Now wasn't the time for self-reflection.
I found us seats in the dining hall, then bowed my head to offer another apology after the one I'd just made.
"I'm sorry I didn't realize you'd been coming out every night."
"...It's fine, as long as you haven't forgotten."
Faced with my repeated apologies, Manu gave me a faint smile and said it was fine.
Learning that the reason Manu, freed from her nihilism after Sati's harsh words, had kept her distance all this time was something so trivial made me take an involuntary deep breath.
In any case, the fact that she had come all the way out here was Manu's way of expressing that she was lonely.
With the distance between us diminished, I poked her cheek with my index finger and asked in a slightly teasing tone.
"So, how should I cheer you up?"
"Mm... I just wanted to make sure."
As though there was no need for me to cheer her up, Manu shook her head and said she had merely wanted to make sure.
It seemed she had come here every day to verify whether I, who had even forgotten our conversation, had truly forgotten her as well.
Well, if she didn't need comforting, that was good in its own way.
"Then, since we came all the way to the dining hall, have something before you go."
"Okay."
I changed the mood and made the offer as casually as I could.
As though she had shaken something off, Manu nodded with a faint smile and answered in a single word.
Her listless expression remained unchanged, but to me, she looked at least three times more spirited. It was nice to see.
The canned food Manu chose was fish cake soup.
During her Affection Level 2 event, the food mentioned as her favorite had been the fish cake broth from a snack bar.
I planned to go back and sleep once I was done talking with Manu, so I decided not to have a late dinner.
I simply sat in the seats set out before the dining hall and watched Manu eat.
Despite her face revealing little emotion, Manu seemed happy as she ate.
Watching her put an unbidden smile on my face, and Manu seemed to notice it as she looked my way.
"Don't look over here."
"Ah, sorry."
Manu looked at me with a slightly pouty expression, and at her reprimand I faced forward again and apologized.
I felt like I'd been saying sorry a lot lately.
For a while, all I could hear was the sound of her drinking broth and the clink of utensils. Then the intervals between those eating sounds gradually grew longer.
"Did the Leader abandon us?"
A brief question suddenly came through one of those long pauses.
Only then did I shift my gaze from straight ahead and look at Manu, seated to my right.
Her eyes held a trace of worry.
She seemed to believe inwardly that he wouldn't have, yet still wanted confirmation from my own lips.
"Who knows what happened."
"Did something happen?"
When I gave such an ambiguous answer, Manu seemed to sense something strange and questioned me again.
If quitting the game could be called 'abandoning' it, then depending on how you looked at it, perhaps it was.
But as far as I knew, the Leader was an amnesiac survivor.
In this insane world where humanity was practically extinct, he was an ordinary human being preserved almost perfectly.
Even by the setting, his origins were unclear. No one knew whether he had fallen from the sky or risen from the ground.
"He was just like I was when I first came here."
He had been in the same state I was in now.
The one difference was that unlike the first player, who had been completely empty, I had memories.
"...You don't even know the reason?"
"No. I don't have the slightest clue."
I shook my head in response to Manu's next question.
If there were a clear reason, I wanted to know it too.
How I had turned on a game, only to suddenly end up in this world where the game's world was alive and real.
I knew what had triggered it, but I had no idea how something like that could possibly have happened.
Maybe there had been some pinnacle of modern technology that I'd never known about. Who knew?
"So I can't guarantee I won't disappear again, either."
"...I see."
In the end, I told Manu the truth without much emotion: I didn't know what would happen.
Manu seemed a little disappointed. Her spirits fell, and after a brief silence, she gave a subdued acknowledgment.
She couldn't help being disappointed.
She must have hoped I would tell her it would never happen again.
I felt just as sorry that I was in a position where I had no choice but to say such things.
"Feeling empty again? Should I leave you out of the operation?"
"...No."
When I asked with a bitter smile, Manu shook her head with the same firm attitude she had shown right after our reunion.
"I'll do my best. It's something that needs to be done."
Steadfast resolve filled her listless eyes.
She would do it because it needed to be done.
Those were the words Sati had rebuked her with not long ago.
