Chapter 93: Thawing

Dark brown fur. Short, thick legs that looked as if he were wearing white socks. Pointed triangular ears standing straight up. A fluffy tail. Eyes like acorns, round and restless as they followed his curiosity wherever it led.

And his default expression was stupid.

His tongue was sticking out.

That was the proud, genetically modified attack dog, Rudolf.

Dogs had always been far superior hunters to humans. In this age, those dogs had been genetically modified. Their muscle strength had increased. They possessed special abilities. Naturally, their sense of smell had improved too.

“Grrr.”

“Stop, stop it, please! It hurts! It hurts! I’ll walk on my own! Forgive me!”

A muffled growl came from somewhere.

A moment later came an anguished scream.

According to the preliminary materials, there were supposed to be fifteen people, but there were only fourteen. That is a problem. We were having that conversation when my proud attack dog apparently did his job.

He was not a scent dog, exactly, but his nose still worked. The poor researcher hiding in the shadows had been found by Rudo, bitten on the leg, and dragged out.

Tears streamed down his face. Snot ran from his nose. He pleaded desperately, but unfortunately, Rudo had no mercy. He dragged the man along and threw him into the group where the other fourteen had been gathered.

Then he trotted over to me. Since the white fur around his mouth was stained red, the sight was fairly gruesome. When he stood on his hind legs, he put his paws against my leg.

Praise me.

“…”

Well, that was probably what he meant. I crouched down and ruffled his head. I ruffled him vigorously. I felt like Mr. Mugorou.

“So, Ratchet, what do we do after gathering them?”

“After checking their names against the roster, we kill them.”

“You are killing them?”

“With our numbers, it would be difficult to move while keeping this many people restrained. And no one told us to capture them alive.”

So we should kill them.

As we had that conversation, I glanced sideways at the researchers.

They had gone pale.

But that was all. They still did not look as if they had completely given up.

…What is it? Do they still have something up their sleeve? I thought. No answer came to me. We had destroyed every Doll. There were probably no other personnel hiding either. There might be some Monoz hiding, but honestly, the Monoz they had been using as research assistants were no match in combat. The fact that even Dragon could overwhelm them in close combat said enough about their combat proficiency.

“Goat, Monkey, do they have self-destruct devices, or any kind of weapons?”

I asked the two machines in the corner who were extracting cores from the enemy Monoz and neutralizing them. We had no intention of bringing the bodies back because they would be luggage, but the cores could be sold. If formatted, they could also serve as souvenirs for the children at the campsite.

This time, we had obtained a fair number of cores. That meant there were a fair number of bodies, and if those bodies contained threats, it would be fairly bad.

That was what I thought, but…

Answer: Unit threat level D. No issues.

“…Wrong guess, huh.”

I scratched my head and put my cap back on. Deep. I leaned my weight on Ox, who was nearby, using him in place of a chair. From the depths of my cap, I turned my probing gaze toward the researchers.

They still had some kind of composure.

Why? Why do they have room to breathe? What hand have they played?

Think from their position.

They are defectors from an organization called Abacus. There is no way they would not be wary of pursuers. Then what move would they make?

“…”

What would I do? Suppose I defected from Abacus. At first, I might be able to manage alone. But eventually, I would be cornered. Organizations are strong. If that happened, I would rely on Doggy House. If that were impossible, I would rely on some other organization, like Abacus or Tatara Heavy Industries. It would be better to make it organization versus organization, not individual versus organization. Ah. This feels like it.

“…”

But would an organization help them for free? No. If they had connections, that would be another matter, but money, or something that could serve as compensation, would be necessary. Otherwise, no one would help them at the cost of clashing with another large organization. …No, there was also the pattern where they wanted an excuse to clash.

Well, there was no point thinking about that pattern. Leave it aside. In that case, it really was…

“Hound!”

“…Yes?”

A voice from reality called me back. Endo’s voice pulled my consciousness up from the sea. When I lifted my gaze, I saw Endo with Acht in tow, beckoning to me.

“Come here.”

“?”

What could it be?

“Rikan, keep watch. S1, S2, A2, and Rudo, you’re on guard too. A1, come with me.”

With question marks floating over my head, I started walking for the time being.

***

When I obediently followed him, we reached a deeper underground level.

It was an area with a security level so high even the researchers had been unable to use it. But…

“…It’s open.”

The door that had not been open until just a moment ago was open now.

“You managed to open it?”

“More or less. This is my real job too.”

“…”

I had heard that line somewhere before. As I thought that, Endo got to work on the next door. He connected Acht to the facility with a cable and fiddled with a B5-sized tablet.

“…”

I glanced at it for no particular reason. I did not understand it at all.

“There’s a…”

“Sorry, say that again.”

“There’s a biological response ahead. Human-sized.”

“…Maybe it’s a giant cockroach?”

Human-sized.

“…Don’t come up with scary ideas like that.”

“Please call it an idea that makes things simpler.”

Kill it, and it was over.

In this situation, that would be more helpful.

But, well, it was probably a fellow Sleeper.

It was occasionally common. I will use that contradictory phrase, but finding a Sleeper in a facility from the past was occasionally common.

Probably because the device itself, including its power supply, had been made standalone in case of emergency. Even if the facility died, the device survived.

And I was one such case myself. Five hundred years ago, in the dawn of cold sleep, I had gone to sleep. Even after the facility broke for some reason, I had kept sleeping and arrived in this era.

“Do you know what kind of person is asleep?”

“No idea. Unfortunately.”

I see. A military facility, rotten or not, was still a military facility. That must be what it meant.

The door opened.

“…”

In an instant, I drew the automatic pistol from the back of my waist in a quick draw and shot out the gun pod on the ceiling. The sound of metal striking metal rang out. When I looked, Acht had pulled down a drum-can-shaped security robot. Endo poured a burst of AR fire into it.

The sound of spent casings scattering across the floor echoed through a room no human had entered in a hundred years.

“A1, take point.”

Considering the possibility that other security systems were still active, I asked Dog and the others to clear the room. Acht followed after them. They took a full five minutes to finish checking.

Endo and I slowly entered.

There was a single device still in operation. The letter “X” was painted on it.

“…”

How did you open this thing? I walked around it once, but I had no clue.

“How do you open this… Is something wrong?”

Endo’s face did not look good. What was it? Had he opened something similar in the past, only for something grotesque to come out?

“No, it’s nothing. I’m opening it.”

The device opened.

We saw what was inside.

“…”

“…”

“There was a woman in Tooth’s unit, wasn’t there?”

“…Right away.”

Endo and I looked away.