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Late Evening - Late Winter - Year 24 : Just South of Ampelos

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"~You can't be serious... The entire island?~" Hera, looking taken aback, immediately shot me a look of disbelief. "~You heard her say how big the island was, did you not?~"

"~I know it sounds insane, but...~" Changing to my normal voice, I was quick to turn back to Chioni as she was speaking to another researcher. "When the island shifts, do you know if it's the entire island?"

The other researcher, an older, bright sky-blue dragon, immediately spoke up before continuing to speak to Chioni. "Yes, the whole island shifts a very similar amount."

That meant the entire island was built upon the same surface, whether it was a tectonic plate or an Acardi structure moving.

-Holy shit...- "~No wonder you didn't know this island existed.

..~" Looking over at Hera, my gaze softened before slowly drifting out over the water.

"~It must be a wreckage from the war...~" -The Acardi crew logs pretty regularly mentioned a mothership. .. So I wonder...-

But while my mind raced and I wanted to do nothing more than dive into the water and see if my theories were right, this wasn't the time or place for me to run off and do whatever I wanted.

"Hm, so you three are associated with the Ragnarok family and wanted to check things out?"

Hera was quick to step up noticing I was sidetracked. "That's correct. We have some ideas on what it could be, and, after seeing it, are fairly certain we can fix it."

"Is that so?" Tilting his head as he looked at me, the Elder looked puzzled.

But Chioni was quick to lift her glasses off with her aura and put them in front of him.

"Ah..." Nearly instantly, he jolted slightly and the nonchalant sway in his tail ceased.

"I apologize if my doubts appear rude.. but the other day we had a different Ancient come by to test things for us, and even they could hardly reach the hotspot on the surface.

Of course, I'd expect you wouldn't have come here without knowing that. .."

-Hoh? He can see our auras?- Looking at the glasses as Chioni gently set them back on her snout, I used a bit of my aura to check out the map of runes in the lens before the man turned to lead the way.

"In any case, let us go inside. We can discuss your ideas and plan over tea."

-Hm... I'll have to ask her about those when I get a chance...- Quickly following the man into one of the small huts, a few hours rather rapidly ticked by.

Starting with discussion about their findings with the hotspot itself and answering some of his questions about 'radiation', we moved on to explaining how Hera and I were going to handle the situation.

Considering Chioni hadn't brought up or even mentioned that I said I was going to wait for the Atlas team, I moved the schedule forward, saying I was going to begin investigating immediately.

Of course, this implied I would keep my distance, however, that was not the case. My real intention was to investigate it closely and figure out just how dangerous it was before using the opportunity to train Krystallo with her aura and temper her body a bit.

But it was more than enough to satisfy him, so after a bit more idle discussion, we had made our identity and plans quite clear, and Matio left us to resume his duties in another nearby hut.

However, he was the only one to leave. After acting like she was getting ready to leave, the moment the elder got out of earshot, Chioni turned to us.

"You know, we agreed you three would wait until the Atlas group arrived before investigating the hotspot.

" Giving me a stern look, she spoke with a shockingly annoyed tone.

"You know if something happens to you, it will fall on my shoulders, right? "

Hera immediately cracked a smile, nearly letting out a chuckle.

"Haah..." But I could only sigh. "Those glasses help you see mana, correct?

" Looking at the runes again, it was fairly obvious they amplified the energy of photons passing through the lens, and as a consequence, would shift the entire visible light spectrum up a touch.

For dragons, this meant they could see into the middle, or longer wavelengths, of the ultraviolet spectrum as compared to just the shorter wavelengths.

"Y..Yes..." To some, such a shift may not yield anything, but for others, it could open a window into a whole different world.

-If done right, it can make even fairly insensitive eyes see auras...- But just as it could be amplified, the glow of mana could also be suppressed, and Hera and I hid ours regularly in order to avoid unwanted attention during the festival.

