Chapter 25: "The Threatening Letter"

Yuki turned over the small crystal shard in his hand. It was clear, bright, and utterly unadorned—just a simple, transparent sliver of crystal. This was the “prize” he had won from Torekia. After Yuki had finally voiced an answer that had been brewing in his heart for a long time, Torekia had cheered theatrically, congratulating him on getting it right, and had eagerly pressed the crystal into his palm.

Deep down, Yuki couldn’t help but suspect that Torekia had always intended to give him this crystal shard, and had merely been looking for an excuse. He had been played by Torekia yet again.

As for the answer itself, Torekia had only offered one more hint, reminding Yuki that the Ultra signature was written with a marker, which meant—anyone could have written it; it wasn’t necessarily the genuine article. Handwriting analysis wasn’t reliable, either, since those signatures from the Giants of Light were never truly “written” in the conventional sense.

After that, Torekia had bid him farewell, saying he was leaving Earth for a while and warning Yuki to be careful—and not to die. This sudden display of concern set off alarm bells in Yuki’s mind. If ever there was such a thing as suspiciously out-of-place solicitude, this was it—surround-sound version, no less.

But before Yuki could even respond, this dark Ultraman had vanished before his very eyes, dissolving into a wisp of black smoke.

So much for keeping up appearances.

All Yuki could do was sigh and tuck the crystal away. Cloaked as Yuki on the outside, perhaps with a layer of Taiga beneath, his performance was far from over.

……

………………

The days flowed by peacefully for more than ten days, and Yuki’s work at Aegis went smoothly.

However, during these days, wherever Yuki went, there always seemed to be a “tail” following him.

After noticing, Yuki quietly informed Senior Ayu, who told him not to make a fuss or act suspiciously—just keep those tails steady, and he’d look into it. The investigation revealed that these followers seemed to be field agents from the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division.

Yuki himself wasn’t too bothered upon hearing this, but Senior Ayu, an undocumented alien, grew visibly tense. He knew all too well how unfriendly those agents could be toward aliens, and guessed that Yuki must have slipped up during a prior mission, drawing the division’s attention.

Yet, despite having every opportunity to swoop in and arrest Yuki, they made no move—merely shadowing him quietly. After observing for several days, Senior Ayu concluded that the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division didn’t seem to be planning an arrest at all; if anything, it looked more as though they were secretly monitoring—or even protecting—him.

At the same time, they were currently protecting a client of their own.

So it was all a matryoshka of surveillance: the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division protecting Yuki, and Yuki protecting a client.

From this perspective, the client was the real winner.

Three days ago, a client had come to Aegis with a request for protection.

The person to be protected was the president of the Space Technology Institute.

The Space Technology Institute was a commercial company, a leader in its field, focusing on aerospace, communications, satellites, and related sectors, with ties to both academia and government.

Yuki leafed through the dossier, pausing to study the president’s photo. The man looked strangely familiar.

“Wait, isn’t this guy…?”

Yuki trailed off, noticing the other three looking over at him, then continued, “This morning, when I opened my messaging app, there was a huge pop-up ad. The guy on it—smiling in a really… odd way—was that him? I closed it immediately, so I didn’t really get a good look.”

Mirika nodded in recognition. “Yes, that’s the president. He’s planning to celebrate his birthday—this Saturday at midnight—by launching a small commercial rocket, with ‘Happy Birthday’ painted on the rocket’s body.”

Soya Ayu smirked. “Just a boring publicity stunt. He’s broadcasting the whole thing live, too. Rumor has it he’s sold the streaming rights to several platforms. In the end, it’s all about promoting their commercial rocket project. Birthday celebration… hmph.”

Listening to his seniors, Yuki leaned back in his chair and quietly exhaled in relief. So the rocket hadn’t been launched yet, which meant the space station should still be fine… Saturday, that left four days.

At this point, President Sasaki joined the conversation. “Because of this promotional project, a lot of space environmentalists are upset. With space development in recent years, there’s already too much debris in low-earth orbit—leftover rocket stages, discarded commercial satellites, and so on. There’s no good solution for all that junk; it just drifts around the orbit. I hear the space station has already had to change its trajectory six times this year to dodge debris.”

“Yesterday afternoon, the president received a threatening letter, demanding that he stop this pointless, debris-generating event.”

With that, the president placed a photo on the table: a threatening letter, accompanied by two spent shell casings.

“The client said it appeared out of thin air inside the president’s notebook computer, locked in his safe—wedged right between the keyboard and the screen. The culprit must have wanted to make sure the president would see it as soon as he came to work and opened his laptop.”

The key was how the letter had appeared from nowhere.

Afterward, the institute checked the security footage. From the president leaving work to returning the next day, there was no sign of any suspicious person on the only route to his office—yet the threatening letter had materialized, inexplicably.

It was the stuff of ghost stories, enough to terrify the president.

Naturally, the president first approached the Foreign Affairs Unknown Division for help.

But the most their agents could do was follow protocol—investigate and collect evidence at the institute. As for the president’s demand for round-the-clock police protection, that was simply too much; the police wouldn’t entertain such an unreasonable request.

So the president turned to a private security firm like Aegis.

Having heard the gist of it, Yuki understood—likely, one of the protestors was either a psychic or an alien. Even if they couldn’t pull off the kind of spectacular feats Torekia could, delivering a threatening letter remotely was still within reach.

Given the potential for supernatural involvement, President Sasaki classified the job as high-risk, offering a rate of 8,000 yen per hour.

The client, the president’s assistant, seemed anxious to get Aegis started—so eager, in fact, that he didn’t even bother to negotiate, agreeing to the rate on the spot and signing the contract immediately.

A full twenty-four-hour watch, five days in total, ending only the day after the rocket launch.

Soon, word spread about the threat warning the president to cancel the launch, and the whole affair exploded across social media.

Netizens, ever eager for drama, flooded in with their opinions. Even those previously uninterested came to watch the spectacle. The Space Technology Institute’s official livestream saw its subscription and notification numbers surge to the top spot on the Douxia platform for the month.

Viewers entering the stream found an endless loop of program introductions and science features from the institute, interspersed with slickly produced, approachable educational segments that were winning over the audience—along with the occasional fast-food ad.

By the next day, the channel’s popularity had reached new heights, with refreshed science content and new ads in rotation.

Netizens joked, “I can’t believe I’m glued to ads on Douxia Live and actually enjoying them.”