Odysseus squeezed data out of the test subjects thriftily and thoroughly. At this level, even if it was hard to introduce into real combat right away, it could certainly be put to use in traps and other devices.
"Oh, this would be lethal used as an antipersonnel mine."
"It was discovered in an antipersonnel mine bomb formula to begin with."
To put it precisely, the knowledge Pluto had given was a range-limited combustion-explosion formula used for the primer of a shrapnel mine. The secondary charge had been posited as a specific gunpowder, so there was no separate equation on that side.
'Considering how hard gunpowder is to obtain, it is literally an empty gesture.'
Pluto had certainly not handed it over for free for nothing. It was precisely because they knew he could not put it to use that they could toss it out freely under the pretext of building goodwill.
In any case, Odysseus added to it the magic formula he had purchased and the magic-bullet manufacturing equation to draw out 'the equation needed for combustion,' and uncovered from Horn's research journal 'the equation that sets the limits of range and power,' then combined the two.
Some calculation might be needed, but Odysseus could now raise a combustion-explosion of any scale and shape he wanted, whenever he wanted. And with the data now gathered as well, there was nothing more to say.
Considering the price range of pure equations sold on the market, ones with no range or power limits attached, it was a tremendous gain. Low-grade as it was, he had saved at least several tens of millions of Pi.
"More to the point, I've gone and killed them all. Sorry, Lucen."
"No, it is quite all right."
But Lucen too seemed to have grasped what the detonations he had witnessed to his heart's content meant.
In a voice sunk far lower than before the operation began, he looked at Odysseus with trembling eyes. They were eyes brimming with greed and exultation.
"That was... very fine work indeed."
"Mmm. But the corpses to send to Ironstick......."
"Magician. It is precisely in this state that they have value."
Lucen pointed at the four corpses ruined by the tests. One bastard was roasted dry like a charred body, one had not a single sound limb, and two were in truly horrific shape, mottled with burns.
"You will soon become like this... in bestowing that kind of terror, where else would one find anything this suitable?"
"Is that so?"
"I declare without reservation, the bastards will learn wretchedly just who it was they touched."
But Lucen packed the corpses carefully into body bags as though they were precious jewels. Done through his subordinates, granted, but the man had a fairly strong stomach. All four were ghastly in appearance, and yet he only smiled broadly, far from retching, which made it certain.
"Now then, shall we go back?"
Well, if a man of executive rank could not handle so much as that, it would have been disappointing in its own way.
"And those corpses?"
"They will be sent straight to the warehouse Ironstick rents. Freshness matters with a gift like this, after all."
Odysseus shrugged as he watched the guards gather up the scraps of flesh scattered everywhere. Sending them in a decaying state after time had passed would have been enough to seize the initiative. That was roughly his mindset.
"Bro, Sis. Let's go."
"Sure."
"Is today's schedule finished with this?"
"Who knows......?"
"There is plenty of time; is there any reason to be strict from the first day? Rest at your ease today."
Lucen tactfully cut in at Migo's question.
"I will send you the information from the briefing separately as well. Zex."
"Here it is."
He had not known, never having been introduced properly, but the Ray-Ban sunglasses' name was apparently Zex. The sunglasses laughed brazenly and handed each of the three a device of the tablet type.
"These are new?"
"Haha, we can hardly serve guests something used."
Entry-level models, granted, but handing over three new devices outright. A fairly refined display of wealth. The same held even accounting for taking them back later.
"They are connected to the internet as well, so use them freely. If you have any questions, use the message channel that has been opened."
"Oooh......."
Still, an ordinary young child would pay more attention to a 'new device' than to its being on loan. And needless to say if that device was a better model than the one he had been using.
Taking that point into account, Odysseus made a fuss to a degree that would not seem forced. Searching for pointless things for no reason, or marveling at how quickly the searches came up. That sort of fuss.
"Oh, there's a schedule in here too."
While Odysseus acted such things out, Flag calmly examined the internal information. Among it there seemed to be a rough schedule as well; a table diagram had come up on his screen.
"Introductions and joint training, is it."
"Operational authority is separate, but even so we need to try matching our rough rhythm."
"A hundred times right. If we don't do at least this much, ugh. Who knows whether our kid will go running off on his own again."
"Flag."
At Flag's remark, which in one light exposed a weakness outright, Migo's brow furrowed. But that was not a slip of the tongue. He had said it at the very moment he met Odysseus' eyes with a smirk, which made it certain.
