Episode 6: Shock at the Slackers’ Paradise (Part 1)
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My mind totally blanked out. The amazingly beautiful lady in front of me just suddenly said something so utterly inconceivable that it instantly wiped out all thoughts inside my poor head for a moment.

"EEEEEEH!!!" 

I then shrieked like a little schoolgirl from all the shock.

"Ahahaha! I just knew you'd react like that. Ah, such wonderful material. No wonder Natsume was so fond of you." Mrs. Elmeth teased while flashing an amused, almost gangster-esque grin. Somehow, it really suited her, even if it ran counter to her graceful bearing from earlier.

"B- But... You... How in the—" I incoherently babbled. You can't blame me for being like this though. This woman just claimed to be an extremely infamous figure among the Demon Race; one who died roughly eight years prior to the outbreak of the Demon War. 

This was the Demon Queen responsible for successfully leading the retreat of her entire race into the Al-Zeberuk Wastes, despite the pursuit of the forces of the Human-Elven Alliance, who were determined to kill the entire Demon Race to the last. She died in battle after succumbing to her wounds; but not before singlehandedly slaughtering most of the strongest Alliance experts who doggedly chased after them. 

This feat forced the combined armies to retreat, despite their overwhelming advantage in numbers. It cemented her name in history as a figure reviled, feared and respected by all, regardless of race. This was the famed 'Azure Calamity' — Lyanna Sirius.

And now, this incredibly bewitching woman before me was claiming to be her, while sporting an expression more fit for a gang boss. What the heck?!

"C'mon kid. Stop gawking and sit down. I already said I'll explain as best I can, right?" she lightheartedly reprimanded. I was still a little dazed, but I eventually did as she said; my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Great. Then let's get started. Now then, where to begin?..." she pondered and held her soft looking cheek with a fair and dainty hand in a ladylike manner. The way she alternated between rough and graceful gestures was really throwing me for a loop. I somehow found her even more alluring as a result. Her looks were enough for countless people to go absolutely crazy over, but this was just cheating. I felt my face heat up involuntarily.

"Hehee. Just look at that adorable expression. It just might make me want to gobble you up," she teased, with a bewitching smirk forming on her lovely lips. I think my blood pressure just shot way up. This lady is absolutely bad for the heart! She's even worse than Nightingale. I took some short breaths and tried my best to steady myself.

Mrs. Elmeth lightly nodded, as if finding my reaction agreeable. "Now that you've calmed down a bit, we really should start discussing. Let's go with the origin of this galaxy first then; this mirror galaxy to be exact. And its just roughly a quarter of the size of the original galaxy too." she began. 

"Huh?" 

I gave her a blank gaze. She just uttered something absurd right from the get-go. Mrs. Elmeth just continued to talk without minding my reaction.

"That's right. The corner of the galaxy the Emperium, Confederation and all other interplanetary states are situated on within this sub-temporal bubble is just a small patch of the galaxy formerly known as 'The Milky Way'. You've already experienced your first 'Dive', so you should have already heard about the United Milky Way Galactic Federation, right?"

I nodded in reply as I waited for her to elaborate further.

"The Federation was the governing body which formerly ruled over almost the entire Milky Way. It was quite powerful too. The interstellar society it presided over once thrived in unprecedented prosperity. However, right as the Federation reached its peak, an unexpected discovery heralded the prelude to its eventual destruction."

Mrs. Elmeth's expression became grave. I audibly gulped in nervousness and anticipation.

"Federation researchers suddenly discovered an anomaly buried near the foot of Olympus Mons — the tallest planetary mountain within the Sol System — on a planet called Mars. It was the ruins of a seemingly super-ancient civilization. The researchers were quite baffled, because past surveys dating back to the period even before Mars was completely terraformed hadn't revealed even the slightest hint of ruins being located in the area. It was like it appeared out of thin air."

"Soon after their discovery on Mars, similar ruins kept popping up on different planets under Federation rule. This both alarmed and excited the Federation higher ups. It was either impending danger or a huge opportunity. They pinned their hopes on the latter, and organized several research expeditions in order to learn of the secrets possibly slumbering within those ruins."

"What did they discover?" I couldn't help but ask. Mrs. Elmeth smiled mysteriously.

"Something absolutely wonderful yet terrifying at the same time. Within the ruins were areas where time and space were extremely distorted and muddled. And it was not a natural occurrence either. 'Something' was artificially distorting the time-space fabric within those areas, making exploring them extremely risky. A single misstep could have one completely erased from existence, among many other dangerous and possibly fatal outcomes." 

"The prospect of influencing time-space in such a direct manner thrilled the researchers to no end. The Federation had developed into a highly advanced interstellar society which covered almost the entire galaxy, but concepts like controlling and travelling through time and dimensions firmly remained within the realms of science fiction; at least, until the discovery of the mysterious ruins. They thought that if they could successfully unlock the ruins' secrets, they could herald a brand new era for the Federation."

"After countless sacrifices, they finally got their hands on the things which caused these large scale time-space distortions and rifts. They were small, cube shaped objects etched with countless mysterious symbols. After several attempts at studying their underlying principles, a young researcher made a breakthrough and unexpectedly resonated with the sample they were studying at the time."

"He claimed to have caught a glimpse of the possible capabilities of these mysterious cubes. He stated that these objects could interface with the memory of the Universe and affect it to a certain extent. This granted the cubes the ability to affect time and space directly, and possibly influence fate itself to a certain degree. Since he claimed the cubes could calculate and influence causality, he christened them as the [L.D.F.] — Laplace Demons' Fragments — named after a theory proposed by someone from ancient times on the young researcher's native planet, Earth." 

I gasped in shock after hearing about the absurd claim. Influencing causality and fate? It was indeed amazing yet utterly horrifying at the same time. If this was real, then having that much power at the hands of a single individual or organization was not a very pretty prospect in the least.

Mrs. Elmeth continued her lecture. "The discovery left the Federation's higher ups utterly elated. They believed it was an unprecedented opportunity. With it, expanding beyond the Milky Way would no longer be just a faraway dream. But their happiness was short lived."

"Resonating with the [L.D.F.] turned out to be what brought about the beginning of the end for the Federation. It was akin to a brilliant beacon which eventually attracted the Federation's greatest enemies; the ones responsible for decimating this once prosperous superpower and reducing them to a mere shadow of their former might."

"It was the advent of the [Others]".

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