Paranormal Link - 1
"An invention?"
I took a step back, feeling a bit overwhelmed. For a guy from the Central Plains martial world where men and women kept their distance, she was standing way too close.
"Tell me more about it. What kind of invention...?"
I held up my soot-covered hand to block her as she leaned in toward my face. Luckily, she wasn't that curious and pulled her head back, keeping a normal distance.
"Go wash up first. I was right in the middle of that explosion."
Her eyes went wide at my words.
"How the hell are you even alive?"
"......"
///
Shwaaa... I scrubbed off under a shower with shitty water pressure and stepped out of the public bathroom. I dried off with the threadbare towel in the changing room and picked up my rag-of-a-clothes.
Plop, plop. Bits of what used to be clothing crumbled away, carbonized and falling apart.
"......"
It wasn't a question of whether I should wear them—it was whether I even could.
Knock knock.
As I stood there pondering with the disintegrating rags in hand, Blanca knocked on the door.
"You done washing up?"
What the...? Is she that curious? Her unnatural obsession since earlier made me flinch, and I stared hard at the door.
"Dad sent some clothes for you to wear."
"Oh... clothes."
Gustavo had looked shocked when we bumped into him at the entrance on the way in. The outfit Blanca handed me through the crack in the door was a bit loose-fitting, but not ridiculously oversized like what I'd been wearing before.
"He said it's stuff he doesn't wear anymore. I didn't even know he had clothes like this. It's not really his style anyway. Maybe a customer left them behind."
I unfolded the clothes she'd passed through the gap while listening to her. A dark-colored shirt and pants that were worn but not stretched out or torn anywhere, plus a sturdy khaki jacket made of some tough material I couldn't place. Aside from the design on the back—a sunset with a Mexican-style sombrero on a cactus and the words Los Amigos embroidered below it—I actually kinda liked it.
After changing into the hand-me-downs and chucking my smoke-reeking rags into the trash heap, Blanca came trotting over.
"......"
"......"
A weird standoff began.
She seemed dying to know about the Psychotic generator those lunatics had built, but before satisfying her curiosity, I had something to ask first.
"Before that, I've got a question."
"...What?"
"Okay, I get that you're into cyberware or... implants, whatever."
"I'm not a maniac! I just have an interest in implants!"
...Spoken like someone with zero credibility. That's the phrase that popped into my head watching her get all defensive for some reason.
"Fine, whatever. Let's say that's true."
"It's not."
"...I said I get it. But when you first approached me, was it because of this?"
"......?"
Blanca, who'd been looking annoyed at my words, blinked in confusion like she had no idea what I was talking about. Her eyes locked straight onto my twitching left arm.
Her mouth opened.
"No."
A sharp denial. Her gaze didn't waver a bit—in fact, she looked almost repulsed.
"That outdated junk is totally outside my interests."
...Any outdated piece hearing that would shed bloody tears. Don't listen, Lefty. It's all lies. You're only a "crippled three-legged horse" to me.
This proved that her approaching me on my first day in the city wasn't some ploy targeting my body(?) but pure kindness toward a bumpkin who looked like a clueless rube. For some reason, though, a faint sadness spread in the corner of my heart.
I had no idea why... I could only guess it had something to do with Lefty, who was inseparably part of me.
"So, what the hell was that invention? From the explosion, it looked like some kind of energy device."
Ignoring my sorrow, Blanca ruthlessly revealed her curiosity.
"You figured that much just from that?"
"Energy generated through a photonator has a faint blue glow. So what exploded?"
"Was it a Kroks Corp energy projector system reverse-engineered into an energy launcher? Something like that name."
"...Kroks Corp?!"
Was that the name? It sounded kinda right, but Kroks kept sticking in my mouth more, so I kept screwing it up. That's because those lunatics told it wrong from the start. First lessons stick hard.
Suddenly, Blanca grabbed my hand and started dragging me along like she was in a hurry.
