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In fact, just a few days after the military parade in Beijing, the colonel, who had been coughing constantly, was diagnosed with lung cancer. He quickly completed his retirement procedures and left the Beijing garrison, where he had served for many years. Afterward, he chose to receive follow-up treatment at a hospital in District 11, so that if he were to become critically ill in the future, he could still give his daughter a chance to see him one last time.
“Is that the person who came to pick us up? But…” The two gentlemen and their entourage arrived at the airport and saw a young man in plain clothes. What was even stranger was that there was an ordinary-looking taxi behind him.
“I am Captain Schreiber of the Aryan Special Forces of District 11.” The captain took the luggage from the surprised eyes of the group and stuffed it into the trunk. “If you have any questions, please get in the car and we can talk.”
The two elderly gentlemen were a little confused about what Schreiber was doing—they saw him give a few winks to the people outside the car, and once they drove out of the airport, they were "protected" by two ordinary taxis in front and behind them.
"Where were we on the plane?" The colonel tried to calm the scholar next to him, who was used to a life of luxury, through conversation. "You just said that when you were teaching at Imperial Central University, you encountered a very strange student?"
“Yes, I think his name was Diethard. I was in charge of some of the law school’s teaching at that time.” Mr. Salen paused. “In his own words, the purpose of studying law was to write grand and fascinating narratives while recording and witnessing great history.”
"how do I say this?"
"All I can say is that if he were a journalist, he would have absolutely no journalistic integrity. He doesn't believe in any objective truth because, in his view, all information is a product of human subjective thinking. For example, if His Majesty the Emperor didn't give speeches for a few days, this Diethard would think that His Majesty had no value in front of the camera."
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk." A surprised voice came from the driver's side. "Gentlemen, in my opinion, this kind of stuff is something only the rabble of the Black Knights would like, isn't it?"
“I am here on Her Highness Maribel’s orders to protect and escort you two.” Schreiber, personally at the wheel, chatted with the two elderly gentlemen as he turned back. “Did you receive any letters or anything from Area 11 before you came?”
"Captain, although we are not distinguished guests who need to be carried in a sedan chair, what is your reason for arranging a taxi for us?"
"Gentlemen, have you seen the news from Area 11 lately? A new terrorist group has emerged there, and they're proving very difficult to deal with." The captain shrugged. "It's been several days now, and not only can we not determine whether they're members of the Black Knights, but even their military base has been attacked... Don't you think Governor Nunnally has done a terrible job?"
“It is not a good habit to speak ill of your superiors behind their backs, Mr. Schreiber.”
“It’s a pity my superior is Princess Maribel,” Schreiber said, adjusting the rearview mirror and casually touching the badge hanging there—one that Maribel had given to the leaders of several special operations teams. “It’s also a pity that everyone, including Her Highness, is condemning Nunnally and Suzaku.”
"To be honest, look at those two taxis following closely behind. My special operations team members are holding their guns and standing ready in those cars." The captain paused, then chuckled slightly. "I'm just fulfilling my duty as your bodyguard. Surely no one wants the newspapers in District 11 to one day have headlines like 'Retired high-ranking official from the former capital, Pendraken, assassinated in the street by some thug,' right?"
"This..." Upon hearing this, Mr. Salen broke out in a cold sweat and looked at the colonel, "Has Area 11 become that bad?"
"These aren't just ordinary terrorists; they might even have an inside man. They probably even know your flight times. It's a pity that if Princess Mariebel could replace Princess Nunnally, you would have heard this true news much sooner."
“But don’t worry, the Aryan Special Forces will definitely ensure your safety.” With that, Schreiber suddenly left an empty street and turned into a side street. “We won’t give those bastards from District 11 any chance to fire, and we will do our duty as people of District 45.”
"The Aryan Special Forces? Are they from District 45?"
