Chapter 122: Meeting

I had completely forgotten that I had left Akito and the children behind.

That was bad.

I was not the sort of man considerate enough to notice that sort of thing on my own, especially this late, but my Monoz—Sheep Unit in particular—were not like me. After receiving my order to spread out, once Sheep Unit judged that the area was reasonably secure, it guided Akito and the children to the central plaza.

Impressive.

Unfortunately, I did not know that. So I went all the way back to where I had stopped the armored vehicle, learned there that it had been taken to Akito’s new residence, and then had to move again.

A complete waste of effort.

“…”

C.J. was looking at me like I was a useless new hire who could not even report, communicate, and consult.

Well, she would have to give up. This was what I was like.

“Father, I feel as if the gap between what you can do and what you can’t do is far too extreme.”

I dodged Xena’s scolding with a strained smile. For some reason, she had come along when I collected Akito at the plaza. I lifted the shutter.

The ceiling was high. The first and second floors had been knocked through and joined together, leaving the lights shining far overhead.

The garage was bare, built of exposed concrete. There were no tools worth mentioning. Only one armored vehicle without tires, and several Monoz.

Akito’s Monoz.

Had they received a message from mine? 

On top of a blue tarp, they had laid out the drum can we had captured alive, along with what used to be the other drum cans, as if welcoming us.

“Sorry the tour ended up happening like this, but… Akito, this is your lab.”

“Yeah, nice! This much space and ceiling height isn’t bad at all! I might be able to fit a pretty large generator in here.”

Akito said it with obvious satisfaction as he bustled into his work clothes, a pair of coveralls. Before he could get to work, Xena, who had been looking over the drum cans, murmured.

“Oh. I thought so. They’re mechanized soldiers.”

“You know them?”

“Yes. One of the military projects that was moving along around the same time as mine. 『Developing weapons not derived from Tree Crystals』. In the end, they were no substitute for Monos, and they were too slow to support them either, so they never saw practical deployment. They should only have been used for security at research facilities.”

Xena nodded as she answered me.

No, more importantly—

“You have your memories?”

“Hm? Oh? Did I not mention that? Not all of them, but they’ve come back. I suspect Brother’s have too.”

“Brother?”

“Would it be easier if I said Endo, Father? In short, my brother and I—the α・BET Series—compressed our memories before going to sleep. As long as they’re decompressed with keywords, we remember.”

“…Alpha Bet Series.”

I said it aloud.

It had gone so far around the bend it was almost lame.

“…And these keywords are?”

“All sorts of things. For instance, 『good morning』 made me remember that I was part of the α・BET Series, and that my memories had been compressed. Back then, not a single person said 『good morning』 to me after I woke up, so it took me ages to remember. Father? I really do think you should fix that part of yourself. Greetings are important, you know?”

“I’ll be more careful in future. …Are there other keywords?”

“Yes, let me see. 『Domestic violence』, 『poison mushrooms』, 『heavily seasoned cooking』, 『sodium hydroxide hot pot』, things like that.”

“That’s already a combo…”

A wife driven desperate by domestic violence poisoning her husband, then going so far as to dissolve the body afterward.

“More importantly, getting back to the mechanized soldiers, you should know about them too, Father.”

“—”

Hm?

Everyone’s eyes turned toward me, so I searched my memory.

No good. Nothing in particular came to mind.

“What about you lot?”

I asked the Monoz at my feet. They went hmm? in much the same way I had, searching their memories too. Maybe they were running some kind of linked processing. All at once, their eyes lifted as if they had just remembered.

Then came a beep.

Report: Similar security robots were confirmed in the sealed-off area of the research facility where Xena was recovered.

“…”

Were they there?

—Ah. They were. I remembered now. I remembered too. Since they had barely been maintained and we had suppressed them so easily, they had left almost no impression.

Still—

“Leaving me aside, even you forgot…?”

Poem: we forget too / because we are alive

—by Sheep Unit

“…”

A wry smile rose at the surprisingly lovely little poem.

