009. Insomnia (1)
009. Insomnia (1)
Strength, agility, and shield operation had risen by half a rank. Tactical judgment had risen by a full rank.
The Rampage skill had also gone up by one level.
That was quite a lot of growth.
"Euhye... It's probably because we trained that hard...."
Laika chimed in, as if asking for recognition of her contribution.
I felt sorry for her, but I couldn't go along with that.
She had only cleared two training programs. For a normal military biodroid, that would be nothing more than a warm-up.
Nevertheless, her stats had shot up because they had fallen so far to begin with.
Stats tended to recover faster the further they had fallen.
Conversely, once they recovered to a certain point, the rate of improvement dropped off noticeably.
Skill module levels were no different.
She had jumped straight to level 2, but reaching 3 would take twice as much effort as before.
Reaching 4 would take twice that again, then 5 twice that...... and the required experience would keep climbing.
"Euhye, don't say stuff that drains my energy...."
"I'm telling you to cheer up. Eight times is still doable, isn't it?"
With that, I went to close the results page.
But I paused just before doing so.
"Huh?"
"Euhyet?"
Laika tilted her head as if to ask if there was something else to say.
There certainly was.
I'd just noticed a change I'd almost overlooked.
Namely, the <Phase Resonance Rate with Commander>.
"The phase resonance rate rose a lot too. From 29% to 37%."
"Is that a good thing?"
Of course it was. Phase resonance was important for biodroids.
"What is phase resonance?"
"......Why are you asking as if you've never heard the word before?"
"That's because I really don't know it~"
I gave up on that line of conversation.
I sighed and asked Laika a question in return.
"What do you think is the reason a commander with zero combat ability accompanies a biodroid onto the battlefield?"
"Hmm~ Because if you command on the spot, communication is better and it lifts the spirits of the one fighting~?"
......I couldn't say that was entirely wrong.
But that was merely a secondary function.
If that were all, most Commanders would send only the biodroid to the field and command remotely from the base.
It was a major risk for a frail human to step onto the battlefield.
Yet many Commanders risk injury or death during operations and head to the front with their biodroids.
The reason was very simple. As I said, phase resonance was necessary.
Phase resonance.
Simply put, it was the phenomenon in which a biodroid became stronger when the commander was within a certain distance.
The distance varied by unit, but it was generally around a 50-meter radius.
Inside that range, phase resonance began, raising a biodroid's abilities by roughly one or two ranks.
No, actually, it might have been more accurate to say they became weaker outside that distance.
The ability values on the spec sheet were calculated assuming proper phase resonance.
For example, Laika currently came out to around C- rank overall.
But that was her rank while under phase resonance. With phase resonance cut off, her combat power would drop to around D-rank.
"So that's why the Commander has to accompany every mission?"
"Well, not necessarily."
For easy missions where a slight stat drop wouldn't matter, biodroids were often sent out by themselves.
In fact, large bases often operate mainly on that kind of approach.
But our base wasn't in a position to afford that luxury.
Most of all, for Laika, who urgently needed points to avoid disposal, she needed to tackle slightly more difficult missions to score high within the same period.
So for the time being, I, as her Commander, had no choice but to accompany all her missions and act as a human buff tower.
"Do you understand?"
"Yeah, yeah. I understand, but...."
Laika tilted her head again.
"Then what's the phase resonance rate?"
"......Literally, it's a measure of how well phase resonance occurs."
Being within that set distance didn't guarantee 100% phase resonance.
Depending on the resonance rate, the effect could be stronger or weaker.
"Oho~ Then raising the resonance rate a lot would be good~ How can we raise it~?"
"Well. The more a biodroid becomes psychologically in sync with the Commander, the more it rises...."
"Euhye...? Psychologically... in sync?"
Was it too hard to understand? Or too abstract?
Laika tilted her head back and forth as if she didn't get it at all.
So I had no choice but to give a simpler explanation.
"In short, it's a system where the more you like me, the more it rises."
That was why the Academy sometimes simply called it 'affection level.'
Of course, it wasn't a perfect equivalent, but it was close enough.
In that sense, the fact that Laika's phase resonance rate toward me went from 29% to 37% meant that she had come to like me more.
Well, saying she'd 'come to like me' sounded grand, but 29% and 37% were not especially meaningful numbers.
It was more like she'd been promoted from 'someone I recently met and talked to' to 'an ordinary acquaintance.'
Still, it seemed the fact that the number had shot up so much embarrassed Laika.
A few seconds after hearing my words, Laika turned bright red.
"......C-could it be broken~? The precision analyzer~?"
"You dishonest thing."
"Euhing...... Laika's affection level just dropped because of the Commander's mean attitude......."
Unfortunately for her, it rose another 1 percent, reaching 38 percent.
I thought it might be fun to tell her and make her turn even redder.
But I decided not to.
Because if I told that to someone who was already squirming in embarrassment, this time the number might actually drop.
Instead, I clapped my hands and declared.
"Alright. That's it for today's training."
"Euhing? Is it really okay to rest?"
Laika asked again, sounding surprised, as if giving me a chance to correct a slip of the tongue.
I didn't.
Instead, I shrugged and said more clearly.
"Yeah. It's late and we had some results. Rest well until the next training."
"Yeah yeah~ See you again in two years when the next training is scheduled~"
......Apparently she was going to keep trying until the trick worked: sneaking in a request for about two years of laziness.
***
The next few days were peaceful and monotonous.
