29 The Reason of Life 3

Author: Bishamon Mine
Raw: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n0664js/32/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Orkan’s company and Inori’s Darmas Division rush to Planet Leens, but——because of Darmas’s graft they cannot get decent resupply, and they end up almost wiped out.

Before Inori’s eyes, 〈Atlas〉’s laser punches through Orkan’s torso.

“Orkan-taicho!”

Orkan is a Datanoid. But in the earlier battle, his data has been lost from the database.
Inori looks around.
The scene around her is truly corpses piled on corpses. Countless bodies of Datanoids who can no longer move. Scattered on the snow.
In the center of that, only Inori’s breath floats, blinking white against the night sky.

“Remaining troop count, ten…… comms cut——desperate.”

If the bodies of these scattered Datanoids are destroyed, many of them cannot revive.
——Inori is one of them too, though.
Inori, who was on rear support, is still unhurt. She mutters while looking around.

“I have to take them home, everyone’s data chips (humans).”

On a Datanoid’s head there is a small data chip.
The memories and thoughts from life are stored there. If they have that, they can be resuscitated as Datanoids again.
Inori looks up at the sky.
Over a hundred 〈Atlas〉 there.

“zzz Please respond, please respond, Darmas Division——someone respond!”

The one who answers the comm is Inori.

“Yes. This is Darmas Division, Orkan Company, Second Lieutenant Narita Inori.”
“Colonel Utah, we have a response! Second Lieutenant Narita, report the situation! What happened to Major Orkan.”
“Orkan-taicho just became unable to act.”
“The one-man army Major Orkan!?——I-I understand! We will draft a plan here. Troop count, how many can still move! What weapons remain!?”
“Remaining troop count——ten. No weapons.”
“Wiped out!? Twenty thousand soldiers wiped out!?”
“Not wiped out. I and nine others are here.”
“A state where you cannot fight. Wiped out——no, at this point that is annihilation! Colonel Utah, what do we do!——Inori-san, please bring everyone’s data chips home!——If you have the data chips, everyone can live again! With the database destroyed, the only one who can save them is Inori-san!”
“Mission, understood.”

Inori looks back.
There, nine allied soldiers who have lost a hand or a foot, who do not look like they can fight at all.
The only one who can fight properly is herself.

Inori glares back at the sky.
Giant MoB 〈Atlas〉, forty.
Behind the 〈Atlas〉, a large white moon——black clouds.
From a break in the clouds, gold light leaks like a curtain, made by a satellite reflecting the light of the one twin star that barely remains.
They call that a Jacob’s ladder.
Inori sneers at herself.
Seeing a Jacob’s ladder hanging over a hopeless situation——it looks like fate is laughing at her as she thrashes.
But this ladder will vanish soon too. The other half of that twin star has its gravity gone wrong, so it will fly off somewhere.

“Mission start———”

Inori calls the navigator in her brain——the Caligulator.
The Caligulator is like a Versus Frame AI’s Datanoid version.

“Caligulator, display in my vision the people whose data has been lost from the database. I’ll protect their bodies first.”
“Understood——displaying information in vision.”

Countless “▽” appear in Inori’s vision. The Datanoids under these marks are finished if their bodies are broken. A “▽” is displayed over Inori’s head as well.
First Inori takes out Orkan’s chip and puts it into the 〈Key to the Spacetime Warehouse〉.

“And Caligulator.”
“Yes.”
“Photodisintegration furnace, to critical.”
“That action is not recommended. Second Lieutenant Narita is currently infected with a virus. Analysis shows that if you conduct an all-out fight in your current state, processing cannot be allocated to immunity, and Second Lieutenant Narita’s memories and emotions will be destroyed.”
“Please. I have no choice but to fight.”

Inori looks behind her. Many soldiers’ bodies are asking for help.

“There are a lot of people I have to protect.”

〈Atlas〉 gather over Inori’s head.

“Caligulator, hurry!!”

“——Photodisintegration furnace, critical.”
“Thank you.”

