27 The Reason of Life 1

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/30/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

◆◇Side: A certain person who became a Datanoid 1,100 years ago◇◆

 

“Hey, supply goods and letters came!”

From a cargo hatch on a space battleship crossing space, a large carry wagon is brought in.
Space battleships on mission become isolated islands in space. To such islands, space freighters occasionally deliver goods and mail.
For the soldiers riding the battleship, one of the great pleasures.
Soldiers cluster on the carry wagon, and a field officer starts distributing to the people they should reach.
Distributing packages isn’t a delivery person’s job; it’s a field officer’s.

“Oh, Sergeant Harold Kinoshita, from the usual Hekaterina-san!”

A still-young soldier with hope-filled eyes takes the letter and gets poked and teased by the people around.

“This is Second Lieutenant Narita Inori, from the usual Iris-san, another fairly large box!”
“Ah, yes! That’s me!”

Narita Inori takes the box from the field officer’s hands and jumps up looking happy. But in zero-G space she jumped with all her strength, hit her head on the ceiling, let out a goose-like groan “gueh,” and gets laughed at by the surroundings.
The field officer asks Inori while laughing.

“Plastic models again?”
“I think so. Thanks, Iris!”
“You really do like plastic models.”
“It’s the meaning of my life!”

Harold Kinoshita, who only came to this battleship half a year ago, asks whoever around.

“Is it true Lieutenant Inori became galaxy number one in a sport of fighting plastic models in middle school?”

The one who answered was the field officer.

“True true, because of that this one is outstanding at handling Versus Frames, and right after arriving she took a point off me. Awful, right?”
“Hahaha, that’s an awful one (lol).”
“——See? Because of that I’m still a running joke.——Go look at Inori’s private room next time; it’s full of plastic models.”

Inori, holding the cardboard, asks the field officer.

“May I go?”
“Yeah,——if you use paint make sure to ventilate.”
“Okaaay. I wonder which frame Iris picked for me this time.”

From Inori heading back to her private room looking happy, a “gueh” groan echoed in the hallway again.

 

Inori returns to her room and opens her best friend’s gift.
First she opens the shipping cardboard, and what enters her eyes is stationery——a blue butterfly pattern said to symbolize luck.

“What’s this, ‘I think this is probably the one Inori-chan lost when she was little’——wait, no way!”

Inori peels the wrapping paper quickly, but carefully.
Then a box with an illustration of a red robot.

“Gyaaaa! This is Guren R that’d been out of production forever, the heroine’s frame and they discontinued it, people said what’s that about! It got a reprint!? Thanks, Iriiiiis!”

While Inori is making a huge fuss, her private-room door is knocked.
When Inori answers “yes,” the door opens and a woman officer’s face is visible. The pink-haired woman officer looks fed up.

“I thought I heard an ape-like voice; it was Inori after all. Plastic models again?”
“Ah, Daisy! That’s right! Today a super rare one arrived!”
“——Whoa, your eyes are sparkling. What’s so good.”
“What’s so good, Guren R is the heroine’s successor machine. It mounts something called a Fire-Travel Solar Engine, a defective engine that if you put out full power it runs wild and the frame collapses——”
“Wrong…… I’m not asking what’s good about that frame, I’m asking what’s good about plastic models.——What world has someone asking what’s good about a frame from a work they don’t know.”
“Eh——that way?”
“Obviously, erase the ‘?’ over your head. What’s going on inside that head.”

To the fed-up face of the woman officer called Daisy, Inori returns a wry smile, then looks at the ceiling light with a nostalgic face.

“Well, I have a bit of attachment to this frame.”
“Nn, what? Age of wanting to talk about yourself? ——Well you came here right after middle-school graduation so you’re still 17. Sensitive age.”
“——Well.”
“Then Onee-san will listen.”
“Um. The first plastic model I finished as a kid was this Guren R. But a relative boy forced a match and smashed it to bits with plastic ammo.”
“……That’s frustrating.”
“Yeah I bawled. And that boy grew into the lowest kind of man. Iris already calls him Mr. Shitty Brat. And when Iris was in second year of middle school, she paid him back.——It felt so good.”
“Heh.”
“The other side forced a match again——and the other side had a cheating frame with an unofficial motor, and Iris easily put him in his place. She was so cool.”

Daisy looks at Inori’s eyes talking nostalgically and grins.

“Hey hey, those pupils are a girl in love.”

