"Is this actually going to work?"
Ein looked at Anthony, momentarily hesitant, and voiced the question. Anthony just shrugged, then waved a hand at the empty air.
"Honestly, I'm not totally sure... but hey, maybe?"
Carmen's smiling voice drifted out of thin air, echoing in both Ein's and Anthony's ears:
"At the very least, I've never felt better than I do right now." Nobody understood the state Carmen was in better than Carmen herself.
To put it plainly — the Carmen of this moment had, without exaggeration, ascended to something like a local deity. Strictly within the confines of the laboratory, of course.
After stepping into the subconscious river, Carmen had felt connections form between herself and those faint, half-real possibilities. The one drawback was that, deprived of the nourishment of the Light Seed, the river of the subconscious before her felt somehow incomplete — which meant Carmen's power was missing certain upper limits it might otherwise have reached.
Correspondingly, she couldn't directly interfere with those possibilities... but even so, a remarkable array of effects had already begun to manifest.
For instance: right now, Carmen could feel with crystalline clarity every single piece of equipment in the laboratory, every employee, even every blade of grass and leaf...
As though all of it lay within the reach of her soul's hands.
She needed only to extend a fingertip and she could pluck another possibility from the stars above, then drape it over what was here like a second skin.
Within this laboratory, she had become, in every meaningful sense, a god.
By Carmen's own account, she could see the possibilities and currents flowing through the countless Lobotomy Corporations of the future — and moreover, she could feel with perfect clarity that, if she so wished, she could replicate any Abnormality, any person, any event from among them, and manifest it here...
Even further into the distant future, Carmen could catch glimpses of what lay within the Library itself.
The replication was limited to Lobotomy Corporation alone... but honestly, was that not enough? This was the infinite possibilities of an entire Wing!
At present, Carmen was leafing through those possibilities with great interest, fishing out whatever she found entertaining and rattling it all off to Ein in an unstoppable stream:
"Let me see what kinds of possibilities you've got... oh wow, Ein, what is this Adam saying?"
Carmen asked curiously: "It sounds so over-the-top — is this really one of your possibilities...?"
"What exactly did I say?"
Ein tensed instinctively, and then Carmen read a couple of lines back to him — at which point Ein gradually fell silent.
"...Is there nothing else?"
A moment later, amid a helpless sigh, Ein put the question back to her.
"Uh, there's also an old man."
"?"
Watching the growing puzzlement on Ein's face, Anthony cleared his throat twice, then turned toward Carmen with an expression full of expectation.
"What about me, what about me? Are there any possibilities I can see for myself?"
"Hmm, let me look..."
Faced with Anthony's request, Carmen had no reason to refuse. So she swept through the infinite star-canopy of possibilities, searched for quite a while, even narrowed the scope down to Prometheus himself, and finally, after a long contemplative pause...
"Nothing. Not a single one."
"?"
The laboratory now had two dejected souls in it.
Anthony didn't understand. What the hell — it had to be targeted specifically at him, right?
Okay, fine, his original self having no possibilities was one thing — but not even his avatar had any? Just how absurdly high was the Primordial River's standing, exactly?
"Aight, forget it... let's get to the actual business. Are there limits on the overlay?"
"A few... I can't touch anything that belongs to the Light — my rank isn't high enough for that yet."
Carmen mulled it over for a moment, then gave her answer with confidence:
"But everything else is fair game. Abnormalities especially — I seem to have quite an affinity with Them."
"The only caveat is that overlaying costs a certain amount of energy."
"That won't be a problem."
Ein said calmly, then looked up toward Anthony: "So then... how do we handle the problem of the Head...?"
"Honestly, given where things stand right now, I think we can afford to shelve that concern for the moment."
Anthony's eye twitched slightly, and that was his answer to Ein.
Fair enough — if it were any other Wing, Anthony might actually be a little worried... but they had Carly here, after all. Did people not understand what it meant to have the city's undisputed strongest person on your side?
When it came to a one-on-one against a Head, the strongest person's credentials were simply too authoritative to argue with.
