020. Remains (2)
020. Remains (2)
"Should Laika carry her? She must be heavy."
"She's not heavy at all. This model's smaller than you."
I pointed with my chin at the corpse's head that I was carrying on my back.
At that, Laika grinned.
"Commander's a tsundere."
"Don't pin weird labels on me."
"I don't waa~nt to~ I'm pinning this on you~"
We left Trash Island while trading such pointless chatter.
Afterward, I set the nameless biodroid down and dug a grave with Laika.
It wasn't difficult. I'd brought a field shovel in case it would help with finding modules.
We dug for a while.
A pit large enough to bury a single biodroid had formed.
I carefully laid the body inside, then covered it back over with dirt.
"Laika wants to take the last shovelful."
"Go ahead."
I handed the shovel to Laika.
Laika took the shovel carefully, added the last shovelful, and tamped down the earth.
After that, we held a brief moment of silence.
As the moment of silence drew to an end, Laika quietly spoke.
"Hey, Commander."
"Yeah?"
"Lend me your lap."
"...Back at base?"
Laika shook her head.
"Here."
All of a sudden?
No, that aside.
"How are you going to sit on my lap? There's nowhere for me to even sit."
"Commander can figure something out~ You're the Commander~"
What a ridiculous demand.
Incredulous, I still managed to sort something out.
It was nothing special. I simply sat cross-legged on the bare ground.
Once the space on my legs opened up, Laika plopped herself onto it as if she'd been waiting.
As always, she sat with her back to me.
Laika's scent drifted toward me. Apple mint.
Why did she smell like apple mint?
I didn't know.
Curious, I leaned my nose toward the crown of Laika's head and asked.
"How long this time?"
"Don't pester me."
Who was she to say that?
Exasperated, I called her out.
"Lately you act like my lap belongs to you."
"It is Laika's, y'know~?"
She must have caught this from Sumire—the trespassing and claiming ownership.
Laika grumbled at my incredulous look.
"You can at least spare your lap for Laika. Laika's whole body belongs to you anyway, Commander."
"Strictly speaking, you're military property."
"No. I want to belong to you, Commander. Transfer the registration."
I couldn't do that.
Before I could answer, Laika adjusted her position slightly.
It felt like she was burrowing deeper inward, squirming and rubbing her butt around between my legs.
Her butt was small. It was actually fairly plump for her build, but her build was so small to begin with that it felt small overall.
Something like two slightly oversized peaches.
That made it all the more awkward.
How to put it. Because it was small, I could distinctly feel the separation between left and right.
And yet she kept squirming. Squirming, pressing.
Laika pressed herself tightly against me anyway.
Her sudden demand to sit on my lap out in the open and everything else was far from typical.
She was practically acting spoiled.
The reason was probably—
"Did old memories come back again?"
At that, Laika puffed out her cheeks with a Buu—.
"...What makes you think that?"
"You always cling to me whenever bad thoughts come up. Bad thoughts are usually old memories."
"Aren't you oversimplifying Laika~?"
"So I'm wrong?"
Silence.
A moment later, Laika replied bluntly, as if reluctant to admit it.
"You're right, actually. Old memories did come up."
See.
"What kind of old memories came up?"
"The last mission."
"With Seo Se-rin?"
Nod, nod.
"Why did that come back all of a sudden?"
"That's because...... Laika couldn't properly recover her remains."
"Recover?"
Instead of answering with words, Laika pointed somewhere with the tip of her finger.
It was the shovel.
Beneath the ground where that shovel was stuck, the biodroid we had just buried was lying.
What did she mean by that? My confusion was brief.
I understood Laika's intent before long.
"You mean you couldn't properly retrieve that person's remains?"
Laika nodded slowly.
"Where was the mission zone?"
"The 3rd Theater. The Great Hive Ice Shell."
I'd heard of it.
It was probably the hive spread across the highlands of the Eastern Front.
It wasn't somewhere extremely far from human operational range. Physically it was very close.
Nevertheless, it was impossible for humans to approach.
That was because the Legion's weather manipulation had turned the Ice Shell region into an extreme climate zone.
