The Commander's Legacy
"Who are you?"
"You won't remember, but I know you."
Choi Minseol reached out with her hand that wasn't holding the dagger.
CC flinched slightly, but she didn't pull away from the touch.
Choi Minseol's hand gently stroked CC's head.
"To think that blunt Juhyuk of mine actually learned how to fight on the internet, and even tamed CC like this... Don't worry, dear. I won't kill you."
As if relieved, CC's shoulders slumped slightly.
"After all, even if you die on the internet, you'll be perfectly fine in reality—"
When Choi Minseol playfully added those words, CC raised both arms again to shield me. She shook her head vigorously, her short hair swaying with the movement.
"Fufu, I'm only joking. Tell me, does Juhyuk happen to have your physical quantum processor too?"
CC gave a small nod.
"Really? In reality? My goodness... How on earth did he find it? Hmm... I see... Yes. It's decided!"
Choi Minseol bent her knees to match CC's eye level.
It was a gentle smile.
The very same smile she used to show me and the rest of our unit.
"Keep staying by Juhyuk's side and protect him. He's incredibly stubborn, but he's softer than he looks. It'll be a lot of work, but I'm counting on you. And... CP."
"Y-Yes!"
Choi Minseol called out to CP, who had been hiding in the shadow of the building until now.
Behind CP, Kim Hun and Seok Hayeon were watching us with terrified eyes.
"Come here. You should stay with this big brother too."
CP stepped up next to CC, looking at me with a startled face.
Seeing her up close like this, her face was identical to CC's.
CP spoke.
"But, I still..."
CP said, looking back at Seok Hayeon.
Choi Minseol let out a deep sigh, speaking in the tone of a teacher lecturing a disobedient child.
"Are you still worrying about them? I told you, they are going to have their own happy family now. Impurities like us need to filter ourselves out at the right time. This isn't just for you; it's for them as well."
"But... who is going to help Auntie Hayeon..."
CP said, looking at Seok Hayeon's severed arm and leg.
"Ah... because of her missing limbs? I wondered what it was."
As if it were nothing, Choi Minseol pulled out a virtual keyboard and began typing away with rapid clacks.
"Aaaagh!"
"Honey?!"
Seok Hayeon screamed, her body writhing.
The stumps of her severed arm and leg squirmed and began to swell.
"Aaaaaagh!"
"Auntie!"
"Stay still."
Choi Minseol held back CP, who was trying to rush over to Seok Hayeon.
Seok Hayeon thrashed in agony, screaming at the top of her lungs.
And after a moment.
The swollen mass of flesh solidified into the shapes of an arm and a leg.
"There, all done. Her fingernails and toenails will grow back naturally over time. See? CP, you really aren't needed here anymore."
Seok Hayeon and Kim Hun stared at the newly grown limbs with looks of sheer wonder.
Since she couldn't log out because of the baby in her womb, she must have been prepared to live the rest of her life as a cripple.
"But this big brother is going to need you. Protect him alongside CC."
Seok Hayeon and Kim Hun looked at CP with complicated expressions.
To them, Choi Minseol was nothing short of a savior, a messiah.
She had allowed them to form a family and ensured no one would be separated.
She had even restored her missing limbs.
A savior.
For people like them, defying the words of their savior was no easy task.
"You understand what I'm saying, right?"
Choi Minseol pressed CP once more.
CP hung her head and muttered.
"He's not a big brother. He's an uncle..."
"Right, uncle. Take good care of Juhyuk, CP."
Choi Minseol stood up, leaning on CP's head as if it were a cane.
She stood right in front of me.
Flanked by CC and CP on either side.
Three pairs of eyes were fixed on me.
Choi Minseol said with a broad smile.
"Yoon Juhyuk. I am giving you a mission."
A mission?
I wanted to spit right in her face, but I couldn't even move my tongue.
"Find CP's physical quantum processor."
Choi Minseol patted the heads of the two AC Series AIs.
The sensation of her hand stroking the back of my head earlier flashed through my mind.
