Ch.141Chapter 23. Line (4)

All the magical girls had their circuits returned. Naturally, all the children could transform properly again.

We also succeeded in persuading Pang Pang.

…No, calling it “success” would be too shameless. It wasn’t that we succeeded in persuading her; Pang Pang simply offered to help us.

The reason Pyung Pyung kidnapped Pang Pang was because he thought she would be some kind of “key.” Of course, we don’t know exactly what that “key” means. Actually, even calling it a “key” is just my interpretation, not his exact words.

Whether they need Pang Pang’s bloodline to maintain the company’s core, or if they need her for some biometric security system—we don’t know.

We can only assume that Pang Pang will be helpful in such a situation.

“So, how do we find the Chairman?”

This time, I boldly walked into headquarters and asked Cherry that question.

The protesters hesitated a bit when they saw us walking in openly. After all, we were being hailed as heroes who fought for Earth.

Though I doubt those people know who Pang Pang really is.

Cherry, who had taken on something of a leadership position after many people left, didn’t try to stop us from entering.

“Actually, we do have a clue about that.”

“A clue?”

Cherry moved busily across the desk again.

This time, not just the monitor on the desk but also the large monitor attached to the office wall displayed a screen.

What was scattered across that large monitor was—

“…Machine code?”

Ju-a muttered in disbelief.

Yes. The large screen was filled with tiny font of 0s and 1s scattered everywhere. Like something from that old movie series.

At least in that series, there were alphabets and Japanese characters mixed in, but here it was purely 0s and 1s. Fortunately, unlike in the movie, they weren’t completely jumbled—instead, they were neatly arranged from the top as if edited in a document program.

“The sender is James.”

At those words, we all turned to Cherry simultaneously.

“James went back to the company, right? After that, we had no idea where he was or what he was doing.”

The last thing he said before leaving was that he would “take care of the remaining parts of the company.”

The Chairman had disappeared, and the executives had fled or were nowhere to be found on Earth. Most of the people who remained were staff members, but not people who could significantly influence the company’s management rights.

Besides, we couldn’t arrest all the combatants either.

After all, those people were, strictly speaking, victims or people who had almost ended up on that list.

So someone needed to step up and organize the situation. James, who had once been an executive of the company, took on that role.

And since then, there had been no contact, so I had no idea what James was doing or where he was.

But now, suddenly, James had contacted Cherry. And through personal means, at that. Naturally, Cherry thought something serious had happened, so she had been working on translating the message for the past few days.

“But why machine code?”

“To be precise, it’s not actually machine code.”

At those words, we looked at Cherry again.

“I think James believed there was a possibility it might be ‘discovered.’ By the Chairman’s side, I mean.”

“The Chairman’s side.”

I pondered Cherry’s words carefully.

James was, in a way, a kind of fanatic. One who wanted to reverse entropy and rewrite the laws of this universe.

Without the end of time, without the destruction of this space, to recreate literal ‘eternity’ so that all civilizations living in this universe could also literally be eternal.

Or at least, to allow new life to sprout again from extinct civilizations or other places with organic matter.

Well, it sounds nice in theory, but in reality, it’s not something we need to worry about.

Who in this world lives thinking about hundreds of millions of years into the future?

Usually, people would consider it a good world if just their own few decades of life were decent.

Moreover, if you think about how many people would have to be sacrificed to create this concept of eternity, you’d have to oppose it.

That’s why I thought James’s thinking wouldn’t change. That’s the annoying thing about beliefs—once established, they’re extremely difficult to change.

“Are you saying James’s beliefs have changed?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure about that either.”

Cherry shook her head.

“However.”

As Cherry typed on the keyboard, text appeared on the screen.

Again, to me, it was content that was difficult to understand. At least it wasn’t just a “simple letter.”

“The content is coordinates specifying a location in the galaxy, encoded in a very complex way—using various formulas to twist and turn it. And even then, it wasn’t cleanly expressed with numbers and equations, but used this country’s characters to twist and explain it once more, which made interpretation difficult.”

“In what way?”

“First of all, those 0s and 1s aren’t machine code but Morse code, disguised to look like noise at first glance.”

Cherry explained that 0 was a dot and 1 was a dash.

And the content was actually in Korean, but not just regular Korean—it was ancient Korean converted to English pronunciation, then the alphabet vowels and consonants were separated and mixed using an anagram method. On top of that, it was actually “a very complex formula,” so to someone who didn’t know, it would truly look like “noise.”

“I’m impressed you managed to decode it.”

I couldn’t help but say that after just hearing the explanation, without even knowing how she solved it. Even Ju-a, who had the sharpest mind among us for such things, had a fed-up expression.

“Well, I had to know how to interpret it.”

Cherry said.

“This is a cipher that James and I created in case of emergency.”

“…”

We stared at Cherry for a while.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

Cherry narrowed her eyes at us, so we looked at each other’s faces before I spoke as the representative.

“No, we’re just surprised you two are closer than we thought.”

That was probably what everyone was thinking. At first glance, Cherry and James had seemed to be on very bad terms.

Looking around, everyone was nodding. Especially Hayun, whose eyes were strangely sparkling.

…I don’t know why, but it reminds me of when I thought about them having babies. I was on edge in many ways back then, but thinking about it again, there’s no worse racial discrimination than that.

I understand why Hayun had such a horrified expression.

“…You know what? James is actually a woman like me.”

“…”

But my thoughts were blown away by Cherry’s bombshell announcement.