Inori goes bright red at Daisy’s words.

“Love!? ——D-don’t say weird things!?”
“Hahaha.——You hate being told romantic feelings, I forgot.”
“Yeah. I like Iris, but this is a different feeling from love.”
“My bad my bad.”

Daisy is apologizing but doesn’t stop grinning.
Inori shuts her eyes and projects memories on the insides of her lids.

“Iris too, everyone would say to me ‘do you like the captain? Are you in love?’, and only Iris said ‘you like the captain’ but also ‘you respect her.’”
“That Iris watched you well.”
“Yeah. Iris knows me really well. She knows my plastic model got broken when I was a kid, but I didn’t say the one that got broken was Guren R. And yet from the timing and all she figured it out.”
“Is that Iris smart?”
“Yeah, you know the versus simulation that was popular before?”
“Ah, the one called Civilian or whatever?”
“That. Iris is world number one in Civilian.”
“No way. F-for real…… that was an outrageously high-level strategy game. I heard even the military references top players’ game records? So the military is copying that Iris’s strategies……”
“Amazing, right♪”
“You’re happier than when they said you were galaxy number one just now.”
“Hehe, you can tell?”
“Of course I can tell, with your cheeks flushed like that. Onee-san wanted a best friend like that too.”
“I won’t give Iris to anyone!”
“I don’t think I could steal her from you.”

Saying that Daisy rakes her hair up with her fingers. Seeing that look Inori frowns.

“By the way Daisy your hair got long. You don’t cut it at the salon?”

There is a salon on the battleship too.

“Yeah, it’s in the way so maybe I’ll go chop.”

Saying that Daisy takes out a knife, and Inori stops that hand.

“No no, however you look that’s not it.”
“Not it?”
“Not it as a girl.”
“I see.”

Saying that Inori and Daisy look at each other and laugh, and the emergency bell rings.

“We have encountered a Vector battleship. First emergency posture. Repeat. First emergency posture! All personnel move to stations promptly——repeat.”
“Inori, we’re going.”
“Yeah!”

——After that, Inori, who sortied in a Versus Frame, would lose her life covering Daisy.

 

When she woke, Inori had a machine body.

She——Narita Inori understood looking at the cords connected to her body.

(I see, I died) she thought.

As a soldier of the Star Cluster Empire she rode a Versus Frame and fought parallel-world people.
Then while on escort duty for a supply transport, she encountered an enemy ace in debris-filled space and fought a fierce battle.
In the end she covered a soldier who had become a friend, took a laser direct hit to the cockpit, and lost her life.
In this age, if you wish, even if you die thought and memory can be put into a machine body and you can return. You revive becoming a Datanoid.
Inori had a purpose, so she had applied while alive wishing to become a Datanoid.

In Inori’s eyes a room that looked both hospital and laboratory was reflected.

“Inori-san, how is your condition? Can you hear my voice? No noise?”
“Yes. Vision, hearing, touch——all clear.”

When Inori answers, a woman whose look is both doctor and researcher checks her body on a monitor.

“Joint condition doesn’t seem bad. The photodisintegration furnace is operating normally——please make a reservation for a combat-ability check later.”

Modern Datanoid bodies are optimized for combat.
Some people evaluate them as mini Versus Frames.

“Yes.”

The woman moves her gaze from the monitor to Inori’s pupils.

“Narita-san, you may be confused now. You may be anxious suddenly having a machine body.——But the Empire government will support Narita-san with all its strength. Please be at ease.”
“……Thank you.”
“If the current state is too hard no matter what, you can also receive counseling.”
“Yes.”
“Narita Inori-san’s property from while she was alive has been inherited by you now. Address and such are unchanged. Military rank is the same. Narita-san has one month of leave; please return to your original unit from 8/8.”
“Understood.”

The examination ends, the doctor leaves the sickroom, and Inori is alone.
Then——Inori, with nothing to do, ends up thinking.
On the bed Inori hugged her knees and thought.
She herself wished to come back as a Datanoid, but (with this body, can I really say I’m alive?)
Having time after death to think about your own life and death was a crueler thing than expected.

Immediately after returning to her unit, Inori was assigned to guard a database that stored humanity’s memories and thoughts.

“Protect the database! If that gets broken we can’t revive people!”

