Published at 31st of August 2019 2:35 am

Chapter III: The Song that Connects Memories and the Future

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

041

"So here is where you had been all this time, Miss Aurica."

"Ah, it's you! Don Leon!"

"It has been a long time since we last saw each other, Miss Aurica."

Don Leon, please save me. Get me out of this place.

"Miss Aurica, lo siento, but that's impossible. I can't cross this place."

Why?

Don Leon, you're the one who could always save me from anything.

"It's inevitable."

"This trench was created by you yourself, Miss Aurica. The one who refuses to be saved is you, tú misma."

Why? I just want to see Lyner! Why would I make something like this...!?

"You don't remember, correcto? Mirad, can you hear that echo?"

E-cho?

Y-yes... what's this?

No... it's scary.

A cursed voice... filled with hatred... no, I don't want to hear it...!

"Eso es. You formed this trench yourself because you didn't want to hear that voice. Por lo tanto, I'm unable to take you out from this place."

No... what should I do?

"If you cross over to this side, you'll have to hear that voice, no matter how much you don't want to. Sin embargo, this is the world where Lyner is. If you really want to meet that sujeto, you'll have to come here."

Don Leon...

"Only you can think and decide what you will do now, Miss Aurica. Buena suerte."

Wait, Don Leon! Don't go!

No, don't go!

042

"So, shouldn’t Lady Shurelia go and check the situation ASAP?"

Shurelia shook her head in an apologetic way in response to Jack's words.

"That wouldn't change the fact that I'm also a lifeform that receives her power from the Tower. If the echo of Mir's Song indeed remained as I'm expecting it did, it should be lodged inside the [Binary Field]."

"The Binary Field?"

"Umm, its formal definition is a bit complicated, so the simplest way to describe it would be that it is something like the Tower's Cosmosphere. As that is a world that doesn't exist upon the physical realm, it isn't common knowledge to everyone in the outer world."

"And that means that the minds of the Reyvateils are connected to such a place?"

Ayano asked.

After the women got out of the bath, they all met up with the men in a room Ayano had prepared and began exchanging information.

According to Shurelia's explanation, they learned that the cause of this rebellion apparently was because something was present in the [Binary Field], which was located in a place deeper than the Cosmospheres of the Reyvateils and served as the root to them, but she refrained from explaining any further.

"But the inside of a Cosmosphere isn't a place where we can go walking around and fighting."

"No matter how many funds or personnel we have available, even going into a mind it's..."

Radolf and Ayano said.

"You might be thinking that, but..."

Lyner said as he held a fork to his mouth. He seemed to have regained most of his strength once he finished eating. While it wouldn’t have been strange if the average person would have died right after they were inflicted the wounds Lyner suffered, he didn't look like he ever had gotten that badly wounded thanks to the effects of Misha’s healing magic. He hadn't just awakened as the hero who saved the world, though it seemed his awakening as an injured man was quite weak.

"Even if we say that it's the Tower's Cosmosphere, wouldn't that mean that anyone can Dive into it? Lady Shurelia's a Reyvateil and she would be defenseless if she went alone, but if a human comes along with her, won't that solve the problem? And I've also fought inside the Cosmospheres."

"It's really gonna be that simple?"

Krusche voiced her doubts to Lyner's proposal, which were also echoed in Shurelia's response.

"The result of a battle in the Cosmospheres depends entirely on the feelings the owner of that Cosmosphere has. Lyner, you have to keep on mind that in this case, you won't be able to get the owner of the Cosmosphere to cooperate with you regardless of the efforts you make."

"That might... be true."

Lyner remembered that whenever he got himself into a dangerous position in the Cosmospheres, his final fate depended entirely on the decisions of the Cosmosphere owner.

Shurelia continued.

"Furthermore, the [Binary Field]... isn't the mind of anyone. So if you Dive there, no one will come to save you. To begin with, there is no guarantee that you will return unscathed if you Dive into such a deep place."

"What would happen if anything went wrong?"

Misha asked.

"I couldn't find any records that set a precedent for this, so while I can't say it with a 100% certainty, it most likely would end in the complete annihilation of the Diver..."

"Complete extermination? That isn't peaceful at all..."

A shocked Radolf shook his head to Shurelia.

"Still, this is just conjecture. The body in the Dive Machine could remain intact, but it wouldn't be strange if the mind of the Diver was completely annihilated like I just said."

"However, we can do something about the echo of Mir's Song if we Dive, right?"

Lyner asked.

"That might be the case, but..."

Shurelia said as if she were regretting her own words.

"To begin with, it isn’t that the [Binary Field]... is restricted to just human access... in fact, the very act of entering the Binary Field in itself is impossible."

"Huh? But isn't that place similar to a Cosmosphere? And it's even connected to the Cosmospheres of the Reyvateils... so can't we just Dive into it using a Dive Machine?"

Shurelia shook her head.

"It's true they are connected, but the Reyvateils' Cosmospheres and the Tower's [Binary Field] are separated by a thick and hard wall. I think you must have seen it as a large door."

"Ah, you're right. Then the Binary Field is located on the other side of that door?"

Shurelia nodded.

"The reason why that wall exists is to keep the boundless amount of power present in the Binary Field from overflowing into the Reyvateils, which is why humans can't go through it."

"Then can't we do anythin’ about it?"

Jack sighed.

"But isn’t there something, anything we could do? If there's anything I can do, I'll gladly do it..."

Lyner didn't seem willing to give up, but as the problem at hand also included overcoming technological hurdles, he felt as if he was useless.

"If [Mir's Echo] does indeed exist, a similar incident will happen again in the future. So shouldn't we try doing something about it?"

"At least we hafta make an attempt to do somethin’."

Jack agreed with Lyner's opinion.

"That is why I'm saying it's too dangerous."

Radolf was being stubbornly cautious.

However, Ayano began talking with a strong voice.

"Anyway, I want to know what the cause is and if possible, get rid of it. We have plenty of research facilities we can put at your disposal, Lady Shurelia."

"Umm, what should we do...? Perhaps there is the possibility that we could do something about this situation, but..."

"As the company president, I'd be worried if our Reyvateils were overtaken by bouts of instability all the time. Krusche!"

"Y-yes, President!"

"Lend your help to Lady Shurelia. You can even freeze the airship projects temporarily if you need, but make sure to verify if this supposed Mir's Echo exists or not, and find a way to eliminate the cause of this problem."

"I'll do my best."

Krusche nodded with a complex expression.

Then, the group split up.

043

"Why always has Lyner to be like that?"

Aurica was sitting down on a bed, surrounding her knees with her arms.

And sprawled over that same bed, Misha turned to look at her.

"Why has he always to run off and leave us alone?"

As she talked, Misha noticed that she never had the chance to be alone with Aurica and talk to her in the way they were doing right now.

That shouldn't be the case, but maybe it was because the times both spent like this didn't leave much of an impression on them. And it's also because the times Aurica was with her, Lyner was around too. When it came to Misha, if Lyner was in that place, she naturally would have her thoughts centered on him.

"Yeah, but that isn't always the case."

What Aurica whispered to herself was more like she was asking and answering herself than seeking a reply from Misha. That's how Aurica typically was. However, Misha still replied to her. As a girl who had Lyner in her thoughts, similarly to herself, maybe she wanted to know what Aurica was thinking. However, it was mostly because she also was in the mood for a bit of idle chatter.

"You see, it doesn't mean that he does this to leave us alone, but because Lyner neglects himself over everything else. All the time."

Aurica turned to face Misha. The face she had was as if she had been given the correct solution for a riddle.

"But really, why has he always to be like that? He makes us worry so much about him."

Aurica put her face between her knees and sighed loudly and long.

"Yeah, but it's not like we can change him."

Misha lied on the bed, completely exhausted.

"Especially today: despite being so wounded, he still was the first on line to go fight..."

"He still looked pretty cool as he fought though."

"Hey, that's not fair! If you saw him fighting, that means you even got to sing for him!"

Aurica raised her face from between her knees and began pouting at Misha. Misha just turned her face to look at the ceiling, and as she turned back to look at Aurica, she put on an unconcerned smile.

"Well, it's not like it could be helped. It was all because a certain someone decided to go walking around all by herself.'

"Ugh. T-that was... because of that... creation of Mir... or something..."

"You mean the echo? Thanks to that, you had Lyner go and find you, so aren't you glad about it?"

Misha stretched one of her hands to Aurica and began poking her in the abdomen.

"No! Stop, Misha! Don't touch me in weird places!"

"Too bad. I'm always getting pushed to be the one that treats the injured, and in the end, I was left alone. You're always the one who gets everything in the end, huh? Good grief."

"Ugh, I'm sorry... B-but wasn't that because Lyner went walking around all by himself?"

"Well... that's true. Still, maybe it's something that just couldn't be helped..."

"Really?"

"Yeah, because Lyner has never been the type to act in behalf of his own interests, right?"

"Yeah."

Aurica nodded.

"Lyner always runs off for the sake of someone else... to help someone... he doesn't care even a little bit for what happens to him. But I wonder... are we insignificant to him? Doesn't he care about our feelings because we're Reyvateils?"

"I know what you mean, but I can say that isn't the case. I'd really hate him if he was like that."

"Misha..."

"And didn't he go to save you today? He had a wound large enough to keep him grumbling all this time, but he still went to find you, right?"

"Right... but... when I offered to heal that wound before all this happened, he told me to not mind him... Maybe my feelings aren't anything to him..."

"Are you saying nobody needs you? Because if that's the case, you'd be saying that he was trying to find a girl that sought a place to die!"

Misha had gotten a little irritated because Aurica continued going in circles with the things she was muttering.

"Well, it's true that Lyner might have gotten a bit indifferent about our feelings, but..."

In reaction to these words, Misha stood up from the bed. She then placed herself back to back with Aurica.

"Well, that means we've become to Lyner as natural as he is to himself, don't you think?"

"As natural... as he is to himself?"

Misha told Aurica as the other girl turned her head to face her.

"Yeah. Lyner ran off not caring about his wounds or the fact he could have even died out there. It's the same case here: to him, it has become so typical for us to be at his side that we've become natural to him, so he doesn't think even a little that you could be worrying so much about things like these."

"I don't... really understand it well, but you mean he doesn’t think any of these things are important?"

"Well... I never meant he doesn't consider his own body or life as important. It's just that Lyner considers any people he finds in trouble as more important than even his own life."

"Umm..."

Aurica seemed to have gotten a bit confused with Misha's examples. She placed her chin over her knees once again as she sighed.

"It can't be helped, huh?"

said Misha.

"Yeah. Lyner is just like that."

Aurica nodded.

"Right... that's the kind of guy I fell in love with."

"He's always so reckless, so rash."

Misha shrugged her shoulders.

"He never gets the feelings of a girl."

A smile returned to Aurica's face.

"It wasn't so bad when we were kids, but he won't look at me as I'm now! Even someone like Jack told me I grew up into a fine woman!"

"W-when he Installed the Life Extending Agent into me, I embraced him tightly, but he didn't show any change."

"So you did that, Aurica? How indecent."

