004. Cat on the Rooftop (3)
004. Cat on the Rooftop (3)
Legions.
Monsters composed entirely of machinery, appearing suddenly one day.
They were presumed to possess intelligence, but they couldn't speak.
Even if they could, it would have been meaningless. A Legion tried to kill any human it laid eyes on.
They were killing machines in the most literal sense, killing humans on sight with no questions asked. That was what Legions were.
However, humanity could not inflict any damage on those Legions in return.
It was not simply a lack of physical force.
The problem was that they possessed a unique 'phase' entirely different from that of humans.
Humans could not exert any physical force whatsoever against that unique phase.
In other words, no matter how much firepower we poured into them—even if we dropped a nuclear bomb—we couldn't put so much as a scratch on them.
Because of this, in the early half of the war against the Legions, humanity was repeatedly routed every time they fought and was driven to the brink of annihilation.
Biodroids were what broke that stalemate.
Since they shared the same phase as the Legions, they could inflict effective damage upon them.
That was the basic premise of anti-Legion warfare: leave combat against Legions to biodroids.
That was precisely why countless commanders, myself included, strengthened and trained biodroids.
......So, I had rambled on at length while the situation was urgent.
The two figures before my eyes were not particularly threatening.
Outwardly, they were no bigger than stray dogs, and the amount of physical force they could actually wield was likely just around that level.
By military classification, they would be roughly E-rank.
But as a human, I could not inflict any damage even on such weak-looking creatures.
Thus, my judgment was as follows.
"Laika, Rinne, prepare for combat!"
I issued commands to both of them. Laika to the front, Rinne to the rear. I had no idea how much help it would be, but I had to try.
"Euhye~ What a bothersome bunch~"
Laika grumbled as she adjusted her grip on her massive shield.
Rinne, who gave no reply in particular, seemed to comply for now. The sound of a bowstring being drawn came from beyond the receiver.
Encouraged by that, I decided to gauge Rinne's skill level first.
Who could know for certain? Dreams and romantic notions like 'Could my biodroid, who was F-rank by the military's inflexible evaluation standards, actually be a totally broken cheat character?' might still remain in this world.
"Rinne! Take the shot first!"
Along with my shout, the sound of a bowstring releasing—Tung—came from beyond the receiver.
Immediately after, an arrow shot past my field of vision, emitting a violet flash.
It shot past, but.
"......Huh?"
No Legion fell to the arrow. It had sailed through empty air far from its target.
A few seconds later, Rinne's husky voice flowed from the communicator.
[......I missed on purpose.]
"At least make your excuse believable."
[Anyway, it was on purpose. Blocking you now. Bye.]
With those words, the communication cut off.
Since it had come to this, was this one the only one I could rely on?
"Laika, handle them."
"Euhyeong~ In the end, I have to do everything alone~ So tiresome~"
Even as she grumbled, Laika began sprinting forward with her shield at the fore.
Her running motion seemed somewhat light. Her eyes were still unfocused, and she did not look like she was fighting with any real sincerity.
Despite that, Laika easily blocked the combined attack of the two Legions.
What followed was Laika's turn. Laika, in the same sluggish manner, swung her shield in wide arcs. Buwung— Buwung—.
It looked sloppy, but it was an efficient method of attack against mobile-type Legions.
The best way to subdue a Legion was to destroy its core, but if you aimed for the vital point from the start against a mobile-type, you were exceedingly likely to be counterattacked.
First, you accumulated damage to make their vital point defense sloppy.
Of course, to achieve that, multiple biodroids would normally coordinate their attacks.
But Laika was simply bulldozing through with raw weight and durability. Her approach was basically, 'If I miss, whatever~ You guys can't hit me anyway~'
That strategy worked surprisingly well; in fact, Laika was the only one doing the hitting.
More than that, she was thoroughly beating them to a pulp.
Then, around the time I began to almost feel sorry for the two Legions, Laika adjusted her grip on her shield and brought it down once on each of them.
