Vol. 1 Chapter 3 – Bloody Ruts

The adjustment and operation of the prosthetic limbs were going smoothly. However, the nerve-connected tank was not going so easily. It moved. It did move but it was still far from being the new weapon that could be controlled freely like one’s own arms and legs, which had been the original concept. At this point, it was much better to move it normally.

Also, after operating it for a while, Cardiel would complain of feeling unwell.

One day, about two weeks after the experiments began, Cardiel and Dias boarded the tank and were driving around the training grounds behind the factory.

Tubes as thick as her original arms and legs were attached to Cardiel’s shoulders and knees, and she wore large goggles on her head. Dias stood by close beside her as an attendant.

After they had been driving for about an hour, greasy sweat began to seep out over Cardiel’s face. Since the upper half of her face was covered by the goggles, it was difficult for Dias to notice. She had probably been feeling chills from much earlier.

Blaming himself for his carelessness, Dias shouted.

“We’ve reached the limit. Let’s stop the experiment!”

“I’m fine. I can still… go on…”

She answered bravely, but there was no strength in her voice. Her words soon cut off, and her chin lifted.

Before he even had time to think this was bad, she vomited violently. With a bishabisha splattering sound, a blend of stomach fluid and breakfast was hurled all over the floor. An acrid stench filled the cramped interior of the tank.

Dias quickly took out a canteen, placed it against Cardiel’s mouth, and tilted it. She held the water in her mouth, gargled, and spat it out. One more mouthful. This time, she swallowed it.

He wiped Cardiel’s mouth with a wet towel, took out a vomit-cleanup kit and began dealing with the filth. His movements were extremely practiced. He had already repeated this sort of thing many times.

He picked up the communicator and declared in a tone that allowed no argument.

“Today’s training is cancelled here. Understood?”

Without even waiting for Marco, who was collecting data at the factory, to answer, he slammed the receiver down and began removing the tubes extending from Cardiel’s four limbs.

When he lifted the goggles, Cardiel’s exhausted face was revealed. Even so, the light of fighting spirit still dwelled in her eyes.

“Wait. I can still… do it…”

Even while breathing roughly, Cardiel tried to act strong. Dias lightly flicked her forehead with his finger.

“Ow! What are you doing?”

“Understand your own physical condition and act accordingly. That is an iron rule for hunters.『I pushed myself too hard and got taken down』. In our world, that’s nothing but foolishness.”

After scolding her briefly, yet clearly, he smiled at her as if to reassure her.

“Please. If something happened to you, I would be terribly sad. Won’t you withdraw this time for my sake?”

After being told that much, Cardiel had no choice but to back down. She let out a small sigh. It was aimed at her own stubbornness and at the fact that she had made Dias worry.

“Sorry. Then, will you escort me back to my room?”

Dias switched the controls to normal operation mode and drove the tank toward the factory.

He was still not used to piloting it. He no longer crashed into walls and destroyed them but he was still moving it timidly and nervously and the vibrations were terrible.

Cardiel, who was secured by a seatbelt in the seat right beside Dias, still seemed unable to shake off her nausea, and her face was pale.

When he offered the canteen to her again, she drank it all down in one go, since they were going back anyway.

“I wonder when this will finally succeed…”

“Don’t rush. This is humanity’s first attempt. There’s no way results would come that easily.”

“That’s true, but…”

She started to say something, then closed her mouth. Even though she did not put it into words, Dias understood her feelings well. As if carrying on the thought for her, he continued.

“We’ve always been chased by invisible anxiety. The impatience you feel is exactly what I feel too. We have definitely been moving forward. I think we can at least be confident about that.”

“Yes. We started from the worst possible place, but compared to back then, we’re much better now.”

Until the tank reached the factory, Cardiel gazed tirelessly at Dias’s profile as he looked somewhere far away.

***

After laying Cardiel down in the hospital room, Dias visited Marco’s office. He had not been called there in particular. Marco lifted his eyes from the documents in his hands, confirmed who the intruder was, and said in a bored tone.

“What is it? Did you come here to whine?”

“Doctor, are you a little tired?”

Only after it was pointed out did Marco realize that his attitude had not been pleasant and he gave a self-mocking smile.

“Yeah, that was not good of me. Sorry….So, how are things on your end?”

“How, you mean?”

“I wondered if you had come to ask me to stop the experiment because Cardiel-kun looks like she’s suffering.”

