At the final stage of the Fifth Holy Grail War, during negotiations with Shiomi, Marisbury had frankly admitted that he didn't have the funds to complete Chaldeas.
In truth, as a Magus Family with a lineage spanning over two thousand years, the Animusphere family possessed considerable wealth. But even that legacy couldn't cover the cost of building Chaldeas.
Now, aside from the operational Antarctic Observatory—Chaldea—the Animusphere family still owned two other significant assets.
One was a nuclear power plant in France, which supplied electricity to Chaldea.
The other was an offshore oil rig known as Seraphix.
Many of Chaldea's current surviving personnel had friends or relatives working at Seraphix, so the oil platform maintained regular contact with Chaldea every three months for personnel updates and intelligence sharing.
Even after the resolution of the Incineration of Humanity, Seraphix reestablished its connection with Chaldea and continued its routine communications.
Located in the North Sea between Britannia and the Eurasian continent, the oil rig had beco Chaldea's most vital source of inco after suffering heavy losses elsewhere—making Olga Marie more invested in its status than ever before.
With sufficient funds in hand, they could better defend Chaldea's authority in its ongoing power struggle with the Clock Tower.
Yet Olga Marie herself had never been to Seraphix.
After Marisbury's death, managing Chaldea alone had already driven her to the brink of physical and ntal collapse.
So the oil rig's affairs had always been handled by Chaldea's senior staff.
But the explosion in the control room had killed nearly all of those experienced personnel. Now, none of the current staff had ever visited the offshore platform.
The employees who were now in contact with the oil rig were all new hires who had built friendships with Seraphix personnel through communication over the past few years—their connections more like pen pals than coworkers.
With one side based out at sea and the other in a snowy mountain range, both were isolated work environnts, making it easier to find shared topics of conversation.
As one communications officer put it, these precious, screen-bound acquaintances were just like Romani's Magi☆Mari.
—Though Romani insisted Magi☆Mari was nothing like that.
"How is it? What's the situation at Seraphix?"
Inside the control room, Olga Marie paced restlessly as she urged the staff to operate the Near-Future Observation Lens, SHEBA, to check on the oil rig.
But after initiating their routine contact, Chaldea had instead received a choppy voice transmission from what sounded like a final, desperate survivor—like a ssage sent monts before total destruction.
After that, SHEBA lost all ability to observe Seraphix.
Though the offshore oil platform was mobile and SHEBA searched the nearby sea, it found no trace of Seraphix.
"Any other anomalies? Oil leaks? Signs of fire? Space-ti distortion? ...What about a Singularity?" Olga Marie rattled off questions like a machine gun.
"None! Nothing at all! No Singularity response either!" Romani's fingers flew across the controls. "The source of the earlier transmission can't be confird, and the images ca from an unidentifiable zone!"
Olga Marie's face had gone completely pale. She was so tense that she unconsciously began biting her thumbnail.
"Biting your nails when you're nervous isn't a great habit."
Shiomi gently pressed down on her hand. His calm voice made Olga Marie feel like she'd found a lifeline.
"Sensei? Weren't you supposed to be at your routine checkup?"
"I finished it already." Shiomi let go and patted Romani on the shoulder. "Mind if I take over? I think I know what to do."
Romani turned back with a questioning look. After locking eyes with Shiomi for a mont, he gave a nod. "All right, it's yours."
The two swapped places, and Shiomi imdiately began adjusting the Near-Future Observation Lens.
"Ti: AD 2030. Location: Mariana Trench."
As soon as those paraters were corrected, the lens finally responded.
"Seraphix is at a depth of 200 ters! And...!" the staff mber pulling the data suddenly exclaid, "We're detecting a Singularity!"
Olga Marie slamd her hand on the director's desk in shock. "How... how is this even possible...?"
"If the oil platform had just drifted into the deep Pacific, that'd be one thing. But Rayshifting—can only be done into the past," Romani said, clenching his fists. "Proof of Existence for the future can't be established unless the quantum ti-lock has already been fully secured."
After all, Chaldea's core mission was to ensure the continuation of human history for the next 100 years.
Verifying that humanity could survive a century into the future was Chaldea's upper limit.
Trying to validate the existence of sothing beyond that...
"It's possible," Shiomi said, still composed.
Or rather, he was in a unique position that allowed him to stay calm.
After returning to his room, he'd found an anonymous email—and it was obvious at a glance that it had co from BB.
Using the data in that email, Shiomi—who was technically a layman when it ca to Rayshifting—had managed to do sothing even the professionals couldn't: establish Proof of Existence for Seraphix, which had drifted to 2030.
It was support, straight from Mooncell.
"But who's going to Rayshift to the future?" Olga Marie asked. It wasn't that she didn't have anyone in mind—just that, seeing the data, she understood this journey would be anything but easy.
"I'll go." Shiomi stood up.
His declaration left the room stunned.
"Hold on! Your body still hasn't fully recovered! Even if you can withstand a Rayshift—" Olga Marie was the first to object.
But her protest lost montum against Shiomi's unwavering gaze.
"Who are you planning to take with you?" Scáthach asked after a mont of silence.
Shiomi turned to look at Morgan, Scáthach, and Artoria.
"Of course... all of you."
By "all," he ant just the three of them.
"As usual—careful, but daring," Morgan said with a knowing smile. She clearly wasn't against it.
Artoria gave Shiomi a formal nod. "If it's our Master's decision, then even if this Singularity lies in the depths of hell, I swear as a knight to follow you there."
Despite their day-to-day bickering, when real danger appeared, the three of them always stood by Shiomi's side.
With that kind of unified resolve, no one could say a word in opposition.
"Then it's settled."
Shiomi stared at the words "AD.2030" on the screen and made the quiet declaration.
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