"Do you really believe those people aren't with the IPC?"
The stern question came from directly in front of Mikhail, and a gaze sharp as a wild wolf's swept over the friend before him.
"Mikhail, you need to understand the situation we're in."
The Light Cone business behind Penacony was no small matter. The IPC was watching for every chance to tear them apart from within.
And right now, placing trust in outsiders required a great deal of courage.
"I understand the situation. But I don't think they're IPC agents."
Mikhail answered Hanunue's question without hesitation.
Hearing that, Hanunue could not help but sigh.
A series of rustling sounds soon filled the cramped room, drawing Mikhail's eyes back to the old friend in front of him.
Before him stood a towering, broad-shouldered wolfman.
He was a wolfman, but he was not Borisin.
War and the past had left countless scars across that massive body.
And now, Hanunue revealed a scar on his back, right behind his heart.
"This wound came within a single millimeter of piercing my heart."
With his back to Mikhail, Hanunue spoke of the scar's origin.
"And the one who gave it to me was the person I trusted most in my life."
Compared to Mikhail's clean background as one of the Nameless, Hanunue's life was nothing short of legendary.
He had once been an interstellar wanted criminal from the Harbeck clan of Nashoba, and had personally orchestrated the great turmoil in the Montour System.
He had rebelled for the sake of his people in the Montour System, only to be stabbed in the back by a close friend at the final, critical moment.
"That traitor was someone who had been beside me since childhood."
In other words, that person had once been the one Hanunue trusted above all others.
Yet the world was fickle. Faced with an enormous fortune, the person he trusted most had driven a blade without mercy into the back Hanunue had never guarded against.
Even now, Hanunue had not forgotten the pain of that moment.
He could still clearly feel it in his memories: the force of the blade sinking in, and the motion that followed as it prepared to twist.
Had someone not rushed forward and pinned the traitor down at once, Hanunue would have become a corpse then and there.
And even though he had survived, the aftermath was hardly better.
Gravely wounded, he lost command of the uprising in the Montour System, and the revolt ended in failure.
As the mastermind, he was captured and sentenced by the IPC to life imprisonment, to be served in the Asdana Frontier Prison.
The IPC had wanted to humiliate him with that.
Hanunue had not only failed to free his people from suffering; he had even been reduced to a tool for the IPC's Memoria extraction.
It was cruelty meant to kill the heart as much as the body.
Unfortunately for the IPC, they could never have imagined that even in such circumstances, Hanunue would incite every prisoner in the Asdana prison and launch a War of Independence.
So this time, Hanunue would not make the same mistake.
But none of that was the point. The only reason Hanunue showed Mikhail that wound was to tell him one thing.
"After that incident, I came to understand something. In the face of overwhelming profit, even your own flesh and blood may turn against you."
Hanunue spoke to Mikhail with solemn severity.
"And before all this, you were only a mechanic aboard the Astral Express."
Back then, Mikhail had never experienced such things. He had never been betrayed by kin or friends.
Compared to Hanunue, Mikhail was practically a brand-new part that had only just started running.
It knew how things should work, but it did not know how much oil and grime had to be endured behind them.
And when a part like that broke down, the entire machine would be damaged.
It would even trigger a chain reaction, causing the machine they had finally pieced together with such difficulty to suffer irreversible harm.
"Even so, you still choose to trust these people whose origins we don't know?"
Hanunue put his clothes back on and once again fixed his friend with that aggressive, wolf-like stare.
Mikhail fell silent for a moment. His fingers kept moving rhythmically, as though turning gears.
It was a motion from repairing and tuning clocks, and also a habit he often used to relieve the pressure in his heart.
He understood the concern hidden within Hanunue's stern tone.
Just as he had said.
If Mikhail was a new part that had only just begun to run, then Hanunue was an old part long since soaked in oil and grime.
Though every part would be stained by that grime sooner or later, he still wanted certain things not to happen to his friend too soon.
Unfortunately, Mikhail had already made up his mind about Hanunue's question.
As he had said, Mikhail was only an insignificant mechanic on the Astral Express.
And so...
Whenever he faced a train, he inevitably remembered the past.
That past carried memories he often returned to: the past of a youth who chased his dreams.
Now, seeing a damaged train again, even if it was not the one in his memories, his heart was instantly pulled back to those days.
