Rescue Fantasy (7)
"Are you okay?"
Realizing that if I stayed still it would only get more awkward, I quickly came to my senses and reached out my hand.
Celestia, rubbing her reddened nose, took my hand. Up close, I noticed there was a bit of moisture near her eyes. It seemed she had bumped into me harder than I had thought.
While picking up the towel that had fallen to the floor, Celestia asked,
"Hyun-woo? Why are you here...?"
"That's what I'd like to ask you. Why are you here, Celestia?"
Celestia's outfit was light, as if she had just come out of the shower. No, not just *as if*—she really had. The ends of her hair were damp with water.
Celestia answered with the air of someone responding to an obvious question.
"I switched shifts with Carrot and was taking care of Nadia. I made a big fuss about being willing to act as bait, but in the end I was the only one left behind."
Perhaps she felt a sense of responsibility. For now, I expressed my thanks. I hadn't known who had been nursing Nadia, but I was relieved it had been Celestia. She must have been the one who changed the bandages too.
Given the situation, Celestia had done as much as could be expected. Someone had to stay behind, and it just happened to be her. After all, she was the only one who could control the console.
Controlling the pipeline was no easy task. If she had simply taken it offline, the pipes might not have been able to withstand the pressure and could have burst, leading to the possibility of a chain explosion.
That was why it had taken some time to stabilize things. She had to check hundreds of pipes one by one to ensure the pressure was vented correctly.
You did your best. When I said that, Celestia gave a bitter smile.
"Thank you for saying that. But I wasn't enough. Right before my eyes, Eric was fighting the infected security robot, and all I could do was type on a keypad."
Celestia had watched as the infected security robot pierced Eric's suit and stabbed him in the abdomen. She quietly hid her trembling hands behind her back.
"I kept telling myself it was fine, that it was enough. I was being complacent. The truth is, I wasn't enough."
"We're the same, aren't we?"
I tasted bitterness in my mouth as well. We'd both been filled with foolish confidence. Having succeeded several times going back and forth, it seemed we had started to underestimate our enemies.
This whole incident was a kind of warning. If we didn't prepare more thoroughly, next time we would surely lose someone.
"The pureblood supremacists acted like—they weren't interested in me—no, in Myosotis."
"Acted... uninterested?"
I had been nodding in agreement but frowned at her last words. "Acted"? That meant they were still after Myosotis.
"I only came here in the first place because they asked me to. They wanted my authority. Compared to the other moons, Titan has a lot of traces of Myosotis's involvement."
Before their downfall, Myosotis had been a leader in terraforming technology. While others eyed moons like Enceladus, which had high terraforming potential and required little investment, Myosotis had insisted on Titan, almost obsessively so.
That was already decades ago. Even though they had fallen once ten years back, what had accumulated here hadn't completely vanished. As it had been when we first arrived in town, Myosotis's authority still remained effective.
"They're still not entirely uninterested in me. They even contacted me separately. They said, 'We don't want the Blue Flower to wither away like this.'"
"But, I'm sure there was a condition."
"Yes. The condition was to abandon the impurities and accept grace. Then, all past wrongs would be wiped clean, or so they said. But it's pointless. I'm not going to accept it anyway."
Celestia shuddered, as if even thinking of the pureblood supremacists made her skin crawl, and glanced behind me.
"I guess you just came from seeing Nadia. But where are you going?"
"I have to go. To get biocells."
"Right now?"
"Yes, right now."
"But Hyun-woo, you haven't even recovered from your exhaustion yet."
"It's not like I could rest properly anyway, not until Nadia recovers."
I clenched and unclenched my fists. I didn't feel too bad physically. Even though I'd had a nightmare, there was hardly any fatigue.
It had been a series of exhausting days, not quite as tough as when I faced the Blue Eye, but the constant barrage of new developments was severely stressful.
Still, I was all right now. I had recovered enough to move again. Carry was the same as me. Switching to the modular type last time had been a good idea. Thanks to that, I could finish repairs by myself.
【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】
When I looked, Carry was giving a big thumbs-up. I gave one back, and that's when Celestia suddenly grabbed my forearm.
"... Then will you wait a moment? I want to come with you."
"Huh? You know where I'm going, right?"
I shot a glance at her as if she were trying to stop me from escaping, and she answered confidently.
"You're going to the medical sector, right? The residential area is totally destroyed, so the best chance is in Heaven."
"So you're well aware of the danger."
"Just like you're doing this for Nadia, I'm doing it for Eric."
Sensing I was about to protest, Celestia spoke quickly.
"Eric is the only one who would try to stop me, and even he's lying in bed and doesn't know what I'm up to. Besides, I don't even listen to Eric anyway."
What a five-year-old's answer.
"Unlike Eric, I could just knock you out and leave you behind."
"... W-Would you really?"
I kept my mouth shut on purpose. One thing was clear: I treated everyone equally, except for Nadia and Carry. Ah, and Licorice was an exception too.
When I didn't respond further, Celestia hesitated, but she didn't let go of my arm. Instead, she tightened her grip.
"I'll be helpful. No, I am helpful."
"I've heard that before."
"And I was actually helpful."
That was true. If not for Celestia, the control work would've had to be done by Alpha under Licorice's command, and if that had happened Eric might've ended up with another hole in his body.
"Besides, I was planning to go to the medical sector anyway, even if it weren't for all this."
"... I see."
With those same words as before, I realized her hidden meaning. It was inconvenient. I realized Celestia's intention to go to the medical sector was also tied to her search for her brother.
