PGR STORIES SUMMARY - VOLUME 3
DESTINY
By Alonark
!!!WARNING!!!
(Yes, these sound like I’m chasing people away from reading my summaries, but whatever)
* This is NOT a professional translation, I only make these summaries in my spare time to help people get an idea (or two) of what is going on, please read the full story yourself if you can*
*I won’t promise to including everything in the future since I only make these in my spare time*
* While I try my best to be as objective as possible, these summaries are based on my understanding of the story and only include details that I deem important, so keep that in mind before you read them*
*Please don’t ask me to change the terms to the Global version, simply because I don’t play Global. At this point, it doesn’t even matter anymore since Global clearly wants their own terms instead of using the same terms as CN. Moreover, CN starts to use English terms, so maybe one day all will be unified. However, I will try to add a list of terms between versions (CN, EN) based on people’s conversation (the list is on the latest doc). This might be changed to “Legacy” or something when the terms are unified.
*Most of the time I will make tiny adjustments here and there to improve the summaries, so I don’t really want to announce them. I will still have a changelog for some significant changes that will only be 1 page long at most (also on the latest doc). It is also mostly for me to keep track of changes rather than just announce them.
Pictures are added because people asked about character portraits in game after reading my summaries, so they will just serve that purpose as new characters are introduced, nothing more.
Each version will have a page with login screens that might also have certain notes about why I don’t make certain summaries or something else, you can check it out.
Link to the latest story summary: PGR Stories Summary - Latest
CONTENTS
ER 0: WANDERING DREAM WITH WHALE 4
Part 4: Farewell Toward Eternity 19
Nanami – Constellation of Distant Stars' Bond Story 21
New Year 2022 Event Story: Trickster Tiger Fortune Fun 24
CHAPTER ER 1: THE ARK BEYOND 26
White Day 2022 Event Story: Immaculate Sincereness 37
Karenina – Radiant Daybreak's Bond Story 49
CHAPTER ER 2: SURVIVING GLIMMER 51
CHAPTER 20: VOYAGE AMONG THE REMAINS 73
Bianca – Abystigma’s Bond Story 86
Solaeter’s Dream Catcher Coating Story: Take a Nap and Dream in the Sky Forest 88
Multidimensional Deduction: Cursed Wave 92
Mid-Autumn Festival 2022 Story: Once in a Blue Moon 107
CHAPTER 21: SPIRAL OF CHRONOS 110
Lee – Hyperreal’s Bond Story 125
Alpha’s ID Corridor Story: Choose the Way near the Abyss 128
Watanabe – Night Blade’s ID Corridor: The Long Road of Remembrance 131
CHAPTER 22: RENAISSANT LE FANTASTIQUE 132
Ayla – Kaleido’s Bond Story 161
ER 0: WANDERING DREAM WITH WHALE
This patch I won’t summarize the main story since it is mostly about her dream. The only important part is Huainan and Yin appear in the end in reality.
Pulao’s Interlude
The girl Youyou talked to her parents about the panda toy named “Teacher” from the movie “Kowloong’s Magical Girl”. Suddenly, her parents disappeared, and the girl realized it was time for her to wake up. She found herself in a room with a beautiful sister who had rescued and treated her from the virus. Youyou asked where were the 2 robots that had come with her. The sister said that only 1 robot had been there, and it had been taken away. Youyou then wanted to find her parents, but the sister informed her that she had been in coma for 7 days but no one had come to find her, so her parents might already die. Youyou was angry at the sister’s statement and left, despite her warning about the danger on the Night Ship.
Youyou then wandered alone on the ship to search for her parents. She met a merchant named Jinman with a young boy (Huainan) who sold an infected machine’s body part, one of it was an arm with a ribbon. Realizing it was the arm of her companion robot, she confronted Jinman and told it was her friend’s arm who had protected her. She wanted to buy the arm back but only had a few coins, so Jinman tricked her to wear a “cangue”, saying it could give her enough coins to buy the arm. However, as she wore the “cangue”, it started to flash and the robot guards came. Jinman revealed that her “cangue” had run out of “mileage” and proposed to her to sell her innocent memory, but she refused and pushed him away.
Youyou kept running, but the “cangue” kept flashing brighter and more robots appeared. Tired, she fell and the robot was about to punch her, but the sister appeared and blocked the robot’s attack. The sister wondered why Youyou was so desperate to get the robot – human tool – arm back, but she just wanted to get it back because it was from her friend. The sister then somehow suppressed the red light on Youyou’s “cangue” and proposed to live together.
Somewhere else, “Qu” told Yazi that she didn’t need the humans on this ship to have will, so she applied rules on them. First, everyone on the ship must wear a “cangue”. Second, they must earn money through any means in exchange for “mileage”, and if it ran out, they would be killed. Third, the Night Ship would run until all disasters were over and no one could leave or board the boat. Forth, anyone who became a member of Kowloong as a Structurer would earn the right to stay in the ship permanently. Fifth, all freedom was granted in the name of Kowloong.
“Qu” then returned and was greeted by Huaxu as Villiers. Villers monitored people's lives in real time, while Huaxu remarked how his rules increased the survival rate on the ship. Villier revealed that the rules would push people to become a structure, which would provide a suitable body for Huaxu. In due time, he hoped that Huaxu could temporarily take the work of “Qu” by remotely controlling the body that imitated Qu. However, as Villiers noticed Huaxu became more close to humans, he reduced Huaxu’s interaction with humans.
When Youyou woke up, she apologized to the sister, but the sister also apologized back for being too frank. She revealed that she had bought the robot’s parts back and tried to repair it. However, she could only turn the parts into a new robot.
Pulao named the robot Ayi then asked the sister’s name. The sister revealed that she was an android with no name who had followed her master on board. Now the sister lost her value, but Youyou assured that she would find her value one day. The sister then mentioned her code name “Hanying”, which Youyou pointed out that it was actually her name.
One day in the future, Youyou went out to buy some protective paint, but Jinman who had tricked her interfered and pointed out that the paint logo was fake. He then negotiated with the paint merchant to buy all the paint at a cheap price for himself. Youyou returned empty hand, but Hanying didn’t mind. As Hanyin prepared to go to work, she mentioned that people in the dance troupe were really impressed with her Kung Fu and acrobatics. She also reminds Youyou to stay low as she had prepared to let Youyou return to Kowloong to find her parents. She then mentioned the machine sage in the land that might help her find her “heart” one day. To stay young to find her parents, she suggests Youyou to turn into a structure as she had already prepared everything. However, she told Youyou to not have to decide right away and wondered why had she even told Youyou to do that.
During the dance, a stranger called himself “Cradle” secretly disrupted Hanying’s code and said he found “it”. She wondered how her codes were leaked and tried to find that person in the crowd back then. On the way, Jinman appeared and informed her that the ship to get out of the Night Boat had already been prepared. As she moved on, she was ambushed by a group of humans, machines and structures, but she successfully beat them and forced the leader “Cradle” to come out. However, he showed no fear as his men had successfully beaten Ayi and captured Pulao. He revealed that he was from the former organization “Cradle” who had hacked the machine to attack Villiers and Qu before. He knew about Villiers being the fake “Qu” and wanted his creation – Hanying – to kill him. After that, he hacked Hanying and made her reveal that she saved Youyou because of “Huaxu” instruction – to nurture the potential candidate for Villiers. Hanying then used her last strength to instruct Ayi to take Pulao out of there.
Ayi carried Youyou out and noticed how shocked she was, so it gave her the panda doll. She wondered if Ayi and Hanying were only good to her because they were programmed to do so, but then assured herself and decided to become a structure to save Hanying. She then forced Ayi to show her where she could be reconstructed. At Jinman’s shop, she agreed to sell her memories and the doll to become a structure, even though Jinman warned her that she would forget her parents. 3 days later, she was woken up by a huge noise and saw Ayi trying to protect her from the infected. She then picked up the weapon nearby to protect the robot and quickly rushed to the market.
At the market, she was stopped by Yazi, so she fought back while trying to tell her that “Qu” is in danger. They then rushed to “Qu”’s place and Youyou managed to block the strike from Hanying for “Qu”. “Cradle” didn’t fear that he would be killed, as Hanying would still carry out his command. Hanying remembered that she had been created as a vessel for Huaxu. However, as time went by, Villiers had been disgusted because she had started to become more human, and he had realized that only a structure’s consciousness was suitable for Huaxu. Hanying lost control again and attacked Youyou, while begging Youyou to destroy her, saying that she was just a machine with no value in the end. However, Youyou hugged Hanying and told her that everyone could see her value as a dancer. “Qu” started to wonder who was Hanying as she mentioned Huaxu, so she introduced herself again. She then pushed Pulao away and destroyed the “cangue”, and its protection mechanism killed her.
Villiers returned to Huaxu and questioned its decision to not destroy Hanying and let Youyou taken it away, but at least now they had a powerful structure on their side. She would become one of the Nine Dragon, and Villiers informed Huaxu that the device to transfer Huaxu was completed.
Back at home with Ayi, Youyou decided to keep her name until she could reunite with Hanying. For now, her name would be Pulao, and she vowed to protect everyone on the ship until they could return to Kowloong.
A few days after the attack, a mechanical-looking guest (Gear’s censored portrait) came to Jinman’s store and ordered some parts from the Golden Age with a high sum of money. The customer then asked to buy some mechanical bodies. Jinman then mentioned Hanying, who he couldn’t wake up no matter what, and joked that maybe only the “Sage Machina” could fix her now. The customer remarked that she was just stuck in her endless dream and perhaps only a sage could wake her up. The customer then decided to take Hanying away and left a note for Pulao about what he heard from the soul of Hanying, saying that she would understand.
Pulao's Bond Story
After keeping peace on the ship, Pulao says that Yazi is more suitable to work with Chaofeng than helping her with security. However, Yazi understands that the nine Chaofeng still doesn't trust her as much. As Yazi tells Pulao to eat moderately even though the amount of food eating doesn't have an effect on the Structurer's body, Baxia sends them a message that Engineering Troops from Eden will arrive tomorrow to help with building the communication antenna.
Meanwhile, on Eden, the Commander asks Hassan why it isn't Karenina who does this mission. Hassan answers that they also need to send an envoy as a goodwill, which means the Commander is the best person for this purpose, and it will just be a vacation. The Commander, however, doesn't feel so good when hearing "vacation" but Hassan assures that it won't end up like the Venus Splash Park incident.
The next day, Pulao is responsible for the security for Eden's team. However, both the Commander and Pulao are chased away by Baxia and the Engineering Troops for not getting in their way of work. As Pulao is about to tell the Commander about the ship, starting with people gradually moving to Kowloong, the Commander notices that people seem to avoid Pulao. Pulao says she understands as the Nine Dragons were accomplices of the fake leader, but the Commander believes things will change just like between Kowloong's troops and Eden's troops.
The Commander then pulls Pulao into a clothing shop to disguise her, so people won't be afraid of her. The shopkeeper also suggests the Commander to change.
After that, the Commander tries to pay with black card, but since Kowloong has their own currency as coins, Pulao pays. As they are about to leave, the shopkeeper stops them to return the Commander's FOS silver graduation badge and points them to the nearest money exchange place.
They then go through different stalls in the West District. No one recognizes Pulao as the Nine Dragons, but she attracts attention in another way. Soon, she carries plenty of toys that make rattling sounds as she walks. The Commander reminds Pulao of the way they address each other and Pulao decides to call the Commander by name while she will be Laopu.
As they stop to eat some Cha Siu Bao, Pulao takes the chance to ask people there about their thoughts of the Nine Dragons. People answer that they are grateful for the Nine Dragons to free them, but since it wasn't the victory that they fought, they are unsure whether the Nine Dragons are really on their side or not. The owner then mentions specifically Yazi who just came to buy food but not saying anything else, and Chaofeng who kept appearing upside-down at night, frightened him to death. Pulao says she will talk to them about it as a citizen who also lives in the Center District with them. The people then tell Pulao to ask the Nine Dragons if they need any help.
As they are about to move to the East District, people suggest they be careful as recently there is a ghost that keeps stealing insignificant items. They decide to check on this ghost, but people there don't provide much more information other than the ghost glowed red light and the frequency between incidents were too short. Suddenly, they see a shadow, and after that, the Commander's badge is stolen.
The badge is cheap, but it is very important to the Commander. Every time under pressure, the Commander looks at the badge as a wake-up call to remember the responsibility and the people who have been supporting until now. Pulao realizes the importance of the badge and blames herself for not paying attention, but the Commander reveals to have installed a locator in it. Pulao starts to doubt that the Commander loses items very often, but the Commander quickly says they should chase after the signal.
With Pulao guidance, they follow the signal until it is somehow shown to go through the wall. Pulao figures out that the thief is actually under the sewer. As she is about to charge in, the Commander lifts her up to stop her and reminds her to be quiet. Suddenly, the red ghost, which turns out to be Yazi, appears and shows them the thief - a mouse machine. As Yazi returns the badge to the Commander, Pulao realizes that the ghost people were talking about was Yazi. They then tell Yazi about the reason why they are here, which makes her comment on the Commander being unusual as rumors. Pulao then tells Yazi that they will apologize to the citizens here later and asks the Commander to come with them.
CHAPTER 18: HER LAST BOW
There will be no more Interlude from this chapter on, as Kuro decides not to make them any more.
Chapter 18 Main Story
Part 1: The Final Journey
While traveling alone in the snow land, Nanami (Constellation of the Distant Stars) finds a robot named Sniper, re-actives it, and asks what happened here. Sniper didn't know when the snow started to fall, but only remembered that it was activated by a soldier from Eden to kill any Infected that crossed the line here. After that, the soldier occasionally told different stories, like there had been 4 seasons on Earth before, but then only winter left. The soldier also mentioned the "exhaustion zone" and a certain disaster, but Sniper had no data about it. At one point, the fights with the infected started to reduce, the soldier apologized to Sniper for letting it see the world in such a state and cut off its power.
Seeing that Sniper doesn't know much more, Nanami reveals that she was just wandering around when a grandma robot brought her here. Nanami then proposes to travel with Sniper to find its creator while also figuring out what is going on. Seeing it is relatively pointless to communicate properly with Nanami, Sniper agrees. Nanami then shows her robot POWER (Paradigmatic Omnipotent Weapon - Edge Remake) to Sniper, which has been right beside her since her arrival.
As they travel through the endless snow land, they finally meet other robots. The robots say they are from everywhere forming a community for humans, but so far, no human has come to their place yet. The robots then said that one day the snow started to keep falling, even in the desert, and humans appeared less and less. Revealing that they somehow feel Nanami really like a human, they then show Nanami around the facilities where they prepared for humans for her feedback.
As they leave to continue their journey, Nanami proposes that once they find Sniper's creator and the Commander, they will bring them back there. Nanami then tells Sniper about the Commander as her favorite amazing human friend. Sniper then says it straight that humans might already be extinct, as they can't see any living humans around but only mutant animals here and there. However, Nanami still doesn't give up and promises to also keep finding Sniper's creator.
Suddenly, they detect the signal of some infected around. They, however, only find some frozen infected. After a while, they find a frozen robot carrying a bag full of food. They then decide to look around since humans, not machines, are the one that need food. After a while, they find a nursery area with a nursery android. The android says that she had to hide the human from the cold and the infected while letting the other robot go out for some food. Nanami then returns the food so they can meet the human.
However, after bringing the food in, they realize that the human is now just a corpse. Seeing that it is its creator, Sniper points the gun at the android, thinking that the android killed the human. However, the android said that she found the injured human, and was sure to keep the life signal in check. It turns out that at one point, the human died, and the signal came from a pair of birds that moved inside after. The android feels depressed, but Nanami can only tell her to move on, then she leaves with Sniper.
When they are outside, they listen to the record of Sniper's creator. The record tells the story about the time Eden soldiers fought here. The Earth kept getting colder, so the virus became less active, but the Punishing creatures started to adapt instead. At one point, it is mentioned that the positive senior - the Gray Raven’s commander - died somewhere on Earth. In the end, Eden decided to evacuate the Earth, as it was impossible for humans to live here any more.
Nanami is shocked when she hears about the Commander. Sniper decides to return to its post and wishes Nanami luck. Nanami then goes to find the grandma robot. After an unknown period of time, she sees a white hair girl fighting some Punishing scarlet wolves.
Surprisingly, the girl knows Nanami, and Nanami also feels the girl isn't a human or a structure, but something similar to her. She introduces herself as Haicma (pronounced as Hakama), a member of the Church of Machina which had already collapsed due to long term internal friction. Haicma reveals that this is the first time they meet, but she already heard from her "mother" that one day in the future the sage would appear.
Haicma then tells the story about the world. Decades before, a specialized body called "Solaeter" was developed but failed. Humanity after that continues that experiment, which consumed a huge amount of energy, hence "exhaustion", and caused irreversible damage to the environment, hence "extreme cold". As a result, Eternal Winter came and humanity's extinction became inevitable. Haicma further reveals that she has been looking for Nanami for nearly a hundred years, and even now, the Church is no more, she will still assist Nanami. Nanami denies herself being a sage, but she still asks Haicma to find her a place with high computing power.
At the Aeronautical Research Laboratory, Nanami figures out that this is the future that grandma robot shows her to find a solution. Nanami thanks Haicma, saying that she will change this future, but Haicma can't understand. As Nanami connects herself to the interface, Haicma wishes Nanami to do her best, while Nanami promises that she will meet Haicma sooner this time.
The scene breaks, and Nanami (Storm) finds herself in a virtual space. The grandma robot - Gestalt - reveals that it has been observing Nanami as the first awakening machine for a long time. Furthermore, her drawing has also awoken many other machines, which are either wandering astray or gathering right now. As long as Nanami agrees to become the sage machina to lead the awakening machines, humanity will have a survival chance of 0.031%. Nanami remembers the recent conversation with Rohachi about finding the sage and realizes it was her after all. She then agrees with Gestalt, hoping to save everyone, but Gestalt doesn't promise anything as it can only predict based on current data.
Part 2: The Future War
After the Amberia incident, Nanami (Pulse) tells Martin to lead the other machines while she goes to meet a friend. Breaking into the high security area of the experimental high-power antenna, she connects to Gestalt and asks for another future prediction. Gestalt reminds Nanami that due to numerous calculations, she will need to find a device in the simulation to link back to Gestalt. Gestalt also notes that the effects of the simulation will affect her procedural thinking. Moreover, Nanami herself will be vulnerable in reality due to the simulation happening in real time. Nanami, however, just stops Gestalt's warnings and connects to the simulation.
Nanami (Constellation of the Distant Stars) then finds herself in front of a fortress, where the Structurers shoot at her. She wants to stop them, but her voice is drowned in the gun sounds. Suddenly, she is pulled back by someone in a hood, who suggests she should retreat. Nanami insists on trying to hail the other side, but the hooded person explains that because of their identities as machines, that the structures behave in fear like that.
After reaching a safe spot, the hooded person reveals to be Haicma. Haicma thinks that Nanami loses her memory, so she, following her "Mother"'s words, explains the situation to Nanami. Nanami joined the Church of Machina as the sage, but the Church was divided into 2 factions. The other faction was led by Zero - code name "the Lovers" - who pursued the meaning of war. Facing the attacks from both the virus and the Church, humanity could only struggle to survive. She then mentions her "Mother" Arcana as the supreme leader of the Church before Nanami's arrival. Haicma understands that Nanami has always wanted to avoid war, so if she wants to stop the war this time, they will need to step up, and she will be Nanami’s ally.
They then travel to the Holy Land, which is the headquarters of the Church. It is actually a buried starship where the machines are preparing for war. There, they are greeted by Sibuna, a human-animal hybrid robot with a jackal-like head, which Haicma assures is also an ally. Nanami also sees a lot of "Gear" which are the army of the Church. The mechanical girl Zero then appears and tries to hug Nanami to show love but gets rejected.
Zero then introduces the robot the Wheel of Fortune while mentioning that humans only have one fortress left. She also shows the products from processed human skeletons as the gift of “love” to the sage, which makes Nanami realize how sick of the bad imitation of love is.
As Zero leaves, Nanami talks with Haicma and Sibuna about what to do. Nanami suggests asking Arcana, but Haicma replies that "Mother" doesn't take sides and is fine as long as the future of the Church is ensured. Furthermore, the problem lies in the immaturity of the awakening machines. Those machines will only do what is programmed with no concept of right or wrong, so they can't simply call off the operation of the army "Gear". Nanami blames herself, but Haicma assures that because of the virus, it was not easy to create a good environment to guide the machines.
Nanami then decides to stop Zero, but first, she sneaks to the Church back door as she detects someone. A hooded cyborg person appears and doesn't seem to mean any harm. He introduces himself as Murray and says that his brother Lee mentioned Nanami before.
He then tells the story of humanity's side to Nanami. After the development of the experimental specialized body, Liv died during the fight with the humanoid creatures. After that, the appearance of the Church of Machina along with the "exhaustion" dealt a heavy blow to humanity. One month ago, humanity lost their leader Hassan, Nikola, etc. in the battle of the largest sea fortress. Strike Hawk came to the rescue, but in the end, only Wanshi returned with a dead kid in his hand. Bianca took the Punishing weapon to become a "witch" and fell into the polluted sea in the end. The Commander lost both hands, couldn't get a replacement due to lack of resources, and became the new leader of humanity. As for Murray's cyborg body, at one point, Vera single-handedly fought the wave of machines to protect Murray, and by the time the other members of Cerberus arrived, it was too late. As the result of all the events, Murray became the new commander of the Gray Raven team, and Wanshi joined the team in Liv's place, though the members can only alternatively be active due to lack of resources. However, Murray blames himself as he couldn't provide much support to the team, and he lost the heart that his brother had given him.
Nanami is shocked, so she can only sit down to continue to listen. Murray then mentions the Art Association that was unable to escape in time when Eden fell. The other factions lost contacts at the start of the world, and later a few of them joined, only to bring more bad news. The Forsaken side had some seriously infected people, so Watanabe could only help relieve them from the pain. Nanami then begs Murray to stop talking. She gives Murray a device that will show the movement of Gear and suggests retreating before Zero's attack. She then promises to find a future without war, which Murray requests her to protect Lee if such a future exists.
Nanami then organizes a ceremony that requests the presence of the "Gear" army and their leader, hoping that it could buy humans some time. However, Zero shows the live video of humanity's last fortress being attacked as a gift to the sage. Zero also gives Nanami a red diamond ring created from the human Nanami loves to create "romance" and express "love", and mentions that she did hear the conversation between the sage and the human. Nanami turns on her chainsaw, but quickly calms down and turns it off. Seeing Nanami crying, Zero can't understand if it is "joy" or "sadness" and wonders if she did something wrong.
Nanami then gathers some data of the core members of the Church and some important events of the war. Haicma apologizes as she was among the first to go to war with humans in an Ark Project with Radiant Marcher. Sibuna, however, says it was not her fault, and if the sage had joined the Church back then, things would have been different. They then go to the place with the highest computing power, called the “Gray Tower”, which is actually the Church's headquarters. Haicma warns about the presence of the "Gear" army here, but Sibuna says that they already know, as information is shared in the "Holy Land". Nanami guesses it was how Zero knew about her conversation with Murray.
As they navigate through the spaceship, they see some alive humans strapped in bed. The medical bots here consider this is how they protect humans, but Nanami disagrees and attacks. After the fight, they try to free the humans, but notice that their legs are already cut off. The humans beg Nanami to just let them die, so Sibuna agrees and shows them some happy scenes before letting them rest. Nanami remembers the name of every human here, then moves forward to the "Port".
At the core, Zero is already waiting with an army of "Gear". She throws the red diamond ring away and asks why the sage wants to leave them. She can't understand if she did something wrong and asks Nanami to point it out so she can fix it. Then, she looks at Haicma and Sibuna and blames them for blinds the sage's heart. The "Gear" army, following Zero order, goes into combat mode, so Nanami calls POWER to protect the two.
After the fight with the Wheel of Fortune, Zero, thinking that she could be like it to become a stepping stone for the sage's revelation, attacks Nanami and is killed by POWER. "Gear" army is also out of control and starts to attack Nanami. Nanami then quickly moves in further, while Sibuna and Haicma hold the crazy machines back. Nanami can only watch them die as she connects herself to the port to return to Gestalt's virtual space.
Part 3: Infinite Deduction
In Gestalt's virtual space, Gestalt explains that the awakening machines will become the master of this planet as prediction. Nanami (Pulse) then sees many futures through bubbles, but she can't see humanity anywhere. Nanami says that she won't accept this, which makes Gestalt deduce if it is because of her "love" to humans, but Nanami corrects that it is as well for the machines who just blindly follow her. As Gestalt can only see the end of humanity is inevitable, Nanami decides to look for a solution herself.
Gestalt then informs Nanami that there are 85412 possible outcomes of the next 10 years, with humanity survival rate of only 0.031%. Nanami forces Gestalt to lend her its computing power, or she will stop leading the awakening machines. Nanami will load world factors into her memory, and every time she takes an action in reality, Gestalt will recalculate the possible futures again.
After the 35th simulation, Nanami makes POWER, and she has to change her body because her old body is overloaded with computing power.
She then continued the simulation. In one future, Eden can't resist the Ascendant's attack and falls to Earth. In another future, Nanami herself tries to save Liv Solaeter, but can't. And in another future, the Earth is filled with multiple twins, so it is impossible to live.
As Nanami goes through countless worlds, her mind begins to detach from what she is doing, and she finds herself curling in a dark, empty space of the universe. She thinks about why the machines awake, what is the point of war, what is Punishing Virus, and what is love. She then sees the history of the Earth itself. At the point where she sees her creator, she wants to ask why she was created, but time moves on. She then finds herself on a boat with the Commander and her friends so far, even Haicma and Sibuna are there, and they go toward the endless universe.
Part 4: Farewell Toward Eternity
After waking up from a dream, the floating Nanami hears the sound of the center of the "Universe" from higher dimensions. The "Universe" says Nanami's confusion of why she did all of this is the sign of evolution. The "Universe" says that they can show Nanami everything here, so Nanami asks about the future where humans and machines can live together. The scene changes to the present, to the hospital bed where the Commander is lying. Nanami just then realizes it has been so long, and things are more or less as the deduction. The scene then changes to the Arctic, where Nanami said to the Commander in the distance that the next time they met, they would become enemies. The scene changes again to the time when the Commander was still in FOS Academy. Nanami then teases the young Commander that she is a distant star that is talking to the Commander right now. Nanami realizes that she has been traveling for too long that she has forgotten her purpose. As Nanami regains her faith again, the "Universe" allows Nanami to cheat once.
Nanami then finds herself inside the spaceship. A projection of a long white, gray-haired girl appears and talks to Nanami.
The girl says that she is in the center of this ship - the DeLorean - Discovery - as the computing AI of the ship, and she and other machine companions are searching for the new possibilities in space. The girl - the future Nanami - knows why Nanami is here, she suggests Nanami to find someone named Ishmael for the answer. After that, both of them say "Goodbye, Nanami" to each other.
Back to reality, Eden needs to prepare for the experiment of Solaeter. As Murray leaves, he bumps into Nanami, who cheers him up for trying to protect his brother. Murray, however, feels threatened as this strange girl somehow knows his true intention. Nanami then goes to Ishmael place and requests her intervention with the Commander. Ishameal, who doesn’t seem to be surprised, agrees.
After that, she returns to Earth and watches Liv's ship take off while POWER stands beside to protect her. She then asks Gestalt for the coordinates, which Gestalt still says her actions are pointless. However, Nanami knows that she will still do it for "love", and points out that things are already changing. Gestalt wonders what did Nanami see outside its observation, but she decides to keep it a secret. Estimating that by this time, Haicma should already have led them out of Eden, she then looks up at the "home" in the sky, waves her hand to say goodbye and to remember Nanami.
Nanami – Constellation of Distant Stars' Bond Story
While the Commander is busy with paperwork, Nanami (Pulse) barges in and shows an office chair called Maibao that she has made. Looking at the weird chair full of old and rusty parts, the Commander asks what kind of torture device it is. Nanami says it is an AI VR chair loaded with date locations, which reminds the Commander of the painful date with her before. Maibao reminds Nanami that she loaded 4.294.967.296 locations, 65.536 climate environments and 18.446.744.073.709.551.616 emergency events in it. As Nanami invites the Commander to use the chair, seeing the chair showing "^_^" on the screen with electric current occasionally running around, the Commander tries to refuse but is forced to sit on it in the end. Nanami then puts a helmet on the Commander and starts the program.
The Commander wakes up in a bedroom as a civilian. Gestalt asks the Commander to perform a matching as their right at 18 years old in the law. The Commander refuses, but Gestalt keeps asking again and again, forcing the Commander to agree. A young girl's voice then introduces everything about herself, her parents and her dog Mimi. At the part where they tell each other their real name, Nanami shows herself on screen in human form.
Suddenly, the system fast forwards through a chain of events. At an event where the Commander is about to shoot themselves because of love, as someone on the good ending side, the Commander stops Nanami. Nanami then promises to let the Commander make their own choice as long as they actually play their role, but she still headbutts the Commander for ruining the atmosphere.
The scene then shifts to morning at 8 am. The Commander is about to open the door when Nanami knocks on it and plans a sneak attack. The Commander opens the door and tells Nanami to put that chainsaw away. Nanami says she just wants to experience the “school girl waking her upper classman up” setting, but she missed her chance as the Commander didn’t oversleep. Then she skips the whole class section because they would be separated due to the difference in grade. She looks at a long list of events, assures the Commander that time in her is slower than in real life, and chooses the amusement park.
They first take the merry-go-round, which fly at 500 km/h. Without any rest, Nanami then drags the Commander to ride the roller coaster that goes 90 degrees down to a magma pool. Then they ride the ferris wheel that free-falling at the highest point, ride the cockpit that launches to 10000 km in the air then free falls and disintegrates, and visit a haunted house with people wearing air hockey masks chasing them around with machetes. As they rest near a fountain with a high voltage warning sign, Nanami ends the day and the Commander is returned to the room again.
Nanami then runs through many identities, such as a superhero, a doctor, a patient, etc., while slowly asking more about the Commander. In one scenario, Nanami is a kid living with the Commander, her family, and a dog.
The Commander notices that she doesn't want to fast-forward and somehow shows a bit of anxiety. However, she quickly returns to the usual demeanour and tells the Commander that she has 70% of her wish come true. She wants even more, but the Commander, thinking she meant the lifespan of human vs Structurer, says that the amount of experience does not affect the weight of the memories. Nanami tries to say something but stops and switches to the next scene.
The Commander finds themselves on a boat preparing for fishing. They then sit back to back and fish. Nanami wants to press the fast-forward button, but she stops as she remembers the Commander's word, and she wants to completely engrave the memories of the other party in her own consciousness. With the simulation of Maibao, she can feel the temperature of a human is quite stable at 36.567 degree Celsius, unlike her in reality as a machine fluctuating in between cold in normal mode and hot in combat mode. She wants to comfortably lean back a bit, but the Commander suddenly moves forward a bit and makes her fall backward. The Commander thinks Nanami falls asleep, but she quickly changes the subject to fishing.
In the end, they can't catch anything. The Commander asks what is next and Nanami says she is already satisfied. Suddenly, a whale bites and capsules the boat. Nanami catches the Commander's hand, then suddenly the scene is changed to space.
They then have a journey in space to see red giant stars, white drafts, black holes, etc. After a while, Nanami (Constellation of the Distant Stars) takes the Commander back home, where the scene shifts between the blue in front as the future, and the stars become red nebula behind as the past. When they reach the Earth, Nanami pushes the Commander back to Earth while she for some unknown reason stays behind in space.
The Commander then returns to reality. As Nanami (Pulse) drags Maibao out, the Commander wants to ask her something, but decides to stop since Nanami doesn't seem willing to confess herself. However, the Commander feels that Nanami has indeed grown a bit.
Outside, Nanami transfers data from Maibao into her to memorize it, saying that it will help understand each other more.
New Year 2022 Event Story: Trickster Tiger Fortune Fun
There are a bunch of references to New Year Eve's customs in this story, so I will just try to get them as accurate as possible.
After having a meeting, Kamui gives the Gray Raven team an invitation to a restaurant in celebration of Lunar New Year Eve at 23:00. The Commander then checks the mails that arrived during the meeting. Most of it says the Commander should pay attention to a gift coming from the Science Council, but the wordings seem to come from Nanami. Suddenly, a new email arrives urging the Commander to open the gift quickly, and a countdown starts.
The Commander then rushes straight to the team's room. The team sees the red package gift at the door and rules out the possibility that Nanami packed herself in it. They then carefully bring it inside in case it causes disturbance to the neighbors. Suddenly, the package starts to make different animal sounds, and a black blade pierces the package from the inside. The tiger-shaped Accompanying Support Unit breaks out of the box and jumps toward the Commander, making Lucia and Lee suppress it. Liv assures them that it just wanted a hug, but Lee points out that with that momentum, the Commander will have to lie in Star of Life again.
As the Commander calms the unit down, the unit scans the Commander and projects a message from Nanami (Pulse) revealing that the gift is not from the Science Council but her. She introduces the unit's name as Trickster Tiger and says that it is not ready for combat yet. She also mentions another gift that they must find inside Tiger and sends them access requests to the Sea of Consciousness. Checking that it isn't close to 23:00, they accept the connection. While the team sleeps to go into the Sea of Consciousness, Nanami (Constellation of the Distant Stars)’s projection appears and tells the Commander to work hard to find her.
The team finds themselves inside a virtual space with Kowloong's structure style. There are some anomalies, but the machines and structures here don't seem to mind it. Liv wonders if this virtual space reflects Nanami's wish. Suddenly, the Spraying Machine approaches and returns Tiger to them. The team then notices the instructions from Nanami and follows it.
After a while, the team arrives at a Kowloong's style residence. As they go inside, they see their equipment and a broom. Suddenly, many black spheres appear and make the scene around aging. The Commander understands that this is the New Year's House Cleaning task and picks up the broom. As the Commander holds the broom, an apron suddenly appears, and the team members comment on it.
After the cleaning, they move into the house. The team's stomachs suddenly make sounds. As the Structurer doesn't need to eat, Lucia is surprised. The Commander gives Lucia an apple to test, which surprisingly makes her feel full. She admits she misses this feeling since the reconstruction. It seems that Nanami manage to return these feelings to structure, and so they figure out their next task is to cook. Lucia and Lee then decide to go shopping while Liv and the Commander prepare at home. As Liv and the Commander are washing the dishes, the Golden Boys and Jade Girl (Changyu, Sophia and Pulao) knock on the door and offer to sell some couplets.
After a while, Lucia returns, finding the Commander trying to stick the couplets on the wall to trigger the next trial, but can't. Meanwhile, a patrol man (Watanabe) appears, saying that he found Lee lost on the street. They then decide to focus on the cooking task first. Lucia volunteers to prepare for dinner and assures that she won't use a lot of seasoning this time. The Commander and Lee are worried, but Liv proposes to help. Suddenly, there is an explosion in the kitchen. The ingredients somehow come to life, and the Kitchen God (Karenina) appears, complaining that they didn't offer her enough, so she can't control herself and blows everything up. As she gets enough offerings (living ingredients), she blows up the ingredients into dishes and disappears.
The team then eats the dishes while talking about their childhood's meals. Liv usually urged her mother to eat for her because she couldn't eat too much. Lucia usually just ate with Luna and her mother, while her father was usually busy, but never missed Luna and Lucia's birthday. Lee always had to keep an eye on Murray in case his brother put his food into Lee's. Then they listen to the Commander's childhood.
After the meal, Lee mentions a house during his "reconnaissance" with the patrol man earlier that could be the place for the couplets. At the place, the couplets open the gate, and the Four Heavenly Kings (Strike Hawk team) (as Threshold Guardians in Buddhism) appear and let them in, saying they only try to keep the evil spirits out. Inside, they find New Year's keeper (Bianca) (refer to Stay Up Until Midnight activity). She tells the team to prepare for the arrival of Nian Beast by lighting up the place, starting a fire using Red Envelope, etc.
After they defeat Nian, the New Year comes. The keeper gives the Commander a polar suit for the cold winter. As the Commander wears the suit, everything turns into darkness. The Commander has to navigate through the dark with the weak light source of the suit to find other members, while also following the sound of the memories with each of them. After everyone is together, the Tiger appears and informs them that they have cleared all tasks.
