I mimicked Jiguppa and drank it, and the strong sweetness hit me like a sugar cube dissolved in water.
“Well, I guess it makes sense that you’d be down.”
Jiguppa said that, then kept drinking from the can without saying anything more.
I watched him for a while, then asked,
“……Why do you help me so much?”
In response, Jiguppa looked at me wide-eyed.
“I’m grateful, but helping me doesn’t really benefit you in any way.”
To be honest, asking such a question at this point wasn’t ideal.
There are plenty of people in the world who help others without expecting anything in return.
“I don’t know.”
Jiguppa tilted his head.
“I’ve just been doing what I want until now, so honestly, I don’t really remember why, even if I try to answer now.”
I had nothing to say to that.
“I like Earthlings…… hmm, no, not really. Not all Earthlings are great. I’m not interested unless they’re cute like magical girls.”
Hearing that from someone who once talked about Voyager or whatever made me snap out of it.
Well, he was drunk when he said that.
“Do you mean I fit that standard?”
“You’re pretty, aren’t you?”
At that, I stopped asking further questions.
If I had received a serious answer, I might have gotten more serious, but with this?
“No, if it were just James alone, I would’ve kicked you out immediately.”
From far away, I saw James flinch at the sound of something mechanical being fiddled with.
“Well, it’s not like I’ve only been looking at your face. I thought I could trust you, you know? You’ve never betrayed me, so there’s no reason for me to betray you.”
I don’t know what Jiguppa’s planet is like, but maybe this is a cultural thing.
Kind of like how on Earth, the common culture is to treat guests with hospitality, and guests should behave respectfully toward their hosts.
Then again, that doesn’t mean the whole planet is like that.
There must be many countries on that planet, and Jiguppa is probably from one of them.
“You mentioned Voyager and all that before.”
I casually changed the subject.
“Was that for real?”
“Of course!”
Jiguppa laughed happily.
“Those beings, whose lifespan is less than 100 years, went to all that trouble just to look outside of the universe. They even wrote a will, which might be the last for humanity, in the rocket. Isn’t that romantic? From a cosmic perspective, it might be so small that no one will ever find it, but they still put a song in it!”
“That’s wrong. That’s just something the Federation made up.”
Huh?
Both Jiguppa and I turned to look at James.
He had somehow gotten closer to us and was sitting down.
Jiguppa, as if casually, grabbed a snack he had laid out and started eating it.
Should I call it cheeky or cute?
“Finding a planet is much harder than finding a small spacecraft. It’s too small to stumble upon by accident. Do you think it makes sense that it was discovered while randomly scanning the area without knowing its exact location?”
I looked at James with a slightly disappointed expression.
“The Federation probably knew about Earth more than five years ago. They must have even sent people to observe it. Saying that finding Voyager was the decisive reason for finding Earth is just a façade for diplomacy.”
“No.”
I made a deflated expression, but Jiguppa firmly said,
“I know. They found Voyager first.”
“It would make more sense to say they found the Sun first and then decided that Earth might be the planet with intelligent life.”
“Whatever you say, what I know is the truth.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“Proof…”
Jiguppa tilted his head with slightly unfocused eyes.
He’s drunk.
“I know something big, but I can’t say it.”
James looked up at me, as if asking, “Do you believe him?”
To be honest, I like James’s reasoning better.
But that doesn’t mean I want to agree.
In the end, James is just thinking the way he wants to.
“Doesn’t it make sense that they found Voyager first? If they came from far away, they would’ve approached from far, so they must’ve found Voyager first.”
“See, I told you!”
Jiguppa agreed with me, while James rubbed his forehead.
Then, in silence, he took another sip of coffee.
Drinking coffee at this time didn’t seem like a great idea.
It was almost time to sleep.
I might be fine now, but if I don’t sleep at night, I’ll probably start thinking about Hayoon and Ji-hye again.
Really.
Maybe I should get some alcohol next time.
Two days later.
After finishing work with Jiguppa, I returned to my room to find a huge hammer.
It was too big and heavy to even call it a sledgehammer.
I wondered where the material came from, but then I saw that James’s robot had almost been halved.
If half the weight of an adult man’s body was used to make this device, it would naturally be very heavy.
“Isn’t this too heavy? Can you swing it?”
I asked, and James snorted.
It felt like if I stepped on it, it would get flattened.
I thought about teasing him a little, but since Jiguppa was behind me, I decided against it.
For someone working at Noir Corporation, he was still a rational person.
He was probably just there for the high pay in relation to the work hours.
It seemed that he couldn’t control his expression when he saw ‘racism,’ so now, I treated James like a person.
Well, I didn’t want to become a murderer, after all.
James, still snorting, said,
“What are you talking about? If we apply the laws of physics to everything you did that day, very few things would actually make sense, don’t you think?”
He said this with an extremely incredulous expression.
“What?”
Why is he bringing this up now?
While I was a bit taken aback, James started to speak, as though showing off.
“If you throw something against the speed of falling, it should have an opposite force acting on it. To put it simply, you should have received more energy than just falling. You were hit at a much greater force.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t think of this? I thought you were trying to do something magical and weird when you pulled off that crazy stunt.”
James narrowed his eyes.
“Magic works that way, but just thinking that something is possible doesn’t reverse the laws of physics. It’s ridiculous that the same human who did something so absurd—who even created a ‘harmless black hole’ in midair—couldn’t even use basic magic like flying.”
Sighing deeply and shaking his head, James looked at me as if I was some kind of ‘inevitable thing.’
“Anyway, aren’t you someone who can totally ignore the laws of physics? You should be able to swing something like this without problem, right? I think it’s more practical than flying. You can still see videos of people pushing cars with one hand on streaming sites.”
Having said something pointless, I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“I made it in the shape you wanted. Do you want to try holding it?”
I approached the hammer with a somewhat reluctant expression.
It looked like something from an American superhero movie I had seen before.
It was a ridiculously shaped rectangular hammer.
However, the handle was quite long.
It seemed like they really tried to make it look like a true sledgehammer.
“The reason the head is bigger is because of the generator, right?”
“Yes. Without controlling it, there’s no point in making it with the core.”
I reached out and grabbed the handle.
The circuits were still running.
In fact, the circuits had been running ever since I first wore them.
So, there was no reason I couldn’t lift this thing.
Despite its size and appearance, the hammer felt surprisingly light in my hand.
I quietly stared at the hammer.
“How does it feel?”
“Well, you won’t know until you try.”
James snorted again at my words.
He seemed to have figured out that I didn’t want to say something nice, so he deliberately acted that way.
Well, even just having a good sense of things isn’t enough.
For now, even magical girls are holding back on their movements.
I think it’s because Hayoon’s hope hasn’t returned yet.
So, I thought the opportunity to use this hammer would come much later.
But unfortunately, I ended up using it just two days later.