There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

Police Leopard:

ヘ(^?ェ?^))))Σ≡=─(I’m coming!)

When it comes to eating, I was completely outmatched by these guys, but with the attitude that "a fool wouldn't pass up a bargain," I summoned the two cheetahs that had been eyeing the food for a long time, and they joined me in the meat feast.

Strangely, the sailors were not surprised to see the gray leopard. Instead, they kindly offered it two skewers of barbecue that had been doused with cold water, and even praised the handsome lynx!

...Lynx it is then.

I always felt there was something wrong with the training methods of this Navigators' Alliance. It easily instilled boldness but robbed people of their intelligence, creating a group of barbarians devoid of love.

Zack explained that in their eyes, anything weaker than themselves is not a threat, so there is no need to distinguish between useless details such as whether it is a leopard or a cat.

However, I believe this statement is clearly an attempt to exonerate those who slipped through the net of nine-year compulsory education.

Unfortunately, even with the addition of two police leopards, the three of us ultimately failed to defeat any of the sailors.

The large gray cat couldn't stay alert in the face of the delicious food. Usually, it would only eat until it was half full, always keeping itself able to run. But now, it ate a whole meal, its belly round, and lay on the beach, struggling to roll around and open its mouth to sunbathe, not even bothering to lift its paws.

“Yes… if I let them eat like this, I could easily say they’re pigs painted with stripes, carefully trained to be police pigs…”

As I stroked my chin, pondering the feasibility, I saw Gotz, wearing a headscarf, walking towards me, holding an empty bottle of beer in one hand.

"Marcus! You're finally back!"

After being exposed to the wind and sun, Gots, who was already tall and burly, had skin that was completely black and his thick fur was unkempt. He looked like a giant bear standing upright, and even without speaking, he was extremely imposing.

But I don't care about that. Can a four-meter-tall Deepsea be more intimidating than a giant Deepsea? When I smashed the giant Deepsea into a pulp, I never felt its size.

"Gotz!" I punched him in the chest with a dull thud. "Are you sure you're okay after running away for so long?"

I didn't say it outright, but Gotz seemed to understand what I meant and laughed, saying, "Don't worry, I'm perfectly fine now!"

A burly sailor walked over and said to Gotz with a complaint, "Gotz, you never spar with us. I thought you looked down on us!"

Gotz scratched his head and said, "No way! If you want to compete with me, you'd better beat me in an arm wrestling match first!"

After the sailors left, Gotz pushed aside the two police pigs on the ground, plopped down next to me, and whispered something.

"Marcus, is your disappearance related to some mysterious event...?"

Gots maintained his bright smile, as if catching up with a long-lost friend, but talking about unrelated things, "I was the first to find you missing the day you disappeared. The room was full of shards of mirror and jade powder. Father Carter came over reeking of alcohol and helped me clean the room. He even made me assure others that you left overnight."

I nodded: "There's been a minor issue... You can ask Harris for details yourself."

"Harris is back too?!" Gotz exclaimed in surprise.

I replied, "Yes. But I'm more worried about whether there will be any problems if you go into the sea so rashly. After all, your family..."

Gotz stroked his bushy brown beard. “No, this voyage was the right choice. I learned some useful techniques from the Navigators’ Guild. Their special training methods are very helpful for me to overcome and control the negative aspects of my nature. I think this rough training method is designed to subdue the animalistic nature in people.”

I asked, "That training method where you fight every day? How far have you progressed?"

Gotz hesitated and said, "At first, I always heard strange noises from the sea and always wanted to swim to the deep sea. But after following their method and numbing myself with excessive physical labor and alcohol every day, my physical strength kept breaking through..."

"One day when I was fishing, I saw a reef and suddenly had an epiphany. I began to imagine myself as a rock, and slowly and consciously controlled the fluctuations in my mind, locking my consciousness in a stable state."

...If this were in the Main God Space, Gots' Deep One bloodline would probably be equivalent to starting with a second-tier Gene Lock, but with significant mental deficiencies.

The Navigators' Alliance's training methods excel at pushing human limits and cultivating beast-like instincts; in essence, they are about liberating and controlling the wildness within our genes. Therefore, this method is entirely beneficial to sailors, and for Gots, it's a perfect fit!

