After buying a few meals, Cid handed Astarte her portion to carry and strolled leisurely back to the Island Guard headquarters.
"Hey, Astarte, are you sure we've never met before?"
Just as they were about to enter the Island Guard gate, Cid asked again. The whole way back, he still felt like he had seen Astarte somewhere before.
"…Astarte does not know."
"Is that so? Well, I guess it really was just my imagination."
Since Astarte's answer was still the same, Cid shrugged and stopped worrying about it.
They passed through the gate and headed upstairs, but a casual glance suddenly made Cid stop in his tracks.
"Thud!"
Astarte, who was following behind him, failed to stop in time and bumped straight into Cid before falling to the floor.
"?"
She did not cry out in pain, nor did she pay any attention to the food spilling out of the bag in her hands. Astarte simply stayed silent, tilted her head in a dazedly cute way, and looked at Cid with pale blue eyes full of confusion.
"Ah, Astarte, sorry. Are you all right…?"
Noticing that Astarte had fallen, Cid scratched his head awkwardly, then turned around with a sheepish smile and helped the utterly puzzled Astarte back up.
"Order received. Reporting: Astarte's body has suffered no major harm."
"Oh, good. By the way, Astarte, is there some equipment on the island that needs updating lately?"
"?"
Completely unable to understand what Cid was talking about, Astarte only patted the dirt from her clothes, crouched down to clean up the spilled food, then looked at him in confusion.
"Just asking. You're with the Island Guard, after all. Even a small piece of news from this place can be a wind vane that decides the fate of a whole lot of people on the island…"
"?"
"…Forget it. I'm going to the restroom. Astarte, could you take this food to Asia and the others for me?"
Cid sighed. After confirming that Astarte was a complete airhead, he felt stupid for trying to come up with that excuse and simply placed the bag into her hands.
"I cannot…"
"?"
"Captain Minamiya ordered Astarte to remain with Cid at all times. Therefore, Astarte cannot leave Cid's side."
Astarte's stiff, matter-of-fact reply left Cid utterly stunned.
"Not even when I'm going to the restroom?"
"According to Captain Minamiya's order, no."
"…"
Speechless, Cid looked at the loli maid standing before him with that perfectly serious expression. He sighed, reached into the bag of food in his hand, used Magical Power to make another bento, then took out his original portion and handed it to Astarte.
"Think of this as compensation for making you spill your food earlier. Be good and listen. Take this food to Asia first. I'll be right back.
Oh, and this one that I just made… no, this bento with the mark on it is for me, Ophis, or Lilith. Don't give it to the wrong person."
Cid tried to use the kind of perfectly reasonable excuse an airhead could accept. He had quite a bit of experience dealing with airheads. As long as he spoke in a slightly roundabout way and acted completely natural, there was a very good chance the other person would be fooled.
"Order acknowledged. New order received: deliver the food to Asia…"
Just as Cid expected, Astarte very naturally took the bag and headed toward the room where Asia and the Infinite Dragon God were.
As for why he could not let Asia eat the bento he had made, the Magical Power contained in it was far too dense. Ophis might like it, but if an ordinary person ate it, they would absolutely drop dead on the spot.
"Oh well, airheads have their uses too. Astarte can handle a little thing like this. What matters most right now is… this."
Magical Power surged from within him into his eyes. In the next second, the entire world in Cid's vision changed.
Layer after layer of worlds flashed past before finally stopping in front of an enormous Magic Circle.
Dense magical runes flickered in the empty spaces of the array, hidden within the void and engraved into the void. A massive Magic Circle covering the entirety of Itogami Island, one that was on the verge of completion, appeared before Cid.
"Interesting…"
He gave a word of praise. Although he could not understand what the Magic Circle was for, Cid could roughly guess its category from the faintly visible spatial "Core" within the magical runes. Its range covered an enormous area, and it was the most difficult type, spatial magic…
"Looks like this could be pretty entertaining…"
Muttering to himself, a smile appeared on Cid's lips. He slowly walked to a more secluded spot, lowered his presence, then raised his hand and lifted one finger.