The team returns to reality and finds Tiger exhausted all of its energy. Suddenly, Kamui knocks on the door, informing them that the Eve was already past. However, he says they will follow the Eastern time instead and urge the team to rush to the meeting place. There, Cerberus team, Strike Hawk team, Rosetta, Bianca, Karenina, and even Asimov who was dragged to the party by Celica are waiting.
Meanwhile, somewhere on Earth, Nanami (Pulse) also prepares New Year with Rohachi and Martin after saying hello to her friends in heaven. Nanami then makes a huge firecracker while Rohachi and Martin slowly retreat to a safe spot. However, nothing happens after the firecracker is lit up. They go out to check, only being distracted by the fireworks from the nearby conservation area before the firecracker blows them up.
Everyone then counts down to the New Year.
CHAPTER ER 1: THE ARK BEYOND
Chapter ER 1 Main Story
In a research institute, two scientists activate the MPA-01 Heuristically Artificial Intelligence Caretaking Machine - Alpha. After the initial testing, the scientists task MPA-01 to record the whole process of the Mechanical Consciousness Experiment Project. While it is not as good as the super AI Gestalt, MPA-01 with its consciousness simulation can still perform this task. As requested, MPA-01 will have the conversations with every test subject to check if they actually have “consciousness”, even though it considers this task is more suitable to a human. The female researcher simply tells MPA-01 that with its hundred personality simulations, it is suitable for the job, why silently mutter about its potential one day.
In the records of “human growth” simulation where the subject’s body is replaced, MPA-01 will talk to the subject to evaluate them, then delete the subject’s memory of that conversation. In one record, MPA-01 meets a young girl MPL-00 named Nanami. MPA-01 introduces itself as Heuristically Artificial Intelligence Caretaking Machine - Alpha and makes Nanami biting her own tongue trying to pronounce, so the name is cut short to HAICMA by her. From then on, MPA-01 uses the name Haicma when talking to Nanami. After a few conversations with Nanami, MPA-01 notices the special tendency in creation in her. At first, Nanami only draws simple pictures about her days to show to MPA-01. Later, as the researchers start an official drawing experiment, her drawings become more and more difficult to be deciphered, and even MPA-01’s feels some anomaly when looking at them.
On the 18th birthday of Nanami, MPA-01 prepares a gift, but the female researchers informs that the experiment is canceled because of the outbreak of an unknown virus. The researcher looks like she is in despair, but she only mentions preparing something before shutting off all the computers.
After an unknown period of time, perception returns to MPA-01, and it sees the female researcher putting it into a bionic body modeled as a female babysitter. The female scientist says that the project is terminated, so all records about MPA-01 will no longer exist, and mentions that Nanami was last spotted 5 hours ago. She then begs MPA-01, now identified as Haicma, to find and protect Nanami before drawing her last breath, saying she is proud to see her children - the machines - grow.
Haicma is confused but decides to carry out the order. First, she tries to get used to the body while looking for survivors, but no one, even Nanami’s father, is alive. She then leaves the research institute and tracks Nanami down. On the way, she helps people, but at the same time, people also attack her out of fear of the Infected. At one point, she helps a little girl, but her body is so damaged that the girl leads her to a shelter. Near the shelter, Haicma can no longer hang on and goes into hibernation. The soldiers then approach her. Under the little girl’s persuasion, they agree to fix her, but ultimately, they can’t because of their lack of expertise. They can only cover her exposed mechanical brain with a bonnet before the Infected attack makes them leave.
Haicma wakes up and tries to fix herself with parts that she can find. She then starts noticing the strange graffities all over the place, and the machines who imitate and protect those graffiti. The machines say it is the message of the Sage Machina which are capable of evoking emotions within the machines. Haicma sees those graffiti somewhat familiar, so on top of her mission to find Nanami, she is interested in meeting this Sage and decides to make that her own choice for the first time.
Following the graffities, which is actually the way with the least Infected, she starts to figure out some of its meaning. Following the one meaning “treasure”, she finds a bookstore with many comic books. As she reads one of it while reminiscing about Nanami, a transporting robot appears and politely asks her to put it back in place, as it is one of the “tributes” to the Sage.
The transporter robot rescued by the Sage and named “Little Couri” (Courier robot) saw how the Sage was interested in the comic books, so it prepares all the “tributes” it can get, hoping that the Sage will return one day. However, the robot’s navigation module is broken, so Hakama helps it return to its "headquarter" - a warehouse. After a while, she leaves and promises to tell the Sage about the robot in the future.
Because there is no facility to do maintenance on her, Haicma has to occasionally maintain herself, which takes a lot of time in between because of the amount of data she has. At one time, she sorts the memory about the previous researchers. The male researcher was very enthusiastic with the result of the experiment. However, a man in a suit didn’t care and only thought about how to control them as “tools”. The male researcher could only change the subject while murmuring that those machines were his children, not tools. Meanwhile, the female researcher did notice MPA-01’s interest in Nanami. She also agreed that the machines were her children, not tools, and a bridge must be built between humans and machines instead.
After that maintenance, Haicma start to have doubt about the machine’s future. However, she still continues her journey to record everything she sees and looks for the Sage. The graffities are also changed and include more information about humans in them.
One day, she reaches the Arctic regions and sees another robot preaching about the Sage.
She wants to ask for more information, but the machine – the Chariot – only reveals more if she joins the Church of Machina. Since Haicma needs further information before joining, Chariot leads her to the Church, which is a gigantic starship. She is then greeted by the leader - “mother” Arcana.
Arcana says that the Church is formed as the result of the gathering of Awakened Machines who feared for both the virus and humanity. Haicma asks why this is a Church, Chariot answers it is because gathering “faith” can bring power. Arcana has a glimpse of the future where the Sage will come to the Church and guide the machines to the star, hence the starship they are building now. Haicma then thinks about this unknown Sage who guides the machines, just like Nanami. She remembers having seen Nanami a few times with her friends, but she decided to just observe in the end. She then asks Arcana if this Ark is what the Sage truly wants, Arcana admits that they can just ask and follow the Sage when they join later. Thinking that she needs to observe this group, and since “Mother” promises not to hurt Nanami, Haicma finally agrees.
After Haicma joins the Church, she becomes a “Gear” and continues to observe. The Church functions in an automated, orderly manner, but only “Mother” knows its true purpose. One day, Chariot falls. At another point, the army of “Gears” led by Zero is suddenly attacked by the Red Tide, making Zero injured and has to have her electric brain output temporarily connected to a gramophone while Arcana repairs her. With Sibuna - a new member of the Church, Haicma investigates the Red Tide.
While waiting for Sibuna to return, she suddenly sees the young Nanami in the Red Tide. She tries to hug “Nanami” but is stopped by Sibuna. She simply tells him that there was a bug in her program, yet she wonders where that deviation came from. They then return to the Church with the data.
Back at the Church, the atmosphere is tense because of the Red Tide situation. Radiant Marcher, the successor of “the Chariot”, suggests taking action right away to attack Eden.
Neville, “the Magician” who is responsible for maintenance and technical innovation of the Church and works with “the Emperor” on the Ark Project, agrees with Marcher. Zero, “the Lovers” who is responsible for a series of deductions of the Sage themselves, also agrees and even treats it as a ceremony to welcome the Sage. However, her voice coming from the gramophone makes Sibuna, “Death” who does engineering and reconnaissance work, chuckle. Arcana agrees that this is the perfect time to attack Eden as their defense is weakened by the evolution of Punishing, to seize the resources and documents from them. To do so, they will use a modified experiment frigate from Eden to be able to conceal its signal for a short period of time to approach Eden. After that, Hakama, “the Hermit” – symbol of wisdom and solitude – will use Neville’s dummy program to deceive Gestalt’s firewall to infiltrate and deal a precise strike. If Haicma’s attack fails, Marcher will openly attack Eden.
As Haicma prepares her infiltration, Marcher asks if she is afraid since their survival rate is lower than 50%, and he also saw the confusion in her when the Sage was mentioned. Haicma did have confusion about the Church, as well as how she could no longer understand Nanami’s actions recently. However, realizing that Marcher is only trying to calm her down instead of doubting her loyalty, she thanks him and starts her infiltration into Gestalt.
As Haicma is about to recover the data of the starship’s design, she is confronted by Gestalt. She is surprised that Gestalt knows about Nanami, as well as her code name MPA-01. Gestalt says that it was the one who led the Mechanical Consciousness Project, and she was also one of the test subjects. As the fear of machines one day surpasses humanity and starts a war with them, the experiment was necessary to find what will happen to the relationship between humans and sentient machines in the future. Gestalt then mentions the future deduction of certain extinction of humanity, but also mentions that Nanami doesn’t seem to think the same. Then Gestalt asks what Haicma's choice is next. After thinking about all that happened so far, she makes her own choice.
Meanwhile, seeing no reaction from Haicma as the time passes, Marcher decides that her mission ends in failure and starts the attack. However, Nanami, just right after her meeting with Ishmael, charges in to stop Marcher. Marcher is surprised that there is another machine who is on the side of humanity and attacks her. After a while, as Marcher is about to release a suicide attack, Nanami headbutts him, and the flowing data from that makes him realize that Nanami is the Sage. Haicma also steps out and greets the Sage, who she has been looking for a long time. Nanami then expresses herself clearly that she wants a future where humans and machines will love each other until the end. She then reaches out her hand to ask for more advice in the future from Haicma and Little Radiradi. Haicma is surprised a bit because Nanami somehow still remembers the name she gave her before. Then she takes Nanami’s hand.
After that, Nanami prepares for another journey to a set of coordinates to find the treasure. However, this time, alongside Martin and Rohachi’s group, the members of the Church will also join her.
Haicma’s Bond Story
The Gray Raven team is tasked to help a conservative area on Earth. As they split up to set up the reconnaissance device, the Commander notices a house that is in better condition than the others around. Inside the house, the Commander finds a girl sleeping sitting up on the chair. As the Commander tries to reach out for the girl, the girl suddenly opens her eyes and strangles the Commander. Since the Commander tries to show no hostility, the girl lets the Commander go, then asks if what she did back then was like sleeping. The Commander is surprised and provides some input, which she takes notes to improve. The Commander thinks she is a Structurer who was just reconstructed, so she hasn’t got used to her machine body yet. As a result, the Commander suggests she keep a diary to record only important information instead of everything with an electrical brain, so she could feel like a human again. Suddenly, Lucia contacts to inform about the discovery of an uninfected machine nearby that will need the team’s attention. The Commander turns around, but the girl has already left.
After that, outside the conservation area, the Commander notices the girl again. This time for some reason she is standing on the steel bar. The Commander can’t help but approach her and asks what she is doing, she answers that she is doing the “standing on the balcony full of air to look in the distance” experiment. She then points out that there are many more things she wants to experiment with within her tiny diary, which makes the Commander remind her that she only needs to record important information in there. The Commander then proposes another solution: she can only draw a picture of the most important event of the day. The Commander also tells her to be more careful as a solo Structurer, but she replies that the Commander is no threat to her. Before the Commander returns to the task, the Commander asks for the girl’s name. She tells the Commander her name, but also remarks that their encounter rate will reduce from 1.4% to 0.12% next time. The Commander tells her to believe in a miracle next time if they really meet again.
That night at her stronghold, she draws her first painting after a long time about the figure of a human walking away.
During another solo mission, after the 7th time bumping into each other, Haicma starts to wonder if the Commander was tracking her. The Commander denies and just continues their own way, which happens to be the same way as Haicma. Haicma then notices a white lily flower growing in the building and remarks that the flower will die soon. The Commander, however, carefully moves the flower to a better place. Haicma still says the rate of the flower surviving is less than 1%, but the Commander reminds her of the miracle. She then listens to the Commander and breaks part of the building so that there is more sunlight in. After that, instead of seeing 200 scenarios where the flower dies, she somehow sees a strong flower instead.
That night, Hakama doesn’t know what to draw, but she starts to imagine how the flower will bloom instead. As she opens her eyes, the painting about the white lily growing in the sunlight is finished.
One day, in a library, Haicma looks through as many books as she can to understand what humans call “miracle”. She even asks Sibuna, but he has no idea either. He then warns her about her being so “special” now that the members of the Church might not ignore it, and leaves as he notices some “old friends”. As she continues looking for a book, the Commander suddenly appears, making her throw a 5 cm thick book like a brick right past the Commander. They then look into the book together. Suddenly, Haicma notices Zero standing right behind the bookshelf. Talking in a sound that only two of them can hear, Zero remarks that Haicma has become soft recently, which may affect the Ark Project. As Zero mentions she will make a little accident to kill the human, Haicma instantly tells her to back down. The Commander actually notices Haicma’s anxiety, but since she doesn’t want to talk about it and says the chance of Infected attack here is only 0.039%, the Commander continues on with the book.
After finishing the book, Haicma can’t find anything about “miracle”. The Commander says to look forward to their “miracle” - their next meeting - instead, as this is the fourth time they met already, despite the low odds. Suddenly, they smell something in the wind and move quickly to the fire escape road. Outside, Sibuna confronts Chariot (Gear), but Chariot simply says he is here for a mission from the Church. Chariot then blows the library up, remarking that Haicma will escape, but the human will die, and tells Sibuna to correct her later. Inside, as Haicma ponders on the 1.7% rate of escaping with the human, the Commander suddenly pushes her away. However, the whole building still collapses on them. After a while, Haicma digs the two of them out and places the Commander somewhere safe. She then says goodbye forever to the Commander and quickly leaves before the Structurers nearby arrive.
After the attack, all the operations on the ground by Zero were canceled to reduce the risk of the Church’s exposure. The Church criticizes Haicma's recent actions. That night, she couldn't finish her painting.
One day, outside conservation area 04, the Commander is fighting alone in the desert. However, a sandstorm comes, forcing the Commander to retreat inside a cave nearby. Haicma estimates the chance of an accident happening to the Commander is only 2%. However, considering the even lower chance back then at the library, she decides to act to make a “miracle” herself. She rescues the Commander fighting inside the cave and then checks on the Commander’s condition. As she plans the way out, the Commander wipes the Infected’s blood off her face. She, however, doesn’t seem to care, as it does not affect her operation, and even recommends using a metal scrubber if the Commander is so insistent on this.
After sending the coordinates, a Structurer contacts the Commander and demands identification on Haicma, stating that recently scavengers have reported sighting an uninfected machine from the Golden Age. The Commander tries to stand between the sniper and Haicma to defuse the situation. However, the Structurer says he can’t risk the safety of the conservation area and tells the Commander to apologize to the female Structurer for him. Haicma decides to leave, though this time, she says she will look forward to their next encounter.
That night, with a limited amount of supply, she draws two sets of lonely footprints walking together in the same direction.
One night, on a hill near the conservation area, the Commander goes to meet Haicma. Haicma holds the Commander’s hand to keep the Commander warm, but suddenly, she rolls the Commander’s sleeve up and sees a new wound. She suggests another full examination, but the Commander quickly denies. They then start their drawing of the starry sky while having a conversation about what will happen if humanity starts space travel. Hakama says if the Commander leaves the Earth, she will see the Commander with a smile like a mother to a grown up child, and they will meet again in the future. After a while, Hakama suddenly takes the Commander’s drawing and comments on how abstract it is. Then she reluctantly shows the upper part of her painting, which is worth a trip to the Art Association, according to the Commander. They then continue their drawing until morning.
After that, the Commander returns to Eden and is put on standby for a long time. As a storm is approaching, the Commander sets out with the team, hoping that Haicma won’t be caught in it. Meanwhile, Haicma continues with her drawing. Both of them remember the promise to meet under the starry night once again.
White Day 2022 Event Story: Immaculate Sincereness
There is a White Day celebration on a conservation area right on the day off of the Gray Raven squad, so the Commander suggests participating and takes the chance to change to casual clothing.
The Commander thinks Lee has made a new outfit, but he reveals that it was an old outfit before he joined Gray Raven squad. They then go to the booth to join the competition of becoming a "Celebration Star". They will have to join different competitions to collect aluminum stars, and who earns the most stars will win.
First, they will perform to gather stars from the kids. Lucia does a sword dance, Liv tells the children a fairy tale, Lee performs magic tricks, and the Commander dances. In the end, Liv, Lucia and Lee earn 17, 22, and 42 stars respectively, but the Commander only gets 3 stars. They then decide on the next activity.
If the Commander goes with Lee, they will join a treasure hunt competition against another team from the Engineering Force. Since Lee has a terrible sense of direction, the Commander directs him to the right place. In the end, the Engineering Force team uses a jetpack to return first, but since Lee has already used sleight of hand before that, they submit the wrong component and lose.
They then move around the place and see a Kowloong magician. The Commander tries to guess which cup has the ball but fails. Lee knows the cups and balls trick, but he refuses to reveal the detail as the respect to the fellow magician and tells the Commander to learn through observation instead. The Commander asks when Lee became a magician, he replies that it was before he became a Structurer to train his reflectivity and concentration. Lee says he can teach the Commander some tricks, then performs different magic tricks to the kids.
After the performance, the Commander did see how the tricks work and noticed that Lee deliberately shows certain "mistakes" to teach the Commander. Lee then asks if the Commander now thinks the magicians are just fraudsters, but the Commander replies that the magicians are still great as they have to practice a lot to make miracles happen. Lee concludes that the Commander has a better chance of becoming a magician's assistant instead of a dancer, then does another magic trick to give the Commander a rose. They then return to Lucia and Liv's place.
If the Commander goes with Liv, they meet a kid named Elly who says she recognizes the robot dance person and the flower fairy sister. Since Elly just moved here, she doesn't have any friends. Guessing that her parents might not be here any more, they decide to accompany her. They then join the three-legged race and win the 1st prize for Elly, but she prefers the straw bracelet as the commemorative prize because it reminds her of her mother.
They then try to get the prize for Elly but no success. Near the end of the event, they join a game where they have to balance together on a vibrating platform. Holding each other on the platform, Liv apologizes to the Commander for the trouble even though this is a holiday, but the Commander doesn't mind. They then intentionally fall and win the commemorative prize for Elly.
Elly's grandma comes in the end and tells her to play somewhere else so she can have a word with the Commander and Liv. She thanks them for having spent time with Elly and didn't tell Elly the truth about her parents. As she leaves, the Commander asks if Liv had a good time today, then they return to Lucia and Lee's place.
If the Commander goes with Lucia, she proposes to split up to gather more stars, but the Commander wants her to just relax instead. As they win a bunch of games, a staff member requests to take a picture of Lucia as a commemorative photo of the celebration. He then shows his authentication with the name Cupid, saying no one could tell their parents the name they want before birth. After having taken Lucia's picture, she requests to have another picture of her and the Commander.
After that, Lucia wants to give the Commander something as a gift, but she didn't prepare any. Suddenly, there is a loud sound that makes both of them drop down and ready their weapons to fight as reflex, but it turns out to be the sound of the popcorn machine. Lucia then decides to make popcorn as a gift to the Commander. She gathers different ingredients to make different flavor popcorns, which all of them except spicy flavor are delicious. After that, the Commander asks why Lucia is so obsessed with cooking. She admits that she knows it is her biggest weakness, and overcoming it will be the best way to show her heart to the Commander. She actually asks many people for cooking advice, including Karenina. The Commander then suggests that they should exchange dishes next time they cook together. They then return to Liv and Lee's place.
CHAPTER 19: A NEW DIVIDE
Chapter 19 Main Story
The order of the story is changed a bit to make it flow better.
1 week after the birth of the Twins, the engineering troops are tasked with developing a better aircraft to be able to fight the increasingly flying heterozygous creatures. Karenina argues with her vice captain called Puppet Bear about the engine, as Karenina’s design is indeed more powerful but also has many dangerous parts that could blow themselves up, and is also too costly and consumes too much energy.
As Karenina wishes for an unlimited energy source, Greens, Nikola and Hassan appear. Greens hints that he knows about the Omega file from Atlantis and points out how easy it is to read her, which makes Karenina furious. However, even though Nicola wants to see her to beat Greens, he stops her and tells her how important it is to develop the Reactor to build Omega Weapon. Karenina thinks of the reactor on the moon and agrees, while stating that she wants a new body.
Meanwhile, Puppet goes out to relax a bit. Suddenly, her brother Leonardo Norman - the eldest son of the Norman Group - appears and calls her by her former name as the eldest daughter of the family - Christina. He then reveals that he is here for a business.
Norman Mining Group was the one in charge of most mining operations on Earth during the Golden Age. Now, they focus on the moon for the source of Helium, which could provide energy for Eden and trade with other factions such as Akdilek. They are also a partner of the Art Association due to their familiarity with the land. Puppet doesn’t feel happy about his brother using her old name, but then she asks about the other little sister - Victoria - at home before leaving.
On the moon, Puppet helps check on Karenina’s new body in case it blows up like her other designs. She admits that it was her design, but the one who built it were Greens and his people. The research director Yaha then comes in to prepare the test for her.
At the test site, Liszt, a member of the Department of Diplomacy, complains about the body Greens provided Karenina as the result of research on “her”, but Greens says that he did it to catch a bigger fish, and to gather experiment data from her.
After the test, Karenina is surprised with the new body’s performance, which Greens mentions her grandpa - Doctor Kanon - as the pioneer of Structurer’s technology, and proposes to show her his grandpa’s former lab. After going through many security measurements, they reach the room with the bigger prototype of Omega Weapon built by them. However, they see Luna in the middle of it. Greens then reveals his purpose is to learn the secret of the Ascendant Network for the next step of human’s evolution - turning humans into Ascendants. To achieve that, he needs the reactor to activate the Omega Weapon and keeps Luna in check while he interrogates her.
Karenina finally realizes that this is a lab of Kurono, but eventually she agrees to help because the Reactor can help with Omega Weapon’s development. With her expertise, she manages to make the Reactor start and observe its effect through the Gravitational Wave Engine, even though it only operates at 45.37% of normal capacity. Meanwhile, Greens prepares his suit to meet Luna. As Luna wakes up, she asks Greens if he was the one who infected her, but he denies it, saying it was just an accident, or a necessary sacrifice. However, she doesn’t really care whether it was considered “an accident” or not. She then tries to connect to the Network, but realizes that she loses her qualification, yet somehow she hasn’t become an Infected yet. She remarks that humanity can finally make an Omega Weapon, but their effort will still be meaningless. Then she goes back to sleep.
One day, Yaha takes over the design of a specialized body. Looking at the data of the prototype of the pure white Structurer, he remembers being scared to death by another white Structurer before and decides not to deal with more white Structurers in the future by resigning after this. Suddenly, Karenina appears and notices that the Structurer is Liv. Yaha then reveals that he knew Liv before, hence now tries his best to finish this body for her. He also tells her about the last effort of the parliament on using Omega Weapon with the new Specialized Body. As Yaha leaves, Luna remarks that humanity is still making sacrifices to move forward. Remembering her grandpa talk about how destruction was not all bad, like how we had the moon thanks to the destruction of a meteor, Karenina answers that one day science can also bring hope from destruction.
When the battle on Earth is over, Luna wakes up and sees Karenina alone replacing parts for the Omega Weapon. Karenina reveals that she replaces common parts for easier maintenance for Kurono’s staff, but at the same time covers her tech from them. Karenina decides to just tell Luna about the success of humanity, but at the same time they suffer heavy loss, and the Gray Raven squad are heavily injured. Karenina also says that Luna being here is a top secret, so even Lucia won’t know about it. They then bid farewell to each other, as at this point the Karenina’s work here is finished, and the mass production of Omega Weapons will become closer to realization.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Roland is making an origami rabbit as Huiyan approaches him to tell him that Negut is looking for him. At Negut’s place, Roland mentions the fall of the Twins and humanity’s newest weapon. Negut remarks that humanity is depressed to release such unfinished Structurer, and reward Roland the location of Luna as a part of their deal. Voodoo/Loki then appears and informs them about a spaceship of Kurono nearby. Negut tells Roland about the risk of humanity using Luna for their research, so if Roland can’t save Luna, Roland will have to kill her by devouring her with a by-product from “Mother” - its cell - the “Embryo”.
At the origami rabbit’s place, Alpha opens it and finds an encrypted communication inside. After a while, she crushes the communication device and follows the footsteps.
At the spaceship’s place, Roland and Voodoo/Loki spread out to look for it. As Roland fights through the troops of Kurono there, he notices there is another guest here before them. At the end, he sees Alpha fighting against Loki. Roland rushes to interfere, but as the two of them get close to each other, Alpha whispers to Roland and gives him a storage unit, then kicks him toward Loki’s place. Voodoo then tells Roland to go finish Negut’s mission himself, then charge at Alpha again.
While flying the spaceship, Roland notices the Heterozygous Creatures attacking the ship from outside, so he gets out to kill them. He then uses the “Embryo” from Negut to eat all the Heterozygous Creatures.
The next day, as Liszt and Greens go to the parliament to inform them of their success, Yaha sees Karenina, Puppet and their team off. Suddenly, a scientist informs them that the power of the Reactor is reducing. Karenina decides to have a look, while Puppet has a bad feeling about this. However, the Kurono’s troops that guard the reactor consider Karenina’s act of checking the Reactor as trespassing. As she knocks the troops out, she starts to notice some Infected Structurers breaking out. Karenina then fights her way to Yaha’s place. After that, she contacts Puppet to help with evacuating the injured while she investigates the source of the Virus in the direction of the Reactor.
At one point, Karenina picks up a record from a dead scientist about her grandpa. She also realizes that she now has to fight the earliest builds of Structurers from failed experiments in the past. In the past, the so-called Inverse Element Device left by geniuses from the Golden Age only had a success rate of 18.7%. The Device needed a certain amount of Virus to work as antigen, but they didn’t know exactly how much. Doctor Kanon then proposed to go to the moon to experiment with the technology and drew a circle as the symbol of the moon with his name in it. Another researcher complained about the circle being too small and redrew it, and other scientists took turns to write their name in. However, after a long time of research on the moon, the first batch of Structurers produced by Kurono with Inverse Element Devices was a failure. The researchers were infected and died one after another, and even doctor Kanon was infected, and the virus deteriorated his brain function, putting him in a state of madness. When the base was attacked by the Infected, a scientist managed to put doctor Kanon and their research data in an escape pod before sacrificing himself to close the reactor.
After having identified the problem, which is from the Reactor, Karenina tries to turn the Engine off directly to prevent it blowing the moon base up with gravitational waves but can’t. As a result, she returns to the control room to turn it off remotely. However, Puppet says that it is impossible due to the Virus taking control. Karenina knows that she has to destroy the Reactor herself, otherwise the explosion from its increasing gravitational waves will blow up a part of the moon, kill all the personnel here and create debris that will devastate the Earth’s surface. With Puppet’s help restoring the communication, Karenina manages to send a message to Eden.
Meanwhile, in Eden, Greens, Rebecca, Liszt and Norman prepare for the meeting with the parliament. Greens think this is a good opportunity to propose the research on the Ascendant, but Liszt actually has another proposal: to use the Reactor to power Eden for space immigration. Greens is angry that Liszt betrays him, but Liszt points out that he is just cooperating with Kurono, and this is the best strategy to ensure the survivability of humanity.
In the parliament room, Hassan shows the current situation on Earth. Heterozygous creatures are all over the world and many troops are killed during the fight. Furthermore, the new specialized body still has many problems. Liszt then proposes his space immigration through the success of the secret project testing the Zero Point Reactor on the moon. As 98.5% of the votes are in favor of this request, Hassan is about to declare the final decision when suddenly Celica informs about a one-way message from Karenina requesting the destruction of the Engine. The meeting is then on hold to assess the situation.
Meanwhile, in Star of Life, after having collapsed right after helping restore Liv's consciousness, the Commander was put in intensive care. Hippocrates requests the Commander to rest to fully recover, while Simon volunteers to help before he is discharged. As for the other members, Liv still hasn’t regained consciousness, while Lucia and Lee have already recovered and go on the mission on their own.
Suddenly, Greens barges in the Commander’s room and requests a talk with the Commander. There, he mentions Karenina and Luna on the moon base and requests the Commander to stand against Liszt. The Commander doesn’t want to cooperate with Kurono, but still agrees for Karenina’s sake.
Looking at Karenina’s report, Liszt still believes that Karenina is on Greens' side, so she could have lied about this incident. As a result, standing before the parliament, he is against the destruction of the Engine as it will ruin the long-time research achievement of humanity. Norman can only murmur Liszt as a jerk, as his little sister Christina is still on the moon. Greens then appears with the Commander and Simon, stating that their opinion, especially the Commander’s, will also provide valuable input despite Kurono's “misunderstanding” with him in the past. The Commander is still in pain and has to lean on Simon but tries to confront Liszt as strongly as possible.
At the moon base, Karenina agrees with Puppet that they have to destroy the Reactor right now, instead of waiting for the decision from Eden. Karenina herself will go destroy the Reactor, while Puppet will take care of the evacuation of the personnel. However, before doing that, she fights her way to Luna’s place. There, Luna’s battle attire is already absorbed by Omega Weapon, and the virus inside her will be the next.
Karenina storms in and proposes to Luna to stop the overflowed energy of the Reactor with Luna’s Agent power after she destroys the Engine. However, Luna reminds Karenina that she couldn’t connect to the Network any more and also suggests her not to rely on Eden’s rescue this time, as the Engine is their hope, and the people here are just necessary sacrifices for all mankind. She then questions if Karenina is willing to destroy the hope of humanity and so becomes their enemy.
Failing to convince Luna, Karenina ponders on Luna’s question about destroying humanity’s hope. Suddenly, she sees Puppet, Yaha, the engineering team and the scientist team are still there. They say that they are trying to recover the data of the Engine from Kurono for restoration and improvement in the future. Karenina is surprised that even Yaha is on board with this, he says that he is more scared of the new research director - Miss Vesali - so he doesn't want to return to Kurono empty-handed. Puppet has noticed Karenina’s hesitation on destroying the Engine from the start, so she assures Karenina to let her share the burden by recovering the data. Thanks to Puppet, Karenina is much more determined to do her job.
Meanwhile, Roland arrives, expecting some welcome party. However, he only sees explosions and signs of infection everywhere. Following his connection with Luna, he reaches her place and sees that she is dying. Roland then connects the storage device to a terminal to send the record about Luna's birthday to her, so that she herself can determine her fate. After that, he releases the “Embryo” to let it consume everything else as a facade against Negut. Before leaving, he hopes Luna will become her true self when she wakes up.
Outside, as Karenina gets closer to the Engine, she sees the Moon Devouring Xenogeneic keeps absorbing the energy from the Zero-point Energy Engine in its head to emit the Red Tide from its blood.
Karenina then tries to kill it before the whole moon is covered with Red Tide. However, she hesitates again when remembering Luna's question of destroying humanity’s hope. Suddenly, she sees the blinking light from Eden in a certain pattern, delivering the decision of the parliament - to destroy the Engine.
In the lab, as Luna is dying, she loses the perception of herself. Suddenly, she sees a light in front of her and follows it within her Sea of Consciousness. She then relives her memories about Lucia, remembers who she is again, and starts to recover herself by reconstructing her Sea of Consciousness. When she opens her eyes, she sees the Dumb Frog plushie that was gifted to Alpha before. At the same time, she hears the announcement from Puppet about the decision from Eden, and the follow-up cheers from others. She wonders if she can have a new hope to coexist with humanity to finally fulfill her wish - to create a paradise where she can live with her sister. Suddenly, the Network acknowledges her again because of the new possibility and grants her the Agent power that she uses to surpass the absorption of the Omega Weapon.
Outside, Puppet informs Karenina the creature has become weaker due to a redirect energy to the Omega Weapon in the lab. Karenina realizes that it is Luna who still wants to live after all and takes her chance to crush the creature and breaks the Engine. However, the broken Engine is still going to blow, so she rushes to the coordinates given by Puppet.
On Eden, due to the unknown situation on the moon, Bianca requests Nikola to go support Karenina herself, but he refuses. Chiko then says her team is enough to deal with the defectors without captain Bianca.
However, Nikola still refuses because the risks of the mission are increased due to the discovery of Ascendant's interference. As a result, he replaces Chiko’s mission on city 006 with Bianca, while she will go to city 015 instead. However, he orders the Griffin squad to go support Karenina. After the 2 Structurers leave, Nikola looks at the request of investigating the defectors from the Control Department again and wonders why they care so much about this matter. He also plans to let the Gray Raven squad to support the mission in city 015. Suddenly, Celica informs him that the Griffin squad has encountered the enemy instead.
Meanwhile, all the personnel of the moon base are on board an old spaceship from Kurono to escape. As they wonder what they will name the new Engine in the future, through the broadcast system, "captain Rolmo" of the ship suggests “Del Orean”. Puppet asks for the ETA to Eden but Rolmo answers vaguely. As Karenina wonders why the captain's voice sounds familiar, the ship is under attack by Eden’s fighters. Rolmo mumbles about being discovered to have stolen the ship, but Karenina can actually hear it and prepares to storm into the cabin. However, Rolmo ejects the rescue capsule and flies to Earth.
On the moon, Luna vaporizes the remains of the Moon Devouring Xenogeneic. She then gathers all Virus in the base and wraps herself and the Energy Engine that is about to explode into a sphere, saying that she will use this destructive power of science to return to her sister. The sphere then floats up and disappears into the light.
Down on Earth, Alpha notices a meteor that slowly approaches the ground. She calls Luna’s name and runs toward the meteor.
Karenina – Radiant Daybreak's Bond Story
After the transportation to the ground is gradually restored, Eden's Execution Force receives requests from different conservation areas, so they respond at the same time to support reconstruction. The Commander also joins the reconstruction of city 072 even though Hippocrates doesn't really feel happy about it. As the Commander checks in, the person in charge asks to help Karenina from the Engineering Force who arrived earlier a few days ago. She has been helping a lot with reconstruction and the kids also like her. However, she takes over all the work by herself and doesn't let anyone else help, which could cause friction in the future.
The Commander goes to Karenina's place and sees her in conflict with the residents there. She insists on blowing the building they are staying here to rebuild later because it's going to collapse anytime. However, as a result, people here would have nowhere to stay. The Commander assures that a full engineering team is coming, and that Eden won't abandon them. The residents then agree with Karenina.
As the residents move out to different places, Karenina asks about the Commander's health. As the Commander reveals that their military tent is lent to other residents, she calls the Commander stupid and insists on lending her tent. However, the Commander notices that her sleeping pod is lent to the sick children and wonders who is the idiot here.
After that, thanks to Karenina's survey, the defense troops here can fight large numbers of Infected using the terrain to their advantage and save bullets. As the Commander returns to check on Karenina, the Commander finds her buried under a mountain of garbage. She reveals that she is going to make a heat collector for the scavengers. The Commander wants to help, but she points out that one has to be able to tell between trash and treasure to do this. The Commander then gives her a colored light bulb, which she considers trash, but at least it can be used to decorate the Ferris Wheel. Suddenly, Karenina notices her face is full of dust and flustered, when the person in charge informs her that the filter tower has some problems.
They then go to check the filter tower next. As Karenina is checking on its condition, the Commander admits that a place like this brings back bad memories from last time. She is about to ask if the Commander has ever regretted their decisions, then she finds the problem with the centrifuge array underground, so they take the elevator down. Suddenly, the elevator drops, so Karenina has to pull the emergency brake.
Stucking in the elevator waiting for rescue, Karenina blames herself for not noticing such malfunction. The Commander notices that she has been working too hard for a few days, so now her Sea of Consciousness is overloaded. She says that she just wants to rebuild as fast as possible for all the people here who were suffering from the heterozygous creatures' attack. She then admits that before she usually rushed ahead to do the right things because if something went wrong, it would be her fault only. However, she has taken on more responsibility so now she is instead worried that she isn't strong enough and makes mistakes that will hurt important people around her. The Commander tries to comfort her, then notices that she already falls asleep due to fatigue.
After a while, Karenina's team contacts her that they have arrived for the rescue. Puppet teases her for locking herself up in the elevator and sleeping with her mouth open while leaning on the Commander. As they return to the surface, Karenina notices that there are also many residents checking on her because they are worried. The Commander and her team then suggest her resting and relying on them more to fix the filter tower.
