Chapter 18: Smoke Weed Everyday
Ara Fulvipes
Ara Fulvipes
Ara Fulvipes, a Miho tinker, was used to going back and forth between heaven and hell.
When powder entered through her mucous membranes, she went to heaven; when the high began to wear off, she fell into hell.
So the depths of this dim ruin were one hellishly bad trip.
"Stomp, stomp..."
All the medicine bottles she usually carried were empty.
She had injected every last one of the addictive painkillers in her medicine bag ages ago.
She had even used up the emergency drugs she was supposed to save for the moment before death.
Even those were gradually wearing off now, and a dull burning pain she had tried to ignore surged from her broken leg.
Fortunately, the craving of withdrawal scorching through her mind was even worse, so pain was the least of her concerns.
"Bleegh...."
Far from being fortunate, she vomited up every last thing in her stomach.
She had gone days without food or water, let alone the sunlight most vital to a Miho, and was drying up alive.
As a last resort, she had sent out a distress signal, but....
"Will it reach anyone?
Will it be blocked?
Will someone come?
Will they save me?
Will they kill me?"
Withdrawal suddenly crashed over her. Her hands trembled, and her mouth went bone-dry.
All manner of delusions raged through her head, cold sweat running down her spine.
Her spine stiffened, and her entire body grew as heavy as stone, making it hard even to breathe.
"Anyone. Anyone is fine...."
The mechlink she had dreamed of was not a wish-granting lamp.
The Agrihand that had fallen from orbit did nothing but snip at weeds and moss growing between rocks.
How long had she waited like that?
Beep beep beep, beep beep.
"....Close...."
An unfamiliar mechanical sound.
She had disabled every ruin defense system on the way here, so these must be newcomers.
Ara tried to shout, but she had no strength left in her body—not even enough for that.
"...."
She ordered the Agrihand to make as much scissor-clacking noise as possible.
Perhaps her efforts reached them, because footsteps gradually drew nearer.
She vowed that whoever they were, if they only saved her, she would devote herself to them.
And if they gave her a cigarette on top of that, she could even be their dog.
.
.
.
"So I did booze. I had no idea they’d give me water for it."
The fox smiled as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
Tobacco, alcohol, and psychite drugs on top of that.
Booze and women—or men, in this case? Gambling and violence, and drugs: those were the basic qualifications of a raider.
Perhaps that was why the Maru Raiders’ belongings had contained some of those things too.
"Aah... this is the taste....."
We helped her, leg broken and all, back to the cart and handed her a cigarette.
It was money too, of course, but she had clung to us so desperately that we put one in her mouth just to get her off us. She quieted down at once.
As the cigarette burned, its acrid smell spread in every direction.
"Hoo...."
She was smoking the hell out of it.
Her trembling hands, hollow eyes, and sunken cheeks were those of a textbook junkie, but the moment she drew smoke deep into her lungs, her condition rapidly improved.
The hood she had pulled deep over her head bloomed open like a flower, revealing the fox ears hidden beneath.
Her striking outfit, which almost resembled traditional dress, even carried an air of nobility.
Her tail, swaying as though pleased, flickered like a flame.
"My brain is trembling..."
"So who are you?"
Marmotte, who had just splinted her shattered leg, snapped sharply.
"Huh? Didn’t you come because you heard my distress signal?"
But the fox before us asked the question right back.
"I sent it out on an omnidirectional frequency."
"Did you?"
The fox castaway scratched her head.
She took another long drag from the cigarette in her mouth, and its tip glowed red.
"My name is... Ara Fulvipes. For now? I’m an explorer~"
"For now?"
"For now~"
The cigarette she had deeply inhaled was soon burned down to her fingertips.
Gazing mournfully at the dying firefly, Ara looked at me with eyes asking whether she could have one more.
I ignored her.
"How did you end up in a place like that?"
"Well~ maybe I’ll remember if you give me just one more...."
"Green Shark."
At Marmotte calling for Green Shark, Ara raised her club to whack her.
Ara’s tail bristled in alarm, and she gave an awkward smile.
"Can’t even take a joke."
Ara continued her explanation.
As a Miho tinker, her tremendous interest in drugs had gotten her kicked out of where she lived.
Then, while wandering, she had happened upon an ancient exostrider and followed the mechanitor signal buried inside it to these ruins.
