"...Though I have no idea what a management consultant even is. Chaldea didn't have a position like that before, did it?"
Sherlock Holmes raised an eyebrow and glanced at Goredolf.
"I have never had much interest in official titles and such, but if others have expectations of me, I must respond to them properly."
"First... let's keep this brief."
He raised one finger, his gaze sweeping across the faces of everyone in the control room.
"Let me first explain the possibility of surfacing—we are not incapable of surfacing. Rather, we currently have nowhere to surface to."
"If we are to surface from this imaginary-number negative world into the real-number world of reality, we naturally require a corresponding [connection]."
"You may think of it as an [anchor]."
He frowned, and his crossed leg swayed slightly.
"In principle, anything in the real world should be able to serve as a corresponding [connection]—in other words, anything we know, understand, or are connected to can become an opportunity for us to escape this imaginary space."
"But that is impossible now."
Sherlock Holmes slowly shook his head, took a puff from his pipe, and exhaled a thin stream of smoke.
"This information signifies something. The Earth has now been [bleached]."
"...Bleached? What does that mean?"
A baffled expression appeared on Goredolf's face.
"To put it simply, it means [there is nothing left]."
Sherlock Holmes spread his hands.
"Nothing left?"
"Yes, nothing left. Only a blank expanse of white remains."
"...Really?"
"Really."
Thud—
It was the sound of Goredolf Musik collapsing into a chair.
His brows trembled. With his eyes closed, one hand pressed against his forehead.
"...We saw something quite terrifying in Antarctica."
"Those things that looked like meteorites, but were not meteorites. I paid attention to their number at the time. If I remember