by Yuu Kamiya
“Is that so?” RyuZU nodded. “If you plan to stay here and savor the joy of life, then that joy will last for about six more hours. I would appreciate it if you could spend the remaining time in a way that does not leave you with any regrets.”
......Hmm?
“Six hours left? Was there something going on?” Naoto tilted his head.
Marie, who had been flabbergasted by the developments until now, screeched, “The time left until this city’s and our fates are sealed, you dumb perverted bastard!”
When he heard that, Naoto looked up at the soaring tower in front of him, taken aback.
Recalling the situation that he had completely forgotten as he was being deeply moved, he yelled, “—Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Crap!! The repair of the core tower!!”
RyuZU said in a voice below freezing, “Ah, had you forgotten? I thought you were astoundingly bold to set a functional restraint on your automaton and indulge yourself in your humiliation kink in this situation, but I see that you merely have a case of tunnel vision.”
Sensing her words were even thornier than usual, Naoto asked gingerly, “Ah—...Miss RyuZU, are you mad at me, or...”
“Mad? Why should every single word Master Naoto says jolt my emotions?”
“—By all means, do as you wish.”
Witnessing a conversation that for some reason seemed sweet, Marie screeched, “Do your romantic comedy skit afterwards! Do you guys really understand the situation?!” She glared at Naoto and RyuZU with searing eyes hot enough to melt titanium alloy.
Behind her, Halter let out a deep sigh. He looked exhausted as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Give me a break, please. If we die because of this, it won’t even be funny in the afterlife.”
●
They were rushing towards the core tower, but Marie’s mind was on something else. A deep suspicion was stuck in her mind.
—“Y.”
The clocksmith who had created the world and was also RyuZU’s maker.
Imaginary Gear, the technology that shouldn’t have existed in reality.
An automaton with free will that looked like she was in love, no matter how one sliced it.
The one-of-a-kind genius that no one else in all of human history could compare to had created those things over a thousand years ago.
But that was simply too much to believe...
“Was he really human...? Did he even really exist in the first place?” Marie inadvertently muttered.
No one answered her.
●
Seventy-two thousand meters deep underground, there was a vast space filled with gears.
In that space was a central corridor, where the aisles that led to all the different sections of the floor intersected. The corridor had a height of a little more than three hundred meters and a length of at least two hundred meters, but even this broad space was but a teeny-tiny piece of the entire twenty-fourth floor.
The rest of the area was entirely buried by the gears that governed the city’s functions. Above the ceiling, behind the walls, and even underneath the floors, there were countless gears intertwined in ways complex beyond imagination.
That space was deserted, with no sign of even a single person’s presence. Aside from the four who had stepped into the area just now, there were neither any shadows nor forms here.
“...Seems like no one’s here. Did the military take everyone away?” Halter muttered as he picked a sheet up from the documents scattered on the ground.
With the equipment and papers left behind, only the clocksmiths themselves were missing. If they had voluntarily evacuated, they surely would have collected the reusable equipment, so one could surmise that their disappearance wasn’t something that they had willed themselves.
Marie sighed as she nodded. “If that’s the case, it might have been for the best. At the very least, it means that everyone’s safe...”
“Hm? No, wait.” Halter raised his face. “Looks like there’re people here after all. They’re coming back.”
As he said that, silhouettes emerged from an aisle leading to the back of the floor.
It was a group of ten-odd people. Upon noticing Marie’s group, they yelled in surprise. “Dr. Marie?!” As they called out her name, they ran towards her.
They were an elderly group of staff members who were all wearing fatigues; Service Chief Konrad was among them.
The service chief stepped forward as their representative and said, “Ahh, thank goodness! I see that you made it out safely.”
Marie’s eyes widened. “What do you mean by ‘made it out safely’?”
“Right after you went back to the surface, a group from the military came spewing nonsense and ordered us to withdraw immediately. I wanted to tell them to get lost, but they started to say something bizarre like ‘Meister Guild has already agreed to this,’ and considering that you were detained as well... Left without a choice, I had just the youngins evacuate.”
Marie said in surprise, “Why didn’t you guys evacuate as well?!”
“‘Why?’ You sure ask some strange things.” Stroking his goatee, the service chief snorted. “How could we possibly run away when there’s still plenty of work left to be done?”
“Speaking of which, Dr. Marie, I thought that the entrance had been sealed by the military. How were you able to get here?” Observation Chief Hannes asked.
Marie smiled bitterly, then shook her head. “Ah—...Let’s leave that for later. We don’t have time right now. The gravitational anomaly has already become terribly severe on the surface. We have to finish the repair as soon as possible.”
“...About that,” Hannes said with a dark expression. “Dr. Marie, sorry to tell you this when you’ve just rushed your way here, but we’d like to have you hurry and evacuate as well.”
Marie’s eyebrows shot sharply downward. “What are you saying?!”
“We’re serious. A chain reaction occurred just now.” The observation chief hung his head with pensive eyes. “If you stay as well when things are already this hopeless, then you’d... If you evacuate now, you should more than likely be able to escape.”
