- inside the Castle’s guests chamber, Ersten, The Capital of the Kingdom of Apollyon –

- 2105hrs –

that moment completely stunned Clarisa to the point she dropped the cookie she was holding, “Y-your majesty, did you arrange this meeting by yourself?”

“well yes I did” She placed her palm on his forehead, “He’s not having a fever… Your majesty, did you drink a few minutes ago?”

Somnus that felt irritated, pinched her ears roughly. “that’s some funny statement you got there Miss Clarisa…. I hope you don’t mind a week of house arrest”

“Ow Ow Ow! I beg your pardon your majesty! I truly apologize for my unbecoming acts!”

He let go of the pinch he gave, though his expression is still stern yet kind. Albeit the fact that Clarisa does help him go through a lot of troubles in the past. He then turned his attention towards the Wolfenford family that was sitting across the table.

“Wolfenford, I assume your proposal earlier was agreed upon by your upper echelons?” the man in question, put down his tea, smirking.

“Your Majesty, I myself am the one that is in command of this mission, and my hirer didn’t state which nation should I have talks with, they just stated that we need a diplomatic relation with this world as a whole.”

“Well, that’s convenient to have the ones in command of the ship aforementioned by you present here. Have you contacted your crew yet?”

He crossed his arms, and frowned, as he wasn’t able to receive any comms from Yukikaze’s Bridge for days. Though he has this lingering suspicion that it has something to do with the abnormally huge wall of light called the “world gate”. “Unfortunately, my small craft that could receive a transmission from outside the atmosphere was disrupted by an unknown energy blanketing this world.” He glanced at Christina who was nonchalantly drinking tea, though she realized that he was blaming her due to his stare.

“What? It’s not my fault, it’s already been there ages ago”

“Well honestly, I could just fly my fighter around 29km up in the stratosphere and tell the ship commander to land on the fjord but I won’t take the plausibility of having my plane disintegrated trying to fly through that blanket of energy, also…” he took another sip on his tea, the smell remembered him a thought he came up a few hours ago. “You did say that this war was waged for over a couple of hundred years right? Then…” he stopped for a moment, thinking of the right words for the question he wanted to ask.

“Then what?” Jaeger opened his mouth but he couldn’t continue, hesitating due to something in his mind.

“… nothing, never mind”

The wind from the window blew harder and the air got colder, sending them slightly shivering as the arctic wind from across the continent went inside. Somnus then bid them farewell as he wanted to return to his room as it was getting late, followed by Clarisa after she thanked them for inviting her for tea. As the two left, the room is quiet, though, some of the cold breezes could still get into Christina’s room as she didn’t fully close the window since Christina liked the cold air. Jaeger, now sitting on the sofa, opened his wrist multifunction display and scrolled down onto the folder that he sorted out back then. As he tapped on the file, it opens up a full display of the continent’s geology and thinking about where should the Yukikaze land if he could confirm his situation and send out an atmospheric re-entry order.

“Hmm? What’s that on your wrist?” Christina, that has just finished changing into his sleep attire, caught a glance at the thing that he was seeing and was intrigued.

“Oh, this? It’s just a piece of equipment like some sort of smartphone… wait… you don’t even know what a phone is…” he then explains how the wrist MFD works and about the file that he’s seeing currently.

“You do know that every port in this world can’t even have that ship docked right? It’s way too huge for our current technology”

“I know, that’s why I could tell them just send a smaller vessel to dock on the capital port”

“It could carry more vessels?” he then turned on his hologram projector, viewing a model of a certain ship class. “here’s the ship, it’s a small frigate that could be launched from the landing strip of the Yukikaze and has a crew of 400, probably enough for the other top brass members of the ship and their marine escort to be with them”

Either is he lacking the native’s common sense or he’s just trying to flex Earth’s technology, Christina could only facepalm herself “Small? You call this ship small?? Though I admit it was far smaller than the capital ship but that size is still humongous for common sense here”

“Ah- you had a point there, but I can’t just land the capital ship in the middle of the country because there are no ports that could be docked with, so probably this one ain’t going to cause that much of an uproar”

She could only shake her head, sighing. As she look outside the window when she lay down in bed, the moon is already high up, and even though she was tired, Jaeger is still fiddling with his equipment and mumbling alone, talking to Ofnir. “Achilles, are you not tired? That duel earlier morning…”

“I’m fine, it’s not like I slept that well at your mansion last night anyway” recollecting what earlier morning was like, Christina grew a teasing grin on her face.

