064. Salvation (2)
064. Salvation (2)
[What's the situation?]
Alicia asked.
I hesitated before answering.
Honestly, I wasn't able to assess the situation calmly either.
Barely steadying my pounding heart, I reported.
"The enemy units are down. Both of them."
As for the tentacle ripped out of Violetta, Laika regained her footing and used Last Bloom's Shape Shift - Full Bloom to destroy it utterly.
But saying Violetta herself had been "taken down" wasn't entirely accurate.
The moment the tentacle was extracted, she collapsed with a soft thump, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
In fact, it probably was not much different.
The tentacle had been injecting energy into Violetta to keep her moving by force.
Once it detached, the power sustaining her body vanished.
In the midst of that, Rinne had granted Violetta the Salvation Narrative.
Perhaps because it hadn't been too late, Violetta was showing signs of recovery.
The real problem wasn't her, but the person lying beside her.
It was Rinne.
Three minutes ago — right after granting Violetta the Salvation Narrative — she had been stabbed by the tentacle.
The impact point was Rinne's back. The resulting wound was at least six centimeters deep.
Rinne's body, model Kurenai, had its core in the center of the chest. Given the wound's location and depth, the core was likely damaged.
Maybe that was why. Rinne had completely lost consciousness.
"Alicia, is there any way to get Rinne out of here immediately? Like generating a portal at this location...."
[No. As you know, portals cannot be generated inside the hive. Even if we generated one outside the hive, breaking through with our current firepower would be impossible. Therefore, I cannot recommend extraction.]
"Even so, if we risk our lives and break through—"
[In the first place.]
Alicia said something unexpected.
[Even if you were to return by some miraculous means, it would be difficult to keep Rinne alive.]
"Why?"
[Judging from the data transmitted to the base, Rinne is already contaminated by the Legion phase.]
At that statement, I didn't feel a chill run down my spine.
Because I'd expected it. The tentacle surely hadn't been trying only to physically destroy Rinne.
Just as it had done to the three biodroids including Violetta, it had surely attempted infection.
However, if there was one point I was pinning my hopes on, it was the possibility that we could return to base before the contamination reached her brain.
As long as her brain remained intact, it could be transferred into a new body. Then, just as Yeonhwa had been preserved, Rinne herself could survive.
And I had thought there was certainly still time left, but—
[No. The Legion phase has already invaded her brain. The infection rate is currently 4 percent—no, 6 percent. If the current trend continues, approximately 56 minutes remain until complete takeover.]
"Then?"
Laika cut in right there.
"Alicia, Commander, then what happens to Rinne? What should we do?"
Tears were welling in Laika's eyes as she asked again and again.
Neither Alicia nor I could give Laika an answer, desperate as she was.
Not because we didn't know the answer. On the contrary, we knew it all too well, and that was precisely why we couldn't answer.
We could only destroy her brain here, release the core, and allow her to die as a person—
I could not bring myself to say that.
Because to Laika too, Rinne — though they had often bickered — was ultimately a precious comrade.
It was the same for me.
Rinne was a precious comrade and a fellow soldier of Krädel.
No, it wasn't just that.
Even if only for a single day, Rinne had been my lover.
She was someone precious who had shared my childhood with me.
And now Rinne was going to be sacrificed because of my selfish desire to get Sion back.
And in a moment like this, in a place like this.
She had finally completed the salvation her readers had longed for, with only the ending left to write.
"...I can't let it end like this. Not like this."
So.
There had to be some way.
At that moment, as I clenched my teeth and muttered—
"...There is one."
A confident answer came back.
It wasn't Laika who spoke. The tone and voice were completely different.
It wasn't Alicia either. The voice came from right beside me, not through the receiver in my ear.
Laika and I turned our heads toward that direction at the same time.
There stood Violetta.
Still in tatters. Yet, with movements far gentler now that she was freed from Eve's domination.
Laboriously raising her body, shattered and broken in places, Violetta spoke.
"There's still a way to save her."
"...How?"
I asked.
I think it was me who asked. Maybe it was Laika.
I was so beside myself that I couldn't even tell that much.
After all, nothing else mattered.
As long as there was a way to save Rinne.
Violetta answered with something I couldn't understand.
"You just have to ask Eve for help."
What on earth did that mean?
Ask Eve for help?
Eve was the one infecting Rinne. How were we supposed to ask her for help, and how could that possibly save Rinne?
To my bewilderment, Violetta said:
"...No. Not every Eve has turned to the Legion's side. There's a brain that hasn't been infected yet."
"An uninfected brain?"
