A Sackful of Hope
And what I heard next was the shocking news.
Setting her utensils down as though the meal had turned to ash in her mouth, Ariel curled one corner of her lips into a wry, bitter smile.
"Haha. Funny, right?"
She explained that from the moment I'd vanished, the monsters had stopped dropping a single resource. Except that flatly contradicted what I had seen with my own eyes just yesterday, when Power Stones and batteries had dropped at the first stage site.
"But yesterday, for sure—"
"And that's exactly what makes it so funny."
When the contradiction in her explanation moved me to question her, she cut me off mid-sentence and carried on, her voice steeped in bitterness.
If what Ariel said was true, it more than explained why there was almost nothing left in the base's stores. So that was why she'd come back clutching even those few remaining Power Stones and batteries like they were treasure.
"Can you imagine it? The feeling of slowly dying, day after day, with no hope at all that things would ever get better?"
I had nothing to say to that. It was an ending I could easily picture — and I could feel its aftermath aching in my bones even now. Resources she had used as naturally as breathing had been draining away with nothing to replenish them; the psychological pressure must have been crushing.
And through all that despair, Ariel had stayed behind, alone, until the very end. Watching her companions shut off their own battery supply to conserve energy — what could she possibly have been thinking? At the very least, her heart couldn't have been light. She probably gave up the pointless war of attrition partway through. Everyone simply rotted away, slowly, in this underground city, watching the resource warehouse empty itself out a little more each day.
"...Well then. I suppose it's my turn to ask."
She had poured out everything of these past days along with that hollow smile while I listened in silence, and now Ariel opened her mouth, saying it was her turn.
Given the circumstances, the question she was about to ask was as obvious as it was simple.
"Where on earth did you go?"
But to that plain, simple question, I couldn't produce a clear answer. This world was, in truth, a mobile game I used to play — and when they announced the service was shutting down, I'd logged in one last time out of idle curiosity, there'd been a flash of light, and when I opened my eyes, here I was. ...There was no way I could bring myself to say that to someone who had fought to survive here day after day. I'd be written off as a lunatic, for one. And even if she took it at face value, that would breed problems of its own.
"It's just..."
I opened my mouth because I had to say something, but no excuse worth following came to mind. Meanwhile, despite my trailing off, Ariel had begun to stare at me, unblinking. Not that staring would get her a satisfying answer. An ordinary human — not even a Replica — surviving on the surface all that time was impossible, and hiding somewhere in this base made no sense either. Neither this nor that added up. One way or the other, there was no explaining it. In the end, I decided to muddle through this one too.
"I honestly don't know."
"I'm sorry?"
At that absurd explanation, Ariel's eyebrows twitched. Vanishing for years as though I'd thrown them all away, and the first thing I say upon coming back is I don't know.
"When I came to, I was just... in my room."
As an explanation, as an excuse — either way, it was the worst. Still, this was the world of Undercity, a setting where wildly unrealistic things happened all the time. Even the 'Leader,' a player discovered out of nowhere on the surface of a dead world, had never fit into any sane category to begin with.
"Are you saying you somehow skipped through time?"
"Who knows."
To every question she raised, I offered vague, noncommittal answers, as though I couldn't be certain of anything myself.
"H-haha...."
Then Ariel suddenly burst out laughing and bowed her head so deeply her long hair tumbled forward around her face.
"If that's how it is... then I can't even hold it against you, can I."
Having heard my fabricated story, she murmured it like a half-sob — that she couldn't even resent me if she wanted to. It was a ridiculous, impossible explanation, but in a world where all manner of things happened, she seemed to have simply accepted it. The guilt rising in me, slow and thick, felt like it was stabbing into my heart with every beat, but I forced myself to rationalize it as a white lie.
"I'm sorry. It was hard, wasn't it."
"Yes. So much... so, so much."
Ariel slumped forward, sobbing as though she might break down at any moment, and I stroked her hair as I offered my apology. That apology held not a single shred of a lie. One small sob slipped into the stillness of the underground city, and just like that, the morning — quiet on the surface, turbulent underneath — came to an end, feeling somehow a little longer than usual.
Several hours later. The Leader's Room.
As though she had cried her fill in her room, Ariel looked considerably brighter than before — not quite her old self, but close. The reason she'd come to the Leader's Room was a simple one.
"It'll be hard, going out alone... but I'm counting on you."
"Yes. No problem at all."
Despite it being her first operation in who knew how long, Ariel accepted without hesitation. It wasn't the bright, unclouded smile from the game, but at the very least, she wore a look that said she could see hope again.
