Editing Godhorn Tech:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===Chapter 1 Section 1===

In that time, cracks had formed in the world.

The contradictory beings known as Wicked Gods soon emerged from that great womb.



My everyday life has just a hint of the mysterious mixed in.

But I only ever thought of it as providing a nice spice to life.

So never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be forced into eating a giant plateful of pepper.



A sudden white beam blotted out the blue of the midday sky.

“How powerful is that thing?”

The boy felt the weight of the blade in his wrists. He also felt an icy chill.

He had wobbled to the side and bumped into the massive boulder that had towered above him like a cliff face. But now it was broken and only rose to his hip height.

Miyabi Blackgarden, a redheaded 15-year-old boy with sawdust goggles on his forehead, just about forgot he was in a deep forest. He gulped, but not from the fear of touching a combat sword for the first time in his life.

The sword was no more than a conductor’s baton.

The actual destruction had been caused by the thing that seemed to cover everything overhead.

“Koo,” groaned the slipper-sized white creature at his feet upon seeing something.

It covered its mouth with small hands(?) and walked on two legs. It had a single round horn on its forehead and its stuffed animal eyes may have been viewing the massive artificial bird formed from countless straight and curved lines. Or maybe it was viewing what little that attack had left of its playground. Dark soil and greenery had been torn up and blasted into the air, so their scent filled Miyabi’s lungs. It was all another scar of destruction.

The scenery itself had been torn apart.

An entire section of the forest had been eradicated without a trace and the dark soil below had been torn up. The trees had to have stood 10 to 15 meters tall and parts of the forest had been too thick to allow much sunlight through, but all of that had been stripped away, exposing the ground to the sun. From a bird’s-eye view, you might have seen the scars of destruction formed a perfect circle.

Miyabi’s mind nearly went blank.

He could not even stop himself from blurting out some meaningless words.

A massive form measuring several dozen meters long soared by overhead. That bomber was an artificial monster with bat-like wings spread.

“No one told me it would do that!”

But the clock was ticking all the while.

Even Miyabi knew what it meant when he heard several whistling noises in quick succession. His was not the only “strongest” on the field. They had provoked something extremely dangerous. If he continued standing there in a daze, he would be blown to bits in only a few seconds.

He was hearing the enemy’s attacks.

And those attacks were meant to take his life.

“Alma, follow me!!”

“Koo koo!”

The bipedal creature could not speak human language. Miyabi gestured forward and they both ran through the deep forest. He had already been told where he needed to go.

''“Celina is a Godhorn Tech user just like you are now.”

He recalled the words of that jerk he would much rather forget.

But with death only a step away, he threw open all the drawers of his memory to gather up every piece of information that might help him survive just a little longer.

''“That is a colossal sorcery weapon with a Wicked God horn built inside. You need to stay on the move. Standing still will get you killed.”

The control sword he had been given felt so heavy.

It was short for a two-handed sword, but it still had a blade. Yet it did not feel remotely adequate.

He was always playing around in the mottled sunlight of this forest, but now it felt like the green stomach of great monster.

Something poured down from the sky at fearsome speed. But this was ''not'' from the bomber. After they whistled sharply through the air, explosions erupted on the ground. Miyabi snatched small Alma up from the ground and dove behind a nearby hill mere moments before a tree trunk thicker than him was transformed into a storm of splinters sharper than Beast Nova fangs and tore horizontally through the air. It might as well have been a solid wall of blades. Without his quick action, the two of them would have been shredded.

They never should have been illuminated by the sunshine this deep in the forest, but too many trees had been torn from the ground.

Who would have believed this was the result of lead masses fired high into the sky from outside the vast forest and allowed to drop back down from there?

It was a terrifying collection of sorcery technology.

It probably involved alchemy. Even a boy from a backwater village knew alchemy could do amazing things with metals and chemicals. Alchemical processing could apparently create massive fires and great heat.

“You okay, Alma?”

“Kyoo…”

He had to interpret any response at all as a good thing given the circumstances.

And that didn’t just apply to Alma. He was just an ordinary boy who had trouble keeping away the beasts of the forest.

However…

''“For now, you can put off training your own body to move the way you want it. Learning to cross rivers and climb trees can wait until you have plenty of time to work on it.”

Those things had tremendous destructive power.

But that was not all they could do.

