The clock pointed to ten, and the sun was gradually rising, illuminating the inside of the Ark.
Even so, in an Ark that existed underground, it only gave the impression of sunlight. But so what?
Rather, the residents should be grateful they could even see such a scene from underground.
Of course, almost none of them consciously thought of themselves as people living beneath the surface.
They didn’t exactly not know. They just pretended to forget.
Remembering it didn’t bring good memories, and it didn’t help them either.
In the end, it only brought a crushing sense of despair about being underground, so it was an unavoidable choice.
And yet, they went on with their daily lives and continued living.
--------------------
Countless people filled the streets.
Office workers hurrying out for lunch.
Schoolgirls in uniforms sneaking out of school to hunt down good restaurants.
It was an ordinary daily life that had never changed since the Ark was built.
And near the alleyways where almost no one ever set foot...
There was a Nikke in a café tapping the floor with the tip of her shoe.
In her hand was a cup of coffee that was presumably hers.
She kept checking the time at short intervals, clearly waiting for someone.
Then a new message appeared on her phone.
The sender was her friend, Rapi.
It said they were almost there and told her to look up.
Anis did as Rapi said, and a little ways off, she spotted her face.
And then...
Beside her, walking with one hand in his pocket, was a man... and in his hand was a phone with a red protector on it.
No further explanation was needed.
Anyone could tell the message had been sent by the Commander walking beside her.
He was probably teasing her for waiting around for Rapi.
But there was something more important to Anis than that.
“Why are you two coming together?”
The first question she asked once the distance between the three of them had effectively become zero.
It was only natural that she would ask something like that.
Of course, if their destination was the same, they could have met somewhere in the middle and come together.
As long as the time was set, it didn’t matter who she met on the way to the place.
But the dormitory the Commander knew and Rapi’s home did not share a common route.
Rapi’s home was along the front road they had just come from.
The Commanders’ dormitory was connected by the large road to the right.
Anis’s gaze shifted from their faces to the large bag behind them.
So they were on their way back after buying supplies needed for the operation.
Had Rapi called him over?
But why?
Items for supply runs could just be bought with a receipt.
It wasn’t as if they lacked hands or were too weak to carry things.
Why did he need to be with the Commander?
Anis’s mind began to spin.
Various clues only became visible once she started entertaining all sorts of suspicions.
Maybe...
What if they hadn’t met in the middle?
What if they had started out together from the beginning?
“That...”
Normally, it would have been a ridiculous thought she’d dismiss outright.
But Rapi, who would usually explain the situation with her usual blank expression as if it were nothing, was trailing off.
She wasn’t openly showing signs of being mindful of someone else, but somehow that was the feeling it gave off.
It felt like she had seen a scene like this somewhere before.
A woman being embarrassed, while the man beside her didn’t seem to care whether he knew or not.
And if that time stretched from night into morning and even noon, then that would be...
“Don’t tell me the two of you... already did it?”
Anis grimaced in disgust.
She even tried to crank her scent sensors up to the max and sniff for clues, just in case.
“We didn’t do anything.”
Bill brought his hand down in a sharp chop to the top of her sniffing head.
To a third party, it probably looked like a normal Commander hitting a Nikke and they’d think, How much could that even hurt...?
But who was doing the hitting?
Anis let out an “Agh!” and buried her nose in Rapi’s chest, while Rapi, caught off guard, grabbed her by the head and staggered back.
Anis rubbed the spot he’d hit and glared at him.
“Why did you hit me!!”
“Pervert treatment.”
“No, I’m just trying to check... Isn’t it fine to see whether my friend met a man?”
“I told you, we didn’t do anything...”
“You didn’t sleep together? A grown man and woman were in one room and nothing happened? That makes even less sense, doesn’t it?”
Anis’s instincts were annoyingly sharp.
And one of her traits was pressing so hard that the other person couldn’t even get a word in.
If that was her personality, then so be it, and Bill respected it.
There was just one problem...
