Turning Point (4)
Today, we didn't hold a separate meeting in the bridge. Licorice simply shared the operation outlines via the ship's internal system.
Everything was already decided—what we needed to do, how the team would be divided. All that was left was for me to slot into my assigned role, so there was no complicated mess to handle.
"Lee Hyun-woo, head down whenever you're ready. They'll be waiting."
"Okay. Oh, who's piloting?"
I assumed it wouldn't be Eric. He wasn't suited for handling things other than direct combat. Not that it was impossible for him, but it was something he could just barely manage.
Even Celestia, after all, had told him not to touch the controls unless absolutely necessary.
"Canna will be piloting."
"That's a relief."
Licorice almost asked what was so relieving, but stopped herself—clearly, she understood the meaning. With a small grin, Licorice continued.
"This time, the ones going are Celestia, canna, you, and the Beta Series for equipment transport. The rest will be diverted to resource mining."
"Ah, got it."
That matched what I'd heard yesterday—Albatross and Griffin had used up more resources in repairs than expected, so more mining was needed before the next battle.
"But it's just one shuttle, right?"
"Don't worry. They're heading over with the Griffin itself."
"True, that's better if you want to haul more in one trip."
I nodded as I finished putting on my suit. Thanks to extra suits being prepared in advance, I didn't have to deliberate over what to wear.
As I clicked on my belt, bud scurried straight into the storage compartment, as if it had been waiting. I hadn't even opened it yet or asked it to wait, but it tapped the hatch and opened it on its own.
I stared at it incredulously, and then suddenly felt a bit empty. I fumbled at my waist—the rare metal needle case I always carried for emergencies had been reduced to one.
The needle I used to temporarily seal Ian's supernatural power couldn't be retrieved—it had completely dematerialized at the time.
Although I hadn't been able to recover the needle, I did bring back the gloves Ian used. Those were with Kyle now. I'd given them to him, thinking that if anyone could figure something out or make new gear from them, it'd be Kyle.
"If it were up to me, I'd go too..."
Once I'd finished prepping, Nadia started tapping her shoe on the floor nervously. She looked like an anxious parent watching a child near water—her ears and tail flickered with unease.
"You said you didn't get all your work done yesterday. Like I said, I'm just scouting, so don't worry about me and focus on your job. Remember what you told me—everyone should do their part in their place."
Nadia pouted at my words.
"It just feels like something's going to happen again. Trouble always pops up wherever you go. And bud already reacted to something..."
She had a reasonable point. In fact, the real reason I was going down was because of that—bud had only ever reacted to something this few times before.
Nadia knew that too, so she didn't press further and instead pushed Carry forward.
"Take Carry with you. Maybe from being cooped up in the storage bay all day, it's getting a bit restless."
「(ㅇࡇㅇ)?」
Carry wore an expression like, 'Me?' But at my follow-up, it immediately became obviously pleased.
"Carry, first trip out in a while, huh?"
「৻(≧ᗜ≦৻)」
"Let's do a good job."
「(˶• ֊ •˶)」
Carry lightly tapped my outstretched fist with its support arm, radiating a "leave it to me" confidence. With that, everyone headed to their assignments—Licorice to the bridge, Nadia and I to the storage bay.
Once in the storage bay, our paths diverged again. With Nadia seeing me off, I boarded the shuttle on standby.
Celestia greeted me, saying, "What took you so long?" at the same time that Nadia and Celestia's gazes crossed.
"I'm off."
"Be careful."
"I'll be right by his side, don't worry."
"... Okay."
When Celestia naturally stuck close, Nadia's tail snapped in the air, though she kept a smile on her face.
Nadia, deciding not to keep me any longer, gave a slight bow and left. The way her tail hung low as she shuffled off alone back to Albatross looked oddly pitiful. Staying behind on her own seemed to make her restless.
But that lasted only a moment. Suddenly, Nadia fired up, determined to finish her work today, calling over spider-shaped robots that followed her tail like children trailing the Pied Piper.
"I've never seen anyone as adorable as Nadia,"
Celestia chuckled. I agreed. Griffin was already en route with its mining crew—there was barely any sign of people nearby.
We sent Canna a signal from the cockpit that we were ready, and soon the shuttle rumbled upward.
