1204/08/29 09:00
Crossbell City, Crossbell

"Oh, come on, Tita. You know you're the one pitching the idea for it. I just led you and the team to focus on our tasks."

Inside the bracer guild, Renne, Tita, and Agate talked with Michel about the presentation and their efforts for the last few days.

"No way! I didn't do much. The Epstein Foundation researchers were the ones doing all that," Tita shook her head in disagreement.

Renne looked at the blonde girl flatly. "Tita... without your quick thinking, I'm sure we would still be thinking about how to radiate the OrbalNet wave."

The former Ouroboros member heard Agate sigh from beside Tita. "Just take the damn compliment. It ain't every day Renne compliments someone meaningfully like that."

"That's because it's not every day you did something good, Agate," she quickly retorted.

Michel just laughed at them before they clicked their fingers. "Oh, right. Renne, Tita. So do you still use the original terms for the newly presented products, or has it changed?"

"Right. I remember Chief Roberts liking Juna's suggestion," Agate nodded before looking at her.

She nodded. After the presentation last night, she asked Chief Roberts and everyone about the official terms for the OWR, EEM, and Conference Call.

"Chief Roberts wants to change it with something more catchy like the 'router' Juna suggested. However, we argued that such terms should be used later, after the trade conference. After all, we used the original terms in our presentation. If we change it now, we need another meeting to let the others know about the new terms, and that's simply something we can't do with the time constraints we have."

They even had to scrap the Enigma monitoring system that Juna had suggested in her proposal because there was simply no time to do it.

"I see... that's a correct decision when you consider the time limit. The conference is in two days, and I'm not sure everyone involved would like another meeting just to correct some terminologies."

"Definitely," Renne agreed with Michel.

Yes. Even Renne didn't want to spend much time in the limelight, considering she avoided the Hayworths the entire time. Another meeting meant more time for Chief Roberts to delegate his task to her. That meant the chance of her being discovered by her family was increasing.

Suddenly, the door was opened loudly. Renne groaned because she recognized who was the one opening the door. There was only one person who would slam the door loudly every time she entered the guild.

"Morning, everyone!" Juna saluted. Behind her, Arios entered calmly without saying anything.

"Morning, Juna, Arios," Michel greeted them with a smile. "Training hard as usual?"

"Yup!" Juna answered before her eyes looked at Tita. "Ah, Tita! Good timing!" She ran towards the blonde-haired girl.

"What's wrong?" asked Tita.

Juna pulled out something that raised Renne's eyebrow. Enigma?

"Can you help set up this Enigma? I got it as a gift from the SSS last night. But when I looked up the manual, it said that it needs to be configured by Oracle engineers."

Hold on. The SSS gave Juna what?

"Ohoho, so they finally gave it to you, huh?" Michel chuckled.

"Ah! You know about it!?" Juna pointed her finger accusingly at Michel.

"Why do you think I'm not forbidding you to use the Enigma? The 'no orbment' order I gave you was just an excuse so the SSS could give it to you." Instead of Michel, Arios was the one answering Juna's accusation.

Juna dramatically put her hands where her heart was.

"Oh, to be betrayed by the closest people I'm with! This pain shall not be forgotten!"

Everyone laughed at Juna's exaggeration. However, Renne noticed that Arios only curved his lips slightly.

"Anyway, Tita, can you help me?"

Tita bit her lip. "I can help, but I left all my tools in my room."

"Aww..." Juna groaned in disappointment.

"You could've easily gone to Genten, y'know?" Renne quipped. "Any orbal engineer can do it."

"Yeah, I could've gone to Wendy, but Tita is the first one I laid my eyes on," Juna answered with a shrug.

Renne held herself back from twitching her eyes. This sort of casual confidence was what she disliked about the girl. At first, she thought it was just a mask, but over time, it became clear that this was just how Juna was. It was like Renne was looking at a mirror but without the quiet smugness. Self-assured and confident enough to take on the world. That was how she perceived the pink-haired menace.

"And besides," Juna continued. "She maintained both Estelle and Joshua's combat orbment during the incident two years ago, right? It'd be such an honor to have my Enigma being set up by someone like her."

Juna then turned to Tita and winked. It was enough to make Tita blush in embarrassment.

"Hawawa~"

Renne clicked her tongue. "Cozying Tita up, aren't you? Anyway, just go to Genten!"

