Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume8 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 3===

It was essentially the same as when they had first arrived on the space station.

The defeated Boy A and his vessel would be safe as long as they were floating inside the station where they had artificial air to breath. The problem was Kyousuke and Olivia. The Chain state only lasted 90 seconds. But reestablishing the Artificial Sacred Ground against the Colorless Little Girl would be like stripping off your clothing and entering the lion cage.

Each passing second was a painful loss.

While the protective circle was in effect, Kyousuke and the giant spear that was Olivia hurried inside Toy Dream OP-01’s airlock.

“Bwah!!”

Kyousuke finally took a deep breath once he was inside the badly-damaged space station. The entire station was unnaturally twisted and it was noticeably tilting in one direction. Whether it was thrown out into space or burned up in the atmosphere, it would not last long like this.

“…Onii-chan…”

“Let’s tie up War Criminal while he’s defeated. Then we need to get to the control room. None of this is over. The Colorless Little Girl is still floating out there in the vacuum of space.”

“What are we even doing anymore…?” She sounded on the verge of tears. “The Silver Resource War has already started. ''With the supposed mastermind passed out in here!!'' Look over there!! You can already see the fires burning!! This is past the point of the videos or Illegal mattering. So what is our goal!?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

But Kyousuke spat out a response.

For the time being, he could not hear the threatening calls of “Nii-sama”. She was still floating out there with nothing to protect her, but did this mean all direct threats to Kyousuke had been eliminated?

It was only her targeting ability that was broken.

She would not go off unless she had her finger on the trigger.

…Or was that as naïve an assessment as the White Queen worshippers had made?

“''Then we just have to stop that war. Olivia, we can freely control beings that surpass the mythological gods.''”

He said it so readily that it did not sound real to Olivia at first.

Her face crumpled up in a way that left him unsure if she was smiling or crying.

“…That’s easier said than done.”

It was like a groan.

Her unsteady voice sounded like a sob.

“I would love to do that… That’s why we dived to the ocean floor, launched ourselves into space, and worked so hard. But it wasn’t enough!! Wasn’t that weird video supposed to be what mattered!? I thought we could keep the war from starting if we put a stop to that!!”

The other side was writing the rules of the game, so Kyousuke and Olivia’s goal had been to stop that.

But this was not a sports tournament with a referee ensuring the rules were followed.

The other side had ignored them.

They had ignored their own rules and forced their pieces across the game board.

Reality could be surprisingly careless, it was made to benefit the strong, and it allowed for all sorts of unfair things. Prove a thug wrong with an airtight argument and they would only click their tongue and burn you with the end of their cigarette. This was another example of the hopelessness of reality. Kyousuke knew this all too well after being manipulated by the White Queen so often.

But he had not broken.

Why was that?

“…There is just one power that can resist this kind of unfairness.”

He was not looking down on her as he gave her advice.

Right now, Olivia was the same as Kyousuke. She had followed the rules and supposedly snagged a come-from-behind win, but that victory had been unfairly snatched from her. This was her heart nearly breaking under the weight of the overwhelming sense of futility.

He had overcome this same thing himself, so he understood.

This was only an illusion. It was a transient delusion. In the truest depths of her heart, there was a part of her soul that had not broken.

He was sure of it.

“Listen, Olivia. Remember your purest feelings. Why was it you came out here beyond the ends of the earth? Was it because I told you to? Was it to live up to your mother’s expectations? ''No.'' You had your own reason. And if you remember that, you can still fight. It doesn’t matter who you’re up against.”

“You can’t overcome this kind of thing with willpower!!”

“Look,” cut in Shiroyama Kyousuke.

He had tasted the dirt time and time again and that was why he did not hesitate.

“Look, Olivia. Remember what drives human beings. This isn’t about those that lurk beyond the gods. Remember what it is that drives those of us born with our feet planted on the earth! That is enough to change the world. This isn’t silly idealism. I have experience telling me it is a hard fact and it’s what allowed me to make it this far while up against that hopeless White!! Is that not enough proof for you!?”

