"Overseer, Noah's Ark has returned to the base."
On the thirteenth underground floor, in front of the Quantum Cluster Computer's control center, Otto put down the communicator that had just delivered the message. He wearily rubbed the bridge of his nose and set down the 21st calculation result for Shu.
It was still 8,128 documents. Not one more, not one less.
Otto felt a headache coming on. He had gone through these 8,128 documents, comparing them line by line, 21 times. He felt like he couldn't even recognize the words anymore.
As Otto rubbed his temples, a flash of light suddenly appeared in the dim room. He turned to look, and in the corner that had just been empty, a slightly dim scepter had appeared.
The scepter had vanished from here a few hours ago, right under his nose.
Otto wasn't surprised at all. The pen he used to mark his reading progress heavily poked a certain "IF" on one of the 8,128 documents, leaving an ink dot that nearly pierced the paper.
Truly... as expected.
And now, seeing that the scepter had returned and had redeployed the [Vision] authority to protect the entire base, Otto fell silent for a moment. He gave up on the idea of continuing to check the data, stood up, and stretched wearily.
"Let's go..." he sighed, muttering to himself, "It's time to face our great hero."
Above the Fire Moth base's tarmac, Noah's Ark appeared silently in the high altitude. About 0.1 seconds later, the tarmac's alarm sounded a brief, single beep before falling silent again.
The ground crew, who had been on standby, quickly took their positions and began guiding Noah's Ark for landing.
And on Noah's Ark, in the cockpit, Shu sat on a chair with a blank expression. Opposite him, Kiana, Bronya, and Bianka sat in a neat row.
All three of them had their heads bowed, their posture uniform. Their legs were together, their hands on their knees, their heads lowered, even their breathing was in sync.
And Shu was leaning back against the backrest, one hand supporting his face, saying nothing, just staring at the three of them.
This silent gaze made Mei, who was piloting Noah's Ark in the same cockpit, break out in a cold sweat.
This is the first time I've felt this kind of pressure from Shu... even during the battle, when things got that intense, I never felt this kind of pressure from him.
And the longer Shu remained silent, the heavier the cold sweat on the foreheads of the three people sitting opposite him became, and the more nervous they felt.
One of them had recklessly activated the Key of Genesis, not caring about her own life. Another had insisted on taking a hit from Shu even while under the Elysion Pedion Barrier. And the third was the one who had commanded the whole thing, telling the other two to do it.
Three war criminals.
In the end, it was Kiana who couldn't bear the silent torture any longer. She raised her head, wanting to say something to Shu.
But the first thing she saw was the Key of Genesis, dismantled into pieces, its core dim and lifeless, looking like a piece of low-quality red glass.
The words she wanted to say were immediately choked back. She couldn't even utter a single syllable.
When she had just woken up, she had seen Shu, with red feathers floating around him, dismantling the Key of Genesis. Vaguely, Kiana could even hear a series of screams, and the core of Evolution flashing rapidly, as if in a certain rhythm.
Then, Shu, his face bathed in red light, had thrown down the probably dead Key of Genesis and turned to look at her with a blank expression.
"You're next, Kiana," Kiana had imagined him saying.
Then Bianka had come. Although she didn't know why Kiana was sitting so properly, under Shu's gaze, Bianka had also pulled up a chair and sat next to her, her head bowed, not daring to meet his eyes.
And then, Bronya had also dragged a chair over and sat in a row with them, her head bowed, not daring to say a word.
After her words were choked back, Kiana frantically turned to Bianka and Bronya for help, wanting them to speak for her. But the two of them seemed to have raised their heads at the same time as her, and then waited expectantly for her to speak.
Wow! You guys are sending this young lady to her death!
The boat of friendship capsizes so easily, and always at the most critical moments.
Kiana's lips were tightly pursed. She tried to plead with her eyes.
But Bronya ruthlessly indicated that she couldn't help, and Bianka... she was just playing dumb. Although Kiana had no proof, she was sure that Bianka was definitely playing dumb.
"I... I..." There was no choice. Under the heavy pressure, Kiana couldn't bring herself to lower her head again. She could only stammer under the pressure.
But in the end, among all the reasons that could persuade Shu, Kiana could only pick the most harmless one and say weakly.
"We're fine, aren't we..."
After half a second of silence, Shu, who was supporting his face with one hand, suddenly let out a sneer.
His gaze, which he didn't know who it was focused on, finally began to move, sweeping over the three of them.
"That's right... you're fine."
"One hundred and fifty percent power of the Key of Genesis... heh..." Shu said lightly, and Kiana's courageous raised head instantly disappeared. "What did you say when you activated this power? Oh~ 'Now I'm not afraid of you~'"
Kiana had almost shrunk into a ball. And her left and right guardians, Bianka and Bronya, could even hear a whimper coming from her mouth, like a boiling kettle.
If this were a manga, Kiana's head would definitely be steaming right now... Bronya thought.
"What... aren't you not afraid?" Shu moved his head from his hand and leaned his whole body forward, his eyes wide like copper bells.
Stop it, please stop it!
Kiana wailed in her heart. Now, whenever she thought of her state when she had just unlocked the 150% power of the Key of Genesis, she really wanted to travel back in time and give that self a good kick.
But at that time, she really felt that she was very, very strong! Even if the one standing opposite her was Shu, she still felt that she could definitely win!
If... if the others had also suddenly become so strong, they would definitely be even more exaggerated than me!
The pufferfish thing is definitely Sirin! It's definitely not me! Absolutely not!
The thought that she might be the cause of her own inflation, of becoming a pufferfish, made Kiana feel terrible.
"Ugh—" Letting out another whimper like a boiling kettle, Kiana completely curled into a ball and activated her three-dimensional defense mode.