Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume3 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 5===

After asking Government Middleman Aika over the phone, she made the following suggestion:

“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you too. I would appreciate it if you could visit my apartment.”

“You can’t discuss it over the phone? But you shouldn’t have to worry about the encryption strength of this connection.”

“The Anthills are a bit of an embarrassment for us.” Aika sounded annoyed. “Between members of Government would be one thing, but I don’t want to leave behind any official records that I passed information to Freedom. Do you understand my situation now?”

That was why Kyousuke and Isabelle made their way to Aika’s luxury apartment.

Inside a living room large enough for a game of tennis, Swimsuit Girl Aika waited for them while lounging on the five meter white liger she used as a sofa. Perhaps to maintain her pride as a shut-in, she ignored the Delayed Walpurgis going on outside. She wore her swimsuit year-round.

“Welcome home, Onii-chan.”

“I told you I’m not going to bother complaining about that stuff anymore.”

“If anyone’s going to complain, it’s me.”

“?”

Kyousuke looked confused, so Aika pointed at him again and again while leaning against the wild beast.

Technically, she was pointing at the girl in a red military uniform standing next to him.

“How many times! Do I have to tell you!! This is a shut-in girl’s final stronghold!? Why would you so blithely bring another girl here, Onii-chan!? Come to think of it, it was the same thing with Olivia Highland!!”

Isabelle slowly tilted her head in her red hat.

“Then I have the perfect solution: you leave. Point(deadpan). This does not bother me even a small-sized amount.”

“Dbhloebgabrmdgrzvebrfehh!?”

Aika was so angry at having her shut-in territory not just invaded but nearly stolen that her limiter broke.

Kyousuke ignored it and tried to get back on track.

“I’ll ask you again: What are these Anthills that Lu-san mentioned?”

“Drfdrndrn!! Pant, pant. Wh-why would you mention her…!? And curse that hunk of fat. Where did she even get data on that?”

While Aika’s mind nearly stalled, the white liger must have been worried because she got up, raised her head, and licked the swimsuit girl with her giant tongue. But until an evil god arrived from some distant star, it would never look like anything more than the animal grooming the girl.

“Not so much, liger. Your tongue is rough and it hurts… But anyway. You could say the Anthills are Government facilities for mass producing vessels. But it’s more sinful than simple education. Studying at school is nothing more than adding knowledge and technique to the base of inborn talent.”

“Mass producing…vessels?”

“Government has come a long way in training summoners, but we are chronically lacking when it comes to vessels. The rookies are sent out as Repliglass soldiers and only those who can overcome the baptism of blood sans vessel can gain any power. But what if we found a way to solve that problem?”

“Constructed talent? That would mean…”

Kyousuke glanced over at the military uniform girl standing next to him.

Isabelle said nothing.

Aika shrugged and answered instead.

“A summoner’s skill increases with knowledge and technique, but a certain form of talent is everything for vessels. You could call it their talent as a spirit medium. Normally, that’s unchangeable and you have to recruit people based on their inborn foundation, but Government has started working on that field.”

“Artificially implanting people with spirit medium talent, you mean?” groaned Kyousuke.

A certain pair of twins came to mind. Higan’s family had hoped she would be an excellent summoner, but she had ended up living as a vessel due to being born with that talent as a spirit medium. Renge, a Joruri Method, had been artificially created in her place as the ideal summoner those around them had wanted.

Higan’s blonde hair and blue eyes had been the result of the various efforts her family had put into removing that talent.

If there were techniques to remove it, could they be converted into techniques to add it in?

“Onii-chan, do you remember the specialty of Maria Heartocean who you protected before?”

“Spiritual damage research.”

“This is a problem. I am being medium-sized…no, large-sized left behind here.”

“You can think of it as the troubles that get stuck to your soul. We still haven’t found a definition for the soul itself, but some researchers are trying to use this to work back to that truth. It’s like how we can’t observe a black hole itself, but we can search out its identity using the space-time distortions around it. Which means…”

“The unprofitable foundation of her research isn’t enough to raise the funding she needs. That’s why Maria dragged tons of money from the high officials by demonstrating some effective applied research that’s so simple even an idiot can understand its value.”

“…”

“The Anthills have two major benefits.”

Aika raised her index finger.

“First, they simply increase the number of vessels which strengthens our forces. After all, Government has so many rookie summoners that we have to send them out as Repliglass soldiers when they finish their training and don’t have a vessel to pair up with. Just giving all of them a vessel would destroy the current balance between the three major powers.”

She raised her middle finger too.

“Second, if we can increase the quality of their spiritual medium talent, they will be able to control the Materials with much greater accuracy. The most they can do now is direct the Material toward a target, but they would then be able to accurately dodge attacks and focus on critical attacks that target the Silhouette weak point. That could lead to upsets beyond the existing three-way deadlock and cost differences.”

However, there had to be more than just benefits.

For one, how exactly where they implanting this talent? Since it was linked to their ability to act as a medium for spirits, it had to be more than just drilling a hole in their skull and messing with their brain. It would require remaking them so completely that it could be medically called “changing who they are”.

And what would it mean to have extremely high talent as a spirit medium?

Even normal vessels had to wear collars, handcuffs, or other decorative restraints to manage the data port and prevent their body from being taken over by an evil or vengeful spirit. What if they grew even more sensitive to that? What if external measures were no longer enough? It was said some people in the West would have a portion of their stomach or cerebellum removed to lose weight, but when it did not fit their lifestyle, apparently quite a few of the patients would later ask the impossible and beg to be returned to normal. What if something similar was occurring in the field of spirit mediums?

“…”

“Why are you giving me that scary look? Hanyaaan(deadpan)???”

“No reason,” said Kyousuke as he shook his head toward the military uniform girl.

Would anything have changed had he known the details from the beginning? What good was it wondering now whether or not he should have saved the researcher?

“Anyway.” Kyousuke ended that line of thought and changed his focus. “After the incident at the airport, the Anthill in D Block was attacked. Given the timing, it doesn’t seem like they checked into a hotel in between. Unlike the Girl’s Backdoor incidents, it’s hard to imagine this is a diversion or bait. In fact, they probably tried to spread our focus with the Girl’s Backdoors because they knew they were taking such a direct route. We’ve finally found them. This is the original enemy. This is our enemy. ''Isabelle, this is your target.''”

“Hmm. If that algorithm is correct, Onii-chan, then you’ve figured out a fair bit, haven’t you?”

“Hunyuuun(deadpan)? I still don’t get it. Not even a small-sized bit.”

“A lot is at stake with these Anthills. Illegal and Freedom are in trouble if Government gets as many vessels as they want and Government might find enemies within their own ranks. For example, a skilled recruiter might lose their job if vessels can be mass produced so easily.”

Kyousuke then added a “but”.

“''Whoever this is'' isn’t able to restrain themselves. They know it’s risky, but once they saw their target, they took the quickest route there. If they had calmly calculated out what is at stake and decided crushing this project was worth it, they wouldn’t act like this. It feels like they’re acting on emotion rather than a calculated plan. But I also feel like they’re beautifying that emotion and using it to excuse their own lack of restraint. But at the same time, there’s none of the intense waves of an incubation period and an actualized period that you see in people with a lust for destruction. They’re keeping their cold flame burning at a set level.”

“Explain it so I can understand. Make it super-sized…super-sized simple.”

“What I’m saying is…”

Shiroyama Kyousuke smoothly answered.

He was finally putting together the algorithm as he viewed the true intent hidden in the forest of distractions.

“This is all about a desire for revenge. ''Isabelle, you can understand that, can’t you?''”