Recently the parallel-world people (Vector) first aim at the databases.
At first the Star Cluster Empire Unileus Inori belonged to mass-produced Humanoids and Versus Frames and fought Vector.
But recently, with the birth of Datanoids who use things called skills, combat with Datanoids as the main has unfolded and the war is developing at an advantage.
But if the databases are destroyed, Datanoids themselves can’t be made.

“Lieutenant Inori, protect the right; leave the left to me.”
“Yes, Captain Orkan!”

Around this time Inori had been assigned to a place called Orkan Company of Darmas Division.
Enemy multi-leg tanks——like spiders——like bacteriophages, a disk head on the torso, one-eyed flocks crawl attacking over floor and walls and ceiling.
A shape maybe thought out so they can do space exploration too; enemy tanks like multi-leg probes with weapons attached.
The one eye placed like a crack on the disk was especially hideous.

“Vector tanks numerous——over 500.”

The database holding humanity’s memories and thoughts is in a room of a huge underground facility of a huge base. Tanks come attacking aiming at it.
The facility is completely protected anti-air, anti-space, so the enemy gave up on bombing and boarded the interior directly.
Live rounds Datanoids loose and laser weapons the multi-leg tanks loose fly and draw stripes in the hallway.

A woman officer in the same Orkan Company as Inori curses.

“Tch, what is upper thinking, how are we supposed to break tank armor with old-gen assault rifles that use live rounds.”
“Apparently a supply shortage.”

When Inori answers, the woman officer puts out a fed-up voice.

“Space-side was a little bad too apparently. When Captain Orkan requested a space tank or Versus Frame, a freighter got sent. Attack with weapons from inside a freighter, don’t be stupid. If the space defense line is broken the database gets bombed.”

If they can bomb from space, a database can be destroyed easily.

“Once we get a little advantage they get careless and skimp on supplies, even though the field is still fighting a razor-edge battle.”

A large explosion happens in front of the cursing woman soldier.
Then appearing, a mass of one-eyed tanks like bacteriophages.
At the number and the hideous look Inori’s spine goes cold.
The instant frozen Inori, one multi-leg tank closed in.

When Inori thought (crap) it was already late; the multi-leg tank’s melee weapon, a monomolecular sword, came down.
Inori uses the assault rifle as a shield, but there’s no way a monomolecular sword can be stopped by such a thing. The instant Inori steeled herself for a second death——a human shadow dove in from the side.

“Oraaaaaaaaa!!”

Captain Orkan. When Orkan roared, the tank that had been about to cut Inori in two was blown away.
And it wasn’t only one that flew. Centered on Orkan, more than ten tanks had been blown away.
The more than ten blown tanks crumple and crush.
Orkan’s lion-mane-like hair streams in the blast.——Brown beard and hair connect, a face just like a lion.
Huge muscles bulge so much the uniform seems about to burst.
Muscles as if a dragon is wrapping his body.
At such a person’s large back, Inori was relieved.
But Inori doesn’t understand why the tanks flew and then crumpled.

“What Captain Orkan just did, that attack——what armament……?”

Next to murmuring Inori, the woman soldier looking at the silenced tanks raised a moved voice.

“As expected, Captain Orkan, called a one-man army!”

Inori had heard Orkan was strong, but seeing that strength in person she is confused.

“What is that…… an armament that crushes tanks with shockwaves……”
“The captain has the skill 〖Fighting Spirit〗!”
“Fi-〖Fighting Spirit〗!?”
“Yes, a skill that increases effect the more fighting spirit you put in!”
“Fi-fighting spirit……”

The skills Inori has are 〖Psychokinesis〗 and 〖Clairvoyance〗, very ordinary ones. She’s never heard a joke-like skill name like 〖Fighting Spirit〗.
While Inori is confused, emergency info comes from a comms officer.

“Both backups of database unit 2 have all been destroyed. Remaining is one main unit. Vector tanks approaching the final defense line! Orkan unit, hold that place no matter what. If you’re broken through——”
“I see, if we get broken through there are no more personnel who can protect the database. And the database behind us is the last one.”

Orkan isn’t shaken even by info that would make a normal human despair. Before countless multi-leg tanks he spreads both arms and smiles fearlessly.
But Inori of ordinary thought involuntarily lets out a scream-like voice.

“Why were we pushed to the final defense line that easily!?”

To Inori’s surprised voice the comms officer answered.

