Vol. 1 Chapter 4 – The Shape of Happiness

After finishing the nerve-connected tank’s first battle and returning to Marco Manufacturing, Dias immediately carried Cardiel into the hospital room they were using as a dormitory.

Marco and the researchers were probably busy cleaning up afterward and organizing the data but to Dias right now, that did not matter. More than anything, he wanted to prioritize Cardiel’s physical condition.

He removed her from the tank, did not attach her prosthetic limbs, and gently laid Cardiel, who was in a state without her four limbs, onto the bed before covering her with a blanket.

『Are you tired? Do you feel sick? Do you want some water?』Dias fussed over Cardiel in a fluster, taking care of her. A man who could twist an armor-piercing shell into the mouth of a vicious mutant would start panicking the moment it involved his lover. To Cardiel, that was both funny and made her happy .

“Dias, calm down, Dias. I’m fine. I’m a little tired, but I don’t feel sick.”

“Ah, r-right…”

Cardiel moved around mozomozo and skillfully raised her upper body. Dias let out a relieved breath, pulled over a pipe chair, and sat down.

“Good work today, Cardiel.”

“Yes, you too, Dias.”

The two looked at each other, thanked each other for their efforts, and finally felt that they had returned to a safe place. The strength left their bodies. Even though the room should have been hot and humid, for some reason it felt as if a refreshing breeze had blown through.

“We defeated a dog-spider, didn’t we? It was probably a different individual from that one, but…”

“Yeah, we did.”

Cardiel murmured deeply and Dias slowly nodded. Then Cardiel looked down and began trembling with her limbless body.

『What was she thinking right now?』He did not know.

『What should he say to her?』He did not know that either.

Had the fear from that day come back to her? Or had she overcome that fear? As Dias searched desperately for the words he should say, Cardiel suddenly raised her face as if tossing her hair wildly, and burst into laughter.

“Ahaha… ahahahaha!”

“Cardiel?”

It was an eerie way of laughing, enough that for an instant he suspected she might have lost her sanity. Dias hurriedly peered into Cardiel’s eyes. They were focused. Their light had not been lost either. She should be all right for now. Holding his chest, where his blood had begun pounding faster from anxiety and shock, Dias waited for Cardiel to calm down.

“I thought there was no way we could ever beat it. That monster that turned our comrades into mincemeat in an instant, carried me away, and ate my limbs, ended up sucking on a shell and exploding to death…!”

Cardiel was laughing. She kept laughing. Seeing something shining at the corners of her eyes, Dias took out a handkerchief and wiped it away for her. Then the hate-possessed roar of laughter faded away and all that remained afterward was a sorrowful smile.

“Hey, Dias. If I said I wanted to willingly fall into hell, would you come with me?”

“I’ll take a light and lead the way.”

At his oddly phrased answer, without a shred of hesitation, Cardiel let out a small laugh. It was probably not just a joke. Once before, he had truly done exactly that for her.

“You saved me. I love you from the bottom of my heart, truly. But separate from that, my hatred for the dog-spiders and the other mutants still won’t disappear. Even when I think there might be a path where I forget everything and live peacefully, the limbs I should have lost ache and urge me on, telling me to kill every last one of them.”

Dias silently nodded and urged her to continue. There was no way he could casually deny it, nor should he carelessly pretend to agree. He loved her and he wanted to understand everything about her. Even so, he would probably never be able to fully understand the terror of being carried away by a dog-spider, bound in spider thread, injected with paralyzing venom, and forced to keep having her limbs eaten from the ends by countless puppy-spiders in a castle of rubble.

They were no longer at the stage of questioning whether revenge was right or wrong. The will to keep fighting mutants was a wound carved into her soul, and an inescapable fate.

“If there is no path to peace other than exterminating the mutants…”

Dias spoke slowly, as if chewing over every word.

“Then let’s do it. I’ll keep fighting with you until that day comes.”

“Thank you, Dias.”

It was impossible. Even so, the path they had to walk had become clear. Even if they collapsed halfway down that road, it would surely be a far more meaningful way to live than standing still, crying and being eaten.

With moist eyes turned toward him, Cardiel lay down on the bed. Dias gently stroked his lover’s black hair, pressed his lips against hers and after gazing at each other for a while, leaned over her.

Only the heat and tenderness of flesh could ease the pain of body and heart.

***

Several days later, they were kicked out of the hospital room.

When Dias asked why, Marco answered with an expression that seemed to say,『Why do I have to go out of my way to say something like this?』

“Because this is a hospital room, not a hotel.”

