The materials purchased from the Courtyard were delivered rapidly—or rather, the moment Roz pressed the button, a massive quantity of materials was sent directly to the Nahel Argama's workshop.
Indeed, there was a specialized workshop aboard the Nahel Argama designed to allow Roz to hand-build MS and related armaments. This was precisely why Roz had designed the Nahel Argama to be even larger than the original version.
"Alright, leave these here... and the materials over there, Team Three, go move them!"
Just as Roz returned to the Nahel Argama's Hangar, a woman with short blonde hair, wearing a yellow jacket and denim shorts, was directing the maintenance crew. They were using engineering machinery to transport the pile of materials into Roz's workshop.
"Ah, you're back, Big Brother Roz!"
She spotted Roz and Big Haro and waved her hand toward them.
"Thanks for the hard work, Cindy."
Roz nodded to the woman named Cindy.
Cindy was the one elected as the second-generation leader of the maintenance crew after Marvin decided to pilot the Narrative.
She was part of the second generation of Blue Cosmos industrial "wetware" created after Marvin's batch. Because the original requirement of "sixteen to eighteen years old" was too restrictive, Blue Cosmos tried to relax the conditions to expand production. Many patients lingering on their deathbeds with terminal illnesses had their death certificates forged and were dragged away to undergo wetware modification experiments.
Back then, Cindy, who was bedridden with late-stage ALS, watched with her own eyes as the Blue Cosmos agents casually assigned her a death certificate, wheeled her away, removed her brain, and submerged it into wetware.
Unfortunately, while the other wetware units in Cindy's batch succumbed to madness and self-destruction one after another, only Cindy remained. To ensure production quotas, Blue Cosmos was forced to tighten the requirements once again.
The fear of death and the desperate desire to survive enveloped her, pushing her to the brink of insanity several times. The Blue Cosmos researchers had to administer sedatives to her on a regular basis.
Until that day, when a titan of steel crushed the dome of hell, rained down the fires of judgment, and carried away these broken souls.
She had gained a "second life" in the truest sense.
"It's not really hard work... the performance of this body is very high. Even without using engineering machinery, moving these materials wouldn't be a problem."
Cindy raised her hand and clenched her fist; even through her gloves, she could feel the power within her body.
The sensation of running, the tactile feel of her hands, the scents picked up by her sensors... she had once again obtained the actual feeling of being alive.
"But... occasionally I can't control my strength. I've already crushed several thermos cups."
Cindy chuckled and looked at Roz.
"If I calculate it carefully based on the files you gave, you should be nearly twenty-five or twenty-six years old by now."
Roz thought for a moment and comforted Cindy. "Your circumstances were quite special. It's only natural that your control over this body isn't as good as theirs yet."
"Ho... you remember my age quite clearly, Big Brother Roz."
Although it felt a bit strange on the surface to call someone younger than her "Big Brother," Cindy narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at Roz. "Looking to woo me? You know I won't say no. I can leave my door unlocked for you tonight."
"I remember the files of everyone on board clearly."
Roz scratched his head, declining Cindy's proposal, and voiced his own doubt. "Though, I recall your personality wasn't quite like this before you were installed in a new body."
Hearing Roz's question, Cindy subconsciously pursed her lips.
Before Roz departed, Cindy had gone to search for her parents, but in the end, she only found two tombstones. It was said they both died during Blue Cosmos's final desperate counterattack.
As she stood before the tombstones, she momentarily hallucinated seeing her parents' lingering souls smiling at her, and a faint farewell echoed in her ears.
Accompanied by a flurry of light particles that appeared only in her field of vision, she understood that everything from the past had been severed from her.
She changed her name and her appearance, starting a brand-new life.
"After all, as I am now, I don't even know how much longer I'll live..."
Pulling herself away from her past thoughts, Cindy pondered for a moment, resting one hand on her hip while waving the other dismissively. "Like is like, dislike is dislike. Saying it out loud and being straightforward is better than wasting time letting you guess."
Roz didn't dislike this personality of Cindy's—direct, yet possessing a trace of delicacy.
"Well, jokes aside for now. Did you buy these parts to build something new?"
As she spoke, Cindy stepped aside, allowing Roz to see the materials she had neatly arranged.
"Yes... to handle the battles ahead, we need to build new MS."
Roz turned to look at Cindy.
"It's not just the MS I'll be using next, but also the ReZEL squad that we didn't have time to build in the previous plan."
"Marvin should have synced the data to you before we departed, right?"
"Ah, I'm aware of that."
Cindy's green pupils lit up with patterns resembling circuit boards as she constantly flipped through the data Marvin had synced to her.
"Good. Sync the data to the ship's terminal; these machines all need to be redesigned."
"Redesigned? But the machines for the ReZEL squad were already quite per—"
Hearing Roz's words, Cindy's expression turned confused. To her, the design blueprints for the ReZEL squad—which utilized SEED's electric propulsion technology—were already quite perfect.
"That was only 'perfect' based on our world."
Roz shook his head. "We don't know the combat strength of the enemies we'll face next. They aren't exactly pushovers. The better the machine performance, the safer we are."
It was true. Whether it was the ReZELs still on the drawing board or the Jesta, Destiny, Psycho Zaku... and even the Unicorn sitting in the hangar, their so-called "perfection" was only relative to their previous world.
Redesigning, refitting, and optimizing were unavoidable—this was also the moment where Roz's talents could be fully displayed.
At this moment, the "I reckon" (Ork-like) genes in Roz's body were starting to stir.
"I see..."
Cindy's eyes returned to normal, signaling that the data transmission was complete. "In that case, it should be quite a long time before we set sail again."
As she spoke, Cindy pulled a wrench from her tool belt and handed it to Roz.
"Correct. But the identity certifications have been prepared for everyone. If you have time, you can go out and look around."
Without a second thought, Roz took the wrench from Cindy and gave it a light toss to test the weight.
It felt great—even more balanced than the wrenches he had used before.
"Did you all hear that?!"
Cindy didn't bother shouting; she spoke directly into the maintenance crew's communication channel. "The maintenance crew will be split into three groups for rotating shifts. Everyone else can go rest."
She pulled a second wrench—identical to the one in Roz's hand—from her tool bag and followed behind him into the workshop.
Even though the blueprints hadn't been modified yet, it was best to start making some preparations.
......................