"〈S. T. E. L. L. A〉 ""I guess you haven"t... Well, that"s to be expected. After all, then you know wasn"t originally from here.."
Cole"s brain started immediately scanning the vicinity for possible weapons.
The sofa, the gla.s.ses, the table.
It was basically everything he could see in his field of view.
But Crux confirmed Cole"s suspicions about them. That he and his company were somehow related to Lucille.
She was the only one that should know about his transmigration into this jumbled up world.
Cole looked to the bunny at his right side, her eating speed had noticeably slowed down.
There was slight panic and curiosity swimming around in her gray eyes. But the most prevalent emotion in them was...
Relief.
Cole"s eyes widened at the discovery and simply patted her head before directing his attention back to Crux.
"I can a.s.sume that you already know my true ident.i.ty so I"m not going to whine about that, but please just get straight to the point."
"Fine. Join 〈S. T. E. L. L. A〉, Cole."
Cole raised an eyebrow to Crux"s tall order.
"Well, then please explain to me why I have to join〈System to Estimate Lat.i.tude & Longitude Astronomically〉? I don"t even know what it is."
Crux got irritated at how Cole had just brazenly made up a meaning for their organization"s name but kept it to himself."
"Altair, show it to him."
Altair nodded and pressed something on her headphones, causing two purple colored wires, like her eyes to eject from out of them. At the ends of the wires were headphone jacks.
"?"
Cole raised his other eyebrow at the new found function of the headphones and ended up tapping on his too.
Wires also came out, but his were dark blue, like his tie and eyeliner he usually forgot about.
He tried double tapping on the headphones and the wires retracted.
Eva wanted to copy him due to her intrigue and interest, but decided not to or else her ice cream would melt.
"Sweets are the true meaning of life!"
"Sir Cole, please give me your right hand."
Cole did as he was told and offered it up. Altair took hold of it and inserted one into the back of her neck.
She rolled Cole"s sleeves up a bit, revealing a black wristband around it with a socket in the middle.
She inserted her other jack into there which caused a screen to appear before both of their eyes.
『Initiate Copying of Media Files Between〈S-238190〉to 〈C-387912〉? 』
"Yes."
Altair answered while Cole gave signals to Crux.
"What is this?"
"It"s a process called〈Linking〉, it allows Mechanica to share and copy files. The file Altair is sending to you is the stuff you need to know about us."
While Crux explained such things to Cole, the copying continued.
『Initializing Copying...』
『Copying... 01%... 27%... 43%...』
『Copying... 59%... 70%... 99%...』
『Copying Success』
Once the screen signifying that it was a success, showed up, Altair disconnected her headphone jacks.
『Open File:〈STELLA.docs〉?
〈Y / N〉?』
Cole tapped on the yes option, something he would prefer over a voice command.
10 new screens popped up, all listed with various information about
〈S. T. E. L. L. A〉
It only took Cole a few seconds to find the most important ones out of them, or the ones that would be most useful, and skim them.
"There are still a lot of things about Mechanicas that I don"t know, aren"t there?"
Cole had that thought and decided to pursue it later and swiped the screens away, an action he knew by intuition.
"So basically, you guys are a group of Mechanicas entrusted to keep the balance in check of all the 4 zones? And the reason why you had that kind of robe pin is because Lucille is one of your sponsors?"
The trio nodded in sync again, this time with satisfied expressions on their faces.
"Sorry, but I"m not interested."
Cole then went to go get a gla.s.s of water from the fridge for himself.
"But why not?!"
"Sir Cole is reeeaaalllyyy strong, so you could easily get a high position!"
"What they said."
They were all astonished with his choice and their eyes were stuck on him even when he went back to the sofa.
"It"s not like I asked to be able to become that strong..."
"Eh? What was that?"
Cole had whispered under his breath.
"And besides, I have a goal for this life."
"Goal?"
"What is it?"
"?"
Cole sipped his water and sighed. The trio inches closer to hear what exactly the man had to say.
"It"s to have a happy life."
"Eh?"
"For just something like that?!"
"I see..."
Crux thought he was mishearing things, Altair was amazed at the simplicity of his goal and Leo seemed understanding.
"Let"s just say I didn"t have the best of lives before, so I want to do so here."
"If you really want me to join, tell me the ways I can do so if I joined your organization. It just might work."
Cole"s face had a hint of sorrow and embarra.s.sment as he said his goal.
It wasn"t the grandest nor the most n.o.ble goal out there, but it was his.
Seeing his simple goal, the trio knew what they had to do to make him join. But they needed approval from HQ to make that happen.
And seeing the awkward grin he had made, he felt like a normal person to them.
"Okay, Cole, we"ll definitely make you join us."
With that as their last message, Cole let Felicia teleport them to where they came from so they didn"t have to walk the long journey back.
.
.
.
.
.
"Papa."
"Yes, Eva?"
"Tell me one day, okay? I can wait."
"... Okay..."