Vol 2 Chapter 1.4 (2/2)

Ensign Meihowa nodded.

I placed a bottle of mineral water on a table beside the bed. “You might lose about five percent of your body’s water, so hydrate yourself as soon as I’m done. Got it?”

“Huh? What are you doing?”

“Now.”

I placed my two hands on her body. Combining scanning and targeted teleportation, I removed the remaining blood alcohol in her system. Though, that got rid of of a lot of water in the process, too.

Ensign Meihowa became wide-eyed. “Whoa, what did you do? My body feels so light!”

“Your liver and your ability to regenerate might be slightly damaged right now, so don’t move around too much. Oh, should I transfer some of my medical nanomachines to you?

I opened the bottle of water and pa.s.sed it to her. Ensign Meihowa took it from me and stared at me in awe.

“You have an ability to stop hangovers? Awesome!” Sergeant Aroha clapped. “I guess I can start getting p.i.s.s-drunk every single day without worries!”

“Uhm, n-no, that’s a little…”

We must have gone too far when we decided to get drunk and forget about Sergeant Aroha’s sad history with her father. Particularly, I was very afraid of what might have happened while I was knocked out. I also did not enjoy the way she put it-- ‘p.i.s.s-drunk’-- so I preferred to avoid doing that in the future.

“Hey, what about Luise? She didn’t come back?”

Meihowa and Aroha asked as they changed behind a curtain.

“Y-yeah, I was wondering that.”

What if Admiral Luise had come back while we were knocked out on bed, and she got so shocked and disappointed in us that she decided to leave us forever? ‘Lezirth! I’m so disappointed in you!’ My head played out a soap opera where Admiral Luise said that as she walked away from us.

No… never! That wasn’t possible. If something like that had happened, then I would have definitely remembered it. Wait, before that, how did I get drunk when my body doesn’t allow that without my will?

Thinking that, I turned on my PDA. But there were no messages or anything else from Admiral Luise. I decided to reach her from my own end instead.

“Luise? Where are you?”

[....Nngh… Lezirth?]

On the screen for a video chat was Admiral Luise-- thick dark circles underneath her eyes made her look like a panda. She was sipping coffee from a can.

“W-what in the world? Luise, where are you? What happened?”

[Oh, it’s nothing. I was afraid that our current budget wouldn’t be enough to purchase Colorado and Rabbitte, so I had been making more money.]

“What? Then you’ve been gambling all night by yourself?!”

Casinos offered much better risk-return tradeoff than, say, the lottery, but that still meant that there was a great risk. The winning chances were skewed just enough such that the casino would be able to profit in the long run. Thus, by the law of large numbers, casinos were guaranteed to win more than they lose over long periods of time.

Admiral Luise may have been able to win a huge sum of money on the first day, but that could have easily been beginner’s luck. She couldn’t possibly rely on gambling as a stable source of money.

“Y-you’ve done enough. Please come back.”

[Yeah… I’m so tired. I’ll be back soon. Phew, I managed to win five hundred million credits, but any more is too much effort.]

“............What?”

[Can you believe this? That dealer kept on asking me to join something called ‘Universal Poker Champions.h.i.+p’, and the hotel people kept asking if I wanted a suite room instead… what do I do?]

“...........................”

When I looked behind me, I noticed that Ensign Meihowa and Sergeant Aroha, now in exercise jerseys, were staring at me blankly.

She’d been winning five hundred million credits while we were getting drunk and getting knocked out? And she managed to win an entry into Universal Poker Champions.h.i.+p, the holy haven of professional gamblers in the universe?

Admiral Luise was truly the scariest woman.

Thanks to Admiral Luise, we upgraded our room to a hotel suite.

After the hotel workers transferred us to the suite room, they wished us to continue having an enjoyable time at the casino. It was a silent challenge by the hotel to recoup their losses by encouraging the winners to stay around longer. Though we were planning on staying here for our full vacation regardless. It was an obvious trap, just like the free margaritas given out during the day, just like the cheap entry into circuses and musicals around the casino. But it wasn’t a bad feeling; it was the true face of this industry, practiced and practiced since its conception to achieve perfection.