“You’re still young and have more talent than we do. We won’t accept having you commit suicide here with us senile old fools,” the service chief interjected from the side.
However, Marie glared at the two of them severely. “I came back to save this city, not to hear a tearful plea from a bunch of old bones.”
“But... realistically speaking, there’s no hope anymore...”
“There’s no need for concern. We have a secret weapon.”
“Secret weapon?”
A perplexed look spread among all of the staff, the two chiefs included.
Marie nodded with a smile. “Yes, let me introduce him. He’s a resident of this city, and—” Marie declared confidently. However, as she turned around, her lips froze.
Where her gaze and the palm of her hand were directed was the thing she had begun to introduce as her secret weapon.
“A resident of this city, and.....”
Her smile stiffened.
That something—namely Naoto—was looking at the ceiling ecstatically with an intoxicated expression on his face.
His delirious, feverish eyes were glittering brilliantly, like an addict’s. The incoherent “weehehehehehehe” he kept repeating clearly proved to the onlookers that he was severely ill beyond a shadow of a doubt.
On top of that...
“——Wow, how beautiful...”
“............What?”
So absorbed that he didn’t register Marie’s voice, Naoto staggered towards the wall of gears. He ogled the countless moving parts on it and the ceiling with a gaze that was clearly one of love.
“Gorgeous...! I haven’t seen mechanisms so complete and perfect since I saw RyuZU’s internal workings...! It’s simply too amazing. Dammit, just who was it?! Who was the unbelievable god that designed such pretty, bewitching, exciting, and wonnnderful moving parts...?
!”
Seeing the deviant spewing nonsense as he wriggled his body gave Marie a chill, causing her to inadvertently take two steps backward. She was repulsed.
Behind her, one of the staff members inquired doubtfully, “......A secret weapon?”
“No, er, could you give me a sec?” Marie said, then groaned and shook her head as she beheld the over-the-top sight before her once more.
“Master Naoto.”
Perhaps RyuZU had become unable to watch on any longer as well, for she told him in a severe voice, “I do not think that that is what you should be worrying about right now.”
“R, RyuZU! I see that you’re someone reasonable after all... That’s right! Stop ogling the gears and—” Marie’s face relaxed; she was practically moved by RyuZU’s words.
RyuZU nodded deeply to Marie in return before continuing in a voice filled with refinement, “More importantly, blurting out that you haven’t seen such perfect mechanisms since mine as you look upon this stale, moldy antique—I cannot let such an insult pass.”
“It’s not that, either!” Marie yelled tearfully.
Meanwhile, Naoto was acting suspiciously like he had been hit right where it hurt.
“Eh, b-b, but, I mean! No, well, of course I know just how amazing you are, RyuZU, but, but—”
“No buts or butter cakes. You said my body was ‘very pretty’ the other day. Were those words lies?”
“—Your body?” Marie muttered, dumbfounded.
Naoto denied it in a fluster. “A-A-Absolutely not! As if that could be a lie!”
“Then why are your eyes being drawn towards antiques like these? I demand an explanation.”
I don’t know what’s going on anymore... Marie thought as she held her head. RyuZU’s tone and attitude are the same as always, and her wicked tongue aside, she’s wearing a gentle, highly refined smile. But something seems... off.
Almost like—a girl rebuking her boyfriend for being charmed and following another girl with his eyes.
“Look at it, this was something made a thousand years ago! Yet it’s still operating perfectly, and on top of that, everything down to the details are visible! Despite having been daringly laid bare, this framework, this beauty remains just as magi—”
“I understand now. In other words, you are telling me to strip.”
“Haah?!” Marie cried out, bewildered. Ignoring her, RyuZU began to unbutton her dress.
“H, H-H-Hey, you! A, A maiden shouldn’t show her skin in front of a gentleman!”
“Worry not, for I am an automaton, not a maiden. More importantly, even though I am superior in every way, whether it be number of parts, the precision with which they were made, or functionality, to suggest that I am inferior to mass-produced antiques like these is on a different dimension from actions that can be forgiven by claiming ignorance or stupidity.”
“Ahh——” Marie finally understood.
I see... so in other words,
In an emergency like this,
In a time like this when the fate of this metropolis and the lives of twenty million people are on the line...
This automaton is acting jealous.
And then, RyuZU clutched the hems of her dress. Seeing that, Marie yelled, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH————CUT IT OUT ALREADYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY————Y!”
She had snapped.
Rumble. As her roar rang out, it shook the space buried in countless gears.
“Consider the situation, you two! In four hours, we’ll all be buried alive!”
Perhaps the roar that she had put all her might into had done the trick, since the two of them had shut right up.
They nodded in unison at Marie.
“—Yeah, you’re right.”
“I apologize for Master Naoto failing to discern the situation.”
“Eh, it’s my fault?!”
“I don’t care whose fault it is! Listen up! In four hours—Ahh, it’s already past that point!”
Marie pointed at her pocket watch as she continued, yelling, “In three hours and fifty-seven minutes, approximately twenty million people will all be purged and sink to the earth’s core, including us! Are you two telling me I have to die watching your lunchtime soap opera?!”
