Turning point (25)
"It looks like it's going to be hard to pass quietly now, doesn't it?"
I said this as we looked over the sector after subduing a crystal that pixelated everything it touched. There weren't any rampaging crystals anymore, but there were things wandering around I'd never seen in my life.
Machines shaped like jellyfish were floating here and there, stuck to the ceiling of the sector. Their movements seemed harmless at first glance, but noticing that strange creatures—ones you'd never expect to see on Titan—were clasped by what looked like tentacles, made it clear they were actually very dangerous entities.
Just the sight of them holding those captured things would give anyone the creeps. The wavering movements of their tentacles put us even more on guard. I could see a greenish liquid moving through an opaque tube.
"... Is it sucking out bodily fluids right now?"
"That's what it looks like to me."
"Ugh...."
Licorice grimaced as she saw the creature, now just skin and bones from having its fluids drained. I carefully kept my distance, worried she'd throw up again. I had tried to move quietly, but somehow Licorice noticed, and her eyes flared.
As I flinched and begged her not to glare, Nadia gave me a puzzled look.
"What do you mean, 'eyes flare'?"
"It's when a lamp has two wicks—"
"What's a lamp?"
"It's something you light with fire to brighten up a room... You don't know?"
"That sounds really old-fashioned... Who says stuff like that anymore? People just say 'shoot with a laser.'"
Nadia tilted her head. Come to think of it, how did I know that expression? It had come out so naturally, but now that I thought about it, I wasn't sure. I pondered it for a moment, then shrugged it off.
"Have you ever seen a creature like that before?"
"No. If you want to know anything, you have to access the control crystal. I just thought of a method, so let's deal with that thing and get the crystal."
I regretted that the influence of each sector's control crystal only applied within that sector. Maybe it was for security, but as soon as we crossed into a new sector, the previous sector's control crystal lost its power.
You couldn't even say it was a security lock—the moment you crossed the sector boundary, it went dark as if the power had shut off completely. On top of that, it would return to its original position.
I had tried holding it with strength to watch it once, but the control crystal was destroyed. If I returned to the previous sector, a fresh control crystal would be floating in the air. I didn't know if it was a spare or if it regenerated, but the rule of one control crystal per sector had never been broken.
"Got it. Nadia, you heard. Let's catch it and move on quickly."
Nadia nodded at my words. Multipurpose Unit 2, connected to her bio-circuit, sensed her intent and activated its Big Hand function. Its thin legs unfolded, and the central lens began to glow.
Unlike when we captured the crystal, there was no need for indiscriminate firing due to poor distance sense. With nothing blocking our view, one precise activation was enough.
"I'll drop it!"
A gravity field formed right above the jellyfish-shaped machine. Unlike invisible telekinesis, the gravity field was semi-transparent. As the powerful downward force hit, the machine reacted.
「Kiriririk?!」
The creature enjoying its feast flailed its tentacles in panic as it was forcibly pulled down, but it didn't let go of its prey—instead, it squeezed even tighter.
It was clearly already dead, but it must have interpreted the disturbance as its prey struggling.
"Oh? Still holding on? Then double the power!"
When Nadia increased the output, the machine finally realized we were here. Panic became rage in an instant—but so did its fall. The jellyfish-like machine crashed to the floor, unable to withstand the gravity field.
Thud—a resounding crash. Nadia, with her glue-gun at the ready, asked,
"Should I kill it?"
"Yes. Kill it."
I was curious how the machine floated with no obvious device and why it seemed like a living organism rather than a simple machine, but there was no time to investigate. It was best to deal with it first.
Pop-pop-pop—
With pathetic firing sounds, blobs of glue stuck to the struggling metal body. Multipurpose Unit 1 hit the detonator as if it had been waiting. Blue flames burst out, and a mighty boom echoed through the sector almost simultaneously.
'So it's blue, huh.'
I'd wondered about the color of the explosion, but now I knew. The jellyfish-machine tried to defend itself the moment it was caught in the blast.