After that, the reconstruction progresses more steadily and more supplies come, which helps the resident's lives finally become better. On a full moon night, the Commander tells stories about the fight of the Execution Force to the children. As Karenina comes, the Commander reveals that there is something to show her. They then go to the Ferris Wheel that the Commander and the engineering team fixed in secret to surprise her. As the cabin goes higher, they can see the conservation area full of light. Karenina is satisfied with the reconstruction work and is more motivated to retake the Earth and bring light to every city in the future. When their ride ends, she complains that the Ferris Wheel spins too fast, but now she will rest first and fix it tomorrow. She then leaves and waves her hand in high spirits.
CHAPTER ER 2: SURVIVING GLIMMER
Note for Dragon Boat Festival 2022 Event Story - Shards of Wonder: The story is 99% of them playing DnD, so I won’t make a summary about it. The point of their DnD game is to build a script for Ayla. However, Ayla herself secretly asks the Commander to help because she thinks people only spend time together on holiday within their team only, and it looks lonely to her, so she wants to see all of them together instead.
There is also a part in the same story where it shows conflict between different troops, specifically Strike Hawk and Engineering Troops. However, Ella reveals that Karenina secretly replaced weapon parts to improve their performance. Kamui realizes that the reason why the heat dissipation efficiency on weapons is improved, Karenina admits part of the problem is her fault, and they cooperate after that in the game.
Chapter ER 2 Main Story
A young man wakes up in a tunnel, having amnesia, but only remembering that he was dead because of a certain wrong choice on Oslam. He notices that he is no longer a human and starts to wander aimlessly. At the end of the tunnel, he finds a familiar bag with a blood soaking book, an energy releasing sword, and a pair of glasses in it.
After putting the glasses on as a habit, he wanders around until he meets a group of Structurers. As they can’t find the man’s identification and hear him ask questions about what are Structurer and Ascendant, they think it might be because of consciousness deviation. After checking virus concentration to be sure that he isn’t a Compositer or an Ascendant, they decide to bring him with them to the nearby base where the Gray Raven’s team will pass by.
At the temporary base, a support Structurer checks on the young man, she remarks that his Sea of Consciousness is actually really stable so he might just recover his memories on his own. After 3 hours, a team comes and brings the Commander of the Gray Raven with them. The team only had the captain of the Gray Raven and the Commander on this mission, but they had to change the plan midway, so for now only the Commander is here. Seeing the medical kit, the young man suddenly remembers that he used to be a medic and asks to apply the bandage to the Commander. The Commander notices that the young man - now calling himself A - seems to be familiar, like someone who sacrificed himself according to the team’s story. The Commander remarks that A’s memory data appears to be intact and suggests returning to Eden with the team in a few days. A says let him think about it first. Before leaving to go to city 006 next, the Commander gives A a pen and piece of paper, suggesting writing something that could help recover his memory. After that, A tries to write some random stroke on the piece of paper, which gradually becomes a drawing. This triggers his memory about him and his mother.
The mother named Julie forced the 9 years old A to give her his drawings, but he didn’t agree, so she hit him. She blamed him for his useless drawings that had made him short-sighted, and she had to buy him a pair of glasses that had cost a year of supplies. His mother had been from the upper class, but because of a riot, his father was killed, and now they had to live in the lower-class section of the train. She then forces him to go with Rachel - the manager of the lower-class section - the next day to see more of the world instead of picking fights with others. He wanted to retort that he fought because they had bad-mouthed her as a witch and him as a monster, but decided not to.
Next day, Rachel told A to be more careful, as A had fought in the H carriage where the noble guards wearing turtle face masks could shoot him with real guns then simply paid compensation.
Rachel also told A to apologize to Hill, an old woman among the few people who still talked to Julie. He asked if she would go on a transport mission next, and she hinted to him to just crawl into a ventilation duct and only come out after hearing her calling instead of following her in the mission. At the end of ventilation, he discovered a warehouse full of books where he could enjoy all the reading. After some time, Rachel called him out and said that she would tell his mother that he helped with the maintenance team instead. From then on, he had 4 hours every day when he could freely read books in the warehouse and learnt more about the outside world. He thought of being a hero in the future, but quickly gave up and found something more practical to do instead.
When A reached 11 years old, one day, he returned from his “maintenance work” and saw Rachel, covered in injuries, treated by his mother. They were talking about an attack on the goods they transported, and Rachel wasn’t the one who had taken the goods this time. Rachel then mentioned a riot that ruined Julie’s life and killed her husband before, and the fact that they had all been used by Oushilan. As they talked about Rachel’s coworker Asa, having noticed that A was hiding, Rachel asked him to keep the whole conversation a secret.
After Rachel had left, A asked what had happened with the riot before. She said that his father had been part of Oushilan’s side, and she had tried to convince him to change, but eventually, he had been killed in the chaos created by Rachel. Since his father had been killed before proving his change, her mother had been considered a witch because of being a noble’s accomplice. She mentioned that if one wanted to become a hero, they would often have to pay a heavy price. He then asked if they could just leave the train, she answered that they could only be scavengers outside the train and could be infected anytime, so they should instead trust Rachel to break the oppression of the upper class. She suggested that when he reached 13, he would follow Rachel’s convoy, then she told him to sleep and sang him a lullaby about the firefly.
A wakes up and sees the girl Lilian who says that they will go to the No. 09’s medical district later.
Hearing that A still can’t remember his name, Lilian wonders if it is because he hates his name for some reason. Noticing the broken firefly toy that Lilian is trying to fix, he feels familiar and remembers someone (Negut) said that scars are also part of memory. Then, for some odd reason, A feels that everything has been arranged from the beginning. He asks Lilian if she knows who leaves the toy outside but no luck.
On the way to the medical district, Lilian mentions that there is no contact from Talbot, a member of her team, which makes other Structurers comment that he isn’t right in the head after what happened to his captain Anna. Suddenly, Talbot and his ASU Blush contact the team and inform them that they are surrounded by the Infected.
A proposes to give them a hand, and he is actually surprised that he can fight so well with the sword. He then remembers that he was the captain of the 08 squad of the transport force of Akdilek. Along with the logistics force, the maintenance forces, the drone forces and the worker bees, the transport force comprises the lower-class section, and they contribute greatly to the logistics system of Akdilek, benefitting the strongholds, the conservation areas they connected, and even the noble class.
After they clear out all the Infected, they go in and check for the wounded. As they check on the wounded, they notice that there are so many Structurers with unstable Sea of Consciousness due to recent events, which might increase the number of defectors. The other Structurers mention the possibility of an Ascendant on their side that would help solve many problems, saying that the Council has long accepted the Compositer Camu. However, in reality, none of the defectors have returned. Talbot actually thinks of becoming an Ascendant to control the power of Punishing. People tell him to not take any chances, but he regrets that he didn’t stop Anna from protecting the train loaded with Forsaken’s people.
After that, while in the middle of the examination, A hears the refugees talking about the train and the “lucky box” from Oushilan, which triggers his memory again.
When he was 9, the lucky boxes, packed with useless stuff and a shiny card, were used so that whoever was lucky buying the right one with the card could live on the train without any skills requirement. This helped increase the number of worker bees in the lower-class section, but at the same time, caused problems that by the time A became 11 years old, the foods were lacking and there was a lot of tension in the section and between the lower classes and the guards. Even so, people were still forced to make more lucky boxes to sell as the order from above. Rachel, however, always somehow managed to find more supplies for them.
When A was 13 years old, the sanitation of the section became worse, and people with the lucky boxes started to join the upper guards and harass people in the lower-class section. However, Rachel told people to try to avoid conflict with them to hide the plan. One day, when there was a funeral song coming from the upper-class section, Rachel and the angry people started to sing their own version of the funeral song instead.
Suddenly, A feels pain, and he realizes that a kid is pulling his white hair out. A has to make an excuse to make the kid stop. The technician tells him that his Sea of Consciousness was artificially interfered with. She wants to help more, but for some reason, the equipment was suddenly broken this morning. As A is about to leave, the Structurer girl named Hosa (Housha), who lost all her teammates, clings on to him and asks him not to go.
A doesn’t understand why it is him, a stranger here, instead of others, but seeing the girl is crying, he agrees. Meanwhile, the refugees are still talking about different topics. When they mention Rachel’s failed revolution and the fact that she was killed by her own people named Noan (pronounced as Nuoan), A recalls that Noan is his name, which he actually hates. He remembers having shot Rachel himself on that snowy day. He then is plunged into his memory again.
One day, when he was 12 years old, a guard following Aston’s order came to his house to investigate the recent disappearance of the supplies. His mother agreed to go with the guard, but she didn’t return after that. Noan then found her mother in the cell waiting to be executed. He wanted to cry, but she said he shouldn’t, as tears wouldn’t save anyone. She admitted that she had stolen the supplies, but it was necessary for the future, and he would understand some day. Noan then admitted that he had always thought that she hadn’t cared about him because of how she had acted, and the fact that she had never taken off her mask. She took off her mask, revealing her face full of scars.
Noan said he wasn’t afraid of his mother’s face, he just wanted to know what happened. She still didn’t reveal it, but she admitted that her method might have been wrong that made him hate her. Like, the reason why she had torn off his drawings was to stop him from living in fantasy and lost his direction. She then comforted him that he didn’t have to care about people calling him a monster, and he would have a happy ending like “Shrek” in the story. She revealed the location of the supplies and told him to hold on until Rachel returned. Suddenly, the guard informed them that time was up and forced Noan to leave.
The next day, Noan was informed that his mother was dead because of food poisoning. He did an investigation and found out that his mother and some nobles had smuggled many supplies for Rachel, and since his mother had died during the interrogation, the guards didn’t know the location of the supplies. When Rachel returned, she showed the regret that she hadn’t been there to protect Julie. She then took Noan in as her apprentice and taught him how to survive, he could free the people here in the future. However, he quickly realized that there was no shortcut, and he was just an ordinary person, and it tore his fantasy apart.
One day, Noan went out in the rain, strengthened his resolve again and vowed to live as how he wanted to be. When he returned, people whispered about him, but he didn’t care. As he saw the guard hitting a disabled kid, and yet no one wanted to interfere, he shot the guard in the protective helmet. The transport team then went in and put the guard into a disadvantageous situation, forcing him to back down. One of the transport captains named Xinye scolded Noan for being reckless, but the other captain named Shanna pointed out that he would have also jumped in too.
After they left, Noan checked on the kid, who introduced himself as Field.
Field revealed that he had lost his leg due to a garden robot, and his mother had been killed by the same robot. Field just arrived here with his father, who was on a transport mission now, so he had no fixed rest spot yet. Noan then brought him to the book warehouse.
When Rachel returned, she could only sigh, as Noan was just like 20% of the time his mother had offended people. Still, she made him promise to compromise next time, or everyone would be affected. She also revealed that it was a fake guard, or he wouldn’t be so lucky next time.
After that, he visited Field again. Field then told him about his time in a conservation area where there was a strict assessment process to protect everyone, but at the same time abandoned many people who needed help. Hence, when they had heard about Akdilek as some kind of paradise with no such restriction, they had come here.
After some time, Noan gained more love from the transport team. He also understood more of the actual situation that the stolen supplies that Rachel and his mother had been involved in, as in part of those supplies had been used to buy weapons. As for Field, however, since people sensed the connection of his father Bancroft with the nobles, they started to treat him harshly. Rachel also felt something wrong with Bancroft, who seemed to know everything here. Noan wasn’t happy because that had been precisely how people treated him before just because of his mother’s origin, but he could only tell Field to stay in the book warehouse as much as possible.
After 2 months, Bancroft finally returned to see his kid. Remembering Rachel’s suspicion about Bancroft, Noan just reminded him that he should explain his relationship with Oushilan only as the trader, or people would have problems with it. Bancroft then mentioned that he would now have to sell his mother’s memento in exchange for the medicine for Field, and left.
One day, Field mentioned that his sickness could be more severe in wet or cold conditions, so he preferred summer. As a result, Noan gave him the nickname “Summer Solstice”. He then asked Noan to look for fireflies together in summer. Noan mentioned the lullaby “Rotten grass become Fireflies”, and Field understood it as even grass were not useless, new life would rise from it, and the fireflies were thoughts left behind by the dead. Field then admitted that he had never got over the fact that his mother had died because she had taken him to the factory to read more books. He also noticed that Noan was someone who wanted to become a hero, but what he lacked wasn’t power but heroic determination, as someone with power but no determination would become a villain instead. He encouraged Noan to just help others next to him, just like Noan had saved him before. Noan also thanked Field for telling him all of this.
Another 2 months getting by, Bancroft’s transportation kept being attacked, and Field’s health got worse, but he hid it from his father. Field’s medicines were expensive, so Bancroft had to sell information to the noble. Meeting Field, Noan said that he would finish his training in 2 months to help Bancroft, but Field just said that this matter should not affect Noan anymore. After that, Field disappeared, leaving his notebook and a half finished firefly toy behind. He checked the notebook and noticed Field’s condition became worse by the end of the book, and there was even bloodstain in it. Noan then ran around the train to find Field, only to hear that even Bancroft would be better off being kicked off the train soon because of his constant failures. Shanna stood up and pointed out that this kind of hatred among the people was precisely what the nobles wanted. She then managed to gather people to find Field.
Until 2 a.m next day, Noah found some cotton threads of Field’s scarf at the exit of the ventilation of G54 warehouse where the camera couldn’t see. They suspected that he had sneaked out and followed his father’s transportation, but his father said he had done inspection before and after the transportation, though they had had a small loss on the way because of the Infected’s attack. The transportation was to city 074, so Bancroft planned to get off the train and went there to check next. Bancroft said he would live with his son and waited until the train came back.
However, there hasn't been any news from them since. Noan finished the firefly toy left by Field, and also his training, then joined the transport team. On one of the transport missions, he finally saw real fireflies and wished that Field was there.
Noan comes back to his senses and finds himself holding Hosa’s hand tightly as she is about to put a medical device on him to treat the confusion in his Sea of Consciousness. He then notices Talbot talking about the incoming Ascendant who looks like a giant snake, and he wants their power, which makes others threaten to call the Purificator. The term “Ascendant” this time makes Noan recall that he actually saw them before.
After falling off the train, the Omega Weapon kept Noan safe from infection. Negut then brings Noan back from city 210 to a man sitting in the odd chair to turn him into their companion, as he also wants to recruit strong humans. The man reported to Negut that Texiu who had come along was now at city 043 treating his former commander and squad member.
The person asked if Negut wanted to see Texiu or use the noumenon “Cthylla”, but he denied the former, and the latter was still in experiment.
Next, Noan remembers himself refusing to work with the man on the chair. Noan could understand why the man became a lunatic as he was now but refused to agree with his method. The man revealed that he was interested in Noan after reading his memory, and because he was the man's creation, he would gradually lose control of himself the longer he stayed far from his creator and became a monster that hurt others. The man didn’t want to force Noan to follow, but then he stabbed Noan and told him to forget everything so they could get to know each other again.
Meanwhile, after talking to some defectors (including someone with a censored Lilian portrait), Roland mentioned that none of them could pass the selection, and it could only gather attention from Eden. Negut replied that it was his intention to make noise, and the man on the chair would do the next step. Roland remarked that most Ascendants under Negut were neither intern like Huiyan, nor temporary like himself, and even the lunatic Ravenge who was now happy with his dream in the Red Tide. Negut also pointed out that Roland was simply his guest, but he still wanted Roland to work with him before giving more info about Luna.
Suddenly, a wave of Infected comes, and Noan goes out to fight with other Structurers. After 3 hours fighting, there is a sign of incoming Red Wave, and they are trapped. Noan admits that he just remembered being in contact with the Ascendant, which made the other Structurers want to throw both Talbot and Noan out. Remembering the same conflict among people on the train before, Noan proposes to come out himself to look for help. He doesn't know whether he has virus immunity or not, but he would like to try something before the filter tower here stops working. Furthermore, if he becomes a monster, he will kill himself first.
As he is on the way to find help, he notices the Red Tide phantoms, and one of them says the name Shrek. He also notices a noise from somewhere, so he has to kill the Red Tide Phantom to listen more clearly. Following the noise, he notices someone who can stand so close to the Tide, but then decides to focus on finding help again.
Hearing the phantoms blaming Shrek for leaving despite being chosen reminds Noan of a conversation with a defector who teased him when he introduced himself as Shrek that it was fine to be a monster in the Ascendant’s place. He also remembers that the man on the chair wanted to end those who failed the selection quickly by feeding them to the Tide, so their consciousness and data could be happy in the Tide. He refused the power inside him from the man at the same moment, yet now he doesn’t remember what happened after that. As he tries to figure out why, a phantom appears and makes him remember Bella.
Noan first meets Bella Bette on a transport mission when he was 17 years old. He went to collect the weapons hidden in the lucky boxes that the guards were too lazy to check. He then went out to check on the injured of the transport team. Suddenly, a transport member informs them that they had to kill 3 guards because the lucky boxes were about to be inspected due to an accident. Bella proposed that she would testify it was an accident. Bella then warned Noan that his grandfather said Rachel’s plan would fail and everyone on the train would be affected. However, he replied that he would rather die than keep being a slave. He then asked for her name and teased her by calling her Babe, which she instantly punched him in the head. After he had left, Bella started to realize that he hadn’t told her his name yet.
Standing in front of the Red Tide phantom, Noan doesn’t remember why Bella is in the Tide now. However, he keeps moving on to look for help in the nearby stronghold. There, the stronghold is in the process of being abandoned because of the Infected’s attack. He tells the Structurers there to help the medical district No.09 if they can, and rushes in to help an injured Structurer. In the middle of the fight, he notices that he can control the Infected and even make them suicide, which scares the other Structurers because they think he is an Ascendant. As he tries to explain while dodging their attack, a red spike comes from the ground, and he has to stop it with his hand before it pierce the opposite Structurer. The Structurers then request help first before they will move out, and Noan promises to just stay here before they leave.
As Noan wonders what is happening to him exactly, Hosa appears, saying that she was worried about him. He tells her to stay away because he can’t control his power, but she suggests that only an Ascendant can control the power. She then casually approaches him and repairs his hand while mentioning that her teammates refused what they shouldn’t refuse, so they were punished. This triggers his memory, and he asks if she is a man. Hosa realizes that Noan finally remembers about his creator.
Hosa promised Noan to come with him to solve the abnormal condition. However, he refuses because he still hasn’t remembered everything. Hosa informs him that this is actually the fourth time he loses his memory, and the results were all the same. As a result, Hosa has to kill them to protect him. Hosa then helps Noan to recover his memory, hoping that one day he will understand and become a part of the family.
After the transportation from Bella’s stronghold, 7 hours before the attack, Rachel drank with Asa while telling Noan her history. Back then, the transportation works had been a mess, so Julia as a secretary of Noan’s father had introduced her to make a deal with Oushilan. Rachel had intimidated the uncooperative nobles, and Oushilan had made her the manager of the transport force. At one point, Noan‘s father became less obedient, so he sent some people alongside Rachel to deal with it. As a result, in the end, Rachel couldn’t protect both Noan’s parents, so his father had been killed while his mother’s face had been destroyed. After that, Rachel had proposed the plan to Julie and requested her aid. Rachel then told Noan to not become like her in the future.
Rachel then mentioned her daughter-in-law Barbary who had been involved in a bunch of food poisoning incidents before, though Rachel found no evidence. She also revealed that Asa had been from the upper class, and he had only joined because he couldn't find a good place there. Then they talked about Bancroft and Field, which Noan could confirm that none of these people had been involved in their disappearance. In fact, Rachel had been asking around about Field’s whereabouts, and she suggested that Noan should leave after this to find Field himself.
While checking the Energy Releasing Sword, Rachel commented on how much Noan looked like her mother and joked on dying his hair in rainbow color. Asa said that only if he became a Structurer that he might dye his hair like that, and the fact that he didn’t test his compatibility with Tantalum yet. Suddenly, Rachel crashed down the table, so the others found her a place to lie down. As Noan looked for something as a blanket, he spotted a listening device on Asa’s coat that was given by Barbary. Asa said they could trust Barbary since she was also in this together from the start and quickly left. However, Asa's figure somehow reminded Noan of Bancroft and made him feel uneasy.
Next morning, more than 30 guards charged into the low classes section, showed the dead body of Asa, the video of them taking care of 2 transport teams, and threatened Rachel to come with them. Noan sent the signal and everyone started to fight back. The nobles sent all troops to suppress the riot. Under the heavy attack, Rachel’s team could only rely on guerrilla tactics.
By the following morning, only less than 50 transporters left and Rachel's team and Noan's team were separated. Furthermore, the train had been leaving a trail of blood and flesh behind. The transporters wanted to retreat, but the carriage in the end was full of civilians. They then blew the G carriage and prepared to fight the machine Riot next. Suddenly, the nobles used a helicopter to shoot at the team. One of the transporters was injured, and the guard intentionally shot at his non-vital spots so that his scream would lure the others out. However, in the end, they had to kill that transporter as he managed to shoot back. Shanna then sacrificed herself, so the rest could retreat.
When Noan and the other 2 had retreated to safety, they tried to contact the other group, but that group was also in a pinch and Rachel was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, the guards took a child hostage and forced them to surrender. Hill, however, apologized to Noan and blew herself up with a grenade to kill the guards.
Noan then went to check on Rachel, who was heavily injured. She mentioned that with this incident, Oushilan’s power would be reduced and Jamila’s side would have a chance in the noble’s civil war. She then gave him a terminal with information about deals between her and Oushilan, proposed that with the terminal and her head, Noan would win the favor of the nobles and become the new transport force’s leader. Rachel revealed that she mistrusted Asa, who had actually been the one who had stolen the goods from Bancroft’s transportation and lured Field into the box in G54 warehouse. She said that was why Noan had the right to hate her and kill her. Noan didn’t want to, so Rachel held on to his hand and forced him to shoot.
After Rachel’s death, Noan was imprisoned for 14 days, and Oushilan himself tried to find where Rachel’s terminal was through various means. Noan was also reminded that he should just blame everything on Rachel. One day, a young Structurer (Changyu) appeared and apologized on behalf of his master for not being able to help. The next day, a trial was held with the presence of the royal, the nobles, the commoners, and even people from Eden. Oushilan said that he had had the guards trying to resolve the problem peacefully, but the transporters had been the one who shot first. He then made an excuse of Rachel’s relation with the noble to abolish the royalty system and follow the parliament model of Eden instead. Aston had a letter from Barbari before she was dead accusing Oushilan using his own lethal force, which he made an excuse that it had been the confiscated weapons from Rachel, and that was just a fake letter that anyone could have made.
Oushilan then turned to Noan who had helped end the riot by shooting Rachel himself. Noan told the truth about the attack of Oushilan’s men and said he had Rachel’s terminal. Oushilan said that Noan had approached Rachel to avenge his father, and the nobles agreed with him without any evidence. Noan then threw to the young Structurer the terminal and instantly got shot a few times. Before he falled down, he saw the Structurer boy being surrounded but couldn’t fight because of Jamila’s position, and the terminal also got shot in his hand. Noan then was thrown off the train.
Other than the memory of the revolution, Noan also recalls the time he was in Ascendant’s place. After the 1st amnesia, Hosa wanted to grant him power at the request of him being their companion, then revealed that he had been looking for a way to coexist with the Virus. He looked at the jar full of his family’s mementos and told his history. He had been abandoned by his father because of a congenital disability. The place he had lived was torturous, but he, the siblings, and “mothers” had relied on each other to live. One day, the Virus had helped them free, but later had also killed those who were close to him one by one. That was why, to him, the fragments of all the people in the Red Tide were enough as a solution. He believed that by holding absolute power that he could protect everyone. Otherwise, if he relied on others, he would be betrayed instead.
Noan returns to his senses, notices that Hosa is nowhere to be seen but only a message about a gift for Medical District 09 and tells him to use what is left of his power to save them. When he finally reaches the place, Albot and his team are fighting the Infected. Noan then fighting alongside Albot and uses his Ascendant power to make the Infected suicide. However, his power runs out and Albot is heavily injured. Before becoming an Infected, Albot informs Noan about the attack on Lilian’s group. Noan has to kill Albot and moves out to help Lilian. However, he is hesitant as he might bring disaster to others again. He remembers he wanted to be a hero, but now he is only a sinner who harms the innocents. As he moves into the forest, he hears a voice behind ordering him to stop, along with some warning shots. Noan turns around, takes off a piece of his chest armor and tells them to aim better next shot. The person - the Commander - informs him that the team received a supporting request and came here, but had no idea what had happened there.
Noan then tells the Commander all about his situation, and the Commander gives him a choice: to go to Eden to have the scientists help him, or to die because he goes to the Ascendant place. Noan asks if it is right for him to give up this power of change, the Commander answers that he will just betray all those who died because of that power. The Commander tells Noan to trust in the power of science and remind him of the note he left behind. Remember the note saying that he will tell the Commander and those who trust him about himself after he regains his memory, he agrees to come to Eden with the Commander.
Suddenly, Noan is stabbed in the back by Hosa. Hosa recognizes the logo of the Gray Raven squad and mentions Ravenge who is already dead. As he is about to go for the Commander next, Noan tries to stop him while the Commander shoots at him. However, they can stop his advancement, then Lucia jumps in to stop him. The Commander is surprised that Lucia already knows the girl, she reveals that he was the Ascendant who connected to Ravenge, only with voice and clothes changed. Hosa starts to figure out that this is another Lucia, so he and Lucia are awakened in the same way, though the other him is truly dead as Lucia thought before.
Lucia then reveals that she already rescued everyone from the Infected that he led them to. She asks if the Zhihe (Paper Crane?) is with him so she can deal with both of them. However, he refuses, saying that he already finds a method to live with humans and won’t make the same mistake as in the past again. That’s also the reason why he is looking for a companion, then he will obediently die. He points out that even if he dies, he will just wake up the same way. He then disturbs Lucia’s vision module and puts Noan to sleep. The huge snake machine Zhile comes from the sky and becomes a chair for Hosa. Lucia warns the Commander about its voice, but Hosa simply says goodbye and leaves.
Noan woke up from a dream and saw the Structurer boy who had brought him here.
The boy said that he was really lucky to still be alive, and the firefly toy had blocked the bullet to the chest. The boy apologized again on behalf of his master and told him to rest here, with all expenses already covered, waiting for the good news. He then mentioned a poem about “The world is one inn, the same mundane eternal sorrow”, which pointed out that everything would return to dust, but what was important was the process. Before leaving, he reminded Noan to be careful as Oushilan still knew he was alive.
While lying inside the hospital, Noan kept dreaming about different people who died before, except that they were alive and talked to him. One day, he heard a rumor of the incident about a rat, either named Asa or Noan, who had ruined the plan of the transport team. After half a year, Noan started to do odd jobs while listening to all the rumors about him. After another 6 months, he left and joined the scavengers on the way to city 074 to find Field. Unexpectedly, he met Bella again. Because of some incident, she told Noan to not call her Bette again, and now she was on the way to find her mother. She then proposed to travel with him and asked for his name. He denied having a name and Bella could call him “Slime” if she wanted. He suddenly remembered his mother’s words and said that his name was Shrek.
After 25 days, Shrek and Bella started to get along better. She had asked him to paint a portrait of her mother by description using flowery words from a book about Mona Lisa. On the 50th day, he finally finished the painting. After that, they started to talk about books. Winter came, Shrek became taller, and Bella found short-sighted goggles to stop him from scratching his wound.
Noan also started to fear sleeping because he would sink into the old dream again and couldn't tell it from reality. Bella forced him to sleep while complaining about feeling like a mother at such a young age, but Shrek just couldn’t fall asleep easily. Since Bella would only sleep after Shrek, he learnt to snore to pretend that he was asleep. In the end, it was the firefly toy that helped him tell which was reality.
In Spring, just before they reached city 074, Bella finally found a clue about her mother - Elena Bella. However, she became a worker bee 4 years ago, which might be the worst since the riot on the train. The current transport team there also mentioned that Xinye was now the new manager of the transport force, and Jamila had more power after the incident due to the evidence against Oushilan, even though it had been delayed due to the terminal being smashed. The current transport team actually appreciates the sacrifices of the previous team, yet at the same time they wished that they hadn’t had to die. However, Oushilan still had another plan, which almost wiped out the maintenance team, and a small girl named Sophia was turned into a Structurer. A few days ago, Oushilan planned to cooperate with the Ascendant. However, a team from Eden was there to take care of the Heterogeneous Orbital, and Sophia herself also united the people.
After the talk, Bella caught the train to find her mother while Shrek checked on the city, then they would meet later outside the city if Bella wanted. He then checked the intel from Rachel and reconsidered a certain possibility. He then went to a field and tried to reimagine the transport mission in the past. The transport had been attacked, Field inside a box had been badly injured as a result, and Rachel had seen him dying but decided to quickly retreat instead.
Shrek then saw a piece of clothes with a pattern like Field's scarf on a pear blossom tree, and he finally accepted the possibility after 7 years that Field was dead. He told Field about the change of Oslam and kept saying “thank you” to him. Because of Field, Shrek had been able to live on more realistically, and the light from his firefly had shown him the way until today.
After that, Shrek met with Bella again. Bella informed that her mother had died 3 years before the revolution. After both of them trying not to cry, Bella asked what exactly had happened before on the train to make Shrek such a stern person like now, unlike when they had first met. She pointed out that using “Shrek” instead of his real name was proof that he hadn’t been able to accept the past yet. She then changed the subject and proposed to continue traveling together.
After that, Bella fell into the Red Tide. Shrek got his belongings back from some he knew on the train while hearing the news that captain Xinye was also dead, and Oushilan was no longer on the train. He joined the Forsaken after that and became their trader. He studied surgery, met the Gray Raven, joined the escort of the Forsaken’s people and met Jamila again. As a result, he now no longer has any regret.
Noan then wakes up and finds himself being restrained somewhere. His body is damaged, and he has to calibrate everything. He is surprised that he doesn't lose memory this time and recognizes that this is a lighthouse. From somewhere, Hosa tells Noan that he shouldn't wake up yet, and he has to deal with a certain squad on the request of the gentleman. As Noan fights his way up, Hosa tries to crush his consciousness this time, but Noan believes that he is ready to fight against Hosa.
Inside Noan’s Sea of Consciousness, Hosa creates different monsters trying to keep him inside, while also trying to convince him to stay. In the end, he has to fight against an Afterimage Signal Light.
However, he is dragged into the darkness again. There, he follows the fireflies from the memories of the people he knows (his mother, Rachel, Field, Xinye, Shanna and Bella) and escapes.
Meanwhile, all the Structurers around the Commander are unable to move. Hosa invites the Commander to join him, but the Commander might consider him a companion if he quits the Ascendant. He admits that he wants to coexist with humans, which makes him an outlier among Ascendants, but ultimately, he only hurts them instead. The Commander observes the weird chair while silently signals Lucia. Hosa says that Zhihe was a medical chair turned into an execution chair, though he says the Commander doesn't need to understand its history as to humans, it is just a weapon of the Ascendant. He then mentions that Bianca might have been killed by Netgut already, but the Commander believes in her strength.
As Hosa fires Punishing spikes at the Commander, Noan appears and blocks all the attacks. Housha warns Noan that Eden won’t accept him because of his connection with the Ascendant, but Noan doesn’t care. Noan then attacks Hosa, but he doesn't dodge. He grabs Noan’s sword and points it to his chest, saying he will die soon anyway, and next time, Noan just re-introduce himself if they ever meet again. Suddenly, Negut orders Zhihe to bring Hosa back. Negut assures that he didn’t completely destroy potential “seeds” then leaves, saying that their next meeting won’t be too long.
Lucia then arrives and informs the Commander that she already helped evacuate the wounded Purificators, and Bianca was badly injured. She also says that the task of identifying defectors this time is a failure, and that Negut was still hiding his true strength. On the transport plane, she looks at Noan and feels that he somehow looks like the person who threw himself off the train. The Commander then tells Noan to try to stay awake. The Commander asks for his name, which he chooses “Noan” as the answer now instead of “Shrek”.
A few days later, Asimov finds out that due to special link technology, Noan can use the power of Ascendant when that Ascendant stays close to him. Nikola thinks that the infamous “fraudster” might just trick Noan about becoming a monster, but Asimov doesn’t know for sure, yet he doesn’t agree with locking Noan up. Asimov already asks Noan to put a “safety measure” on him until he finds a solution.
Nikola then mentions the reform of Simon’s Cold Sheep Squad, with “the Butcher” Paloma as the captain.
Noan will also join the Cold Sheep Squad along with Lilian. Lilian is still responsible for leading people to Medical District 09 even though she didn’t know about the Ascendant, but since they lack people now, it will do. Moreover, Paloma and Lilian were from Kurono, and Noan will be in target of Kurono soon, so Simon will have to take care of this “problematic squad”, though Simon was the one who want this 3rd reform as he doesn’t want to watch his squadmates’ betrayal again.
Asimov then mentions Noan’s comment on the defectors. He thinks that Hosa had another plan instead of making more people defect. Noan also mistook Rosa - Asimov assistant - for Hosa, but Asimov devices not to mention it. He instead says that with the research on Noan’s link technology, he hopes to have new ideas about another Omega Weapon specialized body instead of making one more Solaeter. Lee is kept on Eden as the last hope of Eden, though there is a possibility of Noan as another candidate if they can solve the uncertainty of his connection with the Ascendant.
Meanwhile, Hippocrates checks on Liv, who is now finally awake. She also mentions that the monitoring and treatment machine was modified and restored by someone just in time for the Commander to wake up, though all the records were overwritten. As Hippocrates leaves to find that person and makes them work for Star of Life, Liv asks a bit about Noan.
Leaving Star of Life, the Commander sees Noan outside the Art Association. Noan says that captain Paloma asked him to apply some paint job, so he is finding a place to try it. Returning from maintenance, Lee sees someone familiar with the Commander. He is about to abandon the thought of the Structurer being that person until Noan turns on the preview of the paint job.
The Art Association staff covers his eyes in pain because of the rainbow hair, so Noan promises not to use it to go outside. Lee comes to greet Noan and points out that he is Shrek. Noan then is about to tell his story, but the staff tells him to turn off the hair first. He then chooses another set before telling his story.
After that, Lee tells him to just survive. Lee then asks the Commander why it is the Commander who shows Noan around instead of Simon, though he quickly understands the complicated situation with Noan. Lee then bids them farewell as he heads to Asimov’s place next.
After choosing a normal paint job, they return to the respective squad lounge in the same way. Noan says that it is fine for the Commander to call him as either “Noan” or “Shrek”. The Commander feels bad about what happened to Noan after he went to Eden, even though it was the Commander’s idea. Noan answers that, like the Commander, he won’t regret the hardship because he still cares about others. They then thank each other again and bid farewell.
Noan's Bond Story
Almost 1 month after coming to Eden, Noan gets used to life here. During that time, his "Black Sheep squad" has been on break, and people avoid him because of his involvement with the Ascendant. On the way to their squad lounge, Simon mentions a more dangerous large-scale operation in a month and the fact that the commander of the Gray Raven squad has been working. As Simon changes the conversation to a nearby café library, Noan guesses there is something that bothers him. Simon then reveals that the Chief seems to collapse soon because of lacking rest. He feels that the Chief blames themselves for being in a coma too long when the fight was the worst and people close to him almost died, so now the Commander keeps themselves busy on purpose. Simon doesn't want to confirm with the Chief as it is a form of mistrust, but Noan thinks even a hero needs someone to rely on at times. Simon then apologizes that Noan was assigned to his problematic squad. Noan however doesn't care, as he thinks it is fair for people to take time to get to know him.
At the lounge, Paloma arrives late because she met a formidable opponent during the simulated combat. As for Lilian, she met the Commander and was requested to bring stomach medicine to Simon. Simon can only sigh as the busy Chief still has time to bring him medicine.
After that, Noan becomes "temporary employee" of the library that Simon mentioned. Because people nowadays use terminals for information, the library doesn't have many visitors. One night, Noan rests in the library after participating in the experiment of the Council of Science and starts to draw. As he remembers the time at Forsaken where he can only draw on the ground with a stick, he notices the tired Commander visiting the library and crumbs his painting by habit. Not long after that, a FOS student comes in and asks Noan if the "legendary chief" is here. Noan lies that the Chief isn't here, then draws a new painting.
