"I never thought I'd see it again." Ferus Manus stood outside the main hall of the palace and exclaimed, "A palace that is still intact...... It's nothing short of a miracle. ”

One of the creators of the miracle, Rika Fujimaru, simply sat on the steps not far away, looking a little uneasy.

"Perhaps." She said so.

Beyond their line of sight, the size of the complex continues to grow. Nearby, it was only the same sumptuous living quarters as the main hall they had just left, and a variety of beautiful works of art to match them emerged in their proper places; Then there are the ceremonial venues, the Imperial Dining Room and the Audience Room, the Large Council Hall and the Office Quarters; In the distance, there are various laboratories, logistics distribution centers, art exhibition halls and ecological gardens; And in those places that ordinary people can't see, secret treasures and prison cells are quietly revealed...... Each individual building is as grand and magnificent as a temple, and even in the most inconspicuous corners it contains the best beauty and wisdom of mankind, and they are only an insignificant part of the whole complex.

The Emperor's Palace is undoubtedly one of mankind's engineering feats, the largest single building or complex ever built on Earth, or Terra. Needless to say, this size is enough to make the building famous, but the greatness of the palace is not limited to this: it is the abode of the greatest human being, and it must be worthy of this greatness in every way. Enormity in scale is only one of the most inconspicuous elements of this greatness that matches the emperor. The finest works of art in all of humanity are here just tickets to be placed in a room as decoration, and the carvings and frescoes created to celebrate the Great Expedition are all by the hands of the best masters, not to mention the intricate and efficient technological devices designed and built with the supreme wisdom of the Emperor himself, and even the terrifying artifacts handed down from the Age of Dark Technology......

Rika Fujimaru closed her eyes, but she was the caster who initiated this magic spell, and she was the observer who drew out the concept. Even if she didn't want to, all the information about this palace that had been pulled out of history still flooded into her mind.

She couldn't say anything bad about the building when it was judged objectively, but she didn't see just the building itself.

Even in the thirtieth millennium of human history, when things were more rational and vigorous than now, as if everything was going well, people could easily erupt into a religious fanaticism for the emperor. She didn't want to count how many craftsmen's blood and blood had been buried under such a large-scale project, how many amazing artists had driven themselves crazy for an inconspicuous detail in the palace, how many intrigues had been used in this splendid place for the useless purpose of "getting closer to the emperor"—but even if she had only extracted a moment in the palace, those things still flowed clearly and visibly through her mind. It's like when you open a book, you can't help but catch a glimpse of what is on other pages.

She didn't like it, or rather, she didn't like the subtext of the stars holding the moon in these buildings, and she didn't like the attention of the people.

She should get used to it, but she can't. Even though she had joined the Empire as a Nostramo in the illusion, adapted to its system, commanded the army in a high-profile position, and spent more than a hundred years, she could only pretend that she was used to it.

Of course she couldn't get used to it. Her spirituality had stagnated long before she reached the Empire. No matter how much time passes, she will always be the same Rika Fujimaru who faces the endgame.

- For the time being, this is a good thing. At least she had room to think so optimistically.

"In the subspace, the concept of space itself is very vague, so it can accommodate more than just a royal palace." She sat down on the steps, grabbed her knees, looked up at the golden canopy, and said, "If the Emperor wishes, just continue to replenish the aether into this creation, and it will expand on its own." Judging from the total amount of the Emperor's psionic energy, it is easy to complete the concept of this 'Imperial Palace' into the 'entire planet'...... But it's better not to make the Hollow Mountains. ”

Ferus Manus lowered his head in confusion: "Why is this?" ”

Fujimaru Rika took the opportunity to move her gaze from the canopy to Ferrus: "The Hollow Mountain Range is simply a star torch generator, and the position we are in now is 'within the star torch' in subspace. You can't freeze the freezer inside itself, and that creates a serious paradox - even the best of the results would be for the Torch to blow itself up along with Terra, creating a huge subspace rift in its place. Worse I didn't think about it, I thought it was beyond my imagination. ”

“…… It's too dangerous. Is there no way to avoid or remedy it? ”

"Yes, I asked the Emperor at the beginning if he wanted to pull a Himalayan mountain range from another point in time—the name of the Hollow Mountain Range in the second millennium—to pull a mountain range without a star torch out and sew it in the Hollow Mountains, but he refused." Fujimaru Rika bowed her head and sighed, "What he means is that if there is a case, humans also need a means to break the net." After I reminded him of this, he thought it was a good idea to add to his backup plan. ”

After hearing this, Ferus Manus thought for a moment, stopped questioning, and simply sat down on the steps: "I see, father has his own considerations. ”

"I hope so." Rika Fujimaru, who lacked some "necessary" respect and blind faith in the emperor in every sense of the word, commented with little hope, though the emperor himself seemed to like her attitude.

Ferus Manus obviously had a lot of criticism about this, but before he could put his thoughts into words, Rika Fujimaru had already started a new topic: "Speaking of which, do you know how the Storm Border is doing now?" I don't want to come out of subspace and find my ship dismantled to parts. ”

The trick of bringing up work to change the subject doesn't always work, but for Rika Fujimaru, it was enough to work this time. Rather than talking about whether he should have more respect for the Emperor, Ferus Manus was clearly more interested in talking about a small ship loaded with lost technology. Almost immediately, he forgot about the unpleasantness he had felt a few seconds earlier, and said with great interest: "Your ship is not big, so it can be hidden in a hangar in the palace in reality, and the Praetorian Army is in charge of her." ”

It was said that "the Forbidden Army was in charge", but Fujimaru Rika dared to bet anyone that Ferus must have secretly studied the ship somehow. At least the over-understanding he showed in explaining the progress and details of the renovation was far from what he himself claimed to be able to "sneak a peek behind the curtain as he passed by".

