Editing The Unexplored Summon Blood Sign:Volume8 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

The relationship between summoner and vessel came in all forms, but for Government Award 913, Noble Bride, the summoner held the Blood-Sign and the vessel held the Incense Grenade. That avoided any situation where a Material was summoned without warning, causing a panic.

When the knight grabbed her long weapon and began swinging it around, Sinceria nonchalantly tripped her and nodded to Kyousuke who took Olivia and left the somewhat panicked party hall. Since the head of state stuck her tongue out and waved, Kyousuke felt some sympathy for the knight who had tripped quite spectacularly in public. He decided it might be best to send her a gift.

Yes.

She could be a real pain in the ass, but that knight had done nothing wrong. There was something wrong when the world made a fool of someone so diligent. He had to make up for that.

In his dress clothes, Kyousuke grabbed a small briefcase from the cloakroom and returned to his search of the ship with Olivia in her dress.

“…This one could be tricky. Rye and corn cereal can have too strong a flavor for beginners. But rice is too plain, so it might not feel like she’s really eating anything. Granola, acai, chia seed, quinoa… Those wouldn’t work either. You need to be familiar with the fundamental spirit of cereal before you can appreciate those. Yes, it would be best to go back to the basics for a gift.”

“Onii-chan, what are you muttering about?”

“If I take six small packages and arrange them in a paulownia box to look like a luxury item… Eh heh heh. I hope Rachel likes it.”

Once they got started, it went quickly.

Kyousuke and Olivia returned to the commercial area full of restaurants and shops and they made their way to the small industrial elevator for the food carts.

“We’re finally back on track…”

“Onii-chan, you sound like you just aged a whole bunch.”

“And whose fault might that be?”

Much like a turntable parking garage for a multi-tenant building, they opened a vertically sliding door and climbed down the long shaft with a ladder. This allowed them to sneak into Toy Dream’s giant VFX studio on the bottom level without passing through the security gates.

“Honestly, if only we could have done this from the beginning.”

“Yeah, who would have thought we would run into my mom here? Maybe she gives off some kind of force that draws people to her.”

Kyousuke could not argue with the idea that powerful people and rulers had a unique attraction. It was not an issue of logic. It would always remain a mystery to the sociology professors who envied that inborn talent and desperately worked to analyze how it worked. It did exist. Because the White Queen had the power to distort both worlds and she waited far, far beyond those other people.

After creeping out from the elevator, they found yet another new atmosphere. It was dim because the lights were intentionally kept low. But why? This was a VFX studio where workers were constantly staring at screens, so would outside light reflect off the LCD monitors and would differences in brightness cause their eyes to adjust unnecessarily when they moved between the room and the hallway? Was it meant to avoid any discrepancies in how different staff members saw the colors?

Swordsmiths used heating and cooling in a battle against heat to refine the quality of the steel, so the slight disturbance in room temperature from opening and closing a door could ruin an entire sword. In cutting-edge VFX production, color and light may have reached that same level.

That said, not every artist and illustrator that specialized in coloring would necessarily be that picky.

But Toy Dream would invest 30 billion in a single movie, so they would apparently go that far when it came to choosing a single shade of color. Ordering room service instead of heading up themselves would be a way to limit the number of times they reset their senses outside this specialized environment. The strict security gates may have mostly been a way to keep out any unnecessary light.

Kyousuke carefully observed the dim corridor before returning to the food cart room and opening his briefcase’s latch.

“Olivia, it’s time to change. It looks like our personal clothing would blend in better than a work jumpsuit. Let’s return to normal.”

“Yes, yes. But won’t someone my age stand out no matter what I’m wearing?”

“I saw a girl of about 8 walking around with a cooling sheet on her forehead, so education and age aren’t what matter here. Still, it’s scary to think that was one of the top runners supporting films that cost 30 billion each…”

There was no partition here, so Kyousuke decided to change back to back, but once he removed his jacket, he realized Olivia was staring right at him. Amaterasu Kyousuke opted to retreat into the elevator shaft.

With the sun gone, Olivia spoke from beyond the metal door.

“Onii-chaaaan, I’ve learned my lesson, so come on out.”

“I haven’t heard any clothing rustling. I know you’re waiting for me in the nude, so just get changed already.”

“Tch.”

After a while, she called out to him again.

“Onii-chaaaan, I’m all done.”

