It's Nanomachines, You Rookie (1)
No matter how unusual something might seem compared to everything else, if you keep showing it over and over, people eventually start treating it as ordinary…
That little scrap of internet nonsense floated up from my previous life for some reason.
And the reason it came to mind was simple: the situation right now was that saying made flesh.
Event: Gray Goo
Even in this world, the appearance of Gray Goo—something that should only exist in science fiction—has the Empire’s scientific community in an uproar.
Although scans confirm the nanomachines are completely inactive…
The sheer quantity, far surpassing every nanomachine ever produced within the Empire since their first creation, has the scientific community buzzing with anticipation that new technologies may be discovered.
Physics and Engineering points acquired through the discovery of Gray Goo!
At least in the beginning, events like that still popped up. Or the mere fact that these were nano-planets was enough to keep the excitement high.
But as time dragged on and every new world turned out to be the same nanomachine planet—differing only in size and shape—nothing but boredom settled over us.
Fortunately, interstellar exploration was a long-term affair by nature, so we didn’t have to stare at the things constantly. We simply pieced together a rough picture of the universe beyond the gate through the occasional transmission and report.
“It’s way more boring and dull than I expected, yeah.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Barely any planets with environments good enough for resource extraction or colony construction either, yeah.”
“If there had been any, the Colonial Ministry would already be foaming at the mouth and shoving frontier fleets through the gate.”
But the universe beyond the gate was nothing short of bleak and desolate. There were asteroids, moons, and planets that could yield resources, sure. What didn’t exist anywhere was a single world suitable for actual “colonization.”
“The nanomachines aren’t active, yet just their presence makes human habitation impossible?”
—“That is correct. Living there would be no different from trying to survive in an atmosphere made of heavy metals.”
If it had only been the first star system we entered after opening the gate, I could have understood. But—
—“…This one is made of nanomachines as well.”
“Is this for real?”
Seven. Across seven entire planetary systems, not once did we find a single world where humans could survive.
As the situation dragged on, even unlimited resources and time couldn’t stop the explorers’ motivation from plummeting at an exponential rate.
—“Nanomachines again… Minister, perhaps it is time we turned back?”
—“Indeed. Aside from a handful of resource satellites, we are obtaining neither value nor useful survey data.”
Even Minister Vermouth, who was responsible for the research teams, was starting to look like she wanted out.
If I just sat back and watched, this entire expedition would fizzle out and everyone would quietly write it off as a wash. And on my end, nothing had appeared since that single event message.
Under normal circumstances I would have decided further exploration was pointless and given the fidgeting Minister Vermouth a gentle shove toward the exit.
But…
“Minister Vermouth.”
“Yes? What is it, Minister Arto?”
The moment she heard my voice, her eyes sparkled with the clear thought of finally, here it comes.
Looking at that pure expression, I steeled myself and offered a short piece of “advice.”
“Let’s keep exploring a little longer.”
“Eh?”
“Huh?”
“Minister Arto, are you serious?”
Apparently my reaction was unexpected. Minister Vermouth, Riel, and everyone else listening in on the comms all stared at me in disbelief.
“Minister, they already said there’s nothing left to find. What more do you want us to explore, yeah?”
Riel even went so far as to openly argue, trying to talk me out of it. Yet despite every reaction, I pushed the order to continue the expedition.
In the end, my overwhelming authority and presence settled the matter: the survey would continue for a while longer.
The moment the transmission cut, however, Riel sidled up beside me and started chattering.
“I just can’t understand it, yeah. Did some separate event pop up or something?”
Given that Riel knew my secret and was originally a tutorial bot, she probably assumed I had some hidden reason for forcing this. Unfortunately for her—
“…It’s a secret.”
Even while I was pushing the expedition, not a single event message appeared before my eyes.
The real reason I kept forcing it was something else entirely.
If this goes well, it could be a jackpot.
The current situation itself was the exact setup for a hidden event I had run into more than once while playing this game in my previous life.
Push the exploration just a little further and a huge payoff drops at the very end. That was how it usually went.
I couldn’t remember exactly what the payoff had been, but I was certain it had been extremely useful for the Empire. So I decided to trust that gut feeling and throw everything into shoving this universally hated expedition forward.
