The chapter starts with a small introduction to Singapore, Gray and Waver. After Waver's scheduled lecture, the two share lunch under some exposition on how pirates connect to magecraft because they're both on the underside of society, and there's the sea's significance to magecraft and all. The little private lecture is interrupted by an actor in the food court portraying Sun Wukong's battle against Nezha. At the end of the show, the actor hands Gray a flower and leaves. Gray comments she's happy her professor enjoyed the show, because he didn't seem like he was in the best of moods lately. Waver answers he's been thinking a lot about quitting the El-Melloi Classroom to give himself some time to focus on his own research as a mage. Gray is not satisfied with this reveal, but respects his decision anyways. Waver then finds a note inside the flower Gray got from the Wukong actor. The note says one of his students was kidnapped by pirates, and that he must seek information about the Consultant.
Flash forward to after the events of the prologue. The duo got the Consultant's location from the little pirate mage, and were ready to infiltrate. The plan was to stop their boat a distance away from it, then use reinforcement magecraft on their lungs to hold their breath as they dive to the base. Waver ran out of magical energy partway through. After her professor pathetic magecraft failure and near drowning, Gray is externally very worried about him, but internally more like "seriously, what does this man think he can accomplish by becoming a mage full time?". The duo then sneaks into the base, but trigger a Bounded Field alarm, leading to a fight against Rin. Rin quickly overwhelms Gray with a shower of Gandrs, but can't land the finishing blow because she takes a look at Gray and freezes. Gray doesn't know what that's about, but she takes this chance to counter-attack. She also can't deal the finishing blow because Ergo stops her in midair. Rin notices Waver knocked on the floor and goes "Ergo, that's my teacher, the one I said I wanted to introduce you to".
Rin confesses that she's the Consultant, and says there's no kidnapped student there. The actor's message was either a farce or a misunderstanding. Either way, Waver is very annoyed to know this is the thing Rin has been taking summer vacations for. Gray and Rin introduce themselves to each other. Waver tells Gray to put her hood on when they do, but Gray was already wearing the hood, so she just pulls it further, confused by his request. As Waver’s private pupil, Gray accompanies him to all of his classes, except the ones Rin attends. Rin is the only El-Melloi student who had never seen Gray, so she thought Gray and/or Waver had something against her. Gray also never saw Rin before, but knows she's taking a double degree in Geology and Modern Magecraft like Luvia, and can tell some things about Rins personality by looking at the holes she leaves on the classroom walls. Rin is a student with a pretty high maintenance cost, but her Average One talent makes her worth the price. By the way, Ergo's age is given as "on his late teens", and Rin's as "can't tell if she's already on her twenties or not".
Rin takes them to her place to sit down and talk. Rin argues that her Consultant work is fine by Policies because Singapore is a very superstitious place, and she only screwed up once because Waver came for his lecture and she assumed he was after her, so she rushed to her goal before things went bad. Rin's goal in her Consultant project was finding and salvaging Zheng He's treasure ships. It didn't work but most of what she found was profitable anyways. Just not nearly as much as what she was looking for. And another surprise she found in her salvages was Ergo. She named him Ergo because that's the only word he remembered when she salvaged him. Waver explains Cogito Ergo Sum, but notes that Descartes is a modern philosopher, so that has nothing to do with magecraft. He adds, however, that this concept is the kind of cool name that many mages like to give to their organizations or magecrafts. He raises the Wandering Sea being named Baldanders as an example of that. Rin asks Ergo to make his transparent hands visible so Waver can check them out. Waver doesn't recognize this magecraft, so it's probably nothing from the Clock Tower, and the few of Atlas he's seen before looks even less like that. No one properly names the thing, but Gray silently decides to go with "phantom hands" for her narration. Waver then proceeds to question about his amnesia, since "ergo" was the only word he remembered when Rin found him but now he speaks normally. Ergo explains that he just learns languages as he talks. At this point, he already speaks English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese. Rin adds that he spoke his first language about half a day after she rescued him, and it was English with a Singaporean accent. Gray recalls that he was speaking with an accent during the fight, but after listening to Waver's Queen's English, Ergo was now already speaking in fluent bloody Bri'ish. Waver asks if his amnesia gives him any impairment in his daily life, and he answers that he sometimes gets hungry. He vaguely recalls having eaten something, but it wasn't enough, so he hungers for more. Waver deduces it has something to do with Yomotsuhegui or Persephone's descent.
Rin's plan to solve the Ergo situation was taking him to the Clock Tower asking Waver to have him as a student in the El-Melloi classroom, which is a really awkward thing for Waver and Gray to hear after their previous conversation. Waver says he'll stay in Rin's base for a few more days. The chapter ends on a non-Gray POV scene of Tangere (the 3,5 meters tall skeleton from the character list page) being awakened from the abyssal zone of the ocean by its creator. The creator is inside something a size bigger than Tangere. This recipient is engraved with the Wandering Sea's crest, and looks like a gold incubator, or a gold casket. The recipient for someone who is yet to be born, and the recipient for someone who is already dead. The creator orders Tangere to into stealth mode and the giant skeleton disappears.
Originally Posted by Reign
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