Chapter 256

Kanade held the notepad, blinked, and stared at it motionless for a long time, but still couldn't figure it out.

"This might be a bit too much for you right now, but that's okay. Kanade, you're very smart and good at learning and thinking. Before long, this kind of work will just be a way to pass the time. If there's an opportunity, I'll introduce you to Three Major Research Institutes in the Central Province for an internship. You'll learn more there than when you were my assistant, and you'll also make connections with top talents in various industries. This will be very beneficial for you."

"Is that so... Am I that amazing?"

Not quite used to being praised, Kanade raised the corners of her mouth and laughed heartily, then awkwardly looked away.

When she was little, her parents would often study and play with her, and she was often praised with all sorts of beautiful words. But after her mother passed away, Kanade never received anything like that from her father again. Until she graduated from junior high school, her grades were always among the top in her class, but even so, her father would never say a word about it.

The teachers often talked about her, but the feeling was different from the feeling she received from her father and mother.

However, Kanade felt a long-lost sense of familiarity from Nishizaki Yuki, which was especially similar to the feeling she had when she first met Efnir.

Perhaps this is the charm of a mature woman, Kanade Kotone thought.

"Thank you for the compliment, I'm very happy, but such words are a bit of an exaggeration for me... I've already tried my best to keep up with your experiments, and going to the Central Province would only embarrass you... I think staying in Xijing City is fine..."

"You're quite modest," Nishizaki Yuki smiled, put down her pen, and looked at Kanade Kotone. "I know your grades in school; only Yukina could rival you in the whole class, right?"

"Hey?"

Kanade Kotone was taken aback by Nishiki's statement. "Why does Miss Nishiki even know this?"

Nishizaki Yuki curled the corners of her lips into a sly smile, deliberately adopting an arrogant and condescending attitude.

"As your boss, is it too much for me to review your resume?"

"Wait, wait... You must have heard it from Ms. Yanase!"

"Ah, you guessed it."

Nishiki composed herself, suddenly looking deflated, and only then did Kanade realize that she had been tricked.

"Huh? I knew it!"

"What's the big deal? You care a lot about school? If you don't want others to know, I can pretend I've forgotten about it."

"You already knew!"

Nishizaki Yuki covered her mouth and chuckled, then looked over again. "So, you think you're not as good as Yukina?"

"Hmm... I didn't say that... Shiomi is my best friend."

"It's not something despicable for friends to see each other as rivals and goals to motivate each other. The determination to strive for a specific role model is something not everyone possesses."

"Huh? What does this have to do with Shiomi being an agent?"

"Of course they're related. Their strength isn't just in combat power. In fact, their intelligence is generally higher than that of ordinary people. Oh right, look at this."

Nishiki spun her chair, pulled out a stack of experimental records from the side, and opened them. "These are the experimental data I conducted before. They contain very detailed records of various data points for the somatic cells of different parts of the agents. You should be able to understand some of this, right? In fact, the agents can be said to be a new kind of human who has undergone complete evolution; they are no longer considered individuals among humans. This is manifested in their reproductive isolation from humans."

"Reproductive isolation??"

Nishizaki Yuki's opening remarks were like a bombshell, leaving Kanade Kotone stunned. She opened her mouth, and after a long pause, asked, "I... I've never heard anyone mention this before...?"

"You've probably heard the saying, 'Agents cannot reproduce with ordinary people because the Order Force within an agent prevents male reproductive cells from surviving,' right?"

"This isn't what's popular online..."

"Yes, it's online, but that's just a smokescreen deliberately released by the Human Federation."

Nishizaki Yuki didn't rush to explain, but continued, "But in fact, the Order Force within the agent's body doesn't selectively kill reproductive cells. This is easily disproven. The real reason is that human reproductive cells simply cannot combine with the agent's reproductive cells, thus making it impossible to produce offspring."

"Huh?? In that case... how will the surrogate mother have children?"

"Agents might just sleep together and that's how it happens."

Nishizaki Yuki's unvarnished words made Kanade Kotone's cheeks burn. She stammered, covering her face with her notebook, "So, so, all it takes is... going to bed... isn't that just like... between men and women... wait, no, that's not right... agents... aren't they all women..."

