"Are you sure you want to let her into the city alone?" Conrad Coetzes asked, in the somewhat resentful tone he was accustomed to using lately, "I thought your duty was to protect her life. ”

The golden figure that he had sarcastically questioned or questioned had no intention of wavering. Somny's face, forever hidden under the golden helmet, was obscured by layers of holographic light projected into the air, and the whole person remained motionless, as if it were a statue that had melted into the background, indifferent to the provocation of the Midnight Lord Primordial.

Even all of his voices are helmet-treated, mechanical, flat-toned. Some imaginative people may guess that the golden armor may be sealed with an abomination intelligence.

"No use of the captain requiring armed support has been detected." Somny said as unsentimentally as usual, "Records from the Sector Plan and the Planetary Government show that there is no armed force to be wary of in Jaystar, an agrarian world with fragile universal security. A cross-comparison of the data from the Auger array and the Sheba lens provides a solid conclusion. ”

"But we all know what's wrong with this planet, even if we don't know exactly what the problem is." "Even if you don't believe my prophecy, the instruments on the Storm Frontier that we don't understand are alerting to this. ”

"After the observation of the Sheba lens, the 'foundation value of human reason' here is rated as C, the subspace energy level pointer is stable in the yellow zone, and there is no abnormal alarm in Trismegistes. Considering the subspace environment around the starfield, the above values are defined as within the 'normal' range. In the absence of a clear request for support from this ship, I will continue to perform my intelligence-gathering duties while standby. ”

......Somny's mechanical attitude finally made Coz stop his nonsense, and he was finally willing to say what he was going to say: "The communication equipment on Rika Fujimaru's exoskeleton armor has always been connected to the Storm Frontier in an open way. You can hear it, and she's found some clue after coming into contact with the locals. ”

He waited for a moment, but Somny didn't react to the words, and even Koz couldn't tell if he was waiting for his next sentence, or if he simply ignored the hint that was clear enough to be under his nose. Ten seconds later, he finally couldn't help but continue to add: "So, aren't you going to check the source of pesticides on this planet?" ”

Somney finally had a little reaction, but alas, it was just a little bit.

"No clear requests for support have been received." He repeated his previous words like a machine that could only output preset voices, "Under this premise, I will continue to perform my intelligence gathering duties while I am on standby." ”

Conrad Coetze's eyes narrowed dangerously, and his nails rattled as if unintentionally—under the watchful eye of Rika Fujimaru (or, as Coates himself prefers to use the word "persecution"), he had maintained a relatively good hygiene in his second life, but some of the old habits that had penetrated into the bone marrow had apparently not subsided with death and recasting in him.

Sometimes it makes him feel sick, and sometimes it gives him a ridiculous, "I am still me" sense of comfort.

He drove these jumbled thoughts out of his mind and deliberately asked in an elegant and noble Gothic pronunciation: "If you decide to nail yourself to the main control room as a pure ornament, I wonder if I have the privilege to bother you to inquire about the location of the Jestal pesticide factory, if it is indeed on this planet?" ”

"Negative. There is no clear command or coordination between us and us. Somny replied immediately, "My duty here is to be at the captain's command and to protect the captain's personal safety." I have no prior direct instructions regarding the 'transfer of authority' from others. ”

- He didn't seem to have the slightest emotional fluctuation, but when he said this, he deliberately used Nostramo.

This really infuriated Coetze. He straightened his back, his anger giving the illusion of obscuring his already large body. A suffocating pressure flowed through the main control room at the storm border, but the angry primordial still barely restrained his actions, intending to gather all his negative emotions, including dissatisfaction, into words-

But at this juncture, the alarm of the storm boundary suddenly sounded. The silvery-white main control room was immediately soaked in a flickering red light, which interrupted the process of Koz's mood brewing. As if the Somny, who had become a sculpture in front of the console, was also "turned into a human" by this sudden situation, the holographic projection screen floating in mid-air suddenly disappeared for more than half of the time, and the golden figure was willing to deign to move slightly from the spot, leaning forward to watch the monitoring data that appeared on the console of the storm boundary.

