Declan had thrown Aoba for a loop again. At first it began with having to puzzle through what Declan meant by clearing out the academy—only to realize on his own that a patrol meant looking for enemies and routing them if necessary. He’d learned that well enough when Declan had been making his calls home, offering vague but nevertheless eye-opening descriptions of what it was he did out in space as a Guardian.

That was when Aoba also realized that a patrol meant the Academy wasn’t what he’d envisioned at the word. They weren’t going to some outpost or far-flung place of learning tended secretly by the space equivalent of monks in the mountains. The City was The Last City. There were no other human settlements! Declan was taking him to do research in abandoned ruins. Why else the gear he was clad in? Why else the weapons for him to carry? God, what was Aoba, stupid? He kept being given pieces of information and failing to put them together into a meaningful whole!

So Aoba didn’t say anything sensible at all. He barely was able to register the way Ren kicked off his shelf and landed in Declan’s hand, looking like nothing so much as a tiny black puff in the Guardian’s safe grip. Instead, clever man that he was, Aoba blurted as gravity returned and he grabbed at his handholds:

“You have to patrol for hostile forces and you’re worried that camping might disrupt wildlife?”

What about battle, what about gunfire? But camping was disruptive??

He’d be touched as per usual by the Guardian’s gentle soul in a moment or five. Right now, it just sounded like absurd priorities.