"Reaching the initial stage of level three in just a few months... Zack would probably cry at this rate." I patted Zack on the shoulder.

"What did you say? What do you mean by third-order?" Gotz asked.

I waved my hand: "It's okay... We have different worldviews. Although I'm a little worried that you might wake up to see a giant ball of light. By the way, do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to truly... live?"

Gotz felt a chill run down his spine at my mysterious tone and shook his head resolutely.

I said with satisfaction, "Next time you see this multiple-choice question, remember to choose 'no,' okay?"

"What are you talking about?!"

Hmph, his wife and daughter died tragically, he's disheartened and world-weary, yet he still possesses enormous potential—if there really were a God's Space, someone like him would have been pulled in long ago.

Knowing that Gots is a beginner in the third stage and has reached a state of consciousness control, I can basically rest assured that his sunny disposition is not because he has become gay.

His psychological state is more likely due to learning to mimic the thinking of his peers.

“Back then, my father controlled himself in the mine by overexerting himself, and he was only corrupted after his death. I have the same confidence now,” Gotz explained.

I nodded.

Gots wanted to leave Mineral Town because the "Final Calamity" had been resolved, and he felt he might become a new source of unrest, hence his self-imposed exile. Now that he didn't have to leave, it was clearly a great thing. His ability to perfectly conceal his negative emotions also meant his emotional control had reached a new level, so there was less worry about him going berserk.

But I can't let him have any free time so easily.

"Gotz, don't be too happy yet. The insect plague from Twin Town has spread to the Mads Mountains. As the ranger who knows the mountains best, you still have to find a way to deal with it."

Gotz was startled by what he heard, and his face finally showed the familiar look of deep resentment I knew him to have. "Insect infestation..."

Just as I was about to explain what I knew, Gotz grabbed me and said in a low voice, "Come up the mountain with me! I need to go up there and take a look!"

"Wait! I can have another skewer! Put me down!" I cried.

Ignoring my feelings, Gotz greeted the sailors and told Zack to continue entertaining these heroes before dragging me along a shortcut into Mount Mades.

…………

Gotz, who had been carrying me all the way, finally gave me my freedom when we arrived at the familiar cabin in the woods.

"Finally, they've put me down!"

I subtly expressed my dissatisfaction, looking at the overgrown forest cabin in front of me. Even the summer wind felt unusually cold. Although it was impossible for anyone to be in the dense forest, shadowy figures could be seen everywhere.

"Good deeds will be rewarded! Your cremation will surely produce relics! If you are involved in a car accident, the other party will be fully responsible! If you go to jail, your sentence will be reduced!"

Gotz unlocked the heavy lock on the door, revealing a room that had been left empty and covered in a layer of dust. He pulled out a large box from under the table, opened the wooden cabinet behind the door, and lifted the wooden planks of the bed, rummaging through various hidden corners to find suitable tools that he had piled up into a small mountain, making my eyelids twitch.

I can accept wrenches, hammers, and adzes. I won't even bother with half-meter-long axes, gleaming saw blades, or sharp and durable crowbars. But what's with the three-barreled shotgun, the barbed fork, and the sharpened hunting knife you're hiding?

Is your job as a forest ranger to rescue residents who have gotten lost on the mountain, or are you planning to shoot innocent people who have trespassed into your territory?

Arrest them! Arrest them all! As the only acting sheriff in town, I'm here to arrest you first!

“Marcus, we can’t afford any mishaps on the mountain…”

Gotz's expression was extremely serious; years of living in the mountains had kept him calm and vigilant.

With his back to me, he rummaged through drawers and cabinets, gathering various suspicious weapons on his person. "Before Old Man Hook left, he said that Mount Mads was a special place, both a stabilizer of peace and a potential source of disaster. If the insect infestation is a malicious act, then the harm will be magnified infinitely..."

He checked the ammunition in his gun, made sure he had enough firepower to handle an emergency, and turned around, holding an axe, asking, "What weapons do you need? I have an axe and a knife..."

But as he turned around, I had already finished the final step of stringing the bow at the hand-finishing point on the floor, and holding a freshly made short bow, I said, "No need, I've found that I'm still better suited to be an archer."

Gotz stood there, stunned, and after a long while, he sighed, "No matter how many times I've seen it... I still can't accept it..."

