“It’s nothing major. There are bruises spread evenly across the whole body, but even this is only a little worse than the level most pilots come in with every day.”
The medical staff said this to Professor Zeke.
Professor Zeke glanced at Karina, then turned back to the medical staff. She still hadn’t regained consciousness, but thankfully, it wasn’t a physical issue.
Karina’s squad members looked at one another and nodded. I nodded slightly as well.
“Cadet Zeus and Cadet Karina will both make a full recovery within two weeks. If it’s fast, it could even be within a week. There’s a high chance Cadet Karina will regain consciousness today.”
After finishing their explanation, the medical staff slowly walked out. The moment Professor Zeke stepped outside to hear additional details from them, the four of us let out a long sigh at the same time.
“I thought I was going to die.”
“I seriously thought I was dead.”
“R-really.”
“Me too. I seriously thought I was going to die.”
It was our story, but at the same time, it was Karina’s story too. I thought she might have died. And then, I thought she really might die.
It had been about two hours since we pulled Karina out of the core. Since she still hadn’t regained consciousness, I’d wondered if she had suffered some fatal injury that didn’t show on the outside.
It wasn’t exactly worry. More like that uneasy, what-if feeling.
Allang and Rod, who had been catching their breath for a while, began discussing something complicated.
It seemed to be about her injuries, but honestly, I didn’t have a single bit of medical knowledge, so I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
Did nobles have to be well-versed in medicine too? If they had to know all sorts of things like that, maybe it was better not to be a noble.
When I turned my head slightly, Revan had an expression similar to mine. After listening to Allang and Rod for a long while, Revan raised his hand.
“Deep and I will go buy some drinks. Anything you want?”
“Cucumber soda.”
Allang wasn’t normal.
“Mint chocolate latte.”
Rod wasn’t normal either.
“Got it. Let’s go, Deep.”
“Ah, uh, yes.”
He didn’t even ask me before telling me to come.
That was what I thought, but honestly, I was more grateful than flustered. I had no desire to force myself to listen to medical knowledge over there.
When I followed Revan out, Professor Zeke, who was outside the door, gave me a light nod. It seemed that even if he couldn’t openly say thank you or well done, he could at least express that much.
I nodded slightly in return.
Come to think of it, this world had bows too. It felt strangely fascinating.
After walking a little, we saw a vending machine in front of the elevator. Revan, who was choosing drinks, got the cucumber soda first, then the mint chocolate latte.
As Revan was choosing the next drink, he glanced at me several times, and then our eyes met.
“Um.”
“Um.”
Revan froze for a moment, then stared at me and let out a deep sigh with his head lowered.
“Yeah, I know you have a lot you want to ask me. You can ask one thing at a time. I came outside with that in mind too.”
Things I wanted to ask. I did have a few.
“The drink. C-could you recommend one?”
Revan blinked.
“Uh, cucumber soda’s pretty good too.”
He said something ridiculous as if it were obvious.
No, by this world’s standards, it might not be ridiculous. There was no way a drink sold in the vending machine in front of the elevator was something that didn’t sell well.
Which meant.
“Do cucumber soda and m-mint chocolate sell w-well here?”
Revan nodded.
“They do, right? They sell well, and they’re really mainstream drinks. I mean, they taste good.”
So this really was an apocalypse setting.
A world where people’s likes and dislikes about cucumber and mint chocolate had died. It wouldn’t be strange if it ended tomorrow.
“No, I mean. Aren’t you going to ask if I’m a reincarnator or something?”
Revan looked dumbfounded.
***
I brought the drinks to Allang and Rod, then came back outside. Just watching the two of them drink made me feel sick, so it was impossible to stay there.
As I quietly drank my cola, Revan slowly turned toward me.
“To be honest, at first I wasn’t sure, you know? But when you reacted after seeing my Titan, I figured it out.”
Revan’s Titan, Alex.
If it was a tricolor scheme based on the French flag, there was one work anyone who liked mecha stories would inevitably think of.
White as the main base, with blue and red. It would be stranger if nothing came to mind.
I thought I hadn’t reacted much, but apparently what actually showed on my face was different.
No, I was sure I’d been expressionless. Was I actually the type whose thoughts all showed on my face?
“B-but.”
Reacting to the tricolor wasn’t that strange.
“There could be people who react like, ‘Oh, it’s the colors of the French flag,’ right?”
“Well, in this setting, France was unified into the Allied Forces ages ago, so France doesn’t exist. Which means the concept of the French tricolor doesn’t exist either, so no one reacts the way you did.”
So it didn’t exist.
Revan nodded.
“The reason I chose Alex in the first place was because of the tricolor scheme. Also, it was a machine I used a lot from the start whenever I did a commoner start.”
“From the start?”
From the start meant—
Revan blinked, then smiled.
