Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

There were different kinds of Unknowns, categorized mainly by the scale of their impact.

They were classified from Class 1 to 5, with the higher numbers denoting greater danger and difficulty in management.

**Class 1:** people, objects, creatures, regions, or phenomena with slightly mysterious powers.
**Class 2:** those that produced supernatural phenomena clear to the naked eyes.
**Class 3:** those that could affect an entire city.
**Class 4:** those with effects on a national scale.
**Class 5:** those that could influence the world itself — some even capable of triggering world-ending disasters.

Normally, an Unknown would be managed by the country that discovered it, or by the nearest branch of the Pandora Institution. But because I was stationed in Japan’s Sector 0, sometimes Unknowns were sent there for examination.

Storage Room 3 was where items of relatively small influence were kept. There was a good chance something usable could be found there.

But…

I shone the lantern to light up the room. The way it looked, it wasn’t so much built here as it was buried into the ground. It was as if this entire block had been cut out and slammed down from a great height.

I’d heard the outer walls were supposed to have durability comparable to a small-scale shelter. But looking closely, the whole structure was tilted at a steep angle, the bottom crushed in as if under immense pressure. Because of that, part of the wall had split open.

“Alice…”

With our sizes, we could probably squeeze in through the crack, but… what if it collapsed on us once we were inside?

“What is this? How did you know about it?”

While I was studying the fissure, thinking of how to get in, Sufi suddenly threw the question at me from the side, and I froze.

…Come to think of it, it was obviously strange. This was a mysterious door, buried under some ancient ruin whose age we didn’t even know. The fact that I knew what it was made no sense at all.

What do I do? If I make a clumsy excuse, she’ll just get suspicious; if I tell the truth… it’ll only confuse her.

“…I read it… in a book. About a really old ruin. Like a treasure vault, or something.”
“…………”

I stammered out the excuse that had popped into my head.

Unable to endure Sufi’s intense stare, I turned my face away.

“…I see. Alice sure knows a lot!”

It seemed she decided to let it slide. After a pause, she patted me on the head. I’d have to explain everything properly to Sufi later. But first, I had to get us through this.

“So, what now, nya?”
“There might be weapons inside—cough—powerful ones. If we use them right…”
“We might be able to beat that thing… nya?”
“Something like that.”

The inventory here rotates pretty often, and I don’t actually know what’s stored. If there’s anything I recognize, that’d be perfect.

And if we could rest our bodies even a little, that’d be ideal.

“Then it’s an expedition!”
“…Are you sure this is okay, nya?”
“Mm.”

At least for this much, I can move—Sufi and Filia had been carrying me around, so I’m not completely helpless.

Lantern light cutting the dark, I took the lead and slipped through the crack in the wall.

■■■

The inside was a complete mess, as if an explosion had hit it.

The lantern gave enough light, but… debris was scattered everywhere, and the floor slanted.

“It’s a mess. Watch your step.”
“Got it.”

The crack seemed to have opened right where the labyrinth dolls were stored. The stone coffins they should’ve been sealed in were shattered, their contents strewn across the floor.

By rough count… ten coffins. From the scattered, non-duplicate parts, about four dolls were destroyed.

Maybe the ones that survived the shock accidentally activated and crawled out through the crack, digging out the passage underground.

“What’s this?”
“…Stone doll, nya?”
“I think… it’s kind of scary.”

While Sufi and the others stared uneasily at the remains, I swept the lantern’s light around the room. But my arm was getting tired.

I tried letting go while thinking, *”float nearby,”* and sure enough, the lantern hovered in midair, shining light on its own. Must be another Unknown that fell outside the storage, but incredibly convenient.

The door… yeah, broken and hanging open. Looks like we can check the other rooms too.

“…Let’s go to the next one?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“This place feels kinda creepy, nya.”

This room seemed to hold nothing but broken junk, so I called out to the others and headed for the next one.

The familiar long corridor stretched from the front-side entrance, with small chambers branching off to the left and right.

Not all of them, but a few doors looked broken from the impact.

“Watch your—!?”
“Alice, you be careful too.”
“…Thanks.”

I nearly stumbled on the slanted floor, but Sufi caught me, and together we checked the rooms one by one.

Storage Room No. 3 was small, with only eight rooms in total. One had been taken up by the dolls earlier, so it was best not to expect any intact items there.

We started with the ones closer to the entrance. Even when the doors were shut, I used alchemy with the lantern to break down the locks, and with Sufi and the others pulling together, we managed to force them open.

“What’s that, nya?”
“…Looks like a dud.”

The first room was a bust—just scattered piles of dust and sand.

“Covered in dust, nya.”
“Let’s move on.”

Shaking it off, we pressed forward with the search. All the while, I was thinking about how I’d explain things if we came across something I recognized.

Skipping the second room, since that had been the dolls, we went to the third. It was completely empty, not even dust inside.

“Empty?”
“…Nothing here, nya.”

With dud after dud, Sufi and the others’ spirits were sinking lower and lower. I was starting to feel a twinge of anxiety too.

I don’t know how this ended up here, but judging from how weathered the things are, it’s been on the order of a thousand years. There’s no guarantee anything still works—or even that it survived intact.

“Is it even worth searching here, nya?”

Without answering Noche’s question, we forced the door and went into the fourth room.

…jackpot.

“There’s something.”
“What’s this, nya?”

On the floor lay three sleek guns made of a material like painted plastic. It was the kind of oversized shotgun–style firearm you’d see in a game, the two-handed sort you brace and fire.

One was shattered in half, another crushed and crumpled in a corner.

But one of them remained unbroken.

It was an Unknown the American branch recovered from a crashed UFO — a super-weapon made of an unanalyzable material. Load a special cartridge and it fires a beam: basically a beam rifle.

It has three modes: a machine-gun mode for rapid low-power fire, a normal mode, and a full-burst that releases the cartridge’s entire energy in a single shot.

They recovered quite a few of them, and among Unknowns these were relatively easy to handle. Various branches had negotiated to acquire them as emergency defensive arms.

“That’s a weapon—pretty powerful.”
“…And you read about it in a book, nya?”
“Yeah.”

Noche fixed me with a sharp look. This time I’d made up my mind, so I met her gaze straight on. Sorry, but for the time being I’m going to try to brute-force any explanation with it.

“Alright then, how strong is it, nya?”
“Very.”

Even if I said it could pierce a tank, that probably wouldn’t get the point across…

The monster we’re going to face looks pretty sturdy, but it can’t possibly be harder than reinforced tank armor. Hopefully.

The bullets… Thank goodness, there were a few left in the room.

“Sufi, gimme.”
“You okay?”

I took the intact gun from Sufi, who had been staring at it, and cradled it in both hands. It felt heavy enough to make me stagger.

Too heavy… Can I even handle this properly? I can’t just hand it to someone else and have them use it on a whim.

We couldn’t test-fire it. If that weasel saw or heard us here, we’d lose our chance. It had been taunting us because it knew we had no countermeasures. If it realized we had a weapon that could kill it, it definitely wouldn’t let us get a shot.

Even if the projectile flies faster than it can move, we—the ones aiming—are slower than it is.