15

Play: Meditation

It was the fourth day since I'd arrived here in this world of Nikke. The day after I was promoted to Special Commando along with my squad, and also the day after I recruited my first new units.

But none of that mattered.

What DID matter was something simple.

I was broke.

Sitting at my desk with Rapi and Marian, I rubbed the bridge of my nose and said, "Let me get this straight. So, unlike how I thought, in order for me to get paid, I need to send in mission reports."

Rapi nodded. "That is correct, Commander."

"And because we'd been so busy trying NOT TO DIE, nobody thought to inform me of this."

Marian fidgeted. "...I'm sorry, Commander. We all thought you knew. You've been so competent with everything else that we figured you had it sorted."

I facepalmed. "...You're telling me that I've hamstrung myself because I'm TOO good at not dying?"

Rapi nodded. "Yes. But on the bright side, Commander. Since you succeeded in defeating two Tyrant-Class Raptures, your pay will be substantial. After you submit your reports."

I groaned. "You say that, Rapi. But with everything that happened in the past three days, won't the reports by necessity end up being upwards of 40 pages?"

Silence.

Marian fiddled with her cap and said, "W-Well, Commander. If you'd like, we could write them for you?"

"Hm?" I looked at Marian. "You can do that? Rapi?"

Rapi shrugged. "We are Nikke. You are our Commander. Although it says that the commander is the one who must write the report... if you order us to do so, it is effectively the same. In the eyes of the Central Government, we're simply 'tools' after all."

"...That pisses me off, but alright. Delegation it is." I clapped my hands together. "Rapi, Marian. Split up the report writing. And when you have time, make a template of the general formatting. I can definitely do it myself, but considering the crunch time, it'll be best if you guys do it for now."

Rapi nodded. "Understood, Commander."

Marian smiled. "Leave it to me, Commander!"

I rubbed my face. "Alright. That's one thing settled. Next-"

My phone buzzed. I glanced at it and saw that it was someone called [Not Syuen]... which is to say that was Shifty.

I answered and said, "You actually changed your screen name, huh, Shifty?"

Shifty's voice echoed over the phone and said, "Of course I did! It's rude to impersonate people! I can't believe she actually tried to be me while I was taking a break from your crazy, Commander Hoopa."

"...Well. It seems the break helped you out since you're definitely more outspoken than you used to be."

"I have to be in dealing with you! Do you know how much paperwork I had to do?! Also, why haven't you submitted your operation reports yet?! I don't get paid until you do too, you know?!"

"...Sorry. I'm getting on that right now."

"Ugh..." Shifty sighed. "...Sorry. Just stressed. Ever since you got promoted I've been having to field so many questions..."

Rapi glanced over. "Is that Shifty?"

I nodded. "It is. Wanna say hi?"

"It's fine. But if you're taking a call, Commander, could you step outside? Marian and I need to focus."

"Right. My bad." I picked up my phone and stepped outside my office. Taking a walk downstairs, I said, "So what's the deal, Shifty? Is this a social call?"

Shifty sighed. "I wish. But no. Deputy Chief Andersen wanted me to inform you that he has a mission for you and Brave. It's not time sensitive, so there's no need to rush right away. But he would like you to head to the north to investigate traces of Nikke called 'Pilgrims.'"

I hummed. "Pilgrims, huh?"

I had a vague recollection of them being powerful units in the game, but that was it.

...I was really starting to wish I'd actually read more of the story instead of skipping it.

Then again, my memory on the game was already fuzzy enough as it was. Odds were if I remembered even more, I might have been actually lobotomized at this rate...

But anyway. Mission.

I nodded and said, "That's fine. We can head there in a few days when everyone's rested up. I have a few preparations I need to make too. Like, uh... getting my salary in order."

"Yes. That's vital, Commander Hoopa. For you and me."

"Right. Won't happen again." I leaned against a pillar on the outside of my office and took a look around.

In the distance, I could see Neon and Anis bonding with Nami and Hana by doing ammo testing and tactics. Suri looked like she was on patrol, keeping an eye out for Raptures... though there weren't any.

Nor would there be any.

I wasn't sure why, but the Raptures seemed to be instinctively avoiding this area. I could see quite a few in the distance, but they maintained that distance.

'Maybe it's instinct?'

The Central Government SAID that Raptures were mindless creatures... but I was pretty sure they weren't.

I mean, like my conjecture before, if they mimicked biology, then they would inevitable convergently evolve into sapient, or at least sentient, beings.

Either way, considering that I effectively had stockpiled what amounted to a mass grave of Rapture corpses with my scavenging, they appeared to be giving me a wide berth.

Shifty sighed.

Hearing that, I stopped my train of thoughts and tuned back in. "Something wrong?"

"No. Just parsing the fact that I've been assigned as your squad's personal Operator... meaning I have to deal with more of your antics..."

