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Last Embryo Volume 2 Chapter 7 Part 2

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Homura stopped dead in his tracs as if he couldn’t believe what Scathach said just now. He looked back at her, confused, and asked once again, unable to fully comprehend the the meaning behind her words.

「Wait just a goddamn minute, please! Why bring the Star Particle Bodies now of all times? I don’t understand how the two of them are supposed to be connected at all!」

This time it was Scathach’s turn to appear surprised at Homura’s question.

「Oh, so that’s how it is? You haven’t heard anything about it from Kudou Ayato? Not a single word?」

「Not a single word about what?!」

「The Star Particle Bodies Spread Plan.」

「Ah, you mean that impossible dream of global-scale Terra Healing by further developing and utilizing the Star Particle Bodies environmental improvement function? Because if so, then I heard about it, but nothing more than simple musing and hypothesis.」

For a moment, an amazed smile bloomed on Homura’s face.

「The Star Particle Bodies Spread Plan」 was, just like its name suggested, a bunch of romantic ideas and other nonsense about building a tower that would be large enough as to make it possible to distribute the Star Particle Bodies across the entire planet in order to help improve its environmental situation. For now it was unachievable, but certainly not impossible just as long they would be able to mass-produce 『Origins』 and learn to precisely control the movements of the Star Particle Bodies themselves. Lands turning into desserts, the pollution in the atmosphere, global warming… they would be able to deal with all of those problems once and for all, and in a ridiculously short period of just 3 years! Only, of course, if the Terra Healing system would have been successfully completed. And also, the other problems related to that matter were piled up so high that they could have easily form a mountain the size of Everest.

The place where such a tower for spreading Star Particle Bodies would have been constructed, the effects they would have on human bodies, the potential fear of nanohazards, religious and political issues, agreements with the protesting pro-enviornment groups… truly, the list of problems was endless, but even if they were all solved, there was still no guarantee that the production line would have been ready in time.

But let’s assume for a while that the Star Particle Bodies Spread Plan would have been successfully launched. If that happened and everything proceeded smoothly without a hitch, then in 10 years time, Star Particle Bodies would fill 17% of the world’s atmosphere, but the question of how to produce such a large number of them is still a problem that they have still yet to find the answer to.

As previously mentioned, simply creating the 3 samples of the 『Origins』 that Homura took with him took an astounding amount of time, and cultivating them through parasitic growth only resulted in the creation of defective, degraded products.

If only there exusted the people, animals or even plants that possessed the idiosyncratic constitution sturdy enough for the Star Particle Bodies not to degrade when parasitic multiplication was used, it would be an entirely different matter. Unfortunately, such a convenient method has not been discovered yet.

「Besides, such an absurd plan is simply impossible to pull of even for the best researchers at Everything Company. And even if that matter could be solved with money, there is also another one to deal with: the issue of earning enough social understanding with the general public for the project to get approved in the first place.

「Fufufu, now, I wonder about that. With the current situation the Outer World is facing right now, Star Particle Bodies might be just the answer that the scientists of your world are looking for, so they were able to save the day, their influence would have undoubtedly rose in significance, which would in turn lead to more than half of your problems solving themselves on their own, don’t you think?」

Homura frowned in return to Scathach’s smile. That very well might be so. It would definitely be great if he managed to prove to everyone who laughed at and dismissed his project that Star Particle Bodies are not harmful to human bodies and can be used to their benefit. If only he managed to get the people to give them the benefit of the doubt, then appealing to country leaders and worldwide organization would have been that much easier.

But even so, there was still one final problem remaining. Without the active production line, his plans would remain but empty words of a dreamer who’s unable to accept the impossible reality before his eyes. As if she was reading his mind, Scathach raised her other index finger and presented him with a question:

「Why not try changing your viewpoint then? What would you, Saigo Homura, have done if it turned out that all of the problems with Star Particle Bodies have been resolved? How would you go about spreading your invention?」

Spreading of the Star Particle Bodies… although he remained sceptical about Scathach’s “what if” scenario, he still tried to give it some actual thought, with the assumption that that the Star Particle Bodies in question would be the secured versions of 『Origins』 rather than the ones that were still in the experimental stage.

The first thing he’s need would the detailed date of the earth’s environmental situation. The ideal option would be to have a stable and relatively unchanging climate. Taking the earth’s axis as one of the key setup points, it would have to be a land that remained unchanged even throughout the cycle of the four seasons, like the North or the South Pole. So taking all of that into consideration, then if he had to choose where to start building the infrastructure for the spreading of the Particle Bodies…

「If I had to choose… then I would have chosen the Equator and build everything along its line.」

「Oh, the Equator? Now that’s interesting.」

Scathach continued to walk forward without much change to her tone of voice, so Homura couldn’t help it but to have a bad feeling while he continued to exercise his brain with his hand on his chin. His reasoning, however, didn’t require a lot of explaining.

This 2^nd War for the Sun’s Authority was supposed to be a battle between The Twelve Constellations and the Chinease Zodiacs, but just now, Scathach hinted at the possibility od Star Particle Bodies being involved in it as well, which would mean…

(No… no way, that is simply not possible! The Star Particle Bodies Spread Plan and the Enviornmental Control Tower Project should have all been at a standstill…!)

A cold chill crawled down Homura’s spine. He wanted to ask Scathach was exactly was she hinting at, but suddenly the inside of the wagon has been assaulted by a tremor that was many more times powerful than the ones caused by an earthquake or the strike of lightning. Looking at the sky, Scathach’s expression, which was pretty relaxed up to this point immediately stiffened, and she became much more tense and wary of their surroundings.

「That damn amateur! Did she really fail such a simple task as killing the Bull Monster?!」

「Eh?! What are you talking about?!」

「Sorry, we’ll have to save the explanations for later! That guy is really bad news!」

Homura wanted to raise another shout, but was unable to, because in the next moment, he was assaulted by an intense feeling of déjà vu and buoyancy.

The attack launched by Ayato at lightning speed ended up spilling a fountain of fresh blood high in the skies above the Giant Spirit Train.

The head which was cleanly decapitated from the rest of the body with that single strike danced around in the air as it rotated along with the crimson droplets. That one arrow send the head of the mysterious girl flying with enough force to scatter both the rain and the winds and even rend the sky itself asunder. An attack like that surely wasn’t something that a mere human with their weak, mortal bodies could be able o pull off. The only ones capable of firing an arrow as deadly as that one were the ones that trained their marksmanship skills to such ridiculously high levels that their abilities could be classified as nothing other than divine, so no one should be surprised that the mysterious new guest had no way of defending herself against it whatsoever, since she wasn’t even anticipating that anyone on board of the train would be crazy enough to even consider targeting her from the place she assumed to be absolutely beyond the reach of any ranged weaponry. But, as everyone lucky enough to witness that spectacle just now could guess, she couldn’t have been more mistaken.