Thanks for the insight. :)
I was able to get the Broken Sniper Rifle repaired early on in Adenia's police station, but I didn't know this was supposed to be the connection to what the NPC at Adenia Robotics said.
It's probably for the best that "The Colt" isn't available later, even though I was disappointed at first. If I had known that I needed to purchase "The Colt" before completing the first dungeon, I probably would have slain 2000 "Lv. 5 Elegant" (which drop 500 Gold) to amass the required money. These poor creatures - I already slaughtered enough of them to reach level 30 before venturing deeper into the first dungeon. :D
Thanks for letting me know about Alice. That's one Phantom Core I missed (hopefully the only one), even though I had gone through the whole Demon Cave again after talking to Hemera. Maybe I wasn't thorough enough, since I thought Hemera was probably talking about Fafnir, which I had already obtained at that point. I would check again right now out of curiosity, but your post suggests that Alice can't be encountered anymore at the end of Episode VIII when the player can travel to previously visited locations.
Anyway, kudos for all the well hidden stuff!