"Ma'am... ma'am?"
Hm?
Amina withdrew her gaze from the calendar clock on the wall and looked toward the conference table before her.
She had lost track of how many times she had come here.
This conference room had also changed from its former cramped, crude, metal-wasteland style into this current... style that Amina could not quite describe.
The overall color scheme had become silver-gray. The two enormous floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the stars displayed the Earth humans' rapidly advancing material technology. Every edge and corner had become exceptionally smooth, while the ubiquitous "zero-gravity emergency handrails" had been fashioned into works of art.
Outside the windows, two warships quietly departed, their engine flames pulsing behind them.
Amina collected her thoughts and looked at the unfamiliar faces that had appeared around the conference table.
They were several middle-aged men and women dressed in Expeditionary Force uniforms.
Amina did not understand what ranks their epaulets and chest pins represented, nor did she care.
She did not belong to the human system. Their relationship was more like... employment?
"Ah, I really envy you, ma'am."
The old man seated at the head of the long table, with a plaque reading "Speaker of the Council Hall" before him, spoke to Amina elegantly.
"No matter when I see you, you always possess such flawless temperament and beauty."
"Mm," Amina replied simply. "I still have tens of thousands of years left to live. Of course I will not change."
The old man asked, "Is there any news of that old friend in the Core World?"
"I haven't gone recently." Amina shook her head. "The guardian there has grown very weak. His consciousness is fading away. Sigh, despite possessing such enormous energy, he ultimately cannot withstand the erosion of time."
"Yes," the old man sighed emotionally. "Time truly is a...