"Ah, before that, even if Tita can't set up my orbment, do you have some tips for the quartz setup?" Juna disregarded her and continued bothering the blonde engineer.

Tita put her hands on her chin. "...How much sepith of all elements do you have? We can try to simulate opening all of the slots and converting the sepiths to quartzes."

"Ooh boy, I love theorycrafting!" Juna dragged a chair beside Tita. "Any tips for my build?"

Tita raised her eyebrow. "Your 'build?'"

"Yeah, you know, the quartz setup that fits how I fight," Juna explained. "Like, you and Renne fought differently, right? So that means you and Renne have different builds. That means different quartz setup."

"Quite a unique term, Juna. I see that you love to use short and related terminologies to describe something. So what do you think your 'build' is compared to us?" Renne challenged her. If she wanted to use a new specific term, she had better give them some examples.

"With my focus on Eight Leaves Second Form, my build is an agile, fast damage dealer against multiple targets. But I actually still haven't perfected the second form to be used on multiple targets, so..." Juna shrugged. "As for the two of you, judging from Estelle's stories, Tita is the multiple targets range damage dealer with her canon, while Renne has the same build as me, an agile, fast damage dealer with her scythe."

"..." She had to admit to her. That was the correct fighting style she employed while she was still in Ouroboros, discounting her Arts usage. Nowadays, she tried to avoid using her scythe against other people because most of the techniques she had in her arsenal were lethal.

"Interesting. What about me, Juna?" Arios suddenly raised a question. "You've watched my style the most. What do you think about me? Am I the same as you but better?"

Juna surprisingly shook her head. "There's one clear difference between us, Master. And that is our gender. I hate to say this, but unless I try really hard to build my base strength, any Gale I can produce will be much weaker than yours. So while you're an agile, fast, damage dealer, you can still fall back on your natural strength, making you a complete attacker," she finished with a huff before continuing with a blink. "...Actually, you can also do ranged attack to maintain your distance with the Sixth Form, and you can react to your enemies with the Fifth Form. Isn't the Eight Leaves One Blade too complete?!"

Arios let out a small smile. "I was lucky that Master Ka-fai accepted me as his student. And besides, while other martial arts styles might not be as complete as the Eight Leaves, their practitioner can still cover lots of things with their Arts."

"Yes, Olivert loves using his arts for range despite his weapon already being a gun," Tita supplied.

"Huh? Does he still use his weapon, then?" asked Juna. "But yeah, I remember Elie is also primarily an Arts user like Tio. Hmm..."

"There's also the case of everyone's natural affinities to the element. That influences your quartz setup, as the combat orbment slots might be locked into that particular element. For example, my elemental affinity is Mirage. So one of my combat orbment slots is locked into Mirage," Renne continued the explanation.

"What about you, Tita?" Juna turned to the blonde.

"Mine is Space," she answered shortly.

"Wow... two higher elements... No wonder..." Juna said in awe before shaking her head. No wonder what? "Anyway, how do I check my elemental affinity?"

"You should be able to do that in Orbal stores like Genten," Renne said in deadpan. She had been shooing Juna away to Genten but failed every time.

"Alright," Tita interjected before Juna could reply to Renne. "So what do you want your quartz setup to be, Juna? Do you want to use it as another offensive strategy? As complementary support for your sword style? Or as a defensive and range option?"

"Hmm..." Juna turned to Arios, but the older man was looking at the board. "Nah. Thanks for the heads up, Renne and Tita. I'll go to Genten after this."

"Juna," Arios called when she started going to the exit.

"Yes, Master?"

"Before you go, go upstairs. I've prepared two hundred sepith of all elements for you. Sorry for deceiving you."

Juna's face turned into a beaming smile before she ran towards the stairs.

"Thank you so much, Master!"

It took her no time to get the sepith, and she left the building. That girl really couldn't do anything normally, could she?

"You didn't say much when Juna asked about the Enigma, Agate?" Michel suddenly mentioned the red-haired man. While Tita's attention was sucked into the conversation, Renne's eyes couldn't leave Arios.

He smiled at Juna's retreating figure before it turned into a frown.

What was that about?

"-isn't that right, Renne?"

"Huh?" Renne turned towards Tita before smiling, "Oh, yeah. Definitely."

(Renne missed how Arios closed his eyes and sighed before leaving the guild.)

1204/08/29 10:00
Crossbell City, Crossbell

Ries Argent was walking down East Street. She had just gone back from the Downtown District for a certain reason. A voice called out to her when she was about to enter Central Square. "Oh, Miss Ries, Perfect timing!"