They had more than enough idea what he meant. Dias and Cardiel, sitting side by side on the bed, shrank in on themselves and simultaneously lowered their heads.

“Sorry.”

“It seems like you’re trying to keep your voices and sounds down, but you know, people can tell. I’ve even gotten a complaint from the next room that they ran out of tissues. I fully understand that the two of you have that kind of relationship and I’m not denying it, but can’t you restrain yourselves a little?”

“If I don’t kill something or do it at least once a day, I can’t calm down…”

Cardiel said this while making the three claws of her prosthetic hand go kachikachi. If one heard only that, it sounded completely like the statement of a dangerous person. However, the fact that she was combative was also something Marco appreciated, since he wanted actual combat data.

“Would that mean we rent a room outside and commute from there?”

Dias said it in a way that hinted at the disadvantages: commuting would take time, the amount of time they could spend here would decrease, and responding to sudden calls would also take longer.

“I know even without you threatening me.”

Marco lightly raised both hands.

“I’ll prepare a new house for you inside the factory grounds. Ah, when I say house, it’s not anything that impressive. It’s more like I made some minor adjustments to a storage shed. The electricity and water aren’t directly connected to the factory but I’ve installed a generator and a water tank. I think it should be fine as a place for living, or rather, for repeatedly sleeping and waking up.”

Cardiel glanced at Dias. It probably meant,『I’ll leave it to you』.

“Thank you very much, truly, for everything.”

Saying that, Dias bowed deeply and Cardiel followed his lead.

“Yeah, I mean, it really is just a storage shed…”

Being thanked so deeply for something like that made Marco feel uncomfortable, as if he had unintentionally deceived them.

***

Marco Manufacturing, at the very edge of the premises. The hut stood in a location five minutes on foot from the maintenance factory, with the parking lot in between. It was a rectangular hut of bare, unfinished concrete. A generator, gas cylinder and water tank had been attached later in a rather haphazard fashion.

The word『appropriate』could mean both『sloppy』and『suitable handling』and in this case, both meanings seemed correct. It was truly an appropriate hut.

Marco, who had guided them this far, had braced himself for at least one complaint, but what came out of Dias’s mouth was not flattery or a stopgap remark, but words of gratitude.

“Doctor, thank you very much. This is truly a wonderful house.”

“Wonder… ful…?”

It took Marco more than ten seconds to understand the meaning of those words. He had prepared something this haphazard, something he even hesitated to call a house, so what on earth was this guy saying?

“It’s much larger than the room we lived in until recently.”

“Um, that was the room where a parking lot had been forcibly divided off with concrete walls, right?”

“That’s correct.”

When Marco pulled that information from a past casual conversation and asked, Dias nodded deeply.

Certainly, compared to a prison one could enter and leave, even a house like this would seem splendid. But the thing he was comparing it to was strange in the first place. Thinking back on it, Marco hung his head, realizing that even though he sold weapons to hunters, he knew very little about hunters’ lives and what their reality was actually like.

“I really didn’t know anything, did I? Not about mutants and not about hunters either.”

“It’s only natural, in a way, not to know about other people’s lives. I don’t know what kind of room you sleep in, Doctor, what you eat, how much your yearly income is or what kind of women you like.”

“Well, maybe so. Though I do know what kind of woman you like.”

It was less flattery and more like a joke that had come out naturally with the flow of the conversation, but Cardiel was smiling so brightly and happily, more than he had ever seen before, that Marco decided it would be boorish to take it back now and kept his mouth shut.

Once the conversation reached a pause, Dias opened the door. From inside, the smell of mold and dust came pouring out as if being pushed forward. It seemed true that this had been an old storage shed.

“If we turn on the light, it won’t cause a dust explosion or anything, will it?”

“It’ll be fine. It’s made of concrete.”

That was true, but not the point. This person was just like that. The spoon had been thrown. Dias gave up on retorting and reached for the switch near the entrance. If it exploded, Marco would be going down with him.

Perhaps dust had gotten packed into it, because the switch was somewhat stiff. When he slowly pushed it in, the bare bulb on the ceiling flickered several times before dimly illuminating the whole room.

There was one large bed. In the corner of the room was a toilet with no partition, and beside it was a washbasin. That was all. Nothing more. Calling it a prison was by no means a joke.

As expected, there was no trace of disappointment in Dias’s eyes. When Marco sent a glance toward Cardiel as if to ask,『What about you?』Cardiel shrugged and smiled.

“As long as we can secure some privacy, I have no problem with it.”

The hospital room had been spacious, bright, and clean, but even if it was a private room, the coming and going of people had not been completely restricted. And though the walls were not thin, if they made loud noises, it would reach the room next door. Sometimes, ease and freedom mattered more than comfort.

