Editing Masou Gakuen HxH:Volume 8 Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 1===

Kizuna looked up at the three huge shadows above his head.

“Somehow……it looks amazing.”

The silhouette of a ship with length that might even reach two kilometers in total was floating in the sky of Ataraxia. The battleship that became the flagship of the allied army of Lemuria and Izgard that Kizuna once boarded and fought together with.

The core members of each army that gathered in the vast testing site of Nayuta Lab raised shock voices from the sudden appearance of the huge battleship.

“Our battleship [Ataraxia] huh. It’s unforeseen that I can meet it once more.”

Gravel who stood beside Kizuna murmured with deep emotion. Himekawa also crossed her arms and looked up at that battleship.

“So you all rode that to come save us didn’t you……also, that one is called [Oldium]?”

Himekawa asked after looking at the one other ship with an outline that was even larger than Ataraxia.

“Eh? Himekawa, you know it?”

“Yes. If I remember correctly it’s that ship……we once, sang on its deck――”

“That’s right isn’t it. Sometimes its deck was lent for a photo session or anything else to be broadcasted through the empire.”

A beautiful girl like an angel arrived with her pink hair fluttering behind her. Her small statured but splendid body was covered by small ornaments that were shaped like wings, she was walking towards them gallantly.

“Grace! You are fine already?”

Her arm was still in a sling, but Grace answered with a bold smile.

“Yes. I made you worry Nii-sama. Now I’m completely fine already.”

“Is that so! Aah, I’m really glad.”

Looking at her energetic figure, Kizuna’s voice reflexively became excited. However, Zelsione who was standing by behind Grace was making an unpleasant face.

“What’s the matter? Preside……Zelsione.”

Zelsione glared fiercely at Kizuna, but she then sighed deeply in resignation.

“How can this be fine. Even though her injury isn’t healed yet, her majesty still said that she will come together on this journey.”

[[Image:Masou Gakuen HxH V08 187.jpg|thumb]]

“Obviously! Even though this is the journey to search for Nee-sama, how can I just stay quiet house-sitting here!”

And then she looked up at the largest battleship among the three ships floating in the sky above.

Its total length far surpassed two kilometers. Its hull was long and narrow depicting streamlined shape, its top was crowned with a luxurious and gorgeous fortress. And then from its side until its bottom was colored with beautiful ornaments and painting. It was a grand battleship that was once even called as the flying imperial villa, the other world’s greatest flying work of art.

Oldium was the symbol of the royal family, it was also the embodiment of the Vatlantis Empire’s strength. Because Grace didn’t deploy at the previous battle against Kizuna and the others, it was placed at the rearmost row of the fleet and didn’t have the chance to participate in the battle. However, Oldium had the trust of the Vatlantis army that even resembled a faith, that as long as Oldium was there then they would win the battle.

“Besides, if I don’t ride on board Oldium, then nothing will progress. Isn’t that so, Zel?”

Zelsione shrugged her shoulders exaggeratedly while whispering ‘By your will.’

Kizuna suddenly felt like spouting out. When he looked at his side, Gravel was staring at Zel with eyes as if she was looking at a strange thing.

Even Zelsione, after they were leading school life for some time it seemed that her personality had grown to be more amicable, that was how Kizuna got the impression from her. It felt annoying to agree with what Nayuta was saying, but certainly the period of grace she gave them all with this school life was bringing on various effects for them. That was a fact.

“Say, that is……”

Himekawa who was raising her hand reservedly pointed at the remaining ship with a perplexed expression.

“That is, the remaining ship……rather than that, is that an animal? What in the world is that……”

“Aah……I too don’t really get just what that is.”

Kizuna also frowned, he stared at the strange-looking large object floating in the sky.

“That is the flagship of Baldein that is like our guardian deity, the [Golden Dragon].”

The queen of Baldein, the commander of Baldein army Ruleo and her staff officer Mora finally arrived. Landred today wasn’t wearing her white robe of the school nurse, she was in the style of a queen that looked nearly stark naked. It seemed that she had recalled her past as the queen.

