permanent place and was often treated coldly, so perhaps he was from a department that was more exclusive —Kazuto had doubts about this as well. Kikuoka introduced Kazuto to the mysterious enterprise called RATH for a part-time job. Asuna had tried many times to contact him once Kazuto disappeared, but his portable terminal was always set to auto-reply and he could not be contacted. She angrily called the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications Technology, only to be told that Kikuoka was working overseas. It was reasonable that he could not be contacted because of that— But thinking about it the other way, was Kazuto’s disappearance related to that man? One could not help but wonder. “But...” At this moment, Asuna and Sinon stared at each other’s frowning faces, and Lyfa said slowly, “If Kikuoka is the link between RATH and the nation, why must he still work covertly no matter what? There’s a need to protect secrets for the benefit of the company, but if it’s an amazing scheme the nation is pursuing, wouldn’t it be better to promote it hugely under normal circumstances?” “Now that you mention it... That’s true...” Sinon turned her head around nimbly, nodded and answered. In recent years, this, together with the development of the virtual space technology, were two brand new frontiers. While each country was rapidly developing -America, and later Japan announced the construction of a spaceship that did not use external boosters, an artificial base on the moon, and the construction of a space station