"Then that thing is..."
I asked about the machine that kept clacking its scissors.
Ara drew her brows together and answered with a sigh.
"An Agrihand. It’s an agricultural support machine..."
Exploring the ruins itself had not been difficult, but then the ceiling collapsed and pinned her leg beneath it.
She had crawled for dear life and managed to implant the mechlink, but because what dropped down was an agricultural machine rather than a medical or hauling one...
"I thought I was gonna die like that..."
"A mechlink..."
It was a prosthetic that let someone control mechanoids when implanted in the brain, if I remembered right.
Since it was installed in the brain, however, once implanted, it unfortunately could not be removed unless the brain itself was destroyed.
"....Your eyes are scary."
As I considered whether I should recover the mechlink she had only just implanted, Ara watched my expression.
"You know, I’m super useful?"
"How?"
"Our little rat friend might not know, but Miho tinkers are highly skilled workers recognized anywhere."
"Who are you calling little?!"
When Ara set a hand on Marmotte’s head and patted it, Marmotte fiercely protested.
Ara herself was only barely tall enough to reach my shoulder, but she was certainly bigger than Marmotte, who came only up to around her belly.
I glanced at Green Shark, who was taller even than me, and she shrugged.
"Uh, then can I be a little more direct?"
"Sure."
"What can you do for us?"
As if she had been waiting for that question, Ara’s eyes sparkled.
"The Ratkin and that one are tribals, right? I’m smart~"
"I’m probably smarter than you."
Marmotte slapped away Ara’s hand from her head and said it grumpily.
According to her, the Ratkin baseline was only slightly above tribals, so Ara’s assumption was not entirely wrong.
"Huh? Liar."
"It’s true, though?"
And then the two of them held a knowledge battle right where they sat.
Amid the horrific barrage of technical terminology, I suddenly felt as though I had become Green Shark.
After some time of mental warfare, Ara stared in disbelief.
"Th-that aside. I’m a tinker, so I’m good with machines too."
"Polaris Leto is definitely better at that too."
Marmotte snorted even more forcefully than before.
Ara narrowed her eyes and looked at me.
"Well, you are handsome, but...."
There was something sticky in the way her gaze traveled up and down my body.
A slight shiver went down my spine, and I hid behind Green Shark’s back. Ara smacked her lips in disappointment.
"Polaris Leto made this cart all by himself too."
"That’s not all that difficult, though."
To be fair, the Patchwork Muffalo was a basic axle-and-wheel cart, so its structure was nothing extraordinary.
The important thing was the appearance.
"He can fix high-precision devices like this too."
Marmotte took out the Planetarium Collector that had been sitting to one side of the cart.
.
It was something I had lightly assembled from parts that had been damaged or lost while repairing Lumi’s machine.
Of course, I had not properly fixed it; it was a defective piece of junk that occasionally sputtered to life and shut off again.
"This is....?"
Ara’s pupils narrowed in an instant.
Then, with careful hands, she removed the casing and took out the filter.
"Snnnnfff."
Would you believe it? She brought the faint bluish powder clinging to it up to her nose.
"Stop—?!"
I hurriedly pulled Ara away as she inhaled an unknown substance through her nose, but it was already too late.
Her constricted pupils repeatedly dilated, then converged again.
Ara’s body trembled faintly, and her mouth slackened into a dazed grin.
"Me,
me.
Me?
Me!
I’m."
"What the hell is this now?"
"Well, that worked out nicely. Let’s kill her quickly and get back on the road."
Looking down coldly at Ara, who flopped around like a freshly caught fish, Marmotte spoke.
I had no hobby of disposing of someone we had gone to the trouble of saving, but even my instincts told me that leaving this thing alive would only bring us trouble from now on.
As the unspoken mood settled in and Green Shark raised her club high—
"Hey. Male? Engineer? No, young master?"
Ara abruptly sprang up, drooling as she clutched at my pant leg and hung from it.
"I’ll be good. Really. Trust meee. Yeah? Yeah?"
A fox-eared beastwoman with a slender figure was clinging to me, but...
Sadly, it did absolutely nothing for me.
-----
Today’s average Rimworlder.
Drug users get a bad rap, but drugs are actually useful consumables in RimWorld.
Except luciferium.
Except LuCEferium.
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