And then Ruleo and Mora were also not in school uniform, they were wearing military uniform with high exposure rate. Kizuna had met them before, but it was as high school students of Ataraxia, this was the first time he saw the two as military officers of Baldein.

Ruleo was twirling her wavy light blue hair with her finger while looking up proudly at the shining gigantic golden dragon.

“That’s right! That is exactly the protector god of our Baldein! The great dragon that ruled at the summit of magic weapons, the Golden Dragon!”

A golden gigantic dragon. Kizuna had the memory of seeing its appearance when they were invading Zeltis. He had heard that it came running to help the Lemuria and Izgard allied army from their pinch and was the leading actor that reversed the war situation.

It looked small compared to Vatlantis’s flagship, but even so its total length was about five hundred meters. Just the length of its neck was more than a hundred meters, its tail was easily twice longer than that. The length of its torso was also more than a hundred meters, the four huge wings growing from there had large size that wasn’t inferior even compared to a normal battleship.

Inside that torso, a facility for commanding officers to live inside was arranged neatly. As a matter of fact one could assent if it was applied as Baldein’s flagship. However it was surprising that a living space existed inside a magic weapon even as a joke.

“Ohohohohoho, all of you from Vatlantis had witnessed how it scattered away everyone on the occasion of the Zeltis invasion hadn’t you all? That gallant figure had been burned behind my eyelids forever!”

“That’s, it only because the flagship of the Vatlantis Empire [Oldium] didn’t sortie out.”

Sparks went off between Grace and Ruleo. Even now they were going to jump at each other, but Reiri’s voice called out before that happened.

“Everyone is here already.”

Reiri and Kei came from the research tower adjacent to this ground just in time. Kizuna nonchalantly moved in between Grace and Ruleo and talked to Reiri.

“Nee-chan. Just where in the world did we get those battleships? Are those also inside the data taken back from the Deus ex Machina?”

Faster than Reiri could answer, there was a figure that appeared lightly from thin air above.

“No. Those are freshly made brand new articles.”

Taking out a folding fan from her bosom, Hida Nayuta then sharply pointed above.

“Those ships’ designs entered inside my head, so I created them after adding some improvements.”

Everyone present there was taken aback from Nayuta’s careless remark.

“If I could just understand the design, building a ship is even simpler than in Lemuria. That’s because weapons like magic weapon and battleships are created using magic power. With my current power, there is no problem at all to create those.”

However, Grace was in a state where her mouth was opened unable to close anymore.

“……What are you saying. That ship was built by several hundreds of Vatlantis’s magic engineers for several tens of years you know?”

Now it was Nayuta who tilted her head in surprise.

“How strange. That’s just too inefficient. Did your people have no motivation, or did they just not have the ability, isn’t it because one of those things?”

Even Grace couldn’t help but admire Nayuta’s power. Not only as a machine god, but her level as a magic engineer was just on a different scale. Grace once again thought that her appointment of Nayuta before for Genesis’s repairing and armament’s improvement wasn’t necessarily mistaken if only looking at her ability. It was just, there was too much problems with her personality, so in the end it was a failure.

Reiri crossed her arms and looked over everyone there.

“With this our preparation is in good order. It’s finally the time to depart.”

The place became still as death. It felt like they could hear the sound of gulping throats.

<nowiki>*ba-*, Nayuta opened her folding fan with that sound.</nowiki>

“Let me explain the strategy for this time once more.”

Saying that she flapped her fan and a transparent cube appeared in the air. The transparent box was floating in the air.

“Please think of this cube as a world.”

Inside that cube, there was a round sphere floating.

“This is the space. And then inside it are stars and planets, and also living things. Everything is settled inside the unit called the world.”

Kizuna asked in suspicion wondering what was she talking about.

“……It’s really a grand scale story huh. Talk in a way that we can understand.”

Nayuta smiled thinly and waved her fan once more. Thereupon three more cubes appeared and there became four cubes in total.

“Each Deus ex Machina has their own world. This one is Hokuto’s.”

The cube Nayuta pointed then showed the figure of Hokuto floating in it.

“And then, this one is Thanatos.”

