This is not the date I wanted.

"Follow me? Why?"

Origami frowned in confusion. In response, Ryoko and the other two looked at each other and shrugged involuntarily.

"Private First Class Tobi, although you may not realize it, you are very famous in the army. You have the grades to get into a prestigious university and join a first-class company to reach the pinnacle of your life, but you deliberately came to such a remote place to serve as a soldier and suffer."

"Moreover, he has always been ranked first in gunmanship, fighting skills, and all kinds of courses and training. He is truly a genius."

"What an enviable talent, Origami-kun."

"Is that right?"

Seeing Origami's unconscious look, Liaozi shook his head helplessly and changed the topic which had gone off track.

"Well, if it's just that, I would at most write a letter of recommendation in private to help you develop in a better environment. The reason I came to you is just because I'm a little curious about the reason why you joined the team."

"Joining the team?"

"reason?"

Under the curious gazes of Mikie and Millie, Ryoko looked at Origami with a slightly serious look and asked.

"If you want to know the truth about spacequake, I remember you wrote it like this, right?"

"Yeah." Origami nodded and did not deny it.

"why?"

"...I lost my memory and my past due to the space quake..."

Facing Ryoko's question, Origami hesitated for a moment, but still told him his motives.

"I see. But it's a shame that your grandmother allowed you to decide your future for such a reason."

Liaozi nodded in realization at first, then sighed with some surprise.

"Well……"

In response, Origami turned her eyes away and answered vaguely.

In fact, Origami still failed to convince Guan Meng to agree with her decision. The two people's insistence was like a pair of parallel lines with no intersection at all.

Finally, Origami had no choice but to resort to the method she hated - making trouble. She cried, made trouble, and even threatened to hang herself. Only after she threatened to drop out of school and run away from home did her grandmother Guan Meng agree to her wish. As a price, she became a laughing stock at home for a while.

Of course, she couldn't tell anyone about this dark history.

"Hmm... I understand. But Origami-kun, if you want to understand the cause of spacequakes, wouldn't it be better for you to go to a researcher or company specializing in that field?"

Millie asked curiously.

"In that regard, I know someone who will be responsible for investigating."

"That's very thoughtful. Spacequake? I haven't heard anyone mention this kind of thing for a long time. I actually feel a little nostalgic."

With mixed feelings, Liaozi opened the can of beer on the table, took a sip and said.

"Forget it, it's not a secret now anyway. As long as you promise not to tell anyone, it's fine to tell you." After thinking for a moment, Ryoko seemed to have made up his mind and said, "Tobiichi Origami, do you know why? Mikie is only one or two years older than you, but she is already a warrant officer?"

"Because you are all members of the AST, a unit established to deal with spacequakes."

Origami answered as a matter of course. She had found this out, and that's why she chose this base.

"That's right. The Ground Self-Defense Force's special anti-elves unit. If Origami had come three or four years earlier, you would have probably been assigned to that team. No - maybe it's better not to have joined. After all, the name 'anti-elves' sounds nice, but in reality we are just ants that can't fight back against the 'elves'."

Liaozi said self-deprecatingly.

"Elves?"

Hearing this word, Origami's eyes couldn't help but become hot, and he quickly asked.

"Is that the culprit that caused the spacequake? What is that thing?"

"I don't know." Liaozi shook his head.

"Don't know? What do you mean?"

"It means exactly what it says." Liaozi explained, "It is indeed as you thought. Spacequakes are caused by 'elves', but this does not mean that they are conscious life. They are just some kind of energy crystals that will stay at the epicenter of the spacequake for a period of time."

After hearing Ryoko's description, Origami couldn't help but think, "That's it?" As if seeing through Origami's thoughts, Millie waved her finger and said seriously.

"Tsk, tsk, dear Origami. 'Elves' are not ordinary beings. As a high-density collection of some kind of energy, they cannot be destroyed, transported, or even approached. For example, it is as unrealistic as a human trying to shake the sun."

"Some relatively stable 'elves' are fine. As long as they don't attack for a while, they will automatically disappear. But some 'elves' with unstable energy will continue to release various aftershocks even after the space earthquake, causing damage to the environment. Our mission is to stop the riot of the 'elves' and destroy them."

Mikie added.

"But having said that, we didn't actually destroy the 'Elves'." Liaozi shrugged, took a sip of beer and continued, "But even if we don't have any credit, we have worked hard. After all, our mission was much more dangerous than other troops, and our ranks were raised relatively quickly. Some of my subordinates even directly won the honor of 'winning two levels in a row'." (Note: died in the line of duty.)

"This is not funny, Lieutenant Colonel..."

Mikie said helplessly.

"Well, Sister Liaozi suffered a lot because of this. During the global air disaster, she was busy with refugee relief and order maintenance after the disaster. As a result, she was so busy with work that she missed the right time to get married without realizing it."

"You're so long-winded! I'll teach you a lesson!"

After punching Millie on the head in annoyance, Ryoko turned to look at Origami who seemed to be deep in thought and spoke.

"Do you have anything to ask?"

"Space shock... the elves... have all disappeared?"

"It seems so." Liaozi said, "Although I don't know exactly how it was done. But this seems to be the consensus of organizations around the world. At least, since the global air disaster, no 'elves' have appeared again."

“Is it too early to draw a conclusion?”

Origami frowned in confusion.

"Who knows? Anyway, the magician unit has been disbanded, and the manifestation devices and tactical units used in the battle have all been recovered by Ratatoskr. If the 'elves' really appear now, we will have no chance to fight back. All I can do is pray from the bottom of my heart that the words spoken by the higher-ups are not meant to fool people."

