Ch.26Work Record 005 – Do Not Let the Witch Live (3)

I decided to gather my thoughts a bit before trying to get some sleep. I figured I’d wake up around noon, but it was a day off, so no one would complain about me sleeping in.

Despite my unsteady gait, I made it back to the on-call room, closed the door, and fell asleep. The boss and Tina seemed satisfied just because I had been nice to Nadia.

It’s difficult to be cruel to someone standing right in front of you, visibly breathing and alive. Both cynicism and kindness consume a lot of energy, but in terms of results, kindness is far more efficient.

With these thoughts, my consciousness slowly faded. I drifted into sleep without visions of the monster or the legal assassination team infiltrating the company. I’d worry about everything else after waking up.

It felt like I had just closed my eyes for a moment, but four hours had already passed. The sun was high in the cloudy sky, the on-call room door I had closed was open, and… Eve was standing before me.

If this was a dream, at least it was a good one. I blinked, but Eve didn’t disappear. Am I really awake? As I flexed my hands to check, I heard a slight laugh—a sound rarely heard from Eve.

“Pfft, I’m really here in front of you. What’s going on? I came to borrow you again today, but there were interior company people here.”

I managed to speak with a hoarse voice. I hadn’t slept well due to having too many things on my mind.

“There was an incident early this morning. Belwether’s legal assassination team infiltrated, and I dealt with them. I don’t know what it was about. Belwether seems to be in terrible shape… you know, since the terrorist attack we discussed before…”

Eve, who was crouching in front of my cot, shook her head. Her prosthetic hand moved over my head, and though it wasn’t a strong sensation, I felt it stroking my hair. I was still drowsy.

“Too much on your mind, Arthur? It’s okay. It’s okay… Are you hurt anywhere? You seem fine since you slept and woke up…”

As I tried to sit up, my side ached. I had a gunshot wound there. When did I get shot? Probably when I was dealing with the second guy. There was blood on my t-shirt, but it wasn’t very visible since the shirt was black.

“Looks like I took a bullet… My head was swimming with adrenaline before I fell asleep. Could you bring me the first aid kit?”

I took off my blood-soaked t-shirt and felt my side. I could feel the bullet lodged there. It seemed to have hit at an angle, not penetrating properly but lodged diagonally in the skin. It didn’t seem to have fragmented.

Did they use subsonic rounds with poor penetration? I couldn’t properly remember what guns the legal assassination team had used. Eve soon returned with a first aid kit, and her expression turned ashen at the sight.

I was so doubtful that there was actually a bullet lodged in me that I was tapping the area, but Eve swatted my arm away, immediately opened the first aid kit, and began disinfecting around the diagonally embedded bullet. I just stared blankly.

“You can sleep in this condition? I’m going to inject a painkiller, then cauterize the tissue stuck to the bullet and pull it out. It’s going to hurt, so stay still.”

Was she originally a medic? My mind, still not fully awake, only began to clear when the painkiller needle pierced my side.

The painkiller wasn’t very effective. Posthuman Type IV had strong resistance to most drugs. It was designed to resist poisons, but there’s little distinction between medicine and poison.

Still, my senses dulled slightly. I felt something like a laser scalpel touching me, but my enhanced body was sturdier than I had thought.

The laser scalpel, which usually cauterizes wounds as well, couldn’t cut properly until she increased the output, and even then she could barely cut away the unnaturally regenerated tissue around the wound.

It was strangely painless. I wasn’t sure if it was excess adrenaline still pumping through me or if this was the normal pain resistance level of a Posthuman Type IV. I’d need to read the manual again.

The bullet came out from the disinfected skin surface. She tried to use a stapler for suturing, but my shock-absorbent skin couldn’t be pierced by the medical stapler. I spoke with a voice mixed with a yawn.

“Um, if you just wrap a bandage around it, a membrane will form and it’ll heal on its own…? This body is practically immune to infection anyway. According to the manual, that’s the proper treatment for minor wounds.”

Her eyes turned sharp and cold at my somewhat irresponsible statement, but when I showed her the Posthuman Type IV enhancement body manual, she soon returned to being the concerned Eve I knew.

“If I were a Belwether employee, I would have pestered management to create a first aid kit specifically for Posthuman Type IV. Still, I’m relieved. Irresponsibly sturdy Arthur.”

“You’re already carrying my share of responsibility, senior… Just put a bandage on it, please.”

