Information about her own world had been turned into animation in another world.
And because Gundam was such a popular franchise, the companies behind it naturally kept producing all kinds of derivative works to make money.
Sequels, prequels, alternate-timeline stories set in parallel worlds, even games.
So the idea that one of those games had somehow made its way into her own world, letting her play a "fan game" based on herself, was honestly rather fascinating.
Miss Kuroneko had teleported over a newly released game from Lacus's world, one that had just gone on sale today, and sent it over as soon as she bought it.
Games often included supplementary details that never appeared in the animation itself, so even if not all of the information would prove useful, some of it certainly might.
That said, Miss Kuroneko had warned her to prepare herself mentally for what she was about to receive, because this one was an adults-only visual novel.
As for what exactly that meant, Kuroneko had simply told her to ask Mister Kain. He would know.
To obtain the information inside as quickly as possible, Lacus chose to have him crack it and extract the data directly.
Ordinarily, since their own technology was far more advanced than the technology from Kuroneko's era, decrypting an outdated device like this should have been easy.
But the electronics were too old-fashioned, leaving them oddly unsure where to begin. Haro did have some capability for breaking passwords and accessing certain systems, but it was helpless against this thing.
Lacus was also worried that one careless mistake might damage the electronic components and wipe the data inside.
So in the end, she could only ask Mister Kain for help. He looked far more familiar with the kind of technology from Miss Kuroneko's era.
As it turned out, he was not all that good with it either, but Miss Sixty apparently was.
"Commander, all image and text data has been extracted."
It was done.
"Then give it to Lacus."
Kain had no intention of looking at it.
Not because he already knew the contents, but because he did not want to be spoiled.
It was like watching Detective Conan and enjoying the mystery, trying to guess who the killer was, only for someone to walk up and tell you outright. The whole thing would immediately become dull, and you would lose the desire to keep going.
It was the same here. He was currently playing a copy of the game Kuroneko had sent, and he had no interest in being spoiled. That would ruin the fun.
Even if it was also a mecha adventure game, since it was an adults-only visual novel, of course it also had some attractive CG scenes.
So he was a little curious how Lacus would react.
The character the player controlled in the game was a custom-made avatar with a chosen face and name, a resident of Heliopolis.
The story began with ZAFT's invasion, and from there the controlled character entered a branching timeline, an alternate version of events.
According to Kuroneko, the main storyline generally followed the original plot, but with various edits and changes woven into it. Depending on the tasks you took and the situations you encountered while controlling the character, you would end up with different endings.
There were bad endings.
And there were happy endings.
Naturally, one of those routes included an encounter with Lacus.
"Thank you, Miss Sixty."
After thanking her, Lacus stepped forward and operated the twenty-first century computer, opening the extracted folder. Inside were a large number of images, along with dialogue text that looked like communication logs.
As she read through it, and saw the image labeled "Lacus Clyne" along with the related dialogue, she found it unexpectedly interesting.
The version of herself in the game slowly fell in love with the player character, and in the end...
Ah.
Her expression stiffened slightly.
The pictures had started getting a little questionable.
After flipping through a few more, Lacus more or less understood what kind of scenes they were going to be.
But she did not feel especially embarrassed.
This was just a game. The Lacus inside it was not really her, and did not even look exactly like her.
That was only a fictional character drawn for a game.
The real Lacus was a separate matter entirely.
After all, people from Kuroneko's world had never seen the real Lacus with their own eyes. They could only create a character based on written descriptions.
So rather than dwell on that sort of thing, she carefully focused on the text, the recorded events, and the various machines and warships shown in the images, extracting useful intelligence wherever she could.
"W-What kind of terrible taste is this?!"
Cagalli, who was standing beside her, reacted much more dramatically.
As for where the game machine itself had come from, Lacus had naturally not explained that in detail. She had only told Cagalli that it might contain important information.
This was part of Lacus gradually helping her get used to the existence of impossible things. Later, depending on how things went, she would tell Cagalli the truth and let her learn Mister Kain's true origins.
Only once the two sides trusted each other could they really join hands and move this world toward peace.
Besides Cagalli, there was another possible candidate.
Murrue Ramius, captain of the Archangel.
Whether she would be told the truth as well would depend on the situation.
"So it really is like this. The Archangel is a new warship developed as an upgraded design based on the Izumo-class."
Once she stopped getting hung up on the indecent parts and patiently kept reading, Cagalli reached that conclusion from the information in front of her, and it was clearly the sort of intelligence that should have been a state secret.
True, it did not explain the ship's systems in detail, or what materials its armor plating was made from, but even these descriptions were confidential.
Then, as she continued reading, she came across something else.
One of Orb's great families, one that even possessed an Izumo-class warship of its own, was going to betray Orb?
Was that really true?
Then again, thinking about it carefully, it did not seem impossible.
That family had always opposed her father.
Hm?
And this was a mole planted right beside him?
Just then, a sudden alarm sounded, and Cagalli's face immediately tightened.
Trouble had come.
The only question was whether it would be the Earth Alliance or ZAFT.
Her eyes instantly shifted toward one particular spot.
That guy was gone.
He had probably already headed for the hangar.
...
On the route leading from the hangar to the bridge, Murrue Ramius, as captain, was hurrying back toward the command room.
The reason she had not been on the bridge just now was because some of the maintenance equipment for servicing the Gundams in the hangar had been discovered locked when the engineering crew tried to activate it. She had needed to come down personally to unlock it, and luckily, she had the password.
And the lock was not just a numerical code.
It also required her own retinal authentication.
Once it had been unlocked, that equipment could properly secure the transport craft Mister Kain had brought over, the one carrying two Ho 229 units along with spare parts and ammunition.
There were no fuel tanks or battery modules among the cargo, which only deepened her suspicion that the Ho 229's power source was exactly what she thought it was.
It could operate without being affected by the neutron jammer.
That meant it was probably equipped with an anti-neutron jammer.
Which in turn meant that the Ho 229 was most likely nuclear-powered.
"Ah?"
The moment a door along the route to the bridge opened, she rushed through too quickly and slammed straight into someone coming the other way, colliding full-on into his chest. Pressed together like that, it felt almost indecently intimate.
"Sorry."
"It's fine."
The person she had crashed into, Kain, merely shrugged, then looked toward an object drifting in his direction.
"I'll trouble Captain Ramius to hold on to the device you knocked away."
He had been playing a PSP all the way over, and Murrue's rather forceful collision had sent it flying.
Because they were in zero gravity, it had drifted far back down the corridor.
Lacus had already intended to let Murrue learn at least part of the truth and have some contact with this PSP game system.
So Kain did not bother turning around to retrieve it. He simply let Murrue take custody of it for him.
He was a little curious what her reaction would be if she saw what was on the screen.
"Of course."
Murrue pushed off a handrail with one arm, accelerating herself forward and catching the device she had sent flying.
When she had come to the hangar earlier, she had seen Lacus and Kain operating this thing with unusual concentration. It seemed to be some kind of special device.
Hm?
It was not as though she had intentionally tried to peek at its contents.
The screen was simply still on, and the image entered her field of view all on its own.
The dialogue scene displayed there made her freeze.
Because it showed her name.
And there was also an animated character who looked very much like her.
And that character, who looked like some version of her, wore the kind of embarrassed expression a young woman would make when flustered and shy.
(End of Chapter)
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