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Last Embryo Volume 6 Chapter 4 Part 16

Tokuteru stood up from his seat and shifted his sights towards Izayoi. After thinking about it for a while, Izayoi reached towards his pocket and took out the latest model of a smartphone that he bought for himself while he was back in the Outer World.

「Homura and the others always talk to me through their smartphones when they are here, so I want you to enable my own smartphone to be able to do that as well. It would be nice to have it be capable of connecting to the Outer World’s internet as well, just so that I could know what is happening in the Outer World at all times.」

「I am afraid that you are barking up the wrong tree, because doing that is not my territory. If you want to be able to do that, then you would have to go and ask Queen Halloween directly. Do you still have your 「Guest Master Authority」left to use?」

In response to Tokuteru’s question, Homura tilted his head slightly to the side.
「By 「Guest Master Authority」, you mean the right for the Player to have their Sponsor lend them a hand in the Gift Game?」

「Right, that is exactly what I was talking about.」

「YES! Even though the name itself might not imply that right away, it is indeed the ability that allows the Players to have their Sponsor lend them their aid in the Game, be it by participating in a difficult battle or using one of their special abilities to give their chosen champion an advantage that would enable them to shift the tide of the Game in their favor. As you can probably guess, that is a very powerful ability to have, and so the number of the times when a single team is capable of using it has been limited to five times per Gift Game.」

「Right, and since we have already used it one time, that means we have four usages left. Any advice on what we should do?」

「Hmm. . . .The ability to remain in continuous contact with your friends and associates in the Outer World as well as between your fellow smartphone users here in Little Garden would certainly be a great advantage. . . . that being said, I cannot help it but to be worried about how Miss Ayato and the others are doing.」

At the current moment, four people from Homura’s group possess smartphones: Izayoi, Suzuka, Homura himself and Ayato. If it means that they would be able to confirm each other’s status whenever they wanted, then perhaps it would definitely be worth it to burn through one of the four remaining 「Guest Master Authorities」so that they could have that as one of their safety measures?

「. . .Yes, perhaps that really might be for the best. Being able to contact you all might prove invaluable in the future as well.」

Homura said to himself while taking out his Geass Roll. For the time being, he decided to use Queen Halloween’s 「Guest Master Authority」to contact Ayato and the others who went to the Gift Game organized by the natives of the village together with her.

* * *

At the same time, in the underground Labyrith.

Ayato answered the call that she received from Homura, and when she realized what the situation was, she had a really tense look on her face.

「So then. . . is that woman whom we saw at the entrance from the Roman Catholic Church? Or is she acting on behalf of the Medici family?」

『At this time, both of these options might very well be a valid possibility. But I have to say that appearance of someone like that definitely hit us in our blind spot. Roman Catholic Church or Medici’s taking part in the 2nd War for the Sun’s Authority, huh? But in that case, is it possible that there are other people who have been summoned for the purpose of taking part in the War from our own times, or the ones extremely close to ours?』

Naturally, something like that has always been a possibility. However, what might have initially been quite disastrous for them might just turn into quite a fortunate turn of events.

「All right, Homura-senpai. I will try to find out who exactly is her benefactor, and I will get back to you with my findings as soon as possible.」

『That would definitely be appreciated. Since you are the daughter of the CEO of Everything Company, then I am definitely sure that you will be able to find something out by using your connections.』

「You do not have to tell me that twice. Let us just make sure that we both do everything that we can to finish up as soon as possible. . . . . . . ahh, actually, since we are already talking, then now might be as good of an occasion as any to inform you about this, but we actually managed to obtain copies of the inscriptions from the stone monuments, so could you have a look at them before we get back to you?」

『Of course, I will be sure to do that right away, Lady Ayato.』

After Homura spoke those words, Izayoi smiled and laughed quietly, finding it deeply amusing that Homura was always ready to be at the beck and call of this Ayato girl.

In the meantime, Ayato also worked to send the copies of the inscriptions from the stone monuments to Homura as soon as possible, and since there was quite a lot of the pages that contained the copied texts, she decided that the best way to go about it is going to be sending it all to Homura in the form of photos that she started taking one by one. Asuka was looking at all of this from the side with great interest and was even considering asking is she should help Ayato with what she was doing, but she ultimately decided to step back, since she thought to herself that it would not be right offer help only to then have to ask the person she wanted to help to lend her the tools necessary for doing so. Ayato was also aware of that fact, but just like Asuka, she determined that not asking for anyone’s help would be the right thing to do in this situation. After all, she was only sending photos to Homura with her smartphone. If she would be unable to perform such a mundane task on her own and had to ask for help with it, then how she could ever expect anyone to ever treat her seriously?

As a result, getting the job done took her a solid while, but ultimately. . .

「There, all sent. How is it, Homura-senpai? Is everything fine with the pictures? Is resolution not too low? Can you read everything properly?」

『Yes, I can see everything clearly. Splendid work, Lady Ayato, truly splendid work. Now, let me see what is actually written in these inscriptions. . . . 』

However, as soon as Homura and Izayoi wanted to take a ganger at the pictures that Ayato sent to them. . . .  they noticed that the tableware in the hut began to tremble with a rattling sound.

『. . . . An earthquake?』

At first it did not feel like that at all, but with each passing moment the shaking sensations were growing in intensity, further reinforcing the notion that it was indeed an earthquake that was growing little by little. Suzuka jumped from her seat and grabbed the Albino girl, ready to leave with her in tow at a moment’s notice should the need for that ever arose, and in the meantime, the earthquake became so powerful that the resulting tremors begun to actually cause entire houses to collapse.

「What is going on out there, senpai? The rumbling is so strong that I can clearly hear it over here on my side! Are you all okay?!」

『Yeah, for the time being, at least. I do not know what is going on, so I am going to cut the call now!』

Homura did not really want to do it, but the current situation left him with no choice in the matter whatsoever. Either he would have kept talking and risked getting hurt, or hang up and try to go out and see what was causing that earthquake and why, and it was no surprise at all to Ayato that he has decided to choose the latter.