Chapter 1
The Razangriff, a cruiser, prowled near the jump gate in the Sindalot system, the multi-star system closest to Mars.
Inside, the air seemed to swell taut with tension.
Brigadier General Ramirez, his left arm replaced by a prosthetic, spoke with his gun aimed at a small girl.
"Yeah, yeah, you little rookie."
"……I'm not a soldier, though."
"You'll be joining our team soon. If you're not a rookie, then what are you, rookie?"
"……."
The girl called a rookie……Rubedo frowned.
Much to her displeasure, she felt Ramirez hadn't said a single thing wrong.
"Mijeong, is there any way to escape this ship?"
"……."
Her only hope answered with silence.
"Don't even think about using that bug to rewrite reality. Your one chance vanished the moment you changed your sex and tried to pass yourself off as a civilian. Your powers won't return for at least thirteen days."
That was true, too.
About two hours earlier, she……he had disguised himself as a civilian without a brain chip to get out of the situation.
With Mijeong's power to rewrite reality through possibilities and branching points, he had changed his sex and body type.
According to the plan he'd hastily devised, she should have been arrested as an illegal resident of a dwarf planet as soon as she was discovered, then sent to Mars.
After that, they would have implanted a brain chip and sent her to some small colony planet on the Federation's frontier.
"And thirteen days is plenty of time to talk you around. For better or worse. Choose. Join Task Force 42, or get a hole blown through your head right here and die."
"……If it were up to me, I'd rather choose neither."
Task Force 42 had a terrible reputation, after all.
Despite her curt response, Ramirez flashed his pearly white teeth and replied.
"That's life. Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do."
And that's how things turned out.
Mijeong's power went beyond a perfect disguise and changed his sex as well.
The strike team took her for an illegal resident of a dwarf planet and brought her to Mars to implant a brain chip and send her to a frontier planet.
The only problem was that when they tried to implant the chip, Mijeong, which was parasitizing her brain, rebelled.
Agitated by the brain chip's intrusion, Mijeong went berserk and drew out the faint possibilities inherent in the inanimate things around her.
The ground nearby crumbled like waves, and an entire Martian city was wiped out.
"Even now, the senators are chewing me out. They want you killed immediately, and that bug in your head driven to extinction across the universe once more."
"The senators? Those idiots on Mars trying to seize control of the universe while the Emperor of the Earth Empire remains silent?"
"But that's beside the point."
"……?"
A question mark appeared on Rubedo's face.
What was that man talking about?
The senators.
The will of the Martian Senate, decided through cybernetic debate, wasn't something a mere brigadier general could defy.
They were people who could turn a planet into a glass marble with their neurons and tongues, and casually drive an entire species to extinction.
"We don't want to kill you. If we obey the Senate's orders, the people up top will be sorely disappointed."
"Up top? There's an order that takes priority over the Senate's?"
"The Emperor."
Ramirez pointed his index finger upward.
"The Emperor of the Earth Empire awoke at the same time that bug went berserk. Then he ordered us to bring you into the fold and protect you by any means necessary."
The Emperor of the Earth Empire? That's a lie.
Rubedo was certain of it.
It had been about 150 years since humanity had been expelled from Earth and driven to Mars by the Emperor's decree.
The once-lush Earth had been engulfed by a Dyson sphere, leaving it unrecognizable.
Mars's transformation into the capital, and the completion of its terraforming.
Securing control of the Sindalot systems established throughout the universe by the Earth Empire, and reopening the jump gates.
The formation of the Human Federation and the Martian Senate, followed by the release of an official statement protesting the Emperor's tyranny in exiling humanity.
And the Human Federation's attempt to infiltrate Earth.
Unless this was the sixth year of humanity's exile, when all these events happened at once in an incredibly eventful period.
More than a century had passed since then. There was no way the Emperor would be the one to contact the Federation first.
"Senate President Constantine said we shouldn't obey the orders of the Emperor who betrayed humanity, but……."
Ramirez lowered his gun and gestured for his subordinates to stand down.
"……The roots of our Task Force 42 are on Earth, you see."
"You mean that filthy Task Force 42 that goes around slicing people up?"
"Filthy? We do take care of dirty business behind the scenes, but we're nothing compared to the Martian Senate."
Once again, he was right.
Rubedo had seen it once.
The sight of spaceships in orbit around a planet launching orbital bombardments all at once.
The scene of them turning the planet Taygeta into a glass marble.
The memory was still vivid in her mind, and so disgusting she couldn't put it into words.
"Besides, the Emperor told me himself. That bug parasitizing your head is Mijeong, a species humanity drove to extinction just as the Earth Empire was beginning to expand into space."
Mijeong.
Since they were driven extinct by humanity before their name could be discovered or given to them,
the poor space bugs were saddled with a half-assed name meaning "undetermined."
