The Way to Love in the Place of Dead Chapter 9

“You mean, as long as we don’t forget you?”

“Of course! How could we ever forget you, Kay?”

At the children’s bright laughter, Kay pulled all of them, chattering away, into a tight embrace with both arms. Swearing that he would definitely return alive as long as they remembered him, Kay’s eyes widened at the fist suddenly thrust out before him.

“Steven?”

Steven, the eldest among the children, as if grasping the reality of parting, held out his fist with a face swallowing tears.

“I’ll give it to you.”

When Kay opened his palm, a small keychain settled onto it. Inside the transparent acrylic was something very rare in the desert… a pressed-flower ornament.

“This is…”

“My treasure. You know, right?”

It was the only item that had been in Steven’s cradle when he was abandoned at this orphanage.

“Give it back to me later. That’s a promise.”

“But…”

“Ahhh! I can’t hear you! Can’t hear you!”

As if he had anticipated Kay saying he couldn’t accept something like this, Steven pounded both hands over his ears and bolted up the stairs. Then, at the top of the stairs, he held out his pinky finger.

“Go, and then come back and definitely return it to me! Promise!”

At his shout, Kay tucked the keychain safely into the inner pocket of his bag and raised his pinky finger in return.

“Promise. I’ll go and come back.”

One last time, Kay took in the sight of the home he didn’t know when he’d return to, and opened the door.

“You’re sweet to the kids.”

With no time to savor the lingering emotions of the farewell, as soon as he opened the front door, Aran was standing right beside it. Startled for a moment by the complete lack of presence, Kay calmly replied.

“If you’re not sweet to kids, you don’t deserve to be an adult.”

“From my perspective, you look young too.”

“Wasn’t it, ‘It’s not good to judge people by their appearance’?”

Aran hesitated briefly, then flashed a crooked smile.

“You share that kind of talk too? I’m jealous.”

“Cut the crap. When I think about how you threatened me by targeting them, even tearing you apart wouldn’t be satisfying enough.”

“That’s harsh. I even said it was a joke.”

“Don’t ever joke in front of the kids again.”

Smiling without a retort, Aran held out his left hand.

“Lend me your hand.”

When Kay simply looked up once at the hand, and once at Aran, without moving…

“Why?”

He asked in return.

“I should be asking why. Why my hand?”

“I’ll give you a present.”

“I don’t need it.”

“It’s mandatory.”

“That’s not called a present.”

“Afraid you’ll wear it out if you touch it?”

Kay decided just to give him his hand and cut off the pointless chatter. When their hands overlapped, Aran pressed something firmly onto his wrist. What remained below his hand was a bracelet.

“It’s a precious thing.”

Come to think of it, he recalled the interrogator in the prison where he’d been tortured projecting a screen with a similar bracelet.

“What is this?”

“A daily necessity.”

“This?”

As the jewel on the bracelet, which was far too lavishly patterned with leopard print to be a daily necessity, sparkled, a white beam of light cascaded down from the air.

“It can do things like this.”

Engulfed by the <Transference>, Kay felt his body’s mass lighten and examined himself wrapped in the light. Feeling the churning nausea of motion sickness, he squeezed his eyes shut against the glare. It was his first transference experienced while conscious.

The place they arrived at through the transference was a chaos of mixed noise.

Soldiers in uniform or combat gear kicked up clouds of dust with their shouts, and the sounds of gunfire and explosions, successive deafening booms, acrid smoke, and the thick stench of blood intermingled.

It was the battlefield.

“Sorry. One should be gentle the first time.”

At the tone that wasn’t sorry in the slightest, Kay replied flatly.

“I get that your taste runs hard.”

“Embarrassing!”

Thwack! He was hit on the shoulder, and it hurt. What a guy, to spout such soulless words so glibly.