“I’m not exactly that good, but I was still a pretty well-known old-timer in Titan Core.”
There it was.
A reincarnator who knew the story.
“I don’t know for sure, but aren’t you the same, Deep? That’s why you were so shocked when Fafnir appeared.”
Was that really something you had to know the story to be shocked by?
“Anyone would be shocked by that.”
“No, wasn’t it like you were shocked in a fundamentally different way? Originally, what appears in that story isn’t Fafnir, but…”
“Um.”
There seemed to be a misunderstanding.
When I raised my hand, Revan opened his eyes wide and looked at me.
“I don’t know the story.”
“Huh?”
“I only played Titan Core 1.”
“…You played that trash game?”
I flinched.
My body trembled, and my fist naturally clenched tight. When I silently glared at him, Revan stepped back slightly.
“T-take that back.”
“That’s the line losers say.”
Ah.
“A-anyway, take it back, please.”
Revan fell into thought for a moment, then rested his chin on his hand. Was it that hard to take it back?
Only after some time passed did Revan open his mouth.
“I have a goal.”
He just ignored it.
That bastard.
“I don’t know when you reincarnated, but actually, I’ve already been in this world for several years. After living here for a long time, I’ve come to think this is probably Hell Difficulty.”
This was important information.
Since it was somewhat true that Titan Core 1 was a trash game, there was no reason to focus on refuting it.
If what Revan said was true, that meant he was a senior who had been living here for years longer than me. There would be mountains of information I needed to hear.
“Hell Difficulty?”
“Maybe it’s better to call it Korean Difficulty? You know, a difficulty where the enemies are much stronger than the original setting, and there are way more random elements. Even now, the clear rate is probably around two percent.”
In other words, the hardest difficulty.
Considering how many copies the Titan Core sequels sold, that wasn’t as small as it sounded, but it couldn’t be called a lot either.
“And among those people, even fewer can pick and play routes like the true ending or the happy ending. Most of them get the bad ending.”
“By bad…”
“It’s not like you die. More like, the Empire falls but you survive. That kind of thing?”
Absolutely had to avoid that.
When I gulped, Revan burst into laughter.
“Right. I really, really don’t want that either! Still, fortunately, there’s one route I can definitely clear.”
Revan clapped his hands together in the air.
“The normal ending.”
Normal.
An ordinary, commonplace end.
“Nothing gets resolved, but the Empire is maintained, the allied nations remain, and I survive. It’s easy to set as a goal, and even if things get twisted midway, you can open up another route.”
An easy ending point with a future.
And the fact that Revan was bringing this up to me meant—
“I’d like you to help me, Deep. If possible.”
Was there any reason not to?
My mouth, which had been about to answer immediately, stopped. I lowered my head for a moment and looked at my smartwatch. A blinking light flickered. It wasn’t the signal for a message.
The light was simply flashing briefly at intervals of a few seconds.
“Revan.”
There was something I had to ask.
“Yeah?”
There was something that had been oddly bothering me.
“When F-Fafnir had to be stopped, was there a reason you didn’t go with us?”
Revan shrugged.
“Why should I have gone?”
“Professor Zeke could have died, and Senior Karina or Senior Z-Zeus could have…”
“That doesn’t really cause a major problem for the normal ending.”
This person was somehow different from me.
“What if I’d gone and died?”
Revan answered.
“That also, honestly, doesn’t really cause a major problem for the normal ending.”
This person was definitely different from me.
He still thought of this world as a game to the end.
He didn’t think saving people’s lives was something he had to do.
“If that was the problem, I’ll go with you next time.”
He treated life as a matter of negotiation.
Because he was strong?
Maybe. Since he had no sense that he might die, he might not care that much about other people’s lives either.
He was different from me, who had been weak from the start.
But something was boiling inside me.
The smartwatch kept blinking. I knew nothing about light signals or Morse code, but I could tell. I could feel what it was saying.
When you don’t like something, you have to clearly say that you don’t.
“I don’t like it.”
Revan’s eyes widened.
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I don’t.”
Revan scratched the back of his neck. His eyes darted around, then went straight back to me.
“Does that mean you’re going to get in my way?”
Get in his way.
“I don’t intend to.”
No.
It would be good if the normal ending really could be realized and this daily life could be maintained.
But I couldn’t agree with that method.
“But you said there’s a true ending and a happy ending in this world.”
A method of choosing the easy path no matter what, even though there was a better future.
Revan let out a hollow laugh.
“You don’t even know the story, and you’re going to try for that? Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
When I nodded, Revan stood up.
“But you’re not going to get in my way, right?”
“No.”
“Then that’s fine.”
Tap, tap. Revan dusted off his feet.
“Let’s get along from now on too. We just want different things. We can still cooperate as friends as much as we need, right?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled as I watched Revan walk away.
Friends, he says.
I don’t like you, though.