Chapter 152 – I Cannot Simply… Stand By and Let This Be!

At the edge of her vision, a light-brown ponytail swayed. Rofi's back, as she walked off led by Carol, was small and painful to see, as though she had resigned herself of her own accord.

I cannot just... stand by and let this be!

Letaria made up her mind and moved from cover to cover, keeping a sufficient distance from the two.

-- And then she focused her awareness on the magic sleeping inside her own body.

Letaria's magical senses could detect the presences around her and the "telltale beginnings of movement" as omens. Faint ripples of life. If she narrowed those down to the presences of Rofi and Carol alone, to the extreme, she would never lose them, even in a crowded city.

"..."

From time to time, Carol would stop short and glance around. She might be sensing the feeling of being followed.

But that wary gaze never caught Letaria. The tell "just before she turns around" was visible to Letaria in advance. The moment she sensed she was about to be noticed, she put distance between them and smoothly slipped behind a wall or a giant holographic pillar.

Slipping through the crowd like that, the two made their way out of the mall.

Outside was a corner of the commercial district, small but lively. With many shoppers and tourists coming and going, and the place full of cover to hide behind and miscellaneous presences, it worked in Letaria's favor as she tailed them.

Rofi...

She watched the small ash-gray head that appeared and disappeared through gaps in the crowd.

She had no idea who the girl really was, or what those plain clothes and the word "room" meant. But one thing Letaria felt with strong certainty: she could not let the girl be sent back into that cold darkness as things stood.

But as they advanced, the surrounding cityscape lost its color, and the atmosphere gradually shifted. Before she knew it, the place the two had stepped into was the industrial district she had visited yesterday as well.

There was no shortage of cover in itself -- giant containers, layers upon layers of pipelines. But apart from the noisily moving work Makina and the workers, the presence of ordinary people had dwindled drastically. From here on, tailing someone while minding the eyes around her would suddenly become much harder.

This was bad. If she kept following like this, she could be noticed even with walls in between...

She was wiping away a cold sweat and keeping herself hidden when it happened.

The two walked from the side of the road toward a stark, dark passage leading underground.

Letaria held her breath and watched from the shadow of a large truck far away. At the entrance to the passage stood a man with a rugged build who looked like a guard. When Carol and Rofi approached, the man bowed his head without a word. When he held his hand over an authentication panel on the wall, a heavy metal door slid open without a sound.

The two disappeared into the darkness beyond, as if being drawn in. Then the door was firmly shut, and the guard once again fixed his gaze forward and stood with arms planted.

"...I cannot follow any further."

A murmur slipped out.

Not only was a guard conspicuously posted, but if she lingered much longer in this thinly populated industrial alley, she would surely stand out as a suspicious person.

Letaria had no choice but to give up the pursuit.

◆◆◆

Carrying a murky, helpless feeling in her chest, Letaria stood alone, at a loss.

Rofi... is there truly nothing I can do...?

Only the warmth of the hand she had held seemed to linger in her right hand. If she had been stronger, if she had known more, she might even have been able to carry the girl off right then. Tormented by her own powerlessness, she moved her feet with no destination in mind.

As she walked, a familiar landscape suddenly leapt into view.

A towering no-entry fence. The factory grounds visible beyond it. It was the place where Letaria had stopped just before meeting Rofi yesterday.

The hangar of the building seen in the distance. Yesterday, that eerie slender Makina had been standing there. Now there was no sign of a Makina, only a hollow, empty space -- but this was the place. Without a doubt, it was where that machine of striking presence had sat enthroned.

That's right... how could she, of all people, have forgotten something so important...!

With a shock to her mind, the memory that had completely slipped away came flooding back.

That slender Makina. The mysterious machine that had appeared in the Restful Sector and towed the heavy machine away the other day. It had been kept right here in this factory. And Rofi had been sitting right under its nose.

That underground passage, this factory, and that Makina...! They could not possibly be unrelated!

Having remembered, Letaria shook her head quickly to switch gears and, heading for the linear car station, deliberately moved into an alley with few passersby.

She operated the bracelet terminal on her arm, selected "Grain" from her contacts, and pressed the call button.

"--Letaria!"

The instant the call connected, Grain's voice, a mix of impatience and anger, rang out through the speaker.

"I told you so clearly yesterday not to do anything reckless! Merry's been worried too--"

"I shall hear that lecture later, Grain!"

In a resolute voice that had returned to her usual self, she cut off Grain's words.

"It was there! Yesterday, right here... that slender Makina was here!"

"...What did you say...?"

At Letaria's words, Grain's tone changed on the other end. She could sense him draw a breath.

"Understood. Come back to the hotel right away. Something's come up on our end too."

Letaria nodded at Grain's words.