Vol 2 Chapter 1.3 (2/2)

Admiral Luise momentarily left to do some research on Rabbitte and Colorado, leaving me with Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha in the room. Sergeant Aroha was absentmindedly reading the same pages in the magazine over and over again. And those pages were… an interview with the MMA fighter on the cover?

“Who is that? That guy on the cover?”

“Oh, it’s my dad.”

“...Huh?”

“Why, are you surprised? You thought we grow from each other like mushrooms?”

“N-no, it’s not that.”

I looked at the cover of her magazine again. In the picture was a muscular, young man, giving a thumbs-up with a belt on his shoulders that recognized him as the champion fighter of universe-wide, low-gravity mixed martial arts fighting.

That man is Sergeant Aroha’s father?

“So, he used to be a really popular low-gravity fighter. You do know what low-gravity fighting is, right?”

“Of course.”

As the war with the Letix waged on, standard forms of combat that originated on terran planets had become meaningless. To prepare for close quarters combat in s.p.a.ce and s.p.a.ce-like environments, new forms of martial arts were developed. Even my personal Dawnbringer Technique was developed during that s.p.a.ce-wide trend.

But the official Federation-use method of close quarters combat was the ‘low-gravity mixed martial arts’, based on new studies that focused on environments with little to no gravity.

Regardless, I made it mandatory for members of the Dawn Corps to learn the Dawnbringer Technique. But it doesn’t look like that technique survived to this day…

“But, at the time… we were in the middle of a war, so my dad had no choice but to join the military under the conscription law. Then he was captured as a prisoner of war by the Asa, and you know what happened next.”

Amazoness legend. As the story goes, there exists a kingdom of women where men only live to continue the bloodlines. I knew little of the Asa, but as long as people call them the ‘Amazoness’ I had a good idea what might have happened to Sergeant Aroha’s father.

“I-I only know the gist of it from hearing rumours. But I don’t exactly know anything. The first alien race I contacted with was the Elcro, and the Asa contact happened after I slept, remember?”

Ensign Meihowa began explaining for me. “Mm-hmm. The Asa is split into five castes: Harakal, Sedanu, Omere, Umea, Lokir-- and the men are outside of these castes, and they must prove their worth on their own. They must accomplish something great in order to prove that they have superior genes than others, so that they are allowed to leave an offspring with the higher castes.”

“Is that how it works?” I asked Sergeant Aroha for her confirmation.

She nodded. “Yep. But my dad, before getting pulled away for military, he was already lawfully married with a woman from the Pereiras. They already had my sister, Flora, by that time.”

“...”

That was why Flora was a normal human. Their father was the same, but their mothers weren’t.

“And when my dad became a prisoner, he had relations with the Asa and had many children, including me. I’m pretty sure there are more of my sisters somewhere out there.”

I… I didn’t know what to say to that. It was a complex, uncomfortable story.

“Fortunately, the Federation rescued my dad and brought me along, but his mental state was already broken. You see, he came to really love my biological mother, that is, an Asa woman. And when a bunch of Federation soldiers, as my dad watched on, went rat-tat-tat-tat--...” She held up two fingers and pretended to make cartoonish gun noises. And yet in her happy, toying eyes, I could sense a hint of pain. “Right in front of me, even…”

Death by plasma rifle was a horrifying, gruesome sight. Superheated plasma acts like a sticky substance, so it sticks to the human skin, burning it and digging deep into the bones underneath. If she had to witness her mother’s death as a little girl, with a plasma rifle no less, that must have left an indescribable trauma on her.

“And what about your father now?”

“Got divorced with my current mother and holed up in a mental hospital. On top of that, during the raid on Asa city and the rescue mission, he had taken a bullet to protect me, an Asa. He isn’t…” She held up the magazine. “He isn’t proud and strong like this, and he doesn’t smile anymore. So… so I bought the magazine, because this was amazing to me. Hmm, there should be a lot of pictures of him before this time, right? Plenty of interviews, and even more information on him over the network, probably. Why did I buy this old magazine? I’m an idiot, sometimes.”

Sergeant Aroha’s shoulders quivered as she talked. Ensign Meihowa gently hugged her.

