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== Chapitre 3 : Formula Front <ref>[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_Core:_Formula_Front C'est une référence au jeu Armored Core: Formula Front où l'on peut conduire des mécha.]</ref> (Généralisation)==
== Chapitre 5 : Pour répondre (Pragmatisme)==


Finding no way forward, time passed.
Et donc,
The cage closed in on them, until at last...
...the baby bird’s end drew near...
“Let’s leave this cage right now.
Break me apart,”
the puppet’s trickery claimed.
And the cage broke just like that.
But the crimson ̄stained puppet’s efforts only earned the words
“You liar”...
...along with the baby bird’s tears, and the despair up above.
There was no sky in that world.
Beyond the cage they’d broken was yet another cage.
These two were one—leaving the chick alone,
tricking the baby bird—these two were one.
What will I do now that the
cage is broken?
The sky was accusing, and yet
what else could they have done...?


'''(Image)'''
la marionnette s'enfuit vers le ciel que l'oisillon désirait tant,


The capital of Hardenfell, full of the sounds of Dwarves at work, as usual. Already two days had gone by since their meeting with Veig. Now, sheets of paper were raining over the underground city. Posted here and there, flying through  the  air,  they  showed  a  photograph  of  a  blushing  girl  with  her suspenders being tugged on, along with the following caption in the Dwarven tongue :
vers ce monde étroit et sombre.


LOST MOLE
Oui...
        Til Age 84 Girl
        Smooth as a dolphin
        If you see her, contact “ ”, bitches


Un ciel pour que la marionnette soit à l'abri du mal, pour sourire du cœur.
Un endroit où personne ne les piétinerait, où personne ne les blesserait,
aucune force ne les contraint, aucun besoin de changer.
Un nouveau monde où ils pourraient voler.
 
Ce jour-là,
L'oisillon savait très bien que ça ne serait probablement jamais le cas.
L'oisillon implora la marionnette, qui jura de se battre :
Aucun ciel ne vaut la peine de te voir souffrir.
Alors la marionnette, elle aussi, s'enfuit dans cette même cage.
Jusqu'à ce que nous trouvions un moyen de créer ce ciel,
c'est ce que pensait la marionnette dans ce monde étouffant.
Pensée et seulement pensée...
Doutant et vacillant, ne trouvant rien à chercher,
la marionnette pensait toujours à cette promesse :
 
Ce jour-là,
dans un nouveau pays, regardant les cieux,
voyant le bébé oiseau déployer ses ailes et sourire,
la marionnette vide - le ciel - Sora -
Traduit avec www.DeepL.com/Translator (version gratuite)


