Lev was gone.
After broadcasting his name over the PA system and having the staff search the entire facility, the only things they found were his communicator and ID badge, discarded somewhere in Chaldea.
There was no sign of Lev himself.
'Lev, where on earth did you go... No, in a crisis like this, I must act like the Director of Chaldea and the head of the Animusphere family!'
Her pupils trembled for a moment, almost showing a moment of weakness in front of her subordinates. But Olga Marie recovered quickly, suppressing her emotions and returning her expression to one of strict authority.
The most important thing right now was to understand their current situation!
First was the timeline.
Before the entire staff experienced that strange "daze," she remembered they had been preparing to gather all the Master candidates for a briefing.
Then came the sudden changes within Chaldea and the 268 days of unexplained operational logs.
Chaldea's operational logs couldn't be faked. Furthermore...
Olga Marie glanced at the items left on her desk, specifically the [Golden Blade of Intrusion]. A Mystic Code of that caliber couldn't just materialize out of thin air, especially not here in an isolated facility in Antarctica, right on her desk.
So the question was: what exactly happened to make everyone feel like their time had been "deleted and skipped"?
Did it have something to do with the lights of human civilization disappearing on CHALDEAS...? Wait!
Suddenly realizing something, Olga Marie hurriedly pushed through the crowd and strode over to the section of CHALDEAS not blocked by the main screen.
"CHALDEAS is back to normal?"
The massive, globe-like construct before her should have been completely dark, indicating the end of human civilization. But now, it was glowing normally again.
Combining this with the logs detailing Singularities labeled "Chapter One," "Chapter Two," and so on... did that mean someone had successfully resolved all the Singularities without their knowledge, during the time they had skipped?
And by doing so, they had fixed the disappearance of human civilization on CHALDEAS?
No, it was too early to jump to conclusions. There had to be more clues left behind in Chaldea...
As she thought, Olga Marie suddenly spotted the security cameras near the ceiling.
"Quick! Pull up the footage from every working security camera in Chaldea! If someone was truly active here for 268 days, there has to be a record of it on the cameras!"
Like grabbing a lifeline, Olga Marie pointed at the cameras and issued the order.
"Yes, Director!"
Reminded by Olga Marie, the staff finally woke up and realized the most basic and easiest way to gather information.
"Also! Call every single person in Chaldea to assemble in the Command Room! I need to do a full headcount!"
Before they could scatter, Olga Marie remembered another crucial step and issued a second order.
"Understood!"
The staff nodded and sprang into action.
One group focused on pulling up the security footage, while another went to gather the rest of the Chaldea personnel.
Seeing this, Olga Marie let out a small sigh of relief and returned to her seat. While she waited, she racked her brain to see if she had missed anything else.
As for Dr. Romani, his thirst for knowledge regarding this situation was just as strong as anyone else's. Coupled with his own internal suspicions and unease, he didn't leave. He simply stood nervously in the corner, waiting for the results.
Pulling up security footage didn't take much time.
Shortly after, the staff member reviewing the cameras spoke up.
"Found it! Aside from a few unused areas, many of the cameras suffered varying degrees of damage. But a few have been running continuously, and they show frequent activity during the missing time!"
"I'm casting the feed to the main screen now!"
The blonde female staff member spoke quickly, a hint of pleasant surprise in her voice, her hands flying across the keyboard.
Hearing her, everyone immediately turned their eyes to the main screen.
A second later, the footage appeared.
In the video, everyone was safely going about their business in the Command Room. Other camera feeds showed a few technicians working in different areas.
"This is from 268 days ago, roughly ten seconds before the cameras suffered damage," the blonde woman explained when people looked at her.
Olga Marie nodded. If they wanted the full picture, starting from the beginning was definitely the right choice.
The others stared intently at the screen, terrified of missing a single detail.
But they really didn't need to focus that hard, because the moment the ten-second mark hit...
BOOM!
There was no audio, but the sudden explosion that completely engulfed the screen was enough for everyone to automatically fill in the sound effect in their heads.
"Wait, does this mean—Chaldea was actually bombed?!"
After a moment of stunned silence, the room erupted into an uproar.
"I knew it! That's why I felt like I was flying and had my limbs blown off! We really did get blown up!"
"But we seem perfectly fine now? And the room doesn't look like it was bombed at all?"
