Chapter 1399
Leave it to me
As the patrol car rounded the bend, several cold white headlights suddenly illuminated the intersection ahead.
Three armored personnel carriers painted in black were parked quietly by the roadside, with three letters printed on their bodies.
Daigo stepped on the brakes and slowed down.
The passenger window of the troop carrier opposite them rolled down, and a head wearing a tactical helmet popped out and nodded at them.
Daigo nodded as well.
Xincheng barely managed to pull himself out of his fear, stiffly raising his hand as a greeting.
The two groups of people passed each other by.
There was no shouting, no stopping, and not even a loud engine noise.
"..." Xincheng stared at the black convoy gradually disappearing into the distance in the rearview mirror, stunned for two seconds, "That's it?"
"Otherwise what?" Daigo sped up again. "Do we still need to stop and exchange business cards?"
"No, they're EDF!" Shinjo turned around, finally looking Daigo in the eye. "Those guys are armed to the teeth. Last time I saw them with my own eyes, they had rocket launchers in their trunks! Rocket launchers! Our Victory Team only has coffee and investigation reports in their trunks! When can we use EDF firepower?"
Daigo thought for a moment and nodded: "And Rena's cookies."
"That's not the point!" Xincheng slammed his hand on the dashboard, making the navigation screen flicker. "I mean! They look so cool! So strong! So good at fighting! Don't we look a bit... amateurish?"
Daigo remained silent for a while.
The patrol car drove past a streetlamp that flickered on and off, the light and shadow cutting out stripes of light and shadow on the two people's faces.
“New Town,” Daigo said, his voice unusually serious for once, “It’s just that the division of labor is different.”
"what?"
“EDF is a combat unit, ready to support the battle at any time.” Daigo gripped the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on the empty street ahead. “They’re responsible for grinding the enemy to the ground, while we’re responsible for figuring out why the enemy appeared, where they appeared from, and where they’ll appear next. Which do you think is more important?”
Xincheng opened his mouth, but no words came out.
“Last time with the Kirieloids, if we hadn’t figured out their mind control network beforehand, those EDF brutes wouldn’t have even known where the enemy was. They would have just been carrying rocket launchers and firing at the air.” Daigo’s tone was calm, as if he were stating a filed report. “So, we are the brain, and they are the fist. The brain doesn’t need to envy the fist for being hard, and the fist won’t laugh at the brain for being round.”
After listening, Shinjo stared at Daigo for five seconds with a complicated expression.
"...Daigo, have you been secretly reading some philosophy books lately?"
"No," the old man answered honestly. "That's what the instructor said during his last lecture, and I memorized it."
Xincheng: "..."
The patrol car continued driving forward.
The city lights outside the window resemble a slowly flowing river.
Xincheng finally leaned back in his seat, and although he still glanced at the rearview mirror from time to time, he was noticeably more relaxed.
"Speaking of which," Shinjo suddenly spoke up, "where did the instructor take Miyuki for a drive tonight? They're still not back so late, could something have happened?"
Daigo shook his head, and surprisingly, the corner of his mouth curled up slightly.
"The instructor?" He looked ahead, his voice soft. "If something had happened to him, the world would have been finished long ago."
Xincheng thought about it and felt it made a lot of sense.
So he closed his eyes and decided to take a nap before Mr. Obik appeared.
Daigo glanced at him and casually turned up the air conditioner temperature by two degrees.
The night breeze slipped in through the cracks in the car window, carrying the dampness from the distant sea.
The two headlights, like two blunt knives, slowly sliced through the darkness ahead.
The TPC headquarters has seven basement levels.
The interrogation room was lit in a stark white, like a morgue. The leader of Abbas was tightly bound to an alloy restraint table, his limbs wrapped in heavy plaster casts and braces.
Behind the one-way glass.
Interrogator A, with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips and a vacant stare, said, "Three hours have passed, and we haven't gotten a single word out of him. Is this blue-skinned monster born without pain receptors?"
Interrogator B scratched his head frantically: "It can feel pain, but it's as stubborn as a mule. Just now, the electric shock was on the seventh setting, and guess what? It started humming a song! Although it was in alien language, I could tell the tune was mocking!"
"ridicule?"
"Yes, it's that kind of 'you earthlings are no good' tone that makes me so angry I want to flip the switch to level eight."
An observer in an EDF uniform, leaning against the corner, spoke up quietly upon hearing this: "How about... we call in some outside help?"
Interrogator A rolled his eyes: "Psychiatrist? Do those things even work on aliens?"
"Not a psychologist," the observer grinned. "He's a physicist. That twisted hammer of his is the perfect cure for all the stubborn and defiant."
Interrogator B shuddered on the spot: "You've got to be kidding me! If that murderous Cui Ming comes in, this interrogation room will turn into a slaughterhouse. We need intelligence, not dumpling filling!"
The observer shrugged: "But efficiency, you know. Think about it, those stubborn alien prisoners last time, the instructor just gave them one whack and they almost confessed the secret code to their home base."
"How can that be the same?!"
Shila-
The communicator in the corner suddenly made a crackling sound.
Everyone turned their heads in unison.
Cui Ming's voice came through the loudspeaker, carrying a hint of languor from just having gone for a drive: "Hey, I heard you guys got stuck during the interrogation?"
Interrogator A's hand trembled, and his cigarette fell to the ground: "Instructor?!"
“My car is parked on the side of the road.” Cui Ming paused, as if searching for something. “My 'Twisted Hammer' has been bouncing around in the back seat, the metal rod is vibrating like it’s sending a telegram, it’s itching to stretch its muscles.”
The observer's eyes lit up: "Listen to this! Even Hammer has volunteered!"
Interrogator B's face turned green: "Instructor! Calm down! We need to keep them alive!"
A sneer came through the communicator from Cui Ming: "Leave him alive? Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Let it smash him a couple of times, and I guarantee this blue-skinned ghost will spill the beans about peeping into the girls' restroom next door when he was in third grade."
The Abbas leader on the restraint platform was still pretending to be dead.
Upon hearing Cui Ming's voice, it shuddered violently.
The dark red lines vanished completely from his skin in an instant, and his entire body began to tremble uncontrollably.
Interrogator A's eyes widened: "Holy crap. It seems to understand?"
“It’s not that I understand.” The observer stood with his arms crossed, his expression inscrutable. “It’s a biological instinct. Like a mouse hearing a cat meow, or a rabbit seeing the shadow of an eagle.”
Cui Ming's voice continued to drift out, slowly: "How about it? Do you need me to go in? My Twisted Hammer is itching for a fight. If all else fails, I'll just show it off through the glass first, to put some psychological pressure on this friend of the Night Race."
A whimper escaped the throat of the Abobbas leader.
The voice was high-pitched and thin, like that of a young animal whose tail had been stepped on.
Interrogator B leaned closer to the microphone, his voice trembling: "Instructor, don't move. It seems... it's about to speak."
"Oh?" Cui Ming's tone was filled with deep disappointment. "It's back down already? I was planning to let it be stubborn for a while longer. I'll warm up with my hammer first, and after I finish smashing this blue-skinned devil, I can go smash some walnuts on the way."
Interrogators A and B exchanged a glance, simultaneously reading the same thought in each other's eyes.
Before interrogating aliens in the future, play the instructor's recording three times on a loop.
It's more effective than any form of electrocution. (End of Chapter)