Leaving behind a bunch of satisfied staff at the entrance, Gaius strode into the museum in high spirits. Isabelle caught up a moment later, rolling her eyes at her overly-generous boyfriend.

“What a showoff,” Isabelle said, a smile on her face.

“Hey, it looks good on you if I can show off,” Gaius replied. “Look at all these admiring gazes directed at you! They’re probably thinking about how lucky you are and how awesome I am.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Isabelle replied. Gaius could see a satisfied smile on her face, and he couldn’t help but pull her into his embrace for a few moments, in full view of everyone.

“Hey!”

“Let me enjoy this for a moment,” Gaius replied.

They broke apart a moment later, but it seemed that Isabelle also enjoyed the short hug. Her face flushed lightly as some claps came from the entrance, before she pulled Gaius into the first exhibit. Most of the exhibits were just pictures and small plaques of text that explained what the pictures meant. There were, however, some rather interesting items on display.

Like a gun.

“This looks very much like my Moonshot,” said Gaius, “but it operates on kinetic energy generated by explosives.”

“I wonder if this…Pistol was used as a model for your Moonshot. They look quite alike,” said Isabelle. “And isn’t this a very elaborate Straight Shot?”

Gaius looked at the rifle, which was indeed embroidered and carved with all kinds of decorative patterns. He was no expert on old weapons, but if he didn’t get it wrong, it was a bolt-action rifle.

“This looks like something from World War I,” Gaius murmured. “But I’m just making a guess. At any rate, this weapon was from a previous era.”

He knelt down to look at the plaque. “Says here this…Mosin-Nagant was a gift from Polaris.”

“What’s a Mosin-Nagant?”

“This rifle’s name,” Gaius replied. “Really old too, from the worksmanship. How did they preserve such an item for a hundred thousand years?”

“I can answer that,” a voice spoke from behind them.

The woman who had been manning the counter earlier walked into the room a second later. “I’m Misa, and I’m here to give you a tour. Usually, we would just let visitors poke around, but since we can fire up some of the attractions thanks to you…”

“Alright. We won’t stand on courtesy, then.” Gaius grinned. “So, how did this weapon get preserved for that long?”

“We were excavating one of Solaris’ legacy sites in Feng-Lang last year, and then we found these items in glass tanks, suspended in mid-air,” Misa replied. “So we moved them here directly, did some matching with the diary entries that went with them, and then replicated the descriptions here. But we don’t know how they’re preserved for this long, since their containers are also historical artefacts that we don’t want to tinker with.”

“Diary entries?”

“Yes. The Champions kept diaries that recorded their daily life and any events of significance, in their final years,” Misa replied. “Of note is one such extract, one in which Solaris made an odd observation about the great gods.”

“What about the great gods?” Gaius asked.

“That they seemed to be…artificial,” Misa answered. “To quote him verbatim, “their origins were too neat and tidy, given their origins”. Unfortunately, Solaris, along with the others, ended his own life soon afterwards, revealing little of note.”

“Ended his own life?” Isabelle asked, her expression suddenly sombre.

“It’s a rather long story, I guess. I’m not as good as the others who used to work here, so please forgive me if I’m a bit boring.” Bowing, she walked over to the other exhibits and began to introduce them. Most of these artefacts were centred around the use of restraining their wearers and sending them into deep sleep; the Cardinal Champions had been inflicted by a brand of insanity.

It wasn’t anything like the one that had afflicted the Human God; the cause was apparently something called hissatsu, a state of mind used to permanently vanquish the immortal demons. Gaius didn’t really care about that — it wasn’t as if they were depicting the kind of madness that had consumed the Preserver and his familiar spirits.

Shaking his head, they moved on to another exhibit.

From what Gaius could tell, this exhibit room was a newer one, full of items and lifestyle inventions Solaris had tried to create in Orb. It probably represented Solaris’ desire to live the life he had on Earth, back then, but since there were virtually no records about returning to their original world, it was probably an unfulfilled wish.

“They really missed their home, didn’t they?” Gaius murmured.

Isabelle turned to look at him. “Gaius?”

He drew close to Isabelle, since he didn’t want Misa to overhear his words. Whispering in her ear, he said, “Most of the items here are lifestyle items. Things that were usually seen in homes. They must have wanted to go back after a while.”

“Do you also feel the same way?”

“No. I’m just affected by the emotions they had,” Gaius replied. “I have you and Nakama. That’s more than enough for me.”

After holding her tight for a few more seconds, in which time Misa decided to look at a random exhibit very closely, Gaius broke the hug. Holding Isabelle’s hand, he cleared his throat.

“Oh, you done? Don’t worry. Many people get emotional when they see this for the first time,” said Misa. “You won’t be the first. I heard from Bokensha — an ex-colleague — that he was weeping when he first entered the legacy site that held these items.”

Gaius covered his mouth to hide his smile. “That’s interesting.”

“It is. Now, do you want to move on to the next exhibit? It’s one of our older ones, which talks about the First Extermination,” said Misa. “You can spend more time here if you so wish, though. Business has been really down recently, partially because operation costs have shot up.”

“Is the next exhibit one that uses gemstones?” Gaius asked.

“It is. Most of our older ones require ether to operate. I’m not sure why either, but the Champions are people that beggar belief to begin with.”

“True. Isabelle, shall we?”

She nodded.

Misa led them into another room, where a video was being projected into thin air. “This here is one of the many memories Champion Solaris had of the First Extermination. What you see here, through his eyes, are various blessings from the Human God and the Sentinel of Space, something that Lunaris and Octantis called a heads-up display.”

“A heads-up display?” Isabelle asked. “What’s that?”

“It’s what they called the information they could see. So this one here’s called a mini map, while the words and numbers here are indicators of his bodily condition,” said Misa. “It’s a very concise method of understanding one’s current position.”

“Maybe we could make something similar for the soldiers at the Great Divide,” Gaius muttered. “Isabelle, do you have any ideas?”

“Me?”

Gaius nodded. “If you succeed, you’ll be rich. I’m still getting annual proceeds from the Display, so trust me when I say I know what I’m talking about.”

They turned back to the exhibit, and continued to listen to Misa’s explanation.