She was too embarrassed to say it out loud, but she was a little excited. Starting from a prison-like place, then slowly cleaning it up and gathering furniture together, was that not just like a newlywed couple from a story?

“I’d like to check how firm the bed is right away, but…”

Saying that, Cardiel peered into the room over Dias’s shoulder. She did not mind the lack of belongings, but the mold and dust filling the place were unacceptable. It lacked romance for a man and woman to speak of love.

“Let’s start with cleaning first.”

“I can at least sweep and wipe things down too.”

Cardiel fully agreed with Dias’s proposal and made the three claws of her prosthetic hand go kachikachi. The abnormal arm was a symbol of shame and humiliation to her, but at this moment, she seemed happy that she could do some positive work together with Dias.

“Doctor, may we borrow a broom, bucket, and such?”

“Ah, in that case…”

Saying that, Marco languidly pointed outside the window.

“We left the contents of the hut behind it, so there should probably be a broom and things like that in there.”

When they went outside and around to the back, a mountain of scrap material had been built up there. Dias could not help comparing the pile of scrap and the hut over and over, wondering if all of this had really fit inside the hut.

There was probably a master of storage among the employees. Saying that if they were going to pack it in that tightly, it would have been faster to make the hut bigger or dispose of unneeded items might have been tactless.

Dias walked around the pile of scrap, grabbed what looked like the handle of a broom, and tried to pull it out. However, he somehow had a bad feeling and made Cardiel and the others step back.

When he pulled, just as expected, the scrap came crashing down with a clatter and Dias retreated as if leaping backward.

He did not think it was dangerous. Compared to the charge of a mutant, it was like a gentle breeze. Stopping a helmet that came rolling down with the sole of his foot, Dias checked the condition of the T-shaped broom as if nothing had happened. The fastener was a little loose, but it seemed usable without issue.

He tossed the broom in a high arc, and the three claws caught it. After watching Cardiel enter the hut while cheerfully swaying her hips, Dias looked up at the mountain of scrap again.

“There are still many things here that look usable.”

“If you repair them, yes.”

Marco had the face of someone calculating taxes.

“Everything here is a mountain of lingering attachments, things that were kept because someone said they might use them someday, but never did. The effort of repairing them was just slightly greater than reusing them. It’s the very foolishness of people who kept waiting for a『someday』that would never come.”

“In that case, may I take them?”

“…It’s trash, you know?”

“It is trash with your seal of approval that it can still be used if repaired. That must be why it was kept aside.”

“Well, I suppose that’s true, but…”

They would not use it. It was in the way. If someone disposed of it for them, that would actually be appreciated. Even while knowing that, a lingering attachment remained. The charm of unneeded items is a frightening thing, Marco thought with a wry smile.

“Fine, I’ll give all of it to you. But what exactly are you planning to do with it?”

Only a small portion of the mountain of unwanted items seemed usable for the two of them to live together. He did not think a dust-covered lathe was necessary for starting a new life. The same went for the engine sticky with oil stains and the rusted eighteen-liter cans whose contents were unclear.

“I plan to use what can be used and either repair or dismantle and sell the rest. I thought it might help with the rent.”

“Re… nt…?”

It took Marco a short while to understand the meaning of the word『rent』. The very idea of lending out this grimy storage shed and charging rent for it had never occurred to him. The fact that they had not complained about being shoved into a place like this was already more than enough. He had even been thinking that someday, he would have to prepare a slightly better room for them.

On the other hand, Dias seemed to genuinely like this storage shed, and he had a look on his face that said paying rent was only natural, common sense. Marco had heard a little from Dias about the life of hunters but it seemed his imagination had still not reached the heart of it.

Now then, what should he do? Marco thought. Should he show his generosity and say he did not need any rent? No, it would be better to squeeze as much money as possible out of Dias and Cardiel. In the first place, the reason he had given them the tank was to bury them in debt so they could not leave Marco Manufacturing.

“Yes, well, rent. I don’t intend to make it that expensive, so don’t worry.”

Dias gave Marco, who wore a stiff smile, a suspicious look, but in the end, he said nothing.

Konkon, came the sound of a wooden handle tapping the wall.

“Hey, Dias, how long are you going to keep flirting with another man?”

“Ah, sorry. I’ll be right there.”

After lowering his head and saying,『Excuse me』, Dias grabbed a suitable bucket and trotted into the hut.

“I suppose I should retreat before I get kicked by the horse…”

Scratching the back of his head, Marco decided he could not deal with them any longer and started walking toward the maintenance factory. The two of them were surely happy. He could not understand it, though.

