"Elsa!?"
Jin suddenly noticed Elsa had collapsed forward. Panicked, he pulled her up into his arms, only to see her face was deathly pale and her eyes were brimming with tears.
"What's wrong? Are you feeling sick? Do you have a fever?"
Jin pressed his hand against her forehead.
"Ah..."
"Hmm... You don't seem to have a fever."
"U-Um..."
Elsa felt a surge of desperation. She knew she had to speak clearly now.
"I... what I want to say isn't about that."
A single tear traced a path down Elsa's cheek.
"Eh? W-What is it? What happened!?"
Jin was growing increasingly frantic.
"...I didn't want to," she whispered.
"What?"
"...I didn't mean for it to be like that."
"Like what?"
"I never intended to tie Jin-nii down. I just... wanted a little bit..."
"A little bit of what?"
"Just a little bit..."
What was it? Elsa asked her own heart. Then, she realized. She had been lonely.
Jin was an existence she couldn't live without. But what was she to him? By asking that question, Elsa reached a new realization.
"I just wanted you to pay attention to me. That's all."
When Jin started creating something, he would charge ahead blindly. She just wanted him to turn her way, even for a moment.
While he was in the middle of his work, she wanted him to remember her, even for a split second.
She didn't want him to forget she was right there beside him.
She just wanted...
"That's enough, Elsa."
Jin gently pulled her into a hug.
"I'm sorry for making you feel insecure."
"Jin... nii."
In short, Elsa had wanted to put a bit of a brake on Jin, who was an obsessive creator. Jin finally understood.
In fact, whenever he had started planning a new project lately, he had indeed begun to wonder what Elsa might think of it.
"I think... I've said this before. When Jin-nii is making the things he loves, he has the most wonderful look on his face. I like that Jin-nii the most."
Her words were halting, but Elsa managed to convey her feelings in her own way. And they certainly reached Jin.
"I understand, Elsa....I'm not sure exactly how to respond yet, but for now, thank you."
He understood, at least, that her feelings for him had manifested in this form.
Jin stayed like that for a while, holding Elsa in his arms.
Reiko, Edgar, and Laojun all watched over them in silence, offering no interruptions.
＊ ＊ ＊
"...So, anyway."
"...Yeah."
Flushed bright red, Jin and Elsa restarted their discussion about the spaceship.
"At first, I think I'll build an experimental craft for mini-golems to pilot."
Mini-golems were ten centimeters tall, a 1/16 scale. They were advantageous in terms of both materials and construction time.
"I think that is a sound approach, My Lord. However, the reduction in scale may make it difficult to verify certain physical properties."
"I know. I plan to take it in stages: the next one will be for Little Golems, and then we'll move to full size."
Little Golems were forty centimeters tall, or a 1/4 scale.
Laojun was pointing out that a small-scale model would have characteristics that did not scale linearly when compared to the full-sized version.
For example, if you increase the diameter of a sphere tenfold, the surface area becomes a hundred times larger, and the weight becomes a thousand times heavier.
They had encountered similar issues when building Titan. The fact that weight increases by the cube while muscle strength only increases by the square was one such hurdle.
"It's different from a land vehicle. Let's go slowly and carefully. Ultimately, well, I'd like a mothership with a diameter of about a thousand meters."
"...!"
Hearing Jin's words, Elsa gasped. To her, that sounded like an entire world. She couldn't even imagine a man-made object of such staggering size.
"Well, it's one step at a time."
"Understood."
Following Jin's requirements, Laojun began to compile a rough blueprint.
"My Lord, I have a proposal. I would like you to remain here on Hourai Island to supervise the construction of the spaceship. As for the matter of the underground facility, Double will handle it, and Maquina will deal with the situation at Fort Crow. How does that sound?"
"Hmm, I see. Can it really be settled like that?"
Now that the plan to build a spaceship was becoming concrete, the events on the ground suddenly seemed trivial.
"Really, I wonder if looking down at Ars from space would change people's thinking even a little."
"...I think it's impossible," Elsa said.
If anything, she suspected it might only make them want to conquer more.
"I wonder if that's true."
In the sci-fi novels Jin used to read, there were many stories where humanity traveled into space, overcame their petty differences, and united as 'Earthlings' to stand against threats from other star systems.
"Well, I guess things won't go that smoothly."
"Mm."
"I'm starting to feel like I should just leave the people who are fighting alone."
Jin was a technician at heart and loathed political involvement. He only ever got involved because he felt he had no choice—usually because his friends were caught up in the crossfire. His true desire was simply to spend his time making the things he loved.
"Even so..."
It wasn't that he hadn't considered using Maquina to simply flip the entire battlefield on its head, but now that he was publicly known as an acquaintance of Maquina, doing so would likely make his life even more complicated.
The frustration of why he had to worry about such things reared its head again.
"Are you troubled, Jin-nii?"
"Hmm? Well, yeah."
It was certainly weighing on him.
"Then, you should find a reason... yes, a just cause."
"A just cause?"
"Yes. The fact that it's on your mind means you want to intervene, but you feel you can't because you lack a reason. If you have that reason, it will be fine."
Laojun listened to Elsa's words and was impressed, thinking she had put it perfectly.
In reality, there should be nothing capable of binding Jin, yet Jin was constantly binding himself.
And, whether it was divine providence or mere coincidence, that very "reason" was about to be born.
＊ ＊ ＊
Fort Crow's functions had been restored by about eighty percent, but it was far from perfect.
To get it as close to completion as possible, the technicians worked day and night on repairs.
"Hehehe, the Brain will be reactivated in just a little longer... I can't wait."
Dajure Harvey muttered to himself as he worked. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and deep circles had formed beneath them.
"...Only one stage remains. We've finally reached the end. At last, the Brain will be revived!"
Despite being dizzy with fatigue, Dajure moved forward with sheer willpower, performing his work with meticulous care.
Finally, he finished connecting the last circuit for the Brain that oversaw Fort Crow.
"...It's done. Once the mana flows in, the Brain will wake up."
As he muttered this, he sprawled out on the floor.
He fell into a deep sleep almost instantly, his face wearing a satisfied smile.
Certainly, Dajure Harvey's skill in this field was genuine. The Brain of Fort Crow began to operate normally.
However, whether this would truly benefit those barricaded inside the fortress remained to be seen.