I let out a nervous laugh. "...Is it that bad?"

"Commander. I have had to put my phone on silence and then arrange a separate private work phone to have only key contacts on it. THAT is how bad it has been for me."

"...Sorry?"

Shifty let out a long sigh. "...It's fine. It's not like you meant to do it. You're just this way. And I just had the fortune to be part of your group."

"Well... Don't worry, Shifty. You're a friend of mine now too. If you ever need anything, let me know."

Shifty chuckled. "I will. Don't worry. But anyway... Since I'm your personal Operator, I'm pretty free right now. Wanna chat?"

"Sure. Everyone else is busy, so I have a bit of time." I made myself comfortable leaning against the pillar and said, "You wanna ask me anything? Go ahead, I'll answer."

"Uh, no. That's opening a can of worms I'm NOT prepared for, Commander. How about you ask me things instead? Oh, wait. Let's go on video."

"Right." I shifted my phone to a video call. As it connected, I saw Shifty sitting at her desk, dressed up as professionally as ever. When I did, I blinked and said, "Wait. I thought you said you're free? Why are you still in uniform?"

"Because I'm still at work?" Shifty huffed. "Unlike a certain Commander, I'm stuck in a cubicle all day. Even if I wanted to leave, I can't until I clock out. And the moment I clock out, my pay for the day stops."

"...That sounds soul crushing."

"It is." Shifty sighed. "...On the brightside, I can play games on the side as long as they're handhelds. I've been catching up with a lot of old games and music."

"That's good, I guess?"

"What about you, Commander? Do you have any plans for the day? I'll just be stuck here, but you probably aren't, right?"

I nodded. "I'm free right now, but I have to do some work too. After I finish up those operation reports, I need to file them in person, so I'll probably head down to the Ark. I'm just a bit worried about the Outpost while I'm gone."

"Huh?" Shifty tilted her head. "Why worry?"

"Well, we have an area roughly ten kilometers in diameter to defend with just a squad of seven Nikke."

"...What?! Commander... are you seriously just there alone with seven other Nikke? On the surface?!"

"Mmhm. Rapi, Anis, Neon. Marian. And then our newbies, Nami, Suri, and Hana. Ah, they're mass produced Tetra Nikke that I personally named."

"AND YOU'RE WINNING?!"

"Well, winning would be overselling it." I rubbed the back of my neck. "It's more like the Raptures just aren't approaching? Though to be fair, we have killed like... a few thousand at this point. Neon went overboard with the coilguns after she realized how easy they were to make with the scavenged Rapture parts, and also how much free ammunition there was since it's just blasting chunks of metal..."

"Coilguns?!"

"Well, yeah." I nodded. "It's pretty easy to make them. Since Rapture cores are basically batteries, even if shattered, we can repurpose them as energy cells, use some wiring to generate a magnetic field, then just blast chunks of crushed down Rapture chassis. Simple stuff, really. I mean, I guess it's not optimized and probably wasteful. But considering how many Raptures are out here, it's pretty straightforward."

Shifty groaned. "I'll pretend I heard none of this. You can include it in your report, but I sure won't."

"Sorry not sorry? By the way, what color is the book we talked about last time?"

"Ha ha. It's not a color. It's an action. The book is 'read', not 'red.'"

"Just checking if it's you, Shifty."

"Shouldn't you do that ahead of saying critical information like that?!"

"Well... real talk then."

Play: Mystery

I shifted my phone to look at her and said, "Can you tell me why no one's done this? I mean, coilguns are like super basic to make. And they can be used without recoil too, so even fleshy humans can use them. As for ammunition, since we're launching Rapture parts, they can punch through Raptures. So like why isn't this a thing? We have hyperadvanced biological technology, synthetic brains, and even 1:1 human biology mimicry, but no one thought about launching the infinite amount of metal we have pouring in at the metal enemies we're fighting?"

That was something that was bugging me since I had showed up here in this world.

It didn't come to mind while playing the game, but now that I was living here, it definitely did.

Like, seriously. We had electron beam cannons wasting SO much power, but no one thought about using that same power to just launching like a hunk of tungsten to wipe out the area?

"That's..." Shifty trailed off. "...Huh. That's a good point."

I continued and said, "Honestly. Why did people go 'oh, let's make immortal fighting machines to fight the machines' instead of 'supercharge magnetic metal go boom?'"

Shifty frowned and then did some typing. After some skimming, she said, "...It seems like there were initial probes into that as a means of fighting back against the Raptures. But humanity didn't have the resources back then to do it. Since we were all 'fleshy humans' still, it seems like they prioritized that first?"

"...Ah, I get it. So more like a means of surviving instead of fighting back. If humanity became steel, then even if the world became uninhabitable, they could survive. That sort of thing?"

"I guess?"

"Mm... makes sense."

