Editing Godhorn Tech:Volume3 Chapter9 (section)

===Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 8===

Shortly before the clash, a blond-haired, brown-skinned boy lay collapsed on the beach.

Ginger was sprawled out among all the rubble.

The ocean was dyed with the colors of death.

Night had fallen, but he had no memory at all of the sunset.

“Sigh, I had a feeling this would happen. I can run and I can train, but it always falls apart in the end. Is there nowhere I can just live in peace?”

But.

Noticing someone moving out the corner of his eye, Ginger Sandstrike sat up. His surroundings were too horrific to look at. The castle had collapsed, rubble was strewn everywhere, and food had been dumped on the filthy ground. At this rate, they would have a hard time defending themselves against the island’s wild animals and undead Beast Novae.

However.

A maid trapped in a giant suit of armor was holding a broom. Angela Custardmare was sweeping away the smaller stones and cleaning off enough of the ground for a limited workspace.

Dancer Iris Tempinvy was gathering up the usable White Sorcery Items and running around to treat the injured.

Sophia Calamity-Jinx, with the colorful will-o’-the-wisps following her around, cast some illumination magic to light everyone’s work.

And the dwarf named Garett Goldcave held a giant hammer.

But not to destroy something. He was a blacksmith, so that hammer was used to create.

“What?” Ginger asked an honest question. “What could you possibly be trying to create now that everything’s been reduced to rubble?”

“A chance,” bluntly replied Garett. “The Lucifer Horn was washed ashore. It could have stayed out in the ocean after failing its water landing, but it came up to the shore even if that meant scraping its belly in the shallows. It wants our help.”

“But it can’t talk or even give us a polite smile.”

“So what? When you work with metal every day, you learn that metals and other inorganic materials have moods. They have souls of their own. That Godhorn Tech used its last ounces of strength to rely on us, the people pathetically collapsed among all this rubble. It found something only we could do and hoped we would do it. …If you ask me, that shines a lot brighter than a million words or the perfect smile. That Godhorn Tech hasn’t given up yet. It’s still trying to fight alongside Miyabi. If we can do something for the Lucifer Horn, then that kid and the others can strike back at the 11th for all of us. I’d create anything to accomplish that.”

That wasn’t Ginger’s point.

He was asking where all this trust came from. Miyabi had gathered everyone here and they had done a lot to support him, but he had only gathered them because it was necessary and he had been willing to destroy it when ''that'' was necessary.

And yet…

“He never apologized. He never said he was sorry. He didn’t even give us a ‘my bad’,” said Garett. “But the kid was crying. Maybe he didn’t think anyone would notice while covered in dust and surrounded by collapsing rubble, but I did.”

“…”

That was the same as the Lucifer Horn.

It meant more than a million words or a polite smile.

“It pained him to do that, but that was the only way he had to protect us from those sorcery bomb things. So he shouldered the entire burden himself. …Do I need to say more? I’d have already started working at this point if I were you.”

“I’m in, I’m in. I am so in,” interrupted Lillian Greenforest.

She looked like a young woman with brown skin and a bare midriff, but she was actually a long-eared dark elf survivor who got by renting out her own body for magical experiments.

“We need to at least get the thing flyable. I know so much about the ''devastating'' magical research humans love so much. None of it ended up having the potential to destroy the world, but I’m sure it can still come in handy on a Godhorn Tech.”

“Are you sure? I thought your goal was vengeance on the humans who burned down your forest,” whispered Garett who also saw humans as another species, but the dark elf lady only shrugged.

“Honestly, I can hardly believe it myself. …I never even dreamed I would come across someone who pissed me off more than humans.”

“…”

“Let’s prove we aren’t out of the fight yet. Let’s grab that elf knight acting all depressed over there. We should be able to do some interesting things with the power of the Demon Lord possessing him. And what about the others? There’s that self-styled researcher of a dancer, the Godhorn Tech designer, and that cursed chain hoping to decurse itself. No, we don’t need to restrict ourselves to the intellectuals. That martial arts freak, the queen of the battle arena, and the gambler bunny might have some interesting ideas no one else would have considered. We just have to figure out a way to make their crazy ideas a reality.”

“Fshoo shoo shoo!!” The laughter muffled by an octopus-like mask came from Marietta Diggrave. She was a professional salvage hunger who visited an inhospitable red land and dug up valuable magic books and experimental equipment. “I know a lot about imperial technology. Wouldn’t it be super exciting to add some lost technology in there to give us an edge? Nwohhh bshoo bshoo! Let’s make the ultimate giant robot formed by the combination of 5 smaller robots!!”

“A-again, we just have to get it flying again. Don’t give us extra work,” said Sophia. She had will-o’-the-wisps flying around her, but she was not a ghost yet. She could not just stand around nervously without contributing. “U-um. I have a decent stock of old documents and lost technologies, so could those come in handy?”

“Oh, and I know a lot about the collections of those awful nobles. You know, because I was such a popular maid that they kept fighting over me and even trying to kill me!”

Angela Custardmare hopped up and down in her giant armor as she spoke.

Charlotte Nightlagoon sighed as she listened to it all.

That mermaid had completed a magic potion to transform herself into human and now she was searching for some way of returning to the ocean.

“If you need unknown magical techniques, I might be able to help. You all live on the land, so you’ve never even seen the magic of the mermaid kingdom hidden on the bottom of the sea, have you? I doubt the 11th has either, so just as she’s mocking you for using stuff she’s already seen, we blast her with something she doesn’t even recognize.”

All of this was only the beginning.

“What should I hunt?” asked Harber Snipe-Eat with a glance toward the forest. Gang Daughter Phobia Neverjudge reached into her shoe and pulled out the hidden plans to a weapon. They were gradually gathering everything they would need. They should have just given up, but they instead began presenting their own trump cards. Even though it would be a refutation of their own lives if this failed too.

All of these people were willing to accept that risk to help out.

For Miyabi who continued to fight on the front line.

And for the world he was trying to save.

“Listen, Lucifer Horn.”

The old dwarf placed a hand on the bomber that had washed up on the beach.

He rubbed it with his wrinkled palm.

“This isn’t over yet. We’ll give you a chance. We’ll make sure you can fly again. So you soar through the sky faster than anyone and arrive in time to save Miyabi. That’s your job.”

Ginger Sandstrike sighed softly.

He was a guardian, a specialist who buried his clients’ pasts and secrets deep in the ruins found in the vast desert.

There had to be something he could do.

“Hmph.” He spoke to the dwarf blacksmith. “Old man, what should we start with?”

He crawled out from the rubble just once more.

There was something he wanted to tell Miyabi the next time he saw the boy. But he had to do something here if those words were going to carry any weight.

All this work here would be worth it to see the look on his face.

Yes.

They all began working with the pile of rubble so they could send a message.

But Ginger Sandstrike was focused on something other than the implied message.

He instead grabbed a can of red paint.

“Lucifer Horn.”

With paint can and brush in hand, the ill-tempered desert guardian climbed onto the main wings and grinned.

He was a bad boy.

So he painted out a rude message on that large canvas.

“Can you pass on this message? I think it succinctly describes how we all feel and what it is you want to say.”