***

The cleaning of the storage hut was finished and for the time being, it had become clean enough that sleeping there would not harm their health. It was simply a matter of turning an unusable prison into a usable prison, but if they were too particular about every small detail, it felt like the work would never end, so they had no choice but to compromise.

“At last, that’s one thing settled!”

Immediately after throwing herself onto the bed, the smile vanished from Cardiel’s face and she went completely serious. Even though they had beaten it again and again to drive out the dust, a faint cloud of dust still rose from it. On top of that, it smelled slightly moldy. She wanted to take not only the mattress but the whole bed outside and sun-dry it, but the sun was already setting and she did not have the energy for that much work.

She felt strangely tired and her body felt heavy. It was probably because she had spent the whole day wearing and moving around with her nerve-connected prosthetic limbs.

“Dias, can you take these off?”

“Mm, yeah.”

Wondering if something had caught his attention, she followed Dias’s gaze and saw that he seemed bothered by a section of the wall that was chipped. Even though they had just cleaned, grains of concrete were already falling parapara onto the floor.

“We’ll have to repair places like this.”

“Good grief, we’ve got a long road ahead.”

“I’m actually enjoying it quite a bit. It feels like upgrading a secret base.”

“Boys really do love that kind of thing, don’t they?”

“Yeah, I love it. Though I never had friends to play with.”

Even when he unraveled his memories of the past, not a single bright story came out, so Dias gently placed a lid over those memories. Youth, friends, he had none of those things. His life had been like continuing to write 『nothing in particular』in a diary every single day. These past few months were like writing love letters in blood, but compared to before, they were far more wonderful and romantic.

“Don’t look so down. I’m here now, aren’t I? Let’s repair the hut together, okay?”

“Thank you. Hearing you say that really saves me.”

There was happiness that could not be given a price tag. Dias nodded as if everything made sense to him, pulled his awareness back to reality and tapped the concrete wall.

“Don’t you think it would be good to have a handrail around here? There should have been several iron pipes in『Doctor’s collection』. If we process those, it may not look great, but it should be convenient.”

“Make it sturdy, okay? I’m actually pretty heavy… No, wait, what I just said includes the prosthetic limbs, okay? My real body isn’t heavy at all, okay? I mean, not at all!”

Cardiel hurriedly emphasized that point. She usually gave the impression of a mature woman, but seeing this side of her was cute too, and Dias smiled.

“Come to think of it, this is the second time we’ve been kicked out of a hospital room, isn’t it?”

Cardiel said this as if changing the subject, and Dias also made a face as though remembering the past fondly.

“Hospital room, my room, hospital room, storage hut. We’ve drifted and been swept along until we ended up here, but I’d like to believe we’re definitely moving forward… wa… it…”

When Dias suddenly lowered his voice and sank into thought, Cardiel tilted her head slightly and asked,

“What’s wrong?”

“Hospital room, hospital…I feel like I’m forgetting something…”

He had been living in such a rush that it felt as if his body might burn away. In the midst of that, something had fallen from his pocket, but he did not know what it was. That vague unpleasant feeling. Even if he asked, 『What was that again? since he did not know what『that』was, the person being asked would be troubled too. Dias worried over it alone for a while, then let out an『Ah!』

“I haven’t paid the overdue hospitalization fees.”

“Oh, right, there was that. Maybe they’ve already forgotten about it?”

Dias wondered about that too, but soon shook his head.

“If that place were a corrupt hospital, then ignoring it would be fine. But it is true that they treated my injuries, and they even prepared a private room for us for a while. It would be a problem for them if patients with no prospect of recovery occupied hospital rooms forever, and on top of that, we were behind on the hospitalization fees. It’s only natural that they told us to leave quickly. Reason is on their side. Knowing that and looking away would be dishonest.”

“Mm… mm.”

Cardiel nodded as if pushed by Dias’s pressure.

Cheating fees or stepping on bills was an everyday thing. Rather, boasting that this was the clever way to live was the kind of race known as mutant hunters. Even though people knew they were absolutely necessary to protect the city, this was exactly why they were disliked.

But Dias said they should pay. Return kindness with kindness, and hostility with hostility. That was the duty a person, and a man, should uphold. Cardiel found that theory somewhat difficult to understand, but she felt that staining his sincerity would be the most sinful act of all.

“Okay, then let’s first save up money with the plan of properly paying the hospital too. The tank loan, the room repair costs, the hospitalization fees… nnngh…!”

Cardiel clicked the three claws of her prosthetic hand kachikachi while looking up at the dirty ceiling.

