128: Chapter 48: Hero and Boxer 128: Chapter 48: Hero and Boxer When the automatic door closed, Hiroshi Matsushima realized something and spoke, “I heard that in ancient times, when mammalian infants fed on their mother’s milk, they would never cause their mother pain, just as a Hero would never point his sword at the people.

You carry your formidable inner strength with you and yet you seek trouble with me, a mere martial arts teacher today.

Isn’t this unreasonable?”

A voice drifted slowly from across from him, “Can a diamond claim it’s a part of the sand once it falls into it?

Can a petal on the ground claim it is no different from fallen leaves?”

The moment the voice appeared, Hiroshi Matsushima realized it was a voiceprint he had used before.

It was the cheerful voice of a young man, easily likable.

As a teacher, he had needed it before.

However, as his disciples increased and his prestige grew, it became unnecessary.

The old Boxer lunged forward at that instant, raising his left arm to guard his face, while his right hand relentlessly unleashed twenty-seven punches.

But he hit nothing.

Only then did Hiroshi Matsushima remember that there seemed to be a speaker in that direction.

The other party only needed to slightly adjust the high and low frequencies of an audio segment to mislead one’s judgement of the sound source.

— Damn…

Hiroshi Matsushima adopted a defensive stance, took a sliding step backward half a meter, leaned against the door, and murmured, “Because there are decomposing microbes in the world, petals and fallen leaves will eventually become dust.

The residents of Pine Eagle City wouldn’t see any difference between the two.

I did hear that, in the ancient past, there were animals that fed on leaves.

I suppose those animals should actually be the enemies of Heroes.”

Suddenly, the lights came on.

“Oh?

Do the leaves also float into the mouths of herbivores on their own?”

A strange prosthetic stood in front of a wall.

That wall displayed some of Hiroshi Matsushima’s memorabilia, including his Paralympics medals from earlier years and a few physical photos—those photos mostly showed him with some local Protectors and Scientific Knights.

There were also some broken prosthetics and parts.

Those were his spoils of combat.

As a well-performing former athlete, Hiroshi Matsushima was once considered one of the symbols of Pine Eagle City and was dearly loved by the public.

Even the Lord had tried to recruit him once.

However, he had always only accepted mercenary work and refused to swear allegiance.

The local Lord and Scientific Knights weren’t offended by this.

Hiroshi Matsushima’s reason was straightforward—he wanted to support his dojo.

This was his freedom.

The Protectors were actually very wary of using coercion to make someone pledge allegiance to them.

Because accepting someone’s allegiance usually meant that you had to take responsibility for all of their actions.

As long as the person maliciously violated the Dyson principle, as a Protector, one would undoubtedly be implicated.

Although Protectors had a lot of discretionary power regarding the Dyson principle, there were indeed many actions that couldn’t be accommodated in this framework, no matter how they were explained.

If Hiroshi Matsushima liked rolling in the mud, then let him continue to roll in it.

Compared to the vast resources of the Protectors, one person indeed was useful, but not necessarily worth taking such a risk.

And Hiroshi Matsushima was not against accepting mercenary work.

Sometimes, when the government needed to deal with passing Heroes or some overly harmful Green Forest members, they would initiate bounties or hire Martial Artists.

Hiroshi Matsushima had not accepted mercenary work for the first time now.

After retiring from his athlete status, he continually engaged in life-and-death struggles.

The remaining limbs on the walls were proof of that.

Xiang Shan stood with his hands hanging at his sides, looking at those records on the wall.

He said, “You have a good relationship with the government, Mr.

Matsushima.”

It was still his voiceprint.

It sounded like this guy had even slightly cracked it.

“After all, I am a Martial Artist who makes a living in the city, Great Hero,” Hiroshi Matsushima’s attitude remained neither servile nor overbearing, “Please understand.

My relationship with them has to be very good.”

Xiang Shan heard faint footsteps behind him and smiled slightly.

The person behind him had not given up the intention to attack, currently calculating the distance between them.

However, the prosthetic eye on his back caught the other person’s gaze.

His prosthetic eye lens focused on his own joints, calculating the counterattack that might come from his current pose.

He had not found a flaw yet.

He said, “Is your relationship with the government really as good as you claim it to be?”

“Of course.”

The prosthetic eye on Xiang Shan’s back suddenly emitted an infrared signal.

It was only in that moment did Hiroshi Matsushima realize the prosthetic eye behind the other man.

But before he could react, his field of vision was covered by an error message.

Xiang Shan said, “Hmm, there is encapsulation and obfuscation indeed.

But it’s not that strong.”

Hiroshi Matsushima said, “Working for Protectors always comes with some gains.

Plus, they’ve implanted even more backdoors, which can strip away my prosthetic’s permissions in a moment, right?

If you want to kill, just kill me.

