Chapter Text
As the chroma and Gemertia are dealt with for the time being, Roland is finally able to take a break from the intense past few weeks. Instead of fighting for the survival of kivotos, he now fights with the unending paperwork on his desk... And a 100kg calculator about his "unnessessary expenses".
Roland sighs as he hand moves from paper to paper, completely void of motivation as he was never fond of doing paperwork, not back at the city. Maybe even less so in Kivotos, given how much less fights he got into to fill the gap. Despite his demonstrated prowess in combat, the GSC urges him to let his students protect him, even though all of them have less field experience combined than him, usually with the excuse that he is "too important to lose".
The air conditioner within Schale hums as it usually does, after whatever modifications the engineering club did to it, with their rep of adding to many features to anything. He takes a glance at the clock mounted on the wall and another at the pile of paper next to him, and decides to finally leave his desk to get food. After all, it has been 3 hours since he had sat down to work, and he couldn't bear it much longer.
Just as he is about to leave his office to get lunch, a message on momotalk pops up, and upon opening his phone, he sees a message from Rin:
[Rin: Hello Roland-sensei, if you are currently available, I would like to have a discussion on a matter that may impact the safety of kivotos.]
"A matter that threatens kivotos, a city where everyone holds guns?" Roland thinks to himself. Surely, with how accessible firepower is within the district of education, not much can pose a real "threat" to it, much less catch the attention of the GSC.
And so, Roland asks arona to send a message back to schedule a meeting within the afternoon, considering his lack of skill within utilizing digital technology as such commodities didn't exist where he came from.
"Atleast this will be more interesting than signing all this paperwork." he mumbles to noone in particular.
A couple hours later, Roland enters Rins office with nothing to expect as it cant be much worse than the library was. Within the office sits Rin on her desk, head down signing papers like her life depended on it, whilst Eimi and Himari are bickering as usual. Upon seeing Roland enter, Rin finally sets down her pen, shushes the duo beside her, and speaks.
Rin: "Thank you for taking time out of your schedule, Roland-sensei. As you are already acquainted with Himari and Eimi, let us skip the introductions and proceed to the important matter."
Himari: "Hello sensei, even though we have already cooperated within the past, allow me to reintroduce myself as the most delicate flower and genius hacker that millennium has to offer. Unfortunately, I have a sister who does not share the same elegance as me, who may be comparable to sewer water, while I am spring-"
Eimi: "Dear Himari, please focus on the discussion at hand. We are getting side-tracked by your ego."
Himari: "Well, I suppose I do not need to reinforce the fact that I am a beautiful girl, as you would have already seen. Recently, I have been asked by the person comparable to sewer water to investigate a strange phenomenon, known as Decagrammation. From her questionable and definitely unreliable sources, it is an artifical intellegence created to search for a so-called divine creation. However, no matter how much we triedto investigate this, we found no meaningful results. From this, I would normally already have discarded her concerns as she is no more than sewage waste, but an unexpected hack was performed in millennium last week with the same description."
Eimi: "Hence, we have called you here as we would like your assistance within our investigation."
"An AI who wishes to be a divine being? Where have I heard of that before..." as Roland-sensei gets a sense of deja vu, not being quite sure how he should feel about it. He continues to keep a calm and unpredictable demeanor as he usually does, while thinking about the dilemma opposed on him.
Roland: "Well, it is my job to help the students within the city, so tell me about it."
Himari: "Very well. Let us continue this conversation within the club room."
As they walk out of the GSC office and through the millennium campus, Roland can't help but reminisce about his time in the library. His time there may be short, but he was nonetheless curious about the patreon librarians and their past lives before being forced to do Angelas bidding.
The light from the glowing ball of fire in the sky shines down on the trio as they traverse from building to building, with distant echos of explosions to be heard as the students engage in "experiments", swiftly followed by sounds of excitement and terror alike; Roland dismisses this as a quirky part of the school. Well, hes seen weirder things in the city on a daily basis anyway.
Finally, after what seems like 30 minutes of walking (not for Himari), they arrive at the club room. Inside lies a series of moniters and technology Roland would never have to thought to exist back at the city.
Himari, noting the slightest shift in Rolands face (at which he always remains nonchalent even under 'threatening' conditions), laughs internally as though making Roland amused is an accomplishment. Then, she speaks:
Himari: "This is where we will be conducting the our research on this entity."