Origin (28)

The artificial light source hung low on the horizon, then began to slowly ascend. Even though the satellites had been locked down, the light illuminating Titan moved according to its predetermined rules.

That was because the radiant sphere—shining like a sun—wasn't hovering directly in Titan's orbit, but much farther away than it appeared.

Our destination was just as distant. There was a long way to go. Because the town was nestled between icy mountain ranges, we couldn't even see our objective.

After getting used to the convenience of shuttles, riding a hover bike and having to pay attention to the terrain felt like a jarring shift.

'... And yet we're in a hurry here.'

Maybe it was because I was the only one driving. Everyone else seemed bored just sitting still. I glanced at Nadia's hand, which kept fidgeting and poking, and spoke briefly.

"Nadia, your hand."

"Hm? My hand?"

Nadia, who was sitting plastered against my back, tilted her head with innocent eyes. Her ears twitched, looking so harmless for a moment that I almost wondered if I'd said something wrong.

But even in that moment, her fidgeting was transmitted directly to my abdomen, forcing me to stay sharp. I needed to pick my words carefully. If I failed, I'd be tormented by her the entire trip.

"I just meant to hold on steady, not to keep groping."

"I never did that, Hyun-woo."

"Then what's your hand doing right now?"

As I said that, Nadia's hand slid away naturally. She probably knew I couldn't retaliate or move recklessly, but I had thought this through as well. After all, I had my partner, Carry.

"Carry's recording everything right now, you know?"

When I indicated Carry with a glance, Nadia whipped her head around.

"Carry, is that true? Were you filming us?"

Carry spun his auxiliary arm with a whirr, insisting there was no such thing. I was exasperated.

"I saw your lens move just now."

"When driving, your eyes should be on the road, Hyun-woo. What if you're looking back?"

"No, that's not—"

I was about to argue more, but suddenly held my tongue as intuition struck. Now I saw it didn't matter what I said. Carry had already sided with Nadia.

Carry scratched his head, looking at me as if to ask what the problem was.

【「(°ヘ°)?】

"You pretend not to know while scratching your head again. Where did you pick that up? Carry, seriously, don't do this. Think about everything we've been through."

【¯_( ◉ 3 ◉ )_/¯】

"You're impossible, really."

I gave a hollow laugh, watching Carry become more shameless with each passing day. Who could he have taken after to become like this? One thing was certain—it wasn't me.

"Carry, you proved our friendship hasn't changed. When you dumped my stuff at departure, I admit I wavered a bit, but I'll reflect on it. That was a mistake on my part."

【૮꒰˶ ･֊･ ˶꒱ა】

Nadia and Carry bumped fists. I hadn't partnered them up for that reason.

Celestia, who'd been watching our bickering from the side, couldn't hold back anymore and stifled a giggle. The truth is, there was a reason we were messing around like this.

Things had been awkward from the start, so we did it to break the ice. Our efforts seemed effective—the tension and discomfort noticeably lessened.

"Celestia, if you're tired, don't hesitate to sleep."

"Huh, you... want me to sleep?"

Celestia, unable to tear her gaze from Nadia's tail, flinched. She seemed to assume she was being a nuisance, so I shook my head firmly.

"I only said it because you look tired. There's no other reason."

I glanced at Celestia. The red marks at the corners of her eyes were gone now, but the accumulated exhaustion still hadn't left her.

We didn't know what she'd experienced during her time in town, or exactly why she was in such poor condition. Nadia and I weren't out here to babysit her. We were out to perform a dangerous mission.

I just wished to minimize unnecessary noise during that process. Though I wondered if it was right to speak this way to the leader of Myosotis, survival mattered more.

At least for now, status distinctions weren't important.

But that didn't mean she could be left alone. I was busy in my own way, and now was the only time to say something if I needed to. Since we were all here together, we were in the same boat.

"There's still a long way to go, but once we arrive, there won't be time to rest—it's going to be non-stop pressure. So it's important to conserve your strength when you can, and ration what you've got left well."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Celestia quickly leaned back in her seat, pressing a button inside so the transparent lid closed over her.

She sat in the streamlined body of the sidecar. It was about the same size as the hover bike itself—not a small model—but because of all the gear in front and behind, the space was cramped.

Not only was it impossible to stretch out her legs or lie down, but since she was taller than Nadia, Celestia had no choice but to crouch.

It wasn't as if I hadn't considered seating Nadia in the sidecar and Celestia behind me. I just didn't trust my driving skills enough.

Before we departed, I'd boldly claimed to be a capable driver, but this was actually only my second time driving. Nadia didn't know that. She never doubted me—she was just happy to be able to hug me from behind.

'Now I'm getting nervous.'

Even though things were going pretty smoothly, I never knew when I'd start jolting or stop abruptly. The awareness that I was driving made my nerves hyper-aware.

It was like being told to consciously blink your eyes, or wondering if you were still breathing right, or swallowing properly.

'Stay calm.'

I was doing fine. My hands were firmly on the handlebars, my eyes on the road, and I had a good sense of where both the brake and the accelerator—

'... Wait, which one is the brake?'

Was it my left foot? My right foot? Or neither—was it a button? Right, it was a button. No, wait—that was the ignition button.

The brake was a lever attached to the handlebars. When racing through the residential area, I hadn't needed brakes, so I'd momentarily forgotten where they were.

If the system assist had been activated, it would handle speed control, but unfortunately, this hover bike was also in manual mode and didn't have that feature.

They say if you drive slower than me, you're an asshole, and if you drive faster, you're a lunatic. There were no other vehicles around to call me names either way. So it didn't matter how I drove.

'Whew...'

Thinking that way lightened my mood. The hover bike, which had started to wobble from my tension, regained its balance.

