4 Mission 3: 'Ooting'

"THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK YOU'VE HAD ME HAUL HEAVY SHIT UP FOUR FUCKING FLOORS!" Franky screeched as he heaved a set of boxes onto the ground as Loid stood nearby, having already finished carrying up his set of boxes.

"You're the one who came over when I was trying to help Yor move in asking for me to give you one of my disguises," Loid muttered, prompting Franky to shut up rather quickly.

"Just how did you find a wife that quickly anyways?" Franky inquired, mostly curious for his own sake. 

"It was just convenient for both of us. This marriage is purely fake though. Did you get the marriage documents forged?" Loid questioned.

"Yeah, I'll have it later. Swing by tonight and pick it up. Return those mana detectors by then if you're done with 'em though. I'm still charging you extra for this as well."

Loid nodded, "Alright. Thank you, Franky."

"Don't mention it… But that's not an invitation for you to keep calling me over for this stuff! I'm an informant, not some servant!"

"You're the one who came over first…" Loid muttered as Franky left, huffing and puffing. 

Yor walked in right as Franky walked out of the apartment, looking at him as he stormed off. She carried in the last of her own boxes, gently placing them on the ground. "It was nice of your friend to help out, what did he want anyways?"

"Nothing important. I'm having him get our lawyer friend to get marriage documents to say we've been married for a year so that it doesn't seem like we got married just for the interview. Does that work out with you?" Loid asked.

Yor nodded, "Yep! Although I'll have to explain to my brother why I didn't tell him about my marriage for a whole year…"

"Wouldn't it be smart to just tell him the truth that unmarried women are suspicious?" Loid inquired.

Yor shook her head, "There's no way my brother would be happy if he found out I didn't marry someone I actually loved… Don't worry, if it ever comes up, I'll handle it!"

"If you say so. We'll make the guest bedroom into yours, but when visitors come over we'll both stay in my room so it's not suspicious."

Yor nodded, "Right! O-Oh and Loid, I almost forgot but for the interview, I don't really have any clothes to wear for it…"

"It's fine, we'll head over to the tailors today, I need to pick up some outfits for Anya and Tanya anyways. I was also planning on doing some activities to prepare for the interview itself," Loid stated.

Anya happily bounced up to Yor, exclaiming, "Welcome to Anya's house! I will show you around!" 

Yor politely smiled. "Thank you for the lovely welcome Anya!"

Anya pointed at Tanya sitting on a chair "There we have the Tanya. She's boring."

"Ey Who's boring and what do you mean the Tanya!" Tanya shouted out from across the room.

Anya ignored her, leading Yor all around the house and into the various rooms, explaining what various things were for and the rules for them. Tanya merely grumbled to herself and returned to her book, content with learning about the Unified States' perspective on herself.

Loid began to carry some of Yor's boxes into her room, and as he passed by Tanya he asked, "You mentioned going to the tailor's, right? The new clothes we're getting wouldn't happen to be dresses… right?"

"We're supposed to look and act like a traditional upper-class family. Unfortunately, that means dressing like them too. You're just going to have to deal with dresses for a bit," Loid explained.

'Kill me now!' Tanya internally complained as she audibly groaned, much to Loid's amusement.

He could always rely on Tanya hating dresses for one reason or another, from lack of mobility range to lack of overall protection compared to pants.

After a few minutes, Yor was already unpacked and settled in, the guest room converted into a relatively snug place. The speed at which she unpacked was surprising to Anya, but she didn't have all too many belongings to begin with.

Soon Loid lined them all up on the couch and began explaining, "Eden Academy is a prestigious school that will be judging not only the children but the parents as well. They are evaluated on their social standing and how cultured they are. Let's start with Anya. Please state your name and address."

Anya looked up and around, somewhat confused as she stuttered, "Anya f-horger… A-Address?"

"The place we're at now," Loid explained.

"This is Anya's house!" Any exclaimed, much to Loid's distress.

"That's not what I meant…" Loid sighed and continued, "Miss Anya… How do you spend your days off?"

"Papa forces me to stay home so I watch TV all day since sister is boring and doesn't like to play," Anya righteously stated.

"I mean that's true, but that makes a terrible impression…" Loid moved on to Yor, hoping for some better results, "Now madam, why did you choose Eden Academy and how do you plan to pass this exam?"

