"You really had it rough this time, didn't you? At least you found the boss of the bugs this time. Congrats, man, all you have to do is kill that thing." Ravenna begins to clap in a mildly frustrating manner. Arata had gotten used to her bratty behavior and had resolved himself to playing along, as at least the social interaction wasn't completely unwelcome. Her one wing also looked soft, he wanted to ask if he could touch it, but that was impossible to say in the moment without sounding weird.
"Hey, are you smarter than a bug, Ravenna?" He mockingly questions her.
Ravenna snorts, amused by Arata's question, "The hell? Of course, an angel is smarter than a bug! Why are you asking all these strange questions every time you see me?"
"Alright, you'll translate for me. I need to know the details of the paper I picked up in that guard room. Why were the bugs preserving it? More importantly, why did it matter to that large monster?" Ravenna groans before turning to the stage, recreating the documents found in that room.
Arata was deep in thought. Solving the mystery was much more appealing than trying to figure out how to defeat that thing. It was way too big and definitely too fast for its size to be defeated in combat.
Ravenna begins to write on some paper, which she had conjured from thin air within the theater. She begins to scribble. Her handwriting sucks, letters aren't capitalized properly, some letters came out deformed and some of the letters were floating above the lines of the paper. But Arata thought back to Ren, who also had similarly garbage handwriting. It was still eligible and comforting to see, bizarrely enough. There were a lot of details to write, so the speed was appreciated. Arata distracted himself by staring at Ravenna; her broken halo seemed to defy gravity even though the rest of her abided by it but it still followed her everywhere. When she went to scratch her hair, she had her hand pass right through the halo. If that was the case, how could it shatter?
He was cut off when she exclaimed, "Done, Arata, have a look now." He read out the paper. Most of it was standard; the man was a criminal named Jeremy Collier. While there were no cameras to take a picture with, the documents contained many detailed physical and behavioral descriptions.
"Inmate 16667 was arrested in 7521 for domestic abuse, arson and murder. Jeremy Collier killed his wife and two stepdaughters during an episode of madness. Courts tried to plead insanity, under the Deicida's code, he is serving a life sentence for his crimes. The inmate will be placed under high surveillance during his sentence."
Who's this Deicida? Killed his wife and daughter, that Jeremy guy was a crazy bastard… damn useless, can't even use the date. Nothing came up. He couldn't keep running from the real question. Arata's goal was to find a way to kill the thing that attacked him. Actually, by now I should start getting into the habit of questioning that angel. "Ravenna, you immediately knew that was the boss. What exactly do you know about that thing?"
"Well… lemme play your first death for you… pay close attention to the nest." Ravenna explains calmly, playing it back with a new perspective.
On the stage appears the familiar sight, the nest. But it wasn't familiar; he didn't see the resemblance at first. The creature was too long to draw any definitive answers to whether it looked like the nest. However, he saw that spikes poked down from the ceiling and more importantly, the nest gradually moved and swayed. It was a living being who lay dormant in sleep. Somehow, his luck felt even worse. How the hell was anyone supposed to kill that thing? Letting out a sigh, he decided to at least review his most recent death for a couple of things.
This information it's all overwhelming… I need to learn more about my magic so I can actually keep up and those rabbits? Furthermore, anything on that insectoid thing would be appreciated.
The theater plays the footage, getting to that encounter he observes when the bug had tackled him. He watches as he sets the bug aflame, knocking away, then dashing with superhuman ability as he signals Ravenna to stop the recording.
Ravenna groans, "Uuuuuugh, more exposition on this world's magic, I guess… You just channeled mana through your body, enhancing it. Your energy hadn't fully calmed down from casting that flame yet, so it enhanced your body. It's a useful ability, since mana is limited, it's a common practice to only utilize it internally so you can enhance your body and reuse the mana."
The stage… is that also magic in this world? Does that mean she can teach me how to use magic? Arata decides to propose an idea to her, "Can you teach me how to use magic properly?" He's cut off irritatingly.
"Rejected, I already hate teaching you, plus if I've learned one thing about you, you learn best with trial by fire." She says, meaning it to sound like a compliment. All Arata hears is that she's willing to let him die a couple more times to spare herself the effort.
Is she really an angel… spare me a bit of humanity! Whatever, I kind of expected that. Time to continue watching the footage, then.
Arata and Ravenna watch until they get to the point at which he makes his way to the guard room, and the roar sounds when he lifts the book. The same roar sounds until the rabbits appear, where he pauses yet again.
Ravenna continues to further make assumptions of what is happening in Arata's brain, "Are you going to remark something about how that big bug managed to make such a noise with its anatomy or something. Or asking how it found out you took that thing?"
"No, I wanted to ask about the rabbits and what they are signaling to me about here?" Arata responds calmly, getting closer to the theater's stage to examine the creatures. I'm not leaving without squeezing a little more info out of her; she's incredibly unhelpful. He then turns to Ravenna, expecting a useful response, but she just looks confused.
"Arata… are you seeing things? Why would rabbits be in a prison and those animals don't exist in this world?" Ravenna scratches her head, clearly confused by the situation. Arata's heart sank. He always felt like he was going crazy but Ravenna convinced him to suspend his disbelief but not even she saw what he did. Were the rabbits real? How does the theater's replays truly work, or is Ravenna just messing with him?
"I see the rabbits, Ravenna! Why am I the only one who sees them then!? They were waving at me, and I can see them waving in the playback!" He swears to explain how he isn't actually crazy. Ravenna calmly shushes towards him, knowing he has no reason to lie, hoping that he can calm down. That's when Arata notices, the rabbits have no shadows.