"Little Shopkeeper, could you do me a favor and enlarge these few photos so we can take a look?"
Jane didn't respond to Geno's words; instead, she walked over to Belle's side, signaling for her to enlarge the several photos of automaton mechs that Eous had taken.
Then, under Belle's operation, the photos were enlarged on the screen for everyone to see.
"What's there to see in these?"
Geno looked, utterly bewildered, at the mechs of all different shapes. Cool, sure—they looked pretty cool—but what did this have to do with evidence?
"So that's it." "Mm, indeed—to call it a coincidence would be stretching it a bit too far."
Twiggy and Trigger were the first to notice something fishy, their faces shifting into an 'ah, I see' expression.
After mulling it over for a while longer, Anby, standing off to the side, also grasped the crux of the matter.
"I get it now—it really is suspicious."
Watching everyone, one after another, figure out what Jane was getting at, Geno—the only one who couldn't see anything at all—suddenly started to panic.
How does everyone already get it? Am I really the only idiot here?!
And so Geno put on a face as if he'd figured something out too, nodding repeatedly, which made Twiggy beside him unable to keep from rolling her eyes.
"It's [Three Gates], isn't it?"
Number 11, leaning against the wall, pointed at the 'threegates' logo on the mechs in the photo and spoke up.
"Every single mech under the rebels' control bears the Three Gates Enterprises emblem."
The Three Gates Group, as a veteran industrial conglomerate within TOPS, had always placed great emphasis on the research of Ether technology.
It had long devoted itself to fields such as construction, military industry, and transportation, and could be counted as an evergreen in those domains.
Under its umbrella were Three Gates Construction and Three Gates Munitions. Three Gates Construction excelled at emergency construction in response to sudden Hollows, while Three Gates Munitions was the primary supplier of the Defense Force's equipment.
Both the Defense Force and Public Security, for instance, were regular customers of Three Gates Munitions.
However, as a vast official organization, the Defense Force would absolutely never source its machinery and equipment from a single company alone.
This was not only to prevent any one firm from dominating, but also involved many murky, hard-to-explain exchanges of interest.
"On top of that, the equipment the rebels use also bears the Three Gates Munitions logo—and by the looks of them, they're all the very latest models of weapons."
As active-duty soldiers, Trigger and Number 11 were extremely sharp when it came to weapon turnover; what the rebels were using was absolutely from the same batch of equipment as theirs.
From this, the suspicion surrounding Three Gates Munitions was magnified to no end.
"See, what did I tell you—it really is TOPS."
Geno shot a somewhat smug glance at Twiggy, and Twiggy merely rolled her eyes at him once again.
"But even so, we still don't have any substantial evidence to prove that Three Gates Enterprises is colluding with the rebels, do we?"
Belle raised the question once more. Although they had pretty much pieced together their deductions by now, the most crucial thing—the evidence that could nail Three Gates Munitions dead to rights—still hadn't appeared before them.
"Mm... that really is a problem."
Trigger rubbed her chin, looking a little troubled.
Twiggy and Yanagi Tsukishiro wore the same expression. Though the two of them had very powerful backing, even backing needed evidence to speak with.
New Eridu, after all, was not a simple society dominated by any single power.
"Is that so? Well, I happen to know of someone who must have evidence." "Who?"
Geno folded his arms rather smugly. Seeing that no one else seemed to have any ideas, he thoroughly enjoyed this feeling of being the only sober one among the drunk.
"Heh heh, remember that whatchamacallit we ran into before… the rat?"
"It's 'Mole,' and I'd really rather not be lumped together with that sort of fellow."
Hearing Geno's words, Jane hurriedly spoke up to correct him. As a Mouse Thirren, having herself lumped in with someone like the Mole was truly hard to accept.
But indeed, Geno had a point. As a spy who had procured so many automaton mechs for the rebels, the Mole couldn't possibly have had no dealings with Three Gates Munitions.
"But the problem still isn't solved. Do any of you know where that Mole is now? Or, for that matter, do you know what he looks like?"
"Uh..." Belle's remark once again brought the conversation to a dead end.
Though Geno really wanted to say he'd seen the guy himself, that fellow's face had been covered up—so how could they even go about searching for the Mole?
Everyone fell into deep thought once more.
The current situation was just like clearing quests in a game.
To complete this, you had to do that; and to do that, you absolutely needed this.
If any one link in the chain dropped the ball, the game couldn't go on.
"Ugh, surely it can't really be like in a game—where we just said we can't find the Mole, and then the Mole comes knocking right on our door, can it?"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Fairy's big blue eyes appeared on the computer screen.
[Master, there is a new commission on the Inter-Knot that may be able to help you.]
"Hm? At a time like this? A commission?"
Hearing Fairy's prompt, Belle instinctively pulled out her phone to take a look—and sure enough, it turned out just as Fairy had said.
"Inter-Knot commission: My Bangboo went missing in a Hollow. I hope someone can help us find it. Here's its photo…"
Looking at the Bangboo photo sent by the commissioner, Belle fell silent.
Seeing the odd look on Belle's face, everyone crowded in to see what was going on.
"This Bangboo… isn't this Eous?"
Looking at the Bangboo in the photo—vivid in expression, arms swinging as it ran—who else could it be but Eous?
Belle's reaction, on the other hand, was even more indignant. Puffing up with anger, she said, "Since when did Eous become his? Could it be a Bangboo of the same type?"
"Belle, no matter how alike they are, there's no way they'd be completely identical. And the way it looks in this photo—any way you cut it, it looks just like you when you were fleeing earlier."
Anby, off to the side, couldn't quite bear to watch any longer. This was clearly a photo from when they'd fled the rebel camp with Eous in tow earlier.
"So you're saying—this is a commission the rebels put out to find us?"
Belle caught on, and then started having Fairy look into the commissioner's information.
[According to information gathered on the Inter-Knot, the other party's account was created 1 hour, 21 minutes, and 38 seconds ago. Inter-Knot nickname: 'Moore.' The commission was posted 13 minutes and 14 seconds ago.]
[And within the half hour before sending the commission, the signal source briefly appeared within the Crete Hollow, at coordinates marked 'Rebel Base.' The estimated probability of it being the rebels is 77%.]
Fairy's explanation left everyone present in silence. They'd just finished saying they couldn't find anyone, and then the rebels came knocking on their own.
It was, in a way, fate toying with them.
"At least it counts as a lead, I suppose. Looking on the bright side, maybe this guy is the very person we're looking for—who knows?"
Geno said this optimistically to the others, though even he himself didn't really take the words seriously.
After all, reality isn't a game—how could everything possibly line up so conveniently.
And yet it really was that much of a coincidence.
____
👻🔥Seek: Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Naruto: Is it reasonable to beat up an Otsutsuki with Hamon, right?
Let's hit these goals:
🎯 100 Powerstones = 1 extra chapter for the public!