Yor nervously muttered, "Uhm pass… Passing… Perhaps because of cardiac arrest or excessive bleeding? Compound fractures throughout the body? Maybe poiso-"

"Kill me now… Tanya," Loid moved on to the one child he had at least some hope in. The bar of his standards had basically been dropped to the floor, possibly below it. All Loid hoped was that Tanya didn't decide to bring a shovel. "What do you consider to be the best tool for a stu-"

"A shovel," Tanya stated matter-of-factly.

"Eh?"

"It is truly an implement born of civilization," Tanya seemed surprisingly confident in her answer, and frankly part of him felt like questioning it further would only lead to some kind of monologue on the benefits of shovels of all things, to which he didn't want by any means.

Loid groaned. "Well, this has been unproductive. Let's head out, I have some things we can do that might help us. It's our only chance at this rate."

There wasn't much choice left, they only had a limited time to get things in order. They simply wouldn't pass the interview if things remained as they were. They needed to look, sound, and appear like the cultured upper-class families that Eden Academy wanted and admitted, and he knew some ways that might help them do just that.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

The opera was Loid's first plan… And his most unsuccessful. Anya fell asleep within minutes, Yor just seemed confused, and Tanya was visibly plain bored (and she always seemed bored, so the fact that she appeared even more bored was concerning). If they wanted to look and act like a cultured family, clearly the Opera wasn't the way to go.

Loid wasn't without his other options, however. The museum would be a great place for them to become knowledgeable about the arts and history, at least he hoped.

The museum in Berlint was large, being the only major one in the city. Other museums were smaller and often specialized in a single purpose or person; this one was focused on all sorts of things as it relates to Ostania or its predecessor states like the Empire. It attracted tens of thousands of visitors every year from all classes and pathways of life, their little ragtag family would fit in fine. 

As they entered the museum the group soon found themselves in the maze it was, a maze which Loid already memorized every single turn and route of with one glance at the map, but a maze it was nonetheless. It seemed the museum truly cared for amassing every bit of history it could about the nation, and then presenting them in the most convoluted and detailed way possible.

The first section of the museum Loid brought them to was the art section. It was largely a showing of classical paintings, particularly of Germanian artists, throughout Europan history. Due to the museum being built and improved upon during the days of the Empire, it had amassed quite a collection from every corner of the once massive country. So while Ostania was hardly the largest country, Berlint had quite the massive collection regardless, rivaling those of larger nations such as the Unifed States.

Loid's focus wasn't on the museum itself, however. It was on how the girls would react to it. Getting them to take in what they would see and use it to help them through the interview was the sole purpose of even coming here. But as he glanced around, he wasn't filled with the most confidence.

Tanya didn't seem to care too much about the arts. She looked around curiously, but the look in her eyes wasn't that of someone who really cared but perhaps was speculating about the past more than anything. Tanya was a curious girl, yet she seemed more interested in history than anything else. Perhaps another section of the museum would be more enjoyable for her, or perhaps the history segment of the art section would be more to her taste, which it was.

Anya was next, who seemed to care more about being on an outing, or as she says, an 'ooting.' She ran from one art piece to another, pointing at it and loudly describing it. It took quite a bit to keep her from disturbing the other visitors, but as was expected from a young child.

"Look, papa! This one doesn't have a head!" She pointed to a broken statue from the Reman era, likely brought from Ildoa or found within the lowland countries while the Empire was still around. Whatever the case of its origins, Anya didn't seem to care about it, moving on to the next artwork and pointing at it.

Yor meanwhile seemed to enjoy the painting of the Francois revolution quite a lot. The painting displayed the use of the guillotine in the early revolution, back when the whole thing was a huge mess for everyone involved. Loid was surprised to see Yor was interested in history, although that was the only picture she was actually looking at. He'd need to ask her about it later to corroborate their stories if needed be. 

Loid decided to move on from the arts. Art could tell history quite well, especially the history of cultures if you could see past the biases of the painter, but it seemed that interpreting that was quite hard for Anya, and maybe even for Tanya despite her intellect. Yor seemed to just like that one painting. Maybe she liked art more than Loid thought, albeit a heavily niche aspect of it.

