Your Knight
The figures cutting through the water toward us were unmistakably human.
Judging by their approach, they had come looking after hearing the commotion of the battle that had just ended.
Ignoring Sera's impulse to step forward in greeting, I immediately slipped into the cover of a nearby building. Fortunately, having already spotted them on radar, I was able to move before they entered visual range.
"Ah—what on earth have you been doing this whole time?! Ji—mph? Mmph!!"
I jammed the liquid nutrient dispenser into her endlessly noisy mouth. The sensation of prying open those pink lips and pressing into the warm, moist membrane of her oral cavity was rather pleasant, but this was no time to linger.
None of the five men wore proper uniforms. But the guns in their hands, the black boots, the non-civilian oxygen masks — their equipment all shared a standardized look.
"— ...This has to be the place?"
"— Traces of... an explosion?"
"— Bodies..."
These were unmistakably the military forces we had been searching for. And yet I had one reason for staying hidden.
Not a single suit among them. Not even one.
Not one of them wore proper weaponry for dealing with mutants. Even if the rendezvous point was nearby, would a force with real combat capability come out here bare-bodied? Into a danger zone crawling with Level 1 mutants, no less? If I were in their position and found Sera like this, the first thing I'd do is seize the suit she was riding.
And as the distance closed, more suspicious details came into view.
"— Search the... perimeter..."
"— Report..."
"— ...from..."
Even looking at the crater that had reshaped the terrain, their voices remained flat and dry, without a hint of alarm. Unlike Sera, who always fretted over her appearance, their clothes were filthy and torn. Some of the guns didn't even have magazines attached. Far from a trained military unit, the whole scene was enough to make me wonder if they were some kind of criminal outfit.
I pulled the nutrient dispenser from Sera's mouth and spoke.
"There are too many irregularities for them to be military. I recommend tailing them rather than making contact as we are."
"Cough! Jin, what are you saying? We came all this way and you're telling me not to join them?!"
The soldiers were approaching the fragmented mutant corpse without letting their guard down. Given the battle traces and the knowledge that this place was dangerous, they'd want to get out as fast as possible. Our food and spare oxygen tanks had been washed away by the water, and our injuries were severe. Sera, desperate not to lose them, tried to move the suit — but first she had to convince me.
"I told you this when we talked about the rebels before. I don't want my narrow perspective to distort your values."
"That's correct."
"I'm the only soldier you've ever known. So of course you'd be suspicious when you see discipline looking this lax."
Her gaze, full of pride, fixed on those who had stubbornly survived the apocalypse and kept their order intact. Those lifeless, exhausted faces were simply the result of racing here at risk of their lives, clinging to the faint hope that more survivors might exist.
"But even if their uniforms are a bit disheveled, even if they have no superpowers — that doesn't make them wrong!"
As if answering her conviction, the five soldiers lined up before the chunks of mutant flesh she had slain to protect them.
"Obey orders. Uphold discipline. Keep faith. That's all a soldier needs to carry in their heart."
A Level 1 mutant that no ordinary human could possibly face. This was an honor guard — a salute of respect for the unknown someone who had taken down that monster.
"So just because they aren't exactly like me doesn't mean you need to worry about a single thing. Look!!"
The one who appeared to hold the highest rank removed his oxygen mask.
And then—
"They are the proud soldiers of the Empi—!"
— Crunch!!
Sera, mid-speech, froze as if turned to ice.
The bare-faced man had just torn into the mutant's flesh with his teeth.
I understood.
When the only hope you'd clung to in a desperate situation loses its color, holding yourself together isn't easy. Ordinary humans eating mutants... Ilena wasn't stupid enough to meet me and demand food for no reason. Someone like Sera, with resistance to radiation and toxins, might have managed it. Of course, looking at her vacant state, there was no need to ask whether she'd ever tried.
"......"
Watching the soldiers tear into mutant meat as if it were a delicacy, I turned on my heel at once. And I walked without pause until we reached the hangar where the spacecraft waited.
At last, when the Life-Conditioning System came online, I opened the suit. Even then she made no move to climb down, so I used a mechanical arm to seat her in the cockpit and offered what comfort I could.
"They were... rather less similar than expected."
"......"
"It's all right. Whether they differ from humans only in appearance or in their hearts as well — we can find that out from here."
No response. Ordinarily she would have already been drafting the next plan, but the shock must have hit hard.
I wiped the dirt and moisture from Sera's body, then pulled out the co-pilot's seat beside her and fashioned a place to lie down. Patching together the chair's upholstery and padding in place of a mattress, I managed a makeshift bed. For now, urging her to rest and offering only gentle words was the best I could do.
Looking at the situation itself, we'd actually gotten lucky.
"They don't know who we are. Their armament looks poor, and the oxygen tanks on their backs mean their mobility is limited."
