In Lacus Clyne's world, the total human population was roughly fifteen billion.
Meanwhile, the population of PLANT and ZAFT was only around sixty million. As the daughter of the Speaker, and with the halo of being a songstress on top of that, it could be said that more than ninety percent of Coordinators adored Lacus.
As for Naturals, despite years of incitement and jealousy toward Coordinators, Lacus was still extremely popular among them as well.
Even in the Atlantic Federation, which hated Coordinators the most, she still had plenty of fans.
More importantly, not all Naturals hated Coordinators that much in the first place. In the end, it was largely the result of media guidance and public opinion manipulation.
The nations that made up half of Earth's population did not hold such intense hostility.
Especially the countries that had not joined the Earth Alliance at the beginning. They normally received quite a lot of technical and material support from PLANT, so they were relatively friendly toward PLANT.
That also meant Lacus had even more fans in those countries.
In other words, if Lacus helped promote Kain's livestream content, then at least more than half of humanity would be able to see it.
And one had to remember that Kuroneko's current derivative rebroadcasts of his streams, while very popular, had only barely reached the level of the hottest anime in her own country.
As for influence beyond that country, it was much harder to control.
Even so, that had already brought Kain roughly two hundred star coins in profit share.
Adding the roughly one hundred he had earned from his own streams, he currently had a little over three hundred left.
Correction.
He still had to deduct the one hundred coins it had cost to reopen a larger storage space after returning to the past and bringing the Fury Interceptor over to A2's world again.
That left him with only two hundred and seventeen coins.
So if Lacus helped with derivative rebroadcasts too, then even with a fifty-fifty split, earning over a thousand should still be easy enough.
But that was not the main reason she had come to him.
What she really wanted was for him to go over there and help.
His strength alone probably would not make a huge difference in the face of a large-scale war.
But if he could bring sufficiently powerful weapons with him, then that would be another matter.
Lacus Clyne was most likely thinking along those lines. As long as there were enough energy coins, the storage space could be upgraded to something larger. At that point, even bringing over an interstellar warship would not be impossible.
"Commander, these are the revised settings based on your ideas."
The voice sounded like a soldier giving a report, almost devoid of emotion, and yet it still carried a strangely glamorous quality.
Pulled back to the present, Kain looked toward the owner of that voice, a blonde woman dressed in something resembling a cheongsam.
She pushed over a tablet.
On it were data files for the various machine lifeform models currently in use, along with information on different android models.
There were also deployment layouts for the android and machine lifeform forces on Earth.
Using his memories of NieR: Automata, Kain had asked White to cooperate with him in organizing the planning materials for a NieR: Automata game project.
Of course, he was no professional. These materials would be handed over to Kuroneko's side, where Mio's sister would further process them and develop the game.
Now that this world had provided more detailed maps and information, that side should be able to make an even more polished AAA title.
As for the story setup, one of the endings was also going to adopt his Great Fraud of the Century.
That Great Fraud of the Century would be split into several endings. There would be Bad Ends, Happy Ends, and also an ambiguous ending, an open ending.
"Yeah, this is about right. A2, please pass the new materials to Kuroneko for me."
"Understood."
Not only the electronic files on the tablet, but also printed paper copies as backups were taken away by A2 and sent over.
"Commander, I have a request. A personal request."
When White said that, she showed the clearest emotional reaction Kain had seen from her so far, a mix of anticipation and unease.
She looked nothing like the cold, composed older-sister type she usually projected. Instead, she seemed almost like an immature girl who did not know what to do.
And this request seemed to be something she wanted to say to him alone, without A2 or 2B hearing it.
So in the end...
"This is the YoRHa production facility."
White had brought him here.
Was there some secret here after all?
"This way, please."
Kain followed White deeper inside until they entered a private room.
The moment he stepped in, he saw that the tank-like device in the room was not empty.
Inside was a body.
A body that looked exactly like the White standing before him.
"You're planning to turn yourself into a YoRHa unit?"
Kain was not surprised White would think along those lines.
But...
"This doesn't look like a pure YoRHa model."
He could tell something about that body was off. It seemed to contain a great deal of magicules.
"Yes. It also incorporates the magical technology provided by Mr. Emil."
If any human still existed in this world, then the Emil White was talking about was the true last human.
For certain reasons, he had become a magical weapon and survived to the present, and they had only found him on the very day the super-extremely giant self-destructive lifeform was destroyed.
And now White was immediately applying that technology to this new body. Clearly, she intended to use herself as the test subject.
In other words, if something went wrong during the transfer, she might truly die in the fullest sense.
So before that happened, she wanted him to fulfill some personal wish of hers.
"What is your request?"
Kain did not try to stop her from taking this risk.
He could tell she had already made up her mind.
"I... I want..."
Her expression looked even less like her usual self. She seemed unable to bring herself to say it, or perhaps her request was simply too outrageous.
"I..."
She closed her eyes, placed a hand over her chest, and took a deep breath.
When she opened her eyes again, the forceful command presence returned to her, and with a seductive smile she parted her lips and spoke a single English word beginning with S.
...
A2 and 2B waited outside the entire time.
Naturally, both of them were extremely curious about what Commander White wanted to say to the Commander.
An hour passed.
2B glanced at A2, her lips moving slightly as if she wanted to ask whether A2 knew what was happening, since A2 had a way to communicate directly with the Commander.
But seeing how calm A2 was, there was probably no problem. Commander White would never do anything to harm him.
And yet, for some reason, the longer the two of them stayed alone together, the more 2B found herself caring about what exactly they were doing inside.
Even 2B herself did not understand why she was becoming so restless.
Then, all at once, some of 6O's words replayed in her mind. 6O had warned her to watch out for the possibility that the Commander might "make a move" on him.
Could it be that inside, the kind of "move" 6O had talked about was really happening?
And as for what that kind of "move" meant, 6O had explained it in rather specific detail. Recalling that now left 2B feeling completely at a loss.
"Could the Commander really be making her move?"
She muttered those words without meaning to.
"Making her move?"
When A2 heard 2B's murmur, her expression changed slightly too, because 6O had also warned them to be on guard against Commander White "making a move."
Was she really doing that now?
Something like what Miss Saeko Busujima had done to the Commander during the stream A2 had watched before?
(End of Chapter)
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