"Oh? Nobody told you this?" Schreiber turned around, grinning crookedly. "Please rest assured, gentlemen, and I hope you will convey this to every friend you know: the Aryan Special Forces, as Princess Marybell's personal guard, are the most outstanding and loyal to the Empire, selected from among the thousands of people in District 45. The cowards of District 11 will only be completely squeezed into the trash heap when we integrate into the big family."
"Finally, let me remind you two that it's okay to talk to people from District 45, but never trust those guys who wear blue and white uniforms all day and patrol the streets like the military and police. They are the disabled people of District 45 who can't even become honorary citizens."
Upon arriving at their destination, Schreiber saw the two off and, watching the anxious figures of Mr. Salen and Colonel Georgeston, smugly took out his phone to call Karlstadt.
“Excellent! Now two more people will abandon that blind girl in the wheelchair and stand on Princess Marybell’s side.”
“You learn this rhetoric very quickly, Schreiber.” The colonel on the other end of the phone had just dropped Henrik off on his way back to District 16. “Princess Mariebell has already told me that we will be in charge of VIP transportation around the Tokyo Concession for the next few days. Don’t miss this opportunity.”
……
The entire 11th district sensed unease beneath the surface of glitz and glamour; no one looked at Princess Nunnally and Suzaku Kururugi with respect and obedience.
Feeling uneasy, Clark didn't dare to linger too long at the banquet, where the atmosphere was tense, trying to freeload and gather information. Tonight, he declined the offer to do business with the military officer, and while completing other tasks, he also needed to calm himself down.
"Your plan to curry favor with the Governor's Office of Area 11 is likely to fail completely, boss." This is what he was going to write to Davis. "This bunch of Area 11 people who came out of nowhere have ruined all our plans. Now every Britannian who is known in Area 11 is gradually losing faith in the authority of Nunnally and Suzaku Kururugi."
"Based on our deductions, since Lelouch didn't treat the current governor's biological sister the way he treated the previous governors, nor did he kill Suzaku, he certainly doesn't want the situation to develop in a direction contrary to the present. In other words, he and the Black Knights can't possibly want Nunnally to step down and be replaced by that bloodthirsty bitch, Maribel."
“We can completely rule out any possible connection between these new terrorists and the Black Knights. They can only be actors brought to the forefront with the support of some legitimate force.”
"So it's important to identify their composition now, and that requires an opportunity: based on my father's experience in Chicago, it's very dangerous for a gang to completely isolate itself from the outside world, especially when it's bleeding. If it can't stop the bleeding and replenish its resources in time, then its demise is inevitable sooner or later."
"So please hand over any materials you can get your hands on to our agents as soon as possible, so that they can be fully responsible for deducing the possible routes of these terrorists and killing them at the appropriate time. When they have to choose to secretly recruit people, I will put the prepared bait in front of them, so that we can play the long game and catch the big fish."
……
Clark secretly gave Davis one copy of what he had written and also gave the agents a copy, and the response he received was remarkably consistent.
For example, the Japanese Liberation Front and the Black Knights both had KMFs, which could almost completely defend against attacks from all light weapons. Meanwhile, the agents only had grenades, a few rocket launchers, and a bunch of pistols and submachine guns with silencers.
"Back then, Heydrich, that blond beast, was sitting in an open barrel wagon, not in a Tiger tank," that's how the agents described the gap between their equipment and the enemy's expected strength.
There was no other way; one had to be strong enough to succeed. After pulling out the business card with the name "Hidejiro Kojima" from his pocket, White and Sheldon had no choice but to take their crew to this place to make some money.
"When was the last time I caught an Asian face?" Sheldon grumbled on the road. "Last December I was in Japan, yes, the Japan the USS Missouri sailed through. I chased him from Tokyo all the way to some place called Chiba Prefecture, and almost lost track of that guy named Shiro Ishii."
"Originally, I was going to arrest him just like the military police arrested that old donkey Hideki Tojo back then. But after I handed him over to my superiors, not long after, he told me to go back to his house properly and dig out a briefcase he had buried in the ground... and then I was done with it."
