Rosé rolled up her party dress without no shame and bared her thigh to equip it. It was a flechette gun made of reinforced plastic that would show no reaction to metal detectors. Her dress and accessories also concealed numerous blades and other weapons. With her superhuman skills, she would be able to take on an entire troop of the army’s special forces. So long as they were regular people, that is. “Rosé, do you mind?” a man wearing a chef’s coat called out to her as she finished preparing for the tea party—Galerie Berith’s cook, Shen. “What’s the matter, Ji-Hwan Shen?” “Could you give me permission to go out? I want to get some ingredients.” “Ingredients… I see.” Rosé put her hand to her mouth as she pondered his request. The Yáo Guāng Xīng was full of military rations, but they would be lacking in fresh products if the operation were to take a long time. Now that they were stalled in Nagoya, it would be smart to procure some food. “If you give me permission, I will bargain with the merchants. It doesn’t seem like the Chinese Federation is prohibiting us from entering the markets,” Shen suggested with a smile. He had experience cooking all around the world; he was confident in his ability to hold such negotiations. “Do you need people to carry the goods?” “If you allow me to take a few off-duty operators, as well as young Ren.” “Iroha’s brother? I see. Not bad, he won’t draw eyes.” Rosé nodded after a bit of thought. Ten-year-old Ren Sumita was the oldest of Iroha’s brothers. Thanks to his mature personality, he was a great help for odd jobs such as this. He would be handy for carrying the shopping. “Very well. Let’s choose who you’ll take for defense, then—” “What?! Only Ren gets to go?! Not fair!” A high-pitched voice cut off Rosé’s words. “You idiot!” “Stop it, Kyouta!” Then, a clattering and rattling sound erupted, like small animals on a rampage. It came from beneath the lounge’s seats—the storage space. Josh stood up with a chuckle and flipped the seat up. Hunkering in there was the nine-year-old trio. “Honoka, Kyouta, and Kiri. Were you listening all along?” “N-no… We didn’t mean to eavesdrop, we were just…playing hide-and-seek! Yeah!” Honoka, their leader, made up an excuse as she peeked out from the storage, her expression like that of a cat who was just caught in the middle of mischief. “Oh… And who’s looking for you?” Josh asked with a grin. Honoka looked away, unable to come up with a response. “I’m sure the kids were just bored,” Wei said with a forced smile, trying to smooth things over. Unlike the older siblings entrusted with jobs, there was little these three could do. The frustration led them to playing detective. “…He’s right. We want to do something,” Honoka confessed. Josh scratched the back of his head, at a loss. Rosé replied in his stead, “Well, then. I will give you a mission.” “Huh?” “Really?!” “Heck yeah!” The three looked at each other in shock before holding hands and cheering. Rinka, watching in silence, sighed with relief. Eavesdropping was putting it nicely—they were just spying, and it could easily merit punishment if Rosé decided so. “You sure, Lady?” Josh asked her, surprised. “No problem.” Rosé looked down at the storage. She curved her lips in a beautiful, chilling smile, and said: “You’re good at hide-and-seek, aren’t you?” 4 The cargo lift came to a stop, and Ji-Hwan Shen and the Galerie operators got off. They were heading to the market inside the Nagoya Station Fortress to procure fresh foods. No one found it strange for them to tow a cart carrying an empty wooden box. The guard at the entrance made a cursory check, but naturally, it was empty, so they set foot into the market without suspicion. The fortress market was full of life, as expected of a place inhabited by over seventy thousand people. The food was sent directly from the Chinese mainland. Meat, vegetables, fruit, spices, even candies and alcohol. Ren Sumita could not hide his excitement at the foreign sights. Between looks at the market, he frequently glanced over at the luggage they towed. The car dropped a step as the operators pulled it along, and a small yelp was heard immediately. Ren sighed anxiously at the sound. The empty wooden box on the car rocked noisily. “Ow…!” Kyouta let out a muffled scream inside the