stared at them with the same blank look, or rather, stared at the translator in Horii's hand.

"Are you out of your mind, trying to make people sympathize with a monster?" Shinjo lowered his voice: "If the victims' families heard this kind of conversation... how would they feel?"

Horii looked around in surprise. Not only was the sudden silence from Niupitang, but the wife of one of the deceased workers was also wiping away tears, and Commander Munakata and Director Sawai both had somber expressions, seemingly lost in thought. His gaze shifted to his side, where Captain Aiba glanced at him, his expression unreadable.

"I...I..." Horii cursed himself for his curiosity. So what if the monster acted strangely? It was still a creature that ate people. The GUTS team's mission was to protect citizens from harm. Even if the monster's behavior was understandable, its morality was still different from that of humans.

Xincheng gripped his helmet, it wanted nothing more than to punch the malfunctioning machine: "Don't listen to its pitiful act. Today it can turn people to stone because a warehouse was hollowed out, tomorrow it can hurt others for reasons like being in a bad mood or food shortages! When the next victim appears, causing their families unbearable pain, will it then claim it was just hungry?"

“They’re almost dead,” Aiba Yuu suddenly said.

"Mom." On the other side, the child clutched his mother's clothes tightly, the fabric wrinkled and twisted under his fingers. He should have received a light slap, but this time his mother didn't.

"Mom," the child asked softly, "boys should avenge their fathers, right?"

His mother didn't speak, but looked at him through the stray hairs falling in front of his eyes.

"So, it's not wrong for me to cheer for the giant and let him fight the bad guys, right?" the child asked.

The mother nodded.

The child felt greatly encouraged and puffed out his cheeks, ready to shout. But when he turned his head and saw the shadows of giants and monsters, he suddenly deflated.

"Why did you stop talking?" The mother's tone was somewhat flustered.

The child struggled for a moment, then threw himself into her arms, his messy hair sticking to her chin, and she felt the clothes on her shoulders getting wet little by little.

"...It's not wrong for an older brother to protect his younger siblings, is it?"

"Hiroki, come here, Hiroki." The father beckoned to his son. "Come and listen."

The child walked over, bewildered, and mimicked his father's earlier actions, pressing his ear against his mother's soft belly.

[Listen... would you prefer a younger brother or a younger sister?]

[Jian'er, he's only a few months old, how could he hear anything now?] His mother shoved him.

The child, being quite clever, exclaimed, "I heard it! I think it's my lovely little sister!"

The mother pinched the father's ear, saying, "[He's corrupting Hiroki. How old is he? He's already lying through his teeth.]"

"I'm sorry, Mom." When she looked up again, she saw that her child's eyes were red.

“I need to protect my younger siblings; that’s what my dad told me to do,” the child said. “My mom must be very sad.”

All the stone dust on Tiga's body fell away, and the light pierced through the gray mist, piercing into Gakuma's eyes—β in front, α behind. After the older brother declared that his younger brother should escape, the younger brother bypassed him and stood in front of his older brother.

"Go, Giant! Kill the man-eating monster!" a childish voice shouted. "We can't let it hurt other people anymore!"

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Chasing Shadow

Anyone could see that the two monsters were weak—in fact, if it weren't for the long-term food shortage caused by mining, Gakuma wouldn't have appeared before anyone.

“These monsters that killed my father…” Hiroki clenched his fists, and the giants and monsters in front of him were suddenly replaced by another figure.

Unfamiliar T

The PC members appeared in front of them at some point, completely blocking Hiroki's view.

“Revenge is exciting and exhilarating, but it’s not something a child should see,” the man said, holding Hiroki’s head, which kept trying to stick out, while looking at his terrified mother. “Take him away, and TPC will give you the results.”

The second half of the sentence was addressed to Munakata. Munakata immediately realized that the GUTS team had only recently started handling monster incidents and had become distracted by the battle between Tiga and Gakuma, forgetting that it was a real battlefield. How could they let the child see it with his own eyes? The sound of bones and muscles twisting, the "rain" of scales and blood dripping into the ground, even the charred corpses that exploded after the beam of light swept across the ground—similar scenes would be handled by professionals on television, but this was the actual scene.

"Get away from me! I want to see the giant kill the monster!" Hiroki shouted as he struggled, but the person in front of him, who didn't look that tall, blocked his view like a mountain.

Whether it was a hallucination or not, Hiroki felt that he could no longer hear the sounds of giants fighting in the distance. This frightened him; the roars that had been like thunder just moments before had suddenly disappeared, and then, a pair of hands covered his eyes.

"Mom!" he called anxiously.

"The monster used its beam that could turn people to stone again, but it didn't work this time." It was the voice of the stranger who was blocking the view, calm to the point of being indifferent, except for the warmth of the hand covering the eyes.

In the distance, Tiga swung down his arm that was blocking his chest, causing the air to vibrate, the stone dust to peel away, and a gray-white vortex to form.

"The unicorn was punched, the giant's body turned red, and the monster's attack failed." With a detached narration, Hiroki's emotions gradually calmed down—the frenzied blood seemed to be fading away.

Gakuma β's powerful charge failed to achieve its goal. Tiga, enduring the raging electric current, used its horn as leverage and slammed it hard into the ground. Everyone felt the ground tremble. "The monster is definitely going to die," Hiroki couldn't help but think.

