Colleagues

Santu? Su IV was a planet that had yet to enter the interstellar age and was still in the middle stages of exploring its own world, so visits here had to be kept low-key. Hao Ren had the ship remain parked in orbit while he led the others directly to the planet's surface via Spatial Teleportation. The inspector stationed in this region had previously given him a surface coordinate, but when they arrived, Hao Ren and the others discovered that it was nowhere near a town—not even close to anything that looked like a residential area. It was a mountainous region, wild and primitive, seemingly devoid of human presence.

Bare, treacherous peaks surrounded them in every direction. They could not tell how vast the mountain range was. Plants were scarce among the gray-white rocks, and the occasional green trees resembling pines or cypresses were mostly clustered below the midway point of the slopes. The desolation of the entire area was astonishing. Lily climbed onto a huge rock standing atop a peak and gazed into the distance. Then she shouted down at everyone, "No-o-one!! Landlord, did we come to the wrong place?"

"They did give me this address when we communicated earlier." Hao Ren was baffled as well. This wilderness hardly looked inhabitable. Could the inspector stationed here be some kind of hermit?

Just as he was about to open communications and ask whether his colleague had sent the wrong address, Lily suddenly cried out and hopped down from the boulder. "Hey, hey, Landlord, Landlord! Something huge is coming! It flew out from behind the mountain!"

"What..." Hao Ren answered absently, but before he could finish speaking, he followed Lily's pointing finger and saw a group of astonishing creatures flying over from a distant peak. The rest of his words died