"…Please give me some time," Cnoc na Riabh, who'd lost her homeland, said to Aoko with some sadness. "I need to discuss with my people—this isn't just my decision."
"I understand," Aoko nodded. "For naturally extending fairies, choosing where to live is important."
Whether good or wanton, fairies love freedom and joy by nature. Arriving in the Ark World, many couldn't wait to renovate their assigned homes and lands.
Some left Central City and Camelot to find small villages in the surrounding forests, while those who liked excitement opened various shops in Central City under Aoko's guidance—inns, stores, and even some restaurants with rather odd food.
Though the Ark World's fairies weren't many, they didn't need shop income to live. For them, work was more about keeping up their spirits, which mattered most.
The kind fairies adapted quickly, but the Ark World's new residents weren't without problems—namely, the humans who'd fled Fairy Britain with Morgan and Cnoc na Riabh.
Calling them humans wasn't quite right. These humans were imitations made by the fairies, using fragments of the horned god's priestess who'd been dissected alive.
These humans had many flaws—missing desires, short lifespans, and no ability to reproduce.
Fairies had made them purely for fun, to inject a bit of creative chaos into their otherwise stagnant spiritual world.
Aoko had two options for handling these people: one, send them into the Inner Sea of the Stars, where the environment would let these flawed imitations live longer and eventually die out on their own.
The other way was to rely on Touko and her unrivaled bioengineering skills to fix their flaws—though this method's downside was that Touko might not want to do such a troublesome job. But if successful, these humans could become Aozaki's most loyal vassals, a base for future power expansion.
Aoko hadn't yet decided on a perfect solution, but since there was no deadline, she could take her time.
Aoko estimated how long returning to Chaldea would take: about a month and only ten days had passed so far, so she still had more than half a month to spare…
Spare wasn't the right word. Aoko was quite busy—researching arcane and reorganizing the expanded Ark World, which helped with her urge to fiddle with large figurines.
Although she'd been down since Fairy Britain's destruction, Artoria had always stayed with her, and the magical books in the castle's library fascinated her. Over time, she recovered, even finding time to stroll down Camelot's streets and help residents with problems in their new environment.
The Round Table's humans and fairies still called Morgan their queen, but she felt lost—a queen without land, was she a queen?
So, they found Aoko, who was researching magic in her workshop and brought in the fairy leaders who'd stay in the Ark World to discuss things.
At the meeting, it was decided that Aoko was the absolute owner of the Ark World—without her, none of the fairies would have survived, so no one questioned this.
But fairies and humans still needed some governing body, and Morgan felt unfit to continue as queen, so she suggested forming an Ark Council.
The council would manage and coordinate the fairies and residents, and all internal affairs among them. Major decisions would be put to a vote.
Aoko and Artoria would also have seats, and in the foreseeable future (Knight Gareth had been named and could now truly predict the future, though her ability was unstable), Touko and Alice would join too. The girls of the Kuonji mansion weren't considered for now—politics is for adults, let children just have fun!
Once announced, everyone—humans and fairies—agreed. Some fairies still wanted Morgan as their queen but respected her decision. In the end, Morgan kept her Queen title, and they played at constitutional monarchy in the Ark World.
The Winter Queen finally became a political mascot.
After a long journey, Aoko finally dragged the Ark World back to her room in Antarctic Chaldea. She'd stopped briefly in 7th-century Britain to drop off Consort Yu and Pepe, then returned to the modern era with the others.
…
About a week had passed since she left.
Aoko secretly contacted her clone, Asimi, who'd been pretending to be her for the week. As soon as their minds linked, Asimi nearly burst into tears.
"Waaah, why did you take so long!" Asimi sobbed. "Those humans kept asking me questions I couldn't answer—I nearly slipped up!"
Aoko comforted Asimi while asking what had happened that week.
According to Asimi, since Pepe and Beryl disappeared from the near-future observation lens Sheba, Marisbury had been pulling his hair out. At this rate, he'd go from a handsome disabled middle-aged man to just a regular Mediterranean type.
After confirming Marisbury's observation range, Aoko relaxed. She had sent Consort Yu and Pepe back a little later than Chaldea's observation window, so after returning, she could brief Marisbury and the others, pointing out Consort Yu and Pepe's whereabouts after the fact.
Sure enough, after Aoko pointed it out, many Chaldea staff gazed at her in awe—"As expected of a Magician!" Even the usually stiff Marisbury secretly relaxed.
Though Beryl, their star player, was lost, this Rayshift mission was a success. After all, it was a journey to the Age of Gods; a higher death rate for modern magi was only natural, right?