== Partie 1 ==
== Partie 1 ==


...Une scène remplie de l'écho de l'éruption de la Forge Sacrée... le site d'élimination des déchets.
Une gigantesque machine humanoïde argentée avance à pas lourds dans les ruines souterraines ensevelies sous les déchets métalliques. Des larmes coulent dans les yeux ardents de Veig qui marmonne avec désolation le premier souci de sa vie.
"... Ai-je vraiment fait quelque chose de si mal... ?"
Il se souvint des deux âmes qu'il avait fracassées après une lutte inattendue - l'âme de cette petite herbe étrangement coriace aux seins excellents, et l'âme de cette vipère incompréhensiblement toxique qui avait fait craquer son épée pour la première fois. Se balançant sombrement, vacillant en avant, il pensait :
...Que diable ai-je fait... ?
Veig se souvenait avoir été remercié, mais jamais blâmé. Pourtant, tout ce qu'il ressentait maintenant était un mystérieux sentiment de culpabilité gravé dans son âme trop profondément pour le nier. Maintenant, il se tenait là, devant la masse métallique tombée, la machine gisant sur le sol avec ses membres totalisés.
"...Ho... J'ai bien dit que je serais en retard, mais pour faire une sieste, tu as du cran, hein ?"
Veig a regardé attentivement le cadre cassé. Par le biais du système de communication, il a accusé ses pilotes de faire les morts.
Dans ce jeu, les attaques ne causent aucun dommage direct à la machine adverse. Par conséquent, tout dommage doit provenir d'une défaillance du rite ou d'une erreur de tir - ou être auto-infligé. Et honnêtement, c'était les deux. L'intuition de Veig lui a dit. Il a soulevé le corps brisé et a hurlé.
"Hey, je te parle !! Ton adversaire, c'est moi. Ne te retourne pas et ne meurs pas. Tu n'as aucun sens ?!"
En effet... Sora et Shiro n'ont jamais eu la moindre chance contre Veig dans une bataille d'armes spirituelles. Il était donc inévitable qu'ils perdent. Mais quand même...
"Tu n'as pas l'intention de te taire sans dire un mot sur ton âme, n'est-ce pas ? !"
Oui, ils avaient tenu tête à Veig avec une tempête de balles impensable. Mais ils n'ont rien emporté de leur âme, le barrage était trop fragile. Tout ce qu'il a fait c'est rejeter l'attaque de Veig et dire non à son âme...
Il n'a rien dit. Il n'a rien admis. Leur âme avait seulement rejeté la sienne et était restée inébranlable. Veig a serré les dents. S'ils pouvaient faire autant, alors pourquoi ?
Il souleva le cadre en ruine comme s'il le tenait par le col et se mit en colère :
'''“Quand allez-vous répondre à ma question ?!”'''
Et il a enfin obtenu une réponse.
"...Tout de suite, je le ferai. Je vais vous donner votre réponse, je vais le faire."
... Une voix a murmuré à travers la porte.
"Whuh ?!"
L'épave a soudainement répliqué en explosant, libérant un torrent d'âme fou. Elle lui répondit par une puissante imagerie qui lui vola momentanément sa conscience.
—……
'''Il était au fond d'un petit trou, sombre et exigu. Veig connaissait la fille qui pleurait en regardant le ciel, seule. Il la connaissait bien... la fille incapable de voler, qui plus que quiconque admirait les oiseaux qui volaient si haut.'''
'''Une fille paradoxale, elle savait qu'elle ne pouvait pas voler et pourtant elle levait les yeux au ciel... Elle pleurait même si elle avait abandonné... Le monde l'interrogeait avec des questions sans réponse - pourquoi elle avait fui, pourquoi elle n'avait pas essayé - puis lui demandait pourquoi elle pleurait... et la méprisait pour cela. Il l'a laissée dans ce trou... sans rien vouloir...'''
'''La fille solitaire... balançant son marteau à travers les larmes...... Il-'''
—……
Veig a essayé de tendre la main... mais blam, l'explosion a secoué la grotte et l'a tiré de sa rêverie. Dès qu'il a jeté un coup d'oeil autour de lui, peut-être plus tôt, il a deviné ce qui se passait. Il grimaça et hurla d'impatience.
"Quelle blague... Vous n'avez jamais eu personne là-dedans depuis le début ? C'était télécommandé... ?!"
Maintenant que tu le dis, il n'y avait aucune règle qui disait que tu devais piloter la machine... si ? S'ils le contrôlaient depuis un cockpit à l'extérieur du cadre, ils pouvaient le balancer sans problème.
Mais même si c'était télécommandé, ils devaient être connectés à leurs bras spirituels. Ce qui signifiait que faire exploser leur propre cadre si négligemment aurait des répercussions. Et en effet, le sol a tremblé avec une réaction en chaîne d'explosions l'une après l'autre dans toute la décharge.
Les esprits générés ont dessiné des lignes de lumière comme si elles circulaient dans des circuits gravés sur la scène. Le circuit de lumière convergeait pour le montrer :
La véritable unité !
Désireux de voir où se trouvait le vrai cockpit, Veig a suivi la lumière de l'esprit jusqu'à sa destination. Il s'est avéré qu'il se trouvait au centre de la scène tremblante, si loin que sa fonction zoom était tout juste suffisante pour le distinguer. Au sommet d'une plante particulièrement haute, ses yeux ont trouvé leur cible et se sont ouverts en grand. Il s'agissait d'une fille qu'il connaissait bien, debout sur le siège d'un cockpit ouvert.
"Vous demandez pourquoi j'ai fui ce monde sanglant, n'est-ce pas... ? ...C'est une question stupide, en effet."
Mais c'est une fille qu'il ne connaissait pas qui lui a murmuré. Ses yeux, embrasés d'un feu inextinguible, regardaient sa machine au loin. La fille, avec un morceau de ferraille en forme de marteau dans sa main, a parlé comme si elle déposait une déclaration de guerre. De son cœur, elle a dit son âme... pas des faits objectifs, mais ses sentiments :
"C'est parce que je méprise ce monde, vraiment."
== Partie 2 ==
Til’s voice, resolute, was yet like her limbs…jittery. She couldn’t help but tremble, because of what she saw down there from the open cockpit—Veig standing there in the venue that still quaked from the blasts—and because of the sparkling hammer in her right hand. Regardless—
“Don’t worry. We’ll blast off with you. We promised, didn’t we?”
“…Brother…always…keeps, his promises… Trust us, okay?”
—Sora’s and Shiro’s voices intoned from the seat in front of her, joyful but firm. And Til felt them holding her left hand tight. She broke into a smile to realize her trembling had somehow stopped…and she continued with her eyes fixed straight ahead on Veig’s machine, all the way through to the man inside.
“…I hate this country. I hate Hardenfell, I do.”
She reaffirmed her feelings—her belief. This arrogant world told her not to run. This
oppressive world told her not to be ashamed. Til looked up at its tireless way of life and sneered at it.
“I love the sky, I do… In this country…the sky is closed off, it is.”
The cave’s ceiling reminded her; lost and confused, she’d ended up in this dump before she knew it, and the world asked her, Why did you run? Now, Til knew the feeling of a hand in hers. Now, she knew another world—that of those two. Now, she could say it:
Ah…there never was a place for me here.
—Screw this place—!!
So—!
“I also hate the chieftain of this country. I hate you, I do…!”
The hammer sparkled ever brighter as Til’s words spilled out uncontrollably, with the pain that burned her up. What came back was a lonely, sorrowful chuckle. Til ground her teeth.
…She’d known—no, she’d had a hunch—that he’d say that. What he was saying. As if it was everything—
'''“I hate that…how everything’s just as you expected… I hate iiit!!”'''
Her voice impulsively swelled with the pain that only grew:
'''“I hate how you act like you’re so great, I do! I hate even more that you actually are, I do!!”'''
The dam had burst, and her feelings could no longer be contained.
“I hate how you advertise yourself as a genius, I do! I hate how I can’t argue because you actually are a genius, I do!! I hate how you look down on me, I do! I hate so much that it’s only natural because you’re above me, I do!! I hate how you’re so hairy!! You shaved too much, you say?! So what? Are you trying to rub it in? I wish you’d go to hell, I do!! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you—U-Uncle, you’re a pervert!! I hate you very, very, veeery much, I do!!”
«Whoa!! Come on, stop already or I’m really gonna cry! Goddamn!»
The momentum had flushed out everything Til wanted to say. Inattentive to the tearful begging over the comm system, Til caught her breath. As the shaking of the stage and the sparkling of her hammer and her pain all grew in speed, she wiped her tears. With a sharp, firm voice, she mulled over her words carefully and gave her answer:
“I hate you. That’s why I run. If that’s not enough for you to understand—”
Then in the spirit of the game:
“—I’ll sock it to you like this—and then I think you will understand, I do.”
Yes—seeing behind her eyelids the place the feeling of those two had taken her as they held her left hand, that black sky with a white bird, Til laid down the gauntlet sonorously.
“I fled to win—to honor my promise, I did.”
…A tactical withdrawal was made when one had a chance of victory… She had been just lost, but now it would be redefined—no. Each time another explosion went off, the spirits converged into her hammer, and it was that pain.
And now it had been redefined—!!
That pain had turned her conviction into that of the past. Til savagely swung her hammer as she—
—bellowed forth her soul with the stirring of a power beyond all normal conception throughout the venue.
'''“I fled for the sake of this day, when I’d surpass you, I diiid!!”'''
== Partie 3 ==
It was a power that all feared instinctively. The memories sleeping deep in their blood awakened. An outrageous power of a whole different rank, a whole different status, a whole different order of magnitude—quite literally a different level. The future brought on in the next few moments by this power beyond reason didn’t take someone like Veig to foresee. It was a strike from the heavens that sneered at every one of heaven’s gifts crawling atop the earth, judging them likewise of null value. No one could mistake that power. It was
a Heavenly Smite……
“Hey, whoaaa! I thought the Flügel wasn’t—hey, isn’t that against the rules?!”
From his machine—his cockpit—Veig screeched, blanching. Someone who wasn’t in the game—with magic that wasn’t even a seal rite!! His one eye searched in a panic for the Flügel, but in the next moment—
—he realized that the center of the crawling power…was Til’s hammer. And his one eye was opened by the roar over the comm system and the unheard-of shock that followed… Yes:
'''«Ultra-large-scale spirit-arm expansion—connect all!! Ariiiise!!!»'''
Til’s face wrenched in agony as she brought down the hammer. There was a flash as it bore through the cockpit…and through the plant below. With that, there came a moment of silence to the blast-stricken venue. And then…
“—?!!”
…a vertical oscillation unlike anything that had gone before tossed them. A heavy shock came from behind Veig. He dodged instinctively on the spot, but from the mass of metal that had only grazed him flowed a tempestuous soul.
'''……'''
'''A girl who wanted to imagine things that could not be imagined. A girl who wanted to fly though by no effort could she fly. Saying she could do nothing, she chased the bird in the sky for which there was nothing to do…'''
'''They said she was just running. They mocked that it was impossible. Her soul…'''
«I…knew it! …I knew it!! Better than anyone, I did…!!»
The transmission helped Veig crawl back to reality. But another—no, ten more—no, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand—innumerable storms of metal whipped through the stage and assaulted his unit like squalls.
Just scraps, they hadn’t much in the way of force or even speed. But every time the fierce soul contained in them scratched by his frame, it left residue. As Til’s voice, wheezing in agony, continued to come through, it pounded at Veig’s will, hard, so hard—
«So…you wanted me to live like you…? Fa-kew!!»
To live like them. Like a Dwarf. Without giving up. Without going astray or tiring. To try to overcome natural gifts. To live without shame or retreat. Indeed… Putting themselves on pedestals, though they couldn’t overcome Veig!! Looking as if they understood, talking as if they knew!! They’d called her rubbish, and then!! They’d all said it. They’d basically said this…
—Everyone else is doing it, so you should, too.
—You can dream you’ll be rewarded. Just do it—
—just shut up and do your work!!—
«I don’t like a world that tells me what to do… I hate it, I do!!»
I’ll never give in…
I’ll overcome the chieftain and destroy those dictates—!!
I’ll use measuring instruments and Elven theory. I’ll use anything to find a different way!
I’ll show him… So she thought…
«But…no matter what I did…I just…couldn’t find anything!!»
Just piling up failures. Bathed in error, lost, confused, making one mistake after another. At last surrendering to a false resignation, as paradoxical as ever. Unable to say anything in return… At some point…she came to think she’d forgotten those feelings, and just wandered, pathetically.
«…But—hee-hee… Now I know what to say—I do…»
Weeping, sobbing, yet the two souls grinned. At last Veig realized the true nature of the maelstrom of metal pounding his unit. And for the first time in his life, he said, It couldn’t be—he doubted his own intuition.
“……Hey… Ho. I must be hallucinating, ain’t I?”
He saw the whirlwind of metal converging. Not the ground shaking, but the stage moving. Not the metal flying, but just gathering. The parts, the catalysts were joining and coupling and assembling. The majestic waste disposal site was rising as one. The stage itself was wakening—and standing up. That was his impression. It was confirmed by Til’s announcement to everyone watching in Hardenfell, I’ll tell you, and the thing that towered before his eyes—a thing inconceivably gargantuan.
«You forge ahead without shame…as you will—but I, too…will do as I will, I will!!»
She’d led a life of shame—failing, contradicting herself, getting lost without end. Today, this moment, was what it had all been for, and for that she was proud. She trumpeted to all the world that had rejected her, just as they were taught:
'''«Shut up!! Your stupid world can eat shit, it can!! Pft!»'''
Having asserted her freedom to rebel, the girl crumpled. The siblings embraced her and kept her from falling. Veig gaped at last.
It wasn’t from finally observing the giant object towering over him. It was the girl held by the siblings in the now-empty cockpit at the top…the girl weeping tears of heartfelt joy that she was not alone—a girl beyond his knowledge, who looked down at a bird from heights beyond its knowledge…with a dazzling smile…beyond all knowledge.
«…Uncle, did you…ever imagine…this…?»
She asked him whether this was a sight that effort and sensibility could get to—and that moment, a torrent of violence descended upon Veig’s unit…
== Partie 4 ==
Neither Veig nor any of the Dwarves watching through all of Hardenfell had ever imagined it, most likely. However, aside from Dwarves…the three who were watching at Til’s hideout did not seem all that surprised. Their eyes still on the monitor, they spoke admiringly…
“…Wow… A city can walk, can it…? Oh, is that also a spirit arm?”
“To be more precise, it is a spirit-arm expansion connected to her hammer, on which she engraved my one-percent Heavenly Smite.”
“Observation: Height 9,700 meters. Length 74,200 meters. Cannon count 982. Definition: High-maneuver fortress class. Evidence of brilliance of Master. Excessive. Zero maturity. This unit loves that part of him, too… Blush.”
Steph knew those siblings… She’d imagined they’d do something unimaginable. No, she’d known it. So she watched the screen with a sense of resignation, as a shadow desperately ran from the storm falling from the mountain of steel…
== Partie 5 ==
At the venue, rain fell from the heap of scrap—torrential rain deep underground where there was no sky. Each drop sliced the wind, pierced the ground, and created a deeper depth below the bottom.
“What a little man you are, Veig!! You talk big, but you’re the one who’s smaaaall!!”
It was a hailstorm of scrap that accompanied the raucous laughter.
“You called this stage our hunting grounds?! What puny thoughts—what a tiny imagination!! As would be expected from someone so small-minded as to only appreciate big boobs—ah, it’s a veritable microcosm of your life!!”
“…You said…we could use any machines…and do anything with the venue, didn’t you?♪”
Towering with a sneer on top was a giant mecha of junk—of the unwanted. Of unvalued failures and rejected scrap.
This was the gathering place for the things that might have not been mistakes. This was their home turf, they indicated with a sneer.
“Who’s gonna take the time to hunt their prey after they’ve already lured them in?”
Sora uproariously exposed the truth that was now assaulting Veig.
“If you’re gonna lure in your prey, obviously you’re gonna go straight to a trap, aren’t you, you scrub?!”
It was a cage, a trap. The junk itself, the venue itself, the soul of a girl who had patched failure to error itself—
'''“Ladies and gentlemen—the venue itself is our machine!! How do you like that?!”'''
'''“…We of Blank call it…the Spirit of Mother Til…♪”'''
It literally looked down on Veig, nine hundred seventy times his size. Sora and Shiro cackled, back at the reins for their big counterattack.
—Come, O ye who declare yourselves infallible, those of the righteous world. Now our patchwork heap shall speak with iron and lightning and fire to test our Mother’s spirit. We shall now question the refuse that you have shorn away and discarded in your quest to forge. We ask: On what grounds did you reject us—?!
“Personally, I’m not as into the NEXTs as the Arms Forts built by average schmucks to confront them.”
In fiction, raw size is destined to be overthrown.
Which is how we know that reality is different!! Indeed—!!
'''“Raw mass is the secret to defeating genius, biiitch!! We haven’t designed this bullet hell with any place to hide! You trap ’em and smash ’em with sheer numbers! There’s no better tactic!! All you gotta do is win, baby, win!!”'''
In reality—overkill is all the better!!
Seated in the cockpit, Sora and Shiro controlled the massive body and filled the screen with projectiles.
«The fock?! How’d you get such a crazy machine?!»
Veig screeched as he just barely managed to demi-shift from one empty location to another.
«What kinda Dwarf has the power to run a barmy monster like that?!»
Between that and the Heavenly Strike, Veig was sure now there were some spirits involved far outside the regulations. He raged at their perceived violation of the rules.
……Ha. His opponents laughed in unison. They knew it: Dwarves were the perfect negative examples. After all, they were just half-right. Just as he guessed that the stage itself was their machine, but that wasn’t even close to enough. On Sora’s lap sat Shiro—and on her lap sat a girl whose face was scrunched in pain, but who still sneered with fearless irony—
“Chieftain… You ask that now? I couldn’t even start up our first machine without boosting, I couldn’t.”
It seemed he had still overlooked the trick in Shiro’s arms. Yes, it was the murmuring of Til, the real trick, most impossible of all—
“To begin with…I can’t even use magic without boosting, I can’t.”
«—Huhhh?!»
—that made Veig cry out in long-delayed recognition. Sora chuckled. Yes, a Dwarf so great as Veig probably couldn’t have imagined such a trick. Til, by nature, couldn’t even use magic, much less operate a supermassive spirit arm. For Til—
'''—WAS AS SMOOTH AS DOLPHIN—!!!'''
Dwarves used catalysts because of the spiritual overload caused by their mithril—to synchronize externally. But Til didn’t have that mithril!! She wasn’t subject to such overload, or even load for that matter!! That was why she used boosting… Yes…the hidden truth that astonished Jibril when Til used her shift. Til couldn’t use magic without boosting. Conversely, that meant she could if she used boosting…
…It meant she could use boosting. For example: She could chain boost to boost on the chain reaction of explosions of the huge number of demi-shift anchors they’d planted, funnel the spirits into her hammer on which she’d engraved a Rite of Heavenly Smiting, and synchronize it into her body! With the vast amount of spirits thus summoned under her control, she could operate this leviathan assemblage of parts, this scrap on the stage on which she’d engraved seal rites…!!
… Yes, if a normal Dwarf tried this, they’d blow right up. It would be impossible and meaningless. Just as Til said, it would be as perverse an idea as building an underwater breathing apparatus for a fish. But for such an abnormal dwarf, it was both possible and essential. For Til—
'''—WAS AS SMOOTH AS DOLPHIN—!!!'''
«Wha—? Wait, whoa— Niecey, don’t tell me yours still hasn’t growwwn?!»
“Heh…heh-heh, Ch-Chieftain…I’d like to see you burn in hell! I would…”
Listening to their exchange, Sora, to be honest, was fairly sure by now this was not the case. But he still insisted: they had to be talking about beards!! So anyway—!
“Heh, this is the difference in natural gifts… Bow before the absolute wall you cannot overcome, Veig!!”
«Fock!! How can a Dwarf’s body endure that shite? You wanna kill my fockin’ niece?!»
The transmission to Sora roared full of naked rage. Understandable. One percent of Jibril’s power—the power to run a supermassive machine like that—was as reckless as pouring rocket fuel into an automobile. Therefore…
“…Didn’t you say no mercy? A man’s word isn’t worth much these days, huh?”
«—!!»
…Sora saw that Veig was thinking of taking a bullet and losing the game for Til’s sake, and Sora stopped him, making a face. If Til died, it would probably spell death for Sora and Shiro, who were holding her, too. Til was barely conscious, but still she held firm to her hammer and smiled.
—Veig meant to lose intentionally.
This man didn’t seem to understand what a humiliation that would be—!!
“To hell with your patronizing sympathy!! This is a trap—there’s no place for you to hide and no room for you to choose!!”
Sora’s howl what seemed like a signal to that which sat somewhere in the supermassive machine behind the giant cannon that opened its mouth with a roar: another machine. Sora and the operator inside the additional cockpit announced savagely:
“There’s only one future: Til’s complete victory!!”
«Whyyy, it’s time for the showwwdowwwn.♥»
That moment, the light of the Holy Forge flashed from the barrel, and suddenly a metal glob blocked the opening. Connected to the muzzle, the object sparkled—and this time, Veig froze, mech and all. It was another legacy of the past that he could not mistake.
“Can you dodge a bomb? If you know a way, as a gamer, I’d very much like to know!”
A bomb indeed, leaving no place to hide. A bomb called…yes, that’s right:
…The E-bomb…
== Partie 6 ==
In the cockpit behind the blazing E-bomb was Fiel, smiling.
“Why, you’ll note that we’ve followed the rules to a T. And in a most sustainable way, if I might add.♥”
No magic other than seal rites. You lost if your core broke. And the players here were everyone…
“Anyone can very well recycle the unit we lost in, caaan’t theyyy?♥”
True, Til could connect and use Fiel’s unit. Also:
“Incluuuding the seal of protection of that boorish fire, and incluuuding the seal rites on the unit.♪”
Fiel had in mind the seventh player, and their fifth trump card.
They hadn’t bothered with any seal rites for the specs, but they had bothered with seal rites.
They had implemented an eighty-four-fold rite using the seal of protection of an Old Deus. And they’d used the Holy Forge, the power of Ocain, to enable shifting.
Til had subsumed Fiel’s unit and commandeered it under the protection of Ocain. And there was no rule that Til couldn’t use that thing shifted from her hideout!! Chlammy asked suspiciously of the merry Fiel, who occupied the same cockpit:
“…Fi, I’ve been wondering: Whose idea was it to use the seal of Ocain’s protection?”
She’d heard of the “rites of spirit-breaking” or whatever that they’d used in the War, such as Áka Si Anse—spells that used seal rites to call upon the protection of Kainas, creator of the Elves. But it was said they were no longer usable after the Ten Covenants. In that case, this thing Fiel produced must have been newly compiled, after the War.
…Who would have implemented a seal rite to call upon Ocain, of all gods? For that matter, even having grown up in Elven Gard, Chlammy had never heard of a spell that could un-quasi-shift such a large mass.
“Mmm, I don’t know, myself. It’s been the Nirvalens’ ace in the hole for generations.”
Fiel tilted her head. Yes, and they’d said this…
“They said trump cards are trump cards because you don’t reveal them until the showdown.”
Howeverrr… She gave Chlammy her greatest smile as she continued.
“Why, my ultimate trump card is you, Chlammy.♪”
Fiel had gone to such lengths as to reveal her family’s secret. She smiled at her best friend: They had lost—and that therefore was the victory planned. Chlammy beamed and reflexively looked away, embarrassed.
“If you say we can’t win…why, then we can’t win.”
Yes…from the moment Chlammy had concluded that they couldn’t win…
…Fiel had resigned from this game…
So, they had requested of Sora and Shiro a friendly token of appreciation for their friendly cooperation. It was a condition of the deal, in other words: No matter who won—
—Veig must be commanded to bear shame for the rest of his life…
“Whyyy, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you win!! Our objective is to convict that thing, the offender! In which caaase, it doesn’t maaatter who uses whose power to win. As long as the crook gets his just deserts, we have wooon!!”
Fiel’s bright demeanor made Chlammy chuckle.
“…Well, we do have to regret a little we didn’t make good on our chance to win directly.”
“But we must count ourselves blessed to have been able to pummel you a bit.♪ After allll—”
“Yes. We are really perfect outsiders to this matter. We’re not even friends, you know?”
As they snidely echoed Veig’s remarks, Chlammy had a thought.
—They could win an unwinnable match through someone else’s power. Then how might they answer an unanswerable question?
“We’ll make others answer for us… In other words, as usual, we win through sophistry.”
—Having had their past questioned: Have you paid your tab?
—They answered with their future: I will when I can…
……
“…And so the puppet continued building the sky… The sky only they still could not see…”
In the cramped cockpit, Chlammy smiled subtly as she gazed upon the sky before her. They’d opened it for her, for Fi, for Jibril, the Werebeasts, the Old Deus, and Ex Machina… And now…
“They’re opening up Til’s sky… Going on until they find their own…”
== Partie 7 ==
At last, brilliant, blinding light.
Til had gathered things from outside—welded them, forged them, patched them together in one wrong way after another. Now her fire melted them all together, and cast them as ingenuity, which she used to reach the sky.
“…Uncle…have I…kept…my promise…?”
The spirits raged, and her body ached as if it was about to break.
“Have I…reached a sky…that no one has seen before?!”
The heat threatened to burn out her spirit corridor junction nerves. But alas, Til smiled regardless…
“…Do you…want…to know…what it’s…like…?!”
By now, only one thing entered her muddied consciousness: the distant sky Til was sure she’d never imagined, and that no one else ever had—the feeling of floating in a deep, black sky, Veig too far behind to see, uncertain of whether he could hear the voice she wrung out, or even whether it was coming out at all—
Still, she’d fulfill the promise of that distant day. She’d vowed that she would surpass him—and promised something to the bird of that day. She spelled out the wish she’d held in her heart, that her words, her smile would reach their destination.
'''“You piece of shit, you’ll never understand, you won’t!! Serves you right, it does!! Pft!”'''
«Niecey!! You got to get back at me, huh?! Ain’t ya imitatin’ me?!»
Veig’s transmission came through at trace volume. Til did hear it, though, and she closed her eyes and grinned.
…Please. I’m about to fall under the delusion that I have become a bird, I do. But I know…that it’s just an illusion, I do. By tomorrow, perhaps even by one second in the future, I’ll be made to know
Very well then…!! Making mistakes is my only specialty—!!
—Assuming I can… Assuming that nothing’s impossible! I’ll fail again, and build up my mountain of mistakes, I will!!
She’d lose her way, she’d get confused, she’d blunder—and every time, she’d cry and wail and gnash her teeth in vexation! Til would take the long way around like a perfect fool, getting lost repeatedly, pathetically drenched in tears and shame. She might never even know if it had meaning. But there was a sight that could only be seen by taking that foolish path.
It could never be seen by those born with natural talent…by the birds that didn’t build airplanes.
It could never be seen by the birds that had never felt that obsession: I want to fly anyway. There was such an entertaining sight to see, to be found in a place no one imagined.
…I’m ready to make as many mistakes as it takes. I can say that now, I can…
And so, while Til went limp in Shiro’s arms—
“…Well, bet this is news to you smart folks. Here’s the common knowledge of the weak. Listen with gratitude, yeah?!”
—Sora howled at the shell of the E-bomb, which glowed like a star to announce it was ready for blast-off.
“…Generally speaking, things in the world don’t go the way you imagine…”
Just as they had sailed for India and mistakenly arrived in the New World; as they had tried to prove everything with mathematics and mistakenly refuted their mathematics; as they had built rockets to reach the moon and mistakenly dropped them on Earth…
…As far as humans were concerned, perfection was a waste of time. They’d mess it up anyway. To seek mere perfection wasn’t going to do it. Therefore—!!
“Your thinking is too damn small!! If you want to fly, you’re not gonna have a chance unless you have the guts to go past the damn moon and crash into Mars by mistake!!”
Well…yes…?
“Even if you get up and down backward, you might be able to go through the planet to the sky at the other side, right?♪”
You might end up with a result better than perfect, right?
«…You fockin’ with me? Shit—»
A man born with natural talent… A bird that flew by sensibility alone…transmitted back with a sense of awe at the unknown he’d never had before—or not in a long time at least.
Indeed…they couldn’t use the E-bomb. So he didn’t know what it was they were on the verge of launching. He didn’t know what it was to accomplish. He didn’t even know a thing about the heights where his niece floated now.
But even so! There was one thing he was sure about. He howled with a longing he’d never felt.
«So you’re saying you don’t know what the hell will happen. You’re bloody daft, aren’t ya?!»
If it might be the case that Til couldn’t take it—!! That instant, Veig’s unit appeared to get blown away and then vanished from sight. One soul raced forth through the air, with maneuvers uncapturable by Sora’s eyes, or by the venue’s cameras. It left no trace; the unit broken down, it raced past its limits, riding the force of a fist.
—I’ll overcome even that—
Detecting the single strike to end it, Sora smirked and answered inwardly.
—Yeah. That’s right! That’s how we live, as fools incapable of anything but straying and failing and erring. Bet it’s a breath of fresh air for smarty-pants jerks like you who live with all trial and no error, huh?
What’s gonna happen? How the hell would I know?!
“That’s why you gotta test that shit! That’s what we idiots call science!”
Sora sneered and activated the contents of the E-bomb in the muzzle, and a moment later Veig unleashed one soulful strike that pierced the shell.
== Partie 8 ==
It was a full-on collision of Veig’s and Til’s souls, entangling, stirring, radiating white. No one could tell whose soul it was anymore. Everything raced through the catalysts and through the minds of all present…
……
…The man had been born with outstanding sensibilities. Everyone knew him to be a genius. He too knew this, not as a matter of presumption or conceit, but as a proud matter of fact. He swung his hammer without guile, yet with ferocity. To create a work that was better—no, the best. An unprecedented masterpiece. A divine revelation!! He would enter that
realm only one before in the history of Dwarf, his ancestor, had laid eyes on. His eyes reflected the back of that genius who had laid his fingers on creation—the alteration of concepts. He would reach that extreme none had approached in six thousand years. The man who kept piling up successes was the second coming of that sublimity. Everyone was certain he would be the next chieftain. Amidst all this, the man was hurling invective at a strange kid who was following him around:
“Hey… Get lost already, would ya, fockin’ brat?! You’re gettin’ in the way of my work!!”
“I’m not getting in the way, I’m not. I’m seducing my future husband, I am.”
The one contradicting him as if it was nothing was, at the time, a little girl. The one who called herself his future wife.
“If you think I’m getting in your way, that just proves you have feelings for me, doesn’t it, Uncle? Doesn’t it?!”
“Niecey, you’re gonna stand there winkin’ and blowin’ kisses at me like some bloody fool? I’ve feelings, harsh feelings!”
She was the precocious daughter of one of his older stepsisters, and she’d taken an inexplicable shine to him.
“I ain’t got no interest in some kid who ain’t even got any hair grown in yet—can’t bear to look at ya. Piss off,” he commanded.
The child shuddered at the man’s sharp one-eyed glare.
That was that. Everyone kept their distance from him. His eye had the gift of ending the conversation. Even children always grasped the point that he lived in a different world…until then…
“H-how do you know that I’m smooth?! Have you seen it?!”
But this child shuddered because she suspected he had looked at her naked. Incidentally, this was the fifth time this exchange had occurred. In other words—
“You peeped on me?! You licked me all over with your eyes, how can I get married now, you should take responsibility, and then I’ll be the wife of the chieftain, what a way to marry up, it is! Come, come, come, Mr. Sir? If you’ll marry me, I can show you my body aaany—”
“I can see from your face you ain’t got no beard, all right?! Don’t blush. Why are ya strippin’?!”
“Ah!! No, I don’t want to be the wife of some pervert who lusts after children, I don’t!!”
“Listen to me, will ya?! Wait, didn’t you just say you were seducing me? What do you want?!”
No matter how he tried to get rid of her, she kept coming. The man clutched his head.
—The hell’s with this fockin’ brat? His niece had a strange way with words. But more than anything, it was his own sense of discomfort that confused him. Never having experienced failure or discouragement, the feeling was altogether unfamiliar to him. It would be a while before he realized it was his first experience of anger.
“…Listen, Niecey. I’m a fockin’ genius. And that makes me a bloody fine man. You followin’ me?”
“Ah! S-so you mean, when I marry you, I’ll be a fine woman?!”
“Argh, that ain’t it at all. This is the problem. You ain’t good for me, is what I’m sayin’.”
Back then, he had concluded thus:
“You’ll never be a fine woman.”
“…Uh-huhhh… What is a fine woman…?”
“First of all, she’s an adult with hair. You’re out of the question. And she’s a woman who fits me. Let’s see… So first, she has big boobs. And then, if her spirit-arm craft ain’t at least on my level, I ain’t messin’ with that, either. Otherwise, hmm, she’s damn beautiful and damn chaste and damn sexy as far as I’m concerned. That’s what it means to be a fine woman.”
“…Uncle, that’s just a fantasy woman, it is.”
“Rngh?”
“I-I—I mean, there are no Dwarves with big boobs, there aren’t! And everything after the ‘Otherwise, hmm’ is exactly what my aunts told me virgins fantasize about, it is! Uncle, are you a virgin? By the way, what is a virgin?!”
“Shut up! What’s wrong with an outta-this-world man wanting an outta-this-world woman? Those fockin’ sisters of mine!!”
And then:
“Heh, you’re hopeless, you are. I’ll just have to become a fine woman for you, I will.”
……Suddenly…
“In another thirteen, I’ll be an adult, I will. I’ll be downright bushy, I will!! I’ll be beautiful, and oh so chaste, whatever that means, I will! Then you just have to get me sexy, and that’s that, it is!!”
…the child whose pale blue eyes sparkled as she spoke started to feel extremely dissatisfied.
“I’ll do my best to make spirit arms like you, I will. If you just give up on the big boobs, I’ll be such a fine woman, right in front of you! And I’ll help you stop being a virgin, I will!!”
She smiled as if to ask: So what is a virgin? He thrust back feelings he didn’t understand himself—
“It ain’t happening. Such a good-for-nothin’ ain’t ever gonna get how to make spirit arms.”
…And that—
was the man’s first misreading…
“……A good-for-nothing…? …What? You mean me…?”
…What? What’s with those teary eyes like you can’t believe what you just heard?! The man felt ever more uncomfortable.
“Wh-why nottt? I-I’ll d-do my best, I will.”