Nevertheless, perhaps a section of the museum that told a more direct history would serve the family well in their societal education. Loid led the family over to another section of the museum, leaving the art section behind. Soon they found themselves in a section dedicated solely to the Empire and its history. The Empire wasn't the longest-lasting nation in the grand scale of human history, not by far, but its impact on the modern day, especially during the Great War, couldn't be understated. Many of Eden Academy's staff grew up and even in some cases were adult citizens in the Empire, so understanding its significance might help them out a bit.

Tanya was immediately entranced by it. This was all the stuff she was familiar with. She didn't remember her first life beyond the information she gained from it, as such for all of her life it felt like she was Imperial. She was from The Empire, not Japan. Of course, she knew that she did come from Japan originally, but she had accepted her identity as Tanya Degurechaff in her last life, and she had been seemingly reborn into it in this one, so abandoning the nostalgia of the Empire was hard for her to do.

Loid seemed satisfied with her curiosity, although grew concerned when Yor began to take a fascination with the rifles; more specifically, the bayonets on the rifles. Anya was just lost and confused, intent on following behind Tanya, seemingly reading her mind and using it as a sort of audio tour through the museum if the occasional surprised reactions to Anya's comments were anything.

Soon Tanya stumbled upon an image of the General Staff office, the red banners of the Empire flowing down the grand walls of the building. The HQ still technically existed, but the power that radiated from such a powerful building had been greatly lessened when it served a nation with a mere fraction of the Empire's former might.

'Just how many times did I have to go there in my last life? I swear I still remember most of the layout like the back of my hand. I wonder if I can ever find an excuse to go back there. I know where some members of HQ hid their secret wine and cigar stashes, not that I ever wanted either, but perhaps today they could be used as funds. I wonder if some of them are still there…'

As Tanya moved on, Anya glanced back at the painting, staring in awe at the building. She had seen it in the modern day once or twice in passing, but to think her sister used to work there! Her big sis certainly lived a fascinating life.

Anya hurried behind Tanya, not wanting to fall behind. Soon she walked into a section focused more on the Great War itself. Panzers were placed in the center of the hallway, showing off the Empire's technical prowess in tank technology. When it came to tanks and mages, the Empire was unrivaled in their development and usage, even in the final years of the war where they lost battle after battle. What really led to the Empire's defeat was the loss of fuel, resources, manpower, and most importantly food. Their failure to secure a victory with their air force also proved a major detriment, especially over time as their cities were bombed and fighter planes shot.

'Their industrial heartland being right near the coast in the lowlands instead of more inland like the Rhineland didn't help that either…' Tanya grumbled to herself. Tanya brushed off the thought, no point bothering about it now. The war was over, and as soon as the Unified States made an atomic bomb, it was basically over. In hindsight, Tanya considered that she should've become a military scientist. The Empire never had the same brain drain the Reich did in her timeline; the Empire could've very well made a nuclear weapon first if they actually had the resources to. However, the last thing she needed was to work with a mad scientist whose creations were 99% faith and 1% science, and becoming a scientist would've put her in even more contact with the madman than before.

Well, in the end, they didn't and she took the full force of that. 'Technically I suppose I was killed from trying to STOP the bomb, not from the bomb itself. I suppose I have Visha to thank for that. Going out in a fiery explosion probably wouldn't have left a body for the scientists to clone, so I guess she did manage to save my life in a way. I suppose I won't be able to tell her that…'

Anya was startled, was her sister actually sad? Tanya rarely showed much emotion, or rather, she seemed to have only a limited range of emotions, and if they were there, they were muted with a sense of inevitability and resignation. Satisfaction, joy, frustration, exhaustion, all of them were emotions Anya recognized from her sister. But sadness wasn't usually one of them. It felt somewhat out of place for Tanya to be sad, but before Anya could think of a way to cheer Tanya up she already seemed to have passed the tanks.

Tanya's brief moment of sadness was quickly pushed aside, amazing Anya with her ability to so easily change her mood. Not wanting to be left behind, Anya followed quickly behind Tanya, soon finding herself gazing in awe at a collection of shiny jewels behind a glass case.

"Ooh! Shiny! What are these, sis?" Anya asked Tanya. Without context, there was little reason to assume Tanya would know at first glance, but Anya knew the thoughts on Tanya's mind; Tanya knew exactly what these were.

