Chapter 31

So I’m twenty-seven now. Living only until fifty-seven... yeah, that’s a little short. But for a human, fifty-seven isn’t exactly young, either. I can live with that.

“Miro.”

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion warmed her frozen hands over the stove, turning them back and forth, then entered the primary spirit code into her pad. She keyed in the satellite coordinates she had verified in advance and generated the data code.

“Ver. 001. Artificial Soul.”

Everyone had assumed she wouldn’t last long in the conflict zone.

With a Level 2 physical rating—a body no stronger than the average civilian’s—would she even survive a month?

No one had expected Erabelle to make it a year and a half.

Just as no one had expected her to outlive the deadline the Dogs had bet on.

***

“Lieutenant, don’t tell me... you’re going on leave again!?”

One and a half years later.

Timid Planet, 80th Colony Battalion Headquarters, annex dormitory.

Erabelle sat beside the stove with her pad in hand, reviewing the week’s transport volume. She barely glanced up at Majia, who had apparently come all the way over just to pick a fight.

“It’s not leave. It’s external duty.”

Majia Oloror was the youngest member of the unit. He had caught Erabelle’s attention early on, and after she’d unintentionally spoiled him a little, the two had grown close.

Regrettably close.

“Why?! Why are you the only one who gets time off every three months like clockwork?”

“I told you, it’s external duty.”

“This is totally unfair!”

There was no reasoning with him.

“Volya beer. Left window under Storage No. 3.”

“When will you be back?”

His voice softened instantly.

Funny. It wasn’t as though the beer was free.

“Two weeks.”

Erabelle switched off the screen and stretched her stiff limbs.

Over the past year and a half, Majia wasn’t the only person she’d grown close to. Even the battalion commander, who never seemed to stop complaining, had warmed up to her.

She credited her cockroach-like adaptability.

And, of course, a generous amount of bribery.

Erabelle was always willing to compromise with absurdity if it meant making her workplace more comfortable.

Not that her bribes came free.

“Just put the money in the beer barrel. Twelve cp a can.”

Erabelle’s bribes came with very clear price tags.

At double the usual price.

People called it highway robbery, but a bribe was still a bribe.

“Ugh...!”

Majia grumbled for a moment before hesitantly asking,

“So... have you thought about it?”

“Thought about what?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“What are you—oh. Wait. That confession was serious?”

“You think I confess to people as a joke, Lieutenant?!”

“Hey, I’m still your superior officer. You really shouldn’t yell at— Okay, fine. Yell if you want.”

Erabelle immediately backed down when she saw Majia’s eyes beginning to glisten.

“Right, right. Sometimes you’ve just got to let it all out. I hear it’s healthy.”

Around here, people’s mental health was about as fragile as their bones.

“I was serious when I confessed...”

Yeah. He’s not doing too well either.

“...Like I’ve told you a hundred times already, I have a boyfriend.”

“Oh. Right. Sure.”

Majia rolled his eyes, his face practically screaming, Here we go again.

Erabelle, however, was completely serious.

“He’s real, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”

“We’re way closer than you think. He’s insanely handsome, cute, sweet... basically an oasis in my life.”

“Right. So not just a unicorn. A full-blown mythical creature.”

“...”

“Fantasy’s still fantasy, you know.”

“...I wouldn’t be so sure.”

James might show up right in front of me someday. I could still become the luckiest fan alive!

Watching Majia snicker, Erabelle muttered,

“Just make sure you’re taking your medication. And help yourself to the painkillers if you need them. You know where they are, right? Top drawer of this desk.”

Majia had recently undergone a mechanical nerve graft on one of his fingers. The skin around the graft still looked slightly unnatural.

The procedure had cost a fortune, but there hadn’t been much choice.

“Yeah, I know.”

Majia flushed and looked away.

Why was he getting embarrassed? It wasn’t free.

“Thirty cp a dose.”

“Ugh!”

Lieutenant Erabelle Vermilion shrugged, pulled on her heavy coat, and slung her bag over one shoulder. As she wrapped a scarf around her neck and tugged on her hat, Majia Oloror stared at her in dismay.

“Don’t you suffocate under all that?”

“Better than freezing to death. I’m auxiliary corps, remember?”

Majia trotted after her as she headed outside, still whining.

“Can’t you come back a little earlier this time? What could possibly take two whole weeks?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do? Go worry about your own—”

Before she could finish, Erabelle’s communicator buzzed.

She answered without much enthusiasm.

[Hey. When are you getting here?]

It was Aries Cider, one of the officers from the 41st Division.

