Only after the Ho 229 had been in flight for three minutes did a pair of sexy red lips finally break the silence.
"Mr. Kain, there's something wrong with your mindset."
"How so, Mrs. Takagi?"
"You don't seem to treat our world as something truly real. It's more like you're approaching it as if it were some kind of game."
"In other words, you think I treat you like NPCs?"
"No. You also treat yourself as a player. But not in the sense of someone sitting outside the game controlling it. More like you've actually entered the game yourself, and become one of the characters inside it."
That was how Yuriko Takagi summed up the man seated behind her, holding her in his arms.
His state of "gaming through life," his habit of treating the world like a game, was not because he genuinely thought her world was fake, some fictional setting from Highschool of the Dead.
Yes, by now she had already learned some of the truth from him and Saeko Busujima, and she had been told before that battle took place.
Returning to the point, his attitude of treating the world like a game was really something he did on purpose.
It was a way of numbing himself.
A way to keep himself from accidentally investing too much real emotion into anything.
"So you're not the type who can truly give anyone your full feelings."
"You're right."
No wonder she was the smartest one.
Kain genuinely believed this woman was the smartest, most formidable person here.
If she truly wanted to, he did not doubt for a second that she was capable of taking control of the modern world.
Just looking at the changes in Bed City under her management, at the systems she had arranged and the way everything had been planned, if you stayed inside that safe zone and never left, you could almost fool yourself into thinking the apocalypse had never happened at all, and that life there was no different from living in a peaceful world.
That atmosphere could not be explained just by the fact that he had delivered a great deal of supplies there and provided enough material security.
It also required an extraordinarily shrewd and capable leader to shape things to that degree.
Earlier, Saya had said that if her mother had not spent some of her attention taking care of her father, then her mother could have achieved everything her father was trying to do with ease.
She would not dare claim Yuriko could directly make the Patriot Concern Society the single strongest organization in the whole country, but she was confident Yuriko could push it into the top three, with the ability to control at least one-third of the nation's political power.
And according to Saya, that still was not the most frightening part.
If everything went smoothly, then by the time she graduated high school, it might not have been impossible for her mother to seize the office of prime minister.
"So then, what is the request you want from me? What exactly are you going to ask for?"
"Did Saya tell you about the wish you already promised me before?"
Kain did not act shy or evasive. He just brought it up openly and directly.
Anything more theatrical than that would only feel hypocritical.
After those words, he felt the faintest stiffness in her body.
So it seemed Saya really had told her.
After a brief silence...
"I'm still not mentally prepared to join that kind of party together with Saya. But if it's just the two of us, then I can do it now."
Yuriko said it with a mixture of resignation and faint resentment.
The reason she had not joined that party was precisely because she still could not bring herself to do something like that together with Saya, especially when Saya herself had taken part in it.
And because she had not joined, Saya still felt uneasy about her.
That was why she had chosen to come with him this time. It was to reassure Saya.
Saya would understand why she had gone with him, because by doing so, Yuriko had already made her decision.
And that, in turn, proved that she was beginning to accept Saya's absurd idea and was starting to force herself to adapt to it.
Put simply, before she could join that kind of gathering together with Saya, she first had to prepare herself alone.
To adjust herself in advance.
First, she would do it one-on-one.
It was like Saya loving a certain food and wanting to share it with her, while Yuriko simply could not stomach it yet.
But if she refused to share it, then Saya would never feel at ease, because sharing it would prove that Yuriko was not going to leave her behind and disappear on her own.
So, in order to reassure Saya, while still unable to do it together for now, and also to avoid breaking down halfway through and embarrassing Saya or making her think she was going to abandon her, Yuriko had chosen to change her taste first.
To adapt first.
To force herself to accept that "dish" on her own.
Only after that would she try to share it together with Saya.
Though, if one were being honest, the real situation between the two of them was probably the exact opposite of what that metaphor implied.
Sigh.
"If you really want something like that from me, then don't die. Don't make Saya sad. Of all people she could have fallen for, she just had to fall for you, and now I've been dragged into this ridiculous vortex too as her mother."
She truly had no idea what to do with that child.
She was simply too worried.
Biting down on her lip, she stepped across the line and began making her mistake.
...
Today, Lacus Clyne logged back into Hyperdimensional Channel.
And this would also be the last time she logged in.
To be more precise, she would not appear again until the knob beside the "Cross-World Invitation" button, like the spring of a wound-up clock, returned automatically after being turned and time became synchronized again.
At present, among the members who had interacted with that knob, besides herself there was only the member with the ID "Asuna."
The difference was that Asuna had touched it by mistake, while Lacus had adjusted it deliberately.
Yes. She had knowingly turned that knob with full awareness of what the consequences would be.
She had actively caused time in her own world to diverge from the worlds of the other members.
For example, on Asuna's side, a year might pass while only a single day passed for the others.
The difference was that Lacus had not set hers to one year, but to eleven months.
Now the settings could be adjusted more precisely. The previous minimum interval of three years had already been reduced to three months.
In other words, one month passing in her world could correspond to one day passing for the other members.
It could also be adjusted anywhere from one month to one year within that range, all set so that only one day would pass for everyone else.
Which meant that once the eleven months she had set passed on her side, only a single day would have passed for the others.
And the reason she set it to eleven months was because that would bring things to just a few days before the plot began, the perfect time to invite someone over to help her.
Ordinarily, one might ask: shouldn't she have synchronized time instead?
Because if she did that, then after eleven months passed on her side, the other members would also have had eleven months pass for them.
Wouldn't that mean they would likely have gained many more energy coins by then, developed much further, and thus be able to provide her with far greater support?
At the same time, over that period Lacus could also obtain useful technology from the other members and use the ample time before the plot began to prepare her own strength.
However, in order to avoid changing the development of events in her own world too drastically and driving the hidden masterminds deeper into the shadows, she could not afford to do anything unnecessary.
She could not engage in extra exchanges with the other members.
She could not let new technologies appear in her world through such trades.
Because if she was careless, she might not even be able to hold onto those new technologies herself. Others could seize them from her instead, making her world even worse than before.
She needed her world, one year from now, to unfold in a way that remained close to what she had seen in the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED.
Only then would more of the people behind the scenes rise into view, making it easier to seize evidence that would corner them and doom them.
That way, she could use her knowledge of the highly probable future to begin laying her plans, expose those people, gather proof of their crimes, and bring them down.
It would also help prevent tragedies that might otherwise happen, such as a colony satellite being pushed toward Earth.
If she interfered too much with the original storyline, then the timing of a vicious operation like the colony satellite incident would become completely uncertain, and the plan itself would only be hidden more deeply.
So, in order to avoid getting too deeply involved with the other members as well, and to keep herself from giving in to temptation, Lacus made this time adjustment.
That way, she would be unable to communicate with the others in real time.
From her perspective, they would almost seem frozen.
And that, in turn, would keep her from getting distracted by all the various streams and broadcasts in Hyperdimensional Channel, allowing her to stay focused on her work as a songstress.
There was another issue as well.
If she synchronized time, then after eleven months passed in her world, would the people in that Hyperdimensional Channel still even be there?
That too was an uncertain factor.
Take Mr. Kain, for example. The situation in his world was so dire that it felt as though he could die in an accident at any moment.
If she synchronized time, there was no guarantee he would even survive those eleven months.
So rather than gamble on that, it was better to use the fact that he had free time now and ask him for help while she still could.
After adjusting time, eleven months would pass for her, while only a single day would pass for him.
He would still be free, still relaxed, and still able to accept her invitation.
Then it was time to begin the adjustment.
See you next year, everyone.
(End of Chapter)
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