Reception Hall.
After Screwllum left, the people here gradually dispersed as well.
"Young Master Zeig, I'm heading out now~" Wen Shiling said with a smile from the side.
"Go on, go on."
Watching Wen Shiling walk away, Zeig scanned his surroundings.
Today Asta had packaged him up so nicely—how could she possibly let him just show his face and be done?
In any case, Zeig didn't buy it.
"Once they're done talking, they'll probably come looking for me again."
Thinking this, Zeig pulled out his phone once more.
He looked up, glancing left and right.
He wanted to find a decent spot to quietly slack off for a bit first.
And right at that moment, a spot caught Zeig's eye.
"Hiss, that place looks pretty good." Zeig muttered while gripping his phone.
That spot was rarely passed by anyone, and there was a full holographic portrait placed there—sitting behind it, others probably wouldn't notice him.
But as he approached, a man was already there, muttering to himself:
"Weird, it should be around here somewhere… It couldn't be hidden inside Lady Herta's portrait, could it…"
"…"
Zeig ignored him and casually sat down right at the junction between the portrait and the wall. Soon after, a "TiMi" sound rang out from his phone.
"Huh, that sound? It's Brother Zeig! Brother Zeig, are you here to help me?" Hearing the 'TiMi', the man lit up with joy, quickly turned around, and shot a pleading look toward Zeig behind him.
"…"
Zeig silently lifted his head and stared at the man for a while.
Feeling Zeig's gaze, the man swallowed hard.
After a long pause, Zeig finally sighed with emotion:
"Sigh, she's really beautiful."
Leonard: "…"
"No, Brother Zeig, wait—you were just staring at Lady Herta's portrait?!"
The man hurriedly came in front of Zeig and pleaded: "Brother Zeig, it's me, Leonard! I'm the network security engineer on this space station."
"Mm-hmm, badass."
Seeing Zeig just nod perfunctorily and then open the matchmaking screen, about to queue up, Leonard quickly blocked his finger again and anxiously said:
"Brother Zeig, just hear me out first before you start a match, it won't take long!"
Zeig silently raised his head and said gravely:
"I'm afraid if I hear you out, I'll never get another chance to play a match."
"Uh… haha."
Leonard awkwardly scratched his head, then quickly continued: "Brother Zeig, don't worry, I know the rules—there'll definitely be compensation!"
"Alright then, go ahead and tell me what the issue is. But let's be clear upfront: I don't know jack about your network security engineering stuff. I can't handle that kind of thing." Zeig said.
Seeing that Zeig finally seemed willing to help, Leonard let out a breath of relief.
"It's like this, Brother Zeig. Not long ago, didn't the space station get invaded by the Antimatter Legion? During that chaos, the main control systems in every section went down."
"Now we're in the follow-up reconstruction phase, and my job is to repair all kinds of equipment and restore the space station's network security."
"?"
Zeig pursed his lips, looked at him, and said:
"But I seriously don't know how to fix that stuff. Find someone else—this money, I'm not taking it."
"No, Brother Zeig, hear me out first!"
Leonard wiped the fine sweat from his forehead and said urgently:
"While I was in the middle of repairs, I discovered some anomalies—the access logs show that during the time the main control system was down, a third party outside the Legion invaded it."
"To be precise, I'm currently investigating this matter."
At this point, Zeig finally understood what Leonard was after.
So he was looking for help.
Zeig sniffed, rummaging through his memories for impressions from back then.
Then he said to Leonard:
"Then doesn't that only leave the Stellaron Hunters? That girl with the single ponytail seemed pretty badass—I'd bet it's probably her."
"Yes, yes, yes! That girl is a super hacker from Punklorde! To my shame, I've already been screwed over by her once."
Leonard continued speaking to Zeig:
"A while back, during my screening process, I caught a trace of her movements, so I followed it—and ended up getting played hard by her!"
He closed his eyes in pain and gritted his teeth:
"She actually reverse-hacked my device and sent a bunch of spam texts to a ton of people, even set up a whole space station-wide game announcing to everyone that some idiot named Leonard had caused a huge disaster!"
"Pfft hahahahaha… cough cough cough." Zeig struggled to hold back his laughter and said:
"Bro, that's still a Stellaron Hunter you're talking about. Weren't you being a bit too reckless?"
In Zeig's impression, every Stellaron Hunter was a walking apocalypse—even he wouldn't dare go head-on against those people right now.
And this Leonard guy actually tried to counter-track her? Wasn't that just asking to get wrecked?
"Brother Zeig, I know I was wrong now."
Leonard sighed:
"I thought I'd get held accountable for sure, but Lady Herta was magnanimous enough to let me continue investigating this. It's really a blessing in disguise."
At this moment.
Zeig shook his head instead.
He stared at Leonard and said with a sigh:
"Having you go investigate a hacker from the Stellaron Hunters—isn't that just setting you up to fail?
Bro, you gotta be careful. A lot of workplaces work like this.
As long as the boss doesn't like an employee, they won't just fire them outright—because that costs more resources.
So instead, they'll give that employee an impossible task to torment them, until they can't take it anymore and quit on their own!"
"???"
"That… that can't be, right?"
After hearing Zeig's analysis, Leonard immediately broke out in a cold sweat.
Why did it suddenly sound so plausible?
He scratched his head and said with lingering fear:
"Anyway, the whole thing started because I went and tracked that hacker. No matter what, I have to give some kind of explanation."
Then he gave a silly laugh again:
"Now that leadership has given me a chance, how could I not cherish it? If I can make up for my mistake with merit, maybe I can even turn my reputation around!"
"What?" Zeig's eyes widened:
"You're trying to atone with merit? You don't seriously think your skills can match a hacker from the Stellaron Hunters, do you?
Listen to Brother Zeig's advice: play it safe, don't take it too seriously. If you get screwed by her again, you're really done for."
During this time, Zeig had often heard Dan Heng and Welt explain things about the Stellaron Hunters.
Not a single one of them was easy to deal with.
Zeig glanced at Leonard again—clearly this guy wasn't some heaven-sent genius, and he'd already been played by Silver Wolf once before. Didn't that just prove he couldn't beat her?
And even then, Herta wasn't sending any outside help—just letting him investigate alone?
Thinking of this, Zeig looked at Leonard and couldn't help showing a look of pity.
Bro, safe travels.
"Brother Zeig, what's with that look? You really have that little faith in me? Besides, I still have you! The two of us together—aren't we afraid of handling this?!"
Leonard still kept his optimistic attitude.
"But I really don't know the first thing about hacking or whatever."
"But I do! Brother Zeig, you just need to assist me—we'll definitely get results, right?"
"Confidence is good, but we gotta be realistic too. For example, why don't we look for outside help? How about Dan Heng? He looks pretty reliable."
"No can do—my credit points are running low. I can at most afford one person's pay. If we bring in Mr. Dan Heng, Brother Zeig, you won't get any reward. Would you really be okay with that?"
"Of course… that's absolutely impossible!"
Zeig immediately put away his phone, stood up, clenched his fist, and said indignantly:
"No way we're letting our teammate pocket this money!"
"…"
…