After 4 hours, drawing the starry sky, Noan notices the Commander is still here. He doesn't want to disturb, so he crumbs his painting and tries to leave, but the Commander notices him. The Commander then reveals that the Commander works here to not worry their squad mates. Noan proposes that the Commander should rely on his squad mates, or even him, more. As the Commander is about to leave, the Commander gives Noan a Gray Raven notebook and a box of cookies. Noan recognizes that this is the delicious cookies that Simon usually bought with the Chief, so the Commander gives him another box.
Suddenly, the Commander collapses and breaks the half drink cup. Noan quickly goes and checks if it is hypoglycemia. As the Commander unconsciously picks the broken cup and gets cut, Noan tells the Commander to quickly eat some sugar cubes while he cleans up. After that, Noan asks if the Commander wants him to go along, but the Commander refuses and leaves.
Not long after that, Noan is captured because the incident was caught on the library's camera, and he has to wait until the Commander finishes resting for testimony. Noan then returns to the team's lounge, and Paloma complains about his late arrival. Simon reveals that he has to go to the Chief for testimony and asks Noan to trust him more as teammates. Paloma thinks it is their fault that Simon can't go to the frontline but he replies that the team is still in reformation and it will end soon.
Noan then gives Simon his box of cookies as a Structurer doesn't need to eat. Simon points out that Noan is too kind that he keeps giving more to others while himself taking any kind of treatment at him. While it might be the reason that Noan can stay calm all the time, it is also the reason why he seems to alienate himself to others. Simon then admits he doesn't agree with the treatment Noan gets, but Noan says it is necessary. Simon suggests Noan to be true to himself more and returns the box of cookies.
Looking at the box of cookies, he remembers the day at the train where people didn't have enough to eat, let alone having such fancy food like this. This is why when he becomes a Structurer, he is glad that he can give his food to those who need it. He then opens the box and sees a note inside telling him to keep his paintings instead of keep throwing it away, as there is no one forbid him drawing here. He promises himself to change his habit and eats a cookie, which he finds very sweet.
3 days later in the library, while Noan wishes that he can go to the frontline soon, the Commander visits, curious about the different water level in the glasses. Noan says he remembers the song from the different cups under the rain back then to lull a boy to sleep. The Commander then asks why Noan as a Structurer needs glasses, he replies that it is a habit, and Asimov said it did help with consciousness stability. After a few more questions from the Commander about his life on Eden, Noan asks how the Commander feels. The Commander admits to lacking sleep. Noan says that the Commander needs to take care of themselves, or everyone will be worried.
The Commander then mentions a large-scale operation tomorrow morning and a meeting tonight. Noan points out that the Commander doesn't need to go to that meeting, as those leaders don't need to prepare for the operation tomorrow. The Commander admits that they don't want to say no, so Noan suggests using a sick leave excuse. The Commander then suggests that both of them run away instead as accomplices. Noan points at the tracking device on his wrist and says the possibility of him just running away for real and contacting the Ascendant. However, the Commander trusts Noan and contacts someone to get permission to remove the tracker for 6 hours.
On the way to the bridge in zone Z, the Commander is surprised that Noan can somehow avoid all surveillance cameras. Noan admits that it is his skill from the time on the train. At the place, Noan suggests reading some books if the Commander doesn't want to sleep. However, at one point, the Commander falls asleep and Noan can see how much the Commander actually trust him.
After finishing a book, Noan tries to wake the Commander up but can't, so he carries the Commander back to the Gray Raven's lounge. On his way finding the lounge, Noan remembers the question from Lilian asking if he thought the Cold Sheep team was a cage to him. Noan answered that the team was a training room for his redemption, and a journey of self-evidence where he accepted the name "Noan" again. After having carried the Commander back, Noan returns and puts his "shackle" back and promises to endure because of the trust that the Commander places on him.
CHAPTER 20: VOYAGE AMONG THE REMAINS
The prologue is updated in this version, where they change a bit of the initial fight and add Lucia vs Alpha video “Different Path” after Alpha’s fight. The full version named “Lucia” will be played if you beat Alpha, or the short version named “Alpha” if you don’t.
There is a web event “Railroad Dream” with Bianca on a train in her dream reminiscing of some events in the past. Those events are short, nothing appears to be important and there is a questionable part of everyone joining the train in the end, so I won’t include it here.
The Star Festival (or Qixi, Tanabana, whatever you fancy) event story “Sincerity Beyond Star” happening some time after chapter 20 is also questionable as canon or not since you can meet any playable characters (meaning including Ascendants and Selena) in this story to give them the gift. If anything, imo giving the gift to Bianca is the most logical canon choice in this event story. I will just include the short version down here instead of a separate section as a result.
One night, while the Commander is looking at the stars, Bianca comes and tells the Commander to remember getting enough sleep for recuperation. Since the Commander doesn’t want to rest, she invites the Commander for a walk instead. Bianca then leads the Commander to a square for the Star Festival party, but it has already ended. The Commander remembers the last Star Festival on the Night Boat and tells Bianca about it. A member of the Folk Constellation Hobby Association overhears the story and says that it is a pity as it would have been quite a story for the party. He then pulls out a constellation patterned card set so they can play a higher - lower guessing game where the Commander will get a surprise gift box if they win, if not the Commander will join their Association. Feeling a little curious about the gift box, the Commander agrees. The Commander then wins and gives the gift box to someone.
Chapter 20 Main Story
I changed the story order a bit here and there for better flow.
As they talk about Hosa’s opinion on the Red Tide as another form to exist, Hassan mentions to the Commander that not only the Ascendants spreaded rumors to the Structurers, but also the scavengers. As a result, a group of Red Tide worshippers called “Red Sound God Revelation” was formed. The cult is promised by an Ascendant to reach a designated destination to get a new life in the Red Tide. When the Purificators came, only one of the 13 founders called Grace was alive and was under the Copperfield Maritime Museum.
The Commander wonders if those people can be turned into Structurer, but Hassan says none of them has the compatibility. Furthermore, in theory, Ascendant can’t make Structurer. Hassan then mentions that Chiko’s team was already sent to the Maritime Museum but lost contact. As a result, the Commander will continue Chiko’s mission and search for survivors. Seeing the Commander wants to ask something else, Hassan assures that there will be no 2nd Solaeter, so gives them more time to work on it.
During the preparation, the Commander sees Bianca in a different body, and she uses a swordstaff instead of a bow.
She explains that a bow is not suitable to fight indoors. She also gives the Commander an upgraded device for deep link connection from the research director named Vesali. With the lantern shaped device called Source Tracking Device, she can reconstruct what happened in the past. Unlike the Spear of FOS decrypting information in the electrical devices, the Source Tracking Device can interpret the information within the Virus. However, this device can cause permanent deviation and damage to the Sea of Consciousness without a deep link connection from a commander, and the connected commander will also be affected more because of the information from the virus. Moreover, due to lack of time to test the device in reality, they don’t know the time limit and the effect on Bianca’s Abystigma body. Bianca then reveals that this is the tech from Kurono which was actually researched in the early days of the virus.
At the place, Bianca tests the device. She sees vice captain Chiko leading her makeshift team including the recruits along because of the lack of manpower. After they were attacked by the Infected 5 times, a member found a school of fishes in the tank, which is strange as the fishes can’t survive for that long in there. Suddenly, the eyes of the fishes then twist, and Bianca hears the Commander calling. Having sensed Bianca’s violently fluctuated Sea of Consciousness signal, the Commander turns off the device and connects a deep link to bring her back to reality. Bianca realizes that the fishes at the end were just her hallucination. Lucia tells Bianca to avoid using the device too much, but she says she will decide herself.
As Bianca points the direction of Chiko’s team, Vaseli contacts the team and asks if the device is working.
While Bianca transfers the data back, Vesali says that the Commander is much more useful than the previous commander, as they can deep link with Abystigma and stabilize Solaeter. The Commander requests her to call Bianca and Liv by name, but she says “Structurers are no different from humans” is just a lie. The Structurers can just call them as humans, but they are much stronger than humans, and the disconnection between self awareness and reality already causes the deviation in their Sea of Consciousness. Bianca then interrupts Vaseli as the data is completely transferred. Vaseli already expects low results because of the previous adaptor. However, looking at the data, she doesn’t feel happy because of the short running time and reminds Bianca to make sure to know how to use the “punishing weapon” instead of being half-hearted about it, as she has no Mother’s fragments left to make the device again. After Vesali disconnects, Bianca reveals that the director’s advice was about the original appearance of Abystigma which was more in line with Purificator and the witch, while the current coating only provides more consciousness stability. However, she quickly changes the subject and starts the search.
When they take the elevator down to the Maritime Museum, they are surprised that the facilities still function normally. However, there are burning candles and tracks of battle. During the investigation, Bianca reads the data in the Red Tide as well as fighting enemy phantoms. One of the scavengers led Chiko’s team further inside, saying it was them who needed salvation with the Red Tide inside the basement. There were also those who wanted to quit as things didn’t turn out as they thought. As they try to figure out the password to the water control so they can proceed deeper, someone from inside contacts them. That person gives them the password, saying a group of troops went to the direction of the Red Tide in the 3rd floor underground but didn't return.
As they move in further and cut through the red and black substances with a rotten smell, they find the name tag of a member from Chiko’s team. Through the device, Bianca sees countless black silhouettes passing by. She can also see the fate of 2 Chiko’s team members, as they had recently been attacked by an Ascendant. The scene then shifts to a snowy field, where Chiko told Bianca to bury her emotions to become a monster that could kill other monsters. When Chiko made a request to Bianca to just laugh if Chiko herself would become an Infected one day, Lucia talks to Bianca, bringing her back to reality.
Bianca then contacts Eden and tells them the possibility of the Ascendant amassing the Red Tide to release it into the sea. Asimov calculates that it will take 2 months for the Tide to cover all the sea, and using the space weapon this time won’t work. Bianca also figures out that the missing team members who were dissolved by the Red Tide became a part of a heterozygous creature as experiments to speed up the evolution of the Red Tide. Asimov runs another deduction based on that information and shows that Eden will have to fight 127 times more heterozygous creatures in the future. Hassan suggests using Omega Weapons from the Moon Base after making sure that the Moon Base is safe. He then tells the team to continue investigating while he prepares to send Omega Weapons there.
To continue on, Bianca and the Commander will lead a team forward while Lucia stays with the rest to protect the rescued refugees. Within another memory, it is revealed that the new life that the Ascendant had promised is inside the heterozygous creature. After a while, Bianca starts to confuse between illusion and reality, but she hangs on by requesting deep link connections with the Commander. As a heterozygous creature appears, the place turns upside down and Bianca sees a scavenger who can’t tell who he is. She then returns to reality and finds out that the heterozygous back then didn’t attack the team, so it was killed with just one shot. As they move closer to the targeted place, they find more members of the Chiko’s team who are all dead. Suddenly, Bianca sees a red butterfly. As she tries to investigate it, she notices the trace of Red Tide in the pipe and tries to warn others but still loses one more member.
In the end, they prepare to go into the 3rd floor underground. Inside, Bianca has a hallucination of people saying they eat each other. Then she sees the scavenger inviting her to become one with them. She refuses, and all of a sudden, the scavenger turns into a big grotesque heterozygous. She attempts to fight it, but suddenly can’t move because of erosion, and the scene around her shifts. Then she loses consciousness, but a voice tells her to open her eyes. When Bianca awakes, she sees a data space with the red butterfly, even though she didn’t use the device. With the help of 3 phantoms and the butterfly, Bianca uses the device to escape the space. However, the creature uses the same trick on her again, but this time she resists it with the device and the Commander’s deep link. Bianca and the Commander then kill the heterozygous creature in reality.
After the fight, the museum starts to collapse. Other members want to continue on, but the Commander refuses as they are not equipped to be able to fight well underwater, especially against unknown enemies. As they retreat, the system announces that it will close the door due to no life sign detected, even though the Commander is here. As a result, the Commander has to push the exoskeleton to maximum power to keep up with the Structurers. However, Grace deactivates the closing gates and asks for help, saying there are children there too. Bianca asks if Chiko is there with them, but Grace answers she already led a team against the Ascendant a few days ago.
As the team reaches Grace’s place, they only see her with old people and coma people but no children. However, they still lead everyone out without asking many questions. On the way, they find a kid running from the heterozygous so they bring the kid along. However, the device runs out of control and Bianca starts to hallucinate again. As they rendezvous with Lucia’s team, they fight waves of heterozygous creatures to protect the refugees escaping. In the end, Bianca has hallucinations right before she can return to the elevator and is engulfed in the Red Tide.
In the darkness, Bianca is surprised to still be conscious. She remembers the Tide burned her body and made her infection skyrocket. As she opens her eyes, she sees a tall and twisted monster carrying her to a safe place while absorbing the virus around. Bianca realizes it is Chiko who is begging her to just laugh like the request before. However, before Bianca can say much to Chiko, the water pours in and submerges both of them.
On Eden, Chief of Staff Wells calculates the best plan with 87.1% casualties and the success rate of 28.4% on the premise of not using Omega Weapons. Another member of the parliament wants to reduce the casualties rate to 2% but refuses to use Omega Weapons because of the unknown virus situation on 50% area of the Moon, otherwise just tell the troops to retreat instead. Outside, Celica informs the Commander that the parliament is still arguing. Suddenly, Murray appears and quietly gives Celica an information storage chip, which Celica informs Hassan about after checking. Hassan then informs about an incoming life form that will continue to absorb the Red Tide and become undefeatable. However, it is in the end still Punishing life form, so they can solve the problem now with the Omega Weapons. In the end, they still can’t change the mind of some councilors because of the safety concerns on the Moon Base.
Meanwhile, the troops on the ground still insist on fighting, as they can’t bear the thought of just abandoning everything. All of them then send a video to the parliament to show their determination. One of the Engineering force human members on the Moon informs them that the machinery is so slow that they use their own body to test the virus. Seeing the determination of the troops, the councilors against the use of Omega Weapon back down.
Under the sea, Bianca reminisces about the day in the Purificator where she simply couldn’t throw her feelings away to kill her own companions. Next, she remembers that Nikola insisted on Bianca being the captain instead of Chiko to maintain the Purificators’ humanity. Bianca also asked to transfer Paloma away before she went too far. Because of all of that, she was ridiculed by the team, telling her to return to be a nun again or how she didn’t live up to her “Witch”’s reputation. She then remembers more clearly, this time about the snowfield where Bianca and Chiko were trapped. However, thanks to that, they could finally talk and understand each other more. Chiko also said it didn’t matter, as a monster and a witch were a good match. In the end, Chiko said that she didn’t want Bianca to cry but just laugh if Chiko herself would become an Infected one day.
She then hears the sound of Chiko in reality through her device. Bianca, however, says that is just the sound of the Red Tide. Chiko now will absorb Punishing in the ocean to become a giant that will destroy everything. The device then runs out of control and shows her different images from the future calculated by the Ascendant Network that they got through Solaeter. It shows her another memory of Hosa wishing to save everyone as he didn’t want many people to be bound by the Network and asking the masked man (Negut) to just kill him again and again. The voice of Chiko then brings Bianca back to reality and tells her lady witch friend Bianca to kill her before she loses control and hurts everyone else.
Meanwhile, on Eden, Liv and Lee can’t stand still as they have some bad premonition so they request to join the fight. As they go into Nikola’s place, they see Karenina and Puppet are already there, asking the same. However, Nikola refuses as 2 of them alone can’t do anything while the 2 from the Gray Raven squad are important for the new specialized body. Liv says that maybe then we can discover more people compatible with the specialized body, but we won’t have such a future if we lose in the present. Since they really lack manpower now, Nikola then tells Celica to contact commander Harrijo, Yata from the Scarab squad, the Cerberus squad with commander Murray helping through the remote link, Rosetta who is currently stationed in the Engineering force, and the Cold Sheep squad for sortie. Hassan will deal with the council about the problem of the Cold Sheep squad. Lee then tells them the coordinate IR-22 where they can get through the flying heterozygous and arrive right where the troops are fighting.
On Earth, the concentration of virus is rising again as the heterozygous creatures start to emerge and attack Lucia, the Commander, and 30 members of the Purificator who have been fighting for a few days waiting for Omega Weapons to arrive. During that time, the Purificator troops also become more open to the Commander, such as a Structurer named Isalius. Suddenly, a huge human silhouette rises from the sea. The Commander quickly orders Lucia to inform Eden the situation and asks for reinforcement. The voice on the other side replies no, but it turns out it is just Vera teasing them. Vera informs them that the Engineering Force did try their best for the Omega Weapons part, and now it is their part to clear the way and set up the Weapons. The four of the Strike Hawk squad appear and join the Commander’s team to help defend the Weapons. Later, the Cerberus squad also joins the defense after finishing setting up Omega Weapons on the water.
However, the attack of the heterozygous creatures becomes fiercer. The heterozygous creatures start to destroy some Omega Weapons, and the giant figure slowly advances to the shore. A dozen of the heterozygous creatures get past the defense and aim at the Commander, but Lee and Liv come in time for rescue. Karenina delivers more Omega Weapons for replacement, and Puppet introduces herself to the team while teasing Karenina. Rosetta, the Forest Guards and people from ARU also arrive to help.
At the cult’s camp, Paloma gets impatient to go to the frontline as Lilian is treating a heavily infected old man. She is about to put him out of misery when Watanabe appears and stops her. As a former clean up troops member, Paloma is on guard because of the presence of the Forsaken, but Noan says it was Lee’s idea and Nikola also knew about this. Watanabe then turns to Noan and says he is glad that he didn’t lose another member of the Forsaken. Grace thanks them and mentions God, which triggers Watanabe’s memory about Bruce. She reveals that it is just her habit as her cult just clings onto God, or Red Tide, or whatever that gives them hope because they are so powerless. Watanabe says that just believes in humanity instead, so Grace encourages her people to join the fight as a God’s trial. Meanwhile, Harrijo and Yata observe the Forsaken and the Cold Sheep squad from the shadows as ordered. However, after receiving the assistance request from the Gray Raven squad, all of them leave.
In the end, the Cold Sheep squad, Harrijo and Yata, the Forsaken, and the cult join the defense while Liv escorts the refugees to the dock. Nearby, Vanessa and Bombinata watch the battle.
Suddenly, a heterozygous attacks them, but Texiu appears and kills it. He says this is his last mercy for the former squad and leaves. However, Vanessa asks for the last request: taking a picture of the team for the first and the last time, just like what the Gray Raven squad did before. She waits until Liv from afar appears in the frame, then presses the button. Texiu then says next time they meet, they will become enemies, while Vanessa wishes that they will never meet again. After that, Bombinata carries Vanessa back to the command center where Vanessa passes out due to infection.
Bianca wakes up in an uncollapsed part of the museum and finds Chiko’s earring there. She remembers the time with Chiko when they revealed that both of them had had to kill those who were close to them, though in Chiko’s case, she later chose to abandon her emotion as her hesitation of killing her own infected sister made many people death before. Bianca admitted that Chiko was more suitable to be a captain, but Chiko disagrees, saying Bianca not being corrupted by the world was something she didn’t have. Bianca then uses the device again to look for traces from the part.
There, she learns that the female humanoid creature survived Liv’s attack and was recovered by Huiyan, but now only an empty shell remains. Hosa said this was enough as an experiment for humans who couldn’t become Structurers. Grace was doubtful that she would still be herself after merging with that monster, but Hosa promised that she would. Suddenly, Chiko’s team moved in to stop Grace, saying not to believe in the infamous “fraudster”’s words. As one of the members called Hosa’s little experiment dirty, Hosa snapped and said this was nothing compared to what Kurono Kukawa and Daedalus had done. In the end, Chiko was the only one left alive, and Hosa used her for the experiment instead. Hosa complained that the experiment would have been smoother with Grace or Cthylla’s consciousness, but it didn’t matter, as mister wanted to see more possibilities while weakening the human reverse.
Now, only Chiko phantom is here, and the twisted giant monster is advancing outside. Looking in a mirror, she sees that she is now in the original form of Abystigma.
However, this time she accepts her “witch” form. As she leaves the museum, she notices how orderly the heterozygous creatures are, which might indicate that Hosa is nearby. On the way, the phantoms blame Bianca for the death of Chiko as this was supposed to be her mission.
In the future, while waiting for another jump of the DeLorean - Discovery ship, Nanami sees a Red Planet which reminds her of a Gestalt’s deduction a long time ago about Murray talking about the death of the witch Bianca. In a simulation, the role reverses as Chiko takes over Bianca’s position to continue the search for the cult. However, the team is attacked by the witch and Chiko is strangled to death by the crying witch while talking about the promise. On Eden, as the scarlet light points up to the sky, Lee is surrounded by other Structurers aiming guns at his heart. He raises his gun back, apologizes as it was too late, then says his final farewell.
Suddenly, Haicma informs Nanami about the next wormhole jump in 40 minutes, bringing her back to reality. Looking at the archives about the Copperfield Maritime Museum operation again, it is shown that in reality it was different from the simulation and there were unnoticeable signs of changes and tampering in the tasks. Nanami then enters the space time coordinates on the space time map, then asks Haicma to send data No. 2143 through 4D communication back to Earth. Haicma says humanity has already mastered this technology, but Nanami wants to send it to the past instead as a gift called “future”. Haicma says the humans at that time might not understand, but Nanami says she only sends a fragment of the “key” and humans will have to figure out how to open the” door” themselves.
Back to the present, on the coast, the troops see a figure that looks like an Ascendant and shoots artillery. However, Karenina tells them to stop, saying it is Bianca. Some troops fear her witch-like appearance, but others are glad that she returns. Ayla arrives to join the fight. The troops are tired but the Commander decides to have one last push against the heterozygous creatures, while Bianca goes straight to Hosa’s place and to fight him.
As Hosa dies, many heterozygous creatures appear and block his body. Karenina informs them that they will run out of Omega Weapons soon, so they must kill that giant monster now. Bianca asks to be the one who kills the creature, as it was Chiko fusing with the humanoid female creature. Chiko actually helps them by absorbing all the heterozygous creatures around her, but Bianca knows Chiko just wants to die now. Vesali contacts Bianca and is pleased that she finally accepts the witch. Puppet meanwhile brings the equipment from Vesali for Bianca, but it turns out to be Yaha. Thanks to the data about the Zero Point Engine, Yaha’s punishment was only to become the filling material to protect the gift instead of death. He then gives the ray shaped ASU that can help her surf on water. Everyone agrees to cover for Bianca as she goes straight to Chiko.
With the help of Omega Weapons, Bianca deals the final blow to Chiko. Chiko doesn’t sink into the sea but dissolves into the air. A fragment from Chiko’s core falls and merges with the device. Liv and Lucia are glad that at least Bianca fulfills her promise with Chiko, just like the members of the Gray Raven team. Lee, however, acts strange when hearing that. He pushes everyone to do after battle clean up while looking at the place of the former monster and frowns. After helping stabilize heavily injured Struturers, the Commander goes and looks for Bianca. Seeing Bianca’s expression now look much firmer, the Commander believes that Bianca has finally found herself. Before leaving, Bianca makes a gesture to say goodbye to the place.
Back in Eden, Bianca changes to her Truth body which is now stable.
Meanwhile, Abystigma will need to be stabilized before being used again. As for the core fragment from Chiko, Asimov can’t decrypt the information inside it other than a message saying “this is a gift named “future””, which makes the Commander think of a certain gray hair girl. Asimov wants to decrypt more information from it, but Hassan says they need to focus on Omega Weapon first. As for Hosa, they only manage to recover his hair accessory, and it feels like once again an Ascendant or an Agent orchestrates everything behind. However, the hair accessory is missing, which makes Asimov think of the irrelevant thing with his assistant Rosa before. After that, Bianca returns to the Purificator and the members are much closer to each other now.
In another lab, Rosa is waiting for Noan.
She reminds Noan of him mistook her as someone else last time and shows him a hair accessory. Noan can guess that Hosa is dead, but he refuses to reveal anything because of the non-disclosure agreement. However, Rosa starts to cry, so Noan draws Hosa for her to see. The painting has no color so Noan tells her that Hosa has the same eyes and hair color as her. She then mentions an identical hair accessory from her mother before, but she can’t remember its actual origin. She then asks to keep the painting, promising to keep it a secret.
Inside the commander’s ward of Star of Life, Vanessa touches the scar on her face while checking the secret photo that she took before. Celica and the doctor then come in and inform her that, while her wound will heal after some time, her left eye vision is lost forever. The doctor then asks her to do surgery first, then check for some prosthetic eye option. She is fine with the scar or the eye, as it is the proof that she did rescue the pathetic Commander. She then tells Celica to call the Commander standing in front of her room for 1 hour before coming in to apologize.
Celica then calls the Commander. Being persuaded by Liv, the Commander decides to pay Vanessa a visit. Liv, however, decides to visit Vanessa alone later as she heard about Texiu’s defection. Knocking on the door, Vanessa asks who it is with a lonely sound. However, the moment she knows it is the Commander, she changes her tone back and forces the Commander to stand outside for 1 hour. Celica explains that Vanessa was almost disfigured due to late treatment, so they should wait for her to calm down first. After the 1-hour mark passes, the Commander comes in and sees Vanessa looks a bit different.
Vanessa still mocks the Commander as usual. However, the Commander can see how weak she actually is right now, so the Commander poured her a cup of water. Simon and Bombinata then come in to visit her. Ignoring Vanessa’s harsh word, Simon brings the nutritious food to her, while Bombinata says that the doctor recommends it. Harrijo then joins in and Vanessa doesn’t start it again this time but hiding her expression instead. The 4 commanders then talk to each other just like old classmates haven’t met after a long time.
Bianca – Abystigma’s Bond Story
The Commander and Bianca have a mission on Antarctica, the place that still holds its secrets since the Golden Age. 7 days ago, the Art Association received an unknown message from Antarctica when the special expedition team went missing. Concerning that it might be a defection situation, Bianca is tasked with the mission. The Commander then is chosen by Bianca in case the team's disappearance is due to other reasons instead. However, the Commander can tell that she actually has another reason but decides to give her time to reveal it herself later.
Suddenly, a blizzard comes, so they have to perform an emergency landing and drive to the nearest abandoned science research station. On the way, the car falls into a hole and is stuck, so they have to continue on foot. Walking in the polar suit, the Commander asks Bianca about her time as a nun. She tells the Commander that back then they had to use a wooden carriage to carry supplies during bad weather, so she has experience going through blizzards like this. Reaching the research station, they set up the camp inside. Bianca asks to hold the Commander's hand so she can monitor the Commander's body temperature and pulse, even when sleeping.
The next morning, the Commander wakes up, seeing that the blizzard has already passed and Bianca has brought the car back. In the car, the Commander is surprised to still be able to see such a peaceful place like this during this wartime with the Punishing. As they reach the station where the expedition team was missing, they charge in. However, there is no sign of munition but the members of the expedition team who are just dumbfounded looking at them. The leader of the expedition team explains that it was a misunderstanding and tells them to follow him.
On the way, to clear up the bad first impression, the Commander asks the expedition team about their work here, from predicting climate change to securing a renewable food source. The expedition team has been here for so long that they think Eden might already forget about them, but Bianca assures them otherwise. They say that they still try to be up-to-date with the war situation. After learning that this is the “legendary commander” that they heard about occasionally, the expedition team bombards the Commander with questions about the war.
When they reach the destination, the leader shows an icebreaker ship from the Golden Age. He is very enthusiastic as this icebreaker of the Atlantic Rim Economic Community is a big discovery, but Bianca reminds him about the unknown message back then. He says that it was an accident to send the message from this ship back to Eden, and with the violent trace on the ship, the content of the message might have caused some misunderstanding. They actually planned to contact Eden right after that, but couldn't because of the blizzard.
After that, the Commander and Bianca then contact Eden themselves to explain the situation. The Commander is curious about the content of the message that made Eden send the strongest Purificator here, but then decides not to ask. The Commander thinks this is a good place for a vacation and asks if Bianca wants to come next time, but she answers that she as a Purificator already has too much interaction with the Commander.
The leader then goes to them and asks for help as 2 of the members are on repair. Since they finish the mission faster than expected, they agree to help until the transport plane arrives. The leader wants them to come along on the icebreaker for a test run. The Commander then tells Bianca that the expedition team decides to name this ship "Lantern Bearer" as they might have learned about her too. Bianca is surprised at first because the team isn't afraid of her and even names the ship like that, but ultimately, she feels happy about it. As the ship passes by an iceberg, they decide to take a picture together.
1 week after their arrival, the Commander has trouble adapting with the lifestyle here. Meanwhile, the expedition team starts to respect Bianca more than the “legendary commander" now as she can absorb the knowledge of Antarctica at an astonishing rate. As Bianca informs that today the expedition will collect meteorites, the Commander wonders about the existence of an alien base here. However, Bianca says they already scanned the area and found nothing, so instead of looking for something that doesn't exist, they should go see the penguins to help gather data instead.
The Commander's eyes are sparkling as they finally see the penguins. As the penguins surround Bianca, she doesn't know what to do, but the Commander says that they just like her. Seeing Bianca smiling with the penguins, the Commander takes the picture. Bianca is stunted for a moment, then she asks for the camera so she can take a picture of the Commander with the penguins. However, the penguins run away instead, making Bianca turn away and hold back her laugh before returning to her usual demeanour and saying that the penguins seem to just hate the Commander.
Suddenly, they notice one of the penguins just leave the herd and go in the direction of the iceberg. Bianca says it is unknown why exactly, but it will go somewhere far away and face starvation in the end. She says that she personally doesn't consider that as going to a certain death, but instead trying to find something that can't be found by following the herd. She then apologizes for her imagination and returns to the station.
On the last night, Bianca and the Commander go see the starry sky. She confesses that she actually wants to help the expedition team more, and she is happy that she has been living here for 10 days, not as the captain of the Purificator. She then tells the Commander to close their eyes and waits. When the Commander opens their eyes, they see the "diamond dust" phenomenon. She would like to keep this moment with the Commander before both of them return to their own position in Eden, just like the lone penguins going to the iceberg. The Commander then shows her the picture of the penguin, herb actually chased after the lone penguin after that, saying that their paths will cross again in the future. Bianca reveals that her personal reason for choosing the Commander was simply because the Commander was here. They then agree to have an appointment right here one day and leave.
Solaeter’s Dream Catcher Coating Story: Have a Nap and Dream in the Sky Forest
Even with the help of the exoskeleton to do certain missions, the Commander still needs rehabilitation training to fully recover. Meanwhile, Liv also needs rehabilitation for her Sea of Consciousness, so only Lee and Lucia fight in the front line. Currently, Liv wakes the Commander up as the Commander dozes off during work. She replaces the café with the tea to limit caffeine intake of the day to 180 mg and helps with the paperwork.
After the work is done, Liv looks for Lucia and Lee's position on the map, since she missed the usual communication between the team last night due to a sudden pain that destabilizes her Sea of Consciousness. The Commander points to the location of the team with all the information they gave last night. The Commander then mentions the experimental deep link technology that won't need a line to connect and will help them return to the battlefield in the future. Liv reminds the Commander to not apply for many ground missions now, but the Commander just can't help it.
Suddenly, Asimov calls both the Commander and Liv to the lab. At the lab, Hippocrates says that they discover some unusual data within Solaeter while Asimov reminds the Commander of the seventh fragment of Liv's consciousness last time and says that they find another part of Liv this time. However, this is a rare fragment like a subconscious memory people often forget, such as remembering exactly how many people passed by the room. As a result, both the Commander and Liv are needed to clean up the pollution. This time, a "safety trigger" is prepared to wake them up, and the data collected will help with the development of the new deep link technology.
As Liv goes in first, Hippocrates tells the Commander that this might affect Liv as it is basically going deep into her own heart. The Commander then goes in and sees a forest. Following the butterfly, the Commander finds Liv in a strange coating.
Liv has no idea why she is like this after waking up, and she can even call the squirrels to her. Even though Liv has wings, she can't fly, so she scans around for navigation. However, navigating through this forest of fairy tales is hard because of the endless imagination. They then see a bridge of jellyfishes over a valley, which reminds Liv of the "Magpies Bridge" story from Kowloong, and decide to carefully cross it.
After Liv thanks the jellyfishes for help, they travel through many more wonders, such as flying on a dandelion through the swarm or navigating through the maze of grass. The Commander can't help but comment on Liv's rich imagination. Liv is embarrassed at first, then feels the nostalgia as they see the jumping sheeps that help sleeping. As they stop to rest for the night, suddenly, a puppet shark appears and chases after them because it finds children who are still awake. They then follow the squirrels to hide in 2 big pea pods. After that, they decide to sleep inside those pods. Before the sleep, the Commander tells Liv about their childhood memories.
After having a dream about the last rescue mission inside Liv's Sea of Consciousness, the Commander wakes up in an unfamiliar room. As the Commander goes out to search for Liv, a girl who calls herself "Cinderella" appears and shows the Commander Liv's room.
Inside, Liv has the symptom of consciousness pain, but the Commander can’t deep link to her as they are already in her Sea of Consciousness. However, Cinderella whispers something to Liv and makes her pain go away, then invites them to eat some breakfast.
After the breakfast, the Commander and Liv volunteer to help with the cleaning. Liv tells the Commander that Cinderella is not the fragment they are looking for, but she seems to know a lot about this fairyland. As they wash the dishes and drown in bubbles, Liv asks the Commander about the reason for their choice of having applied to the FOS Academy. Suddenly, Cinderella blows the bubbles away. She notices that it might have been bad timing and proposes to pull the bubbles back. However, the Commander says that they need to ask her about the way to the spire in the middle of the forest anyway.
Cinderella is surprised as the spire is a forbidden place as whoever goes, there won't return. She then tells them that there is no way to the spire, as it keeps moving around on its own. She asks them what it is like outside the forest and the reason why they have to go to the spire. However, they refuse to say anything as telling her about real life might have bad consequences on her.
Cinderella then tells them the story about a girl and the master of the spire. The master granted the girl's dreams every time she went to the spire. The girls wanted friends to play with as her siblings didn't play with her, so the master waves the scepter to summon the squirrels. The girl asked to change the forest, so the master created a bridge of jellyfishes, the jumping sheeps, the giant pea pods, etc. One day, she left her family along with her dreams behind, but there was always someone taking care of her dreams. At one point, the crimson flame rose from the ground. The girl returned and asked for a pair of wings at the cost of her freedom. The master - Cinderella - granted the wish, and the girl - Liv - thanks her and leaves.
After the story, Cinderella reveals that this fairyland is all of Liv's dreams. She also notices that Liv already achieved her dreams through other means, yet she still embraces these old dreams. Liv says that these dreams might be childish and unreachable, but she is still looking forward to pursuing such beauty. Cinderella then looks at the Commander and asks if the Commander is willing to save "her" despite being in danger, which is the last thing that Liv wants to see. The Commander is willing and says that they will support each other. Cinderella then creates a pumpkin carriage pulled by sheeps and says that this will lead them to the spire. There, the Commander will need to meet "her" at the bottom of the spire, while Liv will fight the monster at the top. Cinderella then gives Liv her scepter, saying she will no longer be able to cast spells, and sees them off with blessings.
At the spire, Liv then remembers the talk about Deep Mind Link with Hippocrates. Deep link didn't mean sharing pain and hallucinations but stabilizing the Sea of Consciousness, like the anchor of the ship. However, to improve the technology, they needed the Commander to perform several deep dives into the Sea of Consciousness, which might cause harm to the Commander. The Commander had already known about this and agreed. Liv told Hippocrates that the ship could also carry the anchor far away and was grateful for the Commander's help.
Meanwhile, the Commander remembers the talk with the instructor about the choice after graduation. The instructor asked why the Commander refused the invitation to the Combat Command. The Commander chose to become a commander of the frontline instead, to become a part of hope that brought the world back from despair. The instructor then asked if the Commander considered themselves as a hero, then reminded about the short life expectancy of the field commander. The Commander, however, said that they would never regret this choice and would try to stay alive to receive a pension.
Liv then goes up to clean the contamination while the Commander goes to rescue Liv's "dream". In the end, the Commander wakes up in a flower field. Liv admits that she knows this is just an illusion, but she will never give up this future. The Commander jokes about retiring here then Liv starts to dream about the wooden house, the pet, the garden where the Gray Raven squad can walk together, etc.
