Originium Research Institute.
Yvonne felt like something was off.
Tata had already been fitted with the upgrade core, evolving into a stronger, more capable robot.
That kind of installation made a lot of noise.
Doing it indoors would've been too cramped, so they used an outdoor space where there was room to work—and the commotion was anything but subtle. If it attracted "something," that wouldn't have been surprising at all.
Besides, there were supposed to be plenty of Riftbreakers around the institute.
And yet, until everything was finished, nothing happened. Yvonne completed the upgrade job with absurd ease.
The trio who'd been bracing for trouble were now left staring blankly.
This was completely different from what they'd expected.
Even the Di Jiang's scans had detected a large number of Riftbreaker units near the institute earlier…
So where did they all go?
Something about this wasn't right.
"…By the way, where did Teacher Bai Ling go?" Chen Qianyu finally asked, perhaps because things felt too peaceful.
The moment she said it, everyone present—including the freshly upgraded Tata—turned to look at her.
Welp. Great.
Chen Qianyu scratched her head, felt the mood shift, and could only give an awkward, goofy little laugh.
Perlica understood that Bai Ling was traveling with them by convenience, not obligation. For all they knew, he'd already set off.
He hadn't stated his objective, but it was obvious he had his own thoughts about the hyperdomain rift—and with Eyjafjalla and Eldera beside him, the odds of anything going wrong were low.
Judging from his attitude toward Endfield—or rather, Rhodes Island—there didn't seem to be any possibility of hostility.
As for Yvonne…
Because Tata had been outside the whole time, it recorded Bai Ling leaving together with the two lambs.
Not only did it see the three of them go—
It also captured a photo of her hugging Bai Ling inside that little room… nearly making her self-destruct on the spot.
And the worst part was—!
Tata's logs couldn't be wiped.
The prototype's data accumulation was inherently unstable; any "extra" tampering could cause problems. The only option was to hide the content behind access permissions so maintenance checks wouldn't stumble across it.
Which meant—
As long as she looked through Tata's logs in the future, she would inevitably see that photo.
Right now, all she wanted was to take her precious data back to her room and bury herself in research for a few days and nights.
Her precious little car. The precious data it brought back. At this rate, she was getting closer and closer to the work of her dreams.
Where Bai Ling went didn't matter…
What mattered was that Yvonne had a gut feeling—an instinctive certainty—that Bai Ling would be just fine.
Once they confirmed nobody was coming and the surroundings were safe, the little penguin suddenly asked, "Now that Tata's fixed, Yvonne, are you still staying here?"
"…Of course. If you want me to fight, I can't be much help. I'd rather stay here and keep studying the erosion phenomenon. If you need anything else from me, you can ask anytime. I'll probably be around."
She declined the invitation smoothly—breath steady, tone natural, no hint of hiding anything.
The little penguin didn't force the issue. She was just about to pack up, when she noticed the little dragon girl in front of her fidgeting awkwardly.
"Oh, right…"
"Hm?"
"I… I don't have his contact info yet. Could you give me his contact?"
"Of course," the little penguin said. "But you'll need to submit a request before you can talk both ways. Otherwise, you can only send a few one-way messages a day."
As she spoke, her wristband lit up. A link appeared—and Yvonne received a notification from Endfield Industries.
It was a business card.
The profile picture was a pure-white sea of cecilia flowers. No signature. The name was simply his real name, plain and unadorned.
"…Bai Ling?"
It was a nice name.
And the moment she saw that profile, Yvonne felt it in her bones—
He was absolutely someone hiding an ocean of secrets.
But that was fine.
She didn't have time to untangle it all right now.
Later—she would.
On a mountain road several kilometers away, Bai Ling suddenly sneezed, his foot nearly slipping.
"Senior Bai Ling!"
Eldera tensed.
For Eyjafjalla and Eldera, this kind of mountain path was easier than the roads they remembered back home—no pressure at all.
But for Bai Ling, it was different.
Bai Ling was just an ordinary human.
"I'm fine… It's just a bit cold here. I sneezed, that's all."
He steadied himself and kept moving forward.
After threading through a few narrow caves, Bai Ling finally saw a small upward slope ahead.
It was only a minor incline, but as the three climbed higher, the moment they stepped out, the view suddenly widened.
What lay before them was a shattered stretch of land—three anchors embedded in the ground, set in a tight triangle not far ahead.
"…How could this…" Eldera stared, disbelieving.
One anchor alone had been enough to wreck the hub center like that…
And here there were three.
It was hard to imagine how badly these anchors would devastate the region.
While Eldera was still processing it, Bai Ling had already seen the core issue.
Around the three anchors, terrifying waves of energy rolled endlessly outward—each pulse scouring the earth like a merciless rinse.
Cold. Brutal.
Grinding everything nearby into dust.
"…Looks like we can't go straight to the Power-Supply Highlands," Bai Ling said. "We'll have to deal with these three first."
Having reached a provisional conclusion, he turned his head.
"What do we do, Senpai?" Eyjafjalla asked.
"Same as before. Walk up in front of it—then hit its core hard."
Clearing anchors was that simple.
…Or at least, it would've been nice if it really were.
Because on the way to those three anchors, they still had to pass through plenty of other places.
They'd barely descended the far side of the slope when they hit a main road—where a jeep had flipped on its side, and masked Riftbreakers were blocking the already-damaged roadway.
The scene looked anything but peaceful.
And when you saw something like that…
You had to intervene, at least a little.
....
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