The sound of Kanade Kotone grew softer and softer until she could barely hear it herself.

Nishizaki Yuki seemed to want to see her even more shy, and looked at her with a smile, "Can't women... do that?"

Nishizaki Yuki drawled out her words, looking at Kanade Kotone.

"No... that's not what I meant... it's just..."

"Um... Eve... Does Miss Yanase know about these things?"

"I know, she said a long time ago that she doesn't like men."

"Oh, I see..."

Kanade lowered her face.

So it turns out Efnir knew...

She and Shiomi so close; they even slept in the same bed Maesakagawa... Could it be that they'd already...?

There are quite a few things women can do together.

Nishiki suddenly said something else, Kanade Kotone's mind involuntarily conjured up images of restricted scenes she had seen in novels and online, with two girls' white bodies rubbing and intertwining on the bed.

Kanade Kotone's cheeks were burning hot; she felt like her head was about to burst into flames.

"So far, there has actually been one record of a proxy pregnancy and childbirth, but unfortunately, everything related to this is classified, so even I don't know the details. What I can say for sure is that the child was indeed conceived by two proxies."

"No, wait... why have I never heard of such a thing before?"

The Kanade Kotone startled her.

Indeed, not all surrogates are homosexual, and many marry someone of the opposite sex they love. But even so, there has never been a case of a surrogate mother having children.

Therefore, a rumor has been circulating online that the agents possess unique powers that can kill normal reproductive cells, and the official response has never been positive, which is tantamount to tacit agreement.

But how many people know that this rumor itself was released by the Human Federation?

"Making up rumors on purpose... Why hide something like this? Proxy surrogates can also have offspring, isn't that something to be happy and excited about?"

The Kanade Kotone is difficult to understand.

But Nishizaki Yuki's words struck a chord with her. "Because the Human Federation needs agents."

"Ah?"

"Think about it, if one day people find out that the person who has been protecting them all along isn't even human, what will they think? Of course, many people might choose to accept it, but wouldn't no one secretly see her as an alien who 'shouldn't exist in human society'?"

The principle was very simple, Kanade Kotone immediately understood it.

Because they need to rely on a proxy, they cover up anything that might be detrimental to the proxy and prevent others from knowing about it.

"But..."

Kanade Kotone frowned, suddenly feeling a sense of fear.

"I think I understand... but... if such a thing existed..."

Nishiki watched Kanade Kotone intently, a hint of anticipation in her eyes. "Oh? What have you thought of?"

"I've thought of a possibility..."

"You say."

"The Human Federation... is not on equal footing with us..."

"Because of unequal access to information."

"So... I'm thinking... does the existence of this kind of thing mean that we've actually been living in an information gap environment deliberately created for us by the Human Federation? Our common sense is based on what the Human Federation is willing to let us know, and we make judgments based on intelligence, but perhaps that intelligence has already been hijacked. If that's the case..."

"That depends on how you look at it."

Nishizaki Yuki smiled meaningfully.

7. The Corruption Energy that was swallowed up

Nishizaki Yuki's words kept echoing in Kanade Kotone's mind.

Before today, her understanding of the Human Federation was limited to what circulated online and Orderkeepers Organization regularly told her in its propaganda campaigns. Just like the status of the Agents in people's hearts, they were lofty and righteous, representing humanity's last and only hope.

Although there are many slanders against the Human Federation online, they are ultimately baseless rumors, and no one takes them seriously.

But what if many of those rumors are true?

She couldn't deny that the Human Federation did do this for some reason, after all, the agents were special.

But in the past month, Kanade has met several agents. They laugh when they're happy and cry when they're sad. They're no different from ordinary people. So what if there's reproductive isolation? Should they be excluded because of that?

"It was clearly the agents who were fighting... They sacrificed their lives to protect us who were left from the Erosion Disaster, yet the Human Federation subjectively excluded them... Isn't that going too far?"

"Actually, there are many people within the Human Federation who share your thoughts."

"Huh? Then why...?"