"I'm willing to trust them. If anything goes wrong, I'll make up for it with everything I have."
That was what he said, but in truth, Mikhail had barely considered the possibility that something might go wrong.
Not for any other reason, but because he simply could not believe that people radiating such a pure, transparent sort of idiocy could be problematic.
Pretending to be stupid was easy. Pretending to be stupid all the time without showing a single flaw was extremely difficult.
At least during the time he had spent with them, he had not seen those people make a single expected move.
If they made no expected moves, that meant those people...
The two who had fought him were, in a certain sense, genuine.
Yes. Genuine morons.
And according to the principle that idiots cluster together, anyone capable of staying with morons was probably also a moron.
That was why Mikhail believed it.
"You really think so?"
Seeing him like this, Hanunue's tone softened slightly.
Mikhail answered his question with a nod.
The room fell into a brief silence again, until a long sigh finally left Hanunue's mouth.
"In that case, I'll trust you this once."
Mikhail's expression brightened. "I knew you would. I'll go notify them first."
After all, those people had the sort of temperament he simply could not get a handle on.
If they stayed in quarantine too long and something happened, there would be no telling how it might turn out.
With that, Mikhail hurried away.
But when he reached the isolation area, someone immediately rushed over in a panic.
"Mikhail! Bad news! Bad news!"
Seeing the person like this, Mikhail's heart gave a sudden thud.
Surely he had not just made his guarantee to Hanunue only for something to happen here already.
"What happened? Tell me!"
"The people you brought here, they, they..."
Mikhail's eyes widened, afraid he was about to hear some terrible news.
"They ate too much!!!"
"What?! Ate too much... Huh?!"
The urgency on Mikhail's face suddenly froze. He blinked at the person before him, a trace of confusion appearing in his eyes.
Did you just say something completely absurd?
"They... ate too much?!"
"Yes!"
Mikhail confirmed it again, half in disbelief.
He learned that no one had been hooked by that fishing rod, nor had anyone sparred with the loudmouthed one.
The real reason this messenger had come to report to him was that those people had simply eaten far too much.
In an instant, the tension in Mikhail's heart scattered into smoke and vanished.
Sure enough, he never should have worried about those people.
...
But when Mikhail saw the stack of bowls nearly as tall as he was, he fell completely silent.
"Were... were all these eaten by those people?!"
The stack of bowls was almost level with his height. At a rough glance, there had to be at least several hundred of them.
But there were only six of you. How did you eat this much?
"Yeah. Otherwise, we wouldn't have rushed over to inform you like this."
"They really ate too much. At minimum, they ate one-thousandth of all the supplies we currently have left..."
This was not exactly an era of abundant resources. Under the IPC's joint blockade, nearly all of these supplies were nonrenewable.
And now, these six people could eat this much in a single meal. Could this place really afford to keep feeding them?
"It'll be at least half a year before the crops we planted mature."
"According to the original plan, if we lived frugally, we only needed to endure three months of shortages before becoming self-sufficient. But now..."
With six extra bottomless pits here, could their remaining supplies really withstand the drain?
After hearing this, Mikhail also realized how serious the problem was.
"This actually does seem a little bad."
Mikhail had been so excited earlier that he had forgotten the current state of their supplies.
If this continued, Penacony might enter a shortage period ahead of schedule.
At this rate, Penacony might not be retaken by the IPC's military force, but conquered by these people's stomachs instead.
If that really happened, it would probably become an extremely famous incident across the entire universe.
It seemed he needed to find a way to resolve the current supply problem.
But before that, Mikhail gathered himself and entered The Isolation Chamber.
The moment he stepped inside, he heard a string of noisy voices.
"Hey, you stupid bear, you're eating too much!"
"I can't help it. I'm starving! And didn't you eat a lot just now too?"
"If only a beautiful lady were beside me now, sharing this meal with me, surely..."
"Stop messing around. Someone's here!"
With Sora's reminder, the commotion temporarily quieted down.
And once they saw the newcomer was Mikhail, they quickly came over to greet him.
"You look pretty good after changing clothes!"
Momotaros patted Mikhail up and down.
"My deepest thanks for the feast. I am moved to tears!"
Kintaros still expressed his gratitude for being allowed to fill his stomach.
