Chapter 15: Not Even a Second More Can Be Endured

After presenting their credentials to the port guards, Yuki and Souya Takashi were granted entry. Their first stop was the warehouse that had appeared in the surveillance footage the previous day—unsurprisingly, it was deserted. Yuki examined the stored goods: this section was filled with cocoa beans, while the adjacent area contained maltodextrin, egg yolk powder, sorbitol granules—all food ingredients.

At that moment, Officer Sakura arrived at the scene. Seeing him approach, Yuki and Souya set aside their tasks and went forward to greet him.

"Officer Sakura, there's something I'd like to ask you," Yuki said, noticing that his senior, Takashi, had wandered off with the warehouse manager to discuss something. Yuki quietly drew Officer Sakura aside, his gaze lingering on Takashi and the manager.

"Yesterday, when I was brought to the station, did the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division search my home?"

Officer Sakura fell immediately silent, an awkward expression settling on his face. From his reaction, Yuki knew the answer: his home had indeed been searched.

Of course, nothing incriminating had been found. Otherwise, in yesterday's interrogation, Officer Aihara would have confronted him with evidence.

"They had a search warrant," Officer Sakura said with a cough.

"I know. I'm a law-abiding citizen—if they have a warrant, I'll cooperate," Yuki replied.

Officer Sakura looked sheepish. "They're on edge lately—eager for a breakthrough, perhaps? Your actions yesterday made them think they'd caught a big fish... But after the search, they should have restored everything. They didn't leave your home in disarray, did they?"

He frowned. "That would be unacceptable. Standard procedure is to return everything to its place after searching. I'll have a word with them."

"No, that's not the case," Yuki shook his head. "When I returned home, everything was neat—nothing looked like it had been burgled."

At the mention of "burgled," Officer Sakura gave an embarrassed chuckle.

"However, I found a threatening letter on my desk, warning me not to meddle," Yuki lied calmly. "From the time I was arrested to when I got home, it was an hour and a half. In such a short span, very few people would know I’d discovered the sea monster and had been detained by Foreign Affairs Unknown Division."

One key to lying is not to question the lie's plausibility. Doubt manifests in body language, eye movement, microexpressions—all betraying fabrication. The trick is to weave the entire story in one's mind and accept it as truth.

Now, Yuki was imagining that his discovery of the Little Glass King being released in the coastal area had been caught on camera by a space auction house idling in near-earth orbit. They had come to leave a threatening letter, warning him into silence.

He pinned this imaginary accusation firmly on those unscrupulous extraterrestrials, then continued his fabricated tale.

"The time the letter was delivered should have been between the search team's departure and my return home—less than an hour."

He stopped there, leaving Officer Sakura to deduce the rest. The crucial points: a leak, and an insider. The search team was rotated according to the duty roster. Unless the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division had been thoroughly infiltrated, and every team had a mole, the simplest explanation was that someone present shouldn't have been there.

Yuki glanced down; Officer Sakura's face was pale, frozen for several moments before he stammered, "So... the letter? Do you still have it?"

"When I finished reading it, it suddenly combusted. Quite terrifying," Yuki explained evenly.

Hearing this, Officer Sakura's face grew even paler. He hastily made a feeble excuse and scurried away before Yuki could say another word.

"So, someone outside the search team really did show up," Yuki thought, watching Officer Sakura's reaction.

And this interloper's rank—or police title—was high enough that no one questioned his presence. He could linger until the very end, after the search team restored the scene and everyone else left the room, then slip out last, placing the letter beneath the tissue box on the desk.

Whoever he was, he had ties to the Land of Light, and thus to Ultraman. He knew of Yuki's existence—but had yet to confront him directly.

Yuki, for his part, was desperate to contact the Land of Light, for this matter concerned Taiga's safety. If Taiga were merely resting within him to heal, there would be no urgency. But now, Taiga was sharing quarters with Grimud—a far graver situation.

Who knows if this was Tregear’s plot, targeting Taiga? As a mere mortal, Yuki was powerless. After much deliberation, he could only seek out higher powers for help.

He couldn’t afford to waste another second.

Watching Officer Sakura's retreating figure, Yuki felt a headache coming on. Should he try to extract the interloper's identity from Sakura? No matter how he considered it, Sakura was under no obligation to reveal such information. If he asked and Sakura cited confidentiality, the matter would end there.

As for the person's identity... Yuki had his suspicions. In moments like this, he could only thank Tsuburaya Productions for their casting prowess.

Yet, to be cautious, he decided to use Officer Sakura for mutual verification. Also, as he suspected, the person held high status in the police. If Yuki tried to meet him quietly, would he be detained by officers before he could get close, without any formal appointment?

Perhaps it would be better to stake out the station, determine his address, and pay a private visit during off-hours.

As he pondered these options, suddenly Merika's voice rang through the comms channel.

"The target has appeared! I’ve sent the coordinates—go check it out!"

Yuki grabbed his PAD at once, and indeed there was a location message. Opening it, he saw the target was less than fifty meters away, at three o’clock from where he stood.

Before he could react, a gust of wind swept past his face. A figure leapt nimbly onto the neatly stacked cargo, darting straight toward the target location.

Yuki looked up, catching only a fleeting glimpse of Takashi’s dashing silhouette before the commotion erupted.

A sudden assault caught the Raichumian, who was still focused on his electromagnetic wave reader, completely off-guard. Takashi landed astride his neck, twisted sharply, and the Raichumian let out a muffled grunt, unable to maintain his human guise. His two misaligned eyes rolled back, and he collapsed unconscious.

His two companions, startled by the lightning attack, froze for an instant. Only when Takashi rolled off and struck a ready pose did they snap out of it. They glanced at each other, then at their convulsing leader at Takashi’s feet. He was their commander, but now they didn’t know whether to abandon him and flee or join forces to take down this human.

Seeing Takashi’s confident, gleaming eyes, both quietly shrank back, signaling with their gazes, "You go," "Why aren’t you going?"