Editing City Series:Volume6d Chapter2 (section)

===Part 3===

Two old men walked through a forest.

The one on the right, who was tall, skinny, and bald, spoke with his hands in his suit’s pockets.

“This feels just like a real forest, Elrich.”

The one on the left, Elrich, responded with his hands in his lab coat’s pockets.

“And whose fault is that, Witzmann? As much as it looks like a forest, this is actually that secret passageway in the old HQ. That HQ was built on top of a castle and the ether conversion device built below that castle has gone berserk, recreating tactile History Tons to show them as fake dragons and even the scenes and situations from the historical records.”

Elrich watched as Witzmann plucked a leaf from a nearby tree and held it up.

It was a bright green broadleaf. He flicked it through the air with his long finger, where it hit Elrich in the nose and spiraled down to the ground.

Witzmann wiped the sweat from his brow and touched a nearby tree.

“So you’re saying this forest is a recreation of the History Tons known to the old HQ – or the castle below it? If an ether conversion device is remaking the castle’s Tons into this…then in a way, this forest is real.”

“Correct. The castle used to extract Germany’s Tons from the ley lines and recreate dragons, but now it has gone berserk and is recreating everything related to the dragons in the Messiah’s time: the ridiculous monsters, the locations, and the time.”

“You thoroughly researched how these spaces are made back when the Geheimnis Agency was started, didn’t you?”

Elrich nodded and looked up into the sky while walking through the underbrush.

He could see the blue sky past the forest’s leaves and branches.

“That wasn’t easy. We started out on the beach back when we joined 23 years ago, didn’t we?”

“How long did it take us again? Because we don’t have any spatial conversion techniques.”

“Three weeks. We fought on the beach, in the dark, in the caves, and in the castle courtyard. …I heard it created a dark underground passageway for those Maldrick and Schweitzer kids when they joined four years ago.”

“They set a new fastest time, didn’t they? The castle’s device can only show people images with ether, so it was fairly helpless against Der Held’s ether annihilation and Maldrick’s ether destruction.”

“Now is not the time to be praising those kids. We don’t have any techniques like that, so escaping this space is going to take a lot of doing.”

With that, Elrich walked out ahead and looked back at Witzmann who wasn’t following.

“What now? If you aren’t coming, I’ll leave you behind.”

“That isn’t south. Who was it that said we might find a road or homes if we head south?”

“That was me.” Elrich clicked his tongue. “And you’re the one with the watch. Fine, which way is south?”

Elrich stopped and turned around to see Witzmann checking his pocket watch. He compared the watch to the sun in the sky and then turned his narrowed eyes toward the forest trees to his left.

“That way. Let’s hope this takes us out of the forest.”

“This really is going to take a lot of doing. The most we can do is survive until the castle stops recreating its records.”

“If only it wouldn’t recreate such a wide space for its limited records.”

They started walking again.

Their feet rustled the thick underbrush.

“This is a dense forest. I can already tell it will be sweltering once the sun is higher in the sky.”

“This is what the forests were like back when the Messiah was uniting Germany.”

“True enough.” Elrich wiped away his sweat with his lab coat’s sleeve. “The beach we saw 23 years ago was a recreation of the records of the Messiah defeating a North Sea dragon. The dragons Maldrick and Schweitzer saw in the darkness 4 years ago were a recreation of when the Duke of Saxony challenged her to clear an underground labyrinth as a test. …All German Neue Kavaliers must go through something the Messiah experienced.”

Elrich looked up as he walked. He could see bits and pieces of the sky through the branches and leaves.

Witzmann brushed aside a branch in the way and Elrich ducked below it.

They still couldn’t see anything but forest ahead of them. Only an ocean of green.

“Hey, Elrich. Can I ask you something out of the blue?”

“What is it?”

“What do you think the ruin coming in August actually is? The war is going back and forth and everyone’s anxiety continues to grow, but what could cause ruin on a global scale?”

“All I can think of is the Tristan going haywire. If all the boosted Vaterlands go nuts along with it, the effect will spread to the world’s ley lines and that would cause largescale destruction on the surface.”

“But that would only destroy the surface of the earth. That’s trivial when you look at the world as a whole. The world is going to end in some way that doesn’t even leave History Tons behind. What could even do that?”

He took a breath.

“Our intelligence network has already learned that the Allies have created a ley line reversal Tune Emblem for use against Tristan. They based it on data received from the AIF’s destruction of a Vaterland back in ’39. They plan to occupy all of the Vaterlands around the world and use the Tons they’ve prepared to send the flow of ether back toward Tristan to destroy it.”

“What Tons have they prepared?”

Witzmann parted the underbrush before answering.

“Anxiety.” He took a breath. “There’s plenty of that going around these days. …Oh, there’s a road.”

Elrich was about to say something more, but he stopped when Witzmann mentioned a road. Instead, he only repeated the word “anxiety” under his breath and turned to see what Witzmann was looking at.

The forest opened up.

A road cut by from left to right, leading up a hill slope.

The light of the sun managed to pass through the forest trees to reach them.

“I would love to find a sign. Then I could estimate when this record takes place,” said Elrich before hearing a distant animal cry.

It was an unfamiliar cry and very loud at that. No ordinary animal could make a sound so loud.

Elrich sighed.

“The old HQ’s recreations are always missing one element, aren’t they?”

“They recreate the surrounding environment and the monsters. However…”

“They do not recreate the Messiah or the Neue Kavaliers who fought them. Whoever is taken into the record has to play that role themselves.”

“That must be a dragon over there. But more than that…”

Witzmann trailed off as he crouched down.

Elrich frowned and started to ask what that was about.

But a sudden change came over his expression.

“Sword fighting?”

Witzmann nodded as several metallic crashes echoed in from the distance.

The dragon roared again in response.

“Someone is fighting the dragon.”

“I thought that part wasn’t recreated!? This is only supposed to be the dragon, the time, and the place!”

Witzmann held out a hand to silence Elrich before he slowly stood up and faced forward.

He could see the road at the end of the forest and a grassy hill.

Something climbed to the top of the hill from the other side.

The giant green shape was a beast measuring at least 50 yards long.

It spread its large wings, raised its tail, and ran atop its four legs.

“A dragon.”

But it wasn’t alone. Someone climbed the hill with the dragon.

The woman had long blonde hair and wore a white cloak. She held a sword in one hand and ran alongside the dragon. A young man wearing a contrasting black cloak ran up from behind her with a sword in his hand as well.

The young man had only one arm.

The white and black people evaded the dragon’s fangs and kept running.

Elrich blankly muttered something other than their names.

“The Messiah and the one-armed young man!?”