Chapter 39: Erosion

It was nearly midnight.

Business hours had long since passed, yet the lights at the Aegis headquarters still burned brightly.

President Sasaki and Mirika remained at their desks. After failing to reach Officer Sakura, President Sasaki could only assist Mirika as best he could. She still had the contact information of several former colleagues from her previous job, but aside from the more familiar Officer Sakura, her relationships with the others were somewhat strained; Sasaki couldn’t bring himself to call them.

Mirika, meanwhile, was attempting to hack into the space station.

Earlier, she had received a message from Souya Homare—a text riddled with typos, clearly written blindly.

Aegis communicators came in two varieties: PADs and standard communicators. The latter resembled old-fashioned mobile phones, equipped with a nine-key input pad, each button marked with raised Braille dots for ease of blind typing.

Mirika spent some effort deciphering the message, enlisting President Sasaki’s help as well. Together, they managed to grasp Souya Homare’s intent from the fractured, error-filled text.

The research institute’s director planned to proceed with the birthday rocket launch as scheduled, shifting the blame onto outsourced temp workers.

Space was limited, so the intelligence Homare sent contained no action plans or procedures, leaving the president and Mirika at headquarters to rely on their own initiative.

Mirika’s first instinct was to hack into the institute’s network, then use a proxy to breach the launch site and directly halt the rocket launch. This approach coincided with the captain’s own thinking.

However, she soon discovered that the institute played dirty—they had simply unplugged the network cables.

She immediately shifted her target, attempting to hack directly into the space station via NAXA’s central control center, intending to transmit this critical information straight to the station and alert the researchers aboard to prepare for self-rescue.

Why not contact NAXA directly? Even after the institute issued a statement announcing a launch delay, NAXA’s phone lines remained hopelessly busy. Whether an endless stream of callers was deliberately clogging the lines or NAXA had activated anti-interference measures, any attempt to dial in now would prompt a queue numbering in the thousands.

Thus, after considerable effort—using several communication satellites as relays—Mirika finally caught up with the space station in low Earth orbit, only to find the rocket had already launched.

The large screen on the wall of the Aegis office streamed footage from multiple cameras aboard the space station. One angle faced the window, where a white pixel had appeared against the blue backdrop of the planet. Soon, that white pixel grew—three pixels, five pixels...

The sense of impending disaster infected both Mirika and President Sasaki, causing them to clench their fists nervously. Yet seeing the researchers calmly salvaging experimental data instilled a measure of confidence.

Meanwhile, in a certain downtown izakaya, after sending out his message without a hint of emotion, Souya Homare continued playing the role of a dutiful bodyguard, quietly squatting behind the president and watching as he excitedly viewed footage from the rocket launch site on his PAD.

Suddenly, a red warning flashed in the upper right corner of the screen, accompanied by a shrill alert, startling the president enough to shake the PAD in his hands.

Homare, standing a bit further away and not paying close attention, glanced over and caught the glaring words: “Lifeform Warning.”

Beneath those four blood-red characters was a message: Life signs detected in the rocket’s midsection, from the escape tower to the fairing. There may be a living organism inside by accident.

Perhaps a mouse, or a bird.

The president’s expression grew grim. Though he had entered this field late, bulldozing his way in with capital, that didn’t mean he was clueless.

This was bad news. If it was a rodent, best hope it’s crushed instantly by the G-force at liftoff; otherwise, a panicked creature might chew through a wire inside the rocket, leading to disaster.

“...?!”

Souya Homare felt a sudden, inexplicable chill run through him, as if struck by a premonition, shivers erupting across his skin.

...

...

Yuki tensed the moment he stepped into the magic circle, bracing himself for the sudden G-force of rocket ascent. He tightened his muscles and lowered his center of gravity—an effective way to prevent blood from rushing to his legs and abdomen, staving off fainting or other anomalies.

But...

Yuki suspected he had already lost consciousness, because... when he again set foot on solid ground, he felt no discomfort or abnormality.

The scene before him was not the expected darkness of a rocket’s interior, but rather an open, bright space.

It resembled...

Freya’s life greenhouse.

Viewed up close, the landscape seemed like countryside—tall trees, low shrubs, grassy fields dotted with silver flowers, all growing freely with no sign of human intervention, pure and natural.

Within this scene, only two traces of artificiality stood out:

The luminous green, semi-transparent crystal tiles beneath his feet, embedded in the grass and stretching off into the distance; and several semi-transparent green pillars scattered among the trees.

Pillars meant this seemingly natural landscape was actually indoors.

Yuki looked up, and sure enough, overhead was not sky but a transparent ceiling.

Unnoticed, someone quietly approached Yuki and took his hand.

Who?

Yuki was not startled, but instinctively returned the gesture, walking deeper into the woods atop the crystal tiles hand-in-hand with the stranger.

It felt like a real-time animation; even with his hands off the keyboard, the scene continued to play out.

As they walked, Yuki turned to look at his companion.

The figure seemed a head taller than the main perspective—Yuki could only see his chest. Blue skin, patterned with white markings.

Torekia?

No, Torekia’s chest markings were different.

Yuki grew wary. He set aside his appreciation for the real-time animation and began to wonder if this vision was some sort of scheme, Grimdo’s latest trick? If it was meant to awaken darkness or malice within him, what purpose did this woodland stroll serve?

“This place, long ago, was open-air and hard to traverse. Later, someone suggested developing the area. So, while preserving these natural features, they installed the transparent canopy. It’s been renovated several times since, gradually becoming what you see now.”

“The one who proposed it—Taiga knows him!”

“Hey, really? (_ _), who do you mean?”

Yuki paused, puzzled by the sudden censorship. Clearly, as the main perspective, Taiga had called out the companion’s name, but when he did, the sound abruptly cut off.

“That’s Taiga’s father.”

Yuki turned to look at the blue-skinned companion’s face—but—

Where the face should have been was a charred void.

The figure resembled a paper cutout in a photograph, as if a lighter’s flame had licked the other side, slowly burning a hole through the photo paper, its edges flickering with embers, erasing the face and the surrounding scene.

All that remained was emptiness.