Chapter 62: Only I Know the Sweetness of This Journey
"I'm right, aren't I, AR-26710?"
Deep within the cold, armored chassis of the towering mecha, the girl bit her lower lip. The sensation of being completely seen through, stripped of all her carefully constructed defenses, made her skin prickle with unease. Yet, despite the tension coiling in her chest, she slowly forced her clenched fists to relax.
"My judgment was wrong," Sam's synthesized, metallic voice rumbled from the armor. "You know a lot."
"Actually, I know a whole lot more than just that." Rekka flashed a bright, entirely unbothered smile.
"..."
"Regardless of the details, your current mission should be to follow us around and act as a highly lethal asset to our Trailblaze expedition, right?"
"...Right."
Dan Heng and Delta remained entirely silent off to the side. Delta leaned against a nearby wall, her tail flicking lazily as she observed the bizarre standoff with open curiosity. Dan Heng simply stood with his arms crossed, his silence born out of absolute, exhausted trust in Rekka's chaotic methods.
"After all," Rekka sighed, pressing a hand to his chest with dramatic flair, "for fragile, early-game scaling types like me and Stelle, we really need a ridiculously strong character to carry us through the beginning stages."
He shook his head, looking deeply moved by his own words.
This 'scaling'excuse was truly something else. Dan Heng's eye twitched slightly as his mind raced to process the sheer audacity of the statement.'Where exactly was your early game?'Dan Heng thought, his stoic expression cracking just a fraction.'I didn't see any early game. Isn't your Destruction Path just a max-level, fully finished account?'
"Sigh, anyway," Rekka continued, completely ignoring the deadpan glare boring into the side of his head. "Having scaled for so many days along this arduous journey, only I truly know the bitter hardships I've had to endure."
"Bit... Bitter?" March 7th blinked, her cheerful demeanor faltering.
"Wasn't that experimental vegetable juice you made for me incredibly bitter? And let's not even talk about the... unique properties of the food Sister Himeko cooks."
"Hey!" March 7th stomped her boot against the pavement, her hands flying to her hips. "I made that vegetable juice specifically because I was terrified you'd be starving after turning into a giant bug! I added so many expensive, high-quality ingredients, and you actually have the nerve to complain about it being bitter?!"
"Oh, it was definitely nutritious," Rekka nodded sagely. "But the flavor profile was a bit too 'ahead of its time.' Thinking back on it now, I'm pretty sure I saw the gates of heaven opening up for me."
A noisy, chaotic Trailblaze. Bickering over terrible drinks, complaining about lethal cooking, standing together on freezing alien streets. It was nice. It really made a person...
"Envious, right?"
Rekka casually voiced the exact thought echoing through the mind of the girl inside the metal suit.
"..."
Silence stretched over the alleyway. Sam's lack of response was an admission in itself; if he had been wrong, the Stellaron Hunter would have immediately fired back a cold retort.
Stelle, meanwhile, had been trapped in a state of deep confusion this entire time. She scratched the back of her head, her golden eyes darting between Rekka's smug face and the intimidating, silent mecha.
"So... who exactly am I, and who is she..."
"Now isn't the time for a tearful reminiscing session. We have serious business to attend to." Rekka clapped his hands together, instantly shutting down Stelle's rising curiosity.
"True. I'll follow your lead."
Sam's glowing visor finally shifted its focus away from Stelle, locking onto Rekka. However, having those soulless, fiery optical sensors tracking his every move still sent a faint, creepy chill crawling up the back of Rekka's neck.
Lacking proper materials, a sterile workbench, and anything resembling a quiet environment, how exactly was an engineering genius supposed to invent a highly sensitive tracking device?
"Oh, this feels pretty great." Stelle's voice echoed with pure satisfaction as she triumphantly fished a rusted, discarded wall clock out of a snow-dusted trash can.
"Magnificent find!" Rekka cheered, accepting the garbage as if it were a holy relic.
He took the old-fashioned clock and, in a blur of motion that defied basic physics, stripped it down into a neat pile of individual gears and springs in exactly fifteen seconds.
Stelle squatted on the freezing pavement, her unblinking gaze locked onto Rekka's flying hands.
'Wait,'she thought, tilting her head.'I don't think I even blinked.'
"Do you need any more materials?" She shot to her feet, enthusiastically pointing at a pristine row of metal trash cans lined up against the brick wall behind them. "There are three more over there! I bet the loot drops are amazing!"
"No, these are enough."
