The video feed from a <Jumper> moving through the forest suddenly broke up.
With a jolt, the camera whipped toward a completely different direction and shook violently.
Then, as if the machine had collapsed onto the ground, the transmission cut out.
“Big Sis, this is the latest footage~”
“You can kiiind of see something in it~”
Utsugi and Erika gave Eve that report. One <Jumper> after another being lost at the front had become a real headache for everyone aboard <The Tree>.
“Look~ Big Sis, here, this part.”
“It looks like a hand or something~”
Then they enlarged the portions in the sequence where what appeared to be the culprit’s hand—or foot—had been caught on camera.
It looked very much like the five-fingered hand or foot of a primate. A monkey, for example.
“A monkey... maybe?”
“From the palm to the fingertips, it’s about fifteen centimeters, I think~ So it’s pretty decent-sized.”
“Maybe we should switch them to full-surround cameras~ It’d choke the transmission bandwidth, though...”
“...We might have to lower the resolution...”
The <Jumpers> were not equipped with advanced data-processing systems.
Since they were being deployed on the assumption they would be lost, and because transmission capacity was limited, they could not operate high-precision sensors.
“And if we start spraying electromagnetic waves everywhere, we might attract things we really don’t want!”
Under Asahi’s supervision, limits had been placed on communications capacity—or rather, on electromagnetic intensity. They were reducing the probability of long-range detection by randomly shifting the bands in use while also lowering the signal strength.
Because this was reconnaissance, they absolutely had to avoid broadcasting microwaves all over the place and calling in threat organisms.
“With stand-alone operation, though, you can’t share the data if the unit gets lost...”
They might need to consider a method where the units were optimized completely for stealth, cut off from information transmission, and sent in alone. But that came with its own problem: if one was destroyed for any reason, there would be no way to bring the data back.
“And if we start pouring in numbers, we might throw the ecosystem into total chaos!”
“You mean that <Death March> thing, right? If a monster tidal wave like that hit us here, that’d be the last thing we need.”
If the <Demon Forest> were disturbed too badly, it might trigger a massive unintended monster migration.
If something like that came crashing into a front-line base that was still under construction, it would be annihilated, no question.
They had no way of knowing what kind of effect any given action might have, or how far that effect would spread.
Who could ever have predicted that losing just a few <Wyverns> would trigger a monster stampede across such a wide area?
Then again, it was entirely possible that the <Wyverns> had been special.
And in that case, it had not only involved the <Wyverns>, but also the gigantic threat organism known as the Mountain Boar.
“So for now, our immediate target for removal is whatever owns this hand?”
“Yep! Um, okay, classification’s monkey-type monster, species name <Black Monkey>. Because the bits we keep catching on camera look like little pitch-black monkeys!”
“Going by the data humanity has, it’s basically a rumor-level monster! Looks like the Chimiya Family called them black monkeys, and there are engagement records too!”
According to Erika,
the <Black Monkey> was a monkey-type monster less than one meter tall, apparently a species that lived in groups and held territory.
If it was strong enough to destroy a <Jumper>, then there was no doubt it was enhanced by the power of this magic-fantasy world.
“And it kiiind of looks like they’ve been eating the <Jumpers>, too~”
Naturally, a <Jumper> was just a mass of metal and plastic. Apparently ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ they had even found wreckage showing signs that parts of it had been gnawed off.
Omnivorous was putting it mildly.
You could almost call it indiscriminate feeding.
“Though it doesn’t look like they’re actively eating them~”
In any case, the current situation was that the reconnaissance force of <Jumpers> was being destroyed bit by bit.
It would have been easy enough to increase the number deployed, but it did not look as though that would dramatically improve the quality of the information they were gathering.
“It’d be nice if we could observe the monsters without them noticing us and figure out how they behave...”
“All the cameras we set up at random got smashed, though~ Maybe they’re like, Intruder detected—eliminate it! or something.”
The plan was to build a front-line base and extend the road outward from there.
That was still the plan, but it was starting to look difficult. Ideally, they wanted to gather solid intelligence first.
“...At this point, I guess we’ll just have to push in and see what happens. Sending only <Jumpers> tells us nothing except that there are aggressive monsters in there...”
“Okaaay. Let’s try advancing about five hundred meters for now~”
“It’s only the shallow zone, but it’s our first base, so we’ll treat it as a test run~”
◇◇◇◇
And so, several days after sending heavy machinery forward to build the base,
they had succeeded in cutting a five-hundred-meter road through the forest and moving wheeled heavy equipment up to the very front line.
At present, they were clearing the surrounding area in a circle to secure land for the base construction.
“There’s a lot of noise underground?”
“Yes, Big Sister. It seems there are quite a few monsters active below the surface...”
When they conducted subsurface exploration, they detected multiple sources of some kind of noise.
And it seemed most likely that the sounds were coming from small creatures burrowing underground.
“Like giant earthworms?”
“That doesn’t seem to match anything on record. The expectation is that it’s a new species.”
That said, it did not seem to be happening all that often. They would simply have to stay alert and continue construction.
Then, two more days after the forward advance began,
the microwave power-supply tower was completed without any particular trouble.
“Microwave power supply’s been convenient, but maybe we should start thinking about some alternative...”
“When it comes to advancing into the <Demon Forest>, we may need to.”
A single tower like this extended the power-supply range by several kilometers. Using airborne power-supply drones would widen the range considerably, but because of the large energy losses caused by dispersal and the like, they wanted to use ground transmission towers whenever possible.
But dispersal meant microwaves being scattered over a wide area—
which in turn meant a greater risk of attracting threat organisms.
“Internal combustion engines still have the best energy density, but the noise is the problem.”
“If we care about quiet operation, electrical energy is better.”
That was what she was discussing with Akane when
a warning alert icon popped up on the land-clearing map.
“...Big Sister. Anomaly at the foundation of the power-supply tower.”
“Hm?”
The yellow icon blinked several times.
Then it changed to urgent red.
“Hm!?”
“Abnormality detected in the foundation structure. The power-supply tower is tilting.”
The display switched over.
A work machine on site showed the tower in question.
At first glance, it looked as though the tower was standing normally in the footage.
But—
“...Ugh, it really is leaning!”
Image analysis showed that the tower was tilted several degrees off where it should have been.
There was no way an automated machine operating under perfect control could produce a defective structure of that magnitude.
Which meant the foundation had tilted after construction was completed, due to some outside factor.
“...Tilt increasing. Foundation anomaly is expanding. The buried foundation piles are being destroyed.”
This power-supply tower was a simple structure, fixed in place by multiple foundation piles driven into the ground. Those piles had been laid out according to strict calculations, and the design was fully capable of handling natural deterioration and the foreseeable range of natural disasters.
But if someone deliberately destroyed them, that level of robustness meant very little.
If only one side was continuously destroyed, in particular, the holding force would twist—and the odds of total collapse would rise dramatically.
“Ah!”
Right before Eve’s eyes, the power-supply tower kept slowly tilting.
Buried structural components emerged from the ground along with the lean, dust blasted out from the entire tower as it gave way, and the support wires snapped and whipped apart.
“The power-supply tower has collapsed.”
The automated machines all retreated at once from the collapse zone of the falling tower.
Then the broken structure crashed down onto the cleared ground below.
“............”
“............”
Only a few hours after completion, the power-supply tower had collapsed.
It had gone up fast—but it had come down just as fast.
No, she definitely had not been hoping for that kind of meteoric rise and fall.
“...Find out what caused it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m counting on you.”
“Yes, Big Sister.”