"Computation Jewels. Old ones. I believe they're all Type 97s. They're what allowed mages to use magic in the Great War. Some skilled mages can use magic without jewels, but even then they were limited," Tanya explained.

'I can use a whole lot of magic without my jewel. With how much extra mana I have in this life, I can honestly rival a Type 97 even without my Type 95 or any other computation jewel. The problem with using magic without one is that more complicated spells like flight become incredibly hard to maintain and take up a lot more mana. I'm sure I could fly without a jewel thanks to my increased mana supply now, but not for very long...'

Anya nodded along, wowing in awe. She wowed less at the jewels and more at Tanya's own thoughts. 'Big sister is strong!'

As Tanya continued to walk with Anya behind her and Loid watching from a safe distance, she stopped as she read something on a plaque: '[White Silver/Devil of the Rhine/Eleventh Goddess]'

There in front of her was a small section dedicated to herself, even if it had no name and had only a handful of photos of her that were so low quality that making out any specific features was damn near impossible. Even she probably couldn't have recognized the figures in them if she hadn't been the one posing for the pictures, oh those horrendous times. Most of the text in the many boxes was mere speculation, a few theories and ideas. There were some facts placed in there, and some of the theories were right, but it was clear that documentation of her existence was very censored or at the bare minimum lacking.

Then there was her title as the 'Eleventh Goddess.' The name seemed to come from the eleven characters in her name, specifically her last name, that were always censored in every mention. Rather than saying 'Degurechaff,' most documents tended to refer to her as 'XXXXXXXXXXX', which had gotten her the nickname as historians poured over Imperial records.

It had apparently taken them hundreds of hours and lots of correlation to determine that the eleven x's were always being referred to her since the higher-ups loved to only use last names. They apparently weren't even sure that they had gotten all of the information they could've, as stated in the plaque within.

It was hard to tell if this was Being X doing it out of spite or the Empire trying to cover up that they took a nine-year-old, made them a soldier, strapped a bomb to their chest, and then said soldier proceeded to create new mountains on the map out of the bodies of enemy mages. The idea that your greatest war hero was little more than a teenager at best, a child at worst, probably wasn't a good appearance for an Empire trying to save face during and after the war.

Either way, it didn't really matter. Tanya wasn't sure whether she preferred for her name to be forgotten or if she was upset that it had been. She had never been one seeking glory like many of the hot-headed officers during the war, but on the other hand, being reduced to a line of X's on a document felt degrading to who she was. If anything it did seem to make her more mysterious, a fact that seemed to thrust her from war hero to war legend fairly quickly as few could properly understand what she did. Her presence was evident from the start to end of the war, and on every front did seem to help; it was a consistent mention every time she heard about the 'White Silver' in a book.

'So this is my legacy? A legend about the greatest aerial mage that ever existed in the last war where aerial mages truly dominated the skies uncontested. I suppose the First East-West War had some aerial mage domination, but that was the war where it was truly shown that jets, attack helicopters, or more specifically the new generation of anti-mage tech made the life of the average mage a lot harder. The only redeeming part about being a mage before was flight, and it seemed now many nations began placing mages in other positions due to their more limited numbers. Much like the Russians after World War II in my world, this world's mage population likely won't recover for several generations.'

Anya was in complete awe now, jaw dropped as she stood in place. She knew her sister was a mage, but the greatest aerial mage that ever existed was far, far above what she originally expected. She wasn't just a mage, she was the best mage, enough so that her legacy still lived on, at least as much as a single ace's could, anyways. A tiny section in a museum was more than most aces got; most got footnotes in the history textbooks.

Before Tanya moved on, she noticed a few sketches placed next to the poor-quality pictures of her. They all seemed to be different designs of computation jewels. The plaque next to it explained that the White Silver was recorded to have a unique computation orb which was believed to be key to their success. However, due to the lack of clear photos, there are no living references to what it looked like. All that remains are descriptions from her former foes, few of which survived to tell the tale, and designs of more mass-produced computational jewels to reference from.