"Keep your gun under control, and don't mistake this guy for someone who flies around Pearl Harbor." When they arrived at their destination, they heard an explosion in the distance.
This was outrageous! Sensing something was wrong, the group grabbed their guns and followed the sound, only to find the small manor completely empty, but with several fresh corpses lying in various corners, wounded by gunshots. They scattered to search, and Sheldon followed the trail of blood into a warehouse full of cardboard boxes.
Where did all these cardboard boxes come from?
Just as he was about to push the tallest cardboard box "block," White rushed in from outside and stopped him—before Sheldon could react, two human legs suddenly rose from under one of the boxes, quietly approached Sheldon, and placed an arm holding a tranquilizer gun against the back of his neck.
Chapter 383, Section 486: Hidden Dragon Spy Shadow
Eight years ago, the Holy Britannian Empire used overwhelming force to wipe Japan off the world map, replacing the world's largest producer of cherry blossoms with the designation "Area 11".
Sakurashi is a treasure buried beneath Mount Fuji. It supports all the advanced materials in the world. After Britannia took over the country, all industrial facilities inside and outside Mount Fuji bearing the Japanese flag were also painted with the lion and snake emblem.
With new land and new industries established, the next step should be the emergence of "traitors."
Not long after Area 11 was established, a group of former elite Japanese industrialists and zaibatsu also defected to the Empire. They pledged that "if Britannia entrusts the management of its economy to the local industrialists who have surrendered, the economy will operate more efficiently," and became the vanguard in Britannia's development of its own treasures.
This is the infamous traitor's lair in Kyoto, known to everyone in Japan. As traitors to the Japanese, they were very successful, and the slums of Japan were filled with constant shouts and curses against these "oppressors."
Similarly, as traitors to Britannia and dogs that turn on their masters, they were also very successful. After gaining enough trust from the former, the Kyoto Six Families quickly gathered former Japanese soldiers and ambitious young people from all over the country to form the Japanese Liberation Front.
"It was the most successful resistance force in the world because Japan surrendered too early in the war, and most of its troops were unharmed"—this is what ZERO said. The scale and reserves of the Liberation Front were unmatched by any other resistance force before the formation of the Black Knights.
Of course, all of this is inseparable from the underground arms research and manufacturing network supported by the six Kyoto families—doesn't it seem a bit too late for Britannia to discover their intentions now? Under their protection, researchers and technicians not only maintain and produce a large number of weapons originally intended for the Japanese army, but also digest Britannia's new creations from the war.
I don't remember how Japan was defeated by KMF, but after the defeat, the pursuit of KMF's "sacred and inviolable" combat capabilities was unquestionable. Through everyone's tireless efforts, the burai, a humanoid weapon modeled after the Glasgow-type KMF, was born.
One day later, a young man with a sallow complexion, stubble, and messy black hair arrived at the underground factory that was developing and imitating Britannia's KMF for the liberation front.
……
This is how his story begins. The District 11 man who hid in a cardboard box and injected Sheldon with a sleeping pill.
After being subdued on the spot by White, he was trapped in a dense encirclement of the agents—he was the guy whose name was on the business card that Ota Muneya had given him; otherwise, such a dangerous move would have been enough to cause bloodshed on the spot.
"You're the guy named Kojima mentioned above?"
"Put down your guns. I heard your conversation, starting with the bug under the gate of the manor... Otherwise, you would all be corpses by now."
It seems he knew the agents' intentions from the beginning, or at least understood they weren't there to kill him, so his story can continue.
“Three years ago, I joined the Liberation Front and the arsenal under the six families of Kyoto, and became part of the development team responsible for the KMF. I did a lot of work, such as improving the optical probe of the 'rogue', as well as the control stick and electronic pages in the cockpit. I was responsible for improving them to be more suitable for the Japanese people’s habits, which is why the 'rogue' is what it is today.”
