“This place right here is my old lair.”
Calling one’s own base of operations a ‘lair’ might not be the most flattering choice of words, but for the rudimentary stronghold sitting in front of the two of them, perhaps the only word that genuinely fit was indeed the word ‘lair.’
What lay before their eyes was a building that had half-collapsed.
Compared to the mine where he’d first found the girl, the one Saito had originally awakened in was considerably smaller in scale — and considerably more fragile.
Perhaps because of some kind of accident, after a single one of those snowstorms — utterly ordinary by Frozen Plains standards — this small factory had been reduced to its current state.
The bad news was that Saito’s usable living space had been cut in half overnight.
The good news was that the place’s heat-retention capacity had improved by quite a lot.
Saito walked up along a collapsed ramp to the second-floor level of the building, then pulled open that iron door of his — the one that always let out a creaking squeal whenever it opened.
“Welcome on in — you should be the very first living person to set foot in here!”
“Mm.
The first one other than me, of course.”
The instant the iron door swung shut behind them, the howling wind and snow outside was sealed off completely behind the walls.
Saito peeled off the heavy layers of clothing he was wearing and hung them on the makeshift coat rack strung together from steel wire off to one side, then went to work freeing the Administrator from the bondage of her own thick overcoats.
“Achoo!”
The black-haired girl let out one hefty sneeze.
Seeing this, Saito hurriedly switched on the small Originium-powered heater by the wall.
This was one of the few pieces of equipment he’d dug up from inside the mine that was still operational.
Its heating performance was actually pretty decent — only, because it had been competing with Saito himself for ‘food,’ he hadn’t used it all that many times.
Now that the Administrator was here, however, he couldn’t afford to skimp on this kind of heating expenditure.
If she actually came down with something from the cold — well, out here on this snowfield, there was no medicine and there were no doctors to be found.
The interior of the place turned out to be considerably more spacious than it looked from the outside.
Every usable supply had been laid out in neat order by Saito, in every corner — and even right beside that bed pieced together out of piled-up tattered rags and old clothing, there sat a few books Saito had managed to scavenge.
Most of them were equipment-usage and maintenance manuals, but even so, they counted among the very few means at his disposal for staving off loneliness.
“Just have a seat wherever you like for now — I’ll go fix you up something to eat first.”
Leaving that one line behind, Saito ducked into the ‘kitchen’ next door.
Only the Administrator remained — perched on one of the only two chairs in the entire ‘lair,’ looking the surroundings over carefully.
Beyond the basic daily-living supplies, Saito clearly had a deliberate plan when it came to collecting other kinds of resources.
Flashlights, ropes, all manner of metal items, and tinder for starting fires — even a handful of handmade weapons and rudimentary traps.
Beyond all of that, the thing one could see the most of in this room was Originium.
From the refined Originium neatly arranged in a small box at his bedside, to the unprocessed Originium ore casually stacked in one corner of the room.
Even though Saito was severely lacking in general knowledge of this world, he’d nonetheless very keenly recognized that these seemingly unremarkable minerals were, in fact, his very hope of surviving out on this icy plain.
“That ought to be about good enough.”
Seeing that Saito was busy on his end and didn’t have time to pay her any mind for the moment, the girl turned her gaze to her own left hand — where a device shaped like a wristband sat.
[Protocol Synchronizer rebooting…]
[Reboot complete]
[Protocol Originium not detected.
Certain functions temporarily disabled.]
“…”
The girl glanced toward the ‘kitchen’ with a slightly resigned look.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t want to just go take the Protocol Originium back — but right now, the conditions for doing so clearly weren’t in place.
She tried sending out a few distress signals in the direction of the Dijiang — but, exactly as she’d anticipated, all of those messages were like stones dropped into the sea, vanishing without a single response.
“Still — that doesn’t mean there aren’t any loopholes I can squeeze through.”
After a moment of contemplation, the Administrator had something of an idea taking shape in her head — but she’d still need to do some testing to see whether it would actually work.