"We didn't do anything indecent! I just wanted to be more proactive in front of the guy I liked, but as that's Lyner..."

Aurica looked again at the ground, depressed.

"I just can't believe how dense he can be."

Misha looked upwards. Both sighed at the same time.

"Being us is suffering, huh?"

044

"So, can you enter the Binary Field, Lady Shurelia?"

Shurelia tilted her head in response to Krusche's question.

"I would say I can, but the truth is slightly different from that."

There was an enormous pile of research materials and documents over the table they were sitting at.

They were all sent by the maintenance droid that served as the guardian for the Tower's systems, Mei Mei, on Shurelia's orders. It was a gathering of all the currently known information on the Binary Field, which was the very core of the Tower's Symphonic Power energy systems.

"By using some data I have prepared in the Binary Field, I can create a special place that resembles a Cosmosphere."

"And that would let everyone to enter that place through Diving?"

"Yes. However, given that in the end that is a sealed world, we won’t be able to directly access the true regions of the Binary Field if we Dive into that place."

"Which means we can't check directly the effects of Mir's echo, right?"

"Correct. It's because I'm only manifesting the information I was given through the usage of the Symphonic Power present in the Binary Field. In a way of speaking, we could even say it is like my Cosmosphere."

Krusche took a cup of tea that was resting on the table and tried to drink from it, but she then noticed it was already empty. She returned it to the table as she asked Shurelia.

"What do you mean by “like your Cosmosphere”? I've heard you're different from normal Reyvateils like Aurica or our employees, but is that related to it?"

"Yes. I don't have what we know as a Cosmosphere. That is why I only can make a place that is like a mock one."

"But humans can Dive into that place, right?"

"Yes, they can."

"And if that region gets created inside the Binary Field..."

Krusche crossed her arms.

"Did this give you any ideas?"

"No, I haven't gotten any yet... Anyway, looks like we're gonna need more info on the Binary Field..."

"Aren't all these documents enough? But the information Mei Mei sent us is the entirety of the Tower's technical specifications..."

"Ah, you're right. However, if it had diagrams similar to those of normal machinery alongside the data, like these and these..."

Krusche pointed to a particularly thick bundle of documents. Shurelia's expression stiffened.

"You have already read through all of these? You really are amazing, Krusche."

Krusche nodded in a careless way in response to Shurelia's amazement.

"Well, it helped that they were written in a way that made them easier to understand. They actually look a lot like some technical documents that have been in Tenba's R&D department since ages ago... that's why I didn't have much problem with them... But the technical specification files like this one called "Model", which talks about the internal structure of the Binary Field... I can't make any sense out of them."

She pointed to a volume that had the word "Model" written once at the very beginning.

"This is like having the blueprints for a stove but not understanding at all the form of the fire burning on its inside. The system structure that creates the Binary Field... it even goes in detail into the data inputs and output types it uses... but even if we understood how it all works, we wouldn't be able to find out how the Binary Field will behave internally, so in the end we won't be able to predict any possible scenarios just from reading these observation logs. That's the problem... and why I think we gotta prepare some kind of countermeasure."

"I see. Then, would you like me to teach you everything I know on the matter?"

"Please. Anyway, I'd like to get as much info as I can on it... Jack!"

"A-aye!"

Jack was lying down on a sofa nearby but he quickly jumped to his feet as soon as he was called.

While he had been in the same room as them for quite a while, he barely understood 1% of the things Krusche said, which is why five minutes after they started he gave up and threw himself into the sofa to take a nap.

"If you've got enough time to be dozing off, you could instead go fetch me and Lady Shurelia some tea."

Krusche said as she pointed to the empty cups.

"But why it's gotta be me? I'm hopeless at making tea!"

"Because you're doing nothing while we're pretty busy over here!"

"Aye..."

Jack reluctantly stood up from the sofa and left the room to bring some tea to the girls.

"Man, she's a terrible boss."

As he complained under his breath, Jack walked down the maze-like halls of the Tenba HQ with two cans of tea in his arms. They were bought from the vending machines that could be found all over the building, as it seemed he couldn't picture himself making tea.

He went back to the room where Krusche and Shurelia were, and the door opened itself automatically as soon as he stood in front of it.

"Sorry for bein' late. The closest vending machine was broken and I had to go to another one to buy the tea. Man, Tenba really sucks at givin' maintenance to their own machines..."

As Jack walked into the room giving excuses, he noticed that Krusche and Shurelia were exchanging glances and began looking alternatively to both of them.

Shurelia muttered with a stunned face.

"That is... too reckless!"

Krusche nodded.

"Yeah, but if we do that, we can send people into the Binary Field."

045

"Okay, listen up. According to our conclusions, it's possible to Dive into the Binary Field."

Several hours had gone by since Jack went to buy the tea. Krusche had gone and told everyone to gather in the room... Ayano, Radolf, Jack, Misha, Aurica, Shurelia... and Lyner, and announced this to them. Claire was at the bar, as Ayano needed her as a messenger of sorts and thus she went back to Nemo.

"Really?"

Lyner asked all pumped up. Misha and Aurica looked at each other's faces and Radolf gave Jack a glance in a similar way. Jack just shrugged his shoulders in response. It was as if he said "I haven't got the foggiest idea what she's gonna talk about."

"Really, it's possible."

Krusche formally declared. However, her expression didn't seem to be as clear as her words. She then added a "but".

"But there's no mistake that even if we actually do it, it's gonna be very dangerous."

She then unfolded a few of the documents she had been examining until a while ago and began reading them.

"While it seems to be like this so people don't break into it, we can actually make a bridge connection of sorts, but it's impossible to Dive directly from a Dive Machine into the core of the Tower's systems: the region we call the Binary Field, in the way it's done with the Cosmospheres of the Reyvateils."

"What do you mean? Didn't you just say that Diving into it was possible?"

Radolf asked. Krusche replied as she nodded.

"Hey, let me finish first. While it's impossible to Dive directly into the Binary Field, we can still use a certain dirty trick to do it, right...? Lyner?"

"What? Me?"

Lyner straightened himself up when his name was called.

"You already should have some experience with Diving into the Binary Field."

"Me? But it's impossible to Dive into it..."

"But you were the one who Dived into me, right?"

Shurelia was sweetly smiling at him.

"Yeah, that's... true."

As Lyner nodded, uninterested expressions appeared in both Aurica's and Misha's faces.

"I also told you this that time: when you Dive, you won't get to my Cosmosphere because I don't have one."

"Now you mention it... I remember having heard that."

And after Lyner replied with this, Krusche took over again.

"The place Lyner Dived into that time was actually a mock Cosmosphere Lady Shurelia created in the Binary Field"

"A mock Cosmosphere? What's that?"

Ayano asked.

"According to Lady Shurelia's explanation, it's a place she made to receive anyone who Dives into her that looks pretty similar to the real deal, but isn't actually like it."

"However, that doesn't mean it always exists: I actually make it whenever it's necessary."

Shurelia said to complement Krusche's explanation

"But if that place exists already in the Binary Field, doesn't that mean that getting to it counts already as a successful Dive into the Field proper?"

Radolf leaned his head as he asked, but Krusche just shrugged her shoulders.

"Even so, it isn't as simple as it looks. That place made by Lady Shurelia is a completely sealed world, so it isn't possible to go to any other part of the Binary Field from it."

"In other words, even if we Dive into it, we'll just be locked in and unable to do anything?"

Radolf fell silent and sat down again.

Ayano asked then:

"Leaving that aside, would it be possible for a human to keep existing in the Binary Field? If that isn't the case, then there would be no point in Diving into it even if we could. Depending on the answer, we will decide what we'll do."

But the answer she got to this question sounded quite unsure.

"I can't really say because we don't have a precedent for it, but according to the documents we fetched from the Observatory, if we can Dive into it, there's a large possibility that Lady Shurelia can use her powers to keep us existing to some degree, but..."

"If there's any possibility, then I'll do it."

Lyner said, as anyone would have expected.

"If I see anyone suffering, there's no way I'll just leave them be!"

"Wait a moment, Lyner. Even if you say all that, we still don't know of a method to Dive into the Binary Field proper."

Radolf rebuked Lyner, who was so eager to act.

"But..."

Aurica muttered.

"But didn't Krusche already say it was impossible to Dive into it?"

She said with an insecure face. If it actually became possible to Dive into the Binary Field, she knew pretty well that a certain someone would jump in head -first to do it. No, it would be better said that he already had fully shown he wanted to do it.

"Yeah, but well, as you've put so much emphasis into it, how about showing us that dirty trick you have?"

"Okay, okay. The people that Dive into the world made by Lady Shurelia... such as Lyner for example, can't really get out of there, right? But what'd happen if we destroyed that world itself?"

Radolf then took over Krusche's explanation.

"...If we did that, the people on it would be released into the Binary Field that should be right outside of it... that's what you mean?"

"That's exactly it. Still, destroying an entire world'd be like destroying oneself with one’s own hands. So if Lyner's inside when that happens..."

At some point, everyone seemed to havee decided that Lyner would be the one to go there, despite no one saying he should: it was because even if they attempted to choose another person for the Dive, there was no doubt that they would still have chosen him in the end.

It was because of this that Radolf's reply also made the assumption that Lyner would be in that place.

"If that kills Lyner too, then there is no point in doing this because we'll lose everything. That's the dirty trick you were talking about, Krusche?"

"You don't think I have also considered this, right? I'll give you that it's a very reckless way though... and besides, we'll need them both to help here."

Krusche glanced at both girls.

"Huh?"

"You mean... us?"

Aurica and Misha looked at each other as their eyes became the size of saucers.

046

Krusche, Shurelia, Misha, Aurica, Radolf, Jack and Lyner all boarded the airship.

"I wanted to visit the Observatory at least once too."

Ayano regretfully said at the airport.

Due to the cleanup that the aftermath of the Skuwat Village incident required, she had a mountain of work awaiting her.

"Working as the president of a company doesn't give you as much freedom as people think."

The airship she saw off first stopped at Nemo because Radolf told the party he needed to go back to the Church.

"Then I should go with you, Bishop Radolf..."

But when Aurica said this, Radolf just patted her head gently.

"I don't think there's anything you can help me with this time around, Aurica. Similarly to President Ayano, there are a lot of things I have to do back at Nemo."

He said it was because he had been absent from the Church for so long.

Aurica seemed like she wanted to say more, but Shurelia smiled as they saw him off.

"Every person has duties they have to fulfill no matter what. Please make sure to accomplish your own duties in the best way possible."

A large number of Oracles and Reyvateils had gathered at the airport for his arrival, and he wove farewell to the others as the airship took off again.

"A lot of people love Radolf, huh?"

"Why's that no one loves me?"

As improbable as it seemed, Jack began fuming at Misha's admiration, seeing it as boring. But the Reyvateil just placed her hand on his shoulder.

"That's not true. It's just that everyone has a place they belong to."

Jack then looked at the girl he loved like a little sister from the side.

"If ya say that with that face, it means you've already found yours, right?"

"Huh? D-do you think so?"

"Of course. I'm not Harm to you?"

"Right, now you say it..."