"It's fine, it's fine. As long as everyone enjoyed themselves."
Mikhail hurriedly waved his hands to indicate there was no need for thanks.
The supply problem had existed from the beginning. There was no need for him to shift the blame onto these people.
After the greetings, he was finally able to have a proper conversation with Sora and the others.
After being well fed and hosted by Mikhail, the Imagin had also lowered their guard and begun treating him like a friend.
But although they were chatting, there were still some questions Mikhail had to understand.
"What brought all of you to this place?"
And that train-like spacecraft had been tugging nonstop at his curiosity.
That train, so similar to the Astral Express and yet so very different.
"We came here to travel, but it's all Momotaros's fault!"
Ryutaros was still brooding over what had happened earlier, and took every opportunity to tattle.
"You snot-nosed brat, I've been sick of you for ages!"
With that, the two of them started roughhousing off to the side.
Mikhail's eyelid twitched as he watched them.
Although he knew the atmosphere here was just like this, he still found it somewhat hard to adjust.
In the end, he could only turn his gaze to Sora, because this guy seemed to be the only normal person here.
Sora then briefly explained the reason they had come.
"You're saying you received an invitation, and that's why you came here with your friends?"
In Sora's description, the ticket of FINALITY had become an invitation, and the Imagin had become his friends.
Though the truth seemed more or less close enough.
So Sora nodded and admitted it.
But Mikhail keenly noticed one part of the story.
"You're saying your train can break through the IPC's blockade?!"
If it really could break through the IPC blockade, then wouldn't there be a solution to their supply shortage?
Although a single train could not transport too many supplies, at the very least, Penacony's supplies would no longer remain permanently limited to what they had in stock.
Was this not exactly the difficulty he was currently facing?
"Of course. Did you think we were joking when we said we shot down a fleet earlier?"
Sora's question made Mikhail turn his face aside with a bit of guilt.
He really had thought that was a joke.
But now that he knew the other party had not been joking, excitement inevitably welled up in his heart.
"This may be difficult for me to ask, but could I request a favor from you?"
He wanted them to help this place get through its current supply crisis.
Unfortunately, after he finished explaining everything, he found that the people here seemed to have fallen silent.
"I know this is asking a lot, but..."
Mikhail hurriedly tried to explain. He truly wanted to seize this opportunity.
But Sora spoke at that moment. "That's not it. It's about our train."
If possible, Sora naturally wanted to help Mikhail get through this difficult period. But things were not that simple.
After all, that train was a temporary item that had appeared beside him along with these Imagin.
Once the time was up, that temporary item would disappear from this place together with the Imagin.
It was not that Sora did not want to help. The train simply had too many limitations.
Of course, he would not reveal the whole truth, since that involved its origin.
So Sora casually made up some nonsense.
After all, this universe had Narrative Energy, the perfect all-purpose excuse.
Sora only had to claim that the train's energy source needed time to accumulate Imaginary Energy.
"I... see..."
Mikhail accepted Sora's explanation, which left him looking somewhat dejected.
Just then, a heavy palm slapped directly onto Mikhail's shoulder.
Smack!
The crisp sound, along with the pain of his shoulder nearly dislocating, snapped Mikhail back to himself.
"We can talk about later things later. Once you fix it, we can at least help you a few times!"
Kintaros might have been simple and honest, but he valued bonds deeply.
As long as Mikhail could repair the train, he was willing, in exchange for that full meal, to turn this sightseeing trip into a few rounds of cargo transport.
"Don't tell me you think we're the kind of guys who forget a favor."
Urataros sidled up beside Mikhail. "You should know, we are beings who uphold love and justice."
Love and justice?
Mikhail silently repeated the words to himself.
A smile actually spread across his face without him noticing.
Love and justice. It was an unexpectedly fitting description, and it made him think of his old companions on the train.
"I understand. I'll hurry and repair your train."
Mikhail nodded, then chose to leave and quickly repair their train.
Although it had been a long time since he last worked as a mechanic, his repair skills had not fallen behind in the slightest.
He would let this train see just how capable the former mechanic of the Astral Express really was!
Mikhail left in high spirits.
The Imagin remaining there could not help but look at one another.
"How incredible, senpai. You didn't actually object just now."
