When we got to the Azure Land, I mentioned the flying fortress.
“A flying fortress?”
“You’ve never heard of it?”
It had been active during the Lalakie age, so I thought she’d have heard stories.
“It’s also called ‘Arcatia’—”
“Arcatia?! The devil fortress?!” Rei yelped, blanching.
I knew it had been a key figure in the Lalakie opposition, but I hadn’t expected quite such a vehement reaction.
“You’ve heard of it, Sister?”
“Yes, Arcatia was the demon lord’s vanguard. The Heavensbreaker Decayspear could shatter the Heavenslight Protection. So many people I knew fell from the flying castle in the impact.”
Such awful memories—Rei didn’t want to share in detail.
I was certainly curious about that weapon that could puncture their defenses, but not enough to make her dig into her painful past. I had the real thing in Storage, so I could just investigate it myself. And we’d found some records in the ruins where I’d found the fortress.
Yuuneia and I teamed up to play the clown, and Rei caught the intent—at least outwardly, she was acting like herself again.
“Can you do that for me?”
“But of course, Ms. Aaze.”
My next stop was the Bolenan Forest, where Ms. Aaze asked me to collect hives from a creature known as the fairy bee.
“Thanks, Satou. I’m so glad!”
Aw, yeah.
She must have been in a real jam, because she straight-up hugged me for it. I gently put my arms around her, too.
Gotta make the most of an unexpected windfall.
“Um, I think that’s more than enough.”
The priestess Lua was tugging at my sleeve, pulling me back to reality.
Cruel, I thought—but then I checked the time on my AR display, and we’d been standing like that for more than ten minutes. I looked down to find Ms. Aaze looking up at me, blushing furiously.
I cleared my throat and released her from the embrace.
“Welp, better go get them hives!”
“Wait, Satou. Weren’t you here for a reason?”
Ms. Aaze’s embrace of bliss had defeated me so hard, I’d forgotten my actual purpose.
“Oh, right, I wanted to ask about this.”
“Transparent orichalcum?”
I’d taken the glass-like shape-shifting Bandage orichalcum out of my Item Box.
“Wow, that’s pretty neat,” Ms. Aaze said, holding it up to the sunlight.
“First you’ve heard of it?”
“Um, there might be something in the archives, but I don’t know about it now.”
Lua seemed equally unaware, so we checked with the knowledgeable elders.
“My, that is a rare sight!”
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
“I couldn’t begin to imagine how one might transmute this.”
They were soon engaged in a furious debate about the orichalcum’s properties.
Word got around, and other research buff elves flocked to see, and soon the vast hall was filled to the brim.
“You’ve heard of it?”
“Yes, Lady Aaze. I read some ancient documents that mentioned the existence of an orichalcum variant that meets this description.”
This was the same elf who’d called it a rare sight.
“Can I see those?”
“I’m afraid I no longer have them.”
He’d left it with a different high elf, and that high elf was now in a sleep tank, so nobody knew where the documents had wandered off to. If we knew the title, I could have done a map search, but it was too long ago for anyone to remember.
“Satou, shall we check the memory archive?” Ms. Aaze suggested.
I must have looked very disappointed.
It had been a while since I’d met her in demi-goddess mode, so I took her up on the offer.
I left the Bandage orichalcum to the elves and headed to the memory archive in the depths of the World Tree with Ms. Aaze.
“I’ve heard the Evil God created such orichalcum while Lalakie was still aloft,” she said, speaking as an avatar of the gods.
As much as I liked ditzy Ms. Aaze, the dignity she had in demi-goddess mode was equally delightful.
“Satou, are you listening?”
“Sorry, your beauty took my breath away.”
I was just admitting my faux pas, but somehow that made the demi-goddess’s cheeks blush faintly. A beautiful reminder that they really were the same person.
“Back to the topic at hand, are you aware of the particulars?”
“I am not. I’d suggest asking Bulainan’s Liize—no, Keze, or Saaze of the Beliunan.”
If memory served, the current leadership of the Bulainan did not include a Liize.
“Is that all you wish to ask me?”
It seemed a waste to end this conversation so soon, so I asked about the flying fortress as well.
“I have no direct knowledge. But Ize was fond of venturing out, and I have those accounts—if you don’t mind secondhand.”
