Jessica shouted her question.
The Wizards around her all answered.
"A-a high-energy reaction up ahead!"
"No... it's not a Spirit! That's a magical power generation reaction! C-could that be—"
As if to confirm the Wizards' suspicions, the thing emerged from the clouds ahead.
It was a bizarre-looking weapon that could only be described as a tank or a fortress.
The enormous metal machine had two massive cannons like towering trees, with high-output lasers mounted inside that could vaporize anything they touched before they even had a chance to cut through it.
At the rear was a rugged weapons container holding a vast arsenal.
And at its center, a Wizard could be seen, fitted into it like an emblem.
Short, shoulder-length white hair and blue eyes. Features as exquisite as a porcelain doll's, paired with an icy expression.
She wore AST's black Connection Suit.
At the sight of that familiar face, every Wizard, Jessica included, widened her eyes in shock.
Origami Tobiichi—a Wizard from the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force's AST.
That was the girl's name.
But none of that mattered most. What mattered was the Realizer she wore.
White Lycoris—
There was no mistaking it. The Realizer Origami Tobiichi wore was the defective machine Jessica had once seen at a base in the United Kingdom.
That "monster" was supposedly capable of concentrating all the firepower needed to kill a Spirit into a single weapon.
Its test pilot had been left completely incapacitated after operating it for a mere thirty minutes.
As a result, the machine had become nothing more than an art piece, serving only as a symbol of DEM's power, technology, and sense of humor.
That was everything Jessica knew about White Lycoris.
Come to think of it, though, she had heard that an AST Wizard had taken the machine