hot, restrictive darkness. He had hit his head on the bottom of the box due to the drop. “Stop moving, Kyouta. It’s cramped enough in here as it is.” Kiri elbowed him in the side. They were inside the double-bottomed box, in a space less than half a meter tall. Impossible for an adult to fit in, but just right for the young kids. “You feel the shock worse over here. Change places with me if you’re gonna keep complaining.” “How? There’s a box above us.” “Dammit…” Kyouta groaned while holding his aching head. There was no sign of suspicion from any CFA soldiers yet, but they had to be careful. The three of them were on a top-secret mission ordered by Rosé herself. “This biodrone is amazing, though. It’s like I’ve turned into a fairy,” Honoka sighed with excitement, a pair of VR goggles on her head. On the screen, she saw the stalls of the market. Not from the main street that Shen and Ren walked, but from a back alley. She slipped through gaps no human could get through as she infiltrated a restricted area. “A fairy? That’s a rat.” “Don’t say it! I’d already forgotten!” Honoka grumbled at Kyouta’s teasing. Honoka was controlling a biodrone Rosé gave them. A remote-controlled, hamster-shaped robot. The station where the Yáo Guāng Xīng had stopped was under the effect of powerful signal jamming, and they could not send a drone inside the fortress from there. So, Rosé made good use of Shen’s shopping trip to send the trio along to gather intel on the inside of the fortress, a plan only possible thanks to their tiny bodies. “Do you know where we’re going?” Honoka asked the boys while controlling the biodrone. Kiri and Kyouta put on their own VR goggles and booted up their drones. “No problem. I got the map memorized.” “We just have to go to the buildings with the red marks, right?” “Well then, hurry up. We have to be done with this before Ren’s finished shopping.” Honoka showed the biodrone the way through a video game console–like controller. “Honoka, do you know what Rosé’s looking for?” Kiri asked. “You don’t? Did you listen to her explanation?” “I… Technically.” “Rosé’s explanations are too abstract. Just give us the answer.” Kyouta gave up, too. “The power plant.” “Huh?” “You didn’t see the huge power plant on the seaside?” “Power plant… Oh, this?” Kyouta checked the location on the map. “But with so many people living here, it shouldn’t be weird for them to have one,” Kiri said. “Still, it’s too big. Too big for the population here. It even looks like the fortress was made for the power plant,” Honoka answered firmly. “So the mystery is…where the energy is going?” “Exactly. That’s what Rosé wants to know. And these marked buildings are connected to high-voltage lines. It doesn’t take much to make a guess.” “Oh… Really?” Kiri said, impressed. “…Could it be related to the Moujuu attacking the city?” Kyouta asked after a pause in an unusually serious tone. Honoka paused, too, in surprise, before saying, “Maybe.” “Then we might be helping Mama here.” “Yeah… That aside, Kyouta… Your breathing’s been heavy for a while now,” she said with a teasing grin, worried about putting too much responsibility on her sibling’s shoulders. Kyouta blushed so brightly that Honoka could see it even in the darkness. “Wha?! N-no, it’s not! It’s just that your hair…smells nice…” “Wha…? Perv.” “Why?! I can’t help it in this cramped place!” Kyouta made up excuses. Kiri sighed and brushed his long hair up. “I don’t mind if you take a sniff. Want me to lend you my shampoo?” “Wait, it was your hair?!” “Shut up already, we’re gonna get found!” “It’s not my fault!” The trio argued childishly like always, while their biodrones ran around the fortress gathering intel. 