There’s no need to find these reasons to torment me.”

“Keep pretending,” Xiang Shan said, “This is just the surface, isn’t it?

Your home’s central processing unit stores a toolkit that should be able to instantly patch you, making you immune to the backdoors added by the government during your encapsulation.

Although that toolkit was deeply hidden, it couldn’t escape me.

Foolproof operation, instant installation, very suitable for you.”

Hiroshi Matsushima lowered his body.

“And the moment you entered the house and realized that a part of the authority over the house had been seized, you connected to the home’s WiFi.

You had confidence in the creators of this system, believing that I, the Outsider, could at most usurp the superficial administrative rights, while the real highest authority was well hidden.

As soon as that patch was activated, you were as if empowered by an Internal master, temporarily immune to hacking.”

“But I still discovered it.”

Hiroshi Matsushima said, “The Dyson Principle does not prohibit ordinary people from associating with Heroes, Great Hero.”

While speaking, his hands hung naturally at his sides.

In this situation, resistance was already pointless.

His external strength was at its peak, and among those of equal power and weight, scarcely any Martial Artists could best him.

He had planned to use his advantage in external strength to counter-attack upon activating the patch — since a Prosthetic Body that could enter his house without breaking the door wouldn’t be very powerful.

But if that patch failed to load successfully, all would be lost.

Therefore, he made no attempt to resist anymore.

Xiang Shan eliminated the numerous error alerts within his field of vision and sat majestically on a steel-made grand master’s chair: “I think a Hero with such Inner Strength shouldn’t be unknown.

If I hadn’t felt something was off about this administrative authority, I would almost have been tricked by him.

Just for this, all nearby members of Green Forest and White Paper Fan should be strung up and beaten.”

“Such a Famed Hero must also be registered with the Houndhawk.

You are friends with such a person?”

Xiang Shan was in fact here to fulfill Old Hammer’s last wish.

Moreover, he had a slight curiosity about history and a few questions he wanted to ask this old boxer.

That’s why he had arrived first thing this morning.

Due to the sensitive nature of being a Hero, he chose not to enter the Martial Arts School.

After all, if Hiroshi Matsushima chose to turn against him, there were many high-skilled external masters inside the school, posing a risk of a fallout.

Thus, coming here was much safer.

While hacking into the house’s security system, Xiang Shan found that the “administrative authority” gave him a peculiar “abstract perception” feedback, prompting him to dig deeper.

This was definitely not something achievable in the realm of command, Linguistic Realm, or Compilation Realm.

He had seen the first two realms in Green Forest, and such operations were difficult to execute.

Compilation Realm, on the other hand, though he had not seen it, but the encapsulation, obfuscation, and encryption done for Deborah’s followers were likely from this realm.

This was also improbable.

Assembly Realm?

Maybe.

But Xiang Shan thought it unlikely.

Mechanical Realm, or the legendary Mathematical Realm.

A Hero of such level was obviously not an ordinary one.

According to Cui Hai, there was no such expert throughout Redstone Gate.

And for Deborah Zhao, daughter of the Protector and a knight apprentice, eradicating Redstone Gate and making distinguished achievements was something she could proudly claim as one of her greatest accomplishments.

This indicated what status the person who installed this system held with the government.

Hiroshi Matsushima maintained his stance: “The Dyson Principle does not preclude someone from befriending a Hero.

As long as during the government’s pursuit of Heroes, one does not directly attack the government’s operations or attempt to hide the existence of the Hero from them, there won’t be any problems.”

Xiang Shan raised his voice slightly, “Does that include such a Famed Hero as well?”

— By the way, he quite liked the voice pack he had just hacked.

“Exactly.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t conceal it?”

“They have never asked me such a question.”

Xiang Shan nodded, “Then that’s easy to handle, isn’t it?

Mr.

Matsushima.

I think, you also wouldn’t want the Protector and his people to be aware of your ‘friend,’ right?”

Hiroshi Matsushima neither nodded nor shook his head.

But it seemed he essentially conceded.

“I have heard that the attention of most Famed Heroes on Earth is focused on the Old Continent, competing for a stable space travel corridor at the equator or some highlands.

And in this place, there are no people from Jianghu.

Why would your friend be interested in this place?”

Hiroshi Matsushima said, “Aren’t you here for the same reason?”

“What?”

“The old Hero who fell here from the Jupiter Universe half a year ago,” Hiroshi Matsushima said.

Xiang Shan shook his head, “Do you think I can’t read log files?

Could your friend have foreseen the events of half a year ago seven years in advance?”

Hiroshi Matsushima fell silent.

Seeing that he was unwilling to talk, Xiang Shan changed the subject: “Then the next topic, you must be interested in it, right?”

“I just want to ask, how did the ranking system of Mech Armor Iron Fist come about?”