Only Bill’s even breathing spread through the room.
Rapi said nothing as she watched his face, quietly keeping watch beside him.
“Commander. Are you asleep?”
She asked cautiously in a small voice, but no answer came back.
Only his breathing reached her ears.
Rapi was relieved he hadn’t heard her and carefully pressed a fist against the area near her heart.
—Why is this happening...
When had it started?
Rapi decided it had probably begun when the two of them were left alone together.
In all the decades she had lived as a Nikke, her heart had never raced like this before.
She had always been indifferent to everything she saw.
On the battlefield and in daily life alike, she valued efficiency above all else and prioritized immediate circumstances.
She had thought emotions and instincts were unimportant.
In truth, throughout her life, those thoughts had often only gotten in the way.
And yet, why did her heart pound so violently every time she looked at this man?
When their eyes met, she would turn her head away for no reason. When he spoke to her, her chest would strangely tighten.
If he stared silently into space, that silence would unsettle her mind.
When he talked with another Nikke, or when someone like just now took his hand, a corner of her heart would ache.
Of course, she knew the Commander was a good person.
She had carried out countless missions with Commanders until now, but none of them had respected her.
They were all the same—people who treated a Nikke who had once been human, born from humans, like a mindless weapon.
But he was different.
From the very beginning, he had called her “Rapi.”
Not “hey” or “you,” but by the name that made up who she was.
He had treated her not as a soldier who merely obeyed orders, but as an individual with her own personality.
He was the first Commander like that.
But that alone was not enough to explain the hot, overflowing feeling she had now.
The one who treated her as Rapi rather than as a Nikke was also the operator, Shifty.
She too approached her with a gentle tone and worried over even minor injuries with exaggerated concern.
There was almost no gap between Shifty and Bill.
Their traits were nearly identical, and Rapi couldn’t find a difference between them.
So why.
Why were the feelings she had toward the two of them so different?
—Maybe...
There was only one clue that could explain the subtle difference in those emotions.
It might be related to someone from her past.
Rapi recalled the one and only “friend” she had once had, and the promise she had repeated to herself.
Someone who wouldn’t die or break, and who could still lead her forward.
When she first met Anis, Anis had heard that wish and laughed.
“What kind of person even exists like that? I’d believe it if you said they were the protagonist of a game.”
Rapi didn’t play games often, but she understood the concept of a protagonist.
Even without using a game as an example, she could understand.
A protagonist was someone who solved problems through methods ordinary people could hardly imagine.
The word Anis used was enough to explain how enormous and unreachable her wish really was.
The ideal person everyone wanted, someone you could admire like a “friend.”
She had wondered countless times whether such a person could exist in reality, but in the end, no one like that ever appeared.
Until recently.
Didn’t they say fate came like a wave?
After losing a Commander she had gone out with Anis, while wandering the surface.
He appeared before her.
And then he ran.
Charging forward through a rain of shells was, above all else, brave.
Even in the middle of a battle where not a single second allowed distraction, he devised a plan to hide his own secret.
He lured the enemy’s guard down and made a perfect calculation based on their position.
That judgment, that unwavering momentum.
Before she knew it, Rapi saw herself following him.
Her gaze turning toward him, her footsteps trailing behind him, this feeling she herself did not understand.
All of it had to have come from one reason.
Having整理ed her thoughts, Rapi shifted her gaze to Bill’s face as he slept in deep slumber.
Closed eyes, a body completely relaxed.
As if this place had been safe from the start, he lay there defenseless.
But the place Bill had chosen to sleep in was the middle of enemy territory.
There was no telling when or where a Rapture might attack.
What’s more, this was an even more dangerous mission than usual, one where the operator couldn’t even warn them of an attack.
The other comrades had moved on to the next location, and he had entrusted his safety entirely to Rapi.
Rapi quietly closed her eyes.
The unfamiliar feeling that had filled her once-empty chest was not just a passing state.
In her calculated life, she had never been this aware of anyone before.
Her heart seemed to cry out for her to trust him.
But it was still too early.
He was certainly close to the “perfect being” Rapi had imagined.
That much was undeniable.
But just because her heart was drawn to him did not mean it was too soon to conclude that Bill was that “perfect being” himself.
He might simply be someone similar.
Because he was similar, her heart wavered. Because it wavered, she developed expectations. And because she had expectations, feelings like this might have been born.