However, even with the cover, we looked like middle-aged ancients and had the auras to match in the eyes of nearly everyone. *VWOOM* But the moment I stopped the light magic mask I used, the space around us lit aglow, and the poor girl's confidence simply evaporated.

Shriveling up in an instant, her entire demeanor shifted, clamping her wings to her body, tucking her tail, and lowering her snout to the point her glasses fell off her snout. "U-Uh-!"

Cutting her off, I used a bit of aura to make her look up.

"Look, we aren't here to cause trouble, we're just trying to see what's going on and fix the issue if it's something you guys can't." Trying to put a bit of the enriched mana in my aura on her to calm her down, her momentary shaking rapidly eased.

"I know you're suspicious of us, but don't be.

" Speaking calmly knowing things were settled, Hera slid her a small mythril and rose gold tablet with the Monarch's insignia on it.

"We happened to be in the area for the festival but since it seems like the city is about a month away from needing to be evacuated, we figured it was worth checking out. "

Eventually recognizing the insignia, Chioni went wide-eyed before tapping the tablet to hear a satisfying, solid ping. "A-Ah, I see!" But shockingly, verifying the tablet was real only made her nervousness and panic vanish. "So you two are close with the new Monarch!"

Hera and I immediately side-eyed one another.

"I apologize for being a little suspicious. When we first got here to investigate everything, we ran into some.. odd people. I was worried you were with them."

The air in the room shifted in an instant. -Huh?- "What do you mean?"

"Well, when we first started coming down here to see what was going on, about a day after the hotspot appeared, we ran into a bunch of people saying they just came to check out the source of the quake, but among the many, there were a few that would return quite regularly, and would give a different excuse each time. "

Raising her head a bit, Hera's joking mood turned serious. "Did you report the suspicious activity?"

"Y-Yes, but I don't think anything came of it.

" Knowing we were going to ask why, she hastily continued.

"If I had to guess, it was because other theories about it being a natural phenomenon were simply more likely than it being the likes of an artifact, so it would surprise me if the reports were thrown away.

The people only stopped coming around after the hotspot continued to grow after a few days. "

"I see..." Pausing to think, Hera glanced toward the door before speaking more softly. "I'd like for you to write down the descriptions of everyone you saw come to the area, as detailed as you can, and specifically mark anyone you thought was extra suspicious."

"~Are you wanting to have them all investigated?~"

Hera immediately nodded. "~You're thinking it too, right? If it's coming from the Acardi wreckage.. it wouldn't just ignite out of nowhere...~"

"~ That's true, but it's also exceedingly unlikely that people have figured out fission, you know... To burn this hot for this long, it would need an unbelievable amount of uranium.~" But it was true I couldn't shake all my suspicions.

So, after taking a day to jump around Bahamut through the void, and getting the foreign intelligence agency to look into about a dozen people, I decided to go check it out myself.

Leaving Krystallo with Hera at the research outpost on land, I jumped through the void into the thick snow cloud coming from the hotspot and dove in, slicing through the plume of steam stretching into the ocean as if I was falling into an endless hole.

Until finally, the thinning plume of steam I was diving into had shrunk to about fifty meters, and I spread my wings.

*WOOSH-SPLASH* Slamming through the wall of water, I glided out into the unexpectedly open ocean, using my aura to try and see through the unbelievably dense, salt-flake-filled water before finally seeing my target.

Another few hundred meters down, there was the source of it all, a single large, roaring antimatter reactor melting down, barely transferring enough heat to the surrounding water to keep its shell from completely deteriorating and rupturing while sparks of plasma-state uranium were spewing through small holes in its shell.

But the more I looked at everything, the worse it became.

.. -What psycho stuffed an antimatter reactor.

. with uranium..?- Looking just past the reactor, into a likely once-sealed room completely stuffed with fizzling uranium, I felt myself cringe -What psycho even gathered this much uranium in the first place. .?-

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