Kyousuke pointed at one of the monitors that were everywhere in the space station. System Atlantis had been the top priority, but since it was a giant station and not just a satellite, it also had observation equipment and experiments set up.

So it also functioned as an observation satellite looking down on the earth from the heavens.

“…Eh?”

Olivia’s initially angry eyes pursued the image and then filled with thought after a flash of surprise.

Nothing she was seeing made any sense.

It was even more unreasonable than the US Army forcibly sending its game pieces into war.

The vantage point on the screen was unfamiliar, but the location was quite familiar to her. With an overhead view like on a paper map, she saw Kingdom F in East Europe. She saw a stone city surrounded by mountains. The veil of black clouds was actually dark smoke blowing in from somewhere. It was a tiny area from the perspective of those who ruled the world economy, but it was the most important scene to Olivia Highland.

And beyond that black stain, something had filled a small plaza and the large road.

“It…can’t be. Why…?”

A middle-aged man held a clearly outdated rifle. A housewife carried a handgun that was lacking in power even for self-defense. Children no older than Olivia were gathered around a forcibly-modified tank. These were not trained soldiers. More and more doors opened while a flower shop owner, a church’s nun, and other ordinary civilians flooded the streets.

Countless flags were waving.

They were the flag of Kingdom F – of the Flanguild Permanently Neutral Kingdom.

“No, no, no!! If you show intent to fight, they won’t be able to stop!! If you point at us royals and call us tyrants, they might at least spare your lives!!”

“Kingdom F uses a universal conscription system. If another country attacks, the ordinary people will take up arms along with the specially-trained knights. Rachel explained that, remember?”

“I know about that system!! But that’s not the point! Kingdom F is done for anyway, so they don’t have to follow its rules. They can forget all about the musty old royal family. If they just surrender and accept the new era, they might not have to risk their lives here!!!!!!”

Olivia had gone pale as she shouted her protests, but her voice could not reach the people on the monitor.

In addition to the people in the streets, there were also some figures racing along the roofs of the stone buildings. Those would be the knights who used the Summoning Ceremony in Kingdom F.

Everyone would know the end result of a fight with a superpower.

But they still did not raise their hands in surrender.

There was only one response here.

“Olivia. They’re doing this because they want you and your mother to have a home to return to.”

This time.

This time Olivia seemed unable to reflexively snap back at him.

For one thing, Queen Sinceria and Princess Olivia were out of the kingdom at the moment. Preserving the bloodline did not require defending the kingdom’s land with the people’s lives.

So it was not about the individuals.

Protecting the system of monarchy was not enough for them.

They could not stand to have nothing but rubble remain when Olivia Highland returned home. They wanted to protect the scenery of Kingdom F and all the memories it contained.

That was all.

All those people were putting their lives on the line for a formless feeling like that.

“I don’t understand.” Olivia’s voice was trembling. “The knights and chamberlains might be steeped in the Summoning Ceremony, but the normal people don’t even know what we look like. They might casually greet us if they see us in the city, but they forget all about us the second they look away. It isn’t an issue of how warm or cold hearted they are; that’s just how it works. So why would they go this far?”

“That’s right, Olivia.”

Kyousuke did not reject that with some nice-sounding words.

This was not some silly story where they miraculously remembered for no reason.

There was no need to trick her with empty words.

“That means they’re throwing away their lives ''for someone they’ve never even seen''. They’re relying on the legends of the ‘musty old royal family’ you mentioned. They’re desperately clinging to the outlines of what they must protect and struggling despite knowing their efforts will never succeed.”

“…”

Olivia stared silently at the flat-screen monitor as Kyousuke continued.

“When a large country wants to complete an invasion all at once, they make a blitzkrieg strike meant to be quick but decisive.”

He was not predicting their destruction.

They needed an accurate picture of the situation if they were to overcome the actual threat.

