Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume2 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 4===

“(Ehh? Do we really have to mess with this???)”

“(Be quiet, Sensei. In fact, you should be using your Crystal Blossom to speak.)”

“(But we already did our job. I’m sick of all this danger, so let’s get home already!)”

Sophia Firenze made a comment very much like a civil servant, but had she forgotten there was no rest for them until they had eradicated the Threat here? Karuta really wished she would take a lesson from her muscular colleague.

They were peeking out from behind a building to view the main road. That pure white hell was covered in the bizarrely-shaped Threat protected by their inorganic black armor.

Some resembled sea creatures like octopuses and crabs, some resembled insects like ants or mantises, and some resembled carnivorous plants or hunks of mold. There was a lot of variety, but they all seemed to have been based off of existing plants and animals. They also had inorganic elements like a coffin mouth or revolver legs, but none of them appeared to have a base structure modeled after a tank or fighter craft.

Karuta pulled his head back behind cover.

“I was right. They cannibalize their own, but they do have some sense of camaraderie. At the very least, they don’t seem to eat their own until one has been damaged beyond repair.”

“Ugh. Um, uh, well, what does that matter?” asked young Natalena.

“I want to get a look at the broken remains,” he responded. “Specifically, I want to note what parts they make sure to cannibalize. If we know that, we can ‘poison’ those parts. Which could mean a bomb or a computer virus.”

“Oh.”

The blonde girl let her voice out without thinking and quickly slapped her hands over her mouth.

He mimicked forming a fist.

“The Threat’s individual power is a problem, but it’s the way they cannibalize their own to customize themselves that makes them truly frightening. The more you defeat, the more they evolve. But what if we used that against them? Calling it ‘negative growth’ might be confusing, but if we feed them ‘poison’, we can stop that infinite customization.”

“Meaning?”

“We can eradicate the Threat. And the first step is investigating their remains. Did you see any already-eaten ones around?”

“Sacri-sama,” called Aine while pointing with the tip of her see-through sword. There was a lump of snow there. It was hard to tell at a distance, but it was probably taller than they were.

“Wouldn’t a Threat be buried below the snow there?” pointed out the crystal girl.

“!?”

He thought his heart would stop. He and Natalena ended up in each other’s arms without meaning to and it took her a few seconds before she finally noticed and threw a small slap.

His throbbing cheek hurt, but the heat reminded him he was alive.

They carefully approached the lump of snow, Aine stabbed her sword tip in just a bit on his orders, and a white mass crumbled down to the ground.

Their eyes met a red glassy eyeball.

This must have been one of the scorpions that used pellets and lasers. It had been badly scorched, so it must have been caught in one of Marika’s laser bombings.

They were all rendered speechless.

Utagai Karuta could not guess what would allow him to define this clump of cold, hard armor as “alive”. At the very least, you could not check it for breath or a pulse. If it was only feigning death, they would be wiped out here.

They waited a while, but nothing happened.

But even that did not mean it had not sent out some wireless signal to call in the swarm.

“Sacri-sama.” Aine’s head remained tilted. “Standing here will not improve matters. It appears to have ceased functioning, so shouldn’t you begin your investigation?”

“How can you be so sure it’s ceased functioning?”

“The joints are frozen solid. Whether biological or mechanical, it will be unable to move.”

Sure enough, weapons could freeze too. In the wars of an older age, invading tanks had been stopped by the harsh winter cold and pilots of high-altitude spy planes had apparently feared stalling due to freezing. If this were functioning properly as a machine, it made sense to assume it would have acted to prevent this before it happened.

After brushing away the thick snow, they found it was even more badly damaged than they thought.

Marika’s aerial bombing was not enough to explain this. The thorax? Or abdomen? Whatever you called the scorpion-like collection of curved armor had burst from within like a balloon, its insides had spilled out, and more than half the legs and the hands it had in place of pincers had been torn off at the base. Same for the tail that made it look most scorpion-like. That would be due to the cannibalization. As mechanical as it was, this was still not a pleasant sight.

Natalena looked around nervously.

“Wh-what are we even looking for?”

“Anything that’s missing or incomplete. Like the weapons, the power system, the processor, and maybe the anti-shock system and armor too? We just need to know what they cannibalize first.”

Only after speaking did he realize he was looking at it as a machine rather than a living creature.

Did he simply not want to think of it as anything like him, or did he not like digging through the burst guts of a living creature, even if it was an enemy? That he could not say.

Anyway, the scorpion was larger than a dump truck. Even in its collapsed state, they had to look up at it. They ignored the surviving legs, grabbed at the parts that were jutting out like a burst can, and found they had to gradually climb up it to check inside.

And.

While doing that, Karuta finally peeked into the torn wound.

That sounded simple, but how many humans had ever done it? The Problem Solvers had apparently sporadically fought and repelled the Threat, but had they ever looked inside one? Sophia had created a model based on information they sent her, but had that reproduced the inside as well?

And…

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………What the hell?”

“Sacri-sama?”

He froze in place, so Aine tilted her head with sword in hand.

However, he did not think he could answer right away.

His breathing was heavy, his heart felt tight, and static was encroaching on the corners of his vision.

''What is that doing here?

That was the only thought on his mind. He wanted to deny it, but he had to accept it when it was right there in front of him. The idea that seeing is believing was not a welcome one at the moment.

Finally, the new world’s strongest managed to speak.

“Aine.”

“Yes, Sacri-sama?”

“Does the name Smart Arms ring a bell?”

Sophia and Natalena both frowned. Not recognizing it was the normal reaction, but the pale-skinned crystal girl answered without hesitation.

“That is a giant weapons company based in America’s Silicon Valley. They own the weapons plant ''that manufactured the special-order cyborg parts that created Susannia Evans,'' one of the Problem Solvers, and that was where Anastasia Blast went into hiding in the end.”

“!?”

The gasp of course came from Natalena. Susannia was the main topic at hand, but she must have reacted to Anastasia’s name.

“W-wait. Um, why are you bringing up that weapons plant now!?”

“Because of what I see here.” Karuta responded with a look that said he did not want to accept this any more than she did. “The manufacturer’s name isn’t actually printed on the parts, but I saw the parts that Susannia scattered in that Northern European crater. ''These are identical''. These must be unmanned weapons created by that company!!”