Inori plants both hands and feet on the earth, four-legged, and makes her own body a gun battery.

“〈Critical Excitation Radiation〉!!”

A deep-blue beam from her mouth mows down MoB.

“Heat-source reaction in enemy MoB——return fire incoming.”

Inori snatches an energy pack from a nearby fallen soldier and deploys a barrier.
She blocks the lasers the MoB fire. The blocked lasers puddle on the barrier like melted candy and burst.

The electrical signals the virus produces swallow Inori’s self.

“Caligulator, begin computation at combat speed.”
“Dangerous. The more processing you allocate away from immunity, the more the lieutenant’s humanity is damaged!”
“At this rate I can’t win!!”
“Combat computation code, start.”

Inori reads enemy action close to future sight.
Optimization of action is performed at light-like speed.
If she leaves it to it, like a human taking the limiter off their brain, she can even put out power the frame (body) cannot endure.
Inori can even dodge lasers now.

When Inori leaps——on the dazzlingly shining snowfield, snow dances.
To Inori it becomes unclear whether the noise-like disturbance in her vision is snow powder, or an illusion electrons are showing.

“Error intrusion into consciousness domain confirmed. Stop the combat computation code immediately.”
“If I stop I can’t break that. I promised. That we’d carry on Club Captain Takamori’s dream, that we would finish it.”

My legs exist to corner MoB.
My arms exist to break MoB.
My self exists to hate MoB.
I am living to keep a promise.

In the fight it repeats——break, be broken. Break, be broken. Break——

“Ah——i……”

Clouded consciousness.
A fading self. Inori knows she is on the verge of collapse.

But even so she keeps fighting——and eventually.

“Enemy forces, annihilation confirmed.”

Cheers rise from the other side of the comm.

“W-we did it!!”
“Ten people wiped them out!?——As expected of Second Lieutenant Narita! That’s a Datanoid with a genius’s memories and thoughts!”
“Th-then Second Lieutenant Narita, give the others instructions and immediately recover the chips of the people who are down——”

But the Caligulator reverses its words.

“Correction——gravity tremor confirmed——enemy reinforcements incoming.”
“Reinforcements——?”

Looking up, a hundred ripples being born.

“Reinforcements, 〈Atlas〉 total one hundred.”

Screams from the other side of the comm.

“No way!”
“It’s already impossible……”
“At least just the ten……!”

“Caligulator, restart combat computation code.”
“Warning to Second Lieutenant Inori. If you continue unreasonable combat further, restoration of your memories, thoughts, and self will become impossible. The database is currently lost. If the data chip breaks, restoration is completely impossible.”
“Restoration is already almost impossible——please, inject the code.”
“——Understood.”

Fading consciousness——fading self.
She just keeps fighting, matter-of-fact.
Reports come from the Caligulator.

“Warning, error has invaded the irreversible thought domain within consciousness.
Erosion rate has exceeded 80%.
Dangerous. I advise stop.”
“Hey, Caligulator. Am I still human? Am I alive?”
“Yes. You are human. You are alive. The Joint Committee of Humanity has defined it so.”
“Thanks…… that’s a relief——yeah. It’s okay, everyone. Don’t say that, we can’t run. So just sleep there a little longer. I’ll bring everyone’s ‘humans’ home properly.”

A scream-like voice from the comm.

“A-are you okay!? Second Lieutenant Narita——!! What are you looking at……!!”

“Caligulator——〈photodisintegration furnace〉 to critical again.”
“Understood, 〈photodisintegration furnace〉 critical.”

Inori lifts an improvised sword of bolts and iron plates, scattering red oil from her arms.

“Just wait——This unit will finish it now,”

This unit lives to keep a promise, iru.
Don’t know what I promised anymore, kedo.

 

◆◇◆◇◆

 

This great defeat, caused by embezzlement and lack of preparation, was never left in the records thanks to a cover-up by the upper ranks.
But from this defeat the war situation changed completely——humanity began walking toward extinction.
That change in the war situation cast a dark shadow on people’s hearts.