That must be one of the high elves asleep in tanks in the World Tree.
“Allegedly, the Evil God designed the flying fortress, and it was built by the apostles. Once complete, it was used by the resistance to battle Lalakie, but I know little beyond Ize’s impressions that it was incredibly powerful.”
Other than the first line, it sounded like Rei knew more about it.
“I see you’re out of questions. I shall let the current me handle things from here.”
With that, she went limp and toppled toward me. Much as I would have liked to hold her for a while, contact with the memory archive was exhausting. I called Lua in and had Ms. Aaze carried to bed.
I spoke to Saaze and Keze, but learned nothing further about the flying fortress or the Bandage orichalcum.
Saaze was grumbling that the rock belt was wider than they’d imagined. At first, I wasn’t sure what that meant, but then I realized this was an asteroid belt encountered by the Satellite One, the space golem out looking for jellyfish.
“We found several jellyfish on the rock belt. You called it, Satou—that’s where they come from.”
Satellite One had been taken out by debris several times, but they just kept sending out another one.
“This time we’re not entering the belt, just doing an orbit of it.”
“How about sending several at once, then?”
“Yeah, a practical suggestion. Let’s take Satou’s advice there.”
I also suggested having parent and child vessels, and sending the child vessels into the thick of the asteroids while the parent hung back in safety, waiting to receive transmissions from them. That would require significant modifications from the current design, so it was put down as a concept for future iterations.
As for Kez…
“Satou, we’ve received the orichalcum from Ms. Aaze. I have no words to express how piqued my curiosity is. If you were here with me, I’d have flung my arms around you and taken you out to dance. Erm, Ms. Aaze’s looking terrifying, so I’m ending the transmission here. I swear I’ll have something for you before Saaze, just you wait.”
With a beatific smile, the call ended.
I looked back to find Ms. Aaze out of bed, her cheeks puffed out adorably.
Gosh, she’s the cutest.
I was seized by the impulse to take her home with me, but Lua and the innocent faces of the brownies helped me restrain myself.
“Ms. Aaze, thanks for sending the samples.”
It wasn’t often she made a face where you could hear the tsun sound effect—I leaned in, whispering, “Ms. Aaze, you’re the only one I want to put my arms around, the only one I want to dance with, and the only one I adore.”
She turned redder than ever before and darted back at “Warp” speed, her beautiful lips and slender fingers all atremble. She tried to speak but formed no words and soon turned and ran for the hills.
Lua went dashing off after her, so I figured I’d let her handle the rest. Me giving chase would just make things worse.
“Was is that mortifying?” I asked the squealing brownies, and they all gave me a thumbs-up.
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I left the gifts I’d brought Ms. Aaze with the brownies and headed back to the Azure Land.
I’d given Bandage orichalcum samples not just to Keze but to Saaze and the Bolenan research elves as well.
If they looked into it, they’d figure out far more than I ever could.
Back in the Azure Land, I forgot the improvements I’d been planning to make and joined my party in the hunt for the fairy bee hives. I even brought Zena and Karina in to help reach the number they needed.
After that, I spent a while incorporating Autoequip/Dequip functions into the golden and silver armors and moving the exoarmor and optional gear into the final design phase. After some trial and error, I wound up with three types of exoarmor—the Attacker model for the front lines, the Gunslinger model for artillery support, and the Caster model that boosts magic.
Whether that helped or we’d just hunted the monsters in the Azure Land ruins region to nigh extinction, I’m unsure—but my party all hit level 65, and we threw a huge party.
I’d been disguised as Akindoh when I met Zena and Karina, but perhaps it was about time I headed back to Shiga as Satou.
But no sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I heard a bat screeching.
“Master, what is it?”
“Roro’s in trouble.”
That signal came from the familiar I had hidden in her Shadow.
“Crisis.”
“Master, what’s happened to her?” Lulu fretted.
“Sorry, that I can’t say. But don’t worry,” I whispered.
From what I could see on the map, the threat wasn’t to her specifically.
“Pochi, Tama, gather round!”
They’d been out collecting food and came back, the new silver armor blasters going full power.
“Master, ready to move out, I report.”
“Okay, then let’s do this!”
Back to the fortress city of Arcatia, where Roro awaited!