074. Power-Hiding Nerd (1)
074. Hidden Powerhouse (1)
The story went back to the previous evening.
That day, I was tied up with off-base errands all day long.
In the morning, for instance, I stopped by Allied Forces Headquarters to handle the paperwork for taking over a new forward base.
In the afternoon, I met with a Genesis Industry representative to negotiate.
On top of that, while I was out anyway, I even purchased supplies the unit members needed.
Thanks to that, by the time I returned to base, the sun had already set.
I couldn't just go straight back to my quarters and rest. Among the documents I'd received all day, there were several that needed processing that very day.
I unpacked just enough to get settled, then headed straight for the command room—and found Rinne there.
"......Hm?"
"Oh, hey, Oppa. Welcome back."
Why was she greeting me so naturally?
"What brings you to the command room?"
"Just drafting a side-job permit form to submit to headquarters."
"For publishing your final volume?"
"Yep. The form can only be printed here, so I came up to fill it out. I'm almost done, so wait."
Anyone watching would think it was her spot.
She was just using my spot without permission.
......Or, maybe I should set up a workstation for Rinne while I'm at it.
When I asked her that, Rinne shook her head vigorously.
"Nope. If you make something like that, you'll just make me work here too. I'll just keep sneaking in and using it like this."
"Nice to see you're so brazen about it."
"Hmph-hmph."
That wasn't a compliment. Don't look so proud.
Well, I didn't plan on foisting any paperwork onto Rinne at this point anyway.
Whenever hacking work was needed, I could just call her in briefly and have her do it, and that was that.
Anyway, I waved her off, telling her to hurry up and leave, and Rinne soon vacated the spot.
......She did, but she didn't leave right away.
"What are you doing here, Oppa?"
"Work."
"Yeah? Hmm——"
Rinne said that, and then dragged a chair over next to mine.
She perched lightly on it, slipped off her slippers and knee-high socks, and tossed them aside.
Then she rested her bare, pale legs across my thighs.
I was dumbfounded and asked.
"What are you doing?"
"I just thought it was about time I put you in your place a little."
"......You do know you're a soldier and I'm the Commander, right?"
"Yep. You know, a soldier has to put her Commander in his place every once in a while, right? So he doesn't get too cocky?"
I thought the subject and object had switched places there.
Whether that was the case or not, Rinne curled her toes and rubbed them against my stomach or thigh.
And as she did, she said in a voice brimming with mischief.
"You know, Oppa. You've been looking down on me a lot lately, haven't you? That really pisses me off. Especially when you're weaker than me."
"Aren't you ashamed to compare yourself to a human? You don't even overwhelm me like Laika does—you barely manage to win."
"So what? Pathetic. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic."
For the first time in a while, Rinne had gone fully into her bratty-little-girl routine.
But it didn't really annoy me anymore. Because no matter what she said like that, a numerical value clearly showed her true feelings were different.
[Phase Resonance Rate with Commander: 96%]
As you could see, Rinne's feelings toward me were full of fondness.
This hadn't happened overnight.
The phase resonance rate wasn't an important stat for her, so I hadn't bothered to tell her, but her resonance rate toward me had been parked in the high 90 percent range for quite a while.
The catalyst was probably when she learned the secret of her past life at the mansion.
From then on, her emotional walls had crumbled down, and lately, she had come to identify with me by as much as 96%.
That was clearly what Rinne's heart showed numerically.
But Rinne couldn't acknowledge that fact.
Rinne wasn't emotionally strong enough to admit that she liked someone as a person and relied on him.
Especially when that person was the Commander she'd looked down on all this time. By then, sheer sunk cost made it even harder for her to admit that fondness.
Therefore, she had been attributing all those positive emotions not to herself, but to 'Yeonhwa.'
For example, 'This feeling of wanting to be with the Commander is because I was unconsciously influenced by Yeonhwa.'
Or, 'The way a smile keeps slipping out whenever I see the Commander is also because Yeonhwa's personality is acting up.'
......That sort of feeling.
That was how she'd protected her pathetic little pride all this time.
But now, even that had become impossible.
Because Yeonhwa was no longer some indistinct afterimage indistinguishable from Rinne.
Her existence as an independent personality had been acknowledged, and she had come to live alongside Rinne.
Conversely, Rinne, for her part, had been freed from Yeonhwa's influence.
Thus, now that Rinne's own personality was fully in the foreground, every emotion Rinne was feeling was entirely her own.
Even the 96% Phase Resonance Rate was simply a number derived from what she herself felt toward me.
And yet, Rinne couldn't accept that fact.
Instead, she'd embarked on a path of struggle, actively denying and resisting her own feelings.
"Hmph. Hmph-hmph. A fool who gets ignored by his soldiers~ An idiot~ I totally hate weak men like Oppa~♥"
......Like this.
In a sense, she was more bothersome than Laika.
Well, the way to deal with her was much easier than with Laika, though.
Laika was emotionally volatile, so I couldn't respond carelessly; I had to address what she said point by point.
On the other hand, with Rinne, words weren't even necessary.
Just like this, if I silently stared into Rinne's eyes with a blank face.
"Aang? What are you doing?"
If I stared.
"......Ha, haa? Why are you staring like that? Is there, something weird on my face?"
If I stared.
"...S-stop staring, I said. Why—why are you doing this? You really have a nasty personality, Oppa..."
If I stared.
"...Heuing...! A-all right, I get it! I get it! I'll move my feet, okay?! Seriously, I moved them, so stop staring...! My heart feels like it's going to burst...!"
See?
Just like that, easily suppressed.
If I took it a step further, cornered her against the wall, and stared, her eyes would grow moist and she'd even apologize, but I decided not to go that far today.