Kyousuke opened the cave entrance to find Olivia in her school swimsuit, decorative collar, floral pareo, and straw hat. She was adjusting the swimsuit where it was riding up on her small butt. She would betray him in obvious ways, but she was an obedient child who would quickly change when called out.

“Hand your other clothes here. I’ll put them in the briefcase.”

“Okay.”

A small piece of cloth was suddenly dropped into his hand.

At about the size of a small steamed bun, it was a balled-up pair of panties.

“Olivia…”

“You’re the one that insisted I wear them back in the leisure room. This was your request, so you take care of it. Hee hee hee. They’re still warm, aren’t they?”

She had the look of a mischievous little devil.

He wanted to punch himself 30 seconds ago for thinking she was obedient. This may have been a sign that she had Sinceria’s blood in her veins. All expression vanished from his face as he shoved the dress, panties, and shoes in the briefcase.

The silence must have been overwhelming because Olivia pressed her legs together and fidgeted.

“Huh? It didn’t work?”

“It’s time you learned that not everyone will be swayed by someone’s charm. Even if you follow Sinceria’s example.”

He got back to work with that woman’s daughter.

They were inside the “authorized personnel only” area located past security, so they could not rely on the map they had bought ahead of time. This entire area was blank on the map, so they had to do the investigation work themselves.

Unlike the higher levels, the corridors took labyrinthine paths here, so the layout must have prioritized the location of equipment over convenience of movement. The walls were generally made of glass, so they could see into the offices. A single staff member would be staring at several monitors spread out in a fan shape, using a pen-shaped device while also using keyboard shortcuts, or putting on VR goggles and turning their head every which way. Kyousuke recalled that the backgrounds made using System Atlantis were high enough quality for someone to walk around inside them.

If Kyousuke and Olivia could see them, then they could see the two of them. Since no one sounded the alarm, either their casual clothes were working or the workers had lost all interest in the real world after working so many days in a row.

Olivia pointlessly clung to Kyousuke’s back to sneak around for no real reason.

“They’re eating something weird. It looks like birdseed… Is that some kind of celebrity food?”

“Tch. …They went for something more fancy without learning anything about standard cereal first?”

“I thought everyone who worked with videos would eat blueberries. To keep their eyes healthy.”

“Is it even true that they heal your eyesight?”

At the very least, they had never been popular among summoners who placed a lot of focus on their physical eyesight.

Then the double blonde braid girl seemed to shift her focus from the glass-encased booths to the corridor they were walking down.

“What are those? They don’t look like statues.”

“Industrial clay. I think these are clay models made using 3D machine tools. They make a physical test model to make sure the product of their data doesn’t have any mistakes. I’ve also heard that they make these when developing cars or Repliglass.”

Kyousuke answered while they passed by a clay aerial aircraft carrier sitting on a rectangular pedestal in the center of the corridor.

…This kind of equipment had gotten a lot cheaper with the spread of 3D printers that used plastic, but when the quality had to be on the level of a car development model, a single mass of clay would cost several million yen. This was apparently another part of the production where they spared no expense.

The crank-shaped passageway took several right angle turns. Kyousuke and Olivia were after the original data for the war promotion videos, so those areas that stuck out unnaturally were exactly what they wanted to find. They passed by the occasional genius who staggered down the hallway like a zombie, but Kyousuke eventually used his multi-tool’s knife to swiftly pry open a lock.

They found a room lined with what looked like refrigerator-sized tombstones.

The room was as mercilessly chilly as a supermarket’s vegetable section and Olivia more or less only wore a swimsuit, so she held her shoulders and shivered.

White breaths left her mouth as she spoke to Kyousuke’s back while he connected a cable to his mobile device and one of the machines.

“O-O-Onii-chan… Did you find what you wanted?”

“No, it looks like it isn’t here. But wait…could this mean…?”

He pulled the cable out and checked a few more rooms while Olivia trembled. One room had a large metal sphere with thick cords attached from every direction, one had a latticework shaped like a fancy cookie that had tons of small processors inside, and another had a box submerged in a chilled pool surrounded by reinforced glass. No two devices were the same, but Kyousuke’s expression remained clouded.

“O-ohhh. The fluctuating temperature is affecting my crotch… A-are you done yet, Onii-chan?”

“This is odd.”

Kyousuke’s comment made it clear this was going to take longer than expected.

And he gave no thought to Olivia’s personal crisis as she fidgeted beside him.