From her expression, she wasn't just saying it. Besides, what would she gain by lying anyway? For the leader of Myosotis, stubbornness alone seemed out of character.
If she was going anyway, I might as well just take her. I didn't even have to ask if she was prepared. Celestia would go to any lengths if her brother was involved.
I gave a silent sigh.
"I'll give you five minutes."
Celestia's face brightened, then quickly returned to normal. It was a somewhat awkward expression.
"... Please give me ten. Putting on the suit takes a while."
"..."
"Or you could help me into it. Then I could finish in five."
"... Fine, you have ten minutes. Go quick. I'll be waiting in front of the town gate."
"Okay...!"
Celestia turned and dashed off in a hurry. Even as she ran, she kept glancing back, clearly worried that I might leave without her. Since we already agreed to go together, there was no way I'd do that.
'Time to really get going.'
After checking on Nadia one last time, I headed for the gate and spoke up.
"It might be for the best. Right, Carry?"
【(⚆_⚆)】
"Don't make that face. It'll be good to give her a ride instead of Nadia... Well, maybe it won't fit as well?"
Unlike Nadia, Celestia's limbs were long, so it might look a bit awkward. Still, it was better to have someone riding Carry than for Carry to fly solo.
【(๏_๏)】
"If she turns out to be heavier than expected, just say you'd rather not carry her. It's not a big deal."
【( ˙ε . )】
Carry's annoyance was obvious. When I told it to stop fussing, his strange expression finally relaxed. It seemed it didn't like carrying anyone besides Nadia.
'Does that mean it refuses to give me a ride too?'
Suddenly, a random thought struck me. Come to think of it, after converting the module to the new model, the thruster output had greatly increased. It should now be able to support my weight.
But if I even pretend to get on, Carry would dramatically flip over and play dead. Shaking my head, I dismissed such thoughts. It was probably just too much trouble for it. Surely my partner wouldn't just refuse to give me a ride.
Anyway, Licorice couldn't help me this time. I had asked her for a favor.
I assigned her to scouting and surveillance. We couldn't ignore the possibility of pureblood supremacists invading the town. Maybe the only reason they let us go was so they could wipe us "impurities" out all at once.
Did we really matter that much? The thought struck me, but you never knew in life. Especially with lunatics like the pureblood supremacists.
No telling when they might suddenly attack the town. We had to step up our defenses.
'Kyle's making something again.'
He said he was upgrading the shuttle and also building a booster to amplify communications signals.
'I still need to go to the archive, and check out that mining site Licorice mentioned last time too.'
There was so much to do, but only so much I could take care of at once. None of these tasks were easy, either.
While pondering these stubborn old circuits, Carry and I reached the gate. There, my hover bike and the gear I was taking were waiting.
There wasn't much cargo. A bit of emergency rations including drinking water, lots of once-broken-now-repaired equipment, some refined blue crystal, several metal spears with sharpened tips, a spare plasma cutter, a handful of flash grenades, and lastly an emergency repair kit. That was all.
【Do one more check so you don't forget anything.】
Although the sender wasn't named, I was sure it was Licorice. The way the blunt but worried message sounded was just like her.
'Anything else to pack...'
No. I had the weakener Carrot made for me, and all my data was stored on my bracelet, so nothing more was needed.
"Hyun-woo...! Don't leave me behind...! It hasn't been ten minutes yet...!"
Scratch that. Turns out there was one thing left. I had nearly left Celestia behind.
I suddenly found myself wondering how she would react if I just took off. Would she freeze in panic, or dash after me and trip over her own feet?
For some reason, I could almost see something tumbling down with a crash.
【(ㅇࡇㅇ)?】
As I straddled the hover bike and started preparing to leave, Carry pointed behind me, as if asking if I wasn't taking Celestia with us.
"... I'll take her. I said I would."
I barely resisted the urge to hit the throttle immediately. Ever since seeing the injured Nadia, strange impulsive thoughts kept popping up like this.
'The ghouls just retreated back then, didn't they?'
Rather than 'ran away', "withdrew" was more accurate. Even when we brandished a plasma cutter threateningly, they didn't blink and kept on attacking—yet, just one loud shout had broken their momentum.
It had never happened before. It was the first time the ghouls abandoned their persistence.
—You don't know how to use the Core's power yet. Or maybe that's how you were designed.
Cystus's words suddenly echoed in my head. What did he mean by the Core's power? Did it mean I had a core, like the mutated creatures carried?
Just in case, I scanned my body with the scanner, but found nothing like a crystal.
'The Core...'
If I really did have some invisible core inside me, did that mean I was a monster, just like them? Realistically, a human with a core like that simply couldn't exist.
Like how ghouls imitate humans, maybe those who fight monsters end up resembling monsters themselves. Maybe, in time, the boundary between the two would blur.
'I am—'
A human. That's what I considered myself, how I looked, and otherwise nothing made sense.
'Lobelia's toy.'
Lobelia. While mulling over the name of the person likely responsible for making me like this, Celestia hurried over, visibly relieved.
"I thought you'd leave without me..."
"I thought about it, but I didn't, so hurry up and get on."
"What?"
"There's no sidecar this time, so just sit in the back."
Ignoring her incredulous look, I nodded toward the seat, and Celestia, unable to protest further, climbed onto the hover bike.
Carry settled into a spot between the cargo on each side, and with that, we were ready to depart.
At last, a single hover bike cut through the white darkness as we set off.
-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=
Need to get medicine.
【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】