Rekka didn't even bother looking up. He snatched the rusted clock face with his left hand, and with his right, he slammed the mainspring barrel down onto the center. A sharp metallic click echoed through the alley as the two completely incompatible parts snapped together perfectly. Finally, he slapped the cracked glass cover over the top.
He flicked a jagged metal piece sticking out of the side of the newly formed cylinder.
Beep—
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
A fully functional, albeit hideous, Stellaron Radar was complete.
"Now, we can track down the local Stellaron using this highly sophisticated device."
Stelle stared at the contraption. "Are you serious? No matter how I look at it, this is just something you violently cobbled together from literal garbage I handed you."
"The quality of the base materials does not determine the fundamental nature of the scientific instrument." Rekka tapped the circular glass face. "The imaginary energy released by a Stellaron produces a highly specific wavelength shift in the local environment. This device's needle is now perfectly calibrated to connect only with that exact shift... Fine, I won't explain the quantum mechanics. Just think of it as a magic compass."
"I don't understand a single word you just said about coils or wavelengths." Stelle crossed her arms, squinting at the radar. "I only saw you rip apart a broken clock and smash it back together into a tin can that beeps. Can that thing really find the Stellaron?"
As if actively trying to spite her, the rusted needle inside the glass spun twice, locked into place, and pointed dead center at Stelle's chest.
Stelle took a step to the left.
The needle tracked her perfectly.
"...Fine. It seems like there's no problem with the engineering."
"So take this and mask your own Stellaron wavelength, otherwise we'll just be walking in circles and we won't be able to find the wild one."
Rekka tossed a small, perfectly smooth silver cube into Stelle's hands.
She caught it, looking at the high-tech piece of equipment. "Just how much stuff are you carrying around?"
"Not much." Rekka casually unzipped his left jacket pocket, pulling the fabric wide to reveal a terrifying, physics-defying arsenal packed to the brim with dozens of identical silver cubes, tools, and weapons. "My clothes have four pockets in total."
"Are you wearing an entire military armory?"
"It's called being prepared for absolutely anything." Rekka zipped the pocket back up as if carrying a dimensional storage space was the most normal thing in the universe, patting the bulging fabric. "Who knows what kind of nonsense we'll encounter out here? It's just in case we need to blow something up."
The moment Stelle activated the cube, the needle on the tin-can radar spun wildly for a second, stopped pointing at her, and steadied itself, locking onto a signal further down the snow-covered street.
Beep— beep— beep—
"The signal is very stable." Rekka looked down the avenue, his eyes tracking the invisible line drawn by the rusted needle. "The distance isn't too far. Follow the compass."
The eccentric team began their march through the winding streets of Belobog. Sam brought up the rear, the massive mecha's heavy metallic footsteps thudding against the cobblestones with enough force to shake the nearby windows.
As they rounded a corner, a patrol of local soldiers marched into view. They wore deep blue uniforms and carried long, heavy spears, their sharp gazes sweeping over the passing pedestrians.
Rekka noted that the actual combat power of these local guards seemed rather underwhelming, but they carried themselves with strict discipline.
The soldiers marched straight past the Trailblazers. They didn't even glance at the giant, heavily armed mechanical suit of armor stomping right beside them.
"This feels so strange." Stelle looked over her shoulder, watching the blue-uniformed guards march away. "They really just treated us like thin air... I almost wanted to reach out and poke one of them in the face just now to see what would happen."
"You can try. They won't pay you any mind."
"I still find it incredibly awkward," March 7th complained, rubbing her arms. "A mecha the size of a small house is clanging down the middle of a public street, and the pedestrians don't even bat an eye. Your cloaking technology is just ridiculous."
"This is a victory for science, March."
As the team crossed through several more districts, the surrounding architecture shifted. The cramped, utilitarian buildings gave way to magnificent, towering stone structures, and the roads widened into smooth, sweeping plazas. The presence of the blue-uniformed soldiers increased drastically, their patrol routes tight and frequent.
Everywhere they walked, groups of civilians were huddled together, whispering excitedly and pointing up at the sky. They were all discussing the blinding blue light that had descended from the heavens earlier that day.
"This must be a miracle of the Preservation, right? The Architects have blessed us!" a passing civilian gasped in awe.
March 7th's expression instantly strained, a pained grimace pulling at the corners of her mouth.
That had absolutely nothing to do with the Preservation. She knew for a fact that the 'miracle' was just Rekka firing a devastating Erudition orbital cannon straight down into the city...
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