5 “Whoa! A torii!” Iroha exclaimed upon looking at the giant, mossy shrine gate in the middle of the forest. The wooden gate solemnly towering among the ruins definitely had a divine air about it. Yahiro was overcome by reverence at the sight of it—Galerie Berith’s operators were as well. “So the shrine’s gotta be this way. Now that I notice, the air around here feels different,” Iroha said while bowing in prayer at the torii. Jiguan Xia got off the armored truck and went past her with a look on his face that said ridiculous, to whisper into Yahiro’s ear: “You notice, Lazarus?” “Yeah. There’s a Grade IV. Actually, two. Maybe more…,” Yahiro replied while glaring beyond the gate. Grades were used to evaluate a Moujuu’s threat level in comparison to army forces. Grade Is could be defeated by one troop. Grade IIs needed high-caliber firearms, such as autocannons. Grade IIIs were impossible to deal with without the support of a tank or armored vehicle. Nuemaru, when full-sized, was Grade III—tremendously powerful, but his defeat was still within the realm of possibility for a human. Grade IV? Not so much. These were beings beyond the norm, immeasurable. Just one could wipe out a whole battalion. Literal monsters. And both men could sense the gazes of Grade IV Moujuu from the depths of the forest surrounding the torii. Yahiro could feel it from the density of the miasma caressing his skin. He understood because he had met so many Moujuu back in the 23 Wards. “Your medium doesn’t seem to mind, though? She okay?” Xia asked, giving Iroha a sidelong glance. It could not be that she didn’t feel the Grade IVs’ presence, yet she passed through the gate without a care in the world, intruding on the shrine’s territory. The Moujuu’s territory, if Xia’s intel was correct. “Don’t worry. Just make sure your men don’t get spooked and provoke the Moujuu.” Yahiro shrugged before reluctantly following Iroha. “Oh, you’re on.” Xia glared at him with a grin, taking his words as a challenge. Yahiro brushed off the aggression and asked, “Anyway…you’ve been here before, right, Mr. Xia?” “Why do you figure?” “Just looked like it. You seem used to the sight. Not to mention you noticed the Grade IVs’ presence from this distance.” “You got good instincts, Lazarus.” Xia raised an eyebrow. “But you’re wrong. It’s not me who’s been here before.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” Yahiro narrowed his eyes with suspicion. Xia pursed his lips in an uncharacteristic display of self-deprecation and shook his head. “Just think about it. The chief’s behavior should’ve clued you in that we’re under huge pressure from the Federation mainland. They’re impatient to get their hands on even one more Relict before any other country does.” “Yeah.” “You think he’d let a Relict right under the fortress’s nose go untouched?” “I see. So you knew about the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi.” “I hear it’s one of the country’s most famous regalia.” Xia nodded. It all made sense. Yahiro was not well-versed in history or myth, yet he knew about the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi—no way the Chinese Federation, which was obsessed with collecting Relicts, wouldn’t. They had already sent soldiers to retrieve it. “…But you couldn’t get farther than this?” “No. Not us.” The moment Yahiro crossed the torii behind Iroha, the trees in the forest swayed. A giant Moujuu with the head of a lion, reminiscent of a shrine’s komainu, showed itself. It was well over ten meters long—one of the two Grade IVs Yahiro and Xia were wary about. Yahiro and the rest were paralyzed by the violent pressure oozing from the creature. Even the Relict soldiers were frozen in place. That Moujuu could turn everyone present into inert lumps of meat in the blink of an eye. They realized this, and still couldn’t move. The Grade IV monster was just too imposing. Only one person moved. Iroha looked up at the lion-dog and amicably waved at it. The Moujuu, upon seeing that, squinted its golden eyes before turning back into the forest. The tension in the air eased and everyone exhaled in relief. The lion-dog Moujuu let them go. “I see. The dragon medium and her followers have a right to cross… Just as she said,” Xia said with spite. “Followers… That includes you?” “I don’t think the Moujuu can tell the difference,” he answered Yahiro’s question sharply. “Still, we can’t all go in like it’s nothing. We gotta avoid being wiped out if anything goes wrong, right, Paola?” Giuli said as she got off the second armored truck. Paola Resente, the silent, brown-skinned beauty beside her, realized what Giuli was requesting. “Mhmm… Okay… Everyone, come here,” she ordered her subordinates and began putting together the heavy weaponry they brought. Paola’s group would not cross the torii but build a base just outside the limits of the Moujuu territory, just in case. “Sure, ensuring