"You'll get used to it. I've already accepted the idea that you can transform into a low-budget Hulk, right? By the way, don't bring the axe. I'm afraid if I fall into the river, some strange man will emerge and ask me if I want the golden axe or the silver axe..."

Gotz chuckled and said, "You've heard the legend of the Lake Nymph too? That's just a story for children."

I retorted seriously, "Don't be careless! After all... the Milky Way is still a river..."

Oh right, I also need to check out the water element on the mountain.

While it's common for contained objects to escape, the escape of a water elemental that's not very bright and calls itself a goddess can easily cause trouble for the residents.

After we finished preparing, Gotz and I walked up the mountain path. Relying on his extensive experience in the wild, Gotz quickly tracked down Cliff, who was wandering around on the mountain, by following the tracks on the soil and grass.

“Gotz, this is Cliff. A pest control expert who was just fired for impersonating someone else!”

"...It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Cliff, this is Gots. A Mads Mountain expert who's been around for decades and is utterly useless!"

"...I've heard so much about you."

"I don't need to introduce myself, everyone knows me. Anything I get involved in always becomes complicated! Cliff, tell us what you've found. With the three of us experts working together, we're sure to find the hive!"

Cliff muttered under his breath, "The way you put it... it's clearly even less hopeful now..."

However, driven by his desire to resolve the issue, he first presented us with the evidence he had on hand.

"This is the unidentified substance I just discovered. The airdrop pod that landed yesterday cracked the ground, creating a hollowed-out area underground. Inside, I found a nest of deformed insect corpses and this colloid..."

A fist-sized, greenish-brown unidentified substance appeared in his hand, emitting no unusual odor. The dense, bite marks on it indicated that it was likely also insect food.

"Are you suspecting that the insect infestation is related to this?" I asked.

Cliff's young face was grave as he said, "Not only that, I suspect this is what caused the insects' mutation! The underground collapse we discovered has obvious signs of soil backfilling, so the insect nest must be not far from there..."

Chapter 544 Redefining Proteins

At the suspected landing site of Harris, we discovered a clearing with broken trees and cracked soil, which turned the dark forest into a sunlit paradise.

However, the landing module that Harris was in was clearly more advanced, with the ability to travel to and from low Earth orbit. After completing the transport mission, it flew back to the Genesis on its own, leaving no suspicious spherical spacecraft behind.

I wanted to complain about this as early as when I was on the Genesis. These small, individual spaceships were all spherical in shape with circular window inserts, making them look like golf balls magnified countless times—they looked exactly like the spaceships from Planet Vegeta...

After verifying multiple times and confirming that there is no known race in the universe that can transform into a gorilla under moonlight and possesses destructive power, nor any golden glass bead that can grant wishes, I felt at ease and completed the rest of the journey with them.

"It's so good to be back here and not to see any weirdos with monkey tails."

Cliff ignored my rambling and led Gotz to the landing site first. He brushed aside a layer of loose soil and explained his discovery: "Right here is a small cavity. Inside, I found many broken insect corpses. These palm-sized unicorn beetles are the culprits that destroyed the Twin Town apple orchard..."

He bent down, pressed his face and body against the hole created by the blast at the center of the landing, and reached into the hole, simulating the scene of his discovery. "This is where I found the unidentified colloid."

But what I saw was a familiar scene composed of "the epicenter of the explosion, the shattered ground, and a young man lying on the ground (with curly hair and a ponytail)"...

Yamcha, you died a terrible death!

"Cliff, get up from the ground. Your posture is likely to attract the attention of the vegetable man."

I went to the place he pointed out, exchanged a glance with Gotz, and tacitly began to dig the ground with the tools in our hands, quickly creating a hole.

As the cave expanded, the filling marks in Cliff's mouth became increasingly clear. Three more grayish-green gel-like substances were discovered in the one-meter-deep burrow, along with countless insect corpses killed by the high-temperature blast of the shuttle's descent.

Sure enough, on one side of the cave, there was a patch of loose, soft soil, completely different from the compacted forest humus soil.

We seem to be getting closer and closer to the truth about the pest infestation.

"Gotz, what do you think?"

I said.

Gotz touched the soil, began to study the composition of the filling soil, then looked around and suddenly abandoned us, running into the depths of the jungle.