''“Because right now, you can already make ''the terrain itself'' your ally. There was some weird static back when I transferred the contract to you, so maybe that’s why. …But anyway, learn when to use the creation and when to use the destruction. If you come across a cliff face, you can tear it down. Or if you want to climb over it instead, you can build up the land in front of it. Listen, you need to make everything around you into your ally. That’s a handy shortcut for turning you superhuman.”

(Are you kidding me? So if I keep this up, I’ll turn into one of those monsters too!?)

He heard more whistling.

The enemy shots were flying in from outside the forest, but the magic imbued in these ones did not wait until they hit the ground.

A blinding flash of light burst at a point in the sky and lightning crashed down all over the area. The attack dropped like a suspended ceiling to crush the entire field below.

“Ahhhh!?”

With the deadly blade in one hand and Alma in the other, Miyabi held his breath and scrambled out from behind the hill.

This was well beyond anything he could avoid on his own.

If this had been a wide-open field, a thick bolt of electricity would have crashed down on his head and roasted him. He was only still alive because this was a deep forest and the lightning was diverted toward the trees instead.

And that was not all that happened.

One shell passed over his head and hit well behind him, spreading a white frost in every direction. He had a bad feeling about what would happen if that caught up to him. He would probably be frozen solid in an instant.

“Alma!!”

He tightened his grip on his partner who resembled a white stuffed animal and ran like a bat out of hell. He jumped right over a hip-height stone, circled behind a simple charcoal burner’s hut, and crossed a river using the log lying across it.

The icy wave freezing everything white stopped when it reached the water, but Miyabi did not stop running. He quickly located an area with no bushes or other underbrush and rushed there. The next shell had to have already been loaded, so he had no time to breathe a sigh of relief.

Even with a special power in his grasp, all he could do was run away.

But at the same time, how was he still alive when his enemy was going to such lengths to kill him?

Instead of him parting the grass, he felt like the scenery itself was parting to let him through.

His enemy was using magical artillery.

Those alchemically-made projectiles were falling from the heavens like deadly rain, so the situation had already left “normal” far behind.

There had to be another power at play.

He had a way of fighting back. It did not actually boost his strength or muscles, but just knowing he could fight back allowed him to move the way he normally would instead of locking up with fear.

“Godhorn Tech Bomber – Lucifer Horn.”

He even had it in him to look into the blue sky overhead while he ran through the forest.

He was not just a helpless victim here. He could directly fight back.

“Is that monster really mine now?”

“Koo koo!” wailed the young life in his arm. Strangely, it was that nonhuman creature that reminded him what it meant to be human.

“That’s right. Surviving this comes first,” he muttered under his breath, reminding himself of his primary objective.

His feet carried him further through the green forest.

Even on the receiving end, it took him a bit to realize the density of fire was dropping. His opponent was not attacking as effectively. Instead of concentrating fire on his location, they were scattering shells across a wider area, hoping the target hiding in the forest would make a mistake and reveal his location.

Of course.

If even one of those happened to hit him, he would be killed just the same.

That was when he caught a glimpse of something through the trees.

He saw a gold color.

After a moment of confusion, surprise colored his face. That was blonde hair.

Given all the obstacles found in the deep forest, he had to be literally a stone’s throw away.

The voice he heard was of a lovely girl.

“We both possess Godhorn Tech, so why not cut loose and enjoy this?”

(She’s really close. And not even trying to hide!!)

That reminded Miyabi of a carnivorous beast standing at the top of the food chain. Instead of holding her breath and lying in wait for her prey, she would simply devour her prey because she was feeling a little hungry.

He had assumed she would be standing alongside the colossal weapon. He had assumed he still had a long way to go since it was nowhere to be seen. But there she was. She had left the collection of magical technology outside the forest far behind her while she continued on alone. For improved accuracy, she gave instructions from nearby her target and the alchemy shells would be launched over her head.

The boy cursed his right foot. He had taken the step before noticing her here, but it had still been careless of him.

The girl who reigned supreme had accurately detected his location through the trees.

“Celina, only daughter of the Bodenburg Company, at your service!!”

Several shells whistled down from the sky.

He decided it was fortunate she could not fire the shells directly at him. The arcing trajectory created a lag before they hit. He clenched his teeth and raced forward. The ground was torn up and blasted into the air over a few dozen meters of where they landed. Even trees standing more than 10 meters tall were obliterated like thin glass, so he was dead if he was caught in one of the explosions.

