Chapter 32: Why Isn't There Even a Tremor?

From an extremely high viewpoint, looking down on the city.

The reddish beast, possessing both mechanical and biological qualities of the scorched earth, its very body also glowed with the red of metal at high temperature, and it had a huge breach.

"You pulled the progress bar too late! At this point that big guy is obviously battle-damaged! Although it will repair itself later."

"Repair?? You said it would self-repair?"

"Right, the original version can't, can it?"

"Where did the original version get people to add damage controls to it?"

"Maybe it was added by those guys from Star Constant Industry; they're good at making fathers, often lumped together with Zaiya Company."

"……"

"Why aren't you speaking and start pulling the progress bar? Don't you believe what I'm saying?"

"That's not the case."

Aomo didn't even look at Morrison in the corner, his gaze locked firmly on the center of the screen, watching the beast move its huge foot, watching the beast roll up its long, heavy, sharp tail to smash through the building beside it, and even more watching the beast's shoulder-mounted missiles fire in a salvo, covering the land that still had human figures and had not yet turned to scorched earth.

In the left corner of this scene, there were still a few people fighting in the vast scorched earth, faintly golden light flashing, and a certain figure in the golden light was withered.

"There's also a ground-level view below, isn't this my pre-death replay? Why aren't you watching me?"

"It seems that golden light still belongs to the opposing side; our side is that desiccated corpse."

"Don't argue, the dead can't be changed; I want to watch the living."

"……" His feelings were a mixed bag, Morrison's gaze like a fan-shaped statistical chart, he was somewhat autistic, deeply experiencing the actual change in his adopted son, or rather, realizing a side of him he had never seen before.

Besides studying and making Marseille predictions, there's nothing else that could make him care this much and be serious, right?

"This kid really does like monsters that much?"

Although they lived together day and night, it's also impossible to just barge into the child's private space for no reason; Aomo wouldn't ask Morrison for money to buy toys, but used his own pocket money earned his own way; the most frequent parent-child interaction besides training was the dinner table, and occasional little holidays.

Morrison had once taken little Aomo to the World Gate Racecourse several times, taking advantage of the little holidays, and had also taken him to an amusement park that every kid should visit once; the result was that the other party lacked enthusiasm.

On the contrary, Tokusatsu Park made the kid quite happy; then he watched the child bypass a group of kids asking for a group photo with 'Ultraman', running over to ask if 'Jamila' could take a photo together, which left the suit actors stunned.

When wearing this suit, although he had often taken photos with peers his age, he was rarely asked by children, after all most kids fear the appearance of monster suits; facing the suit actor's confusion, Morrison merely replied subtly: This kid likes monsters, let's take a photo together.

Indeed, he likes monsters... Morrison later felt several times that his original statement was indeed correct, although he had said it then only to prevent little Aomo from seeming too strange.

Kids who like monsters are generally more acceptable than kids who can understand adult dramas.

Back then those were just placating words, but they actually turned out to be true; later Aomo, when visiting those places, would still seek out villains, bad roles, and monsters to photograph; Morrison didn't know much about those characters, having only watched a few tokusatsu episodes together with little Aomo, enough to recognize a few like Jamila, Nasca, Obic, and the like.

Those few were also characters he felt regretful about losing, but Aomo obviously didn't just like those few characters; Morrison felt for a long time that his adopted son wasn't quite right, because other kids in high school should be putting scantily clad plastic figures in their rooms, whereas this kid's room held steel dragon models, Ghidra models, and a bunch of cheap monster figurines bought in childhood.

I had thought that later he started focusing his thoughts on a little girl with horse ears and a horse tail, which would be normal, but looking again now... it seems not normal either.

Thus, from Aomo's childhood up to the present, the no-longer-reclusive Morrison made up his mind, at least to turn around his adopted son's 'Gan oh, damn weird' XP, when suddenly he heard Aomo say:

"Morrison, I want to discuss something with you."

Morrison was overjoyed, happily saying: "Great, you finally decided to go see a doctor, huh!"

"?"

"?"

Aomo and Morrison stared at each other; after a few seconds, Aomo was the first to compose himself: "Explain the basis of your earlier remark."

Morrison deeply felt that discarding the flesh-and-blood obstacle of the soul would make it more keen; a strong sense of misfortune prompted him to squeeze out a smile and hastily decline:

"No no no, what do you want to discuss with me? I think this is more important."

"……" Morrison regarded him skeptically from the screen; Aomo deeply felt that this state of the other made it impossible to read his displeasure, and the other hadn't even sweated anymore; no matter how you looked, his micro-expressions were just pixels.

But he always felt that this guy had just said something incredibly harsh.

As usual, his weighing of priorities still let Aomo decide to give the other a break; he glanced up again at the screen, where the mechanical Godzilla, struck through by a beam and collapsing, began internal explosions, then he turned back: "Alright, then I'll bring up one point first—don't get excited."

"I won't get excited, go ahead."

"The Two Worlds Safety Bureau and the Public Security Bureau still haven't caught the culprit who ruined the Heaven Gate, right?"

"Of course, that Heaven Gate is still scrapped because they can't find the secret key," Morrison said, seeming to have thought something over, the chibi image on the screen suddenly becoming realistic, quite uneasy: "You're not going to say you have a lead, are you?"

Thinking about it, this is the child who, from childhood onward, could always offer adults some thoughts or even solutions to their difficult problems; Morrison's unease was therefore unprecedentedly strong.

A case involving a Star Gate, such an important structure, is hard to gauge in scale; it could easily be planetary or even stellar level; even someone as laid-back as Morrison could sense how huge it is, definitely not something a 19-year-old high schooler and a half-dead electronic vampire should be involved in.

He might have been thinking about all this at an unprecedented speed, while Aomo still had his head down, murmuring "secret key..." "again a key," then he lifted his head and said to him: "It's not a lead."

"Not a lead, good..." Morrison breathed a sigh of relief, but he had obviously relaxed too soon.

"I know who the culprit is; let me go take revenge for you, how about that?"

"???"

Now it wasn't Aomo playing the terminal; Morrison could even, thanks to the convenience of the electronic ghost, directly type question marks on the screen.

"You little bastard, what nonsense are you spouting!"

"Revenge!" Aomo repeated it again; this time he spoke with extra force, his expression utterly serious.

"I can gather evidence for the Two Worlds Safety Bureau, but if they don't plan to handle it right away, then we'll do it ourselves."

"I'm just an electronic ghost; don't casually add the plural suffix."

"Then I'll do it!"

"I'm just saying, you really dare to take this on alone?! You brat, do you even know what you're saying?!"

"I know." Aomo earnestly gazed at Morrison.

"I also know you'll definitely refuse, so I said I wanted to discuss something with you; at least hear me out on how I'd do it, rather than just refusing outright."

"……"

Morrison silently locked eyes with him, and only after ten seconds did he relent.

"You should hesitate a bit—why is there not even a flicker of fluctuation?"

"The ones who killed my people are already dead; what revenge are you seeking, dragging yourself into this mess?"

"The thing that kills you is just a knife; that transmigrator is also just being used. To take revenge, you still have to find the person holding the knife."

Aomo said, turning his head to look at the paused screen, where a mechanical Godzilla spewing firelight appeared; his gaze fell on a certain mechanical part, observing the faint blue light emanating from there.

It's not noticeable at all, but it's not invisible either, especially since its whole body is emitting the red of firelight.

Those reds also reflected in his eyes, and then Morisen saw them in his eyes.

"The dead can't be changed; I want to see the living."