“Your best ain’t gonna do it…!! Why can’t you see?!”


“So yeah… Til somehow managed to successfully run from Jibril, so we’re looking for her.”
Ah—the child truly didn’t understand.


“…Anyone…have an, idea…where she…might be?”
Dwarf was a race that created exactly what it imagined. But she didn’t see that she didn’t see what he saw. She’d never even imagined she might not have talent. The man stood bewildered as to why that was so uncomfortable for him.


“……………………Errr… Why, you can’t be serious?”
“…I…I just don’t—understand, I don’t… A-after all…”


Yes—to run from Jibril, despite Jibril chasing at full speed… She was truly an epic gamer to beat such a punishing game. Fiel couldn’t believe her long ears when she heard Sora and Shiro ask where Til was. Just how did one run from a Flügel, who could shift position at will? Fiel was dumbstruck, which was of no concern to Jibril.
She rebutted between sobs.


“… I do apologize, my masters. I have made an inexcusable lapse… I should have anticipated it.”
“…Uncle, you don’t understand why I don’t understand, you don’t!”


Jibril was hanging her head, her fists and voice similarly trembling. She wept as she expressed her contrition.
And at last the man had his answer.


“I cannot follow her to the afterlife! I did not intend to drive her to such…! Now I have allowed your precious resource for spirit arms to escape and obstructed your victory… H-how can I ever atone for this…?”
'''“U-Uncle—you can’t overcome the limits of your own imagination, you can’t!!”'''


“Yeah, you’re jibbing up what to apologize for as always… And by the way, she’s not dead”
“R-really…I’ve already surpassed your imagination, by being unimaginable to you, I have. I’ll make a spirit arm that surpasses you easily… S-see, I’ve won the argument, I have!”


I—I think… No, definitely! Sora reassured himself as he thought back two days. Yes…when the self-described grubby little mole…the flightless bird had flown—
…Indeed…the man himself did not understand the child. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what…she was crying about… The man she admired over all others had told her she was good for nothing. But she argued against that absolute pronouncement and declared that she’d yet overcome it, weeping and despairing while her eyes burned with blue fire. It was that paradox that baffled the man who never strayed or erred:


“I—I should have known—I don’t have any home at all, I dooooon’t!”
…He feared that unimaginable child…


As Jibril gave chase, Til cried out, and light poured from her hammer. The end of the hammer struck the ground, and the next moment—Til flew…
…The man had been born with outstanding sensibilities. They grasped even that divine realm only his ancestor had seen. And thereby he became the first in history to reach the extreme that in over six thousand years no one had been able to approach.
Yes…she truly flew… Flew, or rather… Well—-


Got blown away…
And then? What next?
The blast shook the capital… She left nothing behind but that great explosion and the remnants of her totaled hammer. Not even a trace of spirits--


“That wasn’t an act of self-destruction… Til wouldn’t do something like that.”
The man could only imagine following in the footsteps of his ancestor, but still he had a hunch. Given all this, what was it that his ancestor had seen before he reached this realm?