At his question, Erabelle quickly checked her scheduled arrival time again.

“I’m leaving now. Estimated arrival is the eleventh at approximately seventeen hundred—”

[What? Why so late? Are you screwing with me or something?]

Aries cut her off mid-sentence and launched straight into nonsense.

Screwing with him?

She left at the exact same time every cycle. Why he was throwing another fit was beyond her, but like any seasoned employee, Erabelle knew how to apologize when confronted with workplace absurdity.

“My apologies, sir.”

It’s not like saying sorry costs anything.

The real problem was Majia, still chirping away beside her and desperately trying to insert himself into the conversation.

“Who is it? Who’re you talking to?”

Erabelle waved a hand at him, telling him to get lost.

[Is that a guy I hear? What, are you cheating on someone?]

Cheating? On who? I don’t have a husband or a boyfriend.

It wasn’t as though she was ruining anyone’s wedding plans.

Granted, she had no intention of getting married anytime soon, but she wasn’t ruling it out completely.

James might appear one day.

And if James ever shows up... there’s no resisting that.

“No, sir. Is something wrong?”

[...Shit, no! Nothing’s wrong! Just get over here already!]

Cider shouted into the communicator and abruptly hung up.

What the hell? Is he going through menopause or something?

Erabelle was still glaring at the device and silently cursing him when it rang again.

[Hey. Bring coffee when you come. Mocha frappe. Extra syrup.]

Then he hung up again.

Despite the dead zones scattered throughout the Four-Star System because of the swarms of dead souls, the Dogs somehow always managed to call at the worst possible moment.

And every single time, they gave her another errand.

It takes four days just to get there and back. What kind of lunatic sends someone on a coffee run that takes four days? Four days! You could tour every café in the capital twice in that time!

“Who was it? Come on, just tell me!”

Grumbling, Erabelle shoved the communicator into the side pocket of her backpack.

“You wouldn’t know them even if I told you.”

“Then make me know! Just tell me! Who was it?!”

God, he’s annoying.

Erabelle waved him off and headed toward the shuttle pad.

She hadn’t gone far before the bullet wound from last month began throbbing again.

Hunching her shoulders, she quickened her pace.

“Lieutenant, going on leave again?”

“Bring me back some cigarettes!”

“Get me some chocolate! Lily Pavé, please!”

Ugh. Lily’s all the way over on 52nd Street. See? This is absolutely bribery.

Requests from her dear fellow “customers” came flying at her with every step.

Inside her bag, incoming messages began chiming one after another—most likely more orders from the Dogs.

“Come on! Who was it?!”

Ignoring Majia’s shrill whining to the very end, Erabelle climbed aboard the frost-covered shuttle parked at the edge of the company outpost, her teeth chattering.

Not that it was any warmer inside.

Every three months, she still went to visit Dezeb.

To have her ID tag reinserted.

Dezeb Avganis and his Dogs were living in the capital now.

Which meant the city she had once gone to such lengths to avoid had become a place she visited regularly.

Looking back, why did I try so hard to stay away from it?

Life...

If everything had gone smoothly during the New Year’s Festival four years ago, she would probably be back on her home planet by now, belatedly preparing to enter the job market.

With only an elementary-school diploma, she would have needed to take an equivalency exam first.

Erabelle gazed at the dimly lit planet slowly receding into the distance and thought,

Something’s going to blow up again.

As if on cue—

BOOM!

A turret fired with a deafening roar.

That was a D7, a model deployed only a few months earlier.

Each shell cost fifteen thousand cp.

Roughly the price of a decent used car.

One shot, one car.

Gone.

The shuttle shuddered beneath the pressure wave. Metallic clanging rang out from the cargo bay where the drop pods were stored.

Over the noise, a news anchor’s voice drifted from the overhead speakers.

[...During yesterday’s noon briefing, the Control Center reported that planetary contamination has reached 48 percent. Experts say the spread is slowing and that the likelihood of a Wave remains extremely low... However, if the recovery rate fails to exceed nine percentage points by November, the conflict zone may expand to neighboring planets...]

Same old story.

There was nothing new to hear, so Erabelle let the report fade into background noise.

The 2155 Planetary System was a war zone riddled with monster rifts.

The real problem was the way they spread.

Like a chain reaction.

Once the smog concentration in one area rose beyond a certain threshold, another rift would tear open on a nearby planet.

That was how the conflict zone kept expanding.

And while those areas could be useful for constructing platforms, continued expansion was still a nightmare.

But after hearing the same warnings every day for the past year and a half, Erabelle was finding it harder and harder to take them seriously.