“Hoo~ so you DID have fun with her last night”

“that’s the last thing I wanted to hear from my mother that’s more or less a couple of century old granny with alcohol addiction”

“Oi” he had some chuckle for a moment, the hilarious interactions with his long-lost mother somewhat made him feel at ease from all of the bullshit he had during the past years.

“Anyway, I’m going to sleep, could you please get back to your room” He nodded and stood up from the sofa, right after he attached the MFD tablet back to his left arm of the exoskeleton chassis. “Thanks for the tea, it’s quite good”

“The word “quite” is an understatement Achilles, it’s amazing! I never got tired of the taste of the Palace’s tea”

“Well… I had my own preference, the flavour is kinda above average for me. Well then, I’ll be taking my leave” She waved at him as he left the room then proceed to lock the door by using her telekinesis.

While she was laying around and reading a book that she materialized out from a space-time tear or known as “Spatial Inventory”, Christina hummed a song that she really liked that was sung by her husband back then with a smile on her face. “Night changes huh? The singers sure know how to name a good song”, she said as she felt the cool breeze coming from the slightly opened balcony.

In the next room, the mercenary is fiddling with his exoskeleton through his MFD tablet while sitting on the bed, trying to readjust the settings and sensitivity of the servos. Ofnir on the other hand, keep feeding him with various information from the drones it deploys throughout the kingdom.

“Sir, it appears that some of the country’s territories or should I say, lands, were slightly unbalanced in terms of infrastructure. Some of the territories have their social status difference very appealing while some lands had very developed infrastructures”

“So? Isn’t that the same situation back on earth until now?”

“Well, you do have a point” he couldn’t hold his laughter on how that information was actually kind of not that important was actually the ones that Ofnir brought up first.

“Seriously, aren’t you an AI powered by a micro quantum computer? These aren’t the information that I needed currently”

“Sir, your order was to collect data about how the Kingdom, doesn’t this also categorized as one?” he stopped for a moment as Jaeger know Ofnir also has a point. He then told the correct order of the data that he wanted to get first, prioritizing the geographical mapping and military prowess of the kingdom itself. Even though it’s considered espionage, he didn’t hesitate to give the order and told it he’ll be responsible if the drones were discovered and were ever to be shot down. Ofnir, who was slightly conflicted, didn’t say a word and do what he says.

“Say, what does this setting do when I activate it?” Jaeger said as he point to the screen that was illuminating his face in the dim room. On the screen, it was an abbreviation, stating “U.O.D”

“Oh, the “Unlock Overdrive Deterrent”? it’s basically a Limiter for your exoskeleton, I suggest it be deactivated as it would be catastrophic to your body tissue and joints”

“Oh…” a mischievous smile grew on his face and as he “unintentionally” pressed the option to turn it on, “whoops, my hand slipped”

“For the love of goddess Jeanne! Sir! What have you done!”

He laughed as Ofnir scolded him about his troublesome character, “though, hearing that my sister is your goddess made me cringe for some reason.”

“don’t ask me why, It’s Miss Jeanne that programmed me”

Jaeger was still curious about how powerful would the exoskeleton be when the limiter is off, so he stood up from his bed. Currently, it’s still in off/idle condition so the UOD isn’t activated. And as he activated his exoskeleton fully, just by thinking about running to the wall, he was jerked off by it at breakneck speeds… literally. He crashed into the wall, rocking the surrounding. Jaeger is now planted to it, creating a wall crack shaped like his body, and now grunting in pain.

Christina, who was almost asleep, rushed to his room and breached the door by kicking it, shocked to see her son faceplant himself on the wall. “Achilles! Are you okay?! What just happened?!”

The man in question was stuttering as the pain was severe,”ughh… Limiter… off… joints… broken…”, he said as he flop down to the floor with a great metallic thud that was caused by the frame of the exoskeleton on his back, now laying unconscious. Ofnir laughed aloud with his speakers, confusing Christina even more.

“HAHAHA! I told you that limiters are off limits! Get it?” it then laughed more. In the meantime, the Archmage witnessing the shenanigans could only facepalm herself at his son’s utter stupidity.

“So, this is what August says “fuck around and find out” huh?”

