On the bridge of the assault landing submarine Tuatha de Danaan, TDD-1.
"XO, we've detected something from that direction..."
The mothership's AI suddenly reported a new development, and the people who had only just begun to recover from the shock of seeing the sea split open were stunned all over again.
A nuclear detonation had been detected, and the coordinates alone were enough to change everyone's expression.
Some were gloating. Some looked pleased, as if enjoying a long-awaited revenge. Others were uneasy, worried about the consequences.
At the very least, one thing could now be confirmed: the missing warhead had been sent back.
And that had only taken a few seconds.
It had crossed more than a hundred nautical miles.
Then the AI's next report made the bridge tense up all over again.
On the coastline, there were Arm Slave units and tanks belonging to that country's military.
They had already been monitoring those forces earlier, but no one had expected a nuclear strike. If they had received warning sooner and submerged immediately, they could have escaped.
Now things were troublesome. For the moment, TDD-1 could not dive at all, and the reason was the enormous tank sitting on the deck.
That thing was simply too heavy. If they submerged with it still there, there was no telling whether they would ever float back up.
And if they stayed on the surface and tried to sail away, their speed would be pitiful. They would never escape concentrated enemy fire.
"Should we strike first?"
Someone made that suggestion.
Since TDD-1 was having trouble maneuvering right now, it would make more sense to hit first before the enemy opened fire. That was their best chance of surviving.
Richard Mardukas ignored the suggestion and instead ordered the ship to continue normal surface navigation and leave this country's waters.
As for the military forces behind them, they showed no sign of advancing beyond the coastline to attack.
This was exactly what Richard had expected. It was a perfectly normal response.
Those two attacks just now - anyone with functioning eyes knew what they had been.
And the ones that intercepted those two missiles had been Mithril's Arm Slaves. Even if the enemy had seen that machine collapse and disintegrate, could they really be sure there was not another one aboard the mothership?
After witnessing that kind of power, how high a price did they think they would have to pay if they fought head-on?
On top of that, the forces in the exercise zone were still eyeing them like hawks. What if another tactical nuke came flying in? Who was going to intercept it then?
Or would everyone just go down together?
So long as the opposing commander had any sense at all, the only reasonable choice was silence while TDD-1 withdrew.
As the coastline grew more and more distant and the enemy troops still did nothing, most of the people on the bridge finally let out a sigh of relief.
Then the camera locked onto the deck again. A figure had come back up, and it was Mr. Kain once more, wearing that silver power armor they called the Silver Devil.
Realizing something, Richard immediately ordered the feed cut.
Sure enough, the mothership abruptly felt much lighter.
Quite a few people on the bridge had also seen the tank appear out of nowhere earlier.
That was going to be a headache to explain.
Twenty minutes later...
"This is footage just taken by a reconnaissance satellite."
On the large display in the bridge, the screen showed the joint exercise zone of the United States and South Korea, where total chaos had broken out.
A destroyer had nearly been snapped in two, and two-thirds of it had already gone under.
The center of the deployed fleet looked even worse. The aircraft carrier had not sunk, but it had suffered severe damage from the nearby nuclear blast.
If one of the escort ships had not happened to take the returned warhead for it, that carrier would have been finished.
"Is there any international statement blaming Mithril for this yet?"
Back in the captain's seat, Tessa asked the question.
"Not at the moment. The main thing right now is that both sides are accusing each other."
"Put simply, they're tearing into each other like dogs."
"How could they possibly have the nerve to drag us into this and demand accountability?"
One side had cooperated with terrorists. Mithril, on the other hand, had been the rescue force. They had saved the hostages. It was a genuine act of justice.
They had also intercepted two nuclear missiles, preventing strikes on the mainland, and in the process had indirectly saved the nearby forces too, even if those same forces had been coming to pursue them.
No matter how shameless they were, it would be difficult to pin the blame on Mithril.
As for the other side, they had used two nuclear weapons. The moment they did that, they had nearly pried Pandora's box wide open. They had even less right to criticize Mithril.
If Mithril really wanted to be thick-skinned about it, they could even claim they had prevented nuclear war and performed a heroic service, since they had kept the missiles from landing in the first place.