"Sheba has detected an anomalous subspace disturbance, and the results of the comparison of the waveform with the database have been obtained, and it is highly suspected that the spiritual energy generated when the spirit clan network door is opened." Somny quickly read and summarized the data on the screen as he reached out to the console to operate, "In accordance with emergency handling protocols, the mission priority has changed, and the relevant information has been passed to the Ortenaus-type Lingji exoskeleton. ”

Okay. Coates thought hatefully. Of course, he knew what that so-called agreement was - to put it simply, it was nothing more than throwing him over and sweeping away any aliens that might exist if the situation allowed. Although they have their own tasks, as the Imperial Armed Forces personally assigned by the Emperor, they should not theoretically sit idly by when they encounter this basic defense work on the Imperial planet when there is nothing else important.

The second millennium-derived keypad and archaic interface on the Storm Boundary didn't affect the speed of Somny's work, and the act of shopping with a peasant girl from a native planet and a self-retired Astarte apparently didn't affect the speed of Fujimaru Rika's judgment. Soon, the real storyteller of the squad, which was a messy squad, relayed her decision back to the main control room.

"If there aren't many of them, find a way to get rid of them. No matter how bad it is, you have to figure out what they're doing here. Fujimaru Rika whispered in the communication channel, "The in this ghost place is really digging more and more, I suspect that the current First City is in some kind of critical period, if a third party forces come in to fish in troubled waters, the variables are too great." ”

Somni understood, and temporarily shut down the communication according to Fujimaru Rika's intentions. He looked at the screen to which Sheba was connected for a moment, and then said to Coetz in an unquestionable command, "You need to enter the box." The Reiko transfer will begin in one minute and thirty seconds. ”

"You're just throwing me over like that?" Coz's snapped question, but Somney didn't seem to see anything wrong at all.

"If you were a forbidden soldier, you would never ask that." He said calmly but mechanically, "The Spirit Son Transfer Project is already being prepared, which of course means that I don't think the number of Spirit Clans who have come to this world through the network gate will not exceed the range you can handle. However, the Sheba lens did receive the unique psionic interference of the Spirit Clan, and could only roughly judge the size of the team, and could not accurately observe the actual lineup. I can't provide any valuable information as a result, but theoretically, you can still complete this mission. You just have to obey orders. ”

"—but as you said before, there is no clear command or coordination between us." With unmisdirected malice, Coetzes asked, "What are you going to do if I refuse to carry out this mission?" ”

"I will report this matter to the captain and apply to go to battle to solve this hidden danger." Somney's reply was smooth and natural, as if he had planned ahead of time because he had thought of such a thing, "If you insist on doing so, I will activate this backup plan immediately." ”

Coetzes was silent for a few seconds. It's hard to say if he was threatened by this "backup plan", or what his motive was for his actions, but after a few seconds, he still chose to burrow into the original specification transfer frame specially made for him in the last thirty seconds after the end of the Spirit Child Transfer Project.

"I hope the spirits ...... No, forget it. He said viciously in the frame, looking determined to vent his anger with these hapless aliens, "It's good that Rika said to find out what they're here for. ”

I'll let you tell you everything.

He thought viciously to the dizzying dazzle that was characteristic of the Reiko Transfer Technique.

-----------------

“…… So for the nine days that the celebration lasts, there are such parades every day? Rika Fujimaru looked at the flow of strangely dressed people in front of her, and asked Aelita beside her, "Is there any explanation for this route?" ”

They were now in the first city, but in the forty-first millennium of humanity, the definition of the word "city" was very different from the one that Rika Fujimaru was familiar with. Even in the sparsely populated agricultural world, the size and flow of people in Jestal's perfunctoryly named "First City" far exceeds the Tokyo she was familiar with.

- After all, this is the administrative center of the entire planet and an interstellar transportation port, and its characteristics are such that there are a large number of facilities for the floating population left in addition to the permanent residents. At a time when the Imperial authorities were collecting taxes and celebrating the harvest with stars, the city, which had achieved a temporary false prosperity, easily hosted an untold number of foreign populations: mostly workers who were allowed to stay in the local farming areas, and a small number of soldiers and sailors who had been allowed to descend to the planet's surface from tax ships.

