Chapter 110

“...Postponed?”

Dezeb lay sprawled out and rolled his eyes toward Ol. He had no desire to lift his limp body.

“Why didn’t she cancel it?”

“It cannot be canceled.”

Of course it couldn’t. He would never have left himself a way to let her escape. She was the only one who didn’t know that. Unless she was pretending not to.

Dezeb let out a low, humorless laugh.

“...Well, tell her she can do as she likes.”

As he chuckled, another woman’s hands wound around him. Several men’s hands joined hers.

In the bedroom of his divine domain, he had summoned four or five compatible partners and several support types. Dezeb sat up among the tangle of naked bodies.

“......”

Sticky fluids ran down his skin, but none of them were his. He hadn’t been able to get hard.

He put on a robe and slipped a cigarette between his lips.

“How the hell did I end up like this?”

Ol, to whom he had addressed the question, didn’t know either.

He couldn’t begin to understand why his Master wanted Lieutenant Vermilion so badly.

As far as Ol could see, Erabelle was merely a woman with somewhat odd habits and tastes. She was ordinary looking, too.

The last time he had cautiously asked why, Dezeb had grown suspicious and demanded to know what prompted his interest. Around then, his Master had fallen prey to the frankly bizarre notion that everyone around him might desire the woman.

Unfortunately, he still believed ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) it. Ol couldn’t say much of anything without risking suspicion.

“Yes. How did I?”

While Ol was lost in thought, Dezeb walked out onto the balcony and drew deeply on his cigarette.

He could almost taste the woman on his tongue. His penis, which hadn’t stirred no matter how much the others had sucked and bitten him, soon began to leak. He gave a quiet, incredulous laugh.

“Ha... damn it.”

The noise again.

It was coming through again. Minor injuries weren’t the only thing he was bearing. He was bearing all of the woman’s noise as well.

His fierce pupils slipped in and out of focus. Pitch-black centipedes and snakes writhed across his skin.

“......”

He looked up at the dark sky and breathed out a long stream of smoke. The white smoke curled through the air and faded.

“Bring me different ones.”

Dezeb knew how many times he had already said it. He gave a small shrug.

“Maybe it’ll work if I try a little harder.”

“Lieutenant, we’ve finished inspecting the transmission route.”

“Thank you.”

“The wave readings are within the normal range, too. Are you really working late again tonight?”

Erabelle nodded.

“There’s a lot to do.”

“Lieutenant Camillia said you had to rest today. She might come looking for you herself.”

“She won’t find me here. I’m moving to Point Four.”

“Another outside job?”

“Yes. It won’t take long.”

Erabelle slung her equipment over her shoulder and headed for the shuttle pad.

She had been working outside almost constantly lately, but the platoon members who worked with her weren’t suffering too badly.

They weren’t getting motion sickness.

They had stubbornly insisted otherwise, but what had happened back then really must have been a side effect of the assimilation agent.

That drug caused one problem after another.

Strapped into her seat, Erabelle watched the view outside sway as the shuttle made evasive maneuvers. She still didn’t feel great, of course, but at least she wasn’t about to become a fountain of stomach acid like before.

As soon as they disembarked, the 41st Division patrol team erected a barrier and shields.

Things weren’t as bad as they used to be, but monsters were vicious creatures. Strange as it was, they had a strong sense of loyalty to their own kind despite eating one another. Protective equipment was essential.

“I’ll do that.”

Erabelle stopped a platoon member from touching the relay. She used to leave installation of the external relays entirely to the platoon, but she had concluded that wouldn’t work.

A relay was a relay, but it was also a kind of artificial totem.

Version 066—no, 067—was a spirit, after all.

It needed a spiritual nature, even if that nature had to be built artificially. If she constructed it properly and gave it enough capacity for its grade, she could transfer the signum authorization and let it operate on its own, without personnel.

The need to transfer signum authorization made the field deeply unpopular.

In this world, a person could hardly function without a signum.

Even a simple banking transaction required a signum connection. Few people would willingly make themselves legally incompetent.

It was an even stupider thing to do than putting an auxiliary support type in the main slot.

