Chapter 227: Reality

"Everything on this, Team Tang, is something you have personally testified to in front of everyone, there is no turning your head and disowning it."

Cen Buming stepped forward and forcefully tried to enter the room where Bai Liu was being held.

But just as he reached the door where Bai Liu was being held, there was a loud bang overhead, and after the ground shook for a while, someone stumbled in through the exit with a pale face, looked up at the group, and said in a broken voice.

"Report! ...... factory exploded, exploded!"

Su Yang was so anxious that she immediately asked, "Have all the people within a five-kilometre radius been evacuated? Not only the citizens, but also the homeless people sleeping on the street, have they been informed?"

The man swallowed hastily, "All swept and notified, not a single cat left in the area, the aroma is still spreading, a second extraction line is being prepared but should be able to contain the contamination to within 28km of the factory."

"But the members of the first line of defence ......," the man said with pathos on his face, "are all tainted."

Tang Erda closes his eyes, his long-held worries and fears relaxing at this moment, every muscle in his body collapsing as he falls backwards onto a bench, his arms and legs hanging loosely over the edge, his head tilted back to stare at the blinding incandescent lights on the ceiling.

For a few seconds Tang Erda could not even hear the voices around him calling out to him, only the long ringing in his ears interspersed with Bai Liu's calm voice - [Captain Tang, leave it to me, I have the solution].

--This is the least casualty and most manageable situation in all the worlds Tang Erda has experienced.

It was unreal, like a dream given by divine mercy.

Tang Erda raised a hand to her face and burst out laughing at the sullen atmosphere in the room, startling the players standing in front of her.

They turned their heads in shock back to look at this Captain Tang who was sitting on the bench, half covering his face and laughing, and for a moment even wondered if their captain couldn't handle the bad news and was made mad.

Cen Buming raised an eyebrow at Captain Tang: "If Team Tang is still drunk, I'll take the heretic 0006 who caused two huge group accidents first."

Tang Erda lowered his hand as he stood up, his gaze sinking to Cen Buming: "You can't take him."

"I use my [Prophet] authority for the last time." Tang Erda removed her ID card and placed it on the tabletop pushing it in front of Cen Buming with four fingers, "-Pledge as Captain and extract Heretic [0006] as my personal identity bound to Heretic."

"If Bai Liu has done something wrong, I will take responsibility with Bai Liu." Tang Erda looked up steadily at Cen Buming across the room, "If you want to torture him and kill him, then kill and torture me too."

A long silence fell over the scene.

Su Yang looked at Tang Erda in dismay: "Captain?!"

Tang Erda stares unblinkingly at Cen Buming.

Cen Buming was quiet for a few seconds before slowly dropping his hand to clip the Tang Erda Captain ID card from the desk, he raised his eyes to look across at Tang Erda: " Team Tang, after binding the Heretic you will not be able to return to the Heretic Authority and will no longer be any kind of shiny captain. "

"- you must be responsible for guarding the heretic for the rest of your life, and if the heretic does anything wrong, you are guilty with it, and when you realise that you can no longer control the heretic, you must kill yourself and bring it back- -"

"You exist only to allow this heretic to move around the outside world like a human, you are just a human box, or safety pin, to trap this heretic." Cen Buming asked rhetorically in a hushed tone, "Even so, are you releasing Heretic 0006?"

Tang Erda looked straight at him, "Yes."

"Even if, like the captain of a detachment, you go mad and kill yourself because you're bound to heresy 0001, you don't regret it?" Cen Buming stared deadpan at Tang Erda.

"No regrets." Tang Erda said.

The [Prophet] permission within the Heretic Authority refers to a series of special permissions that the captain of the first detachment used to have, and the most special of these permissions is this one [to bind a certain heretic, put it back into the human world to watch over it, and take full responsibility for everything it will do].

This is a very strange authority and runs counter to the main mission of the entire Heretics Directorate.

If capturing heretics into the [Bureau for the Treatment of Dangerous Heretics] is a process of de-humanizing these dangerous heretics and treating them as dead things, then what this authority does is like a process of giving human rights back to these heretics and putting them back into the human world.

But this process is clearly fraught with danger for mankind.

So when the original leader of the first detachment proposed this permission, there was at the same time an extremely poignant question derived - [who is responsible for these heretics released back into human society?

[What if these heretics continue to kill and pollute others? Who can be responsible for these consequences?

So the captain of the first detachment proposed [lifetime responsibility], also known as [parental responsibility authority].