As soon as the exhilarating metallic clangs—Kang! Kang!—rang out twice, the two Legions collapsed in a heap, as if their power cords had been yanked out.
Laika, as if it were nothing at all, slung her shield onto her back and chattered at me, standing a few steps behind, like a talkative cat.
"There~ Laika cleaned things up, roughly~ If you're gonna make me fight more, you gotta pay extra in bungeoppang~"
Hmm.
Could it be that this girl was actually an excellent biodroid?
She was a little lazy, but fundamentally mild-tempered and good in a fight. The problem was that no one had known how to get her moving. Who would have guessed she ran on bungeoppang?
In that sense, wasn't I the first commander to discover the hidden trick to getting Laika going?
Couldn't I just keep offering bungeoppang as tribute to make her work from now on?
It was just as I was indulging in that complacent thought. A red message window appeared in the air.
[Enemy Ambush Unit Confirmed]
Almost simultaneously—or perhaps half a beat earlier—something shot out from the ruins of a collapsed building. It was a small Legion, sleeker than the wild-dog types from before.
"Commander! Evade!"
Laika shouted. Reflexively, she swung her shield at the Legion.
But our timing was off. Laika's shield narrowly whiffed over the Legion's head, while its claws raked across my right arm.
"Kh!"
The wound wasn't deep. There was no guarantee the next hit would be the same.
I threw myself to the ground to get out of the way. The Legion reached a forelimb toward me regardless—and at that exact moment, Laika slammed her shield down across its midsection.
Kwadeuk. With a tremendous crunch, the Legion split in two.
Simultaneously, the front paw that had been aiming for my face dropped limply to the ground.
Only then did the adrenaline that had been pumping through my head subside, and I properly perceived my own condition and the surrounding situation.
Clutching my injured arm, I spoke to Laika in relief.
"Thanks. You saved me."
Then Laika, with the same slack face as before, was supposed to rattle off something like 'Be careful from now on~'.
"......Huh?"
But then... how should I put it?
Laika's entire demeanor had changed.
Her formerly relaxed eyes were now razor-sharp. Her blue eyes were filled with a cold, hollow madness.
Her slack mouth was pressed into a hard line, and a voice burning with rage slipped through it.
"......This little shit."
It was impossible to reconcile that voice with the easygoing Laika from moments earlier.
But she wasn't done. Straddling the dead Legion, Laika raised her shield high.
Then she began hammering the Legion's head with it.
There was no need for that. To reiterate, the creature had died the moment its waist was severed.
But Laika acted as though none of that mattered, as though she only needed somewhere to vent her anger—and kept pounding the Legion's head.
What followed was a series of violent cracking sounds.
But even that wasn't enough. As if hitting it with the shield had become frustrating, Laika threw the shield aside.
Soon, she began beating the dead Legion with her bare fists.
"Laika, stop! It's already been neutralized!"
My attempts to stop her didn't seem to reach her. Holding the Legion's head with her left hand, Laika kept driving her right fist into it over and over.
Of course, she couldn't keep punching forever. Just as Laika's fist could break the Legion's head, the Legion's head could break Laika's fist.
As if to prove that fact, sparks flew from Laika's fist.
Eventually, Laika's artificial skin tore, and the metallic frame hidden within began to warp.
Then, finally—Kang!—Laika's fist and the Legion's head shattered at the same time. Only then did she stop moving.
A faint light returned to Laika's eyes right after. She looked back and forth between her ruined hand and the wound on my arm, then murmured weakly.
"......Sorry, Commander. I might have gone a little overboard."
I couldn't give her any reply at all.
***
"You've been through a lot."
Alicia said that as soon as I entered the command-and-control room.
It was a perfunctory remark. In fact, Alicia had spoken while staring at her monitor, as if the greeting held no real meaning.
But after what I had just seen, 'you've been through a lot' no longer sounded like a mere stock phrase. I disinfected my arm with a self-repair kit and asked.
"What the hell was that just now?"
