Roselia stared blankly at her own shoulder.
The reliable prosthetic arm that had gleamed with a metallic luster only seconds ago was gone. In its place remained a scorched, jagged stump and a bundle of wires spitting frantic sparks. Smoke rose from the ruin, and the acrid stench of burnt metal stung my nose.
"……Tch!"
She clicked her tongue. Her expression was a volatile mix of anger, impatience, and an impulse that looked suspiciously like pain.
"Repairman! Can't you do that thing you did before!?"
Roselia spun toward me, her eyes bloodshot as she shouted, but I simply shook my head.
It was impossible. If I could have fixed it on the fly, I would have already.
For one, there was that black giant—the man with the full-body prosthetic. No Speech Bubbles were appearing above him. Normally, I could pick up at least a faint consciousness reaction even in the heat of battle, but he was a total void. He was a textbook example of those who mechanized their brains to such an extreme that they became little more than androids.
Then there was the other one: Cecily.
Nothing appeared for her, either. For a normal human, that was a physical impossibility. There were rare masters like Sebastian who could suppress their Consciousness Waves through sheer mental discipline, but I didn't think she was that type of martial artist.
That left only one possibility—External Interference. Someone was blocking her very thoughts.
Roselia saw my silence and bit her lip. Sparks showered from her shoulder as she glared forward. My gaze shifted to Lucia, who was still cradled in the giant's arms. Her pale skin was smudged with soot, her eyes closed. The Speech Bubbles I had seen before entering the room were gone now, silenced.
She was still alive. But at this rate...
A heavy silence fell over the room. We stood locked in a tense standoff. In the scorched air, no one dared to move.
Then, Cecily suddenly tilted her head up, as if listening to a voice only she could hear.
"Oh... Father."
Father? Gordon was collapsed on the floor behind us, so it couldn't be him.
"Yes, it's quite fine. Yes, we've succeeded... I have also secured the spare."
By "spare," she almost certainly meant Lucia. If my hunch about the person on the other end of that call was correct, things were about to get a lot worse.
"Oh, is that so? I understand. Well then."
She indifferently cut the connection. They had deployed jamming waves, but clearly, their own communication network ran on a completely different system. Cecily spun around to face us and performed a graceful, sweeping bow.
"I am terribly sorry. I wanted to dance with you a bit longer... but it seems our time is up."
She smiled—a smile so natural and radiant it felt entirely out of place.
At that exact moment, the ceiling detonated.
The roar of the explosion was deafening. A wave of overpressure slammed into my skin as debris from across the room began a frantic dance. Reflexively, I shielded my face with my arms and threw myself to the side.
"Tch, what now!?"
A massive hole had been punched through the ceiling, revealing a glimpse of the leaden, cloudy sky. The wind howled through the opening, sending scraps of paper and dust swirling into a cyclone. Through the ringing in my ears, I looked up and saw a dark silhouette.
I heard the distinctive whine of rotors. It was a helicopter. The missile pods mounted to the fuselage were still spewing trails of white smoke.
"Are you serious? They've got aerial support!?" Roselia shouted, dropping to one knee as she stared upward.
When I looked back, Cecily was already in motion. She grabbed a wire dangling from the ceiling and hauled herself up with effortless grace. Lucia was tucked firmly under her arm. Somewhere in the chaos, the giant must have handed her over.
"Well then—farewell."
She smiled brightly, her hair fluttering in the gale. Amidst the carnage of the battlefield, her expression was unnervingly serene.
"Like I'd let you get away!!"
I kicked off the ground, closing the distance in an instant to leap after them. But the black giant was a fraction of a second faster. He quietly pressed his remaining right hand against the floor.
...Wait, no way.
The floor let out a low, guttural groan.
The earth pulsed as if it were a living thing. A heartbeat later, cracks like a spider's web raced across the entire room.
"A Vibration Weapon!?"
Before the shout could leave my lungs, the ground gave way. Gravity claimed us, dragging us down into the abyss.
"——Dammit!"
My vision spun as I fell into a vortex of rubble and smoke. As I plummeted, I looked up one last time.
Beyond the collapsing floor, I saw the black giant leap onto the hovering helicopter. I saw Cecily being pulled up leisurely by the wire, Lucia still in her arms. And I saw Cecily waving her hand—an elegant parting gesture, as if she were leaving a grand ball.
...We'd been played. Completely and utterly.
Beyond the crumbling ceiling, the wind howled as if it were laughing at us. Then, we fell with the wreckage into the dark.
The sensation of weightlessness lasted only a heartbeat. There was the roar of rushing air, and then the sudden, jarring return of gravity. Just before my body slammed into the deck, I reflexively twisted. I landed on my feet and rolled, letting the momentum carry me to dissipate the shock.
A dull ache throbbed through my body, but it was fleeting. I was fine.
"...Phew."
I exhaled and surveyed my surroundings. Based on the layout, we had dropped into the manor’s dining hall. It was a massive space, dominated by a table that looked like it could seat thirty people. Ornately carved, expensive-looking chairs were scattered about, and the mangled remains of a once-magnificent chandelier hung precariously from the ceiling.
Now, it was a wreck. Rubble from the floor above had impaled the table, the chairs were splintered, and the floor was a carpet of glass and wood shards. The smell of charred timber and iron hung heavy in the air, making my throat feel raw.
Suddenly, a golden prosthetic hand punched through a mound of debris. It twitched and clawed at the air like a zombie rising from the grave.
...She was alive. The corners of my mouth quirked up despite the situation.
A moment later, the pile exploded.
"Gah, cough! Dammit, that was reckless!"
Roselia emerged from the dust cloud, coughing violently. The metallic luster of her remaining left arm glowed dully, while fine sparks still hissed from her severed right shoulder. Her hair was matted with dust and her cheeks were traced with small cuts, but her eyes held that specific glint found only in veterans who were still very much in the fight.
"You okay over there, Repairman?"
I answered with a shrug. Roselia let out a short laugh and roughly brushed the dust off her head.
"Sheesh. It's been a while since I've done a drop test. My frame is creaking."
The thick cloud of pulverized stone slowly began to settle. High above, through the jagged hole in the ceiling, I could see the edge of the upper floor that was still standing. Sebastian and the other guards were there; it looked like they had managed to avoid the collapse.
"Master Haijima! Are you safe!?"
Sebastian’s worried voice echoed down to us. I looked up and gave a quick wave. Even from this distance, I could see the old man sag with visible relief. He was still plenty energetic, it seemed.
"Well now..."
Roselia exhaled and began rummaging through a heap of wreckage. With a heavy clang, she hauled something out. It was her own severed right arm. She tucked it under her left arm and looked at me over her shoulder.
"They got away clean, didn't they?" she asked. There was a dangerous edge to her voice. "What's the play? Do we storm Vira Corp headquarters right now?"
Her tone was light, but her fighting spirit was palpable. I took a moment to consider our options.
"...No. Rushing in blind would be a mistake. We need to get organized first."
"Organized?"
"We need to sort through the information we have and repair our gear."
I pointed toward her mangled right arm. The casing was scorched black, and the delicate internal mechanisms were exposed to the air.
"First, I’m going to fix that. We can't afford to go in anything less than a hundred percent. Besides—there's something I want to try."
After a brief pause, Roselia grinned. It was the sharp, satisfied smile of a soldier about to light a victory cigarette.
"Damn right. Once the repairs are done, we're heading out in full gear."
As the light faded, Roselia hoisted her golden prosthetic onto her shoulder and began to walk. Burnt dust swirled in her wake, catching the stray flickers of light from the world outside.