While Misha hadn't said anything about where the place she belonged was, it wasn't necessary for Jack to know it.

"But being with that guy looks like a pain in the ass to me, you know?"

Misha shrugged with a bitter smile.

"He really is. He's a lot of trouble to handle."

The airship rose at great speed through the increasingly thin atmosphere.

It was headed for the Observatory: one of the places located near the top of the Tower.

It had never been a frequented place, as it was a world located even higher than Lyner's hometown of Platina. As they crossed the dangerous zone of plasma known as the Blast Line, the sky changed to a darker color.

047

"Huh? Everyone has already arrived?"

A girl that was sleeping in one of the corners of the room jumped to her feet as soon as Shurelia called her.

"So you fell asleep again, Mei Mei?"

"I'm sorry... I always fall asleep whenever I get into Safe Mode..."

The girl then stood up.

"As I told you in the last call I gave you, there are a lot of things I need you to do..."

"......*snore*"

"Wake up, Mei Mei."

"Huh? I fell asleep again?"

It seemed she had somehow managed to fall asleep once again standing up when Shurelia called her.

She had a sleepy expression as she rubbed her eyes with her hands.

While anyone would have thought that at a quick glance Mei Mei was just a normal, cute girl from her behavior, once they took a better look at her, they would notice that her body wasn't made of flesh. The hands coming out from the sleeves of her kimono were made to have the same exact shape as those of the humans, but they had mechanical parts such as cylinders and hydraulic joints. This was because she was a machine: the maintenance droid in charge of administrating the Tower's control systems.

"It's been a long time."

She smiled as she looked at all the people present in the room. The expression she had on her face wouldn't have made anyone think she was actually a robot.

"Sorry for bothering you again."

Lyner said.

"It's okay. I have heard the story from Krusche. When I first heard you would be Diving into the Tower, I was very surprised."

The Observatory.

It was one of the regions that were located at the highest heights among the ones that composed the Tower, the enormous world that extended vertically. Among the places existing in this world, it was the one that was kept in the best conditions ever since this world... or better said; this Tower... had been created. Even several of the technologies that had been lost in the current world were still preserved intact here.

"Living people have such mysterious ideas. I mean, the probability of a Diver returning alive from a Dive into the Binary Field is roughly of a 0.0002%. This is something we wouldn't ever think of doing."

Everyone instantly froze when Mei Mei said this. And the ones that made the faces that showed the greatest anxiety in the group were Aurica and Misha.

"Krusche... are we going to be okay?"

Krusche couldn't do anything but shrug her shoulders in response to Aurica's question.

"Won't it be? Because if you won't... Lyner'll..."

She gently grabbed her shoulders with her hands. When she turned back, she saw Lyner softly shaking his head to her. It was a signal saying: "Don't say more."

"But... but..."

Aurica looked around, as if she was looking for help. However, as if silence was pressing them all at the same time, no one said one word. Aurica stiffened herself as if she had slammed into a wall, and ran out of the room.

"Please, Misha..."

Misha showed a little smile in response to Lyner's request and ran after Aurica.

After seeing her off, Lyner turned around.

"Okay, let's begin preparing. I'm always ready to go."

Misha's feet cramped as she followed Aurica.

The small platform where the Observatory was located didn't have any rails or safety edges, as it was built like a small island floating in the sky.

She once said that if they managed to climb to such a height, she wouldn't have to worry about her acrophobia. However, she couldn't help hesitating at the prospect of being in a place located to such great heights.

While she tried to avoid looking down, she began looking at her surroundings.

"Aurica..."

It wasn't a large place, so she found Aurica very quickly. It seemed she still hadn't gone down to a different area yet.

Timidly, she got close to Aurica, who stood near the border of the floating island.

"Aurica, aren't you afraid of standing in such a place?"

"Misha... ah, right... you're afraid of heights. Are you okay?"

"I'm a little scared... but I'm fine. I've gotten better about it lately. And more importantly, you shouldn't do this, Aurica. Lyner didn't feel anxious or anything about it."

"..."

"It doesn't matter if we're scared, as Lyner'll be the one actually Diving."

"Aren't you scared, Misha?"

A definite shivering could be felt in Aurica's voice. Misha waited a little before replying to her question.

"Of course I'm scared. However, there's nothing we can do to stop him. We already went over this a while ago, didn't we?"

"But..."

"Lyner's too gentle. When you said you wouldn't like this at all, he let you go away from the strategy meeting we were having."

"But...! But for him to do that, then..."

Misha nodded.

"Yeah, I know. In order for him to leave Lady Shurelia's mock Cosmosphere and go to the Binary Field, he needs us to sing. So that doesn't mean he wants you to be left out of this."

"I know. I know that, but... If... if Lyner actually did that..."

Misha's voice dropped to a lower tone.

"If you're still going to hesitate about this plan, I'll use all my power to make sure you don't take part in it. No matter what, because you'll make sure to make this Dive a success and take Lyner back here alive... in my place."

"...Misha."

Aurica looked at Misha as if she was looking at some kind of radiant light.

She then nodded.

"Okay. And sorry, Misha."

Misha took Aurica's hands.

"We'll both make sure that Lyner's mission is a success!"

They both then entwined their fingers.

"Yeah!"

And taken by the hands, they returned to the main room of the Observatory.

048

"Everyone! The Hymn Crystals are ready!"

Mei Mei said as she tended a couple of large crystals to the party.

Upon seeing how brightly they shone, Jack whistled.

"Hymn Crystals, huh...? No matter how much I see 'em, they're always so beautiful."

Krusche nodded in agreement.

"I get all thrilled just thinking about all the amazing functions that light hides!"

"Hey, ya didn't sound feminine at all with that!"

Jack sighed as he voiced the subtle disagreement in sensations he had with Krusche.

"Ya think? These do what I asked for, right?"

Jack just saw with a resigned face how Krusche ignored him to check the crystals Mei Mei was giving her. The maintenance droid affirmed it with a very serious face:

"Yes. I have implemented into them all of the functions you requested."

But no matter how seriously she talked, she gave off the feeling that she would slip off at some point. That surely was one of the most charming points this girl...-shaped maintenance droid had going for herself.

"Okay then. Once we've Downloaded the crystals into these two, we'll be all set with the preparations."

Krusche took both crystals from the hands of the maintenance droid and gave them to Lyner.

"Okay, I'll leave the rest to ya. I think we should wait outside while you do it."

"Even me?"

Jack asked, but Krusche didn't even bother replying to him: as soon as he finished asking, she grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out of the room.

Mei Mei followed suit and left the room shortly later.

Only Lyner, Aurica and Misha remained in the place.

"Where's Lady Shurelia?"

Aurica asked.

"She's getting ready for the Dive in the room over there. Apparently, it's because she has never gotten three people to Dive into her at once."

Aurica made a difficult face and began pondering about the situation when she heard Misha's reply.

"The Binary Field is connected to our Cosmospheres, right? Wouldn't that mean that it's like we were Diving into our own minds?"

"Well, who knows? With the knowledge I currently have, I can't really say anything. And I kinda want to try it myself, as there are no precedents for it."

While both girls were talking to each other, Lyner was examining the Hymn Crystals he was given.

"With this... you both are going to learn new Songs, right?"

"Yeah. And with our Songs, we'll lead you to the Binary Field."

Misha said.

"Okay, who should be the first to receive the Download?"

"Go first, Aurica."

Misha said as she pushed Aurica in Lyner's direction.

"Is it okay?"

As Aurica leaned in Lyner's direction, Misha told her from behind:

"I'll be going after you, so I get a chance to relax for a bit."

"Huh? B-but I want to go second too, then..."

"Come Aurica. Let's do the Download."

"Ah, okay."

As soon as Lyner told her, Aurica stood in front of him.

"I leave everything in your hands."

"Err, if you say it so formally, I'm gonna get nervous too."

"But... this isn't something we can do every day, right?"

Aurica was staring at him so fixedly that Lyner began getting nervous. However, he still held the crystal between Aurica and himself.

The time had come.

The Hymn Crystal, which had shone to a certain point until now, released an explosive radiance.

Misha, who had been looking at them all this time, reflexively covered her eyes from the light.

And within the light, Lyner's voice could be heard.

However, he wasn't talking in the language he normally did, and his words echoed like a song...

It was the special code to pull out the functions from the Hymn Crystal. However, when the echo of Lyner's voice reached Misha's ears, these dry and emotionless phrases crossed into being something that softly echoed in her heart.

And following that, she head Aurica's singing.

It was a Song that had much more depth and substance than the Song Magic they normally sang. In response to the rich resonance that only a Hymn Crystal could bestow, she felt how her eyes began filling with tears due to how much this moved her.

Maybe it was because of how much the Songs from the Hymn Crystals can move the hearts of the Reyvateils...

Within the dazzling light, Misha managed to distinguish Aurica's face.

While hers was a face Misha should be used to see and was the same Reyvateil she always talked with, she felt startled when she noticed how beautiful and charming she looked as she sang like this.

And upon thinking that she would end up making a face like this too... she began feeling embarrassed for some reason.

As she was still entranced by the feelings of the Song, Aurica's eyes were still filled with tears even though she had finished singing, which made Lyner worry.

"Are you okay?"

"She’s fine. It's just that she is very moved by the Song of the Hymn Crystal. We've already gone a few times through this, didn't we? Lyner?"

Misha assured him as she took Aurica's hand and took her to sit down in a corner of the room.

"Well, you're right, but..."

"Come now. It's my turn for the Download."

Misha stood up in front of Lyner, directly facing him.

Fixedly staring at him, she noticed how well-featured the young man's face was.

He didn't have any peculiar facial features like Jack had (though Misha thought to herself that "he'd be a good man if he was more like Harm") and he didn't have either the calm, handsome and mature appearance of Radolf.

Whenever he had a serious face on, the typical innocence from a youngster could be felt from his expression, which made his face quite charming. Then, he opened his mouth.

"Let's go, Misha!"

The light began overflowing out of the crystal.

Unlike the time in which she saw Aurica receiving the Download, she didn't feel that the light that was overflowing from the crystal to her was dazzling to the extent it was with her.

Rather, it felt as if the light was entering and coloring her body.

And from beyond the light, she heard Lyner reciting the code. She felt it resounding even more strongly into her than the time he did it with Aurica, making she feel assured that this was directed to herself.

Gradually, her body began feeling warmer, to the point in which she began sweating.

As Lyner continued reciting the code, she gradually became aware that she was crafting something grand inside of her own mind.

Several abundant feelings were beginning to surface from her own heart.

And before she noticed it, she had already crafted and was singing out a new Song.

"And with this... the preparations are complete."

Misha said after deeply breathing in and out several times. It was because she felt that if she didn't take the time to calm herself down a little, she would be so moved that she would start crying if she looked at anything. It seemed to be due to the influence of the Song.

"I wonder if it'll really work out."

Aurica said this in her usual pessimistic tone, but Lyner didn't seem to mind that at all.

"It'll work out. And that's because no matter what anyone says, you both and even Lady Shurelia are coming with me. So it's settled that everything will work out in the end!"

"Yeah, you're right! We'll make it work out, Lyner!"

