Once Ariel, who had effectively been the leader after I disappeared, agreed, the other two had no objections either.
"I'll get the preparations underway, so split into two teams and focus solely on bringing back Power Stones."
Right before sending the three of them out on the operation as planned, I told them that this time, I wanted them to leave the batteries behind and bring back only Power Stones.
Normally, clearing a stage yielded an even spread of Available Data, Power Stones, and batteries...
But now that I had resolved to activate every facility, it was fine to push the surplus data and batteries down the list of priorities for the time being.
We already had several thousand batteries. If only the three of them used them, they would last for years.
"You're going to prepare everything by yourself?"
"I can't make you do all the work. I should earn my keep."
Perhaps worried by my saying I would handle the preparations, Ariel asked whether I planned to do it alone. I answered with confidence.
My strength was far inferior to theirs, but if I carried things in small loads, it should be work I could manage well enough.
"If we get back early, I'll help too!"
"Sure. But don't rush yourselves too much just for that."
Ariel enthusiastically declared that she would help when they returned from the operation, pleased that I was taking the initiative to work.
I nodded at her shout, but added a worried reminder as I stood up as well.
There was no way I could supply Power Stones to every facility all by myself in the little over an hour that they would be out.
As I stretched to loosen up, Ariel smiled faintly and asked me,
"You'll make sure not to get hurt, right?"
"Yeah. So just do what you always do and come back safe."
The moment I confirmed that the three of them had left the room and headed out into the city streets,
I went to the warehouse myself and transferred the Power Stones filling the heavy sacks into smaller bags.
No matter how light they were supposed to be according to the setting, a single sack still held hundreds of ore chunks with weight appropriate to their mass.
A normal human obviously could not casually lift something weighing dozens of kilograms per sack.
As I transferred the brilliantly colored ores, gleaming in rainbow hues like oil floating on seawater, I peered into the sack with a dubious expression.
Power Stones had a color that looked dangerous no matter how I viewed them, and gave off an aura that said they should not be touched.
In the setting, along with batteries, they were considered one of the causes of humanity's extinction and the reason monsters had overrun the surface. At the same time, they were a universal resource used in every facility of the Under City.
Does this stuff really have no effect on the human body?
I found myself wondering as I held a Power Stone I had been absentmindedly putting into a sack.
Everyone else used them as though it were perfectly natural, so I had been doing the same without feeling any real alarm.
Still, their appearance practically forced suspicion on me.
Just in case, I decided not to touch them with my bare hands.
"Hup."
After I finished dividing them into smaller sacks, I began carrying the Power Stones to each facility on my own.
"Whew."
The first place I visited was the Inventor's Hall.
After dumping a generous amount of Power Stones into its fuel tank, I exhaled as I took in the unfamiliar interior of the Inventor's Hall.
The inside of the building looked like an underground secret laboratory in more ways than one.
So this is what it looked like.
I had never had any reason to enter the Inventor's Hall before, so I found myself taking a brief moment to admire its interior.
You might think a place called the Inventor's Hall would be some critically important facility in a world like this, but it was not really.
As the Inventor's Hall increased in level, it simply expanded the variety of buildings that could be constructed in the city.
Facilities such as Star Plaza, including the dining hall, had also become available to build once the Inventor's Hall reached a higher level.
I did not know how useful it would be under the current circumstances, but in the game, it felt like a decorative building that only needed to be leveled up.
Deciding it probably was not all that important, I hurried on to the next building.
The next facility I visited after the Inventor's Hall was the library.
Originally, it had been a facility where you could view story content according to your stage progress.
But in reality, things resembling digital terminals sat abandoned in each iron bookshelf, no longer functioning.
It seemed the library had become completely different from the facility whose function I had known.
This had become an actual library.
My surprise at the library's changed purpose lasted only a moment.
It might actually be more useful than it was in the game.
I realized that a building that could do nothing but let you read story content could now be used as a recreational facility.
As I went from one facility to the next, supplying them with Power Stones,
I heard the creak-creak of turning gears and looked up toward the manual elevator in the distance.
The lighting was so dim that I could only make out its vague outline, but the elevator was descending from afar.
It looked like the three of them were returning from their operation.
After waiting along the route they would take back, I called out to the three as they returned carrying heavy sacks once again.
"Hey! Don't go back to the warehouse. Start supplying the facilities here with the Power Stones you brought, then keep going all the way to the back!"
"Yes!"
The three were put straight to work on another task without even a chance to rest after returning from their operation.
Compared to one inefficient human, the work that had seemed overwhelming was finished quickly with the help of three Replicas.
