17 Years Old (2)

For a moment we just stared up at the aircraft hanging over our heads, dumbstruck.

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sleek vessel suspended from something like a giant balloon. And carved into its prow: a unicorn.

No Safe Zone player could fail to recognize it. That was, without a doubt, an airship of the Unicorn Area.

Shut-in Honey was the first to speak.

"That… is that bastard's doing?"

Her face was tight with wariness as she watched the ship. I hadn't bothered explaining to Shut-in Honey or the others that the Unicorn Area player was the same "real" Dopamine Addict as me. I wanted them to stay properly on guard against him. Ttopamine Addict was the kind of man who would stage mass possessions just to farm dopamine; even if he'd kept quiet for the past six years, there was no telling what sudden stunt he might pull.

Sending an airship into my territory like this already proves he's not right in the head.

All the same, once the vessel had parked above us, it was eerily silent — as if inviting us to climb aboard.

"Think he's on it?"

Shut-in Honey pressed the question again, so I answered.

"It was sent from the Unicorn Area, sure. Whether that guy is actually riding it, I couldn't say."

If he had come in person, an attention-seeker like him would never be this quiet.

A metallic click made me turn. Taejeong was loading her weapon. Following the line of her muzzle toward the sky, I looked back up at the airship and simply watched it hang there, unresponsive.

"The timing is way too perfect…"

Another zone's airship dropping into my territory without a sound or a warning — the correct reaction was absolutely Taejeong's. But I had been thinking about shaking Ttopamine Addict down for an airship only a few minutes earlier, so rather than feeling threatened, the whole thing just struck me as uncannily convenient.

Then something started climbing up my back.

"Luna, that's dangerous."

Ignoring my protest, Luna planted her paws on my head, stood tall, and peered up at the ship.

"Whoaaa! What is that?! It's so cool!"

Hmm. I'd shown her plenty of impressive things over the past six years, and she was still this excited by an airship? Well — our zone's individual soldiers had gotten stronger, but our scientific capability was still badly lagging.

I had handed the research director the hoverboard I'd taken from Ttopamine Addict and told him to reverse-engineer whatever he could… only for him to report that the board used some kind of room-temperature, ambient-pressure superconductor.

I think the other world made a huge fuss about that stuff for a while, too.

Anyway, it was a material our zone's tech couldn't reproduce. Mess with it wrong, he said, and even the hoverboard might stop working — so I got it back with nothing to show for it.

That airship, for all that it wore the outer shape of a ship, was almost certainly a high-precision mechanical system loaded with an autonomous flight AI… and he had just parked the thing over my zone.

Even after all this time, the vessel remained as quiet as if no one were aboard at all.

"Captain!"

Players who had been out on search duty spotted the airship and came scrambling back into formation. I waved them off to signal that everything was fine, then turned to Shut-in Honey and Taejeong.

"Mrrrow!"

I caught Luna in both hands as she slid off my head, then said:

"All right, Assa — you're coming up with me."

"We're going up there?"

"They went to the trouble of parking it over our heads as an invitation. We should accept. And Luna, you…"

I was about to tell her to wait below when she dove straight into the ring. At some point she had figured out that I never took the ring off, so whenever she sensed she was about to be left behind, she hid inside it first.

How exactly do you treat separation anxiety in a companion-type…?

I still wore it for the double effect of Luna Moon's Friend title, and by now it was pure habit — so I could have just left the ring with her. But Luna's separation anxiety was partly my fault for not giving her enough security early on…

"…Luna's coming too. Taejeong, you keep watch from here. If we aren't back within thirty minutes, shoot that thing down."

"You're going to be inside it, and you want me to shoot it down?"

"Yes."

I pulled the hoverboard from my inventory and smiled at her.

"That won't kill me."

"Hyungnim… as expected, you're incredible!"

"You lunatics, I die from that! If you're going to shoot it down, wait until I'm off— hey!"

I grabbed Shut-in Honey by the scruff as she shoved her head between Taejeong and me, and stepped up onto the hoverboard.

"Thirty minutes from now. Give the players a reasonable explanation."

"Yes, sir!"

The airship was parked right over the tents, so we didn't need to climb very high. No one on deck. On an ordinary ship the crew would be topside, but this thing only looked like a ship — it was an airship through and through. Its navigation system would be below deck.

I tossed Shut-in Honey aboard first. Used to that kind of handling by now, she landed cleanly on the deck. I stepped down beside her and held out a hand when she started to draw a firearm.

"No matter how urgent it gets, don't fire a gun."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want scratches on my airship."

"You've already decided it's yours."

I had needed a means of transport, and an airship had been delivered right on cue. Even if Ttopamine Addict hadn't sent it intending to hand it over, I was taking it. Anything that entered my territory was mine.

And there was one more reason not to shoot.

"Also, bullets don't work on Unicorn Area people."

"Right, that too."

Unicorn Area players walked around wrapped in magnetic-field shields; ordinary rounds did nothing to them. The counter was a powerful electrical shock to drop the shield…

Getting the Eye Giant's ability really wasn't a coincidence, was it?

When I had collapsed after absorbing the Eye Giant's ability, the one who found me and steered Shut-in Honey into mounting a rescue was none other than Ttopamine Addict. And the Eye Giant's power let you command the weather — raise blizzards, split the sky, and call down lightning. With enough control, you could drop every magnetic-field shield in the Unicorn Area at once. A hard counter.

