Chapter 6: Chapter 6

After leaving Sati in Ariel’s care like that,

with nothing else to do, I fiddled with the panel in my room and checked the city’s status as best I could to manage it.

[Power Stone]

[167]

[High-Efficiency Battery]

[109]

The state of the warehouse had improved considerably thanks to Ariel’s hard work.

The Power Stones and batteries, which had been on the verge of running out, had at least accumulated enough to rival what a brand-new player would have.

[Heating: Recently Activated]

[Cafeteria: Recently Activated]

There was also the heating and cafeteria, marked as recently activated.

I had no memory of touching them, so Ariel must have spent those precious Power Stones to activate them after learning I had returned.

No wonder my room felt a little warm today.

‘Maybe I should eat.’

It was impossible to distinguish day from night in the Under City, but judging by my hunger, it was probably evening—or night.

So Ariel would not worry, I set the location indicator arrow to the cafeteria and left it on the table where she could easily see it.

This way, she would not panic because I had left, right?

Afterward, while I was having a meal that might have been lunch or dinner in the cafeteria—

"Leader!"

I abruptly raised my head at the sound of people approaching from afar. Ariel and Sati were walking toward me.

Ariel was dressed in casual clothes, while Sati was still wearing her combat uniform.

Judging from Sati’s displeased expression, she did not seem to have gotten over her anger yet. Still, the fact that she had come this far suggested she had at least talked with Ariel a little.

"Yeah? What is it?"

I could not see why they had needed to come all the way to the cafeteria, so I set down my utensils and asked Ariel first, since she was the friendlier one.

"Sati says she wants to talk to you alone."

"Uh, what?"

Ariel’s words caught me a little off guard.

Just a few hours ago, Sati had practically gone into a fit at the sight of me. Now she wanted to talk with me alone.

Of course my voice would crack.

Was the meal I had just eaten my last supper?

"Just the two of us?"

"What, do you have a problem with that?"

When I looked at Ariel and asked again for confirmation, Sati cut in before she could answer and snapped at me.

The sharp glare she fixed on me was incredibly burdensome.

"N-No... it’s not that."

"Then hurry up and follow me. It won’t take long."

Without caring that I was obviously uncomfortable, Sati urged me to follow her right away.

Unable to shake my anxiety, I glanced back at Ariel. Meanwhile, Ariel herself was innocently smiling and waving at me.

Why did that wave look like a final farewell?

It was only about five minutes from the cafeteria.

Yet after walking that short distance, we had reached a dark stretch of road untouched by the cafeteria’s bright lights.

Was this where I was going to die?

Just as I swallowed dryly and braced myself for death,

Sati, who had been walking with her back to me, came to an abrupt stop. As if she had organized what she wanted to say, she turned around and approached me.

"I don’t care where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing."

Then, in a voice that sounded cold but trembled, Sati strode toward me.

"You may have somehow fooled Ariel, but I don’t acknowledge you as the Leader. No—I can’t acknowledge you yet, for everyone’s sake."

Clenching her teeth, Sati vented her resentment as if driving me into a corner, then glared at me with eyes that seemed to blaze.

"Even if the lies you told are true, even if you really did skip across time! Do you think all the time we spent believing you had abandoned us... can just be laughed off with a single ‘it couldn’t be helped’?!"

Sati’s words echoed through the dark street.

She reached out, seized me by the collar, and pulled me toward her. Her voice dropped low, as though she were about to drive her fist into me at any moment.

"If you ever make Ariel end up like that again, I’ll search every corner of this world to find you and kill you."

As though that was all she had to say, Sati released my collar and gave me a light shove.

Behind that terrifying threat directed at me was more tenderness for Ariel than she could contain.

"...Thank you."

"Hmph!"

When I thanked Sati for sparing me, she sharply turned her head away and strode off.

That was not the coy attitude typical of a tsundere character. It genuinely meant she did not need such transparent words.

Swallowing dryly at that single syllable, which somehow felt different despite sounding the same, I returned to the front of the cafeteria.

Sati passed Ariel, who was still waiting near the cafeteria, and headed toward the maintenance room.

"Did your conversation go well?"

Ariel glanced at Sati as if she were a little worried about her, then came over and asked me briefly.

"Yeah. She gave me a good scolding."

"I’m sorry. I was the one who asked to wake Sati first..."

When I brushed off my conversation with Sati by saying she had given me a good scolding, Ariel lowered her head and apologized.

It seemed Ariel had not been entirely unaware that this might happen.

