Xia Ya's Astonishing Invention

Neumann's voice rang out clearly in the somewhat noisy cafeteria, as if it carried a strange magic that gradually quieted the surrounding chatter and clatter of utensils.

He paused slightly, his deep eyes sweeping over the young, curious faces before him, as though sorting through tangled thoughts—or weighing the impact of the words he was about to speak.

The scent of food filled the air, but an inexplicable tension quietly began to spread as well.

After a brief silence, he let out a soft sigh. It was quiet, yet like a stone dropped into a still lake, sending ripples through everyone's heart. He slowly spoke, his voice low and carrying a trace of hard-to-discern emotion. "...Xia Ya La Flaga."

The name seemed to carry a weight all its own when he spoke it.

"Among certain high-ranking officials in the Earth Alliance," Neumann continued, wonder glinting in his eyes as if he were recounting a legend from some distant star, "he is hailed as a prodigy."

The cafeteria fell completely silent, and every gaze focused on Neumann.

"You know Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, right?" He posed what seemed like an ordinary question, yet it felt like the prelude to a thunderclap. "That boy... skipped grades and got admitted there last year. And he ranked first."

Before his words had even finished, gasps rose one after another.

"Sk-skipped grades!?" Tolle's eyes went wide, and he nearly sprang out of his seat, his voice full of disbelief. He instinctively looked to his friends beside him, trying to find a trace of agreement on their faces, but saw only the same shock.

Sai immediately pressed on, brows tightly furrowed in confusion. "Skipped grades and came in first... I remember Cambridge University has plenty of Coordinators studying there too, right? The competition there should be incredibly fierce..."

"It does." Neumann nodded, affirming Sai's words. "Although Cambridge is within Atlantic Federation territory, perhaps because it is relatively far from the capital, Washington, and close to the neutral Scandinavian Kingdom, the atmosphere around there is somewhat more relaxed. Quite a few Coordinators live there."

He patiently explained the background. As everyone knew, within the Earth Alliance—especially among the Atlantic Federation's upper ranks—there was a powerful faction that rejected and even hated Coordinators.

Yet this ancient land of the United Kingdom seemed to have always held to something uniquely its own.

Its distance from the political center, along with its accumulated history and culture, made the wave of discrimination against Coordinators far weaker here than in other parts of the Federation.

As a result, the United Kingdom had far more Coordinators than the Federation's other nations, and Cambridge, one of the world's foremost institutions, naturally gathered many of the finest among them.

For a boy who was not a Coordinator to skip grades, enroll there, and crush the competition to take first place was simply unbelievable.

Just as everyone struggled to process the shocking revelation, Neumann abruptly changed the subject, as though throwing another massive stone into a calm lake. "But it seems he stayed there for less than a year before dropping out."

"What!?"

This time, the exclamations of astonishment merged into a loud chorus.

Dropped out? A genius who had entered a top university in such an earth-shattering fashion had actually chosen to leave less than a year later?

That was even harder to understand than his admission itself.

Neumann seemed a little embarrassed as he scratched his cheek. His tone became vague, as though he were recounting an uncertain rumor heard on the street. "Still... supposedly, during that less than a year of study, that boy did something incredible... Of course, it might just be a rumor."

He deliberately paused, his gaze sweeping over the eager faces before he continued at an unhurried pace. "Wasn't there a news story last month? Someone supposedly developed a new communication device that was unaffected by Neutron Jammers and capable of long-distance communication."

Tolle's eyes lit up, and he suddenly slapped his hand against the table. "Ah—right, right! That did happen! I remember the news coverage was huge at the time, but then there was suddenly no follow-up. I thought it was fake news or had been suppressed by the military. I'd almost forgotten about it."

Sai seemed to be struck by sudden realization, his face showing both understanding and disbelief. He hurriedly cut in, "Come to think of it... I remember the institution that announced the results for that communication device was... some laboratory at Cambridge University, wasn't it? Mr. Neumann... Y-you mean... D-don't tell me..." His speech grew faster and faster, his eyes widening as his breathing became rushed. A wild guess was about to burst forth from his heart.

Tolle was the first to make the direct connection to Neumann's earlier words, and Sai's addition linked all the clues together, pointing toward a possibility so astonishing it left them dumbfounded.

Everyone's hearts rose to their throats as they stared intently at Neumann, waiting for the final confirmation.

Sai's voice trembled slightly with excitement. Looking at Neumann with almost pleading eyes, he struggled to voice that guess. "Um... there is such a rumor. Supposedly, the person who invented that epoch-making communication device... was Xia Ya La Flaga."

As the words fell, it was as though someone had pressed mute on the entire cafeteria. One could have heard a pin drop.

"N-no, no, no, how could that be possible!?" Sai himself was frightened by the conclusion, hurriedly waving his hands as he tried to deny the idea, which was too crazy to accept. "He's younger than us, right? How could a student possibly... No, wait. If he skipped grades, and if he's the kind of monster who can surpass elite Coordinators and pass with the top score... then maybe age really isn't a measure for him..." The smile on his face was stiff and forced, an attempt to hide the turmoil and panic raging within him.