That was part of the 'role-play' they had agreed on beforehand.
"But we could have finished faster if I'd gone in then."
"There, you see. Our kid's confidence goes right through the sky."
"Haha, is it not natural that the field of vision a genius sees differs from an ordinary person's?"
So he meant to add 'arrogance that will not try to hide its own genius' on top of 'a kid faithful to his intellectual curiosity.' Odysseus twisted his lips up at Flag's supporting fire and hugged the tablet-type device.
"Can we hurry along? I want to organize the data I got this time."
"Ah, of course. Such things are best organized quickly."
Lucen smiled like a benevolent man and gestured. While a seven-seat Air Boat that had joined at some unknown point loaded the body bags, the two cars they had ridden in drew up before them. It was time to go back.
***
"You mustn't use that carelessly, that thing."
The moment they entered the room Pluto had prepared, Flag spoke in the encoded language. A face smirking in a manner different from Odysseus' was pointing, in a way not readily noticed, at the device they had received.
"There is a high probability they are monitoring it. Which means what you search or check, the apps you use, everything you note down, they will be seeing in real time."
"...Ah, I see."
"There may be surveillance cameras or listening devices in this room too, so send anything important by message. The screen won't be visible if you cover it with the blanket."
"Understood."
It might be excessive worry, but there was nothing bad about caution. Odysseus committed Flag's warning to memory and crawled up onto the bed.
Unlike Yul's mattress with its dead springs, tremendously soft bedding greeted Odysseus.
"...They use really expensive things here."
"Well, it's a bit luxurious for lives like ours."
"Do you think Sis Migo has the same?"
"Wouldn't she? Surely they wouldn't discriminate over something like this. Differences arising from race, perhaps."
Odysseus untied the hair tie binding his hair and unpacked the bundle of baggage he had been carrying around this whole time. It was baggage he could not carelessly set down, since there was no telling what tricks the other side might use.
"I'll go wash up first."
"Sure."
Long hair was hard to wash and hard to dry. In that respect, if he was not to be late for dinner he had to wash now or else wash at night entirely, and what Odysseus chose was the former.
The boy's body advanced vigorously toward the bathroom attached to each room, no less.
"...Bro! The hot water comes out right away?!"
"Ah, it's like that everywhere nice."
"And no rust water either!"
"Hah. Pluto really is good, isn't it?"
And the human from four thousand years ago marveled. There was an element deliberately exaggerated to seem childlike, but there was a fair amount of sincerity mixed in as well.
Having thoroughly used the products provided, shampoo and treatment and conditioner alike, Odysseus came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist.
"Aren't you going to dry your hair?"
"It'll dry on its own."
He had wiped it down suitably using two whole towels, so the rest was the wind's turn. The boy fumbled his way into the clothes that served as both daywear and sleepwear and dove into the bed again. Flag, watching all this, clicked his tongue.
"You'll catch cold like that."
"I won't catch cold from this."
"The kid isn't listening to Bro again."
In the end Flag, unable to watch any longer, brought out a fresh towel and patted at Odysseus' hair.
"Honestly, you're a boy; why do you grow your hair out this long?"
"It's a preference, so respect it, would you?"
Not even Odysseus knew why Yul had grown his hair long. But the reason he did not cut his hair even now was clear.
Penelope. She had liked his long hair. Every time the sunlight touched it, it sparkled truly like gold, she said; it shone like a flower that blooms in spring even when it was not spring, she said, and was pleased.
That was why. Even now, with the color of his hair changed, Odysseus could not bring himself to cut it.
Because he did not know whether she might take a liking to this long hair one more time... he could not bear to cut it. At least not until he met Penelope and spoke with her. Absolutely not.
"...Yes. That can happen."
Odysseus ignored Flag's oddly sunken voice and operated the device he had received. As he had felt during the briefing, the information was very well organized and the content detailed, which was good.
"Who would have researched this?"
"Wouldn't it be that Zex or whatever, the sunglasses? Usually a face like that does this sort of thing."
"What are you on about with faces."
It was a truly absurd remark, and yet a part of him was convinced. Odysseus' sense of the reasonable ran off from home again. It was all because of Flag, whose intuition alone was pointlessly good. This human had good instincts in the strangest places.
"In any case, if there's a way to learn methods of researching information, I'd like to try learning it."
