Chapter 226: Breakthrough (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 226: Breakthrough (2)
Once Kruger, who had finally woken up in his hospital bed, was cleared for visitors, A, Theo, Alt, and Roy came to see him. However, because A, Theo, and Kruger had something private to discuss, Alt and Roy suddenly found themselves ushered out into the hallway.
Left outside, the two had nowhere to go.
"What should we do?"
Sensing instinctively that the conversation between the three inside would be a long one, Alt wondered how to kill time. Beside him, Roy, who had a beanie pulled down low over his head, was pinching his nose with one hand.
"Let's just get out of here first."
Roy had been repeatedly pinching and releasing his nose since right before they entered the hospital, and he was reaching his limit.
Born with the genes of a planetary race possessing wolf-like traits, Roy had a sense of smell far superior to that of an average human, a Bioroid, or even a Kaijin of Bioroid origin.
To someone like Roy, the scent of chemicals and disinfectants permeating every corner of the hospital was far more pungent than for others, stinging his nostrils.
He had tried to block it out by holding his nose, but now his head was starting to spin. Since they were already out of the room, he desperately wanted to go outside.
"Even if we go out, there's nowhere to go."
"Either way, anywhere is better than here."
Despite his keen sense of smell, Roy wasn't particularly sensitive. While countless scents stimulated his nose, he didn't usually react to every single one.
For instance, if he went to a cafe filled with the aroma of coffee, he would perceive various other scents alongside the coffee without focusing on just one.
But a hospital was a different story. The smell of disinfectant, which was sharp even to an ordinary person, was more than Roy’s heightened senses could bear.
He could endure it to a point, but this place clearly pushed him to his limit.
"It's because you've lived in places that were too comfortable," Alt remarked.
"Who said I lived comfortably?"
Alt and Roy were both Kaijin of Bioroid origin. Though they had differences due to their different base genes and birth periods, they shared the commonality of being Kaijin.
However, beyond their genes and origins, there was one glaring difference between them.
Alt’s appearance was not much different from the many humans existing in the universe.
Of course, since the appearance of planetary inhabitants varied depending on their environment, not all humans in space looked the same, but Alt’s form was what one might call the most universal.
In contrast, Roy had animal ears and a tail, which inevitably limited his activities during the early stages of a planetary invasion.
Despite being fellow Kaijin, Alt had been consistently involved in invasion activities since arriving on Earth, while Roy had spent the last twenty years on the ship before only recently being deployed to the field.
Since Roy had lived in a much more comfortable environment, Alt worried about whether he could adapt well.
Knowing all too well that the summers in Korea and Japan were notoriously brutal from his time living in Japan, Alt wondered if Roy would be able to withstand it.
"You're wearing a beanie now because it's winter, but you'll probably collapse in the summer."
"What's summer like?"
"It's damn hot. Why do you think my skin looks so tanned?"
"You said you tanned it on purpose."
"It's because I played at the beach way too much in the summer."
Alt hadn't explained it in detail to others, but the reason his skin was a deep bronze was that he had spent every summer playing at the sea to his heart's content.
"You ended up like that from playing? Then isn't summer a good season for having fun?"
Roy, who had yet to experience a proper summer, couldn't quite understand the concept of going to the beach to play.
"How do you feel when you go into the water?" Alt asked.
"It's cold."
"Right? Then why do you think I played in the ocean so much during the summer?"
"...Because it was hot?"
Roy got the answer right, but he still wore an expression of incomprehension. He'll find out when the time comes, Alt thought as he led him out of the hospital.
Alt thought Roy would be fine once they were outside, but Roy didn't stop walking, as if trying to get as far away from the hospital as possible.
"How far are you going?"
"I want to get away from the hospital for a bit. The smell of medicine is stuck in my nose and won't go away."
"Then go walk around on your own for a bit."
Alt, who wasn't familiar with the local geography, didn't plan on going far. Roy didn't know the area either, but they had ways to contact each other, and Alt figured that with Roy's sense of smell, he’d find his way back to the hospital much easier than Alt would.
"Got it."
Dazed by the medicinal stench, Roy gave a half-hearted reply and gradually drifted further away from the hospital.
"...He'll manage."
Watching the back of Roy's head as he walked away, Alt decided there was no need to worry about him like he was a child and looked for a place to kill some time.
*
Inside the hospital room after Alt and Roy left, Kruger and Theo were staring at me intensely. Calling it an "intense gaze" might be misleading—it was more like a gaze so hot I felt like I was going to burn to death.
"You know I've been investigating Superhumans, right?"
"We know."
Both Kruger, who had been in Team 3 for a long time, and Theo, who had joined more recently, were well aware that I was collecting information on Superhumans.
Kruger had helped during the data collection phase, and Theo had contributed significantly to the creation of the recent hacking tool.
"While doing that, I found out that Superhumans are paid very low wages."
"How did you find that out?"
"...It's a long story."
No matter how close I was to these two, I couldn't increase the number of people who knew I was dating the members of Team Hunter Killer. Someday, when the situation improved and all my girlfriends joined Spacetro, I might be able to tell them, but for now, it was a fact that had to remain hidden.
"Fine. Keep talking."
When I said the explanation would be long to avoid answering, Kruger asked for the next part of the explanation as if he wouldn't sweat the small details.
"Anyway, I figured out a way to hack them."
Since I skipped the events in the middle, Kruger and Theo couldn't immediately piece the story together, their heads tilting in confusion as they listened.
"That's why I asked Theo to look for a hacking tool."
