Chapter 4: Recovery and re-launch in regeneration tank

After a while in the pool, the pain in my side receded.

Out of the corner of my eye, Alisha was moving briskly. She was placing a large container of water on a cart and pouring it into the pool. She is checking the temperature of the water with some kind of thermometer. From the feeling of being soaked, the temperature is probably around 37 degrees. There was always steam in the pool. It was like a hot spring.

Occasionally, a part of my body would twitch. It seemed to be a reflex of my body, not of my own will. Once, my crooked finger almost grazed Alisha’s head, chilling her to the bone. If my armored finger had hit Alisha, she would have been more than hurt.

If you look closely, you can see what looks like scars on Alisha’s face and arms. I wondered if I, or rather this inborn body, had hurt her.

When the pain in my side had completely subsided, Alisha did something out of my sight, and my body was pushed up from underneath. My body rises out of the water.

Alisha used a rail crane suspended from the ceiling to bring in the new hand armor parts and flank plates.

With tools in hand, she attached them to my body, removed the damaged parts, and bolted the new ones in place.

Then she brought in another cart with what looked like a drum on it.

She rummaged under my cockpit. I felt something like a lid open. If my belly button was going to be stowed, it would look like this.

A hose extending from the drum would be connected to it.

After a while, I started to feel energy in every part of my body.

Energy, or rather, calories, replenishing my body.

Finally, Alisha climbs on my chest and opens the hatch of the cockpit. She enters my body.

The low-quality camera installed in the cockpit for communication is still switched on, and I watch her through it.

It’s a strange sensation. In addition to the vision of my own two eyes, I am aware of another completely different vision. What does this mean? I wondered if the purpose of this was to interrupt the pilot’s consciousness by communicating with me during the battle.

Alisha sat down on the seat, almost on her back, and grasped the two controls.

As she meditated, “Move!” she shouted softly.

I didn’t move, and I couldn’t.

Unlike with Dostoyev, I couldn’t feel her will.

Alisha sighed.

“Aptitude, is it?”

She wiped the inside of the cockpit with a cloth, picked up a loaf of bread that Dostoyev must have thrown away, and put it in her pocket.

She patted the monitor in the cockpit.

“Vamishraa, you did well today!”

With that, she slipped out of the cockpit and dunked me back into the hot water.

Before I knew it, the hangar was empty.

She said, “Good night!” and pulled down a lever on the wall.

The ceiling lights were dimmed and the hangar was enveloped in darkness.

I could do nothing but stare at the dark ceiling.

All I could hear was the sound of a window rattling.

What the hell is this? I thought. I wondered why this was happening to me.

How did I end up inside a biological weapon when I was supposed to be living in Japan?

Or is this just a dream?

If I sleep in this world, will I wake up in the original world?

While I was thinking about these things, I fell asleep.

I don’t know how much time passed, but I came back to reality when I heard the sound of an alarm. It was a high-pitched, deafening sound.

The ceiling of the hanger came into view.

Oh, I’m still in the same nightmare.

Dostoyev opened my hatch and climbed in roughly.

” Lets go!” He shouts.

I shuddered.

When I came back that day, I had lost my right arm from the root.