As for the trouble that had hit the North American fleet, and the nuclear detonation that followed, even if suspicion fell on Mithril, there was no proof.
Besides, they should know perfectly well that the warhead had been theirs to begin with. Mithril had merely returned it. The only difference was that the fleet had failed to catch it the way Mithril had.
If their own skill fell short, they had no one else to blame.
Of course, the truth was that they were now deeply wary of Mithril. The ability to intercept nuclear missiles and throw them back had scared them badly.
Without knowing exactly how Mithril had done it, they certainly would not dare to publicly rip off the mask and brand them terrorists.
"XO, I'm leaving the rest to you."
It looked like there was no longer any need for her to remain on the bridge, so Tessa tossed out the order and left.
She wanted to check on someone.
Although he had taken an Earth Elixir and his body had recovered again, Kain still clearly did not look mentally stable.
That was obviously the aftereffect of using the Lambda Driver.
After all, that system turned human willpower into physical force. It placed an enormous burden on the mind.
In theological terms, it probably placed quite a burden on the soul as well.
When she arrived outside the lounge, she had not even stepped inside yet when she heard this:
"You did that on purpose, didn't you, you pervert?! Then why the hell does the whole thing need your fingerprint to unlock?!"
Kaname Chidori's voice rang out, flushed with embarrassment and seething with rage.
What happened?
Hurrying inside, Tessa saw Kaname's face burning red as she glared at Mr. Kain through clenched teeth.
Kain, meanwhile, still looked a little worn down mentally, but he was calmly eating his meal.
Seeing the stack of empty plates beside him and how good his appetite still was, Tessa felt even less worried.
"What's wrong?"
"This guy, he... it's that..."
"That?"
Tessa tilted her head, puzzled as she looked at Kaname, who was stammering and unable to get the words out.
Looking more closely, she realized Kaname seemed off in another way too. She kept squirming, and her legs were pressed tightly together, almost as if she were trying to fuse them into one.
She looked like she was desperately holding something in.
"It's just that the clothes won't come off."
"Huh? They won't come off?"
Tessa blinked.
At the moment, both she and Kaname were still wearing the YoRHa No.2 Type B outfits Kain had provided.
The clothes would not come off, and that alone had made her this angry?
Were they really that embarrassing to wear?
Although, to be fair, the outfit did feel a little too flashy. It looked like something a mature woman would wear, and that was a little mortifying.
Tessa looked Kaname over again, and suddenly she understood what exactly Kaname had been holding in.
She needed to go to the bathroom.
"Mr. Kain, how do you take this off once it's on?"
At the beautiful captain's question, Kain stopped eating and fell briefly silent.
The reason they could not remove them lay mainly in the inner layer, the one that was almost like latex.
There was some kind of vacuum-like mechanism built into it, making it cling tightly to the skin, almost as if it were fused in place.
To remove it, the device maintaining that suction had to be unlocked so it would stop adhering to the body.
And that unlock required a biometric fingerprint scan. The scanner was on the C-shaped component.
The fingerprint registered for unlocking was his.
But he really had not set that up.
Had he simply not thought this through from the start?
Actually, once the thing was fastened, it was supposed to automatically register the fingerprint of the person fastening it as the access key.
Kaname had fastened hers herself, so in theory it should have registered her own biometric print. But when she tried to unlock it, the voice prompt had said Kain was required instead.
The voice of that smart prompt had come from Sixty, which meant this was probably one of Sixty's pranks.
Fine. It really was Sixty's doing. A2 from Hyperdimension Channel had just answered and confirmed it, and she had even said she would help him give Sixty a beating later.
That being the case, the outfit Tessa was wearing was probably locked the same way.
There was, however, one other method of unlocking it.
Wait twenty-four hours. It would unlock automatically.
As for cutting a hole in it with a knife, like puncturing vacuum packaging so air could get inside and let you tear it open?
No. That would not work, because it really was more like glue smeared directly onto the skin.
So in the end, did he really have to unlock it with his fingerprint?
The location was... extremely awkward.
(End of Chapter)
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