060. Cradle of Silence (1)
060. Cradle of Silence (1)
We returned to Krädel.
How should I put it? Rinne and I felt like heroes returning after completing everything they had set out to do.
In short, we were exhausted enough to die.
For me, it was physical. For Rinne, mostly mental.
That was probably because far too much had happened in a single day.
A date, a kiss, recovering lost memories from a past life, and even meeting her parents from that life.
We did not have the energy for anything else.
Unfortunately, however, our adventure did not end there.
If anything, you could say it hadn't properly begun yet.
"Can you write it?"
"Huh?"
"The final volume, I mean."
The whole point of today's trip had been field research to improve the romantic writing in the final volume.
If Rinne couldn't work that experience into the manuscript, the whole trip would have been for nothing.
Fortunately, Rinne answered:
"Obviously, I'd get up and step on Oppa."
"I hate that I immediately understood you meant 'a walk in the park.'"
"What are you gonna do if you hate it~? What can you do about it, Oppa~?"
Rinne needlessly teased me as she headed into the basement.
A few more days passed, and Rinne told me she had finished writing the final volume.
Instead of taking it over immediately, we spent some time reviewing it ourselves.
For the record, Rinne had insisted I shouldn't read it. She told me to wait until after the Cradle of Silence operation was over and the book had actually been published.
I wondered why. Then I read the manuscript and understood.
"Um, Rinne. This...."
Isn't this way too obviously based on me and you?
When I carefully asked her, Rinne reacted exactly as expected——
"Wh, whaaaaat......?!"
with extreme vehemence.
"Wh, whwhwhwhwhat kind of bullshit is that? What, does Oppa have, like, a narcissism problem? Schizophrenia? Something like that?"
I didn't.
Nor did I have any other mental disorder, so I could say this with confidence.
The relationship and development between the protagonist and main heroine in the completed final volume were far too reminiscent of Rinne and me.
Take the date near the end of the story. It followed the exact route we had taken.
In other words, she had plagiarized the date route I suggested.
"You plagiarized my novel when you planned the date course, Oppa! You suggested it as a pilgrimage concept!"
"Well, if you really want to split hairs, you could say that......"
"In the first place, how common is it for a final volume to revisit every single background location that appeared in the series? It's a kind of cliché!"
Rinne argued furiously.
But no matter how I looked at it, she had clearly rewritten the story using Rinne and me as models. The route wasn't the only similarity.
The conversations we'd during that date and the things that happened were all reproduced almost exactly.
Most of all—
"......Was the kiss scene always there?"
"I-it was there from the start.... I just omitted it from the plot outline...!"
No, I was pretty sure there was no way she'd omitted something as important as a kiss from the outline.
More than that, even the setup of a dangerous mistake caused by the two characters defining "kiss" differently was a dead giveaway.
And then there was the even bigger problem: the past-life foreshadowing.
When Rinne wrote only the synopsis last time, she had identified two problems: the romance lacked precision, and the main heroine Roxy's past-life foreshadowing was never resolved.
In the completed manuscript, however, that plot thread was tied up just as neatly as the now-polished romance.
The problem was that the way it was resolved...... was identical to Rinne's actual past life.
Maybe even she could not deny that part.
So Rinne changed tactics.
"Fine! I used my own story as is! So what! What's so bad about that? Can't a writer infuse their own life into their work?!"
Hmm.
I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with it, nor that she needed to change it.
It just felt...... strange.
More than that, it was embarrassing. I could feel Rinne's feelings for me in every line.
It was like receiving a book-length love confession.
"Oh, seriously. Fine. I'll fix it."
"No, no. You don't have to."
It was embarrassing and absurd for me only because I knew exactly how the story had been created. As a novel, I thought it worked perfectly.
So we took the manuscript as it was and went to see Jang Yu-na again.
Naturally, we also brought documents proving we had met her other condition: clearing the Barna Defense Battle at B-rank or higher.
When we met again, Jang Yu-na carefully examined both sets of documents.
