Aftermath of the Scout
The commander of the main defense force's aerial observation base, Director Mikhail, bellowed at his adjutant's report.
“—What the hell are you saying! Why did it suddenly go berserk!?”
“W-We’re still investigating, sir. However……”
“However what!?”
“For some reason, there’s no evidence left at all……”
“So what kind of nonsense is that!?”
The director had every reason to be furious. He had just received word that every military satellite belonging to the base had been destroyed. The satellites, which should have simply orbited the planet, had gone out of control on their own and melted away.
That alone would have been bad enough, but the real problem was that no one could figure out why perfectly functional satellites had suddenly gone berserk.
“Dozens of military satellites were wiped out overnight, and you can’t even find a single piece of evidence!?”
“I-It’s as if a ghost did it. There’s not a single trace left……”
“Does that make any sense!?”
Dozens of military satellites operated by the defense force had all been destroyed in a single day. Yet there was supposedly no trace of who had done it. How could such a thing be possible?
Director Mikhail’s first thought was an attack by villain organizations. But neither the Hero Association nor the military bases could have missed such an assault—whether physical or through the network.
By any reasonable logic, the villains weren’t responsible. Then what? Had the artificial satellites awakened to sentience, realized their pitiful existence, and committed mass suicide?
“Th-The investigation results show the satellites were destroyed around 11 a.m. At that time, they were passing over Z City’s orbit.”
“That slum? Why the hell did they blow up there of all places!?”
“Well…… the surveillance footage from nearby satellites passing through that orbit was also deleted, each one an hour before and after the incident. It’s as if someone deliberately wanted to hide whatever happened there—”
“So you’re saying someone secretly made the satellites go berserk, left no trace, and even hacked and deleted the footage from the exact moment of their destruction? You think that’s possible in any normal sense?”
“It’s impossible, sir.”
At least, impossible with modern technology. Director Mikhail sighed as he watched his adjutant speak. Yet the impossible had just happened right in front of them. His head already ached at the thought of how they were supposed to find the culprit.
Then something flashed through Mikhail’s mind—beings capable of performing the impossible without batting an eye. Entities that could tamper with military systems and leave no trace behind.
“We’re burying this incident.”
“What!? We lost dozens of satellites. We can’t just—”
“Adjutant. Think carefully. You just said it yourself—it’s impossible by any normal standard.”
Mikhail pointed a finger at the ceiling and continued.
“That means this was the will of those above us. It’s better to bury it than to dig deeper and risk offending them.”
“Those above us…… How high could they possibly be—”
“Don’t try to find out, Adjutant. Close your eyes and pretend you heard nothing. No one died from falling satellites, and there wasn’t any major damage either.”
The adjutant swallowed hard and nodded. Even the director was an incomparably high-ranking figure to him—yet there were people so far above the director that even he couldn’t dare to defy them?
The adjutant felt a chill run down his spine just imagining what kind of position those beings must hold.
“……Then I’ll conclude this as a simple collision accident between artificial satellites.”
“Yeah. Do that.”
And so the incident of dozens of military satellites being hijacked was quietly buried. No one would ever know. It was as if the event had never happened at all.
The media was abuzz every day with stories about Omega Industries. More precisely, negative stories about Omega Industries and Z City.
Watching the media relentlessly hammer Omega Industries every day made it easy to gauge just how enormous our boss’s anger truly was.
Just when the fire seemed about to die down, someone kept feeding it fresh fuel to keep it burning. It was almost impressive where they kept getting all this material from.
Meanwhile, the matter of the satellites I had hacked was mentioned only briefly before being glossed over. Considering I hadn’t reported it to the boss separately, it had ended far more cleanly than expected. Vira, standing beside me, looked at me with a curious expression.
“Satellites? You mean the ones you hacked, Eight?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“If you can hack military satellites, couldn’t you hack banks too? You could make a fortune that way……”
“Vira, do you think I’m some kind of criminal? Why would I do something like that?”
“You’re a villain, aren’t you……”
While Vira stared at me in disbelief, I ignored her and turned my head toward Levitan, who was still in the middle of the experiment.
She was currently breathing inside a special solution. Though her eyes remained closed, her grotesque monstrous appearance had improved significantly. Now, aside from missing limbs, she had regained her original form.
If I wanted, I could have made her open her eyes even in this state. I simply hadn’t felt the need.
‘Now that she’s regained her human appearance…… I should get some proper work done.’
I looked over the data Galrm and Aile had obtained after completely destroying Omega Industries. It included records of the L-Series project that Levitan had been subjected to—specifically, the Leviathan experiments.
Reading through the experimental data, I frowned deeply.
“Trash…… If they’d done experiments like this on Earth, a bunch of them would’ve ended up in prison.”
The experiment’s goal was as follows:
Beastmen possess superior physical abilities instead of esper powers, but these have become obsolete due to technological advancement and the evolution of superpowers. To restore the status of beastmen, they must reclaim their glory through their own strength alone.
Therefore, our goal is to combine only the strengths of various beastman races…… to create the ultimate beastman.
In short, it was chimera synthesis.
An experiment to merge the strengths of all beastman races into the strongest possible beastman. Naturally, the experiment had failed, and even Levitan—the supposed sole success—was far from glorious in appearance.
She had looked more like a monster.
‘Genetic synthesis was never going to be that simple…… Especially with beastmen, whose genetic differences are far greater than those between human races.’
They had even embedded some kind of genetic code to control this ultimate beastman—something that would force absolute obedience to whoever spoke a certain phrase……
With such impurities added to an already difficult experiment, success had been impossible from the start.