As for the form it would take…
A few minutes later, Saito walked back out carrying an iron basin full of steaming-hot steamed potatoes.
He’d found them in an abandoned shed somewhere around this mine — they’d probably been planted at one point by the miners who used to work here, and now they were just being put to good use by the two of them.
Looking at the steamed potatoes giving off their faint, mellow potato aroma right in front of her, the Administrator instinctively swallowed.
Only at this moment did she realize — it seemed she hadn’t actually eaten anything in quite a long while.
“I’ve also got some jerky drying out — I’ll go grab you some.”
Watching the black-haired girl in front of him swallowing furiously, Saito gave a small smile and was just about to head off to fetch some of the other food, too.
But the very moment he turned around, the Administrator suddenly grabbed him by the wrist.
“That won’t be necessary — this is plenty.”
[Connection to Protocol Originium established]
‘So it really can be pulled off this way.’
Gazing into the crystal-clear eyes of the Saito in front of her, the Administrator suddenly hit upon what struck her as a rather brilliant idea.
…
…
And just like that, several more days passed.
Over the course of those days, Saito worked hard to help the girl acclimate to life out on the Frozen Plains, and the relationship between the two of them gradually warmed up.
As for the girl who called herself the Administrator — she ended up giving him an even bigger surprise.
“This much should do the trick.”
The Administrator wormed her way out from underneath the ancient machine in front of her.
Saito hurried over and helped her wipe the sweat off her forehead and the smudges of dirt off her cheeks.
The girl tilted her head up slightly, basking in Saito’s attentive service, and at the same time opened her mouth to explain.
Luckily, the defining trait of Ursus industrial machinery is that it’s built tough and durable.
These few machines are in passable shape; I took some parts off the nearby ones and swapped them in.
There shouldn’t be any problem now.”
The girl planted both hands on her hips, her face brimming over with pride.
“As expected of the great Administrator-sama!”
Saito offered up the praise with all the enthusiasm he could muster.
This kind of line had cropped up countless times over the past few days, and every single time, the girl had taken to it remarkably well — perhaps because his praise was always, genuinely, coming straight from the heart.
This girl in front of him might have appeared to be a case of selective amnesia, but she still demonstrated an extraordinarily deep reservoir of knowledge.
From astronomy and geography on the high end, all the way down to cooking and repairing machinery on the practical end — there seemed to be just about nothing she didn’t know.
She’d only been here a few days, and she’d already managed to repair this half-line of Originium-ore refining equipment in front of them with nothing but her bare hands.
With these instruments to help out, the two of them could now refine that Originium ore into Originium proper — a tremendous boost for his future expeditions outside.
“But the efficiency really is on the low side, and most of the processing stages still require manual assistance.”
“Inefficient!
Genuinely, far too inefficient!”
The Administrator muttered a few complaints under her breath in a small voice that didn’t reach Saito’s ears.
Once she’d finished griping, she simply gave her head a slightly weary shake and then leaned her weight against Saito’s back.
“Let’s head back home first — I’m hungry.”
“Copy that, Administrator!”
Saito obediently hoisted the girl up onto his back and started slowly making his way home, completely failing to notice that the girl now draped across his back had her left hand giving off a faint blue glow.
‘That ought to just about wrap it up.’
…
…
Night had fallen.
The girl, worn out from a busy day, had long since laid down on the bed.
Saito walked over to her side and tucked the blanket securely back around her — this girl was not exactly the most well-behaved sleeper at night.
Saito sat alone at the desk, an irrepressible smile across his face as he tallied up the day’s haul.
The arrival of this girl hadn’t merely cured the loneliness inside him — she’d also made the hope laid out before his eyes shine all the brighter.
“Yawwwn~”
A wave of drowsiness rose up through him.
Saito closed the notebook in front of him and was just about to head off to get some rest — when suddenly, a voice rang out right beside his ear.
[Loading progress: 100%]
[Integrated Industries System at your service]