082. Obedience (3)
082. Obedience (3)
It may come as a surprise, but frontline Commanders dislike biodroids with a lot of experience.
The reason was very simple.
Experienced biodroids did not listen.
Or rather, they had a strong tendency to make judgments in place of the Commander.
Put another way, they were extremely stubborn.
It couldn't be helped.
In the end, it was the biodroids' job to fight on the field. The more battlefield experience they accumulated, the more their own know-how or style developed, and once that became fixed, it turned into stubbornness.
For example, Laika was like that. Even she, in the early days of her rehabilitation attempt, had made things difficult for me, her Commander, with her obsession with defense.
And Laika's military career was only one year long.
On top of that, Seo Se-rin, her Commander at the time, was a complete rookie who'd received a supplementary commission.
So what about Alicia?
— Three years of frontline service as a main-force operative in the elite 7033 Special Task Force.
— And even that was in a sniper role, carrying out solo operations.
— After being demoted to Krädel under those circumstances, she then served another five years as the overall supervisor of Krädel's operations.
'Overall supervisor of operations' made it sound better than it was; during that period, it was fair to say Alicia had lived as the Commander.
Because until I arrived, Krädel was a pseudo-base where new Commanders were appointed and left again on a cycle of every few days. Alicia had handled all the duties a Commander should have been doing by proxy.
In other words, Alicia had accumulated a combined eight years of experience as an ace-grade soldier in the military and as the Commander of a forward base.
As a result, the current Alicia was——
"Commander, the training difficulty is too low. Please raise it. Ah, it would also be good to increase the number of enemy troops by about 1.3 times."
An insane ego monster insisting she was still world-class.
......No, she actually was world-class, wasn't she?
Even now, she was still a sniper with formidable stats. Some of her ability scores remained S-rank.
It wouldn't be a stretch to consider her a sniper hovering around the A-Rank range.
Even so, her stats had still dropped.
Especially the stats referred to as 'basic physical fitness,' including endurance, had dropped significantly to the C-B rank level.
Yet, Alicia was still playing as if she were the same Alicia from back when she was active as a first-rate sniper.
"Alicia, I've already raised the level enough. If I raise it any further, it'll become unmanageable. And......."
"What are you talking about? I am not even out of breath."
"......And follow my instructions. Stop constantly playing according to your own stubborn whims."
I pointed this out through gritted teeth.
But Alicia merely asked in return, as if I'd said something ridiculous.
"I am merely training in an objectively superior manner."
Saying that, Alicia presented the training results so far.
==Training Results Interim Assessment==
Attacks Landed: 37/37
Enemy Legion Units Destroyed: 37/37
High Ground Captured: 3/3
Ally Damage: None
Overall Assessment: You're doing great! Keep it up!
== ==
Indeed. Picture-perfect results.
Excellent results, but——
"Wrong."
I declared flatly.
Alicia asked, as if she couldn't understand.
"......Are you saying that if I had followed your orders, Commander, the assessment would have been even better than this?"
"No, that's not what I'm talking about."
Frankly speaking, as a combat asset, Alicia had a wealth of experience and outstanding talent.
She might even be better than me at designing training programs.
"Then what exactly is wrong?"
Alicia, asking like a machine—more machine-like than a machine.
But I didn't answer her.
Some problems only mattered if the other person figured out the answer for themselves.
At least when it came to why a biodroid should obey her Commander, Alicia had to learn that lesson firsthand. That was my principle.
"I see. Then until I figure that out, I will train in my own style."
"......Suit yourself."
"Thank you."
Without a hint of hesitation, Alicia personally set up the training program and initiated the ultra-high-difficulty training she had wanted.
For the next few days, Alicia's training results were excellent.
== Day 1 Training Results ==
[Biodroid 'Alicia's' ability scores have increased.]
- Strength C → C+
- Agility B → B+
- Sniping A → A+
- Spatial Awareness B- → B
== ==
== Day 2 Training Results ==
[Biodroid 'Alicia's' ability scores have increased.]
- Strength C+ → B-
- Agility B+ → A
- Phase Sensitivity B → B+
- Concentration B → B+
== ==
......It was roughly that sort of feeling.
Then, starting on the fifth day, she didn't even have me accompany her anymore.
She went to the training ground alone, configured the program however she liked, trained for 12–14 hours a day, then came by my quarters late in the evening only to drop off the results.
Several more days passed after that, and it became the 10th day since training had started.
That day, for some reason, Alicia skipped the evening report.
Had she decided it was no longer worth coming over every day just to report—or rub it in?
"...Okay, that crossed a line."
To be honest, I didn't need her to come and report in person to grasp the changes in her specs.
The training result values were being automatically transmitted via the PDA as well.
But regardless of that fact, verbal reporting was important.
Informing me individually every time her specs changed meant she acknowledged me as the Commander with the authority to manage her specs.
Skipping her report was a grave offense against my authority as Commander. At least, that was my ruling.
I stormed into Room 204, where Alicia's quarters were.
"Alicia, let's talk for a moment."
At that moment, Alicia was lying on her bed.
