So the ruins connected to Paradise were in danger.
I asked Soph.
[It would be a problem if those ruins were destroyed, wouldn’t it?]
[If it were just you, you could go to the planet called Paradise, but it would be impossible for anyone else.]
If it were just me, I could get to Paradise from here by passing through the Venus ruins.
But I was the only one capable of changing paths during spatial transfer.
[Can’t you add coordinates to these ruins, like you did on Trappist?]
On that planet, Soph had been able to add coordinates to the ruins.
Soph had put the Ice Planet’s coordinates into the terraforming ruins, and had also added the city ruins and the Wizard’s Tower.
[This is a place without dark energy. Besides, these ruins have already been modified into machinery, so they’re difficult for me to touch.]
To think that Earth’s science had caused problems like this, not just shortening their lifespan.
If Soph had been able to interfere, he could probably have improved their performance too.
But if they had not been modified, we would never have been able to go to Trappist, so there was no helping it.
[Then those ruins must not be destroyed right now.]
Paradise was a refuge meant to evacuate people.
There was no point in me going there alone.
That did not mean there was anything I could do here.
Besides, I had something else to do right now.
After handing over the luggage, we took the elevator up to the surface.
When no one else was in sight, people began to talk.
“It feels like it’s been years since I came to Earth.”
“Same here. And with my strength gone, it feels strange too.”
At Hanna’s words as she looked around, Sergeant First Class U moved his arms and replied.
They were speaking in Korean, but Tom could understand simple Korean.
“You’ll adjust quickly. It was similar for us when we came back from Paradise.”
Having been to Earth before, he spoke to Sergeant First Class U as though he were the senior here.
The squad members were happy to have come to Earth, but the Korean who had come with us, the astronomy college student, was not.
He clutched the elevator railing and kept muttering.
“I’m back. I survived... I’m alive.”
It was a sight I had seen often on battlefields.
Classic PTSD symptoms—in simpler terms, his mind had snapped.
It was pitiful, but it was also a common sight in wartime.
There was nothing to be done about it. All one could do was look away.
The others did the same.
Ignoring him, Margreta and the woman from the advance team were quietly talking.
“Adriana, I didn’t expect you to come.”
“Carlo asked me to.”
At the woman’s words, Margreta looked surprised.
“Everyone knows Carlo worried about you. But I didn’t think you’d listen to him.”
At Margreta’s words, Carlo’s lover, Adriana, smiled.
“He asked me to look after his family. It’s probably just an excuse to send me to Earth, but I couldn’t refuse when he asked me to invite his family to America and help them receive tickets.”
“That’s right, Carlo’s family was in South America, wasn’t it?”
“Carlo came to America to study and got citizenship. Even if tickets are sent to his whole family this time, we don’t know what will happen if they’re foreigners.”
At Adriana’s words, Margreta nodded.
In the end, Carlo was staying behind to secure Azar black stones, while his lover came to Earth to take care of his family?
I had known Carlo cared terribly for his lover, but it seemed she was the same.
Carlo had chosen a good method.
Sending his lover to Earth while also helping his family at the same time.
“I’ll bring this up with the higher-ups too. There may be more cases like Carlo’s.”
“I’d be truly grateful if you did, Margreta.”
At Margreta’s words, Adriana expressed her thanks.
It was an amusing sight.
It had begun as an ordinary conversation, but considering the result, it meant Carlo had made a request to the intelligence agency.
The two women’s conversation seemed to be a mixture of human affection, personal connections, and political maneuvering.
[This is why they say life is an extension of politics.]
Perhaps because Soph had lived in a world of nobles, he said something rather plausible after listening to the women’s conversation.
Just then, on the other side, the Chinese man and the researcher were also talking.
“Have you obtained any good results?”
At Secretary Li’s question, the researcher shook his head.
“No. Dark energy is such an absurd power, after all. There’s no way we’d get any real results from studying a civilization that uses it for only a month or two. I’m just here for an interim report.”
Seeing him even sigh, it did not seem like empty politeness.
Secretary Li seemed to think the same.
“I see.”
As Secretary Li nodded, the researcher asked him,
“Have you gained anything, Secretary Li?”
“Well. I’ve seen quite a lot, but I don’t know whether any of it will be useful. I don’t know the situation on Earth either.”
As Secretary Li spoke, he glanced at me.
The researcher also looked at me, then nodded with the same expression.
“That’s true. I hope things go well.”
I did not know why the two of them had reached an understanding while looking at me, but that was how their conversation ended.
Clunk.
The elevator arrived at the surface.
Everyone who came out of the tent looked up at the sky.
A sky and sun different from Trappist’s.
Fortunately, the weather was good today.
It was also very warm for early winter.