“I guess this is what they call not having enough hands.”

***

It was precisely when they wanted money that prey would not appear.

For the past few days, Dias and Cardiel had been driving the nerve-connected tank around the wasteland on patrol, but there was not even a shadow or shape of a medium-sized mutant. The radar showed only small particles and even those seemed few in number.

They were not optimistic enough to think that mutants had vanished and peace had come to the world. Mutant appearances came in waves and when he thought that this silence might be the omen of a mass outbreak, his spirits grew somewhat heavy.

“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen mutants mating.”

“…What are you suddenly talking about?”

Had he been the kind of man who suddenly started making dirty jokes? Cardiel frowned, but Dias continued in the same serious voice as always.

“No, I was wondering how mutants reproduce. Surely they aren’t being sold at the market.”

“Then maybe they’re being mass-produced in a factory.”

She had meant it as a joke, but Dias groaned,『Uuum』 and seemed to seriously sink into thought. Cardiel spoke brightly, as if to close the topic.

“Well, if we ever happen to witness the moment they mate, let’s record it. The doctor will buy it for a high price. …Hm?”

“What’s wrong?”

Cardiel suddenly lowered her voice, and Dias braced himself, wondering what had happened.

“There’s a biological reaction on the radar, but… it’s fading. I can’t tell if it’s a mutant or a hunter, but it might be injured. What should we do? Go check it out?”

A dying mutant with no hunters nearby. Or the opposite, a hunter barely clinging to life with no mutant nearby. Either way, it gave off nothing but the feeling of trouble. Stealing another person’s prey did not feel very good either.

However, after thinking for a while, Dias suggested, 『Let’s go』. They wanted money, but there was no prey. In that case, even if it was a mutant someone else had damaged, if the rights-holder was not nearby, then finishing it off and cutting off its head could not be helped. At the very least, it was not an act forbidden in the wasteland. Depending on the situation, they could even strip equipment from a hunter.

When Dias explained this in a dark voice, Cardiel answered in a contrastingly cheerful voice,『Okaaay』and turned the tank around.

When they arrived at the scene, traces of a gruesome battle remained there. Scattered blood and entrails, the bodies of hunters lying on the ground, and the corpses of dog-type mutants. It seemed that after a fierce battle, both sides had destroyed each other.

The faint biological reaction belonged to a woman leaning against a rock. Her whole body was covered in blood, and it was unclear whether it was her own blood or blood splattered onto her. Her left leg was gone from below the knee. It seemed to have been bitten off.

They understood the situation. Then what should they do from here? Wait for the survivor to die or finish her off cleanly so there would be no trouble later? He was not eager to do it, but they needed money. As he hesitated, Cardiel presented a third option.

“Hey, can’t we help that person?”

Cardiel, who had always been cold and indifferent toward others until now, suddenly spoke in a sorrowful voice, so Dias turned around with a puzzled look.

“Well, I mean, I don’t care where some death-seeking idiot called a hunter drops dead, but… when I think of a woman who lost her leg, is on the verge of death, and is all alone, hoping for help that will never come, it doesn’t feel like someone else’s problem.”

“I see.”

Dias answered briefly and stood up. He took a chainsaw and a cooler box from the storage compartment, grabbed a first-aid kit, and smiled at Cardiel.

“Something just bothered us a little. Crossroads of fate are like that.”

Cardiel nodded happily, just a little. That alone made him feel that the choice had not been wrong.

He opened the hatch, threw the tools outside, and jumped down from the turret. Perhaps they had sniffed out the scent of death, because several carnivorous flies were already buzzing around.

“Hey, are you alive?”

When he called out to her, the woman’s eyelids trembled, and she turned hollow eyes toward Dias. She had short, slightly wavy blond hair and facial features that gave the impression of both loveliness and strong will. She was about one head shorter than Dias. Looking at her up close, he realized that she seemed to be around the same age as Dias and Cardiel.

“Who… are you…?”

“A complete stranger passing by.”

“The last joke I hear is in pretty bad taste…”

“Then live. I’ll at least give you the minimum treatment.”

He tightened a tourniquet around her thigh, used a spray to freeze-treat the severed surface where bone was visible, then gathered the scattered weapons and began cutting off the mutant dogs’ heads. Considering the condition of the injured woman, he probably should have taken her to a hospital as quickly as possible, but that was that. They needed the funds to keep living from here on.

He put the weapons into the vehicle, loaded in the cooler box, and finally passed a belt under the woman’s armpits before slowly lowering her inside. He did not want to leave Cardiel, who could not move freely inside the vehicle, alone with a complete stranger.