"But in my heart, the KMF is not a good weapon. At least I don't think such technological achievements should follow the same path as the Britannians. Ask yourselves, isn't it a stupid thing to put those sophisticated electronic devices inside people four or five meters tall, only to have them turn into hazardous waste in the blink of an eye during a gunfight?"
Indeed, future carrier-based pilots probably had similar thoughts when they viewed battleships engaging in low-accuracy firefights at ranges of ten or twenty kilometers.
"So later on, I got into conflicts with the people in the KMF workshop. 'With KMF, who would go back to those outdated and dilapidated weapons? Have you done any research? Do you understand military strategy? Do you understand the needs of the soldiers?' That was my life from then on."
"I can't remember when I left, but Prince Clovis, who was the governor at the time, was still alive. Several of my companions, who had similar ideas, left together to start their own businesses."
"First, we pooled our resources and acquired a bunch of machinery from an arms factory. Here, we created a drone gun that can be mounted on a camera. The modified camera can serve as the eye of the drone gun, allowing it to aim and fire autonomously."
"Not many people bought it, but the feedback was very good. It seems that it takes fewer bullets to kill an enemy than any soldier on the Liberation Front. We also have enough funding... Haha, speaking of which, I remember that time there was a customer who was wearing sunglasses, had a bit of a Chinese accent, and had earphones over his ears, but he could guess what I was thinking very accurately. He even 'heard' that I wanted to swindle him."
"Of course, our line of work is very dangerous. Among those people who just died in front of you, some were from the Liberation Front who considered us traitors, and others were being held accountable by enemies of their buyers. As for how they died, you didn't even see those cameras in the corner of the wall and on the ceiling, did you? And the gun barrels hanging there?"
"It turns out that our departure was the right choice. Look at what happened after the Black Knights emerged last year. Cornelia led the team and killed General Katase, the commander-in-chief of the Liberation Front. The Kyoto Six Families also became casualties of the failed Black Rebellion. It is said that the only survivor was that little girl named Sumeragi Kagura. She seems to be Suzaku Kururugi's cousin."
"A young girl?" White interrupted Kojima. "Why would a young girl be hosting a dinner in a conglomerate?"
"Perhaps it's ability, perhaps it's status, but if Suzaku hadn't wholeheartedly pledged allegiance to Britannia, he should have been in charge of the Kyoto Six Families, but he wasn't. As for why? The whole world wants to know if Prime Minister Genbu Kururugi's only son has lost his mind."
"Let's get back to the point. Looking back at everything about the Kyoto Six Families and the Liberation Front, even the Black Knights, they think that Britannia won a war against Japan with KMF, as if KMF has become an invincible myth."
"The Liberation Front and the Kyoto Six will only fixate on that mediocre thing in Britannia that accidentally created a miracle, then copy their own mediocre thing, and finally go further and further down the path of mediocrity." Hidejiro Kojima shrugged and smiled. "Just like those Japanese game publishers before the war, when they had a shining treasure IP in their hands, their businessmen only thought about using low-cost development and distribution methods, squeezing out higher profits from CDs and installation packages with its last bit of life, and finally sending it to slot machines and pachinko."
“Now I’ll tell you, Mr. Kojima.” White squatted down and looked intently into Kojima Hidejiro’s eyes. “From now on, we will have someone in charge of your and your companions’ safety. As payment, we only need you to provide the finished products in your warehouse to meet our material needs.”
“Go down that staircase to the storeroom below, and get what you want from there.” Kojima shrugged. “I don’t have a choice, do I? Be my bodyguards, or, well, you can be the clinical trials subjects of my life’s work?”
"Your awareness is correct, but I'd like to know, you wouldn't be hiding a camera in the warehouse that attacks indiscriminately, would you?"
"Since it's a program I wrote, I'll swear on my life to tell you the secret to avoiding being attacked by cameras: wear those cardboard boxes I just crawled through as clothes, and they'll automatically recognize you as friendly people."
