Several dozen minutes after the three of them went up to the surface.
At the noisy grind of gears, I hurried toward where the elevator descended, as though I had run out barefoot.
"Leader! Why are you here?"
"Uh, I was curious how things went."
Ariel followed along in quick little steps, happily clutching a sackful of goods in her arms.
When I vaguely asked how it had gone, Ariel answered with the same bright expression, showing me the inside of the sack.
"No problems at all! Look, we got this much!"
"Oh, wow, that's more than before... Good job!"
Naturally, I had sent them through one more stage than usual, so of course there was more. Still, I praised her while pretending to be impressed.
Unlike Ariel, who came running over excitedly, the other two silently carried their sacks without saying a word.
Manu had always been the type to speak little beyond what was necessary, so that was one thing. But Sati's condition looked somewhat serious.
I led everyone to the storage room to put down their sacks.
"...I'll be going now."
Right after setting down her sack in the storage room, Sati lowered her head and began to leave, saying she would go first.
Manu, who rarely said more than necessary, did the same.
Sati's attitude was markedly different from before the operation, and I found myself watching her back with concern.
She looks more crushed than I expected.
"W-Wait! Sati, we still need your report..."
"Let her rest first, okay?"
Ariel tried to stop Sati, but I caught her by the shoulder and let Sati leave first.
Sati seemed to pause at Ariel's voice for a moment, then began walking again when she heard mine.
"Operation report!"
With that, I returned to the Leader's room with only Ariel.
Even in a situation like this, Ariel didn't forget the formal greeting for an operation report. She really was something else.
"Yeah, how was Manu's performance?"
Seeing that bulging sack, I knew it would be the same report as always.
I decided to skip the report itself and ask what she thought instead.
"It was exactly like you said, Leader! The instant she saw the monsters, she went out there and Booom! Blew them all up!"
As one of the people who had watched Manu fight on the surface, Ariel began explaining with grand gestures...
Only to get so excited that she lost all vocabulary.
Well, Manu's exclusive weapon did have a combat style that couldn't help but leave an impression.
After all, the standard strategy was to have Manu run stages by herself for the sake of conserving energy.
For Ariel and Sati, who were normally assigned to special battles, this might have been an unusual sight.
"All right, all right, calm... calm down."
"Could I use a weapon like that too?!"
Despite my telling her to calm down, Ariel was still brimming with excitement as she asked whether she could use a weapon like that herself.
There was no weapon better for a Replica than her exclusive weapon, though.
Had seeing Manu's performance made her want to switch weapons?
It was like throwing cold water on Ariel's eager anticipation, but I folded my arms and spoke hesitantly.
"Ah, I wouldn't really recommend that..."
"Huh? Why not? It looked better."
Ariel said Manu's weapon had looked better, visibly disappointed and a little dejected by my answer.
Weapons had compatibility, and unless their designated character used them, they couldn't display their full performance.
That was especially true of Manu's weapon, which opened every battle by firing an enormous barrage.
No matter how much another Replica was taken with that massive explosion and tried using it, it would just be an ordinary hand cannon-class weapon.
It wouldn't produce the spectacular explosions it did in Manu's hands.
"Even if you use the same weapon, it won't have that kind of power. You know there's such a thing as weapon compatibility, right?"
"Oh, right..."
As I shrugged and mentioned compatibility, Ariel lowered her head as if she had only just remembered.
Compatibility.
Early in the game, instead of simply saying 'exclusive weapon for so-and-so,' they used the bizarre term 'compatibility' to designate exclusive weapons.
The system displayed the compatibility between a Replica and a weapon as a percentage, with that weapon's special functions unlocking at certain percentages.
The problem was that it literally only showed a percentage. To find the Replica who hit 100 percent, you had to equip your newly pulled weapon on every Replica one by one.
What if none of the Replicas I had matched the weapon I pulled?
What else? I had just wasted my time.
Of course, before even a few days had passed, players had made charts showing which weapons belonged to whom. The system got thoroughly cursed out for inconveniencing people for no reason, and they patched it to tell you whose exclusive weapon it was...
Unfortunately, that knowledge did not seem to have been passed on to the Replicas living in this world.
Then again, they had probably just taken whatever weapons the player gave them without question.
Anyway, I felt bad for Ariel, but I decided to crush that futile hope before it took root.
"The firepower you saw can only be produced by Manu herself."
"Oh, I see..."
Ariel looked openly disappointed, somehow growing even more dejected as she fidgeted in place.
It seemed Manu's performance on the surface today had been quite satisfying and exhilarating to watch.
Her restless manner kept bothering me, so in the end, I pointed around Ariel's waist and spoke.
"If you want, I'll get you a standard cannon. If you really want to try it, carry it as a backup weapon."
"R-Really?! Thank you!"
At my offer to prepare a cannon-class weapon for her, Ariel's face immediately brightened. She even bowed from the waist in thanks.
Would she really be that happy just because I said I'd set aside one fully upgraded generic junk weapon left over from pulling?
"Go get some rest for now. You worked hard in today's operation too."
"Yes! You rest well too, Leader!"
