048. True Education (1)
048. True Education (1)
I returned to Krädel.
I was back, but neither Rinne nor I looked particularly cheerful.
How to put it.
It felt like going to have a wart removed and coming back with two more attached.
And not just one—two.
—Clear the training program "Barna Defense Battle" at B-Rank or higher.
—Write the long-awaited final volume of the discontinued Beyond the Cradle series.
She said she would only hand over the subordinates' personal details if both conditions were met.
Honestly, I had no real complaint about the first condition.
If anything, I was even secretly grateful that she'd given me a quest like this.
Until now, not knowing the enemy's level had been a source of anxiety. At last, I had a benchmark telling me, 'Maybe we can handle something around this level.' That was something to welcome with open arms, not worry over.
The problem was the second condition.
Writing a discontinued novel.
"Rinne."
"Hm?"
"How much have you written?"
I asked, leaving the object unstated.
But Rinne understood instantly—
"Haven't written a thing."
And she gave me a garbage answer in return.
"Haven't written a thing. Last time, you made it sound like you'd more or less worked out the outline."
"I did?"
"Yeah. You did."
Specifically, she had once said something like, "It was right around when I was about to start writing the final volume, before the incident happened."
I had taken that to mean the writing was already underway, which naturally implied the content was largely set.
"No, obviously I meant I was about to start, including working out the plot."
"So, as of now, you don't even have a plot?"
"Yep. Exactly that."
She said it so easily.
"......Still, you must have at least a rough concept for the ending. You serialized a full-length series up to volume 15."
"I haven't planned anything at all."
"Not one thing?"
"Yep. All that's decided is that the protagonist and heroine get saved."
Wasn't that way too slapdash?
At the very least, she should've planned the ending before writing it.
"Plans are meaningless. Once you're three or four volumes in, the story goes off the rails on its own. Then it's just one long cleanup job. In that sense, the final volume is the hardest, shittiest cleanup job of all."
So that was how it was.
And I could hardly tell her to just pad the page count.
Jang Yu-na's reason for demanding the final volume was probably not to see a scrambled mess of text.
It was more about seeing whether Rinne could write a salvation narrative good enough to restore three squad members.
On top of that, she undoubtedly had the personal motive of wanting to see the ending herself, and in that respect too, the "quality" of the ending mattered enormously.
Well, those external factors aside.
"I can't just write something half-assed. It's the long-awaited finale. I'm going to write the best ending possible, no matter what."
Rinne muttered.
Seeing that, Rinne herself seemed to be the one most concerned about the final volume's quality.
Even so, there wasn't much I could do to help with writing the ending. My writing ability was probably no better or worse than the average commander's.
So I decided to leave that side entirely to Rinne.
"Alright. Let's start with the training program right away. I'll be in the simulation room setting it up. You go get Laika."
"What, the sleepyhead is joining too?"
Of course she had to join.
Rinne, as a support unit, couldn't reasonably engage in direct combat anyway.
Above all, this training session was closer to a bench test of Krädel's maximum combat power. Fielding every combat-capable soldier Krädel could mobilize was standard procedure.
"Tch. Guess there's no helping it."
Rinne grumbled as if annoyed, but she headed up to the rooftop.
A moment later, Laika appeared in the simulation room.
The moment she entered, Laika spread her arms wide.
A reward demand—meaning, a gesture asking to be held tight.
It was embarrassing, but if I didn't do it, she had no intention of cooperating at all. So I had no choice but to pull her into a tight hug.
Normally, if Rinne wasn't around, she would cling for about ten seconds, then contentedly detach herself.
Oddly, when Rinne was beside us, Laika would stay clinging to me much longer.
"Euhe~ feels nice~"
"Laika, it's about time......"
"Nooo~ just one more minute~"
As Laika said that, she clung even deeper, her narrowed eyes stealing furtive glances at Rinne.
Meanwhile, Rinne, for her part, was glaring at Laika as if she were watching something utterly ridiculous.
After a long standoff like that, Laika finally pulled away from my embrace.
"So what is it? What kind of work are you giving us today?"
"Barna Defense Battle."
At that moment, Rinne cut in as if she had been waiting.
"What kind of training is the Barna Defense Battle, anyway?"
Ah. Come to think of it, I needed to explain that first.
I lined Rinne and Laika up side by side and explained.
"Simply put, it's a boss challenge-type training program."
"......Boss challenge?"
"Right."
Once they entered the training program, the squad would be positioned at a camp called "Barna."
When the program was then activated, a total of 10 waves of different Lord Legions would appear and launch an all-out assault on the camp.
If the camp survived all ten waves, that counted as a clear.
"What about the Lord Legions that appear? What rank are they?"
"Mostly between C and B-Rank."
"What? It's not even a subjugation—you just have to hold out for 10 waves against those? Sounds crazy easy."
Rinne spoke with confidence.
My own opinion... well, I wasn't so sure.
If the goal was merely to clear it, then just as Rinne said, it might not be all that difficult.
However, the condition Jang Yu-na had presented wasn't just to clear it—it was to clear it at B-Rank or higher.
In other words, we had to clear it while keeping the camp's HP at 70% or higher for the condition to be met.
Of course, clearing it with that condition was entirely possible given Rinne and Laika's specs.
Rinne had grown quite a lot, and Laika had experience taking down even an A-Rank Lord Legion (albeit under heavily restricted circumstances).
The problem was twofold. One: with only two troops, the coverable range relative to their total combat power was far too narrow.
The other: they lacked teamwork.
......It might seem out of nowhere, harping on about teamwork like that.
After all, Rinne and I had grown fairly close by now.
Even if we had occasional friction in daily life, we worked hand-in-glove during missions.
