Editing City Series:Volume5a Chapter2 (section)

===Berretta’s Journal: Today’s Entry #1===

Today I’m writing this in the library like always.

My mood has improved enough that I actually feel like writing something for once.

I definitely didn’t feel like wandering around outside for about 3 days after returning home from that commotion. The police showed up for a surprise inspection. They were apparently searching out all of the women in Paris with a Knight Striker license.

I was out that night, but my friends at the ''appartements'' got their story straight and saved me with a (false) alibi. But Mallette was really mad at me afterwards: “Why did you have to get back in the morning on that night of all nights?”

And yet she’s always bringing guys home to her room. Still, she heard about the surprise inspections in the market that morning, so she’s the one that saved me. I should buy her a tart on the way home today.

But I’ve learned that I really can use my grandma’s identity here. She infiltrated France on July 25, 1943, and her falsified documents were sent to Sorbonne University. According to those documents, she arrived in Paris just before the war and then studied as a student there for 3 years.

She did a lot for the year after that, but she’s disappeared for that year here. Because she wasn’t caught in the Format.

So here I am living that life for her.

The normal “exchange students” have to falsify a lot more and pretend to either be German or French, so I have it a little easier. (Although the exchange student management office had to run around preparing a period-appropriate spy dismissal document to make sure none of my grandma’s missions were sent to me.)

The Format, hm?

During the First Format, France decided that everything inside it was its own property and now everything (life and death included) is reset every year. But the people who weren’t in France during the First Format don’t appear in the world after the Format. So there are some people who always “go missing” each year just after the Format. According to the statistics from ’93, a total of 200,000 people escaped France between August of ’43 and the First Format. The only reason so many people going missing only causes a small commotion is due to the German occupation.

People apparently get “purged” from time to time, so it isn’t strange for a neighbor to just disappear.

The most unfair part is what happens to the people who died between August ’43 and August ’44. Their deaths became a part of the Format and they’ve died 54 times at this point.

Phillip Missel is one of those. He’s from the former Chevalier de Paris family which bears the Signe de Épée and he lives a double life as both a part of the Resistance and an honorary officer in the German army. But during the Resistance uprising on August 1, he is killed by Lieutenant Colonel Heinz Berge’s Barrel.

After spending some time with him I’ve realized that it’s always the good people who end up dying like that.

Everyone looks at him with scorn because they see him joining the German army as a betrayal, but I’m sure he’s gathering intelligence for France right now.

However, I can’t tell anyone that and we ended up getting into a fight over that misunderstanding. We found out we had more than just school in common, like foods we like, and I even let him kiss me, but he has his reasons for this and I can’t stop him.

But to be honest, I expect that’s for the best. I dated him out of curiosity, but it’s not anything more serious. Plus, he’s going to die on August 1 this year. And even if he wasn’t, I’ll be sent back to my original age during the 54th Format on the 6th and then I’ll never be able to get back inside France.

I think it may be for the best to keep our relationship as it is.

Oh, but everyone’s having a get-together today, so he might come to that. Hmm, what should I do?

Let’s change the subject. This is a journal meant to gather my thoughts, not a Sign document.

Now, then. I made the request before, so I’m allowed down to the 3rd level of the library basement. But I’m apparently terrible at Pointing. Just when I thought I’d found the book case I was looking for, I found out I tricked myself with my own Sign. I ended up asking the librarian lady for help.

There’s something I have to look into.

But first, I think I’ll do my usual ritual before studying: Pointing the preface to M. Schrier’s bestselling children’s book Death Techno Compilation Volume 7.

<Preface:

There is still plenty in this world that science and logic cannot explain.

Explorers like myself have heard rumors of and seen traces left by lost techniques all over the world. In some cases, they were announced to the world once their existence was confirmed and in some cases they were sealed away.

The previous volumes of this compilation provided information on what I have uncovered and heard concerning the Death Techno that existed during the Obstacle Era or before. Volume 7 will provide simple explanations of the Death Techno that are said to have come into existence only after this City Era began.

The first I will present to you is a rumor spoken of in France of a steel giant that appears in the Morvan Mountains of Bourgogne where a black dragon lives. Several times during the Great War, German troops went missing after advancing into this region. During that same period of time, the local residents claim to have seen a giant moving through the forest and mountains at incredible speed.

I thought this might just be a local superstition, but France once worked on a certain project: the Attesor Project meant to build the strongest Barrel.

That project name was whispered of during the Great War, but no facts rose to the surface even after the war ended and it is said that France was simply trying to preserve its reputation as a long-time builder of Heavy Barrels. But is that really true?

After the war, quite a few French military technicians and officers realized that they were missing a few years of their memories.

And there were indeed German troops who went missing in the Morvan Mountains. The mountain pass that avoided the black dragon’s territory was the German army’s only choice, but it was also a place of fear.

Were they attacked by the dragon who simply decided to go on a walk, or was it the mysterious giant?

I have gathered all such records. I hope you will read all of this and decide for yourself if the Attesor Project actually existed, if it ever produced the strongest Barrel, and why that research has left no results behind if it did. Now, please read on.>

This book was published in ’41 and is the reason I came to France, so I always found myself reading through it. I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t happened across an old copy of this on the bookshelf at home when I was little.

The book doesn’t prove the existence of the Attesor Project. It provides the details of the German troops that went missing while invading Morvan, it tells how the people of Bourgogne found large footprints and signs of sword fighting in the mountains, forest, and rivers, and it ends with a Marshal of France denying the existence of the Attesor Project.

But I know that the Attesor Project existed.

I don’t know what it was or if it succeeded or failed. All I know is that almost everyone involved had their memories erased, that the research was done in Bourgogne, and that my great-grandfather Jack McWild led it as a technical officer sent in from America.

I came to France to investigate this. After all, the village of Herlde in the Bourgogne region was said to be located closest to the Attesor Project, but it was destroyed by a black dragon woken by the Germans stationed there on August 3, 1944. It is said that there were no survivors.

Where was the research facility hidden in that land? There are a lot of contradictions and mysteries here.

Speaking of mysteries, there’s one related to my grandma.

She gave me Jack McWild’s letter. All it has is the name Rose Francisca, so I have no idea where to send it.

I can’t seem to get permission to check through the records at the city hall, so it isn’t easy.

But I’m sure my grandma had waited 53 years, until the brown hair she got from my great-grandfather grew gray, to give this letter to someone like me. I’m sure she has her reasons.

I wonder how everyone back home is doing. I wonder if the Sein Frau maintenance is going well without me around to help. I wonder if those sad, suicidal American Sein Fraus are doing well. Come to think of it, there was that Rosetta girl in that mansion. Am I a little curious about her because I’m feeling homesick? Or am I legitimately worried about her?

Even in this era, Sein Fraus in America are targets of discrimination and sadly end up killing themselves. I’d hate it if her circumstances were similar. Once the heat has died down, maybe I should go meet her and that Heavy Barrel. Oh, Point.

<The current time is 4:30 PM.>

This isn’t sounding much like a journal entry anymore, so I should probably get going. I can stick these materials in my bag and stay up reading them in my room. I think I’ll stop by the florist and buy some flowers. I can throw them into the Seine near that warehouse in memory of everyone who died.

There’s no point in writing even more to gather my thoughts. I need to get going.