"Are you listening to yourself? Have you not noticed there's only one Rayshift Coffin left? And even that one is broken!"
"As for why we're fine... maybe our bodies were converted into spirit particles the exact moment the explosion happened?"
Someone with sharp eyes pointed at a figure on the screen that had suddenly vanished in a flash of white light.
Hearing this, the blonde woman paused the video, zoomed in on that section, and replayed it.
Looking closely, it was true!
The instant the explosion occurred, CHALDEAS stopped spinning first. Then, every single person on screen turned into white light and vanished, leaving behind only the fiery aftermath of the explosion. The Command Room was in shambles, the reinforced glass shattered by the shockwave.
Curious, a few people looked up at the massive glass window in front of them, only to find it completely intact.
About three or four seconds later, CHALDEAS turned a deep red and began spinning again.
"This is the exact moment Chaldea's time desynchronized from the outside world," someone noted.
The footage seemed to pause, but it wasn't actually frozen. It was just an eerie stillness with no one moving. Only the blinking of certain lights proved the video was still playing.
"Fast forward!"
After watching ten seconds of empty space, Olga Marie couldn't help but order.
She didn't need to tell them twice. The blonde woman, just as eager to see what happened, immediately sped up the playback.
At 10x speed, it didn't take long for a figure to appear on screen.
The blonde woman hit play at normal speed.
"Who is that? He doesn't look like anyone from Chaldea," someone asked in confusion, watching the slender figure cautiously step into the frame from the bottom of the hallway.
"He's definitely not. Aside from the young girl from Japan and Mash, we don't have anyone that young here. And he's not wearing a Chaldea uniform."
So how did he get into Chaldea? Was he the mastermind behind all this?
The latter suspicion was quickly dismissed upon seeing the boy's incredibly cautious demeanor and comparing it to the logs they had already reviewed.
After all, if he was the only one here, it didn't make sense for him to blow them up and then immediately run off to fix the Singularities on his own.
If he did, he was just a complete psychopath.
They kept watching.
As they observed, they noticed the boy seemed to have some understanding of Chaldea and the situation following the sudden explosion.
The boy in the video explored Chaldea slowly and vigilantly. However, the moment he spotted the Chaldea logo on a wall, he suddenly looked terrified. He immediately picked up his pace, seemingly shouting something as he ran.
Chaldea didn't have cameras everywhere—this wasn't a surveillance state—so the boy soon moved out of the camera's view.
Fast forward.
When the boy reappeared on screen, he was already standing outside their Command Room.
"So that's how the door got pried open?"
Seeing the crowbar in the boy's hand, someone muttered quietly.
What happened next was exactly as they expected. After exploring and finding no one else, the boy seemed to confirm something and looked deeply despairing. He wandered around anxiously, eventually coming to some sort of conclusion before the camera feed went quiet again.
Fast forward.
It seemed to be the second day.
A figure riding a bicycle suddenly shot past the hallway camera.
"Whose bicycle is that?!"
Olga Marie's face instantly darkened. She glared at the staff and demanded an answer.
Did they have any idea how difficult it was to transport supplies to Antarctica?! And someone had actually smuggled a bicycle in?!
The staff exchanged nervous glances and shook their heads.
Naturally, no one stepped forward to claim it. Of course, it was also possible the culprit wasn't in the room and was still on their way.
But that wasn't the point right now. Olga Marie had just spoken out of sheer frustration. Seeing no one confess, she turned her attention back to the screen.
And then they saw...
The boy bowling in the hallway.
The boy playing roller hockey in the hallway.
The boy driving a miniature electric toy car down the hallway.
...
Watching this "horrifying" display, Olga Marie's expression grew even darker.
So people just brought whatever they wanted here, huh?
She finally realized her subordinates were all hiding some very unique talents!
"Ahem...!" xN.
The rest of the staff shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Some looked away, some coughed awkwardly, and some just covered their faces.
Seeing this, Olga Marie didn't say anything more. After all, there really wasn't much entertainment at this facility. It made sense that people would bring their own little hobbies to pass the time.
But even though the boy looked like he was having fun, anyone with eyes could see his mental state had been steadily deteriorating since he arrived.
Restlessness, agitation, anxiety... it was obvious in his movements and expressions. The originally handsome, clean-cut boy started looking slightly sallow, and dark circles slowly formed under his eyes.
He didn't look happy at all.