“They will of course secure air superiority, but their first act will be destroying the communication network. Next, they will destroy the main defense facilities with cruise missiles and rockets. Last, the actual soldiers and tanks will sever the supply line to isolate the target’s cities and fortresses. For large countries, a war isn’t a head-on clash. They do not use the number of enemies killed to judge success. They use the number of allies that survived. So they will always arrange things such that the enemy simply can’t choose to use their full strength. For the politicians in Washington DC, the enemy isn’t the foreign generals and heroes; it’s the voters watching TV in their living rooms.”

“What…what does that matter?” muttered Olivia without even turning around.

She could not take her eyes off the scene playing out on the monitor.

“You’re basically saying they’re going to attack my home all they want, aren’t you? Even though we haven’t done anything wrong and we’ve never even heard of the East Europe Axis?”

“This is still the first phase. They’re targeting the mountains that surround Kingdom F as a natural fortress. Kingdom F is a landlocked country surrounded by mountains. They aren’t going to start a mass slaughter immediately after destroying the communication network. First, they should focus on destroying the radar sites along the mountain ridges and the pylons for the high-voltage lines running along the slopes.”

“So…”

“…You don’t get it?”

Kyousuke reached over her shoulder and touched the screen to draw her attention to another part of the satellite image.

“Then let’s check the carbon dioxide distribution. There’s a lot of dark smoke, but I don’t see any urban areas on fire. This is all being blown in from the natural fortress of the mountains. ''So they’re only attacking unmanned facilities for the first phase.'' It’s caused a widespread wildfire and that looks pretty shocking, but the actual population density is zero. There still haven’t been any human victims. It’s only the empty mountains that are burning. If we stop it here, the targets of this baseless war can keep their lives!!”

He distinctly heard a gasp.

Olivia’s small shoulders jumped while she viewed the wildfire footage with her back to him.

“Really…?”

“Yes.”

“We can really save everyone in Kingdom F…?”

“Yes!! We can do it. The two of us can save them. You can do more than shout ''help me''! This time, Olivia, you can race to the scene with me as Alice (with) Rabbit!!”

She was so close, but he did not place his hands on her shoulders.

Right now, she did not need comfort for a weak soul.

If he made that mistake, she would rot away. Just like the White Queen’s sweet words and charisma had provided an indiscriminate sense of security to so many people.

So…

“Turn around, Olivia!! With your own strength!! If you’re going to live up to the lifestyle of Freedom Award 903 with me, then face reality and change it with your own hands!!”

Olivia rubbed her eyes with her small hands.

After jewel-like tears scattered through the zero-g space station, she turned around. She turned from the monitor displaying the coming destruction and looked instead to Shiroyama Kyousuke’s face.

They looked each other in the eye.

He saw the willpower there.

“…What should I do…?”

The kingdom’s princess faced the harsh reality once more.

No.

The look on her face was not that of a fairy tale princess simply hoping to be rescued.

“What are we going to do? How can we save everyone? Hurry up and tell me! Hurry!!!!!!”

“That’s obvious. They’re the ones that changed the rules. So instead of remaining prisoners of that video, let’s change the phase itself.”

Revenge-obsessed Biondetta had once called herself a whispering demon.

Then what was Shiroyama Kyousuke as he answered the no-longer-tearful girl?

Whatever he was, he proposed an answer far more repulsive than a demon addicted to bathing in blood.

He did not even hesitate.

“''Let’s take a shortcut along the most direct route. Let’s drop Toy Dream OP-01 from the sky and hitch a ride straight to the Silver Resource War.''”

The summoner and vessel were in motion once more.

The LCD screen behind them displayed countless fluttering flags that represented the majesty and pride of the Flanguild Permanently Neutral Kingdom.

And those flags had some text written on the edges with spray paint or thick permanent markers.

“It is to answer the cries for help that I fight.”

The boy and girl spoke in unison.

“As do we: as you wish.”

“As do we: as you wish.”

She would no longer rely on the words “help me”.

Olivia Highland would fight to protect a kingdom and become a true trump card.