Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

"Thank you for your patronage," the shop assistant called out. "We wish Dr. Tango all the best in your research!"

The man in the white coat made no comment and walked away. A middle-aged man emerged from the back room and slapped the clerk lightly on the head.

"Ouch!" The shop assistant covered his head and looked down. Fujisawa Sousuke was bewildered by the sudden turn of events.

The middle-aged man was the store manager. He first tore off a contact form and gently told Fujisawa Sousuke to fill it out according to the sample form. He also told him to take a look at the service items on the side. After Fujisawa Sousuke found a chair to sit down, the store manager turned around and continued to lecture the staff.

"If you can't speak well, then say less. 'Thank you for your patronage' is enough. Why add 'May your research go smoothly' afterward?" The store manager said, "It's true that Dr. Dango is a researcher, but look at how many suits he brings in every time. He's obviously buying them for his colleagues."

"You said that researchers often attend academic conferences, and both the white lab coat and the suit are battle armor; they have to take it seriously," the shop assistant muttered. "Next time, I wish him a 'successful conference'?"

"If you're not smart, read more books! What kind of person would spend their days carrying around their colleagues' stuff doing this kind of menial work? Of course, it's someone at the bottom of the food chain, like a benchwarmer or a water dispenser on the sports field. Have you ever seen a busy starter running to the dry cleaners for no reason?" the manager scolded. "Don't you understand that a well-wishing greeting can backfire twice as badly on a customer?"

"I'm sorry." The shop assistant finally had nothing more to say.

Seeing that he had calmed down, the store manager took out a business card and walked up to Fujisawa Sousuke: "The new employee is still a bit inexperienced, please forgive me for any shortcomings. This is my business card, Kamimura Sho."

“Sousuke Fujisawa,” Sosuke reached into his pocket and realized he hadn’t brought his business cards with him. After a moment of hesitation, he managed to say, “Manager, you’re very thoughtful.” He decided to use mutual flattery to defuse the awkwardness.

The store manager laughed and said, "It's not because I'm careful, it's because I have inside information."

"Inside story?"

“Aya Kamimura, the researcher at the Space Development Center, is my younger sister. I’ve heard about Dr. Tango’s group. She’s very envious of the team that gets to access the giant statues and monster samples,” the shopkeeper stroked his short stubble. “Dr. Tango… although his group is very impressive, he’s a talented guy who always goes in the wrong direction and does useless work. He’s just unlucky.”

"Kamimura...Aya? Dr. Tango?" Fujisawa Sousuke squatted in the air force squadron with his head down. He could only talk to the logistics guy at most. He found that he knew less than the manager of the dry cleaners at the gate as an insider. He didn't know how to answer for a moment, so he could only nod and nod, occasionally saying "hmm" to indicate that he was listening.

The store manager noticed his embarrassment: "Judging from your clothes, you seem to be from the executive department. It's normal that I don't know them... Ah, we went too far with our conversation. What do you need for laundry, sir?"

Fujisawa Sousuke handed over what he was holding: "A Teru Teru Bozu (a Japanese doll)."

"Pfft." The shop assistant chuckled, only to be glared at by the shop manager.

"I'll deal with you later," the shop manager mouthed, taking the doll and examining it carefully. "Hmm, about 80% new, not too much trouble, sir/madam."

Does it need repair?

Fujisawa Sosuke was stunned: "It's just dirty, what's there to repair?"

The shop manager parted the layers of lace and pointed to a slightly irregular seam: "There are slight snags. This tear was obviously repaired later, and the technique... is very amateurish. If you need it, we can also take it apart and repair it for you. Don't be fooled by this dry cleaning shop; we also take on tailor and shoemaker jobs."

"It's been taken apart?" Fujisawa Sousuke was dumbfounded. He was almost always with this thing except when he was sleeping. When he took it from the supermarket, it was stuffed into a fancy box with layers of tape, as if afraid it wouldn't be secure enough.

The shop manager brought the incongruous part closer to his eyes: "Look, sir, there's an opening of about three centimeters. Because the sewing technique isn't very good, the fabric on the left side is wrinkled and curled up, making it easier for things to get dirty... Although it's just a teru teru bozu doll, the materials aren't cheap. You cherish it, don't you?"

"Then... could you please fix it?" Fujisawa Sosuke hesitated. "There's a magnet inside, don't move it."

"Of course." The store manager took the contact form he had filled out and quickly drew a "7" on it.