"But that's only a minority. They've lost the right to speak for their agents; the outcome is obvious for people like me."

This was the first time Kanade Kotone had heard Nishiki talk about her past, and she was taken aback. "You were forced to leave Central Province...?"

"Of course, all my hard work is there, how could I possibly throw it away?"

Nishiki smiled indifferently.

"But looking back now, I don't think leaving there was anything wrong with it. At least meeting Efnir and the others made my life meaningful again. I'm a doctor now, and I'm continuing the career I love. Everything is the same. If there's anything that's changed, it's probably that I still can't quit the smoking addiction I developed during that time."

"So that's how it is..." Kanade Kotone understood somewhat.

"It doesn't take much courage to speak out loudly, but what follows makes most people hesitate. Ultimately, these people are only brave because of their subconscious goodwill. People still need to consider their own interests. Once they find that the agent is not as they wished to believe, they will immediately switch sides. This is human nature."

Nishizaki Yuki's tone became somewhat indifferent.

"As you've seen, the agents are so special that they transcend the ordinary rules. They are irreplaceable, and the balance between them and ordinary people is extremely fragile. Did you know that the agents once launched a rebellion that caused enormous losses to the Human Federation? That was the trigger that completely severed the Human Federation and the agents from their unified entity, pushing them onto a delicate scale."

"Fuse..."

"Of course, that's just what we perceive as the trigger. What actually happened back then, whether that agent, who has been missing ever since, is still alive somewhere Beyond the Boundary, and what caused her break with the Human Federation —only those involved probably know."

Nishizaki Yuki turned away, not continuing the topic.

After a short rest and chat, the two in the lab got busy again. They still had a lot of work to do, the most important of which was to study the Mutation cells taken from Efnir, to find out the reason for Efnir's restored vision and to speculate on the various changes that had occurred in her body.

In fact, research on this topic has been underway for a month, but there has been no progress to date. Even Nishizaki Yuki, who specializes in the study of the correlation between agents and the energy system of the Order Force, can only start from scratch and repeatedly conduct experiments, trying to eliminate and search for possibilities one by one from a large number of possibilities.

This is a very important study—because Efnir's vision was restored from the Dregsification and she gained a new power that does not belong to the Beacon and Order Force, which means that the inherent notion that Corruption itself is irreversible and that Corruption Energy cannot be utilized has been shattered.

Is it possible for the miracles that happened to Efnir to be repeated?

That's exactly what Nishizaki Yuki conceived.

Once the research makes a breakthrough, it will not only benefit the agents and soldiers fighting on the front lines, but could very well completely overturn the current one-sided situation where humanity is Corruption by corruption.

"Kanade?"

Nishizaki Yuki's voice startled her, "Give me the sample from November 24th as well."

"Oh... okay, okay..."

Kanade Kotone realized she had been daydreaming. Nishiki's words from earlier were still weighing on Kanade mind, making it hard for her to concentrate. She rubbed her cheeks vigorously, quickly clearing her mind of the turbulent thoughts and getting back into work mode.

Nishizaki Yuki glanced at her and scribbled a few lines in his notebook.

"Speaking of which, Kanade, have you ever had a boyfriend?"

"Eh? Why would Nishiki suddenly ask that...?"

"Curious," Nishizaki Yuki said earnestly, as if she were just an older sister who had suddenly developed a gossipy idea, but Kanade Kotone always felt that there was something else behind Nishizaki Yuki's words.

"No... it hasn't happened yet..."

Kanade Kotone answered honestly, her cheeks slightly flushed, "Because I've been studying all along..."

Actually, it's just that I don't have any plans in that regard; studying is just an excuse.

Her goal was to become like her mother, so she was attracted to mature people. Her father's changes made her distance from men more and more subtle. Over time, she began to turn her attention to "mature women" rather than her classmates. At school, she would often pay attention to beautiful female teachers, and after meeting Efnir, she was completely captivated.

By the way, Ms. Nishiki is also very nice; she's a different type from Efnir.

"Um... Miss Nishiki..."

"Um?"

"Can an agent get pregnant simply by doing... doing those things?"