"Yes."
Violetta continued.
When the Cradle of Silence was taken over by the Legion, all twenty-six brains that comprised Eve's main server were infected.
But Eve wasn't composed solely of the main server. Even Eve herself believed that was all there was, but a separate backup server actually existed.
The backup server consisted of a single brain—Eve No. 27 alone.
That Eve No. 27, just before the infection reached it, had formed a firewall and isolated itself from the other brains.
As a result, she managed to survive while concealing her existence from the main server.
Not only that—
"Eve No. 27 also covertly attempted to contact one particular external biodroid acquired by the main-server Eves."
"By specific external biodroid, you mean...."
"Yes. I'm talking about myself."
Violetta said.
Thanks to Eve No. 27's intervention, Violetta had been able to regain her suppressed ego.
Of course, Eve No. 27 hadn't taken such a risk out of pure goodwill. She needed someone who could help resolve this situation, and Violetta had been selected as that helper.
For that reason, Eve No. 27 had made an urgent request of Violetta.
To find the code for the 'Healing Phase' hidden somewhere in the main server.
"...The Healing Phase?"
"Ah, you don't know, I see. So... it's a concept that appeared in some novel...."
Violetta began explaining, simply calling it a "novel" instead of a "light novel."
But there was no need. I already knew.
The Healing Phase.
A concept appearing in the <Beyond the Cradle> series, the novel written by Rinne, who lay collapsed over there — a special phase that brings salvation to any existence it touches.
Of course, no such absurd phase actually existed.
It was merely a setting Rinne had invented for her novel.
And the origin of that setting had been nothing more than a lie fabricated by Eve to lure people in.
A lie that was beautiful, and nothing more: that it could save everyone who came to it.
When Rinne learned the truth, she had been deeply disappointed, and she also felt guilty toward the readers who had been deceived by it and suffered harm.
Violetta corrected me as if wondering how I had arrived at such a bizarre interpretation.
"...No. Eve never once leaked her own information to the outside."
"What? Then what were those leaked materials that Rinne saw?"
I asked, dumbfounded.
Violetta flinched in surprise. It seemed she had only just realized that Rinne was the author Single-sided Coin.
Eventually, Violetta answered cautiously.
"Let me be clear. The information about Eve that Author Rinne mentioned finding by chance while web-surfing in the Volume 1 afterword was completely true."
The original Eve had been created to save all people through the Healing Phase.
And, technically, the implementation of that Healing Phase had been possible.
The problem was that the Healing Phase was single-use.
"Single-use?"
"Yes. I mean, it could only save one person at a time... but it seems that activating it just once would end up destroying dozens of brains."
Brains suitable for use in Eve weren't easy to cultivate.
Each one cost tens of billions. Activation would expend dozens of them, all for a single use.
The 'salvation' obtainable that way was generally abstract. In other words, you couldn't know what form it would manifest in, so there was absolutely no way to operate it cost-effectively.
For that reason, the researchers changed the direction of the Cradle of Silence project midway, turning it into a massive brainwashing device for converting Legions into allies.
Even so, buried within Eve's dummy data, 'a miracle that could only happen in a light novel' remained.
The Healing Phase from the novel, however incomplete, truly did exist.
...There was no time to marvel at that fact.
"So? Why did she ask you to find the Healing Phase code?"
"To activate it, of course."
If that happened, the infected Eves located at the server's center wouldn't withstand the phase pressure and would die out.
Then she—the Eve hiding behind a firewall in the backup server—would be able to seize control.
It wasn't a bad deal for Violetta either.
If the normal Eve seized control, Luce and Cookie could also be restored.
In order to return safely with everyone, Violetta had set out to find the Healing Phase — which was also the reason she had headed for the Cradle of Silence in the first place.
"...And before long, I found it."
The sector where the Healing Phase was activated, and the entry route.
She had figured out everything.
But she hadn't been able to activate the Healing Phase right away.
For safety, the Healing Phase was coded so that it could only be activated by an 'Eve.'
"When I learned that, Eve No. 27 and I discussed it and arrived at one answer."
Eve No. 27 would leave her own domain, infiltrate the central server, and activate the Healing Phase.
They had decided to take that final risk and save everyone.
"But Eve is fine, and the fact that your unit members were also being controlled by the infected Eve all this time...."
I carefully broached the subject.
Violetta nodded grimly.
Just as I had guessed, the two hadn't been able to activate the Healing Phase.
Because they'd been discovered by the other Eves right before activation.
As a result, the infected Eves finally seized control of Violetta's ego.