"Let me see where your source is…"
His finger tapped the void, landing on one of the Magic Circle's nodes. A wisp of Magical Power slipped into the magical lines, invading, devouring, replacing…
In just a few seconds, the Magic Circle covering the whole of Itogami Island fell under Cid's control.
Of course, he still did not understand what the Magic Circle was actually meant to do. There was no helping it. He could not read most of the magical runes, and the only part he could understand, the spatial Core, was only a tiny section. What could such a tiny bit of spatial Core even do?!
But it did not matter. In any case, all the Magical Power making up the Magic Circle had fallen under his control. With a single command, he could paralyze the entire array.
"Mm-hmm, found it. Now this is unexpected…"
Cid's consciousness swept over every Magical Power flow path inside the Magic Circle, and he quickly found the entry point of the initiator's Magical Power.
His brow furrowed, then quickly relaxed. Wearing a grin like someone watching a good show, Cid looked up at the Island Guard ceiling and laughed. The source of the Magic Circle… led straight to the Island Guard!
"Well then, is Astarte's authority too low for her to know, or is someone planning a terrorist attack? I'm really looking forward to finding out…"
Laughing boldly, Cid followed the fluctuations of Magical Power and walked toward the source.
...
The gallant young girl with short black hair had been moving all over Itogami Island nonstop since that morning. Only after finishing all the preparations by noon did she arrive at the Island Guard headquarters, the location planned for her operation.
"Phew… Can this plan really succeed?"
Yuuma Tokoyogi kept breathing out to ease the tension in her chest. Instinctively, she felt that the plan provided by the old Witch who had raised her was not very reliable.
For Natsuki Minamiya, who had mastered spatial magic, even if her opponent matched her in strength, or even surpassed her by more than one level, capturing her without killing her would still be extremely difficult.
After all, spatial magic was practically the strongest in both escape and sneak attacks. On top of that, the current Natsuki Minamiya was only a Magical Power body while her true body slept, and her ability to preserve her life was ridiculously strong.
"What plan? Can you tell me?"
"Of course it's…"
In that tense atmosphere, a man's voice suddenly sounded beside Yuuma Tokoyogi's ear.
At such a critical moment, under normal circumstances, she should have turned around immediately and killed him to prevent any information from leaking. At the very least, she should have been startled.
But for some reason, Yuuma Tokoyogi felt that voice was extremely natural. She was about to instinctively spill the entire plan when she suddenly realized something was wrong.
A blue Knight faintly appeared behind her. Just as Yuuma Tokoyogi's attack was about to be unleashed, she saw the man who had just spoken clearly, froze for a moment, and dispersed the attack in her hand.
"It's you…"
"It's me. If I remember correctly, your name is Yuuma Tokoyogi, right? Could you tell me what plan you were talking about just now? This doesn't seem like something you should be doing, does it?"
With an amused smile, Cid looked teasingly at the girl before him, the same girl he had only just met yesterday at Kojou Akatsuki's funeral. Well, well, it seemed he had really stumbled into some earth-shattering conspiracy.
After all, only one day had passed. He was not about to delete the memory of someone this strange so quickly, especially when she was someone he had met at Kojou Akatsuki's funeral.
"This is exactly what I should be doing. You don't need to meddle so much…"
Yuuma Tokoyogi gave the utterly ordinary man before her a meaningful look and once again confirmed her guess that this man had been sent by her mother to monitor her.
After all, if he had not been watching her the entire time, how could he have discovered that she had deviated from the original plan before the plan had even begun, then come out to warn her that this was not what she was supposed to do, hinting that she should return to the original plan?
"All you need to know is that the plan has changed at the last minute. I need to use a different course of action to achieve the objective."
???
What are you talking about?
Cid blinked. Yuuma Tokoyogi's incredibly natural attitude, with none of the panic or embarrassment one should have after a conspiracy was exposed, completely baffled him.
What the hell?!
Could this not be a terrorist attack after all, but some large-scale defensive Magic Formula prepared by Itogami Island's authorities?