The suite room was much larger than our family-use room, and the beds were separated into three different bedrooms. And each of them had an automated ma.s.sage chair.

Admiral Luise finished showering and sat down on a ma.s.sage chair, still in her bathrobe, and fell asleep in seconds. She seemed peaceful in her sleep.

“I never understood when Admiral Luise Maynard was hailed as a legendary hero. At least Lezirth Dawnbringer had personally displayed his prowess in the battlefield, a leader among warriors… But what’s so great about a commander at the back doing nothing but giving orders away from the fight?… And so I thought, some time ago.” Ensign Meihowa softly spoke as she inspected Admiral Luise, pointing at her as if she were a mythical being not to behold lightly. “I have no words. Isn’t she just too amazing?”

“Y-yeah. Maybe Luise is the most dangerous lady in the galaxy?” Sergeant Aroha agreed.

I shrugged and proposed our next move. “Let’s leave Admiral Luise to rest by herself. As for us, let’s go out and do a little exercise and get all the alcohol out of our system!”

“Sounds good.”

We quietly left the room. We went to the hotel’s fitness club to play tennis. I played against both Aroha and Meihowa at the same time, but I was still winning by a significant margin.

“Stop using psionics!” Ensign Meihowa grumbled, wiping sweat off of her face.

I grinned. “Not using any!”

“Oh you~ Are you seriously trying your best to win against girls?” Sergeant Aroha complained just as much.

They were in their training jerseys, but they could not hide their womanly curves; other guys around the tennis court were frequently giving them a glance. I didn’t feel too bad about it. The girls weren’t wearing revealing clothes, and I somehow felt happy that I was the one enjoying a game of tennis with them at the moment.

“Aren’t you gonna be just as angry if I lost on purpose?”

“Not at all! Lose on purpose! Go, fail right now!”

“Heh. Hey, hey, let’s not over do it. After drinking so much yesterday… even if I got rid of the hangover for you, your body’s still not fully recovered. You should exercise just enough to get your blood flowing.”

And suddenly, my PDA rang. Mayer had requested a video chat with me.

“Excuse me.”

I excused myself from the ladies and answered the call outside of the tennis court.

“What happened?”

[Ah, uh, you see… our friend insisted that Rabbitte and Colorado are very much real. He said that the prices were his own a.s.sumptions and could give me up to thirty percent off, and he was completely unwilling to sell it for two and a half million.] Mayer almost seemed to be in the grip of a nervous breakdown.

Strangely, I could see a line of people behind him. What in the world? Was he actually talking to us from a telephone booth? Did he not have his personal computer to call me with? I was once again reminded of the huge economic disparity between Federation planets and autonomous planets.

“Thirty percent off of one and a half billion is… one billion and five hundred thousand? That’s really isn’t enough, considering that we hired you to do better.”

We would have been able to negotiate that much on our own.

Mayer agreed to my complaints and nodded. [d.a.m.n it, I know that! But two and a half million is just not enough! Can’t you raise the offer a little more?]

We did have enough to raise the offer. Admiral Luise had foreseen this issue and raised our budget to five hundred million credits. But the entire sum of money was owned by Admiral Luise, and I had no right to to negotiate for a new price using her money.

And if I raised the offer, the commission was sure to raise with it. Federation standards took effect, so even if we used the standard commission percentage, the fee would be way over two and a half million. I suddenly became aware that the man might have been attempting to pull a scam on me. Still, the final decision was up to Admiral Luise. I had no reason to decide on the spot.

“She’s asleep for the moment, but I’ll make sure that she knows.”

[Oh, okay. I’ll contact you later, then.] Mayer ended our call.

