『... The Military State intends to dispatch an investigation team.』

The golem finished speaking in its usual level tone.

After hearing the whole explanation, I found myself tilting my head. A Military State communications officer had just reported to me, of all people—a mere convict laborer.

Perhaps realizing that, the golem added what sounded like an excuse.

『Do not misunderstand. We do not place complete faith in your assessment. The military authorities continue to regard this situation as the result of a simple error. This investigation team will identify the cause of that error. Furthermore, informing you of this is nothing more than a brief update for the individual who provided the information.』

“Of course.”

『... Let me emphasize this, just in case: do not act rashly. The Military State is paying close attention to this matter, and the investigation team includes a general officer. Lieutenant Colonel Callis is a soldier of the Military State. It is also the Military State that will judge her conduct. Even if you find aspects of the lieutenant colonel's activities suspicious, they are not yours to address. I advise you to stay put.』

Even after I said I understood, the golem repeated its warning several times.

Did she think I couldn't understand her? The Military State hated unnecessary effort, yet here she was saying everything twice.

『If you truly wish to leave the bottomless pit, your only option is to obey the Military State's instructions and serve your sentence diligently.』

I said I got it. Why was she so determined not to leave me alone? Could it be?

“Are you worried about me, by any chance?”

『Negative! I am merely stating common sense! It would be ten times more realistic and constructive than planning an escape from an inescapable place!』

Her answer was so emphatic that it almost hurt my feelings. She didn't have to go that far. I gave a subdued nod.

After that forceful outburst, the golem steadied its breathing and continued.

『... Lieutenant Colonel Callis has requested a supply of canned meat. Do you have any requests?』

“No, I'm fine. It looks like the lieutenant colonel will handle distribution herself this time anyway.”

『... Understood. In that case, I will withdraw. Keep up your work.』

“Yes. You too, Captain.”

The golem disconnected as soon as I finished speaking.

THUD.

Its body slumped limply, and I seated it upright in a corner of the dining hall.

Standing up, I murmured into empty space.

“Now Lieutenant Colonel Callis is completely isolated. She has nowhere to turn. How will she act now that she's cornered?”

No answer came.

Come on. I knew she was listening. If she didn't answer, I'd look like someone muttering to himself.

I shouted toward one wall of the dining hall so she couldn't ignore me.

“See? Isn't it nice to have one golem left? If you'd smashed them all, we couldn't have requested supplies, and we wouldn't know what was happening. Do you understand now that smashing everything isn't always the answer?”

The opposite wall rippled like a mirage. The concealment fell away, revealing the Regressor leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

Despite having heard my entire conversation with the golem, she still sounded dissatisfied.

“... If we smash the golem and kill that woman, there's nothing to worry about.”

“She said a general officer is coming. What if you casually kill the lieutenant colonel and a general comes down here in person?”

“They're called generals, but not all of them are powerful. Unless it's one of the Six Generals, I can handle them alone. With Tyrkanzyaka, it'll be much easier.”

It wasn't arrogance. Generals stood at the top of the Military State's pyramid, its mightiest fighting forces, the people who led the nation.

The Regressor had just declared, as though it were common knowledge, that she was confident she could defeat any of them except the Six Generals, whose strength was on another level.

Impressive, certainly, but that wasn't the problem. I cautiously pointed it out.

“You realize generals count as key national figures, right? The moment you kill one, the Military State will mark you as an enemy. There'll be no room for compromise.”

“You and I are already marked. Do you think they'll leave us alone after we survived in the bottomless pit without their permission? Even if we get out as we are, we can forget about a normal life. What are you so worried about?”

Well. She had a point.

With no answer to that, I grumbled for the sake of it.

“I'm worried about you, since you'd kill a general without batting an eye.”

“Oh, shut up. You didn't bat an eye when the blade was aimed at you.”

“It's called a poker face. I was terrified inside.”

The Regressor snorted at that. Apparently, she didn't believe a word of my excuse.

“Someone like you, a petty criminal? If that were true, the Military State would've fallen last night.”

“But it's true. The captain and the lieutenant colonel both say the same thing. I'm a petty criminal.”

“You don't have to try to fool me too. We might end up being allies.”