"Oh, by the way, the lock on the finished goods warehouse is voice-activated. When you get there, shout 'Kojima is god!' three times, and each time you have to shout louder and louder."
……
More than half a month later, every week the residents of the 11th ward would receive news on television that a terrorist attack had occurred in the Tokyo Concession and its suburbs.
Then one night, a strange explosion was heard on an overpass in Tokyo.
"The car that was blown up on the bridge? Could it have been a terrorist inside?" While everyone was still pondering this question, a few days later, when the television channel was on its daily entertainment time, a flag depicting the face of Amaterasu, the goddess of Japanese mythology, in dark colors was pasted on the faces of every viewer.
"We are the messengers of Kōshin! Everything that has happened in Japan over the past month, everything that has taught every Britannian what fear is, is our doing! What ZERO and the Black Knights failed to do, we will do—drive the evil Britannian Empire out of our land!"
That's right, just like when ZERO gave a speech in front of the photographer's lens, as if this was a habit of every terrorist in Japan.
While Nunnally and Suzaku Kururugi were busy with their own affairs, while Maribelle seized the opportunity to continue her attacks, and while the entire Area 11 was filled with fear and unease, Clark, hiding in a corner of the city, looked at the newspaper and let out a satisfied laugh.
"Hahahaha! They've finally shown themselves!" The agents had indeed cleverly killed many of these people's key members, forcing them to start recruiting. Now it was time for Clark to send the Trojan Horse into their ranks.
Today, Clark carried a backpack weighing over 10 kilograms on his back and saw him off at the door.
Watching the latter's departing figure, Clark nodded thoughtfully, took out a notebook from his pocket, and opened it.
"Come back!" Caught off guard, he cursed at the retreating figure down the mountain, uttering this short Japanese phrase written in his notebook with Romanized spelling.
"Ki wo tsuke! (Stand at attention!)" As soon as he rolled back, he continued with the second sentence in Japanese and Romanized form, spitting saliva on the face of the person standing at the foot of the mountain—then it was Clark's time to show off the results of his parroting during this period by looking at the Japanese on the pages of the book.
"You think you've gotten past me? You think you can fool anyone with your tricks? Say your name again, you idiot!"
"Tokyo City, Shinjuku Ward, Shitaka Yamashita!"
"That's not fun! You've been caught lying, are you scared? Let's try again!"
"Hi! Tokyo! Shinjuku Ward! Waseda University graduate! Yamashita! Shitaka!"
"Trying to fool us with a fake name? Your real name must be that of a cowardly old lecher!" Clark paused, then adopted the same imposing manner he had when he was that bastard drill instructor in boot camp. "You came here with your lewd comics and game discs, just to freeload and wait to die?!"
"No! Sir!"
What's in your bag?!
"A map of the entire Tokyo Concession! Every police checkpoint! Every block and building housing Britannian elite troops and important figures! Photos of the Kobe military base! And my personal belongings!"
"Fine! I'll hide comic books and game consoles inside the map and secretly do some dirty and embarrassing things when no one's around! But do you think that'll make me look like a real Japanese person?!"
“I grew up in Narita, sir! I’ve lived there since I was a child!”
"Wrong! You're covered in Britannian blood!"
"No, sir!"
"Are you arguing with me?! You Britannian bastard pretending to be yellow-skinned!"
"No, sir!"
"Let me hear the devilish tongue hidden in your throat, you brat! Neon, Banzai!"
"Onboard!—"
"To drive the Britannians out of our land, Banzai!"
"Onboard!—"
As soon as he finished speaking, Clark's whole body went limp, and he gently and warmly embraced Clark's shoulders—while the agents were painstakingly preparing to analyze the movements of the Black Amaterasu messengers and launch targeted strikes, he had been trying to make Yamashita look like a real Japanese man who wanted to take revenge with a gun.
"Good lad, the future of our homeland rests in your hands..."
……
His backpack did indeed contain these items, in addition to a voice recorder and a camera.