Chapter 4
The inside of the jump gate was a wonder in itself.
A golden bee circled the Razangriff, then played the world like an instrument.
Its melody seemed capable of bringing all creation into harmony, but soon it ended in ruin.
Then a flower crumbled in the embrace of the sand, and a snake swallowed the sand in one bite.
Watching the wondrous scene out of the corner of his eye, Brigadier General Ramirez said,
"Maybe it feels unfamiliar because it's been so long since I last saw one."
"Is that so? Well, if His Majesty the Emperor hadn't singled you out, you'd still be knitting away on Mars. Isn't it ridiculous to send someone whose Combat OS has been removed into battle?"
Lieutenant Yangyang watched the scenery inside the jump gate on the monitor, then turned her head.
"I'm not the only one who finds it strange. How does the scenery inside a jump gate manage to change every time?"
A jump gate was a passage through space opened by the Sindalot Multistars.
Although it was much slower than an emergency jump made after calculating and setting coordinates, or an ultra-long-range jump using random coordinates,
and its destination was fixed to another Sindalot Multistar,
there was a good reason the Federation prioritized using jump gates.
"It's a kind of imaginary space... something like that."
"The other side of the universe, right?"
Stability that surpassed speed and stealth.
Emergency jumps and random jumps were extremely unstable because they didn't use jump gates.
Crossing space without a refined passage was like digging a tunnel through a mountain with nothing but a shovel.
During a jump, ships could be swept away by spatial turbulence and lost in imaginary space, or flung to coordinates completely different from the ones they'd calculated.
Jump gates, on the other hand, had very sturdy passages,
and the rate of jump accidents was around 0.0094%.
Practically zero.
"Let's see..."
Feeling the vibrations of their passage through space throughout her body, she headed for the Gladiators' hibernation room.
"……Lieutenant."
The person blocking her way was Sergeant Kang Chanwoo.
"Good grief, I know. I'm not going to wake her up."
"She is an agent His Majesty the Emperor ordered us to protect. She is also a civilian who has yet to undergo body modification. By order of Brigadier General Ramirez, no one may enter until the jump is over."
"Seriously, you don't trust me? I said I wouldn't wake her."
"That's right. You're the sort of person who says one thing and does another, Lieutenant."
"……."
Kwahahaha!
Ramirez couldn't hold back his laughter.
"……Hahahaha. Don't worry, Chanwoo. You too, Yang. Don't give her a hard time over this later."
Unlike when Yangyang had tried to enter, Kang Chanwoo didn't stop Ramirez from heading into the hibernation room.
"Yang just wants to see her face once."
"You saw it earlier when you brought her in."
"Oh, that?"
Ramirez continued, doing his best to hold back another burst of laughter.
"She was drunk and passed out at the time."
"Sigh, Lieutenant."
All Yangyang could do was shoot her brigadier general a sidelong glare.
Unfortunately, it was true.
Leaving her assigned post without permission.
Drinking during an operation.
That was just plain deadweight behavior.
"Do you really think drinking during an operation is acceptable?"
"……Well, that Nguyen bastard said I could drink."
"Bring Nguyen here in a little while."
Without uttering a single curse, Sergeant Kang verbally floored Lieutenant Yangyang.
She didn't dare argue or even try to defend herself.
Everything he said was true.
Ramirez watched the sergeant chew out the lieutenant, finally unable to contain his laughter, and opened the door to the hibernation room.
And then.
"What……"
The inside of the hibernation room was an absolute disaster.
Open hibernation pods and shattered Gladiators.
The only person standing in the middle of the chaos was Rubedo.
"Oh my God."
"Oh my God."
"Oh my God."
She scratched her head awkwardly, but the moment she saw Ramirez, her face crumpled.
"You're so cute!"
"……?"
"……?"
Ramirez and Kang Chanwoo's faces scrunched up too.
"Is that the girl the Emperor was talking about?"
Unlike the two men, Yangyang paid no mind to the shattered Gladiators and excitedly squished Rubedo's frowning cheeks.
"Mmmph!"
Despite Rubedo's protests, Yangyang wouldn't let go of her cheeks.
After all, she'd spent half her life pointlessly surrounded by serious, stiff, boring men, and now a cute little girl had joined her team.
Even Ramirez, the commander of Task Force 42 and a brigadier general, couldn't stop her once she got excited.
In the Federation military, soldiers could be men or women.
Some units even favored women.
But Task Force 42 was the best of the best.
Only the most exceptional soldiers in the Federation were selected to serve there.
Task Force 42 was the Federation military's most famous unit, yet paradoxically it was run as a small, elite force. Until now, its only women had been Yangyang herself and a researcher from the Technical Division.
It was only natural that Yangyang would be excited to have a cute little girl join her as a fellow combatant.
Though it was unfortunate for Rubedo.
"……Since you'll be spending time together from now on, I'll introduce you. This is Sergeant Kang Chanwoo, and the pervert who's got hold of you and won't let go is Lieutenant Yangyang."
Rubedo wondered if Ramirez was making fun of her.
"Yang…… Yang?"
"That's right."
"Yang Yang? Yan Zhang? Yangyang?"
She couldn't make heads or tails of whether it was 'Yang' Yang, 'Yan' Zhang, or 'Yangyang.'
But the person in question cleared up her confusion herself.
"Not Yang, not Yan. Yangyang. Okay?"
