Stormy Night: The Symbol
The interior of the ship remained eerily silent. It couldn't possibly be an unmanned vessel. After advancing a little further from the spot where we'd rescued the prisoners earlier, we spotted several large warehouses divided by partitions. 「Is that where the crew stays?」 Rendel pointed toward an unusually narrow passageway beyond the warehouses. It was quite cramped for an Aindium to pass through, yet spacious enough for a person. If Rendel's guess was right, it led to areas used by people.
“What do we do if the crew is there?” The corridor was so narrow that Limpid Fairy had to turn sideways to squeeze through, robbing us of the advantage of piloting Aindiums. Yet we couldn't disembark either—if we ran into armed enemies in the flesh, we'd be the ones in danger. 「Let's decide on a destination first. Should we look for the captain's quarters?」
“I don't know where the information might be.” If any documents remained, they were most likely in the captain's quarters. But did a transport ship even have a captain's quarters? 「It might be on the bridge instead.」
“We can check the bridge later when we go out. Since we've already come down, let's start from the innermost section.” We continued deeper into the ship. The ceiling grew lower the further we went, forcing White Fang to hunch slightly to avoid hitting the structures hanging from above. Before long, we reached the engine room that the guard, Reiner, had mentioned might contain people. 「Shh.」
Rendel tore open the engine room door—less than three meters across—and rolled in a scouting machine. [Beep— Beep—] “Aah!” A commotion erupted along with signs of life, then silence fell again. Rendel activated the speaker and shouted toward the engine room. 「Drop your weapons and surrender quietly. Otherwise—」
“Hah, we surrender! We surrender!” Before Rendel even finished his warning, several people burst out of the engine room with both hands raised. Five men and women stared up at us with eyes full of fear. None of them appeared to be armed. “Are there no other crew members aboard?”
“We're all that's left.” “Then, do you know if there's a separate captain's quarters or a place where documents are kept?” The sailors glanced at one another nervously. When Rendel raised his gun, the oldest-looking one among them stepped forward in a panic. “The captain's quarters are at the end of that corridor. And right in front of it is the document storage room.”
“Thank you. You should escape, just in case.” “Y-yes!” Under normal circumstances we would have taken them all prisoner, but we had no means of escorting them now. Besides, launching boats in this weather would be impossible. Once Senior Yvette returned, she could capture them on the way back. After confirming the sailors had headed for a nearby emergency staircase, we pressed deeper inside. 「It looks like White Fang can't go any farther.」
“Ah, you're right.” White Fang was practically waddling, and when even Limpid Fairy had to crouch, further progress became impossible without crawling. “Senior, would you like to ride with me in Limpid Fairy?” It was a bit cramped, but there wouldn't be any Aindium combat, so it should be fine. The cockpit was smaller than White Fang's, but at least we wouldn't end up pressed together like last time. 「…No. I'll get out and walk.」
“Huh? It might be dangerous.” 「It's fine. I brought armor just in case.」 Rendel stopped White Fang, and a few minutes later he emerged outside. “That's…” What Rendel wore wasn't power armor but an older type of protective suit—an exosuit, essentially a reinforced exoskeleton with bulletproof plating. The pilot suits in the Aindium series had been lightened for comfort, leaving only the functional aspects, while defensive and combat capabilities had evolved into power armor. Since he couldn't fit into the cockpit wearing power armor, he'd brought a suit from two generations ago. Come to think of it, Black Wolf—the protagonist from the original series who came from a special forces background—used to wear one often. That guy had such a strong “human weapon” image that it made sense, but could Rendel actually fight well on foot too? He liked exercise and moved like lightning during training, yet whether that translated to real combat skill was another question.
“Where did you even get that?” “It was at the garrison. The commander told me to take it just in case.” It showed foresight, considering we couldn't rely on power-armored soldiers, but I still felt uneasy about Rendel leaving the sturdy White Fang. Separately, the futuristic combat suit stirred a man's sense of romance. “Limpid Fairy can take the lead. We should be able to reach the exit.”
“Right. Senior, please follow a little behind.” “Roger.” Rendel followed behind me, pistol and sword in hand. After rounding the final corridor, we found a large door labeled “Captain's Quarters” exactly as the sailors had described, with what appeared to be a document storage room just ahead of it. When Limpid Fairy lightly smashed the door with its fist, Rendel tossed the machine inside and sent a signal. “Both rooms are empty.”
“They really sent the bare minimum crew.” “Probably because the mainland situation is unstable, they couldn't spare more personnel.” Hmm. That explanation would make sense under normal circumstances, but this was inside an animation. The production team wouldn't hand over something so easily. Maybe there really wasn't any useful information? Scanning the bulletin board, nothing seemed particularly strange. Some people were even relaying the situation in real time, which meant the broadcast was still ongoing. In that case, this couldn't be a story that simply passed by. We had to proceed with extreme caution. “Senior, could you check the inside more thoroughly?”
“Got it. You don't have any armor, Luna, so stay put until it's definitely safe.” “Okay.” After carefully searching both the captain's quarters and the document room, Rendel reported that nothing seemed amiss. Just in case, I draped a blanket over my suit and put on an emergency helmet before stepping outside. “Pfft.” “?” “Ah, sorry.”
Rendel burst out laughing the moment he saw me. Did I look that ridiculous? A thick green blanket worn like a poncho over the helmet, white suit underneath… Yeah, it probably looked weird. The bulletin board guys were already questioning my fashion sense, so I quietly stuffed the blanket back inside. “Shall we start with the captain's quarters then?” I deliberately made loud footsteps as I strode toward the captain's quarters. Thank goodness the helmet hid my burning face.
