In the End, I Couldn't Become an Adult Without Shame
After safely wrapping up today's stream, I naturally headed down to the junkyard through the device installed outside the front door.
The device was called a zipline — one of the installations I'd put up to make commuting between home and the junkyard easier.
You simply rode the cable down on the way out, and on the way back up a motor kicked in to hoist you. It was a fairly expensive piece of equipment.
I'd designed it part by part to maximize CP efficiency, and it still cost a full seventy thousand CP — that should give you some idea.
But the zipline had an extremely long time limit and could handle a tremendous amount of weight, so I didn't particularly regret the expenditure. Without it, I'd have been sweating bullets every single trip, and one stream was enough to earn that amount back anyway.
That said, the zipline only went as far as the peak of the scrap heap closest to home — not all the way to the junkyard floor. So even after riding it down, I still had to climb further to actually set foot on solid ground.
"I really need to grind this down into a ramp someday.... Heave-ho!"
Using the uneven scrap heap as a slide, I lightly touched down on the ground — and something eye-catching caught my attention not far away.
It was an unidentified someone crouching on the ground in a thick suit that looked like a spacesuit.
Of course, it wasn't anyone dangerous. Only one person around here ever wandered around looking like that.
"Noise, I'm back."
"...Ah, Nia. Stream over?"
Only after I called out did she seem to register my presence. Noise slowly rose to her feet and greeted me.
The suit was heavy, and she'd said it was uncomfortable to wear. Since I was the one who'd made her put it on, I couldn't help feeling a little guilty.
"Yeah, just finished. What were you doing?"
"Junk data fell over there, so I was cleaning it up."
From over there all the way to here — or so she seemed to want to say, spreading her arms wide left and right.
A small, cute girl in a puffy spacesuit spreading her arms wide. I had no choice but to turn my head aside.
What is this creature. She's way too cute.
"Ahem. I see. Thanks. Shall we head inside, then?"
"...Yeah."
I said it looking down at Noise, who only came up to about my shoulder. She glanced around briefly, then nodded without a word — her work seemed more or less finished.
The place we headed for was the steel shelter standing right nearby.
I opened the door and stepped in first, and Noise waddled in after me in her thick suit, shutting the door with a thud.
Then she looked up at me and stretched both arms out as if asking to be picked up. I nodded, understanding her intent perfectly, and lightly took hold of her shoulders.
"Want help getting out of the suit?"
"Yeah. Just the arms is fine...."
"Nah, it's not that hard. I'll help with all of it."
An outdoor activity safety suit. Commonly known as a work suit — or hazard suit.
I'd come up with the idea, Noise had designed it, and in about two weeks we'd produced this outdoor activity suit made exclusively for her.
You could somehow get into it alone, but without destroying it, you couldn't get out of it by yourself — and the reason this work suit had been made that way was simple.
Unlike me, who could freely roam outside without a second thought... for her, the junkyard environment was far more dangerous than expected.
I never imagined Noise's body would have a time limit too.
That was the fundamental cause.
Nine-tenths of the junk rolling around the scrapyard turned into scrap, and anything I Created collapsed in an instant... Noise couldn't escape the law of the time limit either.
That was why she needed special equipment like this to move around outside the safe zone of Nia's Room.
"Heave-ho.... There. Whoa, Noise, you're soaked in sweat. Hungry?"
"...Honestly, yeah."
"Hang on a sec? I'll make you something right away."
You might be wondering at this point: why does Noise need to go outside Nia's Room at all, and why bother building a shelter in this junkyard?
Hmm. To gather it all into one answer: because I'd come to feel the need to develop this junkyard... I suppose.
I Created the ingredients for a simple Cuban sandwich for Noise, assembling them into a sandwich as I rewound the memories of a few days prior in my head.
A spider-like monster had suddenly crawled across the ceiling and come for Nia's Room. Thanks to already being badly wounded, I'd cut it down in a single stroke with my scissor blades, but....
The spider monster's attack itself wasn't the problem. The real issue was realizing that Nia's Room wasn't a completely safe place.
The fatal red pill: that Nia's Room, which seemed sealed off from the outside, had simply been lucky enough not to be discovered by the monsters roaming the Abyss until now.
Once I knew that, I could no longer choose the option of just quietly hiding away in Nia's Room.
If the thing that attacked Nia's Room hadn't been a half-dead spider monster, but that creature I'd seen at the subway station? I wouldn't still be alive.