He tossed the documents onto the desk. The rows of numbers were not something Dias could understand at a glance, but they did not seem to contain very pleasant information.

“No. I want this experiment to succeed.”

“Oh?”

Behind his glasses, Marco widened his eyes. He had been completely convinced that Dias had come either to complain or to show weakness.

“Cardiel’s fighting spirit has not disappeared. She is filled with determination to master the tank. In that case, what I should do is support her with everything I have.”

“I thought you were a little more overprotective than that.”

“I don’t think merely keeping someone away from danger can be called love.”

“I agree. Walking beside someone and walking them with a collar around their neck are entirely different things.”

After they looked at each other and laughed lightly, Marco returned to a serious expression, as if restarting the conversation, and tapped the documents with his fingertips.

“I understand the extent of your determination. Then, your business this time is about Cardiel-kun’s physical condition, is it?”

“Yes. Once she connects her nerves to the tank, after about an hour, she feels dizziness and nausea. If she pushes herself any further, she vomits.”

“Hmm. Morning sickness, maybe?”

“I won’t say there’s no possibility but I think that’s probably not it.”

“You don’t have to answer that seriously.”

Marco watched Dias silently lower his head, thinking that he was a strange guy.

“Jokes aside, Cardiel-kun’s symptoms are motion sickness.”

“Motion sickness…?”

Dias made a doubtful face. He had come to discuss Cardiel’s symptoms seriously, and when he was told something like motion sickness, it was only natural that he would react this way.

“No, of course it isn’t motion sickness itself, okay? I mean that the symptoms are similar to it. I’ll explain it step by step, so please listen without wrinkling your brow like that.”

Saying that, Marco grabbed the sleeve of his white coat and rolled it up. His pale skin was revealed, contrasting with Dias’s lightly tanned skin.

“It seems it was quite important that a prosthetic arm had the shape of an arm. Even if a machine that isn’t living flesh is forcibly attached, as long as its shape is right, the brain recognizes it as an arm.”

He fixed his sleeve, then suddenly grimaced and said.

“Ahh, so this is an arm? It’s an arm? Well, it’s shaped kind of like an arm, so I guess I’ll move it as an arm. That sort of feeling. For the time being, the brain accepts it.”

Was that strange face he was making supposed to speak for the brain’s feelings? While admiring that odd attention to detail, Dias nodded and urged him to continue.

“But if something that looks nothing like an arm is attached, the brain gets confused. If that condition continues, it begins affecting the body as well.”

As he spoke, Marco flipped through the documents. Apparently finding what he wanted, he pulled out one sheet and placed it on top. As expected, Dias could not really understand what was written on it.

“Now that we know the cause, the next question is how to improve it. First, I suppose we reduce the amount of information.”

“The amount of information…You mean reduce the number of things she has to do.”

“It would have been ideal if she could do everything alone, though. By the way, Dias-kun, I hear you’re good at sniping. What’s the farthest target you’ve ever shot?”

“About one kilometer, I suppose…”

Dias answered while averting his eyes. If possible, he did not want Marco to ask what he had shot. Fortunately, Marco’s interest seemed to be in the distance, not the target.

“That’s impressive. You’re quite the sniper. In that case, let’s have you handle the gunner’s role.”

“I’ve never handled a tank’s main gun before. Do you think I can do it?”

“You just need to practice. At the very least, since you already know what sniping is, you’ll probably improve quickly.”

『Was that really true?』Dias was not sure. However, if it would reduce Cardiel’s burden, he readily agreed.

“Earlier, you said『first』. Does that mean there are other methods as well?”

“There are. Rather, this next one is the main thing. Get used to it.”

“Get used to it?”

“We teach her head that the tank is part of her body. You’re in a profession that uses the body, so you should understand the importance of repeated training better than I do, shouldn’t you?”

“That’s certainly true but this suddenly became a very analog discussion.”

“As long as we’re human, not everything can be solved digitally. I’m a researcher and a cybernetic doctor, but that doesn’t mean I hold romantic fantasies about science.”

Marco gave a hmph through his nose and shrugged.

“When the experiment first started, she was throwing up after thirty minutes. Now she can last an hour. As she gets used to it, that will become two hours, three hours and eventually she’ll be able to move it freely.”

“I understand. Then, for tomorrow’s training onward, I would like to make acclimatization the goal. We move for thirty minutes, rest, then move again and rest again. What do you think?”

“Hmm…”

For some reason, Marco hesitated to answer.