'Azi and Tyrkanzyaka alone give me more than enough reason to keep him alive. Unless some unusual variable comes up, I'll probably keep him alive in the next run too. If possible, I'd like to find out his true intentions in this run.'

She didn't seem likely to believe me, no matter what I said.

But did I really need to correct her? I'd secured my right to survive not just this run, but the next one too. Be grateful, next-run me. Look at all the trouble I've gone to for myself.

In any case, my life had been spared, so I might as well let it go. I shrugged.

“That makes it even harder to understand.”

Unlike generous-hearted me, however, the fussy Regressor couldn't simply let her questions slide.

She asked what was bothering her.

“Is there any reason to keep that lieutenant colonel alive?”

“Captain AB just explained. A general is coming.”

“No, I'm not talking about the circumstances. You never intended to kill her in the first place. You weren't trying to help her either, but quite apart from that, it feels like killing her was never even an option you considered.”

Sometimes the Regressor's thoughts took strange leaps.

I wasn't sure whether that was thanks to her externally attached thirteen-run thought processor or simply her nature. Most of the time she was barking up the wrong tree, but once or twice she'd strike right at the heart of things with surprising acuity. Like a cow accidentally catching a mouse while backing up.

Even when I gave her a noncommittal smile, she continued to question me sharply.

“Why? Don't tell me she's your type?”

“Haha. Of course not.”

“Then?”

“Sigh. Well...”

Well, you see. Reading the officer's mind from time to time had made me realize something.

The human heart really was fascinating.

“Aren't you curious, Shei?”

“About what?”

The officer's goal was to become a Level 4 citizen. She had become an officer for that very purpose, and taken the hand offered to her in secret by the secret society known as the Lords of Creation.

Her progress had been smooth. With their support, she'd received two medals and rocketed up the ranks to lieutenant colonel. She had even gained enough fame that people in the Military State recognized her.

Then an order had arrived from the Lords of Creation.

Infiltrate Tantalus under the guise of an accident and gather information.

Tantalus, the bottomless pit. It was a hellish place no one should dare approach... but the danger had diminished considerably after the jailbreak. Most encouraging of all was the fact that the convict laborer sent down ahead of her was still comfortably alive.

If even a petty criminal could survive, why wouldn't she, one of the Military State's elite, be safe?

And so the officer had entered this place on their orders.

But...

“A land of utter isolation. A bottomless pit where you can't count on anyone else's help. She'd climbed fairly high to become a lieutenant colonel, yet she was dropped here alone, without any support. Everyone is hounding her, and she hasn't accomplished a thing. Even people she never considered enemies are hostile to her.”

Shei, the dangerous individual, remained as sharp-edged as ever.

The King of Dogs had already formed such a deep bond with the convict laborer that there was no opening for her to squeeze into.

She needed to do something about that laborer, but for some reason the Progenitor, who ought to be indifferent to humans, was fiercely protective of him.

The officer would watch me all day, searching for a weakness. Each time, I pretended not to notice her gaze and showed her where I stood, and how tightly bound we were.

The more she saw, the deeper her despair became.

A mission with no prospect of success. She bit her nails, racking her brains for a solution that wouldn't come. But no solution was going to appear out of thin air in this isolated bottomless pit.

By now, the officer must have understood. Here... there was nothing an outsider like her could do.

“There's no one she can even talk to, and she has no idea how much time is passing. Her goal grows ever more distant while the end draws closer. Her life is worth no more than a gnat's.”

Even when the officer found an opportunity to approach Azi, all I had to do was ring the bell, and Azi would come running straight to me.

Even inside the building, she felt an eerie gaze on her whenever she passed a shadow the light didn't reach. That was Tyr keeping watch over her.

On top of that, the Regressor standing before me radiated murderous intent whenever she saw the lieutenant colonel. Someone who had reached lieutenant colonel could sense unconcealed killing intent, which meant she was experiencing death several times a day.

“Maybe she'll die here. Maybe she'll fade away like a feeble candle flame, having accomplished nothing, remembered by no one. Maybe they'll abandon her now that their plan has gone awry. Now, with all those worries weighing on her...”

Her goal was Level 4 citizenship.

She wanted Level 4 so she could leave what she owned to the next generation.

