Great, we're doomed now!

"What happened?"

"...Why do you ask that?" Ye Shou turned around. "Do I look worried?"

“No, quite the opposite.” Liuli looked directly at him.

"Hmm?" The man was somewhat surprised.

"Don't you realize it? You're smiling very happily right now."

Liuli tilted her head: "It doesn't look like she's worried at all. It's more like she's put down something heavy and can finally run freely... She's so excited!"

Chapter 276: My Favorite Scratching-Toes Man (Bonus Chapter)

Inside an ordinary office under the Information Management Bureau at the Japan headquarters of the Kuze Group.

The air, slightly stuffy due to the cramped space, was filled with the smell of instant coffee. This smell, "fermented" by the warm airflow from the computer's cooling fan, instantly transformed into an unpleasant aroma reminiscent of heated beer.

Although it wasn't too unpleasant to smell, it was still a bit strange. Unless you'd been there long enough to develop an immunity, newcomers would always look suspicious and search around for any short circuits in the wires or switches.

Several young programmers, dressed in similar plaid shirts, wearing glasses of varying thicknesses, and with different builds and appearances but all exuding a calm and composed demeanor, were gathered around a coffee machine, engaging in their daily activity of replenishing their energy.

"So, the Sanctuary Fall arc of ALO being adapted into an anime was a disaster. They should have just made a dungeon arc spin-off instead." A programmer with slightly disheveled hair pushed up his glasses, his voice filled with regret. "I really want to see pretty girls cuddling together!"

"Agreed. The animation was terrible, and the pacing was awful. I think the production team was just throwing together something they didn't know how to do. In the end, they couldn't defeat the BOSS, so they suddenly came up with the concept of a soul reincarnation—wow, it's like transferring power across lifetimes!"

"Let's look forward to Ragnarok Online's public beta next month. It's said to use a brand-new physics engine with technical support from the Kuze Group, and its realistic feedback and world-building are touted as 'second reality'."

At that moment, the slightly chubby colleague next to him took a sip of coffee, his face beaming with joy, as if a layer of melted butter had been spread across his cheeks. "I managed to snag a beta test qualification! The Yalong girl's thighs... the feel was amazing!"

"Tsk! I'm so envious. I tried three times and didn't win." Another voice joined in.

"However, I don't play stealth games much anymore. In the end, they're all pretty much the same. I might as well save the money and watch a couple more live shows."

Last time I managed to get a front-row seat, and when Airi-chan swung her little feet, they were only forty centimeters away from me. I could even smell her refreshing fragrance—”

"Haha, idol fans are disgusting~"

"What ruined you? Was it pay-to-win mobile games?"

"It's all because of you guys who are obsessed with athlete's foot! Now I can't even find any decent erotic pictures of breasts!"

This person didn't take it seriously: in fact, he wasn't just a foot fetishist.

He likes everything about a man's face, neck, chest, waist, and hips; he's a very pure, fundamentalist otaku.

He didn't understand the common debates about personality traits. In his eyes, whether someone was tsundere, yandere, or violent, whether they had small breasts, large breasts, black stockings, or white stockings, they were all equally adorable.

Oh right, the only thing he can't accept is "shredded meat," and he doesn't understand the point of its existence at all.

Because he has a wide range of interests, he is not persistent. For example, the last time he smelled the sweaty feet of a beautiful girl... he didn't feel excited at all.

Realizing that most people online are just having fun and that there aren't many who actually like this, he stopped deliberately pursuing this attribute.

Seriously, Airi-chan looks so petite and cute, how come she tastes even better than this burly man who's picking his toes...?

But this contrast is kind of cute! Suki?!

He continued enthusiastically, "Right now, I'm mainly promoting 'Airi-chan' from Backstreet Girls, the rising star of the Idol League. Last time at the promotional event for 'Ragnarok,' her aura was simply like a goddess descending..."

In this relaxed and joyful atmosphere—

drop!drop!drop!

A short beep suddenly sounded from a dedicated monitoring device connected to a satellite data link in the corner of the room.

The casual conversation abruptly ended, the laziness and banter on their faces vanished instantly, and they immediately switched to work mode. Almost instinctively, they put down their coffee cups and quickly gathered around the machine.

"What's going on? The search wasn't done according to the usual procedure." The disheveled programmer was the first to sit down at the main console, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He brought up the projection screen and began searching for abnormal data streams on the 3D interface.

"There's a special point here..."

"Energy spectrum analysis...unknown pattern, wave source...non-surface? The coordinates seem to be moving, something's not right..."

The chubby colleague stared at the screen, speaking faster: "There is interference; we can't pinpoint the exact location."

"The energy level... is still climbing! Damn it, this reading is almost as high as a nuclear bomb!" A programmer gasped. "It surpasses any artificial signal we've ever recorded, and it's even comparable to the energy waves released during an earthquake... Impossible! How could something this scale not trigger physical phenomena?"

On the screen, an energy curve that was originally distorted and roughly horizontal was now fluctuating violently and rising wildly, which frightened all the staff. Its waveband and intensity exceeded the comparison range of the database and appeared extremely abrupt.

"Could this... be what we're looking for?"

——!

The air in the office froze instantly. The otaku who were just discussing games and idols now had eyes as sharp as eagles.