As Dias was wondering suspiciously why Marco would hesitate over a proposal that should have been perfectly reasonable in the flow of their conversation, Marco spoke with a somewhat troubled expression.

“If we start from that sort of thing, it looks like it’ll take a long time to produce results…”

“Doctor, this is something I said to Cardiel as well…”

Dias prefaced his words, then continued.

“The experiment we are conducting is a great and revolutionary one, the first in human history. We must not rush, chase only results, and do something that ruins everything.”

It was much more exaggerated than when he had persuaded Cardiel but this much was probably just right for convincing Marco.

“Please forgive my foolishness in lecturing an expert.”

He straightened his back, then lowered his head. With both his attitude and reasoning presented so boldly, even Marco had no words to reply with.

The reasons Marco wanted to advance the experiment quickly were twofold. First, he himself wanted to see results. Second, the employees were complaining about how long he intended to keep pouring money into incomprehensible experiments. Even if he tried to argue back, it would only sound like a strained excuse.

“Understood. I’ll think up a training menu along those lines.”

“Thank you. Then…”

As Marco stared at the door after Dias had left, he let out a heavy sigh.

“Every last one of them just says whatever they want…”

Yet contrary to his words, an amused smile floated on his lips.

***

She had cut off her left arm, became one with the tank, and then half a year had passed.

Now, the jet-black tank carrying Dias and Cardiel was racing across the wasteland. This was its first deployment in actual combat.

Behind the tank followed an armored truck equipped with four machine guns. It was a data-collection vehicle loaded with a camera and various computers in its cargo bed and Marco was riding along in it as well.

Thanks to their careful acclimatization, Cardiel no longer suffered from what should perhaps be called motion sickness or prosthetic-limb sickness. Because they had taken so much time, Marco seemed to have received quite a lot of complaints from the employees. For that very reason, he was determined to produce results on this expedition and he was nervous as well.

As for Dias and Cardiel, they also wanted to show their abilities for Marco’s sake, since in one way or another, he had protected them. Also, if they failed to produce results in actual combat and were driven out after being judged useless after all, that would be unbearable.

Wrapped in a suitable sense of tension, the group drove around in search of medium-sized mutants. They could see small mutants about the size of wild dogs here and there, but medium-sized ones several meters tall were hard to find.

“This kind of thing never shows up when you want it to, and comes when you don’t want it to.”

“I never thought the day would come when I’d wish for a medium-sized mutant to be around.”

“True. Back then…”

Both of them fell silent. They did not want to put into words that day when they had been attacked by the dog-spiders, when their comrades had been massacred in an instant and when Cardiel had been abducted. No matter how much time passed, not all memories faded. The color of blood staining a sepia photograph did not grow faint.

A pii electronic beep broke the silence. On the monitor installed beside Dias, Marco’s figure appeared in monochrome, mixed with static.

“Hey there, you two. Enjoying the drive?”

“Without some kind of event, I’m afraid my girlfriend will get bored. Is there a restaurant with a nice view nearby?”

Cardiel looked at the two men laughing together with slight surprise. When had they become close enough to joke with each other like this?

It was not as though she was worried about cheating, but the fact that Dias had a side and a circle of friendships she did not know about somehow displeased her.

“I don’t know any for humans. But according to the Hunter Office’s information, it seems a mutant may have had a meal up ahead.”

“Do we know what kind of customer it is?”

Though his tone was joking, his expression was completely serious.

“It’s only that the corpse of a hunter whose intestines had been eaten was found. There’s no detailed information at all, unfortunately.”

It was a terribly unreliable story but the important point was this: there might be a medium-sized mutant somewhere nearby.

“Dias, I’m going to stop here and widen the search range. Tell the truck behind us too.”

Cardiel stopped the vehicle, closed her eyes and directed every nerve toward the antenna. She increased the sensitivity twofold, threefold, trying to detect the presence of all life. Inside her mind, the image of a radar unfolded, with particles of light emerging.

Her figure carried the solemn air of a master sitting in Zen meditation and Dias could only watch over her without saying anything. Judging from the fact that she showed no reaction, there were probably no medium-sized mutants in the surrounding area. He felt both disappointed and relieved, a complicated state of mind.

They had missed today. Everyone thought so.

Just as Marco and the researchers stood up, thinking they might start preparing to return, Cardiel suddenly shouted.

“Life reaction at three o’clock! Medium-sized mutant, incoming!”