"Of course! We're gonna make this work like a charm!"

Misha said as she looked in Aurica's direction. However, she didn't know there was also something looking back to her.

049

I'll cross this trench...

Lyner is at the other side of it.

...Okay.

If Lyner is at the other side of this trench, then...

I'll cross it.

I'll go see Lyner.

I have to hurry because I have to sing for him.

...?

Why?

Why do I have to sing?

No, this isn't the time to be thinking about that. I have to hurry.

I have to hurry...

050

"Preparations are complete now."

Shurelia said as she stood before the Dive Machines after she completed the improvised modifications she had to conduct on them.

"It's finally the time..."

Misha muttered as she looked at the row of capsules used for Diving she had before herself.

The capsules could be configured into Diver's and Reyvateil's side, even in normal Dive Shops where they placed them according to the usage they were going to be given. However, including Shurelia's as the Reyvateil side capsule, they had gathered four capsules in the same place. There were cables and pipes coming out behind the capsules, but since their numbers weren't simply equaling or even doubling the number of capsules, it was as if the room was completely covered in them.

This is why it was extremely improvised: the most improvised Dive Machine ever made.

"While I can't assure that it's completely safe from a technological standpoint, I will be also helping with its operation and control, so please, don’t feel anxious about it."

Shurelia said as if she was trying to console the others.

"As this is the first time I have ever done something like this, there are a number of uncertain factors here. However it's necessary in order for you two to Dive into me with Lyner and sing in there."

"All right. I understand... so shall we get going?"

Misha asked. Shurelia then looked in the direction of the other two.

"Very well. Lyner, Aurica, are you both ready?"

"I'm ready, Lady Shurelia!"

"I'm ready too!"

Upon hearing their responses, Shurelia turned to face Krusche, who was standing over at the machine's control panel.

"Well then, let's begin."

Each of the four that were going to take part in the Dive entered their respective capsules.

The lid of the capsules softly closed in front of them. Given the speed at which the mechanisms closed the lids, Misha began getting a little irritated like always.

This slow speed was used to close off the capsules for safety reasons, but given it was so slow, it gave her the feeling that she was getting imprisoned instead. She also wondered if other Reyvateils also had these same thoughts about the capsules.

While she was a bit worried about Aurica and Lyner because they were in similar capsules to hers, she wouldn't be able to know anything that happened on the outside once the lid was fully closed.

Before long, all the capsules began softly vibrating and Misha became aware that the Dive Machine had finally started working.

051

I have to hurry to where Lyner is...!

I have to hurry... I have to hurry no matter what...

I have to hurry or I'm gonna be late for school.

School?

Ah right. I have to go to school.

The classes are always a bit depressing, but I go because I can meet Lyner there.

Lyner? That sounds a little wrong... he isn't Lyner: he's Raina. How did I get his name wrong?

No, I can't. This isn't the time to be thinking about such things.

I have to hurry or I'll be late!

I'm not a child anymore, so if I'm late I'll be forced to stand in the corridor outside the classroom, and that will really suck!

But I've already been late once this week...

Oh feet, you have to move faster!

I gotta hurry to school!

Come, once we turn that corner, we'll be at the last street before the school.

...no, how did he appear out of nowhere like that!?

Just calmly walking like that in front of someone running with all their strength is dangerous!

I'm going to crash!

I'm going to crash into him!

052

As he was pushed from behind, Raina fell face-first into the ground.

He didn't even have time to cover himself with his hands, so he received the full brunt of the impact on his face, which left him seeing stars.

"Aghhh!"

Such a collision would have left anyone unconscious and injured enough to be sent to the hospital, but Raina just patted his pained face and stood up again. He said he was "used to wounds", but having such resilience was said to be quite rare in this world.

Raina turned around to see what caused him to fall to the ground.

There was a girl fallen on her back in a rather immodest posture.

The skirt of her school uniform was raised up to a dangerous point, so while Raina felt quite embarrassed upon seeing her, it seemed like the girl herself had not noticed this yet.

"Oww!"

she groaned from the sudden impact.

"Orika...? You should fix up your skirt..."

"Eh...? Raina...? Kyyyyaaaahhh!"

As soon as Raina talked to her, Orika became aware of herself again and began pulling down the hem of her skirt as she screamed.

"Y... you saw them...!?"

She raised her gaze to Raina with her face as red as a tomato. Her eyes were wet, as if she was about to begin crying.

Raina didn't know what he should say at a time like this, no appropriate responses came to his mind no matter how much he tried thinking one up.

It looked like he had no choice but to respond honestly.

"Yeah... I saw..."

Orika's face became stiffer when she heard this.

"Stu..."

"Stu...?"

And the second Raina repeated what she said; unsure of if she had even said anything in the first place...

"STUPID RAINA!!"

Orika stood up extremely quickly and punched Raina straight in the face.

"STUPID!"

Orika's voice echoed throughout the place and far in the distance. As Raina fell to the ground again, down for the count, he could only vacantly think "I'm gonna be late today...”

As he predicted, he arrived so late he was forced to stay for after-school lessons. He let his head rest on his desk as he made a tired face.

"This teacher's so awful. They shouldn't let him make others stand in the corridor all morning just for being late... Thanks to that I don't think I can even stand up anymore...”

He stayed like this for a while, but then Raina raised his head.

"...And now I think about it, I feel like I've forgotten something important..."

He began pressing his forehead with one of his fingers, but as much as he tried, he couldn't remember what that was.

"Urgh... and this is all because that Orika bumped into me out of nowhere, too. I'm sure it all fell out from my head that moment. There's no mistaking it."

And when he came to this ridiculous conclusion, the door of the classroom opened itself violently.

"Raina! I've been searching all over for you!"

"M-misya!? What happened? Why are you so upset?"

The person who entered the room was Misya. While she was a girl of the same generation as Orika, the uniform she wore was completely different from hers: it was as if it belonged to a completely different school. Additionally, she was in third year while Orika was still in second. Even in the neighborhood, she was frequently mistaken as being a student from another school. Talking about a complicated character setting.

"Character setting? What's that?"

Not realizing that Lyner was asking this to himself, she got closer to Raina as she talked with an irritated voice.

"This isn't time for this or that. Have you forgotten your mission, Raina?"

"My mission...?"

As she talked with a severe voice, Raina suddenly remembered what she meant.

"A new Virus has appeared?"

Misya nodded.

"That’s it. I had the mission of fighting the Viruses that always threatened this world" Raina remembered.

"And where's Reira? I've gotta fight with her."

"I haven't seen her today. Let's go look for her..."

However, Raina felt something didn't quite fit when Misya replied to him.

"Hey, Misya."

“What? Didn’t I just tell you we have to hurry?”

"I'm feeling there's something out of place here..."

"And what could that be? We have to hurry... wait, why do we have to hurry in the first place...?"

Upon hearing Raina's words, Misya put on a face that said she didn't understand what he meant. It looked like she was feeling the same sensation of something not fitting that Raina had.

"We have to hurry for some reason... that's what I feel... and that's why I came rushing to see you, Raina."

"We've gotta hurry... but it isn't related to us having to fight the Viruses, right?"

"...No. Now I think about it, I have the feeling that there's something off here. This isn't about the Viruses... but about an entirely different thing... that's why we must hurry and begin singing..."

Misya then fell silent as she began pondering over the situation.

It was then that Orika entered the classroom. Her short skirt, which was only slightly shorter than Misha's, softly fluttered behind her as she ran to them.

"Ah, so you were here Raina! I've been having this nagging feeling that I had to go where you were and begin singing... "

Raina then looked at both girls.

"What do you mean... by singing...?"

And as he tried to put together the mess of memories he had in his head, a voice called to him from the outside through the windows.

"I knew you would be here."

"Reira!"

Reira was on the other side of the window and had a relieved expression on her face. Yes, it was her. The long-haired girl they were seeing was supposed to be called Reira...

Today, she was wearing a quite feminine white one-piece dress. The way her shoulders were exposed was more cute than sexy and the way this favored her general appearance was quite characteristic to her.

"Reira, why are you wearing that at school...? No... to begin with, we're on the second floor! How are you there...!?"

Reira just let out a small sigh of exasperation in response to how Raina's eyes grew to the size of platters.

"Looks like you have fully turned into the characters of the story, huh? As this was so different from a typical Dive, I knew there could be some issues, but to think it would turn out like this... Lyner, this isn't be the first time you've been in this world. Please, try to remember."

"Lyner? But I'm Raina... no, that's not right. Right, why did I forget my own name until just now...?"

And as he grabbed his own head, Misya and Orika were looking at Raina... Lyner, with worried faces.

"Raina, what happened?"

"No, Aurica. This is just a story. It isn't real."

"Huh?"

While Orika and Misya... Aurica and Misha were still taken aback, Lyner turned around and announced:

"This is the world Lady Shurelia made. Instead of a Cosmosphere, it's a story the Diver and she can directly experience together."

And as soon as they heard him saying these words, the spark of enlightening softly appeared in their eyes.

"We're... Diving into Lady Shurelia's Cosmosphere..."

"No, Aurica. Didn't Lyner just explain that Lady Shurelia doesn't have a Cosmosphere? This isn't a Cosmosphere, but the world Lady Shurelia made."

"It seems you have finally remembered."

Shurelia smiled.

"Now, the only remaining step is that you both sing. Are you ready?"

"Huh, right now?"

Aurica asked Shurelia as the latter softly floated into the classroom.

"What is it? Is there a problem?"

"Well, I think there's one..."

Aurica's began blushing while she still hesitated to say what she wanted.

"Raina... no... Lyner hasn't taken responsibility yet for having seen my panties..."

"Huh? But that was inevitable... and weren't you who bumped into me in the first place?"

Both Shurelia and Misha glared at the flustered Lyner with a very threatening gaze.

"But you saw them…"

Aurica began puffing her cheeks.

Misha and Shurelia looked and nodded at each other to then proceed to grab Aurica by her back.

"Ah, Misha! Lady Shurelia!"

"Is it just about your panties? Then don't worry: it's just something that happened in the story."

"And this isn't the time to be worrying about that."

And pulling Aurica, they took her out of the classroom.

"...I-I barely dodged a bullet... but I don't think that it was just the story here..."

And while Lyner was stiffening his face, Shurelia called him from outside the classroom.

"Lyner, hurry! We are about to begin!"

"A-all right!"

They were in the school's roof.

It was possible to see the entirety of a wide city from here... but as it was a bit foggy in the distance, it wasn't possible to see it in full detail. Most likely it was because of it being the world made by Shurelia.

As Lyner had already Dived into this world more than once, he didn't pay any special attention to this, but both Misha and Aurica were marveled by the scenery they could see from the roof.

"This is first time I've ever seen a world like this."

"That's true. And the same goes for these clothes."

She wove the skirt of her uniform as she looked around herself. Having such a short skirt ended becoming quite risqué for her. However, Lyner changed his mind about the entire matter when he remembered Aurica's usual outfit, as it wouldn't be surprising that something like this happened even when she was wearing it.

Shurelia then explained to the girls as they were still admiring the scenery.

