[Big Annoucement!]
[Hi, everyone!! months since I talked directly here xD, not really the best talker (maybe because I spend all day reading...) anyway! as how prices of everything is going up and everyday life is getting expensive I decided to reduce the price of my sub on P@tr30n.
I don't want to make my readers stop having a good time so this is the least I can do.
To coushion a little the lost of money I added a tier for people that want to support me and have access to the polls for new fanfics and incoming events. Just a 1 buck one xD.
The next event will be a poll to pick one of my fanfic to get 10 extra chapters!
Thanks for your support!]
There were roughly two hours left until dawn, but Murrue Ramius, captain of the Archangel, felt no drowsiness at all.
After arriving in Orb, she had been doing everything she could to replenish the Archangel's crew.
One batch of new members came from the Archangel crew in the PSP game, almost the original lineup.
They were the students who had been studying on the colony satellite Heliopolis.
In truth, these children had followed the Archangel all the way back to Orb. In a sense, they had shared in the whole journey.
The reason they had been brought along was that they would likely be dragged into trouble by either the Earth Alliance or ZAFT if left behind.
After all, they had seen the G-Weapons. One of them had even activated a G unit, which made it even more impossible to let them go.
During the journey afterward, Murrue had kept those children in the living quarters, forbidding them from wandering around. She also had not allowed them to learn about what was happening outside the Archangel, so they did not really know what kinds of danger the ship had faced.
Still, they could probably guess a little.
Once they arrived in Orb, she let them disembark.
But before giving them the freedom to leave, Murrue still chose to play the villain for once and used a rather underhanded moral appeal to make those children understand Orb's current situation.
In the end, almost all of them stayed.
After that, she guided them in learning about the Archangel. The results of the simulations left her very satisfied. All of them were exceptionally talented.
The most astonishing one was still that child, a Coordinator.
Since she could not sleep now, Murrue decided to find something to do.
When she walked out onto the deck, she could feel the cool sea breeze.
However, she could not see the ocean from here. The dock gate leading out to sea was closed, keeping the Archangel hidden inside.
If she looked up, though, she could see the starry sky.
Withdrawing her gaze, she prepared to head back and dispose of the contents of the thermos in her hand.
Hm?
Suddenly, she noticed light coming from one area. It seemed to be an indoor shooting range. Was someone training?
She picked up a pair of binoculars and looked over. Through the bulletproof glass window, she saw a familiar figure inside, which made her pause.
A moment later, Murrue arrived at the training range just in time to see a figure come to a stop in the middle of the field.
The next instant, with no warning, hostage targets popped up inside. At the same time, targets representing armed personnel appeared beside them.
Those armed-personnel targets were fixed to machines equipped with guns, which would fire at any target entering the field.
Of course, the rounds fired were supposed to be rubber bullets or paint rounds.
After all, this was only a combat simulation for training, not a real battlefield.
No, wait.
That gunfire sounded wrong. She even saw the area around him being struck by something clearly moving at supersonic speed after he entered.
Those were real firearms attacking him.
And not only that, the weapon system inside seemed to have been set to the highest difficulty, firing at him with insane intensity. Murrue's expression changed.
Could it be that Mr. Kain had wanted to try the training range, only for some malicious person to swap in live rounds and attempt to kill him?
Damn it.
Where was the control console?
After quickly scanning the area, Murrue guessed where it should be and hurried over.
Through the transparent glass, she could see the firing field, roughly the size of a soccer pitch. Mr. Kain was constantly evading the attacks inside.
At the same time, he was closing in on the firearms and using the cold weapon in his hand to destroy the targets representing the armed assailants. Once a target was destroyed, its sensor was triggered, and the corresponding weapon stopped firing.
Because of that, Murrue slowed to a stop only a few steps away from the control room.
The "armed assailants" inside the field had all been eliminated.
At the same time, an electronic voice sounded, reporting his score.
"Are you trying to hurt yourself?"
When Kain stepped out of the training range, what greeted him was a slightly angry question from the mature woman in front of him, whose presence carried an unmistakably feminine softness.
She was also carrying a medical kit. She had clearly brought it to treat his wounds.
After he set the difficulty to maximum this time, he had still carelessly been hit twice.
As for why he was doing this, it was not to train himself. He was simply looking for a thrill, almost like someone engaging in an extreme sport.
At present, this kind of thing could not train him at all. Nor did he need any kind of high-intensity exercise to temper his body.
The Panacea had already placed him in the best physical state possible. What he lacked was pure experience.
"No. I was enjoying myself."
"Enjoying yourself?"
Murrue studied the man in front of her carefully. He did not look as though he was lying.
Using live rounds to seek excitement and pleasure meant either there was something wrong with his head or there was something abnormal about his mind.
In his case, it seemed to be the latter.
Then she thought of his origins, and of the CG backgrounds that had appeared during Lacus's song. That horrific war made one word suddenly surface in Murrue's mind.
PTSD.
If that was the case, his craving for stimulation seemed somewhat understandable.
And when she thought of that, Murrue felt her heart tighten faintly.
Clank.
Murrue dug a piece of metal out of his muscle. He could have handled it himself, but when she saw his brutal way of treating his own wound, she could not stand it and forcibly stepped in to help him remove it.
"There's no need to bandage it."
"No need?"
She then saw him drink the so-called Earth Elixir. The wound began healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Don't misunderstand. Earth Elixir isn't that powerful. I'm the special case. That's why Earth Elixir has this kind of effect on me. For you people..."
Kain felt it necessary to explain properly. He could not let them misunderstand and think Earth Elixir was as powerful as the Panacea.
"Still, if someone really suffers an especially severe fatal injury, and one dose of Earth Elixir isn't enough, then they can drink more. After that, it depends on their willpower..."
As long as the body had not suffered some obvious catastrophic loss, increasing the dosage could, to a certain extent, even achieve something like limb regeneration.
But the agony produced at that level far exceeded what humans could endure.
There was a very real possibility that someone would not die because their injuries were too severe, but because the pain produced by the regenerating nerves would kill them alive.
Those discoveries had come from experiments on Saeko Busujima's side.
"Mr. Kain, are you certain you came from our world's future?"
Murrue suddenly asked that question in a deep voice.
"What do you think?"
Kain did not find it strange that she would be suspicious.
She had probably found some information in the PSP game that made her doubt it, such as the game company's address and the release date.
Those things could have been handled by 6O before the PSP was given to Murrue, but Lacus had specifically said there was no need. In itself, that was because she wanted Murrue to become suspicious.
That would make the truth easier to accept later.
"I don't know. But if Lacus says so, then I believe Lacus. I believe that child truly brought you here to help bring peace to this world."
Because of that, Murrue had no intention of prying too deeply.
Some secrets were not better for being known by too many people.
Suddenly, Murrue noticed that his gaze had fallen on the thermos she was holding, and her expression stiffened.
She had originally meant to dispose of it, but her curiosity about what he was doing here had made her forget.
"Is what's inside that thing I gave you the other day?"
Murrue fell silent, but her eyes soon began to redden.
"Rather than letting it go to waste, how about giving it to me as a nutritional supplement?"
Someone said it in a half-joking tone, and what he received in return was even deeper silence.
After a long while, she suddenly and truly handed it over to him, leaving him stunned.
She was really giving it to him?
Then he was not going to be polite.
(End of Chapter)
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