On the other hand, having brought Shio and company this far, Glenda was back to her usual invigorated self.
“Daa—!! Yuiri! Shio!”
“Wait a… Glenda?!”
Unable to support the weight of the leaping dragon girl, Yuiri wobbled backward. The weak gravity made planting her feet ineffective.
“You little… I was so worried! Where have you been all this time?!”
“Dah…”
Scolded by Yuiri in a firm tone, Glenda wilted and hung her head. Exhaling with deep relief, Yuiri hugged Glenda to her chest.
“I’m so glad you’re safe…”
“Dah…”
Eh-heh-heh, Glenda’s happy, narrowed eyes seemed to say as she glomped Yuiri. Shio’s expression was taut as she gazed at the pair’s heartwarming reunion.
“So where is this, Glenda? Are we really in Nod?”
“Certainly you told us to come save Avrora Florestina?”
“Dah! Ava!”
Responding to Kiriha’s question, Glenda gasped and lifted her head. The dragon girl shifted her eyes to the little, steel-colored tower standing at the very tip of the cape.
As if responding to her gaze, the door to the tower opened. Though scarred and a shadow of itself, it was a thick metallic door.
Poking her head out from inside was a little girl hugging a teddy bear. She had vivid, golden hair that seemed to change color like a rainbow and had blue vampiric eyes that glowed like flames.
“Avrora…?!”
Yuiri called out the girl’s name. The small, golden-haired vampire’s shoulders quivered like she was frightened.
“You’re really Avrora?”
Shio was flustered by the lightness of her body as she approached the girl. Avrora hugged the teddy bear tighter against her chest, seemingly firming up her resolve as she opened her mouth.
“H-how hast thou…come to this place?”
“Er, we’re not really sure ourselves…”
She seemed conflicted, grimacing as she looked at Glenda, but the one girl who seemed capable of explaining the situation simply smiled innocently as she hugged Yuiri.
“Avrora, are you all right? We heard Kojou handed the power of the Fourth Primogenitor to you…”
Yuiri inquired in Shio’s place. Avrora’s eyes settled upon the ring on Yuiri’s left hand. In sequence, she then shifted her gaze to Shio and Kiriha’s left hands, and the ring fingers of each.
“Rings of the pact…”
“Aaa…! Y-you’re wrong. You’re wrong, these are…”
“R-right! Kojou hasn’t done anything to us at all… Not yet…!”
Avrora’s halting comment made Shio and Yuiri vigorously shake their heads. “Dah?” said Glenda, tilting her head as she looked up at the immensely flustered pair.
“Whatever but…what is that badly sewn creature?”
Good grief, thought Kiriha with a sigh before asking this question. She was staring straight at the teddy bear Avrora was hugging against her chest. Kiriha was dubious that the bizarre mascot character of unknown provenance had been modeled after an actual living creature.
“Keh-keh…ain’t you a rude one, Priestess of the Bureau of Astrology.”
The teddy bear suddenly moved its googly eyes and looked at Kiriha.
“I-it talked?!”
“It’s alive?!”
Shio and Yuiri exclaimed in surprise. Seeing the duo’s shock made Avrora tense her body, too.
“What are you?”
Instantly leaping back, Kiriha drew her lead-colored spear from the case on her back, a forked spear with a tip like that of a tuning fork. This was the Bureau of Astrology’s Ricercare, but even with the tip of this spear pointed at it, the badly sewn teddy bear smiled without showing the slightest hint of fear.
“Let’s see. That’s a long story, but for starters, on Itogami Island they call me Mogwai.”
“…Mogwai?”
Kiriha glared sharply at the teddy bear’s sarcastic tone.
“I’ve heard of it. That’s the artificial intelligence Asagi Aiba designed, right? It’s like the avatar of the five supercomputers managing Itogami Island or something…”
Shio commented as she vaguely recalled this information.
Hmph, thought Kiriha as she slightly lowered her guard.
“I see…so the partner of the Priestess of Cain, in other words?”
“What are you doing in Nod? And that body…it’s real, right?”
Yuiri voiced her quite natural doubts, but the badly sewn teddy bear made a deliberate shrug of its shoulders and shifted its eyes overhead.
“Can we save that question for later? It’s gonna be pretty dangerous if we don’t deal with that first.”
“…That?”
Shio shifted her gaze on cue.
Mixed in with the sound of the sea breeze was the sound of tilt rotor transport craft in flight.
Transport craft flying from the artificial isle floating on the sea overhead were coming down to land on the cape. Shio supposed that actually meant the other side was coming up, but at any rate, they were definitely closing with Shio and the others.
“Who’s that?”
“MAR special forces. Looks like one platoon for now.”
“Shahryar Ren’s men…! You don’t mean they’re after Avrora?”
“Dah!!”
Glenda excitedly affirmed Shio’s question. Come to think of it, she’d pleaded with Shio and the others to save Avrora in the first place.
Seeing Glenda so worked up that she was breathing heavily through her nose, Mogwai laughed with a sardonic Keh-keh.
“Well, I suppose that’s half their objective.”
“And the other half?”
Kiriha had a frosty expression as she pressed Mogwai for more details.
With a deft curl of one of his stubby arms, Mogwai pointed at the tower behind him.
“That. The facility itself.”
“Facility…? What is this place anyway?”
Yuiri blinked hard and turned back to the steel-colored tower all over again.
The question made Mogwai raise the corners of his mouth in a leering grin as he paused for effect. Baring his jagged teeth, he puffed out his chest with what somehow seemed like pride.
“Just the management core of Artificial Isle Senra—the system for keepin’ six thousand four hundred Beast Vassal Warheads sealed up…no biggie.”