As if they had been snapped into motion, everyone began preparing. The turret rotated, waiting for the enemy. The armored truck also aimed its machine guns in the indicated direction.

His breathing grew rough. His hands began to sweat. Dias peered into the sight without even blinking.

A shadow leapt out.

Now.

With absolute confidence in his timing, he fired an armor-piercing shell. However, the enemy was faster than expected and all he managed to do was graze its back.

As for the truck, it could not even react. Without firing a single shot in return, it took the enemy’s body slam and shook violently.

Marco and the others experienced the sensation of floating softly into the air. After an experience that seemed both several seconds long and instantaneous, they were slammed violently against the wall. The armored truck had overturned. The machine guns mounted on the upper part of the cargo bed fired vainly into the blue sky.

The line of fire was blocked by the body of the truck. If they fired at the mutant now, they would hit the truck as well.

“Cardiel, circle around!”

Dias turned and shouted. But the tank did not move.

“Ah… aah…!”

Her teeth chattering, Cardiel froze on the spot. Even with half her face covered by the goggles, the color of fear could clearly be seen.

The enemy climbed onto the overturned truck and, with one of its legs, punched through the side of the cargo bed. With a single blow, it pierced twenty-millimeter-thick armor and opened a hole several centimeters wide.

Yes. He knew it well. He knew how fast that thing was, and how devastating a single strike from its legs could be.

“Looks like we’re thoroughly tied by fate…”

Dias muttered bitterly, glaring at the mutant covering the cargo bed.

For Dias and Cardiel, it was the embodiment of their nightmare. An ugly god of death.

It was a dog-spider.

Its forelegs, like the scythes of a death god, swung down again and again. Each time, holes opened in the truck’s armor, creating pillars of light where the sun poured in.

The people trapped inside the laboratory that had been built into the cargo bed reacted in different ways. Some fainted. Some cried and screamed. Some desperately tried to get outside.

Marco held his breath and moved to the edge. Even if he erased his presence, it probably would not help against a dog-spider but it was the only thing he could do.

He had been naive. Had he not assumed, somewhere in his heart, that no matter what happened, they would be safe as long as they were inside the armored truck? He had gathered data on mutants. He had seen some photographs too. But now, facing one in person with only a single sheet of armor between them, he no longer had any idea what to do.

“Doctor, don’t go outside! I’ll peel that thing off!”

The voice of their savior came from the monitor that had fallen over. He was the only one they could rely on in this situation.

But how? The tank had not moved since earlier. Was there some kind of trouble? Or had the dog-spider done something to it?

Marco felt irritated with himself, wondering if fear really made his mind work this badly.

“So in the end, I was just a genius on paper. Once I’m out in the field, I’m useless… Don’t screw with me. I’m absolutely going to survive this!”

He grabbed the monitor with both hands and held it in place. The camera was broken and it could only transmit audio now.

“Come on, Dias. What are you going to do so we can survive? You madman who faced that thing with nothing but a rifle!”

Meanwhile, Dias had grabbed his rifle and was about to leap outside. This, too, was something Marco had prepared for him. It could not be called the latest model, but it was in a completely different class from the antique he had used before.

Just as he was about to open the hatch, a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he placed a hand on Cardiel’s shoulder. She trembled with a jolt and raised her face. Dias spoke to her gently, and powerfully.

“I’m with you now. Watch me. I’ll prove to you that as long as we’re together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

“Wait, Dias, don’t go. Don’t do anything dangerous…!”

Shaking off Cardiel’s anguished cry, he opened the hatch and sprang out. Standing upright on top of the tank, he readied his rifle and caught the dog-spider in his scope.

Could it possibly be the puppy-spider from back then? The thought crossed his mind. He immediately corrected himself, deciding it was absurd. If they grew that quickly, the surface would have long since been filled with dog-spiders and humanity would have been exterminated.

Perhaps sensing the killing intent, the dog-spider turned around. The same red eyes he had seen in the ruins pierced Dias once again. A vivid crimson, colored with rage.

Dias was not overwhelmed. Rather, his fighting spirit was stirred, and he placed his finger on the trigger.

“We’re not the same as we were back then either!”

A rifle round for use against mutants was fired toward the dog-spider’s brow. As though Dias’s will itself had possessed it, the bullet flew straight ahead and pierced the dog-spider’s face with not the slightest deviation.

Did he bring it down?

Without even checking that, he slipped back inside the tank. He was certain that something like that would not kill it.

And in fact, the dog-spider faltered only for an instant. It immediately flew into a rage and leapt toward the tank.