Hm. It seemed that Rabbitte and Colorado weren’t going to return to our hands very easily. Of course, if Admiral Luise continued her winning streak, paying for the full billion and a half would be trivial, but… even if she hadn’t been using her psionic powers, was it right to keep earning money that way? Earning a lot of money without hard work is great, yes, but it wasn’t something to be blindly happy for.

We finished our exercise and returned to our room. Admiral Luise was still sitting in the ma.s.sage chair, sleeping comfortably.

What a great spot that was. Everything about our room got a lot better after the upgrade, but that specific spot was the best in this room. If this were a plane, it would have been the first cla.s.s seat.

“Luise looks pretty comfortable, there.”

“She looks so cute while asleep. Like a little angel!”

Meihowa and Aroha blankly stared at Admiral Luise as she continued to sleep. And rightfully so-- with all signs of sleepiness and fatigue gone from her face, only a content smile was left on her face. She looked like she belonged on the cover of some furniture advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Being able to fall asleep so glamorously without intending to do so was simply cheating. What if she knew that we were coming back, and she set up the lighting, practiced her expression, and coordinated the rest of the room so we’d be amazed at her? I almost seriously considered that for a moment.

“Alright, we’ll nap for a bit too. When Admiral Luise wakes up, we can start moving as one again.”

Purchasing Rabbitte and Colorado was our highest priority, but we were all on vacation. I wanted to enjoy our time together whenever possible. I wrote my thoughts down on a small note on a table next to Admiral Luise, and then I went into my new bedroom.

Now that my room was separated from the ladies’ rooms and had a bathroom and a shower room all to myself, I was delighted… my a.s.s! It’s not delightful in the slightest! I’m perfectly happy waking up and finding myself between two girls! I’m honestly glad about it! And now there’s no chance of it ever happening again…

...Whoa, what was I thinking? No, no way! I can’t let that same thing happen ever again!

I stopped this train of thought and turned off the lights before jumping on the bed. Perhaps from all the alcohol left over from last night, I fell asleep very soon after laying down.

And…

“Sweet dreams, Lezirth.”

Someone gave a kiss on my forehead.

No, that wasn’t possible. That must have been my imagination.

...I hoped so.

Suddenly, the lights in my room turned back on.

“Erk…”

I snapped out of my dreams from the glaring light.

“Hi, Lezirth. Did you sleep well?”

A girl with short brown hair gazed down at me from above.

Hmm… I felt as if I had a similar experience like this before. The girl back then was a mysterious girl with blue hair, but it was Admiral Luise this time.

“Luise? Are you okay? How are you feeling?”

“Yep, I’m fine. That ma.s.sage chair is amazing! I don’t feel tired at all anymore. Should we buy one?”

“Even if we buy one, we’re back to being soldiers after the vacation. It’s not like we can put one in our barracks.”

“Y-yeah. It still doesn’t feel real to me.” Admiral Luise offered a hand to pull me out of my bed. Her face turned red. “Hey, is it okay if I hold your hand?”

“You’re holding my hand right now.”

“No, I mean… I can feel how real everything is this way. We’ve been in cold sleep for a hundred and twenty years, and now we’re here.”

“Yes, uh, if you read the note… should we contact Mayer right now?”

“Hmm? No, not now. If we respond that quickly to someone who messes up a simple negotiation like that, we’re going to look like we desperately need Rabbitte and Colorado. If we increase our budget on the fly, there won’t be an end to it later.” Admiral Luise made a wry, evil grin. S-scary! Maybe a little cool, but scary!

I got up and prepared to leave. Meihowa and Aroha were waiting for us outside.

“How are we going to have fun today?”

“How about we go surfing at the beach?”

We chatted cheerily as the elevator descended. We were well off thanks to Admiral Luise’s amazing ability to play cards, and our vacation was far from over. We had a lot of time to have fun in the upcoming days.

But when we returned to the hotel lobby, we were faced with something that inevitably put a frown on our faces.

It was that group of protesters.

