For the next two days after my successful retreat under the cover of incendiary shellfire, I was involved in a variety of follow-ups: giving my opinion on how useful it would be to have some sort of wire anchor, talking about how the equipment performed in the field, checking for stress on the joints from all the jumping around, and inspecting the connections between the upper and lower halves of the suit.
Despite everything, the mission wrapped up without a hitch.
If there was anything you might have called a problem, it was probably that the next test was scheduled for before I even got back.
When I heard that, I couldn’t help blurting out, “Wait, what?”
Since I was officially a commissioned officer now, my personal schedule didn’t really matter anymore. But what about the mech upgrades and the new gear we needed to develop? Not to mention, I hadn’t even mastered the current equipment, especially everything to do with reloading!
Who knew how long that was going to take? You couldn’t just slap a date on the calendar like that! After I pushed back hard enough, the old man in charge, Mogami, reluctantly backed down.
Though of course, before that, he threw out the line, “You sure? Getting deployed helps you get promoted.”
Seriously, did he have me pegged as some rebellious kid trying to rise through the ranks and get close to the people in power so I could avenge my parents or something?
Yes, I had a little sister who was bound to grow up into a great woman someday, but that was about the only thing that fit with that mental picture. I hadn’t been particularly close with my parents, and I definitely wasn’t destined for something incredible. I was just your average high school student.
After I got home, Yuna asked me about the mech. When I got to the part about carrying around thirty-five kilograms all the time, she started fretting.
“Don’t worry. It weighs less than you do,” I told her—only for her to throw a knife at me. Then she almost dumped the piping hot sauce she was making all over me.
Let this be a warning: Thick, boiling sauce and burdock root should never be used as weapons. They’re far too dangerous.
“All right. Time to start the day… Huh?”
After that heartwarming family moment, I headed to school, only to find that people were looking at me differently.
What was going on? Had something happened while I’d been away these past few days? Had they picked work experience groups or something? Or decided who was going to be the class representative?
If they tried to rope me into serving on some committee, I would be nipping that in the bud immediately.
As long as it didn’t involve me, I didn’t care what was going on.
“Oh! Look who finally showed up. You sure seem relaxed, Ensign.”
Just when I was getting confused by all the stares, my one and only friend right now, Ms. White—Isotani—called out to me.
“‘Finally’? It’s still ten minutes before homeroom…”
…Ah. I get it now.
She’d called me “Ensign” right off the bat, and everything had clicked into place. I could see why people were staring now. Isotani was good at giving me a nudge in the right direction like that without making a big deal out of it.
The looks I was getting weren’t out of hostility. It was because people didn’t know how to react to my sudden promotion, and that was mixed with a healthy dose of curiosity about how it had happened.
The way I saw it, it was just the latest in a long line of annoyances. In the past few days, I’d been called in by the Boss without warning, taken to an air base, dragged out onto the battlefield, and involved in real-life combat for the sake of gathering data. But for people who wanted to be on the battlefield, who wanted to stand out and move up in the ranks, it must have looked very different.
I’d swap places with them in a heartbeat if I could.
Still, I could understand where they were coming from.
And now that I knew what was going on, the solution was simple: I just needed to play along with Isotani. That was all there was to it. At the very least, she didn’t seem the sort of person to throw me under the bus.
You won’t, right? I’m counting on you here…
“Oh? I thought you’d be here early, bragging to everyone,” she joked.
By “bragging,” it seemed like she was saying she wanted information. Message received.
“You say that, but there isn’t much to brag about. It wasn’t like I did anything on my own. Getting promoted to ensign was just the product of a series of crazy flukes. It’s not worth boasting about.”
The fact was that, even if I was only a “special” Ensign, I’d been commissioned before achieving any battlefield results. And the only reason I’d managed those results was because of the mech’s performance and because Mogami had the weapons and logistics all squared away. It wasn’t like I’d done anything worth being proud of.
“Really? Well, either way, I’d love to hear more about it.”
Even if the rank was “special,” a promotion was still a promotion. For my classmates, who were all aiming to earn their way up through the ranks by proving themselves on the battlefield, someone who’d gotten there as a student was a valuable resource.
So yeah, I could see why they wanted to know more. I really did.
But the question remained: What was in it for me?
“That kind of intel doesn’t come cheap.”
I was trying to make it clear I wasn’t planning to divulge any more details. Isotani must have heard something else entirely, though—that I would give her the intel if she paid up.
“How much?”
The words had come out so quickly, she’d almost cut me off.
I hadn’t had a price in mind, but now that I’d said that, I couldn’t take it back. That would make me look like a jerk. And I didn’t want to risk losing the one friend I had at the academy over something like this.
Now what?
Like some sort of divine revelation, a gentlemanly voice whispered a brilliant idea into my mind: Think about it the other way around. Why not sell the information? Just name a price that’s so high, a student couldn’t possibly afford it.
It was genius.
Prices were set through back-and-forth negotiations between the buyer and the seller. There was no “correct” fixed price right from the start.
So if I said, “This intel’s worth a million yen,” and she responded with “That’s too expensive,” I could say, “Then I’m not selling.” And that would be that.
I wouldn’t be saying I was refusing to sell it—she would just be unable to buy it. I wouldn’t have to lie, so there was no reason for her to be upset. And of course, as a soldier, it made perfect sense for me to keep certain information classified.
It was brilliant, really.
The only problem was that I had no idea what the price should be. Ask for too much, and I’d come off as greedy—ask for too little, and she might actually buy it. I needed a number high enough to scare her off but not so high that it fractured our friendship.
The tough part was that, as a soldier and a student, I had to do both.
Was she ready for this? I knew I was.
“…Five hundred thousand yen, I guess.”
It was a little pun on her name, Isotani being written with the characters for fifty and valley. It was a pretty good number for something worked up on the fly, if I did say so myself.
Or so I thought.
“Sold.”
“…That was fast.”
I had just asked for half a million yen. A reasonable amount for an officer, maybe, but surely not for a student. I’d even planned to scoff if she’d said it was too much and reply, “Well, that’s pretty reasonable based on what an ensign makes.” But Isotani hadn’t hesitated for a second.
Seriously? It was that easy?
“It doesn’t matter how fast it was; I bought it. So you can tell me during the next training period. Oh, and don’t sell it to anyone else before then, okay? I know you’re not the type to blab secrets all over the place, but just to make sure.”
I was locked in now. And after she heard the intel, I’d be free to sell it again, though probably only if I upped the price.
“…Understood.”
And so, with the painful realization that I had underestimated both the value of my information and Isotani’s buying power, I braced myself for a long day of filtering what I could and couldn’t say—as well as trying to come up with a way to negotiate so I could refund some of that money.