Then she started a kind of interview, focusing on the novel rather than the combat documents, which were not really debatable.
Why did you handle this part this way? Why did you choose this development? Why does this character react like this? ...And so on.
That too was a test of whether Rinne's writing ability was still what it had once been.
If she couldn't write a proper Salvation Narrative, then far from saving Jang Yu-na's former subordinates, she herself would be consumed by the Cradle of Silence.
Was that why? Or was it simply because the subject was writing?
Either way, Rinne answered seriously and with care.
The awkward part was that embarrassing personal stories inevitably came up. As already established, most of the novel drew its motifs from Rinne's life and mine.
After listening at length to the experiences that had contributed to the novel, Jang Yu-na——
"......Sniffle."
began to cry.
"What's wrong? Are you sick somewhere?"
"No. I'm sorry. I just heard such a wonderful Salvation Narrative that my... internal Salvation-Narrative Receptor Organ had a hypersensitivity reaction, and I ended up shedding tears as a spinal reflex. Hnggg."
"Ah, yes...."
For a moment I thought I had been an idiot to worry about her, but only for a moment.
Jang Yu-na gave Rinne and me a thumbs-up.
"Good. This is enough for me to trust you with them."
Then Jang Yu-na handed us the data on her former subordinates.
Of course, she didn't forget to add this request.
"You must save them. I sincerely ask this of you."
We promised just as sincerely that we would do our best.
***
Once I had the materials, I headed straight to Krädel's command room and called a meeting.
The topic, naturally——
<The Cradle of Silence Assault Operation Plan>
Every member of Krädel's forces attended, including our unofficial member, Sumire.
Seeing everyone gathered like this, Krädel had a surprisingly large population.
So why was Laika still the only one with an attack button?
Well, I should be grateful I had at least turned Rinne into combat personnel, even if only as support.
I stopped dwelling on that depressing thought and wrote on the board.
—Operation Objective: Purification and Rescue of Corrupted Biodroids
As soon as I finished the sentence, Alicia raised her hand.
"Are we not going to eliminate Eve? For the record, I'm not asking out of curiosity. I need to submit the operation plan to my superiors."
......Did she really need to add that last part?
Either way, I decided not to nitpick.
Instead, as requested, I explained our objective in more detail.
"If the situation allows, we might be able to subjugate her. But we won't make that our goal."
Our objective was strictly to rescue the brainwashed troops.
There were several reasons for that decision.
First, Rinne's wish—the reason we were attempting this operation at all—was to save her readers, not to destroy Eve.
Even if we wanted to eliminate Eve, we probably didn't have the strength to do it.
To put it bluntly, I couldn't even guarantee that we could successfully rescue the three biodroids.
Alicia asked again.
"How exactly do you intend to rescue them in the first place?"
"Just as I said last time. Rinne will use Narrative Granting to overpower the brainwashing narrative on the enemy units and bring them back to their senses."
"Will that really work? The disparity in processing power should be immense."
I turned to Sumire.
Sumire flinched in fright.
"I-I'm sorry......! To think I, a freeloader, would be so presumptuous as to join in on a strategy meeting......! I'll see myself out......!"
"Stop."
I hadn't glared at her for anything that ridiculous.
I had only looked at her because I wanted her to answer Alicia's question for me.
"Euheek......! I see...... I'm sorry for misunderstanding....... I'll raise my hand and stand once the explanation is over......."
Sumire apologized again and explained.
She said it was entirely possible to free them from their infected state using the method I had devised.
Unlike my own reckless insistence that it'd work, her claim was based on data.
Using her knowledge and Krädel's analysis equipment, Sumire had created a set of simulated combat data.
It modeled what would happen if Rinne's Narrative Granting clashed directly with Eve's.
And what conditions would let Rinne's Salvation Narrative overwhelm Eve's Corruption Narrative.
The result——
"Well...... I can't say it's exact because it's only a simulation, but it showed...... that if Rinne applies a perfect Salvation Narrative after each enemy unit's vitality has been reduced by at least 70 percent, the brainwashing can be removed......."