Being rescued by Ttopamine Addict's help right after acquiring that ability could not have been chance. A player already deep into his second or later run was unlikely to be ignorant of special abilities either.

Why leave me with a power like that?

The simple answer was that he wanted a more entertaining game and was raising a rival for himself — but it still sat wrong with me. Whatever he was plotting, though, the contingency didn't change: if it came to it, I would just strike this airship with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠lightning and shut the magnetic-field shield down. And the shield itself only deflected bullets; it did nothing against a blade or a baton. In close combat, you only had to kill them before they killed you.

After years of nothing but monsters, I was getting bored. Perfect timing.

I drew my collapsible baton. Shut-in Honey holstered her firearm and pulled a knife instead, then gripped it tighter with a tense face and asked:

"But… what if it's a trap?"

"There's a good chance it is."

"You came up here knowing it might be a trap?!"

"If there's a trap and you don't step on it, isn't that even weirder?"

"Unbelievable."

She shook her head hard. I frowned and said:

"If you're scared, go back down."

"Who said I was scared?"

Shut-in Honey pulled her goggles down over her eyes.

"I've been following you around long enough to get a dopamine addiction of my own. I'm going in."

Well. Whether that counted as her growing up, I wasn't sure.

"Then let's head below."

Toward the rear of the deck, a stairway led down into the interior where the navigation system would be. Before descending I shone a light down the steps and saw a single door at the bottom. Shut-in Honey started down without any caution; I almost stopped her, then didn't. Before, I would have chewed her out for charging ahead mindlessly — but she was a player who carried her own weight now.

She at least knows that door is a biometric system, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠right?

Shut-in Honey casually demolished that expectation.

"What the—?!"

The moment she approached the door, the defense system kicked in and concealed gun ports slid into view. Shut-in Honey yelped and toppled backward up the stairs.

That idiot.

A few rounds wouldn't kill her, but I didn't want to burn strength right at the entrance. I shot forward, planted myself in front of the muzzles, and said low and clear:

"Reconfirm access privileges!"

Unicorn airships used biometrics. They scanned a passenger's data and assigned ship privileges by rank. Unless you were a registered crew member, you couldn't open even that small door.

I knew that and still announced I would seize the ship for a simple reason: I was Dopamine Addict. If this was Ttopamine Addict's vessel, then I — sharing the same name — was as good as registered to it.

Once the door had opened safely, I looked down with pure pity at Shut-in Honey, who was still sitting on the stairs.

"You've only been possessed for six years and you already forgot what this airship is?"

She shouted back, looking wronged.

"I told you when we first met! The only people who ever cleared the Unicorn Area were you and the fanboy bastards who followed you!"

Ah. She had said that, hadn't she. Even the strategy posts I'd put up on the community never included the minor detail that the airships ran on biometrics.

"If you don't know, then just quietly follow behind me."

"No."

"No?"

"We don't know what kind of devices the Unicorn Area players might have set up! You don't know everything either, so it makes more sense for me — the healer — to go first."

"No party puts the healer out front… but then, you're not just a 'healer,' so fine."

I let her lead, as she wanted, and we stepped through the doorway into a long corridor. It was still and empty; no presence of any kind.

"Luna."

I called softly. From inside the ring, Luna answered.

"I don't sense any other meteorites."

The Unicorn Area's meteorite was the island itself, so of course it wouldn't register here. I had only checked in case some Master Player other than the Unicorn bastard was involved — but no, no other Master Players were tied to this.

For reference, I had decided to call players who unlocked the system with a meteorite Master Players, and people like Shut-in Honey or Taejeong Sub Players.

"If the layout matches the game, the bridge is straight ahead."

"I'll go check."

Shut-in Honey crossed the corridor carefully, then stopped short of the bridge door and looked back at me. So she could at least predict that the same biometric system would be waiting there. That I found even this much endearing said something about me.

"I'll open it."

Opening the door wouldn't be hard. What might be waiting inside was another matter. After warning Shut-in Honey, I stepped up to it.

The bridge door opened with almost insulting ease. I had braced for something unknown to come lunging out, and it was almost embarrassing how empty the room was. Only banks of machinery greeted us, as if we had stepped into a starship.

"Whoa!"

That was Shut-in Honey.

"Holy shit! They rendered it even better than the game!"

Well, this is reality, so of course.

While she peered around the bridge in open wonder, I looked at the large screen filling the forward bulkhead. On the pitch-black display, a line of text was floating:

So they sent an empty ship.

Had he known I would be leaving for another zone around now, and sent the airship to meet me? There didn't seem to be any immediate threat, so I let my stance ease. Shut-in Honey turned to me with a bright, eager face.

"Can I sit over there?"

She was pointing at the captain's chair. It did look like the kind of seat you'd want to try.

"Go ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠ahead."

With my permission she hurried over and dropped into the captain's seat.

"This is fucking amazing."

Nothing happened when she sat, so it seemed they hadn't rigged anything special. Completely unaware that I was using her as a guinea pig, Shut-in Honey sprawled in the captain's chair and started poking at things — until the screen that had said "Auto-navigating" suddenly went black with a sharp pop, and a new image appeared.

On the screen, Ttopamine Addict smiled out at us.