"The giant kicked the monster, and the monster couldn't get up." You can't expect a monster that has been starving for a long time and has not experienced much combat to have any power to fight back, especially since it has been doing everything it can to protect its loved ones from the very beginning.

Even their near-peak attacks failed to defeat Tiga, and their defeat was entirely predictable.

Aiba Yu paused, glancing at Hiroki's mother. Upon hearing the news, she hadn't had time to pack anything, only remembering to grab her wallet and rush to the mine where her husband worked, regardless of the cost. Last time they traveled to the area, Hiroki had begged many times to take a helicopter tour of the islands, but his parents refused, saying it was too expensive and that a cruise would be a better way to get closer to the fish and the sea.

Now that she had hired a helicopter, Hiroki no longer cared about the beautiful scenery below. Aiba Yu felt warm droplets flowing in her palm.

"The giants won, the monsters died," he said.

Behind him, Tiga slowly loosened his fist. Gakuma β was trying to burrow under its brother's belly; for many years, in the warm underground, they had slept like this for countless days and nights.

"They're dead?" Hiroki wanted to confirm. His mother hugged him tighter and tighter, and he could feel the trembling of her arms around him.

He should be happy that the monster is dead, but now all he can think about is his home with his father, where they are choosing toys and clothes for a child who is either a brother or a sister, and arguing for days about what formula to feed him.

Horii had already put away the general language translator; they could hear Gakuma β's wailing without the machine's aid. Alpha was dead, but it was still alive; it could escape like Golza. As a subterranean monster, its body structure was actually better suited for movement within soil and rock layers.

However, Gakuma β seemed to have no concept of escape. After some effort, it finally burrowed under its brother's belly, where there was still some warmth. Its cries at this moment were somewhat comforting. Gakuma β curled itself up, nestled in the narrow, warm space.

"The monster turned to stone," Hiroki heard the stranger say.

The hateful hand that had been obscuring their vision was removed, and the giant soared into the sky.

The cheers returned, and Hiroki could hear the howling wind that had swept up when the giant left. He saw the two stone statues nestled together, and felt that the cheers were far away from him—he didn't understand the origin of this feeling, only that something in his heart had been ripped out, and it was only much later that he remembered that it was the future that should have been with his father.

……

"If a person is eaten by a tiger, tell me, do you hate the tiger more, or do you hate the person who caused it to come down from the mountain to eat people?"

At sea, a cruise ship is slowly sailing on the satin-like water.

The sun had already set, and the wild waters stretched endlessly. The person leaning on the railing let out a long sigh of relief.

"I've finally escaped safely," he thought. Although losing his base and having to leave his homeland was extremely disheartening, there's always a way out. His savings abroad could support him for a while, giving him enough time to find a good job.

The next consideration was whether to go to a sparsely populated town, which would be peaceful but boring, or to choose a big city again, which carried the risk of being discovered, but ultimately he preferred the glitz and glamour of the city.

That's right, there was no "negotiation meeting" at all. That idiot supervisor had no idea that he had taken the fall for the usually generous farm owner.

Anticipating his misdeeds being exposed, the mine owner, once caught illegally mining, packed his valuables and left customs that very day. He was even somewhat relieved.

Fortunately, the casualties were caused by a monster, rather than a water seepage accident, which successfully diverted the attention of the investigation department; otherwise, he would have been the first to be detained.

Just as he was leaning on the railing, contemplating his next move, a faint voice suddenly entered his mind.

“Only the victims have the right to say ‘forgiveness,’ but Jian Er is dead, and Jia Kuma is dead. No one is here to say forgiveness on your behalf.”

Before the man who was planning to escape could react, he suddenly felt something hooking his foot—a force so strong that he couldn’t resist it, and he even suspected that his bones were about to break!

"Whoosh whoosh whoosh—" The sun-drenched sailor heard a piercing scream and turned his gaze to see only a dark shadow. The sea should have been shimmering with golden scales at sunset, but to the sailor's dismay, the golden scales were still there, but the color of the seawater was unusually deep.

Like thick ink, with scattered colors brought by the sunset, the cruise ship cuts through the waves, and a person rolls up and down in the waves.

Without a second thought, the sailor jumped to his feet: "Someone's fallen overboard! Lifebuoys and lifeboats!"

But the speed at which the person drifted away from the cruise ship was frighteningly strange. By the time the lifeboats were lowered, the figure calling for help was as small as an ant, and the sound was shattered by the waves and almost inaudible.

A few hours later.

A patrolling coast guard vessel salvaged a "lucky" person.

Who knows how many sticks of incense he burned in his past life to have the good fortune to bump into a coast guard ship after falling into the sea? The law enforcement officers exclaimed, "What a lucky guy!" and prepared hot water to warm him up and dry clothes for him.

"Name? Where do you live?" they asked routinely.

The person wrapped in the blanket stammered.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. You're not some gangster who gets cemented into the sea and thrown into the ocean, are you?" the uniformed man joked. The cabin was filled with a cheerful atmosphere, so cheerful that the owner wanted to jump down again right then and there.

"Don't worry," the uniformed men surrounding him said warmly, "we'll get you home safely, guaranteed not to break a hair on your head, lucky guy."