"This is something I pulled from the Tower's memory. Most likely it's a copy of the real place where it was created, but I don't really know any details on it. However, it could also be just an imaginary world that was created for a game."

And after saying this, she hurried the other two girls by saying "Come now."

"Looks like you have fully regained your memories. Now, it's the turn for both of you to act."

"Very well. With our Song..."

Misha said.

"We'll be able to destroy this world."

Aurica said.

"That is correct."

Shurelia nodded. However, Aurica still seemed to be harboring something of a grudge.

"Normally, I wouldn't let anyone who saw my panties to even take me on dates or anything like that..."

"What are you saying now?"

"No, it's nothing, Lady Shurelia."

After looking at Lyner, who was standing between both Aurica and Misha, Shurelia floated up to the sky.

"The Binary Field unfolds outside of this world."

Lyner silently nodded.

"There hasn't been anyone who directly entered the Binary Field in the way we are about to do it. Please, prepare yourselves."

"Understood."

Lyner's reply was short and to the point. There was no need to worry anymore. However, as if she was making sure about his conviction, Shurelia said.

"Everything will be okay: for as long as you are in the Binary Field, I will be at your side."

"As I'll be."

said Aurica.

"And me too. So calm down: whatever happens from now on, nothing will ever separate me from Lyner."

said Misha.

Lyner nodded back at them with a sweet smile.

Then, they began singing.

Two different echoes began being crafted separately by both Aurica and Misha.

The Songs from the newly crafted Hymn Crystals were completely different from each other.

But in the points where their meanings and power began joining, the world became blurred.

These two joined songs caused a certain type of resonance, which began having effects on the world.

It became a power capable of causing great undulations in the waveforms of the world that Shurelia had created.

By Diving into this world created by Shurelia, it was possible to move to the Binary Field without needing to cross the walls of the Cosmospheres called the [Boundary Gates].

However, as it was impossible to take even one step outside of this fabricated world, it was impossible to carry out their goal of examining the Binary Field proper.

That was why they came up with this method.

They planned Diving into the world Shurelia had created and then destroy it using the Songs from the Hymn Crystals to break into the Binary Field...

Most likely, this was the only method through which a living human like Lyner would be able to enter the Field.

"The sky... no, the entire world is..."

Lyner looked up.

Within his range of vision, the world began distorting, warping, and finally, cracking...

"..."

Shurelia just looked at the sky silently. Even if it was just a fabrication, it didn't mean she wasn't going to have no feelings about having to take actions on the level of destroying an entire world.

Lyner strongly gripped the handle of the sword he had in his hands. At some point, his clothes changed from the school uniform to the armor he always wore in the real world. As the world of the story was being torn to pieces, all of the data that was modified by it returned to its normal state.

At this point, the world around them had already changed to become a completely different thing.

Only the Songs Aurica and Misha were singing interrupted the feeling similar to sparse bubbles that had been swelling within the four of them.

"This is... the Binary Field!"

Shurelia screamed.

053

"...agh!"

That was a world unlike anything he had seen before.

No, not even these words would be enough to describe it, as even though he was seeing such a place for the first time, he didn't quite feel the uneasiness that was associated to wondering if something like this could even exist in the first place.

Lyner breathed in deeply.

"Don't be afraid. The possibility of causing you anomalous perceptions is also part of the Binary Field's nature."

He heard Shurelia's voice.

"Let us all focus our consciousness. Aurica, Misha, and Lyner too, focus your thoughts on each other."

"Aurica, Misha. Are you there?"

While Lyner looked around himself, he didn't see them anywhere. He didn't even see Shurelia. Only her voice resounded as if it was speaking directly to his mind.

"They are. Now, focus your consciousness."

Lyner pictured the three girls inside his mind. As soon as he did, they appeared from the middle of the darkness.

"Lady Shurelia... Aurica, Misha!"

"Lyner!"

"Lyner, are you okay? You didn't get injured or anything?"

Aurica and Misha appeared at both sides of Lyner.

The instant the world Shurelia made collapsed, they seemed to have disappeared, but apparently they always were in the same place. Shurelia herself appeared a few seconds later and immediately began floating further in... As if she were saying it was all right to proceed.

"Lady Shurelia... we have to walk? Or..."

Lyner perceived from his senses that the four would have to venture into the deeper region that was right in front of them, but he still didn't know if they would have to run or walk with their feet, or fly the same way Shurelia was doing.

Even though he was aware that he was there, the existence of his extremities felt quite vague, so he wasn't quite sure if he still had them or not.

"It's because your data has become fuzzy. But don't worry much about it: as long as you can keep your consciousness focused, everything will be okay."

"O-okay."

But even if she said this, being in this state of wondering if one had or not the extremities they were supposed to have would make anyone feel uneasy.

"So this is the Binary Field..."

Lyner said as he gulped down.

"We might be inside the Binary Field, but we are still in a relatively shallow area."

"Is that the case...?"

After he nodded to Shurelia's explanation, Lyner couldn't even imagine what would happen when they tried going into a deeper area.

"Is Mir in a place like this...?"

While he was aware that his sight wouldn't be useful here, he still looked around.

Could anyone be lurking in a place like this?

No, that might be impossible due to the kind of place in which they were. After all, what they were seeking wasn't something that had a definite shape: it was a formless existence called Mir's Echo.

Shurelia went in front of the others, leading them on the path they should take to advance further in.

Whenever Lyner focused his eyes into something, he had the feeling he could see something taking definite form from the darkness as Shurelia made them advance. And besides, he still had a fuzzy feeling that even if the places in front of them were definitely pitch-black, they were becoming unable to recognize for sure if they were dark or not.

He acknowledged it was a mysterious sensation.

The parts that Shurelia touched were as if they didn't exist before she touched them and he felt they were dark after she touched them, while the parts she hadn't touched yet didn't give off the feeling that they were dark at all.

It could be like how the darkness that appears prior to the sunset and the dawn become vague enough to make it extremely hard to see one's surroundings when the sun goes down or is beginning to rise. However, the scenery Lyner was looking at had an even more rarified existence than that.

Lyner began considering it as if the space itself was given the meaning of "darkness" when Shurelia touched it.

"The wavelengths have become even higher..."

Shurelia's said with a very tense voice.

Upon hearing that, he turned in Shurelia's direction again and saw how her figure began becoming blurry.

"Lady Shurelia!"

"Calm down!"

She scolded Lyner upon seeing how shocked he was.

"The power of the Binary Field is getting stronger. Aurica, Misha, make sure to maintain your consciousness. If anything happens, we must protect Lyner with all our strength."

"Yes!"

Both girls replied in unison to Shurelia's admonishment.

No, it would better to say that it was heard as if their voices had fused into one.

"Aurica? Misha?"

"Lyner…"

It was impossible to tell who had actually replied. It was heard as if was them both and it wasn't at the same time.

Aurica and Misha were supposed to be flanking Lyner, but he saw both of her faces looking at him right from the front.

It was as if the world had completely abandoned the order that formed it.

Now, the girl that looked both like Aurica and Misha was whispering to Lyner.

"I'm... becoming a me I'm not..."

"The me that was Aurica is gradually spreading thin…"

"The me that was Misha is becoming unable to recognize anything…"

"Until now…"

"I didn't know it…"

"About how wide this world is…"

"About how deeply our hearts are connected…"

The voice seemed to be from all places around Lyner at the same time.

"Is that Aurica's voice? Or is it Misha's? Who is it? Who is talking...!?"

And now, their shapes had disappeared from Lyner's eyes.

However, he still could feel their heavy presences from around himself.

It felt as if they both were embracing him.

Both of their voices then continued talking.

"Our power was born from this place…"

"We are all born out from the Tower…"

"The melody played by the Tower…"

"We are melodies…"

"We are Songs…"

"And therefore, we resound together…"

"Lyner…"

He looked up when his name was called. However, he didn't know anymore which direction was "up".

"A great sadness…"

"and a great hatred…"

"are resounding with us…"

Lyner gulped down as he rolled up his hands into fists.

"Is that Mir's Echo?"

"A Song of sadness…"

"and a Song of hatred…"

"are resounding within our hearts…"

"And it's trying to rewrite us…"

"Please…"

"Stop it…"

"Stop it…"

"Stop..."

"Stop..."

"Lyner..."

For an instant, the echoes of Aurica and Misha's voices returned to the voice that talked to Lyner.

"Aurica! Misha!"

"We can't go any further... so we'll be waiting for you... please, make sure to come back safe and..."

The voice was cut off halfway through, and at the same time, Lyner's body was invaded by an intense shock and pain.

"Waaaaaaggggggghhhhhhhhh!!"

054

When he regained consciousness, Lyner found himself in a room.

Most likely, the final shaking he felt before fainting had taken away all of the darkness that had been surrounding him.

But even though it had become much brighter, it didn't quite reach the same intensity as normal daylight. It was more like something inside the room was illuminating the rough boarding that made up the flooring of the place with that soft light.

"Where...?"

It was an extremely small room. Was it a shed someone had built or something?

However, and contrary to the aspect of its construction, the place didn't give the impression of being a desolate ruin at all. Instead, a completely indescribable nostalgia and warmth could be felt from it.

"Where is this place?

I remember having Dived into the Binary Field and..."

It seemed there was a large gap between when he lost consciousness and when he awakened in this place, which made Lyner very uneasy. He instinctively grabbed the handle of his sword.

"Don't swing that around while you're here!"

Getting scolded out of nowhere made Lyner jump in fear, making him hit his head with the ceiling and leaving him seeing stars. Apparently, this place was built with a very low ceiling.

As he softly touched his head with his hand, he began looking around for the owner of the voice. Yet other scolding was sent his way.

"You'll get in trouble if you damage this place! Just stay put and behave yourself!"

"I-I'm sorry..."

He then faced the direction from which the voice came to apologize to the person that had scolded him.

"Lady Shurelia? No, but that appearance..."

Lyner was very confused, as the person he had before him was a girl... no, a child.

It was true that the Shurelia Lyner remembered was a little smaller than him in height, but the girl he had in front of him was even smaller than that.

However, that height seemed natural for her.

And while in appearance Shurelia always seemed to be in her middle teens, this girl didn't even seem to have reached double digits in age yet. She was a child no matter how he looked at her.

"Huh? Is there anything weird with how I look?"

And given how surprised Lyner was, Shurelia began noticing the appearance she had. She apparently had mistaken his gaze and words, and thought he was talking about her clothes.

"No, when I said appearance I meant... but, it's really you, Lady Shurelia?"

Shurelia began pouting when Lyner timidly asked this. Even her attitude was that of a little girl.

"Do you see any other Shurelias aside of me?"

"...You're really Lady Shurelia..."

Due to the maliciousness he felt she was leaking out, he began fixedly staring at the young girl... at the Shurelia he had in front of him. This caused her to blush.

"W-what is it? It's rude to keep staring at a lady like that!"

"Y-yeah, I'm sorry..."

Her words may have been those of her adult self, but due to the childish appearance she had, she had next to no persuasive power. Instead, the more seriously she talked, the more comical it sounded.

"Why do you look like a child, Lady Shurelia...? And where are we in the first place?"