The technology of the second millennium of mankind is of course as obvious to Ferrus, who was active in the thirtieth millennium at the time of his death, as if one plus one equals two, but the part related to magic is a different matter. There is a difference between the two different worlds in terms of the underlying logic of the "mysterious", and many of the spells or structures contained in the Storm Boundary are confusing even to the Emperor as a psyker - but these things that seem to be "completely useless" with the Emperor's knowledge just work...... In the end, this can only be explained by the fact that psionic energy is amazing, and even the emperor cannot exhaust all the mysteries of the world.

After all, Rika Fujimaru's creation magic of "giving the concept of objects to the ether and letting the energy form itself" sounded outrageous to the emperor. If you think about it from the perspective of psionic energy, it is all a matter of unsolved mystery level from beginning to end. Although the Emperor had recently created a scepter out of psionic energy, the two seemingly similar phenomena were very different in terms of the logic of their occurrence.

In addition, the system of magic is more systematic and logical than psionic energy, at least unlike psionic energy, magic will symbolically follow the laws of physics when operating. Naturally, such a thing would attract the attention of the Iron Hand Primordial, which had done almost nothing but war for 10,000 years. In an instant, the topic was turned by Ferrus from "because there are too many unexplained structures in the ship, and it has not been too long in the real world, so only some 'Imperial' equipment has been added to the Storm Frontier" to the exploration of the functional testing and operation principle of Triton's engine. So Fujimaru Rika quickly couldn't interject - she did use the refrigerator for a long time, but she really didn't know how to refrigerate.

What about those who know how to refrigerate?

Ferus Manus finally realized that Rika Fujimaru was not in a good mood because no one answered for too long. He has never had the patience to use some roundabout tricks in language, so he asks straight to the point: "Is there a problem?" ”

"Nope." The girl retracted her legs back up the steps and hugged her knees, "It's just that I suddenly felt a little emotional, this ship was not mine...... Suddenly, I missed the original captain and crew, and then I felt a little sad that 'one will succeed and ten thousand bones will wither'. ”

She stretched out a hand and scribbled meaningless shapes in mid-air: "You see, after a great victory with heavy casualties, most of the battle commander's name will be widely sung, but the commander may even stay at the headquarters during the entire battle and not kill a single enemy. It was the unknown soldiers who died on the battlefield who really made the battle a victory, but no one cared if they actually existed, except for the legion itself or the dedicated narrator. ”

“…… Does this have anything to do with our topic? ”

"It was the hard work of her original captain and the crew that made it possible for me to come to the Empire on this ship. I didn't do anything, just a hitchhiker. But she ended up on my ship, because I was the only living person on board. Fujimaru Rika explained a little, and felt that it was a bit stupid for her to seriously explain this matter. She sighed, simply stood up from the spot, and looked at the fierce and cold face of Ferus who was sitting on the side: "Forget it, you just treat this as an adolescent girl's idle and cranky thoughts, so you don't have to take it to heart." ”

Ferus opened his mouth with a "really inexplicable" expression, but before he could say anything, he was interrupted by a rush of footsteps from behind him. Conrad Coetzes carried the scepter that seemed to be made of gold, and a gust of wind blew it, throwing it into the arms of Fujimaru Rika, who had turned to face him, as if it were some kind of bad luck in his hand.

He didn't say anything, but everyone could see that he wanted to curse very much.

"What's wrong?" Rika Fujimaru, who was stumbling after being smashed by a scepter, asked first.

Conrad Coetzes paused, seemingly struggling to swallow back a word that didn't match the noble status of the original before he spoke, "He thinks your mission requires an out-of-the-box warband. He said let me be drafted. ”

This sentence seemed to poke Ferus Manus's switch, making his originally calm mood "soar" and explode - this is subspace, so this kind of "explosion" can be observed in a practical sense, and even made Fujimaru Rika instinctively reach out and press her short skirt.

His trust in the emperor made him not say anything excessive in the end, but this sentence that was barely a piece of advice was completely squeezed out of his teeth: "A second chance is very rare, and it is best not to live up to all this." ”

Conrad Coetzes was very obviously, apparently deliberate, with a look of disgust towards his brother. But before he could really say something to provoke another conflict, Rika Fujimaru asked:

"So, you're unhappy because you don't want to be drafted?"

"Your Excellency." The pitch-black bat even saluted as if jokingly in reply.

Conrad Coetze's attitude towards Fujimaru Ritsuka was not so sharp - especially compared to his attitude towards Ferrus a few seconds ago, it was almost heaven and earth. This obviously gave the Iron Hand Primordial another thing to say, but in the next instant, he immediately understood how this temperature difference came about:

"Then it's over if you don't levy it." Fujimaru Rika said with a natural attitude, "He thinks that the need for conscription is because we need an out-of-the-box war group, so as long as we have such a military force in our hands to complete the task, he can't care whether you conscript or not." ”

Conrad Coetz thought for a moment and said, "You have a point, but the question is, where does this non-establishment warband come from?" ”

To his surprise and to Ferrus's surprise, Rika Fujimaru seemed very confident.

"I have a plan for this."