Belobog, Goethe Manor.
"...Mm, understood."
"Thank you. I'll be careful."
Slender fingers pressed lightly against the communicator at her ear, the one shaped like a Bluetooth earpiece; Topaz's clear blue eyes flickered between bright and dim, her lashes casting shadows across her cheeks.
The communicator's blue light winked out. Topaz let out a soft breath and instinctively reached to rub Numby, only to find her good partner wasn't at her side at all.
"Numby? Uh..."
Calling out as she scanned her surroundings, Topaz's gaze landed on the long table in the distance.
"...Hngji?"
A pair of chubby little paws, padded all over, slapped down onto the tabletop with a pat-pat, the ribbon-bow on its back quivering along.
"Hngji."
Stelle sat upright at the far end of the long table, ten fingers interlaced and propped against her chin, elbows planted on the table in the standard pose of Commander Ikari.
"Hrrm, hngji!"
Numby shook its head with all its might, the frequency of its table-slapping spiking sharply.
"Hng... hrrm, hngji, hng!"
Stelle straightened up in turn, her posture exactly like someone in the middle of a business negotiation.
Topaz watched the scene with a rather astonished look:
"You two are chatting away merrily, huh? Stelle, you can actually understand what Numby's saying?"
She and Numby were old partners, and going from first getting acquainted to being able to understand Numby's cries had taken her a very long time indeed.
"Mm. It wants to buy my trash can."
"Daga, kotowaru!"
Stelle spread both arms wide, knees tilting forward, torso leaning back, holding herself in a strange balance, as though about to embrace the sun.
"You'd lock the trash cans away in your own treasure vault, forbidding anyone else from leafing through them or exploring them—I know it! Every time you're done toying with a trash can, you never take responsibility! And the abandoned trash cans can only die all alone, one lonely can by itself."
"Only I—I will give every trash can a home!"
Stelle's tone rose and fell with cadence, brimming with emotion.
Topaz didn't understand it, but she was greatly shaken.
Bush, Jiemen—what time is it now, and she's still playing with trash cans!?
Surely there's something wrong with this gray-hair's head!
Topaz hastily scooped up Numby, who kept letting out 'hrrm, hngji' sounds.
Who the heck knew what kind of enchanting nonsense Stelle had poured into Numby's head.
The little guy had actually gone and bought a so-called limited-edition trash can right out of Stelle's hands; Topaz really didn't want to see some old, oddly-smelling trash can sitting in her room aboard the eco-ship.
"Have you figured out how you're going to handle this?"
Poking Numby's head and scolding it a couple of times, Topaz walked over to Caelus's side.
"Things have blown up pretty big—Oswaldo's leading the team in person."
Topaz pulled up a holographic image, the outlines of one steel behemoth after another surfacing in the projection:
"The Market Development Department's fleet is already mid-jump; it's expected to reach Jarilo-VI's orbit in eight hours."
"That's great, then."
Caelus leaned against the balcony's relief-carved railing, the coin spinning in his hand tracing a bright silver arc in the sunlight.
"The head of the Market Development Department should have the authority to pay back Belobog's maintenance fee, right?"
"..."
When the holographic projection from the palace next door relayed, word for word, what Caelus had said to Bryce, Topaz had assumed it was nothing more than one of Caelus's verbal gambits.
But meeting those golden eyes that clearly weren't joking, Topaz felt an electric shiver shoot from the nape of her neck up across her scalp.
"You're serious?"
Topaz opened her mouth, the corner of it twitching for an instant, not knowing what expression to make, her hands gesturing in the air.
"That fleet isn't a bunch of commercial ships carrying just a smidge of armament."
Yue'er's existence had genuinely caught Topaz off guard.
Not because of Yue'er's strength—as a senior cadre of the IPC's Strategic Investment Department, she had long grown used to maneuvering among powerhouses of every stripe. Even an existence approaching the 'Emanator' level was, in the eyes of the Ten Stonehearts, no more than a potential partner worth appraising.
What astonished her was the manner of Yue'er's appearance—born from the fusion of March 7th and Seele?
Topaz ran business all across the Galaxy; you could say she was worldly and well-traveled—what bizarre, outlandish scene hadn't she witnessed?
This one, she really hadn't seen before!
Yue'er was strong—that was an indisputable fact; she'd frozen the starships solid, brought the IPC's employees under control, and suppressed Bryce, all with ease.