"New customers get a 85% discount," the store manager said.

Fujisawa Sosuke isn't blind; the store manager clearly marked it as 7% off.

“I’ll give you a 1.5% discount because your expression is exactly the same as my sister’s when she first joined TPC,” the shopkeeper cut off the receipt and handed it back to him. “Don’t look so surprised. There are a lot of people who run shops on this street and are related to people in the base. It’s always the easiest business to do business with your own people.”

The shop manager's eyes narrowed into slits: "Guests, you can come out and have some fun in the evening. There are plenty of snacks, and the security is good. Few thieves dare to patronize this place because no one knows which official's relative you might hit if you throw a brick."

……

Air force base.

Aiba Yu was unaware that his crude skills had been recognized at a glance by an expert, who also commented on his "novice operation." After reviewing the investigation team's report on the theft of the Ebron cells several times, he finally discovered some clues.

The investigation team couldn't understand why the sealed box had inexplicably lost its internal structure. Chief Yoshioka was also baffled and, unusually, approved the seemingly unprofessional conclusion that it had "disappeared into thin air."

But Aiba Yu has seen similar phenomena before.

"Spatial cutting," or rather, "spatial twisting." The box isn't large, so it's not impossible to do it, but extracting the internal components from the outer shell requires considerable spatial power supported by mental energy. It must be done with extreme care, otherwise, the fragile cellular tissue will be damaged. Unless absolutely necessary, no one would burn their mental energy like that; it's on a completely different scale than destroying it from the outside.

Those who stole the Ebron cells were clearly novices—the old guys would never leave behind twisted stubs, leaving the construction material tangled like wire; they would take what they wanted, leaving the edges smooth as if they had been cut by a water jet.

But what would such a novice do with the Ebron cells?

Aiba Yu found Daigo's number.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Crow

"Perhaps spatial abilities? Or are they aliens?"

"Uncertainty, even among humans, is uncertain."

Daigo gripped the phone a little further away from his teammates and whispered, "What kind of human is this... I'll try investigating in this direction."

There are footsteps behind you.

Daigo was startled by what he heard. As he turned around, he happened to see Lina sneaking over on tiptoe. Startled, he quickly hung up the phone.

Lina stared suspiciously at the thing in his hand: "It's not good to make or receive phone calls during a mission, you know. What are you doing here all alone?"

"with...and a friend..."

It was nighttime, and after interviewing several witnesses during the day, they were now investigating the factory where Daigo had noticed something was wrong—almost all the witnesses claimed to have heard or encountered ghostly wails in the factory.

Before entering the factory, Horii said, "If there really is a ghost, I'll use my tracking missile to chase it all the way to the underworld." After entering the factory, the faint echoes, the smell of rust in the air, and the dark environment where he didn't know what might emerge made him so nervous that he huddled extremely close to his teammates.

But his teammate in front of him was Shinjo, who was usually brave but was actually terrified of ghosts, so Shinjo moved closer to Daigo.

To everyone's surprise, Daigo suddenly answered the phone and walked away quickly! Shinjo was too embarrassed to call out, "Don't go, I'm scared!" so he could only huddle together with Horii for warmth. Munakata shone a flashlight on them, occasionally shining it up on his own face to yell for them to turn around, which terrified them. Rena couldn't stand it anymore and, at the invitation of her two somewhat timid teammates, went to drag Daigo back from his daze.

"With a friend?" Lina smiled brightly. "A woman?"

A sense of crisis arose inexplicably, and Daigo stood at attention: "A man."

“Oh,” Lina pushed him back to join her, “I thought you were having a romantic conversation with a female ghost here, and then ‘whoosh’—you got bewitched by her.”

“Where did this ghost come from? Horii already said it might just be the sound of the wind causing the residents to misunderstand, or maybe it's just someone who's having a bad day crying here and someone is overhearing it…” Daigo suddenly stopped in his tracks: “There’s a sound.”

"What?" Lina felt a gust of wind blow past her. When she looked again, Daigo had already disappeared into the narrow passage on the side. His outline was blurred, and only the color of his uniform shimmered in the watery black.

"Where are you going!" Lina called out as she followed. Hearing her call, the others stopped fussing and immediately ran to join her. The group first...

Then, following the direction Daigo had left, they entered the passage.

What's called a passageway is actually a large, abandoned dressing room where workers changed into protective gowns in sequence to maintain a sterile production environment. The large equipment has naturally been removed, but the metal cabinets used for changing clothes remain. They follow the echoes of their wandering footsteps forward, the rusted metal cabinets, taller than a person, seemingly stretching to the horizon.