“…Which means…mission successful… She gets…the platinum trophy…”
He couldn’t have been a normal Dwarf. He must have been different, something unreadable, incomprehensible, unimaginable… Rather like that well-endowed lady his ancestor was said to have loved…or—


Jibril was sure she was dead, while Sora and Shiro only became even more sure that she was alive Which necessarily also backed up a certain conjecture they had—but leaving that aside, they’d known from the start that Fiel wouldn’t know. If even Jibril had concluded there was no trace of her spirits—then she wasn’t in the capital anymore
“I—I promise I’ll make a spirit arm that surpasses you, I do.”


“So that’s why we’ve been asking around, you know. For someone who might have some idea where she went…”
—like the paradoxical child declaring this irresolute resolution—


And that’s what had brought them here Looking from the control room, they figured they’d ask the Dwarves down there building the “humanoid machine”—but first, Sora squinted back at the Elf girl sitting on a chair.
“…Arright then. Go make a spirit arm that surpasses mine and bring it back here.”


Fiel was capable of using seal rites, in the Elven style, at least. So she was able to take up Veig on his promise, borrow materials and personnel, and give the staff design drawings for seal rites and have them build a unit accordingly.
—to overcome six thousand years of Dwarven stagnation…and the limits of sensibility—


…The thing was, the personnel seemed a little too loyal. Sora brought up a salient example.
“I’ll be here waiting for the damn fine woman who can beat me. It’s a promise.”


“…Maybe I should ask first whether I can ask questions—say, to that chair for now?”
—to become a damn fine woman.


Sora pointed to the Dwarf on whom Fiel was leisurely sitting, her legs crossed.
The man and the child joined pinkies in a solemn oath. He didn’t understand what was meant by her eyes, which looked up at him holding back tears. But he decided that, until he understood, until he was surpassed—he’d be the finest man imaginable…to be a good match for such a fine woman.


“16:17, 17 December 2021 (CET)16:17, 17 December 2021 (CET)! ~~, ~~!”
But the child fled…


“Mmm? Why, Mr. Chair…who permitted you to speaaak?~❤️”
She was still a paradox, while he still did not understand her at all, running even as he chased. The days and months passed idly—until one day…


The chair spoke what probably was Dwarven. Sora and Shiro didn’t understand, but they winced to see Fiel kick her underling. It was true Veig had said he would lend them personnel—make them help in other words, but…
…the man fell right into the trap of two strange Immanities. The otherworlders were winning while running from their past. The contradiction made the man sure: These two would know why the child ran.


“Isn’t that…past the bounds of asking for help?”
…And his hunch was proven right. However—


…he hadn’t said he’d give them to them, had he? And hey, she just kicked the Dwarf. Wasn’t that against the Covenants?
“…A damn ham-fisted resolution… I was the one running, huh?”


“Asking for help? Me, of these moles? Why, your jokes are so haaarsh.~❤️”
—as their consciousnesses melded and the man touched the soul of the child from back then, he laughed at himself. He’d been called out on his limits—and he himself had run from overcoming them.


Fiel answered with a smile as bright as the midday sun—the scorching desert sun.
And from trying to imagine why the child had cried that day. Her eyes, heavy with unease, had sought—


“Why, this thing licked the floor and swore by the Covenants, ‘I’ll do anything to make up to you my sin in being born, Lady Fiel.’ So I just haaad to allowww him to help Look at him choke on his tears of joy. 🎵”
—someone to be her place of belonging, to take her fumbling hand as she looked up to that sky where she knew she couldn’t fly…in that darkness as deep as her will. That was all… The man shouldn’t have waited to be surpassed. He should have sought with the child a way to surpass his limits.


She again dug her heel into the chair who was crying, reportedly, for joy.
“… Really? Is that really how it is? You were running? Are you sure?”


Loosely translated: I used a game to make him pledge himself into bondage
In their melding consciousnesses, the sarcastic laughter of a young man interrupted their thoughts.


Uh, okay, that was pretty messed up, but if it was a game then it was the Dwarf’s fault for losing. And it did have the advantage that this way she could force the Dwarves to apply their crafting sensibility in a loyal fashion. Only Dwarves could process the material for spirit arms, but the Dwarves couldn’t be trusted—it made sense. On the other hand, not to disparage Fiel, but would it really be so easy to sucker those savvy Dwarves?
“You think falling into the junk heap with Til and becoming like Shiro and me is not running? You think that’s being right? Yeah, maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t.”


“—Why, it was simple…for the twooo of us.❤️”
Was the man running from his tab? From the paradoxical child who hoped for what he couldn’t imagine? From his paradoxical self who tried to understand a child he couldn’t? Chasing after the child who fled against his sensibilities that told him it was impossible, going so far as to put us on the hook…


Sora’s confusion was ultimately dispelled not by Fiel…
So, what’s the difference between running and running from running…?


—Clack, clack…
== Partie 9 ==


“…? Ohh, if it isn’t Sora… I haven’t seen you in two days… Heh-heh…”
And so…the impact that shook to the surface left the cave. The force that connected the parts of the massive body ceased, and pieces of metal fell like hail. Through the whirlwind of dust walked a man who carried an unconscious girl. A rusty man. His mithril had lost its luster due to spiritual overload, his hair and his beard now rusted over… But strangely it seemed to be the true form of a man with the surname Drauvnir. It seemed proof of the way of life of a fool, using and abusing himself to overcome himself, not knowing what would happen, unafraid of overload—the only one to overcome the limits of his race…


…but by Chlammy, whose heels shrilly echoed as she entered. Or to be more precise—
I won’t let her die. The man had sacrificed his frame and overcome his limits to save his niece. But then suddenly—seeing her unconscious in his arms yet unwilling to release her hammer, looking genuinely happy, her chest rising and falling dramatically in sleep, smiling—


“You’re here to observe the work—is that your excuse? Whatever you say, I know what you’re really here for. Very well. If you get on your hands and knees and beg, I’ll be nice and let you look at least… Mwah!❤️”
“……Ha…ha…! Haaa—ha-ha-haaa…!!”


—by the hip-swaying, Marilyn Monroe–inspired strut of the fake-boobed abomination blowing a kiss.
—the man at last collapsed, like his broken soul sword, spread-eagled over the ground laughing.
…She’s this uppity just from getting big boobs…


Contemplating the factors that would lead to this reaction, Sora almost cried. Conversely…
“…Ahh… My fockin’ niece beat me good… The future is hers… I’ve lost…”


“…B-Brother… Can having boobs…really give you…that much…confidence…?”
Yes: Veig recognized his defeat. He looked up to the heavens—and at last, he and all the Dwarves watching the broadcast—


—Maybe I shouldn’t have deactivated it, either… Shiro fought back tears of regret. Sora smiled warmly and rubbed her head.
—saw…the sky…


<image>
An unknown sky, inconceivable underground…yet they saw it. That of which Til had spoken—just as that which had closed off the sky before had broken, for the first time in six thousand years, it was pried open—that which lay beyond the high blue sky…


“So, Chlammy. Can you do—that thing?”
“…You feel that, Veig Drauvnir? You see how small you are, how shitty your taste?” asked one of the shadows peering down at him. The shadowy figure glanced at the group that Jibril had saved the moment Veig’s core had broken.


He took out his phone.
[[Image:NGNL V10 12.jpg|thumb]]
…But that was all he did. He didn’t even hold it out to her. However, Chlammy grinned imperiously, snatched it from his hand—and, without hesitation, with a once-in-a-century, shit-eating grin—placed the phone on top of her bust…


“You see, my sister? Nothing has changed. Her confidence is as fake as her tits.”
“You gotta fight with people on your level. Sorry, man. You’re just not up to playing me yet.”
“Wh-whaaat? The way I remember from your memory, if you ask someone with big boobs if they can do ‘it,’ you’re referring to this, right?”
Sora’s smirk and the snap of Shiro’s camera ripped off any and all pretense instantaneously.
“Hfff… Listen well, Queen of Boards.”
“—Heh… What is it now, little boy”
“Don’t react to that… You do know, don’t you…? Listen.”
And as Chlammy scrambled to put her gilded pretense back on, Sora preached the truth.


“Someone with big boobs doesn’t assume that ‘that thing’ is specifically something to do with her boobs”
Ah, what a small man he had been. Veig looked up at Sora, seeing in him a very different kind of man.


“---Gurgh!”
“…Small boobs, big boobs, even humongous boobs; fake boobs and real boobs… They are all boobs…”


“I mean, all I did was take out my phone! You didn’t think I might be trying to take a picture or something? I could have been asking for a sexy pose or any number of other things, right? You didn’t even hesitate! You’re so desperate, I feel bad calling you out. Sorry, okay?”
A big man… Such a big man. Sora eyed him calmly.


“……I-I’m, sorry…! I kind of, feel like it’s…my fault…!”
“If you claim to love boobs, how can you speak of right or wrong? Speak of love.”


“Why are you two crying? I mean—it—it’s not like that! A-ahem!”
The big, big man’s voice was so clear you could hear him all the way to nirvana.


Sora’s apology broke the dam on the tears long held back. Shiro and Chlammy both started crying—and then.
“To reject boobs other than those of the uniform ponderous size you favor as fake, and to impose this view on others…”


“—Huff. All right. With magnanimity as deep as my cleavage, I’ll accept your constructive criticism…”
No censure, no blame, no scorn or spite could be heard in his voice…only the sound of a man who had obtained enlightenment and imparted to the world the truth.


As Chlammy assumed the pretense once more, Sora and Shiro thought: I see. It would have been difficult for Fiel to sucker a Dwarf alone. But the two of them —Fiel and Chlammy together— shouldn’t have had any problem.
“To speak to such a soul is less than my soul is worth.”


“Before, I was flat-chested… You’re right, there’s no sense in denying the past…”
…Dost thou find it wonderful? Then may it be wonderful. No one can violate thy freedom to so find it. Then why, in speaking thy feelings, shalt thou denigrate others’? Indeed…


After all, look at Chlammy—sticking out her chest, one hand on her hip, the other flaring out her hair, like a hot babe full of confidence. Just the way a comedian would play it. And she refused to even recognize this. Those discerning Dwarves would surely spot right away that her confidence was as devoid of reality as her chest. And for that very reason—
“Ideal tits? They’re perfect if you work on them? Ahh, how small, how small!!”


“But a real woman doesn’t let her past drag her down… You see now, kid?”
It was he, Veig, who had lacked confidence. Whereas this immeasurable man, as vast as the sky, had stood from the beginning far beyond Veig, on a higher plane.


—Sora, watching as Chlammy desperately maintained the seductress act, became all the more sure.
…He was one truly great virgin. Yes…
All Fiel had to do was make the Dwarves think their opponent was this weirdo to lower their guard and get them into the game. Then if the real player was Fiel—talk about a sucker punch. Sora and Shiro could see how Fiel could have captured swarms of Dwarves easily.


“All right… I get it already. Let’s end this sad world where everyone just gets hurt.”
“If ya want ideal boobs, you’re not gonna have a chance unless you have the guts to go for the woman who goes way the hell past your ideals, are ya?!”
“…I accept it… You have…big boobs… Okay?”
“Would you stop it with those tender gazes? What did you even come here for, anyway? God!”


As Chlammy’s tears reappeared from beneath the gilded veneer, Sora and Shiro left her with their sympathy. Looking back at the Elven girl still sitting on her chair, Sora asked:
Ah…it was just as his fockin’ niece had said. The child that day had already surpassed him…and now she’d become a fine woman who surpassed his imagination. Sora smiled at this, too.


“Hey, Fiel, do you still think you can steal a march on us to beat Veig?”
“…Yeah. It was my limit to pursue mere perfection.”
“Whaaat? …Why, how could you accuse me of such a thing…? I’m so hurrrt.❤️”


Fiel professed her brokenheartedness with a smile so over the top you could practically feel the sarcasm oozing from it. She continued:
Veig felt he’d seen for the first time what that child kept yearning for. She hadn’t been looking at the birds. From the very start, she’d been looking at the sky in which they flew…


“After alll I’ve done to help my friends succeed, my goodness.”
“…Ah, finally I can see what my fockin’ niece saw.”


“Fine, so you need to save face. Then, okay, if we win, we want to do something for you, as friends. What do you want?”
That sky one wished for and longed for and pined for and yet could never imagine: that which he’d always pursued…the ideal big tits that surpassed the perfect… Ah, yes…


Sora indirectly asked what Fiel wanted if she won. She must have been asked this by Chlammy many times already, from the uneasy way she listened.
Bwoing…


“Dooon’t worry. I’m done with seeking death and destruction.”
Veig gazed innocently at Til as she slept, her rising and falling chest—her humongous boobs. Tits of such excess as to look a little unbalanced, allowing statuesque beauty to crumble. He smiled at this ideal he’d finally found, an ideal beyond limits. He was happy……


Fiel seemed focused on reassuring Chlammy.
== Partie 10 ==


“Why, that thing crossed three lines that should never be crossed…”
Indeed… Only two in history had seen that divine realm. A third who had opened the door without being able to see it was responsible for this by-product of a successful failure. In the E-bomb shell had been placed two false ethers to conceptually resonate.


However, her words that followed, with an evil smile, were not very reassuring at all.
“Hey—th-these are heavy; I can’t even stand! ‘Big’ doesn’t even describe these!”


