Date A Mysterious Being

Chapter 54 - Upgrade

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After travelling in the bus for about 10 minutes, Shidou, together with Tohka, Kurumi, Origami, Reine and the Yamai sisters from the next class, arrived at Ratatoskr's underground facility. Ratatoskr had originally employed its floating airship Fraxinus as its headquarters; however, it had suffered critical damage in the previous warship battle and was in repair. Therefore, Shidou and the others had occupied the nearby underground facility as their impromptu base.

At the security check, Shidou and Tohka parted from each other as they were approaching the command room. Despite the fact that they were specifically instructed to wait in another room caused Tohka to feel dissatisfied, Shidou had to discuss strategies once a new Spirit appeared. It was best not to let the other Spirits see the scenario.

As Shidou stepped inside the command room, he felt a complicated sense of nervousness directly on his face. The crew of Fraxinus all assembled in front of their respective automation console monitors within the room, urgently carrying out their tasks.

"You're here,"

Kotori retorted while sitting on the captain's seat in the center of the command room.

Seeing Shidou beside her, Kotori switched her ribbons, undeniably to black. She wore her military uniform with crimson stripes on her shoulders.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting." Reine, who came here together with Shidou, took off her white overcoat and sat on an empty seat.

"No, you've done well."

"Alright, the situation is like this."

"Ah...how did that come about? You said that meteorite was generated by a Spirit, but the spacequake warning didn't ring. Is it an unhostile apparition? But immediately attacking the school... could it be targeting Tohka and the others?"

"-U-un..."

Towards Shidou's question, Kotori adopted a perturbed expression and held her chin.

"What in the world is going on? To be honest, even I haven't the slightest idea."

"Wh-what does that mean?"

"Hmm... Show the current site on the monitor." The crew began to operate their consoles.

Then, on the large screen in front, the world map was projected. Red dots were scattered over every continent, island and ocean.

"This is....?"

"Aye, an unknown object appeared in your school's campus, right? These identical phenomena occurred in every marked location on the map simultaneously."

"Wha...?" Shidou couldn't help but wrinkle his eyebrows and stare fixedly at the cartogram.

"All these places... at the same time?"

For a moment it was hard to believe, that artilleries dropped onto 42 locations in the whole world altogether, including a multitude of Anti-Spirit Team bases and various DEM industries' branches in many countries. Therefore, the possibility that it was a sniper operation done in response to sensing feeble spirit waves and magical power could not be eliminated.

"W-wait a moment. Even South America was raided! But isn't that on the other side of the world?! Were those locations attacked by duplicate Spirits like the Yamai sisters?"

"N-no, that doesn't seem to be the case. The Spirit is without a doubt a single entity. Also to be precise, that projectile isn't truly a meteorite," Kotori replied with a light shake of her head.

Kotori presumably knew that her words weren't completely clear. Flicking the now double lollipops in her mouth, she issued orders to the crew.

"Seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times. Play the video."