Flay beside Sai, along with Tolle, Miriallia, Kuzzey, and everyone else, stood frozen as if they had been struck by a spell.

Their expressions stiffened, gradually shifting from initial shock to profound bewilderment and incomprehension.

The impact of this news far exceeded any rumor they had heard before.

Amid the atmosphere where uproar and silence intertwined, Jiliang, who had been listening quietly, wore an unusually grave expression.

Her brows had been faintly furrowed from beginning to end, and deep within her clear eyes shone a more complicated light than that of anyone else present.

Jiliang attended a specialized technical engineering academy.

Therefore, more than anyone else there, she understood just how absurd Neumann's words sounded—and how enormous their implications were.

The Neutron Jammer—something like the sword of Damocles hanging above humanity—worked by suppressing all nuclear fission reactions within its range of influence.

Nuclear weapons were rendered useless, and more fatally, nuclear power plants were completely paralyzed, reduced to heaps of cold scrap metal.

This directly led to a global energy crisis.

Moreover, N-Jammers severely disrupted the transmission of electromagnetic waves, causing traditional radio communications, particularly long-distance communications, to almost completely break down.

On April 1, C.E. 70, in retaliation for the Bloody Valentine incident—when Junius Seven, P.L.A.N.T.'s agricultural satellite, was destroyed by a nuclear bomb—P.L.A.N.T. mercilessly scattered Neutron Jammers across Earth's surface.

That day became another dark turning point in human history.

Energy ran dry, factories shut down, cities lost their light, and social order teetered on the brink of collapse.

Countless people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, dying from hunger, cold, and the chaos that followed. The number of deaths directly or indirectly caused by this energy crisis was counted in the hundreds of millions, and that number continued to rise without cease.

Human civilization across the entire planet seemed to have regressed by decades overnight.

Against the backdrop of such a desperate dark age, if there truly existed a technology capable of long-distance communication without being affected by Neutron Jammers... then it would not merely be a breakthrough in communications. It might mean finding the key to bypassing the limits of N-Jammers and harnessing other sources of energy!

It was the first step toward solving the energy crisis, a precious ray of hope that could illuminate this world shrouded in darkness!

Neumann seemed to want to ease the overly heavy atmosphere. He smiled and waved a hand. "Still, it's only an unverified rumor. And wasn't there an official announcement afterward saying that the developer of that communication device was an elderly professor from Cambridge University?"

"...That's true." Sai seemed to seize upon a lifeline. He let out a long breath and nodded.

The others echoed him one after another. Watching Neumann dismiss those earth-shattering claims as mere "rumors," they exchanged helpless yet relieved looks, then all broke into somewhat foolish smiles.

They tried their best to dispel the doubts and shock in their hearts, attempting to return to the relatively relaxed mood from before.

Yet beneath this deliberately created ease, Jiliang alone maintained her serious expression.

Not only did her brow not relax, it furrowed even deeper. The thoughtful gleam in her bright eyes did not fade; instead, it grew ever more intense.

"(Official announcement... the official explanation...)" Jiliang silently turned those words over in her heart. "(But what if... what if that official announcement itself was a smokescreen meant to conceal the truth?)"

A bold and dangerous possibility flashed through her mind like lightning.

She knew full well that once she began following that line of suspicion, it would be like stepping into an endless maze, with no end in sight.

Once the chain of trust broke, it was difficult to rebuild.

But if... if the creator of that epoch-making invention truly was someone else, and that person was Xia Ya La Flaga...

Jiliang silently murmured in her heart, "(...Even if it really was him, so what? It wouldn't change anything.)"

She tried to convince herself. No matter what Xia Ya was—a legendary prodigy or an astonishing inventor—it had little to do with the course of her present life.

She and Xia Ya were merely strangers who had met by chance, refugees swept into the same war.

The way she interacted with Xia Ya should not change because of these unverified rumors, nor should her impression of him be so easily swayed by this information.

She should stay rational and focus on the immediate crisis of survival.

Only... deep inside, that powerful desire to know the truth no matter what grew wildly and uncontrollably, like vines breaking through the soil.

It was a feeling she had never experienced before, as if an invisible hand kept scratching at the softest part of her heart, leaving her restless and unsettled.

She wanted to understand the person called "Xia Ya La Flaga" more deeply.

For the first time in her life, Jiliang felt such a powerful, almost instinctive urge to investigate a specific person—someone other than mechanical engineering and programming code.

Though she felt utterly confused by this sudden, unfamiliar emotion within her, her thoughts still drifted involuntarily toward Xia Ya La Flaga, who should at that moment have been in the hangar below, surrounded by those ill-intentioned soldiers.

A trace of worry, a deep curiosity, and something else... an attachment quietly taking root before she herself had even realized it, unconsciously surfaced in her eyes.