a way out is important. You guys should also move the truck back to a safe spot and stand by. We’ll need wheels to go back home,” Xia ordered his soldiers. Their role was only showing the way, to begin with; there was no reason for them to intrude into Moujuu territory. “Lieutenant Zhu! Lieutenant Feng! You’re coming with me.” “Yessir!” “Yes, sir!” The androgynous young soldier and the big bald man ran over. Iroha’s fans. “So you’re going with Waon, Deputy Commander?” Zhu, the young one, asked. Xia grimaced at the name of Waon. “You’re Relict Deservers, okay? And you’ll be good decoys in the worst-case scenario.” “As harsh as ever, Deputy Commander, ha-ha!” “It is an honor to receive this opportunity to guard the dragon medium!” The two soldiers saluted without flinching at Xia’s “joke.” Meanwhile, Iroha gathered the Moujuu that had followed them there, and was somehow communicating with the Moujuu using gestures. It looked like she was asking them to protect Paola and everyone remaining outside the torii. “Okay guys, take care of them.” Iroha waved reluctantly at the Moujuu while going inside the forest. Xia observed her with eyes narrowed and alert. “Her power works even when she’s not present?” “Yeah… Looks like it,” Yahiro answered. Yahiro had no idea how intelligent the Moujuu were, but considering Nuemaru, they had to be at least smarter than a dog. They should be able to stay loyal to her instructions even after she left. “Troublesome powers, the lot of them… All dragon mediums are the same…” Xia frowned blatantly, imagining what it would be like to have her as his enemy. Yahiro reacted to his words. “You know other dragon mediums?” “Yeah… People traveling on railways always have to pass through the Nagoya Station Fortress,” Xia replied vaguely. Yahiro wanted to question him further, but he spoke first, “I also know about your sister, Yahiro Narusawa. She’s in your custody now, isn’t she?” “How do you know that, Jiguan Xia?” Yahiro said in a low voice. It hadn’t even been a week since Sui Narusawa came into Galerie Berith’s custody, and she had spent the whole time in a coma inside the Yáo Guāng Xīng’s container. A soldier of the CFA should’ve had no time to learn about her. “How do you think? Take a guess,” he teased while turning his back on Yahiro. Xia walked into the forest, behind Iroha. Yahiro gave up and followed, then Giuli, then Iroha’s two fans. This was the entire party entering the core of the Moujuu territory. The forest inhabited by the Moujuu had no trace of its old existence as a shrine. The land itself was deformed by cracks and cave-ins, and the vegetation that had grown over four years had buried the shrine itself. Still, patches of the gravel path remained, making it easier to walk across. Yahiro and the rest advanced deeper into the colony under the gazes of hundreds of Moujuu hidden in the forest. The intensity of the situation had Xia unusually quiet, and even his soldiers were beginning to breathe heavily. Not even the Galerie’s most veteran operators would have been able to keep their sanity intact in this place. Now he realized Giuli had another reason to leave Paola and her men behind. Among them, only Iroha and Nuemaru continued walking like normal. After ten minutes of walking, Iroha came to a sudden halt. “Yahiro, look!” she said with a serious expression. Iroha pointed at where the trees ended. The ground itself was missing, only a giant pit, nearly fifteen meters wide, in its place. So deep, one could not see the bottom. A hole of pure darkness exuded a wicked aura that he had felt before. It felt just like in the heart of the 23 Wards. “This miasma… That’s a Ploutonion? What’s one doing in here?” “Wait, Yahiro. Don’t you find this Ploutonion…weird?” Iroha pointed out. Then, finally, he noticed, too. Just barely. The density of the miasma drifting from within and the pressure coming from the bottomless darkness were the same, but this Ploutonion had something different about it from the one created by Superbia’s powers. Put simply, it felt older. The Ploutonion in the 23 Wards that triggered the J-nocide was only four years old, and yet, this one before their eyes felt decades old—maybe older. Pieces of the hole’s edge had crumbled under years of exposure to the wind and rain, and the