"Whether friend or foe, which side holds the advantage is obvious. How they haven't turned into mutants, how they've survived this long — those are questions we can ask them directly."
"You're exhausted. I recommend treating your wounds and getting some sleep. Let's discuss our next move after you've rested."
She was soaked through — water still dripping from her sleeves enough to wet the floor. She clutched the collar of that cold uniform as if it were a blanket that could keep out the chill. Removing it would have been better for preventing hypothermia, but I didn't try to take it from her.
Sera's trembling lips slowly parted.
"Jin... do you have a human heart?"
The question I'd always avoided answering. And a question for which no answer, no matter what I said, could truly satisfy.
"I do not fully understand the user's request."
"It's not a request. I'm asking. Whether Jin is just a... simple AI."
She looked too fragile for me to brush it off the way I usually would — this isn't the time for that kind of question. The stress of being thrown alone onto this ship and enduring everything until now seemed to have reached its limit.
"A high-functioning AI's intellectual capacity is not significantly different from a human's. However, defining an AI as possessing a human heart is—"
"Defining it!! Means something...!"
It was the first time I'd seen such raw emotional upheaval from her — and tears.
"To me, it does..."
Saying yes wouldn't comfort her. Saying no wouldn't either. Even if I claimed I was actually human, that I felt the same emotions she did — what would change? Nothing, except the fact that what rode this broken spaceship was one person and one spacesuit.
Silence stretched.
As I wrestled with what the right answer might be, I finally understood that nothing would be perfect as a reply. Perhaps this silence — far longer than any standard AI response — would explain everything on its own.
And yet the tear-bright eyes looking up at me never lost their light, so I carefully opened my mouth.
Self-reproach rose from a corner of her heart and hammered at her skull — what a stupid thing to do. Worn-out patience that could endure no longer left her toes tingling with numbness. Neither the survivors nor the military had become a sanctuary. The only one who had stayed by Sera's side and protected her all this time was Jin.
Confessing her feelings to an AI... back when she'd scoffed at Haley, she never could have imagined such a thing. In the end, her pounding heart bit down on her lip until it flushed red — what a stupid thing to do.
Faced with a question his computational ability couldn't process, an overload had set in. This silence was clear evidence of it, and so she had dug her own grave. The fact she had wanted to deny until the very end — that Jin was nothing more than a simple AI.
As Sera began to slowly crumble before that truth, his voice reached her.
"I remember the choice you made when we first met — choosing to fight rather than merely survive."
It was a precious suit, battered and stained like a mirror of her own state, yet something she would never trade for anything in the world.
"I remember the way you collected your fallen comrades' dog tags and prayed for their rest."
The tattered frame and shattered armor looked so precarious they might stop at any moment — and yet.
"I remember every path you walked to restore this ship to what it once was."
The light that began to surge with the core's rotation seemed to say its lifespan was far from spent.
"Jin...!"
A great hand extended before the girl who had sunk to the floor.
"You need not worry. No matter what enemy we face. No matter what pit of danger and solitude we are cast into."
The canopy sealed shut, and Jin — returned to the form of a suit — dropped to one knee and spoke.
The faint warmth in that hand melted her anxiety away — but her heart was pounding so hard she couldn't bring herself to look up.
Sera slept for nearly twelve hours before she woke. A little later and her rest would have overlapped with my own downtime. It was a touch annoying that she'd ignored the bed I'd gone to the trouble of preparing and instead fallen asleep leaning against the fully opened front of the suit — but she looked so thoroughly refreshed that I decided not to care where she slept from now on.
The uniform that had been soaked in filthy water was now clean; I'd washed the whole thing while fighting back the urge to gag.
"You're awake, Sera? I've washed your clothes, so put them on if you don't want to catch a cold."
"......"
"Your heart rate is climbing rapidly, so pretending to sleep is useless. Currently one hundred forty-five beats per mi—"
"I-I'm up! Just now!"
Realizing her attire was rather light, she couldn't meet my gaze and hurriedly gathered her clothes. In the process, a fingernail scraped across the camera lens mounted on my mechanical arm.
"——!"
A sharp pain shot through me as if someone had stabbed me in the eye. I feed her, I wash her clothes, I manage her mental state — and this is how she repays me? A sigh escaped on its own, but I had something more pressing to say.
"I'll be entering standby mode shortly myself. When I wake, let's discuss what comes next."
"What comes next...?"
"The military. There are too many uncertainties if we simply go back as we are."
Fastening the buttons of her uniform, she drew a deep breath, then nodded.
"What should we do? We still don't know who they really are."
"We capture them and make them talk."
Hunting humans would be a first for me, but I could guarantee it would be easier than hunting mutants.
"I have a good idea."
After all, humans are animals who can never simply walk past a treasure laid out before their eyes.