Chapter 1810: with translation of chapter title

NO. 425: The horse girls' gaze is not limited to the field.

People who are frank and outspoken are often not well-liked.

People with sharp insight are likewise not well-liked.

Put together, they are the multiplier of being unpopular; even the former Aomo Lindun knows to speak selectively, and only when he needs to strongly stimulate the target's mindset to expose its flaws does he utter a piercing remark that makes the other tremble all over.

——It's not fear; it's usually anxiety and anger.

As for this, Chen is the indigo that surpasses the plant it comes from.

This is also his purity.

Having both frankness and sharp insight, from the first meeting with the Dark Knight Beast, he could utter a sentence when the other greeted him with a salute:

"Why are you hostile toward me?"

Before the other could even react with a question mark in their surprise, he again reminded them in his own way with just another sentence:

"Why are you so anxious?"

In a sense, this also counts as being talkative.

But such talk that leaks no information and invites no conflict has always been of no concern to Aomo; thus even if Aomo at this moment maintained unilateral surveillance and heard his interrogation of the Dark Knight Beast, he merely twitched his expression briefly into something odd, without attempting to stop it.

There's also nothing worth stopping.

The Dark Knight Beast is indeed a household name, making it easy for Aomo, who is exposed to transmigrator culture and foreign digital creation, to associate it with the ambition, scheming, and even brutality it displayed in "Digimon Fusion Battle" and "Digimon Chronicle X", and thus roughly guess why it would appear in the Skeleton Arena.

But just as previously mentioned, part of the reason Aomo chose Chen is that he could serve as a temporary bodyguard for Beelzebumon X——

——In fact, Beelzebumon X ought not need a bodyguard.

Even without Bi Ze's fusion evolution, he could easily return to the form of Beelzebumon, and with the Crown of the Seven Deadly Sins in hand, it would be a full return to his prime; only a large-scale encirclement or an assault by another demon king could threaten him, and that is obviously a situation where ordinary guards cannot turn the tide, so naturally he needs no bodyguard.

But Chen is clearly not bound by ordinary eyes.

The Word-Chewing Monster will, even at its first stage, hit you with a real-world beastly shock worth the data accumulated over decades by an Ultimate-level Digimon.

Especially its unusually abnormal trait—being able to maintain swift explosive power and mobility despite a height over a hundred meters—this trait is rare even among gigantic Ultimate-level Digimon.

Often only humanoid Digimon like Belphemon, Beelzebumon, and Fallen Angel Lightmon possess it.

Among beast types, there are not entirely no peers, but achieving this usually requires something like Examon X, which can rely on the special power of Draconic Plasma that interferes with normal laws.

So Aomo, under no pressure regarding this, although initially a bit awkward, readily refrained from interference, treating the surveillance as mere background music during his leisure.

Anyway, even if a fight were truly inevitable, it couldn't happen now.

Beelzebumon X had just instructed the Dark Knight Beast to receive Chen well; the latter wouldn't turn hostile so quickly.

On our side, we should still welcome this rare tranquility of being half out of prison.

After the remark of constancy spread, many forces in the Digital World's main realm halted their war preparations.

Even the Royal Knights and Heavenly Extreme, in the silence of the World Tree, half-believing and half-doubting, eased their urging of friends and subordinates, remaining merely active in intelligence investigation.

He thus suddenly had much less information to process, the horse girls' training plan began to get on track; although two adult horse girls remained idle, the others nevertheless had to run together with the high school division.

Even an ordinary trainer would find it hard to believe that Lindun's leisure time is not the first half of a summer camp-like vacation, but rather the latter half when this work gradually gets on track.

Compared to when they would idle and come looking for him, the current situation is far more relaxed and stable, which Aomo calls the half-out-of-prison stage.

This too counts as a kind of accumulation.

From the initial lack of professional knowledge, the most unreliable part being running training itself, to now the easiest part being training—Magus's recent year of intensive remedial study and poring over professional books has shown exactly this.

Likewise, his abundant experience with red stone from his youth also helps him act as Puppet MKII, guiding the Fallen Angel Lightmon and incidentally fishing for key clues; though summarizing it is awkward, indeed none of his efforts have been for nothing.

The only thing that makes him somewhat uneasy is that he failed to extract information about the opponent's humanoid clone.

Obviously this should be the simplest, easiest way for that arrogant demon king to display his might and earn worship as a conversation starter, but even after several hints, however he hints, even after repeating to the point of being somewhat unsafe, for a sensitive person it soon feels like a deliberate fourth attempt——

The other side seems to have made no association, showing no sign of divergence.

He doesn't take the bait.

This is becoming troublesome.

Originally, to leave as little trace as possible, his probing remarks were very conservative and cautious, even timid: beating around the bush, all he managed to get were 'clues' rather than 'information'.

That is, the kind that still needs extra deduction and piecing together; it is inherently fragmented information, and its carrier partly consists of the opponent's outward reactions when discussing those matters.

—As a humanoid Digimon without a mask, its face resembles that of a neutral human's features; even though Fallen Angel Lightmon has room for acting, it likewise leaves room for reading microexpressions.

Aomo does not worry that the detailed information he reads is due to the opponent's acting, but he is concerned about the opponent's lack of responsiveness in conversation, which for an arrogant person is quite abnormal.

This abnormality points to only one possibility, yet that possibility admits two interpretations: one is secrecy, it is key, it is the opponent's utmost endurance for some important arrangement; the other is a trap, it is misdirection, it is perhaps the opponent's realization that I am probing for information, thus deliberately guiding my field of view, in order to make me believe the first possibility.

To discern these two utterly different viewpoints requires more information, but the problem lies precisely here: the tour segment of Zero Star-Eater has reached its end.

The priests have summoned him again and ordered him to bring the honored guest to the sanctuary; thus he now has no reason to linger there, and the Fallen Angel Lightmon, who ought to be chatting happily with him, has no intention of keeping him.

Of course, if he were truly kept, Aomo could then firmly infer, believing that he had indeed discovered my ill intentions and was trying to continue feeding me half-true, half-false information.

But he did not.

This led Aomo, while pondering, to wave at the two who were not training and not staying by his side, but were instead sitting and chatting at an outdoor café far off—the destined Triple Crown.

Qianming represents, Ludaofu Xiangzheng symbolizes.

Their identities as the horse girls most widely known cannot help him, but beyond those identities——

Their other identities are precisely why he waved.

Qianming: "It's really rare for the trainer to greet us proactively."

Ludaofu Xiangzheng: "Is there something? Trainer?"

Upon approaching, it's like a personality shift—from a neutral, steady demeanor to a gentle, soft gaze and tone—something most people would find extremely uncomfortable, making fans feel somewhat uncanny, but Aomo has long grown accustomed to this phenomenon of his being like a switch that reveals Luna, merely smiling and nodding.

I would like to ask the two of you to serve as my analytical advisors, and together with Horus Haiya who will come later, assist me in conducting a simulation drill.

(End of chapter)