ground around it was mossy. But most importantly, clearly man-made tombstones stood around the Ploutonion. Quite old themselves. “It’s a barrier,” Giuli muttered, impressed, as she scanned the engravings on the tombstones. ““A barrier?”” Yahiro and Iroha asked at the same time. “Yup.” Giuli nodded. “A barrier cordoning off the Ploutonion so Moujuu don’t come out. And an old one, at that. It’s centuries… No. A millennium or two old.” “Hold on, Giuli. This barrier’s been here for over a thousand years?” Yahiro held his head in confusion. “But then, this Ploutonion’s…” “Been here for at least as long,” she replied nonchalantly. “Nothing surprising, is it? If the Relict Regalia have existed for over a thousand years, then naturally, dragon mediums and Lazaruses have, too.” “A Ploutonion left by an ancient dragon…?” Yahiro groaned, his vocal cords shaking with fear. A dragon emerging in such ancient times must have had equally catastrophic effects as the J-nocide. And not just in this country. Legends of dragons were found all around the world, as were ruins of civilizations destroyed by unknown causes. The dragons had brought cataclysm to the world multiple times in the past. This ancient Ploutonion was proof of that. “So now we know why Moujuu appear endlessly to attack the Nagoya Station Fortress.” Giuli grinned at Jiguan Xia. “Right. But it doesn’t actually explain why they attack the city,” he argued back, his expression unchanged. Giuli, however, raised her eyebrows smugly. “You can’t tell?” “What?” “Look. The barrier’s broken,” she said as she touched the biggest tombstone by the Ploutonion. The stone lay on its side, broken from its base. “I was wondering why it didn’t look like the Ploutonion was blocked off. So it’s because that tombstone’s broken?” “Probably. The barrier broke two years… No, one year ago at most. Would you say that’s around the time the Nagoya Station Fortress began getting attacked?” “Nice bluff, Giulietta Berith. I can tell your deduction’s the other way around. You calculated the timeframe of this barrier-breaking by looking at the age of the scratches on the fortress walls, didn’t you?” “Oops, cat’s out of the bag.” Giuli stuck out her tongue. “But you don’t deny it, Shangxiao Xia.” “No need to deny it. We just gotta look into it,” Xia said curtly. So they decided that the tombstone was broken about one year prior. “Did the Moujuu in the forest break it?” Yahiro asked in confusion. The tombstone looked sturdy, but a Grade III Moujuu could smash it with ease. He couldn’t believe the Moujuu themselves would willingly undo the seal on the Ploutonion, but it wasn’t unthinkable. Yet Giuli denied it right away. “No, that’s not it. A person entered these sacred grounds and broke the barrier.” “Sacred grounds… But this place was a Moujuu colony before the seal broke, right?” Yahiro remembered the terrible state of the ruined city of Nagoya. Even if the attack on the Nagoya Station Fortress began only one year back, it didn’t mean there were no Moujuu around before that. In fact, the city was already the site of a fierce battle against them. It wasn’t realistic to imagine someone crossing the zone even Relict soldiers had trouble with to enter the Moujuu colony. “Yup. Normal humans couldn’t come here. But we could.” “But that’s because Iroha’s with…” Yahiro gasped in the middle of his argument. “It was…a dragon medium? One of them broke the tombstone and undid the seal on the Ploutonion?” Iroha had already proven that a dragon medium could do what was impossible for any regular human and reach the heart of a Moujuu colony. “But why do that? What’s there for a dragon medium to gain by unsealing the Ploutonion?” Yahiro asked Giuli, puzzled. If there was one dragon medium out there who opened Ploutonions on purpose, it was Sui. But there was no reason for her to undo the seal of an ancient Ploutonion. She could open new ones wherever she liked. “They didn’t want to break the seal. It just happened.” Giuli smiled at Yahiro’s reaction. “Just think, where is the power coming from that is closing the Ploutonion and stopping the Moujuu?” “I get it…! The Relict…! The Relict Regalia!” Yahiro stiffened in response. A source of power so huge it could seal off a Ploutonion opened by a dragon—if there was one, it had to be one