I! Cleaner!

"Pfft."

There was a muffled sound, and suddenly, a small round hole the size of a fingernail appeared on the metal vent of the control room. The operator inside, who had been gazing out at the guest port, promptly collapsed at the sound!

"Nice!"

Viewing the situation in the control room through specially reinforced glass, Leon couldn't help but express genuine admiration.

The bald female Rebel, sharing the same name as William's girlfriend, while lacking in close combat skills, truly had remarkable long-range abilities.

She shot from nearly two kilometers away, and the force was reduced to a non-lethal level. The lead pellet took almost half a minute to fly through the air, during which anything could change.

Yet she seemed to predict the operator's actions. As the pellet passed through the vent, the operator inside, constantly changing positions, just happened to walk right into the pellet's path, almost as if he positioned his head under it himself, and fell unconscious without a sound.

*Leon wondered how long it would take to level up his shooting Badge to reach her skill.*

While pondering this, Leon used Yang Jiao to observe the operator's soul. After confirming he was utterly unconscious, he knocked on the bathroom door.

"Luke, your turn."

"Got it!"

With brief exchanges, Luke, sitting inside a bathroom stall, flipped his eyes and collapsed. The operator in the control room, however, wobbled to his feet, rubbed his head, walked over to the window, and gave a thumbs-up to Leon and the others waiting below.

Everything was going smoothly.

Watching the previously locked climbing ladder being lowered, Leon nodded in satisfaction. He grabbed the bottle containing Senior Pioni and, with a group of eager Rebels, climbed the maintenance path towards the steel frame of the Secret Port.

"Boss."

Shaking the bottle vigorously, and hearing the dissatisfied protest from inside, the burn-scarred man curiously asked,

"What's in here? Why did we have to surrender our weapons, but still carry these deadweight bottles?"

"..."

Hearing the burn-scarred Teague's question, Leon's mouth twitched slightly.

Naturally, the bottles contained various pieces of Senior Pioni.

Honestly, upon learning that the "Little Silver Man" had a severe fear of heights, Leon considered leaving him behind. Many areas of the Boarding Tower were open steel frames, and on clear days, you could see the ground. A person with acrophobia would be useless and a burden.

But after consulting with the Red-haired Director, she went to the next office to get six or seven thermos bottles, dismantled the inner liners, divided Senior Pioni into several parts, and stuffed him inside, insisting Leon carry them aboard.

Her reasoning was that although Senior Pioni feared heights, he could still function normally in the enclosed environment of the Sky Clipper. He was definitely more capable than Senior Tom, who had only a 60% success rate with everything he did, and Senior Jerry, whose combat ability halved without "friends" to assist.

Even though the Director made a valid point, the bizarre scene of her slicing Senior Pioni into segments and pouring them into thermoses made Leon's mouth twitch uncontrollably...

...

"In here... is our insurance for this trip."

Organizing his thoughts and escaping that bizarre memory, Leon answered with an odd expression,

"If there's something outrageous on Crolock Kingdom's private ship, he's the one to guarantee our safety."

"Oh."

Still unaware of what was in the bottle, but sensing Leon's seriousness, the burn-scarred man took extra care, steadily carrying the heavy bottle, following Leon down the ladder. Then, looking at the private ship inside the Secret Port, he exclaimed from the bottom of his heart,

"This thing... is huge..."

Indeed.

Following the burn-scarred man's gaze, Leon glanced at the Sky Clipper docked in the Secret Port and nodded in agreement.

Unlike airplanes, which he was more familiar with, Sky Clippers relied on gas bags for buoyancy, and the size of the gas bag dictated its carrying capacity. As such, they usually measured over a hundred meters in length.

The largest Sky Clippers could even sport gigantic gas bags over five hundred meters long. In terms of length, they were ten times larger than typical passenger planes. Though the private ship before them wasn't the largest model, its gas bag still exceeded three hundred meters in length.

As such a massive behemoth squeezed into the city's smog-filled sky, the visual impact was unimaginable to those who hadn't witnessed it firsthand.

"Let's look again later. We need to hurry now."

Patting the burn-scarred man's sturdy back and urging him onward, Leon held onto the handrail against the gusts, leading the group along the steel bridge surrounding the Secret Port, heading toward the dirigible marked with the Crolock Kingdom's insignia.

"Huh?"

As they approached the climbing frame, the workers refueling the private ship's gas furnace stood up in surprise, puzzled at seeing several people dressed as policemen approach, asking,

"Who are you? How did you get here?"

"Just an inspection."

Showing no panic at encountering others, Leon sniffed the strong scent of grease and whale oil that lingered even in the fierce wind. He glanced up at the canvas gas bag, then pointed at the giant support frames thicker than a man's waist, sternly questioning,

"Such a big problem right overhead, and none of you noticed?"

Did the gas bag have an issue?

Surprised by his words, the workers immediately looked up following Leon's hand... then nothing else mattered.

"Modify their memories too, and Teague, you stay to move them back."

Using the power of the Holy Spirit pendant, Leon attacked the workers' neural clusters, knocking them all out. He then gestured to Phoebe and Lucy, who were behind him.

"For the memory edit... they should believe a sudden gust forced them to retreat to the lounge for safety until it passed."

"Alright."

Having recovered somewhat, appearing just over sixty, Lucy nodded, proceeding to alter the workers' memories one by one. The rest followed Leon along the climbing frame, reaching the entry hatch at the top of the private ship.

The next step was the final one. If they succeeded at getting onboard, everything else would naturally fall into place!

As it was his turn to act, the young man with space abilities quickly stepped forward, placing the bottle at his feet, and took a deep breath to activate his power and move everyone inside.

But just then, a warning suddenly came from behind him.

"Wait!"

Wait how?

The young man had no time to react before Leon, using the Holy Spirit pendant's power, grabbed him, pulling him back from the hatch.

Just as he moved, the pressure difference forced the over two-meter-wide hatch to pop open, sending the bottle flying.

Following this, a scarred man, cigarette in mouth and presumably out for a smoke, poked his head out of the cabin with a grin. Unfortunately, he was greeted not by fresh air but by the perplexed gazes of "policemen" lying on the cabin's roof.

(⊙ˍ⊙)(⊙ˍ⊙)(⊙ˍ⊙)

(ｷ｀ﾟДﾟ´)?!

In that moment of silence, with the stormy high altitude void of any other noise, there remained only the bottle in Leon's hand, furiously shaking and transmitting an anxious thought.

'Leon! What's going on out there?'

'Say something!'

'Where's my ass? Why don't I have an ass?'