Yet she had neither family nor spouse. If she died here, it would all come to nothing.

Wasn't that a contradiction? Risking her life for something that didn't yet exist.

“What will she show us when she's hit rock bottom?”

What would she choose at the end of her life, at the far end of that contradiction?

“Aren't you curious?”

I was so curious that I wanted to ask her.

Predictably enough, the Regressor didn't understand.

“That's why you did all this? Something this inefficient?”

“Not entirely. We can't just kill a living person, after all. Since we're keeping her alive anyway...”

As a mind reader, I knew that an honest answer only emerged when someone actually faced the situation. Even people who swore they would give their lives for their country would flee when the blade was right before their eyes.

That happened even when there hadn't been a trace of falsehood in their minds when I read them. They had deceived even themselves.

So a single line written now meant nothing. Only when that scene unfolded before their very eyes, when they found themselves somewhere words couldn't get them out of, would a truly worthwhile, heartfelt answer emerge.

I merely wanted to see it.

“... Honestly.”

The Regressor calmly mulled over my words, then added, sounding unexpectedly pleased:

“If I had to guess, you must have been a really nasty bastard.”

“I keep telling you, I'm a petty criminal.”

“Hmph. I'm sure. Anyway, regardless of your reasoning, it certainly... is worth trying.”

'The lieutenant colonel is a woman. That means she isn't the Instructor the undying one mentioned. Probably an agent. Leaving her alone could uncover the truth more reliably than interrogating and disposing of her right now... though I'd rather not take even such a minor risk.'

Persuaded by my words, the Regressor withdrew her murderous intent toward the lieutenant colonel.

She returned Sky Cherry Blossom, which she had been gripping tightly, to its place beside her head, then rubbed her chin and sank deep into thought.

'I wasn't planning on this kind of leisurely buildup in a throwaway run... but now that things have turned out this way, maybe I should change the plan.'

Reading that thought left me aghast.

I'd suspected as much, but this was a throwaway run?

Please don't do that. You're making the mind reader reading your thoughts nervous.

Anyway. I turned my head again, directing a question toward the officer somewhere beyond.

What was the checkmated officer thinking?

Lieutenant Colonel Callis unfastened the leather belt she had brought with her.

Some time after clothing packets had entered widespread use, leather had lost its primary purpose and begun to see frequent use in accessories and consumables instead of clothing.

Wallets, pouches, belts, bags, ornaments, and so on.

The Military State abhorred luxury, but it had no reason to prevent people from using up the stocks of leather scattered throughout the country. Throwing it all away would have been an even greater loss.

Thus, a brief leather boom had begun, and it had remained quite fashionable until a certain incident. Like any passing luxury fad, it had produced all kinds of variations.

Lieutenant Colonel Callis's belt was one such product, surviving thanks to its rather unusual function after dozens of variations had come and gone.

The belt had a peculiar bulge at her left hip. When she hooked her fingers into the gap, a cleverly concealed compartment appeared between the layers of leather. She took three bundles from it.

'The three bundles that person gave me.'

Even she didn't know what they contained. The Lords of Creation had stressed that she must never open them until the relevant situation arose, so Callis had intended to conserve them if possible.

But now was no time to be particular about her methods.

'One for making contact. Another for escape.'

It wasn't time to make contact yet. Set that one aside.

The escape bundle had been given to her for when all hope was lost, when she needed to escape the bottomless pit. Set that one aside too...

'Do I really have to set it aside?'

Without realizing it, Callis reached for the escape bundle. Then she noticed what she was about to do and clenched her hand into a fist. Drawing a ragged breath, she bit her lip hard.

'Not yet. Not yet. I haven't accomplished anything. I can't lose heart already.'

Barely managing to compose herself, Callis pushed the escape pouch deep inside with trembling fingers.

Only one remained.

'And the last one... for when I need help.'

She didn't know what it contained.

But hope swelled all the greater when it was out of sight.

Clinging to a sliver of hope, Callis took out the leather bundle.

The Lords of Creation were a secret society with roots stretching deep into the Military State. This was their trump card. She hoped it contained something that could turn the tables.

'Please. Let there be something in here that can get me through this...!'

With that desperate wish, Lieutenant Colonel Callis opened the bundle.