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Project GB is an official initiative by Re:Library.

Overwhelmed by Estea’s overwhelming strength, we had no time to wallow in defeat. After the match, I was walking along behind Alfe, deep in thought about how to further strengthen our Mecha Soldiers, when I thought I heard a familiar high-pitched voice.

“Heeey, Masteeeer! Alfeeeeee!”

At first, I thought it might just be my imagination, but there was really only one person who would call me that here—Melua. When I looked up, sure enough, she was running over to us.

“You managed to find us in this crowd?”
“Huh? Well, if it’s your aether, I can spot you from a mile away, no problem!”

Ah, right—Melua’s both eyes were Pure Eyes. If she was tracking my distinctive aether signature, then my height or the crowd wouldn’t have mattered at all.

“Plus, if you’re sitting in the VIP seats, you kinda stand out whether you want to or not.”
“If you could see the VIP seats, that means you were sitting nearby too, weren’t you?”
“Nope! I was there cheering for Estea, so I had an even better seat than that ♪”

Melua beamed brightly as she answered, then led us off toward an empty area at the edge of the arena to avoid the crowd flowing toward the exits.

“By the way, Master, how’s the modification work on your Mecha Soldier going? Is that magic stone I gave you helping?”
“Yeah, thanks to it, I managed to synthesize a really high-performance Blood Grail.”

Considering the report I still had to submit, it would probably be a good idea to talk to Melua about it sooner rather than later.

“Oh, speaking of Blood Grails, that auto-synthesizer’s been acting a little weird lately—was it okay?”
“I made it by hand, so there was no problem.”
“—Huh!?”

I thought the conversation had been flowing naturally, but partway through, Melua’s eyes went wide, and she let out a comically high-pitched yelp.

“M-M-Master… what did you just say!?”
“I said I didn’t use the auto-synthesizer to make the Blood Grail.”

Wondering if she hadn’t heard me properly, I rephrased it a little. However, Melua’s reaction only grew even more intense.

“Kyaaaaaaa!!”
“W-What’s wrong, Melua?”
“You said it so casually! You just dropped it like it was nothing, but that’s seriously incredible!!”

Melua pressed both her hands against her cheeks, unable to contain her excitement, bouncing up and down on the spot.

“You’re telling me you melted all those magic stones in a blast furnace or something, and then hand-drew those ridiculously tedious simplified formulas over and over again!?”

Well, yes, that was basically what it came down to. I wondered if she would accept the same explanation I had given to the Professor about why I didn’t want to use the auto-synthesizer.

“You gave me the highest-grade magic stones, after all. I wanted to make sure the quality was worthy of them.”
“No, no, no! Even so, we’re talking about one of those huuuge ones for a Mecha Soldier, right!?”

As she said that, Melua waved her arms to draw a circle about as tall as she was.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

As expected of a special-class alchemist—she had an accurate grasp of the mass involved just from the context. Well, I figured I’d better not overreact and just respond normally, like it was no big deal.

“Haaah… As expected of you, Master… You’re so amazing, I don’t even know where to start anymore.”
“Anyway, Alfe’s Lemures is coming along smoothly, but I hit a snag when I tried adding a new framework to Hom’s Legion.”

Seeing that Melua had calmed down a bit, I decided to steer the conversation back to the main issue, even if it was a little forceful.

“Snag!? That’s not a ‘snag,’ that’s more like, ‘outright impossible!’ Wouldn’t it be faster to just build a whole new unit!?”
“That would be ideal, but we’re limited in what machines we can actually use.”

If only we could use the Löwe, but that seemed unlikely. When I shrugged, Melua pressed her hand to her forehead, catching on immediately.

“Ahh… Is it because Class F can only use junk or something?”
“I don’t know if it’s because we’re Class F or not, but honestly, it’s rare for students to even try modifying their units.”
“Yeah, that makes sense…”

Even as she agreed, Melua seemed to be thinking about something. After a brief silence, she suddenly clapped her hands, her eyes lighting up as if she had just remembered something.

“Ah! But if it’s junk you need, I know just the place!”
“…You have somewhere in mind?”
“Yup! If we head to the Mecha Soldier Workshop at the Engineering University, there should be something perfect there!”

That workshop was the place the Professor had shown us on the first day. As far as I remembered, there hadn’t been any sixth-generation units that we were allowed to use.

“I did get a tour of the place, but there weren’t any machines we could actually use…”
“Tsk tsk. Master, shouldn’t there be fresh ones there now?”

Melua interrupted me, wagging her raised index finger side to side with a sly grin.

“Don’t tell me…”
“Yep! Any machines damaged during Zersteller are headed straight for the junk heap!”

It was true that the Burning Blaze unit Estea had just destroyed might end up classified as unrepairable junk¹.

Since Melua offered to handle the negotiations, I decided to head to the university’s Mecha Soldier Workshop with her.

1. Robinxen: They should ask her team to go and beat up more people beyond repair. Just to be sure.

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