The smile that resembled El was both pleasing and irritation-inducing, and just as he was about to add another remark, a large tremor was felt beneath his feet. Righting his swaying body and surveying below the hill, a massive crater from explosives sat in the very center of the battlefield where a fierce death-struggle raged.

“It happens sometimes. Transference errors where you arrive somewhere different from what was requested.”

“…Are you saying we came to the wrong place?”

“Yeah. I requested a return to the center, but didn’t expect to be dropped in the middle of a battlefield.”

Watching the scene, Aran pulled gloves from his pocket and put them on both hands in turn, asking.

“Can you fight?”

Kay doubted his ears.

“Is that a question?”

“Just in case. It’s your first time fighting machines, isn’t it.”

“It is my first time, but…”

Gazing down at the battlefield below the cliff where dust scattered, he examined the enemies. Though there were slight differences in paint, they appeared to be models of the same machine type. Full bodies of about six-heads proportion. The steel bodies, composed of round heads and joints similar to the human body, partially held or were equipped with firearms and blades, and their method of fighting wasn’t much different from humans.

“Want to make a bet?”

Kay, who had been observing the combat patterns, turned to Aran at his suggestion.

“A bet?”

“See that tree over there? Whoever gets there first from down here wins.”

Where his index finger pointed, an abnormally enormous tree stood tall.

“The prize?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Seems they don’t teach you in Limpus. Not to make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m going to win anyway.”

Kay openly scoffed.

“If you know you’ll win, why make a bet?”

“Because winning is fun. Don’t worry. I won’t ask for anything unreasonable.”

“I didn’t say I’d do it.”

“Scared you’ll lose?”

Even knowing it was a provocation, his fist clenched on its own. It was irritating—the ambivalent feeling that surged up, making him want to hit him but also, looking at that face, feeling like he should hold back.

“So you’re doing it?”

“I still haven’t said I would… Hey!”

Aran leaped down the cliff, and Kay, biting his lip firmly, threw his body onto the battlefield right after.

Igniting flames aimed beneath his falling feet, Kay rode the wind that burst out violently from the explosion and landed.

[“Enemy esper detected. Initiating annihilation process.”]

Amid electricity leaping from melted wires and coursing over shattered bodies, the androids still advanced step by step. Watching these clumsy imitations of humans move according to given commands and processes, Kay rapidly snuffed them out one by one.

‘Tougher than I thought.’

The six-head-proportioned machines had structures similar to humans, but their durability was beyond comparison. Above all, the material encasing their entire bodies possessed heat-resistant properties, so they wouldn’t melt at ordinary temperatures.

“Ngh.”

The moment a not-yet-dead android seized Kay’s ankle, another android lunged at him. It was a planned coordinated attack.

The gripping hand wouldn’t easily come off, and because it felt like a desperate, last-ditch struggle, it made him hesitate. Just as a blade tore through his clothes and its tip touched his skin, a massive spear impaled the machine’s body.

A spear made of light.

Pulling out the pure white spear radiating brilliance, Aran firmly wrapped his arm around the staggering Kay’s waist and recited in a strong tone.

“Don’t let your guard down. These things share all their thought circuits.”

The murmuring voice was more serious than ever before, and the arm around his waist steadied his balance solidly, setting him upright.

“What you’re up against isn’t hundreds of separate machines. It’s hundreds of bodies with a single brain.”

Understanding that what Aran was trying to convey was information for fighting here, Kay nodded.

“Remember three things. One, each individual unit won’t stop until you destroy the <Core> inside. Two, they are a collective that all share one brain. And lastly.”

He threw the spear, stopping a machine that was bearing down on a soldier.

“No matter what it takes, survive.”

The hand that had been wrapped around him fell away, and his gaze turned toward him.

“Got it?”

Dismembering machines, irritably wiping the green oil splattered on his face—Kay realized that this current appearance was closer to his true nature. But even that was only for a moment.

“As a bonus, if there’s absolutely no way to survive, or if a critical situation hits.”

The guy’s eyes curved into a smile.