Chapter 239. The Immortal (7)
Two days ago, right after Enoch had set out on the operation.
Sirocco rose from the bed, rubbing her eyes.
Turning her head, the cold light of dawn came through the window into the hotel room.
Above the sprawling view of the Outsourcing District, across the vast sky, morning was just breaking.
Kneeling on the plush bed, the characteristic chill scent of dawn tickled the tip of her nose. The ticking of the antique wall clock rang in her ears. The time was 8 a.m.
Her eyelids heavy, she stared blankly out the window at the Outsourcing District for a while, still drowsy, and then stretched.
On a morning that should have felt good, for some reason she felt a strange emptiness, and Sirocco tilted her head.
"……Hmm. Weird. Something feels empty."
Sirocco hugged her pillow — as big as her upper body — and climbed down from the bed, rubbing her eyes slowly.
As she flicked her ears atop her head, a thought occurred to her.
Come to think of it — before she had become part of Enoch's Follower Family, just after they'd first met and finished that operation — she had also seen a dawn sky like this.
Was that why her mood was like this?
As that thought crossed her mind, the black-haired boy who shared the same room popped into her mind.
Sirocco hopped right onto the bed next to his, where he should have been sleeping. She climbed atop the blanket and pressed down on it with both hands.
But even as Sirocco wagged her tail and pressed down on the blanket eagerly, there was no feeling of anything beneath it.
"Hmm, another training session, of course. Just where in this building is he even training……"
It was such a quiet morning that she even muttered to herself — something she normally wouldn't — and gave a small yawn.
Clear tears beaded at the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision, so she lightly wiped them with the back of her fingers.
Normally, Enoch didn't even sleep properly — he'd shut himself in a training room far from the bedrooms and devote himself to practice as his daily routine.
Whenever she couldn't bear the loneliness and pestered him for a sparring match, he'd glance at her and stick his sword into the sheath at his hip.
Then, with his bare hands, he'd dodge and subdue Sirocco's attacks all too easily. After that, unbothered, he'd draw his sword again and go back to training.
At his unruffled poise, even Sirocco — with her Beast-kin's robust stamina — had found herself admiring him more than once.
But leaving the room and walking up and down the corridors, for some reason there was no trace of Enoch anywhere in this large hotel.
"……What the hell."
Walking down the corridor, Sirocco couldn't hide the look of someone growing impatient. She grabbed handfuls of her slightly wavy red hair and covered her cheeks with them.
"Leaving me alone, where did he go. Really."
A sudden question crossed Sirocco's mind.
Come to think of it, why was he always shutting himself away to practice like this, not even sleeping properly?
Of course, she understood the desire to grow stronger — that was the same for her — but now that she thought about it, she had never heard him say out loud why he wanted to get stronger.
Maybe she should ask him next time, she thought. Just then, noticing a large, antique-looking mirror set into the wall beside the corridor, Sirocco turned her head and looked at her own reflection.
A Sirocco reflected in the mirror — cheeks slightly flushed, prim eyes, smiling without realizing — looked back.
"Hm?"
Sirocco unconsciously felt her heart pound and placed a hand on her chest. Strangely, when she thought of that boy in black clothes, her chest seemed to fill with something incredibly warm.
Maybe this feeling was……
When she recalled his face, inexplicable longing made her skin feel warm.
Stroking her warm, pale cheeks, Sirocco took her eyes off the face in the mirror and lowered her head softly.
Up to now, she'd certainly felt impatient to win against him, but for some reason thinking about him like this made her feel good.
Sirocco clenched her fist.
Decided. One day, she'd ask him why he wanted to get so strong. If, through that, she could find out the reason he was throwing himself into training that looked punishing even by her standards, maybe she could be of help.
Circling the hotel's corridors all the way around in search of wherever Enoch might be, Sirocco at last arrived right before the room door across the hall from the one they were staying in.
Unlike the other rooms where the other squad members were staying, its door was left slightly ajar.
"You're in here!"
Crying out with spirit, she flung open the door. But contrary to her certainty that he could only be in here, the black-clothed boy she was looking for wasn't there either.
Sirocco scanned the empty room and drooped her shoulders slightly in disappointment.
"What the heck. Really……"
Grumbling, she stepped inside the room anyway just in case and looked around. Tools of all kinds were laid out in abundance on the tables and floor.
An electric drill, still red-hot at the tip as if it had been used until just now, and machine parts whose purpose she couldn't even guess. Walking through the room strewn with bolts, spanners, and other miscellaneous tools, a sharp, faint scent of oil hung in the air.
Just then, sensing someone approaching beside her, she turned her head that way.
A T-shirt tied up beneath a slim, toned torso swayed softly, showing a taut, shapely figure.