"So in short, you mean we have to do it like catching a Pocketmon."
I really wished she wouldn't use such a strange analogy in the middle of a serious operation meeting.
Though I had to admit the basic idea was similar: reduce the target's vitality to make it easier to capture.
"Then what's the problem? Why can't we guarantee the rescue will work?"
"What else would it be?"
The three Corrupted units whose vitality we needed to reduce by 70 percent were simply too strong.
All three were combat biodroids, and all three had an Overall Combat Power Rank of B.
At that point, Laika, who had been listening quietly, cut in.
"Hm? If that's all, couldn't Laika handle them~?"
Unfortunately, Laika could not handle them.
It wasn't simply because there were three of them.
Laika's Overall Combat Power Rank was A. If the enemies were B-rank, she could probably handle about three at once, though only barely.
With Rinne providing buffs and debuffs, I could even claim—if I exaggerated a little—that Laika had some breathing room.
The problem was that they weren't ordinary B-ranks.
"Euheh? They're not?"
They weren't.
"A biodroid that becomes Corrupted has phase power forcibly injected into it by a Lord Legion, so it tends to become stronger than its listed specs."
Typically, that raised its rank by about one tier.
In other words, each of the three units would effectively be A-rank, strong enough to match Laika one-on-one.
With the gap that small, even Rinne's support wouldn't let Laika fight all three at once.
She could barely beat one, barely hold out against two, and would definitely lose to three. That was roughly the situation.
And that assumed a clean fight against exactly those three.
Reality wouldn't give us such an ideal matchup. The hive would contain more than just the Corrupted.
It was reasonable to assume the enemy force consisted of three A-rank biodroids plus a large number of lesser enemies.
So we wouldn't aim to eliminate Eve, and we would avoid one-against-many engagements.
"So then, the strategy is to lure them out one by one and defeat them in detail~?"
Laika asked.
I shrugged. Exactly.
Rinne, who had been listening quietly, finally asked a question.
"But how do we lure them out one by one?"
Wow.
She had really hit the core.
"Don't talk nonsense."
"No, that really is the core of this operation and the greatest difficulty."
We had decided on the basic strategy: lure the enemies out one at a time and defeat them in detail.
The problem was how to lure them.
"Do you have some kind of good plan?"
I shook my head.
There was no good plan—no best-case solution.
There was, however, one fairly awful plan. A last-resort solution.
First, one important fact: before completely losing consciousness, the infected biodroids had removed their own communication capabilities.
That meant they could not communicate with Eve or other higher entities in real time.
They would instead be autonomously tracking and destroying enemies according to instructions Eve had entered beforehand.
So the basic strategy of luring them out one at a time was sound.
The problem was that the Cradle of Silence itself was Eve's domain.
"According to the report Jang Yu-na wrote, Eve seems capable of detecting any biodroid that enters her domain."
More precisely, she detected activity within the Beta Phase, to which biodroids and Legions belonged.
So if Laika or Rinne tried to lure an enemy out, Eve would likely detect them and send whatever lesser units she could mobilize in real time.
That would cause a commotion, draw in the other Corrupted, and render the entire defeat-in-detail strategy useless.
Which meant——
"You can't possibly mean you intend to do the luring yourself?"
Alicia asked, sounding appalled.
I nodded.
"That's right."
As the commander—and an ordinary human—I belonged to the Alpha Phase.
Eve could not detect me. As a full-brain biodroid, she had almost no way to sense anything except phase power.
That was precisely why Jang Yu-na, the most vulnerable of them, was the only one to come back alive after entering the Cradle of Silence.
Eve could track Jang Yu-na's subordinates through the Beta Phase they emitted, but she couldn't properly track Jang Yu-na herself because she was human.
Inspired by that example, I proposed the following.
"I'll infiltrate the laboratory and lure the Corrupted units outside the detection range."
After that, Laika would subdue the unit, and the subdued unit would be purified by Rinne.
That was the last-resort plan I had come up with, and at the same time the only plan I could see for successfully taking the Cradle of Silence.