Nothing but breasts remained in my mind.
It was likely a phenomenon that we humans, burdened with an unending mating season, simply couldn't resist. Breasts.
I glanced at Tatiana’s “board.” Heh...
“Tatiana, you want a snack?”
“Drop dead!”
She kicked me.
“Leo, are you and Tatiana actually blood-related? It’s just... you two are way too in sync...”
“Is Tatiana’s father... perhaps a former Marquis?”
“Like hell he is! He’s just a local thug!”
Her background check had been conducted thoroughly.
Besides, my Wifey probably wouldn't allow incest.
It would be like tap-dancing through Wifey’s minefield.
If such a conspiracy were actually underway, she would undoubtedly hunt down and eliminate the person responsible, even if she had to turn over every blade of grass in the galaxy.
“Alright, Tatiana. Let's go look at some boobs!”
“Ohh!”
“...Those two act exactly the same, don't they?”
When Melissa whispered that, Ren nodded fervently.
“She’s just like Leo back during our time at the Junior Academy...”
Claire dropped a bomb of her own.
“Could it be?! Is she Leo’s child?!”
The Fairy blurted out a conclusion from far out in left field.
“No way! I'm only two years older than Tatiana! If you factor in the ten-month gestation period... what, did I get someone pregnant when I was one?!”
“B-Beast...”
Seriously, Fairy...
“Captain Leo... you're too much of a savage...”
“Tatiana, what are you saying?!”
“Doraaaa! You guys! Stop flirting!”
The boys suddenly snapped for some reason.
I felt like the pushback from below had become far too intense ever since I’d been promoted to Major.
Regardless, we proceeded down the corridor.
Perhaps because the facility was highly airtight, there were no leaks and the interior was clean.
The ventilation ducts were free of moss, and it seemed the cleaning functions were still active.
In the rooms we occasionally glimpsed, equipment that looked like experimental tools had been left exactly as they were when the place was abandoned.
Looking closely, I saw maintenance drones performing cleaning duties.
Unlike the latest models that incinerated minute particles of dust with plasma, these appeared to be the type that swept up debris with rotating brushes.
The faint hum of motors echoing through the facility seemed to be coming from them.
So far, we hadn't encountered any combat drones.
Just as I was beginning to find that strange, we finally spotted a security drone.
It was powered down.
It looked as though it had tripped on a ledge, become stuck, and eventually died when its battery ran out because it couldn't return to its charger.
“Ah! I’ve only ever seen those in records! It’s a Mamoru-kun!”
The Fairy raised her voice excitedly.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a military security drone. Its AI has no network connection to prevent hacking. It’s supposed to patrol a set route... but they were weak to uneven floors. And since a Mamoru-kun was more expensive than the actual military equipment they were supposed to guard, thefts were rampant, so production was discontinued...”
Why didn't they realize that before they started manufacturing them?
Claire suddenly hit upon an idea.
“Doesn't that mean we can pinpoint the era of this facility within a very narrow range?”
“Oh! As expected of Claire! I’ll check now. Let's see, it's about a hundred years before my time... wait, it’s from 603 to 605 years ago.”
“Was the Galactic Republic around back then?”
“Probably. It might have been a small state about the size of the Duke Association.”
“This close to the Imperial Capital Planet?”
The territory of the Duke Association was right next to the Imperial Capital Planet.
It was a distance easily covered in a day trip.
No matter how long ago six hundred years was, that proximity seemed unlikely, didn't it?
“That’s true... I wonder what’s going on?”
I didn't quite get it.
Still, we pressed on toward the naked beauty. The breasts.
We finally arrived at the room.
The interior was an exceptionally vast space.
As we stepped inside, a bizarre sight greeted us.
An abnormal number of cables snaked across the floor.
At the end of those cables lay a skeletal corpse that appeared to have undergone extensive mechanization.
Half of its skull was made of machinery.
Huh? Since when did this story turn into cyberpunk?
Then, we moved to the location I had confirmed with the drone.
The cables were less numerous here than near the mysterious corpse.
The cover of the ventilation duct had been removed.
I assumed that was where Kevin’s drone had entered.
As for the naked beauty... Whoa!
“She’s the same size as Big Sister!”
“Tatiana! Don't use Kevin as a comparison! I’ll enter Sage Time!”
I suddenly felt cold.
All my erotic excitement vanished instantly.
She certainly was large, though.
Neither Melissa, Ren, nor Claire said a word when they saw the lust drain out of me.
Probably because my eyes weren't lecherous anymore.
Hmm... it was hard to tell for sure in the dark, but she appeared to be a woman with long black hair.
Her age seemed to be somewhere between our own and full adulthood.
Based on Tatiana’s appraisal, maybe around the age of a university student.
“Control device discovered!”
What was likely a state-of-the-art workstation for its era was sitting right there.
After all, it had “Workstation” printed clearly on the side.
“Whoa, this is another museum piece! I can mess with it, right? Okay, you there! I’m going to infiltrate the internal network, so strip the cables and connect the terminal!”
“Yeah, yeah.”
When I stripped the cables with my knife, copper alloy wires were revealed.
After pulling out a portable communication device and setting it to electrical meter mode, I attached pinch-type measuring terminals to the copper wires.
I was able to do this because I had completed the combat engineer course.
“Alright, I’m going in!”
“Sure, sure. Bring back a naked beauty as a souvenir.”
The lights in the room flickered on immediately... though they remained dim.
It wasn't just a matter of the equipment having passed its service life.
The device’s power hummed to life.
“The capacitors aren't dead, so I think it'll run normally. The life support system also seems to be functioning. The person inside appears to be alive. I’ll begin resuscitation.”
“Got it.”
As the device operated, the liquid inside began to drain.
I worried she might melt into a puddle because it was too early or something, but that didn't happen.
Once the liquid was gone, the beauty inside collapsed limply onto the floor of the tank.
Why didn't they design these things horizontally?
The ergonomics were terrible.
“Her muscle mass has deteriorated significantly, so please get a stretcher ready.”
“Right. You guys! We’re carrying the beauty!”
“Uoooooooooh!”
The men’s morale suddenly skyrocketed.
We began the process of removing the woman from the device.
The lid was a bit rusted and stuck, but I pried it open with a crowbar.
Under the dim lighting, the woman’s hair appeared to be a deep shade of green.
“I found it! Let’s see... Experimental Subject 101... Whoa...”
Once again, I had unearthed a dark history hidden at a national level.
“Everyone... if this is really something we shouldn't have touched... let’s all... run away in the middle of the night, okay?”
Ren gently hugged me from behind.
“Husband... with the power you possess now, you could simply wipe out anyone who objects...”
No, that was terrifying.