- 07. Great Retreat -
"Nngh—"
They had left the battlefield where blood and death had flowed and walked a considerable distance.
Carrying a fully armored lump of dead weight through mountain ranges and valleys where peak after peak stretched on was no easy task.
If this had been the frail, exercise-starved body of a modern person, she would have collapsed long ago.
Still, she somehow made it over the ridge and reached a place that felt reasonably safe.
The air no longer carried the scent of blood, and the sun overhead blazed crimson as it sank beyond the western hill.
Athena set down the man she had been half-dragging due to the height difference and began preparing camp.
She cleared away the stones jutting up like landmines from a patch of ground that looked flat enough, and then—all-purpose! Materia Magic, summon a mattress!
Unshakable comfort! Well, not quite, but she laid the survivor down roughly on a mattress she had made extra thick with some care.
She draped a green blanket over him, trickled a few sips of a homemade sports drink into his mouth, and then continued her work.
She raised the frame of a tent with Materia Magic, then covered all sides without gaps using magically created olive-drab cloth.
She left the center of the ceiling open and carefully secured the cloth so the wind wouldn't carry it off—and the makeshift tent was complete.
It was less a tent and more a structure similar to a nomad ger, just smaller.
Now she dug out the ground at the center inside the tent and got a campfire burning properly.
Magic truly was the best.
Athena finally created a chair for herself and plopped down into it.
Thinking it was a good thing she had watched that low-key camping anime a friend recommended, even though it was not usually her thing, she watched the orange-red campfire crackle away.
'Is this what fire-gazing is?'
As the cozy warmth rose, some of the tension finally eased.
If only she could set a pot over those flames and boil up a bowl of ramyeon—Athena sank into longing before the red-burning campfire, then snapped her head up.
Why wallow in nostalgia when she had god-tier miracle-water magic?
Athena reached out her hand.
Come forth...!
Yukgaejang cup ramyeon!!!
A moment later.
In Athena's hand appeared a food from another world that transcended civilization, distinguished by its white container and blue, yellow, and red lettering.
[The MP consumption for a single palm-sized food item is just...]
Athena gently ignored Nike, who was expressing a bit of dismay beside her, and boiled water.
Honestly, Nike was right that the MP consumption was pretty brutal, but she still didn't convert the cup ramyeon back into Materia.
"Heh heh heh."
She'd been dropped into this godforsaken world out of nowhere, so she deserved at least this much of a gift. Obviously.
In a world without smartphones, without TV or radio, this was the only thing that could comfort her exhausted body and mind.
Bubble bubble
The water boiled.
Athena peeled open the lid of the glorious cup ramyeon and poured in the water. She even deftly created wooden chopsticks, clipped them to the cup, and counted numbers in her head.
Exactly three minutes.
One. Two. Three...
"So... Nike-mon. Do you happen to know who this person is?"
[Nike-mon? I am not some ugly blue creature, Athena. Apologize.]
Nike in her head growled like a pissed-off chihuahua.
Athena quickly apologized.
"Anyway, so what's the answer?"
[Hah... Athena. I am not a Goo—search engine.]
"You're not?"
Doesn't seem like it...
Leaving behind Nike's somewhat exasperated voice, Athena thought about the man lying on the bed.
Just from his looks, no matter how she thought about it, he didn't seem like an ordinary person, but no matter how much she searched her memory, she couldn't figure out who he was.
Huh?
What, you think you can tell whether someone is ordinary or extraordinary just by looking at them?
What are you, some shallow bastard obsessed with looks?
Tch!
Well, this world was the weeb gacha game <Abyss Flood>, wasn't it?
Whether this world was the original and the game was based on it—or the game was the original—she couldn't say, but either way... it meant the laws of weeb gacha games were at work here.
Weeb game traits.
Whether male or female, if someone's handsome or pretty, they've definitely got something going on.
And not just moderately good-looking—if a guy was so damn handsome that even another guy had to admit it, then surely he must have left some kind of major mark on this world?
Following that rational and logical reasoning, she searched her mind—
"Ahh—"
But no matter how much she thought, she couldn't figure it out.
Athena went "oh, whatever" and stopped thinking. She'd thought hard for roughly three minutes, and if she couldn't figure it out, then she just didn't know.
Even for a male character, if there'd been a character with a face like that, there was no way she wouldn't remember, so she decided to just let it go.
The game had become reality, so a handsome nameless soldier #1 was plausible enough.
Anyway, the man's identity wasn't what mattered.
What mattered right now was—!
"Ding!"
[Why are you suddenly doing that, Athena?]
"Three minutes are up."
[...]
Glorious cup ramyeon.
Athena barely suppressed the hum that rose on its own and fully opened the cup ramyeon lid.
Sniff sniff! She deeply inhaled the spicy aroma that lifted her mood just from the smell and snapped the wooden chopsticks apart with a crisp sound.
