Ultraman: I am really just a human.

Chapter 190 Humanity's Hope

"Buzz!"

Suddenly, a cell phone vibrated in the evening breeze.

Natsukawa stopped and answered the phone while Fujiwara Saiji watched from behind.

"It's me..."

Kagami Riku's hoarse, low voice rang out.

Are you alone right now?

"What's wrong?" Natsukawa continued to avoid the crowd, and Kagami Riku's voice could be faintly heard trembling with fear, completely unlike what one would expect from a Metropolitan Police Department Commissioner.

"There's not much time left. There are some things I must tell you about the Protozoan conspiracy... Hmph, recent investigations have alerted them. Kabuto... Tendou Souji has also been dealt with..."

In the pitch-black room, Kagami Riku, his aged face glancing left and right, carefully drew back the curtains to look downstairs, like a rat living in the sewers.

"Thirty-five years of patience, obeying their every command, all for the sake of the two of you, and yet things still went wrong—those bastards acted ahead of schedule!"

As if talking to himself, Kagami Riku's face was contorted in pain, and he almost growled.

"In the end, only you can save this world. No matter what, I must entrust the future of humanity to you. As long as we go back 35 years and crack the backdoor in Kabuto and Steel Fighter, we can completely save this world!"

After catching his breath, Kagami Riku carefully hugged the ZECT briefcase in his hands.

"Listen, you only get one chance. Meet me at Zhi Park tomorrow morning."

"beep!"

The phone call ended with a busy tone, and Xia Chuan didn't even get a chance to say a word.

"Saving the world..."

It's the same old routine again.

It seems he's got his hands on things like the apocalypse and salvation.

This has been the case for the last few dungeons.

Can simply going back 35 years really solve the problem?

He didn't want to come to the third instance again.

There are too many uncontrollable factors, and it is possible that this instance spacetime could be truly destroyed.

Xia Chuan put away his phone and looked at the meteorite necklace among the crowds on the street.

It wasn't just his Shadow Squad; some of the knights from this world also wore necklaces, and more than one at that.

"A bronze dou (a type of ancient Chinese cooking vessel)?"

After a brief recollection, Xia Chuan remembered the man opposite her who had met with the knights of this world.

The vice-captain of Fujiwara's First Squad, he participated in the exploration alone this time and seemed to be quite unsociable. This was his first appearance after entering the dungeon.

These knights...

Xia Chuan frowned slightly.

Before becoming a Level 5 Knight and receiving the Knight System's support, the physical constitution of Knights in this world is not much different from that of ordinary people. Only Showa Knights are different from ordinary people because most of them involve physical modifications.

However, his almost freakish physique absorbed even more of the meteorite's energy, and one of the Showa Riders had already begun to sublimate into a protozoan, with no possibility of reversal.

Xia Chuan glanced at everyone.

Besides the bronze bucket, there were three other people wearing the meteorite necklace. Two of the Showa Riders were almost becoming Worgen, while the remaining one was still relatively normal. He seemed to have sensed something and hurriedly took off the necklace after noticing the shadowy figure's movements.

This exploration team suffered a loss of nearly half its members.

Not only did several knights become protozoa, but it seems that two knights died at the hands of the Zerg.

One is killed upon entering the instance, and the other has their identity stolen by Zerg, both of whom are likely to meet a grim fate.

If it weren't for the deployment of the anti-mimic missiles, who knows what the Zerg would be doing hiding among the Knights of this world.

"call!"

Strolling through the streets in the evening breeze, I found myself back outside the restaurant where I worked once again.

The restaurant has already closed for business, but the female manager and Kusakabe Hikari are still busy.

……

"Da da!"

"Wait, stop..."

Footsteps echoed in the port area late at night. Two identical long-haired male figures ran into the warehouse street in a panic. However, after only a few steps, tentacles pierced their backs, and they collapsed to the ground with stiff expressions. In the blink of an eye, they turned into a green light and merged into the gray alien insect's body behind them.