"Oh, if it isn't Sirocco-mda?"
Nano walked out from the side bedroom, sweeping back her bright white-gold hair with a flick. As always, she wore her metal visor on her head.
"You must be tired, but you're up awfully early-mda!"
Sirocco flicked her ears with a puzzled look.
"Huh? You, this is your room?"
"That's right-mda! Ah, feel free to come in-mda!"
Nano laughed breezily and opened both arms in welcome.
But even at her hospitality, Sirocco pricked her ears up sharply and at once cast a suspicious eye toward Nano.
"Hmm, something's off."
"Oh? Off — how-mka?"
Sirocco glanced over, ears pricked.
"Hey, you. By any chance. Do you know where he is?"
"Ah! Is that about the Direct Lineage-mka!"
Standing slightly sideways, Nano, as if she had been waiting for this exact question, planted a hand on her hip and proudly pointed with her palm at the bed in her room.
"Ahaha, he's sleeping in my room, isn't he-mda!"
"W, what?!"
Seeing the blanket really did look bulked up, Sirocco's tail instantly stiffened.
"Really? He really is sleeping in your room?"
"Yes-mda!"
Nano, as though with nothing to hide, puffed out her chest proudly and placed a hand on her chest with a triumphant expression.
"He came to consult with me about the operation, and perhaps due to fatigue, he said he wanted to close his eyes briefly-mda! Said it looked like he needed to rest undisturbed for about a day-mda!"
Sirocco didn't answer. She wagged her tail and sniffed toward the bed with its bulge.
Then, in exactly one second, she glared sidelong at Nano scornfully.
"Hmm. You think I'm stupid, do you?"
"Huh? What do you mean-mka?"
"Watch closely!"
Giving Nano a look of disdain, Sirocco marched right up to the bed without hesitation. Then, with her prim eyes, she lifted her left bare foot up in a perfectly gymnastic pose through the air.
The instant her bare foot formed a perfect I in midair.
Only then did Nano seem to sense something was off, her smiling face freezing stiff.
"Ah……?!"
An instant later, a boom that seemed to rock the entire hotel rang out, and the remains of what had been a bed exploded outward in every direction.
The bed had been split in two and sent flying.
Amid the shards of mattress and wooden planks, a dummy — made by Nano, roughly Enoch's size — had been shattered and sent flying.
In the middle of it all, with a composed expression, Sirocco caught the dummy's head out of midair with both hands, thrust it out toward Nano, and demanded,
"How is this scrap metal him?"
"Th, huh?"
Nano stared blankly at Sirocco, and when she checked the time on the terminal she'd been hiding behind her back, she murmured softly with a somewhat shocked expression,
"T, ten minutes and I was found out-mda……"
***
"……And that happened while I was away?"
When Enoch sighed and asked back, Nano quietly looked down at the broken dummy fragment she'd brought along to explain and nodded over and over.
"Yes-mda. In any case, I hope this answered what you wanted to know-mda!"
Beside her, April threw her arms up in the air as if to protest.
"Right, do you know how shocked I was when I woke up during that?! I thought the hotel was going to collapse!"
Leaving Sirocco to herself — still glaring sullenly at him — he asked Nano for more details about the events two days ago, and it had been an absolute disaster.
After that, as Sirocco raged around all over looking for Enoch, Nano had somehow persuaded her by reminding her that a Follower Family causing trouble for those around them would only reflect badly on Enoch himself.
"So that's why she's pouting this much."
"Ahaha, really — no excuse-mda."
"No need to apologize. It wasn't your fault."
The back of Enoch's head prickled under the still-silent glare from Sirocco, and he scratched at the back of his head.
No matter how good Sirocco's nose was, it had rained afterwards, so the scent would have been washed away. As a result, there was no way to tell where Enoch had gone, so she'd apparently given up.
And when rumors among the freelancers had eventually tipped her off about where Enoch had gone, the experimental magical beasts had already begun their re-invasion, so the priority had to be holding them off.
"Hey. You. Where do you get off disappearing like this?"
Just then, Sirocco walked over, tapped her bare foot against the floor, and planted herself squarely in front of Enoch.
"You know what really makes me mad? You kept what happened from me, but told those two!"
Sirocco poked his chest with her slender finger and declared with audacity,
"I'm your Follower Family! I want to be of help by your side!"
"You've been helping more than enough."
"What. And after all that, you still deceived me?"
"I deceived you this time because having you stay here was more helpful than having you come along."
Sirocco narrowed her eyes and peered up at Enoch.
"Hmm, so you're saying you don't trust me?"
"No. It's not that. It's because I trust you too much."
"What's that. What are you even saying?"
