Chapter 77
“…Maybe I should remove the license plate…”
Anschel muttered to himself, then,
“No, I should report the deserter first.”
He even let out a hollow laugh, as if giving up on everything. If Harriet had heard him properly, he might have laughed at it as an amusing joke.
With a whirring sound, the robot’s chest opened, and a young man with black hair and a cute face appeared from inside. He smiled brightly as he looked at the three pairs of eyes staring at him.
“Hello, Chief! Still with that blank face, I see.”
Koryoin waved his hand as if he had just returned from a stroll yesterday. Harriet gazed upward blankly and mumbled.
“Desertion means military prison…”
“Hahaha, if you were planning something this fun, you should have told me earlier!”
One side of Koryoin’s brightly smiling face had a bluish bruise. Harriet was about to hand him a glass of drink but turned his head.
“What happened to your eye?”
“Hmm? A feisty cutie hit me.”
“…Do you want to die?”
Angela sat next to Harriet, growling like a wary wild animal. Harriet guessed that Koryoin must have been wearing multiple layers of protective gear to be walking around after being hit by Angela with her superhuman strength. And he was right.
“I just told the truth, and our cutie hit me.”
“……”
“…He said I got fatter and uglier,” Anschel whispered into Harriet’s ear.
But Koryoin crossed his arms and grumbled as if wondering what the problem was.
“Don’t you know men say the opposite of what they mean in front of their honey?”
I don’t know.
Harriet smiled at Koryoin’s cheerful banter and drank the water in his tumbler in one go.
“What have you been up to? Desertion is punishable by death.”
The genius hacker who had nearly been executed multiple times grinned and shrugged. Anschel was momentarily confused by his childish, innocent appearance that belied his age.
“Well… this and that. I was researching nuclear weapons.”
“PFFFT!!!”
“Where is Dante living now? He can’t live in the Premium Building since I broke the air conditioning… Is he staying at the Axis Building? I want to drop a nuke on him.”
Koryoin laughed mischievously, saying he already had the nuke to drop. After laughing for a while, he turned to Anschel with the same smiling face.
“Funny, isn’t it?”
“……”
“It’s funny, right? Who else would curse that fucking old bastard if not me?”
“Koryoin’s language is a bit harsh.”
Harriet patted Anschel’s shoulder, smiling as if to say not to worry. Koryoin, who seemed to hold a grudge against Dante, insisted that Anschel laugh because it was funny.
This forced Anschel to smile awkwardly, and Koryoin carefully handed him a small square box. When Anschel’s eyes questioned what it was, Koryoin whispered.
“Open this lid and press the button.”
“Like this?”
“Yes, pressing that button will destroy the entire military main security system.”
What the hell!
Anschel panicked and released the pressure from his thumb that was about to press the button.
What if I had pressed it?
It felt like his heart had jumped out and was crawling on the floor. As Anschel gasped, thinking it would be better if his heart just left him completely, Koryoin laughed like a mischievous prankster.
“I’m joking. You’re actually quite funny.”
No, how can such a crazy bastard exist?
Anschel clicked out two stomach pills and looked for water. Angela glanced disdainfully from beside Harriet.
“Not ‘you,’ but ‘Lieutenant.'”
“Cutie, I deserted, so I’m not a soldier anymore.”
“According to military law, all ability users are soldiers!!”
Koryoin took something out of his pocket, put it on his head, and responded to each of Angela’s words.
“And why do you call me ‘cutie’? I’m older than you.”
“Then should I call you ‘sweetie honey’ again?”
“If you want your other eye to become a panda too, call me whatever you want.”
They seem to have a bad relationship, yet also a good one. Didn’t Angela like Ryan? Could this be a love triangle?
Anschel quietly closed the lid of the button box that Koryoin had jokingly handed him, still clutching his fluttering heart. Harriet advised Anschel from the side.
“Koryoin doesn’t joke.”
“……”
That was even more frightening. So this button really…
While Anschel was nervously swallowing, Koryoin, who had put something around his eyes, first turned his head toward Angela. Then he nodded naturally once and moved to Harriet.
Angela made a sour face at this.
“What’s that?”
“Huh? Just an invention that checks a person’s physical health condition. Cutie, you’re still muscle… healthy.”
“……”
Angela’s expression subtly changed, having missed the timing to hit him. Harriet rarely averted his gaze and gently scratched the sofa with his finger as Koryoin quietly looked at him without saying anything.
Suddenly frowning intensely, Koryoin irritably shouted.