These immigrants have caused great inconvenience to Fujimaru's investigation: considering that "blue-gray disease" is a chronic disease caused by "long-term exposure to pesticides", it is theoretically more common for those who work in the fields where the disease is clearly abnormal (or mutation) to be more common among those working in the fields.

If she can be sure that this change is relatively rare in people who live in cities and are responsible for clerical work, then she can be sure that the special ratio of pesticides on Jestal is the culprit of all this. However, due to the impact of a large number of immigrants, Rika Fujimaru could not even determine where the people who walked by in front of her often lived, and of course there was no way to observe the problem of this incidence rate.

I don't know whether it's joy or worry, but this entry into the city really made her discover other problems.

"It seems that the procession starts from the 'Ancient Ruins' and spends nine days circumnavigating the city, returning to the ruins at noon on the last day. Because Technologist Hastings was going to give a speech in the square in front of the ruins, anyone could follow the procession into the inner city that day. Aelita sat on the side of the road with a piece of chocolate from Rika Fujimaru in her mouth, looked at the "juggling procession" in front of her, which was completely organized by the local residents and had only half a bucket of water, and said happily, "Everyone thinks it's worth it to go into the inner city with the parade on the last day, even if it's just to see Starport up close—but if Rikka came here from outside the planet, you should be able to go in at any time to get back to the ship, right?" ”

“…… Ahahahaha. Fujimaru Rika, who had never passed through the airport or entered the inner city, had landed on the planet through informal channels, smiled dryly, and casually picked up another topic to confuse the issue, "Speaking of which, this is obviously a harvest celebration of the agricultural planet, and although you can see small stalls on the street, how come it is that almost all of them sell handmade crafts, but you can't even see a stall selling food?" ”

"Huh?" Alita was puzzled by the question, "What to eat...... Can food be taken out and sold? ”

"Jaystar is a resource-poor planet, Miss." Sevita's voice drifted coolly from the heights, "The only product that can be used here is grain, and food is heavily taxed by the Empire because it is the only product that can be used here—perhaps the bureaucrats who make decisions on parchment feel that they are merciful, but even the lowest tax rate of the Empire is still too heavy for this once accident-ridden planet." For a long time, Jestal even owed a large amount of taxes, until Governor de Ville took office, and Hasting's technical officer improved the genes of the round wheat and continued to try to increase the grain production, which lasted until this year's bumper harvest. ”

Aelita didn't know what these things had to do with the topic, and looked up at "Jacob" beside her with a bit of a blankness, while Rika Fujimaru already understood what he was trying to express:

"I see. So before that, the food on this planet was rationed and controlled as a strategic resource, and private trading was strictly prohibited, right? ”

"That's pretty much it."

Sevita looked like she wanted to say a word or two, but Aelita naturally turned her head and interrupted him, "If Rikka is curious about what the round wheat tastes like, I can give you my ration when I get back to the cargo station." During the festival, everyone had a lot of rations, and it was not a problem to give some to others. ”

This kind of natural kindness made Saivita a little angry for no reason, and even Fujimaru Rika herself was stunned: "Isn't this okay?" After all, it's something that can only be obtained by rationing, so if you have more for the time being, it's better to save it up just in case, okay? ”

"It's okay, the yield of improved round wheat is already very high, and everyone will not be hungry in the future." "Besides, you gave me the candy too, and I should be sorry for the fact that I can only use the round wheat rationed for the general workers." ”

“…… No, a bar of chocolate is really nothing to me, you don't have to take it seriously......"

"But it's very important to me, I've never eaten such delicious candy!" Alita happily unfolded the translucent plastic wrapper to the light, "The candy wrappers look good too, I'm going to keep them." I've also received gifts from outside the planet! ”

Rika Fujimaru suddenly felt that what should have been something that should have been done casually became heavy.