But not everyone present was able to leave it at a wry smile. When I shifted my gaze, I saw C.J. with a deep crease between her brows. My already-low approval rating seemed to have met with a catastrophic crash. She was looking at me like I was garbage.

“We have combat experience against the same—no, against a related type of unit at a human military facility from roughly a hundred years ago.”

I had a feeling caring about it meant I lost, so I said that in an especially serious tone.

“Very well. I heard. Later, I will send you the locations of the attack sites, along with the old military facilities in Tooth territory.”

“Thank you.”

As I said that, I looked at Rabbit Unit. Its eye blinked.

Understood.

Something like that, probably. We would need to check the military facilities on human territory as well. And—

“There was a truck during today’s engagement, so we should analyze that as well. I’ll recover it immediately.”

“Isn’t the mechanized soldier the main lead?”

“They are slow on foot, so—”

“…So their movement depends entirely on trucks. Which means their base likely does too.”

“Exactly.”

I nodded and gave instructions.

“Dog Unit, Monkey Unit, Rooster Unit, Ox Unit. I have work for you. Have Touka form a search team centered around herself, and escort them. The objective is to move the truck, so take several large Monoz with you as well. Ox Unit, you take command of the towing. Also—”

“Yes, I know, Father. If we can repair it and make it run, that would be easiest. As a technician, I’ll go too.”

“Please do. Akito, sorry to ask this right after you arrived, but—”

“Yeah, leave it to me! Until the truck gets here, I’ll take a look at this one’s structure.”

A different technical lineage—apparently, that had him excited. Despite this being a fairly black-hearted work environment where he had secured late-night overtime on his very first day, he looked delighted.

“More sensible instructions than I expected.”

“Why, thank you.”

I smiled instead of saying, You think even less of me than I thought, don’t you?

“Then, next. This time, identifying the location will be difficult, so I imagine we will be moving separately. In the process, there may be cases where we rescue kidnapped children—”

“If I find them, I’ll gather them here at this camp.”

“Tooth children as well?”

“Yes. Well. Yes. Basically, I imagine I’ll have E.B. look after them…”

“I see… In that case, we will also accept personnel to care for human children on our side.”

“I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be necessary,” I said with a vague smile.

I did not put the reason into words. If I did, all the effort we were currently making to build what could, for the moment, be called a friendly relationship would go to waste.

I did not fully trust her. Nor did I fully trust the pack of Tooths led by Mr. A.B. I had no intention of sending my people into the middle of them.

“And you are sure that is acceptable? You are not considering what might happen to the children if something goes wrong?”

“I trust all of you on that point.”

A smile.

Bright and pleasant.

“Words you do not mean…”

I let the mutter pass.

“Rest assured. We have no desire to anger the princess either, so we will do nothing unnecessary.”

“In that case, I would like to ask you to handle the babysitting, Miss.”

“Why is that?”

Her voice was heavy. Her eyes searched for what I was really after.

“First, you look close to human.”

And probably, she was not physically strong. Mr. A.B. had pushed the role of explaining things onto her partly because he disliked the man his daughter had chosen, yes—but more than that, this had likely been her job from the start.

“Second, you said you were a lesbian.”

Which meant the odds of sexual abuse were low.

“Women can have sex with other women, you know.”

“I’m not familiar enough with that field to say much…”

How did that work, exactly? I was a little tempted to ask for details.

…No. Wrong. Mistake.

“Ahem.”

I cleared my throat and brought the conversation back.

“Finally, you said you were in love with E.B.”

This was the real point.

Without saying it aloud, I told her: If you do anything cruel to the children, she will hate you.

“I see. Very well. If we protect any humans, I will return them without so much as a scratch. Knowing you, even if I were not the one who hurt them, you would report to the princess that I hurt them.”

“…My personality isn’t that bad.” 

But, well… 

“Good idea. I’ll do just that from now on.” I smiled pleasantly.

C.J. looked back at me with eyes cold enough for garbage.