First, early in the morning, I took Laika to the simulation room and had her run the training program.
If she hit a block, I pointed out the problem.
Laika would be stubborn for no reason, and I would calmly talk her around.
Laika would finally change her mind and return to training, and before long she would clear the program. We would then check the improved metrics and prepare for the next training.
We repeated that pattern for about ten days.
Laika's skill module level soon reached level 4.
It still wasn't at a level where she could perform normal missions, but considering she started at level 1, it was remarkably fast growth.
If this trend continued, by the two-week mark from the start of training, she would be ready for live deployment.
......Or so I had firmly believed up to that point.
A few days passed, and today was the promised two-week mark.
Unfortunately, Laika had not been deployed for live combat.
The reason was very simple.
"Your skill level stopped growing at 4."
We had already repeated training that was supposed to be good for leveling the skill module several times, but it had not budged at all.
"Euhye~ This is quite a pickle~"
Laika said nonchalantly, as if it were someone else's problem.
Of course, it wasn't someone else's problem, nor was there anything leisurely about the situation.
There were now only two months and about ten days left in the fitness-review period.
If she failed to reach 100 mission points within the remaining time, she herself, not anyone else, would be disposed of.
Under those circumstances, we hadn't even begun running missions yet. We'd decided not to deploy her until her skill reached level 5.
"Wouldn't it be okay to go out now~? It's only a one-level difference anyway."
"There might not be a huge difference right now. The problem is that we've hit a plateau at all."
If we couldn't identify and resolve the cause, Laika's skill would never rise beyond this level.
Moreover, along with the skill level, the growth of her other stats had generally slowed as well.
The only thing still shooting up was the phase resonance rate (a.k.a. affection level), which had entered the mid-50% range...... but that wasn't a very important number at this point.
"As expected, this is a problem."
Naturally, harder missions awarded more performance points.
According to my calculations with Alicia, to earn the full 100 points within the period, she had to keep growing even during the missions. From the second month on, she would need to clear a 3-star mission every three days to reach 100 points.
If growth stopped here, it was an absolutely impossible goal.
The problem was that the causes of a plateau were so varied.
It could be that the training program was unsuitable, or it could be an issue with lifestyle habits or psychological state.
That meant I needed to ask about her daily routine in detail and consider a wide range of possible causes, but—
"Weell...... Laika doesn't really know...... so I'll just leave it entirely to the Commander....... Wake me up when you figure out the cause....... Zzz......."
What kind of manners were those, using my forearm as a pillow and falling asleep while the Commander was thinking so hard?
Come to think of it, hadn't this girl been clinging to me and falling asleep far too often lately? Lately she'd even started nodding off in the middle of conversations.
For a moment, I wondered whether that behavior might be connected to the module level——
"Hm?"
I found something odd on Laika's spec data sheet.
Originally, the very last page of the data sheet was 'Major Components.' There shouldn't be any pages after that.
But for some reason, Laika's sheet had one more page.
And, absurdly enough, that extra page displayed:
[Status Abnormality]
- Insomnia (NEW!)
Insufficient sleep time reduces physical ability and mental alertness. If chronic, learning efficiency may drastically decrease.
Hmm.
"Laika, wake up."
"Euhing......."
"I said wake up. Before I pinch your cheeks."
"Eugik. You already pinched them......."
Shut up.
Anyway, now that she was awake, I tugged at her cheek and asked.
"Laika. How many hours do you usually sleep in a day? Naps and nighttime sleep combined."
"Euheng? Suddenly~?"
Laika asked back like that while counting on her fingers, trying to recall how much sleep she got.
"......About eight hours?"
To someone who didn't know Laika's daily patterns, that might sound like a perfectly fine answer.
But for me, who had been observing her for about two weeks, it was an absurd answer.
"You nap for almost six hours, don't you."
"Yeah!"
"Then that means you only sleep about two hours at night."
"Euhye~"
Laika laughed as if embarrassed.
But it wasn't something to laugh off.
"That's a kind of insomnia."
"Euhye...? But I sleep so much during the day......?"
People with insomnia tended to nap for hours to make up for insufficient sleep at night.
As a result, the total sleep time of someone with insomnia could actually be much longer than that of someone without it.
But the quality of daytime sleep and nighttime sleep was different.
Even with the same total hours of sleep, a larger share taken as naps inevitably slowed recovery from fatigue.
That was probably why Laika had started falling asleep even while talking with me.
The stagnation of the skill module at level 4 was surely due to that as well.
"Euhye, is that related......?"
"Of course it is."
As I'd said before, module level ultimately reflected how synchronized the module was with Laika's phase circuit.
The fatigue Laika felt had a huge negative impact on the activation level of her phase circuit too.
Meaning that even with the same activity, the experience points gained would be drastically lower.
As a result, growth of the module level would inevitably slow or stall.
"Then what should we do? Is Laika going to hit the wall of sleep and be disposed of like this......?"
"Aren't you giving up too quickly?"
The solution was simple: stop napping and normalize her sleep schedule.
"It's not as easy as it sounds....... First of all, during the day, there's nothing to do, so I get so sleepy......."
"Oh, really."
I considered working her hard all day, leaving drowsiness no chance to set in.
That could be one approach, but I was worried it might cause a short-term spike in fatigue.
Besides, while listening to Laika just now, one question came to mind.
To be precise, it was a thought I'd had the entire time I'd been watching Laika's daily routine.
"Laika, do you have any hobbies or activities you enjoy during the day besides napping?"