Nadia was still playing with her hands behind me, none the wiser; Celestia had buried her head between her knees, trying to catch some sleep.

They'd never know what I'd just been through. If they did, they'd probably have scolded me and demanded I stop right away. Still, at least I wasn't trying to drive with both feet.

I felt a strange sense of pride in my chest and chuckled inwardly. But it didn't last long.

【(((╹д╹;)))】

Though I thought I'd hidden it perfectly, Carry was staring at me in shock and horror. Then he started to freak out.

【ヽ( ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ】 【ヽ(ﾟДﾟ )ﾉ】

"Carry, what's wrong? Is something up?"

Nadia's voice came from behind as she checked on Carry's strange behavior. I sensed troublesome questions coming. This was the downside of perceptive robots.

I didn't dislike it, but I couldn't let my brief confusion be exposed. Out of Nadia's line of sight, I made a hush gesture with my fingers at Carry.

It seemed frozen, as if crying out, 'Look at this guy! He doesn't even know where the brake is!'

【へ(゜∇、°)へ】

"Hey, come on. Carry, you can't make jokes from back there like that."

Nadia, convinced by Carry's odd behavior that it was just joking, lightly scolded it. Carry stiffened in an expression of injustice.

【ﾍ(ﾟ∇ﾟﾍ)】

"Just hang in there even if you're bored. We're coming up on the crevasse zone."

【ヽ( ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ】 【ヽ(ﾟДﾟ )ﾉ】

At Nadia's words, Carry started acting out again, but was soon subdued by her. When its auxiliary arm, desperately gesturing to me, folded docilely, I smirked.

"What? Why are you suddenly laughing, Hyun-woo?"

"It's nothing."

"Now that I think about it, that was strange. It looked like Carry was pointing at you, Hyun-woo..."

"Who knows? It says otherwise."

With Nadia tilting her head in confusion, Celestia—who'd just managed to doze off—looked like she was about to cry after being awoken by Carry's outburst, and Carry forcibly silenced.

The hover bike carrying us moved along uneventfully, belying Carry's nerves. We navigated through the crevasse fields as carefully as possible, weaving our way between them.

When a gap was truly unavoidable, I jumped ahead first. I couldn't risk all of us riding together and suffering a catastrophic fall.

Fortunately, the hover bike's performance was excellent, so we avoided any major mishaps. The advantage of a hover bike over an orbital vehicle was that, thanks to its floating motion, you could glide above obstacles.

So even when fields of inverted icicles appeared ahead, we didn't have to detour. By boosting the thrusters, we could pass over the icicles from above.

Of course, there were drawbacks. My inexperience at adjusting output, and the fact that these inverted icicles had grown infused with the power of the Blue Crystal—these two factors made the bike jostle up and down like a ship in a rough sea.

We'd left at dawn, but by the time we reached an ice peak overlooking Heaven's right-side robot production facility, the artificial light had already slid below the horizon.

"Hyun-woo, I think my back is breaking..."

Worn out from the ordeal, Nadia rested her face on my back, too spent for her usual mischief. The travel time had been longer than expected.

That was because an ice cliff near the end had blocked our path. According to the navigation data, it hadn't been there before—it must have risen due to a quake.

Though Celestia tried not to show it, her complexion was deathly pale, as if she might vomit at any moment.

"... Ugh."

"Whoa, don't throw up here."

"... I'm holding it in. And I'm not the kind of—ugh—who'd just go out and throw up anywhere—!"

Mid-sentence, Celestia bolted. She'd been showing signs of queasiness since things started rocking, and eventually lost the battle.

When she returned even paler, I asked if my driving wasn't actually pretty good, and she just shot me a sharp glare in response.

It was a bad time for a stealth approach; if we went any deeper, the pureblood supremacists who might be somewhere would surely spot us.

To assess the surroundings, I suggested we wait until a better time, and the thoroughly exhausted Nadia and Celestia agreed immediately.

I unloaded the pop-up tent from the hover bike and set it down. Nadia said to just press the button in the center, so we didn't need to do much.

"Okay, pressing it."

"Mm!"

With a click, the thin, folded tent unfurled with a rapid flap. Nadia's eyes sparkled as the snow-white camouflaged tent set up instantly.

Honestly, these tents looked impressive and all, but were as old-fashioned as gunpowder weapons. Who used tents like this nowadays? Most people drove sturdy camping shuttles or trucks.

Compared to equipment built to withstand harsh outdoor conditions, these old tents were laughably outdated.

And yet, surprisingly, such stuff wasn't discontinued and was still sold. Supposedly they evoked nostalgia and a sense of romance. This one was probably bought by a high-ranking official with too much money, for fun.

"Go on inside first."

"What about you, Hyun-woo?"

"I'll secure the tent a bit more before I come in. It might blow away in the wind. I won't be long."

"Okay! I'll get the heater going!"

Nadia took Carry and rolled into the tent. I pulled out the stakes and searched for the firmest spot on the ground, then forced them in by hand.

I didn't use a hammer—it would have been too loud. No reason to announce our presence out here.

With a few turns of the metal fasteners on the ropes, the sagging tent stiffened and was securely fixed in place. Celestia sidled up.

"Hyun-woo, you're really good at this. Usually people fumble a bit their first time. Have you done it before?"

"No, this is my first time. Or... maybe? Who knows—I might have, when I was a kid. Can't remember."

"When you were a kid..."

Murmuring softly, Celestia gazed at the white tent that hid us from view, her expression deeply somber.

It was only for a moment; she quickly composed herself and entered the tent. The surface rustled faintly as she did.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=These past few chapters are relatively peaceful, signifying that whatever they encounter on the robot production facility or the refinery will be quite catastrophic to say the least. I'm guessing the first bud will bloom right on time.【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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