“Aren’t those people over there... a Nikke and a Commander?”
“I heard them say they slept together just now, so maybe...”
Their voices had been louder than expected.
The onlookers who had been watching the little melodrama began to murmur.
Their voices were a bit loud for whispering, but that wasn’t important right now.
What mattered was that their own nonexistent behavior had somehow become public entertainment.
Rapi might not care, but Bill didn’t particularly care how other people gossiped. Still, with the extra chatter drifting in from all directions, Anis was already blushing bright red.
She had no idea what she herself had done, but it seemed she’d just created a new one.
Bill sighed and offered the red-faced Anis a compromise.
“Let’s go already... You’re done, right?”
“Y-yeah.”
With Anis obediently shutting her mouth, the three of them started walking toward the elevator.
--------------------
“More importantly, you really didn’t do anything? You’re not... impotent, are you?”
Bill didn’t answer Anis.
Instead, he slowly raised his hand.
Not the chopping hand from before, but a fully clenched fist.
Seeing the trembling hand tighten with force, Anis broke out in a cold sweat and hurried to explain.
“W-w-wait, listen. Give me a chance to explain.”
“Granted.”
“Th-that... what’s-her-name. Rapi’s personality is a little like that, but her looks are fine, right? She couldn’t even say much just now. So I thought maybe... maybe the Commander and she had done something huge...”
Something huge, she said.
Bill nodded as if agreeing with her.
The stalking from the previous day was definitely a big secret.
Meanwhile, the person involved himself felt like he didn’t even know why he’d done it.
And if he told the truth, he’d have to take Rapi’s circumstances into account.
Hide the truth to some extent, but don’t lie.
It didn’t take long to sort out the new version in his head.
Bill explained everything except the parts that were too dangerous to talk about in the Ark.
“I see... I understand why you came together. But seriously, you really didn’t do anything? Nikkes don’t need to sleep, you know. You could’ve just sent her home.”
“We’ve only known each other for two days. What exactly would we do? And it’s stranger that you’d even think of chasing someone out that late at night.”
“Really? On your life, no hidden intentions at all? Like I said before, her face is pretty good, isn’t it?”
Persistent.
Way too persistent.
Then again, maybe he was the one at fault for leaving room for that interpretation.
Bill was starting to feel annoyed.
At this rate, the questions would never end.
He needed something decisive to shut down this line of attack.
“Unfortunately, I already have someone I like.”
Not a person, but a Nikke.
There was no need to say that much.
And now she’d definitely back off from him... or so Bill thought.
But that assumption was wrong almost immediately.
“What?”
Anis’s eyes widened.
She must have been thinking through several possibilities, but this one clearly wasn’t among them.
Of course.
There was probably only one person who could tell a Nikke to sleep over and then answer that he already liked someone else.
And, contrary to expectations, her eyes sparkled as if she’d found something unexpectedly interesting.
“Who is it? What do they look like?”
Bill glanced around with narrowed eyes.
They were close to the elevator now, and the residents who had been visible a moment ago were all gone.
Now there were only three of them.
Since there was no risk of eavesdropping nearby, it should be fine to talk a little.
“She’s pure white, and beautiful. A being that shines so brightly it’s almost blinding.”
“Hmm? That’s it?”
Anis was dissatisfied with the description, which sounded both grand and strangely bland.
But what could he do?
Regrettably, he was pretty terrible at describing women.
“I’m bad at describing people. But if you saw her, you’d know. You’d think, ‘Ah, this person is the most beautiful in the world!’”
“White and beautiful... I can’t think of anyone. If you’re talking about the most beautiful celebrity at a glance, then it’d be Prima Donna, but they’re all black...”
Anis couldn’t finish her sentence.
She had been thinking of Aria, who had the most distinctive skin, and the moment the word left her mouth, she felt a sharp glance from Bill.
And there was only one sensitive issue that could have come from that remark.
“Wait, Commander. That’s not what I meant.”
Anis waved her hands frantically, but to Bill, that meant nothing.