...I had been expecting that there would be a complicated story behind her family history, but I never thought it would be like this.

I felt my mind get tangled up, so I cracked open a can of beer and gulped it down. Then I pa.s.sed the other cans to her and Ensign Meihowa. They silently accepted the cans. Just this morning, Sergeant Aroha had been gambling drunk all day, but she drank that beer like she had been rescued from a middle of a desert. I thought I’d stop her, but… nah, it would do well for her to be drunk instead.

“You lived a pretty tough life.”

“Well, it can’t be worse than Vice Admiral Lezirth Dawnbrin… *Burp* …aw.” Sergeant Aroha cast her eyes away, embarra.s.sed that she burped mid-sentence.

I chortled and shook my head. “No need to be embarra.s.sed. And, um… even if my life’s been going wrong, none of it really feels real to me. So then, about Flora Pereira’s mother, so your sister’s mother is…”

“She’s legally my stepmother. When my dad brought me out, they weren’t immediately divorced so she inducted me into the Pereira family. I mean, she had plenty of reasons to dislike me, but she has a good enough personality to not hate me for them. But she’s very overbearing.” explained Sergeant Aroha, finis.h.i.+ng her can of beer in exactly two gulps. And then she opened a new can.

“Aren’t you drinking too much?” worried Ensign Meihowa.

Sergeant Aroha grinned. “Beer’s just a drink. I’m strong with alcohol, Ensign.”

“No one ever says that and doesn’t get drunk after.” But Ensign Meihowa was drinking beer herself. I suppose she couldn’t avoid drinking, considering the mood.

“I meant to say-- you two are very friendly to each other.”

“W-well, our situations are pretty similar.” Ensign Meihowa blushed.

Sergeant Aroha reached at her for a hug, and began rubbing her face into her chest. “Aanh, Ensign Meihowa… I love you, please marry me!”

“S-stop it! Aroha!”

“Hmm? Did your b.r.e.a.s.t.s get bigger?”

“N-no! What are you saying?!”

“How can you say no for sure? Alright, let’s measure it!”

“D-don’t you dare!”

Oh no. Aroha became drunk after all.

Ensign Meihowa quickly hid behind me, away from Sergeant Aroha. I laughed at the two.

“Ugh, beer is way too filling. Lezirth, go buy some tequila.”

“Sergeant Aroha, you can’t send me on an errand like that.”

“‘Sergeant Aroha’? What is that~? We’re on a vacation! Call me ‘Aroha~’, or even ‘Darling~’ or ‘Honey~’ is fine by me!”

Everyone! We have a hopeless drunkard here!

And before I could respond, soft arms wrapped around my neck from behind.

“...Hey, Lezirth?”

Ensign Meihowa smelled of alcohol herself, looking at me with unfocused eyes.

...W-wait, what is this lady doing?! She wouldn’t do this normally! Ah, then again, she did drink a lot during the day! Did she finally break past the point of drunkenness by adding a couple more cans of beer to them?

“Colorado’s that good? To pay five hundred million for it? Even twenty five million for Rabbitte and Colorado combined sounds like a waste to me.”

“Yeah! Twenty five million means Luise is pouring all of the money that she won today! I-I mean, sure, she won all of that in the first place, so I can’t tell her what to do with it, b-but it’s not like I’m sad about it!”

Aroha seemed to have been wondering about Colorado and Rabbitte too.

“That’s because…”

“Yes, yes? What about it?”

I stopped talking to face away from Meihowa for a moment.

Whoa! H-her face is too close! Those rosy cheeks are so cute, I’d lose myself if I faced her directly!

When I eyed her again, Ensign Meihowa was continuing to stare at me shamelessly. Her drooping ears made her look like a doe.

A-alright, let’s calm down.

“A-anyway, it’s definitely worth that price.”

“Why? Aren’t bayonets all the same?”

“Mm… but you’ve seen Dawnbringer’s Sacred Sword, right?”

“That last Kis.h.i.+n technique you used in the fight with Diablo?”

“Yes. It’s where the blade is quantised. Then what happened to the Alter Armour blade?”

“It melted and disappeared.”