The brow was a weak point for all living creatures. At the same time, it was also the hardest part of the skull. The bullet had sunk into its brow and stopped there.

The moment Dias’s body fit back inside the tank, it launched forward rapidly and opened distance from the dog-spider.

Cardiel seemed to have recovered. Amid the vibrations, Dias smiled, braced a hand against the wall, staggered, and somehow made it into the gunner’s seat.

There were no words between the two of them. But there was a definite trust there.

While driving, she rotated the turret and aligned the sight perfectly with the dog-spider. It was a flowing, flawless motion. There was no longer any trace of fear in Cardiel’s eyes.

“I will never let this person be killed. That, and only that, is everything to me!”

There was nothing obstructing the shot. The dog-spider and the turret were connected by a straight line. Even if the shell passed through, there was no chance it would hit the truck. Every condition had come together.

Dias inhaled, held his breath and squeezed the trigger.

A thunderous roar tore through the air. Into the dog-spider’s half-open mouth, from which thick, sticky drool was dripping, a brutally violent lump of iron, incomparable to a rifle round, was forced.

It pulverized the dog’s head, gouged out the spider’s body and the shell was swallowed by the rock wall beyond. Spraying dark, murky bodily fluid everywhere, the dog-spider became a meaningless lump of flesh and collapsed. There was not even a death cry.

Faced with the far too abrupt and pitiful end of their fated archenemy, the inescapable death god, the two of them could not continue speaking.

“Is this the part where we’re supposed to say『serves you right』I wonder…?”

Even Cardiel, who probably hated the dog-spider more than anyone, did not know what she should do at that moment.

“At any rate, let’s contact the doctor. From the way things looked, he probably has no idea what’s going on over here.”

“Hope he’s still alive.”

“Do you think that man would die so easily?”

“No. Absolutely not. He’s definitely alive.”

The two of them were certain of it. Although, to be fair, that feeling was closer to an assessment of a cockroach than trust in the person named Marco.

Dias attempted to communicate with the research team’s armored truck. Perhaps the camera was broken, because no image appeared on the monitor, but somehow, the audio alone connected.

“Doctor, we dealt with that thing. It’s safe to come outside now.”

“When you say that thing… you mean the dog-spider?”

Marco’s trembling voice came through the communicator. What else could he possibly mean in this situation besides the dog-spider? That was not like Doctor Marco. Dias thought so, but he matched the other man and repeated himself.

“Yes, the dog-spider. We brought it down with cannon fire.”

Voices of commotion could be heard from behind Marco.

From their point of view, they had seen the truck overturned by a body slam, witnessed the power of its legs easily piercing armor, and had the red eyes peering through the holes burned strongly into their memories. It was only natural that they would find it hard to immediately believe they had been told such a monster had been dealt with so easily.

“Understood. I’m coming over there now, so can you guide me?”

After giving several instructions to the researchers and requesting a recovery team from the factory, Marco boarded the tank. A reasonable amount of space had been secured, but with three people inside, it still felt cramped.

Dias was slightly surprised by his appearance. Marco’s hair was messily disheveled with sweat and strands clung to his forehead. His clothes were in disorder, and on top of that, his glasses were crooked. This was the first time Dias had seen Marco like this, when he was usually so composed and stylish.

Dias thought Marco might complain about their delayed initial response but nothing of the sort happened. More than anyone else, Marco was blaming himself for his own naivety. He had been attacked by a dog-spider and had been able to do nothing but tremble in the corner. A blunder unworthy of a genius.

“You know, even though I’m involved in weapons development, this was my first time seeing a mutant directly. I made guns without even knowing what they would be pointed at and was satisfied with that. How ridiculous…”

Marco began to speak, bit by bit. There lay the true feelings of a man stripped of all confidence, composure, and conceit.

“You survived today, didn’t you?”

Dias was probably trying to comfort him. Coming from a man who had truly returned from the bottom of hell, the words had a different weight. But to Marco as he was now, even that consideration served only as material that amplified his misery.

Seeing Marco remain depressed, Dias decided to change the subject.

“How is the damage on your side? Are all the researchers safe?”

“Yeah, the human damage is minor. There are a few injured, but no one’s life is in danger. Though there is one guy who wet himself and wounded his dignity as a man.”

Marco let out a low kukuku chuckle. It seemed he had recovered his usual rhythm a little.