The captain's quarters looked like they hadn't been used in a long time—dust coated every surface. A single old nameplate sat on the desk, the cabinets were empty, and the drawers contained nothing but writing tools. Nothing we were looking for seemed to be here.
“Hmm…” “Did you find something?” “No. There's nothing.” “What about a logbook?” “Not here. That kind of thing is probably in the document storage room.” “Then let's go there.”
When we left the room and entered the nearby document storage, an enormous number of papers greeted us. We spent quite some time examining them one by one, but most were just old transport records. The only useful thing we found was where the cargo had been loaded. “They've even stopped by the prison a few times. And—” The question of whether there would be time to divert such a large ship to a prison in an emergency was answered. “It seems to be a vessel that travels between ports in a place called the Karamis Islands.”
“It's a group of islands that includes a prison island. I heard there's a naval base there too.” The islands were quite far from the mainland, and due to concerns about foreign conflicts, the stationed forces weren't large. The entire habitable large island had been turned into a military base, so there were no residents either… probably? That was Lewina's knowledge, so I wasn't sure how accurate it was. “It must have originally been a supply transport ship. Then they brought Aindiums from somewhere and delivered them to the coastal fortress.”
“If we monitor that base, we might be able to track their forces?” “Probably.” It was more like finding a clue to find another clue rather than a direct lead, but at least it wasn't a complete waste. There probably wasn't much else to find by searching further. Considering the time it would take to get out, Senior Yvette's promised two hours weren't far off. “Senior, shall we—”
For some reason the bulletin board's reactions were strange. Had Rendel found something? “Huh?” “Senior! What are you holding right now?” “Ah, this? It's… some kind of recruitment notice, I think.” Rendel handed me a single sheet of paper. Let's see. “Recruiting personnel. Men and women with sturdy physiques…” Reading it, it was just a flyer recruiting subjects for clinical trials. Had someone brought personal documents here and dropped it? But at the bottom of the roughly scanned document was a symbol I'd seen somewhere before—a shape resembling a symmetrical “4” encircled by a ring. Where had I seen that?
The bulletin board refreshed rapidly, signaling that we'd obtained a proper clue. The characters directly mentioning the enemy's identity were still garbled, but now that we had the symbol, identifying which faction the enemy belonged to was only a matter of time. I took a deep breath to calm my pounding heart and spoke to Rendel. “We've found everything worth finding. Let's head out.” “Got it.”
Rendel picked up a logbook and led the way out. I also tucked the clinical trial recruitment paper into my suit and stepped into the corridor, boarding Limpid Fairy. As we slowly made our way through the corridor with the heavily crouched Limpid Fairy, the entire ship suddenly shook with a loud noise. 「Luna! There's an explosion somewhere—」 BOOM! “Kyaa!” Something exploded right nearby, and the ship tilted violently as if it had been cut in half. Water began flooding into the interior. Limpid Fairy Fairy, which had emerged into the wide corridor, crashed into the walls repeatedly, and I ended up slammed into the narrow, flooding passageway, unable to control the machine. 「Luna! Damn it!」
White Fang descended from above. The black Aindium, carving its way down by driving its sword into the corridor walls, reached out before Limpid Fairy could fully submerge. I grabbed White Fang's hand and climbed up to the wide corridor. The ship was now completely vertical. Because the corridors were so narrow and full of turns, there was no room to fly while carrying White Fang. “Senior! Break through the wall!” White Fang could move slowly underwater, and Limpid Fairy had waterproof magic, so escaping into the sea was our best option. Rendel swung his sword with enough force to blow apart the corridor wall, pushed through the broken section, and sliced through the outer hull in one stroke.
WHOOOSH— The seawater poured in with terrifying force, accelerating the flooding. 「Luna, hold on tight!」 White Fang wrapped one arm around Limpid Fairy as if embracing it and charged toward the outer hull. THUD A dull impact reverberated through us. Immediately after, an alarm began blaring. It was strange for the alarm to sound from such an impact, so I checked and saw that the waterproof magic had somehow been dispelled—the flooding alarm was active. “S-Senior! The waterproof magic came undone!” 「Kh! Just hold on a little longer!」
Rendel was sweating from the unfamiliar underwater controls. Water began leaking from the cockpit ceiling and rising. Yet the distance to the surface was still considerable, and White Fang seemed to be struggling to move while dragging Limpid Fairy through the strong currents. [Luna! At this rate the cockpit will flood before we get out.] “You two. Can we block the water by ourselves?” [The water pressure is too much for Limpid Fairy to handle alone, but if Luna helps, it might be possible.] “What should I do?” [Release the limiters and transfer your mana to us. We'll push the engine to maximum and increase the density of the barrier.] “Understood.”
I unsealed the emergency button and pressed it firmly. It was the button that removed the limit on mana injection—normally locked for the pilot's protection, and rarely used even in emergencies because technological advances had made it ineffective. In the past it had only been used occasionally when mounting oversized weapons that didn't match Aindium specifications. The reason Dr. Carol had left it was probably for moments like this. After all, Limpid Fairy was completed with the fairies' support. When I pressed the button, a light magical pressure was released, and I felt energy being drained from my entire body. Limpid Fairy's engine rumbled, and my heartbeat accelerated rapidly.
Soon after, the barrier around Limpid Fairy thickened enough to become visible. One by one, the flooding alarms disappeared. The water that had been dripping from the ceiling and soaking me lessened, and my vision grew hazy and watery. “I have to… stay conscious…” 「Luna! We're almost there!」 Rendel's voice reached me faintly. The moment I barely managed to press the limiter button again, I lost consciousness.