It shook its tentacled legs, trying to shake off the fire, but it was too sticky to be effective. The thing thrashed around in blue flames, its movements growing weaker until it finally sagged to the ground.
"Looks like it's dead!"
"Hold on."
I spun my finger in the air. In case it was playing dead, I used telekinesis to let any remaining flames seep inside. No matter the stimulus, it didn't move. Only after confirming the kill did I declare the situation resolved.
"It wasn't as tough as I expected."
"Nadia's gear is just that strong. Dropping it straight down and then sticking it with glue before blowing it up—even if it survived that, it wouldn't be much of an emergency."
"If it hadn't died, Hyun-woo would have stepped in, so not really an emergency!"
Nadia smiled, saying we still had plenty of options and could handle anything. With her tail swaying, Licorice approached the control crystal. She waved her hand, telling us not to distract her while she focused.
Nadia and I, shooed away by that gesture, decided to inspect the defeated jellyfish-machine. It was oozing a suspicious-looking liquid, maybe due to being melted by the heat.
Multipurpose Unit 1 edged closer and prodded it with a pincer. The trail it left was quite viscous. Nadia wrinkled her nose and groaned at the peculiar stench.
"Think it'll be like this everywhere?"
"Probably. Maybe even worse."
It seemed that once the seals started breaking, a chain reaction was causing seals elsewhere to give way. The chaos from released entities was spreading from sector to sector, breaking control crystals, and the damaged crystals let more stasis chamber seals break in turn.
"Then isn't Celestia's group in danger too?"
"Since it's come up, I'll ask her."
I opened communications. Once the encryption finished, it connected.
"Celly—"
— Hyun-woo, if it's not urgent, can we talk lat—rat-a-tat-tat!—later?! I'm—bang!—a little busy right now!
It was obvious Celly was frantic even before she explained. Between the noise of pulse rifles and linear rifles firing, the line was full of gunfire.
"Uh, sure. You're not in immediate danger, right?"
— Not in danger! There's just a lot of them! Over there! On the left—they're about to rush in! Get them!
"... Good luck."
The call cut off before I could really say anything. I stared blankly at the flood of information, then rolled my eyes.
"Yeah, things are pretty crazy over there."
"Looks like they're fighting with sheer numbers. Is this what they're dealing with?"
Nadia nudged one of the corpses at her feet. Its shape was very similar to Earth animals, but a lot was different.
It had horns on its head, and its body was covered in something between thick leather and scales. Its greenish body fluid was slightly acidic.
'Those metallic crystals everywhere, the translucent stuff under the muscles or shell—looks like tissue.'
I'd never heard or seen an animal like this in my life. I snapped a few pictures—Kyle or Carrot would surely like them.
'No way something this horrid is from Earth.'
It shouldn't be. Not just me—Nadia was hoping the same. Instead of calling it a beast, "monster" felt more accurate. Squirrels were about all we could handle.
'How many are there, I wonder.'
Even if we could handle it now, things could change as we moved to other sectors.
"Should we try to meet up?"
"Isn't it a bit hard to meet right now? We're taking different routes toward the central area. Maybe we'll cross paths near the end, but we're not there yet."
"You never know. Licorice might find another route."
We thought the spatial encryption barrier was probably a shortcut. If we could unlock that, maybe a hidden path would be revealed, and we wouldn't have to slog through every sector.
'There's almost certainly another route.'
For a facility this big, moving sector by sector seemed way too inefficient. Even the Heaven mining colony had an internal tram to cross sectors.
"Lee Hyun-woo, Woof-woof. I'm done decoding. Come here."
Licorice called us. As we walked over, she started to speak.
"Two pieces of good news, three pieces of bad news. What do you want first?"
"Uh... start with the bad. Better to get it out of the way. But three pieces of bad news?"
"It's three main points—I could break it down into more."
Licorice let out a sigh. I was hoping the good news would outnumber the bad, but so far, no luck.
"First bad news, as you know, the stasis chamber seals are broken. It started out as a few, but their numbers are increasing in real time. Meaning more monsters like the ones in the Level 4 prohibited sector could appear.
