Eddy’s squad had been ambushed by androids along their infiltration route.
Thanks to the efforts of Rikochi and her merry companions, the androids were wiped out.
That was well and good, but the sheer number of casualties forced a withdrawal.
Well, then.
“Leo-kun, a written apology has arrived from Riko-chan.”
Fairy looked like she’d just chewed on a bitter bug.
“She’s fast... wait, what? The Imperial Guard Knights stripped off their combat suits for some stegoro... What is this?!”
“It makes zero sense, doesn’t it~?”
The biology and habits of Rikochi’s companions were a total mystery.
Many of them had been sidelined by a doctor stop, yet none of them were seriously injured...
Could they please stop contradicting themselves in a single sentence?
How can you be under a doctor stop without being seriously injured?
I decided to stop thinking about it.
Going further in led to a dead end.
This route was also a bust.
We decided to head back too.
When we returned, the members of Rikochi’s and Eddy’s squads were being scrubbed raw in full-body washers for decontamination.
“It, it stingsssssssss!”
One of Rikochi’s subordinates let out a blood-curdling scream.
Yeah, I knew that feeling.
I’d been in those things plenty of times.
They wouldn’t let you out until your entire body—wounds and all—had been thoroughly scoured.
The logic was basically: scrub the hell out of them and then let the nanomachines fix the damage. In the case of deep wounds, the machines would even scrape away the dead flesh.
The effectiveness was off the charts.
Thanks to those washers and nanomachines, I’d never had a wound get infected. It just felt like I was dying from the pain while it happened.
Eddy was applying medicine and wrapping bandages himself.
For Eddy to even get hurt...
It must have been a hell of a fight.
And yet, the official report read like a comedy sketch.
“Yo, Leo. I messed up for the first time in a while.”
“The situation looks way different than the report said!”
“It’s just that Rikochi and her crew are weird. It wouldn't have been a surprise if people had actually died.”
“Were the enemies androids?”
“Yeah. They had armor designed to withstand pulse rifles. It forced us into a melee.”
“Ah... well... sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry about it. You had to fight monsters on your end, didn’t you?”
“Ours were just really strong.”
Eddy was one of the most elite fighters in the Galactic Empire. If he was struggling, the enemies must have been incredibly troublesome.
I was just glad our opponents were only experimental subjects.
“They said it’ll take three days to clear the pollutants from my system. I’m grounded on this planet for a bit.”
Just as I was thinking how rough that sounded, my own test results came in.
No pollutants detected.
“Looks like I’m in the clear.”
“Lucky you. I’ll leave the rest to you, then.”
I knew it.
The healthy guy gets to take over!
“Fairy, what about Isono?”
“Let’s see... His health check is fine, but a tiny amount of contamination was found, so he’s confined to his room.”
“And Nakajima?”
“Nakajima-kun is also on standby due to contamination. I suspect it’s because Isono-kun and Nakajima-kun were dressed so casually when they first arrived on this planet.”
God, the guys are weak!
“So it’s just me?”
“No, please regroup with Melissa-chan, Claire-chan, and Ren’s squad.”
“Roger that.”
And so, I headed back in with my fiancées.
Our entry point was a location presumed to be a worker-use back entrance.
After bypassing several security gates, we found a worker-use entrance right next to the material loading entrance.
The security gates weren’t actually working, though, since there were no guards or security drones left to man them.
It was just a hunch, but I wondered if the ancestors of the locals who were left behind had hunted the external security to extinction.
You need resources to maintain a civilization, after all.
I figured they probably kept things running for a few generations—maybe until the generation of children who could still be properly educated.
Beyond that... it was impossible.
Just like on Edge’s planet, you can’t maintain a civilization forever like that.
Even with engineers and scientists, you need a balance of farmers, merchants, doctors, and laborers to keep the wheels turning. Not to mention culture, like cooking... Religion can be left to its own devices, but if some weird cult starts suppressing science and technology, it’s game over for progress.
Our own civilization was really just barely hanging on by a thread, wasn't it?
Anyway, time to head in.
I didn’t have a scratch on me, so I marched inside wearing my chemical warfare combat suit.
“Hey, Leo, did you notice?” Claire asked.
“The fact that the enemies don’t have weapons?”
“So you did notice. What do you make of it?”
“I think they probably ran out of materials and couldn't manufacture any more. Even using androids to recycle salvaged parts has its limits.”
It was hard to recover metal that had already rusted and weathered away. It would require as much effort as extracting minerals directly from the soil. There was no way combat androids could handle that kind of labor. Even if those locusts had a habit of hoarding metal, they couldn't do anything about what was buried in the dirt.
Storing things without them breaking was also a challenge. An abandoned facility simply wasn't equipped for long-term preservation.
Despite that, the experimental subjects were still alive. Or rather, they were probably created and discarded in a continuous cycle. They must have been maintaining only the equipment necessary to churn out those subjects.
It was the pinnacle of futility.
As we pushed deeper, an industrial elevator came into view.
“Ugh, this looks creepy.”
I checked the circuits for the time being.
Yeah, this was a no-go. The fuse was completely melted.
“Stairs it is.”
The door was already half-collapsed. Security didn't mean a damn thing anymore. We cleared the door away and headed up the stairs. It was a hydraulic door, but in this state, it was nothing but junk.
“The security is a total mess over here,” Melissa said with a chuckle.
There were probably supposed to be soldiers and drones stationed here, but they likely withered away due to the proximity to the outside air and the pollutants.
“Ah!”
With a loud crash, the stairs beneath Claire’s feet gave way.
Whoa! Dangerous!
“B-Be careful...”
“I hate this... decaying buildings are terrifying. They’re scarier than experimental subjects or androids!”
You could actually die just by walking, after all.
In hindsight, it was a good thing Rikochi didn’t come this way. With her heavy gear, she probably would have crashed through the stairs and fallen to her death.
Right person for the right job, I guess.
We moved up briskly.
We reached the third floor—it looked like a section that couldn't be accessed from the front. There were documents scattered about, but they were likely too weathered to be legible. I’d have to leave that to the specialists later.
We continued into the depths.
Holes pockmarked the floor, and rusted androids lay scattered everywhere. The outside air must have leaked in here. Even the plastic and resins had degraded into brittle husks. Dirt and sand had poured in through what looked like a window.
As we moved further in, an android started heading our way.
I braced for combat, but then the ceiling came crashing down. It wasn't a trap; it was structural failure. Mud and water poured down from the gap where the ceiling had been. A hole opened up in the floor, and the android was instantly swallowed by the abyss.
Scary!
The most terrifying thing in here was definitely the building itself!