“Right. But when Colorado is quantised and reversed, it doesn’t disappear, but it forms the whole blade again.”

“Eh? Really?”

“It’s the only weapon to withstand the ‘Sacred Sword of Justice’ and revert back to its original form, so of course it’s valuable. I don’t know what kind of methods were used to create it, and I definitely don’t know how that works, but all I know is that entire blade forms a single molecular pattern instead of it being shaped.”

“Okay, so it is an amazing sword. Then, what about Rabbitte?”

“That thing is a computer made with Letix tissue, and it has an AI mounted on it. Admiral Luise also holds it dear.”

“Hm, is that so? Enough to spend twenty five million on it? But the problem is going to be that one-point-five billion price tag. It’s going to come down to whether or not that strange guide succeeds in haggling for it.”

Ensign Meihowa sipped her can of beer, then held the can upside down on top of her mouth. Somehow, she went from short sips to finis.h.i.+ng an entire can. She crushed the empty can. “Ugh, I’m full. Beer is just needlessly filling.”

“Right? Tequila and lemon and lime would be great.” Sergeant Aroha smiled.

Ensign Meihowa added, “Rum and whiskey would be perfect for me. Mix it with mint liqueur for a c.o.c.ktail.”

I know where this is headed… I have to go get them, right?!

“Hey, aren’t you all drinking a bit too much? You should control yourselves…”

But Sergeant Aroha suddenly made a very saddened expression. “Oh, my poor little daddy. He used to be able to smile like that, and now he’s stuck in a mental hospital… sob, sob.”

“Hey, you’re not even crying right now.”

Using her troubled past as a weapon? Aroha, you scary woman!

“Sob, sob… my mom, too…” And Ensign Meihowa joined in.

“...Don’t plagiarize her, Meihowa.”

“Hmph. Adviser Lezirth. That’s not cool at all.”

Why is that adviser thing being mentioned again?!

“Okay, fine. I’ll be right back.”

I stood and walked towards the hotel windows. I opened them, but as I expected, they wouldn’t open further to prevent people from jumping out. Aroha and Meihowa looked surprised at what I was doing.

The windows would not open and the gla.s.s was reinforced. A normal person would need to go through significant effort to break them and drop through it, but for me, I had a way to get past it without breaking anything.

I looked intently towards the bottom of the window, and I could see the shocked expressions on Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha.

“Wh-what are you doing, Lezirth?!”

“H-hey, stop! Wake up! You’re not thinking of jumping out, are you?”

They realized that I was thinking up jumping down, and they quickly tried to talk me out of it.

“It’s faster than taking an elevator, so, I’ll be back.”

“No, wait! This is a casino city, so there’s a psychic canceler everywh…”

But I ignored their warnings and phase-s.h.i.+fted through the window, dropping straight down. As they had said, the area was filled with inhibitors-- a lot more than Ibis-2 starport.

That wasn’t a big problem for me.

I gently landed on the pool area at the base of the hotel. From there, I went to the convenience store nearby for tequila, whiskey, rum, various liqueur, and some fruits. Then I climbed back up the outer walls of the hotel and s.h.i.+fted back through the windows

Meihowa and Aroha were still stunned, staring in my direction.

“Didn’t you want me to go buy these? I suppose it was a good idea to send me. It’s totally faster than waiting for the elevator--”

“Oouuhh… I… I was so scared! I thought you were drunk and not thinking straight…”

“Phase s.h.i.+fting is a lot more difficult than jumping from the seventeenth floor, you know? Do you really think I’d drop to my death after getting through the windows?”

Surviving a drop from the seventeenth floor was guaranteed at the moment that I phase-s.h.i.+fted through the windows. Well, using psionic powers causes a little radiation, but it mostly consisted of alpha particles and so the human skin protected against that.

“How could we know? We’re not psionics. Anyway, did the convenience store sell fruits, too?”

“Yep. We’re not the only ones thinking of making c.o.c.ktail, apparently. Okay, time to show off what I can do!”

I began making very thin slices out of a lemon.

Then, after I pa.s.sed the c.o.c.ktail gla.s.ses around…

Then…

I lost consciousness.

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