"This place is called the [Chamber of the Orgel of Origins]."

Said the young Shurelia.

"Of Origins...? Is this your room, Lady Shurelia?"

"It's a little different from that, but now I think about it, we could say it's the same thing to me. This is my... place of memories."

"I see. This is the first time I've ever seen it."

"It's natural, as I've never let anyone so deep in. And even now I don't have any intention of letting anyone in either."

"R-really? But then, is it okay... for me to be here?"

In response to how flustered Lyner seemed, the young girl gave him a smile that looked quite mature for her appearance.

"Regardless of if it's for the better or the worse, you're already here, aren't you? And besides, it's not like you can actually leave this place."

Shurelia then pointed him to a small window in one of the corners of the room and told him "Try opening and looking through it."

Taking care with the low ceiling, Lyner did as he was told and opened the window.

Something surprising was awaiting him.

"W-whoa! What's this...!?"

There wouldn't be a really proper way to describe the scenery that could be seen from that window.

Everything seemed to be swirling, raging, and moving as violently as it could.

And even so, there wasn't anything that had a proper shape within Lyner's range of vision.

He knew very well that something existed in there, but it was impossible for anyone to tell what that something was supposed to be just from their eyes and ears.

"Don't tell me this is..."

"Yes. This is the deepest layer of the Binary Field."

Shurelia solemnly announced as she stood behind him.

"While you can't really distinguish it with your eyes, you still can perceive there is something out there, right? That something is an extremely violent storm of energy. Even now, it rages in its attempt to disintegrate and swallow this room."

Shurelia partially closed her eyes as she looked through the window too.

"Fundamentally speaking, no existence is allowed to have a proper meaning in this place. Everything will have its meaning disintegrated and reduced to its lowest elemental unit, to then be kept in that form until the outside world gives meaning to it again."

Lyner turned around to face Shurelia again.

"But Lady Shurelia, there's something I have to do here in the Binary Field."

"I know that. But you mustn't even think of leaving this room. After all, you're only safe because this room is protecting you."

"I-I see."

Lyner looked once again at the inside of the room. No matter how much he looked at it, and regardless of the impression it gave off, the only appearance it had was that of an old crude room.

"Why did you have a room like this in your thoughts?"

She nodded as she explained this to Lyner.

"It's because this room is my oldest memory, and a very precious one at that."

"One of your... memories? ...In other words, this room... and that's how you used to look a long time ago, Lady Shurelia?"

"That's correct. In this place, the hearts of the people hold a great power. The stronger the feelings, and the more deeply ingrained the memories in their hearts that are connected to them... these are the greatest power anyone can have here. My oldest memories... the ones engraved so deeply and strongly in my heart to the point that they will never fade away... are all in this small room."

The expression Shurelia had when she said this was so moving that no one would have thought it would come from a child: it was a face filled with both nostalgia and sadness. It didn't fit at all with the appearance she currently had.

"Therefore, this room itself also becomes the strongest protective shell I can make for Diving into the Binary Field."

Shurelia continued with a serious expression.

"However, even this shell won't be able to withstand for long the energies of the Field..."

And once she said this, Shurelia was taken aback.

"Why didn’t I notice this before?"

"What is it, Lady Shurelia?"

Even if she was younger than the normal Shurelia (even if it was only in appearance), Lyner still seemed to be very mindful of how he said things to her. As for Shurelia, she seemed to be completely caught up in her thoughts and didn't notice the expressions she was making, which were pretty complex for someone so young-looking. She audibly muttered to herself,

"Now I think about it, there is no possibility that something like Mir's Song could have kept its meaning in this place... how in the world could it manage to preserve itself like that? How...?"

"We'll know if we go and check it ourselves."

Lyner optimistically assured her. Shurelia nodded too.

"That's true. If it could maintain its meaning on the other side, we should be able to check it with our eyes."

"Let's search for it, and let's do it quickly so we don't end up disappearing too. That voice I heard back at Skuwat Village was filled with an incredible hatred towards the humans..."

However, Lyner didn't say more because he was shocked from remembering something.

"Oh, right! What happened to Aurica and Misha?"

He remembered what took place the instant he lost consciousness. Up to that moment, he was sure that Aurica and Misha were right at his side.

"As anyone would expect, it seems that the consciousnesses of normal Reyvateils can't keep their sense of self existing at this level of depth."

Lyner's expression stiffened upon hearing Shurelia's words.

"Don't tell me they..."

"They should be okay... I think. Their wavelengths should be in this room right now, too."

Lyner began looking around. No matter how much he did so, he didn't see anything beyond the inside of the room...

"Aurica, Misha... are you there?"

There was no reply.

"It's no use. Right now, they don't have awareness of themselves as individuals. The only ones that can reconstruct their own data even within the Field are special existences like myself and you, in your case because you're being directly protected by this."

Shurelia said. Lyner didn't want to agree with this.

"Anyway, we should get searching as soon as possible. I'm sure that Mir's Echo should be somewhere inside of the Binary Field."

And with a tense face, Lyner looked outside through the window.

055

This was quite a strange way of searching for something.

Lyner didn't even know the appearance of whatever they were looking for from the inside of their protective shell.

However, from his viewpoint this was a goal so serious he had to get it done no matter what, even though he couldn't do anything but continue looking at the outside through the window in the Chamber of the Orgel of Origins.

Such a life-risking search wasn't something that fit this room in the slightest.

And while Lyner still looked through the window, trying to not overlook anything, he asked Shurelia, who was doing the same thing through another window:

"By the way, did you live in a room like this one when you were a child, Lady Shurelia? Was that such a long time ago?"

"Please don't ask such dumbfounding questions! Don't you think that phrasing them like that makes me feel like a very old woman?"

"I'm sorry."

"But it's true that in comparison to you, I've lived for a far longer time."

"Honestly, I've always wanted to see how you were as a child."

"And aren't you doing so right now? This is how I used to be a long time ago. I still remember very well how I was back then and how the inside of this room was too."

Shurelia looked around the room with a satisfied expression. Lyner looked at her from the corner of the eye as he continued searching through the window.

"But the way you talk is the same as the normal you. Does that mean you also had the same personality back then?"

"...Such a rude way to ask it... but it's fine. Back then, because I used to be much more honest... no, much more emotional than how I am right now, I was quite difficult to handle as a child... However, I did talk the way adults do even then."

"..."

Lyner understood from this that she seemed to have gone through several complicated circumstances, and not wanting to interrupt her, he waited for Shurelia to continue talking.

"It's because I was the very first Reyvateil ever made: the new being created to be the controller for all of the systems in the Tower. Many humans worshipped me as a Goddess, but they also feared me at the same time. Even though I became aware of the feelings of the humans at some point, I also spent many happy days in this room..."

Shurelia narrowed her eyes a bit.

She seemed to have gone through several difficult experiences in her past in addition to the simple idea of having lived for so many years.

She caressed a small orgel she had nearby. This seemed to be an unconscious action, as her eyes were still focused on what was at the other side of the window. What kind of history she had with that object?

"These were very pleasant memories, right?"

Shurelia smiled back at him as she said "Yes, they were".

"Somehow, you don't look like the Lady Shurelia I know..."

"What? I am me, and no one else!"

"Yes, you're right... But when I see you like this, you look just like a normal girl, Lady Shurelia..."

"Lyner!"

Shurelia had now a slightly sad face.

"What do you think I am? You don't think I'm a normallish girl at all?"

"N-no, it's not that. I'm sorry."

As he didn't really know what a "normallish" girl was, Lyner meekly bowed his head in her direction.

"Lyner, please don't take your eyes away from the window!"

"I'm sorry."

Upon being scolded by Shurelia, Lyner returned his gaze to the scenery outside of the window. He said "I'm sorry" once again as he looked at the outside.

"...I didn't mean to say that."

"I know, Lyner. You really respect and admire me a lot, right? However, I also know very well that you can't bring yourself to treat me in the same way you treat Aurica and Misha."

"..."

They both stayed silent for a while as they continued looking outside.

The raging storm of nothingness didn't seem any different no matter where they looked at. While they didn't know for sure if the Binary Field itself could have a definite shape, just from looking at it like this they felt it was an unimaginably large place.

"But Lyner..."

"Y-yes?"

"No matter what happens, I can never bring myself to hate the humans. Do you know the reason?"

"N-no..."

"It's because of the memories I have in this room. Because I've lived for so long, I've been witness to many, many sad events. But people can learn to become nicer to each other, without making any distinctions between humans and Reyvateils, and learn to become happy together... that is what I learned from this room... therefore..."

"I-I... I want you to be always happy, Lady Shurelia."

The line Lyner said could be mistaken for a declaration of love if the person he was saying it to didn't know him for long. However, as Shurelia had known him for years, she knew very well what he meant.

A little giggle slipped out from her lips as she nodded.

"Thank you, Lyner. If we could, I'd like to talk to you a little more and about more things, now we're in a place where no one can disturb us..."

However, a certain tension suddenly began running through the air when Shurelia said this.

Lyner understood right away what this meant.

"The room is..."

Soft creaking sounds began coming out from the entirety of the room.

"No, it won't be able to keep its form for much longer...! We have to go back even if we can't find anything!"

"But Lady Shurelia, if we leave that thing alone, it'll continue influencing the Reyvateils!"

"That might be the case, but to me, your life is more...!"

Shurelia suddenly gasped.

"Lyner, what is...?"

Lyner ran to the window through which Shurelia was looking.

"What's...?"

Several lightning bolts began flashing within the darkness.

And then, something gigantic began shining within the light they emitted.

"No way, for it to be so large..."

A torso as thick as several trees squirmed like a wave. At the end, there were several snake heads, each with several horns protruding from them, and they were opening their ominous maws, which had several sharp fangs.

Undulating, entwining, it emerged from the darkness like multiple gigantic snakes rolling together to form a ball. It was as if the lightning bolts themselves were what formed this snake ball.

There were several lifeforms that antagonized the humans, and among them, there were some such as overgrown versions of the snakes and lizards... such as the dragons...

However, the creature that was squirming outside the window seemed more ominous and didn't seem to have any of the characteristics of any actual living being from this world.

It was as if each one of the parts that formed it had been squeezed out of other black creatures and gathered together to form it... a monster worthy of being the embodiment of someone's nightmares.

A nightmare. After all, the Binary Field could also be called the dream world of the Tower, so in a way, this monster also was the nightmares of the Tower themselves.

"How could something as large as that keep itself hidden for so long? It was as if it was waiting for our time to run out..."

As she said this, Shurelia noticed she couldn't completely rule out that possibility.

"We might have been a bit mistaken about this entire incident..."

"Mistaken in which way?"

"It's the echo of the Song into which Mir put her hatred, so I was more or less imagining it was something that only had raw power. However, it actually has... intelligence? Enough intelligence to trick and deceive people...?"

"You mean it laid a trap for us!?"

"I don't know! I don't know, but..."

"It's attacking us!"

The monster quickly lashed the multiple whip-like heads it had in their direction.

"Kyaah!"

The room greatly shook. The attack of the monster had hit them.

"Damn!"

Lyner grabbed the hilt of his sword.