“Looking at the machine specs, there’s no way this has the processing power to support a 30 billion yen film. These have to be no more than terminals and relay points. It’s more like an online cloud service. Is System Atlantis not actually on the ship?”

“How much longer is this going to take? If I was in a large pool, I would probably secretly let my spine tremble and enjoy the feeling of release…”

“But what other location are they communicating with? If they have a direct hotline to eliminate the risk of the signal being intercepted…oh, so that’s it.”

Kyousuke reconsidered the situation, came up with a new theory, and got to work.

Meanwhile, Olivia waved a hand in the corner of his vision, gave up on him, and snuck out of the machine storeroom.

And after a while…

“Yes, that is what’s happening… Oh? Olivia, where did you get off to?”

“Sigh. So there’s one of those in the disaster relief bag. I might need to take drastic measures soon.”

They both had extremely serious expressions.

“This means the ship only carries the production staff and the screens needed to remotely control everything. System Atlantis itself is somewhere else. There are more computers here than a domestic company could ever hope to afford, but they’re all used to relay the signal from somewhere else.”

“Huh? But then why make the studio into a ship? Wasn’t that to keep the studio moving so the supercomputer isn’t fixed to one place? I don’t know if it’s in the jungle or the desert, but what’s the point of the ship when someone can just attack the main supercomputer?”

“Yes, that’s why they have a hotline set up, but the mainframe is still ''with the ship''.”

“…?”

Olivia looked puzzled and Kyousuke pointed straight down.

And he spoke.

“It’s in a submarine. They exchange data with it using a geomagnetic field coil that can maintain high interference even in the water.”

Olivia blinked silently for a while.

“Geomagnetic…field?”

“The concept itself isn’t so rare. Anti-sub buoys can apparently detect one hiding down to about 1000 meters below the surface. They drop a giant coil into the ocean and use the disturbance in the earth’s own magnetic field to locate the submarine. As long as neither side emits any dangerous EM or sound waves, that can be modified to detect tiny magnetic disturbances just by typing on a keyboard wired up within the ship. It’s kind of like a modern form of telepathy.”

She did not react much to his explanation.

She may have been unable to keep up with something on so large a scale.

“I imagine they would have just put everything on the sub if it would have fit. Compared to a ship floating on the surface, a submarine below the surface has to be made more compact. …Well, technically they could build an extraordinarily large submarine, but once the sound of it parting the seawater passes a certain point, it might as well be announcing its location.”

That was why they had hidden the valuable System Atlantis in the ocean and then built a separate ship for the staff workplace and living space.

…If they ran into trouble, they could sacrifice the staff on the surface and sneak the mainframe away to safety.

Kyousuke took a slow breath.

“It’s lucky we used a small submersible to get onboard… Olivia, we have no more business on the ship. Let’s find a way to get to the nuclear sub below here. That’s where we’ll find the original data we want.”

Just then, a deep noise rang out and all the lights turned red. This alarm overruled the dimmed lighting meant to protect he staff members’ eyes.

Their infiltration may have been discovered…but Kyousuke could not think of any reason why.

Which meant…

“Olivia, what did you do while I wasn’t looking?”

“I-I-I-I-I didn’t do anything yet!! There was a portable toilet in the disaster relief bag, but I didn’t know how to open the package. I got distracted trying to open it and then I found I didn’t need it as badly anymore. See, I can jump and hop around just fine. So I didn’t do anything!!!!!”

Kyousuke did not know why she was arguing so insistently it made her red in the face, but someone must have noticed something out of place in the break room. Sensitive people would notice a single chair out of place at a long table or a slight movement of the salt shaker or sugar jar.

There were rules unique to infiltrating an indoor location, much like worrying about footprints or broken branches in the jungle. Simply put, leave no sign of your presence in enemy territory. That mostly meant not to touch anything unless you had to, but he must have failed to drive that point home with her.

He clicked his tongue, unhooked the cable, and lightly cracked his neck. It was time. If System Atlantis was not here, they had no further business on the ship.

Olivia had grown quite tearful and she asked a question in a barely audible voice.

“…What should we do, Onii-chan?”

“At this point, there are no safe and clever plans to rely on.”

Kyousuke let out a short breath and reached for his back.

He pulled out his Repliglass Blood-Sign called Phosphorous and lightly patted Olivia’s small head over her straw hat to comfort her.

“We break our way through and run away.”