They were close enough for a raised voice to reach, yet the girl did not seem remotely afraid.

(Kh.)

“You okay, Alma?”

“Kyoo.”

Alma was dizzy and for good reason. The explosive blast and metal shrapnel were not the only threat. Even if they escaped the explosion itself, the booming noise was like a solid wall that sapped their strength when it hit them. But Miyabi knew all too well what would happen if he let his shaky legs come to a stop.

“My, my. Playing hide and seek, are we?”

In the near distance, the gold he had glimpsed between the trees slipped away.

Had she put more distance between them, or had she moved behind a thick tree to use it as a shield?

“Did you think that was enough to escape my company’s Schwarz Schütze!?”

''That man’s'' voice played in his woozy mind like from a record player.

''“Godhorn Tech does more than destroy. Especially for you with your unusual contract. If the firing is too intense to move in, try creating a Decoy Wall.”

“?”

[[Image:Godhorn_Tech_v01_bw1.png|thumb]]

For the first time, a change came over the girl singing happily deep in the forest.

As the shellfire only grew more intense, Miyabi tossed Alma to the side and held an empty hand out toward an empty patch of land.

The necessary words sprang unbidden from the depths of his mind.

“Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

Immediately, a green mass rose up with a dull thunk.

It was a wall. Each individual piece was a Palette Die, a piece of the undergrowth packed together into a box-sized mass, and enough of them linked together to grow taller than Miyabi himself.

The girl beyond the forest growth probably had two reasons to panic.

First, the simple fact that the sudden obstacle caused her to lose sight of Miyabi.

And second, a shell that was supposedly under her control suddenly veered off of its perfect arc like an invisible string had tugged on it.

The temporary barrier was obliterated, but ''that was its purpose.

Miyabi and Alma were out of danger while the enemy’s attacks were focused on the decoy, so they were already running to their next position. They were still on the run, but they could get by using that. And approach their enemy in the process.

''“Your imagination is the limit. Right now, you can ''create anything'' out of the Palette Dice.”

That should not have been possible.

The power held by the boy and the girl was built for destruction and nothing else.

''“Once you create something, you can register it with that control sword to automate the process next time. The materials used cost extra, of course. A momentary ''delay'' can mean the difference between life and death in battle, so it can’t hurt to reduce the time spent as much as possible.”

“Okay, let’s get closer to this Celina girl, Alma.”

“Kyoo.”

Miyabi got moving while encouraging the white slipper-sized creature that was feeling dizzy from all the loud noises.

They were still being targeted.

He could just barely avoid the shells by creating a Decoy Wall as tall as himself, but he was no bullfighter waving around a colorful cloth. He felt a squeezing at his heart whenever the dark soil was torn from the ground and the bark stripped from the trees.

He could barely breathe, but stopping was not an option.

Something far worse would happen to him if he did. Running away was meaningless when the entire vast forest was in her attack range. It would be as foolish as trying to run away from the lightning in a storm. But if he moved in close, she would be hesitant to fire shells that caused large explosions. He could taste the dark soil and the crushed grass on his lips, so he wiped them off with the back of his empty hand before taking the next step forward.

This was not a path worn down by animals.

He had to dodge thick trees and the knee-high underbrush and bushes caught at his legs. The squawking of the birds he disturbed made it hard to concentrate. When he stepped on a large rock, his foot slipped. He felt like the entire world was trying to get in his way. His fear was sharpening his senses, but the excess information only wore at his nerves more.

''“The Decoy Wall will eventually be destroyed, but the enemy’s attacks will be focused on it while it lasts. You can approach the enemy head on during that time. The trick to survival is placing your next Decoy Wall before the previous one is destroyed.”

He couldn’t be that far away.

As the bird flies, he was literally a stone’s throw away. He had at least caught a glimpse of her blonde hair through the trees.

''“Now, a single Decoy Wall isn’t going to gather every enemy’s attention. They can be weirdly picky. But for an enemy in the field, try making a field wall first.”

He heard a voice barely audible over the rustling of the leaves.

“A decoy meant to throw off my aim? You certainly know how to get under my skin.”

But he still tensed. Even though he knew the very simple equation of “stopping = death”.

“But that is meaningless if I just destroy everything in the area. My hail of bullets will crush you beyond recognition!”

Miyabi Blackgarden’s mind nearly went blank.

The rules had changed.

