Chapter 162: Ready to Go [Part 1]
“I guess we can’t say that they’re the only ones who are keeping a low profile, since in reality everyone was keeping a low profile. It’s just that they were extremely low key even when compared to the others. For the past fifty years, there hasn’t been any unusually huge conflict between the four great Hunter regiments, the great four and the military, and the business, political and other circles as well. This was a buffer everyone had agreed to by chance.” Lung continued to say.
Cillin did not say anything.
Ever since he joined Vanguard, Cillin had been paying constant attention to the movements of the four great Hunter regiments. On the whole, the four great Hunter regiments were just like an indicator whose movements were more or less followed by the Hunter regiments in GAL.
However, as he came to understand more over time, Cillin discovered that the current great four weren’t nearly as dazzling and flamboyant as they used to be. It could be said that they were acting a lot more low-key than the historical records stated. Now that he thought about it, it might really be due to the influence of that incident fifty years ago. If he hadn’t seen the content of Enji’s diary, he might not know even now that there was an incident fifty years ago so huge that it influenced the entire GAL. However, what Cillin still did not know was what exactly had happened fifty years ago that caused even the great four to withdraw their claws?
In GAL, the incident from fifty years ago was not brought up be it in electronic networks or physical records. Perhaps some of the old people who lived through that time would know something, but were all afraid to talk about it.
“Have you checked out Blue Butterfly’s communication department when you were at the transit planet?” Lung asked.
Blue Butterfly was the one out of the great four Lung spoke of who had been keeping a low profile all this time. Blue Butterfly was slightly special among the great four in that their numbers might not even reach a tenth of numbers of the three other Hunter regiments such as Vanguard. However, their average strength was also a lot higher. Looking at the ranking of GAL’s Hunter regiments, the great four’s overall strength did not differ much from each other, and it was difficult to differentiate exactly who was more superior to the other. However, Blue Butterfly’s average individual combat power was publicly known as the strongest out of all Hunter regiments in GAL. Moreover, B Squadrons did not exist in Blue Butterfly. This was what made Blue Butterfly was special.
Every Blue Butterfly member had a butterfly-shaped tattoo on their bodies. There were demon butterflies, swallowtail butterflies and all kinds of other patterns, and underneath these major categories, everyone’s tattoo differed according to the person.
Cillin shook his head when he heard Lung’s question. He had headed straight to Vanguard the moment he found the coordinates. He had not paid attention to the situation of other Hunter regiments’ communication departments.
“Blue Butterfly’s communication department never had too many people, and even if you went there you would only find some grass-roots units. However, no one knew where the core forces of Blue Butterfly were since they had vanished more than forty years ago.” at this point, Lung let out a sneer and said, “But this time, it is likely that even the most low-key Blue Butterfly would return. In fact, they would return in force.”
“Do you know what happened fifty years ago?” Cillin asked.
Lung made an apologetic gesture and said, “I only knew some matters that are related to our family, and a rough impression of the other forces. Although everyone was involved in the incident fifty years ago, their objectives and needs all differed from each other. Did no one in Vanguard tell you about this? But I guess it’s only natural since it’s a public secret. If I wasn’t the first young master of the Andrea Family, I would not have the qualification to know about the things that involved the family back then as well.”
“Never mind then.” Cillin expressed his indifference, “Let’s talk about this mission. What are your intentions exactly?”
“My intentions? Didn’t I say them pretty clearly before? I’m requesting your cooperation in completing this mission. Speaking of which, this mission is beneficial for you Vanguards as well.”
“That electronic minute book only talked about a mission at Sector S, but it did not specify exactly what we’re going to do there.”
Lung used the hand he used to rub his leg earlier to scratch his head, “Er, to put it in simpler words, that Andrea Family core mission of ours absolutely won’t fall into my lap. My dad would not let me do something as leading the charge and breaking through the enemy lines right now anyway. He said that my abilities are lacking, and I haven’t left a seed behind to continue the family line. It’s the pits if I went there and did not return, so instead I applied an extra mission on my own accord from my dad – arson!”
“Arson?”
“Yeah. If they’re fighting mad at the front yard, then we’ll go set the back yard on fire. It’ll serve as a kind of a distraction, and a chance at toughening ourselves. There are no hardline victory conditions, and there are no hardline objectives. This is purely entertainment with a high degree of freedom.”
“The place you choose for pure entertainment sure are special. A step in the wrong direction and we’ll lose our little lives away and be miserable all the same.”
Lung said excitedly, “It’ll be fine. Not even my dad turned down the idea after the difficulty level was lowered. This is a rare opportunity, and I have a feeling that when the time comes Sector S will be pretty chaotic, so why not take the chance and make the waters muddier. We’ll just be a spectator of the whole thing.”
Cillin gave it a thought. It was not like he had anything to do, and it wasn’t an opportunity that he would let pass by. When he saw the phrase ‘Sector S’, he had already decided against foregoing the mission. That being said, it was still better to get answers for zome questions.
“Why fifty years? Something happened fifty years ago, and then a bunch of people were all given fifty years sentences. That doesn’t sound right.”
“Excluding the heavyweights, the small fries were either dead or sentenced to prison terms of varying periods between ten to fifty years. There were people who had been released and returned from Sector S, but the ratio of people who returned safely from Sector S were less than a thousandth. In fact, at a certain period of time the people who were released from Sector S were utterly annihilated. The ridiculously low safe return ratio was one of the reasons why everyone had made their respective preparations to safeguard the heavyweights’ return. As for why that mission only resulted in fifty years of prison term, we had the disagreements between the military and political groups to thank. The people in academia who had decision making power also reached some sort of underground deal with everyone, which was why everyone worked together to reduce everyone’s sentences to fifty years.”
“I see.” Cillin recalled a number of things. It wasn’t that the Hunter regiments did not have any achievements on ‘Glory’ or ‘Code’, they had simply became someone else’s achievements. These were all part of the deal.
“Therefore,” Lung approached Cillin with shining eyes, “Let’s go stir up a row.”
Cillin raised his eyes and glanced at Lung once, “It can’t be that the reason you volunteered yourself and applied for such a mission from your dad was because you were fed up with the matters at Sector H, can it?”
“Bullseye. Let’s go let’s go, when the time comes I’ll tell you secretly some of the secrets back then.”
“I didn’t say that I’m not going.”
“Haha, then it’s a deal!” Lung bounced right up and ran towards the door, but just when he was about to open it he stopped and walked back with a bitter look on his face. He put on his shoes, tidied up his clothes, and straightened out the flew clumps of hair he scratched out of order until everything was perfect. Finally, he cleared his throat and opened the door with a profound appearance.
They returned to the big meeting room, took a further step deeper into the negotiation, discussed about remunerations and other matters, signed the contract, shook hands and bid each other goodbye. But because Cillin requested to rest here for several days, Lung and the Andrea Family people also stayed behind at K-J District. Vanguard had arranged temporary lodgings for them.
Of course, there was no way they would allow the Andrea Family people to stay long term at Planet Vanguard, so they had arranged their lodgings at another planet at the rim. However, Lung lost his patience after just staying there for a day and took his men directly to the transit planet for fun. He told Cillin to find him there after he had rested sufficiently and dealt with all his matters.
Shawton did not comment anything about Cillin’s choice. He simply told Cillin to rest well during the few days he was at the Sixth B Squadron.