(Heartfelt thanks to 'jun Leisure' and 'Youyouzi's Lament' for their tips!)
"I never expected things to develop like this."
In the embassy corridor, Rentaro learned from Kisara about the entire meeting's process and outcome, then spoke to Noah with both surprise and delight.
"So, during the three years you disappeared, you were preparing for those Artificial Sacred Gears?"
Rentaro's delighted words made Noah, who had just appeared exceptionally forceful and composed in the conference room, feel somewhat helpless.
That had merely been an excuse to brush off those national representatives.
Noah had not developed the method for creating Artificial Sacred Gears. They were the result of Azazel's experiments.
Furthermore, the one who had made those Artificial Sacred Gears was not Noah either, but Athena.
In truth, Noah had long since asked Athena to design an Artificial Sacred Gear exclusively for the Cursed Children.
Of course, at the time, Noah had not intended to reveal the purpose of the Artificial Sacred Gears and use them to make every country obediently hand over all their Cursed Children. He had simply wanted to increase Fairy Tail's strength.
After all, unlike before, Fairy Tail could now find itself confronting the nations of the world at almost any moment.
To increase their odds of victory, Noah had turned his attention to Artificial Sacred Gears.
Back when they were in the world of Highschool DxD, Athena had already researched Artificial Sacred Gears for some time. Her expertise in the field was nearly comparable to Azazel's.
With such expertise, it was naturally impossible for Athena to create another Longinus.
However, Noah had never intended for Athena to create a Longinus-class Artificial Sacred Gear. As long as they could mass-produce Artificial Sacred Gears that enhanced Fairy Tail's overall combat strength, that would be enough.
To that end, Athena