"You're doing the impossible, Primordial." Sevita's voice echoed across the bridge again, "I don't want to dwell on it, but I'm still holding on to my original opinion. ”

"There are so many things in the world that were thought to be impossible, and there is more than one 'impossible thing' that I have done." Rika Fujimaru had already set an ambush line for this kind of questioning, "Don't be trapped by common sense, didn't you still think that you couldn't be the person you are today when you were on Nostramo?" ”

Sevita was stuck in his previous statement, but Astarte's fast-moving thinking allowed him to find a new direction of attack in an instant: "Nostramo has caused too many problems, and she is almost a negative asset for the Legion, and for the sake of the efficiency of the expedition, it is wise to 'deal with it' as soon as possible." ”

Fujimaru Rika showed a strange sadness at this time: "That's ...... It's so pitiful. ”

She didn't say anything pitiful, nor did she give anyone else a chance to ask, but after a moment's pause, she resumed her conversation with a firm determination: "But you're right, Savitarion. Nostramo is a Legion asset, and when something goes wrong with her, it's time to fix it the Legion way - I should have done it a long time ago. ”

She paced anxiously in the little square in the center of the field, whispering in a light and brisk Nostramo dialect: "I have been gone for too long, and I am too merciful, as you often complain, lest the fools on earth have long forgotten that I was not elected to power by appeasement, lobbying, or lax decrees." Pure repressive rule would cause a backlash, but policies that now seem reasonable in other worlds will only fool the short-sighted aristocracy. I have to remind them that I'm from Nostramo too...... No, or simply ...... the whole class"

An atmosphere of agitation began to drift away with the characteristic soft hiss of Nostramo, as if in just a breath, Rika Fujimaru suddenly showed some abnormal nervousness: some muscles were spasming abnormally, tearing at her face and reason, and her frown was furrowed with anxiety, irritability, and anger of unknown origin at the same time. She turned her back to the majority of the crowd again, trying not to let the midnight heirs see her tormented by the sudden symptoms, straightened up, and grasped a railing at hand.

It may seem a little inexplicable, but Conrad Coetze knew what was going on from the first moment, after all, he had been tormented and played with by this uncontrollable curse for almost his entire life:

An omen. There's no reason, no hint, just a bare, almost crushing primordial, all-too-real omen.

This intrigued Conrad Coetzes. In fact, everything he'd seen on the ship so far had intrigued him, and even if he explicitly hated the part he had seen and scoffed at the rest, he still had to admit that he was interested in what would happen next. He still remembered what he had come to do: he wanted to know where he had lost.

From the moment he arrived on the Nightfall, he began to observe and gather all kinds of information. Konrad Coetzes has always been very sharp, and things like this are not difficult for him. He and Fujimaru Rika didn't know each other well, they had only spoken to each other a few times at the beginning of the trial, but now, he had roughly pieced together an image of Fujimaru Rika from the Nightfall itself and everything that had just happened—so far, he didn't think there was anything decisive about the other.

Then that's all it could be. Conrad Coz stared carefully at Rika Fujimaru in the prophecy attack, carefully analyzing every spasm of her shell and every whisper she uttered in her delirium.

What would she do with this bewildering curse?

Conrad Coetz is curious about this, but this kind of struggle in the realm of other people's consciousness does not show signs of it. Even if he was a primordial, in the current situation, he could only see a commonplace silence among the children of midnight, and smell the worry and uneasiness slowly wafting from this silence, and found Sigismund quietly moving himself between his "primordial" and the other legionnaires, watching Fujimaru Rika slowly kneel on the high platform under the torture of prophecy.

- Yes, she was standing on a small, mobile platform from the beginning, so she had a guardrail at hand. Otherwise, with her pathetic height of only five feet two inches, she would have been buried in the middle of a group of Astartes, and no one could see her. In fact, when she slowly sat down on her knees in the torment of the prophecy, the vision came true.

But the ridiculous scene didn't last long. A trembling sigh from Rika Fujimaru broke the unsettling silence on the bridge after a minute and twenty-four seconds.

"How long is this time?" She let go of the poor railing, which had been deformed by the power that did not belong to hers but to the primordial, and asked weakly into the air. Immediately afterward, Sigismund reported the exact time behind her.

"But I feel like it's been at least three hours." Fujimaru Rika said with a wry smile.

Some of the mortal servants who had been wandering around the periphery gathered and came to groom the sweaty Eighth Legion Commander with towels and warm water. At the same time, a subtle doubt crossed Conrad Coetze's mind: the symptoms were too mild compared to when he had a seizure on his own.

He had to empty the room of everyone but himself as he struggled with the terrible visions that foretold the future, and then spent hours floating in and out of those crazy sights, only to find that he had unconsciously made a mess around him like a typhoon crossing - which is why he had to be alone during the attack. Not only did the Primordial's self-esteem require him to do so, but it was because if he didn't, he would become a murderer without knowing it.

