Even after her tears had dried up, Ruth didn't return to room 106. Facing Koutarou was still painful for her. Her dinner with Elexis had also been delayed until tomorrow as she had been unable to make any preparations.
In the end, with time to kill, Ruth headed to the Blue Knight's hangar. She was planning on performing maintenance of Koutarou's armor that had been left there.
Ruth had already made up her mind regarding the arranged marriage, she just couldn't take it to the next step. That said, it wasn't easy to just decline. She would have to meet with Elexis's parents and apologize directly. It wasn't something that could be settled by sending a single message to her own parents. So Ruth had to temporarily return to Forthorthe no matter what.
There, the problem of Theia's guard arose. Ruth's job wasn't just to attend to Theia, but to guard her as well. So though temporary, while Ruth was away, there would be no one to protect Theia. Since she couldn't allow that, Ruth was going to finish the maintenance on the armor and ask Koutarou. In the end, the only one Ruth could entrust Theia to was him.
A blue armor was kept standing in a rigid posture in the maintenance division of the hangar. That posture had been calculated by the computer built into to armor using current operation data and was very similar to what Koutarou looked like when wearing the armor.
The Blue Knight's armor, huh... If only Satomi-sama was the real Blue Knight...
Ruth looked at the armor and let out a small sigh.
To Ruth and Theia, Koutarou was someone who exceeded even the Blue Knight. The legendary hero, the Blue Knight, probably would protect Theia's life, but Koutarou wouldn't just protect her life, but also her heart. The Blue Knight couldn't be trusted with that much. It was because they believed Koutarou to be even greater that the engraving on the armor's chest read as 'Theiamillis's Blue Knight'.
However, that was just between Theia and Ruth. To the people of Forthorthe, Koutarou was just an alien. Since he is from a planet with a less developed civilization, he would be treated like a neanderthal, just like Theia had once done. That said, if he was just Theia's vassal, there wouldn't any problem for the Pardomshiha family to accept him as their adopted son. But things would be different if they were to get married. The entirety of Forthorthe would be shook if Theia were to marry with a neanderthal from a backwater planet. And massive protests would surely erupt.
He didn't have to be the Blue Knight, but if Koutarou was at least born from a family of knights, it would have been a simpler story.
“No... In that case, her highness probably wouldn't have fallen in love with Satomi-sama...”
Ruth shook her head upon reaching that conclusion.
Theia had fallen in love with Koutarou because they were rivals on equal standing. It is because they were able to reveal their everything to one another that Theia had come to love Koutarou. So if Koutarou had been from a family of knights, that wouldn't have happened.
“There's no use in grumbling... I have to continue my work...”
Ruth changed gears and operated a panel near the armor to start the armor's maintenance.
Maintenance on the hardware had already been completed beforehand. After picking up the damaged locations of the armor, she had ordered the repairing device to repair those parts.
So today's work was mostly regarding software maintenance. She would perform adjustments to the operating data and on the new parts to prevent any trouble when Koutarou wears the armor the next time.
“Now looking at it again... there are a lot of unreasonable parameters...”
When confirming the state of the armor, Ruth felt like something was amiss. The exchanged parts all showed initial values, but many of the parts that hadn't been changed were showing strange values.
A simple example would be the motor of the arm. It had been set to allow to momentarily allow the use of its full power, so it wasn't suited for use over a long period of time. On this setting, the motor would probably burn out after 30 minutes.
And strange settings like that could be found all over the place.
“What would you have to fight to damage the armor like this and require settings like these...”
There were a lot of strange points regarding the armor.
There were parts of the hardware that showed signs of wear and tear, and somehow Kiriha's gauntlet had been integrated with the left arm. Damage from combat and heat was all over the armor. And the software had a lot of strange settings.
Did he repeatedly fight against a large and mobile weapon over a long period of time?
Ruth reached a conclusion upon overlooking the armor. With this kind of damage, it was hard to believe that Koutarou had only fought against Clan.
It looked like wear and tear accumulated over several months of fighting on the front, and the damage was from fighting a large and mobile weapon. And assuming the strange parameters were for fighting that weapon, it would make sense.
If recordings of what happened had remained the mystery would be solved, but those had all been erased. And that left Ruth feeling impatient.
“Satomi-sama and Clan-sama are definitely hiding something...”
Koutarou and Clan's relations was yet another of Ruth's concerns. If Koutarou was recruited by Clan, Theia's future would be shrouded in dark clouds. In order to prevent that, Ruth wanted to investigate what they were hiding.
“Oh? This is...”
That was when Ruth's eyes stopped in front of a setting item. It was the software for the translating device built into the armor.
“That's strange... the processing priority for old Forthorthe has been brought up to the top... and ancient Forthorthe has been set as the fourth priority... Why would such a special language...?”
The translation device in the armor and Ruth's bracelet could convert language between Japanese and Forthorthe. If Ruth spoke using Forthorthe words, the device would translate it into Japanese while preserving her voice, and it would also do the opposite. It was thanks to that device that Ruth and Theia could live on Earth without an inconvenience.
Given enough time, the device would be able to translate any language, but known languages have been pre-registered and there was no need to gather data. This included common Forthorthe and the language spoken in nearby star systems. And amongst those languages was also old Forthorthe and ancient Forthorthe.
However, old Forthorthe which was used over 1000 years ago, and ancient Forthorthe which was only used for ceremonies back then, were rarely ever used. It was normal for those languages to be placed very low on the priority list when trying to figure out what language someone is speaking. Despite that, they had been raised up to the top. This was proof that the language was being used frequently and the computer had raised its priority to improve efficiency.
“Normally common Forthorthe should be at the top... but old Forthorthe is the top priority... Why was Satomi-sama speaking that...?”
Koutarou and Clan had gone missing, and in order to return they had needed to work together. In that case, common Forthorthe which Clan spoke should have remained as the top priority language. Despite that it, was now set to old Forthorthe. This made no sense to Ruth.
“The only reason I can think for this is...”
Koutarou hadn't been speaking common Forthorthe but old Forthorthe.
And in order to hide that, he had asked Clan to erase the data.
Ruth racked her brain to come up with a logical explanation for that.
“I see, could it be that Satomi-sama and Clan-sama...!!”
There was only a single answer that was compatible with this mysterious situation.
It was hard to believe, but Ruth believed in what her intuition was telling her. At first something extraordinary would have had happened, but after that everything would make sense.
“There's no time to spare!”
Ruth hurriedly brought up the armor's communication history. Having caught on to the truth, there was someone she just had to speak to.