Enoch looked at Sirocco with composed eyes.
"I thought that while I was gone, I could rely on you to handle the defense here well enough. Thanks to that, I was able to leave on the solo mission without worry."
"Th……!"
Sirocco opened her eyes slightly wider, staring at him blankly with her cheeks flushing faintly, then, as if unwilling to be taken in, she folded her arms and sharply turned her head the other way.
"You're — you're good with words, at least. So is that all?"
"No. And because, if you'd known where I was heading, you'd definitely have charged into the forest after me. Was I wrong?"
"Hmph, what. Is that not allowed?"
As Sirocco swung her tail in irritation, Enoch calmly confirmed,
"Yeah. Because that would've been dangerous in many ways."
"Don't make me laugh. I don't get lost in the forest!"
"Even so, if more people had gone than the number set, Shepherd wouldn't let it slide."
"I could blow away a guy like him!"
"If you really did, I'd be in trouble."
At that, Sirocco went, "Ugh," and flinched, cautiously looking up at him with upturned eyes. Perhaps she understood that to some degree.
He didn't say it out loud to Sirocco, but not only would it affect Enoch alone — even Sirocco herself and the entire squad would suffer consequences.
If there was a clash with Shepherd, the de facto commander here, external problems would crop up. And given that Main House Direct Lineage were especially sensitive to outside perception during missions.
In that case, violating the regulations of the solo mission — the mission given to him as penalty for breaking away from the front line in the full-scale battle — would obviously only create more pretext to worsen the situation further.
Enoch shook his head slightly and added,
"So, no matter how I think about it, Sirocco. Considering the predictable things you'd do, not coming along would be the best option in every……"
But just as he was smoothly answering, Enoch noticed that Sirocco's expression, as she looked at him, had taken on a subtly different tone.
"Hmm. What. You."
With her arms still folded, Sirocco turned her face slightly aside, pouting.
"You're answering with such ease, like you really did predict every single thing I'd do."
Enoch felt a brief chill but, unfazed, shook his head.
"……Judging by that reaction, my predictions weren't wrong."
"Painful as it is, I admit it. It's not just 'not wrong.' You got every one right. And that's what makes me even more curious."
As if she'd been curious for a while, Sirocco stared intently at him and snapped back crisply,
"Even during our usual sparring matches, too. How is it you act as if you know everything about me?"
"Because I know a lot about you, Sirocco."
Enoch replied matter-of-factly.
This kind of question no longer warranted any flustering, for any reason.
He now knew Sirocco — not just the Sirocco of the original story, but the very Sirocco before him, walking a new future rather than the tragic fate of Official History — truly well.
"This isn't a lie. As you well know."
Sirocco widened her ruby-like eyes slightly. Then, sidelong with sulking eyes, she spat out,
"Hmph, what. If you really know my actions and attitudes that well, you must've known I'd get this angry, too."
"Yes. I'll apologize for that honestly. Forgive me."
When Enoch said so while averting his eyes, Sirocco pricked up just one ear and closed one eye.
"Fine, I'll forgive you. But!"
But? At the unexpected word, he tilted his head. Right in front of his face, Sirocco rose up on her tiptoes, leaned her upper body in, and wore a prim smile.
"There's a condition. If you grant that condition, I'll consider it."
"A condition — what?"
"Hmm~. What do you think?"
Sirocco narrowed her eyes slightly and smiled. Her eyes came so close beyond his expectations that Enoch briefly stopped speaking.
Sirocco, leaning her upper body in until their chests nearly met, straightened her back, pointed a finger squarely at him, and cried out,
"That even just once, you grant me any wish I ask for later!"
"What?"
A so-called wish card, huh. At Sirocco's words, Enoch briefly thought and slowly nodded.
"If that settles it."
Sirocco's face lit up in a full smile, and, seemingly in a good mood again, she tilted her chin up.
"Hmph. Good. I'll let you off with that this time!"
Seeing Sirocco's ears pricking up cheerfully again, it seemed the negotiation had, unexpectedly, succeeded. Enoch breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, feeling a dark aura beside him, he glanced to the side, where Nano, clutching her head — still wearing her upturned visor — was letting out a strange groan.
"Hmm, no matter how I think about it, I made it properly-mda……"
Nano was turning the fragments of the broken dummy's head this way and that, stroking her chin with her fingers.
Given a picture doodled in her own hand, taped lazily to the dummy's head, must have been supposed to be his face. Feeling a bit odd about that, Enoch walked over.
"Nano. Why?"
"But it's definitely strange-mda!!"
"Strange? What is?"
"I definitely worked on it properly-mda! For it to be found out — as a genius engineer I've disqualified myself-mda!"
Sirocco glared at her from the side.
