And so, for about two days...
"Hup!"
Thud!
"Kyaaaah!"
"Hup!"
Thud!
"Kyaaaah!"
We kept repeating the same thing all day long.
Surprisingly, their outer shells looked hard, but they were actually soft enough that if you stabbed them hard with a spear, it sank in nicely.
The real problem was... that they'd become our staple food?
That bitter, fishy, green innards that somehow still looked like they could be swallowed... no, let's not talk about it. I don't want to remember.
I barely managed to stop Ms. Ryoshu from flying into a rage and overturning the meal table.
After that, it looked like she was doing something with Mr. Meursault, but...
Ah, am I rambling too much?
Anyway, to cut to the chase, we'd gathered roughly a cartful of scrap...
"Yes, this should be enough to try."
We'd managed to get the work far enough along to hear that much from Ms. Mika.
Is it over? Is it over?
At those hopeful words, the expectations of the prisoners, including Ms. Rodion, shot up.
"Phew~ So we can rest now, right? Hear that? My shoulders are already cracking every time I roll them~"
"Ms. Rodion, that sounds like you're trying to scare us..."
"Well, there's still the time it'll take to do the modifications, so we should be able to enjoy ourselves for at least a few days."
Ah, wait.
For some reason, hearing Mr. Gregor say that made me uneasy.
I had the feeling we'd be rolling along for a long while yet...
"Huh? Rest? What rest?"
"Mm...?"
"What I meant was that we could only just 'start' now."
...Of course. When had we ever finished anything quickly?
At Mika's quick rebuttal, Mr. Gregor asked back with an anxious expression.
"Th...then that means?"
"Hmm... about... five times the current amount?"
Five times...?
Even by simple calculation, that meant we'd be rolling for another ten days...
The prisoners were left dumbfounded by the answer that went beyond imagination, and in the brief silence that followed, Rain's voice rang out from inside the bus, where he'd been doing repairs.
"Mika~ I think we should include the rear wheel side too?"
"Ah, that just went up to seven times."
By simple calculation, that was two weeks... even if we got a little faster from the middle onward, it was still ten days...
Ughhh...
I struggled to hold onto my sanity, which felt like it was about to fly right out of my skull. They wanted us to keep doing that filthy, boring, exhausting repetitive labor for more than ten more days?
As if that wasn't despairing enough, Mr. Meursault added his own comment.
"Considering the efficiency thus far, proper rest will be impossible. It would be better to reduce the time allotted to sleep compared to before."
"...On the bright side, maybe we won't need to cut sleep. There's a chance our efficiency will go up once we get the hang of catching those things."
"Hmm, I can't deny that possibility."
"Even so, it'll still take ten days..."
"That is only if the work becomes meaningfully more efficient through skill."
"That's true..."
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Despair...
At this rate, even the rest period alone would probably take another twelve days.
If we were lucky, maybe it'd be just a little over ten days...
Would that even happen...?
"Th-this cannot be! It simply cannot be!!!"
Ms. Don Quixote's cry echoed over the green sea.
Ah...
When people are suddenly forced to do something they never expected to have to do—more precisely, something they thought they wouldn't have to do—they tend to get irritated for no good reason.
For example, because they can't accept it. Or because it seems unnecessary.
No, it's not exactly irritation so much as a refusal to accept it, but in the end it comes out in the form of irritation.
Who would think that gathering this scrap would be profitable? Following the chain of thought that flashed through her head, Ms. Rodion lifted a piece of scrap and voiced her complaint.
"No way~ I mean, can you even get anything done just by picking up these lumps of scrap metal?"
"Well, if we were just bolting scrap together in some half-assed way, then it'd be pointless... but if we go through the process of joining it using U Corp's Singularity, we can make it work as if it had been its component parts from the very beginning."
"U Corp...? Wasn't their Singularity some kind of technology for perfectly packaging food? Something where the contents never change until you open it... I think? We even ate canned food made there pretty usefully..."
...Our Ms. Rodion really was a hopeless case, huh. Well, that happens.
The same thought had crossed my mind, which was exactly why I didn't say it out loud.
U Corp's Singularity is amazing—
But I'd still have to explain U Corp's Singularity to Ms. Rodion.
Just as I was considering stepping in to explain it myself, Rain beat me to it and refuted Ms. Rodion's words.
"You sound exactly like my older sister, somehow... It's possible for each Nest to have various technologies utilizing Singularity, you know."
Man... that guy has it rough too.
Being the one in charge of common sense is hard, especially when you're trying to rein in all sorts of strange people... Ah. Well, not quite that bad over there.
I got a little sad...