The storage bay gate, unlike when Roxy was piloting, opened as far as it could for take-off. With minor shakes, the shuttle slipped from Albatross's aft.
A sudden sense of pressure hit me, as the scenery transformed in an instant—a vast view of scattered buds stretched far beyond the horizon below.
"We'll head to the tallest bud. It'll take about...three minutes."
"That's quick."
"That's being generous—we're already close to the coordinates so we can set up the relay and leave right away. Can you see it? It's already in sight."
The destination loomed ahead—the tallest point on Titan. Without an aerial vehicle, the terrain would have made it nearly unreachable.
Just as Canna said, we didn't need to do complex work on the ground—Licorice, back on Albatross, would handle that.
As conversation lulled and we watched the scenery, the shuttle gradually slowed. The bud had a flat enough space for us to land on, despite being a jagged, tooth-like peak with sheer cliffs.
It wasn't a natural shape. Apparently, the area had already been surveyed by repair drones, which had prepared a landing site.
'Thorough.'
It was the right move—with even a small shuttle, the weight added up fast: the relay, controller, us, and the Beta Series, risking a collapse if the ground was unstable.
'There must've been nothing suspicious, or we'd have been notified.'
If anything new had been found, we'd have heard by now, but judging from bud's reaction, that didn't seem to be the case. Whatever it was, it was well hidden.
The shuttle landed safely and the hatch opened. The wind was fierce up here, but it didn't feel cold—my suit worked fine. Only my body had changed—probably another after-effect of recovery after fighting a strong mutant. I wasn't surprised by this anymore.
While Canna prepared materials for installing the relay and readied the camouflage for the shuttle, the Beta Series kicked into action according to their pre-programmed instructions.
They shared the heavy load, moving in orderly groups so the relay equipment wouldn't slip over the cliffs. Watching them, I limbered up too.
"Well, shall we get going?"
「✧(*,,ÒㅅÓ,,)✧」
Carry's eyes sparkled at the new adventure. Bud bounced right out of storage and landed on Carry as if it was the natural thing to do.
「( ⩌ ‸ ⩌ )」
Carry's happy expression faded in an instant, but since it didn't try to swipe bud off with wild swings, it seemed they'd reached an agreement.
With both Carry and bud raring to go, Celestia grabbed my arm in surprise.
"Hyun-woo? Where are you going?"
"Ah."
Come to think of it, I hadn't told Celestia specifically. I didn't intend to leave her here alone, so I explained simply: ever since we arrived, bud had been reacting to something, and there might be an abandoned observation post nearby.
"An observation post, huh... It would make sense, there's a lot of data to collect in a spot like this."
Celestia tilted her head thoughtfully.
"But are you sure it's safe to go? Wouldn't it be safer to send a drone?"
"This one wanted to check it out personally."
I hadn't ruled out using a drone—more of them, spread everywhere, would increase our odds of finding something eventually.
But that wouldn't do. We needed to keep in-the-open movement as minimal as possible.
Why else did Albatross keep so close to the limit of an aggressive military strategist satellite, hidden in dense, dark clouds? Because we never knew when or where a pureblood supremacist force would show up. We didn't bother camouflaging the shuttle for nothing.
"We can just go ourselves. I brought a drone just in case, too."
From Carry's cargo box, I took out a small drone—a round robot with a cross-shaped slit, designed to detect unstable terrain and collapse risk.
"If we find anything, we'll check it with this for structural stability before going in."
"Nadia knows you're doing this, right?"
"Of course. I promised her I'd get out immediately if there's any danger."
"In that case..."
It took several reassurances for Celestia to back down—she was clearly still worried after my recent injuries.
'I get it.'
I'd probably be the same if I were her. Besides, she actually saw me get hurt, so it was only natural she'd feel it more keenly.
"Canna, I'm going to take a look around the area."
"Will it take long?"
Canna, giving instructions, turned to look at me. The relay installation was in full swing around her.
"Not sure... I'll know after checking."
"Understood. Keep a comm open at all times."
"Of course. Let me know if you need help."
Canna nodded but said she likely wouldn't need to call.
"I'll carry on here. If you need, you can take two of the Betas—what's left will be enough."
"Hmm... Two's overkill—I'll just take one, just in case."