...Where did the serious atmosphere that was here until just now go?
Marie panted, her shoulders heaving as she was assaulted by the desire to strangle her past self from just a little while ago to death for believing in this pervert and this automaton.
Seeing her furious expression, Naoto batted his eyes as he wiped the blood off his face. He’d just had a massive nosebleed.
“Ah—yeah, sorry. I guess it’s about time that we get serious, RyuZU.”
“Yes, Master Naoto. We shall continue this conversation afterwards.”
“I’m begging you, seriously...” Marie groaned as she nearly sank down to the floor then and there.
Service Chief Konrad called out to her from behind. “Ah—Dr. Marie? ...Just who are these people...?”
“I know what you want to say, service chief. I know all too well! But—” Marie turned around with her face red from violent fury and embarrassment. The service chief’s face had the words “fed up” practically written on it, and when Marie saw him, she continued, nearly crying. “Please give him some time out of respect for me. I’m sure that it hardly seems believable, that you don’t even want to believe it... but they’re our one and only hope.”
The service chief seemed earnest as he looked at Marie.
He had been on this Earth for as long as fifty years now. During that time, he’d seen clocksmiths who had burned out from the severe workload, as well as genius clocksmiths who had retired early, crushed by the weight of their own talent.
That’s why he had suspected that the girl in front of him had snapped in this all-too-hopeless situation, but—
Marie gazed back at the service chief fixedly. Her eyes had become a little puffy, but they still had life in them. Her gaze was one of sanity that harbored the light of reason within it.
Sighing, he nodded slightly. Though he certainly wasn’t short on questions, he concluded that he could, at the very least, trust the girl in front of him.
“I understand. I shall believe you for now.”
“Thank you,” Marie said as she smiled with tears in her eyes.
She turned her gaze back to Naoto. She caught him just as he lowered himself to sit down where he was.
He crossed his legs, straightened his back, and took a deep breath. He silently took off his pair of fluorescent-green headphones and tossed them to RyuZU.
“Take care of those for me, please.”
“Certainly.” RyuZU bowed.
Naoto gave her a smile in return before facing forward once again and sinking into silence.
Like that, he proceeded to stare off into space without moving at all.
It may have been another story for Marie, Halter, and RyuZU, but the staff who had just met Naoto for the first time had no clue what he was trying to do.
One of them spoke up restlessly. “...? Just what are you trying to—”
“Be quiet,” Naoto said sharply.
His terse words carried neither gravity nor impact. However, the sharpness of his tone made the staff member hold his tongue.
The heavy silence continued.
The sound of the gears meshing together, grating against each other, and brushing the air aside quietly sounded.
While being so intimidated that she even struggled to breathe a little, Marie inadvertently thought, —What do these sounds sound like to this guy?
The sense of hearing that could catch the disorder in the twenty-fourth floor from above ground. A superpower that anyone would scoff at in disbelief should he confess it to someone.
What did this world full of gears sound like to someone with a gift like that? Marie wanted to know the answer to that badly.
Unaware of Marie’s thoughts, Naoto continued staring into space without even so mu
ch as a twitch.
Nothing happened as time simply continued to flow.
The staff were visibly antsy. In about four more hours, they were going to sink to the bottom of the earth along with the whole metropolis and twenty million other lives. And yet, they were to remain silent, without doing anything. Such a task was no less agonizing than torture.
However, anytime someone tried to open their mouth or leave—the automaton standing next to the boy stopped them with a sharp look.
—Don’t speak.
—Don’t move.
Recognizing the overt message encoded in her gaze, the staff stayed nailed right where they were.
Two minutes, four minutes, six minutes—a seemingly eternal amount of time passed.
Before finally...
“———————I’ve got it,” Naoto muttered quietly. The tense atmosphere instantly relaxed a few degrees.
Released from the suffocating, anxiety-inducing pressure, a commotion stirred among the staff who had been constrained to silence until now. They sounded suspicious.
Among them, Observation Chief Hannes raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve got it, you say?” he questioned in a chilly tone. “Just what did you get? That you wasted precious time? If it’s the fact that we’re already done for, we’ve known that for quite some time,” the observation chief said sarcastically; however, Naoto paid no mind to his words.
While gazing at something seemingly far away, almost as if his soul had left his body behind, he declared, “Eighteen spots.”
“What...?”
Marie interjected to fill in the blanks left by Naoto’s insufficient words. “You mean that if we repair eighteen spots, the system governing gravity will be normalized, right?”
“Right.” Naoto nodded lightly.
Hearing Naoto’s reply, the observation chief became enraged, shouting at him, “Such nonsense! How would you know that?! Don’t tell me you plan to say that you grasped the structure of this floor’s mechanisms just by sitting over there?!”
“That’s right,” Naoto immediately and clearly replied.
The observation chief was about to shout at the kid in front of him again but was flabbergasted upon seeing Marie rush up to Naoto with a diagram of the floor.
“Where are those eighteen spots?” Marie asked as she spread it on the ground.
