Lipsberg University of Technology
Lipsberg’s sky was never all that clear.
And that was true of almost every city that wasn’t Lipsberg, too.
To the people living in the cities scattered across the central continent of Equatria, a hazy sky was more familiar than a brilliant blue one.
You could blame the heavy industrial zones that sprang up everywhere, but the biggest reason was simpler: wasteland stretched out on all sides of every city.
Now and then, a naturally formed typhoon or a monstrous gale born of disaster would sweep dust up from the wasteland and scatter it across the sky.
That dust would blot out the heavens, painting the world in a murky gray instead of blue.
Even the star-filled night sky I’d seen in Nordfjord was gone here in central Equatria. When you looked up at night, there was only darkness.
Here, stars existed only in the academic sense.
Already missing it this soon.
I murmured the words under my breath, thinking of Nordfjord’s clean air.
Back in the present, Lipsberg was a city built amid wasteland beneath a sky that stayed gray all year round.
To the east and north of Lipsberg, two more cities stood like this, and together those three were the Rosenthal corporation’s chief strongholds—Rosenthal, the family that held half the former imperial center in its grasp.
In a place like this, even the sky routes that would be empty elsewhere stayed busy.
My body jerked slightly as a ground-to-air threat—one that had seemed distant, then suddenly swelled into something enormous—came crawling closer.
Cutting through the hazy sky, twelve Valkyrie Frames flew off in the opposite direction from the ground ship I was riding.
The craft, arranged in triangle formations of four, soon dwindled to faint specks before vanishing.
“Looks like the upper air is busy too.”
At the professor’s words, I gave a silent nod. I couldn’t help thinking of what had happened in Nordfjord.
While our eyes followed the Valkyrie Frames’ trail, the ground ship entered the harbor outside Lipsberg’s wall.
The harbor was protected by its own outer wall. That wall had been built with a gentle slope to keep the minimum amount of debris from drifting in off the wasteland.
The massive iron gate that had looked like part of the wall split down the middle and opened. Inside the gate, the ship’s running gear met the solid, packed ground.
The sound a ground ship made in the wasteland was very different from the sound it made inside a harbor.
Out there, it always came with the twisted screech of metal sliding against itself.
That crawling, grinding noise was the sound of shock absorbers and insulation systems catching what they could after the fact.
When a ground ship forced its way through rough terrain, the clanging of metal made its struggle impossible to mistake.
But on the harbor grounds protected by the outer wall, the ground ship was at peace.
To keep traffic from interfering with the movement of ground ships, the harbor’s surface level was off-limits under any circumstances except for tugs.
Even those tugs usually used underground passages dug beneath the routes ground ships most often traveled.
There was nothing especially cumbersome about moving in and out of the harbor itself.
That kind of harbor stretched in a long semicircle along the outside of Lipsberg’s wall.
The surface harbor, full of ground ships gathered from every direction, was so vast and distant that if I saw it for the first time, I might have had trouble telling it apart from the city itself.
Docking facilities rose from the land, hollowed inward to match the shapes of the ground ships.
All around, the air was full of the low hum of drive units and the clatter of crane cables lowering to move containers.
Our ground ship drifted naturally into one of those berths.
The drive unit came to a halt, and I heard the power bleed away. Then came the soft hiss of pressure leaving the hydraulics, followed by the sounds of other machines taking over.
At the same time, even the last thread of tension inside me finally gave way. A long breath slipped out of me before I could stop it.
▼
The terminal in Lipsberg Harbor was noisy.
Sunlight poured in through rectangular openings cut at regular intervals in the ceiling.
Below them, angled reflective panels scattered that natural light across the terminal in shifting shards.
Brown pillars rose like trees between them, thrusting upward to support the ceiling.
Beneath that scattered light, countless people flowed in and out.
A neatly dressed man in a suit headed toward the boarding gate.
A woman seated on a bench, reading a book, winced at the sudden hologram that sprang to life before her and let out a small, annoyed sound.
A man and woman who looked as if they were about to part for good embraced, then let go.
More people streamed past beneath a screen where a debate raged over the strange phenomenon reported in northern Nordfjord.
I’d seen this many people for the first time in years. Standing in the Lipsberg terminal, I blinked.
“It’s not like you’re seeing something new.”
“…I suppose I just didn’t expect to see it after making it back alive.”
It was an awkward joke.
That was how distracted I’d been.
When we were standing, the professor and I were separated by about half a head.
Because of that, the professor—wearing the body of a young girl—had to look up at me. Her gaze, as she looked up, held a trace of emptiness before it slowly faded.
“And here I was, taking in a disciple on a whim.”
“...”
“Justina. Justina Schumacher.”
