Survive in Azure Files

"But……"

"You're so hesitant. That's not like you, BIG SISTER."

Himari's attitude towards Liyin was still cold, but her tone seemed softer than before:

"Alice, let the teacher educate you, I will observe you, and you will judge. The three of us will become Alice's 'parents'."

What a bold proposal! From any angle, it suits my taste!

Seeing that Liyin was slow to respond, Himari urged, "What? Have you lost the courage to wait?"

"...Teacher, what do you think?"

"I hope you agree, Liyin."

This sentence finally made Liyin make up her mind.

"…I want to make this clear in advance."

The tyrant of the seminar closed his grim eyes: "My patience will not be very abundant."

Chapter 59: Beatrice's Meeting Gift

With my coordination, Liyin and Himari formed a closer alliance in dealing with Alice, who was connected to the "Unsolved Army".

Although the differences in ideas still exist, at least Liyin and Himari agree with each other's views to a certain extent.

In fact, in my opinion, Liyin's idea is obviously extreme, while Himari's is another hidden extreme.

When it comes to unknown things, completely denying them is being too cautious, while completely approving them is being too bold.

Either way, there may be unknown risks.

Therefore, I think that when dealing with Alice, we should give her a certain degree of trust, but also remain vigilant.

Now that we have reached a consensus, we have decided to observe Alice for a long time and then decide whether to accept her sincerely or...

But even if the worst-case scenario that Liyin is worried about comes true, I will probably still help to save Alice.

After all, she called me "teacher".

As for what attitude to adopt at that time, we will discuss it later.

And after Alice, there is another issue closely related to Alice.

That's about the key.

The three of us easily reached a consensus on the AI ​​that was able to occupy Alice's body, was suspected of having the ability to summon an "unsolvable army", and had shown extremely aggressive behavior towards me and the Millennium Students.

In the near future, the Ministry of Truth, led by Himari, will conduct a comprehensive "physical examination" for Alice.

If this way we can find and capture the key inside Alice, it would be the best outcome.

If that fails, a second plan will be initiated to determine whether the key is still in Alice's body.

The general plan is to put Alice into a controllable crisis. How to do it specifically is still under discussion.

The above is the complete outcome of this secret meeting which is not recorded in the database.

I wanted to take advantage of the new relationship between the two giants of the Millennium to try to improve my relationship with them, but Liyin said she had work for the seminar and had to work overtime with Yuka, and Himari said she had to go back to upgrade the hacking drone that she thought would be a secret weapon for this trip.

Oh, this is what a millennial science and engineering girl who doesn't understand romance is like. If I wasn't kind-hearted, I would definitely end up alone.

I had to end my trip to Millennium today with regret.

But this doesn't mean I can go back to Xialai to rest.

Because I have another appointment.

A date that I would never want to attend unless I had no choice...

According to the address sent by the other party, I arrived at the building of the destination with a complex mentality of nervousness, uneasiness, vigilance and many other emotions.

At least from the outside of the building, it was nothing special. But the only member of the mysterious organization stationed in this building that I had come into contact with was definitely not a simple person just by looking at his appearance.

"teacher!"

The stranger, dressed in only black and white, came up to me warmly and humbly, and shook my hand excitedly:

"I'm sorry I couldn't come to meet you. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to accept our invitation and visit our [Numerology Secret Art]!"

This person was the black suit who was working with the Caesar Group and secretly planned to take away Abydos and Hoshino, and even wanted to conduct human experiments on Hoshino.

I naturally have a dislike for those who want to harm my important students, but as adults, personal likes and dislikes must sometimes give way to interests.

Heifu once said that [Numerology] is an observer, a seeker, and a researcher. He himself has indeed shown me his understanding of some hidden knowledge.

For example, the mechanical python of Abydos, Bina, and beings of the same kind or deeper.

In order to obtain the relevant information as quickly as possible, I had no choice but to contact the [Numerical Mysticism], no matter how much I hated them.

"Ah."

I kept a calm expression and nodded.

The man in black didn't care about this at all, and was even more enthusiastic. He took me forward and finally arrived at a meeting room.

The door to the conference room was opened, and the moment I saw the scene inside, I couldn't help but complain in my heart:

What kind of weird creatures are these in your [Numerology Secret Art]?

In the center of the conference room, next to a circle of bright yellow light that seemed to serve as a conference table, stood three rather unique and distinctive humanoid creatures, all turning towards the direction of the conference room door.

First, there is a life-size puppet wearing a blue-gray suit. Its postures and movements are a bit stiff, and it makes a clattering sound when it moves.

It is worth noting that there are two featureless, cracked wooden heads on its neck. One of them has a huge eye doodled with a marker, and the other has a bared mouth doodled with it.

Next, there is a headless man wearing a brown coat, leaning on a cane, and holding a portrait on his chest.

Black mist emanated from the neck of the headless man; as for the portrait in his arms, it was of a person with his back to him.

Finally, she was the only one among all the people present who possessed obvious female characteristics.

The gorgeous pure white hollow carved long dress highlights her graceful figure. She holds a folding fan in her hand, elegantly covering her cherry lips. The lower half of her face is delicate and charming. Her long black hair hangs down, which together with the dress makes her blood-red skin look even more vivid. Dozens of eyes are staring at me.