"Hey, you. I'm asking just in case — did you really think that wouldn't be caught?"
Nano planted her hand on the trim waist exposed beneath her tied-up T-shirt and nodded proudly.
"Of course-mda! With the automatic heating system I built for body heat camouflage, plus — though it was a rush job — the aluminum-frame body-shape approximated by eyeballing, I was definitely confident I could fool you for at least a day-mda!"
Enoch just watched Nano, dismayed at some bizarre angle. Why is she like this again.
"No, like I said before. You did plenty well."
"Ah! That's, that's a different issue-mda!"
Nano shook her head, as though she really had no idea why she'd failed, arms crossed.
"This is definitely a process mistake unbefitting a genius engineer-mda!"
"……Ah."
Watching Nano cling to a strange fixation and seriously stroke her chin, Enoch finally understood.
Given how mightily powerful a mage Nano grew into in the original story, he understood immediately.
The minimum condition for a mage to breach the 10th Rank barrier was said to be that at least one of their screws had to come loose. And with Nano, that tendency was already, even five years ago, present……
"Also. I even carefully covered my bed's blanket on him so he wouldn't be visible! And yet within ten minutes of Sirocco waking up, I was found out!"
From what he heard, it seemed Nano had been hearing the sound of Sirocco waking up and leaving the room, and from that point was confidently timing her.
But as a result, a total defeat.
Unable, it seemed, to accept that her masterpiece had been smashed to pieces in ten minutes, Nano, with a serious face, patted the broken Enoch-dummy head. Then she glanced at Sirocco with her usual bright smile.
"Ahaha, honestly, recognizing that dummy is impressive-mda. I was really confident-mda!"
"Hmph, I'm his Follower Family."
"Since you're his Follower Family, you recognized it right away-mda! By the way, what part was lacking that you caught on-mka?"
"The smell!"
"Huh? Smell-mka?"
Sirocco glanced at Enoch with composed eyes, grabbed the hem of his shirt with both hands, and buried her nose in his stomach, sniffing.
At such a bold display from Sirocco, April — watching from the side — let out a small "Aah!" and stared at him blankly, her face bright red.
Sirocco, glaring at April with her prim eyes as though teasing her, suddenly laughed and took on a smug expression.
"See — try sniffing too. No way a dummy could have a smell like this."
"Hmm? Smell — you mean body scent-mka? But the other time I held the Direct Lineage's hand walking, I didn't notice any particularly unique scent……"
When Nano scratched her cheek with her finger, Sirocco planted her hand on her hip and declared proudly,
"That's because it's you. I can tell when I smell it."
At that, Nano, as if she hadn't even considered that, nodded blankly in shock.
"…Wow. Beast-kin really are Beast-kin-mda!"
"Right? My nose is sharp."
"Honestly, I'm amazed-mda. I'd only heard rumors. Your senses really are astonishing-mda!"
"Of course. No matter how well it's made, it'll get caught by me."
Nano clenched her fists tight.
"But! Even still, for my little creation to fail to deliver its intended performance — as a magic-engineering technician, that's absolutely unacceptable-mda! I'll make an improved version one day-mda!"
Nano declared boldly and turned to Enoch. Overwhelmed by that burning pure passion, Enoch unconsciously took a step back.
"Ah, yes. Improved version, nice."
Wondering what to say to Nano — her eyes blazing with strange conviction — Enoch said, with a sour look, keeping his distance as much as possible,
"Well. Do your best."
"Understood-mda! Next time I'll upgrade my creation more definitively-mda!"
"……Upgrade?"
"Yes-mda! I won't allow an absurd failure like this one of my creations-mda! Especially if I have the chance to make your dummy again, Direct Lineage-mda!"
Nano held the dummy fragment up toward the sky and put on a serious look.
"Up till now, biological engineering knowledge wasn't my specialty-mda. But using this failure as a stepping stone, I think I'll need expertise in that field too-mda!"
"……Nano?"
Seeing Nano passionately making her case, Enoch felt something was off and, in cold sweat, stepped back a little.
Just then, Nano turned her blue eyes toward him and smiled brilliantly.
"So, Direct Lineage!"
"Wh, why are you calling me?"
"For now, so I can make a superior dummy later, a full-body medical checkup at the earliest opportunity, along with sample collection of your various bodily fluids─!!"
Watching Nano walk toward him, her eyes blazing with ambition, Enoch sighed lightly, grabbed her visored head with one hand, and stopped her in her tracks. Then he cut in briefly,
"As if that's happening."
Enoch, leaving Nano — whose forehead was held in place as she laughed brightly — where she was, quietly turned his gaze out the window.
He'd already known well enough.
There really wasn't a single normal person in this squad.