"You're already overloaded, and now you want to double as a hacker on top of it?"
"There's nothing bad about having a skill."
"That's true enough."
Flag, who had been shaking out his hair, this time brought a hair dryer. It was the part where Pluto's ability to entertain guests felt as though it had reached a height.
It was not even a motel, and a hastily arranged guest room had everything one could want.
"Come to think of it, our expedition team doesn't have anyone in a role like that, does it?"
"Because hunting mutants doesn't need it. Hackers and the like are only vital to bastards doing shady work, like hunting people."
"Is that a roundabout dig at Pluto?"
"As if?! A power as huge as Pluto naturally employs a hacker or two for security's sake alone, whether they do shady work or not. We simply aren't at that scale yet."
"Understood."
Along with a whirring sound, warm air dried his hair. His head, heavy with water, grew a little lighter.
"In any case... in this game a hacker is as precious as a magician. Because on that side too, talent accounts for more than half of it. Skill matters, of course, but......."
"Then learning the skill would be difficult as well."
"It would, most likely. They say true geniuses break through all sorts of security programs with a single device, but honestly, I don't think you have talent on that side too."
"Why not?"
"Why not, he says. If you were a genius with real aptitude, wouldn't you have accomplished something in all that time you spent shut in your room?"
It was truly infuriating and yet an accurate judgment. The same held even though the Yul of the past and he now were entirely different people. Odysseus was an idiot who had not yet understood the first letter of programming.
"Still, I'd like to try learning it once......."
But this was an age where information had become power. If only to reach the underworld, he had to build up knowledge on this side. Even if he could not become an expert, he had to climb somehow to a level where he could tell true data from false.
And if he could rise to the height of siphoning information himself, that would leave nothing to be desired.
"If you really want to learn, why not cling to Migo? As far as I know, Migo's cousin is in that line."
"Really?"
"Yes. And I hear the captain sometimes outsources to that side, so you needn't doubt the skill. Whether that side will take a commission from you is another question."
Click. Having dried his hair entirely, Flag set the dryer down. Perhaps because various products had been used, his hair, more swishing than before, flowed down softly.
"All done. What kind of hair takes this long to dry?"
"I didn't ask you to dry it."
"Quiet, you."
Just like his brother, honestly. Flag's muttered words in passing lodged in Odysseus' ear.
'Come to think of it, did Yun share a room with Flag.'
Thinking about it, besides the inheritance Yun had left, the person who had sorted through and handed over all of Yun's belongings had also been Flag.
Though the place that had been Yun's room and the spot beside Flag's was now filled by a newly joined member.
"Didn't my brother dry his hair properly either?"
"......!"
Perhaps he had not expected a question in return; Flag's body froze for a moment.
"...Yes. And there was no nuisance quite like it. Every time he came back from washing up, the floor turned into a flood."
"I see."
Odysseus recalled Yun, whose hair had been closer to a stubby tail than a ponytail. It would be hard to flood a floor with hair like that. He wondered how badly the man had failed to towel off.
"What do you think will come out for dinner? The lunch we had earlier was good."
"...Who knows. I'd like plenty of meat, at least. Since it's guest food, it was good that they didn't use cultured meat."
"Cultured meat and natural meat seemed much the same to me."
Perhaps because most cultured meat sold went through processing, in his view the taste of processed cultured meat was better. Or more precisely, should he say the taste of the seasonings added during processing was to his liking.
Even setting that aside, the texture and smell of cultured meat were better. It was a little regrettable that it lacked the rich juices particular to natural meat, but the seasoning took care of that on its own, so it hardly mattered.
"That's because you're young. When you're grown, the day will come when you prefer the real thing."
"Wow, spoken like a true fogey."
Having said that much, Odysseus found himself briefly caught out. Because before all this, he had said something similar to his son Telemachos dozens of times.
"Why the sudden scowl?"
"No... I was wondering whether the spirit follows the body."
"Out of nowhere?"
Was it only that hearing and saying were different positions? Or did the spirit truly follow the body? Odysseus scratched hard at his head and reached a hand toward his bag.
Before the object soon dragged out, Flag let out a hollow laugh.
"...You brought that with you?"
"It was a gift I received. I should put it to use at a time like this."
An item to draw Pluto's complacency to its peak, and a friend to guard their baggage. The Exter W series robot was hoisted up high.