Juna Crawford, the girl who might bypass the Goddess' Law, called out from Central Square as she hurriedly approached her. "There are some things I wanna ask you. Is it okay? It's a little personal, though."

Personal question? Ries raised her eyebrow. "Sure... shall we go somewhere else?"

"Hmm... the guild might be a good place, but..." Ries felt Juna's eyes on her. "I don't think it's private enough for you, Miss Ries."

What? What did she mean by that? Was she referring to her status as a member of the Gralsritter? If so, then Juna was correct. The guild only has reports of the Liberl incident up to the end of the Aureole. Only the Liberl group knew of Kevin and Ries' status as agents of the secret order within the church, and that was because of the Phantasma incident.

"If you're talking about that, then yes. Do you have any recommendation for a more ...private place?"

"Hotel Millenium should have one, but they're pricey," Juna sighed before she looked up, "Oh, but I can probably borrow an empty room in Long Lao for a few minutes! Let's go there. I hope they still have an empty room!"

Long Lao? Could Juna really ask them for a few minutes? Ries checked her purse. If Juna couldn't, she should have the money to book a room for at least one hour or more.

As they walked to Long Lao, Ries was curious about something. "What were you doing before this? Were you perhaps looking for me at the church?"

"Not really," Juna chuckled before grabbing something out of her pants and showing it to her. "Tadaa! I just finished setting up my new Enigma in Genten!"

"Enigma? Oh, the new generation combat orbment," Ries nodded to herself. She did not have access to the newer things, but she did hear from Estelle and Joshua that the researcher in Crossbell managed to integrate an orbal phone into a combat orbment. So that was what it was.

"Yes!" Juna nodded enthusiastically. "The SSS gave it to me last night, so I went to Genten to set things up."

Oh, so it was from the SSS? It made sense, considering Juna relied on them at the time she deduced the attack.

They passed the guild building when Juna started another conversation. "By the way, Miss Ries. Renne, Tita, and Agate were in the guild. Have you met with them yet? It has been a while since you met them, right?"

"Yes, I have met with Agate," Ries nodded at Juna's question. "But I still need to meet with Tita and Renne. From what I understand, the two were very busy, yes?"

"Yup, but their business is now done. If you'd like, you can visit them. They were still in the guild an hour ago. Oh, and they also stay in Long Lao, so we'd know if they were there," Juna explained.

"I see..." Ries replied. Maybe she'd visit them later.

In no time, they arrived at Long Lao, and Juna quickly ran towards the waitress. "Shanshan!"

"Juna!" The waitress named Shanshan also ran towards Juna, and the two hugged each other while jumping in joy. "It's been a week since you last visit! I really miss you!"

"I know, I know. I'm sorry that I can't visit more often, but more things are taking up my time," Juna faked a sob. "Still, it's always nice to meet you, Shanshan!"

The two jumped in joy for a little more before Shanshan broke the hug from the chef's call.

"Coming, father!" Turning to Juna, Shanshan gestured for them to take a seat but Juna shook her head.

"I'm going to talk to Master Zhang Hui."

Master? Ries noticed Juna's respect for the head chef.

"What? You want another lesson on cooking the Boiled Fish Hotpot from Dad?" Shanshan asked while leading them to the head chef, Zhang Hui. Ries followed behind the two younger girls who were immersed in their talk.

"Nah, it's for something else," Juna replied.

"Dad, Juna is here to see you," Shanshan greeted her dad once they arrived at the counter.

"Good, you're here. Take this order to table seven."

"Alright!"

Once the waitress left, Zhang Hui turned to Juna. "So? What do you want, kiddo? It's rare for you to bother me like this. Another lesson?"

"Nope," Juna shook her head. "Master, is there any empty room? May I borrow it for several minutes? I have something to talk about, and I need a private place. Please..."

She finished her words by putting together her palms.

Judging by the stern look on Zhang Hui's face, it seemed that Ries had to intervene. But when she took the first step, Zhang Hui's face softened, and he let out a rough chuckle.

"Alright. But you need to pay for it by helping Shanshan later," the man then threw Juna a key. "The last room."

"Understood, Master!" Juna saluted the chef after catching the key. "Let's go, Ries!"

Following Juna, Ries remarked, "You don't need to do that. I have the money for it."