"Still, that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?"

I placed a hand atop Ariel’s bowed head and asked with a faint smile, as if praising a child.

"...Yes."

"Then it’s okay."

When I told her it was okay in response to her hesitant, quiet answer, Ariel bit her lip and lowered her head even further.

She might have looked composed, but she must have endured so much all this time.

It was easy to forget because this was set in a lighthearted gacha game, but without the player’s presence, this place was quite literally hell.

Ariel’s heart had surely already been battered beyond repair after enduring alone while her companions shut themselves down one by one.

Even without Sati’s threat, I had to take the greatest possible care of Ariel, who was beside me now.

"...Sniff."

"Come on, let’s go back."

Hearing Ariel’s voice, as though she might burst into tears at any moment, I hurried my steps in a light tone to change the mood.

Ariel, who cried just because someone indulged her a little.

Sati, who was convinced she had been abandoned and harbored hostility toward me.

"Whew."

The members were no different from the beginning of the story, but the circumstances were a complete one-eighty from back then, and I let out a long breath.

There was no guarantee things would improve, but it still felt as if the tangled knot had loosened a little.

Through the window in the Leader’s room, I looked out over the Under City.

It was a dark, dreary cityscape, with no lights in sight except those of the cafeteria and the faint streetlamps.

I stared for a long while at that lonely sight, so different from when I had been actively playing the game, and had a brief thought.

Let this city, where the lights had gone out, shine brilliantly once again.

That was all I wished for now.

Then time passed.

By the time I woke up, having slept without even realizing morning had come,

two people arrived at my room after a brief knock.

"What, you’re here already...?"

"Yes! Please give us our mission orders!"

Though I had only just opened my eyes and was still half asleep, Ariel stood there with sparkling eyes, giving me a salute.

It was quite the contrast to Sati, who stood with one hip cocked and glared indifferently at me as if everything about this annoyed her.

Was it because Ariel was confident the situation could get better?

In any case, now that both of them had gathered, I decided to issue an operation order, even if all it did was give them coordinates.

"This time, I want the two of you to head to these coordinates. We have enough Available Data, so prioritize Power Stones and batteries."

The two of them knew better than anyone which resources were in short supply, but there was always the possibility of something going wrong, so I pointed out the obvious anyway.

"I know that without you telling me. Is that all?"

"Um..."

Sati responded prickly, asking as though that was really all I had to say.

At her question, I hesitated briefly before recalling something that had been nagging at me.

There was one thing I had been worried about, after all.

"If you have time... mark the spot at those coordinates where the monsters were gathered. Then, about ten minutes after you start collecting resources, check whether monsters have gathered there again."

That concluded the mission briefing.

"And don’t push yourselves too hard and get hurt, either."

Lastly, it might not help much, but I gave them the same reminder I had given Ariel yesterday.

Sati might get upset if I casually called her name, so I deliberately left it out.

"Hah, what a pointless worry. Ariel, let’s go."

"Huh? O-Okay!"

Sati scoffed at my telling them not to get hurt, then abruptly left with Ariel in tow.

Maybe she had no intention of getting any closer to me than necessary.

Considering everything that had happened, that was only natural.

Still, compared to yesterday evening, when it had been impossible to even have a conversation with her, she had become fairly cooperative.

I should be grateful that she was even willing to participate in operations.

Considering my standing in the Under City right now, I was hardly in a position to shamelessly order anyone around.

If I had been thrown here at a point when most of the Replicas were awake, I would surely have been swallowed by a wave of hatred and killed on the spot.

In many ways, it was the best possible timing—and the worst possible timing at the same time.

Rebuilding the city might be possible, but the more Replicas woke up, the more I worried that my position would gradually plunge into the abyss.

‘Do I need to wake at least two more? No, considering the need for the personnel participating in operations to rest, maybe as many as six...’

Even so, the only thing I could sit here and think about was how to restore the city to its original state as quickly as possible.

Since that was all there was, I had no choice but to put aside my personal concerns and rack my brain.

‘I shouldn’t wake anyone for the time being.’

That was the conclusion I reached: wait and see.

I had hurriedly awakened Sati because Ariel requested it, but there was no telling what resource acquisition would look like from now on.

And at the very least, before anyone suggested waking a third Replica, I wanted to get Sati on my side.

In other words, Operation Raise Her Affection.

Whether I could pull it off... I had no idea.

‘If things go wrong, I feel like I’ll get killed on the spot.’

Comments (0)

Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register