Attack for attack, slander for slander.
If he got slapped on the cheek, he thought it only proper to slap back, so he raised his middle finger and shouted, “You fucking racist.”
--------------------
Their little league of mutual slander surprisingly died down quickly.
Since they’d only been trading jokes for jokes, it didn’t last long.
“Ha... I’m already exhausted this early in the morning...”
Anis sighed and looked at the back of his head as he walked in front, glad he’d ended the mess quickly.
The wicked grin he’d worn while acting like he’d scored a hit had been only half a joke.
How could he be so immature?
By appearance alone, he was a proper adult and a pretty decent man.
But his mind didn’t quite match, so it was almost a waste of a good exterior.
Still, she suddenly remembered the way he’d looked two days ago.
The operation where he had sacrificed his own body to hold down that enormous Rapture and let them destroy it.
She couldn’t deny that he’d come up with such a plan in such a short time.
—Yeah... that guy is way better.
She still had doubts about his true identity, but Anis didn’t really care what he was, as long as he was who he was.
In the end, she was a Nikke.
Whenever orders came down, she had to take missions and go to the surface.
The fact that they hunted Raptures and had their lives threatened by Raptures never changed.
But the biggest change in their lives now was the process of carrying out those missions.
She had been told to shut up during operations more times than she could count.
The number of times she’d nearly died from suddenly appearing Lord-class or Tyrant-class Raptures had already passed double digits.
The atmosphere between Commanders and soldiers was always grim, and on some days there were even people who died after being shot by a Nikke they had treated badly.
It was a total disaster.
And yet the reason Anis was still alive was simply because she didn’t want to die.
But what about him?
That man, even as a Commander, didn’t discriminate against them.
He treated them, who had once been human, as if they were no different from before they became Nikke.
He never shut down anything she said, and instead always responded to her.
That alone was enough to relieve most of the stress she’d accumulated from life.
On top of that, she’d heard that the Rapture he fought had been a special entity.
She hadn’t heard the details, but with pure force alone, a normal Tyrant-class Rapture probably wouldn’t have even gotten a name in.
Just having him there was reassuring, and they wouldn’t lose their lives over some trivial matter.
Compared to the past, when they’d been forced to dance on the edge of life and death because of some idiot who managed them badly or a single Rapture, it was almost insulting to compare the two.
—Come to think of it, I never got an answer.
Once her thoughts settled and peace returned to her mind, she remembered the clue to the answer she hadn’t heard.
Like she’d thought a moment ago, she couldn’t really think of anyone human or Nikke who was pure white and beautiful enough to fit that description.
She had butted in from a weird angle, but even the Nikkes of Prima Donna, who everyone praised as beautiful, weren’t pure white like his description.
There were plenty of idols and female singers with a white image, but no woman whose beauty shone enough to suit the phrase “a single being that shines blindingly.”
If one part fit, the other didn’t. If the other fit, the first didn’t.
Even Anis, who knew the entertainment world pretty well, couldn’t find a matching answer in the small society of the Ark.
“But that beautiful person. Where can I see her? No matter how I think about it, there isn’t anyone like that in the Ark.”
“Uh...”
Should he say it, or keep his mouth shut?
Bill stood at a crossroads of indecision.
He had thrown it out there just to dodge the situation, but he hadn’t expected her to actually ask every question she could think of.
—Come to think of it... there isn’t any record anymore.
As Bill worked his brain, he remembered that there was no longer any information about her left in the Ark.
So it should be fine.
His goal, his wish.
He could at least tell them her name.
“Cinderella.”
“Cinderella? Isn’t that the princess from an old fairy tale?”
“Yeah. The one with the pumpkin carriage and the glass slipper.”
“If you gave her the name of a princess from a fairy tale, then she really must be beautiful.”
Of course.
Bill was about to answer that way.
But his words were suddenly drowned out by Rapi’s voice from behind.
“Wait, there’s someone there.”