As expected, standing in the center of the group was William Mayer, shouting with a loudspeaker in his hand. At that moment, I really, really wanted to run up to him, take away his loudspeaker, slap him in the face, and yell ‘Get back to negotiating, you lazy b.u.m!’

I wasn’t crazy enough to do that in front of the protesters, however. Moreover, their words caught my attention.

“Take a look! The Federation is already a sinking s.h.i.+p!”

They were holding up an old and battered LCD panel television (don’t get fooled by old science fiction movies where they use holograms instead of physical monitors. No one likes their screens being see-through).

On the screen was a video of an unnatural stream of light in s.p.a.ce, filmed from a planetary observatory.

I felt my body get drained of all colours.

It was a gamma-ray burst.

The television screen now displayed a news broadcast.In the screen was a slightly obese, bald man and a professional-looking lady with square gla.s.ses sitting behind a table.

[h.e.l.lo everyone, I am Erwin of Critik News Report, your most accurate source of news.]

[And I am the a.n.a.lyst, Alesana.]

[A gamma-ray burst has been observed in the Torad System. Our experts have a.n.a.lyzed its trajectory and concluded that it originated from the Oden System. What do you think?]

[Size, power, and composition, all point to Dawnbringer. It appears to be from Dawnbringer’s Ultimate Kis.h.i.+n Technique as within our records.]

The a.n.a.lyst concluded as such.

[Are you sure that this is a gamma-ray burst?]

[When s.p.a.ce expands naturally, there usually is nothing but lighter elements like hydrogen. Lighter elements like hydrogen undergo nuclear fusion to elements such as iron and nickel and stop, as they are stable at that point. Meanwhile, elements that are heavier than iron and nickel go through nuclear fission and become lighter elements, eventually stabilizing at iron just like others. You’ll only find heavier elements at the cores of planets, where there’s enough pressure and heat energy to form and maintain them, which then supernovas distribute them around the galaxy.]

[If that is true, and if that observation was a gamma-ray burst, are you saying that we’ll find newly formed heavier elements?]

[That’s right. We’re observing ma.s.sive quant.i.ties of heavier elements such as iridium and osmium in the gamma-ray burst. The composition matches the records we have for Dawnbringer’s ‘Sole Power of Heaven and Earth’ at about fifty percent accuracy.]

The reporter named Erwin burst out in a hysteric laughter in the middle of the a.n.a.lyst’s speech. Doesn’t a fifty percent match also mean a fifty percent mismatch? Not only that, I recalled being able to control the elemental composition of Sole Power of Heaven and Earth. If iridium was lacking I added more of that, and I sometimes used pure gold for giggles.

But wait… Sole Power of Heaven and Earth?

I returned my attention to the news report. The reporter was still laughing, despite it being a live broadcast. Perhaps it was just because the station wasn’t as professional as the Federation’s official stations; the equipment was lacking, and even the reporters seemed very strange. How could he laugh in a situation like this?

[Then couldn’t it be a natural supernova? Dawnbringer has been lost for over a hundred and twenty years. How could its Ultimate Kis.h.i.+n Technique…]

[There are no observations or predictions in the Oden System for a supernova in that area. Most of all, the gamma-ray burst is too small in scale to call it off as an actual supernova. This is undoubtedly Kis.h.i.+n Dawnbringer’s Ultimate Kis.h.i.+n Technique, Sole Power of Heaven and Earth.]

[The Federation is vehemently denying that notion.]

[That’s…]

Just as she tried to reply, one of the a.s.sistant directors jumped into view. In the midst of panic, the screen abruptly changed into a different perspective.

On the new screen, there was a young man likely in his twenties, sporting a long coat and tidy black hair. Beside him was a blonde girl much younger, possibly a teenager, who looked like she had never had a haircut in her entire life. And there were translucent, sparkling objects poking out from her extremely long hair that connected to various computer ports beneath her.

On the bottom of the screen, a subt.i.tle popped up.

