Inside the room that was swallowed in darkness, only the light from the monitor could be seen.

The things that were shown by the light were numerous machines with unknown functions. This scene looked just like some Middle Age witch's ritual.

"Fu—mu...the system's efficiency finally improved."

The owner of the room continued to mutter to herself as she looked at the display screen.

The face that roughly appeared in this room belonged to Shinonono Tabane.

"Even so, [Golem III]'s complete destruction was really unexpected."

Humming along as she said that, she continued to play with the IS core.

That's right. An IS core that hadn't been introduced—in other words, the new cores were all created by Tabane. That was because no one other than her could create them.

"Well, ISes need humans to pilot them to trigger their maximum abilities. It can't be helped that an unmanned suit's ability is inferior."

Unmanned IS technology. This belongs to Tabane—only Tabane has this technology.

It'd be a bad thing if this technology was revealed to the world.

Nobody knew how much this action could be limited.

"But you got stronger, Houki-chan. Just like that time."

Confirming that she received the data of the battle between Houki and [Golem III], Tabane smiled happily.

In order to attain Houki's personal data and update the battle capabilities of [Akatsubaki], she sent an unmanned suit to attack.

Tabane caused so much damage just to get Houki's personal data.

"But that's really unexpected."

Tabane thought that Chifuyu would launch as she sent in so many ummanned suits.

The first generation Japanese IS [Kurazakura] that earned Chifuyu the first title of [Brunhilde]; Tabane didn't know where it went, but she felt that Chifuyu still had it.

"Mn—..."

Tabane tilted her head and placed her hand at her chin.

Those eyes were looking at the sea of thoughts.

"Ahh, don't tell me—"

Tabane didn't think that this was something big at the beginning, but on thinking about this carefully, it made sense.

"Is it, is it? Is it there? Fufu."

Like a kid that just thought of a new prank, the naive face had ill intent in it.

Just when Tabane was making a ruckus like this, someone walked into the room.

She was short and skinny, and 12 years old, or that was the impression she gave.

The one thing people were really mindful of was the flowing silver hair and the braiding of the long hair down to waist level.

As for why the hair was braided, it was because Tabane had braided it.

To the girl, Tabane was more important than anything in the world. Her savior or rescuer, these things couldn't describe her fully. She swore eternal allegiance to Tabane the day she met Tabane.

"Tabane-sama."

"Yaa yaa, Ku-chan. What's wrong?"

"The bread's burnt."

More than half of it was burnt, but Tabane's eyes were glowing.

"Mn—a—ma—zi—ng—"

"You're lying. It's definitely not nice."

To be honest, the girl didn't want to serve Tabane such lousy food.

But she followed Tabane's words that 'Girls must be able to make a dish', and continued to make, but just ended up making carbon and gluey stuff.

Even so, Tabane didn't look irritated, but continued to eat on and on.

And when Tabane said that it was really good, it made the girl feel even more guilty than happy.

"..."

"Hey, Ku-chan."

The girl that was called lifted her head.

Her eyes were always shut ever since she entered the house.

But by using the girl's unique characteristics, it didn't matter whether she could see or not.

"Well, this is a presumptuous request, you know?"

"What is it?"

"Mu—that's too serious, too serious—. Ku-chan, just call Tabane-san mama, okay?"

—She had only one sister.

So when Tabane adopted the girl, she decided to treat her as her daughter.

"Then, what is it that you want to tell me?"

"Mn, I want you to deliver something for me."

"Yes, the location?"

Watching the girl who asked, Tabane answered with a smile,

"IS Academy, in the Special Area underground—"