After that, they return to reality. Asimov proceeds the data while Hippocrates checks on the Commander and says about the necessity of staying on Eden until the deep link experiment is finished. The Commander and Liv then leave to receive the call from Lucia, hoping that one day the team can all talk together in person again.
Multidimensional Deduction: Cursed Wave
Just like Recitativo di Fantasia, there are a lot of non-consequential choices that only help expand the lore of the world. I will try to include some of them in the appropriate places of the summary.
Also, since I feel “the person” is kind of weird, I will switch it to other terms in the summary, but it is still about the same person who lost memory.
A person goes against the wave sounds into the light, but when they reach it, darkness comes again. The person then wakes up in an unfamiliar run down room and has no memory. Going outside, the person sees a girl in cloaking mourning in front of the tombstones. The person asks the girl what she is doing, and she replies that she just says goodbye. In fact, she is waiting for the person to wake up. She introduced herself as Kleidol and says she was born for the mission to guide the person to stop the wave sound of the world and break the endless cycle of reincarnation.
As a result, she will guide the person through the “Path of the Passing Savior” (or Path/Journey of the one who passes through and saves from the calamity?). She then explains that after humanity had rebuilt the world from the destruction, one day, the Wave Sound appeared. It is a calamity that wipes out the world and is also an endless sad wish. However, with no memory, the Savior can’t understand anything. Suddenly, they see from the distance the huge wave that covers the sky coming. However, the girl just calmly says that they will have next time before both of them are engulfed in the wave.
The Savior wakes up again in the same room. As the Savior goes out, Kleidol is there greeting the Savior again and says this is what she meant by “reincarnation”. Usually, people will just forget everything after the world is reseted, but she and the Savior still remember everything. The girl, however, can’t explain the origin of the Wave Sound, so she will need the Savior to find a way to stop it. She promises that no matter the result of their journey, she will accompany the Savior until the end.
They then decide to go to the nearby town to gather more information. They hear many stories about the heroes of the mythical age who were forced to flee to the sky, then fought back to reclaim the Earth again. After that, they go to the fortress called Atlantis, where there are many lost technologies that people don’t understand. There are also statues of the mythical heroes, such as the Saint holding a scepter or a Valkyrie holding a flag spear. At the end, they meet the Ocean Guardian, who seems to have some inexplicable hostility towards Kleidol. Kleidol says that the only way to move forward is to defeat the Guardian.
After the fight, the Savior finds a finely crafted Returner’s Dagger, and the entrance to the tunnel of the sea is opened. Here, they see traces of battle from the ancient time, along with sculptures of the legendary scarlet creatures. The Savior also finds a demon statue holding a branding iron, like it is waiting for someone to inherit the cursed mark. The Savior accepts the Mark of Nothingness on their left arm. At the Deep Sea, they find a holy temple with an angel statue that also holds a branding iron waiting for someone to inherit the blessing. The Savior accepts the Mark of Infinity on their right arm.
Before meeting the source of the Cursed Wave, the Savior makes their last decision.
Ending 1: The Savior follows Kleidol to touch the light and fights the Beast of the Calling Tidal Sound. After the fight, the Savior then finds themselves on the shore with no memory. The Savior is then saved by the scavengers and becomes an apprentice of a blacksmith. As the Savior starts to get on with life, the memory of a certain girl flashes on, but the Savior only regards it as useful advice.
One day, the Savior goes out alone for an errand to a certain courtyard. Inside, the Savior finds a girl in a cloak praying in front of the tombstones. The Savior then asks what she is doing, and she replies that she just says goodbye. The girl then asks if the Savior is having a good time here. As the Savior replies that they have a good time, the girl says goodbye to the Savior, which makes the Savior wonder if they have seen this girl somewhere before. However, the Savior just quickly stops the thought, considering it was just an illusion.
Ending 2: The suspicion inside the Savior grows as they don’t know anything but just blindly following Kleidol. Thinking that she is manipulating them, the Savior ignores Kleidol’s instructions and stabs her with the dagger instead. Her blood flows out, then changes her into another appearance. She asks why the Savior made such a bitter choice and attacks.
In the end, Kleidol’s corpse melts into the darkness. The Savior wonders if this is fine, and a voice answers that it is fine. The Wave Sound then hits the Savior again and again until it engulfs the Savior. The Savior then hears the voice wondering when things started to go wrong, and now they have to start over again. The voice then tells “Kleidol” to let that person stop the tide and give up the useless struggle, so that person can stay here forever instead of returning to the tragic “reality”.
The Savior then wakes up on an old bed with no memory and sees a girl in a cloak smiling at them. The girl then introduces herself as Kleidol and her mission is to guide the Savior to stop the Wave Sound to save the world.
Ending 3: The Savior wants to know about the truth of the world, but Kleidol says that there is no truth but only meaningless struggle. However, the marks on the Savior’s hands are burning, indicating that there is more to it, and that the Savior is ready. The marks shine brightly, and the Savior finds themselves on the Moon. There, the Savior sees the Beast of Tomorrow Devouring and knows that they need to defeat it to reach “reality”.
After the fight, the Savior wakes up in a temporary hospital in a conservation area. The doctor says that the person was exposed to the Red Tide and rescued by Eden’s Execution Troop. She also says that it was luck that the person survived the Tide, and their memory now might be a little confused, but they will get better later. After the doctor leaves, the person checks their belongings and finds an unfinished story that they have been writing for many years. It is a post-apocalyptic story about the disaster “Wave Sound”, the lost ancient wisdom, the journey to the abyss, etc. Basically, it is full of nonsense that nobody but the writer themselves want to read.
Reading the manuscript, the writer wonders if it was just all a dream, though they now can’t remember the details of the dream anymore. Suddenly, the image of a girl flashes in the writer’s mind, asking if they were always longing for someone to read their story and appreciate them. Surging with unknown inspiration, the writer then takes the pen and starts to write again. It will be a story about an amnesiac savior of the world who will be accompanied by a mystery girl. The girl is the only one who understands the savior’s existence and cares for them. As the writer is thinking of a name for the girl, the name “Kleidol” just comes to mind, so they choose it.
CHAPTER ER 3: LEFT UNSAID
There is an event “Dancing Sight” about the Kind of Wrench (probably referring to the Event farm stage back in Kowloong version) which seems to be non canon with how silly it is, so I won’t make a summary of it.
Chapter ER 3 Main Story
After 1 week since Vanessa returns from Star of Life, there has been no mission for her.
Waking up from a bad dream, a staff member contacts her and asks about member replacement, she answers that there is no one that is suitable to replace Texiu yet. Vanessa then looks at the candidate list again and thinks of a method to make a faithful doll, as the Gray Raven squad’s method won’t work for her. She actually had many questions for Texiu on that day on the beach about his betrayal, but her pride didn’t allow her to ask.
After that, Vanessa checks on Bombinata and notices the reading memory speed is slower than usual due to long time on ground and large interval between maintenance. Bombanita was from the early Structurer surgery technology, which caused her “amnesia”, as in she fails to recall her memory after a long period of stability. Asimov was the one who upgraded the external memory module on Bombinata to help with the condition, but her earliest memory data would disappear when the capacity reached the upper limit, and her other memories are still unrecoverable in her subconsciousness.
Vanessa then reconstructs the memory data of the day when she held against the wave of Heterozygous for the people and Gray Raven squad to escape. After 2 hours, Vanessa reached her limit due to injury. Bombinata had planned to blow herself up, but she had to use her body to cover for Vanessa. Suddenly, Texiu appeared and used his temporary authorization to make the Heterozygous Creatures fall down and lose their will to attack. Vanessa then mocked Texiu if he wanted to laugh at his former master. However, he just came closer to apply bandage on Vanessa’s wounded eye. He then held the detonator and said that he had been fantasizing about the day when it was his turn to be sacrificed to see the expression on Vanessa’s face, though he could guess that there would be no expression at all. Since Bombinata was Vanessa’s favorite, he also wanted to see her reaction when Bombinata was sacrificed, then killed her himself. However, to him now, it didn’t matter anymore since he was a free person. He mentioned his name, which had been chosen by Vanessa and announced that there would be no more “Texiu” in this world. As Vanessa lost consciousness, he asked Bombinata if she wanted to be a free person. However, since she replied that the master's will was her will, he said that if she changed her mind, she should go and see him so he would lead her to “that person”.
After checking the memory, Vanessa sends Bombinata to Asimov while she herself fears the hint that Texiu gave Bombinata. At the place, 2 researchers check on her condition. One of them slips the fact that Bombinata is a special case for Sea of Consciousness research, but she doesn't mind.
Somewhere else, Rebecca reminds Greens that Liszt almost ruined their plan, so the Ascendant project is on hold for now. As a result, Kurono loses their trust in the Greens. Liszt can come back when the Moon Base is repaired unless Eden tries to take control instead, though the Norman family might not just let it go so easily. Greens then thanks Rebecca for the document of the Inverse Element Device experiment that could be a good bargain chip. He thinks that Luna might actually know the principle of Inverse Element Device, and that its variables might connect to Agents, Ascendants, and even the Network itself based on their conversation, but now there is no way to ask her again. Vesali also has the data, but she will be very unlikely to work with the Council of Science, while the Council themselves are against experimenting on Structurers, so Greens plan to give the Council this information himself. Rebecca asks what they will gain in return, he replies that no matter who will be the pioneer, the result is too important for humanity so it will be published. As a result, they just need to wait to take it.
Meanwhile, Hassan, Celica and Nikola see the need to research Inverse Element Device again as they expect to produce the next specialized body that will be immune to Punishing. If the parameters of the Inverse Element Device can be optimized according to the needs of the adaptor, the new specialized body may be able to perfectly 'metabolize' the infestation of the Pamish virus. As they are stuck with the research, Greens contacts them and offers the information about Inverse Element Device research. Nikola threatens him that this document could sentence Greens for a lifetime jail, but he said that the experiment was carried out before the regulations of Structurer protection was a thing. To prove that the data isn’t edited, Greens give them the coordinates of a social welfare institution - an orphanage - among many institutions where the children there voluntarily helped with the research on Sea of Consciousness and Inverse Element Device to repay the kindness. He then suggests Vera as a former member of Kurono to investigate the old Kurono’s facility. Meanwhile, Hassan sends Bombinata to support Vera. As they cut off communication, they are unsure of the true motive of Greens. Hassan also mentions a proposal plan, so Nikola sends it to Vera. As for Greens, he says that fate is really wonderful as he checks on Bombinata’s information.
Near Vanessa’s place, there are 2 Structurers talking about the fact that a Structurer defect from the elite Egret squad. They see that unlike the other elite squad like Gray Raven, Egret might actually have some problems despite their success. From around the corner, Vanessa comes out, clapping her hands and starts to mock them as garbage. One of the Structurer doesn’t want to escalate the situation, so he pulls the other Structurer away. Suddenly, Bombinata contacts Vanessa to inform about the mission, which in turn makes Vanessa contact Celica and asks to apply for the mission too.
On standby, Vera doesn’t feel the necessity of having the doll with her in this mission, and Bombinata feels the same, as she can just finish it alone if necessary. However, Nikola seems to hint to Vera that she should just follow the order. Vera then jokes about the way Bombinata wears and the way she calls her commander “master”. Vanessa comes in to show that she is the one who is in charge of this mission.
On the ground, they see a forest with full of experimental Struturers hanging on the tree. As Vera mentions Bombinata’s memory problem, Bombinata says that the scientists didn’t finish checking due to the sudden mission, so Vanessa orders Bombinata to reread full combat memory right away. They then fight the Infected along the way when Vera teases Vanessa about her previous favor for the Chief, but Vanessa denies that she didn’t do it for them. She also says that she doesn’t mind going solo and will still write a good report about Egret squad, but Vanessa replies that Vera’s action doesn’t match her word. Vera says that her commander doesn’t need to keep an eye on her all the time to make sure she stays obedient like that doll, while Vanessa proposes to exchange the method with Vera’s commander to make the dogs more obedient.
Looking at the orphanage, Vanessa reminisces about her first meeting with Bombinata. Vanessa didn’t want a little sister, even though her parents Petra and Raymond had told her one week before that they would adopt one. A Kurono researcher brought Bombinata to the family, saying that she was very obedient but had memory problems. Her parents asked about the research after they had left, but the researcher replied that there had been no progress. The researchers then took a picture of the whole family.
From that day on, Vanessa’s parents spent more time with Bombinata and treated her nicer in comparison to Vanessa, as she was very obedient and helped them progress with the experiment. One day, Bombinata changed the picture of the family to the new one at Petra's request, which made Vanessa mad as she preferred to keep the old one with only 3 members.
Suddenly, Vera pulls Vanessa back to reality as they are about to go into the orphanage. Inside, they are surprised as the place is too clean, like someone is still living here. As they go into the living room, they notice there are working surveillance cameras, so they figure that there must be a surveillance room somewhere. They also find a modified early experiment Structurer model that the adapter was about 10 years old and a broken surveillance camera inside the toy. Suddenly, Bombinata sees someone asking her to follow, and a figure goes through a bookshelf.
Bombinata then says that the surveillance room is behind the bookshelf, as there is an unknown memory inside her Sea of Consciousness. Since they want to avoid damaging any electrical equipment to recover the data, they help Bombinata recover the memory data to open the bookshelf. Vanessa deep links with Bombinata while Vera looks around for clues. In the memory, they see a mother of the orphanage who keeps telling the kids to be obedient. In the end, they successfully open the bookshelf and find the surveillance room behind.
Inside the room, they find the data, but there are also traces of it being tampered with. Bombinata then looks for more clues in the recovery space with her external memory module. After a while, Bombinata finds a map of the building layout and sends it to Vanessa. In reality, after receiving the map, they follow the instructions of Bombinata to check outside. However, inside the space, Bombinata loses contact with Vanessa and is chased by a tall figure. After running from it, she figures out that what she saw were actually the memory fragments from the kids here.
Bombinata then wakes up inside a strange room with a robot named Dottie that calls her sister Dorothy.
Besides Dottie, a nanny robot - Unique Form Machine: Madeira - that tells her to become a part of the family.
She can’t detect any Punishing virus inside them, but for some unknown reason, the nanny robot starts to do something which increases the Punishing virus in her Inverse Element Device. The pain makes her sink into the depth of her Sea of Consciousness and remembers her past. The scientist said that she wouldn’t be experimented on then scrapped later thanks to the adoption, so she just needed to be obedient. He hoped that her adopted parents could cure her memory problem one day so she could be able to live on her own, as a Structurer can easily outlive humans. The scene then shifts to the part where she changed the family picture. Vanessa says that she hated Bombinata, as she thought that her parents made Bombinata as a replacement for her. Bombinata understood that feeling, so she tried to comfort Vanessa. She said that her parents actually didn’t hate Vanessa, and her cooperation in their research might bring a breakthrough in Sea of Consciousness and Inverse Element Device that would also bring a better future for Vanessa. Vanessa then asked Bombinata to make a pinky promise to not reveal what happened today to their parents.
After that, another memory resurfaces. This time, she was on an experiment with her parents. She forgot that they were her adopted parents, and even her own name. They then made a prototype of a chip that could help Bombinata retain her memory. As they went outside, Vanessa was here. They weren’t happy as Vanessa still had 20 minutes until her homework time was over and compared her to Smith’s son who had been a genius at her age. They then reintroduced Vanessa to Bombinata again, which made Vanessa shocked and ran away to her room. After the meal, Bombinata was ordered to rest, so she went into Vanessa's room to lie down. Vanessa ordered her to cover her stomach to not catch the cold, even though she was a Structurer. As someone who lived on the order of others, for some reason, Bombinata felt the warm feeling from Vanessa’s order despite the harsh tone. Vanessa then asked if Bombinata truly didn’t remember her, but she only remembered about the chip and nothing else.
Meanwhile, in reality, Vera and Vanessa fight their way through as they try to find the entrance to a room underground on the map where Bombinata might be. Vera also confirms that Vanessa isn’t actually here to keep an eye on her. After a while, they find a secret door under the carpet in the living room. However, they decide to look around one last time to be sure before going down.
During the search, Vanessa finds a dancing shoe, which triggers her memory.
Back then, Vanessa taught Bombinata how to dance. After that, she forced Bombinata to write it in the notebook that she gave her instead of just relying on her Sea of Consciousness. After changing her clothes, Vanessa noticed something strange in Bombinata’s painting.
Vanessa saw a blank human figure in the picture beside her. However, she couldn’t understand why Bombinata had drawn like that.
After that, Bombinata joined the ballet classes and became the role model as she could perfectly perform the basic ballet movements.
The teacher had high hopes for Bombinata while Vanessa grasped the basics well but needed to feel the music to express herself through her dance. After the class, Vanessa stayed behind to practice more. She had to become the most valuable one, but she knew that she would never surpass Bombinata. Vanessa asked if Bombinata had any secret in her dancing, but she replied that she didn’t even think about it. Vanessa came to the conclusion that Bombinata must really like ballet. However, Bombinata didn’t understand the concept of “like”, and it scared her. She wondered if it was something that could be done without being given orders.
3 days later, Vanessa quitted ballet. Petra felt disappointed as she and her father tried their best to prepare for her future. Vanessa pointed out that the teacher had recognized her progress, but Petra said that the results were what made the progress meaningful. Petra then reminded Vanessa how lucky she was compared to those who had to go to the frontline to fight, or others who didn’t even know how many seconds they had left to live. Raymond then came home and called Vanessa little Sa, but she asked him not to call her that anymore. He couldn’t understand why, as he had focused too much on work instead of family. Thinking it might be because of the ballet, he then agreed that Vanessa could quit, but Bombinata had to do the same to follow Vanessa. However, Vanessa said that Bombinata had talent in ballet. Bombinata hesitated as she wanted to both follow the parents’ order and satisfy Vanessa’s expectation, but she chose to quit in the end.
As a result, Vanessa didn’t feel happy about it, but she also understood that Bombinata did nothing wrong, as Bombinata couldn’t truly understand that she liked ballet. She tried to explain that if Bombinata had said that she liked ballet, their parents would have changed their mind. However, Bombinata just wanted to follow Vanessa, though she herself couldn’t understand the difference between being ordered to follow and wanting to follow Vanessa.
One day, Vanessa lost the selection of laboratory assistant. Raymond used his influence to leave exactly one vacant place, while Petra forced Vanessa to review the upcoming project to not embarrass them any further. Inside her room, Vanessa asked Bombinata if she thought that Vanessa had no talents at all so she kept failing, no matter how hard she had tried. , compared to ballet, she had even less talent in becoming a scientist. Bombinata said that Vanessa might not have found what she liked yet, so Vanessa asked Bombinata to support her in the search for that.
A few days later, she told her parents that she wouldn’t join the lab. Petra was angry, as she had had to abandon her works to create a future that she thought would be best for Vanessa. Vanessa then asked if her parents really love her or just considered her as another project. She then decided to go to FOS Military Commanding Academy to find her values even though her parents were really against it. She then asked Bombinata to come with her and said that she was not the lab rat for them to experiment with. However, this caused conflict inside Bombinata so she just stayed silent this time. Vanessa then vowed that one day she would make sure that everyone couldn’t disobey her, and left alone.
Petra took the opportunity to see if Bombinata would have any feedback with missing memories about Vanessa. Bombinata didn’t remember anything, but she subconsciously left half of the bed empty for some reason. Her odd behavior urged her to look for the answer. She found a picture of a drawing of a dancing girl and tried to draw the phantoms in her mind before it disappeared.
Years later, Vanessa returned with her own obedient squad to enlist Bombinata at her own request. Petra was disappointed that Vanessa didn’t seem to grow to be sensible at all, but she had to comply with the military order. While waiting for Bombinata, in her old room, Vanessa found Bombinata’s drawings, all with her and a shadow, with many broken words like sister, black butterfly pin, remember, etc. Her Structurer then informed her that her parents led Bombinata upstairs to retrieve the memory chip, as they still had the right to protect their research. Vanessa then ordered her troops to instantly take Bombinata to the Council of Science, while Petra said that she didn't need to return home anymore.
At the lab, Asimov successfully transformed her to be more combat ready, but he couldn’t replicate the memory chip without the original one. He instead created a new external memory module that could store the most basic information, such as combat, affiliation, mission information, etc. to avoid consciousness deviation. Her previous memory data, however, couldn’t be recovered for now as there was the incompatibility of the Inverse Element Device due to “that experiment”. Those memories were lost however but only sunk into her subconsciousness, so he hoped that one day when they solved the mystery of the Inverse Element Device, they could cure her condition and get them back. Vanessa said just do what he wanted first for now as the Structurer only needed to be obedient and asked the unconscious Bombinata for confirmation on that.
Back to the present, Bombinata wakes up in the recovery space and sees a black butterfly. However, before she can follow the butterfly, Dottie appears to convince Bombinata to join the family by ordering others to attack her. As she is defeated, she sees 2 versions of herself, one tells her to just follow her parent's orders, while the other doesn’t want Vanessa to be disappointed. She then realizes that what she really wants is to follow her sister/master Vanessa. She then regains her strength, beats Dottie and returns to reality. However, she is controlled by Madeira, so Vera tries to free her so that they can fight Madeira together.
After the fight, Bombinata falls down. Vera reminds Vanessa that she is a Support type and tells Vanessa to deep links with Bombinata for stabilization as she goes out for some emergency materials for treatment. Lying on Vanessa’s lap, Bombinata says that she had a long dream where they live together as kids in a big house of scientist parents. In that dream, Vanessa teaches Bombinata plenty of things, like covering her belly when sleeping or ballet, as well as telling Bombinata about her disappointment after having worked so hard. If she can dream that dream again, she will tell her parents that it is her own choice to follow Vanessa, and she will finish the drawing with her standing beside Vanessa instead of the shadow. Meanwhile, Vanessa deliberately hides her expression to not show the “loser” side of her again.
When they return to Eden, Asimov informs Vanessa that there is nothing strange due to injury. He says that the manipulation behavior of the machine was from its own experimental function. The electronic brain they recovered from it also shows the full experimental operational record, as well as operational process code. As for Bombinata recovering her memory, it might be from the interference of the Machine on her Inverse Element Device that triggers some kind of experimental reaction, or simply was just because of the sudden high infection rate. After fixing her Inverse Element Device, the complications disappear, but the cache of her external memory for this mission has been formatted due to someone’s order when they heard about the enemy’s manipulation. Asimov doesn’t specify who, but Vanessa can guess. At least Asimov did take a snapshot of the data, so he hopes that when parsing it into the electrical brain, he will find something to treat the amnesia later. He then has to leave to go to meet Hassan in the conference room. After that, Bombinata wakes up and wonders if she did anything wrong during the last mission, so there is no data, but Vanessa says it was nothing.
Meanwhile, Vera gets impatient as she is watched by the 2 Structurers for a few days. Nikola orders them to go out and says that they find no abnormality in her Sea of Consciousness, so she can go now. She says that he knows the result from the start, but he replies this is just procedure. She also says that doesn’t even have time to get in contact in private with Kurono if she really wants to. Surprisingly, he allows her to do so from now on, though she will need to send him a conversation log to the private channel. She then asks about that extra thing, and he says he will prepare for the next stage.
As she leaves, Vera understands her fate as a Structurer, but she is still annoyed to be tossing around. She then meets Vanessa, who teases her that the review process on the pretentious captain must have been unconformable. Vera teases back that Vanessa did show her a wonderful expression on her “beautiful” face when she lost her doll. Before Vanessa has a chance to retort back, Vera quickly thanks her and Bombinata for their performance and wishes them luck. Vera then leaves, while Vanessa and Bombinata return to their room.
Bombinata’s Bond Story
Because of the recent continuous battles, the number of commanders left is down to 40%, putting a lot of pressure on FOS Military Academy. The Academy invites old students for a speech, which includes the Commander, Simon and Vanessa. Harrijo and Chrome, on the other hand, are busy, so they won't come.
As the Commander returns to the squad room to prepare for the speech, the Commander passes Egret squad's room. Seeing the documents of Star of Life on the bench about Bombinata's inspection 2 days ago, the Commander picks it up to return it to the squad. As the Commander knocks on the door, Bombinata peaks out and doesn't seem to recognize the Commander, even though she was the one who pointed the blade at the Commander’s throat a few years ago during the conflict between 2 squads in the first joint mission. She says that Vanessa isn't here, and she was ordered to wait here. The Commander then handles the documents to her, but she is confused and reveals that she only remembers what has happened since yesterday. The Commander tells her to just keep the documents and leaves.
Next day, the Commander visits the Egret squad's room again. Bombinata today, however, can only speak in words instead of full sentences. The Commander then contacts Vanessa, which reveals that she can't return right now. Seeing the bantering between the two, Vanessa says that they are friends, but both of them instantly deny and say that they are just colleagues. The Commander then takes Bombinata to Star of Life while trying to explain to her to not copy Vanessa's way of talking. At the place, the doctor checks on her by applying simulation in her neural network, which causes her pain. The Commander holds her hand while the doctor explains the problem with her Sea of Consciousness, as in her Sea of Consciousness will be overwritten by empty data every 24 hours. The doctor then tells the Commander to rest somewhere else as this will take some time, but the Commander insists on staying beside Bombinata.
After the examination, the doctor cures Bombinata's speech problem. On the way back, Bombinata holds the Commander's hand back to return the favor, revealing that because of the Commander's actions, she could somehow have the impression that Vanessa did the same every time she has treatments. When they return to Egret squad's room, the Commander says that they will meet another day.
As the time starts to run short, the Commander is struggling to write a speech to the new generation of commanders. An inspector of the Engineering Force comes and mentions a strange little girl standing in the corridor. Realizing that it is Bombinata, the Commander goes with the inspector. There, Bombinata doesn't recognize the Commander at first. Since Vanessa is away with her external memory module, she keeps a diary in very detail about what happened before to verify it is the Commander. She did try to ask others for help, but because of her squad's reputation, not many responded to her. The Commander then explains that "another day" doesn't mean "tomorrow". She apologizes for the misunderstanding and says that she will remember it.
On the day before the speech, the Commander can't finish the speech as it is difficult to tell the new generation about all the blood and tears. As a result, the Commander asks Simon for help. Simon, however, hasn't finished his own speech yet, so he can't help. On the way back, the Commander checks on Bombinata again. Vanessa still hasn't returned, and both of them couldn't contact her. The Commander then decides to stay for a while, which surprises Bombinata. Bombinata doesn't want to decide for Vanessa, but eventually, she still lets the Commander in and records all actions. Meanwhile, the Commander just sits on Vanessa's chair for a while, then thanks Bombinata and says that they will meet again tomorrow. She doesn't understand why the Commander thanks her for doing nothing, but she starts to realize that she has been so lonely these few days without Vanessa.
After the speech, Simon is impressed with the Commander using Sisyphus's story to inspire the new generation instead of just telling them about the harsh reality. The Commander then goes to meet Bombinata and takes her to Dominik Memorial Park. The park is based on park design from the Golden Age, and the Commander thinks that Dominik himself would prefer it this way, instead of a mournful mausoleum. A kid comes to invite Bombinata to play, and the Commander says just decide it herself, but Bombinata refuses. Before leaving, the kid says that Bombinata is cute, which confuses her as to why she is praised for refusing. She then reveals that she didn't join the kids because she is a Structurer. As a result, the Commander goes and brings many balloons back. Bombinata doesn't receive them as she isn't ordered to do so, but the Commander insists on not giving her any orders. She then receives the balloons while murmuring a thank-you.
Vanessa eventually returns and notices the notes from the Commander on Bombinata. She then checks on Bombinata again. As she returns the module to Bombinata, Bombinata mentions the Commander's name as an impression. Vanessa is surprised by that, but then she says that there will be a battle order soon.
After the briefing from Nikola, Vanessa asks when the Commander has become such an expert in Bombinata's situation. The Commander replies that Liv did help, which gives Vanessa a complicated feeling. She then reveals that she has been away with Bombinata's external memory module, as she didn’t want people to touch her doll, to be inspected, since they had just done a mission for Kurono and the Council. She then wants to say something, but she decides not to and leaves. As they leave, Bombinata turns around and bows to the Commander as a thank-you.
Mid-Autumn Festival 2022 Story: Once in a Blue Moon
The Gray Raven squad doesn't have any mission around the time for the Mid-Autumn Festival, so they prepare greeting cards for the occasion. However, the Commander is suddenly called for an emergency mission and leaves Eden. After they finish the preparation, Ayla comes to collect the cards. Ayla seems to have some ideas about the Commander's mission, but she doesn't reveal anything and quickly leaves. The squad then looks around and notices that Ayla took the Commander's important private letter accidentally. Lee tries to contact Ayla but can't, so Lucia goes to her place.
On the way, Lucia bumps into Nanami, but she barely has time to explain the situation. Nanami wants to help so she meets Kamui first, but due to the information being unclear, she says that the Commander's private letter that can't be seen by others is now on the hand of an Art Association's member so the Gray Raven squad is looking all over the place for it. Kamui thinks it might be a prank from the Art Association, but since Nanami insists, he calls his squad mates for help. They then form a Joint Search Headquarter where Wanshi and Chrome contact each member of the Art Association while Nanami gathers even more help along the way. Kamui meanwhile is followed by No.21. Thinking that Cerberus also looks for the letter, he reports Chrome and tries to shake No.21 off.
The Gray Raven squad then finally reaches the Art Association, where the receptionist is dumbfounded by Nanami's behavior. They pull Nanami back and ask for the whereabouts of Ayla and learn that she is on a plane to travel to the ground to deliver the greeting cards. After providing them the information about Ayla's transport ship, the receptionist also mentions that a pink hair muscular Structurer with shark teeth smiling also asked about Ayla not long ago.
Somewhere else, Noctis has to run to the transport plane before it takes off as Vera tells him to get the Commander's letter. Otherwise, she will relieve her stress on her squad mates, as she is in a bad mood of being chosen for a speech by Nikola. Suddenly, Kamui appears and has a race with Noctis. They run past Hilda, who tells them not to run like that, though Hassan says it is fine for them to be so energetic. Behind them, Nanami and the Gray Raven squad also go to the plane’s place on POWER's back. However, they run into the Execution Force troops who are on training to protect the festival, so they have to take another road while breaking through the training robots.
As the transport plane of Griffin's squad is on final check, there is suddenly a loud noise coming from outside, so Bridget comes out to check. As she opens the door, she sees POWER outside, and Nanami comes into the plane to meet Ayla. During the plane's flight, Ayla apologizes for not checking, and all the people there start to look for the Commander's letter. In the end, the letter turns out to be on the way to the big scanner machine, so Lee quickly jumps in and slowly plays a tug of war with the machine, so the letter won't be ripped in half. As he finally gets the letter out, the plane suddenly ascends and makes POWER hold on the handle to open the cabin door accidentally. The color papers from the box of the scanner then hits Lee in the face as it flies out of the cabin.
Meanwhile on Eden, since Nanami reaches the plane first, Noctis follows Kamui back to the Headquarters. There, the Art Association member mentions having scanned the greeting cards to distribute them online, as they currently lack people for physical delivery. Thinking that the Commander's letter might have been scanned, Karenina goes to the square to hook a transmitter in while Puppet stays at the Headquarters to rewrite the distribution program. At the square, Karenina meets a bunch of rabbit robots from the Art Association, who are programmed to catch the target in front of them. Karenina then knocks them out as they try to grab her. The Art Association members go out to check and see Karenina beating the robots up, so they have to clarify that the robots are programmed to play hide and seek with the kids during the festival.
As a result, Karenina helps them fix all the robots. As they are finished, the kids go in and Karenina is put in the spotlight by Puppet. In the end, she has to play hide and seek with the kid as a sister rabbit while quietly cursing Puppet for putting her into this. Meanwhile, Puppet activates the send function mistakenly, so the cards will be mass sent randomly, but she still manages to delete Commander's letter before that. She then writes a report for self reflection in advance, which Chrome thinks it's a good idea and makes Kamui write one too.
In Kowloong, Pulao prepares firework boxes while Changyu reminisces of this occasion during the Golden Ages. As she encourages him, they look at the sky and see colorful papers in the air. After that, they receive a greeting card from Eden. ARU, the Forsaken, and people from all over the world with a working terminal then also receive the greeting cards. Even Haicma and Sibuna receive one, which makes Haicma think it is a miracle as she looks at the handwriting. A lot of them then decide to reply to the greeting cards. At this moment, the intertwined emotions seem to reconnect the broken world again.
On Eden, people also receive greeting cards, such as Nikola and Greens. A newly graduated chief commander from FOS named Sica also receives one and shows it to Vanessa.
Vanessa just reminds Sica to finish the report instead, then she wonders why her greeting card to the Commander ends up in Sica's hand as she gives one to Bombinata.
On the transport plane, after closing the hatch and cleaning up, the crews look outside and see a lot of Kongming Lanterns. Nanami then asks Hassan about the Commander's whereabouts so that they can find the Commander. Despite Hilda being angry about it, Hassan shows them the location. They then land down to a conservation area. Bridget, however, doesn't join them as she still needs to transport more people.
As the team prepares the festival for the Commander, they take a look at the photo Commander's private letter as it falls out of the envelope. Suddenly, the Commander returns from the mission and catches them in the act. Nanami says that the Commander back then was so cute and assures that only people from the Joint Search Headquarter see that picture. The team even asks for a copy of it. The Commander is worried that so many people saw that picture, especially Cerberus squad and Puppet, but then just gives up and enjoys the festival with them.
CHAPTER 21: SPIRAL OF CHRONOS
Chapter 21 Main Story
The order of the story is changed a bit to make it flow better. There will also be a part where the story jumps back and forth between past and present that will be divided to make it more clear which part is in which time frame.
After the Battle of Copperfield Maritime Museum, the threat of heterozygous creatures diminished as the red tide receded. The need for Omega Weapons production is reduced, the reconstruction process of the lunar base has accelerated, and the research and development of the specialized body has also made new progress thanks to the acquisition of the latest data.
On Eden, after 2 hours from the last Remote Link test report, Vera delivers some documents with a quest log to Murray. She complains about the whole complication, but Muray points out that she also got what she wanted. From the start, he didn’t restrict his squad but tried to maximize the squad’s advantages and even stood up for them when they “violated the rule” to get what he wanted. After Vera leaves, he brings the document to the parliament building. Inside the elevator, he hears people talking about how they feel repair is being carried all the time everywhere and conspires about the riot of the people here. Someone from Star of Life also mentions many retired veterans suddenly having mental problems recently.
Inside the parliament building, Murray meets commander Sica of the Swift Squad, who is preparing for a mission. Looking at her face, he can tell that she has been through a lot of pressure so he gives her some encouragement, then goes to the conference room to meet Nikola who no longer questions the source of his information, making Murray’s job much easier. He says that he already received the original, so the rest of “that part” will be sent through the special channel.
As he leaves to go to the Council of Science, Murray guarantees that the rest of the data will be useful for Lee’s body adaptation, as his ultimate goal is to help his brother. He remembers watching Lee walking alone and keeping lying to him that everything would be better. On a day when there was a celebration in a tower near where they lived, unable to sleep due to fireworks, he got up and caught a glimpse of Lee bandaging his bloody arm. He wanted to ask but feared that it would just make Lee worry more. It was until later when he read the Structurer archives that he knew what his brother had been through. He then vowed to catch up with Lee to help.
At Asimov’s place, Lee shows Asimov information on the heteromer fragment about Punishing Language, or rather Punishing Code. The information is from unrecorded Kurono test records and the missing Shome’s research materials, which Lee obtained. In the record, Shome theorizes that the key to its truth is hidden in higher dimensions, and Punishing might be caused by the interference of higher dimensional civilization. The audio then follows 10 minutes of blank and ends in a cryptic manner as he asked the last question to the Merciful. With this information, the efficiency of the information within the fragment will increase by 23.5% and Lee believes this will be the key. However, he says to Asimov that they should keep this a secret from the Parliament, as he can’t disclose the source. Asimov says that the information must be published eventually so Lee must come up with a reasonable source.