A thick bandage was applied to keep anything from touching the wound and secured with medical tape. Soon a membrane would form, and it would heal completely. I tossed the blood-stained t-shirt into the laundry bin.

The laundry bin fills up quickly after a week of work. Holding the bin, I spoke to Eve, who had clearly said she came to see me. Today wouldn’t be as lively as last time. Probably.

“I was about to go to the laundry room. Want to come along? I feel like you’d glare daggers at me if I suggested going out like usual…”

“Good that you know. Is it nearby?”

She doesn’t know as much as I thought. Now I can’t understand how I ever thought she was cold when we first met. With just a slight smile at the corner of my mouth, I said:

“It’s within walking distance. I plan to use it until I find a place to live… Ah, I need to find a place too. I can’t stay cooped up in the on-call room forever.”

“I told you you’re thinking too much. If you were an ordinary person, that bullet would have gone right through you, and if you had slept and woken up like you just did, we’d be using that cot as a stretcher to send you to your funeral. You barely survived thanks to that enhanced body, and you’re talking about finding a place to live?”

Everyone beyond the wall—Nadia and others—only talks about my Posthuman Type IV body, but Eve never does. This should be a normal conversation, yet it feels anything but normal.

“Come to think of it, you’re right. Since my body changed, even my standards for what’s natural and unnatural seem to have shifted. I should do the laundry and then get some proper rest…”

I tucked the gun I had left on the desk in the on-call room into my waistband, closed the laundry bin, and got up. After tapping my injured waist a couple of times, I opened the automatic door and went outside.

The air was still acrid. I somewhat understand why smoking rates keep increasing. It’s human instinct to want to wash away unpleasant smells with slightly less unpleasant ones.

The self-service laundromat, open 24 hours for mercenaries who have no set time to get off work, is actually less crowded in the morning. I limped in, dumped the laundry into the washing machine, and sat down on the chair in front.

We were alone in the laundromat. The only sound I could hear, even with the Posthuman Type IV’s hearing set to maximum sensitivity, was the washing machine—unlike dawn, not even the usual gunshots were ringing out.

It felt peaceful. It’s almost always like this with Eve. Nothing particularly good happens, but at least things don’t get worse. Maintaining the status quo was more than enough.

But today, Eve… had come to find me without warning. Did she have somewhere she wanted to go? Curiosity finally rose in me, and I turned my head.

Eve looked like she was thoroughly enjoying this quiet. Come to think of it, she wasn’t someone whose expressions changed often, but right now she was smiling slightly.

It almost felt sinful to break that serene profile by speaking. Still, curiosity eventually won over my desire to maintain the status quo.

“Usually, you set up appointments the day before, right? Last week, you even asked repeatedly if it was okay for you to come along. Today you seem to have come quite suddenly… Was there somewhere you wanted to go?”

Eve finally looked at me and slowly rolled her eyes. Does she not have a destination in mind? After a moment of silence, she sighed and said:

“I just thought if I came to find you, a destination would appear. I was planning to say, ‘What do you need to investigate today? I’ll come along,’ or if it was your day off, ‘I’m thinking of going here. Can I come too?'”

I wasn’t sure if this should be called a lack of planning or if meeting me was her plan all along. I just let out a slightly amused sound.

“I’ve hardly been anywhere except Belwether my whole life, so I don’t really have any destinations in mind. And I don’t have a car. I was originally planning to save up a few months’ salary to buy even a modest one… But it seems Belwether broke the confidentiality agreement first. Should I tell you what happened?”

The CCTV in the self-service laundromat was a model that didn’t record audio. If no other customers came, there would be no one to eavesdrop, and it was Belwether who broke the contract first.

Eve hesitated a bit. She tapped her index fingers together, gathering courage to say that she wanted to hear but felt she shouldn’t.

I counted silently as I watched her deliberate. Around the count of eight, her answer came. She seemed to have decided to be brave.

“If you’re okay with it. I heard what you said when you met that Shepherd person or whatever. You got caught in a terrorist attack, something killed you… but you didn’t die, and you couldn’t return to Belwether.”

I raised my Posthuman Type IV hands to show her. I made a gesture of grasping and pulling myself up.

“I clawed my way out of the hell I was thrown into. I was working for Belwether’s security team when there was a security failure. We killed the terrorists who infiltrated from outside, but something hiding inside released… something that had volunteered for the experiment that created this body—something that used to be human. Since it was an escape from where I worked, I took the lead and failed to stop it. Probably.”

