Origin (14)

The small shuttle Medivac piloted by Roxy fulfilled its intended role of emergency patient transport for the first time—quickly and safely.

Aside from Roxy, who watched the situation with relative safety, I, Nadia, Eric, and Domestica were all injured, with Domestica's wounds being especially severe, so Roxy took the controls with a serious expression. Even if he was unconcerned about his own injuries, he was clearly bothered by those of others.

Carry, too, had suffered damage far beyond what a repair kit could fix. Alpha had self-destructed, but since Licorice had never left the town, she was out of the question to begin with.

When a single shuttle approached, the town partially opened its aurora-like barrier to allow it to land. Once the shuttle door opened, an Alpha Series entered, waiting inside.

Instead of the much-anticipated supply containers, a stream of groaning patients were carried out on stretchers, visibly souring everyone's expression. Murmurs like "What happened?" and "What's the problem this time?" rippled through the crowd in an instant.

But only for a moment. When additional Alphas, instead of those assigned to lead us to a prepared location, began unloading the Blue Eye exoskeleton from the shuttle, the murmurs were instantly swallowed up by shock.

The scene was so hilarious as I passed by that I almost passed out from laughter—literally, physically so, because of the pain.

Since Licorice said she'd handle the rest, I relaxed and closed my eyes. That doesn't mean I was dying, just falling asleep.

Just like that, a day flew by, then another. I had barely been lying down for a few days, yet my body ached to move. Clearly, I was suited for fieldwork, not office work.

Fueled by the desire to get moving even a day earlier, I managed to get out of bed earlier than expected. Raising my upper body without anyone's help, I stretched as much as I could.

The sensation of my stiff body loosening up felt quite good. As soon as I got active, my body temperature started to rise. I slowly clenched and unclenched my fists. As before, and this time as well—it felt like I'd gotten stronger somehow.

'What is this?'

I was honestly surprised. It almost felt like I'd grown. But at this point—really, what room was left for me to grow here? Outwardly, there was no significant change, but I could feel some increased muscle density.

'Soon I'll be able to tear apart ghouls.'

As unlikely as that was, I decided not to worry about it—good things, after all, are good.

"Resurrected."

【♡⸜(˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶)⸝♡】

Two days after being bedridden, I 「resurrected」.

Carry was happy to see I could now move freely again.

Carry's appearance, now swapped out with a new module for transport robots from the containers, had changed considerably. It wasn't as if it'd suddenly become a transforming robot, but most of its coloration had shifted to white, and the cargo box was now attachable.

Before, it was integrated—if damaged, the whole module had to be swapped. Now, only the damaged part could be replaced. The auxiliary arm's laser emitter and battery efficiency were also improved.

With all these enhancements and new features, Carry could adapt flexibly to diverse situations. It looked more splendid than ever. The AI core remained the same, so it still couldn't speak, though.

"What? You're up already?"

Licorice, who now casually entered without knocking after coming by several times. Over the past two days, she'd visited my room under the pretense of monitoring my condition and now had claimed the seat next to my bed as her own.

"Yes, I think I'm almost completely healed."

Licorice frowned at my show of vigor, looking at me as if she were seeing something unnatural.

"What's going on with your body?"

"What do you mean?"

"Those weren't wounds you should heal from in just two days! That Eric man is still hobbling around, even if he doesn't show it outwardly. Are you sure you don't have nanobots in you?"

"Why are you saying that after scanning me yourself?"

I laughed. I was aware of my remarkable recovery ability. But really, it was simply that the advanced pharmaceuticals had worked exceedingly well on me.

How should I put this? My body was highly receptive to medicines. Without them, I certainly wouldn't have healed so quickly. Hooray for science and technology.

Licorice continued to probe my body with an incredulous look, poking and prodding in various places. It hurt a little when she pressed the spots where Blue Eye had previously grabbed me— the bruises had faded but not completely disappeared.

"Weird... this really is weird..."

"... I told you before—I respond very well to medication. And please, stop touching me now."

I gently pushed away Licorice's hand as it started drifting lower. Whether consciously or unconsciously, if this kept up, I would start to feel embarrassed.

Momentarily pausing, Licorice cleared her throat and instead lightly smacked my hand. The one that colored wasn't mine, but the edge of Licorice's ear. Then she resumed poking at me, her touch persistent.

"Stay put. It's not like you'll wear out if I touch you. I'm checking your condition."

I nearly replied that it wasn't the ticklishness, but her hand's rudeness that bothered me, but held back, knowing it would get me nowhere.

In the end, my freshly healed body was at the mercy of Licorice. With grave focus, she inspected me so thoroughly that she even put a knee up on the bed.

Carry watched us fixedly. A tiny whirr as his lens moved. Acting on a sudden intuition, I quickly spoke up.

"Carry, don't tell me you're recording this right now, are you?"

【「(°ヘ°)?】

"Don't just scratch your head! Tell me. Did you just film me?"

【૮꒰˶ ･֊･ ˶꒱ა】

Carry lifted one edge of its mouth. It had clearly recorded Licorice tormenting me. Even though I was the victim, I suddenly felt like I was the one in the wrong.

"Quick, say it's a misunderstanding."

"A misunderstanding? What's the misunderstanding? I did touch your body. For observation purposes. I touched you while you slept, I'm touching you now, and in the future—...well, that I'm not sure about."

"Why do you say it like that? And you came in while I was sleeping? Last time, too—Wait, eh? Carry, where are you going! Come back!"

【c( 'o')っ!】

'There's something over there! I have to go check immediately! Look at that over there!'

Carry tried to redirect the situation and zipped right out, ignoring my desperate call—with his newly extended auxiliary arm smoothly opening the door.

