Chapter 676: The Meaning of the Unknown Turning Into the Unsolved

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"Huff...... huff......"

While letting homeroom at school—which I barely made it to thanks to a full-speed dash—wash over me as I was still out of breath...... the toast I forcefully stuffed into my stomach under the pressure of "Don't tell me you're leaving your breakfast uneaten?" was applying DoT to my flank.

I never thought I'd end up executing the cliché trope of running to school with a piece of bread in my mouth while on the verge of being late...... If I hadn't remembered the shortcut I discovered back in elementary school, I wouldn't have been able to shave off those two minutes and would have definitively been late. Who was it that said a bold change in the routing chart is the true thrill of an RTA...... Still, it's hot. I should probably check with the person sitting next to me just in case.

"......Is it okay if I open the window?"

"......If you can look at me wearing this perfect extreme cold-weather gear and still say the same thing, I'll gladly stuff dry ice down your back."

"Understood."

Man, I really want a seat change......

Forcing it might incur the wrath of Atsugi-sanThick-clothing-san, who was highly sensitive to the cold, so I gave up on using the outside air for cooling. Seriously, it's like she was destined to be sensitive to the cold just from her surname alone...... Even though she's in the judo club and has a really solid build. Or rather, why is she wearing perfect extreme cold-weather gear when the heater is working perfectly fine?

"Phew........."

Well, whatever. I made it in time, so let's leave it at that.

Homeroom is just a time to half-listen while immersing yourself in your thoughts. What decorates the entirety of my brain right now is, of course, Shangri-La Frontier. To be honest, I'm also curious about the headline "New Bug Occurs in Bakumatsu Update Patch!" that I saw on the second page...... but it will probably get incorporated into the variations of Divine Punishment eventually, so I'll look into it later.

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Well, to be blunt, I just got it out of the way first; the original objective wasn't Saina's emotion update. The real goal was the Orchestra raid, and gathering information for it.

And so, with the time limit ticking closer by the second, I finally asked the question. About the DivaAria of Orchestra, the woman leading the band...... Elise Jitterdoll, who shares the same surname as Andrew Jitterdoll!

However, the reply that came back went in a slightly different direction than I anticipated.

..................

............

......

『Elise...... Where did you hear that name?』

"Here and there."

I'm also curious about Saina, who for some reason borrowed Emul and wandered off saying she was going to verify her emotions, but this takes priority right now. At the word that flew out of my mouth, Andrew narrowed his eyes slightly.

『Hmm............ No, very well. It is not something I need to keep hidden, neither as an Answer Code Talker nor as Andrew Jitterdoll.』

Hmm, that's surprising. This is a term directly related to the foundation of a Unique Scenario EX; I thought he would have been much more reluctant to share.

『Elise Jitterdoll is my aunt.』

"......That's a closer blood relation than I thought."

『Be that as it may, she died before I turned 10...... from acute alcohol poisoning.』

"That is way too graphic."

That's definitely a phrase that shouldn't appear in a game that supposedly sells itself on fantasy!!

『I find it inexplicably mysterious as to why that word came out of your mouth... but I shall answer. She was my aunt, and during her life, she was a boring woman whose greatest achievement was holding small-scale live performances.』

"You sure know a lot about her considering she died when you were young."

『I spent my childhood unable to be satisfied unless I found answers to even the slightest curiosities. Though it is also a fact that her existence influenced roughly 5% of the entity known as myself.』

"May I ask for details?"

『She merely sang the song that served as the catalyst for my encounter with Sternenblume.』

According to him, Sternenblume were gods, to put it mildly, so even when they became entities of the past, there were quite a few people who covered their songs. And Elise Jitterdoll was one of them, with a Sternenblume song included in her repertoire while she sang at rundown bar-like entertainment facilities.

『And that very song is the one I push above all others out of the hundreds released by Sternenblume...... I was deeply moved by it at the time.』

After that, he listened to the original and his whole life flipped upside down, supposedly. Ah, yes, I see.

"......Is that it?"

『That is all there is. On extremely rare occasions, I feel nostalgic for my childhood and wish to listen to it again, but that is it. I do not know what you were expecting, but to me, that is the extent of Elise Jitterdoll's existence.』

"Is that...... so."

『......However, well. She fell far short of Sternenblume, but I can at least accept that she had a few fans of her own, I suppose.』

............Don't tell me I came all this way just to pull a blank? From what I'm hearing, Elise Jitterdoll is a genuine mob character. We're talking mob character on the level of the trash mobs you kill on your very first adventure.

In other words, in the context of conquering the Unique Monster Orchestra, is Elise Jitterdoll just a fake? Just an exterior shell being used...... No, wait.

"Alright, next question then. Do you recognize this?"

『This is......』

"A music player from the Divine Age. Does it look familiar?"

Now let's see. If this is also unrelated, I'm seriously at a dead end.

The only things you can't capture in a screenshot are the manifested Elise and the reproduced entities. As for the music player itself, you can get a clear shot of it before the battle begins.

Andrew's reaction was to widen his eyes in surprise after a brief moment of thought...... Here we go!

『How astonishing. This is my music player.』

"Oh?"

『It was right around...... yes, right after Elise Jitterdoll's funeral, a man claiming to be a fan of hers gave me the player itself. I thought I had lost it, but...... No, why does it still exist?』

"The Conquista Dolls retrieved it. Though it's currently doing its own thing, completely divorced from its original purpose."

To be specific, it's turned into something that literally erodes the world itself.

『No...... that is not the issue. Everything targeted for retrieval under the "Collection" Project is preserved by the hands of the Conquista Dolls... but that is because the targeted items were "designed to be so from the start."』

"......Pardon?"

『That music player was created before the human species set sail into the sea of stars, and it was lost "before" any preservation treatments could be applied to prevent millennial-scale deterioration. Why has it retained its original form?』

......

............

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"How the hell should I know........."

That's exactly what I came here to find out! And so, the Behemoth raid concluded with results that left me with no other response but that. Now then, what to do from here.

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Author's Afterword

Atsugi-san is a follower of Akatsuki Heart-sensei, and thinks Zappy is an idiot.