And with Carmen's support layered on top of that... if Gallion showed up and somehow managed to beat Carly, Anthony would eat his own name backwards.
All that was left was to tip the scales just a little further, make victory feel like the natural outcome — and beyond that...
Anthony raised his head and looked at Ein, which for some reason left Ein feeling vaguely baffled.
"...Why are you suddenly staring at me?"
"No reason. Just thinking about how much a Head is worth."
Anthony let out a wistful, appreciative sigh, which only deepened Ein's confusion.
"Not just the Head — her minions too, the serums they're carrying, their various Singularity Technology equipment..."
"And once we crack open the Head's skull afterward, the tech inside is another massive haul — plus all kinds of fascinating applications..."
"???"
"Ideally, we'd get as many of them to come as possible."
Anthony let out a soft, wistful exclamation, barely suppressing the urge to laugh out loud:
"Prime material, all of it!"
"Oh, right — there might even be some crucial information in there related to the Light Seed launch plan, you know?"
Having made a few rough guesses about the conditions for Carmen's full resurrection, Anthony smiled, turned back to Ein, and in a tone of gentle, persuasive reasoning, said:
"You don't want Carmen to stay stuck like this forever, do you?"
In that moment, Ein went quiet.
Then he silently looked toward Anthony.
Something like a silent agreement had been reached.
The laboratory sprang back into motion.
And by the time the distant outline of the suburban research facility could finally be spotted on the horizon, it was already the next day.
Gallion stood at a distance, eyes fixed on that laboratory, brow lightly furrowed — and then let out a sigh.
"Any trace of the fallen star?"
She turned her head toward the minions behind her and asked the question.
The lead minion she'd sent out shook his head, and Gallion's frown deepened again.
Still nothing.
In truth, Gallion had already reached the suburbs the previous night, and upon arriving, had immediately dispatched the minions she'd brought to search for the fallen star.
That thing was, without question, a genuine piece of Impurity now. Not just ordinary Impurity, either — this required decisive force.
So from the moment she'd set out, Gallion had judged that the two minions assigned to accompany the H Company visit were almost certainly not enough. She'd hustled to scrape together six more. Among them was even one designated as an "Executor."
This lineup, by the standards of past records, should be more than sufficient to handle one fallen star... and if the individual turned out to be relatively amicable, it might not even come to a fight.
Then things got awkward.
Right. The numbers were there — but they couldn't find the target.
And that was a much bigger problem.
Finding it would be one thing, but not finding it sent a very different kind of chill through you... If the thing had gone into hiding, was it building up to something?
"Keep searching..."
"Report. Possible lead."
Suddenly, the one minion who had remained silent — the Executor — spoke up. Gallion turned to look at him with mild surprise, then gestured for him to continue.
"In all likelihood, it is within the target laboratory... The point of descent was extremely close to that location."
The Executor chose his words carefully before continuing:
"Authorization to enter and investigate?"
"...We were always going there anyway. If we happen to find it, consider it a pleasant bonus."
Gallion was quiet for a moment, then turned and said flatly:
"Think of it as a change of pace. First, clean up the matter of this rule-breaking laboratory. Then put everything into finding the fallen star."
It wasn't as though eight minions plus a Harmonizer could possibly botch something as simple as one ordinary suburban laboratory, was it?
Just entertaining the thought was enough to make her want to laugh.
Please. A place this small — what was it going to do, spit out the city's strongest person from inside?
And even if it did — could that person really stand up to a lineup like this?
Unless they could also conjure up a Head from thin air!
"Let's move."
She issued the order and walked toward the laboratory.
Inside the laboratory, two pairs of excited eyes snapped open.
The two souls exchanged a glance — and then Anthony rubbed his hands together, while Carmen spread her hands wide over the entire research facility, wrapping it in her soul.
"Here they come, here they come, here they come!"
Anthony announced with delight: "The points — wait, I mean, the hostage — wait, I mean — the Head is HERE!"
"Personality overlay is ready."
Carmen's voice carried out: "Don't rush — I've been watching Gallion for a while now. She opens up quite a few possibilities... I can see a lot of lit stars in the star-canopy above the river."