“I can’t kill him nowww. Why, I must keep him alive ❤️”
“You see, Dora, this is the conceptual rewrite of ‘big boob(?) essence’—”


“—By the way, what are those three lines?”
“Analysis: Bust value of woman of unknown name. Provisionally categorized under handle ‘megatits.’ Very niche support.’”
“Being booorn…and touching two things he shouldn’t have.🎵”


Things he shouldn’t have touched… Sora cast his eyes upon those two things, plump and heaving. It occurred to him that Fiel’s gaze spoke eloquently as to the manner in which she wished to win.
“What are you talking about?! These are going to turn back, aren’t they? I can’t live like this!”
—But Sora was surprised that she’d failed to notice that other thing for two whole days. He repeated what he’d said two days ago.


“I mean, you have to cooperate with us to beat Veig, so I hope you’ll give this some thought.”
“Why, I’m fine if we don’t turn back, insofar as I’ve happened to match Chlammy. ”


“—Whaaat?”
“You must be joking! Why do I have even less now?! I won’t tolerate having no boobs! Hey, Fi, saying your small boobs match me, are you indirectly dissing me?! Give me back my boobs!”


He clearly implied that Fiel could not beat Veig by herself. Fiel looked at him to ask what basis he had for his assertion. Sora answered cheerily.
“Query: This unit’s bust provisionally categorized under ‘ample bosom’… Questioning conceptual rewrite of ‘big boob essence.’”


“Yeah, look—you’re already relying on Dwarves to build this for you, which proves you can’t do it yourself, right?”
“You see, it is not ‘big boob essence’ but ‘big boob(?) essence’—”


“-----”
And there the ladies cavorted, their boobs changing randomly. Exactly as in the experiment four days earlier, except that this time it worked without an explosion. The conceptual rewriter used Lóni Drauvnir’s “big boob essence” along with one other false essence. Yes, just the same thing had happened as four days ago—instead of an explosion, it was its by-product. In other words:


That instant---the atmosphere froze hard enough to crack.
“To summarize, it seems to be as in the experiment of four days ago, when, according to the sublime teachings of my masters, I engraved on unprocessed essence a seal identical to that for the big boob essence and activated this unidentified essence,” Jibril rehashed for the two who hadn’t been there. “I posit that a two-way reaction with the big boob essence


“…? Huh, what? What are you talking about?”
has generated a composite conceptual rewrite.”


Chlammy looked quizzically as Fiel winced with displeasure.
Indeed…the principle was unknown. No one even understood how conceptual falsification worked. Thus, even Jibril was unable to explicate or elucidate this incomprehensibility. But she described it in words in such a rough manner as was possible. So:
—Thunk. Fiel’s heel dug into the chair—and an argument began.


“[[User:Asukawaii|Asukawaii]] ([[User talk:Asukawaii|talk]]) 16:17, 17 December 2021 (CET), [[User:Asukawaii|Asukawaii]] ([[User talk:Asukawaii|talk]]), [[User:Asukawaii|Asukawaii]] ([[User talk:Asukawaii|talk]]),❤️”
“In short—the conceptual rewrite is in the form of a question: ‘Are these big boobs?’”


“16:17, 17 December 2021 (CET)! [[User:Asukawaii|Asukawaii]] ([[User talk:Asukawaii|talk]]) 16:17, 17 December 2021 (CET)! [[User:Asukawaii|Asukawaii]] ([[User talk:Asukawaii|talk]]) 16:17, 17 December 2021 (CET)”
“These clearly cannot be described as big boobs!”


“…That’s Dwarven, right? Jibril, can you interpret?”
“Yes, you see, it is ‘big boob(?) essence,’ such as to make everyone ask, ‘These are big boobs?’”
Beside Sora, the trusty weapon supporting seven hundred languages bowed reverently and answered.
“First, the long-ears demanded, ‘Tell me where Til is.’ The chair answered, ‘I really have no idea,’ pleading for its life… Oh, and the long-ears said, ‘Tell me even if you don’t know. I’ll be the judge of whether you have any idea.’ The chair’s will seems to have been broken. image”
And so the elderly chair, pathetic tears about to fall, complied with the order to cough up anything and everything, mumbling this and that.
“No one can find her now…even the chieftain, who was so fond of her.”
Jibril transitioned to simultaneous interpretation, and Sora and Shiro listened sympathetically.
“Way back when, she used to chase after the chieftain everywhere, sayin’ she’d surpass him and become his wife—”
“…Hooooold up…!”
But Jibril was paused by a sudden cry.
“…Jibril… Play back, that last part… More, detail…!”
Shiro pounced with a horrifying glare, seeming to take even Jibril aback. The Dwarf, confused, replied:
“Mm, mrg? The promise they’d marry if she built a better spirit arm than him”
Shiro thrust both her arms into the air. Without exceeding her usual whispery volume range, she shouted—Huzzahh! Her pose was so epic you expected big letters to appear behind her.
“…Brother, the route’s been set Pairing is complete! …Childhood friends for the win!”
Shiro looked like she was hearing UC music in her head. Sora grinned and nodded.
“Yeah, even your brother can see that now… No going back from here, all right…”
Thinking of those eyes of Til, together with Veig’s intent, they could only say, Oh, yeah…
—A promise of marriage in their early days.
After which one shrunk away for shame at low specs and failure. They were totally the one true pairing… If they were to say anything about it—
“Hrrm. But, Shiro…is uncle x niece okay? ’Specially when the uncle’s a hairy old bastard and the niece looks like a kid… Kinda pushing it, don’t you think? Whether in terms of ethics or optics, it kinda looks like a situation where one would get the police involved, doesn’t it?”
“…Brother? It’s not okay…to impose, our views, on other cultures…”
“Well, fair enough! But a global commonwealth ought to have a certain amount of cultural exchange, don’t you think?”
“…I welcome…the uncle x niece tradition… It benefits me… We should adopt it.”
“Oh, Masters. The Dwarf seems to be carrying on without you… What shall I do?”
“—Huh? Oh, uh, sorry… Keep interpreting, please.”
Sora and Shiro’s worries had slipped past the ending. Jibril bowed once more.
“Errr… To summarize—they used to be very close, long ago—”
Yeah, so they liked each other. To a pairing level. Sora and Shiro nodded, everything starting to make sense—only to be overturned.
“But then it fled.”
The cold words of the continuing Dwarf lowered the temperature of their gazes.
“It threw away its passion, closed off its possibilities, and became that thing unable to become anything.”
“Hmm? You’re quite a proud little thing to be judging others, aren’t ya?”
That fluff-face, trembling on all fours under the weight of Fiel’s behind—pretty clever of him to manage to look down at his nose at anybody from that position, Sora thought snarkily.
“It ain’t no shame.”
The prostrate chair clarified.
“It’s just a loss. Why should you be ashamed of the road to the ideal, when it ain’t even your destination? Why should you be afeard?”
Free of doubt, the chair looked right at Sora and told him:
“Dwarves live to forge. Every victory and every loss is just one more strike of the hammer.”
He spoke of the Dwarf race, the way of being of the naturally strong,
—Picture your ideal self. To the very limits of your imagination. Then forge it. Don’t be ashamed. Don’t get lost. Don’t break down. Not until you reach that ideal. Once you’re there—then it’s time to realize that those weren’t your limits after all. Time to picture a yet more ideal self and forge it! Without limit, without end! Everything in this world exists to be forged—the self first among all. Keep pounding. Keep grinding. Keep refining. Keep creating the self you imagine—for ever and ever, till the day you die—
“That tireless forging lifestyle is itself our one destination as Dwarf, children of the god of the forge.”
The corners of the chair-man’s lips, buried in hair, drew up with pride.
“It’s true, our chieftain creates things none of us can even imagine. It ain’t gonna be easy to catch up with him.”
His eyes likewise buried in silver hair flashed coldly as he continued.
“He’s got an unrivaled talent. Might be that, that thing aside, none of us will ever be able to catch up with the chieftain.”
Then the Dwarf’s eyes lit up with anger as he spoke.
“But it might be that someone can! The only thing that’s closed off that possibility—is that thing fleein’ by itself”
—Veig had reached a level of peerless talent no one could reach. But how could you conclude you couldn’t if you didn’t try? the Dwarf asked. Sora thought:
—Yeah, his argument’s sound. So sound it’s annoying.


“Perhaps you can’t catch up to him. Could be all your forging will never get you there… But if you run and do nothing, of course you’ll never get there.”
……


This indeed, this was why Dwarf was a monster of sensibility.
== Partie 11 ==


“Whatcha gonna get from runnin’, lookin’ for a reason you can’t get there? You ain’t gonna find victory.
“For the record, this is the first and last time I’m gonna play Cupid for anyone, all right?!”
You ain’t even gonna find defeat.”


In his eyes were the downcast eyes of the black-and-white siblings.
Sora paid no attention to the commotion. He took the hand of his sister, apparently the only one unaffected: Big boobs? Where?


“You should be ashamed to run! At that rate, that thing’s only goin’ one place—the dump.”
“For God’s sake, I’m still updating my years alive and without a girlfriend!! And now I’m supposed to help some d00d land a heroine?! And not just any heroine, but the one and only—the real thing—the brown legal Loli monster girl!”


The chair had been consistently referring to Til as a thing.
“…I hope you find…happiness.♪ That’s one heroine…out of the running…”


“It’s not even alive anymore… It’s just a—”
The siblings walked away. Veig heard them loud and clear. He grinned softly at the sleeping face of his niece, who still smiled happily in his arms.


“Hey, douchebag chair! Sorry to interrupt, but what do you think of this?”
“…Ho… Bitches, I’ve heard your answer… I feel your soul…”


Sora wasn’t about to let him finish.
There was something the otherworldly siblings had never spoken of to the end. They hadn’t put that answer into words, or even returned it in their souls. Indeed…


“imageHuh? Uh—wha—what?”
“I was wrong to question you. Thanks for showin’ me…the sky…”


Chlammy’s eyes filled with rage as Sora grabbed her arm and thrust her forward. Quite abruptly interrupted indeed, the old Dwarf instantly opened his eyes wide, and—
He got the sense that if they could beat this game world, they could say they’d fled to win… So:


“…Nmm. That’s the chieftain’s work, all right—it’s perfect One of the reasons I’m here lettin’ myself be used as a chair, ain’t it? Gotta say, I’m gettin’ sold on the merits of big—”
“Lemme help ya build the sky of your future. Let’s be bosom buddies.”


“Is that so? Then I dismiss everything else you have to say! Have fun as a chair!”
They’d overthrow this game world, its rules, everything. They’d beat the world. Just you wait.


Sora cut down the Dwarf’s reply with one mighty swing and turned away.
We’re coming for you next, friggin’ Earth…


“The hell. Race of sensibility, my ass. Veig and this guy, hopeless!”


…Yeah, he’d actually realized a long time ago. Look, in the first place, their “Big Papa” had the sense as cataclysmic as Ragnarok to create hairy, bearded girls, you know? What did you expect from his kids? More like nonsense, amirite?


“Perfect? If that’s the kind of perfection you’re after, forget the chest; just make her whole body into one big ball. You got it, asshat?”


Sora gave the chair a good glare and launched his final barb.


“It’s ’cos you’re satisfied with mere perfection that this is where you’re still stuck!”


imageSilence. Everyone looked at him to ask what he meant. But, taking no note, Sora tromped off. Shiro scrambled to follow, as did one other.


“Jibril, fix the dictionary! Dwarves are the perfect example of the opposite of sensibility! If one of these assholes ever tells you that the world is round, take another look! It’s one hundred percent not round”


The logic? It should go without saying. If they were a race that never erred—
—If they were also never right, then that made their opinions ideal for reference, didn’t it?


“Y-yes, Master! I—I shall amend it at once!”


Jibril followed Sora, scribbling in her book, as they left the plant. I’ll give you one proof to start, Sora thought as he sneered.
—They said there’s no place for Til, and no one could find her, right? See? imageThey were wrong!


“Jibril, I know where Til is now Take us into the air right above the capital!”


“Y-yes, Master! I—I shall prepare—p-please wait just a moment!”


As he waited as Jibril busily shut her book and prepared a shift—


“Hey, Chair. Try using your brain for thinking once in a while, okay? In exchange, I’ll give you a bit of industrial knowledge from another world.”


—Sora addressed the dumbstruck Dwarf as if he had a whole bouquet of sarcasm to give him. Grinding? Forging? Ha! He called bullshit on their claim to be a race skilled in manufacturing.


“It was very amusing listening to your description of a so-called life based on nothing but effort There’s also welding—”


And you might want to know—Sora continued, as he and Shiro left only the afterimage of their middle fingers—


“—there’s also casting, which you do after you melt everything down Bet you’ve never heard of that, huh?”


—as with Jibril they vanished from the space.


<noinclude>
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|-
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| Revenir au [[No_Game_No_Life_:_Tome_10_Chapitre_2|Chapitre 2]]
| Revenir au [[No_Game_No_Life_:_Tome_10_Chapitre_4|Chapitre 4]]
| Retourner au [[No_Game_No_Life_-_Français|Sommaire]]
| Retourner au [[No_Game_No_Life_-_Français|Sommaire]]
| Passer au [[No_Game_No_Life_:_Tome_10_Chapitre_4|Chapitre 4]]
| Passer à l' [[No_Game_No_Life_:_Tome_10_Épilogue|Épilogue]]
|-
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Latest revision as of 18:18, 28 September 2022

Chapitre 5 : Pour répondre (Pragmatisme)[edit]

Et donc,

la marionnette s'enfuit vers le ciel que l'oisillon désirait tant,

vers ce monde étroit et sombre.

Oui...

