After finishing the strategy meeting, I had lunch with Hina at the famous Shibaseki ramen shop. As expected, Serika was working part-time here to earn some money.
Of course, we ordered two bowls of Shibaseki ramen. You can eat other ramen anywhere, so this is the right choice here.
To be honest, it was definitely delicious, but if I were to ask if it was worth coming all the way to Abydos, I’d be a bit skeptical…?
Of course, this is purely a matter of accessibility. If it were closer to my workplace, it would definitely become my go-to ramen spot. I thought I should come back here again with Haruna once the situation in Abydos improves.
By the way, it was a bit funny that Serika wanted me to keep her part-time job a secret from others.
Honestly, if someone really wanted to find out, it’d take no time at all, right? Can you really hide something like that?
I passed my card to Hina and asked her to purchase two GPR devices before heading to the Kaiser PMC building. I expected that I wouldn’t get to meet the main executives of Kaiser Corporation, but surprisingly, Director Park Min-cheol welcomed me warmly.
I thought the PMC directors and the General would be busy cleaning up the excavation site, but our Min-cheol seems to have taken a detour here after getting a little oil on his hands.
“I didn’t expect you to drop by like this… no, I didn’t expect it at all. What brings you here?”
“Haha, now that things are going well, you’re using informal speech with me? Our Min-cheol seems to be feeling quite confident, huh?”
“Min-cheol…?”
“Haha, I mean you, you.”
“Um, I’m sorry. May I ask why you came here? I thought your deal with the President was already settled…”
“Yup, that went well. I’m here to ask for information about Vina.”
After I said this, Min-cheol stared at me with a blank expression for a moment, then suddenly closed his eyes and rubbed his neck. At this point, it seems like they might just be all show and no substance.
“…T-party host, asking for information about Vina isn’t something we can just give away lightly. Unless you pay a sufficient price—”
“Min-cheol, about that snake. I can take care of it for you guys. So contact the President. Ask if you can hand over the engagement records and data. If they refuse… I’d rather just chase it away as I’m doing now than go through the trouble of actually getting rid of it.”
“…”
Ah, how sweet it is to have the upper hand in information.
I can frame the fact that I have to hunt it down as something I don’t have to do, instilling the idea that you’ll be the one at a loss if you don’t hand it over. If it were someone other than Kaiser, I’d feel pretty guilty about taking advantage this way, but with these guys, I feel like I could do this all day.
“Please wait a moment… I’ll get the answer soon.”
In the end, our Min-cheol received permission from the President. The President seems more inclined to choose a wise path rather than get involved in something he doesn’t need to.
However, it turned out he needed a little time to hand over the materials, saying to wait.
I wondered if there might be some tricks with the data, but as long as it isn’t too blatant, it shouldn’t be a big problem.
*
The RABBIT Squad requested supplies from the SRT headquarters and also managed to obtain satellite images of the Abydos Autonomous District. As a bonus, we even got the coordinates of the location where Kaiser is excavating ancient weaponry.
Anyway, we overlaid the routes of the desert-crossing train with existing maps, pointing out about four potential locations.
There was no guarantee that the ruins we were looking for would be at these points, but everyone felt that this was the most promising possibility.
While there were three points, the RABBIT Squad only brought two vehicles, making it a bit tricky to split our numbers. Especially since if we spread out our forces, we couldn’t rule out the chance of taking more damage than anticipated if Vina showed up in the desert.
Still, we couldn’t entirely give up the merits of splitting up, so one vehicle would have the teacher and three RABBIT Squad members along with Hoshino. The other vehicle would have me, Hina, Shiroko, and Nonomi, and we decided to check out two points each, regardless of success or failure.
With that, the six-seater vehicle was naturally assigned to the other group, while we took the four-seater.
Mohe and Ayane remained at the Abydos Academy building to operate the systems, while Serika was still working her part-time job.
Since both Nana and Hina are quite busy, we couldn’t afford to waste time, so our schedule was rather tight. Thus, this exploration would be conducted on the premise of camping in the desert… or as the RABBIT Squad put it, “sleeping over”.
That said, we couldn’t just set up tents wherever the sandstorms struck, so we all prepared to sleep in the vehicles.