“I wonder if we should call this a big haul.”

While fed up with the smell of blood filling the air, Cardiel twisted her mouth. It did not seem that she regretted it.

“I hope she survives.”

“Yes, me too.”

In their bleak, hard-edged lives, they had regained just a tiny bit of their humanity. Carrying that small sense of satisfaction, the jet-black tank raced toward the city at full speed.

***

“Well, well, are you awake?”

The shadow of a man blocked the large, dazzling light. Just where was this place? Had she not fought mutants in the wasteland and died together with her comrades? Estelle desperately worked her anesthesia-clouded thoughts, trying to grasp the current situation.

Judging from the ceiling and the shape of the light, this seemed to be an operating room. A man in a mask, glasses, and surgical clothes. In short, had she been treated by him and survived? The feeling did not sink in, and Estelle thought about it as if it were happening to someone else.

“Heaven sure smells a lot like disinfectant…”

“The fact that you think a hunter can go to heaven is a bad joke in itself.”

Hearing that tasteless joke, Estelle slowly drew the thread of her memories closer. That was right. A strange man had spoken to her and while he was treating her, she had lost consciousness.

Everything was real. The fact that she had lost her comrades. The fact that she alone had survived.

“U… uuh…”

Tears overflowed together with the gruesome memories. However, the hand that should have wiped them away would not move. Wishing that she would never wake up again, Estelle once more fell asleep.

***

Where exactly was the boundary between nightmare and reality? Estelle wandered aimlessly through the hospital on the grounds of Marco Manufacturing.

A crude prosthetic leg was attached to her left leg and every time she walked, it made a gashagasha sound that grated on her nerves. It was an ordinary prosthetic leg, not a nerve-connected one, but even so, together with the treatment fees, it would likely amount to quite a sum.

She had lost her comrades. She had lost her left leg. She could no longer continue working as a hunter. She had lost her future as well. The pale pink hospital gown felt almost like burial clothes.

『…Why am I even alive?』

Because someone saved her. That much she understood. For what purpose? That, she did not understand.

On the third-floor corridor, she happened to look out the window and saw a square concrete hut. Beside it was a large amount of junk covered with a blue tarp and a young man was doing some kind of work there.

She felt as if she had seen him somewhere before. As she searched through her memories, trying to remember, the faces of her comrades came back to her. Estelle lowered her face with an expression as though enduring pain. There was no way she had any acquaintances left. They had all died. They had been killed. Then who was that man?

The memory revived in her mind, and she felt as if her breath were being choked off. That was right. He was the man she had seen before losing consciousness.

A hot, unreasonable anger welled up from the bottom of her stomach. Unless she said something to him, she would not be satisfied. Without even deciding what she would say, Estelle began walking forward, leaning into each step.

Since she was not used to the prosthetic leg, her movements were terribly awkward. The prosthetic leg meant to assist her movement now felt like a shackle. Why had her comrades died, and for what reason had only she survived? In the sense that she could not escape the prison of her own thoughts, she was indeed a prisoner.

Just going down to the first floor and leaving the hospital ward was heavy labor. Things she had once been able to do as a matter of course, she could no longer do. Even if she gave up and tried to return to her hospital room, she would have to walk the same distance back. As if mocking Estelle’s hesitation, intense sunlight poured down over her head.

『Don’t screw with me』, she thought, glaring back at the sun, and dragged her prosthetic leg forward, step by step.

When she reached the area near the hut, the man sitting on a pipe chair and fiddling with what looked like a small engine placed on a grimy table turned around. Dias. The name she had heard while her consciousness was fading probably belonged to him.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

『What the hell was this guy doing, acting so carefree? Did he know what kind of feelings she was going through because of him? As if spitting out something bitter』Estelle said,

“Why did you save me?”

“Because you weren’t dead yet.”

“I never asked you to save me!”

“Then die.”

It was simple and clear, and completely impossible to have a conversation with him. After dragging someone out of hell without permission, what kind of way was that to talk?

Swept along by her emotions, Estelle clenched her fist and tried to punch Dias, or so she intended. When she stepped in hard, the spring of her prosthetic leg sank deeper than expected, and she lost her balance. She fell forward, kicking up dust. The will to immediately stand back up did not come to her. Tears slowly welled up at her own misery. Both her fists were meaninglessly gripping sand.

“You wouldn’t understand, would you? How it feels to have your future shut away.”

“I understand…or at least, I believe I do. I’ve been facing it for a very, very long time.”

The words that came from above her head carried a strange weight. When Estelle wiped her tears with her sleeve and raised her face, Dias’s eyes were very gentle, yet lonely. What kind of life did someone have to walk to be able to make a face like that?