I didn’t mention Francis. It wasn’t his fault. Even when I was filled with emptiness and cynicism, I knew it wasn’t his fault.

I don’t remember that moment clearly. The only part I remember is somehow pulling out a grenade and shoving my hand with it into the monster’s mouth. Eve’s expression darkened as well.

And then, just a moment later… I felt something light touch my shoulder. I could hear a heartbeat from the point of contact. About once per second. What touched my shoulder was hair. Eve was leaning on me.

I straightened my back, which took some effort. I couldn’t tell how long that moment lasted. Then I heard her voice.

“Did anyone tell you that you did well? Or that you were amazing, or thank you… Those things you should hear after doing something like that.”

“When I was working at Belwether, my supervisor said, ‘You were one of the six best shepherds I’ve ever seen.’ The grace period wasn’t long. That was all he said, but it was enough.”

Until now, at least the washing machine sound was audible, but when I focused my hearing on what was touching my body, my perception of what was in front of me dulled. Human senses were always like that.

A Posthuman Type IV could count seconds precisely. Count to sixty and a minute passes; repeat that sixty more times and an hour passes. But now, there was a slight error.

“From what I can see, hearing it once isn’t enough for something like that. Sacrificing your life for others isn’t something people can conceive of doing. People always only look out for themselves. No. No…”

I could guess what she was about to say. The meaning of her words over beer—that I was too much of an “other” rather than a “self”—was finally becoming clearer.

“So to you, I’m the counterexample to that statement?”

“Yes. You’re sharp, Arthur. Am I talking about Hollowcreek too much? I feel like I need to talk about Hollowcreek again.”

Instead of answering verbally, I shook my head. Each time I turned my head, I could feel her hair brushing against my cheek. She must have felt me shaking my head.

“In Hollowcreek, everyone acted like they would die for the cult leader. So, I thought living for others was a terrible thing and living for myself was right. It didn’t take long to realize that living only for myself wasn’t that great either… I wasn’t sure which was right, but watching you, I think I understand a bit.”

A laugh escaped me. I wasn’t someone who should be giving life guidance to others. Though it might shatter her illusion again, I spoke willingly.

“If I told you that the first thing I did after being kicked out of Belwether was to call and harass a former colleague who thought I had died because of him, would you be disappointed?”

“Why did you do that?”

There was curiosity in her voice. It didn’t sound disappointed. We always defy our expectations.

“Just out of anger. I was thinking, ‘I’m abandoned in this state, and that’s all you suffered?’ It was a narrow-minded feeling. I wanted him to suffer as much as I had. I stopped quickly because it seemed stupid.”

“Every time you say something like ‘I have shameful parts too,’ do you know how small it makes me feel, Arthur? You must be doing it on purpose.”

Her tone wasn’t sharp. It was just like a sleepy child’s mild complaint. I gave a comfortable answer.

“If I strongly denied it here, you’d say ‘You really are amazing,’ so I’ll just smile ambiguously and move on. Is that okay?”

The head leaning on my shoulder seemed to nod. After a while, when I came to my senses and looked at the washing machine, I realized the washing had finished several minutes ago. Time seemed to pass faster than I thought.

I got up briefly to move the laundry to the dryer, and when I returned, Eve leaned her head on my shoulder again. After holding back what had come to mind during that brief moment, she whispered once I sat down:

“So, Arthur, who cunningly and irresponsibly sturdy yet insists he’s not exceptional… what should we have for lunch?”

I deliberately flinched a little before speaking. There was laughter in my voice, so it wouldn’t have been hard to tell I wasn’t really worried.

“Um, I hope I don’t have to choose dinner too?”

Eve, leaning on my shoulder, wriggled a bit as if finding a comfortable position, then let out another of those rare laughs. The thought of how few people might have heard this laugh made me feel a bit intoxicated.

“Of course you do. I’ll choose the late-night snack, so do your best. Hmm, no. If I let a woman who can’t even choose a beer properly pick a late-night snack, we’ll end up eating all sorts of weird things. Please handle the late-night snack too, Arthur.”

It was a perfect day off, except for the fact that someone whose only order at the Belwether company cafeteria had been “The usual” now had to choose three decent meals.

Being able to fall asleep in the early dawn, lying down to sleep and touching my side to wonder “Why is there a bandage here?”… considering all that, it was definitely a day off that couldn’t have been better.