I only barely realized she was there because she had buried her entire body beneath the blanket and was not moving at all.
Whether I came in or not, whether I spoke to her or not, she ignored it all.
Getting heated, I approached Alicia and reprimanded her in a louder voice.
"Hey, do you think your Commander's orders are a jo—"
I was about to reprimand her.
But examining Alicia's condition up close, I hesitated.
It was because something about her state was strange.
In other words, Alicia's face, as she lay there, was flushed a bright red.
And amidst that, her whole body was drenched in sweat.
Just in case, I touched her forehead with my fingertip——
"Ow, hot...!"
It was incredibly hot.
A temperature so high that leaving my hand on it for just three seconds would clearly cause a burn.
"Could this be......."
At this point, I had a guess as to what kind of situation had occurred.
Nevertheless, I checked the PDA first to confirm.
Soon, among the 'unread messages,' I was able to find a report related to Alicia.
[A new Status Abnormality has been detected in biodroid 'Alicia'.]
- Circuit Overheat Syndrome (NEW!)
"As expected."
Circuit Overheat Syndrome.
A Status Abnormality that occurs when biological components, including the Phase Circuits, are damaged due to accumulated fatigue.
The main symptoms included high fever, chills, decreased circulatory system function, and leakage.
In short, it was the biodroid equivalent of a cold.
Ah, there was one characteristic that distinguished it from a cold.
[Due to Circuit Overheat Syndrome, biodroid 'Alicia' has suffered reduced ability scores.]
- Strength B → C
- Agility A+ → B
- Endurance A → C+
- Sniping A+ → A
- Phase Sensitivity A → B
- Spatial Awareness B+ → B-
- Concentration A → B
As I watched, her stats were dropping across the board.
Circuit Overheat Syndrome itself would get better after about ten days of good rest, but the decreased ability scores would not recover alongside it. They had to be raised again through further effort.
Therefore, taking appropriate rest from the beginning to prevent Circuit Overheat Syndrome from occurring was extremely important.
But Alicia had already come down with Circuit Overheat Syndrome.
......How was that even possible?
Circuit Overheat Syndrome wasn't something you caught easily, even if you wanted to.
That was because biodroids were incredibly durable. They could work through the night for several days without an issue.
I'd never seen anyone develop Circuit Overheat Syndrome during training—rather than actual combat—while supposedly training at her own pace.
"......No, maybe that was exactly the problem."
Her blind faith in her own pace had backfired.
Because Alicia had a low-sensitivity body type.
That meant she had trouble feeling pain even when something in her body was breaking down.
......She couldn't feel it, but that didn't mean the damage wouldn't accumulate.
It built up just like it did for others, and then, once it passed a certain threshold, the pain would hit her all at once.
Then, like a dam breaking, all the pain she hadn't felt would hit her at once.
That was exactly the state Alicia was in right now.
She had mistaken her current stamina for the S-rank stamina of her prime and pushed through a brutal training schedule without even realizing how hard she was overdoing it.
Then, today, on the 10th day, with her body pushed to its absolute limit, Circuit Overheat Syndrome had broken out.
As a result, all the effort of the past ten days was completely reset.
"......What is she, an idiot?"
I muttered, dumbfounded.
But Alicia couldn't return any answer.
Deeply asleep from the cold-like symptoms, she couldn't understand my words.
She just let out groans of suffering.
"That's why you should listen to me a bit."
It wasn't as if I'd specifically told her to follow orders with the possibility of catching Circuit Overheat Syndrome in mind.
To reveal the answer: the reason a biodroid had to obey a Commander's orders was ultimately that responsibility for the operation lay with the Commander.
It had nothing to do with the superiority of the instructions, or whether Circuit Overheat Syndrome had occurred or not.
Even if the order had been worse, and even if she had never developed Circuit Overheat Syndrome, Alicia—who had no ability to take responsibility for the consequences herself—had no authority to decide for herself.
I had hoped she would realize that fact——
"Commander."
As if cutting off my train of thought, Alicia called out to me.
"You awake?"
I looked back at Alicia and asked.
But.
"......Huh?"
Alicia was not awake.
Still asleep, she was only speaking to someone she had probably met in her dream.
"Why did you..."
"use me?"
With a faint voice, and in a tone slightly different from her current one, Alicia whispered.
"......I see."
I might have been mistaken in my own way as well.
***
Dawn.
Alicia opened her eyes.
Her mood was far from good.
It wasn't the fault of her aching body.
Rather, it was the fault of the old memories that the pain in her body had summoned.
The scattered blood and burst internal organs.
The horrific accident.
The military's attitude, which changed overnight.
The confiscated weapon. The nametag ripped away. The personal effects, cleared off somewhere unknown.
But what had been more frightening than all of that was,
the unfamiliar voice of the person she had thought of as family.
—Why is that my responsibility?
It wouldn't leave her ears.
Why was that?
Already five years had passed.
She had even made up her mind to uncover the truth.
Why was she still disappointed instead of angry?
Because she had trusted her that much.
Her promise that she would take responsibility.
In that sense, she had certainly learned one thing.
That the lot called Commanders were all, without exception, frauds.