Surely not. Were those idiots in the Gigafloat Management Corporation's upper ranks not afraid that one mistake would send Itogami Island straight into the Dimensional Gap?
Because of Yuuma Tokoyogi's strange attitude, Cid quietly dispersed the Magical Power gathered in his hand and decided to watch for now. Otherwise, it would be hilarious if this turned out to be a misunderstanding.
"You… don't seem surprised by my arrival. Who told you about my existence?"
He lowered his voice. Instead of asking how she knew directly, he asked who had told her. Cid looked at the gallant girl before him, his tone inevitably carrying a hint of threat.
"Let's say I guessed."
"Guessed?"
Cid raised an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes. His evaluation of the girl's answer was, did he look like Delta to her?
"Well, it wasn't entirely a guess. She left me quite a few clues, and I asked her about it too."
Who was "she"? Wait, are you talking about your mom? Can't you just speak plainly?
"So it was her?"
Although Cid very much wanted to knock down this woman who had been talking to herself about things he could not understand ever since they met and extract her memories, he refused to do that. Instead, he put on a look of sudden realization.
Clearly, since the other party thought he "understood," then no matter what, he could not ask too bluntly. He had to play along and put on an "I understand everything" act, no matter how hard he had to bluff through it. At worst, he could probe from the side afterward.
"If it was her, then none of this is surprising. More of those boring little tricks. But…"
Cid nodded as if he quite agreed, then suddenly changed the subject and fixed Yuuma Tokoyogi with a sharp gaze.
"How am I supposed to know whether what you said is true? Do you really think she is her?
I have no interest in watching you speak with a chess piece that might be discarded. Prove to me that your value is high enough for her to trust you…"
Cid admitted there was an element of gambling here, but his chances of winning were very high. First, he had been speaking in riddles the entire time. How she interpreted them, like "two jujube trees," had nothing to do with what he actually meant.
Second, judging by Yuuma Tokoyogi's tone, his supposed position should be higher. Add in that plan that sounded extremely conspiratorial, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with assuming the darkest possibility.
In short, the advantage was his!
"How do I prove it?"
"I can see the relationship between you and her, so the method of proof should go without saying, shouldn't it?"
Along with those words, a heavy pressure suddenly fell onto Yuuma Tokoyogi's back. Yuuma Tokoyogi knew that the man before her was serious. If she could not prove how highly her mother valued her, she would die.
"Wait. This isn't fair. She didn't tell me any of this. She only revealed your existence to me through the information she left behind."
That's why I like riddles. As long as I speak vaguely enough, the other person will usually imagine a perfectly fitting explanation on their own, even if it gets exposed in the end.
"It really isn't fair, but life is like that. When has anything ever been fair?!"
Cid nodded in agreement, but still openly admitted that the rules of this contest were unfair. Although he had no idea what method the other party had imagined for proving herself, it did not matter. Right now, he was the stronger one. There was no need to reason with a villainous character who was most likely suspicious. He was going to do whatever he wanted.
"Of course, if everything is fine, then you'll definitely be able to answer."
If it really has something to do with me, then we'll continue. If it doesn't, I'll just kill her. That is my way of life, Cid Kagenou.
How could this person be so unreasonable?!
Yuuma Tokoyogi stared at the man before her in shock. For the first time, she felt what it meant to have no way to explain herself even when she was in the right. Was this guy really the backup plan her mother had arranged?
No. If he really was the backup plan her mother had left behind to deal with her, then this attitude actually made more sense.
This style of not listening to people, of jumping out to correct things the moment anything went wrong, of deciding that the world was at fault rather than himself, this suspicious attitude of attacking on the spot at the slightest inconsistency…
Thinking back on everything she had experienced growing up, along with the occasional messages and communications sent from within the Prison Barrier, Yuuma Tokoyogi suddenly felt that it was perfectly normal. The two of them were far too similar. Although she was her mother's daughter, she could still vaguely sense that something was wrong with her mother's plan.
"Have you given up?"
A cold voice reached Yuuma Tokoyogi's ears.