No longer were the massive shells flying high into the sky before dropping back down. One shot past right next to him. The thick forest of 10 to 15 meter trees and the dark soil below were torn away, leaving a massive ditch behind.

The girl herself was in between, but she still fired the weapon from behind her. Even though she would be destroyed if a shot strayed even slightly.

Then Miyabi’s nose detected further danger. This was not a whistling or the bright flash of magic, but he was certain of it.

“There’s something wrong with the air.”

By then, his uncertain concern had become a definite fear.

“Alma, jump into that ditch!”

“Koo!”

The many explosions all blended together at this point.

Destructive projectiles were released in a rapid-fire burst from right to left. These were smaller than the previous projectiles, but there were so many of them. A thousand, if not ten thousand, thumb-sized metal bullets were spewed out in the span of a single breath. He could not sense any human will behind the way the bullets surged and twisted around. He was reminded of the chameleons he had seen in picture books. The fearsome band of destruction struck back, pursuing them like a long tongue seeking its prey.

But just before it could reach them, Miyabi and Alma dove into the absurdly long and 2m-deep trench that had just been torn into the ground (by the girl’s own alchemy shell). Miyabi lived in a peaceful village and was unfamiliar with the idea of trench warfare, but he had known the trench was the only way to avoid having his and Alma’s flesh and blood splattered across the ground along with the splintered tree trunks and branches pouring down all around them.

The destruction was so great he was actually worried about the girl causing it. She could trust her weapon this fully if she wanted, but did she really understand what would happen if it screwed up?

However…

(Can I use this?)

The trench was only a meter or two deep, but that was better than nothing. If he stayed crouched, the rapid-fire sweeps would pass right over his head. He gestured Alma over with his head low and then continued further down the trench.

Dark soil and splinters poured down on him from above.

He looked up curiously and saw a tree trunk thicker than him flying his way.

“Koo!?”

“Tch. Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

He immediately raised a hand and a few cubes of dirt formed a flat panel in midair. He did not bother giving it any girders and just let the panel cross the ditch over their heads. It was a makeshift bridge, but he used it more like a roof. He grabbed Alma and dove beneath it in a panic just before a dull “boom!!” erupted overhead. The tree trunk bounced off the roof and flew in a different direction. The two of them would have been smashed by the giant tree hammer if not for that roof.

(This isn’t even a 1-on-1 fight. Just getting close to her is gonna get me killed.)

“Koo koo!”

“Yeah, I know. We just cheated death there, so I should ''record'' what I felt there. I’m not letting any of this get away.”

He recorded it in his control sword.

He decided to name it a Bypass Bridge.

It was said necessity is the mother of invention. Even if he only knew the saying from a major play. At any rate, free use of that bridge would likely come in handy for movement and defense. He wanted to make sure he could instantly construct one just by thinking the name in his head.

His target was the girl named Celina and he could not reach her by following this straight path torn into the ground. But he did have the sword he had been given.

“It’s okay, Alma. This isn’t a dead end. So calm down. Don’t panic.”

He spoke more to himself than Alma while awkwardly stabbing the double-edged sword into the ground, causing a magic circle to appear.

He still didn’t really know how to use it, but he mimicked what he had seen.

“''Lucifer Horn,'' take care of this.”

A massive form cut by overhead.

A thick beam of light dropped from heaven to earth and tore through the familiar forest like it was being dragged after the form in the sky. Up ahead, another trench was drawn perpendicular to the one he was in now.

Or that was the idea anyway.

Blinding light and a sizzling sound became his entire world.

The ground was torn apart.

“Kyah!?”

The girl must have been buffeted by the blast because he heard a surprisingly cute scream in the distance.

Miyabi himself was knocked to the ground and belatedly realized his mouth was full of dirt. After a few seconds, he spat it out. Not daring to get up, he grabbed his sword in one hand and Alma in the other before crawling forward like a slug. He managed to roll down into the straight line of destruction he had just created.

It was deep enough to hide him, making it a path of life. The beam must have melted the dirt or stone because the inside of the path had become smooth as glass.

“Kh.”

He got up, sat with his back against he still-hot wall, and took a deep breath.

“You all right, Alma?”

“…”

No response. It may have been upset with him.

“Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

He held out his hand in a seemingly random direction.