"I'll go and fight it! We can't leave this place yet!"

"No...! It's impossible! We're almost out of time!"

Shurelia said from the floor of the room. She had fallen on her bottom.

"We'll be okay!"

However, Lyner smiled back at her. It was a smile that could be described even as fearless.

"If you believe in me, Lady Shurelia, and as long as we have this room... and we have Aurica and Misha with us, I can do it! I'll go!"

"Y-yes!"

As expected of her, Shurelia decided quickly. The young girl entwined her hands in front of her chest and began crafting her Song Magic.

"I'll support you with all my power. I'll leave the rest to you, Lyner!"

Outside of the window, the monster drew closer to them again.

As soon as it tried to grip the room with two of its snake heads and crush it between them, Lyner leapt out of it and into the Binary Field.

"Uaaaagh!!"

Lyner felt an enormous shock when the energy of the Binary Field hit him. It was as if countless lightning bolts were smiting him at the same time.

Just this was enough to leave him at the border of collapse.

"So this is the Binary Field!?"

Lyner dropped the large sword he was carrying. He couldn't see Shurelia around him, but he could still hear the Song she was singing. Its sound had changed from when he was the room, but it was still unmistakably Shurelia's Song.

As he looked around for the monster, he could still feel on himself how Shurelia's Song was protecting him.

"That's..."

For a second, he had lost sight of the monster, as it seemed to have retracted back the heads it had been using to attack. And now Lyner seemed to have found it again.

Its multiple heads let out a ferocious roar all at the same time.

It seemed to be loud enough to drown out the sounds of Shurelia's Song.

Sounds of hatred and sneering could be heard mixed up in that roar.

Did these feelings of hatred and sneer against the humans really reach such an absurdly deep area of the Tower?

"It's... as if it were the Tower itself. Can we even say that this is the Will of the Tower..?"

"No, it isn't!"

It was Shurelia's voice.

"It's true there is an unimaginable amount of hatred and sadness swirling inside the Tower, but it also should have experimented an equal amount of gentleness and love!"

"You're right, Lady Shurelia!"

Lyner grabbed his sword again.

The monster was getting its heads in attack position once again.

"You're gonna attack!? I'm waiting for it! Hit me with your best shot!"

Lyner rushed to the crooked necks he had in front of him as he raised his sword.

"Hyaaahh!"

One of the heads didn't anticipate the attack and thus couldn't avoid Lyner’s slash, receiving the full brunt of his sword's blade.

The attack made a sound similar to that of a large explosion. However, this was short-lived, as the meaning of the attack was disintegrated and absorbed into the energies of the Binary Field.

"Uoooh!"

Lyner put on all of his strength in his next attack and tried to bisect the head with it.

However, that didn't have any effect on it.

Another head then rushed in from the side and delivered him a painful blow.

"Aghh!"

Lyner was sent flying through the air while another head rushed in as well, as if it was trying to eat him.

"Damn iiiit!"

Lyner began swinging his sword around, trying to repel the heads that came after him.

As expected, Lyner wasn't able to cut or destroy any of them, but at least this pushed the heads away so their attacks wouldn't manage to get through to him.

However, the monster incessantly continued attacking him and Lyner didn't have a way in which he could strike back at it.

On the other hand, the energy storm of the Binary Field continued mercilessly eroding his body.

Shurelia's voice cracked as she screamed at him.

"Resist a little more, Lyner! Time has almost..."

"Aghh!"

Lyner bellowed out a war cry, but even that was drowned out by the roar of the monster.

Several of the heads began closing on him one after another to attack.

Even if he was a legendary hero now, he was completely alone and helpless against the overwhelming amount of attacks he was receiving: it's exactly as if he was completely outnumbered.

"Shit... is this the end...?"

and as he groaned this, the blade of his sword shattered to pieces with a loud sound.

"No! You're losing your focus! If you do that, you'll disintegrate at once!"

Upon hearing Shurelia, Lyner tried to rekindle his fighting spirit, but calming down a shaken heart was no easy task.

The rest of his sword and the armor that covered his body, both began breaking down and disintegrating.

"D-Dammiiiiiiit!!"

As Lyner screamed, one of the heads opened its enormous maw and charged at him.

"Uoggh!!"

"Kyaah!"

And the exact instant Lyner's screams and Shurelia's cries echoed at the same time, it happened:

The head of the monster was cleanly sliced in half.

The sliced head broke into countless pieces and disintegrated itself in the same way Lyner's sword did as it fell into the darkness of the Binary Field until it disappeared.

"Calm down, Lyner! Being so emotional has always been your weak point!"

An impressive swordsman was standing between Lyner and the monster now.

He was a young man that wore heavy battle armor, but also had a face beautiful enough to make women envious.

"Ayatane!"

The young man, who wielded two long and sharp swords, turned back to see Lyner and smiled at him. It was a strangely beautiful smile that most likely, no else in the world had the fortune to have.

However, only a few had the luck of being able to see it, one of these being Lyner himself.

A smile also appeared in Lyner's face. To him, the young man that had just appeared was a precious and irreplaceable friend.

"So it was you, Ayatane!"

"I'm very sorry for not having contacted you in such a long time, Lady Shurelia."

Ayatane slightly leaned his head downwards when he heard Shurelia's voice.

"Ayatane, why did you come here? And how?"

Lyner asked as he braced himself. The young man replied in a musical voice that greatly fit his face.

"It's because my way of birth was special. That allows me to enter and leave this place whenever I wish so."

And as he talked, Ayatane was repelling the attacks of the monster by slashing at it so fast it was impossible to follow his movements with the eyes.

And unlike Lyner's attacks, it caused the monster to bellow out screams of pain even thought his swords weren't hitting any of its critical spots. The monster then put some distance between itself and them.

"I was looking around the area because Mother told me she felt something strange about the Tower. It was like this that I found you doing something reckless and absurd once again."

"I knew it! You're a true friend, Ayatane!"

Ayatane looked at him with a smile that also showed a bit of embarrassment. It wasn't an expression he used to put on long ago, and even now it wasn't a face he liked showing aside of when he was in front of Lyner.

In his hometown of Platina, Lyner was a friend of Ayatane for a long time, but Ayatane actually was a spy sent by Mir. He wasn't even a human, but a Virus.

However, when Lyner learned of Ayatane's true nature, he did the same as he did to the Reyvateils and never allowed this to put a strain in their friendship. He always said "That guy is my friend!"

He even stood against Lyner once and it seemed that would put a decisive end to their friendship, but thanks to the honest and intense feelings Lyner had, their friendship bonds were reestablished successfully.

"If you really think of me as a friend, you should have called me from the beginning. It's because I'm not human...? Though I know very well you would never discriminate any lifeforms."

"No, it's because you disappeared with Mir and I had no way of knowing where you had gone to... and besides, having to call you out of nowhere just because it's convenient to me is so..."

"What are you saying? Even though no one would ever get anything done if they only thought about their own convenience? This also goes for this time in which you're acting for the sake of the Reyvateils: why do you think Aurica and Misha didn't ask you to stop when you went rushing in?"

"Ugh..."

Ayatane's assertions were quite precise. Lyner made a face similar to what anyone would when struck in a critical spot, but arrived at a different conclusion.

"It's because they both knew what was happening and that's why they decided to lend me a hand to come to this place."

"Heh, so that means they have finally managed to understand pretty well a human like yourself, Lyner?"

"W-what do you mean with that? What did they understand about me?"

"That you won't listen to them, no matter how much they try talking you out of it."

And as he said this, Ayatane slashed once again with his swords, cutting off one of the multiple necks of the monster.

The decapitated head tumbled down into the darkness until it disappeared.

"Come now, Lyner. I can stay here for as long as I wish, but you shouldn't have much time remaining at this point. Let's defeat that monster at once."

"Y-yeah!"

Lyner concentrated and restructured the pieces of blade that were scattered throughout the place into the original form of his sword.

"That's the Echo of Mir's Song, right?"

Ayatane nodded.

"It's the coagulation of Mother's grudges. A ghost from the past."

"But how did it grow so much?"

Shurelia asked as she continued singing.

"I know that Mir harbored an enormous amount of grudge, but this is the Binary Field. All data should end up disintegrating in it at some point..."

"That's true..."

But when Ayatane raised his eyebrows at this, Lyner screamed as he pointed to the monster.

"It's... it's regenerating its heads!"

"Impossible!"

However, it was as Lyner said: the heads that Ayatane had cut off had begun reforming, and after a few seconds they were back to their original shape.

"To think that something like this could happen in the Binary Field..."

Shurelia said.

"Maybe it's getting energy from somewhere else?"

"But where?"

Lyner asked this to Ayatane, but no one could answer that question.

And in the meantime, the monster had fully recovered from the wounds it received and was back to how it was at the start of the battle.

"I'm kinda feeling it got even larger than before..."

Lyner muttered.

"That's just your imagination. Anyway, we have a difficult opponent in our hands."

Ayatane narrowed his eyes and gripped his swords once again.

"We can only keep cutting and slashing at it. If we could cut all its heads at once, before it can regenerate any of them..."

The monster roared.

It sounded as if it was sneering at Ayatane's words.

"Lyner, we don't have more time!"

Shurelia screamed.

However, Lyner calmly sheathed his sword

"Lyner?"

"Please, wait. Lady Shurelia, Ayatane."

Lyner's face looked quite serious, but the thirst for battle that was on it had completely disappeared.

"What happened?"

"Draw your sword, Lyner!"

Ayatane stepped in front of him, as if he was intending to shield Lyner from the monster. However, Lyner just grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Wait... can you hear it? Do you hear that voice, Ayatane?"

"...A voice?"

"Did you say... a voice?"

And as if it were to urge Ayatane to listen to it, he took a step towards the monster.

"I hear something. At least, that's... what I feel…"

Lyner closed his eyes and concentrated all of his nerves into his hearing.

"Come, try it. I can hear it. I can hear it!"

Ayatane looked around with a face filled with suspicion.

"I can't hear.... wait, this is..."

He heard a voice mixed with the roaring of the monster.

"We could hear it from the beginning. It's just that we didn't notice it until now..."

The voice seemed to be swirling around them.

"They should just disappear…"

"The humans…"

"Hatred…"

"Why…?"

"Don't torment us…"

"Fear…"

"Sadness…"

"The humans…"

"The humans…"

"The humans should just disappear!"

The monster rushed towards them.

Ayatane just repelled it by slashing at it with his swords.

At the same time he did that, the voice that swirled around them became even louder.

"Disappear…"

"Disappear…"

"Disappear, dreadful ones…"

"Ones that torment me…"

"You should just disappear!"

Shurelia said with a trembling voice:

"This is the echo. This voice is what continues supplying that monster with power…"

"Is this the Echo of Mir's Song?"

The one who answered Lyner's question was Ayatane.

"No. This isn't Mother's voice…"

"Then who’s...?"

But as they were talking, the monster attacked them.

"Lyner!"

"Uaaghh!"

Ayatane managed to evade the attack by a hair's breadth, but the monster caught Lyner between the sharp fangs it had on its open maw.

