Chapter 45

Heh...

Commander K gave a short hop and chuckled to himself.

“I knew something was up. You’ve been hanging around for way too long. Well... if there really was something going on, I wouldn’t have dumped you here in the first place. Still expecting something from me—”

Thud!

He slammed the phone in his hand against the wall and hurled it aside.

It was a brand-new phone. Erabelle was pretty sure he was still paying it off.

Then, as abruptly as he had lost his temper, he demanded cigarettes.

“Red. 6 mg.”

Erabelle quickly pulled out a pack and handed it over.

K snatched it from her hand and stormed out of the office—without even bothering to zip up his pants.

“It’s freezing out there...”

“...”

“You’re going to freeze.”

Jagon awkwardly covered his... essentials.

Just looking at him made Erabelle feel cold.

The two exchanged a long, silent glance.

“Why’d he suddenly blow up like that?”

“I don’t know. I just got here.”

“What about my payment?”

“Uh... well, he stiffed me on the cigarettes...”

Why was he complaining to her?

He was the one screwing them over on wages.

“Damn... since he stopped halfway through, should we charge him half?”

“There’s no half-price once the goods have been opened.”

Thinking of the unwrapped cigarettes, Erabelle answered firmly.

Jagon nodded, fumbled with his pack, then glanced at her.

“If it’s already open, Lieutenant, want it? I’ll give it to you for half price—or we can pretend I never said anything.”

He changed his sales pitch halfway through the sentence.

“Oh, man. Look at that cap. Lieutenant, you didn’t wash your hair again, did you?”

“I did wash it.”

Three or four days ago.

Anyway, cooling off had nothing to do with her. Thanks to Dezeb, she had been effectively immune to real-world activity for years.

Like some corpse that had attained enlightenment and withdrawn from the mortal world, nothing stirred her anymore.

Her only remaining solace was virtual fandom, and as usual, she had thrown herself into it completely.

“Ah, shit. Today was a total loss. Why’d he flip out again?”

Jagon grumbled as he pulled up his pants.

Yeah. Why the hell had he lost it?

Erabelle had been in this unit for a year and a half. She got along with the commander reasonably well—most of the time.

But whenever he had one of these random eruptions, it seriously made her question his mental stability.

Not that it mattered much.

Erabelle sidled over to Jagon and straightened his waistband.

“Need men’s underwear? I’ve got them for 40 cp a pair. Straight from a department store in the capital. I’ve also got handkerchiefs and wet wipes.”

“Are you some kind of traveling merchant?”

Jagon asked if she actually made any money doing this.

“Money? Not at all. I’m just running errands. After the ship fare, I barely break even.”

Erabelle kept a wary eye on her rival.

“...Just give me a pack of cigarettes.”

She took 18 cp, rummaged through the commander’s desk drawer, then helped herself to cigarettes from his wallet.

After jotting down the charge on a note, she pulled out the appropriate amount of cash and split it with Jagon.

The moment money entered his hand, Jagon began showering her with praise.

By the time they stepped outside, stories about the commander had already spread throughout the unit.

“He stormed out of the building completely pissed off.”

“Fuck, my eyes...”

“He—hey! What the—ugh!”

“Maybe he just froze?”

Even someone with a high body grade shouldn’t be exposing himself in weather like this.

Though, really, that was something one shouldn’t be doing in any season.

Hoping the commander still possessed at least a shred of dignity, Erabelle returned to her quarters.

She switched on her laptop and connected four leads behind her ear, opening the channel feeds.

“An agent, huh.”

The squad had not detected anything.

Which probably meant the agent had planted whatever surveillance measures they were using before the unit even arrived.

The real question was whether there was an agent inside this very unit.

“...”

Erabelle brought every tracking result up on the screen.

The corporal who had bought the beer was in the warehouse. The sergeant was at the guard tower.

Planting particle trackers in the goods she sold made following people remarkably easy.

The commander, who had bought the cigarettes, had gone to a temple on the opposite side of the planet.

Without authorization.

Commander K’s true identity—as the planetary deity of this world—had been confirmed a long time ago.

There was nothing particularly mystical about it.

In this world, gods were not myths.

They were real entities capable of exerting physical force.

Of course, every class of god came with its own restrictions.

Unlike Dezeb, an avatar born in human form, Miro was closer to a constrained materialized entity, bound by clearly defined limits.

