034. Corporification (1)
034. Corporification (1)
At first, she thought it was a dream.
She did not know where the dream had begun.
It might have started the moment she woke in her room, or perhaps a little before that.
For instance, from the moment she cleared Ice Shell.
Or, from the moment she received her third skill module from her Commander.
Or maybe, from the very day a trustworthy Commander was assigned to Krädel.
It could all have been a dream.
Even if that were the case, it was fine.
If it was a dream this happy, then drowning in it and dying would not be so bad.
So.
So then.
So that she would not wake up, so that this dream could last a little longer, she wished no one would pinch her cheek.
As if to torment Laika for thinking such things, someone pulled at her cheek.
It was that woman.
Seo Se-rin, who had taken over from the Commander and entered Laika's room, pinched her cheek and scolded her.
"Tsk. "Seo Se-rin," is it? Even if I said casual speech was fine, calling your Commander by name is still rude, isn't it?"
Seo Se-rin immediately changed her tune as if nothing had happened.
"Ah, but I'm not your Commander anymore, right? Then calling me by name is okay~"
Seo Se-rin said that and then pulled on her cheek a little more for no real reason before letting go.
A faint ache lingered where her fingers had touched.
Only then did it sink in.
So it wasn't a dream, this.
......If it wasn't a dream?
"How......?"
"Hm?"
Laika tried to say something more.
But this was the only word that came out.
"H-how...... how on earth......?"
Are you alive?
Barely, truly barely, Laika managed to ask.
Seo Se-rin grinned as if she had been waiting.
"Well, the story gets pretty long if I tell it—"
Seo Se-rin sat on the edge of Laika's bed.
Maybe it was because Seo Se-rin was closer now.
Or perhaps she was only now noticing what had been there all along.
Laika realized there was phase energy in Seo Se-rin's body.
What that implied was unmistakable.
"......A biodroid?"
"Yes."
Seo Se-rin answered brightly.
"I opened my eyes and I'd become a biodroid, go figure."
Then she chattered on, singing her own praises.
"Ah, they said the body was made to look almost exactly like the body I had when I was alive. Apparently, if the appearance changes too much, it's hard for someone who was human to adapt. I think I look a year or two younger, though—— well, looking younger is actually better. Euhehet."
Laika was flabbergasted.
"You could do that? Become a biodroid?"
"If you're asking legally, it seems it can be done?"
Seo Se-rin added the caveat, 'Though I don't really know the details myself~,' and explained.
Technically, turning a human woman into a biodroid was extremely simple. Just as with manufacturing any other biodroid, all it took was transferring the brain into a body built by the manufacturer and synchronizing it.
However, due to various ethical and social issues, 'corporification'—the process of turning a woman born human into a biodroid after birth—was prohibited in principle.
Therefore, the general principle for maintaining the distinction between humans and biodroids was that brains installed in biodroids were cultured by the manufacturer and implanted directly into the body after only minor processing.
But every rule had exceptions, and Seo Se-rin had been granted an exception permitting corporification.
"...Though rather than me receiving permission, it's more accurate to say your Commander wrung it out of them and gave it to me as a gift while I was unconscious."
Apparently, he had caused all kinds of trouble, threatening to expose the military for refusing compensation if they denied Seo Se-rin corporification and simply let her die.
In the end, the military seemed to have backed down out of fear that the situation would escalate and allowed the procedure.
In that process, Han Si-hu had come into conflict with the military higher-ups yet again and had been forced to give up his reward in the form of a transfer out of Krädel.
Laika found the story absurd on several levels.
Setting aside the sheer absurdity of the fact that he had used his hard-won reward to save Seo Se-rin's life, what Laika had actually asked about wasn't the legal procedure in the first place.
"Even assuming you got permission, how was the surgery even possible?"
To perform Cyborgization Surgery, at minimum the brain and nervous system had to be alive.
Yet Seo Se-rin had been abandoned in Ice Shell with injuries so severe she would have inevitably died without immediate emergency surgery.
She had been left for over a year, trapped in that frozen field of snow and in the ice formed by the Frost Phantom.
So how could removing her brain and transferring it to a body have been possible?