It was the Deus ex machine in the style of Greek that destroyed Genesis and deleted Atlantis and Lemuria. Her appearance was pasted in the second cube.

“The detail of the other two is unclear but I know that they are called [Osiris] and [Odin].

The remaining two cubes had those names carved in them.

“These four Deus ex Machina collaborated to create two worlds.”

Particles of light flowed out from each four cubes and gathered in one place. From that, two cubes appeared.

“These are our worlds, Lemuria and Vatlantis.”

Black sphere was created inside the cube and stars were flickering inside it.

“The civilization of earth has commonness in image with those Deus ex Machina, but if we think that in the first place those machine gods were the ones creating our world then it can be understood.”

“Eh!? Even the civilization of our world is something given by those machine gods?”

Kizuna asked back spontaneously. He understood that the Deus ex Machina created Atlantis and Lemuria, but he didn’t think that even their civilization was because of the Deus ex Machina.

Kei immediately typed on her keyboard.

“In that case, that means they were intentionally giving us their civilization. What meaning does it have?”

Nayuta smiled sweetly and nodded.

“Good question. That too will surely become clear if we defeat one of them.”

Nayuta largely waved her hand and cubes representing the worlds appeared one after another, they were being piled up towards the sky. The four cubes of Deus ex Machina also slipped inside those piles and he lost sight of them.

[[Image:Masou Gakuen HxH V08 195.jpg|thumb]]

<!-- The text below is to be removed if the image above is translated -->
:''White box in the top: Chain of countless world''

:''Transparent cubes: World''

:''Right top corner box: Hokuto’s world''

:''Right bottom corner box: Osiris’s world''

:''Left top corner box: Thanatos’s world''

:''Left bottom corner box: Odin’s world''

:''Left white box: Atlantis (AU)''

:''Right white box: Lemuria (Earth)''

:''Black box at the center: AU Collision''

:''Black box at the bottom: Miniature world created by the four Deus ex Machina modeled after their own worlds.''
<!-- The text above is to be removed if the image is translated -->

“What is called as the world exists in countless numbers. Passing over the boundary that exist between worlds and reaching a new world is a pain. To find the Deus ex Machina, we have to actually travel through space-time and step into different worlds.”

The boxes of the worlds were still piling up while Nayuta was saying that with the momentum that the pile might have even reached the battleship floating in the sky already. Looking up at that tower, Reiri let out a low voice.

“In other words, there is no other way but using our legs and steadily looking for them, is that what you mean?”

Nayuta looked up at the two battleships and one magic weapon standing by in the sky.

“Just as I said before, I performed some improvements to those three vessels. In addition of refining their magic mechanisms, I loaded them with the function to generate Entrances. That is to say they are able to move between worlds.”

She was saying that they were ships that could possibly generate AU collision by their own power and move between worlds.

Everyone in that place couldn’t believe Nayuta’s words so suddenly. But, when they thought of Nayuta’s ability as a machine god, they couldn’t just discard it as a lie.

“In exchange, I distributed the majority of my body that finally began to recover to the magic mechanisms of the three ships.”

“What?”

Kizuna spontaneously raised his voice towards that concerning phrasing of Nayuta. However, it felt like it would touch something unpleasant if he asked in detail, so he instead chose to not ask deeper.

Reiri put her hand on her waist and spoke once more.

“The operation will begin after this. Each person is to begin the preparation to board each ship.”

Until now they kept being done in one-sidedly by the Deus ex Machina. It wasn’t any different like being tossed around by mother nature like a typhoon or an earthquake that human power couldn’t match.

‘――But, it will be different from here on.’

Reiri yelled sharply.

“It’s hunting time.”

Killing intent like ice was burning up inside those eyes.

“The prey is god!”

Even humans exploited their knowledge and efforts to the limits and resisted in order to subdue the raging nature.

“We will let those creators know the strength of humanity!”

Here, in this place, was the beginning of the genuine counterattack against the Deus ex Machina.

Flames were lit inside the eyes of everyone.

“……Just you wait and see, god.”

Kizuna clenched his fist tightly.