Arknights, but the family had fallen into decline again and again and again

Several guards could not help blurting out, "Team Leader, then what about our... No, never mind."

What were they supposed to do about their work?

Under Ch'en's sharp gaze, the guards instinctively shrank back.

This was one of the outcomes Oute had foreseen.

Ch'en had recognized the political issue hidden behind the report, but Rhodes Island's apparent aversion to politics left her public identity with little room to intervene.

Once Wei Yenwu was brought up, there was a good chance she would take Oute and the others directly to see Wei Yenwu, hoping her uncle could dig up more information.

One purpose of this was to shift the party seeking help from Rhodes Island to Lungmen.

It was not a particularly clever move, but with such a vast information gap, it was remarkably effective.

Setting aside the few possibilities that were too wishful, this counted as a fairly good outcome.

With the heir standing beside him, Wei Yenwu would most likely try to educate Ch'en to some extent.

He might slow his pace and wait for Ch'en to figure things out on her own, or he might instruct her afterward. Not only would his behavior patterns and thought processes become easier to grasp, but many of Ch'en's actions could also be incorporated into the analysis in turn.

"Blaze, take them and find a temporary base in Lungmen. If you have any energy to spare, see where would be suitable for our office." Oute checked the signal and said, "Lungmen's intercity network signal is good. Once we're done here, we'll contact you ourselves."

Blaze said energetically, "Understood!"

Of the entire group, only Specter accompanied Oute.

After all, he was here to discuss business, not storm a city. There was no need to bring a huge entourage to visit a city's governor.

Besides, Specter was not merely Oute's personal bodyguard. She was also his second pair of eyes and ears.

"Follow me."

Their transportation was a car.

There was little decoration in the vehicle, and it lacked any personal touches. It was unclear whether it was Ch'en's private car or an official vehicle from the Guard Department.

But cars...

Oute closed his eyes. The principles of pistons and engines traced a lonely curve through his mind.

The earliest cars on Earth had actually been electric. But early electric motors were completely incomparable to internal combustion engines, and electric cars were swiftly shelved during the development of automobiles.

Exaggerating a little, it was not until new battery technology appeared that these ancient relics, electric cars, were dug back out of the archives.

Every Word Was Familiar to Her, but Put Together...

As another joking saying went: humanity's history of energy was a history of figuring out how to boil water.

The various energy sources humanity had mastered lacked simple, convenient ways of converting between one another.

Thus, even nuclear energy had to be paired with steam and turbines before it could breathe life into modern society. Of course, nuclear explosions definitely did not count as a proper way of "breathing life" into anything.

But Terra's animal-eared girls lay upon the legacy of the previous civilization.

Whether their tools appeared to use steam power, electricity, or atomic energy, their essence was the release of energy stored within Originium. They were all "Originium energy."

Technology advanced enough was indeed indistinguishable from magic.

Yet the animal-eared girls who had grown up in Terra's wilderness freely used the "magical elements" left behind by the previous civilization, while choosing to close their eyes and ignore the obvious future:

As the Originium industry spread in full force, the Originium cycle would intensify at a terrifying rate, and the concentration of Originium in Terra's material cycle would surge forward alongside the clarion call of the Industrial Revolution.

What would follow would be Catastrophes a thousand times more violent and Originium Infection a thousand times easier to contract.

In the most extreme circumstances, merely being exposed to air with an average concentration of Originium particles would be enough to infect a person with Originium Infection.

Not every Terran chose to selectively ignore this, but clearly... After I die, who cares if the world floods?

If we do not develop the Originium industry today, Victoria will be at our doorstep tomorrow!

And you're talking to me about a hundred years, a thousand years, or even ten thousand years from now?

Take apart Victoria and Ursus first, then come talk about that.

In the distant "Endfield," Originium Infection had indeed been brought under control, and Terrans had successfully stepped into the sea of stars.

But that was not the result of these animal-eared girls' own efforts, nor had any of it happened naturally or inevitably.

The average working lifespan of Laterano's laborers far exceeded five years, and they did not feed duck slices to children left unattended while they worked. The number of people killed in wars had never even reached half the population of a nation...

Though modern Terra was still a massive cesspit when compared vertically to the Endfield era... compared with Earth, whether technologically against the first and second industrial revolutions or politically against the Napoleonic Wars, this place could undoubtedly be called heaven.

"This land" devoured people far more slowly and delicately than Earth did—indeed, it could be called a textbook case of indulgent mothers raising failures.