She really doesn’t listen, does she.
Just as I stopped looking around and was about to turn my gaze back to Professor Jernenfeld, a strong weight tugged at the back of my neck.
The tie I’d fastened pulled tight downward.
At the place where I thought the end of the tie would be, I saw a pale, slender hand.
A strip of black fabric showed between the fingers.
My tie.
“The others are fine. That can happen. But what did I tell you?”
She didn’t seem angry.
She was still smiling, after all. Never mind that the words themselves sounded rather unsparing.
She seemed quite satisfied with the sensation of making me bow my head by tugging on my tie.
The professor pulled me forward and back again by the tie, loosening and tightening her grip as she shook me. My head bobbed along with it, slowly.
My dull eyes drifted farther away, then closer again.
“…You said not to disappoint the professor.”
“Good. Then pay attention to what I’m saying.”
She didn’t like being ignored.
With that, Professor Jernenfeld let go of my tie. I nodded in that same bent posture. A few of the surrounding stares were making my face burn.
“For now, go back to the dorms. As for the codex… it’d be better to keep it in my study first. We can’t let anyone else see it and start asking questions. As for the rest of your things, ask your roommate to help you sort them out.”
“Ah, yes?”
“You live in the dorms, don’t you? You do have a roommate, right?”
Uh, well. Probably, yes.
Now that I thought about it, this was a terrible situation. As far as I remembered, I had indeed lived in the dorms while I was attending university.
But my roommate had been a man.
Of course, cohabitation between the sexes was forbidden, and that should still be the case now.
And that brought the problem into focus.
If that rule was still in force, then I didn’t actually know my current roommate at all.
Not their personality—hell, not even what they looked like.
That was only natural. I didn’t have this body’s memories. And on top of that, I didn’t even know which dorm building or room number was mine.
“Uh….”
The professor’s gaze, fixed on my flustered expression, felt sharp.
With a soft groan, I took my terminal out of my pocket.
There weren’t many numbers saved in the contacts list.
My advisor’s number, the department chair’s number, the class representative’s number….
A dry laugh escaped me at the sight of my absurdly ruined social life at this point in time. I’d spent day after day buried in study, so of course there wouldn’t be many people I knew.
I flicked through the screen a few times. It didn’t take long to find my roommate’s number.
Seeing the name marked with “roommate” in parentheses beside it, among so few contacts, made me laugh again.
Seriously, what a pathetic sight.
“...”
The name on the screen was Liesel E. Hayes.
The terminal rang.
Then, with a click, the call connected. Even after that, there was a bit of rustling before an upbeat voice came through.
“Oh, Justina. Is that you?”
“Uh, y-yeah….”
“Wait, it really is Justina? Did something big happen? You never call me first.”
Had I not? Haha. The rest of my words trailed off on their own.
I didn’t sound cold or annoyed, but still, just in case, I hurried to keep talking, making sure my apology came through in my tone.
“Actually, I’d gone back to my hometown.”
“Oh, so that’s why you were rushing out with your bags the other day? Why?”
“Well…”
All at once, my mouth went dry.
It was nothing, really, and yet it felt as if something heavy had settled over my chest.
It had been a month and a half, but my parents’ names still felt unbearably heavy.
And yet it was a weight I had to bear.
I ended the brief silence.
“My parents passed away. And there wasn’t anyone back home who could take care of the aftermath for them.”
“...Ah. Sorry.”
“N-no, no. It’s okay.”
“I guess I got too excited because this is the first time you’ve ever called me.”
Luckily, it seemed we could at least understand each other. I let out a breath of relief where she couldn’t hear it.
“More than that, I hurt my arm, so moving my luggage is a little difficult. Could you come to the harbor terminal and help me?”
“Of course! I’m coming! I’ll be there no matter what! It should take about… thirty minutes by taxi. Just wait a little!”
After that came a clatter and the call ended. When I turned back in a daze, the professor was watching me with a slightly bewildered look.
I hadn’t even told her exactly where to wait.
And as if to laugh at that thought, about thirty minutes later a beastkin with green hair came running straight in through the terminal entrance and threw her arms around me.
My body failed to absorb the impact, and I nearly toppled over.
Huh? Why are you suddenly doing this?
“Tina, are you okay? Are you hurt badly? I heard there was some kind of accident in Nordfjord. Did you get hurt then? You must’ve had such a hard time, going so far away and coming back!”
No, I mean, why are you doing this? Even if you’re friendly, isn’t this a little too friendly?
My flustered protest, trapped in the arms of the beastkin who had suddenly clung to me, never quite made it into meaningful words before it scattered into the air.
Her ears kept twitching above my head, brushing restlessly against my field of view.