"Hurry up and let's go!"
"No, that thing's already smashed to—" My words fell on deaf ears as I let her eager hand tug mine along.
"Eek!"
She freaked out and shook off my hand.
"......"
That pure? Feeling a bit down, I watched as she glared at me, clutching her hand with her face oddly flushed.
"...I said it's already smashed."
"Th-then say it! Geez..."
"No, you weren't even listening."
She shot me a bratty glare, then suddenly looked like something occurred to her.
"Wait a sec."
"......?"
"So that explosion was the photonator blowing up?"
"What's a photonator anyway?"
I'd just remembered the old man mentioning the word after overhearing me, but since neither of us knew the details, I just waited for Blanca to explain. Tech... maniacs like her always know this stuff.
"Wasn't there some big machine-looking thing? The one making noise."
"There was this junky one with all sorts of crap hanging off it."
"It's a device that generates energy using photons. So what'd they do with it?"
"Shot beams? If it hit you, no bones left."
"......"
Blanca scanned me up and down, circled around me once, and tilted her head.
"Not my bones..."
"Yeah, I get that. So the explosion—was it overload?"
"One guy went Psychotic? Totally lost it and blasted the photonator with a beam."
"No, no... You were at the explosion site, right?"
"Yeah, right in the explosion spot."
"Not near it—you were right there watching it blow up?"
"...That's what I said?"
"...How are you even alive?"
She stared at me like a scientist witnessing a violation of the laws of physics. Tired of the look, I had no choice but to explain everything that happened that day step by step—the exact same rundown I'd given the old man and the beggar.
"...Are you maybe that missionary from the rumors, or an enhanced human?"
Now she looked at me like I was some even weirder freak. From my perspective as someone who'd barely survived, it felt pretty unfair.
"Neither. But I've heard 'missionary' a few times—what's an enhanced human?"
"Enhanced human... It's just rumors, but they say it's people whose genes are manipulated to strengthen their bodies themselves. Properly implanted enhanced humans can take on armies solo."
She added that no one's actually seen one, but hearing it made me uneasy for some reason. Rumors like that always turn out to have some truth—usually the kind that shows up right in my face. Take that two-headed demon I mentioned once. I laughed it off when someone said there was a demon with two heads, and exactly a month later, I ran into it. For the record, even with two heads, it wasn't that smart.
"...Stories like that always end up true."
Rumors often become reality, so the more outlandish the tale, the more you gotta watch out. I'm usually the one who pays when they do.
"Rumors? No way."
"......"
It's like they're curses that make shit real. Don't future folk know how scary "no way" can be?
"Anyway, you're seriously lucky."
"Huh?"
"Surviving that explosion."
"Yeah... something like that."
It wasn't just luck, but swans always look graceful even when paddling like hell underwater. As someone aiming for master-level elegance, I buried the frantic sword winds and footwork I'd unleashed to survive, and nodded coolly instead.
"Well, it's getting late anyway, so we should head back soon..."
She glanced into space, checking the time.
"Tomorrow—can you make some time?"
...Huh?
"I wanna hear more about that energy projector."
I hadn't expected that. Really. I followed behind Blanca as she strode ahead briskly.
Watching her brown ponytail sway in front of me brought home just how exhausting the day had been. Come to think of it, I'd wanted to crash after washing up...
Forcing my drooping eyes open, I—
Shiver.
Something ice-cold raced up my spine in an instant. It felt close to killing intent at a glance, but with a weird, subtly different vibe.
"......"
"What's up?"
Blanca turned back when I stopped following.
"...Nah, nothing. Must've dozed off for a sec."
I turned my gaze from the filthy alley strewn with trash, speaking in a lazy drawl. My senses were still tuned that way, but I couldn't pinpoint the source of that fleeting eerie sensation.
...I'd really wanted to skip training and just rest today, but suddenly I felt like doing it.
Fingering the dagger at my waist, I started walking again.