Though, in all seriousness, she was still worried. To think that the equipment he uses could cause such damage to his body is concerning her, though she can’t do anything as it was attached to his spinal cord, one wrong move he would be disabled for good. She suppress her overprotective motherly urge and healed him with a spell instead, then lift him up to his bed and left the room to let him rest.

The next morning around 5 am, as one maid came to wake Jaeger up for breakfast, she was surprised that the wall has a crack that resembles a human being smacked at it, she ran out and caused an uproar throughout the castle, spreading rumours about there’s an assassination attempt to the King’s guest. the words reached the King, though… He is now chuckling as he was told by the man who caused the crack on the wall himself about the incident last night after he was summoned by him after breakfast.

- Yukikaze’s bridge, 420 thousand km above Verdia, on the great moon crater –

- 1100hrs, same day –

All of the flight operations crew is still in panic for 4 days straight since Jaeger’s disappearance. The fact that he and his aircraft vanished in thin air could not be comprehended by their logic. Jeanne is now twiddling her fingers, still uneasy about no report of any findings of a faint SOS signal from the surface of the planet.

She then had enough waiting and slammed her fist to the arm of her chair, shocking the whole bridge crew. “How long does it takes to scan the damn surface of this world just to find an SOS signal!!? One of our capable men is going to be considered MIA at this rate!!”

“But Commander, Ma’am, we already said that the atmosphere is blanketed by some sort of- “, She then glared at the navigation officer that was trying to reason why they couldn’t find any indication of Jaeger’s whereabouts. The female officer then went silent as she didn’t want to anger Jeanne further.

In the midst of the tense atmosphere, one of the officers of the Intelligence & Warning crew burst into the bridge, he was panting as he exhausted himself just to run from his post to the bridge.

“What is it this time?” Jeanne glared while she said that, making the man slightly shiver in fear. “c-commander… the atmospheric coating… has slightly dissipated… and I received a faint SOS signal from the O4NR unit that was assigned to Lt. Col. Wolfenford!”

Jeanne’s eyes grew wide in joy as the news was a good one for her to hear. “What does it say?! Tell me!”

“O4NR stated that we all could proceed to re-entry and have one of our frigates docked to the nation’s capital port located on the south of the biggest continent, Jaeger’s mission would be considered successful”

“Good work Petty Officer Xin Feng Li, you could return to your post” Feng then saluted and left the bridge. On his way back, he got a call from the Navigation officer. He pressed the button on his mono headset to answer her, hearing her sigh as an opening.

“Thank goodness you brought that news; we won’t know what reckless order Jeanne would give if she went into a breakdown.” He then turned right on a T-junction of the ship corridor, greeted a fellow crewmen that passed by. Though, he also chuckled to the Navigation officer’s relief.

“But still… is Lt. Col Achilles is THAT essential for our mission? I mean, we could’ve just take our ship down and do what we’re ordered by the institution right?”

“I could agree, but it’s about choosing the correct partner, if ABEL accidentally made a pact with a corrupt nation, this might cause the whole political and economy of Verdia be conquered by said example country and it will be bad as they might turn against us someday. That’s why we need to send someone to assess the political situation there.”

“Fair point… though, if he just disappeared within thin air like several days ago, couldn’t we just send a replacement?” the Navigation officer sighed. She does agreed with him but that would be considered too harsh to assume that the man that is very decorated die that easily.

“I don’t think so, the Commander is a brocon after all” Feng tilted his head in confusion while opening the Intelligence Room automated door.

“Brocon?”

“Yes, Brocon”

“English, Sasha” She giggled since it’s the first time he said her name while on duty, “It means Brother Complex, do I need to explain more? Ah, the commander just ordered for us to initiate re-entry, I’ll talk to you later.”

Back at the bridge, Sasha was smiling on her own as she ended the call with Feng saying “Love you” at the end. She and the Petty Officer have their relationship kept from the other crew members, though she often secretly went to his quarters to have more intimate relationship. Shaking off personal feelings, she then proceed to give waypoint for the ship to re-entry and give a greenlight to the commander to give the order.

“Yukikaze! Activate cloak and proceed to re-entry! Operation Handshake is a go!” exclaimed Jeanne. The Ship then hovered away from the crater and proceed to go with her full speed, activating the cloaking system in the process. Though, something is lurking in the shadows of space watching the ship from afar, unknown to them…