On top of that, the Ice Shell's Lord Legion 'Frost Phantom,' which caused that climate anomaly, was still unleashing hell across the region without being subjugated.
Since it was a place like that, if someone died during a mission, safely repatriating the remains was near impossible.
If a follow-up team had at least been formed, they might have been able to recover the remains on site.
"No follow-up team was organized. Laika's mission ended in failure, the climate around there got even worse... and all operational activity in the vicinity was suspended."
Laika said that and let out a hollow laugh.
"From the start, the military would never take a risk just to find the body of a supplementary commissioned officer. The only one who would even consider such a trivial thing... is Laika."
But after Seo Se-rin's death, that same Laika was branded a washout and could never return to Ice Shell.
Therefore, Seo Se-rin's remains were also left in a state that no one could recover.
She would remain frozen and abandoned there indefinitely.
"So... I'd say I'd lived by forgetting as much as possible. I was just refusing to think about it. Because just thinking about it was agonizing. Thinking that that person is still lying there, cold and dead."
"But while burying that girl, the thought suddenly came to you?"
"Yeah. Without even meaning to."
Laika answered, and her shoulders flinched.
A moment later, she continued.
"It suddenly came back to me...... and I guess I wanted to tell you too, Commander. Because talking to you like this makes me feel better....... W-well, I do feel guilty about selfishly letting myself feel better, but if you add up the pluses and minuses, it still comes out positive....... And the fact that it comes out positive hurts too......."
Mid-sentence, a deflating sound escaped from Laika.
"Sorry. I'm rambling in circles. Laika's a bit weird right now."
"You're not weird."
"No. I am weird. Definitely weird."
Laika shook her head back and forth, then pointed at herself with a finger.
"Just look at me now. Laika is sitting on your lap, Commander."
"What about it?"
"It's not 'what about it.' This is something a girl shouldn't do to a guy so casually, you know?"
...So she did know.
Then why was she always the first to climb on?
At my dumbfounded expression, Laika whined as if it were actually my fault.
"Laika knows that in her head too. I really do, but...... I keep mistakenly thinking, 'It's okay if it's with you, Commander'...... I guess.
"Or rather, deep down I get this twinge that says, 'Even if it isn't okay, I still want to stay close to you—' and before I know it, I'm sitting on your lap......
"Li-like that, lately Laika's head keeps getting weird..."
Laika trailed off ambiguously.
I decided to wait until she could finish.
But I did at least do something while I waited.
More precisely, I did two things.
First, I rested my chin on Laika's crown.
Second, I wrapped my arms around her in front of her navel.
Each one made Laika flinch.
But she never pulled away.
Instead, the muscles in her back relaxed as if they had been waiting for it, and she settled more closely against me.
Then Laika whispered weakly, as if every wall around her heart had crumbled away.
"......Please don't hate Laika even like this. Laika couldn't keep living if even you came to hate her, Commander. I just...... wanted to say that."
Hmm.
Those words made something clear to me.
Her nature really was hopeless.
She was the kind of emotionally unstable girl who'd plummet straight into ruin if she latched onto the wrong man.
So, as I thought, fully rehabilitating her would probably take quite a long time.
Maybe fully rehabilitating her would be impossible.
A person's innate nature didn't change.
At best, all you could change was the outer shell.
Nevertheless.
Despite being born with such a pitiful disposition, the fact that she was making an effort was unmistakably clear.
Partly as a reward for that, I stroked Laika's head.
As I stroked her, I told her.
"There's no way I'd hate you. You're the most important person to me right now."
Laika didn't answer.
Instead, after about ten seconds, she just sprang up from the spot.
"What's the matter?"
"I'll head back first. You can take your time, Commander."
Laika said that, then started running without even waiting for my answer.
She shot off toward Krädel like an arrow.
Why was she acting like that this time? Had I misspoken?
I stared at Laika's receding figure, puzzled, but soon felt relieved.
Because a small message window had appeared on the PDA.
[Phase resonance rate with biodroid 'Laika' has reached 70%.]
***
After returning to base, I proceeded with the component replacement with Sumire's help.
And of course, I hadn't forgotten to install the new skill module either.
A short while later, Sumire appeared carrying the work result panel.
