Back at Belobog Heavy Industries, they had come to realize that something enormous was buried beneath all of this — a secret far bigger than any of them had bargained for.
For now, though, no one had the first idea what to do about it.
"Just to be safe — Proxy, could you pass this along to Alice and have her relay it to Old Master Timefield?"
"The Timefield family may focus on Ether research, but people at that level tend to have connections that overlap with everything. He'd be the right person to handle this."
"So — do we keep looking for the prototype?"
Eous turned to look at Koleda and Grace.
They had just stumbled onto something potentially earth-shattering, but this was ultimately Koleda's call to make — hers and the team's.
"I..." Koleda's gaze drifted, the resolve she'd been carrying suddenly wavering.
She wanted to know the truth about the prototype. She wanted to know what had happened to her father ten years ago.
But the Crete Hollow was experiencing unknown anomalies. Maybe the right move was to pull out now, let things settle, and come back another time.
At the same time — precisely because the Crete Hollow was changing, the prototype's coordinates would shift again by next time. And there was no way to guarantee the prototype's condition wouldn't deteriorate in the interim.
But I can't... I can't let them walk into danger because of me...
Turning it over in her mind, Koleda ultimately decided to call the whole thing off.
But before the words could leave her mouth, Grace reached out and took her hand.
"Hey. Shorty. Whatever you decide, I'm with you. You're already a president we're all proud of."
Beside them, Anton and Ben Bigg both nodded along. They were old hands who'd been at Belobog Heavy Industries since the Hols era — in a way, they'd watched Koleda grow up.
As for Manato — he was technically a temp, but given the bonus on the line, he was willing to admit Koleda was a damn good boss.
"Everyone..."
Seeing how much trust they all placed in her, Koleda couldn't pretend she wasn't moved. If she had to name the greatest treasure of her life, it would be this — stumbling into a group of people, friends and subordinates alike, who she could give her whole heart to.
"Alright. Then as president of Belobog Heavy Industries, I hereby declare..."
Koleda swept her gaze across the group, then finished the sentence with iron in her voice.
"The mission to recover the prototype — continues!"
"Yes, ma'am!" ×3
"You got it, boss!"
She couldn't let down the people who believed in her, who were looking to her.
Even if the road ahead was full of danger, she would stand at the front — and face every obstacle together with them.
And in that moment, she truly accepted it at last: the obsession she'd been carrying deep inside, the one tied to her father. This time, she wasn't going to run from it anymore.
"Well, if that's what the client wants — Belle, we can't let them down either."
Wise watched the footage streaming back through Eous's visual feed, arms folded, a smile on his face.
Friends facing down hardship together — wasn't that the eternal, timeless truth at the heart of every shonen manga?
"Brother, is your eighth-grade syndrome acting up again?"
Belle turned around and squinted at him, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.
She knew exactly what her brother was like. He was the brooding, quietly artsy type — with just enough lingering chuunibyou that he'd never fully shaken it off. All of that blended together into that uniquely awkward, half-robot-half-poet vibe he had going on.
"Stop laughing at me and finish the job. Fairy's electricity bill is riding on the commission from this one."
Having put his sister in her place, Wise turned back to the screen. Something from earlier drifted back to him, and without thinking, his gaze slid toward Geno's position.
He should be fine. ...Right?
Deep in the Hollow, Koleda — her decision made — led her team onward toward the heart of it.
In the meantime, Fairy had finished mapping the scene around the prototype's location. The moment Ben Bigg and Anton looked it over, they recognized it immediately.
"That's the Pioneer Memorial Plaza in the Old Capital's new development zone. Before the former president went missing, that project was one of ours — contracted to Belobog Heavy Industries."
Ben Bigg, a longtime employee from the Hols era, recounted the details as if reading from a book he'd memorized long ago.
"At the time, the former president was planning to use the final payment from that project to settle all the remaining development costs for the prototype. But then..."
Memories began surfacing in Koleda's mind — her father, Hols Belobog, had taken that final payment and walked out the door. And never came back.
"I know Uncle Hols wasn't that kind of man. Something must have happened to him..."
"Grace..."
Watching Grace defend her father with such unwavering conviction, Koleda found herself wondering — as his own flesh and blood, had she been too quick to doubt him?
But the memories from childhood kept playing on repeat in her head, and in the end she could only shake them away and push them aside for now.
"Oh, right — Koleda. Didn't you call me 'Big Sis' just a little while ago?"
"W-What? Did I? You must have heard wrong."
The moment Grace brought it up, Koleda bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on — puffing up instantly and denying everything flat-out.
"No chance. I definitely heard it. God, I've missed that. Ever since you became president of Belobog Heavy Industries, you haven't called me Big Sis even once."
Grace's parents had both been researchers in Hollow-related fields. They'd gone missing during a dangerous Hollow survey expedition and were eventually declared dead.
Left alone, Grace had been taken in by Hols — her parents' old friend, the former president of Belobog Heavy Industries, and Koleda's father.
So Grace and Koleda shared a bond — not by blood, but sisters all the same.
After Belobog Heavy Industries fell into its credibility crisis — after the incident where Hols was suspected of absconding with company funds — something had quietly shifted between them.
And from the day Koleda became president, she had never once called Grace "Sister" again.
"I really do miss it — when you used to trail behind me and call me Big Sis."
Grace propped her cheek in her hand, a look of wistful nostalgia softening her face.
"...Big Sis?"
"Mm. Shorty."
Sitting atop the pile driver, Grace looked at Koleda — a little bashful, but more open than she'd ever been — and broke into a breathtaking smile.
This girl who lived and breathed machinery and circuit diagrams had kept one last soft corner in her heart — and she'd saved it for the little girl she'd watched grow up.
____
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