For Now At Least, This Is No Time to Worry About the Users. (1)

Truly regrettable as it may be, my current dark-mode body was, in a word, depressingly feeble. Well—no.

To be precise, my raw physical specs were actually stronger than they'd been in the Woolongi days, but the problem was that in exchange for those upgraded specs, the range of things I could actually do had shrunk dramatically.

So I stuffed Woolongi—who kept shrieking "Mama!" at me at every opportunity—back into the chamber and resolved to perform surgery to restore him to his original form right away.

That said, before carrying out the procedure, I couldn't simply toss aside the perfectly chiseched male physique that dark-mode Woolongi—"DarkRongi"—possessed. It was far too valuable a specimen to discard.

Which meant measuring all manner of physical data in advance (muscle strength, endurance, and so on), and even running a flawless scan of the density and positioning of the entire musculoskeletal system to archive for later.

So while killing time taking verification shots and videos of DarkRongi to upload to the gallery and feed other users a generous helping of shock and terror, and generally enjoying life in a reasonably fun fashion—meanwhile, having restored Woolongi to his original self, I set him loose on cleaning the laboratory with an assortment of tools—I agreed to a meeting with Heisenberg, who had become the system president barely a week after I'd stumbled into becoming the planetary Consul.

Now, under normal circumstances, anyone of system-president rank occupies a de facto god-on-high position within their own star system; even a faction head from another major power would have to file a request for an audience and then wait through additional review and all sorts of background checks before ever getting a meeting.

But as I had learned with my whole body not long ago, our Golden Sun Heisenberg had been—my body? No. Simply my existence as a whole—completely conquered, to the point of wandering around in a daze over me.

"It feels like an eternity since we last met, Consul Benya."

"It's been, what, two or three days? Which somehow makes it feel both short and long."

"For one who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feels a single day apart stretch into a thousand years, it is much the same either way."

"Ah, I see. So that's why you're like this right now."

The moment a meeting came up, every procedure was skipped outright and the approval was granted. And the instant he arrived, there he was, wrapping his hands around my stocking-clad calves and going sniff sniff sniff, savoring my scent and the texture of my skin to his heart's content.

Beholding what remained of that once-golden something, I was able to confirm at least one thing: this man would not be stabbing us in the back anytime soon.

And then, under the judgment that absorbing enough Benya-content to satisfy his deficiency would simply take too long:

"I'll just take these off and give them to you, so consider that your allotment for today."

"Haah—hahhh—HAHHH!!! I pledge my loyaltyyy!!!"

By stripping off the stockings I'd been wearing and handing them over, I conquered that clingy, trembling pedophile of a Golden Sun once and for all.

Thereafter I returned—bare-legged—to the penthouse I had been more or less forcibly installed in on the roof of the central administration building, or rather the Branch HQ, felt profoundly, crushingly tired, and resolved to dive straight into my bedroom's bed.

Of course, right before that dive could happen:

"Doctor, there are items awaiting your approval."

"Eh?"

"Several documents in particular require the Doctor's personal sign-off, so I'm afraid you cannot rest until they have been processed."

"Ehhheh."

Our all-purpose secretary-cum-assistant Ilena had me in her grip, which meant another four—five?—hours of glumly slamming down the approval stamp, stamp, stamp.

But at any rate, having completed all of the day's obligations and successfully flopped onto my bed as a result:

"Ggomuli, o Ggomuli. I'm telling you, the outside world is a dangerous place."

Squirm squirm.

"You think the outside of your aquarium is dangerous too? See, we really are connected, you and I."

"Doctor, it has been established that 'Ggomuli' does not possess intellect of that caliber."

"Hah! Can't you sense—etched into the tentacular sway and the rippling surface cells of my Ggomuli—a whimsical cynicism about the world, and a capacity for self-reflection?!"

"...You appear to be rather more tired than usual today. I shall take my leave now."

"Okay, nighty-night! See you tomorrow, Assistant!"

After issuing Ilena her discharge with a bit of gratuitous sappiness, I lounged back and opened the gallery while my marimo-like Ggomuli squirmed inside its mini-aquarium and gulp—snatched up a goldfish and swallowed it whole. The plan was to idly browse and see what new drama was rolling around before bed.

And the moment the gallery window loaded, sure enough, I could see a brand-new controversy—unlike anything before it—being torn into by all the users.

So I scrolled down, page after page, taking in the broad strokes of what had happened. Fortunately, right at the very instant I was scrolling down and about to turn the page:

"Haah, so that's how it all went down."

As it happened, a summary thread that distilled the whole affair like some one-hit lecture master was sitting right at the bottom of page one, so I was grateful not to have wasted my time. At the same time, though, I judged that the concern the other users had raised there wasn't entirely unfounded.

I could feel a faint thought creeping in—should I delete all the verification posts I'd uploaded to the gallery so far and go dark for a while?

But unexpectedly, that dire-looking controversy got crushed, rather submissively, soon enough that you could almost call it anticlimactic.

Why? Because, just as had happened with me today, the bona fide veterans—each of whom showed clear signs of having devoured at least one star system apiece—finished their busy work, logged into the gallery, got up to speed on the situation, and then, a short while later: