When Shiller arrived at the accident scene, there was no spaceship to be seen; to be precise, only a field of debris remained. The only identifiable part was the ship's tail, but it was charred black. Two Symbiote Agents stood trembling nearby.
"What's going on here?" Shiller asked.
"We aren't really sure," one of the agents said. "We were just on routine patrol when these guys suddenly flew the ship right at us. We dodged to the side, and then the ship wobbled and crashed into an asteroid. We had no time to stop it..."
The scene was brutal. Not only was the spaceship shattered, but the asteroid was struck as well. Because it exploded into pieces, the three of them had to exert considerable effort to find the pilot and passengers.
The alien bodies were remarkably resilient; both the spaceship and asteroid were blown apart, yet their bodies remained intact. However, it was obvious they were dead beyond doubt.
One was impaled through the chest by the spaceship's control lever, and the other had their head smashed in. As Shiller approached, he could smell a strong scent of alcohol. "See, that's why they say don't drink and drive, or in this case, drink and fly a spaceship," he remarked.
He felt a bit guilty. When this group left, he wanted to suggest they book a room upstairs, but he was aware of their negative stereotypes about the human race. Holding them back would feel forceful and damage the tavern's reputation, so he let them go.
Unexpectedly, these aliens managed to crash a ship after drinking. Given that the cosmos is incredibly vast, the chance of a small spaceship hitting any obstacle is nearly zero, let alone another ship. Still, they ended up crashing into an asteroid, as if it was destined.
But something didn't seem right to Shiller. He said, "You just said the spaceship flew toward you when it saw you, and only after you dodged did it crash into the asteroid?"
One of the Symbiote Agents nodded, saying, "Yes, night patrol agents tend to be highly skilled. My symbiote allows quick dashes, and his can phase, so when the ship charged at us, we both got out of the way."
Shiller immediately realized this was probably more than aliens who had drunk too much. These aliens were generally wary of humans; no matter how much they drank, they'd never instinctively charge at two humanoids. The only explanation was they did it on purpose.
Shiller examined the two bodies again, this time using the Gray Mist for a deeper inspection, discovering that one person's brain showed nanoscale damage, possibly from nanobots or a neuron virus.
The situation became clear: controlling one of the aliens to drink and crash would incite human hostility, potentially expel their race, and ruin their diplomatic relations with humans, achieving their goal.
Luckily, Nick was smart and sent Symbiote Agents who were skilled. They not only avoided the impact but caused the aliens to coincidentally crash into an asteroid.
Unfortunately, they didn't initially realize it was a meticulously set trap. The nanobots that damaged the alien's brain likely escaped, and fearing reprimand from their superior, they directly called Shiller.
At this point, there's no point in talking further. Shiller simply gestured and said, "Take the bodies to the back of the tavern; leave the rest to me."
The two agents sighed with relief and quickly dragged the bodies onto the spaceship. Shiller watched them as they walked away.
Generally, nanobots need to parasitize living organisms as a source of energy. They can't last long on corpses, so they activate a departure program the moment the host dies to find a new host, with the two agents present being prime choices.
But the Symbiont itself is a remarkable thing—a conglomerate of factors, superior to any microscopic-level weapon. Parasitizing them would be a dead end for nanobots. Since the symbiont didn't trigger an alarm, it indicated the nanobots didn't choose them as hosts, suggesting these seemingly dead bodies might still hold a glimmer of life.
After tidying the scene, Shiller didn't report the matter and acted as if nothing happened, returning to the tavern.
The two bodies discarded in the backyard showed no abnormalities superficially. Using the Gray Mist again, Shiller found that they were indeed dead; their souls had vanished. However, the corpses were still undergoing a peculiar circulation, likely thanks to the nanobots.
No matter how much circulation, it was futile as it only delayed the rate of decay. Shiller didn't intend for these bodies to contact anyone else and directly tossed them to Pamela.
Logically, Pamela would have been the best host, but despite "All Things Green" being ineffective in this cosmos and Pamela not following the toxin route, his body wasn't something ordinary nanobots could withstand. His blood still contained some plant toxins, and the energy circulation in his body was different from normal, so nanobots couldn't last there.
Seeing Shiller quickly bringing two more bodies, Pamela's expression was unmistakable. Shiller really had no way to explain, saying nobody would believe him if he said he wasn't looking for plant fertilizer.