Second, with the seals breaking, the warden surveillance system is waking up too. The wardens seem to have different types depending on the unit. They might be tough to handle. The only silver lining is, wardens are fighting some of the escaped creatures.
Third, there's a high-energy reaction ahead—right smack in our route. There's no way to avoid it, so we're guaranteed to have to fight."
"... Could it be Lobelia?"
"Hard to say. I don't think so—the interference that usually makes things feel off isn't strong enough now, so I doubt it's her."
According to Licorice, it didn't seem to be Lobelia, since there wasn't enough of that signature interference. Seeing as we suspected Lobelia was the cause of the Archive's defense system not being fully activated, it was unlikely she'd reveal herself so obviously.
"If anything blocks our way, we destroy it!"
Nadia's fighting spirit burned bright, even for opponents we hadn't seen. She clearly wasn't expecting allies.
I felt the same. There could be something like Orca, like with the Sky Whale, but with Lobelia involved, the boundaries between friend and foe could easily shift.
"What's the good news?"
"First good news, I learned there's a new device nearby—called a matter transporter. The name matches the function, obviously. It only works within the Archive, but if we use it, we can coordinate with the other team. The Archive's structure is interlinked anyway.
Second, we got some data. It's unusual—it's not a regular entry, but more like the margins of an annotation...."
Licorice hesitated. As I wondered about the pause, she began again.
"The info is: 'There are no plans for a native biosphere to exist on the second Titan.' That's what it says."
"... Second Titan?"
Nadia and I met eyes. We instantly knew we were thinking the same thing. Titan—specifically, the second Titan? Did that mean there was another Titan out there?
"There's more annotation. 'The biosphere is too dangerous for humans to encounter. Especially those organisms that parasitize robot circuits—a serious risk for the colony. The failure of Titan exploration must be prevented. Thus, all silicon-based native biosphere entities must be sealed in the Archive.' ... That's all I've got right now."
"......"
We didn't know how to process the data Licorice had secured. The existence of a native biosphere was something long debated.
We'd always considered the possibility. After all, sometimes we'd find fossils that defied common sense.
But no one had ever actually seen or discovered clear proof. Some claimed we'd wiped them out by terraforming, others argued they had died off naturally from being unable to handle extreme environments.
But it seemed neither theory was true.
"So, according to the info, there originally was a native biosphere on this Titan—and that means these dead things, including the jellyfish, are it, right?"
My gaze went to the corpse, and the others followed. Until a moment ago, I was cursing the existence of such monsters, but now, knowing they were Titan's original biosphere, I saw them differently.
Licorice corrected me.
"Not this Titan—the first Titan, most likely."
"What's with the first and second? Does it mean the whole thing was destroyed and then rebuilt...?"
I trailed off as I recalled that the Archive here was practically an Ark.
"For the next world."
That phrase made us suspect one era had ended and ours had begun. If our guess was right, the idea of a second Titan wasn't so far-fetched.
It was a logical leap—but none of us could easily refute it. After all, there was already proof another era existed.
The pureblood supremacists' so-called 'age of purity,' and Lobelia, who'd lived longer than the stars!
"If this is the second Titan, then everywhere else could be a second version too, right? ... Right?"
"Might even be a third or fourth if destruction is the standard for counting."
"... All we wanted was to get the satellite unsealing code, but we keep getting further from that goal."
"We're not far. We'll get the code at the very center, eventually. This information we're getting is just a bonus. Good blackmail material for the government and the Pilgrims when we get back to Earth."
Licorice spoke evenly. She was still unsettled, but seemed determined to push forward rather than waste time worrying.
Nadia bumped her fists together.
"Then there's only one answer. Let's speed things up!"
"Right. No holding back. I'll do the same."
Licorice sorted the info she'd gotten and sent it over to Celestia's group. Unsurprisingly, their reaction wasn't much different—they were all visibly shocked.
After that, we set out to look for the matter transporter Licorice had mentioned. And it was then that Celestia let us know—she'd run into a serious problem.