In this world, he had recharged three times in total—that was, he had paid thirty energy coins and gained three hundred hours of stay time.
Now, there was not much time left.
On Sado Island, Kōzuki Yuuko watched as a certain technology successfully operated before her eyes, and her entire body immediately felt lighter.
"So it succeeded just like that?"
Beside her, Marimo stared in a daze at the artificial sun before them.
That was nuclear fusion.
This technology would solve humanity's energy problem, and many weapons in various fields could finally begin moving into practical use.
Energy weapons in particular had not been purely theoretical. The problem was simply that there had not been enough energy to support them.
Although G-elements could provide enormous energy, they had been extremely rare before. Even now, after the Sado Island Hive had been captured, the amount of G-elements they had obtained was not much.
The successful realization of nuclear fusion energy solved that problem.
"Mm. It succeeded. So tonight, Marimo, reward him with me again."
Yuuko suddenly extended that kind of "invitation" to her again, asking her to join in giving that man that sort of "reward," and Jinguji Marimo's cheeks rapidly flushed red.
The "reward" from two days ago had not actually happened without Marimo being mentally prepared.
Yuuko had told her in advance that they were going to give him that kind of "reward."
Yuuko had described it to her in an extremely realistic way. It was a method to quickly maintain and deepen a relationship.
Since ancient times, it had also been the simplest method, even if it was shameless.
After all, there was not enough time to slowly build affection. They could only use physical closeness to deepen the relationship as quickly as possible.
As for how deep that bond could become, that was hard to say.
But no matter what, once that kind of relationship had been crossed, the other party would care about them at least a little more. As an emotional human being, he would naturally show more or less protective behavior.
Because from that moment on, they would be marked as his. In a certain kind of masculine possessiveness, they would become "his people," not to be bullied by others.
Understanding that, Jinguji Marimo had accepted without hesitation.
If paying only that price could obtain such support and secure salvation for this world, the exchange could no longer even be described in terms of cost-effectiveness.
That said, if the person had been someone else, Marimo would have resisted deep down.
But because it was him, she felt no disgust at all. That could only mean her fondness for him had become somewhat complicated.
However, what Jinguji Marimo had not expected was that the reward would come so suddenly, in full view of everyone. Yuuko had not told her that part.
As for why no one else had left the hot spring room, that was because Yuuko had deliberately locked the door and claimed there was some kind of malfunction. Everyone could only remain inside and witness Kōzuki Yuuko's bold "reward," as well as Marimo being dragged down into that same shameless situation.
"Marimo, doing it from behind really works pretty well too. If you use that as your reward, that guy will be even happier."
Kōzuki Yuuko gave that suggestion to her closest friend.
She was not lying. She had personally tested it.
"I-I understand."
As Marimo answered, she noticed the rabbit-ear accessories beside her twitch slightly. They belonged to Kasumi Yashiro.
That child was still present as well. She seemed to understand what Yuuko was talking about, and her cute little face was gradually turning red.
Honestly, letting a child like her see that kind of scene really was terrible.
"Right. This time, you lead them in. If it's me, he probably won't fall for it again."
Kōzuki Yuuko said that with malicious amusement.
She still planned to trick Valkyrie Squadron 1 and the others over to "observe" the scene.
It was not because she had some peculiar fetish for having so many people watch.
She was conducting a kind of psychological conditioning, gradually lowering their lines of restraint until they eventually joined in as well.
This was an extremely primitive method she was using to deepen their relationship.
After all, in this world, where was there enough time to properly fall in love? The other party also did not have that much time to spend in this world.
So she had adopted this rather underhanded method.
As for the reason she had opened the Superdimensional livestream, it was simple. She wanted to make certain people dislike him.
That way, he would visit those people's worlds less often, and her own world would gain more time with him.
…
This was the territory of an armed force that worshiped the BETA.
It had become hell.
Corpses lay everywhere. None of them were intact. And all of this had been done by a single "person" fighting his way in.
The other party was simply a monster wearing human skin. He had even used a "human" body to cut down a Tank-class BETA.
That was right. He had cut down a BETA.
This BETA-worshiping armed force had even secretly hidden BETA it had "captured." Yet he had destroyed those BETA without using a Tactical Surface Fighter, along with thousands—or perhaps more than ten thousand—people here. He had not left a single survivor.
Thud.
A head was tossed aside. It belonged to the organization's second-in-command. As for the leader, Kain had not found him. It seemed the man had slipped away.
No. That was not right. The man had not been here from the beginning.
And there was another organization behind this one, likely the mastermind that, in the original work, would attack Yokohama Base three years later.
Although he had failed to catch the head, he had nearly crippled the forces under that person's command. For a short while, at least, they would be unable to do anything.
During that time, Yuuko's side would develop its technology rapidly and its strength would explode. When that happened, these rats hiding in the dark would have even less ability to cause trouble.
Suddenly, a wave of air pressed down from the sky. The KX139 descended beside him.
He boarded and returned to the cockpit, taking the true pilot's seat. The person who had originally been sitting there moved to the rear to wear the sensory equipment.
As a result, a mature, peach-like curve appeared in his field of vision again. His gaze could not help lingering slightly longer than usual.
His restraint had become a little worse. Kōzuki Yuuko had opened a strange new door for him, and he seemed to have become somewhat addicted to it.
That sensation of being held tightly was genuinely hard to describe.
"What is it?"
"Nothing."
Cryska answered flatly, because she had abruptly twisted her head to look at the person in the pilot's seat behind her, confusing him.
She did not know whether it was an illusion, but she felt as though a strange gaze had landed somewhere that made her deeply uncomfortable.
After answering, she did the same thing as usual. She gave him a warning look, telling him not to have any strange thoughts or make any strange moves toward Inia, who was sitting in his arms.
And when she thought back to the scene in the hot spring pool two days ago, Cryska did not know why, but a powerful displeasure surged inside her. An inexplicable anger burned in her chest.
"Inia, sit tight. We're going back."
"Mm."
The silver-haired girl curled up in his arms and pressed closer, earning someone another glare from the taller silver-haired woman.
As the machine took off, its destination this time was Sado Island. They were returning.
The two-day, high-intensity terrorist cleanup mission had thus come to an end.
…
There was a small commotion in the T'au Empire fleet.
After all, someone had infiltrated the interior of their battleships and stolen quite a bit of equipment. Naturally, that had frightened them badly.
The zero-cost looter who had already returned—and who had also been "rewarded" for several hours—piloted his ship toward a star that looked as if it might undergo a helium flash at any moment. He intended to find the infinite energy cube the Emperor had told him about.
Hm?
What was going on?
Ahead, the T'au Empire fleet suddenly fell into obvious chaos.
The most obvious sign was that several formations of starfighters abruptly became disordered, flying around like headless flies.
That chaos seemed highly contagious, rapidly spreading in his direction. In the blink of an eye, it truly swept over him.
At that moment, he also sensed a wave of psychic energy sweeping across the area.
It looked like psychic energy that covered the entire star system.
But this psychic energy was somewhat different in nature from the psychic power used by the psykers he had encountered before. How should he put it? It was using psychic energy to create something similar to a null field.
Within the covered range, even psychic energy itself seemed to be blocked.
(End of Chapter)
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