It then roared victoriously. Now he was completely unable to move, the other heads began charging at him.

"Disappear!"

"Dreadful ones!"

"You should just disappear!"

Shurelia's Song had been protecting Lyner, but he was now tightly trapped by the fangs of the monster and it was now violently squeezing him with them in order to shatter that protection.

Lyner's body began emitting sparks, which were swallowed by the darkness of the Binary Field as they fell, and the power that Shurelia was sending to him began draining rapidly.

"Lyner!"

Ayatane tried to run to his rescue, but due to the large number of heads, he wasn't able to get anywhere close to him.

"No... it's no use... I can't continue... singing...!"

Shurelia screamed.

But it was then it happened:

Lyner dropped the sword he had in his hands.

As soon as it fell into the void, it disappeared as if had been colored over by the darkness.

"Lyner, no! You'll die like that!"

Ayatane screamed.

However, Lyner moved the hand where his sword had been moments ago to touch the monster's fangs and then he began caressing them.

"...?"

Ayatane couldn't understand the actions of his friend, but he still stopped moving.

Lyner whispered.

"Everything will be fine. We won't make you feel afraid anymore."

"Lyner?"

Shurelia thought too that his actions were quite unexpected.

"What are you doing?"

Lyner smiled in response to the question. However, his smile also showed the tremendous pain he was feeling: he had been very badly injured by the monster, after all. As they continued looking, his body began to melt away into the Binary Field.

"Lady Shurelia, Mir's Song wasn't what caused this."

"What do you mean, Lyner?"

"The feelings of grudge Mir left inside of the Tower might have been the underlying cause, but what gave power to these grudges was this voice."

"The voice..."

The swirling voice still continued ringing its echoes of resentment like a storm of negative feelings.

"You said this wasn't Mir's voice?"

"Then, who is the owner of that voice?"

And as he affectionately caressed the fangs of the monster, Lyner answered Ayatane's question.

"It's the voice of the Reyvateils."

"Of the Reyvateils?"

"That's what these screams were?"

Lyner nodded. The color was quickly fading away from his face, even though the loss of his vitality was because of the effects of the Binary Field.

"You were afraid for such a long time, right?"

"Afraid? Of what?"

"Of the humans, though it would be more right to say it was of the entire world. You should know it very well too, Lady Shurelia."

"Lyner..."

"Like Aurica said long ago, we the humans didn't really make the effort to understand them, and that's why they were so afraid... but... but please listen!"

He screamed to the point of straining his voice.

"It's the same for us humans. We also feared you!"

The resentful voice continued blowing fiercely, regardless of anything Lyner said. Ayatane stepped in a little closer in his friend's direction while still wielding his swords.

"Lyner, there is still something I can't understand from what you're saying. Even if this voice belongs to the Reyvateils, this is the Binary Field. Remember this place is located very far away from the Cosmospheres of all the Reyvateils!"

"The same way you're afraid of us, the humans are also afraid of you. But that isn't because we hate each other..."

"Lyner..."

Shurelia whispered.

Lyner screamed.

"It's because you want us to get along! And the humans really want to get along with you, too! We want to be together forever! But since we don't know if we can actually do it, that's why we're afraid. Isn't that... isn't that what you're feeling?"

They then noticed that the movements of the monster had become more sluggish and awkward.

Knowing it was his chance; Ayatane began running to the imprisoned Lyner as fast as he could. However, Lyner stopped him with his hand.

"Lyner! But..."

The outline of the hand he had extended began turning fuzzy, showing he could disappear at any moment.

"That's why you shouldn't really hate the humans. If that was the case, why would you bother forming partnerships with them? Even the Life Extending Agent is no more than part of the reason... as the reason why you're with the humans... it's because you love them... isn't that right?"

The monster stopped roaring at that instant.

The resentful voice could still be heard throughout the place, but now it had been weakened to the point of not being anything beyond a whisper.

Ayatane looked around a bit anxious.

"Did Lyner's voice... reach them?"

"That's how we humans feel. We love you... and that's how... how I feel about you…"

The shape of the monster vanished.

The shape of the head that had caught Lyner at some point transformed into that of a girl.

A naked girl whose body shone with a soft light, and she put one of her hands on Lyner's chest as her hair undulated due to the storm of the Binary Field.

Her eyes were filled with tears and a questioning light emerged from them.

Lyner smiled sweetly at her. Even his smile had gotten so blurry that it seemed to be just an afterimage.

"That's how... how I feel about you…"

The face of the girl looked just like that of Aurica, that of Misha, and even that of Shurelia, all at the same time.

And she was them all at the same time, and at the same time she wasn't.

Lyner extended a vanishing hand to the girl.

"I really... love you... please, believe me... I... the humans... love you..."

He put his arms around the delicate shoulders of the girl and gently embraced her.

The little remaining strength he had left his battered body, and as soon as the girl's cheek touched the chest of the young man, Lyner's body finally crumbled away into the darkness.

"Lyner!!"

Ayatane screamed.

But at the same time, a voice echoed throughout the darkness.

"I love you…"

"And because I love you so much..."

"I won't let you die, Lyner!"

056

"Honestly, at one point even I doubted you were going to come back safe and sound."

Claire's words contained a mix of feelings that were part joy, part shock that she felt from the depths of her heart.

As he put a glass to his mouth, Lyner showed her a bitter smile.

Both were sitting at opposite sides of the counter in her Nemo bar and talking. The inside of the establishment seemed to be as bustling as always.

"Nah, even I thought things were going to end terribly this time!"

Lyner cheerfully laughed "hahaha!" above the stool he was sitting on. He was as optimistic as always.

Claire put the weight of her light body above the counter as she sighed. That she looked worthy enough of being recorded in a portrait was something particular to people as beautiful as her.

"I heard about it a little later, but you had these girls crying over you all the time until you regained consciousness, right? You should take a little better care of yourself."

"About that, I actually got scolded by them all the way here... please let me off the hook today..."

"That's just natural, huh? If you ever harmed my cute little Aurica, I would should you no mercy."

"I'll have to be careful..."

Claire began giggling upon seeing Lyner's dejected face.

"But it's fine. If Aurica forgave you, I have no reason to be angry at you."

Claire got a glass from the girl behind the counter... which surely was a Reyvateil too... and exchanged it with the one Lyner had already emptied.

"As for the Tenba Reyvateils, it seems President Ayano herself has currently assumed full command to solve the situation. Right now, almost all of the Reyvateils have returned to their workplaces in the company."

"It wasn't all of them?"

"If all of them went back, my workload would increase again and I'd lose the little free time I finally got for myself."

"Huh? Did you say workload?"

After Lyner asked back, Claire mischievously pointed to the girl inside the counter. She nodded to Lyner as she blushed and he realized then she used to be a Tenba employee.

"I see. Until now, it seemed the world was completely framed by Tenba and the Church... but it seems that things have begun changing around here. The humans such as Ayano and the others are changing, but the Reyvateils are also changing bit by bit. Looks like we're finally going to be on equal terms."

"Well, isn't that how it should be?"

"Both humans and Reyvateils are born from the same Mother, so in the end we're not so far apart as we used to think. I mean, I even have a robot... and a Virus for friends!"

"Right, it's just as you say. I wish that everyone would come to think that same way from the bottom of their hearts soon."

Claire had her eyes fixed in the distance, as if she was looking at something that was very far away from both of them, but she then muttered “That reminds me...” changing the entire topic of the conversation.

"It was feelings, right? Wasn’t that what you wanted to ask me about the other day?"

"Yeah. We need them to make a new Song."

As Lyner nodded, Claire softly opened her lips.

"I see. Well then, my feelings are..."

And from the main area of the bar, the sound of something breaking coupled with a piercing scream was heard. It seemed that Aurica and the others were lending Claire a hand that day too.

057

"Lyner, I had a dream."

"A dream?"

As Aurica seemed to be trying to cuddle with Lyner, Misha pulled him further to her side.

"You're being far too clingy, Aurica!"

"What's wrong with that? I have things to talk about with Lyner."

"About what?"

In response to Misha's question, Aurica said with a triumphant face:

"When we Dived into the Binary Field, I had a dream... and in it, Lyner was embracing me sooo very tightly!"

"Oh, I had a dream like that too!"

Upon seeing how quickly Misha counterattacked, Aurica was so disheartened that she seemed to have gotten to the point of blowing her nose with her fingers.

"H-huh? You had that dream too, Misha? But we can't normally have dreams during a Dive, right?"

"Yeah, but that's why I think that... this dream was something that actually happened. So it means Lyner actually embraced me during the Dive... heh."

"But what about me?"

"It was only a dream for you."

"No way! Lyner, tell us which one was... real?"

Before they realized it, Lyner had disappeared from where he was a second ago.

"Where are you, Lyner!? Tell us which dream was real!"

"So, which one was real?"

With a grin from ear to ear, Jack turned to face Lyner after having peeped on what the girls were doing.

"Even if you ask me that, I can't really remember. It's useless... if I try concentrating myself, I can remember I did help a girl within that place, but I can't remember at all who she was..."

"Hey, are you serious?"

"I'm serious, believe me. If I think it was Aurica, I feel like it actually was her, but the same thing happens if I think it was Misha..."

"What an absurd tale, man."

Jack wasn't in the mood to continue pressing him, so he changed the topic while Lyner tried to keep himself hidden from the girls' gazes.

"Radolf'll arrive a little late because he got a wedding ceremony he has to attend to."

"A wedding? Is he getting married?"

"Nuthin' of that sort. The wedding is for that Reyvateil he has as secretary and the Oracle she had as her fiancé. He's there just because duty calls him."

"Huh...? I see. But I'm kinda glad about that."

Jack nodded.

"It'd be great if everyone could get married like that. That'd mean that there'd be no more incidents like this one."

"Yeah. That's why we made this Song."

The Song they had been making from the feelings they gathered from the people was almost complete.

With Shurelia as the main singer, Aurica and Misha would also lend their voices for singing it, so it reached the entirety of this world.

If echoes of regret could remain in existence, it wasn't too far-fetched to think that an echo of feelings opposite to that could remain as well.

It was the time to make the feelings contained in the Song to resound to the Tower, and to this world itself...

"Lyner!"

"Yes, Lady Shurelia!"

Lyner's thoughts were interrupted as soon as a voice called him from behind. Shurelia whispered to him with a very soft voice:

"I thought we should test the Song first, so would you want to hear a little of it?"

"Me?"

"Yes, just the both of us... in a place where no one will disturb us..."

Shurelia got her face, now of a bright red color, closer to him.

But right then,

"Ah! Lyner, so here you were!"

"Lyner, come here and explain us exactly what happened in the Binary Field!"

As soon as they found Lyner, Aurica and Misha came running to him.

"Whoa! L-Lady Shurelia, I'm afraid we'll have to leave that conversation for later! See you...!"

And all flustered, he ran away from the place. He finally was beginning to learn what kind of experiences he would have to go through if both girls managed to catch him.

"Please wait, Lyner!"

The three girls began running after the young man.

Jack just saw them off with a shocked face.

"No matter what anybody says, this can't be compared to the rest of the world. Isn't this peaceful?"

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