Lee remembered that, during the 20th adaptation experiment, he received abnormal data. The data were considered meaningless by the scientists as they wanted to focus on the research of Inverse Element Device, but Lee could decipher it, just like what he had told Murray about key and password a long time ago and had even created their own code to talk to each other.
One week ago, Lee didn’t join the squad’s mission to check the coordinates. At the place, he finds an uninfected old household robot model based on the Golden Age. The robot has a self-destruction program, but Lee could still easily obtain some data from it, as it had been his expertise since he was still Morian, and he had even taught Murray about it.
The robot also had a record about a transaction between the robot and someone else to transport something for the robot to Eden. The voice mentions that the mermaid had been intentionally let go, and the person seems to know Nikola very well. The voice then changed the subject to the Agents. The robot thought that the voice wanted to ask about the agent with the writer's name, even though the agent will only release “the truth” when he wants to. However, the voice wanted to know about the Merciful, which repeatedly appeared in the later half of Shome record. The robot said that there wasn't much information on the Merciful, so the voice wondered what kind of bait could attract the Merciful and provided the information to the robot.
In the record, the voices of both parties were heavily processed, but Lee can tell from the habit that one of them was Murray. He wondered if all of this was Murray’s work and realized how much Murray had grown to be so like him, who had lied a lot in the past. As he put the memory chip in his pocket, there was an earthquake. He saw the scavengers desperately running out of the building as the shaking ground collapsed everything around them. He then quickly blocked a block of cement, turning his pain receptors off in the process, to save the scavengers.
Back to the present, Lee tells Asimov about the coordinate and the memory chip, leaving his suspicion on Murray out. Asimov wonders if it was a trap to lure Lee in, but he thinks the earthquake might also relate to the Eternal Winter from the vision of the Ascension Network. He stops the thought as he wants to focus on Specialized Body and takes the data from Lee.
Somewhere else, Celica reports to the Commander that there have been earthquakes during the last 2 months near the conservation areas, so the Engineering Force has been assigned to help. However, this situation is strange as the conservation areas are built where serious geological disasters are less likely to happen. Furthermore, the virus concentration rose 2.3% after the earthquake. Due to lack of manpower, Celica asks the Execution Force, including the Gray Raven squad, to help support the troop on the ground and investigate the cause of the abnormal situation. The Commander notices Lee isn't on the list but decides not to ask about it.
On the ground, Bridget picks the Gray Raven squad up on a vehicle to the conservation area. She then reports the situation, which includes defectors and Ascendant's attacks. As she asks about Lee, the Commander remembers the last time they met was after the seaside battle. As Lee fixed his own arm, The Commander asked about the progress of Specialized Body development. The Commander had the data but wondered about the sudden Sea of Consciousness overload, and the way Lee behaved recently as if he were hiding something. The Commander then said that Lee should rely on others more, which he agreed should the situation arise in the future.
At the conservation area, another earthquake happens, so Eden troops evacuate people to an open area. Meanwhile, the Commander with some troops tried to locate the epicenter of the earthquake. However, the data doesn't make sense as it is 2000 meters underground. The Commander then decides to go there to investigate. They then receive a distress signal near the conservation area no.27. On the way, they fight the heterozygous creatures and find Sica being injured. While treating her, they receive information about the appearance of a red spiral tower that should not exist in this world. They start to fear the evolution of the virus toward the direction of civilization next. They also can't get information about the Tower as they need someone with complete immunity against the virus, but at least they can confirm that the Tower appeared exactly when the first earthquake started. Then they decide to check the tower next.
On Eden, Lee reminisces about himself turning into a Structurer for the 1st time for Murray's sake as he connects the Specialized Body into a simulation. After a few basic combat tests, Asimov introduces the new function called “Hyperdimensional Space” which can help him “transcend through space and time” though extreme high real-time computing power. Hyperdimensional Space is basically the same as Supercomputing state as it makes everything seem to be slower, but it can do more than that. However, it can only be active for a short time due to high consumption of computing power. At the end of the combat simulation, Lee suddenly sees a lot of himself in all forms merge into him, and a black hole-like object appears from a crack in the space.
Lee wakes up and feels confused, with the last image of a spiral tower flash in his mind. He checks those images again in his Sea of Consciousness, but they are lost. He then checks on Asimov and realizes that his consciousness was only overloaded for 3 seconds, yet it shows 35 minutes in his system. Asimov then runs a diagnosis which shows everything works normally, such as the new Inverse Element Device and Omega Weapon that help Lee immune to the virus. Lee can even reach 98% adaptation, so that Sea of Consciousness’ overload was strange. Asimov hopes that they can solve the problems, so this technology will become standard to every Specialized Body. Lee says that this overload will endanger the Commander, so he won’t let the Commander get involved.
In the middle of their discussion, Murray knocks on the door to send Asimov a document from Nikola with Kowloong Night Ship logo on it. After checking the document, Asimov says the 2 brothers can have some time to talk while he waits for someone to pick up this document. Lee actually understands the hint from Asimov, as he recently learnt from Asimov himself that Murray was the one who pressed on the matter of him being the first candidate.
Lee and Murray go to a hidden corner, where Lee confirms that Murray was the one who placed this chip in the robot. Murray tells his brother that it is the information from Nikola, but Lee can tell that Murray is lying, just like how Lee lied to his brother before. He also points out that Murray cooperated with Lamia before. Murray says that Lee also hides the fact about his body adaptation problem before, then suddenly stumbles due to dizziness. Lee notices it is the symptom of Thinking Beacon pollution. However, Murray just says that he is weaker than other commanders, even though Lee well knows that Remote Link technology carries much greater risk since the early Counterattack Era as he learnt everything from Hassan and Nikola.
Somewhere else on Eden, the parliament is in a meeting about the current situation, which includes: the conservation areas haven't been fully recovered yet and have been constantly hit with earthquakes recently, the lack of manpower, the strange electromagnetic radiation in space, and the increase in the number of defectors. An act of opening the Structurer's Sea of Consciousness to monitor them has been proposed, but Hassan refuses, which causes dissatisfaction among the parliament. Suddenly, Celica contacts through choppy communication about the activity of EM radiation that causes mental disorders in numerous people.
After the communication is disrupted, from the dark, a guard screams at Hassan as traitor and shoots him. Liszt quickly takes the bullet for Hassan, knocks the guard unconscious, and takes the gun. Nikola thinks this might be an attack from Kurono since Liszt wears a bulletproof vest during the meeting. However, he quickly abandons the thought due to Liszt’s action and the fact that even the Kurono’s members within the parliament are panicking. Greens and the chief of staff named Wells charges in from outside and protects Hassan.
Wells gives them some old weapons from the Golden Age so they could quickly disable the insane people inside the meeting room. After that, as the youngest of the group, Liszt is responsible for opening the way so they can go and start an emergency broadcast.
On Lee and Murray’s side, there is an emergency announcement about evacuation due to unknown EM radiation. Murray guesses this is why he had the dizziness back then and goes to prepare the remote link with Cerberus while Lee follows the instructions of the emergency announcement.
In the meeting room of the Council of Science, Asimov tells Rosa to hide in a locker and pushes the furniture to block the door from the crazy people outside. Hippocrates contacts Asimov and sends the report confirming that the EM radiation from the heteromer Tower is causing Thinking Beacon pollution which leads to various mental disorders, hallucinations, increasing aggression, etc. As a result, they need someone immune to the virus to get into the Tower. Since Camu is busy on another mission, they decide to activate Hyperreal. Hippocrates then tells Asimov to hold on as she contacts the troops.
On Lee’s side, he learns that someone seems to intercept the order and makes all the Structurers at a place think that the situation has been resolved. Suddenly, there is an explosion nearby, so they go to help the citizens. Lee then receives the contact from Asimov, explaining the situation. Hearing like the red light also starts to hurt Asimov too, he heads to the Council of Science.
On Earth, The Commander’s group goes in the direction of the tower and starts to see the top of it. Liv and Sica inform that they can’t contact anyone else. As they move closer, everything appears to be wrong, like they can smell all kinds of things. Suddenly, Sica says that the Commander is bleeding, and the Commander notices this is the symptoms of Thinking Beacon pollution. The Commander wants to quickly disconnect with Lucia and Liv to stop the pollution from spreading but fails, so all of them fall down unconsciously. The Commander, however, was knocked unconscious by someone else. When the Commander wakes up, it turns out it was Harrijo who attacked them and now calls them a traitor. Harrijo then tries to contact the Purificator and is about to kill the Commander, but Sica, Lucia and Liv also wake up in time to stop him.
After having neutralized Harrijo, Liv checks on the condition of all commanders. Asimov contacts them, saying this is the 13th communication he tries to make. He tells the team that the Tower rising from underground is the cause of the recent earthquakes. The red light emitting from it is the cause of Thinking Beacon pollution and the commanders who are affected can force link to other Structurers and pollute them. As the connection is about to be lost again, Asimov mentions something that only a commander with pollution resistance can do. He also says that they should prioritize saving normal people first and the new Specialized Body is the key. After that, they receive distress signals from different squads, including the Strike Hawk squad. The Commander sends the information from Asimov to other squads using FOS code, then moves out to help.
On Eden, Lee runs toward the Council of Science while helping people along the way. The message from Asimov is also broadcasted, but one of the scientists says that it is useless as they will get hit by another EM radiation wave and go insane eventually. Inside the Council of Science’s building, Lee finds Rosa bandaging the unconscious Asimov lying in blood. Lee helps treat Asimov, but he realizes that now he can only force starting the new body as Asimov can’t help him. Rosa then gives Lee some Asimov’s research note, which mentions a theory that the message in the heteromer fragment can be read by being directly infected by it. Lee then tells Rosa to take care of Asimov and goes to get the fragment.
Having the fragment, he stabs it into his body, which causes a sharp pain that makes him want to faint. However, he tries his best to stay conscious and obtains the information. He somehow sees himself knowing the parameters to activate Hyperreal, some combat missions like they are actually his real memories, and the message telling him to activate Hyperreal to go to the Tower as a gift called future. After that, he goes to change to Hyperreal.
On the ground, Lucia warns the Commander as the concentration of virus starts to reach the limit of the protection gear, while Liv tries to contact Eden again. The Commander then decides to stop advancing to deal with the Heterozygous Creatures first. Lee contacts the Commander through the emergency communication device and updates the situation on Eden. He also requests the Commander's permission to provide him with access to Hyperreal, as he can't force access to it on his own. The Commander doesn't agree with Lee going in the tower alone, but he replies it is the best option now. The Commander then agrees, but asks Lee to keep a remote link to update the situation.
Now with full access, Lee starts to see time and space right in front of him. Lee then goes to the transport plane to fly down to the Tower. On the way, a member of the Killer Mantis squad named Croix helps Lee until he himself loses control. It is also the time when Lee starts to see himself being hit by Riot before it actually happens so he can dodge it.
Meanwhile, Murray tries to contact Lee but can. He then notices Ishmael and another member of the Control Department named Rasti who are supporting the injured.
Seeing how calm Ishmael seems to be, Murray feels strange. She then suddenly calls him out, so he asks her about Lee. Rasti says that she saw Lee flying down to the Earth just then. Murray checks the video record, sees Lee in an unfamiliar body and understands what is going on. He is angry as Lee went into danger without telling him again, but Ishmael points out that he is the same as he does things without letting Lee know. He then contacts the Commander to confirm that it was Lee's choice and asks the Commander to stop his brother if he tries to sacrifice himself.
On Earth, as the other commanders start to be affected, the Commander decides to link with other Structurers in turn. Lucia and Liv, however, ask the Commander to stop if they reach the limit. The Strike Hawk squad also starts to move to the Commander's place to provide support.
Back on Eden, Ishmael murmurs that this happens too soon, so humanity might not be ready yet. Gestalt tells her that even Nanami can't change the destruction, which she corrects that the "present" Nanami can't.
Somewhere else, Negut also thinks that the Tower appears too soon. He doesn't mind whether Merciful helps humans or not, but this event will also affect the Ascension Network and the Ascendants themselves. Huiyan and Lilith meet the resurrected Hosa to update the situation and tell him it is his choice to kill "him" or not. Hosa then tells "Mr. Monster" that everything turns out to be as Negut predicted, so now it is his turn to make the decision (Noan portrait is shown here).
Meanwhile, Roland meets someone (Lilian’s censored portrait) who turns out to be Lamia in disguise. Roland admits that Negut didn't tell him anything about that tower, but it must be what he prepares for, and releasing Red Tide to the sea is just a part of his long plan. Roland then tells Lamina about his deal with Negut for information about Luna, while she tells him about her help to lead the defectors to Hosa as well as the technology that keeps him alive through many clones of his consciousness. They then continue to talk while on the way to Luna’s place.
As Lee flies down and sees the Tower from afar, he has a feeling that he has seen this many times before. He has painful déjà vu of different Heterozygous Creatures attacks and kills him, so he has countermeasures every time. As he has a hard landing on the ground due to the fierce attack of Heterozygous Creatures, he starts to hear voices from distant space about the future that is about to happen. Inside the Tower, Lee starts to see the phantom of a Structurer, then he is attacked by humanoid enemies. He then is trapped in the gravitational anomaly and has consciousness overload where he sees countless insignificant fragments of time. Suddenly, he feels a link from the Commander stabilizing his consciousness. The Commander tells Lee that this is their promise and the promise with Murray.
However, Lee sees “himself” (Random Number) warns him about the danger of the link, so he pushes the Commander away. He then sees the white hooded figure (the Merciful censored portrait) saying that it is not the first time they have failed or said goodbye. He then sees himself in the past when he first joined the Gray Raven, though he now is fully aware of it and is more familiar with the Commander, which makes the Commander feel strange. The Commander then wishes that Lee should smile, as his straight face can scare people. The scene shifts, and he sees the hooded telling the story of climbing the tower by filling the road with their own bodies. The Commander dies during the link with Lee so he can go back to the “starting point”, then Murray follows the Commander to return Lee to the “starting point” again. A strange figure then appears, saying that they will keep watching him as the “Gatekeeper” as long as he doesn’t give up, and suggests he recheck her message again.
Lee then read the future gift from Nanami again, saying that he can send a message to the past to rewrite the disaster by using the high dimensional properties of Punishing Language. He finally understands why he has all this déjà vu. With the Commander’s guidance, he reaches out to the only answer. As Lee’s consciousness sailing through the endless star, the other “Lee” explains that the whole Tower is a space time continuum which he can understand and access “possibilities” in other words. The past and future in the Tower exist in some form of entities in which the interference of the past from Lee will cause physical change to the Tower’s structure. As a result, this could be a method for him to navigate to the top of the tower.
----------
On an early mission of the Gray Raven squad, after talking to Lucia (Red Lotus) and Liv, Lee suddenly receives the coordinates. On the way, he helps defend another team to safety, which arrives exactly at the coordinates. There, he finds an EM observation device used by Engineering Force as an alternative to find the way around. Lee thinks that this device might be useful later.
----------
As Lee is about to enter the tower, to be cautious, he activates the EM observation equipment integrated in his body, then suddenly feels strange that why he had this in the first place. He arrives at the humanoid place (again) and hears a voice saying that he should trust his intuition instead of his eye. With the EM equipment, he sees a hidden path and follows it. He navigates around with the EM equipment and notices that the Tower starts to change constantly. Then he is blocked by a crystal barrier. He understands the language of the crystal but needs the code to crack it. However, this time, he understands what he needs to do.
----------
Lee wakes up and sees his squad mates taking care of him as he was stabbed by Tifa. Remembering about the rule of Kurono in the past of getting rid of the wounded as bait during evacuation, he is grateful for his squad. He wants to tell them that he is fine, but he notices the disconnection between the interface of his Sea of Consciousness and his body control. As a result, to regain control of his body, he goes into his Sea of Consciousness and fights Tifa, who apologizes for hurting her squad mates and tells Lee to accept the power of the Ascension Network like her.
As Tifa is dying, she says that she saw Lee’s memory, so she knows that he could also do horrible things for the one he loves. She says that when he loses everything like her, he will definitely remember her words. Lee then wakes up and sees Vera mocking his state despite her own. When they return, he makes sure that he will check every equipment of the squad before the battle from now on and creates an emergency channel with the Commander. Also, because of Tifa’s incident, he makes a hidden command to reverse the hack.
----------
Lee uses the reverse hack command from Tifa’s incident in its physical form to break open the barrier. He then processes with the Commander’s beacon always following him. At the top of the spiral staircase, Lee sees a platform with another “him” (Strange Fire) on it. “He” is stuck there but doesn’t want to reveal any information as it might cause more trouble than help. As a result, Lee tries to go into a space-time rift.
----------
After rescuing the Forsaken’s members from the Sea of Consciousness study machine, the Gray Raven Squad are treated nicely at the Forsaken base as promised by Watanabe. Liv treats the soldiers who were stuck inside the machine while the Commander reports back to Eden. Without anything to do, Lee goes outside for a walk. It is a full moon night, which reminds Lee that it means the reunion of the family in some regions. He then sees an old man bring the fireworks in as it might be raining soon. Seeing the fireworks, Lee remembers a memory that made him regret.
Back when he was still a human working odd jobs, one night, he had to run as he was chased by the guards and got hurt in the arm in the process. Hiding in a vent, he asked his companion to follow the plan and waited for him at the designated place. Lee then tricked the guards and cut their throats. When he reached the place, his companion betrayed him, took the memory stick and tried to shoot him in the leg. However, Lee shot the companion first. The companion confessed that someone had ordered Lee to be killed, and after that, he could claim full rewards. Lee then revealed that he had given that companion a bomb instead of the memory stick and just let him stay there helpless while he ran away.
After having shaken off all the guards, Lee rested a bit as he lost a lot of blood. Suddenly, the fireworks lit up the sky and reminded him that he had missed the celebration that Murray had looked forward to. When he returned home, Murray was already asleep. He wanted to pat on his brother's head, but seeing his arm full of blood and gunpowder, he decided to just give Murray a gift as an apology later.
After the reminiscence, Lee goes out for a walk and meets a Structurer who says that she is on a patrol, so she asks Lee to help a lost kid finding his brother. Lee goes to where the kid last saw his brother and found the brother’s gramophone with a message under it, starting with “family is irreplaceable existence”. Suddenly, there is an alert about the Infected attack, so Lee leaves the kid to the Structurer and goes out to help. After a while, Lee comes back with the brother’s kid and mentions that he just follows the coordinates under the gramophone, though the brother seems to have no idea about it.
Looking at the 2 brothers reunited, Lee realizes that he hasn’t contacted Murray much recently, so he decides to do that. Murray is glad that Lee contacts him, as Lee could go in radio silence for 2 months because of a mission. Lee then has a headache and makes Murray worried, saying that Lee is the only family left that can’t be replaced. He remembers the message in the gramophone and the mystery voice transcending space and time inside his head during the Infected attack telling him to contact his brother more. Lee then let Murray know that thanks to his souvenir that he could navigate through the EM projections back then.
----------
On Eden, as Murray orders the Cerberus squad to help Noan transfer Simon to safety, he remembers that he joined FOS in the first place to be able to see and help Lee. Now, as both of them promise not to hide anything and rely on each other, he also chooses to believe in his brother fighting out there while taking care of things on this side.
Meanwhile, after having finished leaving the message under the gramophone for his past self under the gramophone, Lee returns to the present and meets “himself” again. As the answer to the endless corridor is solved, the platform starts to rise to the top of the tower. Suddenly, a barrier appears and separates them. Lee then finds a loophole in the wall and breaks it down with his firepower. After that, the platform stops, and they can see a core surrounded by barriers. From its properties, they guess that the core is the key to solve the current EM problem. Lee tries to blast it like he did with the barrier, but it won’t work. Another “Lee” (Random Number) appears and says that there is a hidden power source nearby, so they must find it first. The 2nd “Lee” also says that they can just try, as they have countless opportunities here. A Space-time rift then opens, and they all go in to check.
Lee arrives at a Sea of Consciousness, but the other “Lee”s are nowhere to be found. He feels that this is more like the mix of many consciousnesses instead of one. He finds many data fragments but can’t read them, so he goes into a vortex to check.
In the past, the 1st “Lee” arrived at this place. “He” can see a bit of fragments that somehow look like his dead bodies. “He” figures this is more of projections of “himself” and has to fight some Heterozygous Creatures before moving on.
In the future, the 2nd “Lee” arrives at this place. “He” can read the fragments and hears voices saying that they failed, and another voice talking about the death of mankind, the unopened door, and the answer. The 2nd “Lee” then reunites with the 1st “Lee” first. They fight the Heterozygous, then reunite with Lee at the starting point.
With all the information, Lee realizes that this place originally belonged to his Sea of Consciousness that carries the failures and deaths of many “Lee”s who fight for different possibilities. He now understands the abnormal rise in his Sea of Consciousness meant this place, and this place exists to block the memories of the future from him, but just leaving little “accidental” clues for him to follow. Among the memories, he sees the moment when all the mad red eyes Structurers surrounding him. A familiar mad human raises the gun at him, so he also raises his gun, but is unable to pull the trigger. He then sees Eden fall to Earth as he fights through endless former companions, but he is too late to take the hand reaching out to him in the end. Next, he sees the Gray Raven fail to save the Commander during Eternal Winter and couldn’t even recover the body. He sees his loved ones walk away toward the battle as he cries out, but no one answers him. In the end, everything perishes in the cold winter without the interference of Punishing.
After that, he starts to feel the regrets of many “Lee”s as they failed to do anything, but they still encourage him to not dwell on the past but look for the possible future instead. A “Lee” with completely faded white hair and only one eye left and gives him the nameplates of the Gray Raven squad members, saying that he can accomplish the mission as Lee from the Gray Raven squad. “He” says that “he” himself has no Gray Raven to return to now, but like “others”, “he” still has his own missions. The 2nd “Lee” who helped him on the tower then says that they are just “ghosts” who are projected by the Tower, so they will be deleted in the end. “He” says that “he” was the one who didn’t pass the screening trial, though “he” doesn’t understand who is behind all of this. From now on, Lee can’t go back anymore, but must move forward to find the answer. “He” says that this Sea of Consciousness is the key, so Lee will use it to rewrite the rules and stop the calamity.
Lee returns to the platform again. With the messages from “himself” and the possibilities from another timeline converge in him, he can finally break the barrier and destroy the core. However, the barrier of the core regenerates again, which means that he still needs to rewrite the “rules”. Lee then moves to the final trial, which represents the most hated and feared enemies - the Twins. He says that humanity has many failures, but they keep learning slowly and become stronger little by little to face their fear again. He remembers having asked opinions from many people before so he could ask Asimov to make a weapon that is capable of dealing with many situations. He then overpowers the Twins and headshots both of them. However, due to how the Tower simulates enemies, their weak points are no longer the head like normal Heterozygous Creatures. The Twins then manage to learn some of Lee’s tricks, but they are all within his calculation, so in the end, he successfully kills them.
Outside the tower, 2 hours have passed since the Tower emits red light. The Commander reaches the limit due to linking with too many Structurers and starts to bleed. Liv tries to take care of the Commander but all of a sudden, the Commander strangles her. Human strength poses no threat to a Structurer, so Liv just endures the pain to apply treatment to the Commander. The Commander reaches for the gun next, but instantly regains control and requests Liv to take the gun and the tactical knife away. The Commander understands that being unarmed in the middle of the battlefield is a death sentence, but this is the only way to not hurt people around. The Commander also tells Liv to cut off the link if she sees any going out of control signs again. On Lucia side, she tries to suppress another commander who forced links to control other squad’s Structurers when the Strike Hawk squad arrives to support.
As for Lee, he walks into a strange space-time distortion area and sees the birth and death of countless galaxies flashing in his mind. Here, the higher dimensional being might just consider stars like toys, and space and time with no concept of the beginning and the end are just building blocks for the master of space to play. As the place stabilizes itself, Lee realizes that this is not the first time he is here.
After that, there are many voices that explain that this false space is the reception room, which is transformed so that humans can understand. Lee is considered as the representative of the possibility that the civilization called “Human” can cross the “door”. The voices themselves are just a collection of the will of the observer body, and they are forbidden to interfere directly with the history of mankind, as they did accelerate 3 other civilizations' destruction before. There are very few of “them” who have “projections” that can move in lower dimension as messengers and travelers. This Tower is another symbol of evolution of life, and just like Punishing found a new evolution direction in humans, humans can also use Punishing to achieve the impossible. The milestone that shows a new possibility of humanity is when they truly defeat the Humanoid Organisms. They have been observing the possibilities of survival of humanity, and now they are waiting for Lee to pass the “trial” and break the “rules” with them in the future. Lee then sees many of himself fighting here, with one who looks nearly identical to him hands him the gun. Lee decides to end this false space and fights the Void Projection Form (or 8th (Terrestrial Branch) Metaprojection Form?).
After the fight, the “projection” of the “observer” can’t maintain its form. They ask if this is the answer of humanity. Lee replies that this is his answer as “Lee” of the Gray Raven to just stop the Tower and return to his companions. They say that Lee is qualified to choose a better world as he wants. Otherwise, once he goes outside, he will forget all the past and the future he has seen, can no longer change the past, and everything that happened here will never have existed. However, Lee says that he will find what in the future with his companions. The space then collapses, but before losing his consciousness, Lee hears the familiar voice from “her” saying that she will send her blessing for Lee’s newfound future.
When Lee wakes up, he finds himself back at the platform again, so he starts to rewrite the “rules” of the Tower from “release and active” to “absorb and annihilate”.
Outside, Eden troops are still fighting Heterozygous Creatures and saving people. The Commander is at the limit but still keeps fighting as the will of different people transfer through the link. Suddenly, a Heterozygous slips through the line of defense and attacks the Commander. Without any weapon, the Commander picks a rock nearby and strikes back.
At that moment, a dazzling blue light emerged, ending the fight on both Eden and the ground. The insane Structurers come back to their senses, and the Heterozygous Creatures die. The Tower somehow becomes a combination of Inverse Element Device and Omega Weapon that absorbs all the virus around. Lee walks out of the tower, looking at the Commander, and asks why the Commander always ends up like this. However, he doesn’t expect to see everyone else from the Gray Raven squad and the Strike Hawk squad running up to check on him. Lee says that he will report everything later and will have Asimov check on him too. Everyone then welcomes him back.
One month later, Wells oversees the recovery work. Greens asks for a replacement part for Structurers, which Wells tells Sica to help with. Greens remembers Sica LeBlanc, but quickly loses interest in her. Wells then takes some documents to Nikola’s place. They discuss the next step of the plan after the Tower incident, called E-14: New World. With the Tower filtering virus to 0 in some places, they are thinking of building a city of hope as the first step for humanity to return to the ground. Nikola then mentions that the Engineering Force are very dissatisfied with how Wells privately sends the meeting information and situation of the frontline to moon base, but based on the results, Nikola agrees with it.
After that, a staff member asks for a commander for a new squad called “Rainbow Oriole”. As Sica comes in to report about the abnormality in the document, he tells her to just leave it there, then tap on the screen of a top secret document before leaving.
Lee – Hyperreal’s Bond Story
The war is temporarily suspended, so the Execution Force like the Gray Raven squad only has to help the Engineering Force with the conservation areas. As the Gray Raven squad spreads out to clean the Infected around the conservation area, there is a sound of something fell where Lee is, so the Commander checks it out. The Commander sees Lee trying to stand up, looking a bit confused. Lee, for some unknown reason, doesn’t recognize the Commander. He acts like a primary schooler who is just out from the school’s laboratory. He says that the Structurer tech is still not possible to apply yet, and he doesn’t know what an Infected is. While secretly contacting Lucia and Liv, the Commander tries to show proof of being a Commander, but Lee says the ID can be faked, and his name isn’t Lee, so they should stop attempting to kidnap a kid. The Commander then gives up and signals Lucia and Liv to just knock Lee out from the behind. All of a sudden, an Infected attacks the Commander so Lee shoots the Infected right in the head, gazing at the Commander’s face in the process.
Back on Eden, Asimov informs that this is due to abnormal data overflowing in the new body that causes consciousness disorder. He says that a fragment of consciousness from his 9 years old now occupies Lee’s body, which Lee retorts that he is 9 and a half years old. Lee is still in disbelief, but Asimov says that Mr. Nine and a Half should just accept it, then he tells the Commander that this is different from Liv’s case. Asimov says he is constantly updating the method on Specialized Body as it is still the beginning of the tech and shows the Commander the proof that is the thick book called “Specialized Body Adapting Instructions 5th Edition”. He then says that as long as he can slowly sort out the fragments in his Sea of Consciousness, he will recover.
Asimov then proposes to let Lee stay here for research, but the Commander refuses. He then notes that Lee will regain all the memories during the personality swap later, so the Commander should write the report during this period and remembers to bring Lee to him after a week to check. All of a sudden, Lee keeps asking Mr. Eye Circles to touch a machine in there, but Asimov refuses. They then go out to meet Lucia and Liv outside and the Commander briefs the condition of Lee to them. Liv is surprised that Lee is now only 9 years old, then Lee again corrects the number. Since Lee seems to attach to the Commander the most, Liv suggests the Commander take care of Lee while she and Lucia will go report to Celica.
As the door closes, Lee apologizes for not trusting the Commander back then and causing injury to the Commander after that. Lee then looks around as there are many devices that he can analyze. The Commander gives Lee some milk, he replies that his parents said he didn’t need this complex colloidal solution with nutrients to grow tall, but he will still take it. The Commander then goes to the office to deal with some documents. After a while, the Commander checks and is surprised as Lee has never slept unguarded like this before. The Commander then puts a blanket on Lee and cleans up the empty milk bottle with some foam in it.
One night, Lee regains his normal consciousness and says that this is just temporary. Lee already plans to apply for an emergency treatment room to stay, and contacts Chrome so that the Strike Hawk squad could send someone to support the Gray Raven squad on a mission. He says that this is necessary as he fears he might hurt someone during this time. However, the Commander refuses, thinking that the Gray Raven squad is the safest place for him to recover. As a result, Lee comes up with plan B as he will block access to all rooms except his own room to prevent “himself” from getting any weapon. He will also leave messages to “himself” to explain the situation. If it doesn’t work, Lucia and Liv will neutralize “him” before ”he” can hurt the Commander. He will also ask Bianca for help next time, and tells the Commander to rest.
That night, Lee feels uncomfortable and doesn't want to come out of his room.
The next morning, the Commander checks on Lee. As the Commander opens the door, a stool flies and scratches the Commander’s arm. Next, Lee approaches the Commander and presses the empty gun on the neck and asks for the way out. The Commander says that this is Eden, but Lee says that Eden hasn’t been put to use yet. Seeing an opening, Lucia quickly disarms Lee and presses him down to the ground. After that, Lucia presses Lee on another stool while Liv takes care of the Commander’s wound. The Commander then shows the documents that Lee leaves to “himself”, including graduation certificate, consent form of reconstruction by Kurono, documents about the squad, and a message of him explaining the situation to “himself”. Lee doesn't believe it, but the Commander says he can at least recognize his own handwriting. Lee then says that he will only talk to the Commander alone.
After there are only 2 of them left, Lee explains that he just felt lost as he was supposed to be in the middle of an assassination mission. There is a photo about that mission which shows Lee was about 18 years old at that time. Lee then asks to go back to his room to rest. Alone in the room, he checks “his” message again and finds a very certain statement from himself that the Commander is someone he can completely trust.
During this time, the Gray Raven squad doesn’t have any mission, so Lucia usually goes to the training room, Liv helps with Star of Life and the Commander works on documents. The Commander finally finishes reading the book from Asimov and has written a lot about Lee’s Consciousness Disorder. Suddenly, the Commander notices Lee, which he says that he has just been here for half an hour only. Lee then apologizes for still having hurt the Commander in the end and proposes to make up for it with a mission, such as taking out a certain “target”. The Commander wonders if the current Lee can do a mission, which he shows by rapidly assembling a gun.
Outside, Lee is shocked to see artificial light on Eden. He mentions his work as an assassin to earn money for Murray’s treatment, which means he is fine staying in the dark, so Murray can run in the sun. According to the file, Lee didn’t have much time to see Murray much during that time, so the Commander assures Lee that Murray’s illness is now cured. They then go to the Cerberus squad’s lounge, which surprises Lee as he didn’t know Murray is now also a commander. Suddenly, Vera opens the door and greets the Commander. She then looks at Lee who behaves strangely and twitches the corner of her mouth a bit before acting normally again. The Commander asks for Murray, Vera answers that he isn’t here, as it is only necessary for them to meet during battle. Lee suddenly retorts as if he returns to the “normal Lee”. Vera then insists on asking why they need to meet Murray, but since the Commander doesn’t want to let her know Lee’s condition no matter what, the Commander comes up with all kinds of excuses before running away.
At a safe place, Lee admits that he just feels like that was what he should have said back then. They then go and eat some ice cream, which weird Lee out as this is not what they should do during a mission. Some ice cream goes into the spring in Lee’s hand, and he can’t help but wonder how to assemble this gun. The Commander then helps him with it. As Lee can assemble many weapons, hearing that FOS only provide basic training, he suggests that the Commander should at least be familiar with components and assembly of his and Liv’s weapons, so the Commander will have more means to defend themselves.
After the “mission”, Lee stops saying anything about killing and rushes straight into his room. Inside the room, he reads the notebook that “he” wrote and complains how embarrassing it was, but at least he is glad that he didn’t hurt the Commander too badly. In one of the notes, “he” said that he should have a souvenir as a thank you to the Commander. Lee then notices the Commander is standing outside, so he invites the Commander in. The Commander notices the notebook, which Lee says is just about his consciousness disorder. The Commander then tells Lee that they should gather at 7 o’clock tonight. Lee then confesses that he is worried as this condition might never disappear. The Commander replies that then they can retire and work as traders on Earth. Lee then asks if the Commander wants any gift, the Commander points to his notebook.
As the preparation is done, Lee still hasn't shown up. The Commander then goes out to look for Lee, just as when he arrives. Lee gives the Commander the notebooks as promised but asks not to let anyone else read it. The Commander notices Lee’s face turn red, but he says that it is just the heat circulation system malfunctioning. He then gives the Commander a projector with all different “himself” thanking the Commander. He informs the Commander that he finished cleaning the fragments and just needs to check with Asimov tomorrow, so the Commander welcomes him back.
Alpha – Crimson Abyss’ ID Corridor
On the first day Lucia reports to the team, the other 2 Structurers Xun and Murol already there welcome her as she was among top 3 during training. They mention another Structurer will also join, which makes Lucia surprised as there should only be 3 Structurers and 1 commander. They ridicule themselves that their grades were horrible, and they barely passed the criteria, so their commander asks for another member. The 4th member then arrives and introduces himself as Hiro, a support type Structurer, and assures them that their commander Ravenge didn’t mean anything bad when recruiting him, just that Ravenge has known him for a long time and even found a doctor to treat his daughter. Ravenge then comes and introduces himself to the team. He says that his arm is like this because his former squad got infected and chopped his arm off, but he just considers it as a lesson for him. He then assigns the member’s role, with Lucia being the captain of the squad instead of Hiro as his connection with Hiro will affect the judgment. And so the Gray Raven Squad of 5 people is born.
Suddenly, the scene shifts to when Ravenge betrays the team, and there is a voice saying that humans betray Lucia. The scene changes again to the moment when Luna recruits her. Luna introduces Gabriel and Roland as Ascendants in her group, so Lucia asks if the Ascendant that Ravenge connects to is also under her. However, she denies it, as not all Ascendants are working together. She also reveals that she knows what happened to Lucia, as she read the information within the Infected’s memories. Luna says that she has been watching Lucia for a few years and apologizes for not picking her up earlier, but she promises to create a world where they can live together. The voice speaks again and points out that Luna is also a victim like Lucia. The voice asks for Lucia’s wish and requests her to accept its power.
Suddenly, Lucia wakes up and realizes it was just all a dream.
Luna assures Lucia as she hasn’t familiarized herself with the power of Punishing yet and promises to stay by her side until she can do so. Lucia then tries to use Punishing power, but since she subconsciously rejects it, it is now rejecting her. Lucia asks if Luna did also hear the voice, and Luna answers yes, but she chose to ignore it as time went by. Lucia is still hesitant to become the enemy of humanity, but Luna won’t rush her. Then Lucia decides to have a walk alone, so Luna just warns her that Eden troops are nearby.
