"Building a bridge?"
When I spoke the two words that had flashed through my mind like lightning, I was met with a sea of baffled looks.
"Do you remember the Deep Diving Project we came up with last time?" I tried to remind Sandora and the others. "It was just a few days ago. One night, I couldn't sleep, and then I heard all sorts of nonsense—Chaotic Sea, the other shore, and building a bridge. The next day, I told you about it, and everyone agreed that I'd been hallucinating."
"Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember." Sandora nodded with her chin propped on one hand. "Oh, right, that did happen. Wait, you said building a bridge... Do you think this Black Shuttle is related to what you heard back then?"
"It's just a sudden thought." I let out a breath and slowly explained what I had connected in my mind. "Right now, we suspect the Black Shuttle came from the Abyss, and we suspect there really is a super-civilization within the Abyss capable of manufacturing something like it. Let's assume those suspicions are true for the moment. Then when did they start building their first Black Shuttle? The probe we're looking at may still be a prototype, but it managed to pass through the most chaotic regions of the Abyss. There's no way it could be as simple as a first-generation product, right? Otherwise, wouldn't the people who made it be absurdly capable? So I'm guessing the super-civilization that built the Black Shuttle first attempted to launch probes around the same time the Old Empire began the Deep Diving Project. In other words, these two projects... were cooperating from the very beginning."
"Based on what? There has to be some basis." My speculation was perhaps too shocking, leaving