Location: the ruins of Nibelheim Village.
Thanks to Mr. Kain's aircraft, they arrived in less than half an hour. Tifa took him to visit the graves of her family and the rest of the villagers, then wandered around the area with him.
Looking at him beside her, Tifa moved her hand closer. She wanted to lace her fingers through his like lovers did, but being prone to shyness, she stopped halfway.
The next second, he took the initiative and held her hand, making her tense up.
Then Tifa slowly spread her fingers and slipped them between his.
He seemed to realize what she wanted, so he opened his fingers as well, letting their hands clasp tightly together.
"Um… Aerith said that in your study material, the person you liked most was 'Tifa.' Is that true?"
The moment Tifa asked the question, she felt as if something had gone wrong with her head. Why had she suddenly chosen that topic to break the silence?
"Uh! Hm?"
"What? You can't answer that question? And why are you so surprised?"
If he had been embarrassed, that would have been within Tifa's expectations. But why was he looking at her with such surprise too?
"I'm surprised you suddenly threw out a question like that. If it were Aerith, that little devil, I wouldn't find it strange at all."
"Aerith, a little devil? That's actually a pretty accurate description."
Only a devil would be bold enough to agree to the "taiji combination" Mr. Kain wanted.
After that, Aerith said she couldn't be the only one embarrassed and dragged Tifa into that same arrangement too, leaving her subjected to that kind of intimate teasing.
Now that she thought about it, Tifa felt her head starting to spin.
She quickly used the conversation to cut off the memories flooding her mind.
"So, can you answer the question I asked?"
"Yes. 'Tifa' was the one whose videos I watched the most. No matter how many times I watched them, I never got tired of them."
As he said that, he looked at her with a gaze so intense it seemed as if it might melt her, and Tifa's face flushed bright red in an instant.
"Then which Tifa do you like more? Which one is prettier?"
After Tifa followed up with that question, he did not answer. Instead, he reached out and touched her forehead.
Tifa understood what that meant. He seemed to think she might have a fever, and that was why she was acting so strangely. This was not the kind of question the Tifa he knew would normally ask.
"I don't have a fever."
Tifa said it with a faint pout.
"Then why are you asking that kind of question while acting spoiled, like Aerith?"
"So it's wrong for me to act spoiled? Isn't acting spoiled something normal girls do? Are you trying to say I'm not like a normal girl?"
Tifa immediately loosened their interlocked fingers and "glared" at him.
Right now, she looked just like a spoiled, willful girl, completely unreasonable.
Right now, she needed him to say plenty of sweet things before she would calm down.
After the two of them silently stared at each other for a while—
"Tifa, your acting is way too fake. Aerith taught you to do this, didn't she?"
"Yes. It really was that obvious, huh? I just can't pull it off."
Tifa scratched her cheek. Her face turned even redder as she clasped both hands over her stomach and shifted bashfully.
"Tifa is Tifa. You don't need to change anything. The genuine you is the goddess in my heart."
"That line feels pretty cheesy too. Don't tell me Aerith taught you that one as well."
She said that, but the goddess's heartbeat only grew stronger, and her feelings stirred harder than ever.
"No. That's what I really think."
"Really?"
"Really."
After they fell into a brief silence, the goddess quietly murmured,
"Come to think of it, you have quite a few goddesses in your files, don't you?"
Those words made the goddess's admirer's expression stiffen slightly, and he looked a little awkward.
The goddess gave a soft little laugh, then parted her lips again.
"Then, right now, I'm inviting you, my flirtatious pervert of a gentleman, to become my boyfriend. You're not allowed to refuse."
As the words fell, Tifa stretched out her slender fingers, as if asking him to interlock them with hers.
"You already said I'm not allowed to refuse. Besides, if I'm already a flirt, how could I possibly reject such a beautiful goddess?"
The goddess's hand was taken by the man who sounded as if he had no choice. With one gentle pull, she stumbled into his arms.
He lifted her chin.
At that moment, the goddess was so tender it made the heart waver.
Her slightly damp eyes looked hazy and expectant. Her lips, lightly pressed together and faintly moist, were enough to steal any man's breath.
Then her eyes suddenly closed, as if waiting for something.
So he claimed those fragrant lips.
...
In the blink of an eye.
The Warhammer world.
Location: still the agricultural world.
Kain had been back for nearly a week, and during that entire week, he had been busy working with materia.
He filled the materia with energy, then sent most of it back to Tifa's side. The drained materia they had collected over there was also sent back here to be recharged.
Now another landing craft descended onto the farm.
As the hatch opened, the Astartes carried the materia out.
They did not simply teleport the materia directly from this agricultural world into the Warp to recharge it, then teleport it back.
That would easily draw the attention of daemons and cause them to fixate on this place. Moreover, there were too many materia. Without anyone protecting them during that kind of teleportation, the returning materia would be lost.
So the Great Sage had dispatched Astartes to take the materia to other star systems and bring them into the Warp there for recharging.
After a full week of work that practically resembled middleman trading, they had already reached the point where Tifa's world no longer needed to provide any further output.
"As for the next batch, the main body will contact you when the time comes and tell you where to deliver it."
The Great Sage's clone before him said as much.
After all, this was an agricultural world, not a planet specialized in psyker research. The materia should be taken somewhere better for study.
The Lord Regent and the Great Sage were already secretly establishing a dedicated materia department, because materia's ability to restrain the Warp was truly incredible.
The main purpose of this department was not to analyze how materia was synthesized, because the conditions in this world did not really allow for materia synthesis.
They had even told him not to reveal the synthesis technology, which meant no one in this world knew exactly how it was done.
After all, aside from blanks, ordinary souls had projections in the Warp. Anyone who knew the technology might accidentally leak it.
For that reason, the department's main goal was to further process materia and turn it into various weapons.
In addition, to better coordinate with him, they would soon form a special Astartes rapid response force to support him at any time and obey his unconditional command.
Before that rapid response force was established, members of the Lamenters would temporarily form a tactical squad under his command, assisting him with STC-related excavation work.
To ensure they could quickly keep up with his movements between star systems, the Great Sage was also sending over a more specialized Imperial craft.
Originally, it had been meant for the Grey Knights, allowing them to move through the galaxy more quickly. Now, one vessel had been assigned to him.
As for the Salamanders, their job remained the same as before: couriers between the Great Sage and him.
"Also, regarding the human-machine system…"
The so-called human-machine system referred to the device he had previously taken from Tessa's side. It allowed a person's thoughts to freely operate machinery, almost as if they had become the machine's AI.
Now, the question was whether he could obtain something special—a medium that could store human data extremely well.
After hearing the Great Sage's clone describe it in more detail, one world surfaced in Kain's mind, a world that contained something perfectly suited to what the Great Sage wanted.
That thing was artificial remnant light.
A product of the Warhammer world.
(End of Chapter)
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