born from the same dragon factor: the Relict Regalia. And Hikami-jingu housed the Heavenly Imperial House’s Relict Regalia of Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi. It was keeping the barrier up. “So if the barrier’s undone…then the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi is…” “Not here.” Giuli raised a hand to touch the broken tombstone. Then, Iroha, who had been staring at the tombstone in silence, exclaimed. “Yahiro! Giuli! Look at this! This mark!” she yelled while pointing at the broken tombstone’s base. Under it was a space big enough to fit a couple of people. It was made of ashlar, reminiscent of ancient stone burial chambers. Probably the spot where the Relict Regalia had been enshrined to activate the barrier. However, Iroha was not pointing at the inside of the stone chamber, but the damage on the roof of it, and the base for the tombstone. The center of the giant base, several tons heavy, melted like candy. It was not scorched by high temperatures. Nor was it corroded by a strong acid. It was melted. Liquefied. Yahiro knew the power that caused such strange deformation. The liquefaction power was the marsh dragon’s. Luxuria’s Regalia. “They opened this?” Iroha looked at him with worry. The look in Yahiro’s eyes was grim. “Hisaki Minato’s Regalia.” “But why would he and Nina…?” Iroha muttered in astonishment. Instead of answering the question, Yahiro glared at Xia. “Jiguan Xia… You knew they had taken the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi?” “No use hiding it.” Xia sighed quietly. The dragon medium that reached the center of the Moujuu colony before them, that Xia knew himself, was Nina Himekawa. It must have been her, through Ganzheit, who told Xia that Galerie Berith had Sui in custody. “So you wanted to lead us here by hinting at the Relict Regalia.” Giuli gave him a smile that oozed hostility. Xia knew the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi was no longer there, yet he didn’t tell Galerie Berith. Not when Iroha suggested looking into why the Moujuu were attacking, nor when she found the Ploutonion. There could only be one reason why he would do that. To make them go check whether the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi was really there. To bring them here. “Basically. I bought enough time.” Xia smiled without remorse. “Bought time…?” Yahiro was confused. At first, Yahiro thought Xia wanted to stop them from reaching Kyoto, but immediately Yahiro noticed that wasn’t it. Xia’s role was to take them away from the Nagoya Station Fortress. The Chinese Federal Army’s real aim was in the Yáo Guāng Xīng—Ayaho’s Relict Regalia. “Even with this, we couldn’t think of another way to kill a Lazarus. Honestly, you saved me a lot of work by finding the Ploutonion yourselves.” Xia drew his handgun and pointed it at Iroha. “Tsk…!” “Shangxiao?!” “W-Waon…!” Yahiro and the two CFA soldiers moved before Iroha to protect her. Xia gave a creepy smile and pointed the gun at their feet. The Relict embedded in his right hand glowed dazzling crimson. “Blow off… Dàfēng!” The shock-wave bullet fired from Xia’s handgun gouged the ground they stood on—right by the Ploutonion’s edge. Their footing lost, they fell into the bottomless darkness of the pit alongside myriad rock pieces. 6 Liu Ryland welcomed Rosé at the hotel lounge inside the Nagoya Station Fortress. This was normally the place to receive high-ranking army officials visiting the fortress; one could look at the whole of it from the viewing platform. “It is an honor to meet you, Ms. Berith. You’re as beautiful as the rumors say.” Liu stood up from his seat and bowed gracefully. The handsome man looked younger than his real age, and his bearing was flawless. “Thank you for the invitation, Chairman Liu. And please, call me Rosetta.” “And you can call me Ryli,” he responded cheerfully to Rosé’s gruff greeting. Rosé took a seat as an undoubtedly luxurious teacup was placed before her and amber-colored tea was poured into it. The sweet scent of ripe fruit wafted about. “These are good tea leaves, Chairman Liu.” “I am glad to hear you like it.” Liu shook his head with a forced smile as Rosé ignored his request to call him by a nickname. “Have you heard of Melora Electronics before?” “Yes, of course. It’s