She looked at the design, some of them were vaguely correct, but not really. The main design that seemed to be the most generally accepted was a circular design with three angel wings encircling the center jewel, which seemed to be more flat than rounded. It was a far more aesthetic design than what she had, and perhaps in some other universe Schugel may have had the artistic skill to make something like that, but in this world, it was gross over-exaggeration. Her jewel was just a simple gold circular border with a cross at the top and a round red jewel as its core.

Other designs didn't seem quite accurate. Most agreed that it was visually different from the Type 97, but while there are some accounts of it being circular, there are also accounts of it being… triangular? Five-sided? Hell, one of them calls it an octagon!

'It seems they really don't know what it looks like, huh? Circular seems to be the general consensus, of course, but reports of the jewel looking 'heavenly' seem to confuse people. The only thing heavenly about it was probably the power it radiated when I prayed. How I despised that part of it. Perhaps with being X gone, I can actually use one properly without him breathing down my neck.'

Anya was somewhat confused by Tanya's inner monologue, but frankly, nothing stated was new. For Tanya, it was reassuring that she largely didn't need to worry about wearing her jewel in public. She had enough magical power to wipe the floor with anyone without magic, but if a competent enough mage with a modern jewel tried to get her for one reason or another, she would be defenseless without it. She had no idea if she was still being hunted by her enemies; She needed reassurance.

Her main worry was being recognized, less so about being arrested since she could fly and the modern era had few mages. Fortunately, laws on computation jewels were surprisingly lenient. One couldn't sell them, so having a large stash of them was probably illegal, or at least it made you heavily suspicious, but owning them wasn't. After all, if you actually used them, you could probably be tracked down pretty easily thanks to their flashy nature. It was their use that was illegal, not their possession. This was mostly because so many jewels were hidden so well in the modern day that making them illegal would only encourage people to devise better ways to disguise them, so it was better to just end the arms race before it even started. 

The knowledge that upper-class families had lobbied greatly to prevent even their ownership from being banned probably helped, given that they held most of the jewels after the war. Given that she was trying to imitate them, the more she learned of their ways, the better.

Anya continued walking along, looking with curiosity at the various things in the museum, continuing to listen to Tanya's monologue reminiscing about the past. It seemed her big sister had gone through a lot, most of which Anya didn't fully understand, but it seemed to cause her sister a bit of stress, at least when it was happening. Whatever life she had before didn't seem like a particularly enjoyable one. Perhaps that's why big sis Tanya never wanted to play or watch TV, since most TV shows these days glorified battles of heroes and villains, of mages and soldiers.

If that was the case, then she would do everything in her power to make her sister learn to have fun! Enough of the boring reading and studying, she would learn to play if Anya had anything to say about it!

But just how could she do that…?

Anya quickly devised a new plan, Operation Strix was of course the main mission papa wanted them to complete, but Anya had devised her own operation expressly for Tanya. Operation: Get Big Sis Tanya To Start Having Fun! (The name was a work in progress).

Anya quickly began scanning around the museum for anything that might be entertaining for Tanya. As soon as she did that, she soon realized; this was a museum, it's actually super boring. Although Tanya was interested in the items from the Empire, it seemed to be only causing her more stress. Not all of the memories she talked about in her thoughts seemed particularly good. Anya needed to get Tanya out of there, as quickly as possible if she could help it.

Then she spotted it, further down one of the halls was a kids' play area that connected to the arts section. Perfect! Quickly tugging on Tanya's sleeve, she pointed at the kids' area exclaiming, "Big sis! I wanna play!"

Tanya seemed to be hiding a mild annoyance as she put on a small smile, muttering, "Can't you play by yourself?"

Anya pouted, she needed Tanya to go with her, "No! I want to play with you!"

Tanya sighed, 'I suppose I should bring my reminiscing to a close. I'm not sure I want to remember some of these things, anyways. Taking a break is probably for the best… but what exactly does she mean by 'play…'"

Tanya reluctantly followed and allowed Anya to tug her along. Loid was satisfied to see the two getting along, even if it was evident that it was more tolerance than enjoyment that came from Tanya. He had hoped the two would take in the museum a bit more, but it seemed that he had gotten the most he was likely going to get out of this visit.

Soon Anya led Tanya to the kids' area where she glanced around for anything she could make Tanya do. Soon she set her eyes on a few board games that were laid out for kids to play. She scanned through them, trying to pick one that she or Tanya would like. She saw a pair of teenagers playing a game with a map of sorts which she thought Tanya might like, however, Anya quickly realized the game was way too complicated for her liking.