"What are you referring to?"
"What do you think."
I walked over to Alicia's seat and turned off her monitor as I spoke.
"What was that thing Laika did at the end?"
At that, Alicia finally looked at my face.
"It is a common occurrence."
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
"......A frequent incident?"
"Yes. Laika has always had the problem of flying into a frenzy if an ally sustains even the slightest injury."
Alicia answered as she turned the monitor back on.
Soon, a document appeared on the illuminated screen.
Biodroid Return Justification Report.
In other words, these were reports written by the commanders who had previously returned Laika to the military, explaining why they had done so.
The problems those commanders described matched the erratic behavior Laika had shown during the reconnaissance mission.
——In emergencies, becomes unresponsive to orders......
——Displays sudden excessive reactions......
——Displays self-destructive attack tendencies......
——Completely impossible to carry out operations......
It was roughly filled with whining to the effect of, 'She has a problem where she goes berserk when angered so she's utterly unusable; please swap her.'
Was that why?
Something other than the content, riddled with pointless blame, caught my eye.
Precisely, the number of documents.
"......There are ten reports here. Don't tell me she's actually been returned that many times?"
"Regrettably, exactly ten. That is how many times she has been returned."
Alicia answered calmly, as though she were stating something as ordinary as the sun rising in the east.
But being returned ten times was anything but ordinary.
For Laika, it was the crisis of her life.
A biodroid entered a Fitness Review after being returned for the tenth time.
If she was returned once more while under review, the military would deem her unfit for service and dispose of her.
They would destroy her brain—killing Laika as a person—then install a new brain in the empty body and reuse it.
"......The review involves acquiring mission performance points, right? What are the period and target?"
"One hundred points within three months."
"And the points currently acquired?"
"Zero points."
Good lord.
"The review would have started yesterday when I was appointed. So this means if three months pass like this, she'll die."
"It could be even shorter. If you return Laika—or even if you simply resign from Krädel—she will be disposed of immediately."
I knew that too.
I knew that, which was exactly why my head was reeling... so why was Laika still acting so laid-back, carefree, and unconcerned?
Did she not know she could be disposed of next?
No, more than that.
Where had her tendency to go berserk and her poor adjustment started in the first place?
I read through the return justification reports again, a little more slowly than before.
But no matter how far I scrolled, I still found nothing explaining why.
They merely criticized Laika's problematic behaviors— her excessively lazy everyday attitude and uncontrollable tendencies in combat— and wrote her off as an 'unusable, bottom-tier biodroid.'
There was no sign that anyone had tried to understand her or help her improve.
They just passed her off to the next commander as if playing a game of hot potato.
Eventually, I reached the very top of the documents.
Of course, even there, the cause of the rampage was not written.
If anything, there wasn't even a trace that anyone had seriously considered the question.
But there was something else that caught my eye.
"......Huh?"
"What is the matter?"
"Wait. She was returned ten times, but eleven commanders handled her before me?"
I pointed to the 'List of Past Commanders' recorded at the very top of the document.
Just as I had pointed out, my name was absent, yet a total of eleven commanders were shown.
Furthermore——
"......She was with her first commander for quite a long time, wasn't she."
Specifically, a period slightly over one year.
Throughout that time, Laika had been continuously under the first commander's command.
Considering that every commander assigned after that lasted two weeks at most, it was highly unusual.
And one more thing.
"The first commander didn't even write a return justification report."
"Is that so?"
Alicia asked as if it made no difference.
But it did hold meaning.
Once assigned, a biodroid stayed with a commander indefinitely unless the commander deliberately applied for a return.
In other words, the first commander, who had not written a return justification report, had not sent Laika back to the military of their own volition.
Rather, something more extreme than an ordinary return must have happened, forcing Laika to be sent back.
Having grasped that much, I rose from my seat.
"Where are you going?"
My answer was simple.
"To buy bungeoppang."
Whatever the case, a promise had to be kept.
I also wanted to use it as an excuse to have a bit of a talk.