Chapter 862: line with translation of title

NO．231：Can a regular theatrical version do it? (3K)

Hey, Aomo, how much time has passed?

Thirteen hours and twenty-one minutes.

It's been that long……

Really, really tired, Aomo-san.

That's the reason I wanted to grab time to rest at the beginning.

The demon king Mefilas was using a heavily damaged King Joe as a bench, looking at the fierce-eyed Jie De Ultraman and Sai Luo Ultraman, pointing at a similarly heavily damaged, unresponsive Gurantor not far away, indicating that could also serve as a bench.

Sai Luo himself wasn't picky at all, directly sitting on the crystallized sand, watching Jie De go over there straining to drag Gurantor over, listening to the calm explanation from Mefilas beside him:

Although the forces prepared by the Alien Business Alliance lack a decisive strongman, they have enough numbers to wear down the strong.

The enemy command won't lack such awareness, so they deliberately spread out the battlefield, making our endurance insufficient to rely on area attacks to wipe out enough troops.

Normally, hunting in a zoo would be quite easy.

The animals in the zoo have undergone some degree of domestication, and thus have somewhat lost their wildness and ferocity, just as the Alien Business Alliance is essentially a bunch of corporate bosses.

Although they are all successful people capable of becoming leaders, and they more or less hold wealth and power, but if they truly had to rely on martial prowess—let alone bloody courage, even their combat skills have generally deteriorated.

Indeed, the Hippolytans making them into Leo Knights is indeed a brilliant idea—allowing these usually pampered folks to act as Pokémon trainers, standing in the back watching the Pokémon (monsters) go forward to fight, and even if the battle atmosphere triggers a berserk mode, it will only boost the monsters' output.

Even indiscriminate attacks will only increase the purity of the Leo Knights' bloodline—this race was originally created by the Rayblondo aliens to cultivate and screen for suitable offspring and bodies.

Their very bloodline has rules designed to strengthen and purify through internal conflict.

Berserk internal conflict, on the contrary, makes the victor even stronger, and can even be considered a way to break through in battle.

Using war to sustain war, and relying on more monster control to fight above one's level, has a kind of web novel protagonist's charm.

Immersed in berserk mode, the indiscriminate state further compensates for most of the Leo Knights' lack of bloodiness—fearless alongside monsters, they are no longer like zoo animals.

Thus, by assimilating with monsters and almost becoming monsters themselves, the Leo Knights, who also possess giant growth ability, have caused considerable burden for everyone.

This burden mainly lies in the slow cleanup.

Being fearless makes them hard to capture alive, so only lethal force can be used.

But even using lethal force makes it difficult to win unscathed, resulting in prolonged consumption of time, turning into an obvious war of attrition.

Honestly, a war of attrition isn't really a problem.

The police side had long been prepared for this—not only did the Special Actions Unit already have emergency medical personnel, they even brought living supplies, and the Two Worlds Safety Bureau was similarly prepared, with their stockpiling level… just shy of military intervention for war.

The only ones not used to this are Aomo and his group.

Monster users and Ultramen are all about speedruns, usually aiming to settle battles within ten minutes; for Sai Luo's seniors, it's even more about three-minute speed clears.

Even on the relatively large-scale 'Silver Frame' set, battle resolution is very swift.

Suddenly turning into a ten-plus-hour war of attrition—this isn't unprecedented; when Ultraman Father came to help Jie De hold off Ultraman Belial, he just sat there dueling with Belial all day.

During the standoff, they even put up a cover, so outsiders couldn't see clearly.

Those who believe them think they're fiercely wrangling; those who don't believe them suspect they're fiercely negotiating to get Jie De registered.

Regardless of that battle's duration, at least Aomo truly witnessed the endurance of Jie De, Sai Luo, and Lipiya—and damn it, why hasn't Orb shown up yet?!

That jerk named Lebets keeps swiftly moving across the battlefield, dragging corpses around to reuse in combat, and is as sneaky as a little golden man, running off upon seeing Sai Luo and Jie De switch to utility forms.

While running, he completely disregards casualties that leave monsters to cover the rear, having not a shred of a strong one's pride.

Now everyone is waiting for Red Kai to come join the team and set a vicious trap to surround and kill Lebets—this kind of sneaky, evil tactic, in everyday life would already have Aomo complaining that you guys aren't at all warriors of light.

But now……

Thinking that it's probably midnight outside by now, he just wants to ruthlessly get rid of these things that keep him from seeing Aizhi, possibly even forcing him to work overtime—damn shit!

The plan to kill your mother must be personally devised by me!

This is no longer just an issue of pulling all-nighters; tomorrow is Aizhi's G1 match, the battle most expected of him, and he might very well not make it to the venue.

Since they're called trainers, not going to the site when the horse girls race, not even looking, and thus being unable to encourage them, is a dereliction of duty both publicly and privately.

Aside from public opinion risks, he's more worried about Aizhi's condition.

So far, the girls he has trained appear quite independent and self-sufficient, as if his occasional absence doesn't hinder training; consequently, many who attack him online claim he just got lucky, and his subordinates are nothing but a bunch of 'fully automatic horse girls'.

It's as if he had three Rudolfs, a good opera, etc., under him.

It makes Aomo want to laugh.

Fully automatic……

They're clearly all problem students with psychological issues!

One or two may seem stable in their usual state, but when he's not around, he really doesn't dare let them run on their own.

Aimu Zhiji is no exception.

He even feels that she needs his supervision more than Bourbon, Suzi, and Chazuo do, and if he doesn't go see her…… he doesn't know what condition she'll be in when she goes onto the track.

After all, he's been really busy lately.

And this recent period happens to be the few days before her race, which, if it were another horse girl, would be the time most needing a trainer, or classmates and friends to accompany her.