So the direction Noise and I had put our heads together and carefully worked out was this:
Not hoping the day a nightmare finds me would be pushed a little further away — but instead taking the initiative myself to secure my own territory.
That way, I'd at least be able to notice a monster approaching sooner — and then I could run, hide, or stand and fight.
Of course, it wasn't without risk. Maybe this would be the very act that invited a danger that never would have come otherwise.
Drawing the attention of a monster that might have just passed by, or somehow triggering a disaster by artificially altering the environment like this.
But carving out my own domain inside the junkyard offered enough return to justify taking on those risks.
Well... it wasn't the kind of return that would produce clear, immediate results.
"Here. Cuban sandwich and orange juice."
"...Thanks. I'll dig in."
"Go on. Enjoy."
Crunch.
Noise's adorable little mouth bit into the crispy sandwich. She stuffed her cheeks full until they puffed out, then started chewing with eyes like a squirrel's.
When she eats it that happily, it makes all the effort of making it worthwhile.
Watching the small, cute child enjoy her sandwich with a warm feeling, I naturally turned my head and looked around.
The shelter that met my eyes was fairly spacious. I'd sized it roughly the same as Nia's Room, intending to use it for a good long while.
But if you asked whether the interior was well-furnished.... the scenery reflecting back at me was one I absolutely couldn't say yes to.
"Hmm.... Maybe it needs some kind of decoration."
Even the walls were plain gray steel, and the floor was the same material. The interior went beyond merely dull — it practically inspired a feeling of desolation.
But I had an excuse for this one.
Just putting up the exterior had burned through half of all the CP I'd earned so far. How was I supposed to furnish the inside? I had no CP left, and even if I did, it'd feel wasteful to spend it on that right now.
"Need... it?"
"Yeah, we don't really need it right now, do we?"
Besides, Noise wasn't exactly the type to chase that kind of aesthetic, and I felt like it was just a temporary shelter anyway, so it didn't matter. No need to do something with neither demand nor supply. Had to save CP, too. There were so many places it drained away like taxes.
I was chewing on a scrap of Cuban sandwich with the same feeling as a salaryman drowning in tax bills when Noise suddenly spoke up.
"Ah, right. Nia. I edited yesterday's stream, and there's something I wanted to ask."
Something she wanted to ask about editing. This happened often when living with her.
She had an incredible editing sense that seemed almost innate, the kind that could pierce right into the gaps of human psychology. But separate from that ability, Noise was rather lacking in common sense.
That was probably because, while drifting through the harsh environment of the Abyss, she'd discarded information like her name and what she'd been doing before — all to survive.
Lately she'd been going in and out of the outside world's internet, gradually rebuilding her common sense. And when she ran into something she couldn't figure out even after searching the net, she'd often come ask me first.
Well, that might also be because I was good at explaining things so she could understand!
"Hm? Which part exactly?"
"When you were giving your review after watching that movie Mad Max, you said something like 'it makes a man's crotch heat up on its own'.... What does that mean?"
"Ugh...!"
At Noise's words, delivered with such an innocent expression, I was so startled I nearly dropped the sandwich in my hand.
No no no. Wait a second! I said that? For real?!
"Judging by how the viewers got temporarily noisy right after, it doesn't seem like it was a particularly positive...."
"A-a-ah! No! Noise! How about we go take a walk outside for a bit! Wow, come to think of it, today's stream is already over. I think we need to put up more light bulbs outside!"
"...?"
I remembered.
Come to think of it, after finishing the movie screening, half-excited by that intense plot and ending, I had blurted out things I should and shouldn't have said. And in the middle of that, I'd said something about a c-crotch heating up.
But right after it left my mouth, I'd clarified it was just a figure of speech, so it hadn't really become a problem.... Broadcast issues aside, thinking about it again, it was just an insanely embarrassing slip of the tongue.
Aaaah...! I'd worked so hard to hurl that memory into the far reaches of my mind and forget it — and Noise had dug it right back up!
I frantically tried to change the subject by talking to Noise, then realized it was irreversible, quietly approached her, and spoke in a pitiful voice.
"...Noise. Just cut that entire part out...."
"...Got it. I don't really understand, but if it's your request, Nia, I'll do it."
Tears pricked at my eyes for no good reason. I'd at least wanted to be an adult without shame in front of Noise.
Right now, I was more shameful than any adult in the world. I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole and hide....