The instant I heard Manu say them, I realized Sati's worry had been pointless and let out a small laugh.
What do you mean there's no place for you?
You made a proper contribution, Sati.
"Thanks for the meal. See you tomorrow."
"Yeah, see you during tomorrow's operation."
Having briskly emptied her bowl of fish cake soup, Manu headed for her maintenance room first with a thoroughly refreshed expression.
I waved back at her farewell and told her I'd see her tomorrow too.
See you tomorrow, huh...
Manu's bright goodbye left me with a strange sense of wistfulness.
It was a nighttime farewell from Manu that I had never heard even in the game.
Thanks to that, I returned to the Leader's room in an equally refreshed mood and went to sleep happily.
And the next morning.
As usual, the three of them gathered in the Leader's room.
"Where are we going today?"
"Just say the word."
Ariel was in high spirits, as always, and Sati was the same now that she had regained her confidence.
Manu didn't say anything, but just seeing her eyes opened slightly wider told me she was brimming with motivation.
"Today, let's split into two teams."
It seemed like good timing, so I suggested we try operating in two teams.
Sati tilted her head doubtfully.
"Would that mean anything?"
"The total amount of resources we bring back will probably be similar."
In response to her question, I got ahead of the obvious result as if I already knew.
Sati's concern was only natural.
After all, the only ones carrying back sacks of resources were Ariel, Sati, and Manu.
But there was something I wanted to confirm somehow.
Whether I can send teams to multiple stages simultaneously.
For example, if I had dispatched a team to Stage 1-1, I couldn't send another Replica team to a different stage until that operation was complete.
But that was only how things worked when it was a game.
This world, transformed to fit reality, might be different.
If I could send a team to each of several stage coordinates, one team wouldn't have to handle the endless resource grind alone.
In other words, the efficiency of a single day could change entirely.
For now, there were only three of them, so it couldn't be helped.
But once I had twenty, thirty, or even more Replicas working, that efficiency would become insane.
"Didn't we ever operate that way before?"
"Ah, y-yeah... We didn't."
But Ariel's question immediately threw me into a panic. She was asking why we hadn't split the team up before.
"Then why all of a sudden?"
"Uh, um... Well..."
Ariel's innocent follow-up question left me speechless.
Right. How was I supposed to talk my way around this?
It wasn't as though I could stupidly tell them, "Because the game system wouldn't let me."
As I hesitated over how to answer her offhand question, visibly at a loss—
"So what? We just have to do what we're told."
"Ah, was I being too nosy?"
Sati suddenly cut into the conversation, poked Ariel in the waist, and flashed her a grin as she gave Ariel a meaningful look.
Only then did Ariel seem to realize what Sati was getting at. She asked whether she had been too nosy and stopped trying to ask any more questions.
"Just let it go by thinking I was too stupid to consider that far ahead."
Even so, I sidestepped mentioning the game system by phrasing it in terms of my real-world sense.
I figured it was better to come clean like that than make them suspicious with a strange excuse.
"Ariel and Sati will be one team... and Manu, you're fine on your own, right?"
"Yeah."
Next came dividing the three of them into teams.
Manu answered shortly, as though it went without saying. She really was the undisputed top-tier character for resource grinding.
Meanwhile, Ariel and Sati were the same two-person combination that had always gone together before Manu arrived.
The team assignments were over in barely a second. As I designated their coordinates, I spoke casually as though wrapping up the operation.
"Well, it's the usual pairing you're both familiar with."
"Any other instructions?"
Sati asked if there were any further instructions.
It seemed she was waiting for those words.
"As always, don't get hurt. That's all!"
"Okay, operation start."
As I heard Sati's declaration to begin the operation, I watched fondly from behind as the three of them huddled together and left the room.
Today would probably be a quiet day, with nothing but resources piling up in relative peace.
...Or so I thought.
"W-What happened?!"
"Ugh, I'm sorry."
Several dozen minutes later, I couldn't help being shocked when Ariel and Sati returned completely battered and bruised.
The coordinates I'd sent them to were Stage 3-1, a low-level stage.
It was a place where neither Ariel nor Sati had any reason to get hurt.
What the hell? What on earth happened?
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