A member of the team who advocates releasing a heretic into the world assumes all responsibility for the heretic, guarding, protecting, and educating him or her into human society, taking full responsibility for everything he or she does, i.e. he or she is the heretic's parent.

But as parents, and parents of such a dangerous 'child', it is natural to keep a close eye on them around the clock.

So while this player becomes a [parent] of a heretic, basically his main task is to watch over the heretic for life, and no longer needs to exist as a player within the processing bureau.

No one wanted to have this access in the first place, and no member of the team was willing to take on such responsibility.

They could not understand why [the prophets] had the unrealistic fantasy that these evil and terrible heretics would become human, and gave them the compassion of parents who give children, teaching them and expecting them to grow up to be "human".

In the eyes of most of the team members, a heretic is a heretic, a monster is a monster, there is a clear line of demarcation between her and humans, it is impossible to become human, it is born evil and should be forbidden and eradicated.

But the [prophet] always sees more of the future than they do, so in the end this permission came through, but the only one who used it was the [prophet].

So [the prophet] unloaded the rights and obligations of the leader of the first detachment, and the first heretic to be released on an experimental basis was 0001.

Then he went mad and killed himself and destroyed the files of Heretic 0001 and brought them back to the Heresy Authority, where they were sealed forever in the deepest underground of the Heresy Processing Authority, where no one was allowed to pry into the secrets inside.

It was clearly a failed attempt, so no one ever mentioned this ridiculous permission again either.

But the permission does exist, and is wrapped up in a whole bunch of weird permissions that were passed on to Tang Erda by [the prophet].

If Tang Erda were to use this [parental authority] on Bai Liu, he would need to step down as captain, protect and guard Bai Liu at all times, and be forever responsible for everything Bai Liu does - including the current explosion at the Rose Factory.

Cen Buming flung the Tang Erda ID card back, "How can you be responsible for this now when there are nearly two thousand Dry Leaf Rose infected in total and half of them are our team members?"

" Bai Liu has a solution." Tang Erda quickly replied.

Cen Buming snickers, "A bomber and you expect it to sort you out?"

Tang Erda held her breath and didn't take Cen Buming's words head on, instead asking, "Can I talk to Bai Liu inside first?"

"If you insist on binding this dangerous heretic inside." Cen Buming, who had stepped back in front of the doorway, gave Tang Erda a meaningful sidelong glance, his tone light, "- you certainly have the right to talk to your own [child]."

Tang Erda pushes the door open and walks in.

Bai Liu propped his chin on his hand and glanced boredly at Tang Erda.

His eyes paused briefly at the empty area on Tang Erda's right breast where the ID card had been placed, before Bai Liu looked up at Tang Erda with a smirk, "Wow, Captain Tang has made quite a sacrifice to get me out of here."

Tang Erda turns in his chair and sits down, sitting rather upright, with his hands neatly clasped on the table and his head bowed in silence - he looks more like the one who has made a mistake and is being sanctioned than Bai Liu, who has a casual and relaxed posture.

"I'm sorry." Tang Erda said in a quiet voice, "Thank you."

The headless apology was for everything he had done before, and the thank you was in appreciation of Bai Liu's willingness to do all this after all he had done.

"It's okay, you're welcome." Bai Liu took it with a smile.

Bai Liu glanced at the piece of glass, "How many people were affected by the explosion?"

"The current number is nearly a thousand people, basically all members of the team." Tang Erda let out a long breath, "but the overall trend of proliferation is under control and things are okay."

"So you came in because someone wanted to save the thousand members of the team?" Bai Liu dropped the hand propping his chin up and he rested his head on the table, cocking his head and snorting sleepily, "Not really, but I have a condition."

Tang Erda followed his words and asked down, "What are the conditions?"

Although Bai Liu is talking to Tang Erda, his eyes are on the one-sided glass and he smiles softly, "I never make a deal without a vested interest."

"If you want to work with me and let me save lives, show me something that can impress me."

Tang Erda pushed out the door and he looked out to all the team members, " Bai Liu's conditions, you all heard them just now."

Everyone's faces had a look of extreme complexity and mixed feelings, as if they were overwhelmed by Bai Liu's request, except for Cen Buming's face, which had little emotion.

The captain, on the contrary, seemed to have taken some interest, and his eyes were fixed on Bai Liu, who was sitting behind the glass and seemed to be sleeping on the table.

"That's funny, I thought it was going to ask for money." Cen Buming hooked his lips, "- and it actually turned out to be a request for us to open the door to Heresy 0001."