Still wearing an expression full of compassion, Dias said something outrageous again.

“Don’t worry about the surgery costs. I sold your comrades’ equipment and arranged the money.”

“Hey, what the hell did you do!?”

Estelle hurriedly staggered to her feet somehow, but Dias continued indifferently, in a voice like he was reading from a document.

“As for the scattered mutant heads, we took those as our handling fee. This is after-the-fact reporting, but please forgive that.”

“I don’t care about the mutants. My comrades’ equipment was like keepsakes to me. And you…!”

“If you want a keepsake, it’s right there.”

Dias pointed at Estelle’s chest, at her heart, at her life itself. It was sophistry. Even while feeling that, Estelle lost the words to argue back.

“You’re telling me to live?”

“If you don’t want to throw away your comrades’ keepsake.”

“…You’re the worst.”

“I’m used to being told that by women.”

With nothing more to say, Dias resumed his work, and Estelle, with nothing to do, absentmindedly watched him.

“What have you been doing since earlier? Are you trying to fix that thing or break it?”

“I was trying to fix it, but I gave up and changed course to dismantling it and selling it as scrap iron. Don’t make me say that.”

“Could you let me have a go at it?”

“You?”

Dias turned around with a puzzled look. Satisfied that she had found something she could beat this blunt, logical bastard at, Estelle smiled and answered.

“I used to take care of my comrades’ bikes. Something like this is easy.”

“There were no bikes at that scene, though…”

“We sold them because we were short on money. Don’t make me say it, it’s embarrassing!”

Swept along by the atmosphere, Dias stood up and Estelle took his place, placing her small backside on the pipe chair. It seemed she had not been lying when she said she was good at tinkering with machines. She handled disassembly, cleaning, and replacing parts and oil with truly efficient skill.

From Dias’s point of view, Estelle’s profile looked very happy and beautiful too.

“So, what’s this mountain of junk?”

Estelle asked without stopping her hands as she faced the small engine.

“It was abandoned in a warehouse, and I was allowed to take it. I’m going to repair it, sell it off, and earn some pocket money.”

“Huuuh. Can I get in on that too?”

“Yeah. I doubt I can deal with all of it by myself anyway. And as for repair skills, well… yes.”

“Heheh, I like how you honestly admit things like that. …Oops, I don’t mean that in a weird way!”

“I figured.”

She had panicked strangely, and he had answered completely calmly. What on earth was she doing? Estelle shook off her distracting thoughts and tried to focus on repairing the small engine. Right now, she did not want him to see her face.

From then on, every day, Estelle continued repairing the junk. Sometimes she did it together with Dias, and when he and Cardiel went out hunting, she worked silently on her own.

The things Estelle repaired were gathered up by Dias and sold, and after only the handling fee was deducted, the money was handed over to her.

『…Come to think of it, I’ve never once suspected that guy of skimming money off the top』.

Thinking that, Estelle gave a small kusuri laugh as she continued her repairs.

Generally speaking, hunters were said to be people with no transferable skills. If someone who fought could no longer fight, what else could they do? The saying that one’s skills could save one’s life was truly well put. Estelle’s love of tinkering with machines had proven useful.

A blessing in disguise. Perhaps it was actually a good thing that she had been able to escape from a job like hunter work, where dying by the roadside was practically guaranteed. She had literally『gotten out by losing a leg』.

Estelle suddenly looked up at the mountain of junk and felt a tightening pain in her chest.

If she continued repairing it, someday it would run out. When that happened, she would no longer have a reason to stay at Marco Manufacturing and would she have to part ways with Dias too? Estelle’s hands stopped dead. Her thoughts became a tangled mess and she could no longer understand the repair procedure.

『…What am I doing?』

As if linked to her sinking mood, the area before her eyes began to grow dark. Apparently, the sun had set. She decided to call it a day and began cleaning up, when…

“Estelle, do you have a minute?”

A voice called out to her. She knew even without turning around. It was Dias.

“What? As you can see, I’m busy.”

“There’s something I want to talk about. Come with me to the maintenance factory.”

This was the first time he had ever said such a thing to her. Estelle turned around with a suspicious look. Dias wore his usual expressionless face. She did not know what he wanted, but it did not seem to be anything romantic.

“Then help me clean up. I can’t just leave it like this, can I?”

Dias nodded silently and put the spanners and screwdrivers into the toolbox.

“…You’re not angry?”

“It’s probably an important attitude to have.”

He did not explain the details of what he meant. Filled with the joy of feeling that their hearts had connected, Estelle forgot her worries about tomorrow for a while.