“…What?”

I forgot all the important talk about machine code and coordinates we were just having and reflexively asked that.

“James is a woman. Well… since you’re not Squeakeans, you wouldn’t be able to tell properly, so I understand that reaction.”

“No, no, wait.”

I pressed my fingers against my forehead.

The James I know has the voice of a middle-aged man with a baritone voice. The kind that wouldn’t be out of place as a voice actor—well, that’s not James’s real voice anyway, just the sound coming from the translation device around his neck, so it would sound good unless deliberately chosen to be bad.

“Why did she choose that voice?”

“Hmm…”

Cherry thought for a moment.

“Just personal preference, I guess?”

“Preference.”

“Humans do have quite significant differences between males and females, but when you first hear voices from a completely unfamiliar perspective, they just sound like different ‘types.’ I chose an example of my own gender, but James apparently didn’t.”

I had a somewhat blank expression as she said this as if it were nothing.

That’s… well, I suppose one could think that way.

Come to think of it, James did have trouble reading my expressions. Even when I made openly disgusted faces, she just kept saying what she wanted to say.

“Or maybe she was trying to ‘disguise’ herself. It seems to have worked on you at least?”

Cherry said with some interest.

Well, that’s true, but…

Somehow… I feel a bit betrayed. Of course, James was someone who would betray us anyway, but still.

“…Whatever, it doesn’t matter.”

I sighed deeply as I answered.

Right, none of that matters. What’s important now is whether we can find the former Chairman or not.

“So? What was the content of the message James sent?”

“Yes. According to my calculations…”

Cherry typed on the keyboard again.

“It’s a place not too far from here.”

“Not too far? How far?”

“Jupiter.”

“Jupiter.”

I repeated Cherry’s words once more.

That’s not “not too far”!

What was it, even a manned spacecraft to Mars takes several years or more than a decade, doesn’t it?

Well, by alien standards, it might just be around the corner. After all, these are aliens who found Voyager, which traveled much farther.

“So, are you saying we all have to… go near Jupiter?”

“Hmm… I think that’s how it will be.”

“…”

Well, I guess…

In magical girl shows or tokusatsu, if there’s an alien character, they might have their base near a planet other than Earth.

…I guess? Honestly, I’m not sure. I didn’t watch those shows that closely.

*

There are several ways to get from Earth to Jupiter.

First. Convince a country with sufficient aerospace technology, whether this country or another, to provide a manned rocket. Then board it and launch toward Jupiter.

Designing and building such a rocket would take a very long time. Since people would need to eat and sleep inside for years, obviously the rocket technology used to launch Voyager wouldn’t be sufficient.

It’s probably not impossible with Earth’s current technology, but it’s too expensive for one country to handle alone. Literally, like when they built the International Space Station, all countries would need to join hands and pour their hearts and souls into building it.

There’s a romantic aspect to it. The title of a single spacecraft built by all of humanity—indeed, by all civilizations in this universe—joining forces to stop an enemy trying to consume all aliens as fuel.

But we don’t have that kind of time, nor that kind of political influence.

Second. Just ask the Galactic Federation for help.

The problem with this method is that the Galactic Federation is currently in extreme chaos.

We don’t know if there are factions supporting the Chairman. We already know there might be beings who wanted to use humans as fuel.

There might be civilizations that don’t show much interest in an underdeveloped civilization in a corner of the galaxy, or some might want to completely withdraw from Earth.

In such a situation, I’m not sure if anyone would readily provide a spacecraft when we, who possess a “generator,” ask for one.

So, we decided to choose a third option again.

“You know. A spacecraft. And a pretty decent one at that.”

Rose said with a confident expression, showing us her smartphone screen.

The spacecraft shown there was—

That’s right.

The spacecraft we had previously raided and caused havoc inside.

The spacecraft that outwardly seemed to conform to Galactic Federation standards, but had quite different contents.

“…Didn’t the Federation take it?”

“Well, it seems the Federation and this country’s government are having a power struggle.”

Rose said.

“A power struggle?”

“It was built on this country’s soil, and since Noir Corporation, the builders, was essentially going to be taken over by this country, they claim it belongs to this country. Conversely, the Federation claims it’s the result of international crime, so they should investigate it. They say this country’s technology isn’t advanced enough to understand it.”

“…”

“What? My parents work in this field, so I know a bit about it.”

I didn’t know Rose’s parents worked in aerospace.

“But there’s no fuel.”

I said.

“Weren’t all the kaijin inside taken away separately? For treatment, they said.”

“That’s right. They’re being treated at the government level. They’re also checking identities in case any were kidnapped people.”

Cherry answered.

“…It’s not fuel… but.”

Hayun spoke up.

“If we’re talking about someone who has the energy to move that ship, there is someone, right?”

And she looked straight at me.

“…”

I looked at Hayun seriously for a moment.

“Me?”

“Yes. You have the generator too.”

Well, that’s true, but.

“…”

Yes, it really is only me who can do it.

Is it my imagination that Hayun’s gaze seems a bit sticky?

Following her gaze, Jihye’s eyes moved too, and Ju-a’s face was slightly flushed.

“That sounds great!”

Cherry clapped her hands and said.

“Since we have the generator, we should be able to convert it to energy! We can make it move even without the despair circuit!”

She speaks as if she knows nothing about that energy.

Hmm.

I think I’ve seen jokes about polar bears before, and it seems to make some sense in this world.

…Is it because it’s environmentally friendly energy?

Anyway.