Turning away from that game, she quickly found another much more up her speed.

The game was called Landlord, although Tanya herself soon recognized it as this world's alternative to Monopoly. The game had characters moving around the board by rolling dice, buying properties, and dealing with events that occur based on where they land. There were a few differences from the Monopoly that she vaguely knew from her first life, but most of them seemed to just be homebrew rules made official rather than anything majorly game-changing.

Why was there a board game like this in the museum? That was a question Tanya briefly asked herself before deciding it was probably meant to keep kids distracted for long enough that they wouldn't bother anybody. Monopoly games tended to go on for quite a while, but she would bear through it if Anya insisted, plus it could be twisted into a financial manipulation game if taken seriously.

Tanya sat down at the table as Anya quickly ran off, quickly dragging Loid and Yor into the game as well. It seemed Anya decided that this was family game time now, a fact that seemed to mildly upset Loid, but he didn't let it impact him for long. If this helped foster family bonds for Anya, the less he would have to worry about giving her cues to keep up the facade.

'Best if we finish this game quickly or this can drag on. It might upset Anya and maybe Tanya, but I'll probably have to do my best to win this quickly.'

Each of them picked a piece of their choosing; Anya chose the doggy, Loid chose the top hat, Yor chose the iron, and Tanya chose the battleship.

Fairly quickly the game began as the dice rolled, and almost just as quickly it became apparent who the real competition was between. Yor got blown out pretty early, mostly due to a streak of bad luck as she landed on rental after rental of Tanya. All that was left was Anya, Loid, and Tanya.

For Anya though, she was treading through a veritable minefield every time she rolled the dice. She stared down the length of the board where her piece lay, all down it was properly after property with hotels lining the entire way down. If she landed on a single one, it was basically over for her.

She studied the board; landing a three, four, six, or eight would spell her doom. She rolled the dice and the first one quickly landed on a six. Perfect! Now her chances of getting higher than an eight were-

And then the second dice landed on a two. Anya stared at the dice in trembling fear as she slowly moved her piece onto the second blue tile. Tanya had managed to obtain both blue tiles uncontested, and it only took her a few turns to build a hotel on it. In short: Anya was screwed, badly, and Tanya would rake in massive profits.

Anya had already traded away most of her houses to Tanya in order for her to pay off her former debt to Loid upon landing on one of his hotels, but now she had nothing to offer and little money left. Reluctantly she gave Tanya the rest of her money and slouched down.

Yor cheerfully patted her on the back, "You did good, Anya! You lasted longer than I did."

Anya glanced between Loid and Tanya. Both were fairly determined to win the game yet at the same time, neither really cared. It was a weird paradox of both desiring victory and not caring about the outcome and preferring it to be over. Nevertheless, the board was effectively a stare-down between Loid and Tanya; practically split 50/50 with every hotel in the game already placed.

All it would take is for one of them to land on the other's spot one too many times. After the first or second time, they would need to start selling hotels, houses, and properties, and when that happened it would effectively become a downward, inescapable spiral of financial doom. Loid was also dangerously close to the blue hotels, landing on them would effectively secure Tanya's victory.

If luck was on the devil's side, the white silver would have her victory in the game of ripoff oversimplified free market capitalism. Loid considered for a brief moment using his spy techniques to rig his dice roll but decided against it. This was a children's game he was playing against a child. Trying too hard to win would be overkill.

The dice rolled and…

Loid lost.

As if the misfortune of an entire lifetime had come back to repay itself in a single board game, Loid landed right on the space Tanya needed to ensure her victory by a landslide. Although Loid could've easily sold enough properties to keep going, at that point without all of his hotels and with Tanya having so much money, he was one bad roll away from losing while Tanya had far more breathing room than he had the means to deal with, and the odds simply wouldn't be in his favor.

"I suppose I've been beaten then. Good game, Tanya," Loid shook Tanya's extended hand, it seemed the girl understood proper sportsmanship fair enough.

"Now you owe me chocolate."

'Eh?!' Well… Maybe not entirely.

"That wasn't part of this," Loid muttered.

Anya nodded, "Yes it was! And because me and Tanya were a team you owe me peanuts!"

