Chapter 98: Intelligence Exchange

Originally, according to the captain, the Science and Technology Bureau had recreated the restraint device designed by Torrekia and made several improvements to it, which had left Yuxing rather curious. His impression of the apparatus had been of more than a dozen tightly binding parts: a mask, a chest piece, and more than ten restraint components for the limbs. He had even worried that wearing the whole thing might interfere with movement.

Now, however, he could only marvel at the bureau’s technical mastery.

First of all, the dozen-odd components had been reduced to just three, so there was no need to bind the entire body from head to toe.

The device had to be worn directly against the skin. If Yuxing put it on over his clothes, no matter how he adjusted it, the indicator lights would not come on, so he had no choice but to take off his clothes and try again.

Yet although it looked like a metal plate, and felt like one too, once Yuxing actually wore it against his skin, that cold metallic chill disappeared. And it vanished so abruptly that Yuxing was certain this was not merely his own adaptation to the sensation, but a feature deliberately designed by the scientists and researchers of the Science and Technology Bureau to improve the comfort of wearing the restraint device.

By all rights, comfort should have been a very low-priority concern in the development of equipment like this. The highest priority, naturally, was its practicality. And yet this set of gear even accounted for comfort. Yuxing could only say that the bureau possessed an almost infuriating abundance of manpower and resources.

What was more, the captain had said that Zero had set out with the finished product three days after receiving his message, which meant the bureau had only three days to work with. No—considering that development and testing usually followed a one-to-one ratio, if one day was spent developing a function, another day would be needed to test it. With only three days in total, that meant the bureau had completed development in a day and a half, leaving the remaining day and a half for testing.

Viewed that way... the Science and Technology Bureau’s overtime situation was probably indeed severe...

After putting on the restraint device, Yuxing was ready to try the Gate skill.

He found a wall to sit beside and prepared himself to endure the planet’s gravity. There was no helping it: there were four skill slots in total, but only one had been unlocked so far, which meant Yuxing could only equip one skill at a time.

So how did the second slot get unlocked?

After searching around without finding an answer, Yuxing could only face reality with resignation. This wasn’t a game; the Light Key interface offered no instructions or hints. For now, he could only set the matter aside.

At the same time, he noticed another change on the Gate skill icon: a value of 10/10 had appeared beneath it.

What did that mean? Did the Gate skill now have a limited number of uses?

After a brief thought, Yuxing roughly came to a guess. This was probably the number of times he could safely use Grimdo’s power. If he exceeded it, something unpleasant might happen... perhaps the restraint device would break, or some other trouble would arise. The manual made no mention of this either, so Yuxing could only infer it himself.

In any case, ten uses seemed more than enough for now.

While Yuxing was getting dressed, Zero stood nearby, leaning casually against the wall and watching in silence. He took a lollipop from his pocket, peeled off the wrapper, pinched the plastic stick, and popped the brightly colored candy sphere into his mouth.

There was no need to doubt it: in this city, that thing counted as a luxury item.

White sugar, brown sugar, red sugar—sugary goods of every kind were luxury military supplies.

A single piece of candy could restore the strength of most carbon-based life-forms. It was precious food.

But for Zero, it was merely a diversion. Even so, he had already drawn too many eyes, and he had to pretend that he could obtain energy from these carbohydrates, lest he invite suspicion and speculation from those with ulterior motives.

Recently, Zero and his two temporary teammates had received all kinds of gifts, almost completely covering every aspect of daily life. It was obvious that the gifts were meant to raise their standard of living and make them fall in love with this place, so they would never want to leave.

The three of them accepted everything without hesitation. Any gifts sent their way were taken as a matter of course. Of course, not every gift had been well-intentioned. It was just that the giver would receive the trio’s enthusiastic “gratitude” on the spot.

At that moment, there were two knocks at the door. Then the handle turned, and Takashi Soya leaned in. “The strategy meeting is starting. You still haven’t—what are you doing?”

Yuxing looked back blankly, one hand tugging at his waistband.

...

...

Now the team had expanded to seven people, and everyone sat together in the living room, exchanging information.

Only Takashi Soya looked rather unsettled, as if he had been badly frightened.

“The highest-ranking figure we’ve seen in these past few days should be that one who calls herself the governor, Rebeje.”

The trio’s striking performance had naturally drawn the attention of the local upper class, which had forced them into far more social contact than they would have liked, whether with those hypocritical officials or with assassins.

As he listened, Yuxing had already opened up a screen and was searching the name in real time. He simply wanted to know who this Governor Rebeje really was. Information in the black-market community had to be paid for, but the answer he wanted might appear in someone else’s query.

“Rebeje, the governor stationed in Garnon by the Interstellar Alliance... Oh, so it’s her.”

After opening an expired assassination contract and seeing the woman’s title, Yuxing vaguely recalled some scattered details and began piecing together the information about her in his mind.

The reason the contract had expired was very simple: not long ago, Rebeje had been removed from office by the Interstellar Alliance because of some incident, so she was no longer worth assassinating.

The exact reason for her dismissal was unclear. In any case, she had now come to the Hive and changed venues to continue serving as a “governor.”

Yuxing actually had a guess about that.

This governor was also a formidable figure in the Ultraman cast, after all. She had dared to manipulate a young woman who was close to one of Gagula’s allies, using her to threaten that interstellar swordsman into working for her for free. In the end, all she lost was her office rather than seeing the Interstellar Alliance collapse on the spot, which already counted as an excellent outcome.

One could only say that the Interstellar Alliance had an astonishing resistance to corruption.