Un ciel pour que la marionnette soit à l'abri du mal, pour sourire du cœur.

Un endroit où personne ne les piétinerait, où personne ne les blesserait,

aucune force ne les contraint, aucun besoin de changer.

Un nouveau monde où ils pourraient voler.

 

Ce jour-là,

L'oisillon savait très bien que ça ne serait probablement jamais le cas.

L'oisillon implora la marionnette, qui jura de se battre :

Aucun ciel ne vaut la peine de te voir souffrir.

Alors la marionnette, elle aussi, s'enfuit dans cette même cage.

Jusqu'à ce que nous trouvions un moyen de créer ce ciel,

c'est ce que pensait la marionnette dans ce monde étouffant.

Pensée et seulement pensée...

Doutant et vacillant, ne trouvant rien à chercher,

la marionnette pensait toujours à cette promesse :

 

Ce jour-là,

dans un nouveau pays, regardant les cieux,

voyant le bébé oiseau déployer ses ailes et sourire,

la marionnette vide - le ciel - Sora -

Traduit avec www.DeepL.com/Translator (version gratuite)

Partie 1[edit]

...Une scène remplie de l'écho de l'éruption de la Forge Sacrée... le site d'élimination des déchets.

Une gigantesque machine humanoïde argentée avance à pas lourds dans les ruines souterraines ensevelies sous les déchets métalliques. Des larmes coulent dans les yeux ardents de Veig qui marmonne avec désolation le premier souci de sa vie.

"... Ai-je vraiment fait quelque chose de si mal... ?"

Il se souvint des deux âmes qu'il avait fracassées après une lutte inattendue - l'âme de cette petite herbe étrangement coriace aux seins excellents, et l'âme de cette vipère incompréhensiblement toxique qui avait fait craquer son épée pour la première fois. Se balançant sombrement, vacillant en avant, il pensait :

...Que diable ai-je fait... ?

Veig se souvenait avoir été remercié, mais jamais blâmé. Pourtant, tout ce qu'il ressentait maintenant était un mystérieux sentiment de culpabilité gravé dans son âme trop profondément pour le nier. Maintenant, il se tenait là, devant la masse métallique tombée, la machine gisant sur le sol avec ses membres totalisés.

"...Ho... J'ai bien dit que je serais en retard, mais pour faire une sieste, tu as du cran, hein ?"

Veig a regardé attentivement le cadre cassé. Par le biais du système de communication, il a accusé ses pilotes de faire les morts.

Dans ce jeu, les attaques ne causent aucun dommage direct à la machine adverse. Par conséquent, tout dommage doit provenir d'une défaillance du rite ou d'une erreur de tir - ou être auto-infligé. Et honnêtement, c'était les deux. L'intuition de Veig lui a dit. Il a soulevé le corps brisé et a hurlé.

"Hey, je te parle !! Ton adversaire, c'est moi. Ne te retourne pas et ne meurs pas. Tu n'as aucun sens ?!"

En effet... Sora et Shiro n'ont jamais eu la moindre chance contre Veig dans une bataille d'armes spirituelles. Il était donc inévitable qu'ils perdent. Mais quand même...

"Tu n'as pas l'intention de te taire sans dire un mot sur ton âme, n'est-ce pas ? !"

Oui, ils avaient tenu tête à Veig avec une tempête de balles impensable. Mais ils n'ont rien emporté de leur âme, le barrage était trop fragile. Tout ce qu'il a fait c'est rejeter l'attaque de Veig et dire non à son âme...

Il n'a rien dit. Il n'a rien admis. Leur âme avait seulement rejeté la sienne et était restée inébranlable. Veig a serré les dents. S'ils pouvaient faire autant, alors pourquoi ?

Il souleva le cadre en ruine comme s'il le tenait par le col et se mit en colère :

“Quand allez-vous répondre à ma question ?!”

Et il a enfin obtenu une réponse.

"...Tout de suite, je le ferai. Je vais vous donner votre réponse, je vais le faire."

... Une voix a murmuré à travers la porte.

"Whuh ?!"

L'épave a soudainement répliqué en explosant, libérant un torrent d'âme fou. Elle lui répondit par une puissante imagerie qui lui vola momentanément sa conscience.

—……

Il était au fond d'un petit trou, sombre et exigu. Veig connaissait la fille qui pleurait en regardant le ciel, seule. Il la connaissait bien... la fille incapable de voler, qui plus que quiconque admirait les oiseaux qui volaient si haut.

Une fille paradoxale, elle savait qu'elle ne pouvait pas voler et pourtant elle levait les yeux au ciel... Elle pleurait même si elle avait abandonné... Le monde l'interrogeait avec des questions sans réponse - pourquoi elle avait fui, pourquoi elle n'avait pas essayé - puis lui demandait pourquoi elle pleurait... et la méprisait pour cela. Il l'a laissée dans ce trou... sans rien vouloir...

La fille solitaire... balançant son marteau à travers les larmes...... Il-

—……

Veig a essayé de tendre la main... mais blam, l'explosion a secoué la grotte et l'a tiré de sa rêverie. Dès qu'il a jeté un coup d'oeil autour de lui, peut-être plus tôt, il a deviné ce qui se passait. Il grimaça et hurla d'impatience.

"Quelle blague... Vous n'avez jamais eu personne là-dedans depuis le début ? C'était télécommandé... ?!"

Maintenant que tu le dis, il n'y avait aucune règle qui disait que tu devais piloter la machine... si ? S'ils le contrôlaient depuis un cockpit à l'extérieur du cadre, ils pouvaient le balancer sans problème.

Mais même si c'était télécommandé, ils devaient être connectés à leurs bras spirituels. Ce qui signifiait que faire exploser leur propre cadre si négligemment aurait des répercussions. Et en effet, le sol a tremblé avec une réaction en chaîne d'explosions l'une après l'autre dans toute la décharge.

Les esprits générés ont dessiné des lignes de lumière comme si elles circulaient dans des circuits gravés sur la scène. Le circuit de lumière convergeait pour le montrer :

La véritable unité !

Désireux de voir où se trouvait le vrai cockpit, Veig a suivi la lumière de l'esprit jusqu'à sa destination. Il s'est avéré qu'il se trouvait au centre de la scène tremblante, si loin que sa fonction zoom était tout juste suffisante pour le distinguer. Au sommet d'une plante particulièrement haute, ses yeux ont trouvé leur cible et se sont ouverts en grand. Il s'agissait d'une fille qu'il connaissait bien, debout sur le siège d'un cockpit ouvert.

"Vous demandez pourquoi j'ai fui ce monde sanglant, n'est-ce pas... ? ...C'est une question stupide, en effet."

Mais c'est une fille qu'il ne connaissait pas qui lui a murmuré. Ses yeux, embrasés d'un feu inextinguible, regardaient sa machine au loin. La fille, avec un morceau de ferraille en forme de marteau dans sa main, a parlé comme si elle déposait une déclaration de guerre. De son cœur, elle a dit son âme... pas des faits objectifs, mais ses sentiments :

"C'est parce que je méprise ce monde, vraiment."

Partie 2[edit]

Til’s voice, resolute, was yet like her limbs…jittery. She couldn’t help but tremble, because of what she saw down there from the open cockpit—Veig standing there in the venue that still quaked from the blasts—and because of the sparkling hammer in her right hand. Regardless—

“Don’t worry. We’ll blast off with you. We promised, didn’t we?”

“…Brother…always…keeps, his promises… Trust us, okay?”

—Sora’s and Shiro’s voices intoned from the seat in front of her, joyful but firm. And Til felt them holding her left hand tight. She broke into a smile to realize her trembling had somehow stopped…and she continued with her eyes fixed straight ahead on Veig’s machine, all the way through to the man inside.

“…I hate this country. I hate Hardenfell, I do.”

She reaffirmed her feelings—her belief. This arrogant world told her not to run. This

oppressive world told her not to be ashamed. Til looked up at its tireless way of life and sneered at it.

“I love the sky, I do… In this country…the sky is closed off, it is.”

The cave’s ceiling reminded her; lost and confused, she’d ended up in this dump before she knew it, and the world asked her, Why did you run? Now, Til knew the feeling of a hand in hers. Now, she knew another world—that of those two. Now, she could say it:

Ah…there never was a place for me here.

—Screw this place—!!

So—!

“I also hate the chieftain of this country. I hate you, I do…!”

The hammer sparkled ever brighter as Til’s words spilled out uncontrollably, with the pain that burned her up. What came back was a lonely, sorrowful chuckle. Til ground her teeth.

…She’d known—no, she’d had a hunch—that he’d say that. What he was saying. As if it was everything—

“I hate that…how everything’s just as you expected… I hate iiit!!”

Her voice impulsively swelled with the pain that only grew:

“I hate how you act like you’re so great, I do! I hate even more that you actually are, I do!!”

The dam had burst, and her feelings could no longer be contained.

“I hate how you advertise yourself as a genius, I do! I hate how I can’t argue because you actually are a genius, I do!! I hate how you look down on me, I do! I hate so much that it’s only natural because you’re above me, I do!! I hate how you’re so hairy!! You shaved too much, you say?! So what? Are you trying to rub it in? I wish you’d go to hell, I do!! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you—U-Uncle, you’re a pervert!! I hate you very, very, veeery much, I do!!”

«Whoa!! Come on, stop already or I’m really gonna cry! Goddamn!»

The momentum had flushed out everything Til wanted to say. Inattentive to the tearful begging over the comm system, Til caught her breath. As the shaking of the stage and the sparkling of her hammer and her pain all grew in speed, she wiped her tears. With a sharp, firm voice, she mulled over her words carefully and gave her answer:

“I hate you. That’s why I run. If that’s not enough for you to understand—”

Then in the spirit of the game:

“—I’ll sock it to you like this—and then I think you will understand, I do.”

Yes—seeing behind her eyelids the place the feeling of those two had taken her as they held her left hand, that black sky with a white bird, Til laid down the gauntlet sonorously.

“I fled to win—to honor my promise, I did.”

…A tactical withdrawal was made when one had a chance of victory… She had been just lost, but now it would be redefined—no. Each time another explosion went off, the spirits converged into her hammer, and it was that pain.

And now it had been redefined—!!

That pain had turned her conviction into that of the past. Til savagely swung her hammer as she—

—bellowed forth her soul with the stirring of a power beyond all normal conception throughout the venue.

“I fled for the sake of this day, when I’d surpass you, I diiid!!”

Partie 3[edit]

It was a power that all feared instinctively. The memories sleeping deep in their blood awakened. An outrageous power of a whole different rank, a whole different status, a whole different order of magnitude—quite literally a different level. The future brought on in the next few moments by this power beyond reason didn’t take someone like Veig to foresee. It was a strike from the heavens that sneered at every one of heaven’s gifts crawling atop the earth, judging them likewise of null value. No one could mistake that power. It was

a Heavenly Smite……

“Hey, whoaaa! I thought the Flügel wasn’t—hey, isn’t that against the rules?!”

From his machine—his cockpit—Veig screeched, blanching. Someone who wasn’t in the game—with magic that wasn’t even a seal rite!! His one eye searched in a panic for the Flügel, but in the next moment—

—he realized that the center of the crawling power…was Til’s hammer. And his one eye was opened by the roar over the comm system and the unheard-of shock that followed… Yes:

«Ultra-large-scale spirit-arm expansion—connect all!! Ariiiise!!!»

Til’s face wrenched in agony as she brought down the hammer. There was a flash as it bore through the cockpit…and through the plant below. With that, there came a moment of silence to the blast-stricken venue. And then…

“—?!!”

…a vertical oscillation unlike anything that had gone before tossed them. A heavy shock came from behind Veig. He dodged instinctively on the spot, but from the mass of metal that had only grazed him flowed a tempestuous soul.

……

A girl who wanted to imagine things that could not be imagined. A girl who wanted to fly though by no effort could she fly. Saying she could do nothing, she chased the bird in the sky for which there was nothing to do…

They said she was just running. They mocked that it was impossible. Her soul…

«I…knew it! …I knew it!! Better than anyone, I did…!!»

The transmission helped Veig crawl back to reality. But another—no, ten more—no, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand—innumerable storms of metal whipped through the stage and assaulted his unit like squalls.

Just scraps, they hadn’t much in the way of force or even speed. But every time the fierce soul contained in them scratched by his frame, it left residue. As Til’s voice, wheezing in agony, continued to come through, it pounded at Veig’s will, hard, so hard—

«So…you wanted me to live like you…? Fa-kew!!»

To live like them. Like a Dwarf. Without giving up. Without going astray or tiring. To try to overcome natural gifts. To live without shame or retreat. Indeed… Putting themselves on pedestals, though they couldn’t overcome Veig!! Looking as if they understood, talking as if they knew!! They’d called her rubbish, and then!! They’d all said it. They’d basically said this…

—Everyone else is doing it, so you should, too.

—You can dream you’ll be rewarded. Just do it—

—just shut up and do your work!!—

«I don’t like a world that tells me what to do… I hate it, I do!!»

I’ll never give in…

I’ll overcome the chieftain and destroy those dictates—!!

I’ll use measuring instruments and Elven theory. I’ll use anything to find a different way!

I’ll show him… So she thought…

«But…no matter what I did…I just…couldn’t find anything!!»

Just piling up failures. Bathed in error, lost, confused, making one mistake after another. At last surrendering to a false resignation, as paradoxical as ever. Unable to say anything in return… At some point…she came to think she’d forgotten those feelings, and just wandered, pathetically.