I was too busy.
Was that a mistake?
Rinne, whose embarrassment gauge had maxed out, didn't flee to the basement this time; she remained in the seat beside me.
And then she started talking to me for no good reason while I was busy working.
"When are you finishing?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Thought I'd buy my cheapskate Oppa dinner."
How considerate of her.
But I shook my head.
Probably wouldn't finish today, I told her, so she should eat alone.
At that, Rinne grumbled as if she'd been utterly stood up by a lover.
"Can't you just dump work like that onto Alicia?"
I wished I could.
But, regrettably, it was impossible.
"Why?"
"Because that one absolutely refuses to do normal work after hours."
I couldn't even complain about it. That was within regulations.
Of course, in practice, almost no biodroids would refuse when their Commander asked for help... but unfortunately, Alicia was one of those extremely rare exceptions.
In fact, when I'd sent her a message asking for help a little while ago, this was what happened.
[Me: Alicia, 30 documents have piled up. Save me.]
[Alicia: This user is currently away.]
[Me: If it were me, I'd spend the time you used setting up that fake "This user is currently away" auto-reply coming down here to help.]
[Alicia: This user is currently away.]
As you could see, she was thoroughly ignoring me.
"Call her out and discipline her later."
"You keep her in line. You've been around longer than she has."
"Ah, Alicia is a little awkward for me. I never know what she's thinking. More importantly, I don't even know what she actually does."
I agreed with that.
As I nodded along with that sentiment, Rinne asked me.
"But really, what kind of unit is she?"
"She's the operator and paperwork handler."
"No, I mean. Was she originally assigned to a position like that?"
I didn't think so, of course.
A base this small would never normally be assigned a dedicated operator. The Commander usually handled field operations himself with AI assistance.
Never mind the paperwork handler position. Paperwork was fundamentally the Commander's responsibility.
"Then? What was her original position?"
"Who knows. Considering the size of the unit, she'd probably be a combat soldier, just like you or Laika?"
"...Why are you guessing?"
Well, because I'd never seen Alicia's exact spec data.
Some time ago, I'd asked her to let me run a precision analysis, but she'd flatly refused.
She asked if it wasn't just groundwork for making her fight.
It actually was for that purpose, but pure curiosity was also part of it.
And by looking through her detailed specs, I might find other suitable tasks for her besides operator.
No, what did the purpose even matter? I was her unit commander; wanting to see one of my own unit members' specs should have been reason enough.
......Well, anyway.
In the end, I never got to see Alicia's specs.
Still, Dunkel Industries, which manufactured her, primarily produced combat bodies.
And since Alicia's base model was the 'Margitte,' which was used for combat, I was just making the guess that she had probably been classified as a combat unit at the time of delivery.
"And that's where it ends?"
"It ends?"
"You really have no grit, Oppa."
I thought it was practical.
More importantly, if the person herself refused measurement, there was no way to find out.
"You could just look at her old personnel file."
"Old personnel file?"
"Yep. She got kicked out of another unit too, just like me or Laika, right? If she underwent precision analysis even in her previous unit, her spec data must be stored somewhere. In that sense, I'm saying you should dig through her old personnel files."
"I doubt it. I don't think she would've agreed to a measurement even back then."
No, that aside.
"Her entire previous personnel file was classified, you know?"
"Huh? Why?"
"How would I know that?"
This was also something the person herself would need to explain, but as you knew, Alicia never told her own story.
Thanks to that, I didn't even know what she did in her spare time, so how could I possibly know what she'd done in her previous unit?
I answered that way, my gaze fixed on the computer screen.
Then Rinne covered my screen with both hands.
"This won't do. Let's just look them up now."
"......Look what up?"
"I'm saying, let's look. Alicia's old spec data. I'll crack it open for you."
......Did we need to?
"No, I just got curious listening to you. And you never know, right? She might be some hidden powerhouse with ridiculous skills."
"Read your light novels in moderation."
"Ah, shut up. Anyway, I'm curious, so I'm cracking it open. Are you looking or not, Oppa?"
"......If you look, I'll look too, I guess?"
I answered dismissively.
Because until that moment, I had absolutely no interest or expectations.
I was taking it lightly: if Rinne was going to crack it open anyway, I might as well stick around and have a look.
That was genuinely all I meant by it.
But a short while later, the old spec data Rinne found for Alicia was enough to bewilder both me and Rinne.
== Biodroid Precision Analysis Results ==
[Basic Information]
Unique Name: Alicia
Model Name: Margitte (Manufactured by Dunkel Industries)
Role: Sniper
Phase Resonance Rate with Commander: - (No Commander Assigned)
[Primary Stats]
- Endurance: A / A
- Strength: A+ / A+
- Agility: S / S
- Phase Sensitivity: S / S
- Combat Proficiency (Overall): S / S
* Sniping: S / S
* Precision Strike: S / S
* Energy Projection: S / S
* Tactical Judgment: S / S
- Synchronization Rate (Primary Armament: Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle): 99%
[Primary Components]
- Skeletal Frame: Margit-19
- Sensor Unit: Tsukiyo (Temperance Type)
- Core: DK-775
- Phase Resonance Circuit: Black No. 1
- Telescope (Exclusive Component): Asterisk Green
- Skill Module Slot 1: <Sniping> Lv.11
- Skill Module Slot 2: <Independent Action> Lv.10
- Skill Module Slot 3: Empty
[Overall Assessment]
S-Rank Sniper
As the unit's top asset, warrants the highest level of commendation.
== ==
That was the reason I had felt compelled to reassign roles within the unit.
I assumed there would be no objections.