"..."

After listening to Ryoko's words, Origami fell into a long silence.

Spacequakes, elves, and the magician troops that had already fought against them. Although it seemed that they had found clues to the truth, for some reason, Origami felt an indescribable and lingering sense of disharmony in her heart.

"…Ms. Origami."

For some reason, Okamine Mikie looked at Origami with an uneasy look on her face.

"If you find the answer you want, will you... leave?"

38 If line unknown natural disasters subsided (Part )

==============================

When I was in high school, my grandmother would often gather the whole family together in the living room for dinner, or watch various movies and enjoy happy family time.

In one of these scenes, a classic science fiction movie had this scene: the leader of a rebel organization took out two pills in front of the protagonist. One was red, and the other was blue.

After taking the red pill, he will understand the truth of the world, but at the same time face an extremely rough and cruel fate.

On the contrary, after taking the blue pill, he will forget everything and return to a stable and peaceful daily life, even if that daily life is a huge lie cleverly constructed by someone.

——What if we eat both? In Origami's memory, everyone just regarded it as a very good movie, and made some indifferent jokes from the standpoint of bystanders to liven up the atmosphere.

But Origami herself was touched by the choice faced by the protagonist.

(If it were me, what would I choose?)

Origami asked herself this question in her heart.

……

In the middle of the night, while everyone was asleep, Origami sneaked into the command center's computer room.

After cracking the encryption of the database, Origami finally found the remaining data from the Self-Defense Forces' campaign against the elves.

"Is this... an elf?"

Origami whispered softly as she watched the scene playing on the screen.

The picture shows ruins shattered by the impact of sound, a huge hole dug out of thin air in the ground, and a strange crystal in the center, shining with strange light like the sun.

Not long after, the magicians of the Self-Defense Forces came to the location of the "elves" and took various measures to try to interfere with the elves, but in the end they all failed and could only watch the "elves" disappear from the real world.

After watching the video and the materials, Origami's eyes revealed a little disappointment. The content recorded in these materials was almost the same as the content of her conversation with Liaozi and others during the day, except that the details and content were richer and more specific, and there was no valuable information.

What are elves? Where do they come from? How are they destroyed? Is there a risk of another spacequake? None of these questions can be answered.

"..."

After a moment of silence, Origami did not just turn off the computer and leave. Instead, he put on headphones and dialed a number.

[Beep-beep-Hello? Hello, this is the Gokawa family. Who are you? ]

"It's me, Kotori."

Origami replied softly.

[Origami?!]

The voice on the other end first shouted in a panic, and then after a burst of hurried footsteps, it recovered.

[Sorry, I was in the living room with my parents just now, so it’s not convenient to chat. ]

"Having dinner?"

Origami asked after glancing at the time on the computer.

[Just finished eating. My dad made beetroot soup tonight, and it tasted just so-so. As expected, the food made by Grandma Guan Meng is more delicious.]

After a brief chat, Kotori seemed to realize something and asked with some uneasiness.

[Speaking of Origami, judging by the time difference, it's already 1am in Japan, right? And you've joined the army, right? Is it okay for you to contact me?]

Origami responded to Kotori's concern without changing her expression.

"It's okay, it won't be exposed."

[I’m talking to you…]

After letting out a helpless sigh, Kotori said convinced.

[Then? You contacted me on purpose, is there something going on? ]

"Have you found any results for the investigation I asked you to do before?"

[Ah... the space quake thing...]

For some reason, Qin Li's voice seemed to be hesitant.

[Indeed, I did find out the truth about the spacequake... but it's probably not what you expected, Origami.]

"What do you mean?"

Hearing this, Origami couldn't help but frown in confusion.

[Well... I guess you won't be convinced by just verbal explanation. I think you can accept the information. I will send you what I found and explain it to you. Remember to delete it after reading it. I didn't find these things through formal channels.]

"…Don't do anything dangerous."

[Please allow me to return this sentence to you exactly as it is. ]

After retorting unhappily, Origami received the document sent by Kotori.

[First of all, from the conclusion, spacequakes will definitely not happen anymore. ]

"… On what basis?"

Origami frowned slightly and asked calmly.

[You can first take a look at the document I sent you. It is a research paper written by our company's boss, Elliot Baldwin Woodman. It describes in detail the origin, principle, and solid evidence of the destruction of spacequakes.]

Following Kotori's explanation, Origami carefully read the information Kotori sent her.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, as Origami knows, spacequake is a catastrophic phenomenon caused by a special energy body called elves.

But unlike what Liaozi and the others said, the space quake was not a disaster caused by the elves themselves, but was just a natural phenomenon that accompanied them. The secondary damage caused by the space quake mentioned by Liaozi and the others was a disaster caused by the energy of the elves themselves.

"...Neighboring world?"

[That is where the elves live, it is a world close to the Earth but exists in another dimension. Of course, no one except the elves has ever gone in to investigate, so we have no idea what kind of world it is. But what is certain is that the spacequake occurred because the 'elves' came to the real world, and the neighboring world came into contact with the real world and caused distortion.]

Kotori explained patiently on the other end of the phone.

[It is said that more than 30 years ago, a company called DEM was researching new energy. Due to an experimental accident, the originally incompatible neighboring world and the real world came into contact by chance. The huge collision caused a large-scale space distortion, which in turn triggered a super-large-scale space earthquake, which is the Eurasian air disaster mentioned in history books. And the elves were the product they developed at that time.]