But of the five starships Bryce had brought, three were commercial vessels. Bryce had never imagined anyone on Jarilo-VI would dare lay a hand on him; even if something went wrong, two armed escort ships would be more than enough to crush Belobog and bring it to heel.
Just as the Three-Body aliens could thrash Earth's civilization with a single Droplet.
Who could have known a mysterious powerhouse would suddenly pop out.
"The strategic warships are all equipped with a new weapon—the 'Liquidator' orbital bombardment module. Once it's activated, the entire surface ecology of Jarilo-VI will be annihilated."
And that's only one of them!
"Oh?"
Amid Rand-Duck's pale expression, Caelus's brow finally moved:
"That whatever-Liquidator orbital bombardment module you mentioned—how much is it worth?"
"Huh?"
The question left Topaz a little dumbfounded.
"What are you asking that for?"
"Asset appraisal, of course."
Caelus said it as a matter of course: "According to the IPC's regulations, if a debtor fails to repay within the enforcement deadline, the IPC has the right to skip the negotiation phase and directly take over their assets."
"I'm a man who plays by the rules, you know."
Caelus smugly patted his chest, as if conveying to Topaz: 'See? What a great guy I am—even in a situation like this, I still do things by the IPC's proper rules and systems!'
"That's an entire fleet, you realize? Don't you have any sense of crisis at all?"
Helplessly, Topaz ran her fingers through and mussed up her shoulder-length white hair, which she always kept smooth and sleek.
Topaz always presented herself with a cool, capable professional image; this casual gesture, one that would never appear in a formal setting, laid her complicated state of mind utterly bare.
"From the intel I've gotten, dozens of strategic warships alone have been deployed, and the actual number on-site is bound to be more than that figure."
These weren't the kind of small starships and armed escort vessels Yue'er had frozen in ice earlier; every one of them was a large-scale armed warship—the sort only hauled out during wartime.
Normally, for dealing with an ordinary planet, managing to pull out even one would be considered pretty good.
A full several dozen of them... It seemed that Yue'er's striking at Bryce and the starships, combined with Caelus's provocative move of turning around and demanding a debt from the IPC, had infuriated Oswaldo.
"What's more..."
Topaz looked toward March 7th—usually bursting with energy, but now hanging her little head, the pink bangs on her forehead stuck into damp strands by sweat—and Seele, who was eating cake to replenish her strength.
"That girl called Yue'er—can she make a move at any time?"
The earring fusion lasted only one hour—this was a piece of intel Caelus hadn't mentioned—but once the fusion's time limit was reached, the two of them automatically split apart.
Yue'er's energy expenditure was no small thing; never mind that she made capturing the starships look effortless, like a young girl frolicking and playing on a stage.
But to have the Six-Phased Ice freeze the starships just right without harming the precision components inside, the ice crystals had to dodge the power cabins with surgical precision—yet not avoid them entirely, or else those colossal hulks, robbed of propulsion, would turn into plummeting iron coffins.
Freezing and capturing consumed far more energy than simple destruction.
On top of that, before splitting apart, Yue'er had also used the Six-Phased Ice to restrain Bryce, to keep him from stirring up trouble.
"This one—nope. Ah Qi and Seele haven't gotten their rest back, so Yue'er won't be at her peak either."
Caelus shrugged indifferently.
"Is that so."
Topaz nodded; even if Yue'er could act at any moment, it still wouldn't be enough.
The configuration of the incoming fleet was nearly equivalent to waging an entire Border Star Trade War!
Even facing an opponent on the Emanator tier, as long as it wasn't the especially tricky type—an Emanator of too high a caliber—they'd still stand a chance of winning.
"Mind revealing your trump card?"
Caelus's utterly at-ease smile was reflected in Topaz's eyes; her willow-leaf brows stirred faintly. She knew this kind of smile well—like watching someone go All-In at the gambling table while casually whistling a tune.
Topaz was a little curious about just what Caelus was leaning on.
And, if things blew up any bigger, she'd have to report to Diamond and work out a few sets of emergency contingency plans.
"Y'know, I'm actually half a Genius Society member myself—would you believe it?"
Caelus's grinning words not only froze Topaz in place but also drew the gazes of everyone else.
"The Genius Society?"
Bronya had seen the term on the Galaxy network—it was very famous—she just had never looked into it in any detail.
"What nonsense—bragging again. If you could join the Genius Society, then This young lady could get a passing glance from Nous!"
March 7th tilted up her chin.
"I think that's pretty unlikely."
Stelle cupped her chin and shook her head: "They'd definitely look at me first."
"Look at you?"