«…But—hee-hee… Now I know what to say—I do…»

Weeping, sobbing, yet the two souls grinned. At last Veig realized the true nature of the maelstrom of metal pounding his unit. And for the first time in his life, he said, It couldn’t be—he doubted his own intuition.

“……Hey… Ho. I must be hallucinating, ain’t I?”

He saw the whirlwind of metal converging. Not the ground shaking, but the stage moving. Not the metal flying, but just gathering. The parts, the catalysts were joining and coupling and assembling. The majestic waste disposal site was rising as one. The stage itself was wakening—and standing up. That was his impression. It was confirmed by Til’s announcement to everyone watching in Hardenfell, I’ll tell you, and the thing that towered before his eyes—a thing inconceivably gargantuan.

«You forge ahead without shame…as you will—but I, too…will do as I will, I will!!»

She’d led a life of shame—failing, contradicting herself, getting lost without end. Today, this moment, was what it had all been for, and for that she was proud. She trumpeted to all the world that had rejected her, just as they were taught:

«Shut up!! Your stupid world can eat shit, it can!! Pft!»

Having asserted her freedom to rebel, the girl crumpled. The siblings embraced her and kept her from falling. Veig gaped at last.

It wasn’t from finally observing the giant object towering over him. It was the girl held by the siblings in the now-empty cockpit at the top…the girl weeping tears of heartfelt joy that she was not alone—a girl beyond his knowledge, who looked down at a bird from heights beyond its knowledge…with a dazzling smile…beyond all knowledge.

«…Uncle, did you…ever imagine…this…?»

She asked him whether this was a sight that effort and sensibility could get to—and that moment, a torrent of violence descended upon Veig’s unit…

Partie 4[edit]

Neither Veig nor any of the Dwarves watching through all of Hardenfell had ever imagined it, most likely. However, aside from Dwarves…the three who were watching at Til’s hideout did not seem all that surprised. Their eyes still on the monitor, they spoke admiringly…

“…Wow… A city can walk, can it…? Oh, is that also a spirit arm?”

“To be more precise, it is a spirit-arm expansion connected to her hammer, on which she engraved my one-percent Heavenly Smite.”

“Observation: Height 9,700 meters. Length 74,200 meters. Cannon count 982. Definition: High-maneuver fortress class. Evidence of brilliance of Master. Excessive. Zero maturity. This unit loves that part of him, too… Blush.”

Steph knew those siblings… She’d imagined they’d do something unimaginable. No, she’d known it. So she watched the screen with a sense of resignation, as a shadow desperately ran from the storm falling from the mountain of steel…

Partie 5[edit]

At the venue, rain fell from the heap of scrap—torrential rain deep underground where there was no sky. Each drop sliced the wind, pierced the ground, and created a deeper depth below the bottom.

“What a little man you are, Veig!! You talk big, but you’re the one who’s smaaaall!!”

It was a hailstorm of scrap that accompanied the raucous laughter.

“You called this stage our hunting grounds?! What puny thoughts—what a tiny imagination!! As would be expected from someone so small-minded as to only appreciate big boobs—ah, it’s a veritable microcosm of your life!!”

“…You said…we could use any machines…and do anything with the venue, didn’t you?♪”

Towering with a sneer on top was a giant mecha of junk—of the unwanted. Of unvalued failures and rejected scrap.

This was the gathering place for the things that might have not been mistakes. This was their home turf, they indicated with a sneer.

“Who’s gonna take the time to hunt their prey after they’ve already lured them in?”

Sora uproariously exposed the truth that was now assaulting Veig.

“If you’re gonna lure in your prey, obviously you’re gonna go straight to a trap, aren’t you, you scrub?!”

It was a cage, a trap. The junk itself, the venue itself, the soul of a girl who had patched failure to error itself—

“Ladies and gentlemen—the venue itself is our machine!! How do you like that?!”

“…We of Blank call it…the Spirit of Mother Til…♪”

It literally looked down on Veig, nine hundred seventy times his size. Sora and Shiro cackled, back at the reins for their big counterattack.

—Come, O ye who declare yourselves infallible, those of the righteous world. Now our patchwork heap shall speak with iron and lightning and fire to test our Mother’s spirit. We shall now question the refuse that you have shorn away and discarded in your quest to forge. We ask: On what grounds did you reject us—?!

“Personally, I’m not as into the NEXTs as the Arms Forts built by average schmucks to confront them.”

In fiction, raw size is destined to be overthrown.

Which is how we know that reality is different!! Indeed—!!

“Raw mass is the secret to defeating genius, biiitch!! We haven’t designed this bullet hell with any place to hide! You trap ’em and smash ’em with sheer numbers! There’s no better tactic!! All you gotta do is win, baby, win!!”

In reality—overkill is all the better!!

Seated in the cockpit, Sora and Shiro controlled the massive body and filled the screen with projectiles.

«The fock?! How’d you get such a crazy machine?!»

Veig screeched as he just barely managed to demi-shift from one empty location to another.

«What kinda Dwarf has the power to run a barmy monster like that?!»

Between that and the Heavenly Strike, Veig was sure now there were some spirits involved far outside the regulations. He raged at their perceived violation of the rules.

……Ha. His opponents laughed in unison. They knew it: Dwarves were the perfect negative examples. After all, they were just half-right. Just as he guessed that the stage itself was their machine, but that wasn’t even close to enough. On Sora’s lap sat Shiro—and on her lap sat a girl whose face was scrunched in pain, but who still sneered with fearless irony—

“Chieftain… You ask that now? I couldn’t even start up our first machine without boosting, I couldn’t.”

It seemed he had still overlooked the trick in Shiro’s arms. Yes, it was the murmuring of Til, the real trick, most impossible of all—

“To begin with…I can’t even use magic without boosting, I can’t.”

«—Huhhh?!»

—that made Veig cry out in long-delayed recognition. Sora chuckled. Yes, a Dwarf so great as Veig probably couldn’t have imagined such a trick. Til, by nature, couldn’t even use magic, much less operate a supermassive spirit arm. For Til—

—WAS AS SMOOTH AS DOLPHIN—!!!

Dwarves used catalysts because of the spiritual overload caused by their mithril—to synchronize externally. But Til didn’t have that mithril!! She wasn’t subject to such overload, or even load for that matter!! That was why she used boosting… Yes…the hidden truth that astonished Jibril when Til used her shift. Til couldn’t use magic without boosting. Conversely, that meant she could if she used boosting…

…It meant she could use boosting. For example: She could chain boost to boost on the chain reaction of explosions of the huge number of demi-shift anchors they’d planted, funnel the spirits into her hammer on which she’d engraved a Rite of Heavenly Smiting, and synchronize it into her body! With the vast amount of spirits thus summoned under her control, she could operate this leviathan assemblage of parts, this scrap on the stage on which she’d engraved seal rites…!!

… Yes, if a normal Dwarf tried this, they’d blow right up. It would be impossible and meaningless. Just as Til said, it would be as perverse an idea as building an underwater breathing apparatus for a fish. But for such an abnormal dwarf, it was both possible and essential. For Til—

—WAS AS SMOOTH AS DOLPHIN—!!!

«Wha—? Wait, whoa— Niecey, don’t tell me yours still hasn’t growwwn?!»

“Heh…heh-heh, Ch-Chieftain…I’d like to see you burn in hell! I would…”

Listening to their exchange, Sora, to be honest, was fairly sure by now this was not the case. But he still insisted: they had to be talking about beards!! So anyway—!

“Heh, this is the difference in natural gifts… Bow before the absolute wall you cannot overcome, Veig!!”

«Fock!! How can a Dwarf’s body endure that shite? You wanna kill my fockin’ niece?!»

The transmission to Sora roared full of naked rage. Understandable. One percent of Jibril’s power—the power to run a supermassive machine like that—was as reckless as pouring rocket fuel into an automobile. Therefore…

“…Didn’t you say no mercy? A man’s word isn’t worth much these days, huh?”

«—!!»

…Sora saw that Veig was thinking of taking a bullet and losing the game for Til’s sake, and Sora stopped him, making a face. If Til died, it would probably spell death for Sora and Shiro, who were holding her, too. Til was barely conscious, but still she held firm to her hammer and smiled.

—Veig meant to lose intentionally.

This man didn’t seem to understand what a humiliation that would be—!!

“To hell with your patronizing sympathy!! This is a trap—there’s no place for you to hide and no room for you to choose!!”

Sora’s howl what seemed like a signal to that which sat somewhere in the supermassive machine behind the giant cannon that opened its mouth with a roar: another machine. Sora and the operator inside the additional cockpit announced savagely:

“There’s only one future: Til’s complete victory!!”

«Whyyy, it’s time for the showwwdowwwn.♥»

That moment, the light of the Holy Forge flashed from the barrel, and suddenly a metal glob blocked the opening. Connected to the muzzle, the object sparkled—and this time, Veig froze, mech and all. It was another legacy of the past that he could not mistake.

“Can you dodge a bomb? If you know a way, as a gamer, I’d very much like to know!”

A bomb indeed, leaving no place to hide. A bomb called…yes, that’s right:

…The E-bomb…

Partie 6[edit]

In the cockpit behind the blazing E-bomb was Fiel, smiling.

“Why, you’ll note that we’ve followed the rules to a T. And in a most sustainable way, if I might add.♥”

No magic other than seal rites. You lost if your core broke. And the players here were everyone…

“Anyone can very well recycle the unit we lost in, caaan’t theyyy?♥”

True, Til could connect and use Fiel’s unit. Also:

“Incluuuding the seal of protection of that boorish fire, and incluuuding the seal rites on the unit.♪”

Fiel had in mind the seventh player, and their fifth trump card.

They hadn’t bothered with any seal rites for the specs, but they had bothered with seal rites.

They had implemented an eighty-four-fold rite using the seal of protection of an Old Deus. And they’d used the Holy Forge, the power of Ocain, to enable shifting.

Til had subsumed Fiel’s unit and commandeered it under the protection of Ocain. And there was no rule that Til couldn’t use that thing shifted from her hideout!! Chlammy asked suspiciously of the merry Fiel, who occupied the same cockpit:

“…Fi, I’ve been wondering: Whose idea was it to use the seal of Ocain’s protection?”

She’d heard of the “rites of spirit-breaking” or whatever that they’d used in the War, such as Áka Si Anse—spells that used seal rites to call upon the protection of Kainas, creator of the Elves. But it was said they were no longer usable after the Ten Covenants. In that case, this thing Fiel produced must have been newly compiled, after the War.

…Who would have implemented a seal rite to call upon Ocain, of all gods? For that matter, even having grown up in Elven Gard, Chlammy had never heard of a spell that could un-quasi-shift such a large mass.

“Mmm, I don’t know, myself. It’s been the Nirvalens’ ace in the hole for generations.”

Fiel tilted her head. Yes, and they’d said this…

“They said trump cards are trump cards because you don’t reveal them until the showdown.”

Howeverrr… She gave Chlammy her greatest smile as she continued.

“Why, my ultimate trump card is you, Chlammy.♪”

Fiel had gone to such lengths as to reveal her family’s secret. She smiled at her best friend: They had lost—and that therefore was the victory planned. Chlammy beamed and reflexively looked away, embarrassed.

“If you say we can’t win…why, then we can’t win.”

Yes…from the moment Chlammy had concluded that they couldn’t win…

…Fiel had resigned from this game…

So, they had requested of Sora and Shiro a friendly token of appreciation for their friendly cooperation. It was a condition of the deal, in other words: No matter who won—

—Veig must be commanded to bear shame for the rest of his life…

“Whyyy, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you win!! Our objective is to convict that thing, the offender! In which caaase, it doesn’t maaatter who uses whose power to win. As long as the crook gets his just deserts, we have wooon!!”

Fiel’s bright demeanor made Chlammy chuckle.

“…Well, we do have to regret a little we didn’t make good on our chance to win directly.”

“But we must count ourselves blessed to have been able to pummel you a bit.♪ After allll—”

“Yes. We are really perfect outsiders to this matter. We’re not even friends, you know?”

As they snidely echoed Veig’s remarks, Chlammy had a thought.

—They could win an unwinnable match through someone else’s power. Then how might they answer an unanswerable question?

“We’ll make others answer for us… In other words, as usual, we win through sophistry.”

—Having had their past questioned: Have you paid your tab?

—They answered with their future: I will when I can…

……

“…And so the puppet continued building the sky… The sky only they still could not see…”

In the cramped cockpit, Chlammy smiled subtly as she gazed upon the sky before her. They’d opened it for her, for Fi, for Jibril, the Werebeasts, the Old Deus, and Ex Machina… And now…

“They’re opening up Til’s sky… Going on until they find their own…”

Partie 7[edit]

At last, brilliant, blinding light.

Til had gathered things from outside—welded them, forged them, patched them together in one wrong way after another. Now her fire melted them all together, and cast them as ingenuity, which she used to reach the sky.

“…Uncle…have I…kept…my promise…?”

The spirits raged, and her body ached as if it was about to break.

“Have I…reached a sky…that no one has seen before?!”

The heat threatened to burn out her spirit corridor junction nerves. But alas, Til smiled regardless…

“…Do you…want…to know…what it’s…like…?!”

By now, only one thing entered her muddied consciousness: the distant sky Til was sure she’d never imagined, and that no one else ever had—the feeling of floating in a deep, black sky, Veig too far behind to see, uncertain of whether he could hear the voice she wrung out, or even whether it was coming out at all—

Still, she’d fulfill the promise of that distant day. She’d vowed that she would surpass him—and promised something to the bird of that day. She spelled out the wish she’d held in her heart, that her words, her smile would reach their destination.