That alone would be a hasty judgment.
Especially since Rapi herself did not fully understand the depth of her own emotions and thoughts.
To feel reassured, she needed “certainty,” and to gain that certainty, she needed a little more time to watch.
Even so, she could not deny that his presence was steadily growing larger in her mind.
Rapi had not made a “decision,” but she had no intention of denying this feeling.
She still could not lie to herself about being drawn to him.
“Haaaaaaah...”
A huge yawn filled the room and shattered the quiet atmosphere in an instant.
Bill stretched both arms wide, and even after getting to his feet, his usual easygoing air remained unchanged.
He slowly rolled his shoulders, seeming to enjoy the crackling sound in his back.
But there was one thing he had overlooked when he woke up.
Dust.
On his back, after sleeping in a space that had been left untouched for more than ten years, white dust clung like flour on a cutting board.
Every time he twisted his whole body to stretch, the dust rose softly into the air.
“Damn... why is there so much dust?”
Bill grumbled in an irritated voice as if it were the first time he’d seen it, even though he was the one who had chosen that chair.
He covered his nose and mouth with the front hem of his clothes that hadn’t gotten dusty and hurried toward the window.
He cautiously checked outside just in case, but there was no sign of a Rapture—he couldn’t even hear the footsteps of an animal.
Bill looked satisfied and soon turned to Rapi.
“Rapi, turn around for a second.”
“Huh?”
Rapi blinked.
It was such a sudden order that she couldn’t understand why he wanted her to turn her back.
But his next words answered her question.
“This... I need to take it off and shake it out. Just for a moment.”
“Ah...”
Rapi reflexively turned her head away.
She knew what was happening behind her, but she didn’t have the courage to confirm it with her own eyes.
She held her breath quietly, and into her ears slipped the sound of fabric brushing against fabric and the rustle of clothes fluttering.
“This is so uncomfortable to put on...”
Bill complained as he shoved his removed pants onto his legs.
He carefully slipped one leg in first and slowly pulled them up.
Each movement carried effort, each one punctuated by small sighs.
He was nearly two meters tall, with thick arms and legs.
For a frame like that, a uniform that valued style over mobility caused discomfort every time he wore it, pinching and pulling in all the wrong places.
So getting dressed inevitably took quite a while.
Beep.
Suddenly, a short alert sounded from the wristwatch Bill was wearing.
It was a call signal from Shifty.
Bill reacted to the sound, but his pants were still only halfway on.
An awkward timing where he couldn’t do anything either way.
The next instant, a scene flashed through his head, and to avoid disaster he hurriedly yanked his pants up.
But Shifty’s screen turned on faster.
“[Commander!!! You’re awa..... kyaaaah!!!]”
“Whoaah!!”
Shifty, not even thinking to cut the screen, just flailed both arms forward.
Bill also tried to fix the situation by quickly pulling up his pants, but—
Riiip.
An ominous sound filled the room.
Shifty froze at the noise, and Rapi, who had only been listening to the scream, flinched as well.
Bill touched the inside of his pants just in case, and the rough feel of torn fabric reached his fingertips.
He let out a sigh and muttered, “Haah... these expensive clothes...”
But Bill didn’t get angry at Shifty.
The fact that she had brought up the screen even though he hadn’t answered the signal meant something urgent must have happened.
And his guess was right.
Even with her eyes still closed, Shifty apologized from the other side of the screen and spoke.
“I-I’m sorry, Commander. But this is an urgent situation, so I had to hurry.”
“Urgent? Is a Rapture coming?”
“Please get changed while you listen. I already spoke with Absolute. As for the estimated arrival time, strange signals started appearing a little while ago.”
“Strange signals?”
Bill frowned.
A signal that appeared out of nowhere was certainly suspicious, but the fact that Shifty had called it “strange” bothered him.
While changing into the clothes Rapi handed him, he asked Shifty for the data at the same time.
“I was already working on that issue. Please wait a moment. It’s almost done.”
It really was only a moment.
Shifty opened another window beside her screen, sent the data over, and Bill quickly read through it.
On the first page, a pattern of signals repeating at intervals of about seventeen seconds was recorded.
The margin of error was only around 0.2 seconds.
At a glance, it looked like a broadly scattered structural signal, and it was hard to conclude that anything was strange.