"Good work, everyone."
"I thought we'd brought back a lot, but there's nothing left."
When I thanked them for their efforts, Sati shook her now-empty sack and spoke with hollow disappointment.
"It couldn't be helped."
I shrugged at her words.
There was simply no helping it.
We had essentially supplied an entire day's worth of power for the city.
If anything, it was astonishing that the Power Stones gathered by three people in a single day had replenished such a substantial amount of what we needed.
I wanted to let everyone rest immediately after their hard work, but there was still a mountain of things left to do.
There was also something I wanted to show them first.
"Then... shall I turn it on?"
I gathered everyone in the Leader's room.
Then, amid everyone's tense stares, I extended my finger as though I were asking, "Should I do it?"
With this single button, hundreds of Power Stones the three of them had worked so hard to gather would vanish in an instant.
It was planned waste that had begun with my own suggestion, but it was still the kind of thing that made me self-conscious.
In that moment, with everyone holding their breath,
I quietly pressed the facility activation button on the panel.
Flash—
At that instant, a brilliant beam of light streamed in through the door ahead, bright enough to be seen even within the enclosed room.
Everyone in the Leader's room, who had been swallowing dryly, turned toward the light leaking through the doorway at the same time.
As though time had stopped, no one could bring themselves to step outside.
Moments like this were when the Leader was supposed to take the lead.
"...Let's go."
I pushed through the three hesitating girls and threw open the door. There, before us, was the brilliant Under City I remembered.
Beyond an opening carved into the stone wall like a window, our city spread out before us like a utopia.
We could only stand there, spellbound by the sight.
Only the lights had brightened, yet it looked utterly different from the dark, gloomy city we had seen mere minutes ago.
"Did we really used to live somewhere like this?"
Unable to believe the majesty of the city, Sati shook her head with a hollow laugh.
But when no one answered, Sati soon spoke again as if the whole thing were absurd.
"...What a sight."
"...Yeah."
A brief, weighty impression.
Manu, who had been lost in emotion, gave a one-word agreement.
We stood there for a long time, looking out over the city.
As though we were seeing in advance the goal we needed to reach.
I clenched my fist at that clear goal before my eyes.
"That is our goal. Without a doubt."
"...Though the people we used to see everywhere aren't there."
While everyone remained quiet after my declaration, Ariel looked at the deserted streets and murmured regretfully.
The city lights were dazzling, but not a single Replica was moving through its streets yet.
For now, preparations for the grand stage were complete.
What the stage needed next were performers.
"Instead of me, I want you three to wake the next people."
"What?"
I decided to entrust the role of performers to the three of them.
Ariel let out a brief, startled sound at my request that they wake the people I designated next.
When we woke Manu, I had done it myself, so she seemed to wonder why I was leaving it to them this time.
"You won't do it yourself?"
"Yeah. As you know, I'm easy to resent."
I immediately answered the question born of her confusion, shrugging as if it could not be helped.
So the plan I came up with was for me not to reveal myself publicly for the time being, while Ariel acted as though she were the true leader.
We would not mention my return at all. Instead, Ariel would explain that the situation had improved under her command and ask the Replicas who woke afterward for their cooperation.
"You said Ariel was the one giving orders before I came back, didn't you?"
Besides, Ariel had said that she had taken the Leader's place, if only temporarily, before I returned.
That made her far more suited to the leader's role than the other two under the current circumstances.
"Y-Yes... that's true, but then what about you, Leader?"
Ariel hesitated, then agreed while carefully asking what would happen to me.
It was probably a question born from concern that I could not keep behaving this way without eventually being discovered.
"I can stay somewhere out of sight, like the back of the dining hall storage room. If you come to see me even late at night, I'll brief you for the next day too."
"But..."
When I explained what I intended to do, Ariel understood the entire situation, yet she still looked reluctant.
As though she felt awkward taking that position when the Leader was right there.
"Don't worry. You've done it by yourself before, haven't you? You can do this."
"...Yes!"
When I promptly encouraged and praised Ariel, she answered confidently through lips that had been pressed tightly together.
Her spirited response made me smile without thinking. Sati, too, took a deep breath, her expression relaxing as she asked,
"All right! Have you decided who we're waking up?"
"Yeah. I've already narrowed it down to three."
I immediately answered Sati's fired-up question and continued.
"Serena, Rosetta, and Noel. I'm counting on you to wake those three."
The candidates I had selected were Serena, Rosetta, and Noel.
They were the three strongest members of the team I had formed as my main squad and used until just before I quit the game.
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