They were well aware that the group's monitoring network was extremely powerful, filtering out the vast majority of natural phenomena and human interference. Anything that could trigger such a high-level alarm was extraordinary, and even if it wasn't their mission objective, it would still need to be reported.

"Pyramids... "

"They can't possibly be really in Japan, can they?"

Even if that's the case, there's nothing we can do about it.

They had previously received a confidential project from a high-ranking official: to search for special energy nodes throughout Japan. If a node was a pyramid, it had to be reported, and a generous reward would follow.

Logically, they should be eager to make a call right now, but in reality, they are quite hesitant... because these days have been just too wonderful!

With top-notch equipment and a comfortable environment, there are not many tasks that need to be done personally each day. Writing a few programs can simplify most of the work. All that is needed is to check and analyze the data from time to time. Apart from that, there is no need to work overtime or deal with annoying bosses. It is simply a life like paradise.

To put it bluntly, they have never had such a wonderful experience from their school days to their working lives!

So much so that money holds little allure for them; as long as they can maintain their current status, they don't mind a slight decrease in income...

"There's nothing we can do, after all, we're paid to do this." The team leader shrugged. "Let's analyze this carefully, I'll contact the department head."

"OK~"

"Are we about to get busy?"

"Very well, consider this repayment for the company's kindness."

They decided to follow the rules and report the facts honestly.

Firstly, they weren't naive enough to think that if they kept it a secret, they wouldn't be found out. Secondly... the boss was really good to them!

I won't go into the salary and benefits, but the fact that they've never given any unreasonable orders is enough to make people grateful in the Japanese workplace!

"Boss!" The disheveled-haired man opened the internal communication system. "Information Administration Bureau Third Monitoring Team reports: 'Tianyan-7' has detected an unknown high-energy fluctuation, located between L3-778 and L3-790. Energy characteristics unknown, level..."

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the communicator, as if they were verifying something.

"...Received. Keep monitoring in place and upload the data to the headquarters' 'Deep Web' server in real time. I will report to my superiors immediately."

The phone call ended, and the people in the office exchanged glances, all seeing relief and a hint of...excitement in each other's eyes?

As pure technical personnel, they rarely come into contact with deep-seated secrets, but now anyone who can access the internet knows that monsters and aliens have appeared.

Considering the advanced technology that the Kuze Group has demonstrated, and its vague connection with TPC... Could their mission objective be related to monsters?

"Wow, so cool!"

"Disgusting! Don't put a man's face like that in that pose!"

...A few minutes later, the message bypassed layers of supervisors and was finally connected to a private line with extremely high privileges.

"it's me."

“Lord Rurikawa,” the voice on the other end of the phone was restrained and cautious, “I’m sorry to bother you, but we have just detected an extremely unusual high-energy fluctuation signal through the global monitoring network.”

"Oh?" Liuli was on the phone while working on her tasks and didn't pay much attention.

"After conducting multi-faceted analysis, it was determined that this should be a building or underground ruin, the energy scale of which is beyond the reach of current human technology, and it is suspected to be related to aliens or... monsters."

Lord Kuze previously assigned us a task to 'find the pyramids,' and we suspect…"

"Ok?"

Liuli's fingers tightened slightly around the terminal, and her eyes sharpened.

-

"Okay, I understand. Give the agreed-upon rewards to the teams that completed the task; they deserve them."

Ye Shou didn't know if his subordinates were slacking off, nor did he care. As someone at the top, he only cared that the results met his requirements.

After shutting down the communication, Ye Shou suppressed his slightly excited feelings and turned his attention to the laboratory.

"...Such an exquisite man-made object was hidden inside the meteorite...What is it?"

"It looks like some kind of detector, or something used to transmit information."

"The outer shell, after radiometric analysis, matches the strata from 30 million years ago."

"Wow! It moved! It moved!"

Ye Shou stood outside the crowd, quietly watching a group of scientists shouting and yelling around the "time capsule," and seeing You Lian's projection shot out from inside, beginning to play the recording just like in the "original work"... Familiar scenes floated before his eyes, and a weight was lifted from his heart.

He ignored the information he already knew, and looked past Yu Lian's projection at Daigo, who was standing blankly on the outskirts of the crowd, sometimes lost in thought and sometimes shocked.

This former member of the Department of Transportation and current student of the Space Space Academy was wondering why he had been pulled into security work, but when You Lian's voice entered his ears, he felt a sense of disorientation and unconsciously put his doubts aside.

Before long, he discovered that no one else could understand what You Lian was saying, but he could hear it clearly. He was startled and shocked. He was not stupid, and although he noticed something was wrong, he did not shout or make a fuss.

"The way to revive the giants is... what?"

Daigo didn't hear the last sentence. Just as he was about to move closer, the projection had already been returned to the time capsule.

The scientists were puzzled, but only Masaki Keigo and Daigo showed a thoughtful expression.

"pyramid……"

"Huh? What did you say, Masaki-kun?"

"I have some ideas."

Masaki Keigo turned around and took out a small translation device from his briefcase: "Regarding the research on ancient civilizations, although I only know a little bit about it... this might be of some help to us."

The recorded audio input undergoes a lengthy parsing process to gradually translate words and sentences:

【end】

The Demise of the Ancient Times

【omen】

Golza, the city that shook the earth.

Melba, the city that tore the sky apart.