"Since when were we a team?" Tanya asked as she gazed at Anya.

Loid sighed, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get something to eat…"

They walked out of the museum with Tanya and Anya having identical smug grins on their faces. 'Perhaps they were actually sisters after all,' Loid thought to himself.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Loid approached the small store where Franky worked as cover. It was here he often met him to exchange information or documents. Upon arriving, Loid places two mana detectors on the counter as Franky looks up from his seat. He stands and takes them, quickly sliding them away as he checked to make sure nobody is watching or listening.

"So, what's the results?" Franky asks.

"Both got a zero on the test," Loid explained, folding his arms.

"Huh?! zero?! Did you test it on yourself to make sure it wasn't broken?"

Franky was clearly startled, and although Loid knew a bit about how mages functioned, he wasn't sure what exactly had surprised Franky... "Yes. I did it for both, before and after. My score came in the same both times and it wasn't the same as theirs. They both just have no mana at all. Is that abnormal?"

"It's not impossible per say, but it's very rare. The average for people who can't cast spells is about 0.40 to 0.60. Having not even the slightest bit of mana at all is rarer than having a mana rating of 5.00, but again, not impossible. Are you sure these two aren't actually sisters? Sure, mana is vaguely random at birth, and even parents without mana can produce one with a decently high amount of it, but it's still at least somewhat attached to the genetics. Parents with lots of mana are far more likely to produce a child that's the same," Franky explained.

"It might be reasonable to assume that. Their faces look similar enough, after all. Sure, I got them from different orphanages but we have no documents on Tanya's past and Anya herself hopped around multiple foster families. It's possible they were separated along the way and just didn't know it," Loid muttered in speculation. It was a plausible theory, just not one that really had much impact on Strix, but if need be it could be useful for making sure their familiar bond is strong.

Franky shrugged. "I see… Well in either case I did some research on that jewel of Tanya's." 

"What did you find?" Loid asked.

"Jack shit. There's only one documented case of a circular jewel within the Empire, the jewel of the White Silver. The problem with that is that the few accounts we have of what the jewel looks like are heavily inconsistent at best. However, some accounts do refer to it as 'gold' and 'circular,' but they also describe it as other things like 'heavenly' and 'divine.' Doesn't really seem like a fitting descriptor for a rounded yellow Type 97."

Seems that Franky's curiosity didn't really lead anywhere. Ultimately, it was Franky's curiosity, not his. But there was another possibility that may, even if unlikely, cause complications. "I see, so it's probably a fake then or some older model used during the last months of the war? Do you think it's possible that Tanya is some granddaughter of the White Silver?"

"With a mana capacity of nothing? Hell no! Well, technically I suppose it is possible, but it's so unlikely that when you add on the fact that the White Silver died at the end of the war and that her body was incinerated by a nuclear bomb, it's far more realistic that your first idea is right. It's probably some obscure jewel that was never really used, and might even be fake as some imitation for entertainment purposes. Some family heirloom or recreation of it or something. Either way, probably not worth the trouble of taking it from the kid."

Loid nodded, it was good to have the possibility of some war hero coming after their daughter for her computational jewel kicked off the list for good. Mages with high mana capacity could live longer than the average person, so it was possible that if they were alive they could come back for their daughter, if Tanya even was theirs. The jewel wasn't a problem regardless; there was no hope in a thousand years of her being able to use it. "I'll put it in my next report to WISE just in case, but I doubt anything will come of it. We got a family photo today where Tanya was wearing the jewel, so I'll just send that in, see if they can identify it, if it's even worth identifying."

With his other worries alleviated, at least for now, he had one major problem left to attend to: the interview.

The fate of world peace rests on their shoulders.

'God I never thought I'd need a break'

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Le Editors:

Dr. Rx. - Ngl good thing Mr. Madman scientist died. Otherwise, he'd be going after Tanya for the jewel once more.

Fish Tank - WISE is gonna have a fit when they finally manage to identify the orb as THE Type 95.

Terraman60 - Tanyademption arc incoming?

Half_Baked_Cat - Guess I'm here now too. I need to say something? Hugs for the Hug Throne! You know you want to Anya!

Dtrackt - grab a shovel and start digging for info WISE cause your gonna have a hard time