The Armband Draft (4)

I raised my hand and decided to throw a question at that glowing head.

"What exactly is the standard for this 'insane crap' you're talking about? And before that — you tell us to manage the gallery without even giving us clear guidelines on the management criteria. What are we supposed to do with that?"

The operator who'd received my question spun its light this way and that, then made a nodding gesture and continued.

But right after that—

"…?"

Faced with an operator boldly declaring We don't have any damn regulations!, the rankers who'd been feeling burdened or puzzled — and even the ones who'd been positive from the start — all turned looks of pure disbelief on the operator. Myself included.

Well — everyone except Betelgeuse, that is.

As the clan leader of the Loki Clan, a troll collective by nature, she'd almost certainly heard more stories about operator bans than anyone else here. She'd clearly figured out long ago that these people operated without any standards whatsoever.

And whether the rankers — myself included — looked dumbfounded or not, the operator pressed on and finally nailed down exactly what it meant by "insane crap."

"…"

The operator held a brief silence. Then it let out a long, heavy sigh and delivered words thick with raw emotion.

"Ah."

"…"

Something about the sheer weight of emotion packed into that delivery made me — and the other rankers — feel like we could almost understand, just a little, how much "eraser work" these people had suffered through.

Of course, some of the rankers reacted to the armband-bearer's answer with a completely different flavor of disbelief.

"Wait, isn't that just… obvious?"

"How would you even film and upload that here in the first place?"

At those reactions, the light in the operator's head dimmed, and it sent us a telepathic message (?) in a half-dead monotone.

"Huh."

That dead-toned delivery didn't last long, though. The operator snapped right back to its earlier cheerful register and laid out a simple, crystal-clear answer on how we were supposed to manage things.

"Hmm."

"Oh my. So as long as it doesn't cross my line, I can delete or leave it — either way is fine?"

And once that rather shocking topic had been cleared off the table, the rankers dropped their previous demeanor entirely. Hands shot up all around as they started firing off questions about the additional management privileges.

"Um, so — can we restore posts that have been deleted?"

"What if a user tries to threaten us over a post we deleted from the gallery?"

Assorted other questions came and went, answers flowing back in turn. Most of them concerned community management, and the operator fielded them one after another without missing a beat.

But then—

"What ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if we refuse the armband job, though? Is there some kind of penalty?"

That final question — arguably the most important one of the entire session — slipped from someone's mouth. The glowing-headed operator took a moment of careful deliberation, then finished its pondering, flared the light on its head, and delivered its answer with calm finality.

"Oh?"

"Ah, so that's how it is."

"It is a lot to take on, though…"

"…"

Confronted with that calm, brazen delivery — no, that warning — the ranker who'd asked the question, along with every other ranker who'd been murmuring among themselves, all fell silent at once.

And once the operator confirmed that no further questions were coming after that warning shot, it gave its glittering mass of light one last slow sweep of the surroundings, lighthouse-style. Satisfied that the matter was settled, it blinked its light a few times and opened its mouth.

And the instant those words hit me, white masses of light came surging toward my face again, subjecting my unguarded eyeballs to a full-blown flashbang assault.

Fortunately, the eye-blasting didn't last long. As the light that had flooded everything like a flash grenade finally faded, what filled my vision wasn't that bizarre white void I'd been standing in — it was the command center of the Astral Base, a place that had already become as familiar as home.

Ahh. My familiar ceiling.

And while I was thinking that, Jessica's voice drifted over from beside me…

"Oh? Commander? Did you just step out to the bathroom or something?"

"…Huh?"

The sheer randomness of that question sent a flood of confusion surging through me. After all, the time I'd spent dealing with the operators and the other rankers had to have been at least an hour by any reasonable measure. And yet she'd just asked if I'd gone to the bathroom — as if I'd been gone without a word for that long and that was her best guess?

"Me?"

But Jessica had an answer ready for my bewildered one-word reply.

"Yes. You suddenly vanished like you'd teleported, so I was about to go looking for you — but you were back in less than a minute."

"…Less than a minute?"

The time I spent with the operators felt like well over an hour subjectively, and she's saying it was one minute?

"Well, more precisely, it was barely over thirty seconds."

Hearing Jessica's answer, I couldn't help but wonder — the operators who'd kidnapped and imprisoned us users inside this "game" might be hopelessly slapdash and oddly human in their management style, but maybe they really did possess some kind of transcendent power after all.

Unfortunately, that suspicion lasted exactly fourteen seconds.

"Jessica! Why on earth would you assume the Commander went ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the bathroom?"

"…Excuse me?"

"The Commander's bathroom is right here! I, Pashtura, can take full responsibility for that role… ♡"

Pashtura's grotesque, completely unprompted sex joke wiped the thought clean out of my head in an instant. The empty space it left behind was immediately occupied by the urgent need to formulate a response plan for the bizarre look Jessica was now giving me after hearing that particular line.

Anyway — Pashtura, who had come charging in with that sudden full-throttle outburst…