“Chief, didn’t I tell you to manage your blood sugar!?”
Harriet pretended not to hear and just kept rubbing the leather of the sofa with a sullen expression.
…Can artificial merpeople also be at risk for diabetes?
Anschel was curious but remained silent, not particularly wanting to ask. And when Koryoin’s gaze finally turned toward Anschel, he silently passed over him.
“Too ordinary to be interesting. I absolutely hate boring people.”
It’s hard to tell if this is good or bad.
He said it was an invention that could measure not only basic vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and respiration, but even blood sugar through the eyes. Anschel was impressed by such a marvelous item.
Koryoin said he had made it out of boredom with leftover materials from other projects, truly befitting a machine creation ability user.
“Machines don’t betray you. They don’t feel emotions. Looking at them doesn’t make me angry, and sometimes they’re fun.”
Koryoin grinned and turned to Harriet.
“That’s why I really like the Chief.”
While Anschel was still looking down at the button box with a serious face, Harriet’s phone rang with a “zing.” It was none other than Ender McGuire, who called like a ghost as the end of the workday approached, showing he didn’t take senior stalking lightly either.
What would the public think if they learned that their beloved war hero was actually a stalker?
Anschel gritted his teeth internally, watching his superior who ruthlessly ignored all his calls but diligently talked to Harriet.
Just then, Koryoin tilted his head.
“Huh?”
“??”
Koryoin examined Harriet from various angles for a long time through what looked like swimming goggles. With his frantic movements, Harriet, who was talking on the phone, glanced at Koryoin as if he found him cute while smiling and talking to Ender. Then he finished the call with another troubled smile.
“Okay, see you later.”
Given how quickly he hung up, it must have been just a greeting. Anschel immediately called Ender on his own phone but was ruthlessly ignored again.
‘This damn superior…’
He gritted his teeth, cursing internally.
“What did the Colonel say?”
“Hmm? He asked if I was going to sleep naked again tonight.”
“…And?”
“I said I would, so he told me to make sure we video call.”
Anschel could bet his entire military career that the call would be a video call. As he turned his head with a disgusted expression, Koryoin, who was wearing his strange invention called “Status Window,” approached and tilted his head.
“Chief… who is that?”
“Hmm?”
“Who is that person? Chief… your heart rate is no joke right now.”
“!!!”
Harriet showed a rare surprised expression at Koryoin’s words. Koryoin grinned like a mischievous child who had discovered something interesting and fun.
“Your blood pressure is rising, and your body temperature is increasing too. Chief, you weren’t normally like this. It’s almost like you’re in love… Mmph!”
To prevent Koryoin from running his mouth more, Harriet quickly covered his moving mouth with both hands. Someone who had thrown shame far away was reacting quite sensitively to this. Harriet, with a deeply reddened face, flailed his arms at Koryoin.
“No, if you cover the Chief’s mouth, how can I- Mmph. Damn it, what are you, a teenager in puberty?! Who could have made our Chief fall in love like this?”
Koryoin dodged Harriet’s hands in every direction, his eyes shining with an intrigued expression. He seemed even more curious about Harriet’s lively reaction, so different from his usually machine-like demeanor.
‘There is, a bigger lunatic than you.’
“I knew it! Wow, your heart rate is insane, Chief.”
Though Koryoin was a soldier in name only, and Harriet could easily subdue him with just one finger, he was so flustered that he could only blush bright red.
* * *
Ryan hated fighting.
He had been demoted to this place, almost like escaping, because he disliked conflict.
Ryan’s ability was basically to empathize with animals, but because of its strength, he could vaguely sense people’s emotions too.
He liked this place. Good water, good air, animals in the mountains, and the people here didn’t disapprove of or scold him.
For Ryan, with his emotional resonance ability, the battlefield was like hell on earth. He had to feel and accept the anger and despair felt by the merpeople, as well as the silent cries of dying soldiers.
“We need your power.”
All ability users are forcibly drafted into the military. That was a law that must be followed, created during the war with the merpeople.
Ryan was an ability user whose ability wasn’t suited for war, and disobeying orders could lead to execution at worst. Ryan’s parents were people who took pride in him becoming a soldier.
“I don’t want to fight.”
“Even when it’s a situation where you must?”
“I…”
“Think of it as choosing the lesser evil. Your power should certainly be used for peace. So shouldn’t we end this war quickly?”
When Ryan hesitated and couldn’t answer, the person sitting across from him took his hand and patted it reassuringly.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