"Whoosh!"

The gray Zerg form twisted back into Fujiwara Daiichi, stood silently for a while, and then turned his gaze to the chaos caused by the Zerg detector in the distance.

With the strongest Zerg eliminated, the other Zerg are no longer a threat, and this dungeon has finally reached its final stage.

Unfortunately, this purple alien insect seems to have already been killed once.

While it indirectly helped him, it also cost him an important opportunity.

If he can absorb and acquire that time-stopping ability from last time, he will be completely invincible in this world, and even RX will be no threat to him.

However, how exactly did the purple Zerg with its time-stopping ability lose?

Even if he found some flaws using the Hepa insect instrument.

……

The next day.

After handing over the management of the film industry entirely to Fujiwara Saiji, Natsukawa went to the Shiba Park Plaza alone to keep their appointment.

After waiting for a long time without seeing anyone, I learned some unexpected news from the news playing on the GG screen.

"Fellow citizens, it has been confirmed that Kagami Riku, who leads ZECT, is a Zerg traitor. I will now assume the supreme leadership."

Masato Mishima appeared on camera with a cold expression, with the office that originally belonged to Riku Kagami behind him.

"It won't be long before we completely eradicate the Zerg. Please collect your detection necklaces as soon as possible and continue to assist ZECT. Those who are not wearing necklaces are very likely to be identified as Zerg..."

"It seems something has happened."

Xia Chuan looked away from the news, glanced at the crowd scrambling for the necklace at the distribution point, and then, noticing the approaching ant-soldier formations, quickly slipped away from the plaza.

After 35 years of keeping a low profile, with the threat of the alien insects eliminated, the protozoa finally showed their fangs.

In just a few days, the situation seemed to have deteriorated beyond repair.

35 years is enough time for protozoa to do a lot of things.

At least the government became a mere figurehead; after the Zerg information was made public, ZECT seemed to suddenly dominate the world.

"Bang bang bang!"

At ZECT headquarters, a car was driving out of the underground parking garage when it was suddenly attacked by a barrage of bullets. The blast-proof body was riddled with dents by special bullets and eventually rolled over on its side after traveling a distance.

"Come out."

Masato Mishima parted the ant soldiers, coldly walked to the front of the car, and looked down at his former superior, whose head was bleeding profusely.

"Hand over the things to me, and I might consider sparing your life."

"You actually managed to do that!"

Kagami Riku trembled as he climbed out of the broken car window, staring at Mishima Masato with a grim expression.

"You were promoted for the sake of humanity's future, but you actually..."

"What's wrong with becoming a protozoan?" Protozoan phantoms appeared around Masato Mishima. "I'm still me, just with a protozoan core that humans don't!"

"You've been completely corrupted!"

Clutching his suitcase tightly, Kagami Riku muttered curses under his breath and suddenly turned and ran away.

Surprisingly, no one chased after him, and Masato Mishima's disdain deepened.

A bad feeling washed over me.

"Could it be...?"

"Haha," Mishima Masato chuckled, looking at Kagami Riku who had stopped in her tracks. "You don't actually think you're hiding your true intentions, do you? I've seen everything you've done all these years."

To bypass the backdoor in the Knight System, you secretly prepared a second Hyper Insect Device… Your scheme was exposed long ago!

"you!"

Kagami Riku stared wide-eyed as Mishima took out the remote control. The next moment, as if remembering something, he opened his briefcase to check and then suddenly flung it away in shock.

"Bang--!"

Almost simultaneously with Kagami Riku instinctively covering his head and dropping to the ground, the suitcase was torn to shreds by the explosion amidst a deafening roar, and the Hypa bug replicas inside were also destroyed.

"The last hope..."

Despite the buzzing of explosions around him, Kagami Riku was oblivious, as if all his strength had been drained, and he faced the ZECT ant soldiers around him who were turning into protozoa in despair.

(End of this chapter)