Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 121: Subspecies (6)

Dragon Raja 3

“Bah! Even if I liked women, I wouldn’t like a woman like you with a little extra around the waist!” Mai turned off the headphones.

At this depth, radio waves were useless; the only reliable connection was the communication cable. She had secretly used the cable between the Trieste ship and the Sumeru Throne, which ran parallel to the safety line. However, this sole means of communication would have to be interrupted, as she would be conducting a deep-sea walk without diving gear. She opened the valve, and the sound of rushing seawater was like thunder; after half a minute, the chamber was filled with seawater. Mai’s body shuddered as she swam out through the exhaust port. The light from the “Gas Ray” illuminated her clearly, but the people in the cockpit were too small to notice her; she happened to be in the blind spots of all the observation windows.

Although she wasn’t wearing an embroidered royal robe, walking slowly atop the submersible felt like inspecting her territory, with her seaweed-like long hair silently floating in the pitch-black water.

Her heart beat extremely slowly, as if a mountain’s weight pressed down on her. Moving felt like being on a super planet with ten times Earth’s gravity. But the enhanced bloodline helped her withstand the high pressure here, and a brand new Yanling was unleashed. The surface of her black bodysuit shimmered like scales, and the immense pressure of the seawater was weakened by an invisible field. She detached a piece of hard pressure-resistant armor from the submersible’s shell, found the air valve hidden beneath, and then took out a quartz-encapsulated perfluorosulfonic acid resin from her backpack. This was the strongest known solid super acid, millions of times more acidic than concentrated sulfuric acid. Mai pressed the perfluorosulfonic acid resin against the neck of the air valve, then gently leaped away from the top of the submersible, sliding down the exterior wall between the observation windows until she reached the bottom of the submersible. There, she found the interface for the oxygen chamber and connected it to her own oxygen tank with a steel pipe. She secured herself with a metal hook and safety rope, slowly lying flat against the submersible’s shell, looking around at this dark world, with only the “Gas Ray” beam sweeping back and forth.

“Descending this deep really feels like we’re heading for hell,” she whispered to herself.

Schneider sat in the center of the hall, with Norma projecting different images holographically in front of him from all angles: sonar scan results, underwater footage from the Trieste ship, weather conditions in the Japanese waters… All information converged before Schneider. After he finished with one screen, he casually swiped it to the right, causing the holographic projection to instantly vanish, only for a new screen to appear, adding new tasks to the “waiting for processing” list. On the surface, it seemed like on-site commander Chisei was in charge, but he was merely Schneider’s spokesperson. Schneider tightly controlled the Sumeru Throne, the Moniake ship, and the Trieste ship. The cross-ocean direct link between the Norma system and the Kaguya system made him feel as if he were on-site, and the black card provided by Manstein gave him 100% authority to access Norma’s resources.

Manstein had no intention of helping; he was a civilian, skilled at holding meetings, speaking, and writing reports. He sat at a desk in the corner, writing furiously.

“What are you writing?” Schneider asked without looking up.

“A performance report explaining that I’m not defying the school board but rather standing with the Discipline Committee. After good communication with the Executive Department, I believe halting the Dragon Embryo Project at this time is against the college’s relevant regulations. While the board’s resolutions are very important, they don’t conform to procedural justice, and therefore, the Discipline Committee cannot execute resolutions that do not meet procedural justice,” Manstein replied without looking up. “I know you don’t understand what I’m saying now, and you don’t need to. This is a matter for us civilians.”

“Now I understand why you’ve risen to such an important position as the Director of the Discipline Committee in less than ten years since joining the college,” Schneider teased. “Every hero needs a bard to sing their praises, and the bard is the civilian staff.”

Manstein responded, “If it weren’t for me diligently writing reports to placate the board over the years, with your and the principal’s reckless style, the conflicts with the board would have long been exposed.”

“I don’t quite understand. Frost isn’t a fool; he knows exactly what you’ve been doing all these years. Although you’re not a lackey of the principal’s faction, you’re also definitely not a lackey of the Gattuso family. How could the Gattuso family entrust the heir’s life to you while also giving you this black card? Given Frost Gattuso’s personality, he should have sent an investigation team to intervene forcefully, like last time.”

“I never said I came here by Frost’s arrangement,” Manstein raised his head. “I was sent here by Pompeii Gattuso, the head of the Gattuso family.”

“Pompeii?” Schneider was somewhat surprised.

“Yes, because according to school rules, the board cannot directly manage the Executive Department. The Executive Department has the right to send students to carry out tasks, and Caesar himself had no objections to such arrangements. The only person who could halt this is Caesar’s father, which must be Pompeii himself; it cannot be Frost, who is merely acting in his place. The board questioned the Executive Department’s reasons for sending students to carry out high-risk tasks against the parents’ objections. While Caesar flew to Tokyo, Pompeii was reportedly still meditating in the deep mountains of Tibet. Frost airlifted a cavalry team to the snow mountain pass to ride to Pompeii’s temple and bring him out. It can basically be seen as Frost forcibly abducting Pompeii to demand that he stop the Dragon Embryo Project. That’s why there was the contradictory situation of Pompeii first donating the Trieste ship to support you and later sending me to halt the Dragon Embryo Project.”

“Did Pompeii specifically ask you to halt the Dragon Embryo Project?”

“Yes, it seems he’d prefer to use me to hand over this black card to you rather than genuinely wanting to stop the Dragon Embryo Project,” Manstein said. “He’s an incredible father, seemingly unconcerned about his son’s life.”

“I’ve always had a feeling,” Schneider pondered for a long time and then spoke quietly, “that Pompeii knows something. He knows what’s really at the bottom of the Abyss. He wants us to send someone to the Japan Trench, even if it means putting his own son in danger.”

Manstein paused in surprise. “Why do you think that?”

“Shortly after “Prince” reappeared, Pompeii’s secretary visited the college. As the secretary of a board member, he had the authorization to access confidential documents from the Executive Department. He didn’t comment on other matters, but regarding the sinking of the Lenin, he mentioned that Pompeii owned the legendary deep-sea equipment, the Trieste ship, and if the college needed it, they could have it shipped over directly. At that time, I didn’t know that the equipment department couldn’t immediately produce a qualified submersible, so I instinctively wanted to decline this offer. I vaguely indicated that I would contact them if needed, but a few days later, they actually hired a courier company and shipped the Trieste ship to Chicago on a cargo plane. Before sending it to the equipment department, the Executive Department inspected the submersible. On the surface, it seemed it had only been a collector’s item, displayed in a museum for people to see, participating in charity events, and serving as a backdrop for large performances, but in reality, it had been meticulously maintained, with all its components looking as new as when it was built. Clearly, Pompeii had considered reactivating this submersible, as its maintenance costs were astonishingly high. I wrote an email to Pompeii expressing my gratitude while mentioning that we might include Caesar in the diving team. I was actually probing; if Pompeii only wanted to provide equipment for our people to take risks, he should have immediately declined. But to my surprise, Pompeii expressed great happiness that his son had the opportunity to pilot his collection for a mission and requested that it be painted to resemble the Japanese flag.”