"Humanity was afraid of the power those little bugs possessed back then. On their own, they were just ordinary creatures drifting through space, feeding on cosmic dust. But the moment they parasitized an intelligent life-form, they could directly influence reality based on their host's imagination."
"……Of course, if that were all they could do, you wouldn't have driven them extinct."
"That's right. You know your stuff."
Ramirez snapped his fingers.
"Humanity was perfectly capable of using Mijeong in the right way. The problem was the elves."
"Those damn pointy-ears."
"Right. Pointy-ears, space elves, whatever you want to call them. Those scum who worship a heap of scrap attacked humanity for no reason, just as we set foot in space. The Empire couldn't sit back and watch, so it struck back, and that was the first war since humanity united under the Empire on Earth."
"Humanity must've been afraid the elves would get their hands on Mijeong's power."
"I hate to admit it, but even without Mijeong, the elves were more powerful than the Empire."
"Betrayals began piling up within the Empire……."
"……And the Empire made its decision."
…….
But what did this outdated history have to do with Rubedo, or the Emperor?
"……The Emperor said that now, with the elves holed up on their homeworld and the universe at peace, a single Mijeong had been resurrected."
"It definitely was resurrected. It burrowed into my head, though. So, you want to use me to manipulate reality? In other words, I should join Task Force 42 on the Emperor's orders? We can do all kinds of dirty work behind the scenes together?"
Mijeong's ability to manipulate reality must be tempting to the Emperor, too.
Even the Empire's technology, capable of creating something from nothing, couldn't replicate the ability to alter reality without conditions.
That was what she thought, but
Ramirez shook his head.
"No, no. The Emperor wants more Mijeong resurrected. He has high hopes for you in particular."
"But I'm just a victim who got parasitized by a Mijeong that suddenly came back to life."
"……This is bad. This is going to be a pain."
He sighed as if he'd expected as much.
"Why do you think you used Mijeong's power to change your sex and disguise yourself in the first place?"
"That's…… huh?"
"You're the one who resurrected Mijeong. I hoped this wouldn't be true, too, but it seems the Emperor was right: you lost your memories in the process of bringing Mijeong back to life."
Rubedo was confused.
As the gap in her memory—one she hadn't even been aware of—began to make itself known, her stomach churned and she felt she might throw up at any moment.
She'd definitely seen a bug, and it had leapt at her, and then?
Why had she used Mijeong's power to change her identity?
Nothing…… I can't remember anything.
"The resurrection of a Class-1 dangerous life-form. A powerful new life pulse spreading across the entire universe as a result. Even the Federation picked up the pulse, and it's only a matter of time before the elves hear about it. Do you know what that means? They'll come after you—or, more precisely, Mijeong's power. Humanity has to protect you from them. That could restart a galactic war, but the senators want to end this by simply killing you. The Emperor wants you alive."
"……My head hurts, but let's say that's true. Somehow, I resurrected a Mijeong. For some reason I can't remember, I used its power to alter reality and became a little girl. Judging by the circumstances, it was to save my life. But because of the Emperor's orders, the Martian Senate learned who I am and is after me. To make matters worse, the elves are after me too. Fortunately, they don't know who I am……."
"You're quick to understand."
If this was really true,
then she was in serious trouble.
"Phew……."
In the end, Ramirez had been right.
She had to become a rookie in the dirty-dealing Task Force 42.
If she didn't become a member of Task Force 42, the Martian Senate would kill her.
Even if she survived, the elves would capture her sooner or later.
If she became a member of Task Force 42…… she might die during a mission, but at least she'd live for now and be protected by the military.
"……What do I have to do? What other orders did the Emperor give? How does he expect me, with no memories, to resurrect more Mijeong?"
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Ramirez clapped three times.
"A wise choice. From now on, you're a member of Task Force 42. We'll protect you from the Martian Senate and the elves, and, on the Emperor's orders, help you recover your memories. What you have to do is simple. Recover your memories, and use some method only you know to resurrect more Mijeong. Then take them into your brain and strengthen your powers, and burn down the elves' homeworld—the Heap of Scrap, the World Tree."
…….
"Oh."
Though she wasn't thrilled about becoming a rookie in the dirty-dealing Task Force 42, she had no reason to refuse.
It wasn't like she had any choice besides dying.
More than that, she could burn down the Heap of Scrap those damned space elves believed in.
The World Tree that hadn't even been brought down by the Earth Empire's ultimate weapon, an artificial star.
It was the decision of none other than the Emperor who had led humanity through its golden age, so she could trust him.
Half excited and half hopeful, she asked.
"So how do I get my memories back? I can't resurrect more Mijeong until I remember what happened, can I?"
"The Emperor didn't tell me that, so I don't know either. For now, though—"
"……What?"
The members of Task Force 42 began moving to their stations in perfect unison.
"On the Emperor's orders, let's make the jump first and talk……."
Bang!!!
?
???
The Razangriff shuddered.