“It was a blessing in disguise that the truck driver had fainted. If he had been awake, he would definitely have tried to get outside. I’m truly glad he avoided ending up like a side character in a B-grade horror movie. Ahh, truly glad.”

Although he said he was glad, there was irritation mixed into his words, as if to say,『Of all times, you had to pass out then?』It was just too pathetic.

In contrast, Dias was genuinely relieved from the bottom of his heart. If anyone had died, their relationship with Marco and the others would have deteriorated beyond repair. He did not know how this incident would affect the researchers’ salary evaluations, but for now, he hoped they would consider it good enough that they were alive.

One minute by tank from the armored truck’s location, there lay the dog-spider’s corpse. It was a distance they could have walked, but under the blazing sun, with the risk of small mutants appearing, he did not want to take noncombatants out for a stroll.

A few carnivorous flies had already gathered around the dog-spider’s corpse, which could no longer be called anything but a lump of meat.

Marco caught his breath when he saw the meaningless corpse.

“Well now, this is quite an…awful way to kill something.”

He understood at a glance. A shell had been shoved into its mouth.

“…It was open.”

Dias answered in an emotionless voice. He was a man rich in loyalty and human feeling, but that was only outside of battle. There had been a chance, so he shot. Its weak point had been exposed, so he aimed for it. Seeing the young man answer so calmly, Marco felt, 『This guy is broken somewhere too』. He had no intention of criticizing him. That was precisely what made him a hunter and an excellent guinea pig.

For a while, the two of them looked down at what remained of the dog-spider. Before long, heat filled Marco’s eyes and a smile of pleasure and ecstasy rose to his lips. He covered his mouth with his hand. He knew without looking in a mirror. Right now, he was probably making an incredibly vulgar face. And it was all because he had realized something.

“You two did this, didn’t you?”

In a high-pitched voice, he once again asked something with an obvious answer. How would Dias answer? No, Marco already knew. He was expecting it. Surely Dias would comfort a man who had shown such a disgraceful side and fallen into depression.

“It was all thanks to the power of the tank you gave us, Doctor Marco.”

『Well said』. Marco nodded with an expression of deep emotion.

It was obvious, but the dog-spider had been defeated using the tank and they were the ones who had built that tank. So what if they had been unable to respond to the enemy themselves? Comparing them to Dias and Cardiel, specialists in mutant hunting, was wrong from the start.

Until just a moment ago, he had been thinking about what to do with the researchers’ salaries next month, but he now withdrew all of that. Rather, by facing a real mutant this time, they had felt its threat firsthand. Could they not become a group of geniuses who would make use of that experience in weapons development? Far from lowering their salaries, he should improve their treatment and value them.

And he should not let go of these young people either, the ones who could fully draw out the power of his weapon. Marco agonized over how he should keep them close. He would be in trouble if they said,『The experiment is over, so we’ll return the tank, take the prosthetic limbs and go home』.

Through the past half year of association, he felt he had come to understand the man named Dias at least a little. Rather than forcibly tying him down, building a good relationship would make him work better.

“Dias-kun, about that tank…Why don’t I transfer it to you?”

“Huh? The tank, you mean?”

It was only natural that Dias was surprised. Tanks were the dream of all hunters, and what kind of tank one rode was also a mark of first-class status. On top of that, it was a latest model. He had never imagined that he would be able to keep riding it even after the experiment ended.

“Of course, I can’t say you may have it for free. I’ll charge money. A loan is fine, though.”

Another layer of surprise was added. Hunters always lived side by side with the danger of death. They were the sort of people where, if you lent them money today, they might be dead tomorrow. Unless they had considerable trust and achievements, they could not take on debt. Their social credibility was only about the same as a stray dog’s.

When Dias conveyed those thoughts, Marco laughed and said,

“I really can’t imagine you dying and leaving Cardiel-kun behind.”

On that point alone, Dias was confident too. He nodded firmly in agreement.

“Thank you for your consideration. I would like to answer immediately, but may I consult Cardiel first, just in case?”

Marco readily accepted the request. After all, there was no way Cardiel would object to Dias’s proposal. If granting permission allowed him to put Dias even slightly in his debt, that was good enough.

With this, all the conditions were in place. Until they finished paying back the money, they would desperately continue fighting mutants and bring back real combat data. He was also the only one who could perform the maintenance. Dias would not act dishonorably toward someone he had asked for help. A relationship that could never be severed had now been completed.

Marco watched Dias’s back as he trotted toward the tank, wearing a secret smirk.