After briskly snapping off a salute, Ariel left with a wish for me to rest well too.
At a glance, it seemed today's business had come to an end as well. But there was still one person I couldn't help worrying about.
Sati, who had been especially listless right after the operation.
Should I... go see her?
I had figured her pride would be hurt and she would be frustrated to some degree, but when Sati returned from the operation, she had looked gloomy beyond mere frustration.
It kept bothering me, and rather than resting, I got up with an uneasy heart and headed to Sati's room.
Once again, Sati's maintenance room was tightly shut.
Knock knock knock. I rapped on the door in quick succession and spoke.
"Sati, are you in there?"
My voice echoed hollowly through the hallway.
After persistently knocking without receiving a response, I assumed Sati was elsewhere and was about to leave.
But then Sati's maintenance room opened with a psssh.
Sati soon walked out, looking haggard.
"What do you want? You're persistent."
"Ah, you were in there."
So she had been pretending not to be in her room.
I greeted her with a broad smile and immediately said,
"Want to go get something to eat together?"
"What?"
My brazen proposal left Sati blank for a moment.
After knocking so persistently, that was all I had to say?
Sati looked dumbfounded, but perhaps because she was feeling down, she obediently came along anyway.
"It's lonely eating lunch alone."
"Then you could've brought Ariel along."
Once we arrived at the cafeteria and I said that, Sati replied in her usual blunt, chilly manner.
Sitting beside her in the cafeteria, I casually tossed a few words her way.
"Did Manu make you feel inferior?"
"W-Who says she did?!"
Apparently I had struck right at the heart of it. Sati suddenly flared up to refute me, then let her words trail off.
I wasn't very good at lying either, but Sati seemed to be no better.
"You've been strange ever since you got back. You had no energy when you returned, and you said you were going back to your room without even giving a report as soon as you put down your sack in the storage room..."
"Be quiet."
I smiled as I pointed out each of Sati's strange actions, until her order to be quiet made me close my mouth.
At least she didn't tell me to shut up.
Sati had somehow become gentle, even if she was still rough around the edges.
Her attitude was two levels more subdued than usual. I looked around the cafeteria before asking her a question.
"Since we came all the way to the cafeteria, we should eat something. What do you want?"
"..."
But Sati merely sat there, avoiding my gaze without giving a single answer.
Normally, she would have answered something like, "Don't need anything," or, "Whatever." But...
She didn't seem to want to talk right now, so I decided to prepare food for two as I pleased.
After scanning the wide variety of cans, I chose canned steak for myself and canned omurice for Sati.
Once you picked your cans, all that was left was to hand them to the robot.
I had no idea what principle it used to cook, but after the robot made a racket and gave a ding, it presented an appetizing dish to the person who ordered it.
When I placed the food in front of her, Sati reluctantly picked up a spoon and took a bite of the omurice.
Clink. The sound of her spoon scraping against the bowl rang out.
We continued eating in silence for quite some time.
Sati must have noticed long ago that my claim of being lonely eating by myself was an excuse.
This was a meal arranged solely to comfort her.
"Why... why are you only unnecessarily perceptive at times like this...?"
"Sorry I'm like this."
And so Sati poured out her resentment at me.
After that, Sati voiced all her many anxieties.
There was Ariel, who had such a good personality, and now they had a capable newcomer like that too, so there would be no need for someone like her.
"More and more, it feels like there's no place for someone like me."
When it had just been Ariel and her, her place had felt secure. Now she felt as though it was gradually being whittled away.
This is serious...
I expected her pride to have taken a hit, but I hadn't imagined she would be so discouraged that she'd start thinking things like that.
Maybe the environment of the Under City was so bad that it was pushing her thoughts in a negative direction.
To see Sati, who had always been so full of confidence, like this.
"Yeah. This isn't where you belong."
"..."
It was the worst possible line, like I was encouraging her self-loathing.
Sati, already deeply downcast, lowered her gaze even further toward the floor.
But then I put strength into my voice, stretched one arm high overhead, and cried out as dramatically as I could.
"Where we belong is on the clean, brilliant surface!"
"Pfft, what was that...?"
Perhaps my sudden joke to change the mood worked, because Sati couldn't hold it in and let out a little laugh.
"Anyway! I'm saying everyone has fields they're good at, so you don't need to get so discouraged."
Taking that opportunity, I clumsily comforted Sati and placed my hand atop her head, something I had never done before.
Compared to a bombardment-type character, of course sniper rifles and assault rifles would be weaker against waves of small fry.
There was no reason for Sati to feel depressed just because she fell behind in routine stage runs.
And it was absurd for her to declare that she had no place here.
"Well, honestly, I do think it would be nice to have two or three more people... Ow!"
With the mood now much lighter, I revealed that future plan. Immediately, Sati began kicking my shin with her metal boot without even getting up from her seat.
"Ah, aaah! That really hurts!"
The moment she hit me, I cried out and kept moving my chair as far away from Sati as I could.
It felt as though an iron club was smashing into my bone.
Even at my desperate cry, Sati snorted, gritted her teeth, and kicked my other shin as she shouted,
"It's supposed to hurt, you know?!"
"Aagh!"
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