Bill was about to look up and ask Shifty a question, but as if she had anticipated it, she answered first.
“The first document is about the phenomenon. The details are on the second page.”
Bill scratched his head, a little embarrassed, and turned the page.
And around the time he had read half the screen, the sentence he had been wondering about finally came into view.
“As you can see... there are too many possible locations for where the signal is coming from.”
“Leaving aside the awkward seventeen-second interval... how can there be this many signals?”
“That’s the thing... normally we’d trace the signal back to determine its location, but no matter how many times we try, the result changes. So we can’t find the source at all.”
“Hmm...”
Bill fell silent and sank into thought.
This signal had only begun to be detected after they arrived at the power plant, and only after several hours had passed.
It was a space abandoned for decades, so errors caused by system failure or worn-out parts were to be expected.
But considering the pattern repeated so consistently, something about it felt off if he dismissed it as a simple signal.
“Definitely weird...”
He felt an ominous chill from the signal.
He couldn’t explain where that feeling came from, but it was not something he could ignore.
“Shifty. Dispatch troops at once...”
Kzzzt.
Before he could finish, unpleasant static burst from the screen showing Shifty.
And then, with a hiss, the screen scattered apart.
Boom!!
At the same time, there was the sound of a door being violently shoved open.
The force exceeded its limit, and the door flew off its hinges. In its place stood Anis, breathing hard.
“Commander!!! Are you okay?!”
Beads of sweat gathered on her forehead, and her shoulders rose and fell with ragged breaths.
It was only about a ten-minute walk to the next area.
For her to have sprinted all the way here meant the situation was anything but ordinary.
“I’ve got one more problem now.”
Bill tapped his wrist as he spoke.
“The connection to the Ark is cut off.”
“I figured as much.”
Ingrid exhaled briefly.
“Eblah particles have been scattered outside. Fortunately, the concentration isn’t high enough to affect our movement.”
Eblah particles.
Particles that interfere with electrical signals, mainly used to disrupt communications.
The problem was that if the concentration grew too dense, it could also affect a Nikke’s bodily functions.
Fortunately, the effect was still minimal.
But that didn’t necessarily make the situation a good one.
“So going outside is a bit much?”
“We confirmed Raptures gathering from a distance. It was a little too chaotic to say they’ve pinpointed our position... but if you want to become a honeycomb, I won’t stop you.”
“Well... I guess so.”
If the Nikkes were fine, then by extension the Raptures’ functions were probably intact too.
Hearing that, Bill gave a short reply and sighed.
But he couldn’t stay disappointed forever.
This was reality.
Since the thing he had worried about from the start had happened, there was no time to waste.
“So how many are there?”
“At least a hundred units. Maybe more than double that.”
“That’s quite a lot... Did you see a boss?”
Emma, standing beside her, shook her head.
“We haven’t confirmed any Lord-class or Tyrant-class Raptures. But there are too many for six Nikkes to handle. I’m sure it’s nearby.”
“Understood... for now.”
A group of Raptures gathered around a specific location.
And the special entity commanding them had not yet shown itself, but it would eventually.
Raptures were beings that could not think for themselves.
If he cut off the head of the one leading them, there’d be no need to keep fighting.
—There’s a good chance they’ll notice us here soon... so how should I set this up...?
Poke, poke.
Someone carefully jabbed Bill in the side as he worried.
He turned at the sensation, but for some reason no one was there.
Then something wriggled below his line of sight, and when he looked down, Vesti was there with an awkward smile.
She glanced around nervously and let out a small breath.
Even Bill could tell she knew her timing was completely wrong.
But in the end, Vesti gathered her courage, and her tightly shut little lips parted.
“Um... Commander, why did you change clothes?”
“What?”
At the unexpected question, everyone’s attention snapped to one place.
With six pairs of eyes focused on her at once, Vesti shrank back and twisted her fingers together.
“N-no... I just wondered... I didn’t mean anything by it... sorry...”
Bill rubbed his forehead and let out a sigh.
As if a Rapture invasion wasn’t already right around the corner, this was the kind of timing that made him want to ask, “Why now?”
“Come to think of it, yeah? Commander, weren’t you already wearing your uniform?”
And then Neon, who had been quiet until now, jumped in and added fuel to the fire.