"Anything we can actually use?"
"Mm... actually, yes. We might be able to have a lot more fun with this."
Carmen said breezily and with evident delight, eyes full of anticipation: "Oh wow, this one's got some real kick to it!"
"I'll leave it to you."
Anthony thought it over briefly, then decided to give Carmen free rein.
He trusted that Carmen, at her core, was cut from the same cloth as him — the kind of person who, when presented with a situation like this, would always pick the most devious, most deranged option available...
"Carly and Ein are in position..."
Watching how things were unfolding at the front of the research facility, a smile spread across Anthony's face — and behind him, the Origin Furnace rumbled, letting out a low, hungry growl.
At that same moment, Gallion, stepping through the laboratory's entrance, felt something sweep across her — the sensation of being watched.
She raised an eyebrow, and her expression soured.
Something unfamiliar out there...
And then, seemingly to her surprise, Gallion spotted, waiting at the entrance to the research facility, a red-haired woman in a long leather coat with a cigarette hanging from her lips.
"...Waiting out here in advance?"
Gallion narrowed her eyes slightly and murmured. Her instincts told her the figure before her was a powerful combatant — and yet...
"Going to the trouble of resisting, are we? How dull."
She spoke with a hint of boredom, then waved dismissively at the minions behind her. A yellow-black glow kindled at her fingertip.
[Singularity Technology · Demon Spirit]
"Still need to deal with the fallen star after this — no time to play around. Let's end this quickly. No wasting time; sweep it up fast."
"Tch — not even a shred of respect..."
Carly clicked her tongue in irritation. Hearing it, something like pleased amusement crossed Gallion's face.
"By all means — why not try resisting?"
She said it lightly, smiling. But Carly looked entirely unbothered — in fact...
She broke into a wide, reckless grin in return.
"Eh, that sort of thing's whatever — or rather... the one who ought to be getting serious right now is you!"
The next instant, she moved.
Behind Gallion, the expressions beneath the minions' masks seemed to shift violently. With almost mechanical unity, they began loading their serums.
Each minion went about it in their own way — W-Serum, R-Serum, K-Serum — but the moment that red-haired figure came surging in, she passed judgment on every last one of them.
Test result: Fail.
If you were still thinking about anything other than using the W-Serum to run at a moment like this — then regrettably, the test results could only come back as: not qualified.
And so the Mimic blade came down — slash!
The strike burst out in an instant, even faster than Gallion's Demon Spirit. The K-Serum was caught at the very last moment before injection — and never made it in...
In that single moment, eight minions had become seven.
But Gallion's eyes narrowed sharply — and in that instant, the Demon Spirit erupted. One minion lost, yes... but a mass-produced unit like that wasn't worth grieving over.
Still...
"Your opening — you've just handed it to me so cleanly."
"And in front of me, no less — are you really fine with that?"
She tilted her head, speaking softly.
How terribly arrogant...
And so, smiling, she prepared to say farewell to the enemy before her...
Or rather, that was how it should have gone.
Because in the very instant the Demon Spirit erupted, Gallion saw it — the smile on Carly's face.
Something like a deep, soul-level unease stirred within her.
The next moment, Gallion heard Carly shout:
"Ein!"
And with that, accompanied by a quiet exhale, the doors of the research facility swung open.
Above the facility, Carmen rubbed her hands together with excitement, tilting her head back inside the river, counting the stars one by one. And with each beautiful star she counted, she called out a name:
"Hmm... Adam, Abram... ah, but it really has to be this one, doesn't it?"
And so, with a delighted laugh — as Ein stepped out from the doorway — Carmen delivered her final answer:
"Harmonizer!"
In that moment, accompanied by the consumption of a vast tide of enkephalin —
Gallion watched in astonishment as the figure stepping out from the doorway turned golden eyes upon her, and amid a sigh, raised one hand — and then a radiance she knew all too well began to ignite —
"Lock."
With that single quiet word, it was announced: Harmonizer Personality Overlay · Ein had arrived on the battlefield.
____
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