And something like this did happen, and it may have been the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Conrad Coetzes forcibly dragged his fugitive mind back to the matter at hand. He didn't know if it was the emperor who had constructed the illusion who blew the black whistle on the mortal girl, or if she really had some other kind of skill for dealing with prophecy illusions. Before he could figure out why the clues were clearly insufficient, the servants had dispersed, and Rika Fujimaru got back to her feet, almost recovering from the cruel prophecies.

"What do you see this time?" Sigismund asked softly.

This is not surprising. Conrad Coetzes thought coldly. People who can't see the future mostly have some unrealistic illusions about the future. In the past, whenever he broke free from those desperate and horrible visions, his Sevita liked to ask him similar questions.

"The same old way." Ritsuka Fujimaru seemed accustomed to being asked something similar after each seizure, and she may have answered the same question many times, "The destruction of Nostramo, the war-torn Milky Way, and...... Something that can be called blasphemy just by saying it. Nothing particularly new. ”

Perhaps at other times, the Midnight Heir would have picked up some other key word from Ritsuka Fujimaru's vague summary, but at this moment, Sevita only whispered the least important phrase: "You see the destruction of Nostramo." ”

"Not for the first time." Rika Fujimaru admits calmly, "But that's something that 'may happen in the future.'" Now, Nostramo is fine. ”

"But your predictions are always accurate, no matter how bad they really are." Sevita wore a helmet throughout the conversation, but Conrad Coz could still smell some of the desperate despair in him that had been tried to hide, "If Nostramo is doomed, then let us sinners judge this planet that continues to breed sin." ”

"Hey...... That's why Shen is my warden and Sigismund is my censor, and you can only be my company commander, Savitarion. Rika Fujimaru sighed lightly, "You're a little too ...... sometimes. Result-oriented. ”

In that moment, Conrad Coz was sure that Sevita's intention to show off was faster than his brain, and he took control of his mouth first, "But you said you liked me a few days ago." ”

That's a euphemism! And you don't take what you say to me out of context out of the situation itself! The Commander of the Eighth Regiment slammed the railing in his hand menacingly, but the little bit of frenzied anger in her tone made the whole atmosphere not very serious, "You are the kind of person who 'sees a result and will not hesitate to work towards it', which is of course good in normal times, you can make a clear judgment about the situation and find a suitable way to deal with it - but the results you can usually foresee on your own are within your reach, and prophecy is not like that!" The prophesied 'outcome' could happen tomorrow, a thousand years from now, or not at all, no one can say! ”

…… Not necessarily.

For a moment, Conrad Coetz wanted to refute this based on his own experience, but in the next moment, he felt that Rika Fujimaru couldn't be mistaken in saying this. The illusions that had been poured into his mind against his own will did not make much sense, and sometimes he could see many different possibilities - though he always chose to believe the worst with paranoia, and refused to admit that it was a mistake even after the Emperor pointed it out.

"But, Primordial, if you could have known that outcome in advance—"

"Even if I could know what the future would be! I'm not still living like you! Fujimaru Rika finally began to get a little impatient, "The meal must be eaten one bite at a time, the road must be walked step by step, and the days must be passed day by day, not that I can jump to the moment of her destruction now that I foresee the destruction of Nostramo—and I am not allowed to say bad jokes about wartime food supplies or troop carriers in this topic!" ”

Conrad Coates took a moment to insult Fujimaru Ritsuka's final addition that brought down what should have been a serious atmosphere, until he realized that Sevita had really shown that he had something to say but was blocked.

"In some of the languages of Guterra, the 'future' can be written directly as 'not yet here', and the 'things that have not yet come' obviously should not be crowded out of the 'present' and become the highest priority at present, because it is the convergence of the 'present' that humanity can reach the 'future'." Rika Fujimaru's words carry a strong conviction, "To put it in layman's terms, my credo is: it is more important to live every day in a down-to-earth manner than to worry about things that have not yet appeared. And when it comes to Nostramo's disposition, please understand that 'even if this planet is blown to pieces tomorrow due to some force majeure, today I will try to make her even a little better'. Have I succeeded in demonstrating my attitude? ”

Her tone wasn't very strong, it could even be called polite, but Sevita did back down before the statement. The commander of the Midnight Lord's company made a clear gesture of obedience in body language, and at the same time, Sigismund stepped forward, and his step forward froze in mid-air—

- Time freezes in the illusion here, everything is silent, and all "data" makes way for its true owner.

The master of the realm, Conrad Coetzes, speaks here:

"The thoughts of mortals."

He commented on Ritsuka Fujimaru's solemnly stated creed, and the latter smiled at him.

"I'm mortal."

She said softly in a calm, calm, but slightly inconspicuous tone of pride.