As everyone looked around, Catherine spoke.
“Everyone except Margreta and Deputy Commander Hyeon, follow me. As I told you before we departed, we need to receive your oaths. You two can talk with me later.”
The oath Catherine mentioned was an oath to keep Earth’s destruction secret.
Of course, it was not an oath, but a geas using an artifact.
The people who had already been told before coming followed Catherine.
Both the people who had come with us and the squad members.
They would receive the geas and then each go their separate ways.
Of course, the squad members had promised to come to Margreta’s office.
I said goodbye to the others and headed to her office with Margreta.
Her container, the same as always.
Today, the agent who managed the container was nowhere to be seen.
I handed Margreta the potions.
“These are the stimulants I made in the underground city, enough for one hundred people. If you use them all, you should get at least one energy user.”
If this produced results, I would end up negotiating anew with the U.S. government.
However, I still had not decided what I should trade for.
[If you want to establish a city-state or a country, it would not be a bad idea to secure autonomy first.]
Establish a country?
Perhaps because he was an archmage from a kingdom, Soph’s way of thinking was on a different level.
For a moment, I felt tempted, but I shook my head and came to my senses.
Now was not the time to think about that.
Besides, Margreta did not take the potions.
“It seems you’ll have to hand them over yourself.”
I held the glass bottles and looked at Margreta.
“The deputy director and the director are both out of the United States right now. They’re not in a position to come here either.”
At Margreta’s words, I remembered what I had heard earlier.
The war that had broken out in the Middle East.
“Don’t tell me...”
“Yes. The director is in Europe, and the deputy director has gone to the U.S. military base in Djibouti.”
Since it was a war taking place far away, I had thought it had nothing to do with me for the moment, but that was not the case.
“It seems the situation is more serious than I thought.”
“Yes. It seems fighting has broken out near the base and the ruins as well.”
At that point, it was no different from being in the middle of a battlefield.
“Several aircraft carriers are heading there under the pretext of defending the base, but right now there’s only one in the Gulf of Aden. It seems pulling troops out to avoid other countries’ attention ended up making the situation worse.”
Fighting was happening right under their noses, yet they had no forces available for immediate support.
If Russia truly had instigated this, they had struck at a weakness perfectly.
“Did Russia not know?”
Even if it had weakened economically, Russia was still one of the world’s second- or third-ranking military powers.
To proceed without informing a country like that of Earth’s destruction...
I could not tell whether secrecy had been that important, or whether it was the arrogance of the world’s strongest nation.
“Until recently, China didn’t know either. Korea didn’t know before the war, and even now, aside from China, only a few allies know.”
Thinking about it, that might have been only natural.
Before obtaining the Azar black stones, they would only have been able to save a few thousand people.
There was no way the United States would have been willing to share such a small number with other countries.
“In the end, did Russia figure something out?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know the details either, but it seems something went wrong.”
Whatever the plan was, it was only natural for things to go wrong, so it was not incomprehensible.
Still, a war in a situation like this...
A sigh escaped me on its own.
To be honest, I was not worried about going to a war zone.
A nuclear missile was not going to come flying at me right away, and even if it was a war zone, it could not be harder than fighting controlled entities.
Besides, I had been planning to visit Paradise anyway, and I did not want the connection to Paradise to be cut off either.
So I decided to go with Margreta.
I briefly said goodbye to the squad members who had returned after receiving the geas.
I could not drag squad members who had barely made it back to Earth into a battlefield again.
On Earth, they were ordinary people.
To them, a battlefield was nothing but a dangerous place.
Hanna, Sergeant First Class U, and Tom decided to go to Seoul with Jeong Ilsu.
Though he could no longer return to his home country, Tom seemed happy just to be going to Seoul.
“I should have a blast for the first time in ages. I’ll go to an internet café, go to karaoke, and since they said they’d book us a five-star hotel, I’ll have plenty of fun even if I just go to the hotel club.”
As expected of an American.
He worked hard when it was time to work, but he also knew how to go all out when it was time to play.
Sergeant First Class U went to meet his family, and Hanna seemed to plan to rest at the hotel.
I felt sorry for Hanna, who said she would stay only at the hotel even after returning to her homeland, but knowing her circumstances, I could not say anything.
“Come back safely. You don’t need to worry. You’ll be all right.”
Was her prophetic ability a power that did not use dark energy?
I had heard it before, but Hanna seemed able to foresee things even on Earth.
Instead, she told me not to worry, then headed to Seoul with the squad members.
I boarded a transport plane in Pyongyang with Margreta.
Catherine boarded the transport plane as well.
Our destination was the U.S. military base in Djibouti, beside Somalia and Ethiopia.
It was where the ruins connected to Paradise were located.
Transport plane.