Blood red skin.

And, a pair of white wings with scarlet eyes that completely covered the upper half of the face.

Compared to students, this is a real alien.

Although if you ignore her skin color and eyes, she is a beauty with a face comparable to that of a student, but...

I think I probably can't do it. I don't think so.

It doesn’t feel as clean as the students.

"Sir, nice to meet you. My name is Golconda!"

At this moment, a voice of apology came from the headless man's chest.

"exactly!"

Then, an excited voice came from the severed neck of the headless man.

Then, the headless man said from his chest: "For some reason, I can only greet you in this way... It is impolite to speak to you with my back to you, I hope you can understand. Apart from this, I have no other choice..."

"That's right!" echoed an excited voice.

...Wait, with your back to me? Could it be that the source of that apologetic voice was... the portrait?

All I can say is that [Numerical Secrets] is a little too chock-full of talented people.

"Teacher, please forgive my colleague's excitement." Black Suit said respectfully, "Golconda has been wanting to ask you some questions about story creation for a long time."

Why is it a prerequisite that I have extremely high attainments in the field of creation?

If you really want to talk to someone about this, you’d better find Taoi instead of me.

I was complaining in my heart, but I nodded nonchalantly. I couldn't show my weakness in front of possible future enemies.

"Golconda, I've got that."

"By the way, the person next to me is the agent of the lower body. His name is Stencil Glaze. It can be said that we are companions and symbols of [illusion] and [unreality] to each other."

The headless man called the printed glaze method shouted again: "That's it!"

...This person wouldn't just say this, right?

Golconda added: "Like all symbols, neither the enamel method nor I can exist independently. And no matter what symbol it is..."

Black suit reminded: "Golconda, other colleagues have not yet introduced themselves to the teacher."

"Oh, sorry, I was too presumptuous."

Then, after Golconda remained silent, the two-headed puppet spoke.

"Oh! Oh! Next, please allow me to introduce myself! Nice to meet you, teacher! I'm sorry that I can only show myself in this appearance, but it's still an honor to meet you!"

The puppet said: "I am neither your companion nor your enemy. Although I will not help you, I will not hinder you either... My name is Master, and I am eager to witness your art!"

I nodded calmly: "Yes, Master."

To treat the master of [Numerical Mysticism], it might be more appropriate to use the art of the master of the Millennium Engineering Department.

At this point, only one person remained who had not introduced himself.

The woman who was staring at me with dozens of eyes kept covering her mouth with her folding fan:

"Excuse me, Master. My name is Beatrice, but some people call me Madam."

"Yes, Beatrice."

"Excuse me," Beatrice asked again, "are you interested in becoming one of us?"

I frowned slightly: "...Hmm?"

The man in black said in a deep voice: "Madam, what are you talking about?"

Beatrice ignored the black suit and said to herself, "All the technologies we have can be opened to you free of charge. I am also willing to share some of the small resources I have personally, no, I will give them to you first. As long as you nod and are willing to join our secret art."

At first glance, it seems like a tempting proposal, but I certainly wouldn't agree to it.

Even if we put aside my dissatisfaction with the organization [Numerical Mysticism] and consider it solely from the perspective of interests, there must be something fishy going on when things are out of the ordinary. Based on my current understanding of [Numerical Mysticism]'s style, it is most likely a trick of giving first in order to take.

Moreover, what Beatrice wants from me must be far more than what she is willing to give. Otherwise, what is she after?

You can't be attracted by my charm, right?

It's not completely impossible.

"lady!"

The man in black raised his voice a little, then lowered it again, and said to me with great trepidation, "I'm sorry, teacher. Madam is not coveting your technology that leads to the Sublime. I just desperately hope that after you join us, you will be willing to give us some pointers on our current research direction."

...In my opinion, Beatrice is just coveting this so-called technology.

Even though the man in black looked like he had no idea about the situation and was trying to make up for Beatrice, it was very possible that he was playing the good cop and the bad cop with Beatrice, or even that he was the one who instructed Beatrice to test me.

Recreate the legends of history, and then borrow the qualities possessed by students to condense one's own greatness.

This is the ability of the Divine Name Refining part of the card I hold, in the black server's understanding.

In other words, [The Secret Art of Numbers] is coveting my card, right?

"I see."

I looked around, anger rising and majesty shrouding me. "I agree, and I only agree, to allow you to be the audience. My re-performance, my refinement, my manifestation, just watching is already a great honor. Your desires can only go so far, and you must not go beyond that."

To deal with the mysterious [Numerology], if you possess something they desire, you should act more mysterious than them so that they will be in awe.

Soon, as I expected, several people nodded their heads and nodded.

I nodded expressionlessly, and then took the initiative to say: "I need you to provide me with some information."

The black suit said meekly, "It's what I should do."

"How much do you know about Bina?"

"Bina..." The man in black pondered for a moment and said regretfully, "It just so happens that I am in charge of the research on the [Prophets] of the [Cross Divine Name]. But I'm sorry, we don't know more about Bina than you who formulated such a meticulous ceremony."

Cross God's name, prophet.

I silently memorized these two new terms.