If Dezeb caught you, you became dog food.

In that respect, Miro was no different from other interdimensional beings.

Erabelle shifted her attention away from the pantheon deity who had returned without authorization and focused on the rest of the tracking data.

Then she clutched her head.

“Ugh...”

Even with the APU and her ID tag, seventy hours of sleep had not been enough to recover.

Trying to fully process every channel at once was simply too much.

“Bleeeeh...”

She doubled over and vomited for a while.

“Ah... it burns...”

After rinsing out her mouth, she took stomach medicine and painkillers from the drawer, then returned her attention to the monitor.

Someone was contacting the outside.

***

Erabelle had mixed feelings about that discovery.

External contact was never a good sign.

Over the past few days alone, at least twelve people had communicated with parties outside the unit.

And it was all because the commander had set a terrible example by leaving without authorization.

It was my mistake to assume the squad was disciplined.

They had grown far too accustomed to freedom.

Damn.

Whether there was an agent inside the unit or Erabelle herself had already been compromised, the whole situation was a mess.

And then there was—

“I, sir?”

The commander had returned and immediately begun dumping tedious assignments on her.

“Why?”

He tapped her forehead with one finger, knocking her slightly off balance.

When she straightened, he tapped her again.

“Can’t do it?”

“No, sir.”

That was a lie.

She could do it.

It would simply take her five times longer than it would any other soldier.

“Confirm every external anomaly and signal contact. Check the wave readings at each breach while you’re at it.”

“Yes, sir.”

And that was only the beginning.

The commander proceeded to unload every filthy, difficult, thankless job he could find onto Erabelle.

“Lieutenant, did you screw something up?”

She had taken money out of his wallet.

But that was hardly the worst of her problems.

Tracking delays and a backlog of orders were nothing compared to the nausea.

“Ugh...”

Motion sickness.

“Bleeeeh—!!”

Most of the dirty work the commander assigned took her outside the unit.

And in a disputed region, even without using bio-amps, avoiding monsters entirely was impossible.

They preyed on their own kind and shared communication channels across groups.

Once one of them found prey, the others came swarming. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

Being discovered meant disaster.

The shuttle was constantly performing evasive maneuvers, and Erabelle’s insides felt as though someone had sealed them in a jar and shaken it violently.

She vomited into whatever container happened to be within reach.

“You... should probably apologize to the commander soon...”

Even combat operatives wearing permanent bioreactivity packs were getting tired of looking after her.

“Sorry,” Erabelle muttered.

So, for everyone’s collective happiness, she went to apologize to the commander.

“What?”

He frowned at her as though she had just started speaking nonsense.

“I... was the one who went into your wallet...”

Which, naturally, only earned her even more work.

The commander was petty, negligent, and an asshole.

After two weeks, Erabelle had acquired several new nicknames.

Most of them revolved around vomiting.

Vomit Fountain.

Acid Spewer.

And others of a similar nature.

“...”

My stomach is killing me. This is insane!

“You... okay?”

Majia, who had recently started dropping by her quarters more often, looked genuinely worried.

Erabelle answered in an exhausted voice.

“When I die, pay your condolences in cash. Bank transfer is fine too.”

“A statement of intent, huh?”

“I guess.”

Majia hesitated before continuing.

“Lieutenant, so... was there something you wanted to sa—”

“Sorry. Later.”

Erabelle cut her off and swallowed a handful of pills.

Majia stared at her in alarm.

“What... are you taking?”

“Fatigue-recovery medication.”

Erabelle gestured toward the towering piles of paperwork covering her desk.

Majia visibly paled.

“Work’s backed up.”

“You... really should apologize soon.”

“...Again?”

Erabelle vaguely remembered selling expired beer before.

But if she apologized for that too, the commander might actually exile her off-world.

Does he already know?

There were so many things she could plausibly feel guilty about that she had no idea where to begin.

The particle tracker probably still had not been discovered.

There was no Imperial technology capable of detecting Aries Cider’s devices.

Which meant, technically, she could continue committing crimes with impunity...

“...Are there more issues?”

“No?”

“There are! Just say you’re sorry already! At this rate, they’re going to bury me alive!”

Still, apologizing now would not help much.

Because tomorrow, Erabelle intended to request overnight leave.

The commander was going to be thrilled.