A breeze blew, and it meandered into the factory, bringing with it a whistling sound like a leaf flute, and a weeping sound.

When Munakata, Shinjo, and Horii caught up with Daigo, he was already engaged in combat with something. He was probably in close combat with the other party, and before he could even draw his Hyper gun, he used his fists first.

The dilapidated window trembled in the cold wind. The moon came, and they saw the "ghosts" lingering there—almost humanoid, with a pair of golden eyes on their faces, similar to those of birds.

The next moment, a biting wind lashed his face, and the golden bird's eyes were already in front of him! Zong Fang raised his Hyper gun, but those eyes had already passed him, their piercing trails striking the half-closed window.

With a deafening roar, the window flew off, a fierce wind roared and raged, and the moonlight was welcomed in. From the stunned Zongfang and the others to Daigo who had chased after them to the window, it illuminated everyone's faces and the shadows that whistled past their eyes.

It was a flock of pitch-black birds.

Some believe they are sacred birds, cast black by the sun god Apollo, while others consider them symbols of impurity, their appearance signifying impending doom.

"A crow?" Daigo bent down and picked up a feather from the cold concrete floor.

……

"They escaped." There were people inside the observation station, a building that Horii thought was only opened for maintenance.

The cawing of crows carried from the abandoned factory all the way to the seaside. They flew away under the cover of night, and the person speaking stepped forward, exposed to the moonlight.

Ryosuke Sanada.

He took off his tightly wrapped shirt, and the moonlight gilded him with a silvery sheen, revealing a subtle metallic hue. His left arm showed no signs of a fracture; it was neither in a cast nor bore any scars. He lay unharmed in the night, the wind carrying news from afar.

"The crows ran away. You originally planned to show yourself, defeat them, and rescue the captured people," someone leaned against the wall inside the door. "Now, how are you going to prove yourself? Number one?"

"Where did they escape to?" Sanada Ryosuke asked.

“How would I know?” the person inside scoffed. “The Lebik aliens have countless strongholds; if one is destroyed, they just move on to the next.”

“It’s bad news for the GUTS team,” Sanada Ryosuke concluded. “The missing people can’t be found.”

The figure behind him shifted, changing from leaning against the wall to standing upright. He was quite robust, though his belly had become rather large, giving him a somewhat magnanimous appearance.

The man asked in surprise, "Hey, you're not really here to retrieve the humans who were 'collected'?"

"Why not?" Sanada Ryosuke turned around expressionlessly. "I'm human. What's wrong with saving my own kind?"

The person inside the door clapped, feeling the atmosphere wasn't quite right, so he loudly patted his belly: "Shouldn't you take a closer look at yourself before you say that? I'm starting to suspect you have some inappropriate self-perception."

Sanada Ryosuke remained silent, and the man continued, "Don't look at me like that, even though I am indeed dead... If you do that, I'll suspect you have necrophilia."

“You can have less ‘doubt’,” Sanada Ryosuke said slowly.

“There’s nothing I can do. Who told you to be so troublesome? I had a feeling you were going to rush out and crush the Victory Team guys along with that flock of crows, turning their bones and feathers into a pancake,” the man said worriedly. “The Victory Team came looking for you! The crows just happened to run into you. You really need to do some mental preparation. Um, we have psychological counseling services, with a discount for our own people.”

"He's obsessed with money," said Ryosuke Sanada.

"If I don't desperately need money, who's going to give you research funding?" The man pounded angrily on the door, the glass rattling as it was caught in its frame. "Even if I give you a discount, it's just money going from one pocket to another. That's called cutting costs!"

"Keep your voice down!" Sanada Ryosuke wanted to kick the ball in front of him back into the tunnel, preferably roll it far away like a bowling ball.

"I'll shout!" "Bowling Ball" covered her face and pretended to cry, looking aggrieved: "You're bullying the dead... I'm going to report this. I don't want to be your support anymore. I want to find a coffin to lie in. When I was alive, I worked every day without getting any sleep. Now that I'm dead, I'll still be exploited by you and won't get any rest!"

"Then go there, walk fifty meters over there and you'll reach the sea."

"Bowling Ball" felt even more aggrieved, and its burly shadow let out a mournful sob: "I don't like sea burial."

Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Interrogation Room

The following day, Aiba Yu received a message from Daigo.