one of the biggest IT corporations in the world, covering everything from semiconductors and industrial robots to game consoles. Everyone in the financial world knows about how you grew it from a five-employee venture to this scale in under fifteen years.” “I admit I feel bashful hearing about it like that so directly.” Liu smiled at Rosé’s flat praise. “But why would such a successful man be here in this tiny, ruined country?” Rosé glared sharply at him. Liu smiled ambivalently and evadingly. “Haven’t you realized the reason yet?” “No… I am but a paltry arms dealer. How could I?” “Ha-hah… Wonderful. You are very wise. It was very worth the hassle to ask you over.” Liu clapped overdramatically as Rosé stressed the words arms dealer. “Yes, it’s just as you imagine—I am here to develop new weapons. Melora is collaborating with the Chinese Federal Army to create the next generation of biotactical weapons.” “Mass-produced Relict Regalia?” Rosé inquired nonchalantly. Liu Ryland’s eyes grew wide in shock. Even though he expected her to surmise Melora was in Japan to test new weapons, he could have never anticipated her to realize the weapons in question were artificial Relicts. The dragons’ powers brought about cataclysmic destruction beyond the known laws of physics—were one to mass-produce artificial Relicts that replicated them, one would create the strongest army in the world. That was the Chinese Federation’s and Melora Electronics’ goal, and the reason why they built the Nagoya Station Fortress. The Chinese Federation was fixated on obtaining the Relict to use as a sample for their research and development. “…Precisely. Do you know the true nature of the Relict Regalia?” Liu asked shortly after getting a hold of himself. Rosé replied without hesitation, “The dragon factor—the dragon mediums’ and Lazaruses’ organelles, or so I’ve heard.” “Indeed. Just as the mitochondria creates ATP—the chemical energy necessary for the eukaryotes’ biological activity—the dragon factor creates the dragon aura for activating the medium in the Lazarus’s Regalia. Magical energy.” Liu took a handheld device out of his pocket and projected a complex tridimensional image on the table, like a molecular model. A strange conceptual model that seemed to be a mix between a magic circle and a chemical formula. A graphical representation of the dragon aura field created by the dragon factor. The dragon aura field an individual dragon factor could create was not very powerful, but by linking multiple through a network, its area of effect increased geometrically. Upon surpassing a certain threshold, the dragon aura field generated a small gate connected to a foreign space. By the mutual annihilation of the matter flowing from there with the matter on this world, it created massive energy—the source of the dragon’s Regalia. This meant that the energy created by the dragon factor had no upper limit. The dragons were literal masses of energy that could destroy the world. Supposedly, only Ganzheit was aware of this, and yet Liu Ryland also seemed to know. “With our company’s microfabrication technology, we can copy the dragon factor down to the nanometer. We can manufacture Relict Regalia.” “Professor Chihaya Narusawa’s dragon factor cycle theory?” Rosé sighed. Liu smiled in satisfaction at the sound of that name. “Of course you know. I’m shocked. To think the professor’s son would survive as a Lazarus. I suppose this is fate.” “I wonder… Perhaps it is all as the professor wanted,” Rosé muttered as she stared into the distance. Liu took that as a joke and chuckled. “The Nagoya Station Fortress was constructed as the base to make the mass-produced Relicts. We are still in the developmental stages, but once we get to mass production, our artificial Relicts will be shipped throughout the world,” he said, brimming with confidence. “Very interesting indeed, but why tell me?” Rosé’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I’ll cut to the chase. Are you interested in leaving Ganzheit and joining us?” “You ask Galerie Berith to betray Ganzheit?” she asked with a condemning glare. Liu nodded. “Once we succeed in mass-producing the artificial Relicts, Ganzheit will suffer the biggest blow. Their goal is to awaken all the dragon mediums hidden around the world and