"Yes……"
"From now on, call me Big Sis Yangyang."
"……Yes?"
Just as Yangyang was about to tug on her cheeks again, Kang Chanwoo stepped between them to intervene.
"Miss Rubedo, are you feeling sick or dizzy? When an ordinary person who hasn't undergone body modification is hit by the shock of a jump, they usually pass out or fall into a prolonged coma."
Rubedo felt extremely grateful to him.
Having her cheeks tugged while being told how cute she was...
It was a humiliation she'd never experienced before.
The soldiers' body modifications left her unable to pull away. It was pure agony.
"Yes. I'm fine."
"You didn't seem uncomfortable when we left Mars, either. The shock of a jump is different, but it's not something you can simply grit your teeth and endure. Still, that's not important now. This is strange. Not only did you withstand the shock of a jump, you also took down the Gladiators in an unenhanced body…… What on earth happened?"
Dodging Yangyang as she drew closer, Rubedo answered.
"The brigadier general…… that famous Brigadier General Ramirez tossed me into a hibernation pod, and I fell asleep right away."
"Wait, Brigadier General. You tossed a kid?"
"Get a grip. The person inside her is a man."
"I know."
……
Rubedo was starting to regret accepting Ramirez's offer.
She should've just died with a hole in her head.
Being captured by those pointy-eared bastards would've been fine, too.
Either would have been better than this.
"……Then I woke up almost immediately from the impact. It startled me. The pod shook with a bang as soon as I closed my eyes."
"Must've been the Smegma attack."
"Smegma? Those space pirate bastards attacked Task Force 42 near the Sindalot Multistars without a shred of fear?"
"……?"
"Anyway, the hibernation pod opened as soon as I woke up. The problem was that the Gladiators' pods opened at the same time."
……
No way……
Ramirez silently hoped he was wrong and called the captain.
"Captain."
-Yes, Brigadier General.
"Did you perhaps try to deploy the Gladiators?"
-Yes.
"Didn't I clearly say I'd go alone?"
-Oh. I forgot. I'm sorry.
……
Ah.
I should've just died.
This is the Federation's finest special operations unit?
This is a complete shitshow.
Insubordination was common, and there was no discipline or chain of command.
There's no one normal here except Sergeant Kang Chanwoo.
That was what Rubedo thought.
Even so, she didn't stop explaining.
The water had already been spilled.
She didn't have a rag to wipe it up with.
More importantly, if she stopped explaining, Yangyang would surely start bothering her again.
"……The Gladiators tried to restrain me and open up my head. I think they noticed the Mijeong in my brain and tried to remove it. Gladiators are combat AIs that operate for the sake of humanity's peace. At the same time, the shock of the jump was coursing through my body."
She shaped her hand like a pistol and pointed it at her own head.
"The moment a vibroknife touched my head, Mijeong went berserk. Just like on Mars."
"Mijeong must be far more powerful than we thought. One individual, with its power nearly depleted, took down more than a dozen Gladiators?"
Ramirez speculated about the power Mijeong possessed,
"We can replace the damaged Gladiator frames. Their AI cores are intact, too. As it happens, there's a Federation colony factory world near our destination, the Seventh Sindalot Multistar. More importantly, I'm glad you're safe, Miss Rubedo."
Kang Chanwoo expressed concern for her.
"……When are you going to let go of me?"
"I'm not letting go. Let's stay like this forever, just us sisters. Okay?"
Yangyang finally pulled her into a hug.
Rubedo wanted to die.
Truly.
"Then, enduring gravitational acceleration with your bare body, and surviving a direct hit from the jump's shock……"
"It's probably thanks to Mijeong. I don't know how, though. The records of the Earth Empire don't mention anything like this."
"And it seems the host loses their memories when they use Mijeong's power."
"What? Their memories?"
"Captain."
-Yes. It'll be easier to understand if you see for yourself.
The captain brought up a screen in front of her.
It showed footage from the camera inside the Gladiators' hibernation room.
The Gladiators restrained the little girl, and
the instant a vibroknife cut off a few strands of silver hair,
red tendrils resembling Mijeong shot from the girl's red eyes and swept away the Gladiators holding her down.
The Gladiators keeping their distance and standing guard all swelled up at once, then burst with a bang.
Just like the buildings on Mars.
Then a second screen appeared.
The footage showed her and Ramirez.
-Control room, report the situation.
-Control room here. Multiple unidentified signals suddenly appeared behind the ship.
-……The knife-ears?
-It's a double strike meant to shatter the force field. The only ones who'd attack in such a crude manner are……
-Huh? Those Smegma pirate bastards? Come with me. You haven't undergone body modification, so you'll struggle to withstand the shock of a jump.
-That's probably true. Before I turned into a girl, I could've handled it even without a body modification…… Huh? Without a body modification……?
……
……
What on earth……
It was a conversation she had no memory of.
"You definitely heard my conversation with the control room. But just now, you seemed unaware of Sigma's attack. Hasn't something similar happened before?"
"……When I brought Mijeong back to life and changed my sex?"
"That's right."
Rubedo.
She remembered nothing about her original self,
or her own actions.
At all.
And now, the same thing had happened again.
There was one thing they had in common.
"It seems we've peeled back another layer of Mijeong's secret."
Mijeong.
The greatest mystery in the universe: a being that parasitizes intelligent life and directly influences reality based on its host's imagination.
The price of Mijeong's power was the host's memories.