The operation coordinates pointed to Stage 3-5 — nothing she couldn't handle solo, a stage the Ariel of today could sweep through single-handedly without breaking a sweat. Under normal rules, clearing a stage would drop a set amount of three different resources, but...
"You know we've got plenty of Usable Data, so feel free to leave the data behind. Focus on bringing back Power Stones and batteries."
With Usable Data overflowing as it was, I had decided the priority was covering the power and energy the city needed right now.
"And be careful out there. Don't get hurt."
"Yes."
At that last instruction, Ariel answered with a short nod. And yet, even after hearing all the coordinates and directives, she showed no sign of leaving. She just stood there, eyes fixed on me.
"What is it?"
"Oh — n-nothing! It's just... it reminded me of the old days."
When I asked, puzzled, why she was still lingering, she flinched in surprise and blurted out the answer.
"Huh? Ah... right. I suppose it would."
For a moment I wondered what she meant — then I remembered the game's story, and agreed with a short nod. There's a first time for everything, as they say: in the game, there had once been a moment when only the player and Ariel existed. It was barely ten minutes' worth of opening tutorial, but apparently even that had stayed with her as a memory.
"...Well then, I'll head out and be right back."
"Don't go hurting yourself rushing, alright?"
Seeing her so full of drive, worry got the better of me, and I repeated what I'd just told her — again. But Ariel only flashed a smile that said there was truly nothing to worry about, and stepped out of the room.
So this was what a proper "operation start" looked like. In the game, a single click of the subjugation button and hundreds of resources would pour in within a second; now, the whole question was how long it would take in real time.
It's so quiet in here.
The moment Ariel left, the Leader's Room sank into stillness. In a silence that bordered on desolate, I ran my hand across the desk, picturing the Ariel who must have sat in this very seat all that time. Ariel... Repeating her name in my head, I felt my expression harden a little.
How much in the way of Power Stones and batteries Ariel brought back this time would decide our course of action from here on. A steady supply from looping stages on repeat was out of the question, too — because this was reality now, not a game. The coordinates that corresponded to what used to be "stages" might simply be where monsters gathered and congregated. Small fry might drift back to those spots on a regular cycle, sure, but any hope of endlessly circling one location for a reliable stream of resources, the way the game had allowed, was one I'd have to let go. The gap between game and reality made my head spin. Either way, for now, all I could do was wait.
I'd been waiting perhaps an hour on that thought when—
Clank-graaank—
The sound of the manual elevator tore through the stillness of the underground city and echoed down the halls. The grinding of interlocking cogs carried all the way to the Leader's Room.
Ah — she's back.
Only one person would be coming back here, of course. Heart lifting, I sprang out of my seat and hurried out of the Leader's Room, moving quickly to go meet her. As I strode toward the path leading to the Surface Elevator, a silhouette came running from the opposite direction, brightening rapidly under the soft glow of the corridor lights.
"Leader, Leader! Look at this! Power Stones — look how many!"
As if she couldn't bear to wait even one second longer to show off, Ariel came sliding up to me, her face in full bloom with a smile.
The sack she'd filled with nothing but Power Stones brimmed with them, each one glowing in its strange, iridescent shade. I had no idea how many facilities this much could restore, but even a rough count put it past a hundred. Gathering every last Power Stone in the warehouse probably wouldn't have come close. I couldn't remember ever seeing her look so happy — not yesterday, not today, not once.
"And in here, I brought plenty of batteries too."
Then, as though she wasn't finished yet, Ariel opened the mouth of the remaining sack to show me. This one seemed to hold batteries and batteries alone — likewise stuffed until the fabric looked ready to split. At this quantity, I could pick one of the Replicas in power-saving mode and bring them back online.
"Wasn't that pushing it a little?"
"I got so excited, I couldn't help myself...."
The amount was plainly beyond anything reasonable, so when I asked quietly, Ariel answered with a sheepish scratch of her cheek, like a kid caught red-handed. Perhaps the meaningless war of attrition turning into something worthwhile had delighted her too much — she went ahead and admitted she might have overdone it.
"Well. As long as you're not hurt, it's fine."
"Th-then, Leader...! With this much, wouldn't one more be okay...?"
When I reached out and stroked her hair in praise of a job well done, Ariel looked up and asked whether waking one more would be all right.
"Yeah. Let's go wake someone else up."
Her eyes brimmed over with joy and desperate hope, and I gave in readily, accepting her suggestion. Not many people alive could look at that pleading face and still bring themselves to say no.