The scattered glass, dark soil, and splinters gathered together to form a small doll. But this was more than just playing in the dirt. It was as well made as the dress-up dolls found on the item shop’s shelves. Miyabi himself was surprised to find he could make things like this instead of just walls, bridges, and other construction work. Alma accepted the reconciliation gift by hugging the prize in its front legs(?) while Miyabi ducked low and continued through the makeshift ditch.

They could not actually reach their goal this way.

The ditch continued in a straight line, but it did eventually end. If they climbed back up onto the surface, Celina would locate them again and they would be right back in the middle of that hellish hail of bullets.

Recalling the blinding light and deafening booms from before, Miyabi once more stabbed the tip of his sword into the bottom of the hole. It broke through the hardened glass-like ground to reach the soil below.

Doing this scared him.

It scared him a lot, but he needed more.

“Lucifer Horn, get me right over there. Use intersecting strikes to build a connected path!”

His senses were more used to it the second time.

The bomber soared across the sky, dropping a thick beam of light that tore through the ground along its path.

It repeated the process to add a few more ditches at different angles. Was the unseen girl relieved because she assumed the attacks had missed? He hoped so. If she realized this was meant to create trenches for him, then he would be killed like an ant as its colony was flooded with water.

“Let’s circle around toward her.”

“Kyoo.”

He continued through the zigzagging labyrinth built a level lower than the ground and gradually approached that strongest opponent. The depths of the trenches varied. Some were only hip deep, but others had walls that rose well over his head. Not too surprising since they had been created by tearing apart the ground with beams of light.

He continued on not so much because he thought he could win, but because he thought his trembling legs would stop if he did not have a concrete goal to work toward.

''“Even Godhorn Tech users are ordinary people. They can be defeated by moving in close and getting a single attack in.”

''Yeah, I’d noticed,'' silently griped Miyabi. ''That’s how you got injured and forced this pain-in-the-ass onto me.

“I think I can manage from here,” said Miyabi while pressing his thick gloved hands against the dirt wall.

''“If you can’t reach the top no matter how much you jump or leap, then try gradually raising the ground to form steps.”

This was just like when he made the Decoy Wall.

He pictured the boxes in his head and held his hand out toward the surrounding dirt.

“Contract Owner: Under Lilith, grant me the power to move the Palette Dice!!”

''“Godhorn Tech is powerful, so make sure you don’t trap yourself in a massive hole of your own creation.”

Packed soil quickly formed a stairway…or a close enough approximation. The steps were too tall, making it hard to climb, but he would just have to deal with that. And this time, he had deactivated the “lure” effect the Decoy Wall had used. He did not want his stairs to direct Celina’s alchemy shells right into the trench. Deadly metal shards would quickly fill his entire world if that happened.

He now had stairs.

This also looked useful in a wide variety of situations. He had created it out of necessity, but it couldn’t hurt to register it in his control sword. Then again, his opponent might not give him the chance to use it any other situation.

“I should probably give it a good descriptive name. Layer Stairs should work for now.”

“Koo!”

The Decoy Wall, the Bypass Bridge, the doll, and now the Layer Stairs.

He did not know how much he could do with this and he did not have time to test it, but he wondered if he could create an entire house or tower if he knew what he was doing.

(The power of destruction is much simpler and plenty scary, but this creation is disturbing in its own way. For one, how am I moving any of it when I’m not even touching it? I hope it isn’t sucking out my stamina or life force or something.)

Because he did not understand how it worked, he felt a shudder crawling from his fingertips to the core of his body. He forced that down and slowly climbed the pseudo-stairs while staying low. He was moving as cautiously as a lizard.

(It isn’t about distance or direction.)

He used every bit of amateur knowledge he had.

He loathed every single noise he made. The rustling of his clothing and his audible gulping pissed him off.

Alma started moving out ahead, so he grabbed it by the back of the neck to stop it while he tried to find anything he could to give himself hope. He had not even made the actual attack yet, but his heart already felt like it was going to burst from tension.

(I want to get between Celina and that Godhorn Tech in the distance…did she call it Schwarz Schütze? A shell that massive will tear right through me and she won’t want to blow herself up.)

He detected a sweet aroma.

It was more like honey than flowers.

But he consciously held his breath while hiding behind a bush.

He was smelling fancy black silk, an artificial perfume, the starch to get the wrinkles out of clothing, and the beads of sweat appearing on the young girl’s skin.

She was even closer than he had thought.