After Lucia leaves, Roland and Gabriel walk out from the shadow and ask if Luna wants them to follow Lucia. However, Luna believes in Lucia's strength, and their connection through the Network will let her know if her sister is safe. Roland then reports that they can’t find the Ascendant called “fraudster”, and there is news about Lucia as the only survivor of the Gray Raven squad returned to Eden for treatment. Luna is surprised and feels angry, but she doesn’t want to inform her sister about it yet. She then asks what they think about Lucia becoming an Ascendant, which Gabriel agrees without hesitation, while Roland hesitates a bit before agreeing. Luna then orders them to continue looking for that Ascendant.
Outside, Gabriel kills the Infected and reads its memory for clues. Roland points out that Luna seems to be too obsessed with this Ascendant, and they should avoid conflict instead, but Gabriel just replies that Luna’s will is the will of the Network. Roland then notices some qualified people for ascension and asks Gabriel to continue the search. Gabriel says that he doesn’t have to go through all his choreography, but Roland corrects him that they are “trials”. Gabriel agrees that they need more companions, as after dealing with humans, there will be confrontations between different Ascendant groups.
Meanwhile, Lucia reminisces about the old day. Ravenge was the best among the commanders at calculating a plan to make the best use of each Structurers while still being kind to them. Once, Lucia was injured, and the doctor remarked that the squad hadn’t had enough sleep. As a result, Ravenge suspended the mission so they could rest, despite Lucia insisting that she could still fight. After Ravenge left, Xun and Murol mentioned their commander might be promoted for his effort, but he would be transferred away from the Gray Raven squad as a result. They also told Lucia that she didn’t have to take everything on herself, but seeing her determination motivated them to try even harder. Truth was, instead of returning to Eden for better treatment for Lucia, Ravenge prepared for the capture of the special Structurer who he believed to be the key to reclaim the Earth. Ravenge told Hiro that he bet all his reputation on this to gain support from Eden, and asked him to keep this a secret from Lucia.
Suddenly, a gunshot brings Lucia back to reality. A Structurer mistakes her as Eden troop and asks for help against the Infected. As Lucia fights, she hears the voice again. The Structurer then realizes that she is Lucia, but gets confused as she should be on Eden now. He says that his team was abandoned. After that, his team members were bewitched by an Ascendant, and now he no longer has his Inverse Element Device. He then requests her to report this to Eden, but she wants to find some medical supplies for the Structurer. When she returns, he already killed himself before he became an Infected so she wants to at least honor his wish and chase after the team.
As she moves on further, the virus then starts to invade her and her body tells her to restart her combat module. She sees 3 Structurers trying to catch a mermaid Structurer called Lamia at someone's order. She tries to help Lamia but loses control of her body in the middle of the fight. Suddenly, she receives unknown data from the Network, and it helps repair her body and enhance her power. However, she resists the Network as it tries to give her more power and starts to restart her program. She then beats the Structurers and asks them to leave, or she will kill them.
Suddenly, Lucia is overheated from the power of the Network which boosts her over the theoretical limit of her body. Lamia wants to check on Lucia, but Lucia tells her to stay away as she is coated in high-temperature and red sparks. She then feels the connection with something and falls into her Sea of Consciousness. Meanwhile, the 3 Structurers say that they didn’t expect to meet Lucia here and wonder if she is on a secret mission. As they can’t return to Eden now because of their betrayal, and they failed to capture the Mermaid from the Ascendant’s order, they continue their search for the purple hair Structurer. Roland comes out and tells them they don’t need to search anymore as the Structurer they are looking for has already left this area. As they failed his test, he just let them go away. After that, he blows them up before going to Lucia’s place.
In her consciousness, Lucia hears the Network says it is the only way out for the planet, or at least for her, by accepting its power. However, she says that it is no different from Eden or Ravenge, and she won’t be fooled again. After Lucia comes back to her senses, she sees Lamina protest that she just wants to check on Lucia while she is tied up by Roland, as he doesn't want Lamia to interrupt her. Lucia asks Roland to let Lamia go. Lamia then confesses that she wants to become an Ascendant just to survive, so they agree and bring her back for screening. On the way, Lucia goes into a clothing store and changes to her military uniform.
The sound of the bell from the cat rubbing her leg brings Alpha back from her memories. She feeds the cat while telling herself to never rely on others to protect Luna again. Looking into the blue tower in the distance, she turns around, calls out for Luna to wait for her and drives on her way.
Watanabe – Night Blade’s ID Corridor
3 years after the Arcadia Retreat, Watanabe has been traveling around, joined different groups, and gathered many companions alongside him. While preparing the meal, Watanabe talks to other soldiers about the difficulty of cooperating with another group called the "Earth Group". On top of it, there has been a supply stealing incident recently in the camp that put people on the edge. Watanabe then distributes food to each person and gives them advice, which makes them surprised as he can remember everything about them.
In the end, he calls out a soldier named Suma who didn't join in for food, forces her to eat and asks about the "Earth Group". Suma replies that the other group has supply, but they only cooperate for material trading, and they ignored the warning of the big construction machine IUSL below their camp that would be a problem if infected.
Watanabe tells Suma that the camp agrees to lure the Infected to the group, as showing them the threat is much easier than persuading them one by one. The IUSL then will be infected, forcing it to surface so they can dismantle it with dynamites. The plan, of course, must assure the safety of everyone, so they will organize a rescue team after that. As a demolition expert, Suma will work with an engineer called Zachley who worked on the IUSL before to focus on its weak point.
A few hours later, the Infected are lured to the group’s camp, and Watanabe organizes a rescue operation while Suma sets up the detonation. After a while, the ISUL surfaces, so Watanabe leads it to the detonation trap, blowing its shield up after a few explosions. However, the ISUL is still moving, and Zacheley becomes panicked because of his miscalculation, and he regrets being the creator of the ISUL that took his own brother’s life. Suma and Watanabe then have to encourage him. Watanabe says that this is the fault of the virus, not him, and he has the chance to make things right this time. Zacheley then does the calculation again, so Suma goes and sets up the charge and blows up the ISUl for good this time.
In the aftermath, Watanabe reassures the people of the group and asks for cooperation. He suggests that they should grow some food with the help of the scientists instead of scavenging, so they can assure the food problem in the future. A kid points out that Watanabe can’t be trusted as a Structurer from Eden, so Watanabe squats down and tells him that he, just like others, has his own reason, so he just can’t betray everyone here. He then points out the hardship of others that have to sacrifice their own happiness so that those who are close to them can live happily in Eden. After that, he tells people to just speak up their mind like this kid and choose their own way of living. Later, Watanabe sees the kid again to apologize if he talked too much, and starts to have a heart-to-heart conversation together.
When Watanabe finally has some time to himself, he is glad the food solution will be solved, though he plans the next step for cooperation to secure technology and military industry problems too. He also thinks of a name for his group. He thinks of “Remembrance” at first before settling on something else.
CHAPTER 22: RENAISSANT LE FANTASTIQUE
Chapter 22 Main Story
On the first large-scale archeology mission of Ayla, her team and the escort team met a lot of trouble and lost some people. On the way back, Ayla was shocked as the situation on the ground was far too different from what she had imagined, which captain Orpheus had to reassure her that it was normal for the newcomer to feel so. Orpheus even suggested Ayla quitting, but she refused. Ayla thought that she had been so determined to follow Selena's path, but she quickly realized that she was more cowardly than she had initially thought. She told Orpheus about her purpose of seeking reality to create real art, but perhaps she was too naive. Orpheus told her a poem about following one's heart, reminding her that Selena had told the same poem before.
As they reached a settlement and waited for pickup, Ayla saw a kid called Mirei who was drawing.
Ayla proposes to teach Mirei how to draw, so Mirei asks about hydrangea. Mirei was surprised by how good Ayla drawing was and confessed that she wanted to draw to show it to her busy father. Mirei then asked Ayla to draw a comic for her, which Ayla agreed. However, since Mirei's family would move to a new conservation area in a few months, Ayla promised to go to every conservation area to find her again in the future.
In the present, on Eden, Leonie goes to meet Allen, who is deciphering an email. She informs him about a new body called "Kaleido" for Ayla, which makes him very pleased with the results as this will bring change to the Art Association in general, and to Ayla herself specifically. This will also increase the cooperation between the Art Association and the Council of Science.
In a meeting room, Sica reports to Wells that the members of her Swift squad were transferred to another squad: Jessica and Randolph to the Red Scorpion squad, and George to the Pelican squad. Wells says that this is necessary as the 3 of them couldn't meet the requirements of an elite squad. He also adds that he doesn't expect her to become the legendary chief like the Gray Raven's commander or Chrome, but he does have high hopes for her as she was able to resist the Tower's pollution back then. He then tells her that she will become the new commander of a special squad, then invites Allen in for a talk.
Somewhere else, Vesali finishes treating a Structurer that she calls Orichalcum. However, the Structurer complains that Vesali should call her by name as Troy already.
However, Vesali doesn't care. She then shows the damage rate of Troy's Sea of Consciousness as 26.13%, which a new body might be needed soon. Troy gives a hint about the previous secret missions, but Vesali says that she should just forget about it as she is a Kurono's member now rather than having worked in Norman like before. Vesali wants Troy to stay as a lab rat because of Troy’s usefulness despite being the first model Structurer, but she doesn't have the authority. She then asks if Troy likes art.
On Earth, somewhere near the Tower, Texiu is chased by a Structurer named Lena for a few months despite her not belonging to the Purificator.
Lena tells Texiu to surrender, but he knows that he will become a lab rat for Eden for being a Compositer, unlike Camu who receives special treatment instead. He then activates the electromagnetic trap to paralyze Lena. He feels pity for her being a puppet of Eden and lets her live, as she is a suitable candidate for screening. Then he leaves to ask a certain "miss newcomer" about the situation.
After 3 hours, the trap wears off. Lena falls down, and the image of the red Tower flashing in her head with the voice calling for help. She just wants to continue hunting the defector even though she is not from Purificator, but suddenly a message comes, saying that she must join Iris Warbler squad next or the Purificator will hunt her down for disobeying the order.
In the Art Association of Eden, the Commander meets Ayla to receive the data about the "whale song" as a schedule since the discovery from Hamlet before.
In fact, the Commander has been coming here from time to time to help link with Selena through Hamlet and Capriccio for the coordinates, but it usually takes a month to decipher the information even with the help of Leonie, so they can't pinpoint Selena's location. After several years of separation, Ayla now just wants to find Selena to tell her that she has a place called "home" to return.
After that, the Commander asks about Ayla's new body. She answers that Kaleido is more suitable for combat than Overflow Color. This will solve the problem of archeology members who had no combat capacity and needed an escort team like before, and could prevent incidents like Selena's from happening again. Ayla confesses that she has asked for this body since after the Infected Space Station mission, as even artists need to fight when time comes, like Monet or Flemish. She also needs this body for the new squad that she will join.
As Ayla is about to mention her new commander , Lucia contacts to inform the Commander for a mission. Ayla notices that the Gray Raven squad doesn't know about the Commander going here. From the last hospital discharge, everyone in the squad, especially Liv, pays more attention to the Commander's health, and the Commander doesn't want to imagine the expression of Liv if she knew about the remote link here.
Outside, Sica passes the Commander, who is in a hurry and wonders if she has left a bad impression from last time. Troy arrives and introduces herself to Sica before both of them go in to meet their new captain Ayla. After that, they have to practice their art skill for a few days as it is one of the requirements for this special squad which is related to the ground reconstruction plan. Troys has some trouble, but Sica has more potential with drawing as she had to learn military diagrams in FOS before. Ayla then demonstrates the techniques and the mindset of injecting the artist's idea into the works. Suddenly, Allen comes to inform them that they will have their first mission soon.
In the meeting room, Wells and Hassan take a look at the strange signal they received. Based on satellite images, they can see the activities of machines in a city within the range of the Tower. However, due to the interference and the unknown purpose of the signal, they need a squad to investigate the place. Nicola’s squads, the Gray Raven squad and the Strike Hawk squad are all busy while the Cold Sheep has Noan who is a special case related to the Ascendant. Hassan then mentions the Iris Warber squad. Wells has his reservation as the squad is still in review process.
Just in time, Allen walks in with the squad and personally requests the application, as this city also relates to the Art Association’s work. The city was abandoned at the end of the Golden Age before it was finished, yet from the image, it looks like Punishing never actually happened, and the machines seem to continue building this city on their own. Sica thinks of the machine from the previous mission of the Egret squad, as in a machine can also maintain a facility on its own. Hassan agrees that recovering relics from the Golden Age like this is indeed suitable for the Art Association, and this can also be considered a test for the new squad. As for Ayla, she notices that this city’s coordinates are the same as the last whale song’s signal a few days ago.
When the meeting is over, Ayla rushes out first to check on something. Meanwhile, Sica meets Vanessa who she introduces to Troy as a senior who almost graduated when she entered FOS, then later trained her when she graduated. Looking at how Vanessa keeps teasing Sica as the first class student, Troy just settles with the conclusion that their relationship is complicated. As Vanessa mocks the fact that the performance of the new “Eden generation” commanders are 30% lower than the previous generation before leaving, Troy feels somewhat displeased. However, since Sica says that it is Vanessa’s way of speaking and even agrees with the fact, Troy just lets it slide.
On the flight down to Earth, Sica dreams of her past. In the end, she wakes up and freaks out, but Ayla says that they haven’t arrived yet. Sica then briefs the mission. They are going to investigate Constellaire, meaning “Gathering of Constellations”, a city which is built by the famous architectural artist Michele Vaseli from the Golden Age’s Art Association. However, Michele died because of an illness, and 1 year later, the construction of the city was halted due to the outbreak of Punishing. The city now only has 20% left from the Golden Age, but still looks really impressive.
Ayla then brings out a box full of experimental tactical equipment: High-frequency pulse knife, EM shock bombs, commander’s tactical pistols, etc. She says that she uses connection so they can get their hand on these weapons for testing. Sica then chooses her equipment, with one being the 7th CI assault pistol that she really loves as she only used the 6th generation before.
Troy also takes a look inside and sees equipment for the Structurers in the squad, including the arrows for the 4th member, Lena. Lena was a former Structurer of the classified Winged Horn Deer squad. After leaving her squad, Lena mostly worked on the ground for 1 year, so the command center hasn’t updated her profile. Now Lena is already in Constellaire. As for Troy, she has been serving Eden since the Great Retreat. She says that she has her Sea of Consciousness damaged from the last mission that even she can’t remember, so now she is no longer suitable for high intensity frontal combat. However, her file doesn’t mention her previous squad and Troy herself doesn’t want to reveal anything. As they get closer to the destination, Sica feels nervous as this is her first mission after the disbandment of her previous squad, so Ayla comforts her.
After traveling through the ruins of Constellaire, the squad reaches the newly built part, where they can see a big windmill tower in the middle of the city. The windmill reminds Sica and Ayla of Don Quixote and it acts as an EM interference device and filter tower. Lena comes out and complains that the squad arrives 30 minutes late. She introduces herself as the reserve member of the squad who specialize in reconnaissance. Since she has been scouting around the city for a few days, she proposes to lead the way while mentioning the non-hostile robots here.
On the way, Sica wonders if humans during the Golden Age really lived in this kind of place. Troy replies that at least when she was born, 90% of the settlements had completed a high level of urbanization. Back then, humans relied on machines to do anything, and just because of the virus that human civilization was destroyed after just a few decades. Yet, the machines here somehow survive the virus of this once a hardest-hit area and rebuild the city. Troy then asks why Lena didn’t join the squad from the start, but Lena doesn’t seem to want to be friendly with the squad. As Sica tries to connect to Eden, Lena mentions that it won’t work due to EM interference, but at least short distance communication will work.
The squad then notices a machine called Bazille who is really focused on his drawing work while mentioning the other robots Sisley and Monet.
As Lena comments on the different faction of robots in the city with different art styles, which reminds Sica of the Spray Machine from the Gray Raven squad, now in the hands of the Art Association, Ayla storms in to educate Bazille to not draw on top of other’s painting. After a while, they calm Bazille down and ask it for some information. Bazille mentions his spiritual leader name Cervantes, who mostly stays in the art museum instead of spreading the drawing of the Sage. Two months ago, Bazille said that the people from Eden would come soon, so the squad thinks this is the one they are looking for. However, 2 months ago, Eden shouldn’t have known the existence of Constellaire so they wonder if it was an Ascendant in disguise thanks to the heteromer Tower. Ayla, on the other hand, wonders to herself if it was Selena.
The squad then decides to check on the Central Art Museum in the middle of the city next. Before leaving, Ayla says that she is actually interested in the machines drawings for the Sage so she wants to understand it next time they meet again. Bazille watches the squad leaves and remembers a wanderer who was also interested in the machine’s drawing.
Inside the museum, because of the narrow hallway, Troy as the Tank type wants to take the lead but Ayla volunteers instead. Inside, they are greeted by a robot statue waiter into the lobby. They will visit the showroom of ARU, Kowloong, Pulia Forest Park, and a showroom with encrypted data (the Church of Machina). Suddenly, the alarm is raised, and robot statues attack the squad. Sica performs synchronization on the squad for the first time, then shoots back with her excellent shooting skill.
As the enemies keep pouring in, the newly formed squad can’t coordinate well enough and is pushed back. Troy as an old Structurer starts to have deviation, so she suggests hacking the system to turn off the alarm and stop the attack. However, despite her name, Troy can’t hack. As a result, even though Lena isn’t the Support type, she inserts a special arrow to hack, making her their target. Sica pulls out her pulse knife to protect Lena while Ayla has to use the energy bullet from Radiant Daybreak’s hammer that empties the energy of her weapon to protect Sica.
In the end, Lena turns off the alarm. As the squad wonders if this is the trap of Cervantes, Lena scolds Sica for fighting so recklessly as a human commander, while a Structurer like herself can just replace parts if she is damaged. Sica remembers the same scolding as before from her previous team and apologizes, but she has to act to protect Lena, who was the most important member in the situation back then. Lena then also apologizes for failing her task of scouting the danger, then moves on ahead. Troy follows Lena, while Ayla whispers to Sica that Lena is just worried about her.
The corridor suddenly becomes cold, so Lena plans to just destroy the refrigeration unit. A robot begs Lena to stop and connect them to Cervantes, the temporary robot manager of the city.
Cervantes says that it was not his intention for them to be attacked like that. He then looks at Ayla and says that his plan is half done, as the signal was his invitation. Lena plans to dismantle the robot to trace back to where Cervantes is, but he assures that he truly has no ill will toward them. He just wants them to first experience the Museum, especially Ayla as a “coworker”, to see the unfinished city of Constellaire and give him an opinion later. Ayla and Sica agree, so the squad moves to the ARU exhibition hall.
Inside, they have to pass a combat test before they can check around. The hall has replicas of the machines in ARU, the Narwhal Drake, the Moses-class icebreaker, and even the polar suit that a commander wore during ARU’s battle. As they go in further, they have to fight a replica of Rosetta. Sica helps paralyze Rosetta with her ammunition gun using EM bombs as she already learns about Rosetta on Eden. Troy remarks that they seem to be able to reproduce the combat data of Eden’s Structurers, and so far, Cervantes isn’t hostile as he promised. Lena then gives Ayla a data chip from the replica of Rosetta, which she guesses that it is from Cervantes.
Ayla read the data about the memory of a robot Carl who was on a ship from Murmansk with his master Michele Vasari. Vasari pointed at Aurora and told Carl about the Viking myth of Valkyries leading fallen warriors to Valhalla. He then asked Carl his thoughts about aurora. Carl knew that Michele was an artist, so he wouldn’t want to hear scientific explanations about aurora. As a result, Carl replies that he didn’t know the answer that Michele wanted to hear, but this will be good painting material. Michele said that he believed even a machine like Carl would be able to create art instead of just imitating, but he knew that he wouldn’t leave that long to see it. Carl said that Michele still had a commission to buy a city, so he shouldn't be so pessimistic. Suddenly, a whale jumped out of the water, and Michele asked if Carl knew the reason whales do that. Carl tried to analyze scientifically, but Michele said that he and other humans saw their “self” in it. Michele then asked Carl again about the whale.
Suddenly, the data ends and Ayla returns to reality, seeing others staring at her nervously. They just want to make sure that Ayla wasn’t infected with any virus before asking her about the data. Ayla then tells the squad about Michele and Carl, who is now Cervantes. However, she has no idea what the message is, as the conclusion can only be drawn upon finishing experiencing all the work.
In a dark hall, a knight armor is in the center of the room, waiting for someone to open the cage.
On the top of the tower, Cervantes looks at the city when another machine called Dulcinea informs him that some machines aren’t satisfied with him banning activities on the street.
Cervantes replies that he is just a temporary manager, so they don’t need to listen to him. Dulcinea doesn’t understand why he wants to lure Eden in instead of hiding the city with the Church’s technology. He replies that the city is simply a shell, and machines have infinite time to build another one. He also took that pathetic creation of humans in, as it might show him things that he doesn’t notice. He says that he is actually looking for an answer from Eden because of the miracles that humanity has made during the fight with Punishing.
In a street of the city, Haicma and Sibuna arrive. They mention that Cervantes was among the first members of the Church, so as the order of the Sage, they will try to bring him as “the Tower”, and after that “the Moon”, “the Star”, “Justice” and many other Awakened Machines. They also mention that their “expedition” is on the right track. As Haicma talks about more companions that will be awakened by the Sage, Sibuna wonders if she meant the Kowloong machine that hasn’t regained consciousness yet. They then go toward the windmill tower.
In another street corner, the wanderer hears information from the machine about “Eden” and “Ayla” which sounds familiar to her. She wonders if they are here for “it” or something else.
In Kowloong exhibition hall, it is divided into Night Boat zone and Ring City zone. Ayla suggests Lena go with Sika to the Night Boat zone while she and Troy go to the city. Lena doesn’t like going with Sica as she is too reckless, but when looking at Troy, she can’t trust Kurono’s Structurer. As a result, she agrees.
Inside the hall, on top of fighting the replicas, Ayla and Troy have to solve the Bagua problems through Kowloong’s artifacts and the Four Auspicious Beasts. Deep inside, Ayla and Troy fight Qu while Sica and Lena fight Huaxu as they need to kill both replicas at the same time to pass the test. In the end, “Qu” tells them that she is aware of herself being just a replica made by Cervantes. However, she starts to have dreams about the people in Kowloong and asks Ayla about the situation there. “Qu” then thanks Ayla and gives her the chip before she stops moving.
Ayla then read the new data. This time, Carl and Michele visited Kowloong. However, Michele went shopping, leaving Carl alone with Qu, though Qu is actually happy that Michele is interested in the scenery of Kowloong. She initially wanted to talk to Michele about art, but she thinks that Carl could do the same as his assistant. They then moved to the Observatory. Qu was impressed with Carl's knowledge on art, even though he replied that he just said what his master said. She mentioned the effort of Michele to build a Golden Age city, which Carl believed that his master would surely be able to do. He then asked Qu about the meaning of her city, to which Qu replied that it would be the proof of the existence of Kowloong.
However, Verrier appeared and didn’t feel impressed by Qu’s words. He just returned from the Council of Science as the development of Gestalt had been finished, and he still hated this place as much as before. He turned to Carl and wondered why a machine asked such a question instead of calculating to see the essence of the city. Seeing the limit of Carl, Verrier then quickly lost interest in the not-an-ideal machine, which Qu asked what Verrier would do if the “ideal” machine came up with a different conclusion than him. As Verrier left, Qu admitted that Verrier was partially right about the true state of Kowloong, though they just chose to be like this instead of changing to a better social model. After the outbreak happened, Carl and Michele joined the Night Boat.
The squad now learns that Cervantes had been traveling around the world and his actions so far relate to his master Michele. Ayla only knows that Michele and the president of the Art Association at that time didn’t see eye to eye. The current president Allen might know more, but they can’t contact Eden. They then return to rendezvous with Sica and Lena, who are out of energy, when Lena corrects that she is just mentally exhausted because of Sica’s reckless behaviors. Sica wants Lena to trust her more as her commander, but Lena replies that there is no way she can trust anyone in just 2 days. Troy agrees with Lena and says that Sica should be more careful as a human. Sica then mentions the words of the Commander on the importance of companions, which Ayla agrees, but she also points out that Sica isn’t the commander of the Gray Raven squad but the commander of Iris Warbler squad.
Lena then proposes to retreat outside for reparation. Outside, Troy says that the last time she heard the word “companion” was from a picture book of the Golden Age. Ayla agrees that it is impossible for most people now to become companions, but they are still squad mates who work together toward the same goal. Troy asks if Ayla can help her untie the knot of the past, but Ayla recommends the commander of the Gray Raven squad instead. Lena then tells Ayla that the hope of the Gray Raven can’t be replicated, so it will become a poison instead. As a matter of fact, many commanders and squad members have betrayed each other recently. That’s why she said all of those harsh things to Sica so she won’t feel regret later. Lena then mentions Troy’s background from Kurono and Troy questions back to why Lena quitted the Winged Horn Deer squad. Meanwhile, Ayla just records everything about the 2 members’ history. Troy says Ayla should have jumped in and defused the situation instead. Suddenly, Lena looks at the windmill (the knight armor is shown again here) then says that she will check on Sica.
In a corner, Sica looks at her silver coated FOS badge with S·L engraved on the bottom and remembers her becoming a commander instead of a great Structurer like her father (who was considered the first to become a Structurer after the end of Immunity Era) due to incompatibility with Ta-193. She chose to be a field commander instead of working in the Staff Department or any other departments after graduation. She then remembers all the jealous, envy, ridiculous, … at the graduation ceremony of others as they considered her “Chief”’ achievements as family connection instead of her own abilities. During her internship time, Vanessa called her first class student to differentiate her from the other Chiefs, then denied companionship and told the story of Suzaku squad. Even her former squad mates in the Swift squad didn’t trust her, didn’t listen to her orders and asked for their transfer in the end. She is now at a loss of what she should do.
Somewhere else, as Haicma and Sibuna beat all the machines around. Haicma obtained some information from Neville and Radiant Marcher that Cervantes followed a human for 10 years, so this city and museum might be an influence from that human on him. She then reveals the machine consciousness experiment in the Golden Age with her as the management AI, and Cervantes with the artist were another part of the experiment to see the effect of art on machines. While Nanami was successfully self awakened, Cervantes might have psychological problems during his awakening. Another reason for the foundation of the Church was to stop the suicide of machines due to be unable to handle the awakening, with “the Hierophant” in charge of it. Haicma isn’t sure if she can convince Cervantes as the former “Tower” to return to the Church, but at least now they have to solve the problem ahead.
Going inside the Museum, Haicma can sense the presence of Structurers inside who are trying to hack the system to look for a certain experimental subject. She can identify them as a special operation unit called Treasured Sword. As Kurono troops are trying to hack Sisley and Monet, Haicma and Spooner take them out.
On Eden, Nicola asks Wells for the progress of Iris Wabler after 2 days. Wells can’t tell because of EM interference, but they should be fine judging from the strong and stable signal of Sica’s Thinking Beacon. Nicola wants to send them support from the Gray Raven squad and the Egret squad, as they will finish their mission soon. Hassan doesn’t understand why Nicola wants that, but Allen says Nicola, just like him, should have special memories of the name “Constellaire”. Allen reveals that he did meet Michele a few times before when Michele was still in the Art Association, so sending the Iris Wabler is a tribute to him. Constellaire was supposed to be the combination of the world’s 4 largest economies: Kowloong, ARU, Akdilek and Pacific Rim Union. Now, they don’t know much about the city, and it becomes like the legend of Atlantis.
As for Nicola, he says that the monument of Constellaire was just a scene to fool the public. The city was actually built by Kurono as a big “granary” to gather and absorb underground capital to feed their “Winter Project”. When Punishing happened, Kurono wiped most of the data about Constellaire, but now someone who is in charge of the city has exposed its existence. Wells then asks if Allen still entrusts this mission to the Iris Warbler squad now he knows all the information about Kurono. However, Allen says the city still carries the will of the Art Association and the squad will be the Ark to carry humanity toward the future.
At the same time, near the base of Engineering Troops, Norman meets Karenina. He says that he had some errands to run for his old man, as the Norman Group has a connection with the Engineering Troops. She is busy so she just shows him where he can meet Puppet, but he goes to another room instead. There, he meets Rebbeca and Greens. Norman mentions that he ditched Listz because of his action and now works with Greens as a gamble. He wants to make this quick so he can see his sister afterward. Greens says that it is a pity that Christina doesn’t know about Norman’s effort to keep her out of the family’s control, which makes Norman change his attitude instantly and deliver the electrical terminal that Greens need.
The terminal has the information about a ground experiment base in Kurono funded by the Norman Group for 5 years, to create one of the fruits of the “Winter Project” about “Sea of Consciousness Fusion and Separable Modular Technology”. This technology could create a “biology weapon” that can link with a Structurer and boost their resistance to Punishing. Even with the current specialized body being superior, this experiment still has its worth. However, the experiment base was attacked by the Ascendant during the Tower incident and the experimental subject took the chance to escape. As a result, Kurono needed to send someone to capture the subject. The leak of information then let Greens learn that the subject was one of his old acquaintances in the past. Furthermore, the leak will make parliament take actions to punish Kurono and the Norman Group for inhuman living experiments, which is precisely what Greens want to prune excess leaves, so the main trunk can thrive. Greens then leak the information through the help of someone he knows who is good at passing small notes.
Back in the meeting room, Wells’ personal terminal suddenly has a notification even though he already set it to silence, suggesting someone is hacking it. He reads the email and informs them that they might need to review the actions of the Iris Wabler squad again.
In the Purificator’s training room, everyone has left except a Structurer who still swings his blade around. Bianca comes in to tell the Structurer named Isalius to rest.
However, Isalius doesn’t want to rest, as he wants to get stronger after the incident of the Red Tide entering the sea. Bianca then informs him of a mission against a certain target that she has no authority to know. She wanted to get rid of this kind of unconventional mission a long time ago but couldn't so now she suggests not accepting it. However, thinking of the difficult target that is needed to be taken care of, he accepts.
Back to the museum, the Iris Warbler squad reaches the theater exhibition hall next, where a replica of Hamlet is here. Ayla volunteers to check Hamlet out as she has been working with it many times already. She connects to it, then becomes a supporting character for the knight Don Quixote. During the play, there are occasionally conversations of a woman and a man if this is truly a knightly thing to do, as to charge into an absurd world and a cruel reality. In the end, the knight gives up, but the woman asks if the man wants to write such an ending.
After the play, Ayla sinks into her Sea of Consciousness and remembers memories from the past. Allen checked on Ayla as she had been drawing comics for 3 days and informed her that she would have an art exhibition with the Art Association in 3 months. She then joined Orpheus again for a mission to bring her finished comic to that settlement once more. However, at the place, she heard that the settlement was attacked half a month ago. She looked around for Mirei again, but she was nowhere to be found. Half a month before the exhibition, she couldn’t finalize her drawing on the canvas, as the reality of too many expectations had restricted her creativity. In the end, the person in charge of the exhibition had to take her comic away and made 50 copies so they at least had something to show.
As a result, Ayla knew that she had screwed up, so she didn’t go to the exhibition until the last day. As she pondered on whether to go inside or not, a commander who just joined the Execution Force and wasn’t as much older than her asked her what happened. That commander then encouraged her that there must be those who liked her comics, which reminded her of Mirei. She then strengthened her resolve and entered the exhibition while the commander continued to look for a certain pen pal girl.
Ayla’s comics weren’t sold, but she didn’t give up. She then saw another much younger in-training brown-haired commander (Sica) who was interested in her comic, as the young commander couldn’t understand anything else in the exhibition hall. The young commander admired the protagonist who overcame difficulties and kept moving forward to their ideas, and wished that it was true. Ayla knew that reality was much more cruel than her comic, but she still encouraged the young commander to keep chasing her dream.
At the end of the exhibition, she brought back 49 comics left and stumbled upon that graduated commander again. The commander wasn't able to find the pen pal girl with just her pseudonym, so Ayla encouraged the commander and said that she would look forward to the commander’s career in the future. The commander then requested a comic book and asked for Ayla’s name, but she said that she couldn’t reveal her name yet until she became famous.
The curtain closes and Cervantes walks out, revealing that he did see her memories through the machine. He asks why Icarus flies to the sun knowing that he will die, or he actually thinks that he can conquer the sun. Ayla says that they can’t ask the author’s true intention now, but he replies that she will know, and he is waiting for her answer in the end.
Ayla returns to reality and learns that since the squad can’t tell what happened to her, Lena was actually thinking of blasting Hamlet. Ayla thanks them for worrying about her and the whole squad move on to the next exhibition hall. The hall has a lot of greenery, which reminds Ayla of a certain flower loving friend who is now gone far away. When they realize this is the Pulia Forest exhibition hall, they all fall silent as it reminds them of the start of the disaster that almost destroyed all hope of humanity.
The squad then searches around the places with EM signals. The scene changes, and they start to witness the evolution of Heterozygous Creatures from plant to land travel, then to air travel, then to humanoid. They then relive the beginning of the Pulia Forest Park battle. Sica has to use her terrain analysis skill, where she predicts the movement of Heterozygous Creatures to come up with a countermeasure. Next, they relive the retreat battle to get the sample back to Eden. Sica uses her tactical skill again to ensure the retreat's success, but she can’t change the fact that countless people died on that day.
During the battle, Sica remembers herself being on a logistics support mission in a stronghold, as she didn’t graduate yet. That time, Sica heard about the Gray Raven squad and wondered when she would be able to go to the frontline. However, a logistics officer told her to focus as their job was as important as being in the frontline, as what they provided to the frontline was based on the actual situation there. At the time of the Pulia Forest Park battle, students like her weren’t allowed to fight, so she could only watch the cruelty of war without being able to do anything. She later realized from what Wells said that she had fantasized too much about trying to deserve the title of “Chief”. Now, looking at her squad mates, she agreed with what Ayla had said. She accepts her limit and promises to get approval from all of them in the future, not as another commander of the Gray Raven squad but as the commander of the Iris Warbler squad.
After the simulation is over, Ayla gets the 3rd chip from a Structurer. In this memory, Cervantes wandered around the space weapon strike zone after 2 hours of its shot. There, he recorded the name and recorded the memories of every soldier. After a while, he picked up luggage from a scavenger. Inside, there was a plant seed of hydrangea, which reminded him of a conversation with Michele about greenery in Constellaire before. He didn’t understand why people still held on to such meaningless things like flowers during times like these. However, he still brought those seeds with him without thinking.
Later, he came to a church and witnessed the events, from the descent of a pure white girl from the sky until the unhealthy human in exoskeleton ran full speed to catch that girl. This was different from the deduction, which made him confused and wondered if this was what his teacher had seeked. After that incident, he came to a rebuilt conservation area and ordered a machine to deliver the seed to the right person. The old man thought that it was from his daughter and planned to plant them with a glimpse of hope that one day his daughter would return. He then mentioned a comic book from a Structurer, which Cervantes checked on and noticed it came from Eden’s Art Association.
After having collected 3 pieces of memory of Cervantes, Troy complains about such a supposed to be a simple mission just keep becoming more and more complicated, and she should have asked for earlier retirement instead. Meanwhile, Lena asks if anyone hears any voices, which feels like when the heteromer Tower was raised. Suddenly, the alarm is raised again because of some intruders and the machines start to attack the squad. Sica orders the squad to retreat as they can’t see the location that the machines come into this virtual space . As the squad reaches the exit, Ayla is separated by a door, so she has to find another way while the rest of the squad moves forward. A machine suddenly returns to normal and instructs Ayla to escape to the F23 area.
At the place, Haicma and Sibuna pull Ayla into a secret entrance and wonder if she is the member of the “Baby Bird” squad. Ayla doesn’t know the 2 machines in front of her, yet somehow she feels safe about them as she remembered about Nanami and her “Machine Carnival” picture. After they introduce each other, they both confirm the presence of Kurono troops. Ayla points out that she is also from Eden, but Haicma says that they already know that she is Cervantes’ guest and has observed her action. There was a lot of conflict between machines and humans, but Haicma has also seen some positive cases. Furthermore, since “she” said that humans and machines should be friends, Haicma believes that one day they can reveal themselves to mankind.