Miss Haxxor Bunny tossed out a jab: "To appraise a trending internet critter?"
"I believe it."
Topaz's lips twitched as she broke into a smile:
"You and Miss Stelle could absolutely found a Genius Society of your very own."
If Caelus could become a 'Genius,' she'd eat up the entire unpainted other half of Jarilo-VI's ice and snow right then and there.
"Then what if I told you Herta and Ruan Mei both like me—lusting after my body—would you believe that?"
Caelus shifted his posture, folded his arms across his chest, and used his middle finger to push up the nonexistent glasses on the bridge of his nose.
"How about we just talk instead about how you plan to make Oswaldo repay Jarilo-VI's 1,145.14 quadrillion credits?"
Topaz's gut reaction in that first instant was that Oswaldo 'paying up' was far more likely than the words coming out of Caelus's mouth.
But then she recalled Asta saying that Madam Ruan Mei addressed Caelus as 'darling.'
Could they really be that kind of relationship?
A flicker of shock crossed Topaz's eyes, and she looked at Caelus with a reverent gaze—just what on earth did it take to make those Geniuses develop feelings like romance?
...
Several system-hours later.
"Whoa, what a huge show of force!"
Haxxor Bunny was the first to detect, through Aether Editing, the IPC fleet bearing down on the Jarilo star system; biting her lollipop, she couldn't help exclaiming aloud:
"Loaded and throwing their weight around, huh! Just a single business-expansion department, and they've actually got this many large space warships... If only I could fly one back to Arc City."
Then Shencheng Tech and Serpent's Eye would both kneel on the ground and have to call her 'Daddy'!
As for the Taixu Sect... she'd give Sister Hua some face.
"Bronie, can't you create things through projection? Once you've learned how, you can just project one yourself."
Stelle followed Haxxor Bunny's line of sight up at the sky, wobbling her head this way and that as she searched for the fleet's silhouette.
"You make it sound so easy..."
Haxxor Bunny pulled the classic Duck-Duck expression ( ?_?? ).
When it came to hacking, she was confident she'd become a universe-renowned hacker in short order, but projecting a starship... you couldn't quite say it was eternally out of reach, only that there was simply no end in sight.
Haxxor Bunny looked down at her own two hands:
"Projection power, oh projection power, you're already a mature ability—it's high time you put in the effort to grow on your own and create a starship."
Setting aside the meager output of her budget-version Herrscher of Reason ability, constructing a starship would require mastering every last bit of knowledge related to a starship—she might as well go off and dream; that'd be faster.
"Have a little confidence in yourself. Even if you don't believe in yourself, you've got to believe in Sensei—I, your Sensei, will definitely teach you to the point where you can construct a starship."
Caelus flicked the ear of Haxxor Bunny's hood.
"Hai hai hai, thank you, Sensei~"
Haxxor Bunny pitched her voice high, speaking in the tone of Theresa's magical-girl transformation, her perfunctory attitude making it plain she didn't believe a word.
"I see it! I see it!"
Just then, March 7th, hunched at the telescope set up on the palace balcony, let out a cry of surprise.
The telescope was, of course, one of the gifts from Asta.
"The IPC's fleet has really come!"
A swarm of warships: the small triangular vessels were nearly two thousand meters long, fitted with countless savage weapons; the large ones stretched a full four or five thousand meters, the surfaces of these steel behemoths plated in gold—that was the emblem of the IPC's Market Development Department.
"There aren't just dozens—the number's probably over a hundred!"
Sci-fi-esque light flickered in the seams of the steel, illuminating one massive gun-muzzle after another, brimming with violence and savagery, like a school of giant steel sharks roaming the starry sky, ready at any moment to gape their bloody maws and tear apart, hunt, and kill everything they came across.
"Oswaldo actually mobilized this many strategic-class ships!"
Topaz was getting a little flustered.
Caelus glanced at the holographic projection Haxxor Bunny was displaying, took out his phone, and unleashed the Trailblazer's ultimate skill.
[Fusion is a Man's Romance: You there?]
[Herta: [Auto-reply] Hello, I'm away on something at the moment, and I won't be getting in touch with you anytime soon either.]
[Fusion is a Man's Romance: I'm in a good mood right now. Remember that thing I mentioned before, the one that can influence an Aeon? I can let you experience it once—if you're interested, send your main body over.]
[Herta: ?]
[Fusion is a Man's Romance: Even so—still, it should net you more than that slice of inspiration cake did.]
[The Herta: Where are you right now?]
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