Bill looked ahead, and when he slowly turned his head toward the spot she indicated, there was...
A vicious glasses enthusiast.
Her outfit, which looked somewhat like naval attire, was unchanged.
And so were those irritating red glasses that made him angry every time he saw them.
Just like the two beside him, her appearance was unchanged.
If there was any consolation... maybe it was that she had a face cute enough to look like it came from an April Fools’ illustration.
Her refusal to part with the glasses was still a negative, but honestly, she looked good enough that he could almost accept it.
—Ah, so this is the difference in art style...
While Bill was having this realization as he looked at her, Neon must have heard Rapi’s voice, because she turned toward the three of them.
Then she jogged lightly over and stopped in front of them.
“Hello! My name is Neon.”
It was a greeting full of her feelings, warm and sincere.
That innocent greeting completely erased the image Bill had of her before.
Bright, alert eyes.
Thick green irises.
To Bill, she seemed like the Nikke in this place who had undergone the biggest positive image change.
But Rapi didn’t let her guard down against the unidentified Nikke who seemed to know them.
She had been watching silently until Neon finished introducing herself, and the moment their eyes met, she raised her gun and entered a standoff.
“Who are you?”
Bill slapped his forehead at the sight of Rapi’s hostility.
He realized that, between all the running around, he had forgotten to explain the person who would fill the squad’s missing slot.
He placed a hand on Rapi’s wary shoulder, told her it was fine, and stepped back before approaching Neon.
“She’s our third member. Give her a warm welcome.”
“What? You’d already talked about it? Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I forgot. And I just remembered.”
“Commander. I’m saying this out of concern, but... could it be dementia..?”
Haah.
Bill let out a huge sigh.
It was the kind of sigh that would not be matched again for a long time.
“Fine... let’s die once today!!!”
“Who says you can’t joke around? Agh! The Commander’s hitting a Nikke!!”
Anis saw him raise his hand again and quickly ran off.
Bill chased after her as if pursuing prey, leaving only Rapi and Neon standing there awkwardly with their guns on their backs.
The one who had aimed, and the one who had been aimed at.
It was the most awkward possible combination, but Neon spoke first.
“Rapi... I have a question.”
“What... is it?”
“Those two over there... are they always this noisy?”
“Uh...”
Neon looked toward the other two, who were running together with Rapi.
Anis, who had joked that her Commander had dementia and was now running away.
And the Commander, who was trying to smack her head while shouting that she should get dementia too.
It was a scene you would never see in an ordinary squad, where it would already be a relief if they didn’t fight at all.
The one piece of information Neon had heard from her boss was this:
The Commander’s mission two days ago had been his first, and she had heard that he defeated Black Smith with just two Nikkes.
So those two had met twice now, or three times if you counted the separate meeting from yesterday.
And yet there was a surprisingly deep sense of closeness between them.
Anis had a friendliness that neither she nor Rapi seemed to have.
That exaggerated behavior was probably part of it too.
Of course, that alone wouldn’t let her act like a friend with a Commander of a different rank.
It must have been something he had allowed.
And though she didn’t seem eager to show it, she also appeared to trust her Commander quite a lot.
But the Commander was different.
There was the atmosphere of comrades who had survived life and death together... but there was also something else.
She didn’t know exactly what it was.
But the way the Commander looked at them, the affection in it seemed strangely deep for someone he’d only known for a day or two.
And that affection, however slight, also extended to her.
Neon didn’t know the source of this disconnect.
Bill would never speak the reason aloud, so she would never understand that look.
But still...
—Well... I guess that’s just how it is.
Neon stopped thinking about it and let it go.
If someone told her something about themselves, it was proof of trust. If they didn’t, then it was a secret that had to be kept.
The look she judged in Bill’s eyes felt like a secret that should not be dug into too deeply.
That was how it felt.
Instinct told her he wouldn’t tell her even if she asked, and the other two didn’t seem like they’d notice either.
It was a conclusion that changed nothing, but perhaps it was one only Neon, with the most mature mind in the squad, could reach.