Reality, however, proved far more stubborn than I had expected.
—“Minister, this is the final hyperspace lane we have located in this universe.”
—“We will begin the survey, but I advise you not to get your hopes up.”
—“Thirty-seventh planetary survey commencing. Scan results… the surface here is also entirely composed of nanomachines.”
Even in the very last star system beyond the gate, Gray Goo greeted us from the start. The faces of the researchers aboard the science vessels looked ready to rot off.
And apparently someone decided this entire operation was nothing but a waste of money.
—Beep-beep-beep-beep
“Riel, what’s the call?”
“The Ministry of Finance saw ten Gray Goo planets in a row with zero resources and says they can no longer tolerate this level of budget waste, yeah.”
Our budget overseers had completely overturned the original plan and were now thrashing about trying to cut the “waste” by any means necessary.
“…Fine. We’ll survey just the last planet and call it quits.”
The moment I took a step back and offered a compromise, everyone started nodding as if I had finally accepted reality. The research teams under Minister Vermouth still looked thoroughly unenthusiastic the second they laid eyes on the final world.
“Minister Arto? No matter how you look at it, that just seems like another nanomachine planet identical to all the others.”
“So you’re not going to survey it?”
“Well, it’s obviously the same—”
“Survey it.”
“Um…”
“Are you refusing?”
“We’ll do it.”
My expression made it clear that even the compromise I had offered was not to be touched. Everyone began scanning the planet with the air of people eating mustard while crying.
But this time, as if to prove my hunch right, the planetary scanners returned values that were just a little different from every previous nano-planet.
—“Ooooh!”
—“At last…!”
The researchers who received those “slightly different” results completely shed their earlier listlessness and immediately prepared to descend toward the surface.
“Wow, they’re really something, yeah.”
“Truly the minds that will lead the future of the Holy Sevelian Empire.”
Riel and I were deeply impressed by their intellectual curiosity and their determination to contribute to the Empire… until we learned the real reason for that manic frenzy.
—“Everyone out of the way! We’re going down there ourselves!”
—“This time I can finally write my graduate thesis!”
“…Ah.”
If only that frenzied spectacle hadn’t turned out to be for nothing more than graduate theses.
Still—
—“The anomalous readings definitely came from around here.”
—“It’s basically like wandering a desert of silver sand. Inferring anything from the terrain will be difficult.”
—“Interference is appearing in communications from the research vessel in orbit…”
—“Minister, no matter how thoroughly we search, we cannot locate any anomaly that would produce the scanner results.”
—“Interestingly enough, this is the only planet whose atmosphere is breathable for humans… but—”
—“The heavy-metal content is so extreme that prolonged activity will be impossible.”
Even after deploying countless unmanned drones and graduate students, nothing the scanners had detected could be found. The only difference was that the air was slightly better than elsewhere.
—“I deeply regret having to say this, but I must dare to suggest that it may simply have been a scanner error…”
They had searched so long without results that even the operators of the Empire’s most advanced, meticulously maintained equipment were starting to doubt their own gear.
Damn it. Was this really just a meaningless stretch of space after all?
Even I was beginning to lose faith in my own intuition. Just as everyone, weighed down by the thought that this final survey had also yielded nothing, prepared to return to the ships—
—Clunk! Screeeech…
The feed from the unmanned drone relaying communications suddenly began to shake violently, as if someone were forcibly holding the moving drone in place.
While those of us watching the screen exchanged puzzled looks—
“Everyone, something seems to have caught the drone. Check it immediately.”
At Minister Vermouth’s order, the survey team on the screen turned toward the drone.
And in that instant—
—“Wh-what the hell is that thing?!”
—“Identify yourself at once!!”
The survey team suddenly started pointing and shouting at the screen—more precisely, at the drone—leaving us even more bewildered.
“Why are they acting like that?”
“Maybe someone’s just messing around on the survey team, yeah?”
The moment Riel finished speaking, the screen rotated, and—
—Click.
—Tilt?
We could not hide our shock at the unidentifiable “something” that appeared on the feed.
Because what filled the screen was none other than a member of our own species—a Sevelian… a human—standing there bare-bodied, without even a spacesuit, staring straight into the camera.