By the way, Shiroko was the one driving our tactical vehicle.
Since we wouldn’t need to pay attention to any other vehicles or signals while racing through the desert, and the vehicle was equipped with an autonomous driving system, I figured there shouldn’t be any major issues. As long as we marked the coordinates, if an accident happened, that would just be a talent issue.
In case of an emergency, Nana or Nonomi could also take the wheel, so swapping seats during sleeping hours wouldn’t be a problem.
“Hey, Nonomi-chan.”
“Yes, Misono-san. Why did you call me~?”
After hours of racing through the desert, it was only natural for my mind to start wandering. I casually spoke to Nonomi, who was sitting on the opposite front seat. Hina was asleep, and I couldn’t see what Shiroko was doing since she was in front of me.
“I put in a meeting request to the Saint Nephthys side before I got here, but they rejected it. Any guesses as to why that might be?”
“Um… honestly, I have no idea! Before I enrolled in Abydos, I had no authority at all, and after enrolling, I essentially lost all contact! I only know that my card wasn’t stopped, which means they didn’t dismiss me.”
“Hmm. Then it looks like I don’t have any leads on Saint Nephthys… this could be a bit troublesome.”
Not knowing what stance Saint Nephthys was going to take in this situation was bothersome. For example, what if they are secretly followers of the Nameless Priests, manipulating the desertification phenomenon… Okay, that’s too far-fetched.
“By the way, originally, you might have been my kouhai, Nonomi-chan.”
“Oh my, is that so? When I think about it, it seems like Misono-senpai likes to be called ‘senpai’☆.”
“Haha, it’s not like that! You don’t have to call me ‘senpai’! Besides, I already have one kouhai who’s similar yet different from you.”
“Eh…? I can’t believe I’d be so easily replaceable!”
“Replaceable might be a bit off… you two are alike yet very different.”
As I chatted with Nonomi, before I knew it, she had fallen asleep too.
With no one left to talk to, it was only natural to switch my target to our cute sand wolf.
“Shiroko-chan, we haven’t had much of a chance to talk! How’s life in Abydos? You know, I also thought about transferring to Abydos back in the day. Well, I never really acted on it, but☆”
“Ah, that’s unfortunate. If you had been a senpai, it would have been fun. We could have robbed a bank together to pay off debts.”
“Haha, if we went that route, Hoshino-chan would be furious, I bet. Oh, by the way, did you enjoy the movie I sent you back then?”
“Yes… it was the best. That’s my forever favorite movie. If you have anything similar, feel free to let me know later.”
“Hmm, I can’t promise much since I don’t have that much time to watch movies. But I’ll try to put in the effort.”
As I chatted with Shiroko for a while, Hina woke up from her nap. With boredom settling in due to the lack of activities, I ultimately proposed a game of word association.
After playing a few rounds of word association and some simple games, evening fell. After finishing a meal with the combat rations brought by the RABBIT Squad, drowsiness began to creep in again.
There were still a few more hours left until we reached our destination, so rather than fight against sleep, I decided to just catch some Zs.
*
When I opened my eyes, the sun had long set. Before I knew it, Nonomi and Shiroko had swapped seats, with Shiroko peacefully asleep.
Before long, the autonomous driving system notified us that we were nearing our destination.
“Wow. It’s definitely been a desert area for a long time, because the sandstorm is no joke. After stepping out, my hair is going to be a disaster.”
“…At this rate, searching for clues will be quite the chore.”
“Well, the invisible clues will be found by machines instead of us. Shiroko-chan, wake up!”
“Ugh… I’m not sleeping.”
“Pfft… Let’s leave this to Shiroko-chan, and we’ll see if we can find any visible clues. Everyone, grab a gas mask and a flashlight.”
I entrusted the GPR device to the half-asleep Shiroko.
Rather than being a gift from Sabi, this high-performance GPR equipment was something I meaningfully purchased with the monthly allowance I received from the T-party. If any ruins are buried under the sand, this would be a huge help.
With the cold desert winds blowing along with the darkness settling, our party stepped out into the eerie desert. Others at different points were likely suffering through similar struggles.
Ah. I’m already tired of this damn desert. Especially this blasted sandstorm.
I can’t tell you how much I miss the fresh air of our Trinity…