Sure enough.
A few days later in the footage, the boy acted like the bowling ball he had thrown earlier, literally rolling from the bottom of the screen all the way to the top before disappearing.
And it wasn't just once or twice. He rolled back and forth, finding creative new ways to roll down the hall.
"Honestly... rolling like that actually looks kind of fun?"
One staff member quietly muttered.
—He genuinely thought it looked fun.
Well, aside from the person next to him shooting him a weird look, no one paid him any mind. They all continued watching the video in silence.
After his rolling phase in the hallway, starting from a specific point, the boy suddenly became very quiet.
He appeared in the Command Room for the second time.
He wasn't there to do anything crazy—he was just there to clean the room.
Skipping past the silent cleaning montage, they saw the boy sit down in the main seat—the exact seat Olga Marie was currently occupying—and pull out a notebook, writing something down.
"Is he writing a diary?"
Realizing this, Olga Marie quickly picked up the notebook on her desk and compared it to the one the boy was using in the video.
Seeing this, everyone shifted their gaze to Olga Marie—or rather, the notebook in her hands.
The video didn't have audio. Even though they knew the boy was constantly talking to himself, they couldn't hear a word. They could only watch his daily routine.
But now, they actually had his diary right in front of them! No matter how you looked at it, this had to be way more important than the video footage!
Confirming it was the exact same notebook, Olga Marie opened it.
Meeting everyone's expectant gazes, Olga Marie slowly frowned. She put the notebook down and looked up, her expression flat:
"I can't read it. It's in Japanese."
Before anyone could react, a stunning figure wearing blue and purple tights, looking exactly like a living Mona Lisa, suddenly burst through the door.
"Do any of you have any idea what just happened?!"
"I think my workshop was robbed! A ton of materials and books are missing, and some of my unfinished Mystic Codes are just gone! All they left behind were a dozen of these prosthetic arms!"
Da Vinci held up a prosthetic arm, looking completely shocked, confused, and even a little devastated.
—She was always the one ripping people off! She never expected to get robbed in her own home!
"These arms seem to be reinforced and powered by Runes. Judging by how fast they were made, this guy is an absolute genius!"
"They started out looking completely awful, but by the end, even I was impressed—but seriously, the stuff this guy makes is so incredibly boring! Aside from making them super durable and fireproof, he didn't add a single extra function!"
It was a complete waste of her materials!
If it were her, she would have at least added a function to shoot the arm out like a rocket punch, maybe with a little explosion at the end!
Watching this unfamiliar, stunningly beautiful woman stride into the room as if she owned the place—someone who looked incredibly familiar, yet they couldn't quite place—everyone except high-ranking officials like Director Olga Marie and Medical Head Romani stared in utter shock.
They instinctively looked to their respected Director for answers.
"Sigh..."
Glancing at the nonchalant "Ms." Da Vinci, Olga Marie let out a helpless sigh.
Dealing with this free-spirited Heroic Spirit was always a headache.
But since she had taken the initiative to reveal herself to the staff, it meant she was ready. Olga Marie, currently feeling quite impatient herself, didn't bother trying to cover for her and gave a brief introduction:
"Anyway, this is the Servant summoned independently by Chaldea—Leonardo da Vinci. Whether as a Magus or anything else, she is undeniably a genius. With her here, we should be able to figure out what happened much faster."
She didn't explain further. Those who needed to know already knew, and the rest just needed to know they had a Servant on their side.
"Hah?! She's Leonardo da Vinci?! Shouldn't he be a man?!"
A few male staff members, who had shamefully felt their hearts skip a beat, pointed in disbelief at the undeniably beautiful woman before them.
"Wait! Looking closely... isn't her face literally the 'Mona Lisa' smile?!"
Hearing the name Da Vinci, it was like a lightbulb went off. They instantly realized why she looked so familiar.
"Hehe, it seems you all have much to learn about history and Heroic Spirits. Who knows, maybe King Arthur was actually a woman?"
"But regardless, standing before you right now is the omnipotent Da Vinci-chan!"
Da Vinci smiled playfully, clearly enjoying their shock, but like Olga Marie, she didn't bother explaining further.
Then, her expression turned curious.
"Alright, let's put the trivial stuff aside for now. As the Head of the Technology Department and Honorary Advisor who never leaves her room, I am completely in the dark about what's going on."