Chapter 166: The Wisdom of Survival

Hiroyuki stood with his mouth half-open, momentarily at a loss for words.

It was not that he was struck dumb by Tregear's words. On the one hand, Tregear had the kind of personality that would never miss an opportunity to play tricks on people; telling him something like this might just be a deliberate attempt to scare him for fun. On the other hand, even if what Tregear said was true—that stripping Grimd from Hiroyuki would pose a mortal danger to him—Hiroyuki’s reaction to that prospect was... actually rather detached.

For the past couple of months, Hiroyuki had been repeatedly dancing on the brink of the netherworld. It wasn't that these experiences had made him reckless with his life; he still cherished it dearly. After all, once you were dead, everything was gone, whereas while you were alive, there was still something you could do. Forget about real life for a moment; even when playing a video game, nobody wants to keep biting the dust for no reason, right?

Having come this far, Hiroyuki could rein it in, but he was also willing to risk it all.

"Let's put that aside for a moment," Hiroyuki finally recovered his voice, waving a hand to pull the conversation back on track. "Can you explain your plan to me?"

Now it was Tregear's turn to be momentarily speechless. Did this little fellow have any idea what he was saying? With that sentence uttered, wasn't the subtext essentially: as long as he deemed the plan acceptable, his life was up for grabs?

Tregear secretly observed Hiroyuki. The subtle expressions on the young man's face truly bore no trace of forced composure. Rather, he looked as though he had already calculated the price of his own life and was asking for the details of the plan simply to see if it was a good bargain.

No one is unafraid of death, and Tregear loved exploiting that weakness to stir people's hearts—it was remarkably effective. When faced with mortal danger, he didn't even need to bother dangling temptations; he could let his prey eagerly jump into the trap of their own accord.

So what on earth was wrong with this fellow in front of him?

Seeing that Tregear was just looking at him in subtle astonishment, Hiroyuki became slightly bewildered as well.

"Could it be classified? Are you not allowed to tell me?"

Hiroyuki let out a low hiss, feeling that things were getting complicated. If even Tregear's plan had to be kept secret from him, how on earth was he supposed to spill it to the captain?

"...That's not it."

A complicated look crossed Tregear's face. He gazed at Hiroyuki, remembering the young man's claim that he had lost his memory. He didn't remember Hiroyuki's past, nor did he remember Taiga's. Even if he knew certain things, they weren't from his own personal experience; they felt more like information told to him by others or acquired through some other means. In other words, the current Hiroyuki was like a blank sheet of paper, possessing only the present moment. Yet, with this kind of attitude, Tregear felt he was no different from those Giants of Light poisoned by the Land of Light's education. He found him foolish—foolish in the exact same way he, or Taro, once had been.

Had Hiroyuki known what was going on in Tregear's mind, he probably would have denied it with nervous dread, saying that was vastly overestimating him. Who was he to be compared to the Giants of Light in terms of moral standards?

Regarding his plan, Tregear had no particular objection to sharing it, so he briefly recounted how he had encountered the little butterfly and been led to view the stone tablet.

Hiroyuki looked with some curiosity at the tiny butterfly. It seemed to understand their conversation; the moment Tregear mentioned it, the butterfly fluttered over to Hiroyuki, who instinctively held out his hand to let it land on the back of his fingers.

It was a silver-white butterfly—or rather, a pale gray butterfly. Yet its luminescent body gleamed like metal under direct light; calling it silver-white was far more accurate than gray-white.

Most butterflies fold their wings upward when they land, and this little creature was no exception. Through the translucent inner side of its white wings, Hiroyuki could faintly make out a pale pink pattern.

"Would you mind letting me see your wings...?" Hiroyuki muttered to himself, cautiously reaching out to gently nudge the folded wings apart to catch a glimpse of the other side. The little butterfly immediately opened its wings, laying them flat for him to see.

It really could understand human speech!

Pleasantly surprised and astonished, Hiroyuki saw a complete symbol imprinted across the fully spread wings. It was the exact shape of the Stone Wing when deployed, and also identical to the color timers of Nexus, Noa, and Zagi.

...Surely, this wasn't some counterfeit knockoff, was it?

Hiroyuki reserved his judgment for the time being and continued listening to Tregear's explanation.

"We can't handle that meat mountain right now."

Tregear stated, and Hiroyuki nodded in agreement. It seemed everyone shared the exact same mental image of that Space Beast—a meat mountain. A massive lump of flesh spanning over a hundred square kilometers; unless they could grow to gigantic sizes, they were completely helpless against the thing. That was the combat disparity caused by a difference in scale. Without external assistance, such as heavy weaponry, there was genuinely nothing they could do against this giant creature.

"You should know that Space Beasts constantly evolve, and this fellow is currently only in its juvenile stage. It harvests energy within dreams. Once it evolves, the next stage will allow it to break free from the dream world and enter the reality to continue gathering the energy needed for its subsequent evolution."

This was a hypothesis Tregear had formulated by referencing the habits of Bugun. Just like tadpoles making a living in the water during their youth, undergoing a morphological transformation to crawl ashore once they reach the appropriate stage of development. Bugun concealed themselves within dreams before reaching adulthood, only revealing themselves in the real world once they matured into their complete forms.

This was a survival strategy born of wisdom. By adopting this approach, the juvenile entities bypassed environments rife with fierce competition for survival, retreating to relatively safe havens to quietly grow stronger, only entering the arena of nature once everything was fully prepared.

Thus, this Space Beast had directly kept the candidate of Nexus under its control, effectively clearing out a safe zone in the waters while tripping up its natural predator's cub, buying itself time and space for safe development.

"Noa—His intent is actually quite simple. He has provided a solution, which is to accelerate this Space Beast's evolution."

This was the information Tregear had gathered after interpreting the imagery on the stone relief.

Hiroyuki was dumbfounded.

What was this? Appeasement?

Hiroyuki could follow the logic. It was like how tadpoles have gills and can breathe underwater, but as development begins, the external gills gradually transition into internal gills, eventually turning into lungs. Once a tadpole matures into a frog, it can hold its breath to swim underwater for a brief moment, but it can no longer squat indefinitely in the water the way it did in its youth.

However, what kind of bizarre strategy was it to intentionally fatten up the enemy and condone its growth?

Upon hearing this, Hiroyuki immediately thought the idea was utterly terrible, and he cast a suspicious glance at the tiny butterfly.

"Don't tell me you were sent by Zagi just to mess with us."

The little butterfly, utterly baffled by the sudden unmerited blame: "..."