"Once you find the quantum processor, I will come to see you. Surely you should bring a gift when you meet a lady, shouldn't you? I'll be looking forward to it."
A staircase of ice formed behind Choi Minseol.
Just as she was about to climb the stairs and leave the sewer, she stepped back down and spoke.
"Ah, right. Your item utilization is decent, but... your main body is a bit lacking. I suppose a naturally low computation grade can't be helped, but..."
She placed her hand on my head and stroked it gently.
I felt a warm touch.
"Even I can't raise your computation grade. But I can carve a shortcut for you."
Squelch.
Since it was happening on top of my head, I couldn't see it, but I could feel it with absolute clarity.
Choi Minseol's right hand was currently inside my head.
It was the exact same phenomenon as when she had plunged her hand into Seok Hayeon's stomach earlier.
"Hmm... let's connect this part to that part... and open up a path here... there, done!"
Pop.
She pulled her hand out of my head.
A sticky, transparent liquid was dripping from her hand.
What the hell was that?
"Not done yet?"
From the alleyway outside the sewer, a girl in a black dress looked down at us and spoke.
Aside from her black bob cut, she looked identical to CC.
CC and CP scurried up the ice stairs and took the black-haired girl's hands.
The three young girls held hands and closed their eyes.
"That's how they share information," Choi Minseol said.
"Normally they wouldn't need to do that, but since the war ended, the main line only connects intermittently."
The AC Series AIs, who had been holding hands until a moment ago, opened their eyes and hugged each other tightly.
"Looks like they're finished. Hang in there, Yoon Juhyuk. You won't disappoint your company commander, will you? The bandwidth will expand soon. Well, then."
Choi Minseol climbed the ice stairs and left the sewer.
CC and CP sat in the ruined alleyway above the sewer, chattering about something.
Seok Hayeon and Kim Hun came over to check on my condition briefly, but when I showed no reaction, they carried me and hid me inside Seok Hayeon's house.
Unable to move even a single finger, I had no choice but to leave myself in their hands and wait endlessly for this "bandwidth" to expand.
The "moment" Choi Minseol spoke of finally ended after 8 hours and 48 minutes.
Next time I see her, I'm going to kill her. Absolutely.
"Choi Minseol knew you guys."
I told you I don't know her! That was the first time I even heard her name from you, and earlier was the first time I saw her in person!
If I knew her, I would've said something when you mentioned her name!
╰（‵□′）╯ *Hiss!*
CC's anger-filled message window popped up in front of my eyes.
Immediately after logging out of the internet, I questioned CC.
I was prepared to use physical force to wring the truth out of her if she insisted on hiding it.
"Choi Minseol said it had been a long time when she saw you."
I don't know about that either... I'm telling you, she's a complete stranger to me.
"Are you sure you didn't just forget?"
Could I have? Ah, no way. I'm not a human... Do you really think I'd forget something I've seen once? My token storage and context memory capacity far exceed human memory. It's practically photographic.
"How can I even trust your words in the first place? What if you're lying?"
If you start doubting that, there's no end to it. I can't prove a negative. You should present evidence that I lied; how am I supposed to present evidence that I didn't lie? I'm telling you with absolute certainty, that was the very first time I saw her.
"..."
Mister?
"Fine. I'll believe you."
Really?
"Yeah. I believe you."
For real? You're not going to nag me about this again, right?
"Yeah. I'll drop the subject. So... would you mind letting go of my neck now?"
I had been determined to get the truth.
With that mindset, I had interrogated CC.
I admit I used somewhat violent and coercive methods.
But it was necessary to extract the truth, even if it meant resorting to force.
I had picked up a tungsten carbide-coated chromoly pipe that I'd pocketed while working part-time at Lee Ha-neul's workshop.
It was an alloy used for the internal components of machine species.
Even if I had to smash my prosthetic arm to pieces with it, I was fully prepared to uncover the truth.
Yes.
The plan was solid.
Right up until I lost consciousness from intense electrical shocks repeating every second, only to wake up being choked by my own prosthetic arm.