Urataros slipped over beside Momo and teased him. "I remember you used to insist on adding the prefix 'super-powerful Kamen Rider' before that."
"Hmph."
Momo, who had been roughhousing with Ryutaros, lost interest. He snorted and sat to the side with a sulky expression.
"That snot-nosed brat said it was lame back then. I know how to take advice."
Ryutaros climbed up from the ground. "Hm? When did I say that?"
"You little—"
Momo could not help clenching his fist, then brought it down on Ryutaros's head.
"How did you forget something that happened back then so quickly?"
Seeing the two start brawling again, the others nearby showed no intention of stopping them.
Only Sora was quietly thinking...
"If it's food they're short on, maybe I can be of some use?"
His words made all the Imagin turn their eyes toward him.
"After all..."
Sora picked up a fruit pit left from after the meal.
"If it's something like this, I should still be able to help a little."
As his power surged, the fruit pit in Sora's hand immediately began trembling nonstop.
Soon after, tender shoots sprouted from it and spread along his arm.
Seeing this, Sora hastily threw the pit onto the ground...
...
Thud.
The dull sound from outside made Hanunue open his eyes from his brief rest.
The viciousness in his gaze had softened somewhat.
Perhaps no one would ever imagine that Hanunue, the rebel leader known as the Croc-eating Mad Wolf, Asdana's Fang, would show such an expression.
When he was outside, he usually led the people forward with the bearing of a wolf king.
This kind of gentleness was almost never seen on him.
But now, because of his friend, a trace of tenderness could not help but show.
Because he was afraid his friend would repeat the same mistakes he had once made.
"The taste of having trust betrayed is not easy to endure."
Hanunue's hand, marked by traces of shackles, lightly brushed the scar on his back.
Precisely because he had experienced such a thing, he did not want Mikhail to experience it as well.
But if the other party had chosen this, then naturally he would support him.
"I hope you prove worthy of—"
BOOM!
Crack, crack, crack!
Before Hanunue could finish speaking, a series of sounds came from outside and interrupted his mood.
They seemed to be dull, heavy noises, like the sound of a building cracking apart.
Those sounds made Hanunue frown in confusion.
"Is the IPC attacking?"
He got up to investigate, but very quickly heard a rush of frantic footsteps outside.
Sensing that something was wrong, he hurried outside, only to discover many people swarming toward a single location.
"What happened?"
With his towering frame, Hanunue grabbed someone directly and questioned them.
"No idea, but they say the noise came from The Isolation Chamber!"
The Isolation Chamber?!
When Hanunue heard the location, he abruptly thought of Mikhail, who had just left.
The Isolation Chamber was not activated lightly. It was a place used to isolate people of unknown identity.
But now, all of Penacony had been completely blockaded by the IPC. What unknown outsiders could there possibly be?
Everyone left on this planet was either a previously enslaved prisoner or a local of Asdana. How could there be outsiders?
Except for... the people Mikhail had just brought over.
The instant Hanunue realized this, his eyes widened despite himself.
"Don't tell me they came here just to do this?"
Both Mikhail and Hanunue were indispensable figures within Penacony's rebel army at this time.
Hanunue was responsible for force of arms, while Mikhail was responsible for the civil and cultural front.
One civil, one martial. Only through their cooperation had the previous War of Independence progressed so smoothly.
It could be said that without either one of them, they would never have achieved that result.
So the IPC had targeted this weakness and sent those people as living bombs!
Their objective was to kill Mikhail!
And right now, Mikhail should be inside The Isolation Chamber, so the enemy had found this opportunity to begin their plan!
"Damn it!"
Alarmed, Hanunue immediately dropped to all fours and charged forward like the wind.
Mikhail, you had better be all right!
Mikhail, this place still needs you. Dreamville hasn't even been built yet...
Huh?!
However anxious Hanunue had been, he was now just as shocked by the sight before him.
Because at that moment, there was no sign of Mikhail in front of him, nor any wreckage from a bomb attack. There was only...
A thick, verdant fruit tree growing here in a bizarre shape, following the structure of the building.
There was barely any sunlight inside the building, yet the leaves of this fruit tree were shockingly green.
Even as he watched, flower buds soon covered its upper branches.
Those buds slowly deepened from green, until at last they bloomed here in a dark purple hue.
And the entire process had not even taken a few dozen seconds.
