Sanctuary (II)

Was that it?

The wheelchair man had been surprisingly easy to deal with.

Tonight's reception task had been far easier than In Imagination, leaving Old Hand somewhat unaccustomed to it. The wheelchair man, who was clearly an experienced professional, had also left a deep impression on him.

He came when he said he would, left when he said he would, spoke little, and only cared about technical problems... And those eyes—he had not thought much of them at the time, but in retrospect, they had been like mirrors, utterly clear, reflecting things that bore careful consideration.

He was definitely someone capable. Working with people like that had its upsides and downsides. The other side did not seem particularly invested either. They could only take things one step at a time.

After seeing the wheelchair man off, Old Hand claimed exhaustion and asked Okudaira Yuzo for leave. He returned to his little nest, swiftly geared up, slipped out of Ping Trade Market through a preplanned hidden route, made a wide detour, and returned to the shores of North Mountain Lake.

Ping Trade Market stood on the northeastern shore of North Mountain Lake. It bordered the Mang Cang Mountain Range, and further inland lay the universally acknowledged Wilderness. The archipelago's crust was relatively brittle, with volcanoes and earthquakes erupting from time to time, making the Wilderness on this side especially restless.

Aside from the land-based species roaming the mountains and forests, the aquatic species at the bottom of North Mountain Lake were equally vicious. Every year, while Ping Trade Market hunted huge numbers of Aberrant Species for raw-material processing, it also buried countless lives in the mountains and lake.

Of course, in some people's eyes, those so-called lives came at a discount.

The topic Secretary Yin and Okudaira Yuzo had discussed earlier