Ordinary Daily Life (4)
What the hell?
The moment I actually checked Griyanaar’s status window, two things hit me at once. First, there were way more “traits” jammed into it than I remembered. Second, while her overall stats had climbed, Mobility alone had dropped two full ranks—from C+ all the way down to C-.
I was left wondering just what kind of leveling atrocity could produce a result this cursed, equal parts baffled and exasperated. Still, I needed answers, so I turned to Griyanaar and opened my mouth.
“Griyanaar, it’s been less than a week since I last saw you… When exactly did you turn the biology lab into this?”
“Ohohoho~ Why? Curious?”
She wriggled her toes, still chuckling at my words. Then she reached out and gently stroked the surface of a nearby test tube, her expression turning dreamy as she continued.
“Nothing special. I simply got a little taste of just how far bioengineering can go… and used that to upgrade both myself and this lab another notch.”
“…”
Watching the almost ecstatic look on her face, I felt Jessica flinch hard behind me. Honestly, anyone looking at her right now would think the girl was about to snap into full mad-scientist mode any second and come charging at us screaming Make us whoooooole!
I was already preparing to call in Ignis and Belial—who were supposed to be taking a break from daily quests today—when, right at that moment—
“Oh my, were you watching the whole time? Oxianor.”
“…?”
The telepathic voice of Oxianor, envoy of the Space Kaiju, arrived at the same instant the lights suddenly flared to life. The gloomy interior of the biology lab—which had looked for all the world like some all-consuming alien biovirus nest run by a completely unhinged evil scientist—was abruptly flooded with bright light.
Except for the entrance area where we stood, the “test-tube zone” where Griyanaar had been hanging out, and a few sections of wall still half-overtaken by the kaiju neural network, the rest of the biology lab was its usual pristine white laboratory self. And standing in those perfectly normal sections, the research staff were casting pitying glances my way while carefully watching Griyanaar’s mood.
“Ahahahahaha! Commander? Just what kind of atrocity did you think I was about to commit that you got that tense?!”
Apparently our flustered faces were the funniest thing she’d seen all week. Griyanaar clutched her stomach and howled with genuine, full-bellied laughter.
While she was busy losing her mind laughing, Oxianor—who had been the one to flip the lights back on—apologized to us in her place.
“…”
Even after Oxianor’s apology and after laughing herself half to death, Griyanaar still had tears of mirth in her eyes and a residual giggle leaking out. She sauntered over with that signature little-devil smile of hers.
“What, Commander? Did you seriously think a genius like me was about to go completely off the deep end?”
“…”
“Ufu~fu~fu~ Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that♡ There’s no way I’d ever do the kind of weird stuff you’re imagining—”
—Whump!
I didn’t even let her finish. More than any anger over the prank, pure relief that my precious SSS-grade noble support unit hadn’t just casually self-destructed flooded through me. I pulled her into a full hug and let out a long, heartfelt sigh.
“Thank god. Seriously, thank god!”
“Eueeeeh?!”
Of course, the fact that her prank had crossed a line was still true.
“Professor Griyanaar, that little stunt of yours could have caused a serious problem if things had gone wrong.”
Jessica, looking thoroughly pissed, began lightly smacking the top of Griyanaar’s head with her rabbit ears—an extremely strange way to express anger. Watching it, I found myself genuinely curious about the structural engineering of those ears.
Griyanaar seemed to feel the same way. Even though she was being repeatedly bonked on the crown by a taller Jessica’s rabbit ears, she didn’t look annoyed so much as fascinated by how freely those soft, fluffy ears could move.
“Fufufu~ Sometimes you need a little harmless prank to liven up the atmosphere, don’t you?”
“…”
“Honestly, I’m more interested in those freely moving ears of yours right now.”
Jessica’s only response was to silently increase the speed of her ear-smacks.
—Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
“W-wait… if you keep hitting my head like this my intellect and physical stats might actually drop, so maybe hit somewhere else instead—”
—Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
Griyanaar’s leisurely attitude was steadily crumbling into panic under the relentless soft assault, but right now whether she turned into a short-stack wasn’t the priority. I decided to leave the two of them to their comedy routine and turned instead to Oxianor, who had also been watching Jessica’s bizarre rabbit-ear discipline with clear interest.
“Anyway, Oxianor, the reason we came here is because we wanted to ask you something…”
“I was wondering how many users—sorry, commanders—have joined the Space Kaiju faction.”
Basically: “How many commanders do you guys have stockpiled at home?”
Oxianor closed her eyelids and pressed two of her tentacles under her eyeballs in a thoughtful pose, as if resting her chin on her hand. After a moment she opened her eyes again and sent another telepathic reply.
“Oh, is that so.”
The way she phrased it felt less like the usual “mother body and terminal unit” relationship people imagined for the Space Kaiju and more like an actual lord-and-vassal dynamic. It made me wonder whether the Space Kaiju were a lot more organized and hierarchical than their monstrous appearance suggested.
While I was thinking that, Oxianor’s telepathy continued.
“Hmm, over twenty thousand?”
“Mmm… Got it. That was actually really helpful.”
From that answer I could finally sketch out a rough picture of how the player base was currently split.
Let’s see… Earth Federation was supposed to be around thirty to thirty-five thousand, and the Pirate Coalition hit seventeen thousand, right?
Add the roughly twenty-one thousand who had joined the Space Kaiju this time, and the remaining major faction—the Zenobia Empire, whose numbers the players had never really disclosed—had to be sitting at around twenty-five thousand, give or take.
Now that I had a decent grasp of the overall power balance, I offered Oxianor my thanks. She waved her tentacles in a dismissive gesture.
“Oh…”
The calm, almost humble way she delivered that made me nod. I asked her to pass my thanks along to the Queen as well.
With the main business finished, Oxianor gave a little shiver of her tentacles and sent one more telepathic message my way.
“Hm?”
“Well… yeah, that’s true.”
I waited quietly to see where she was going with this. Apparently pleased by my attentive silence, Oxianor bobbed her eyeball up and down a couple of times in a nod-like motion and continued.