Seo Se-rin answered that question with a bitter smile.
"That's... how should I put it? Maybe I should say it was thanks to the Frost Phantom."
"Thanks to the Frost Phantom?"
"Yeah. So......."
After sending Laika back alone, Seo Se-rin had been left behind in the spruce forest.
Not long after, the Frost Phantom had found Seo Se-rin.
After that, following its spider-imitating habits, the Frost Phantom had begun to confine her within its ice wall.
Up to here, Laika and the Commander had already surmised as much at the scene.
Yet there was one fact that neither of them, nor even Seo Se-rin herself, had known.
"It seems spiders have a habit of 'preserving' their prey."
"Preserving?"
"Yeah. So..."
Right before sealing Seo Se-rin inside the ice wall, the Frost Phantom had used a skill to place her in a kind of suspended animation.
Thanks to that, Seo Se-rin had remained alive and stable for the past year, though unconscious.
In that state, Laika and her Commander had defeated the Frost Phantom, and the ice wall and the preservation skill had simultaneously dissipated.
Han Si-hu found Seo Se-rin just as she finally began to die for real, before it was too late. Alicia then called in the follow-up unit, allowing Seo Se-rin to be evacuated to a hospital.
"......Though it turned out they simply couldn't save my original body."
The Frost Phantom's skill had aimed solely for 'preservation' and had not concerned itself with the victim's well-being.
Most of her body, including her major organs, had frozen, so the hospital immediately gave up on reviving her as a human.
Instead, they performed corporification, transferring only her still-living brain and nervous system into a biodroid's body.
"You could say it was like being kept in cold storage to maintain freshness~"
Seo Se-rin summarized playfully.
It seemed she had hoped Laika would laugh at that joke, but Laika's actual reaction was the complete opposite.
She burst into tears.
She wailed, "Euaaaaang—!"
"Eueeng? Crying all of a sudden?"
"It's not all of a sudden......!"
Laika shrieked.
But then, what Laika actually blurted out next was not a reproach, but an apology.
"I'm sorry, I'm really so sorry......! I wanted to rescue you sooner......! I wanted to come find you......! Because Laika, because Laika was so incompetent......!"
"What's there to be sorry for? You saved me in the end, and that's what matters."
"But still, but still......!"
"Enough. Stop."
Seo Se-rin said that and then pulled Laika into a tight embrace.
She squeezed Laika so tightly against her large chest that Laika could barely breathe.
It was a familiar action. Back when Seo Se-rin had still been her Commander, whenever Laika displayed her characteristic self-deprecating behavior, Seo Se-rin had soothed her like this.
Though it was less about soothing her and more about making it impossible for her to talk.
"......Eubeup."
Like this.
In the past, when Seo Se-rin silenced Laika this way, Laika would struggle as a matter of course.
And then, while somehow ensuring Seo Se-rin would not get hurt, she would pry open her arms and fire back all the things she had to say.
But now she simply could not do that.
Because she had missed that habit of being hugged without warning, once so annoying, and the feeling of being held like this.
Though the heartbeat from when she had been human was gone now.
The same phasic pattern, originating from the brain that was still the same person, could be felt.
In that phase, which resonated with her no less than her current Commander's did, Laika felt an impossible sense of relief.
And so, to Laika, who had abandoned all resistance, Seo Se-rin spoke.
"Laika did her best."
Seo Se-rin added a moment later that she wasn't saying it without reason.
She said she had heard the whole story from Laika's Commander.
What things had happened to her after she was left alone, how painfully she had tumbled, broken, and fallen.
And yet how hard she had kept trying until now.
Knowing all of it.
"Laika did well. You can be proud."
Seo Se-rin concluded, loosening the strength of her embracing arms.
A moment later, Laika answered.
"......Yes. Thank you."
A few more seconds later, Laika asked quietly.
"What are you going to do now?"
"What do you mean, what am I going to do?"
"Just, you know, how you're going to live from now on......."
Laika's words held pure worry.
Living as a biodroid was not easy.
Especially if she had been human before, adapting to a new life would be an extremely difficult road.
Biodroids were second-class citizens: paid less for the same work and sometimes looked down on by humans.