***

Even though evening had already passed, the maintenance factory showed no sign of quieting down. Cranes moved, drills roared, and men walked around shouting. Their work began after the hunters came back.

“Yo, Dias. You came.”

A large man in work clothes stained with oil grime walked over and grinned. He was probably trying to show affection, but to Estelle, he looked only like a mutant that had found prey, and she instinctively braced herself.

“Chief, she’s the one I mentioned…”

“Mm, mm, I see…”

Dias and the maintenance chief were talking about something, but none of it entered Estelle’s ears as she stood there in confusion. Could they possibly be putting a price on her? Was she about to be surrounded by men and treated horribly?

“Hey, girl.”

“Pieh!”

When the chief suddenly spoke to her, Estelle almost jumped.

“I’m not gonna grab you and eat you or anything. I’m Benjamin, the maintenance chief. Nice to meet you. I’ll get straight to the point. You interested in becoming a mechanic?”

“A mechanic? No, but my tinkering with machines is just an extension of my hobby. It’s not like I received proper training or anything…”

“Proper training? There ain’t a single young master or young lady here who got that kinda thing. Everyone learned while working. I saw the stuff you repaired, girl. You do good work. With that much foundation, you’ll get used to things fast.”

Estelle looked at Dias in surprise. While she had been frightened of tomorrow, had he been preparing a way to open up her future for her? Everyone was telling her to live. There was no need to hesitate anymore. As if shaking off the tears that blurred from overwhelming emotion, Estelle bowed deeply toward Benjamin.

“Please take care of me!”

“Yeah, same here.”

She sensed someone leaving. It was always like this. If she did not chase after him desperately, this guy would drift away before she knew it. Estelle called out to Dias’s back as he silently began to walk away.

“Dias, I’ve got two goals now!”

“Goals?”

Dias turned around as if wondering what she meant, and Estelle gave him a small nod.

“I’ll polish my skills here, and someday, I’ll maintain your tank for you. The other one is, I… with you…”

The rest did not become words. It was probably something she must not say. Swallowing down the complicated emotions welling up inside her, she instead clenched her fist and thrust it forward.

“Someday, I’m gonna punch you! This’ll be the continuation of that day!”

“Yeah. I’ll look forward to it.”

Dias smiled, then turned his back again and walked away. The girl stood there, staring at the back of the man who would probably never turn around for her again, until he disappeared from sight.

“Thank you, Dias.”

Her whisper was drowned out by the clamor of the maintenance factory. That was fine. Estelle turned her back to the entrance and looked around the inside of the factory. This was her new battlefield, the future everyone had opened for her.

***

The daytime market was chaos. Guns that seemed doubtful whether they could even shoot straight, rotten meat that had been disguised again and again until it could no longer be hidden, and military uniforms stripped from corpses with blood still stuck to them were being sold with energetic cries of『Great deal!』 and『Rare find!』

Dias and Cardiel walked side by side through that market. They were on their way back after paying the hospitalization fees that had been overdue at the hospital.

“As expected, or should I say, they really had forgotten about it.”

Cardiel said this with a shrug and Dias also gave a wry smile.

Even when they said at the hospital reception that they had come to pay, they had trouble getting anyone to believe them. When they explained the circumstances and dates, the charts had apparently been scattered and lost, and no one knew how much they should pay.

“We paid a bit extra, thinking it was probably around that much, but the lady at reception was looking at us like we were idiots.”

“I don’t mind being an idiot, as long as I’m not a coward.”

That was not hunter-like, but that was precisely what made him Dias, and Cardiel nodded proudly.

“By the way, that girl Estelle is working at the maintenance factory now, right?”

“You asked me to help her, after all. Was that all right?”

Is this guy serious? Cardiel stared blankly, mouth hanging open in amazement. She had indeed asked him to help that girl. But that was only because she had felt sympathy for the girl left all alone and thought they could at least save her life. She had not asked him to provide aftercare for her entire life.

Perhaps Dias himself was aware that he had gone a little too far, because he said as if trying to gloss it over,

“The will to live and the skill for maintenance are both hers. I only prepared the stage.”

“Well, whatever. All’s well that ends well, right?”

The two smiled at each other and continued walking in step toward Marco Manufacturing.

This road continued forward, ever forward. Surely it did.

***

After that, for three years, Dias and the others continued hunting mutants by the dozens, by the hundreds. There were failures too. They nearly died many times. The tank was badly wrecked about seven times. Benjamin scolded them five times for being too reckless and Estelle yelled at them twice.

Without even the slightest wavering in trust and love, the two survived.