Honestly, he opened doors better than I did. And he was so swift. That was the moment I realized the upgraded thrusters were working.

"Looks like he's going to Woof-woof."

"Probably. And I told you, don't call her Woof-woof. Nadia is a fox."

"It's still a canid, so it's the same thing—Woof-woof."

Licorice replied shamelessly. Truly consistent. No matter how many times I asked, she never listened.

I let out a faint sigh and changed the topic. There was no point continuing.

"Licorice, how's Nadia? Is she almost recovered?"

"Why are you asking me—wait, did you two have a fight?"

Licorice's eyes widened with rare surprise. This is why perceptive people are troublesome... One question, and she understood the situation.

"We didn't fight. It's just gotten a bit... awkward, I guess. Anyway, that's it."

"Isn't that fighting for you two?"

"Oh, come on. So is she better or not?"

"She's not recovered yet."

"Still?"

"'Still?' Don't use yourself as the standard, will you?"

Licorice snorted derisively. Domestica's wounds were the most severe, but mine had also been pretty bad, and I was the first to recover—she added.

She fixed her eyes on me and asked in a suggestive tone.

"So did you really fight? I think it's the first time you and Woof-woof fought."

"... We didn't fight."

Thinking of Nadia made my chest tighten. We hadn't fought— it wasn't that. We just needed to talk.

My feelings for Nadia hadn't changed, and surely the same was true for her. We could've talked via text or video call, but I wanted to talk face to face.

These past two days, we hadn't avoided talking altogether. We'd exchanged the usual small talk—Did you eat, did you sleep well. We just hadn't discussed what we most needed to.

'... Maybe I should go now.'

Until now, I'd rationalized waiting until I was well enough to move, but now I could move alone. It wasn't difficult to head to Nadia's room. It was just my jumbled thoughts that made my steps hesitant.

Deep down, I was already imagining our conversation straightening things out and laughing together. Reality wasn't so simple, though.

"I get what's bothering you. Don't fuss too much. It's not your fault, and it's not Woof-woof's fault either."

Licorice, arms crossed, hummed as she studied me, then shrugged. Her neatly tied hair swayed.

Just then, as I parted my lips, Licorice raised her palm at me.

"Stop."

"...?"

"You're thinking of going to see Woof-woof, right? Don't. She's sleeping."

"Ah."

I nodded at her reply before even thinking of asking why. Since she wasn't recovered, hovering around her side wouldn't help.

"Alpha's taking care of Woof-woof, so never mind her and come with me. You look like you're overthinking things. I know a surefire remedy."

Looking back, it really seemed Licorice had been considerate. She did many things for me, delivered information about what happened in Heaven's cargo sector, and though she didn't help much, she'd sickbed-cared for me in her own way.

Because of her, my burden was much lighter—no denying that. In addition, she didn't pursue the matter of me not listening to her in the end. Instead, she just casually reminded me that I'd said I'd trust my own judgment in the field more next time.

I quickly looked up.

"Come with you? Where?"

"You'll see if you follow."

Licorice seemed to have no intention of answering immediately.

"Need a hand? I could help if you want."

"I'm fine. Just keep pace."

Licorice and I stepped out of the room. Wherever we were headed, it didn't seem to be outside the town—if it were, she would have told me or handed me a respirator.

On the way, Licorice gave me a summary of what had happened in town over the past two days—things I'd missed while asleep.

First: Domestica wanted to thank me. He only survived because I gave up the respirator, and he was barely clinging to life now.

But the problem was his abdominal wound—a perforation. Luckily it missed major organs, so it wasn't immediately fatal, but it was still no minor injury.

A perforation couldn't be dealt with by high-grade medicine alone. Biocells were necessary for rapid healing, but those weren't available anymore.

The biocells Licorice had bought for me at the residential area's central tower—originally, so long as you had a level 3 store and supervisor authority, you could buy them anywhere.

But apparently the stockpiled biocells were now depleted. As a result, they'd vanished altogether from the level 3 store in the communications sector, and town only had a level 2 store, so she couldn't confirm. Since this happened in Heaven, the town would likely be the same, Licorice guessed. In the end, Domestica had to rely on his own recovery.

"To get more, we need to head to the medical sector. The one in the residential area is long gone, so next option is the medical sector in Heaven central—and frankly..."

Licorice trailed off. From all the data we'd collected, we realized something was wrong with the medical sector. The facility had stopped accepting patients due to overcrowding, and there were hints that something else had happened there.

There was a real chance all the patients there had turned into ghouls. And it was almost certain that pureblood supremacists were in central Heaven. Even if not at the center, those guys were somewhere in Heaven—that much was beyond dispute.

"... That's a headache. We definitely can't cause a disturbance there."

"My thoughts exactly."

The medical sector was probably crawling with ghouls—and possibly a special mutant, a Bud, as well. Simultaneous containment or luring them out to blow them up, as we'd done in the cargo sector, was next to impossible.

If someone accidentally set off the solar furnace room in the center, the entire Heaven mining base could be vaporized.

After that, Licorice told me all the containers formerly on the snowy mountain summit had been brought down to town, and now the town was working hard to build a comm facility and small solar reactor using those supplies.

I glanced around town at people busily working, but had yet to see Celestia. Apparently, whatever she was working on from before wasn't finished—she must still be busy.

Eventually, we arrived at a morgue. What looked like Kyle's body was sprawled over a workbench, completely motionless. There was more than one potential Kyle; the gloom in the space was unmistakable.

"... Is he, dead?"

"He's... still alive..."

Correction: it wasn't a morgue; it was the maintenance room.

-------------= Clacky's Corner -------------=I feel like Hyun-woo absorbed the Blue Eye's core.【ദ്ദി(⩌ᴗ⩌)】

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