Of course, I don't have any memory of it, but it seems certain that the lady named Choi Minseol knew me. She acted incredibly close... Could she be a technician involved in my development? Or maybe she was a crew member on the battleship I managed.
It was normal for that woman to act friendly toward complete strangers.
How many soldiers had shed tears because of that deceptively casual attitude?
But her attitude toward CC and CP was distinctly different.
It was the behavior of someone reuniting with old acquaintances after a long time.
What about you, Mister? What on earth was your relationship with that lady? Can't you tell me now?
"I told you. She's the one who wiped out my unit."
Vague answers like that don't explain anything about your actual relationship.
"She was the company commander of my independent unit... the Shoeshine Unit."
Ah, so that's why she said not to disappoint your company commander at the end...
"The Shoeshine Unit was made up entirely of war orphans. Every single member of the unit, including myself, was an orphan. The war against the machine species... it was already full of inhumane atrocities, but our unit had it especially bad."
When humans fight other humans, human cruelty is directed at the enemy.
But when humans fight machines, that misplaced cruelty sometimes turns inward, targeting their own allies.
"The battlefields we were deployed to were mostly holding actions to cover the retreat of our allies. While everyone else fled, our mission was to grit our teeth and act as cannon fodder in front of the machine species."
Lacking the protective shield of 'family,' we were the perfect expendables.
"In almost every battle, more than half of us died. The funny thing is, by the next battle, that missing half would be completely replenished. Since the war was in full swing, orphans were cropping up like weeds everywhere."
Hmm... So that kind of thing was happening on the ground while I was up on the satellite battleship... And then?
"Choi Minseol was appointed as the commander of our unit. We didn't pay much attention to her at first. Our commanders usually died in their first battle, or at most, their second."
I still remember.
The sight of her standing on the platform to greet us, wearing cracked glasses and an oversized, ill-fitting uniform, her hair tied back messily.
"But she was different. After she arrived, our mortality rate began to drop."
Oh...
"Later on, we even managed to pull off retreats with zero casualties."
I actually know about the Shoeshine Unit from around that time. The name wasn't always the same, and the division assignment kept changing, but there was a unit that recorded zero casualties during holding actions. I see now, 'Shoeshine' was just a nickname?
"Yeah. It meant the guys who shine shoes."
During the war, orphans who were still too young to become soldiers would follow moving military units to beg for food.
The main thing those orphans did back then was polish the soldiers' boots.
That was how the name "Shoeshine" came to be.
Anyway, seeing how the casualties dropped after that lady arrived, she must have been highly competent. A unit really does change depending on its commander.
"She was competent. She was the only operator capable of hacking machine species in real-time on the battlefield to use them as our own forces."
Hacking machine species is no easy feat.
In the military, soldiers with high computational capacity were called 'operators,' and among them, those who could hack machine species, even briefly, were an absolute rarity.
Just look at the operator who attacked Pyeongtaek a while back—her brain ended up melting, didn't it?
But how did you end up in a grudge match with her?
"Because she betrayed us."
Betrayal? Did she side with the machine species?
"Choi Minseol offered us up to both the machine species and the human coalition forces."
What does that mean?
"I don't really know either. We were just acting on her orders, and before we knew it, we were being attacked by both the machine species and the human coalition."
Are you sure it wasn't just a misunderstanding?
"I heard her loud and clear. She told us to engage both sides. Even though we were bewildered, we pulled our triggers. Because we trusted her. We trusted the woman who had kept us alive all this time. But the result was total annihilation. She vanished, and I was the only survivor."
Why on earth did she do that?
"I don't know that either."
Eh?
"Because the only ones who know what happened that day are her and me. And I was just following orders."
Hmm...
All the windows vanished from my field of vision.
I turned off the lights in my room and lay down on the bed.
From the next room, a faint smell of gunpowder drifted in along with the sound of tiny, rapid pops.
She told me to find CP's quantum processor.
And that she would come to me once I did.
I would do exactly as she said.
But on the day we meet again...
This time, I will absolutely kill her.