Chương 174: Chapter 173: The Divine Inspector Doesn’t Care Who the Main Character Is

The gray ship lowered a metal staircase onto the lawn beside the wisteria. A thin, middle-aged man came down it. His gray wool coat was buttoned to the throat, round spectacles rested on his nose, and he carried a metal clipboard and a blue ink stamp. He looked like a man who had spent four thousand years doing the same office job and remembered every single Monday. The inspector surveyed the people waiting in the garden.

"Which of you is Regulus Garrick von Vance?" Regulus raised a hand from beside the chicken coop.

"Me." The inspector opened his clipboard and took out a metal pencil.

"Do you confirm that at fourteen thirty last Thursday, you tested the sharpness of an Imperial-class weapon on jointly administered interdimensional network property?" Regulus cleared his throat and looked away.

"Yes." The pencil checked a box.

"I hate Mondays." Lucian stepped forward, straightening his lapels.

"Lucian Vance. Family legal representative and financial manager. We can pay the actual repair costs in Divine Crystals today. What's the total?" The inspector regarded him over his glasses.

"Mr. Vance, if this were ordinary damage to public property, paying for it would settle the matter." He removed his spectacles and wiped them on his coat.

"Bifrost is not a scenic footbridge. It's a critical junction in the ancient geological regulation network. Your father's strike did not immediately destabilize the continent, but it triggered a review of the regional safety records." He lifted the file.

"Solaris has been operating under a temporary safety exemption for eight thousand years. No periodic inspections are recorded."

"Who signed the exemption?" The inspector turned to the historical record.

"Your ancestor. Dr. Vance." The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Lucian closed his eyes.

"Of course."

"Your family has also neglected the exemption maintenance fee for the past eighty centuries." Unified System v3. 0 opened beside the inspector's visible identifi-cation badge. [OBSERVED OFFICIAL: INSPECTOR VANE] Credential: Senior Infrastructure Inspector. Direct hostility observed: Low. Technical claims: Require verification against the Tower archives. [REGULUS: AVAILABLE RESPONSE] Ability to destroy inspection vessel: Extremely high. Legal or structural benefit: NEGATIVE INFINITY.

[RECOMMENDATION] Do not punch the civil servant. I'm not stupid enough to punch a civil servant. Astra leaned toward him, still eating her strawberry ice cream.

"You looked like you were considering it." Lucian ignored her.

"How much to close the exemption file?" he asked Vane. Eleanor stepped forward and rested a hand on his sleeve.

"Lucian. Suppose we pay the fine and get them to leave. If we still don't understand the network, who's going to repair it when a barrier fails?" He stopped. He could buy a fleet. That did not mean anyone on board knew how this continent stayed intact.

"The princess is correct," Vane said.

"I'm not here to make you kneel or pay tribute." He pointed his pencil at Lucian.

"I'm here to keep this continent from exploding during my shift because you're relying on an ancient safety mechanism you don't even know exists." Lucian let his hands fall to his sides.

"What data do you need?"

"World Tower core records. A map of the continental ley lines. And every unedited record of the original command language." Regulus came over from the stone table. He had moved his sword behind his hip, out of the way. His callused hand settled on Lucian's shoulder.

"I didn't know that cut would make this much trouble for you." Lucian looked up at him.

"I know, Dad. Let's find out what we're dealing with." Regulus gave his shoulder a brief squeeze. At the table, Vane took a black metal probe from his case and pushed it into the recovered fragment of Bifrost. Light spread across the garden. A three-dimensional map of Solaris unfolded above the grass. Five dark-red points pulsed along its mountains and coasts. [LEGACY FAILSAFE SYSTEM DETECTED] Current state: DORMANT. Living load-bearing positions: FIVE.

Automatic activation condition: CRITICAL CONTINENTAL INFRAS-TRUCTURE INSTABILITY. Evelyn pushed up her glasses.

"What kind of instability wakes those five red buttons up?" Vane closed the clipboard.

"An uncontrolled inspection of the network," he said.

"Including ours."