Fang Zheng kept his word. He said he would meet them, and so he met them.
"Thanks for putting on such a good show for me. It was quite interesting. Oh, right, I've returned these two to you. No need to thank me."
With that, Fang Zheng vanished together with the girls, leaving only the masked female captain and Hoshijiro Shizuka staring at each other.
In fact, it was not just them who were stunned. Even the girls around Fang Zheng were quite surprised.
"We're just back already?"
After returning to the Leander, Kiana scratched her head in confusion.
"What else? Were you expecting them to prepare a feast for you?"
Fang Zheng rolled his eyes, while Einstein watched him with great interest.
"I've noticed that you seem rather unwilling to interact with them?"
Einstein was not wrong. Although Fang Zheng was fairly friendly toward Sidonia, he seemed unwilling to have any deeper contact with them. Even during this meeting, he had merely greeted their masked captain, said a few words, and immediately left. He had not even given either side an opportunity to interact or communicate.
"Sometimes, too much contact isn't necessarily a good thing."
Fang Zheng shrugged.
"Keeping some distance between us is good for everyone. In fact, we've already communicated. If they're smart enough, they should know what to do."
"Is that also a law of the universe?"
"More or less."
The reason Fang Zheng was so cautious in dealing with them was simple. They were two forces completely unfamiliar with each other, with almost nothing in common. Their only common ground was the Mass Collective Ship. Even so, Fang Zheng and Sidonia had different objectives. Fang Zheng needed to defeat the Mass Collective Ship, extract its core, then gather data to locate the core region of