Both of them aimed bright, sparkling eyes at him, and Bill resigned himself to the fact that this wouldn’t end unless he answered.
In the end, he revealed the fact he had intended to hide from the Ark.
“The crotch got torn off. Badly enough that it couldn’t be repaired.”
Vesti made an “ah!” expression and nodded as if the mystery had been solved.
Bill looked at her as if asking whether that satisfied her, but then met the gaze still fixed on him.
“Got another question?”
“Ah... um, just one more...”
“What is it?”
Bill lowered his head and let out a small sigh toward the fidgeting Vesti.
He wondered what she would ask next, but nothing came to mind.
But Vesti’s gaze wasn’t on Bill.
It was on the person standing directly opposite him.
“Ah, this one’s for Ingrid.”
“Me?”
“Y-yeah.”
Ingrid frowned, lifting her brows at the sudden call of her name.
But Vesti was already getting scared again, and the increasingly impatient Ingrid gave permission with a curt, “Go ahead.”
“Usually when Raptures show up, we switch to a formation that protects the Commander... so why aren’t we doing that now?”
“Huh?”
Bill, flustered, pulled the water bottle away from his mouth.
While he had been talking with Shifty, he remembered seeing Ingrid explaining something to Emma.
If it was a secret conversation between the two of them, then he was the only one who came to mind, and he had assumed she had already finished talking with Vesti, who was also from Absolute.
But her eyes and tone completely denied that assumption.
“What? Ingrid, you didn’t tell Vesti?”
Bill turned his eyes and met Ingrid’s.
Her red lips were parted blankly, and her gaze awkwardly avoided his.
He knew that look.
That way of subtly averting one’s eyes.
Maybe, truly, they were similar.
Rapi did the same thing when she was at a disadvantage.
“No way...”
“...I forgot...”
“...Well, that can...”
Bill tried to brush off Ingrid’s mistake lightly, but he stopped short before finishing.
Then he slowly looked around at the Nikkes nearby and soon let out a sigh of realization.
“Rookie. Why are you acting like that too?”
“I forgot too.”
“Forgot what?”
“The same thing as you.”
The reason he had looked around the room was simple.
He had realized that, just like Ingrid had forgotten to explain it to Vesti, he too had told no one anything.
And that someone was...
“So... what exactly are you all talking about?”
It was Neon, carefully pushing her glasses up.
“Ah... so that’s what it was...”
Vesti simply nodded, and Neon narrowed her eyes as if she had understood something.
“I did think something was strange. Yesterday, when a Rapture jumped out of the mountain, you stayed calm, and when you stuck your head out like you might get hit by a bullet... it was all because there was a reason, right?”
“Well, yeah. But you two are surprisingly underwhelmed.”
Even after revealing a fact he could confidently call a huge secret, the two of them remained calm as if it were nothing special.
When Bill complained in disbelief, Neon widened her eyes in protest.
“No, we’re not. We’re super shocked.”
“Sure, sure. You’re amazing.”
Bill snorted and shrugged.
Neon shot back, “I’m serious,” and he played along as if he couldn’t win.
With that, the noisy conversation came to an end.
As if the joking was over, a small silence settled over the room.
And then, just as Bill was about to discuss the operation with Rapi—
—!?
A strange sensation ran down Bill’s back.
At the feeling of a cold fingertip brushing his skin, he felt a chill unlike anything he had experienced before.
He couldn’t explain it in words.
But at the very least, it was certain that the atmosphere around them had changed.
“Shh.”
Bill made a gesture for silence and stared fixedly at the wall.
More precisely, he was looking somewhere beyond it.
From there, an enormous, unidentified presence was being transmitted.
It wasn’t nearby.
No matter how small a Lord-class it might be, if it were close, not even a wall could erase that vibration and sound.
And yet this presence, enough to make his skin tingle despite the distance...
It was absolutely not an ordinary Rapture.
Boom!!
With a massive explosion, the building’s wall shook.
Every window in the room shattered, and the fragments, carried by the blast, rained down on the group like transparent blades.
The force of the explosion was strong enough to shove even heavy Nikkes back, and in an instant everyone was slammed into the wall and rolled across the floor.
“Ghk...”
Bill couldn’t escape this attack unscathed either.
His skin had been torn, pain surged through his arms, and his whole body throbbed as if beaten with a club.
But the real danger was elsewhere.
