Chapter 51 – Excuse Me…! Who Are You Calling a Puppy?!

The room had gone quiet.

Zein and Fal's footsteps faded from the corridor, and what remained was three people: Letaria, Grain, and Milea.

"...What I know about the situation in the field is no different from what the others just told you. Was there something more?"

Letaria straightened in her chair and looked steadily at the two of them.

Milea cleared every hologram from the tabletop with a sweep of her hand, then turned to Letaria with an expression that had grown more serious.

"-- Letaria. The unidentified voice you heard during combat. Do you think it might be connected to the voice Blang and the others were hearing?"

Now that she mentioned it. Letaria rested one hand gently against her chest and turned her memory back to the cold of the cockpit, and the voice that had come through it.

"...Blang said it was a woman's voice, if I recall. But the voice I heard was... neither clearly male nor female, neither adult nor child. A strangely unplaceable quality to it. The content was also different - nothing like the sweet temptations Blang described. What reached me was a warning, and something like a question about the possibilities of Arden and myself."

"Whether the source is the same - that we can't say yet."

Grain said it low, arms folded.

"But voice masking and conversion is no difficult technology. If whoever sent it was deliberately selecting the register most likely to reach each listener, then the difference in character is easy enough to explain."

"What?! That sort of thing is possible?!"

Letaria had no knowledge that voice conversion was essentially universal technology - the MTI automatic translation system she used every day ran on the same principles.

"That part, at least, isn't particularly hard."

Milea eased her expression a fraction.

"There is one more thing. According to Blang, while he was piloting the machine and synchronized with the voice, he experienced severe headaches and repeated mental rejection responses. ...Letaria, when you heard the voice while piloting Arden - were there any physical symptoms? Anything at all out of the ordinary?"

Letaria tilted her head slightly and consulted her own senses.

"No. Not the slightest headache. There was something else, though... When I am in Arden, there is a feeling - warm, and rather strange - as though the machine is reading my intentions and moving in answer to them."

"...I see."

Milea and Grain exchanged a look and fell silent at the same moment.

The voice was, at the very least, not harming Letaria. But their expressions didn't match that conclusion - something in their seriousness made Letaria's brow draw together.

"...What is it? Both of you."

Milea let out a quiet breath and made up her mind.

"Letaria. ...We've been thinking - the design philosophy underlying Arden, the machine Blang was piloting, and those unmanned units... all three of them point back to something remarkably similar. Which meant there was a real possibility that the same kind of mental deterioration that happened to Blang was happening to you as well. We've been worried about that for some time."

Underneath the words - genuine concern. Nothing performed about it.

Letaria was still searching for a reply when Milea let out a small, sudden laugh.

"-- But it seems we were fretting over nothing. Looking at your face right now - that completely unguarded expression, like a little puppy - it's perfectly plain to me that you are entirely untouched by anything so dreadful."

Beside her, Grain had softened too, the tension gone from the corners of his eyes, a warm smile showing through.

"Excuse me...! Who are you calling a puppy?! I am Letaria Adeniam, daughter of the House of Adeniam - !"

Her face was crimson and she said it at full volume - but with those two smiling at her, she felt something loosen inside herself, something she hadn't known she had been holding. And in the end, despite herself, she laughed as well. A small, quiet sound.

"Don't worry. So far, no harmful programming toward you has been found in Arden. The inspection has a little further to go - we'll let you know when it's done."

"...Understood. I leave it in your hands."

Letaria gave a simple nod.

A warm quiet settled over the reception room.

But the concern that had taken root deep in Milea and Grain was not gone.

The storm was almost here.