My job was first to remove that obedience code, then restore her mixed genes to their original state.
The problem was that it was unclear where exactly I should begin.
“Vira, do you know what race Levitan originally was?”
“A rabbit, right? She has rabbit ears.”
“Apparently not. These are more like decorative tailbones in human terms.”
“……Then why are they there?”
“The experiment relied on genetic coincidence for success, so there’s no helping it.”
“What does that even mean?”
While Vira tilted her head in confusion, I decided to strip everything away. I would remove every last trace of the original genes and, if she wanted them back later, I could always reattach them.
Having made my decision, I carefully operated the computer. As its processing circuits analyzed Levitan’s DNA map, her genes began to slowly decompose.
By the time she woke up, Levitan would be a completely different person from before.
Glug glug glug—!
Levitan was startled by the unidentified liquid flowing down her esophagus. But that surprise lasted only a moment as she realized she could breathe without issue despite being submerged in liquid.
‘……What is this?’
Though the psychological pressure of being in liquid made breathing difficult, the act itself wasn’t impossible. It was strange, considering that even as a mixed beastman, she hadn’t grown gills.
Forcing her eyes open in the mysterious liquid, she looked around and realized she was trapped naked inside what looked like a coffin—and that her appearance was being openly displayed to others.
The two people watching her naked body were Eight and Vira. In other words, someone of the opposite sex and someone of the same sex. Being seen by the same sex was embarrassing enough, but being seen by Eight, the opposite sex, was mortifying beyond words. Even if her origins were those of a beast.
“Gururururup—!”
Startled, Levitan swallowed a mouthful of the liquid and began bubbling furiously. Seeing this, Eight belatedly realized she had woken up. Moments later, the tank opened, and cool air replaced the liquid in her lungs.
“Pwah—!”
Gasping for breath, Levitan covered her chest and lower body with her limbs and glared at Eight. Her eyes demanded an explanation, but surprisingly, Eight showed no sign of embarrassment.
She wondered if he was unaffected by seeing her naked—though that wasn’t the main reason. Eight smiled lightly and spoke.
“Levitan, you’re awake. The year is now 20XX. In other words, ten years have passed since you fell asleep.”
“……Eh?”
“You’ve been unconscious for ten years since you went berserk in Z City that day. And now you’ve finally opened your eyes.”
It was an unbelievable, shocking statement. Levitan stared at Eight, trembling, at the news that she had been asleep for over ten years and had only just woken up.
Strangely, the two of them didn’t look much different from before she had fallen asleep. Had they drunk some immortality elixir made by the evil scientist?
As Levitan’s eyes trembled while looking at them, Vira, standing behind, suddenly burst into laughter.
“Pfft… Kh, puhehe…….”
“……Vira?”
“S-Sorry. I didn’t think you’d actually believe it—”
“You actually believed that—?”
“It was a joke, Levitang.”
Hearing Vira’s words, Levitan finally let out a sigh of relief. To hear such a joke the moment she woke up? She had nearly had a heart attack.
After belatedly receiving an outer garment from Vira and covering herself, Levitan slowly stood up. As she did, she realized her body felt much weaker than before. Like someone who had been bedridden for months, she began to tremble like a newborn fawn.
“……Hey, Eight. Explain, please?”
“Yes. It’s been a week since you went berserk and collapsed. During that time, I treated and modified your body.”
“Modified—?”
“I apologize for doing it without permission. But the same thing can’t be allowed to happen again.”
Levitan’s eyes widened as she looked at Eight. The same thing couldn’t happen again. That meant……
“From today onward, Levitan, you are human. Not a beastman—a human.”
Twitch—!
Levitan stared at the rabbit ears reflected in the mirror and let out a hollow laugh.
‘……If she’s human, then—’
In reality, all the unique physical abilities she had possessed as a beastman—being barely tickled by bullets, not melting even when burned, only scorching her clothes, and possessing the strength to chase after vehicles—had all disappeared.
Aside from the rabbit ears growing from her head, every trace of her being a beastman had vanished. Eight had said that even these ears could be removed at any time if she wished.
‘At this rate, I’m just a dumb human cosplaying as a rabbit……’
The thought made her laugh involuntarily. A dumb human. That’s right.
Levitan was surprisingly thinking of humans as she looked in the mirror.
Not the filthy, ugly beast—but a human. The human she had so desperately wanted to become.
“Human, huh……”
Forgetting even the strange speech pattern she usually forced herself to use to get along with people, Levitan carefully touched her own body.
The powerful muscles unique to beastmen, their superior senses, their fur—all of it had long since disappeared.
What remained was nothing but fragile muscle and fat that anyone would recognize as purely human.
‘Eight…… Eitang turned me into a human……’
Thinking back, he had been like that from the very first time they met. He had never once looked down on her as a beast. From the beginning, he had treated her naturally as a person, as if it were obvious that a beastman with ears and a tail was still a person.
And now, he had completely turned her into a human.
“Aha, ahahaha— Eitang. Liar.”
The moment she realized this, Levitan felt her lower abdomen grow hot. It was the strong, beastly urge she used to feel periodically when she was still a beastman.
If she could still feel something like this, how could she claim she was no longer a beast?
“Looks like…… there’s still some beast left in me.”
Just as one demands a refund for a defective product or holds a doctor accountable for a failed surgery, Levitan realized she had to hold Eight directly responsible for this mistake.
With her body. She would ask him directly, with her own body.