After handing Abyss Shilin over to Tawell, Sandora and I went straight home.
Home was the same as always... Though we had only been gone for a day, so there was no way much could have changed. The little brats were still making a racket, while several oversized brats pretended to discipline them while competing to be even louder. It seemed that no matter when, this big house would forever be shrouded in a cheerful atmosphere, as if half the people in it were utterly immune to anything heavy or complicated.
The moment I saw the girls fighting over the TV in the Living Room after getting home, I suddenly felt relieved. Home was a shelter from the storm. No matter if floods swept the world or mountains collapsed outside, once I came home, it felt as though everything had drifted far away from me.
If nothing else, for the sake of these troublemakers around me and this cheerful world, I had to stop the cataclysm.
Older Sister had been looking after the Little Crows by the coffee table. The moment she saw Sandora and me emerge from the Teleportation Gate, she came over with concern. "You're back? I heard Abyss Shilin came... Is that true?"
"Yeah, it's true. And she's at the research institute right now," I said with a smile as I took off my coat and handed it to Anweina, who had emerged from the wall beside me. "Strictly speaking, she only sent over a communicator. Her main body can't move around casually. You can check the logs in the upper Database for the details. We really learned something incredible this time."
"I looked over those logs a little, about the cataclysm and all that." Older Sister had apparently been following our progress from home. "I couldn't