"Eeh, I like helping Shanshan here. Not my first time doing it," Juna shrugged casually. "And besides, I'd feel bad making you spend money when I'm the one who needed this."

"...Alright."

The two soon arrived at the empty room. Juna put in the key and unlocked the door. Turning on the lamps, Juna and Ries sat on the edge of the bed.

"So..." Ries tried to broach the subject because just sitting there staring at the wall was really awkward. "Juna?"

"Yeah, Right. I'm gathering my thoughts," Juna raised her hand to let Ries know she was thinking about how to voice her thoughts. "Okay. Miss Ries... is it okay if I ask you about the Sept-Terrion?"

Ries held back a startled gasp. "...Sept-Terrion?"

Juna nodded. "Yeah, all I got from the library is that they're bestowed by the Goddess and were lost in ancient times. I'm hoping that you, as part of the Gralsritter might know more about it."

"...If I may ask, what for?" Ries asked the girl. She suspected that Juna understood the laws that governed things beyond Aidios' rules, so for Juna to suddenly ask her about the Sept-Terrion...

Ries had a bad feeling about all this.

"I haven't connected all the dots yet. I need information about Sept-Terrion first before I can do it," Juna sighed. "But it's fine if you can't tell me anything. I know this is supposed to be a big secret, and you can't blab it to outsiders."

Ries bit her lip. Should she? There was no denying the importance of Juna's ability to bypass the Goddess' Law to reach a conclusion. But this was not simple information that she could give to other people. This was something that the Septian Church didn't want just anybody to know because of how huge of a secret it was.

"The Aureole was a Sept-Terrion, right?" Juna suddenly asked her another question, bringing Ries out of her thoughts.

"...Yes." She could confirm at least that much since Juna knew the full story from the Brights.

"Which element was it?"

...At this point, Juna's insight shouldn't have surprised her. Ries sighed. "You know that much huh..."

"Well, duh. The 'Sept' in Sept-Terrion means seven; the elements are the only notable thing in this world that had seven in it. So Sept-Terrion most likely either governs or is limited by the elements," Juna answered with a shrug. "By that logic, the Aureole that appeared two years ago must have been associated with one of the seven elements."

Hold on.

"You know that 'Sept' means seven?" Ries raised her eyebrow.

"Huh?" Juna blinked. "That's common sense, isn't it? ...Oh wait, this is the thing about my 'incomprehensible facts' that nobody else should understand, huh?"

The young girl sighed at her own conclusion.

"...Yes... in any case, I shouldn't be surprised. Yet time after time, I'm always caught unprepared by you," Ries also sighed before looking at Juna.

"Ehehe..." Juna just laughed sheepishly. "Sorry."

Ries didn't feel any regret coming from the girl in front of her.

"So what was the element associated with Aureole?" Juna turned the conversation back to the original topic.

"Space. It was space," Ries answered shortly.

After hearing that, Juna put her fingers on her chin, thinking. "One in six... so seventeen percent chance of me being correct..."

Ries couldn't hear Juna's muttering, but she let her continue, as Juna was clearly thinking about something.

"Thanks for the information, Miss Ries. That's all I wanted to know."

So Juna didn't tell her anything, huh...

"You're welcome, Juna. If you have any more questions, you can find me. Although, like just now, I can't guarantee I will answer them," Ries stood up from the bed.

"Of course!" Juna smiled at her and followed. "Will you go back to the cathedral?"

"Yes." She would return to the cathedral and finish her work for the day. After that, she'd include Juna's question about the Sept-Terrion in her regular report without mentioning Juna. If her superior gave their permission, maybe she could tell her about the Sept-Terrion. "What about you?"

"I think I'll try using my new Enigma on Eastern Crossbell Highway," Juna brought out her Enigma and stared at it.

"Good luck, Juna. See you later."

"See you later, Miss Ries!"

On her way out, however, Ries smelled the heavenly scent of food on Long Lao and ended up ordering several servings.

A/N: I hope you've noticed what I did in this and the previous chapter. If you don't, well... in Juna's words, I put a weight in the relationship between Juna and Arios. It is a weight that only us as a reader can see. Juna might see it if she looked back on herself, but well, it's Juna. However, there is one more person who might understand the weigh in the story. Let's see if that person notice it. And also, Juna is now gathering all the pieces of the puzzle, but not the full picture yet, or in her words, she's seeing the dots, rearranging it, but not connecting it yet. Slow down people, the conference hasn't even started.