bring about a disaster like the J-nocide on a global scale, but if the armies have Relict Regalia, they will be able to oppose the dragons. Even if we cannot kill the dragons themselves, we can eradicate the Moujuu, at least.” “So the moment your artificial Relicts enter the production stage, you will automatically be Ganzheit’s enemy.” Rosé took a sip of tea, her expression unchanged. “Yes, and the purpose of our meeting here is to decrease Ganzheit’s power before that happens. With the Lazarus, two dragon mediums, and a Relict Deserver, you will be more than enough deterrence against them.” Liu revealed his true intentions. It did not look like he was lying. Indeed, there was reason for Melora wanting the Galerie on their side, and Liu’s analysis of their power was on the mark. “Of course, that is not the only reason why I brought up this deal. Once we can begin mass production of the Relicts, we will need export and sales routes, both of which Galerie Berith has. After all, we lack the know-how when it comes to selling weapons.” “So you say there are benefits for both sides to cooperate.” Rosé gave a charming smile as she licked her tea-damped lips. “I see. No wonder you were such a successful entrepreneur, Liu Ryland.” “Were? What do you mean by that?” Liu frowned in confusion at the use of past tense. Rosé put down her teacup, her eyes cold, as though pitying Liu. “I mean that you have a critical lack of experience. You know nothing.” “…Oh?” “Melora Electronics is only fifteen years old. Meanwhile, House Berith has existed since the prehistoric eras of ancient Egypt and Greece, or perhaps all the way back to the age of the Shenxian in ancient China. You think our family has never tried replicating the Relict Regalia before?” “So you’ve tried to mass-produce the Relicts.” “Yes, many times, over more than fifteen hundred years.” Rosé smiled charmingly. Liu scowled in annoyance. “But that was before science advanced to modern levels. Even if you weren’t successful in replicating them before, that’s no reason for us to fail now, too.” “When did I say that we failed in replicating the Relicts?” Rosé blinked in amusement. Liu gasped, bewildered. “You mean…?” “The technology to copy Relict Regalia already exists. In fact, legend says the Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi has two substitutes, and that they are both as mighty as the original.” Liu was at a loss for words. The Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi had copies—of course he knew about the famous legend. “Impossible… Then why would Ganzheit keep that technology a secret? Why rely on the unstable dragons instead of using mass-produced Relicts to more easily take over the world?!” “That’s exactly where you’re mistaken. Why would you assume you can control the Relicts, knowing that the dragons are unstable?” Rosé rebutted. Liu put on a cool facade, but the serenity of before had escaped him already. “You mean the Relicts are defective?” Liu asked, impatient. “I mean that, no matter the shape, great power comes with a cost just as big. Whether you believe me or not, that’s up to you.” Rosé stood up quietly. Her curt demeanor revealed that she had not a shred of interest left in Liu. “So the deal is off, Rosé?” Liu asked tensely. Rosé turned back to him, unexpressive. “You may not want to hear this, but I think you ought to have experienced failure at an earlier stage. Before falling too deep into the abyss in your search for a power beyond you.” “There is no need for me to hear any of your nonsense. Personally, I have a taste for women like you, but unfortunately, the one to experience failure here and now will be you.” Liu operated his handheld device to send out instructions to his subordinates waiting outside the lounge. A dozen armed operators poured into the room in the next moment. Not CFA soldiers, but Melora’s private army. The guns in their hands glowed the red of artificial Relicts. “You will regret this, Liu Ryland.” “Right back at you, Rosetta Berith.” Galerie Berith’s executive manager and Melora Electronics’ CEO glared at each other from either side of the tiny table. Then an explosion echoed from afar. It came from the Nagoya Station building. The Galerie’s armored train was under attack by the CFA.
Chapter 55
30 min read