== Body Reconstruction Results ==
[The stat caps of biodroid 'Laika' have changed.]
- Maximum Tactical Judgment C+ → B+
- Maximum Agility C → B-
- Maximum Phase Sensitivity S → A+
[A new skill module has been equipped on biodroid 'Laika'.]
- Phase Blood Absorption Lv.1 (New!)
== ==
The changes were exactly what I had predicted.
I thought that alone was fortunate.
Component replacement didn't always go exactly as planned. Sometimes it failed.
When that happened, the stats that were supposed to rise sometimes failed to increase while the ones expected to fall dropped sharply, leaving a sidegrade—or even a downgrade.
The fact that there was no such disaster was definitely something I had to credit to Sumire.
Thanks to her using the Material Stabilization skill during the synthesis process, many variables were reduced.
Thanks to Process Efficiency, we had also cut the material costs considerably.
But the part Sumire could help with stopped right there.
Adapting to the changed components and growing the additionally equipped module was on Laika and me.
"Laika, it's intense training for the next few days. Just so you know, training starts this evening."
"Eueee..."
Laika, dressed in a patient gown for the replacement work, let out a thoroughly fed-up groan.
But I didn't let her off.
There was no helping it, since only the upper limits had gone up; Laika's actual ability values themselves were still the same.
Before deploying her in earnest on battle zone missions, we needed to raise them up to the newly increased caps.
On top of that, we had to raise the level of the newly installed skill module to some extent too.
At level 1 immediately after installation, the module was still far too inefficient.
To sum it up, two schedules that hadn't existed before had been added.
The schedule, which had previously been generous, inevitably became much tighter.
"So go back quickly and rest."
"Aye aye..."
Laika trudged out of the manufactory.
Soon, I started to follow her...... except I didn't. I still had something to discuss with Sumire.
Or rather, it seemed like she had something to say to me.
"Sumire, what's been up with you for a while now?"
"...Y-yes?"
"You've been hemming and hawing about something."
"Ah, ah..."
Sumire nodded as if she understood.
Then she said.
"The thing is, a strange component has been detected here."
"A strange component?"
Saying this, Sumire thrust her PDA screen toward me as if she'd been waiting.
What appeared there was a 'Detected Component List' identified during the process of scanning Laika after the component replacement.
Naturally enough, they were all components installed on Laika.
All but one.
== Detected Components ==
Product Name: Synchronizer SYNC-001
Manufacturer: Halo Company
Purpose: Unknown
Effect When Used: Unknown
Condition For Use: Activates when phase resonance rate with the target reaches 100%.
== ==
"......What is this? I've never even heard of this product....... And it doesn't seem to be installed on Laika either....... I can't figure out why the scan picked it up....... so I thought you might know, Commander......."
Hmm.
So she'd been wiggling her hips because she was curious about this.
After pondering for a moment, I answered.
"You don't have to worry about it."
"Pardon? Still... if there is a component we haven't been able to identify, there's a possibility that variables could arise..."
"No, it's not installed on Laika. The scan must have mistakenly picked up a component installed on someone else nearby."
At my answer, Sumire looked like she couldn't quite accept it.
If anything, her face became even more puzzled.
"But... when we scanned, the only ones here were the three of us, so if it was another biodroid, it could only be me... But it's not a component installed on me either..."
At that, Sumire's breath caught with a sharp Hik.
She then proposed an absurd hypothesis.
"Could the military have secretly inserted a tracking component into me, or something...?"
"Quite an imagination. But it's not that either, so relax."
"Y-you're certain, right?"
I was certain.
I answered without a hint of hesitation.
Was her mind put at ease only then? Or did she just notice that pressing further wouldn't get her an answer anyway?
Sumire didn't press the matter any further.
So I decided to just wrap up with a brief conclusion.
"Anyway, I'll head back to the command center. If you need anything, send a text or call right away. I'll help however I can. As your unofficial Commander."
"Ye-yes. I'll also do my best...!"
Sumire shouted at attention, then quietly added one more line.
"...As an un, unofficial unit member. Euhit."
Cute little thing.
I thought about stroking Sumire's head... but figured we still weren't quite close enough for that, so I just patted her on the shoulder twice and left the manufactory.