In the process, thanks to Violetta buying time, Eve No. 27 was able to flee safely to the backup server — but—
"...The infected Eves completely blocked the channel leading to the backup server."
That was how it had ended.
Nevertheless.
"The backup server—and Eve No. 27—are still alive. And not every channel connecting to it has been blocked."
Violetta said.
Back when this place was still a research lab, the researchers used a device called the External Neural Network to enter Eve's inner world.
The connection through that External Neural Network had not been blocked.
"So you're saying I should use that neural network to connect to the backup server where Eve No. 27 is, then bring Eve No. 27 out to the main server?"
"Yes. Then, if you activate the Healing Phase code in the main server... you should be able to save Author Rinne."
"I understand that, but how can we extract her to the main server? You said the path between the two servers was blocked."
"Anyone who connects through the artificial neural network is recognized as a researcher, so they can bypass the firewalls between channels. You can use that to move while bundled together with Eve as a single data unit."
Just at that moment, Alicia cut in.
[I'm against it.]
I thought it was just as well. There was something I'd been wanting to ask her anyway.
"Alicia, is everything Violetta just said the truth? She's not spouting nonsense as an aftereffect of being brainwashed, is she? Or maybe she's still being unconsciously controlled by Eve right now?"
[I considered that possibility as well and checked, but I believe Violetta's claims themselves are valid.]
Alicia gave her reasons.
One of the Eves was in fact emitting a completely different phase pattern, and Alicia had just received data related to the Cradle of Silence's original development purpose.
Violetta's phase wavelength had also been confirmed to be completely normal.
Alicia assured me there was no reason to doubt her mental state.
"Then that's fine. What's the problem?"
[Simply put, the difficulty of the operation is the problem.]
Alicia fired that back, then rattled off the problems one after another.
Suppose, as Violetta said, I connected to the External Neural Network and uploaded my ego to Eve's server.
In that case, Eve would immediately detect the intruder's presence and launch pursuit.
And if discovered, I would certainly be eliminated, just like a computer virus detected by an antivirus program.
In short, if caught, I would die.
Even if I somehow evaded Eve's immune response, escorted Eve No. 27, and reached the sector containing the Healing Phase, I still wouldn't be able to activate the code easily.
Eve wasn't stupid, and there was no way she would leave a sector that had been breached once before undefended.
Undoubtedly, some kind of barrier would be in place.
[Overall, the probability of success is less than 10 percent.]
"I fully agree."
Violetta concurred as well.
She concurred, but—
"Still, we have to try! Rinne is on the verge of dying!"
Laika and I, both running hot, shouted in perfect unison.
Of course, the harmonious atmosphere didn't last long.
Because immediately after we answered in unison, Violetta told us:
"In that case, will you decide who connects?"
"What?"
"Ah, the External Neural Network I mentioned only supports one person. One of you will have to stay here and wait."
At that, Laika said as if it were obvious:
"Alright~ Then Laika will go in~"
From there—
"What are you talking about? I'm the Commander; I should go in."
"Euhye~? Commander, do you think you're better at carrying out operations than Laika?"
"No. Once we're inside, you and I are basically the same kind of virus anyway."
"Even if that's true~ Anyway, if we're going to risk our lives, it's more rational for Laika to do it~"
"How is that more rational?"
"Because Laika will commit suicide right away if Commander dies or something."
...Now that she put it that way, she did have a point, didn't she?
No, I couldn't send out a mentally unstable woman who casually dropped such morbid remarks.
Aside from that, there was one more important reason.
Which was—
[Excuse me.]
Right at that moment, another voice came through the communication line.
It was Luce. She asked us for help.
[We're starting to run short on firepower over here.... Could you send us one more combatant?]
At that, Laika scowled. She was the only combat-capable asset here.
Violetta was present as well, but she was in absolutely no condition to fight.
In that situation, Violetta delivered the decisive blow.
"I also think it would be better for you to go in, Commander. The line I mentioned was designed for humans, so I can't rule out complications if a biodroid connects."
At that, Laika gave up.
"Uheee... Then, I guess there's no choice...."
Immediately after, Laika clenched both fists tightly and pleaded.
"You have to come back safely. If even you don't make it back alive, Commander, Laika will have no choice but to kill herself."
Could that even be called a plea?
It was closer to a threat, but anyway.
"Don't worry. I'll definitely come back alive."
And with Rinne recovered, of course.
Not forgetting to add that I would bring Rinne back too, I began the operation.
The operation name was the subtitle planned for Volume 16 of Beyond the Cradle once this was all over.
Salvation.