My relationship with Laika went without saying. We got along so well it was almost worrying.
The problem was the two of them without me: Laika and Rinne's teamwork.
The two's battlefield coordination, which had looked fine at a glance, was, when you got down to it, appallingly bad.
Because of that, the pattern of bickering through an entire mission, then openly squabbling the moment the operation ended, had repeated multiple times.
During the last mission, they had been right on the verge of starting a full-on UFC match, and I had barely managed to restrain them and make them reconcile—
"Hmm——"
"Euhe......? What could that be about, I wonder?"
"Nothing at all. You're the one sneaking glances. What's that about?"
"Laika did~?"
As you can see, an odd tension was still hanging between the two even now.
Come to think of it, when I'd told Rinne to go get Laika earlier, she'd answered as if she hated the idea.
I approached Rinne and asked in a voice only she could hear.
"Rinne, didn't you make up with Laika last time? Did you two fight again already?"
"No? We didn't fight?"
"Then why are you acting like this?"
"We just never sincerely made up in the first place."
......Haah.
"Then make up sincerely this time. Make up and get along. You're both part of the same Krädel family."
"What are you talking about? The only person I've acknowledged as family is you, Oppa. The rest are just freeloaders."
Should I thank her?
"Then I order you in the name of that Oppa. Make up with Laika."
"Don't wanna~ Why should I~?"
"We can't run a team battle in this state. Your coordination won't sync."
"I don't care. Work is work."
"Still, try to......"
"Hmph. Hmph hmph."
Rinne was stubborn to the end.
Looking at it this way, it might seem like the distance between the two was entirely Rinne's fault, but that wasn't exactly the case.
Laika had her own stubborn streak.
Just look at her now.
"Laika, couldn't you be the one to apologize to Rinne first?"
"Euhe~ Soooorry~ that might be a bit difficult~"
"Why is it difficult?"
"Well, because Laika has no intention of apologizing to a bad kid who doesn't even listen to Commander~"
"No, she's always been like that, so it'd make things easier for me if at least you would listen..."
"Commander."
"Hm?"
"Is it Laika or Rinne?"
"......Laika, of course."
"Then why does Laika have to be the one to yield, I wonder?"
"......Mm."
"It's strange. Commander should prioritize Laika over Rinne. Laika is a true colleague who is far more helpful to Commander than that red-haired brat who never listens. Why are you asking Laika to yield, I wonder? Hm? Why is that? Commander, aren't you actually showing more consideration to Rinne than to Laika? Even though Laika is this loyal to Commander? Hm? Why?"
"I'm sorry. I was wrong."
"Yeah. Laika is sorry too for constantly acting spoiled......? Of course, only sorry to Commander, and not the least bit sorry to Rinne......?"
As you can see, both of them lacked social skills, while each had an ego that was far too strong.
One was an endlessly insolent brat. The other was obsessively unstable.
Put them together, and they were bound to clash.
Honestly, it was strange they had gotten along until now.
......No, in truth, they probably hadn't even been that close.
It was just that in the past, there had been nothing for them to fight over. In a certain sense, Krädel before I arrived had been extremely peaceful.
They could maintain a dry relationship where they interacted briefly when necessary and split apart the moment they grew uncomfortable with each other.
Now, on the other hand, they were in a situation where they had to cooperate for a single objective called a mission.
And in order to achieve that mission, there inevitably arose parts where each had to bend or yield.
But since neither of them was the type accustomed to yielding...... in the end, they were bound to fight.
Whatever the case, there was no way a mission would run properly with the only two soldiers hating each other.
In fact, the number of missions that had gone wrong because the two of them quarreled was beyond counting.
And today was no different.
"......I'll start the training for now."
I took the two girls, who wouldn't even look at each other, and activated the training program.
The result was a total disaster.
Our side, of course.
[Mission Failed]
[Exiting training program]
For reference, failing the mission meant we hadn't even made it to the 10th wave before the camp blew up.
It was inevitable. Rinne, who was supposed to provide buffs, and Laika, who was supposed to provide protection, had each gone off to do their own thing separately.
Only when I gave them pinpoint instructions to do this or that would they barely follow through; they never took the initiative to do anything for each other.
They hadn't been this bad during real missions, though.
Well, in live combat, if they didn't cooperate at all, someone would get hurt.
Not only Laika, who still had her Commander-protection compulsion, but even Rinne didn't want that outcome.
So they had barely managed to cobble together cooperation with an attitude of "Tch, next time we meet, we're enemies!"
In the training program, on the other hand, where no one would get hurt even if it blew up...... it brought out plays that displayed 100% of their respective selfishness.
Even after it ended, the blame game continued.
"Haa— So pathetically shitty I can't stand watching. Sleepyhead, are you really A-Rank?"
"Euhe-e~ Laika's the one who can't get anything done with a teammate who can't even take what's spoon-fed to her~"
"Ha? The reason it blew up just now is because you let trash mobs slip through earlier!"
"That was to protect Commander, you know~? If it were live combat, Laika would've been praised for that play~? As expected of a raw recruit, maybe she just lacks real battle sense~?"
"What? Raw recruit? Are you done talking?"
"I've only gotten through verse one~? More than that, isn't 'raw recruit' a sufficiently cute nickname~? Laika was about to call you a buff-bot, but held back, you know~?"
"Fuck, what did you just say?!"
"Euhyeong~ you even use swear words~ Laika is sooo scared~ Commander~ give Laika a huggy~"
"Agh, so fucking annoying! Oppa! You decide! Was she bad, or was I bad?!"
......If I left things like this, a B-Rank clear was out of the question. Clearing it at all seemed impossible.
So.
"This won't do. You two."
Which of the two should be senior, and which should be junior?
It was time for me to settle the hierarchy.