And Aomo knows that Aizhi will likely only have Qiling accompanying her, at most plus Chazuo or Bourbon…… and perhaps that crucial little sister.

Really quite a failure…… During this brief rest time, when he can think about things besides the battlefield, the first thing that comes to mind is how he's neglected to pay attention to Aizhi these past few days.

He even only took her to a KTV once, and on the day before full deployment, he was still trying to teach her to show a business smile.

Although taking a cool route is fine, what's most needed now is to attract and wash fans—don't always put on a long face during matches, don't sing expressionlessly, and when you win you must definitely smile and wave at the audience!

You are no longer that ghost who once ran unrequitedly for your sister's victory.

You should start living again like a 17-year-old high school girl, enjoying life and the joy of victory together with your sister.

——These words, he indeed said to Aizhi during that smile practice, but did she take them in?

Can it be done?

"Moonlight flash backlight~?"

Moonlight flash backlight~?

Suddenly, a chant with a melody somewhat similar to Galatron's sound reached his ears, prompting him to turn his head, and he saw Gilbarius broadcasting that melody.

He looked like a deliberately weathered Gundam model, covered in scratches and slight dents from battle damage, yet he used his chest core, which was more advanced than Galatron's, to play the song 'FORCELIGHT' that he had once hoped the Heart of Terra would convey to him.

Because he had tried singing it at KTV, and also because he often listened to it in daily life.

He often felt its intro was quite similar to Galatron's sound, and perhaps it could replace it as battlefield audio——result……

"How come you're the one playing it?"

"Am I not qualified to play it?" Gilbarius asked in his ever‑steady tone.

"Not that there's a problem, I just didn't expect your device to actually be able to play music like Galatron."

"Functions that mass‑produced models have, prototype models couldn't possibly lack." Gilbarius said.

"Alright," Aomo nodded, listening as his chest still played 'This world mercilessly mocks someone like me, once filling me with utter hatred,' while gazing at his still‑blood‑red dragon eyes, full of killing intent, and asked, "According to your calculations, when can we finish this encirclement?"

"If there are no abnormal variables, it will be completed at 9:05 AM on the 26th."

"Huh? Even in the best case we have to pull an all‑nighter?" Jie De covered his head with both hands, feeling somewhat desperate.

But Aomo felt this person ought to be desperate about being able to converse normally with Gilbarius.

This kid clearly killed others twice, yet he can remain unmoved in front of the victims! (x)

It's all the battlefield's fault!

It's the battlefield where we fought side by side for thirteen hours that ruined him!!

"Even though we tampered from the start, successfully hindering the monster maturation and deployment systems, does it still have to take this long?" Lipiya also visibly dissatisfied with this result.

His stripes have now turned green, indicating a clear need to 'charge'.

This left the police and the Two Worlds Safety Bureau officers taking turns at the halftime break scene desperately in need of an Ultraman Diga.

Of course, although there's no Diga, there is Sai Luo with solar panels on his chest.

He walked over trying to transfer energy to Lipiya, but ended up looking bewildered, wondering 'Where is the other's timer?', which reminded Aomo of when Sai Luo first mentioned that the sun of this universe could accidentally charge him, and he seemed proud enough to shoulder the logistics for the whole Ultraman team.

Heh, now we can't even find anyone's charging port!

All we can do is try, as a last resort, to beam light onto his chest.

Seeing the somewhat jittery Aomo made him laugh.

Sai Luo Ultraman still has a bit of humor.

Rather than an artificial mind that doesn't really grasp this humor, it replied in a report‑like tone: 'Although I promptly disrupted the deployment of subsequent monster forces, when I was rescued by Mr. Lin Dun and his companions, the initial monster maturation and corpse sorting work that accounted for the largest share of forces had already been completed.'

"According to on‑site scan calculations, the total number of monsters and LeoniX still has a head."

Ughhhhh, about four hundred million? Jie De couldn't accept that number, which is even larger than the monster spawn count in Monster Hunter Rise's aberrant variant.

"There's even more left than expected!" This time it was Mefimos's turn to grab his head with both claws and wipe his face, then turn back and say, "It's all your fault! I was still planning to wait! If Gilbarius fought alone, there's a high chance he could directly take down the enemy's commanders, even their leader."

Now it has directly turned into guerrilla warfare, and they are the ones being guerrilla‑ed.

Someone seems to have gotten a bit anxious.

Thirteen hours ago, he confidently told the Hippolyte aliens that zoo hunting was easygoing, but now there's not a trace of that.

"Where is this zoo hunting? This is more like Ultraman survivors……"

"Zoo hunting?" Lipiya denied, "Now it's an extremely inefficient slaughterhouse."

We should call ACE back, right?

Come back, Meatpacking Plant Director, my proudest faith.

"I really don't want to hear this number," said Sai Luo, still serving as the all‑purpose charger, turning his head, "And Gilbarius, can we boost the brightness of the sun in the data world a bit?"

"Just a moment, we're increasing the conversion rate of data to heat for that star."

"Also, there's a conclusion."

"Oh?"

"The newly added variable calculation shows that when the enemy's quantity decreases exponentially, the battle end time will be greatly advanced. Supplementary explanation: Variable 1: morale of both sides; Variable 2: enemy supply shortage."

"Variables..." Mefimos's claw scraped sparks on the keratin of his chin, "Gilbarius, aside from calculating the current situation, do you have any extra computing power?"

"Insufficient, but we can create extra hardware."

Not enough computing power? For Gilbarius that just means adding a few more mainframes to share the load; the metal on site is still sufficient.

"Ah, that works too—I can load your hardware with a Galatron card just the same," Mefimos nodded, "I'll add a backup variable to your calculation; see if my certain guess can hold."

"Good."