The area was rugged and not somewhere anyone had lived, so it wasn't likely to contain any mutants, but it never hurt to be prepared. I knew my body best; even though I'd recovered enough to move, if I fought another bud-type mutant, I'd be right back in trouble.
One of the working Beta Series made its way over to me. I asked Canna if she knew anything about an observation post, but she shook her head, saying she didn't—understandably, since it wasn't her jurisdiction.
「٩(^ᗜ^ )و」
Noticing that it was finally time to start, Carry took the lead, with Celestia and me following with small smiles. Crunch. The footstep on icy, coarse snow shattered beneath us.
Spread out like fine sugar, the thin layer of snow covered clusters of blue-tinged ice rather than the pure white you'd expect.
The ice mountain range under the grey, cloud-choked sky was startlingly clear, strangely untainted—as if no impurity was trapped within.
Whooosh—
We followed a path of ice harder than stone. Bud, perched on Carry, whipped its head from side to side, prompting Carry to adjust direction, sometimes making it seem they communicated better than I did. Just the other day, they'd bicker and fight.
I eyed a shard of ice kicked loose, bouncing down the steep slope. It tumbled away, disappearing into whiteness below.
One misstep, and we'd end up like that. Moving carefully so as not to slip, we pressed on. Before long—
"We're just circling this area."
Celestia tilted her head. Despite moving with energy, Carry only combed the area just beneath the bud where Canna was.
At first, I thought they were just narrowing down the direction, but as the loop became a third, I thought something was off and stopped for a moment.
Clunk-clunk—
Above, the sound of anchoring the relay echoed close. We were near enough that Canna would hear if we called out.
"Looks like we're not heading to another bud."
"She only reacted to this one from above, too. I tried showing her others, and she got annoyed, saying that wasn't it."
"Hmm..."
Thinking something might be inside the bud, I brushed the snow off and peered through the ice. Unsurprisingly, nothing was visible—if there'd been anything obvious, the drones would've already found it.
With bud riding, Carry made very cautious incremental moves down the slope. That meant whatever we were looking for wasn't above, but deeper below.
For now, we decided to wait for a further reaction. It was likely better to help by standing by than by simply trailing around. Still, just in case, I called out—
"Carry, don't go too far! If you do, call out first!"
Having heard me, Carry snapped its head up and waved its support arm. Bud bounced on top. It looked less like a greeting and more like a protest not to lose focus. Carry even did a somersault in defiance.
"Think it'll take long?"
"Maybe."
At my reply, Celestia dropped to the ground with a little "hup," and gently tugged my arm for me to sit as well. I followed, since it would be odd for one of us to stand while the other sat.
"Isn't the weather unusually clear today? Maybe it's because we're at the peak?"
"Puhaha—Celly, you're turning into a real Titan native."
I chuckled. The sky was still gloomy, but for Titan, this counted as clear—visibility was wide open.
"Really? I guess I've already adjusted. I remember hating it here when I first arrived."
Celestia laughed as well, adding that the current moment felt surprisingly peaceful. There was still some noise from above, but compared to a battlefield, it was nothing.
'Peaceful, huh...'
Even as we said it, we knew: all of this calm was because we were at the eye of the storm.
Outside, pureblood supremacist forces were assembling pursuit teams; in another direction, the area was devastated by nuclear blast and graviton cannon aftershocks.
Mithrim Montes was quiet only because the spot we occupied would soon become the center of the next storm. What we did here would decide whether everything changed.
'I'll make sure of that.'
I didn't know how long we sat, but as the artificial sun's position edged past midday, Carry suddenly hopped, frantically waving at us so hard I thought its support arm might come off.
Celestia and I, who'd been admiring the scenery, quickly hurried down. The slope twisted unpredictably, so we kept our pace controlled not to fall.
At last, we reached Carry without incident.
"Is this the spot?"
「✧(*,,ÒㅅÓ,,)✧」
Carry's eyes sparkled in confirmation. I again scraped off the surface snow, peering inside. This time, it was different. There was a metallic sheen glimmering within the ice.
Whether this was an observation post or some other facility, I didn't know, but one thing was clear—the reason bud had reacted was this.
Celestia and I exchanged glances as Carry awaited our command.
"Break it open."
「(⌐■_■)-︻╦╤─」
At my firm voice, Carry put on sunglasses.
***
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