(Ceruno)
Antarctic Joint Research Station.
Originally a place isolated from the world, it had become an ordinary workplace in the New World, where people could come and go freely. The staff here could probably go home and reunite with their families during their off hours, too, right?
But for Miss Antarctic Star, Antarctica was her only home.
We stepped out of the transfer passage into the pleasantly warm indoor air.
Antarctic Star was leaning beside the Wormhole Device's control panel, flipping through a hardcover book that looked impossibly difficult to understand. But when she noticed us, she still looked up to greet us.
"Ceruno, long time no see."
"Good afternoon, Antarctic Star."
"Afternoon? Antarctica is in its polar day today. It will remain daytime until tomorrow night."
Antarctic Star closed her book, then looked past me and said,
"So, are these two children my fans?"
"Huh? You could deduce even that?"
While I was still surprised, Antarctic Star had already circled around behind me expressionlessly.
"Since entering the New World, you haven't visited me even once. Yet you suddenly came here with two little girls. Clearly, it wasn't you who wanted to see me—it was them, wasn't it?"
It was perfectly rational analysis, but somehow, she seemed a little upset.
Then she took the magazine with her photograph on the cover from Nana Xi's hands, confirming her own guess.
She also said to the two newly born Magical Girls,
"You two little ones, Antarctica isn't a place just any animal can come to."
"Sheep might be able to?"
After all, wool was warm.
"No. Even sheep covered in wool wouldn't do."
Having rejected that idea, Antarctic Star beckoned again.
"Come with me first. Let's not stand around chatting in the wormhole room."
She led us through the corridor connecting the