--Breaking news! A speech from the chief military commander of the Alliance!

...Huh? That boy and the girl? But the guy looks barely in his late twenties and the girl is just a little kid!

I had an uncomfortable deja vu as I thought that to myself. Looking younger than the job t.i.tle suggests, boy, girl… that setting matched the past of Admiral Luise and I. Although, the guy was too old to be the past me, and the girl was too young to be the past Luise.

The man in the screen began speaking.

[Greetings, free people of the universe. I am the Admiral of the Transhuman Alliance Combined Fleet, Lezirth Dawnbringer.]

[And I am the chief of the Alliance, Luise Maynard!]

When I heard the man and the girl, I couldn’t help but chuckle.

I felt like I had become insane.

Not only that, they were both one rank higher than their originals!

[This may be confusing, but we are the Children of Letix, thus the first generation of the Replicants. We have the ability to regenerate our genes in order to resist against aging.]

[We may look very young, but don’t ever forget that we’re a lot older than we look.]

The girl held the tips of her white dress and glamorously curtseyed toward the camera.

The man that called himself Lezirth continued. [The Federation was not too pleased with the fact that we were Replicants. They had planned to bury us with the Letix fleet, should another ma.s.sive fleet come to our doorsteps.]

[This is the story from a hundred and twenty years ago.]

[That day, we survived a brutal battle and went into cold sleep to recover from the effects of hypers.p.a.ce corruption.]

[Overuse of psionic powers leads to hypers.p.a.ce corruption, so the Federation rules of engagement enforced going into cold sleep after extended use of psionic abilities.]

[But the Federation’s plan was to remove us from power while we were helpless in our cold sleep. However, the Dawn Corps, also called the Lezirth’s Guards, discovered their plans and fought with the Federation’s army to rescue Admiral Luise-- as she had been before becoming Chief Luise-- and I. We were ejected into s.p.a.ce while we were still in our cold sleep. By the time we had woken up, the Dawn Corps had already perished from their battle to save us from the Federation.] The man tightly gripped onto the podium in front of him. [Everyone, you are all being played for fools by the Federation. They are causing needless wars against aliens, the Elcro and the Asa, to fuel their military production and use wars as an excuse to destroy democracy. Wake up, friends! Do not play into the Federation’s dirty hands!]

[Well, even if you don’t bother, the Federation is already over. We just destroyed most of the Federation’s fleet by ourselves. We have Kis.h.i.+n… no, we have a Hyper-Kis.h.i.+n that surpa.s.ses any other Kis.h.i.+ns in the world. If you want to die, then stay in the Federation. We’ll destroy each of your planets, one by one. Want to know my motto? Dictators aren’t sinners. The real sinners are the ones who bow to the dictators, the weak civilians that do nothing. They’re worse than a trillion dictators.]

[The Federation’s fleet has been destroyed in the Oden System by Kis.h.i.+n Dawnbringer--, no, now the Hyper-Kis.h.i.+n Duskbringer. In addition, we have taken over Kis.h.i.+n Swan Grace. Remember, the Federation is not worth risking your life to protect it. Stand up and fight!]

[And you won’t be able to protect it anyway!]

The transmission ended with the last bickerings of the little girl named Luise Maynard.

That speech was in no way a proper announcement from seasoned chiefs of a military. At least that man who called himself Lezirth tried to choose his words carefully, but that little girl really went all out with her emotions.

But that seemed effective nonetheless. If they calmly talked and treated it like a political speech, then it would have been difficult to strike fear into its viewers.

Still…

They’re Lezirth Dawnbringer and Luise Maynard? Then who the h.e.l.l were we?

I thought about that blue-haired girl.

That vision was neither a simple dream nor a hallucination. Then, who was that girl? How was any of it possible?

I was at a loss for words. I looked at Admiral Luise in silence. She was also wide-eyed, staring at the LCD screen intently.

Our short vacation had come to an end.

And now… a battle was coming to us.

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