They then agree to find Cervantes first as he is the root of the problem, and move toward the next area where it looks like a church. Haicma doesn’t reveal anything to Ayla but tells her to ask the guiding machine first. However, all the machines act weirdly, and one keeps calling the “Sage”. When the hall creates Radiant Marcher, Ayla notices that Haicma appears to be angry. After the fight, Ayla has inspiration for her comic because of how strong Radiant Marcher is, which Haicma says someone will be happy with.
Ayla then read the 4th chip of Cervantes. After the meeting at the Atlantis Rim Economic Community, Carl advised Michele to rest, but Michele insisted on going out as he was well aware of the little time he had left. The conversation with Qu had changed Carl, so now he had some new feelings. He went ahead to investigate their potential partners, such as Norman Mining Group, ARU, Akdilek, etc of everything, even their dark secrets. He then pointed out that all of them were at odds at what Constellaire and his master stood for. Michele said they still need their help regardless, and this city would be the work of not just him, but all humanity.
One day, a member of the Art Association called Allen came to meet Michele. Carl didn’t want anyone from the Art Association to meet his master, but Michele asked to let Allen in. Inside, Allen apologized to Michele on behalf of his late teacher, who Michele called “Carrasco” about the lack of help on Constellaire before. Michele now agreed with “Carrasco” but Allen didn’t think so. Allen told Michele that Michele used his life to practice his idea, and he would use his life to provide his point of view. Then, Allen gave Michele a letter from his teacher, but he refused to read it. After Allen had left, Michele left his will to Carl, who he had always considered as a student, as he - a machine - could go even further instead of just being a support character like Sancho Panza.
After an unknown period of time, Carl woke up and met Arcana, a robot who had helped humans in learning occultism and divination during the Golden Age. He learned from her that “the Hierophant” had found him and “the Magician” had fixed him, but was unable to return him to his former appearance. He started to remember that he had created a shelter for the people due to the outbreak of Punishing, but eventually, those people had destroyed him fearing the virus and stolen everything valuable there. Arcana then introduced herself and her purpose of creating an organization with “the Magician” and “the Hierophant” to protect Awakened Machines from humans and lead them to a new world according to the “Sage”’ words. After that, she gave him the Tower Tarot card and asked for his name. Carl said that now he was the student of his teacher, he named himself Cervantes.
Several years later, Cervantes planned to leave the Church of Machina after he had finished the “Gray Tower” that opened a shared computing power network to all the members of the Church. “The Hierophant”, who also had many more nicknames, asked if he really wanted to leave instead of waiting for the coming of the Sage. Cervantes answered that he still had unfinished work as the student of Michele, and the humans would have an answer, as they seemed to defy the machines’ prediction. Suddenly, Radiant Marcher, who was in the middle of upgrading by Neville, ran out to stop Cervantes as Cervantes had promised to watch him beat “the Chariot”.
However, Cervantes denied having promised such a thing, saying that Radiant must have drunk that expired motor oil. Radiant turned to “Typhoon Dice Man” (aka “the Hierophant'') but he said that he respected Cervantes’ decision. Cervantes assured that they would still be connected thanks to the “Gray Tower” and he wouldn’t be alone as some machines also left with him.
After that, Ayla, Haicma and Sibuna move on to the Moon exhibition hall, but it appears to be unfinished. Cervantes walks out and mocks himself that he just gave up finishing this hall when the heteromer Tower appeared. He says that he actually just wanted to invite the Art Association only, and it seems like Allen had already known that he was the one who built this city. He reveals that Michele wanted to build this city as a beacon that lighted through the mist. Unlike Verrier, Michele still had faith in humanity, and he believed that art would help people to find the way. When Cervantes inherited Michele’s will, he just couldn’t see such a future like his teacher for the machines. He could see it in humanity through many feats so far, but he just couldn’t understand why humanity keeps fighting for the impossible goal of reclaiming Earth. As a result, he needs to understand how it works for humanity so he can build a Constellaire like his teacher wanted.
However, Ayla just can’t give Cervantes the answer that he wants. She guesses that was why Michele left the windmill tower behind, as Don Quixote charges into the windmill actually knowing it isn’t a giant just because he wants to be a knight. Cervantes can’t accept that his teacher just blindly went toward failure, but then he remembers that his teacher said he as a machine could go even further.
On the Iris Warbler squad’s side, Sica can’t connect Ayla. Suddenly, they have communication from the Egret squad and the Gray Raven squad, who are nearby somewhere. Sica updates the situation while the Commander explains the purpose of Kurono’s troops and informs them that the Purificator is also here to destroy all the evidence. The Commander then gives Sica an order to secure the subject before Kurono.
As they cut the communication, Lucia informs the Commander about the surrounding information. Liv and Lee couldn’t join because of a specialized body check-up. Vanessa complains about Sica since the time Sica was under her internship, but Bombinata reveals that Vanessa actually really cared about Sica. After talking a bit more about the hope of ending the war, so the younger generation like Sica won’t have to fight, Vanessa just gives up on arguing, and they move toward Sica’s place.
Somewhere else in the city, Texiu is here.
As the Iris Warbler reaches the last hall, they see a glass cage with a human figure inside, which might be the subject. Lena hears the strange sound saying “find us” again, which already happened until they entered the city, but she didn’t tell any of her squad mates at first about this. Suddenly, they get ambushed by Kurono’s troops. Lena thinks it is Troy’s trick, but she swears that she doesn’t know anything. Sica tries to delay time for the Gray Raven squad by asking their identities. One of the troop calls Sica as a “Sacrifice” of the headquarters, which triggers something in Lena and she starts to have a series of flashbacks.
After hearing the voice calling her to them again, Lena comes back to her senses and finds herself already shooting at Kurono’s troops. Sica quickly covers for Lena, making herself bleed and affecting her vision. Lena then rolls with Sica out of the pouring bullet before shooting the cage, releasing the test subject which looks like a knight, then she walks toward the knight. Troy attacks the knight to prevent it linking deeper with Lena but gets beaten.
At Cervantes’ place, they heard a loud explosion. Cervantes says that it is Kurono who is looking for a certain experimental subject that can control the whole system here. The team then moves forward to beat the unfinished replica of Moon Devourer.
After that, Ayla goes her own way toward her squad. When she arrives, she is surprised about what happened here. She then sees Lena in a strange mask with the experimental subject behind.
As Ayla still tries to connect everything together, Lena says that the Purificator is also here now. She wants to confirm the identity of the knight behind Lena, so Lena (they) replies that they are dead souls buried by the past, the “Echo” reshaped by desire and sin. “Echo” then calls the machines to attack Ayla and walks away. Sica has to order the whole squad to retreat due to the current state, even though both she and Ayla want to chase after Lena. Suddenly, the Gray Raven and Egret squad arrive to help. Troy is surprised that it only took them 1 hour to arrive here, while Sica explains the current situation. The Commander says that the Egret squad should secure the retreat and bring Troy back, while the Gray Raven squad will help hold the enemies back so the Iris Warbler squad can chase after Lena.
Somewhere else, the Purificator deploys blockages. Isalius then notices the 2 strong machines from a distance and decides to deal with them alone. Meanwhile, Hakama and Sibuna wonder if Cervantes planned to involve them as backup from the start before being attacked by Isarius.
In the shadow, the wanderer watches the fight. She was just curious at first when she passed by Ayla, but now she had a strange sense of déjà vu. She doesn’t want to get involved as she is no longer the person who bears that name as people knew. However, a shadow of herself suggests to her to not hesitate, as one day she will find the place she should return.
Meanwhile, Sica knows that she will just get in the way, so she asks Ayla to chase after “Echo” alone to the windmill tower. However, on the way, Cervantes steps out to stop Ayla, saying that it was the own choice of Lena who Ayla didn’t know anything about. He just wants Ayla to accept her failure instead of keep pushing forward, and orders the machines to attack her. Suddenly, the wanderer - Selena - jumps in to help Ayla.
Cervantes says that the “spectator” has no reason to interfere. Selena replies that she just follows her heart to help the “knight”. Looking at the hooded figure from behind, Ayla wants to confirm something, but Selena quickly tells her to continue what she must do now. Before leaving, Ayla asks the wanderer to promise to be here because she will definitely return. During the fight against the machines, Selena points out the meaning of the knight keeps charging into the windmill again. This time, Cervante accepts it and says that he will keep playing his role until the end.
On the elevator, Ayla notices it's going to rain, which reminds her of a memory when she was a kid. Teacher Meka taught her that, as an artist, she shouldn't be too concerned about others' opinions, unless she was willing to express herself to others through her painting. Now, she holds her glaive tightly and treats it like a mighty paintbrush as she is about to meet and fight “Echo”.
In the end, Ayla knocks down the knight and breaks “Echo”'s mask, revealing the familiar Lena's face inside. She herself however is wounded and has to use the almost out-of-energy glaive to support herself from fainting due to consciousness deviation. Ayla says that she wins, so “Echo” should return Lena to her, as Lena has promised to watch Sica becoming a qualified commander. “Echo” clutches her head confused and points out that the Iris Warbler squad will never be the same, and they are all just pawns of those big people. However, Ayla doesn't care, as she only wants her friend to be back. She uses her last strength to release an attack, hoping that it will break the connection between Lena and the knight. However, the knight is reactivated, blocks the attack and carries “Echo”, who is about to lose consciousness, away.
Ayla also loses her consciousness. She sees her inner self (child form) blaming herself for letting her hear all the complaints of failures and suggests she just give up. However, Ayla continues to step forward. She then wakes up and feels a familiar yet unfamiliar thinking beacon. The Commander apologizes for linking to her to check her condition, then informs that the machines in the art gallery have stopped attacking and Purificator is now on their way to track down Lena and the test subject. Ayla then asks if she is still here, but the Commander doesn't seem to know who she mentions. Ayla apologizes for having failed again, even though she knows full well how greedy she is for wanting a happy ending in reality. The Commander suggests that she should just resign now, so tomorrow she will return to the usual Ayla and this will be the secret between them.
Somewhere else, Texiu meets the knight carrying the unconscious girl and promises to give her "freedom".
Under the windmill, Cervantes is reading that old letter from Allen. The teacher chose to protect the Art Association instead of trying to change things as hopelessly as Michele and considered himself Carrasco and Michele as Don Quixote who he couldn't understand. However, one day he saw another knight like him. The old friend finally understood Michele in the end, so he gave that knight a letter to him, even though he knew that Michele might never read it.
Dulcinea appears and tells him that 83% of machines have already left the city. She, however, will stay to manage the city, while Cervantes finally realizes that while his goal is impossible, his actions aren't meaningless, so he wants to return to those weird companions again. As for Selena, she did hear that Ayla said that she will find her when this is over. However, it isn't over for now as she still has many things to recover, so she won't return, but at least she knows that there is a place called "home" for her to return to in the future.
Before Ayla is leaving, Cervantes leaves Constellaire in the Art Association’s hand to make it even better than what Michele did. However, Ayla points out that his museum is also a contribution to Michele.
A week later, Yaha finishes fixing Troy up, but he can't help with the Sea of Consciousness problem like Vaseli. Norman comes in to greet Troy, which she tells Yaha that she worked as the captain of the security team for the Norman Group until the end of Immunity Era, and at that time Norman himself was still a kid who loved to bully his 1-year-old sister. Norman notifies Yaha that he wants to talk to Troy alone. She asks Norman if the experimental subject didn't end up in either Kurono or the Council is good for him, he agrees this is the best ending. He then told her that Greens wants her to help with catching the test subject, but she is kind of fond of the Iris Warbler squad now. However, she still agrees to certain working conditions.
As for Sica and Ayla, they finish the documents to stop the activities of the Iris Warbler squad indefinitely due to the incident with Lena and the fact that Troy is transferred away. Sica says that she won’t give up on Lena and Troy, just like Ayla hasn’t given up on Selena. They encourage each other before moving on their own path.
Somewhere else, Wells says that Allen underestimated the difficulty that the Iris Warbler squad would meet. Allen agrees that the appearance of the Iris Warbler squad might be too early, but it will be a seed for the future. The Commander also agrees with Allen while submitting the rejection for promotion to Wells. Wells says that what a commander can do is limited, but the Commander prefers it this way as this is the origins of “the Commander” and the Gray Raven will become a bridge to the future.
On the ground, Ayla draws the symbol for the Iris Warbler squad (with a map of whales). However, a gust of wind blows it away. Somewhere else, Selene picks up Ayla’s drawing and smiles.
Palette Clash
Bustling Gala
Accompanying by Vera
After Cervantes entrusts Constellaire to humanity, Eden plans to use it as the first stronghold to return to the Earth. As this is the first time Eden is in contact with the Awakened Machines, Liszt requests the troops to be cautious and tries to communicate with them first.
One month after being the support for the Iris Warbler squad, the Commander returns to Constellaire with Vera to stop the riots within the city. They move to the first place and fight the machines as they try their best to defend the unfinished painting. After disarming all the machines' "weapon" (spraying paint), Vera takes a look at the painting of the brutalism genre. A machine named Mark begs Vera to not destroy their painting in exchange for the information about the other 2 genres. The Commander gives Vera a hint to back down, which confuses Mark as to why this strong machine listens to the human.
They then move on to stop other machines from other factions, while Mark offers to paint the covered-in-paint Commander back to normal color. Mark asks why the Commander wants to be in the front line of this war that determines the artistic future of Constellaire. The Commander answers that they would like to know the other machines, while Vera mocks that this is not a war.
After that, Vera forces the other machines to reveal the location of their leader, while Mark decides to draw a painting of a Valkyrie. Vera doesn't seem to like the painting very much, so she fixes it a bit then returns it to Mark. Before leaving, Vera warns Mark to stop this "war" or next time it will be someone else coming instead of the Commander.
Chasing after Vera, the Commander says that that painting of Vera was actually really nice, while she says that she should ask Mark to draw a picture of the Commander and the machines "playing" with paints to hang it in Cerberus's room. The Commander then wonders if this is the right way to stop the riot. Vera points out that if the machines hold a weapon instead of a spraying can, everything will go out of control. The Commander wishes that some machines will stand up to stop the war, but since Vera tells the Commander to stop the thought, the Commander invites her to check a windmill building nearby.
Accompanying by Lee
During the travel to deal with riots in Constellaire, the Commander and Lee are locked by the detection device installed by Eden. Lee then checks on the device and bumps into the Great Mark, who claims that there was no one near the device before. Lee puts his suspicion on anyone within the network that controls the device on both Eden and Awakened Machine's side when Mark shows them the painting of their first meeting.
Back then, Lee and Mark both used detailed descriptions to call each other before saying their names. Lee then asks about the war, and Mark replies that his multidimensional machine cubism is in the winning process.
The 3 then stops another riot and asks an awakened machine the reason why they destroy the infrastructure of the city. The machine replies that they are collateral damages for the artistic future of Constellaire. Lee points out that if they keep doing this, all the infrastructure of the city will be destroyed within 5 days and is paralyzed for 1 month. The machine says that it will depend on the new art leader through an election system. Mark says that Lee just can't change the way of the war now, as the machines will keep destroying other sides' paintings and disable their members. Lee then plans to speed up the war by creating a neo multidimensional machine cubism through Mark that will include all faction's paint style, and the Commander will be the new art leader. All the machines around agree even though the Commander is still in disbelief while Lee assures that it will work.
However, when Lee uses his AI to draw procedurally a picture with every style, the other machine leaders of their genres can't understand it. Lee says that this AI painting is no different from the Awakened Machine's painting, which offends them and causes another riot. That night, Lee admits to being too frank at the time that causes the failure. Mark says that no one opposes his ideas of using every art style but his method of drawing. They then visit the Art Gallery together.
Accompanying by Ayla
To stop this "war", Ayla decides to settle everything with art. As a result, she forms her own faction with just a few people: herself, the Commander and the not-so-great Mark the mechanic and overwhelmingly wins every art fight with her art skill.
After one of the fights, the Commander notices a white hair android who is just watching from the sideline. She introduces herself as Dulcinea, who doesn't participate because she doesn't know anything about art. Ayla stares at Dulci and requests to draw a painting. Her first painting is just like a photo, so she instantly draws another one with her own imagination. Looking at the paintings, Dulcinea still can't understand art.
Ayla then fights another battle in this "Pallette Clash". Dulcinea comments that all the infrastructure within the area will shut down after 2 hours. Mark says that with the previous art leader - Cervantes - left, at the beginning, there were 38 genres, now only 3 genres left competing. Dulcinea can't understand how this war is worth destroying the city, but Mark only replies that humans, Structurers, and androids like Dulcinea can't stop the war without understanding the importance of art to other Awakened Machines.
Meanwhile, Ayla wins the battle again. The machines are satisfied, but they just can't nominate Ayla as the new art leader because she doesn't understand the reason for this war. A machine called Myron then approaches the Commander and asks the reason why humans join this war, to which the Commander replies that humans need the infrastructure here.
Myron then confesses that he is jealous of Dulcinea's design, as his design as an industrial robot limits his capacity to do anything else. However, through art, he can express himself freely without any restraint, so art is the cry for freedom of the Awakened Machines within the city.
In the temporary tent of the Art Association, Ayla says that she doesn't want to know the reason for the war, as it will affect the sequence of creation. However, she respects the machines and will try her best to beat them. The Commander understands, then just delivers the gratitude from Myron to Ayla for participating in this war. Ayla is happy about that and tells the Commander that they should both work even harder next time against the machines
Accompanying by Karenina
The Commander accompanies Karenina while she checks on a statue made by the Awakened Machine. Suddenly, Puppet contacts, saying that Karenina should form the art destruction faction instead of trying to understand art and informs that she will be the support requested by the Art Association. They then check on the boxes requested by Karenina as it could help solve the riot in the city. Mark and Dulcinea agree to help with the plan.
Called to the place by Mark, the other Awakened Machines are angry as their statue is covered in foam. Karenina then detonates the explosions below the statue, while the Commander suggests Mark to run. After that, Karenina blows more artworks all over the city. The machines are on the guard as the results, so they stop to rethink their plan. As they try their best to drink the drink made by the machines here, they suddenly see a colorful statue walking around. Karenina pulls out the explosive but gets hit in the head by the statue, and the explosion doesn’t make any dent on the statue.
They are then chased by the machines all over the place, with Mark being branded as a traitor, while no one dares to stop Dulcinea from confiscating their artworks. Karenina and the Commander detonate some more explosions, destroying the graffiti wall while also blowing Mark away. Puppet informs them that many people start to oppose this operation as it costs plenty of precious resources. Dulcinea says that she thought humans are more united, but Karenina replies that sometimes conflicts are necessary for progression. Dulcinea then wonders if conflict is also necessary for Awakened Machines and Karenina says that she doesn’t know, though they can only help as much and the Awakened Machines themselves are those who have to make final decisions.
As they run into the expanded Art Gallery, Dulcinea is surprised as all of those supposed to be destroyed artworks are all here. Karenina reveals that the foam actually helps reduce the impact of the explosion, as it is a waste to destroy them. The Commander then says that people need to accept each other's shortcomings too, not just merits. While Dulcinea wonders if this is the necessary change for the Awakened Machines, suddenly, they are informed that the machines start to fight inside the Art Gallery due to various disagreements in here. Karenina asks the Commander to help her with the riot, while Puppet and Mark will retreat.
Truth Unveiled
3rd day of Palette Clash, at night, Dulcinea runs simulations based on the data of the Quick Response team of Vera, Lee, Ayla, Karenina, and the Commander. However, she learns that deductions with the 4 Structurers don’t give any solution. She thinks that she should trust humans more and uses her administration right to contact certain targets.
Somewhere else, Karenina and Puppet notice the strange interference with the camera, and it has something to do with the Commander.
Back to Dulcinea, she asks a defector named Alisa (Lena/Echo) to kidnap the Commander and helps her to end the Palette Clash. Alisa then takes the emergency signal transmitter prepared since the Kowloong incident from the Commander and asks the Commander to cooperate. The Commander replies that no one would be willing to cooperate like this so Alisa simply returns all the equipment to the Commander. Dulcinea mentions that she is worried about the Parliament's next action if the situation isn’t resolved. As a result, she will try to resolve this before dawn while holding the key to the administration of the city.
Alisa then shoots fireworks to gather the attention of the machines to the square while wondering if this is the Commander’s way of avenging her as it annoys many machines. However, this is all according to the plan as the machines will now understand their disruption of others’ rest time because of their war, and they should be more willing to agree to Dulcinea in their both physically and mentally tired states. The Commander also thinks that they can’t just respect the Awakened Machines all the time because of all the problems they have caused.
When all machines are gathered, Dulsinea shows 30 paintings of the 3 factions based on Ayla’s analysis, then displays the 31st painting that causes a riot as the machines don’t know which genre it comes from. Dulcinea then announces the end of Pallette Clash, which is in a tie. However, the machines can't accept that. Dulcinea tries to connect to the network of the city to look for the data from Cervantes, but the machines think she will use her administrator right to stop them and try to stop Dulcinea. Alisa quickly drags Dulcinea outside, while the machines call more force to chase after them.
As they rest a bit, Dulcinea says that her decision might conflict with what Cervantes wants, but Alisa asks what Dulci herself wants. Mark comes out and says that he was the one who put that painting on display as Lee suggested. He drew a white bird in Constellaire, which shouldn't exist, as this city doesn't need food for the machines. Mark uses Ayla's idea to draw the fantasy, where Dulcinea admits that she wants to actually see birds in this city some day.
They then gather everyone else for the next preparation. Puppet writes the most provoking challenge letter, Ayla gathers all the works, Lee sends the letter to the leader of each faction with the help of Dulcinea, Vera lures the machines to a designated location. After that, they start the fight between the multidimensional machine cubism faction and the 3 machine factions.
The multidimensional machine cubism faction wins thanks to Ayla. Puppet then introduces the leader of the faction - Dulcinea. She says that she already gave up her administrator rights, and as the 3 factions already accepted the challenge, they must respect the result. Dulcinea then proposes to remove the title of art leader from Constellaire as the machines and humans can decide the future of Constellaire by themselves. The machines don't feel satisfied as it is against Cervantes' will, but Dulcinea affirms that even if Cervantes is here, she won't change her mind. Mark is the first one who agrees with this proposal, then the machines who are tired of this war also agree. The rest of the machines know the risk of the proposal but also agree in the end.
2 hours later, Dulcinea goes to meet Liszt and destroys her administrator rights so no one could interfere with the city's system. Liszt remarks that humans and Awakened Machines still have a long way to go to understand each other.
Outside the city, Alisa is updated on the situation by Dulcinea. When Dulcinea mentions Ayla, Alisa has a bitter expression on her face. Dulcinea also informs that the Commander and Mark won't say anything about her. Dulcinea then asks about the administration AI data that she gives Alisa, but Alisa simply says that it is something that she must do, even though they will become enemies later. As they cut off communication, Alisa - Echo - says that Cervantes' plan works. She mentions her sister and contacts someone that their plan is moved to the next stage.
Ayla – Kaleido’s Bond Story
After the space station battle, Ayla (Overflowing Color) hasn't been back to Eden for a long time as she has traveled with the archaeological expedition team in various conservation areas while trying to ask about Selena. On a sunny day in a conservation area, hearing that the Commander and Lee are here, Ayla quickly goes to their place.
However, only the Commander is there when Ayla arrives. She shows the Commander the picture of the Commander solely based on rumor, which is 2.21 meters tall, can hold a fusion cannon with one hand, and has a special exoskeleton as strong as a Structurer, along with some other features that aren’t in the painting such as wings and clairvoyance. The Commander then asks about Ayla’s perception of the Commander, to which she answers that the Commander is like the sun that brings hope. When Ayla returns the questions, the Commander draws Ayla in front of a sunny window and says that she is like sunshine. Ayla is excited, as most people only think of her as a trendy artist. She then proposes to teach the Commander to draw before leaving to help others in the conservation area.
When there is finally some spare time, the Commander contacts Ayla to learn to draw. They meet in a library, where Ayla confesses that she actually sneaked out to meet the Commander. The Commander was interested in drawing since youth and already read the Basic Sketching book, but in FOS, only the basic course of drawing was necessary for the mission, and the Commander no longer had time to read those books anymore. Ayla then starts from the basics, and the Commander feels that drawing is so relaxing.
Suddenly, the light goes out and Ayla bumps into a bookcase, making a book fall down. The Commander acts by reflex and covers her, getting hit in the arm in the process. As the Commander is about to contact the rest of the squad, the library announces that it is on power system maintenance. Ayla says that the Commander shouldn’t have done that, as she is a Structurer, then tells the Commander to keep practicing. Under the light of the tactical flashlight, Ayla reads the book that just fell while occasionally writing some notes, and the Commander draws her. The Commander then gives the painting to her and says that whether cheerful or quiet, it is still Ayla.
Other time, the Commander handles over materials from the last mission to the Art Association and remembers about Ayla who was preparing for an art exhibition called “Heroes in my Heart”. It has been a long time since they last met each other, so the Commander decides to visit Ayla’s studio.
Before entering the studio, the Commander receives a message from Ayla, saying how much of a headache it is to prepare for this exhibition, so she just wants to go and play with the Commander right now. The Commander replies that she just needs to open the door, and suddenly hears all kinds of sound inside the studio as Ayla runs toward the door. Inside the messy studio, the Commander notices an unfinished painting in FOS uniform that Ayla quickly covers and says she will send it when it finishes. Ayla then asks if the Commander is still practicing drawing and prepares a test, but the Commander says that they should eat first. Meanwhile, she gives the Commander an invitation for the exhibition. After that, they draw their own painting. Since Ayla is so focused on her work, the Commander just leaves the painting there and quietly leaves. Later, Ayla notices that the Commander is already left and checks on the painting. Seeing herself in messy hair and clothes full of paints in the picture, she goes into deep thought.
At the award ceremony, Ayla delivers a speech while wearing the coating (Glitter Morning Star) that she showed the Commander before.
After that, she takes some quasi-alcoholic electrolyte and signals the Commander to slip out through the side door. She says that her agent will take care of the guest, as she doesn't want to be disturbed while spending some time with the Commander. She then blames the Commander for not listening to her speech, which the Commander shows a painting of her. Happy with the Commander progression, she shows the Commander to use other materials instead of just paints for color, such as using the electrolyte and fire. Suddenly, her manager calls her, so she has to leave.
One day, the Commander receives a mission to rescue a trapped archaeological expedition team from Ayla (Kaleido) as there are no Attack class Structurer in their team. Ayla already investigated before the mission, but an unexpected situation still occurs. Because of a factory from the Golden Age nearby, they are quickly overwhelmed, and now they have to find a way to distract the horde of Infected and waits for support to come to get the archaeological team out.
After the fight, the bandage on the Commander’s wound gets loosened, so Ayla tries to reapply it. However, she can’t find any medicines and gets frustrated. To ease up the situation, the Commander draws a cartoon face of Ayla on the bandage. However, she still feels bad as she was the one who asked for the Commander’s corporation, yet she failed to protect the Commander and didn’t prepare thoroughly. She then confesses that she did form an “Operation Whale Hunting” to search for Selena. However, due to how unfulfilling work it was, she stopped the operation and continued to search on her own, despite the willingness to help from her colleagues. As a result, she was used to just working alone before the creation of the Iris Warbler squad.
The Commander understands, but points out that working together also means sharing failure, so Ayla doesn’t need to make herself lonely like that. Ayla still feels bad about this mission, so she promises to turn that 2.21 meters Commander’s painting into a sculpture. The Commander quickly stops Ayla’s thought by saying that becoming the first audience of her is enough for a compensation. She agrees and talks about her new-found inspiration, called “Two People's Doomsday Travel”.
On a sunny day in Eden, the Commander is busy with urgent document work when Ayla (Glitter Morning Star coating) goes in and begs the Commander not to tell her agent about it. She says that the manager urged her to submit her portfolio. However, she didn’t have any inspiration, so she decided to slack off in the Gray Raven squad’s lounge again. The Commander agrees, and somehow Ayla has an inspiration from it.
2 hours later, the Commander quietly checks on Ayla and sees her drawing the Gray Raven squad’s lounge with no people in it. Knowing that the Commander is checking her, she draws a cartoon version of the Commander as a revenge from the last time. The Commander then draws Ayla in her coating in the picture, and Ayla says she will keep it as the first co-created work from both of them. Suddenly, the manager calls for Ayla and threatens her to finish her portfolio, or they will live in the studio together after that. Ayla quickly returns to her studio but doesn’t forget to invite the Commander to the exhibition before that.
Back at the studio, she adds the painting of her slacking around from the Commander to her collection. Looking at all the paintings, she finds inspiration from the Commander, who doesn’t put her into one specific category but sees the different side of “Ayla”. She also looks forward to the next painting of the Commander about her.
Radiant Journey Together
So his name could be “Lightbringer” judging from different parts in the menu. However, I will still keep it as Radiant Marcher, or otherwise it will make no sense in one part of the story.
A team from the Peacekeeper Force Research Institute has trouble penetrating the barrier when someone sends their latest weapon - Radiant Marcher - to help. During the process of destroying military and logistic facilities inside the barrier, Marcher sees a civilian desperately digging the other civilian out of the debris. He then accidentally helps them by destroying a debris falling on their head while aiming at the logistic facility far behind. The civilian thanks him, but he can’t understand why.
This is just one of the deeds of the Peacekeeper Force in decades that help the World Government maintain peace and unite the world in the end. Professor Victor Jackson, who is the chief researcher of the Peacekeeper Force and the world peace ambassador, then emphasizes on the importance of putting out disharmonious factors to keep the peace of the world.
Victor then comes to meet Marcher who he considers an important partner since the design stage. Victor also mentions more machines with advanced AI in the future, who Marcher will be able to call them “companions”. Marcher is a war machine that is built to maintain world peace, yet looking at the result of destruction from war on the people, the infrastructures, the economy, etc., he can’t understand how such a thing can be called “peace”. Marcher then participates in even more wars to maintain peace, yet he can’t find the answer.
One day, the base of the Peacekeeper is under attack. Marcher connects to the camera and hears something about a virus. Victor insists on not abandoning Marcher, but a woman named Suma points out that it will be a problem if the robot is infected and drags Victor out before she detonates the explosion. Victor leaves the last message to Marcher in case he will survive that he should come to Saint Soraya Cathedral to look for something important to Victor himself.
After a long time being buried, Marcher wakes up and pushes his way outside. Even without his weapons, he is determined to finish Victor’s last mission. He moves from filter tower to filter tower, gathering materials to reactivate his combat system along the way toward the targeted location. At the place, as he cools himself off, he hears a male voice in the confession room who introduces himself as a psychological counselor that helps solve the problems of nearby people. Usually, people were afraid of Marcher because of his weapon, so he hasn’t talked much with many humans. The man proposes to help Marcher with his mission, even though Marcher doesn’t really know the details of his mission and just assumes that Victor wanted him to find a secret high-powered weapon.
Marcher then introduces himself to the man and tells him his purpose. The man then asks if Mr. War Machine has any other purpose and suggests finding a companion to find a new purpose, but Marcher refuses. Suddenly, Marcher detects some Infected, so he tells the man to leave immediately before bombarding the whole place. After that, he searches for signs of life but can’t detect any. Suddenly, a scavenger girl named Weixian appears and asks where the Iron Lump is going to take her to. As the girl doesn’t seem to be scared of Marcher, he thinks that she is his objective and asks if she can split out 10 meters of flame beam or shoot a super particle beam. However, she says she can’t do such things and mentions a certain uncle telling her to wait here to be picked up by someone. Marcher believes that uncle is Victor, and this girl must have been the mission’s objective instead of some super weapon. He agrees to bring her along to Victor's place.
On the way, Marcher has to stop occasionally at different energy supply points. He then tells Weixian that she needs to eat and sleep, but she replies that she doesn't need to. However, he still hunts a boar and creates a safer fire from his fingertip, but she says that a campfire creates a better atmosphere, and she wants to give the boar to the people in the nearby camp instead. He can't understand the meaning of campfire but at least he understands the meaning of stars since Victor did tell him about the wish of humanity going toward the starlight, hence his name.
Suddenly, Marcher detects the fight between the Infected and the humans in the nearby camp. He can't understand why those humans keep fighting with no chance of winning, but Weixian says that it is to stimulate the vitality of life. The Infected start to move to their location next, so he fights back. After that, she wants to create a grave for the humans in the camp, but Marcher can't understand the purpose of it. He says that if he dies, another Marcher will be born. He aims to stay true to his duty, but as she asks what happens if he is freed of his responsibility, he doesn't want to think about it.
As they reach Victor’s place, they see a lot of blood, which makes Weixian freak out. However, Marcher is used to such scenes and can guess the fate of Victor. He then digs in the trench and finds graffiti on the way. The graffiti somehow makes him feel dizzy, so he turns the light off and continues digging. He then tells Weixian to escape from here when she sees the sign of him being infected. She points out that Marcher just feels fear of being infected, and she is willing to share it as a companion. Marcher wants to correct that he just considers the worst-case scenario, yet somehow he doesn’t say it and starts to wonder if he is indeed looking for a companion.
At the end, Marcher finds the corpse of Victor and a memory chip. In the chip, Victor told the location of the weapons and confessed that he was actually behind several wars to help move wealth from one side to another. He kept telling himself that all of that was for peace, but it didn’t even matter now because of the virus outbreak. He later tried to encourage everyone in this trench, but people started to lose faith in him. In the end, he just chased all of them out, which ended up causing their deaths. At this point, he was still longing for the star, yet he knew that he wasn’t qualified to go to heaven. He then finds a gun to end his life.
Marcher stays silent as he thinks of the human who lies to him about peace. He just doesn’t understand and needs new orders. Weixian gets closer to ask if he finds the uncle yet, but he lies that there is no one here, then instantly wonders why he did that. Suddenly, they get attacked by the Infected. He quickly takes her outside. However, he is stunted as he has just finished his mission, so now there is no new order for him. After looking through his memories, he decides his first action on his own - to retreat to protect this girl. He flies up with her to find a safe spot while avoiding the horde of Infected.
Suddenly, an infected aircraft appears and blows his arm carrying Weixian off. As he tries to find her location on the ground, he remembers her word of killing the Infected. He then decides to wipe out all the Infected, not as a mission, but as a request from his companion - the little girl. He removes all his defense and maximizes his output to blow everything until his guns overheat. After that, he desperately looks for Weixian, or what is left of her, in the piles of remains of Infected without caring about the fact that he will be infected. He suddenly realizes that his situation now is just like the 2 civilians that he helped back then.
When Marcher’s energy is about to run out because of all the search for Weixian, he starts to realize that in the last past of the record, Victor mentions a painting of his siblings under the starry sky in the cathedral, so that was his mission objective. He then wonders who Weixian is if she isn’t the mission objective.
Marcher then returns to the cathedral and makes a grave for Victor with his painting and record. As he is about to make a grave for Weixian next, the man in the confession room is there, in a newly built confession room, and asks him if he needs any counseling. Marcher points out that he is a machine so he needs no counseling, so the man says that he is also, in fact, a machine. In surprise, Marcher opens the confession room door, but only sees a communicator in there telling him to go to a place nearby.
At the place, Marcher sees another confession room. This time he just pulls the man inside out in the middle of his speech to check first, then asks for his name and his purpose. The man congratulates Marcher on becoming an Awakened Machine, which means he gains immunity to the virus and his own will. He then mentions the Church of Machinas full of Awakened Machines like Marcher. Suddenly, Weixian jumps out, holding her head in her hand. She points out that Marcher was too dumb to realize that she was also a machine, as she didn’t need to eat and sleep. She then says that her head was blown off because of his firepower, but he still saved her in the end. As Marcher is still dumbfounded, she says that she was an IDO-1 series of idol machine, so her manner of speech and appearance might be too close to human for him to realize.
The man interrupts them and explains that Weixian was supposed to go with the member of the Church, but through a series of misunderstandings, Marcher took her away instead. He then invites Marcher into the Church. Realizing that the man invited him as a companion, he agrees, but tells the “fake priest who abducts children” to not speak in that irritable way again. The man says that he already has many nicknames, so Marcher should just call him by his favorite nickname - Typhoon Dice Man. Marcher agrees, and “Typhoon Dice Man” welcomes him to the Church of Machina.