All that talk about the unit being like family and taking unlimited responsibility was nothing but lip-service bullshit.
A Commander was just a public official who relayed orders from above. The moment a crisis came, they would shift the responsibility for following those orders onto the biodroid and flee.
Just as she reaffirmed that belief yet again—
"Huh?"
A familiar voice flowed into Alicia's ears.
"You're awake?"
Unconsciously, Alicia turned her head in that direction.
Her Commander was standing there.
......No, it probably wasn't something to state that simply.
This was her room.
She honestly had no sense of the time, but it clearly wasn't daytime. Everything around her was pitch-black.
So how was the Commander here?
Alicia tried to demand, 'What do you think you're doing?'
But the only thing that came out of her badly swollen throat was a cough.
"Cough, cough......!"
"Hey, easy. Just lie down."
The Commander pushed her raised upper body back under the blanket.
Under normal circumstances, she could have resisted without budging an inch.
Alicia could only let the Commander push her back down onto the bed.
Even after that.
"Here."
The Commander placed something on top of her head.
A wet towel.
Soon, a ssssss—sound like meat sizzling as it cooked came from the towel.
The Commander murmured as if joking.
"Somehow, you managed not to set the blanket on fire."
"It's a special material."
Alicia finally got her voice back, answered him, and only then asked her question.
"More importantly... what are you doing here? How did you get in?"
"A Commander can enter a soldier's room, you know."
"I know that, but I mean......."
"Why did I come?"
The Commander answered as if wondering why Alicia would even ask that.
"Because you're sick, I came. To nurse you."
"......What."
"If your resonating Commander stays nearby, recovery speeds up in proportion to the Phase Resonance Rate."
Meaning, she'd recover 47% faster.
The Commander added that, and a moment later, Alicia realized.
"......How do you know that?"
"Know what."
"That is, cough...! I mean the Phase Resonance Rate."
"Sumire looked it up for me while diagnosing."
Was that so.
Perhaps it would have been better to chase that parasite out after all.
To Alicia, who was suddenly regretting it, the Commander added with cheeky familiarity.
"Did you keep it private because it was too high for the persona you project?"
"......I simply disliked having a conversation on this topic. And as I've said before, it is not affection."
The question was how much she unconsciously saw the other person as overlapping with herself.
In that sense, she'd honestly admit it.
At some unconscious level, Alicia saw this man as 47 percent similar to herself.
It was not the kind of identification where she unconsciously equated someone she liked with herself, as Laika or Rinne did.
Rather, it was just that they objectively carried similar problems.
They had both been abandoned by their superiors, demoted to Krädel, and were barely scraping by through hopeless lives.
And yet her Phase Resonance Rate with this man was 47 percent.
But that was all.
"...Whatever the case, you did not need to nurse me. You only came to use this as an excuse to make me admit I was wrong, did you not?"
"Your method was wrong, to be sure. Since you ended up sick in bed like this."
"Then I must apologize for that."
"Then from now on, you'll train according to my orders."
Alicia didn't answer.
She couldn't answer.
The fact that she had been wrong had been proven, but that and this were separate matters.
Because this man was, in the end, also a Commander.
He pretended to care about his soldiers, but in the end he was only using everyone to find Sion, a woman who was something like his lover.
At heart, he was no different.
When a problem arose, instead of apologizing or admitting it was his fault, he would blame Alicia.
Without fail, he would——
"Still, I'm sorry. It's my fault."
......?
"What are you talking about?"
"No, I guess I should say I didn't take your characteristics into enough consideration."
He continued a moment later.
"But more than that, I think I misunderstood why you distrust my orders. It wasn't because you thought you were better than me, right? And you wouldn't be unaware of the principle that the one giving orders bears the responsibility.
"You just... could not trust it. If something went wrong after you did what your Commander told you, would that Commander really take responsibility? You have already lived through a time when one did not."
Don't be fooled, Alicia.
"From now on, I am going to show you that I take responsibility, so I can earn your trust."
He is a Commander.
"Nursing you is part of that. Getting sick this time was entirely your own doing, but even so, I am taking responsibility."
Commanders are all the same.
The only difference was,
The only difference was that Krädel had finally gotten a Commander crafty enough to make her want to be fooled one more time.
So.
So——
"Meat."
Maybe taking full advantage of him—
"......Huh?"
"I want to eat meat."
Might not be so bad.
***
Three days later.
Alicia recovered sooner than expected.
Soon, when Alicia returned to the training ground, how should I put it...... her style had changed a bit.
"You're not choosing a gun?"
"I will use whichever one you choose."
"......Then what about this one?"
"Yes."
"The training program?"
"I will go with the course you recommend."
"How about this?"
"Yes."
"Then this is okay too?"
"Yes."
"Should we leave the combat-power modifier like this?"
"Yes."
"And... paw?"
"What's this about?"
Alicia asked as she placed her hand on top of mine.
"Why are you doing that?"
"What do you mean?"
"You are acting differently."
"There is no difference whatsoever."
Alicia declared it in the same tone and with the same expression as before.
...while still holding the 'paw' pose.
So, well.
I decided to just let it slide amicably.