The rising heat scorched the surroundings.
A Nikke might be able to stop breathing, but Bill was human.
Even as he fell and struggled to get back up, his breathing continued naturally.
The heat that spread deep into his body through that breath burned his lungs with agony.
“Khaagh...”
At the pain, as if his heart were burning, Bill instinctively clutched his chest.
The knees he had just managed to raise buckled, and he collapsed to the floor.
If it were an external impact, he could endure it.
But if a bomb exploded from inside him, could even a god withstand it?
Even so, despite his twisted expression, he did not stop.
Forcing his breathing steady, he slowly pushed himself up.
As if this much could not stop him, his trembling legs succeeded in getting him back on his feet.
—Where are the others?
Bill barely opened one eye and looked around.
Black smoke blanketed the area, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead, let alone the Raptures.
Fortunately, the smoke quickly drifted out through the windows, allowing him to see his comrades sprawled on the floor.
There were no major external injuries like broken arms, but they didn’t look like they could get up immediately.
—This might be... a little dangerous?
Bill made a quick judgment.
They were Nikkes, and unless their bodies were completely destroyed, their recovery speed was far beyond that of humans.
Even so, if they couldn’t stand, it meant they needed a little more time.
If he could just buy them that time, they would rise as if nothing had happened and slaughter the Raptures.
To do that, he needed a plan.
He had to somehow make this space, watched by countless Raptures, safe.
Recalling their habits and tendencies, he quickly thought of a way to create an opening.
—Ah. Come to think of it...
Raptures were machines with no self, ruled by instinct.
That was the answer itself.
Even if their reaction speed was faster than a human’s, their judgment was close to zero.
If the Raptures still hadn’t recognized the Nikkes’ presence or location, then he could focus all their attention on himself.
In other words, it would be enough to step out of the smoke and reveal himself.
But—
“Gahahahaha! So there you are, fake human!!!!!!!”
Along with the sound of a wall breaking behind him, a vulgar laugh burst out.
The instant he turned, what he saw was a massive fist.
Wielding that fist was a machine lifeform with a height beyond human limits and grotesquely distorted proportions between its arms and legs.
A malformed existence that belonged to neither the outside nor the inside.
Among the Raptures that could not speak, it was the only special entity capable of conversation.
Bill knew exactly what it was.
“Tov?”
Bill quickly crossed his arms.
He could not take that swinging hammer head-on.
But it was already too late to dodge, and the brutally swung fist struck his body.
The impact smashed through the wall with ease, and Bill was hurled into the air.
He rose to a height of about forty meters.
It was high enough to look down on everything around him at a glance.
Bill was stunned that he, weighing a full 700 kilograms, had been launched into the air with nothing but his bare body.
At the same time, he was certain that if he had drawn this much attention, the Raptures would definitely be watching him.
Even though Tov’s appearance was unusual, he had still accomplished his goal in his own way.
But when Bill looked down below, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Not a single Rapture left on the ground was looking at him as he flew.
Instead, even the Raptures from other areas were all converging at once.
It was bizarre.
Raptures were stupid creatures that couldn’t tell truth from lies.
And yet they were all staring only at the place where the Nikkes were, almost as if they had made a promise.
As if they were taking orders from someone.
“No way. Tov is controlling the Raptures!?”
Thud!!
Landing with a thunderous crash, Bill raised his head and looked at the swarm of Raptures.
He had made two huge noises already, but the Raptures still didn’t even glance at him.
This silence might have been powerful proof that Bill’s suspicion was not wrong.
But that wasn’t important right now.
He couldn’t let the situation continue like this.
They still needed more time to recover.
Bill kicked off the ground toward the Rapture horde.
He charged with everything he had, intending to cut into their midst and draw their attention somehow.
A distance of one hundred meters.
It took only three seconds to close it.
But then—
“Huh?”
Something was wrong.
His legs should have been pushing off the ground, his body moving forward.
But what was this lightness at the tips of his feet?
The flow of air had changed.
The wind that had been pushing at his back was now blowing from below.
But—
Could wind even blow from below?
“No... this is...!”
The direction of the wind was still pushing at his back.
What he had just felt was an illusion created by distorted senses.
From the very beginning, nothing had changed.
Unless there was one exception.
That exception was that the floor Bill had been standing on was in the middle of collapsing.
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