Despite the terrifying campus shooting that happened earlier in the day, the shocking thing about our school was that classes were not canceled. Instead, everything continued as per usual. This was extremely puzzling, but Cang Lan Private High School—the location of the campus shooting—was immediately locked down. All the students inside were also immediately transported to a safer location. Compared to our school, the difference was like heaven and earth.

The Junior Year courses were quite bland. Within this year, one had to force themselves to store all the irrelevant information of the world into their brain, all for the sake of pouring it all out on paper in July. Then, one had to try and forget all of these things in the following four years.

Our English teacher was a kind, old lady. It was said that she once taught Mandarin to foreigners in a private school in England. This resulted in one habit of our lovely teacher: she always spoke extremely quickly in English and then translated what she said back into Mandarin. When she did this, she spoke extremely slowly and emphasized every single word as if afraid that we would not understand Mandarin.

All in all, this rendered every single one of us speechless.

I narrowed my eyes slightly, trying to pick out what I could understand out of that thick London accent and forming sentences in my head that I could understand. (This was an extremely challenging thing. I guessed that this was as difficult as trying to guess what Egyptian Pharaohs had for breakfast by analyzing remnants of the stone slabs.) Suddenly, a small paper ball rolled towards me. More precisely, it hit me on the head.

I picked up the paper ball and quickly tried to determine the direction from which the paper flew, based on the angle and speed at which it hit me, accounting also for the wind… alright, I should open the paper ball first.

What looked like highly-encrypted and suspicious alien text appeared before my eyes. "Ah Jun, how is your sister?"

This Chinese handwriting looked like what Van Gogh would have produced by writing with his left hand after having two servings of pot. Without a doubt, it was from Qianqian. Few people in the world—including me—could decipher handwriting like that within a short amount of time. This meant that each time Qianqian and I passed handwritten notes to each other, we did not need to bother about them being found by outsiders. On certain levels, Qianqian's words acted a bit like codes.

"She's doing well. Her classmates and teachers take care of her very well. I don't think anyone would be so cruel as to bully a blind girl, right?" I wrote in handwriting that was as hard to read as Qian Qian's.

"We can't be too sure about that. You should take good care of your little sister. She's very pitiful. If you allow her to be bullied, I will not forgive you!"

… I did not think that Pandora's cute appearance, coupled with the unfortunate story that I thought of on her behalf, could be so powerful. Even the strong-headed, excitable, and tough Qianqian could become her dedicated guardian in such a short time…

Bully Pandora? Just thinking about the battle scene I witnessed earlier in the day scared me. I immediately pursed my lips.

How many fully-armed, regular troops could bully that extremely powerful battle machine?

Just as I was thinking about Pandora in her combat mode, taking on the Human Race's united army with one hand as the Phantom Warship Cannon and the other as a cannon big enough to take down a city; a strange feeling washed over my brain. This feeling… was Pandora trying to contact me?

No, no, it was not Pandora. According to her—as my chief assistant, she and I had an unrestricted contact channel through which she could contact me under any circumstances. However, the feeling washing over me at that moment was more like a request to make contact. There was no need for Pandora to make use of this.

Although I did not know who the other party was, I could be sure that they had something to do with the Xyrin Empire.

I lowered my head and acted like I was reading my school textbooks very seriously. I wanted to cover up the shocked expression that would probably appear on my face in a while. (According to my own experience, any connection with the Xyrin Empire would shock me.) Then, I accepted the request.

"This is the world's second arbitration organ, Gaia, requesting authority to contact the Emperor." I heard this introductory message in my head.

Gaia? I paused for a second, before immediately regaining my composure. This was the translucent hologram I saw in my dream. En, it was the immortal big sister.

Actually, I still had many questions regarding the dream I had that day. For example, why was there a fortress in the sky? (Now, I knew that the thing was called a world arbitration organ.) Moreover, where did the other two of them go? Why did they nearly touch Earth? What were the world's arbitration organs for? Most importantly, was the woman named Gaia the representation of the arbitration organs' consciousness?

Although I had so many questions—unfortunately, I had very little contact time with the home-star, Xyrin. (From Pandora, I learned that the Xyrin Empire was vast and contained many home-stars. All this time, the world I was seeing in my dreams was just one of the many Xyrin home-stars.) The signals that were making long journeys through timeless space tunnels could not show me the world in real-time again. It was almost like an online game; due to poor connection, I was lagging.

The world in my dream was stuck in the way I last saw it that night. The connection I had with the Xyrin home-star had been cut off. Even though Pandora was here, I could only receive blurry signals.

Now, what did that artificial intelligence from the Xyrin home-star want from me?

Since I was curious, I accepted the other party's request to make contact with me. At the same time, I felt another spiritual connection. This was the same frequency as Pandora's spiritual connection. From the looks of it, she had every intention to listen in.

Although this was referred to as a real-time transmission, there was also a real distance between us. In addition to Pandora's correction and filtration, Gaia's voice only came a few seconds after it was sent. It was the characteristic Xyrin emotionless tone. Its contents, however, shocked me.

"The First Army of the Empire's Expeditionary Force has already entered your space one hour ago, according to your world's time. I guess that in twelve hours, they will arrive on your planet. Please prepare to receive them."

That was all. There was nothing more she had to say.

"What? What did you say? Hold on, Miss. Are you mistaken?"

However, I did not receive any reply to this series of questions that I sent out. Our spiritual connection was broken.

From the looks of the situation, the connection this time was made forcefully, and it was unstable. In less than twenty seconds, the connection was lost. I was left by myself, with a splitting headache.

The Empire's Expeditionary Force?

What exactly was this expedition for?

"Hey, Pandora, did you hear about the Empire's Expeditionary Force?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it's about? Why are they sending an army over all of a sudden?"

"Put simply, this is the team that works directly under me. It is the Reinstallation Pandora Corps."

Pandora answered me without emotion. Even though we only had a spiritual connection, I found it easy to imagine Pandora's nonchalant and casual expression while saying this.

Perhaps to her, having an army sent anywhere was simply a trivial matter.

However, to me, this was a huge deal!

At that moment, I felt like the calm life as I knew it was quickly slipping away from me.