Which was exactly what she was doing.

Because the field was so unpopular, little technology or practical knowledge had accumulated. No one had even attempted to build equipment capable of accepting a transfer of S-grade authorization. If someone had, nothing about it had been made public.

Her mistake had been trying to finish equipment she didn’t properly understand while sitting at a desk.

Now Erabelle traveled from site to site, setting foot on the ground where each relay would be installed.

“The energy pack voltage is off. What are the wave readings?”

Monsters disrupted signum channels. Usually they had a much greater effect on intelligent beings themselves, but equipment was affected slightly too.

By the time she finished installing all the relays to account for the changing wave readings, they had unintentionally worked through the night.

The exhausted platoon members lay sprawled wherever they had dropped.

It was more a matter of mental exhaustion than physical stamina. All-nighters were like that.

Feeling sorry for them, Erabelle went into the camper, heated up some boxed meals, passed them around, and opened one for herself.

The sun was rising in the distance.

...I need to finish up here quickly. Oh, and I have to fix the heating plate today. Am I going to miss another night’s sleep?

She grumbled, but in truth she was relieved.

She had no time to think.

Work always ended, though. The faster you did it, the sooner it ended. Even work that seemed impossible to finish eventually got done if you kept at it.

“......”

She wasn’t happy at all.

After all the effort she had put in....

Freshly washed for the first time in ages and looking human again, Erabelle slumped over her desk and swallowed a sigh.

She felt no joy whatsoever.

After sitting there for a long while, she abruptly straightened. She would be better off going out.

“Where’s Lieutenant Camillia?”

Erabelle had been using work to avoid her again, so she might really get hit this time if they met.

But whether she got punched or drank until her liver gave out, Erabelle had decided she had to do something. She went looking for Camillia.

“The Lieutenant’s at a club right now.”

Camillia, it seemed, was out enjoying her youth.

In that case, Erabelle would go interrupt her at once.

With so many units in the conflict zone gathered in one place, a sort of downtown had formed nearby.

It was in worse shape than the downtown near her old company. At least that one had been populated by locals who knew where to draw the line.

Here, there were no lines.

They were all from offworld, and their customers were all soldiers....

They were beautiful people with physical ability of at least level four—attractive, with energy to spare. And in a world where sex was a means of survival, the result was predictable.

A thriving culture of excess and depravity had taken root.

Camillia was at one of downtown’s most popular spots. The first floor was a casual pub, while the second and third basement levels housed a club packed with soldiers who had more skin exposed than covered.

The pub had been full of people clinging to one another, kissing and groping. Downstairs was practically Sodom and Gomorrah.

One person, bare-chested with their pants unzipped, gripped a pole and rolled their hips. Another crouched beneath them with their tongue out, as though ready to suck them off. Others inhaled marijuana vapor from hookahs. Someone whose eyes had already glazed over from whatever they’d taken was offering their body to anyone who wanted it....

Give these people work and they moved like worms. Bring them here, and no one could have been more enthusiastic.

Erabelle walked steadily through the dark club, past the pounding thud of the amplifiers and the frantic colored lights flashing in every direction.

“What the—”

Camillia had booked a private room.

“Y-you? What are you doing here?”

Camillia stared in horror as Erabelle entered.

“Is that all you ever say when you see me?”

“I asked why you’re here!”

“Why does anyone come to a club? To drink.”

Erabelle couldn’t see why she was so startled.

“D-do you even know what kind of place this is?”

“It’s a club.”

Was she drunk already?

“Go. Hurry, go!”

“Oh, come on. I want a drink too.”

Erabelle dropped onto the sofa and shook the bottles scattered across the table one by one. As she poured their remaining contents into a single glass, Camillia grew frantic.

“I-I’ll buy you a drink somewhere else, all right? Just—let’s get out of here first. You hate places like this.”

“I do?”

That was news to her.

“I’ve been to places like this plenty of times.”

“What?! How?”

“I’ll spare you the details. Family privacy.”

For the sake of the Count’s reputation, she decided against explaining. Honestly, although he had eventually pulled himself together, Count Vermilion had once been even more work than Sanche.