Then, just as that happened, Ms. Faust, who seemed to have been reading something, supplemented Rain's explanation.
"...If you only apply the principle, you can make use of the fundamental Singularity to patent all manner of derivatives based in A Corp. U Corp is famous for its phenomenon-preserving packaging technology, along with its resonance horseshoes."
Resonance horseshoes.
The moment the name of one of U Corp's signature technologies came up, Ms. Ishmael's expression visibly darkened.
Ah...
"Resonance horseshoes... It was just like that bastard... sticking to things everywhere, clinging on... and then swallowing them whole in the end... as if nothing had happened..."
"Ishmael... what's wrong?"
"Manager. Please tell Mr. Vergilius right now. Let's change the order and deal with the Golden Bough from another branch."
"Ishmael... wait... are you okay?"
"This isn't enough yet. Everyone's experience... and knowledge of the Great Lake, and of whales... Yes, I'll... I'll teach you and help you. It's a place you have to challenge only after enough time has passed. That place, so..."
No good. I have to do something...
"Ms. Ishmael, you're getting too worked up. Please calm down for a moment..."
Before I could even finish, Mr. Heathcliff, already at the limit from Ishmael's hysterics, cut me off and barged in.
"Hey, what the hell are you trying to pull? Did that crab chowder or whatever we ate earlier go bad or something?"
"We all scraped the guts out of those damn shells and ate them, but I'm perfectly fine."
"Both of you, stop..."
"Then what's the problem?! What, did we ever go in prepared up until now? We solved everything by dying our asses off!"
Ah, this is bad. Those idiots aren't even listening to me.
"You know dying over and over to get work done isn't something to brag about, right? If we were just ordinary Fixers, we'd have been wiped out on the very first job and erased from the Association in no time."
"Hey, who doesn't know that? I nearly died plenty of times while running with backstreet gangs, so you think I don't know a life is only one life? That's different! Right now, we're being brought back over and over thanks to Clock Head!"
"Do you not think you've only survived this far because we've been lucky?"
"No... hey! Why do you keep saying we can't do it? If an Abnormality smashed my head in and killed me, then this time I'd give it my leg and dodge, and keep smashing it up like that. Huh?"
"Do you think what we've experienced so far is all there is? Of course not. In the worst case, recovery might be impossible. No matter how much you spin that clock! ...We might not even be able to return to how things were. Especially that giant whale... ha, forget it."
"Don't talk like I won't understand even if you explain it. Huh? It pisses me off like you're treating me like some bug that can't even understand words."
"...Ha."
Damn it.
"Y-you little—"
Just before Mr. Heathcliff could spit out another curse and lunge forward, my Eye activated reflexively. If they were going to fight, I was the only one who could throw myself in to stop them...
That was what I thought as I tried to wedge my body between them, but the sight that suddenly filled my vision with an unexpected possibility made me freeze for an instant.
...Mr. Yi Sang?
"Now, if I may ask a question."
Seeing him step into the middle of the quarrel with a voice higher than anyone had ever heard from him before, everyone who had been murmuring fell silent at once.
"You two said there were quite a few things you wanted to do on the bus, did you not? It is true that the task remains, but it is also true that we have reached our initial objective. Then I believe it would not be unreasonable to hope for a brief rest."
Mr. Yi Sang...!
I'm not crying, but if I exaggerate a little, tears are blurring my vision. At last, at last, there was someone to stop those idiots when they started fighting...!
From now on, I wouldn't have to shoulder the burden alone whenever those maniacs started grinding their teeth and tearing into each other!
Ms. Rodion and Mr. Gregor were useless in situations this serious...
"Dante... wouldn't this much be all right?"
""
At Mr. Yi Sang's request for permission, he looked especially dependable today, and Dante gave a big nod.
"Just as Yi Sang said. It seems like we can work a little more leisurely, so why not do the things we want to do when we have the chance?"
Ah, come to think of it, the one who really needed to be asked for permission wasn't Dante.
"...That's what the Manager says, but what do you think, Rain?"
"Yes, I think you can rest a little. I'll let you know once we're ready on our side."
Thank goodness. If they'd said we had to keep working here, I think I really would've collapsed from stress.
As the atmosphere gradually shifted toward we can play now!, Ms. Don Quixote shook her whole body and made her presence known.
"Aha! Then! Would you not all partake in beach volleyball!"
Safe... maybe?
Somehow, the atmosphere that had nearly fallen into the abyss was dramatically loosened.
It didn't seem like the tension between the two serious ones had been resolved yet, though... is it... fine...?
...For now, it feels a little... uncertain to relax just yet...