But Shiller didn't just leave the bodies with Pamela. He helped disassemble them and buried them in the soil. Maybe Gotham's soil was special; within a day, the body buried decomposed much faster than usual—in cold conditions, it decomposed significantly in less than a day.
The seeds Pamela sowed showed no reaction yet, but according to him, they should sprout in a couple of days. Once they sprout, survival rates will be apparent. If they perform significantly better than usual, it might be due to the fertilizer effect.
Shiller returned upstairs to the tavern once more. This time, while entertaining guests, he vaguely heard about the disappearance incidents. Logically, they had cleaned up the traces very thoroughly, and the time was so short that many people might have just thought their colleagues had taken a leave or had other tasks, not associating it quickly with disappearances. Someone must be spreading the news behind the scenes.
The purpose of this is easy to guess; they merely want to create panic and stir up a narrative that humans eat children, which will deter anyone from coming to the Milky Way for construction.
Shiller thought for a moment and decided to call Loki. Loki was also shocked when he heard about it.
"I thought you'd use gentler methods."
"This wasn't my doing. If it were me, they would have had a more reasonable cause of death. These two incidents can both be called accidents; the key is how to handle them."
"What do you plan to do?"
"Cold treatment won't work; the behind-the-scenes manipulator will stir up public opinion vehemently. Even if we block posts, we can't stop workers from video calling their families; the news will get out just the same."
"So, what do you mean then..."
"Now we can only hit back with a countercharge."
At noon, Nick gathered all the workers for a meeting and severely criticized them. Everyone was quite baffled.
Upon inquiring, they learned that within just a few days, many people were absent without reason, and nobody knew their whereabouts, causing humans to search the cosmos for the missing. Human ships were already scarce; now, all were dispatched, yet they still couldn't find anyone after a long time.
Soon after the meeting concluded, they received another shocking piece of news—someone had been captured!
A colleague of theirs had been caught by a patrol near Asgard. No one knew how he managed to run so far, but he ended up right at Asgard's doorstep, seemingly trying to sneak in and got nabbed by the God Clan.
Upon hearing this news, everyone was lost in their thoughts. They were all smart people; how could they not know what was going on?
They knew upon arrival that not everyone came to work; some came with missions. Now, look, they got caught!
However, the turmoil quickly spread to them. With that guy's espionage charges confirmed, the entire planet was now under lockdown, and no one was allowed to leave. After work, they could only stay in their dormitories, and the tavern was off-limits too.
For carbon-based life forms, habit becomes second nature. Although the pressure on such a construction site wasn't heavy, it was quite monotonous. The tavern offered a rare escape with a reasonable price and warm atmosphere, helping many to unwind after work. Being suddenly barred from it naturally led to complaints.
Nick could only express his helplessness, "There are spies among your group; without locking down the planet, should we let them roam freely in the Milky Way?"
These people naturally understood that if it weren't for those tasked individuals stirring up trouble among them, they wouldn't be stuck here. Humans and Asgard wielded great power, and they were afraid to complain openly, venting their frustration on the spies instead.
The result was that people started reporting each other, seeing everyone else as robots. Though it seemed like a case of overactive imagination, a report gave reason to investigate, and open investigations naturally led to uncovering all those previously suspicious individuals.
When the uncovering was done, everyone realized, wow, it was actually the non-spies who were the minority. Moreover, those highly disguised mechanical clones and those whose brainwaves were manipulated by something else, everyone found them disgusting and terrifying. Just thinking about working daily with such fakes made their skin crawl.
So they stopped complaining about being locked up and even showed a bit of gratitude. Humans took such responsibility and really investigated; otherwise, they wouldn't know when they might be secretly killed by these fakes.
The lockdown didn't last very long, just a few days. Once lifted, those with relatively clumsy disguises or small wrongdoings had already been caught. Although few remained, the safety level increased significantly.
However, discovering so many fakes at once also left Loki with quite a headache. There's talk of opening up the Nine Major Kingdoms, but with such infiltration, if more are let in, wouldn't the Nine Major Kingdoms turn into a playground for fakes?
The next morning, Shiller arrived. Loki quickly welcomed him in and asked, "How is it going?"