He and Alma may have been more sensitive to artificial smells because they were on the brink of death and coated in dirt and plant juices, but she was still only 10 meters away at the most.

And she did not seem to have noticed them yet.

Now that he had a better look at her, he really could not believe she was causing so much destruction. She looked 14 and maybe younger. Either way, she was definitely younger than him. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was parted to the sides with pure gold hair clips and every bit of her white skin was smooth and well cared for, giving her the shine of a stage actress. She wore a black dress adorned with golden embroidery and red gems, which was not exactly hiking attire. On her legs and feet, she wore black knee socks and polished pumps. And despite wearing a long skirt, the front was left wide open, leaving her thighs exposed. All in all, her dress looked a lot like a giant jewelry bag.

If that were all, he might have looked like he was hiding in the bushes and plotting to attack a noble girl who had gotten lost in the mountains.

But a stock was pressed casually against a shoulder that looked as delicate as glasswork. That stock was joined by a flintlock mechanism, a gun barrel, and a sinister blade attached below the barrel.

In other words, this was one of the bayonet-equipped hunting rifles preferred by residents of the underground.

“…”

Yes, gunpowder and lead.

In a world run by magic, guns were the symbol of outlaws. Even in forestry villages where encounters with wild animals were common, bodyguards and hunters primarily used bows and arrows enhanced by magic. Guns, on the other hand, were expensive, but required no talent to use and supplied the same deadly force to anyone who used them. They were an uncontrollable weapon that could destroy the order of a village or entire kingdom if enough people had them.

Also, Miyabi recognized the material used for this one.

Without thinking, he glanced down at the double-edged sword he held in his hand. That control sword was made from the same material as that rifle larger than a folded umbrella. That meant the gun was a control device as well. Miyabi and Celina had both been entrusted with an embodiment of destruction capable of tearing apart the scenery in a single strike.

He had already known that.

He could not let his guard down.

“My Bodenburg Company must prove we can provide the world’s greatest distribution.”

The wind carried the girl’s sighing voice toward him.

He doubted the statement was meaningful.

It was an obvious display of confidence, an obvious provocation, an obvious threat.

But…

(Is it only bluster?)

He frowned behind the bushes while close enough to pick up her scent.

(Is she saying that to mask how afraid she really is? Because she’s lost sight of us? Or is she feeling rattled because she can’t seem to defeat us despite supposedly having the strongest power?)

“That is why our prized Schwarz Schütze is here and that is why I am here! Yes, I will defeat you to claim the title of strongest for myself, prove that we can provide the continent’s safest trade route by blowing away any bandits or disasters that might threaten the products en route, and thus establish the Bodenburg Company as the ultimate brand!! Yes, yes, nothing can stop me now.”

''Don’t let her get to you,'' thought Miyabi, shaking his head.

He might have found an unexpectedly human side to her, but he still had to keep moving. He had a goal too. If he let this half-formed empathy stop him, he would be wasting his one and only chance.

So.

He grabbed the sword’s grip in both hands and burst from the bushes.

“Ah! When did you get-!?”

Celina turned toward the sound of feet on the grass, looking just like a girl who thought she saw a ghost while out at night. Even though her sinister rifle was aimed accurately his way with the stock against her shoulder.

And…

“Armored Train Schwarz Schütze, obliterate him!!”

The metal giant waiting outside the forest could be heard moving even here. It had to be aiming all of its many cannons his way.

He thought his heart was going to freeze.

Yes.

Miyabi was borrowing a power. His dull machete, which could not even slice through thick branches, had been replaced with a sharp-edged control sword, he could create any number of tools or obstacles just by holding out his hand, and Lucifer Horn could perform aerial bombings with destructive light.

He had thought he could ''somehow get by'' if he only had to face the rifle.

So his extreme tension came from something else.

“Are you stupid!? You’ll hit yourself too!”

“An acceptable result. My goal here is absolute victory.”

Her voice was cold.

His eyes met hers as she peered at him through the gun sight next to a large half-rotted tree.

“You must die here to prove this is the strongest Godhorn Tech!!”

Time seemed to stop inside Miyabi. Only ''that man’s'' voice echoed through his head. His mind focused solely on the goal he had set for himself.

''“I’m leaving my Godhorn Tech with you, so don’t you forget this one thing.”

''“You have just one task here.”

''“And that ''isn’t'' to defeat Miss Celina!!”

How had this happened?

Answering that requires rewinding time a little.