They WERE under a time limit. If it so happened that Nikke tech was closer to completion than giant railgun tech, they would have allocated resources to that instead.

...Though it's a bit weird.

"Hey, Shifty. What's the year of the Rapture invasion according to the old calendar?"

"Um... according to the old calendar... 2012? Why?"

"Huh. And the current year is...?"

"Well, there were some disruptions in dating, but it should be roughly 2099? In a year it'll be the turn of the century by the old calendar." Shifty paused. "Shouldn't you know this though, Commander?"

I gave her a blank stare. "Shifty. You've been through school, right? Like, proper school. Do you remember anything about history?"

"That's... fair." Shifty sighed. "...And I guess I only really check the date on my phone..."

"Right? But I was just curious."

2012, huh?

Hm... but it would have to be a 2012 even more divergent from the one I knew.

I'd seen a few maps of the surface around the office, but it didn't look like an Earth I remembered. There were old pop references, like Nintendo and the like, but the terrain looked different.

Maybe this Earth developed more like sci-fi than mine?

...Though I guess by our world's standard, we were already living in sci-fi to the 1900s people.

Social media, generative AI, electric cars... things like that.

Hm...

If I had to categorize worlds by 'skill trees...'

The world of Nikke definitely branched into the 'human ascension' skill tree where they tried to transcend the fleshy human limits.

In contrast, my world DEFINITELY branched into 'human mass manipulation' where generative AI and social media were used by the people up top to control the ignorant masses with expert precision by excluding those with free will.

Well, that and my world branched HEAVILY into content creation. Like, the fact that there was a free market for every sort of content under the sun was wild when you think about it.

With just a phone, you could get free books, music, video, games, artwork... Creativity thrived.

And that was probably the decisive difference I carried here, huh?

Everyone here and in the Ark were hyperfocused on 'surviving' and/or 'overcoming the Rapture threat.'

They had narrowed in on just fighting harder, faster, stronger that they didn't think about if fighting was the only way to win.

Newsflash, it wasn't.

Especially fighting on their terms.

Shifty tilted her head. "You have that look, Commander. I haven't known you very long, but I know you long enough to tell when you're thinking about something ridiculous..."

"Don't worry too much about it, Shifty. I'll make sure you aren't involved in anything heretical I'm brainstorming."

"THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!"

"Sorry, not sorry~"

"Ugh..." Shifty covered her face. "My entire personality... I swear, it's changed so much since meeting you... And it's only been a few days..."

"Like I said earlier, looking forward to working with you, Shifty."

Shifty sighed. "Same here, Commander..."

"Oh, right." I snapped my fingers, suddenly remembering. "Did you ever hear back from Chief Andersen about my Rapture Morphology combat applications theory?"

"I did. He commended you, forwarded it to Enikk, and is in the middle of reworking the military curriculum again. It's also why he hasn't contacted you for a while."

"Aha. So I DID revolutionize combat. Neat."

"Neat?! That's all you have to say?!"

"Well." I hummed. "Honestly, I'm more surprised at the fact that guerilla warfare is seen as revolutionary. I was reading up on Johan and honestly... mid."

"Mid? You called the second most influential commander of all time as mid?! The one who singlehandedly remains as the sole rationale in maintaining the Commander initiative?!"

"Well, yeah. His tactics amount to just 'hit hard, fast, with overwhelming firepower and then get the hell out of there.'"

Shifty was quiet. "...I hate how you're right."

"Anis agrees with your sentiment."

"Hah..." Shifty let out a loud sigh. "Alright, Commander Hoopa. Then what is YOUR brilliant strategy for combating the Raptures, hm?"

"Easy. For waves of weaker Raptures, like anything below Lord-Class, mount railgun turrets, blast them down, collect scraps for more ammo, collect cores for more fuel, repeat ad nauseum. If we get better parts, we upgrade the railgun turrets and ammunition until we can hunt stronger Raptures. Then we repeat. Humans can do this task, so we actually can hold ground. After that, Nikke can venture out as adventurers- I mean, exploration troops. With that, we can reclaim old technology or materials and continue building on the surface."

Shifty paused. "...You make it sound so easy."

"Isn't it?"

Shifty frowned. "...If it was this easy, why haven't we done it yet?"

"Well." I shrugged. "It's been like 100 years, right? Or at least 80? I bet the people who remembered this stuff probably dropped dead. And the ones who didn't remember focused on refining what was working, like the Nikke tech and armaments."

"...You make it sound so obvious."

"Occam's razor IS a thing."

Shifty sighed. "...I feel like I'm going to regret listening to you talk more. So I'm leaving. Call me when you're setting out on your operation. And don't forget the reports!"

"Got it, Shifty. Talk later."

Shifty hung up on me.

When she did, I put my phone away and glanced back up at my office.

Only ten minutes had passed, so it'd probably be longer still until they were done with the reports.

In the meanwhile...