“Wait… Oedipus, the ice bees are too dangerous!”
“Can’t you see? Just by flapping their wings, they can freeze your feet to the floor!”
“Don’t you understand? Even if they won’t hurt you as a researcher… you can’t be sure you’ll survive this freezing wind.”
“And I don’t understand. I just don’t understand…”
“We’ve never even met. Why are you being so kind to us…?”
In the air, water vapor turned into tiny ice crystals, refracting an azure aurora.
The breaths between them grew heavy, stilled.
In the icy blue tide suspended in midair, Merka’s puzzled eyes were reflected.
The gemstone glow had long since faded from those eyes, yet the vitality of her newfound life made them shine all the brighter.
Perhaps because of that, Merka seemed more lively and gentle, too.
Oedipus had pushed Merka back against the machine. One more step, and he’d be inside it.
He gripped the edge of the machine with one hand, his body caught in its entrance. Turing, meanwhile, had already ducked inside ahead of him, squeezing her whole body into the machine.
Merka gazed silently at Oedipus, waiting for a reasonable explanation.
“I…”
“Isn’t it enough that I wanted to do it?”
In the bitter wind, Oedipus’s expression was stubborn. And yet Merka could clearly see a hint of a young girl’s hurt in it.
She pouted, glanced to the side, then looked back over her shoulder.
Her hands were completely frozen stiff. Once soft, they were now hard as ice. The savage frost coated her delicate body in a bright, deathly white, making her look like a porcelain doll that might shatter all over if someone so much as tapped her.
Even so, she stared fearlessly at the swarm of ice bees surging toward them.
As if she had no fear of death.
“I mean, I am a little scared…”
“But you feel familiar to me…”
“Especially you. Are you from the Altria Family?… Red hair and green eyes—you look so much like my little sisters.”
Oedipus turned around again and looked at Turing, curled up inside the machine. Her voice softened.
“But enough about that…”
“You’re going upstairs too, right?”
“I’ll be fine, so I’ll see you on the roof.”
Oedipus held out her pale little fist and gently bumped it against Merka’s dangling hand. Then she ran toward the room’s entrance.
The ice bees had little awareness. As soon as they spotted Oedipus, most of the swarm split off and chased after her.
“She really went to draw the ice bees away…”
Merka stared at what had just happened, stunned.
“Come on, Merka. Get inside. The ice bees are coming.”
“I set up warning magic around us. Even if she was lying, I’d be able to stop her.”
Turing reached out a slender arm and tugged at Merka’s sleeve.
Only then did Merka react. He took Turing’s hand and stepped inside the machine.
He pushed himself up, stepped over Turing, then turned sideways and lay down beside her, holding her close.
Merka and Turing curled tightly together inside the cylindrical passage, their faint, tiny breaths clearly audible.
Merka suddenly remembered something.
He hadn’t had a chance to look earlier. Now that they finally had a moment, Merka eagerly studied Turing’s face.
In the dim blue glow, Merka and Turing met each other’s gaze.
Merka couldn’t help swallowing.
“W-what is it?”
“Is there something on my face?”
Merka’s wolfishly intent stare brought a blush to Turing’s cheeks.
Her utterly perfect face was so stunning that Merka felt his heart might stop.
Her rosy little face, her delicate nose, her dewy skin that seemed to ripple, her deep blue eyes surging like the sea, her soft red hair, sweet in just the right way, and those breathtaking brows—
Everything about Turing was just as he’d dreamed of her countless times, almost hauntingly so. If anything, she was even more beautiful in person.
The only difference was… now that he could see through the illusion, Merka noticed the two pairs of drooping, rabbit-ear-like feelers on top of Turing’s head. And, somehow, a long, python-like tentacle was wrapped around her neck.
These details made Merka realize, for the first time, just how true it was.
Turing wasn’t human.