“Rapi... stop them. He’s serious.”
Before long, the two who had run off came back and stood off against each other with Rapi in between.
Neon stood beside Rapi, and the two Nikkes separated the man and woman like a wall.
They hadn’t even left for the surface yet, but both of them already looked exhausted.
Just as Rapi was sighing over when this farce would ever end, a familiar voice reached her ears.
[How long do you plan to keep playing tag?]
“That voice... Shifty?”
Rapi realized there was a woman with short sky-blue hair displayed in the hologram before her.
The woman Rapi called Shifty wore a displeased expression like ㅡ_ㅡ.
[I was watching to see when you’d stop... but it looked like it would never end, so I decided to say something.]
“Thanks. I couldn’t possibly get in between those two...”
[I can see why... Commander! Stop fooling around and come over here already!!]
“Me?”
Bill shot a “just you wait” sign at Anis and stepped in front of Shifty.
Shifty picked out a few documents on her screen and asked him,
[You remember the mission details, right? Even if I sent them this morning, you did check them, didn’t you?]
“Of cou... rgh...”
Bill started to answer, then shut his mouth.
[Commander??]
The reason Bill hesitated wasn’t because he didn’t know.
More precisely, he was wondering if this was really right.
The mission details had been sent at 8:00 a.m., two hours ago.
Normally, his daily routine was to barely wake up after nine.
If he had been alone, he would have at least memorized the contents even if he was late.
But by chance, Rapi was with him, and she didn’t need sleep.
Already awake, she checked the mission details that had been sent and woke Bill so they could buy the supplies needed for the operation.
Of course, there was no way he could make a proper judgment while half asleep.
Still not fully awake, he had tapped his phone to clear the notification and told her to just let him know the equipment and food they needed.
Rapi had added that he should check it in the middle, but he kept putting it off until later, and now here they were.
—I should’ve just looked at it...
But it was too late now.
There was someone in front of him waiting for his answer.
Answering was easy, but if his words were wrong, that would be a problem too.
Bill looked up at the sky and asked Rapi,
“Rapi... what was the mission again?”
Shifty and Anis looked at him with identical expressions, like sisters.
Rapi, as if she had expected this, immediately pulled up the mission message and explained slowly.
“The location is a power plant about ten hours away on foot. The main objective is to secure energy the Ark can use for a long period of time, and there are no other objectives.”
The mission Rapi relayed matched what he already knew.
The intention was different, of course.
Unlike the one he had sent with the goal of failure, this one could succeed in securing energy while still leaving room to criticize it for various reasons.
Like the time the research facility collapsed completely and interfered with further farming.
Or when they consumed more ammunition than expected and caused losses to the Ark.
Either way, it was basically nonsense on the level of a childish prank, but since it was his request, they would send him to the outpost for any reason they could attach to it.
“That’s right.”
At Bill’s answer, which passed the burden back to him, Shifty looked resigned while Rapi continued as if she trusted him.
“Haah... if Rapi knows, then that’s fine. It’ll take a while, so let’s depart immediately. Based on our forecast, there weren’t many Raptures on the way, so if we’re fast it’ll take two days, and at most three. Then, I’ll see you again on the surface.”
When she finished speaking, Shifty’s hologram disappeared.
Even if it was gone, the elevator ride to the surface would only take about ten minutes at most.
They would see each other again soon enough.
—More importantly...
Bill turned around and looked at the three standing behind him.
Obedient red.
Disobedient yellow.
White in the middle.
The sight of the three, who seemed to have nothing in common at all, felt to Bill like it was saying this was only the beginning.
In just a few days, many things had happened, and many more would happen in the days ahead.
This was a world where everything was variable.
What he knew could change, and even his expectations might miss the mark.
And yet, if there was one thing he had made up his mind about...
Even if his life was on the line, he would protect these three.
That was what he thought.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
The four of them stepped into the elevator, whose doors opened as if welcoming them.
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