142: Something Unfathomable

"Back again, I'm back."

"Welcome back. Satā."

In the end, I returned the new doll to the ship of 'Sexy Miizuma,' and decided to investigate the doll that was finished off by Inakaini in greater detail within the Ether Space.

Well, it probably won't have much impact, so there's likely nothing to learn even if we do investigate.

"Welcome back, Vee-sama."

"Welcome home, Memo."

And just then, Memoqshi regained consciousness.

During the battle with Inakaini, I had blocked access via Virijianira, so now that the battle was over, Memoqshi should be salvaging from Inakaini and conducting investigations at various locations...

Perhaps Memoqshi decided it was best not to interfere further, since he's under Virijianira's command, and investigations in the Nerialni Potts system fall under the Imperial Army, intelligence units, and machine intelligences.

"Auto-navigation to the base colony's dock has been set. That should be a relief, right?"

"Yes. Just as Joharis said, we've reached a natural conclusion."

Joharis had arrived as well.

Incidentally, shortly after I arrived at the base located on Planet Niriyanipots 1, 'Sexy Miazuma' had been instructed to wait at a location slightly away from the base colony.

This arrangement was chosen for safety reasons from various perspectives—such as enabling a quick escape should anything happen—making it a more favorable option.

"Shall we share the information we've each gathered?"

"Understood."

"Got it."

"Roger that!"

For now, the immediate threat had passed.

With my spirits lifted, I sipped a carbonated drink that was mostly black but subtly shimmered with a faint rainbow hue, and began discussing the battle against Inakaini.

"That's right. The imperial general mentioned something similar."

Vilijanira continued, recounting the conversation she'd had with the imperial general after I defeated Inakaini.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

If they can create these fake cosmic monsters so easily, they could have them appear simultaneously across the entire empire, causing endless damage.

Yet the mastermind doesn't do it—probably because doing so wouldn't bring them profit, or because there's something in the empire that would expose them all at once if they tried.

Then again...

"There's no point in expecting anything. If they haven't moved by now, they're probably not on our side."

"I agree. At the very least, their character can't be described as anything but good."

"I think it's about right to consider the pattern of Organization A versus Organization B, both being evil."

"That's right. While they're almost certainly present, they're definitely unreliable. In that case, let's handle what we can manage on our own, just as we've done before."

That something is untrustworthy.

That is our unanimous conclusion.

"Moving on to the next point from the memo: Investigating the data left behind by Viscount Nierianitek will certainly take several days. Additionally, it appears the data became irreparably corrupted when the heretical mechanical intelligence Inakaini transformed into a cosmic monster-like entity, making it hopeless to obtain any information from the base where Inakaini was located."

The third point comes from the memo by Messix.

Gathering information from Inakaini is impossible, huh.

Well, I suppose there's nothing we can do about that.

Incidentally, according to Messix's memo, if I hadn't interrupted things there and severed Inakaini's connection with the other machine intelligences, at least several of them would have been brainwashed and would have had to be deleted.

Apparently, Inakaini's computational power alone was said to be on par with that of the mother intelligence among machine intelligences.

So, in case we get tangled up with some strange soldiers or intelligence operatives in the future because of this incident, we can expect full support from the machine intelligences.

Yeah, just remember that there's no need to worry.

"By the way, Lady Sata. You were researching the Sw of the Nelianipotts star system, weren't you?"

"Hmm? Ah, yeah. It's far from perfect, and by nature it can't be shown publicly. Plus, without my report, the Nelianipotts noble house might vanish entirely, so honestly I'm thinking about just stopping writing... But yes, it's there. What about it?"

"The data from the Nelianipotts noble house's suspicious records seems to be the key needed to unlock a certain seal. Could you send it to me later?"

I see, so it was used as a password or something. I'll send it over later.

That's probably the right place to mention how fortunate it was to have created the report on the Nelianipotts star system?

I should add a note cautioning against placing too much trust in it, since it's not guaranteed to be accurate.

"Now that you mention it, I suddenly wondered... Is that mysterious figure actually a cosmic monster? Otherwise, how could the OS alter biology or perform space jumps so casually?"

"I see... What do you think, Sata?"

"I don't know. I don't know... But I'd say it's more likely to be a regular human than anything else."

"Then why didn't it react to the Alien Mirror?"

"「「「……」」」"

Finally, a question from Joharis was raised... to put it plainly, it was a bomb.

"Joharis, memo. Deploy the 'Alien Mirror' immediately!"

"Y-yes, understood!"

"Understood."

"Sata. Recheck all previous data! I'll help too!"

"I'm already starting! Just wait a moment—since we're here, I'll also retrieve the data from my spatial jump. There might be similar data lurking somewhere."

Everyone immediately sprang into action, beginning the analysis... and they found it.

"So, it wasn't present at the moment we activated the 'Hetero Mirror,' huh...?"

"No, my teleportation was the same—there's residual spatial distortion left from when we transformed Inakaini into a space monster. That means, if we analyze it properly, the 'Hetero Mirror' could detect traces of the space monster for a short time."

"Then the mastermind isn't the space monster?"

"No, there's a slight anomaly in the data before Joharis performed noise removal. Sat, hypothetically speaking, if there were a space monster possessing an OS highly similar to 'Vanilla OS,' how do you think the 'Hetero Mirror' would react?"

"In that case, the response would be quite faint. The 'Hetero Mirror' is a mechanical mod designed to detect differences in OS. Damn it, it's frustrating, but our portable versions have inherent limitations in precision..."

"But with this, one thing has been confirmed."

A glimpse into the true identity of the幕后 force.

"The cosmic monster creating the 'Vanilla OS'-like entity is itself a cosmic monster possessing an OS highly similar to Vanilla OS. Based on the circumstances so far, it's likely either resembles humans in appearance, or possesses the ability to blend into human society like Satā did."

We nod in agreement with Vilijanira's words.

And we continued trying to search for data using the "Hisonkyō" as thoroughly as possible... Unfortunately, we were unable to uncover anything further.

12/29 Correction of Typographical Errors