Puff puff! Puff puff! She blew on the noodles to cool them.
Honestly, an Automata body had no problem even without cooling the noodles, but hey, there's such a thing as vibes! The vibe!
Slurp!
The intense saltiness and spice spreading through her mouth, the thin noodle texture unique to cup ramyeon, the warmth of the hot broth.
Ahh—this is it...!
Over the past few days.
She'd been dropped into another world out of nowhere, had her life threatened, shot and killed human-shaped enemies—so much had happened that her heart, which had hardened into a sticky mess, slowly began to loosen.
Athena could say with confidence.
Right now, I am magnanimous...!
So Athena made an offer.
"Why don't you sit next to me? Want a bite?"
Shhk—
"Hm...?"
Something hard, long, and sharp rose over Athena's shoulder, brushing past her hair.
A cold blade glinting in the campfire light.
Who held the hilt of that blade needed no explanation.
A kind offer.
A violent answer that was anything but.
"Isn't that a bit much toward the person who saved your life?"
"I already trusted a doll once and lost all my comrades. I can't repeat that."
"If I'd been corrupted by the Heuksu bastards, would I have had any reason to save you in the first place?"
"My unit was annihilated. I'm the only survivor. The possibility that you're using that survivor as bait to target something bigger is... more than enough."
"Hm—"
That's... persuasive!
Corrupted Automata were Heuksu that had appeared extremely recently by this era's standards.
The Corrupted Automata—Undead—first appeared when <Heukram Yudia>, one of the Six Heroes and the only Automata hero, betrayed humanity.
[Which means humanity still knows almost nothing about Corrupted Automata.]
'Right.'
By the original game's time period, they knew how Automata became corrupted and what the early symptoms were.
They knew how to identify genuinely corrupted Automata. There was enough information, technology, and countermeasures.
Even if those methods did severely restrict Automata rights.
But current humanity truly knew nothing.
And Automata were far freer.
Therefore, current humanity was in a situation where they literally had to suspect everything about Automata.
'If I had to compare it, it's like the early stages of a zombie apocalypse—'
[Mm...]
No one knew whether infection spread only through bites, or through air, droplets, or bodily fluids.
So every outsider—every Automata—was a potential zombie and a risk factor.
[Then what should we do, Athena? Right now we have no means to prove our innocence to him.]
'What do you mean, what should we do? There's no reason or need for me to prove my innocence right now.'
[Excuse me?]
'Time will solve this problem anyway.'
Slurp!
A sharp blade hanging beside her neck.
Athena calmly moved her chopsticks again and slurped down the now-cooled noodles.
The intense flavor lifted her mood a little more.
"What are you doing?"
"Eating?"
"In this situation?"
"You don't mess with someone while they're eating. I'll bite."
"..."
"There's no way for me to clear up your suspicions right now. I'd be better off eating than beating my head against something impossible."
Besides, ramyeon loses its flavor when it gets soggy.
Another slurp of noodles!
The cold blade still hung over Athena, but it did not move.
"Well—think of it simply."
"Simply...?"
"If I'm a spy like you say, and being with you serves some grand purpose—then you just have to watch carefully and stop me, right?"
"..."
"If I'm a truly innocent Automata—then you can just keep watching and apologize later. Since I'm in a good mood right now, I'll specially forgive you."
"Hah... You're logical."
"How about it? Deal? Slurp!"
"..."
With a deep sigh, the man withdrew the blade hanging at Athena's neck.
With the clanking sound of armor, he plopped down beside Athena.
"But remember this, Automata."
The man seated beside her spoke in a low, grave voice.
With a cool, handsome face that could make him a national heartthrob if he landed on modern Earth, and sharp eyes that gleamed dangerously, he looked like he belonged in a movie.
"The stain of suspicion doesn't wash away easily. Remember that I am always watching you, as you said."
"Pfft!"
"What?"
"Ah, no. Yeah. Got it. Got it, so eat. Want me to make you a new one?"
Of all lines, that one?
Because he reminded her of some bald space marine, Athena found this suspicious bastard a little amusing.
Athena extended her left hand to him as he sat beside her.
"Athena."
Julius stared quietly at the offered hand for a moment.
In the end, he took Athena's hand.
"I'm Julius. And—"
After exchanging names and releasing her hand, Julius hesitated for a moment before continuing.
"Even if I still suspect you, I should do what needs to be done..."
"Hm?"
"Thank you for saving me."
"Oh—?"
"Why?"
"Just thinking you do have a conscience, you bastard."
"You bas—watch your mouth, Automata."
"Heh heh!"
Huh? Wait, Julius?
The moment she heard the name Julius, something flickered through Athena's mind.
In the original <Abyss Flood>, the villain who clashed with the protagonist at every turn.
One of the so-called "higher-ups."
But Athena soon waved the possibility away.
'No way. That guy was a bald, pot-bellied pig of an old man.'
No matter what, that face? Couldn't have changed that much.