"So, you're the one who leaked this?"
"Yeah."
Kruger, holding a tablet, showed me an article related to the embezzlement case. I simply confirmed it, thinking that adding minor details would only make the conversation longer.
"Then what's this encrypted file?"
"Team Guerrilla has gone missing, right?"
I swallowed hard from a sudden surge of tension as I watched the two of them nod without a word.
"But there's someone who went missing even before them. A guy named Gainsborough from Team Guerrilla."
Because Indigo had left such a strong impression when they dealt with Team Guerrilla, even Kruger couldn't recall much about Gainsborough.
Theo had never met Team Guerrilla and only knew that Kruger and I had been injured because of them, so he just listened quietly.
"Among the data I got from hacking the Earth Defense Union Director's PC, I found something related to Gainsborough, but almost all the files are encrypted."
"And you want to decrypt these to track his whereabouts?"
I nodded. I had explained why I was asking Kruger to decrypt them, but even I thought the explanation was lacking.
Kruger, who was asked to do the decryption, and Theo, who had helped create the hacking tool, had heard the explanation but weren't entirely convinced.
Though they didn't say it, they both sensed I was hiding something.
"But I'm more interested in this."
Knowing I had no intention of revealing what I was hiding right now, the two didn't press further. Kruger shifted his gaze to the tablet and pulled up a document to show Theo and me.
It was the data regarding the unidentified radio signal Alt had detected at the radio base in Japan.
"Why this?"
"I was thinking about what you said about Gainsborough being missing. The timing is a bit strange."
"The timing?"
At Kruger's words, I looked at the data again.
Gainsborough disappeared about a week after the terror incident occurred. During that time, the members of Team Guerrilla were interrogated by the police, but Gainsborough hadn't been questioned even before he officially vanished.
It was hard to officially confirm when Team Guerrilla went missing, but Team Endurance, the team that replaced them, arrived at the Seoul Branch about a month after Gainsborough disappeared.
And the radio signal was transmitted relatively recently—about a month after Team Guerrilla had vanished.
"Isn't it hard to draw a conclusion with just this?"
I also suspected a link between Gainsborough and the radio signal. However, it was just a hunch, and I had no clear evidence.
Kruger seemed to feel the same way, as he didn't respond immediately. He felt a strange intuition, but without evidence, he was hesitant to push forward.
The hospital room fell silent, a silence eventually broken by Theo's sigh.
"So, are we doing this or not?"
"Even if we investigate, it might turn out to be completely unrelated. Besides, the radio signal stuff is under the jurisdiction of the Japan Branch."
"Reviewing data has nothing to do with jurisdiction. And since when did you two ever care about that?"
Knowing we would push forward if we set our minds to it, Theo looked back and forth between Kruger and me with narrowed eyes.
"Decide quickly. I need time to prepare myself mentally, don't I?"
Whenever Kruger and I caused trouble, it was always Theo's job to clean up the mess.
Having had no intention of stopping us from the start, Theo was simply waiting for our decision.
"Let's do it. It's not like we haven't jumped into things based on a hunch before."
To be precise, we had always jumped into things based on hunches and caused trouble.
At Kruger's words, my own hesitation vanished, and I reached a decision instantly.
"Yeah. We've got nothing to lose."
The moment we decided to investigate the radio signal, Theo sighed once more. It was a much deeper, heavier sigh than before. Massaging his forehead, he looked at the two of us.
"What do you need? I'll go to Headquarters and check."
Unlike the two of us, Theo had a certain level of access authority, so he asked what data was required.
"First, there should be data uploaded from the radio base. There's also the data Alt brought back, so check those. I'll look through the hacked files to see if there's anything related. Kruger, for now, focus on the decryption."
And so, Kruger, Theo, and I divided our roles in that hospital room.
*
At the same time, at the Spacetro Seoul Branch.
"Huh? Everyone's gone already?"
Having heard that A and Theo were going to visit Kruger in the hospital, Esmeralda had stopped by the Team 3 office to see if they needed anything.
However, the office was quiet, and she happened to run into Seira, who had also come by.
"Yes. I heard from the Team 3 staff that they left a while ago."
"It must have been a while since the three of them were together. I bet it's lively, isn't it?"
Esmeralda, who had been their superior back when A, Kruger, and Theo all worked as engineers, smiled as if reminiscing about the old days.
In contrast, Seira let out a hollow laugh, perhaps also remembering the past.
"I get anxious when those three get together. I wonder if they're plotting something again."
"Won't it be fine since Theo is with them?"
Even to Esmeralda, their former boss, it seemed like Theo acted as a stabilizer when the three were together. But Seira, who had lived as a soldier alongside them, shook her head.
"Theo is actually the biggest problem when A and Kruger are about to pull something."
"What do you mean by that?"
"There's always a pattern when they cause trouble. First, A brings some ridiculous idea, and Kruger gets interested. Up to that point, neither of them can quite decide to actually do it."
"Does Theo start the trouble, then?"
"No. He eggs them on."
The Theo Seira was describing was slightly different from the one Esmeralda knew.
"He acts like he's not interested and that it's a pain to clean up if they start something. But he's just as curious as they are, so he makes sure the two of them decide to do it quickly."
To outsiders, it always looked like Theo was cleaning up the messes A and Kruger made.
But to Seira, who had been on the inside and watched them closely, cleaning up the messes the three of them made together had always been her job.
"I just hope they don't cause any major trouble."
Thinking of the past, Seira let out a deep sigh.