She would also have to give up the life of a Commander she had dreamed of.
"Weeell. If that's what you're worried about, you don't have to."
"I don't have to worry?"
"It seems the military will arrange a job for me, even if I'm not a Commander. Maybe I'll be able to do similar work, even if it's a desk job?"
Seo Se-rin said that and then slipped in an addition.
"Plus, I received a lot of compensation."
"Compensation?"
"Yeah. Well...... for now, even though I was corporified, administratively it seems I'm counted as dead. So a KIA compensation was paid out. Ah, my overdue pay, too."
"B-but then wasn't that money used to buy your body?"
"The body was something your Commander got from the military for me. The compensation is just mine, all mine."
Seo Se-rin then whispered the sum into Laika's ear.
The moment Laika heard it, she felt the tears that had already stopped dry up instantly.
"......I kind of feel like I worried for nothing."
"Euhehe~"
Seo Se-rin let out an embarrassed laugh.
But then, the voice that asked the next question was far calmer than usual.
"With this, I'm planning to travel around for a year or two."
"Travel?"
"Yeah. That was a dream too. Going around having fun and spending money like crazy. I'll worry about work after that."
Seo Se-rin said that, then asked a question back.
"What about you? What is Laika going to do with her life from now on?"
"La, Laika? Hmm......? Laika is......."
Laika answered without realizing it.
"Planning to keep helping that person."
"The Commander?"
"Yes."
Seo Se-rin smiled softly.
"Because you like him?"
"W-what......?"
"You like him, don't you?"
Laika could answer neither yes nor no.
She only turned her head, her face flushing bright red.
Seeing Laika like that, Seo Se-rin grinned and giggled for a long while.
Meanwhile, Laika desperately searched her mind for anything she could use to change the subject, until she suddenly remembered something they really did need to talk about.
"Ah, right! The birthday present......."
"You mean the forget-me-nots? I received those from the Commander, too."
"Euhyeeng......?! I wanted to hand them to you in person......."
She couldn't help being disappointed.
Her shoulders slumped for a moment.
But the words that followed from Seo Se-rin were enough to change Laika's mind.
"Ah, the dried flower was the only thing I received. I didn't take the seeds."
"Eueeng? Why?"
"I said I'm going traveling, didn't I? In that situation, if I planted them, I probably wouldn't be able to care for them properly and would end up killing them...... and carrying the seeds around didn't sound appealing for some reason either."
Seo Se-rin said that and then added quietly.
"Plant them at Krädel and take care of them for me."
"Laika? At Krädel?"
"Yes. Then later, when a whole bunch of forget-me-nots bloom, we can admire them together. That way, doesn't it count as Laika having given them to me?"
Whether today or then, late was late all the same.
And in any case, there were still plenty of future birthdays to celebrate.
At those words, Laika's eyes lit up brightly.
"Yes! That sounds good!"
Seeing Laika like that, Seo Se-rin finally rose from her seat.
Then she said, as if it were nothing at all.
"Then I'll be heading off soon."
"Euhyeng? Already?"
"Isn't it a bother to linger here too long?"
"......Laika doesn't mind, though?"
And the Commander would say it was fine, too.
Laika confidently guaranteed it on her own without even asking.
But Seo Se-rin shook her head with a bitter smile.
"It would be awkward. This is a military base, and I'm a civilian now."
And besides, that person was now Laika's Commander.
As Laika's former Commander, the right thing to do was leave as soon as possible so Laika could put her current Commander first.
"So Laika, do your best as his soldier. That's my final order to you."
At those words, the scene from one year ago overlapped with Laika's vision.
The sight of Seo Se-rin bleeding, dying in the snowy field.
The final command she had spoken with her last breath, which had been seared into Laika's heart for the past year.
—Escape, even if you have to do it alone.
Seo Se-rin's final command and the bright smile on her face were enough to overwrite the sorrow of that day.
And so Laika was able to answer without a moment's hesitation, and with a face incomparably brighter than on that day.
"Yes. I'll do my best."
With this, the farewell that had been held in suspension for over a year was concluded in a manner neither of them had ever imagined.
Not with a goodbye, but with a promise that she would come visit again.