In other words, this tree had passed through its flowering period in an extremely short time!
If this were told to others, many biologists would probably refuse to believe it.
Then Hanunue smelled an inexplicable scent drifting past his nose.
!!!
"It's poisonous! Everyone, get back!"
Hanunue's shout startled the people gathered there, and they hurriedly covered their mouths and noses as they retreated dozens of steps.
"Is this some new biological poison gas developed by the IPC?"
"Damn it, how did this thing appear here?"
"But I kind of feel like that was just the smell of flowers..."
That sentence somehow plunged the atmosphere into an awkward silence.
It had happened too suddenly for anyone to check carefully, but now that the situation had stabilized a little, they sniffed lightly and realized that it did not seem to be poison gas.
The fresh scent of grass and trees made them feel as though a lifetime had passed.
After they were captured and imprisoned here, all they could do was mine Memoria day and night.
The meals, fruit, and drinks they ate and drank were all things that only reached their hands after passing through many layers of inspection.
Those things had long since undergone complicated processing and had lost their original flavor.
And now, after smelling the fragrance given off by this fruit tree, they found themselves faintly recalling the past.
This was the scent of freedom, and the scent of life.
"Huh? Wh-what is that?"
Just as people were sinking into memory because of that scent, someone sharp-eyed suddenly discovered strange things appearing on those branches.
"Are those... fruit?"
Someone quickly identified what they truly were.
The things appearing on the branches were actually green fruits one after another.
And they were ripening at astonishing speed.
Before long, they saw familiar melons and fruits hanging from the branches.
These melons and fruits were things they had once eaten as after-meal fruit. None of them had ever wondered exactly how they ripened.
But now, they had witnessed in an extremely short time where fruit came from.
This would surely become one of the most important experiences of their lives.
Hanunue also froze in place when he saw those familiar fruits.
Even for someone like him, who had seen plenty of grand scenes, this was something exceedingly strange.
It was simply unbelievable.
At the same time, many people who were not afraid of death prepared to test the true nature of these fruits.
After all, supplies were scarce right now. These former fruits were not something they could eat whenever they wished.
But just as they were about to reach them, the fruit tree suddenly shuddered for no apparent reason.
Rustle, rustle—!
That single tremor caused the fruits above, already ripening at high speed, to fall straight toward the ground.
Seeing this, everyone hurriedly lunged forward, wanting to protect these special gifts.
Only Hanunue kept staring at the fruit tree. His vigilance warned him that this matter was absolutely not simple.
Thud!
Just then, he heard another dull sound.
And along with that sound, the fruit tree trembled once more.
"As expected, someone is causing trouble behind this!"
Hanunue's gaze sharpened, and he followed the sound to the side.
This was the side wall of The Isolation Chamber. The sound just now had come from here.
Let me see who's behind all this—
BOOM!
Hanunue suddenly heard a loud crash beside his ear. Immediately after, the wall kept growing larger before his eyes.
"Hanunue!"
The guards who had been protecting Hanunue could not help crying out in alarm.
But some of the guards also tightened their grip on their weapons.
Because behind the collapsed wall, several figures had appeared!
"Hmph! Weep before my strength!"
Kintaros snorted as he spoke.
He had just used his body to forcibly smash down that wall from the inside.
"Kin-chan is amazing!"
Ryutaros cheered.
Sora and Momotaros were finally separated as well, both collapsing to the floor.
When the fruit tree had expanded just now, the two of them had been fairly close to it. Under the intense pressure, they had been forced into a very strange position, tangled together.
Momo: "Can you give me a warning next time?"
Sora: "Can I say that was actually my first time using this ability?"
He had never imagined that after the Power of Light was strengthened, its planting effect would be this terrifying.
If he had not thrown it away quickly, he might have been crushed under this fruit tree right now.
The one who had pinned Sun Wukong down was the Buddha's Five-Finger Mountain, but the thing that had nearly crushed Sora was a fruit tree he had made himself...
If that got out, it would be way too embarrassing.
But for some reason, Sora heard a voice by his ear.
'Kouhai, if you don't take this seriously, you've already lost.'
That scheming Shoichi. I'll remember this!
And Hanunue spoke dully from beneath the wall.
"So, could you move aside first?"
He wanted to get out.