Moreover, the previous civilization had truly prepared a nanny for this giant infant—a catgirl, at that!

Oute shook his head.

She may be a little lacking, but Kal'tsit is a woman who could become my mother!

"Come to think of it, I haven't asked your name yet."

Ch'en asked casually, "Don't tell me you're simply called Rhodes Island?"

"If you had to call someone Rhodes Island right now, it should be a Cautus—a rabbit." Oute answered, "My name is Oute."

"Otter?" the outstanding graduate of Victoria Royal Guard School instinctively asked.

A smile appeared at the corner of Specter's eyes as she continued holding Oute's arm.

Oute noticed it.

"If you like, you may call me Doc Otter."

He said this to both of them.

"You're a doctor too?"

Oute nodded. "We're a pharmaceutical company."

As a company, Rhodes Island was registered under the name "Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals." But clearly, it did not operate as a pharmaceutical company most of the time.

"Then how is the progress? I mean... medicine for Originium Infection."

With Specter's visual acuity, she indeed caught some changes in his expression.

She was likely worried both for other infected people and for her own body.

More than that, there was even a trace of guilt.

Oute said, "Just as you have heard elsewhere."

"Originium Infection is an incurable terminal illness."

"Once Originium begins bonding with somatic cells, officially declaring someone infected with Originium Infection, the process is completely irreversible."

"Yes, I have heard that before."

"Therefore, we have arrived at a clear technical approach: slowing the bonding process."

Oute explained, "If a certain medicine can suppress the progression of Originium Infection, allowing a person to live out their natural lifespan without dying from it, then we can regard that medicine as a cure to a certain extent."

"That sounds pretty good."

"No, it's terrible," Oute replied. "It means an infected person's life becomes a number measured in equivalents."

"If he or she can afford the medicine, they can cling to life until the sun rises again. If not, they will fall beneath the moonlight."

A pharmaceutical company's favorite kind of disease: one that did not impair the patient's ability to work and only required regular suppressive medication.

But if suppressive medication for Originium Infection achieved phased results, then Originium Infection would not only fail to impair a patient's ability to work—it might even enhance it...

Without anyone to safeguard against it, this would most likely lead to a corporate world line where everyone was born sick and everyone took medicine.

All one could say was that it was only a tiny bit better than a criminal family.

"It sounds like you hate that path?"

Oute did not answer directly. He merely said, "But it is the easiest path to realize, and the most promising one."

"This is my first time discussing such matters with a professional scholar. Are there other paths?"

"You won't like them."

"But go ahead."

"I tried to stop you," Oute warned her, then said, "Based on the fundamental fact that the bonding of Originium and somatic cells cannot be reversed, we chose to delay that bonding as much as possible."

"But there is another path: ignore it, and allow Originium to bond with somatic cells."

"As long as those infected with Originium Infection do not suffer its negative effects, it can also be considered a solution to the Originium Infection problem. In that case, there is no need at all to prevent Originium from bonding with somatic cells."

Ch'en was somewhat stunned. "Are you speaking Yan's official language? How come I didn't understand any of that?"

"In other words, after being infected with Originium Infection, the patient would not feel pain, and Originium Infection would not affect their bodily functions."

"The patient and Originium would have achieved symbiosis."

"That sounds rather amazing?"

"In theory, it is amazing," Oute said. "For those who can achieve symbiosis, Originium becomes an additional organ—higher, faster, stronger."

"But let us return to the beginning. To why we need to solve the problem of Originium Infection in the first place."

"Originium Infection is a disease."

"From an individual perspective, it is painful and lethal. Extending upward from there—families, communities, regions, nations... and ultimately all of Terra faces the same problem: it is painful, and it is lethal."

"What it kills is not merely individuals, but the future of the whole wor... of this land."

Rosmontis was the "result" of this path of indulgence.

Not every person, nor every organ, could coexist symbiotically with Originium. And these symbiotic organs were not suitable for everyone either.

"Those who were not killed by Originium Infection and achieved symbiosis did indeed become stronger. But what about the cost?"

What about the complete overturning of social order, and a Terra with no hope of ever starting over?

Of course, in the end, everyone knew... besides delaying it and indulging it, there was a third path. But if one embraced Originium as one embraced oxygen, then the "mass extinction" Terrans had skipped class on would surely come knocking.

Ch'en raised her head and stepped on the brakes before a red light.

She vaguely understood what "cost" meant, and she truly regretted asking to hear this stuff.