"… And I was brought inside a castle," Liu said, "then I met a terrifying being… He asked me to hand the baby over to him," Liu said after describing to Joshua what kind of place the world beyond the portal was. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about what to do. I couldn't run, and I didn't stand a chance if I fought this… I don't even know if it was a person."
Liu even looked a little bit frightened when she talked about the number of high-level monsters that she saw.
Joshua nodded sympathetically after hearing Liu's story. "I can't even imagine what you must have felt at that moment. But I am curious, why did this being want the baby, and where is the baby now?"
"Well… In the end, I wasn't strong enough to protect her… l…" Liu looked like she had a hard time discussing this particular topic so before she could finish the rest of the story, Adam interrupted her.
"The baby is dead! We couldn't do anything about it even if we wanted to. Verte sacrificed and saved our lives," Adam said, and he still had arrogant behavior, but his voice was softer when he talked about Verte.
"She sacrificed her life to save you? In what way?" Joshua continued, looking in Adam's direction.
Adam had already talked about how he managed to find Liu. He described how Zax used the communication device in Liu's possession to localize her.
After that, Adam explained, they used battle suits built by Zax to hurry toward Liu's location, but they were met with a lot of difficulties. The monster displayed an extremely violent and vicious attitude that he had never seen before, he added.
Despite that, their strategy was to run and save Liu as fast as possible while avoiding the monsters, Adam emphasized, so Zax's battle suits managed to bring them where they wanted to go against all odds.
Joshua was a little bit surprised by how Adam described Zax as a genius because he had never seen Adam talking about someone like that. Thus, Joshua glanced at the petite pink-haired woman next to Liu and wondered if Adam's claim was true.
"But we were too late," Adam continued. "Liu was defeated, and of course, despite my skills, I couldn't handle the last boss alone, at least at that time… But here's the thing. I was wondering why the primordial particles inside Liu's body, but then I saw something unbelievable. I don't know exactly what was happening at that moment, but the baby used her power to save Liu and awakened her authority."
Adam still talked arrogantly but their frustration was apparent on his face as he talked.
"Well, you can probably guess what happened next… With her power, Liu managed to restrain the last boss, and we managed to get out of there, but when we came back, everything was already gone… It's your turn to answer our questions now. What happened?" Adam looked at Joshua with a serious look on his face.
"Mmmm… Honestly, your story is hard to believe. So, both of you don't know about the identity of this baby, but in the end, your life was miraculously saved by her. Then, this mighty being who controls millions of monsters was restrained by miss Liu who had awakened her authority, and you could leave through another portal," Joshua said, talking in with a doubtful tone.
"What do you want to say?" Adam halted at Joshua. "Thinking about it logically, the three of us would never survive, in the first place, considering all of that. Whether you believe it or not, we are here and alive. If you think we became some kind of monster, then you are not making things easier for us. You don't even want to know what we had to eat before we found a way to contact other people."
"No, don't misunderstand me… Logically speaking, as you said, the chance for you to survive under such a circumstance is almost zero. Thus, I found your story very interesting, to say the least. Well, the fact that you are here proves that you survived, and from what I can see here, all of you seem to be completely normal," Joshua said after Caroline finished her tests.
Everything that Adam said about the ship and the battle suit was all true, and the imperial soldiers had already investigated the ship thoroughly to make sure of that.
Moreover, Adam's comeback was persuasive, and even his attitude made him look like he was just putting up an act. 'As expected of him. I can't even tell if he was telling the whole truth or if he was lying with a straight face. Well, there are a lot of proofs, and Caroline's date also didn't show anything strange. With this, the people above will let them off for now…'
However, Joshua believed that there was more to it, and even though it wasn't his goal to force Adam to spill it out, he had to pretend that he was doing so.
"Hahaha! What's up with that look on your face, Adam? You will be fine. No one is going to turn you into experimentation subjects," Caroline said in a cheerful voice.
"Okay, you guys need to wait here for a little bit. Just rest, and eat food when you are hungry. We need to send these data to the Empire and do further analysis, and as soon as it's done, you will be able to go home," Caroline kept on talking.
"Okay, then you," Liu said, keeping her usual composure.
After that, Caroline and Joshua left the room, leaving Adam and the others alone inside of this confined space again.
During this whole discussion, Zax didn't say anything much, and sometimes she just nodded and shook her head when Caroline asked her various questions.
The three of them, Adam, Liu, and Zax, knew that they were being observed and they needed to act according to Adam's instructions.
*****
Somewhere within the Empire's capital, a few individuals were gathered inside of a room equipped with a large projector.
Adam and the others' images were shown on this screen, but some of the people that were present didn't even appear to be interested.
"What do you think? What are we going to do about these kids?" A woman asked.
Despite her question, the other 6 people were doing something else and didn't look like they were going to give her an answer.
"Why are we even here in the first place?" Another woman talked, but her voice sounded more childish than the previous woman's.
The woman who asked the first question sighed, looking at everyone else.
"Okay, I will let you deal with the Fenrirus and the Raizel then…" She said.
"Raizel? Come to think of it, was it the territory of the banished son of the Raizels that got invaded by the monsters? So, is this brat his kid?" This time, it was a man who talked, and even though his voice was deep, it had a youthful undertone.
"Can you take this a little bit seriously? His Majesty asked us to handle this issue, and he except us to give him answers as fast as possible," the mature woman said in a very stern voice.
"What do you want us to do about it? We are busy. Monsters ravaged a lot of planets for thousands of years now. The Emperor just wants to build up an image or something like that with this Armageddon thingy," the woman with a young girl's voice talked.
The other three didn't say anything and their eyes were focused on the rectangular thing, which looked like tablets, in their hands.
A lot of things were happening in the Empire because the Emperor wanted to prepare for the upcoming great battle against the monster.
"Just let them go. I don't want things to get more complicated than they already are. These two scientists know what they are doing, and the kids are doing fine, so I don't see why we shouldn't just let them return to their families. Anyway, we can always continue observing them," the man with a deep voice said.
"I agree."
"Me too."
"Same."
The three other people who didn't participate in the conversation finally voiced their opinions.
From what they learned from Adam's story, there was an individual that controlled monsters, but such a fact didn't surprise them.
One of them though was a little bit curious about Adam and his ability, but with the emergence of the Platinum Generation, it was pale in comparison.
"Sigh! Well, this meeting ends here then."
After the mature woman said these words, the other five individuals left the room immediately without saying anything to each other.
"To think that those people are the guardians of the Empire…" The woman mumbled after everyone else left.
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