Firefly
"I'm right, aren't I, AR-26710?"
The girl inside the mecha bit her lip. This feeling of being seen through made her extremely uneasy, but she still released her clenched fists.
"My judgment was wrong. You know a lot."
"Actually, there's even more."
"..."
"Regardless, your mission should be to follow us and become an asset to our [Trailblaze] expedition, right?"
"...Right."
Dan Heng and Delta did not speak.
Delta was still observing the situation, while Dan Heng's silence was entirely out of trust for Aidan.
"After all, for early-game scaling types like me and Stelle, we really need a strong character to protect us in the beginning."
Aidan sighed with emotion.
This scaling was quite something.
The kind of scaling where you might wake up to a max-level Destruction account.
Dan Heng: (Brainstorming)
"Where was your early game?"
I didn't see any early game. Isn't Destruction a max-level finished account?
"Sigh, anyway, having scaled for so many days along this journey, only I know the bitterness I've endured."
"Bit... Bitter?"
"Wasn't that vegetable juice March made for me and the food Sister Himeko cooked quite bitter?"
"I made that vegetable juice specifically because I was afraid you'd be hungry after turning into a bug! I added so many good things, and you actually complain about it being bitter!"
"It's quite nutritious, but the taste is a bit too 'ahead of its time.' Thinking back on it now, I feel like I'm about to see heaven."
Aidan replied.
A noisy Trailblaze... It's nice, it really makes one...
"Envious, right?"
Aidan spoke the words Sam was thinking.
"..."
Silence.
Sam's silence was an admission; if it were wrong, Sam would have retorted immediately.
Stelle had been in a state of confusion the whole time. She looked at Aidan, then at Sam, and finally scratched her head.
"So, who am I, and who is she..."
"Now isn't the time for reminiscing; we have serious business to attend to."
Aidan suppressed Stelle's curiosity.
"True, I'll listen to you."
Sam's gaze finally moved from Stelle to Aidan.
However, being watched by Sam always gave him a creepy feeling down his spine.
— — —
Lacking materials, a workbench, and a quiet environment, how should Aidan go about inventing something?
"This feels pretty great." Stelle fished a discarded wall clock out of a trash can.
"Magnificent!"
Aidan took the old-fashioned wall clock and took it apart into a pile of parts in just fifteen seconds.
Stelle squatted on the ground, her eyes fixed on Aidan's flying hands.
Wait, I don't think I even blinked.
"Do you need any more materials?" She enthusiastically pointed to the row of metal trash cans behind them. "There are three more over there!"
"No, these are enough."
Aidan didn't even look up. He picked up the clock face with his left hand, its hands already rusted, and pressed down hard on the mainspring barrel with his right. With a click, the two parts snapped together, and finally, he covered it with glass.
He flicked the metal piece on the side of the cylinder a couple of times.
"Beep—"
"Beep, beep, beep, beep."
A simple Stellaron Radar that would beep when near a Stellaron was complete.
"Now, we can find the Stellaron using this device."
"Are you serious? No matter how I look at it, this is just something you cobbled together from trash you found in a bin."
"The quality of the materials doesn't determine the nature of the instrument." Aidan pointed at the circular device. "The imaginary energy released by a Stellaron produces a specific wavelength shift. This device's needle is now only resonant with that shift... Fine, I won't explain so much. Just think of it as a compass."
"I don't understand what you're saying about coils or wavelengths." Stelle stared at the Stellaron Radar in Aidan's hand. "I only saw you take apart a broken clock and put it back together as a tin can that beeps. Can it really find the Stellaron?"
As if to spite Stelle, the needle spun twice and then pointed straight at her.
Stelle moved a bit.
The needle moved with her.
"...Fine, it seems like there's no problem."
"So take this and mask your Stellaron wavelength, otherwise we won't be able to find the other Stellaron."
Aidan placed a small silver cube in Stelle's hand.
"Just how much stuff are you carrying?"
"Not much." Aidan unzipped his left pocket to reveal his arsenal; it was packed with various small silver cubes. "My clothes have four pockets in total."
"Are you wearing an armory?"
"It's called being prepared for anything." Aidan zipped it back up as a matter of course and patted the bulging pocket. "Who knows what we'll encounter outside? Just in case we need it."
The needle on the tin-can radar in Aidan's hand immediately spun once, stopped pointing at Stelle, and steadied itself toward the front of the street.
"Beep— beep— beep—"
"The signal is very stable." Aidan looked in the direction the needle was pointing. "The distance isn't too far. Follow the needle."
The team began to move through the streets of Belobog, with Sam following behind them with heavy steps.
Several soldiers in deep blue uniforms patrolled from the street corner. They held long spears, their sharp gazes scanning the passing pedestrians.
Though these local soldiers' combat power seemed rather underwhelming.
The soldiers walked straight past them, completely ignoring them.
"This feels so strange." Stelle looked back at the soldiers as they walked away. "They really just treated us like air... I almost wanted to reach out and say hello to them just now."
"You can try; they won't pay you any mind."
"I still find it awkward," March 7th complained. "A mecha that big is clanging down the street, and the pedestrians don't even bat an eye. Your cloaking ability is just ridiculous."
"This is a victory for science."
As the team crossed several streets, the surrounding buildings became more magnificent, and the roads became wider and smoother. The number of soldiers in deep blue uniforms clearly increased, and the frequency of their patrols was high.
People seemed to be discussing the blue light that had descended from the sky earlier.
"This must be a miracle of Preservation, right?"
March 7th's expression was a bit strained.
That had nothing to do with Preservation; it was an Erudition cannon firing down...