“Th-the Humanoid units are being hacked and aren’t functioning!”
“Taken over by the enemy!?”
“The electronic-warfare units are preventing takeover for now. But Datanoid everyone please be careful as well. Hacking you isn’t as easy as androids, but it isn’t impossible!”
“Rog——”

When Inori tried to return “Roger,” it happened.
Suddenly a boy of about ten appeared on top of a Vector tank.
He appeared so suddenly that Inori guessed what the boy had done.

“〖Teleport〗!!”

The instant Inori went on guard, the boy made a gesture of opening a window.
Then on a hologram keyboard under the opened window he slides his fingers as if dancing.

“This boy is the hacker!?”

The instant Inori said it, a sound like electronic noise came to her ears.
The moment the noise became like tinnitus, Inori’s vision blacked out——Inori sees her first dream since becoming a Datanoid.

 

“Inori-chan? Inori-chan?”

When Inori notices, she was in the club room from middle school.
In middle school Inori was an athlete in Soldat, a sport of fighting robots wearing plastic-model armor. An athlete on a team that had even shone as galaxy number one.
Soldat, from the nature of a sport of fighting robots, also had the aspect of being thought of as an extension of real combat, but it was a popular sport too.——In this world where war continues, one of the few entertainments.
The period when Inori was in middle school was a period when the Star Cluster Empire side Inori belonged to was quite advantaged, and peaceful time flowed.
When Inori, who had apparently been closing her eyes using her own arm as a pillow at a desk, lifts her face, an unfinished plastic model and a match-field diorama enter her vision.
Outside the window a deep-blue sky, a dazzling sun lighting the classroom. Summer; the world’s outlines are thick.

“Inori-chan, what’s wrong? You have a startled face.”

The scene from before Inori became a soldier and lost her life was spreading.
The blue pupils of a blonde girl showing a sunlit smile were peeking into Inori’s pupils, calling Inori’s name. The blonde girl’s name is Iris…… Inori’s best friend. The person Inori trusts more than anyone.
Inori understood. “This is a scene the hacker is showing,” and “the hacker is using my memories to show a convenient dream and obstruct me waking.”

And behind Iris there was a smiling person too.
The person smiling like blue sky is Soldat club captain Takamori Koya.
A person who is already not in this world.
He didn’t even become a Datanoid.
Inori had respected him. She had no romantic feelings, but she respected him from the bottom of her heart. So she became a soldier aiming for the world he wanted when he lost his life, “a world where anyone can throw themselves into what they like”——“a world without stupid war.”
The person Inori wanted to meet most.
So Inori stood without thinking and hugged him as if clinging.

“Captain! Captain Takamori!!”

This captain isn’t the real captain, probably; even so she couldn’t help hugging.

“Why, why did you die! Why didn’t you put in a revival application!”

To Inori’s crying voice, Takamori Koya only smiles kindly.
That would be so. Because this Takamori Koya is a Takamori Koya made from Inori’s memories. Inori herself shouldn’t be able to answer Inori’s own questions.
So this Takamori Koya doesn’t know the answer either. He probably can’t answer.
Inori thought that, but at Takamori’s next words Inori went blank.

“A me that became a Datanoid wouldn’t be me, right? What’s the point of becoming something like that.——In the first place aren’t Datanoids not even alive? You wouldn’t call that revival.”

Inori faltered, told that by someone she respects.
She had thought maybe that’s so, but she had something she absolutely didn’t want affirmed told to her by the person she absolutely didn’t want to hear it from.
Because her dignity is about to be smashed by someone she respects.

Inori faces her present——a machine body, a machine brain; the memories are certainly Narita Inori’s, but these memories are only recorded as magnetism on a storage medium.
Thought is only computed on a base of 0s and 1s.
An inorganic thing imitating Narita Inori, a machine mimicking Narita Inori’s actions——isn’t that what she is now.

“Wrong…… I am…… Narita Ino——!”

Takamori Koya’s pupils pierce Inori’s pupils.

“If right now Narita Inori’s survival were confirmed, could you still say you are Narita Inori? ——If Narita Inori were alive, what are you?”

Asked “what,” Inori staggered enough she almost sat down on her backside.
She somehow puts her back to the wall and hugs her arms.

“I am…… I am……”

Inori looks down and almost asks herself “what am I?” and barely cuts the words.
At the last line she stops herself from smashing her own dignity.
She shakes her confused head and tried to refuse trying to think.
There,

“Wake up, Lieutenant Inori.”