“You piece of shit, you’ll never understand, you won’t!! Serves you right, it does!! Pft!”

«Niecey!! You got to get back at me, huh?! Ain’t ya imitatin’ me?!»

Veig’s transmission came through at trace volume. Til did hear it, though, and she closed her eyes and grinned.

…Please. I’m about to fall under the delusion that I have become a bird, I do. But I know…that it’s just an illusion, I do. By tomorrow, perhaps even by one second in the future, I’ll be made to know

Very well then…!! Making mistakes is my only specialty—!!

—Assuming I can… Assuming that nothing’s impossible! I’ll fail again, and build up my mountain of mistakes, I will!!

She’d lose her way, she’d get confused, she’d blunder—and every time, she’d cry and wail and gnash her teeth in vexation! Til would take the long way around like a perfect fool, getting lost repeatedly, pathetically drenched in tears and shame. She might never even know if it had meaning. But there was a sight that could only be seen by taking that foolish path.

It could never be seen by those born with natural talent…by the birds that didn’t build airplanes.

It could never be seen by the birds that had never felt that obsession: I want to fly anyway. There was such an entertaining sight to see, to be found in a place no one imagined.

…I’m ready to make as many mistakes as it takes. I can say that now, I can…

And so, while Til went limp in Shiro’s arms—

“…Well, bet this is news to you smart folks. Here’s the common knowledge of the weak. Listen with gratitude, yeah?!”

—Sora howled at the shell of the E-bomb, which glowed like a star to announce it was ready for blast-off.

“…Generally speaking, things in the world don’t go the way you imagine…”

Just as they had sailed for India and mistakenly arrived in the New World; as they had tried to prove everything with mathematics and mistakenly refuted their mathematics; as they had built rockets to reach the moon and mistakenly dropped them on Earth…

…As far as humans were concerned, perfection was a waste of time. They’d mess it up anyway. To seek mere perfection wasn’t going to do it. Therefore—!!

“Your thinking is too damn small!! If you want to fly, you’re not gonna have a chance unless you have the guts to go past the damn moon and crash into Mars by mistake!!”

Well…yes…?

“Even if you get up and down backward, you might be able to go through the planet to the sky at the other side, right?♪”

You might end up with a result better than perfect, right?

«…You fockin’ with me? Shit—»

A man born with natural talent… A bird that flew by sensibility alone…transmitted back with a sense of awe at the unknown he’d never had before—or not in a long time at least.

Indeed…they couldn’t use the E-bomb. So he didn’t know what it was they were on the verge of launching. He didn’t know what it was to accomplish. He didn’t even know a thing about the heights where his niece floated now.

But even so! There was one thing he was sure about. He howled with a longing he’d never felt.

«So you’re saying you don’t know what the hell will happen. You’re bloody daft, aren’t ya?!»

If it might be the case that Til couldn’t take it—!! That instant, Veig’s unit appeared to get blown away and then vanished from sight. One soul raced forth through the air, with maneuvers uncapturable by Sora’s eyes, or by the venue’s cameras. It left no trace; the unit broken down, it raced past its limits, riding the force of a fist.

—I’ll overcome even that—

Detecting the single strike to end it, Sora smirked and answered inwardly.

—Yeah. That’s right! That’s how we live, as fools incapable of anything but straying and failing and erring. Bet it’s a breath of fresh air for smarty-pants jerks like you who live with all trial and no error, huh?

What’s gonna happen? How the hell would I know?!

“That’s why you gotta test that shit! That’s what we idiots call science!”

Sora sneered and activated the contents of the E-bomb in the muzzle, and a moment later Veig unleashed one soulful strike that pierced the shell.

Partie 8[edit]

It was a full-on collision of Veig’s and Til’s souls, entangling, stirring, radiating white. No one could tell whose soul it was anymore. Everything raced through the catalysts and through the minds of all present…

……

…The man had been born with outstanding sensibilities. Everyone knew him to be a genius. He too knew this, not as a matter of presumption or conceit, but as a proud matter of fact. He swung his hammer without guile, yet with ferocity. To create a work that was better—no, the best. An unprecedented masterpiece. A divine revelation!! He would enter that

realm only one before in the history of Dwarf, his ancestor, had laid eyes on. His eyes reflected the back of that genius who had laid his fingers on creation—the alteration of concepts. He would reach that extreme none had approached in six thousand years. The man who kept piling up successes was the second coming of that sublimity. Everyone was certain he would be the next chieftain. Amidst all this, the man was hurling invective at a strange kid who was following him around:

“Hey… Get lost already, would ya, fockin’ brat?! You’re gettin’ in the way of my work!!”

“I’m not getting in the way, I’m not. I’m seducing my future husband, I am.”

The one contradicting him as if it was nothing was, at the time, a little girl. The one who called herself his future wife.

“If you think I’m getting in your way, that just proves you have feelings for me, doesn’t it, Uncle? Doesn’t it?!”

“Niecey, you’re gonna stand there winkin’ and blowin’ kisses at me like some bloody fool? I’ve feelings, harsh feelings!”

She was the precocious daughter of one of his older stepsisters, and she’d taken an inexplicable shine to him.

“I ain’t got no interest in some kid who ain’t even got any hair grown in yet—can’t bear to look at ya. Piss off,” he commanded.

The child shuddered at the man’s sharp one-eyed glare.

That was that. Everyone kept their distance from him. His eye had the gift of ending the conversation. Even children always grasped the point that he lived in a different world…until then…

“H-how do you know that I’m smooth?! Have you seen it?!”

But this child shuddered because she suspected he had looked at her naked. Incidentally, this was the fifth time this exchange had occurred. In other words—

“You peeped on me?! You licked me all over with your eyes, how can I get married now, you should take responsibility, and then I’ll be the wife of the chieftain, what a way to marry up, it is! Come, come, come, Mr. Sir? If you’ll marry me, I can show you my body aaany—”

“I can see from your face you ain’t got no beard, all right?! Don’t blush. Why are ya strippin’?!”

“Ah!! No, I don’t want to be the wife of some pervert who lusts after children, I don’t!!”

“Listen to me, will ya?! Wait, didn’t you just say you were seducing me? What do you want?!”

No matter how he tried to get rid of her, she kept coming. The man clutched his head.

—The hell’s with this fockin’ brat? His niece had a strange way with words. But more than anything, it was his own sense of discomfort that confused him. Never having experienced failure or discouragement, the feeling was altogether unfamiliar to him. It would be a while before he realized it was his first experience of anger.

“…Listen, Niecey. I’m a fockin’ genius. And that makes me a bloody fine man. You followin’ me?”

“Ah! S-so you mean, when I marry you, I’ll be a fine woman?!”

“Argh, that ain’t it at all. This is the problem. You ain’t good for me, is what I’m sayin’.”

Back then, he had concluded thus:

“You’ll never be a fine woman.”


“…Uh-huhhh… What is a fine woman…?”

“First of all, she’s an adult with hair. You’re out of the question. And she’s a woman who fits me. Let’s see… So first, she has big boobs. And then, if her spirit-arm craft ain’t at least on my level, I ain’t messin’ with that, either. Otherwise, hmm, she’s damn beautiful and damn chaste and damn sexy as far as I’m concerned. That’s what it means to be a fine woman.”

“…Uncle, that’s just a fantasy woman, it is.”

“Rngh?”

“I-I—I mean, there are no Dwarves with big boobs, there aren’t! And everything after the ‘Otherwise, hmm’ is exactly what my aunts told me virgins fantasize about, it is! Uncle, are you a virgin? By the way, what is a virgin?!”

“Shut up! What’s wrong with an outta-this-world man wanting an outta-this-world woman? Those fockin’ sisters of mine!!”

And then:

“Heh, you’re hopeless, you are. I’ll just have to become a fine woman for you, I will.”

……Suddenly…

“In another thirteen, I’ll be an adult, I will. I’ll be downright bushy, I will!! I’ll be beautiful, and oh so chaste, whatever that means, I will! Then you just have to get me sexy, and that’s that, it is!!”

…the child whose pale blue eyes sparkled as she spoke started to feel extremely dissatisfied.

“I’ll do my best to make spirit arms like you, I will. If you just give up on the big boobs, I’ll be such a fine woman, right in front of you! And I’ll help you stop being a virgin, I will!!”

She smiled as if to ask: So what is a virgin? He thrust back feelings he didn’t understand himself—

“It ain’t happening. Such a good-for-nothin’ ain’t ever gonna get how to make spirit arms.”

…And that—

was the man’s first misreading…

“……A good-for-nothing…? …What? You mean me…?”

…What? What’s with those teary eyes like you can’t believe what you just heard?! The man felt ever more uncomfortable.

“Wh-why nottt? I-I’ll d-do my best, I will.”

“Your best ain’t gonna do it…!! Why can’t you see?!”

Ah—the child truly didn’t understand.

Dwarf was a race that created exactly what it imagined. But she didn’t see that she didn’t see what he saw. She’d never even imagined she might not have talent. The man stood bewildered as to why that was so uncomfortable for him.

“…I…I just don’t—understand, I don’t… A-after all…”

She rebutted between sobs.

“…Uncle, you don’t understand why I don’t understand, you don’t!”

And at last the man had his answer.

“U-Uncle—you can’t overcome the limits of your own imagination, you can’t!!”

“R-really…I’ve already surpassed your imagination, by being unimaginable to you, I have. I’ll make a spirit arm that surpasses you easily… S-see, I’ve won the argument, I have!”

…Indeed…the man himself did not understand the child. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what…she was crying about… The man she admired over all others had told her she was good for nothing. But she argued against that absolute pronouncement and declared that she’d yet overcome it, weeping and despairing while her eyes burned with blue fire. It was that paradox that baffled the man who never strayed or erred:

…He feared that unimaginable child…

…The man had been born with outstanding sensibilities. They grasped even that divine realm only his ancestor had seen. And thereby he became the first in history to reach the extreme that in over six thousand years no one had been able to approach.

And then? What next?

The man could only imagine following in the footsteps of his ancestor, but still he had a hunch. Given all this, what was it that his ancestor had seen before he reached this realm?

He couldn’t have been a normal Dwarf. He must have been different, something unreadable, incomprehensible, unimaginable… Rather like that well-endowed lady his ancestor was said to have loved…or—

“I—I promise I’ll make a spirit arm that surpasses you, I do.”

—like the paradoxical child declaring this irresolute resolution—

“…Arright then. Go make a spirit arm that surpasses mine and bring it back here.”

—to overcome six thousand years of Dwarven stagnation…and the limits of sensibility—

“I’ll be here waiting for the damn fine woman who can beat me. It’s a promise.”

—to become a damn fine woman.

The man and the child joined pinkies in a solemn oath. He didn’t understand what was meant by her eyes, which looked up at him holding back tears. But he decided that, until he understood, until he was surpassed—he’d be the finest man imaginable…to be a good match for such a fine woman.

But the child fled…

She was still a paradox, while he still did not understand her at all, running even as he chased. The days and months passed idly—until one day…

…the man fell right into the trap of two strange Immanities. The otherworlders were winning while running from their past. The contradiction made the man sure: These two would know why the child ran.

…And his hunch was proven right. However—

“…A damn ham-fisted resolution… I was the one running, huh?”

—as their consciousnesses melded and the man touched the soul of the child from back then, he laughed at himself. He’d been called out on his limits—and he himself had run from overcoming them.

And from trying to imagine why the child had cried that day. Her eyes, heavy with unease, had sought—

—someone to be her place of belonging, to take her fumbling hand as she looked up to that sky where she knew she couldn’t fly…in that darkness as deep as her will. That was all… The man shouldn’t have waited to be surpassed. He should have sought with the child a way to surpass his limits.

“… Really? Is that really how it is? You were running? Are you sure?”

In their melding consciousnesses, the sarcastic laughter of a young man interrupted their thoughts.

“You think falling into the junk heap with Til and becoming like Shiro and me is not running? You think that’s being right? Yeah, maybe it is. But maybe it isn’t.”

Was the man running from his tab? From the paradoxical child who hoped for what he couldn’t imagine? From his paradoxical self who tried to understand a child he couldn’t? Chasing after the child who fled against his sensibilities that told him it was impossible, going so far as to put us on the hook…

So, what’s the difference between running and running from running…?

Partie 9[edit]

And so…the impact that shook to the surface left the cave. The force that connected the parts of the massive body ceased, and pieces of metal fell like hail. Through the whirlwind of dust walked a man who carried an unconscious girl. A rusty man. His mithril had lost its luster due to spiritual overload, his hair and his beard now rusted over… But strangely it seemed to be the true form of a man with the surname Drauvnir. It seemed proof of the way of life of a fool, using and abusing himself to overcome himself, not knowing what would happen, unafraid of overload—the only one to overcome the limits of his race…

I won’t let her die. The man had sacrificed his frame and overcome his limits to save his niece. But then suddenly—seeing her unconscious in his arms yet unwilling to release her hammer, looking genuinely happy, her chest rising and falling dramatically in sleep, smiling—

“……Ha…ha…! Haaa—ha-ha-haaa…!!”

—the man at last collapsed, like his broken soul sword, spread-eagled over the ground laughing.

“…Ahh… My fockin’ niece beat me good… The future is hers… I’ve lost…”

Yes: Veig recognized his defeat. He looked up to the heavens—and at last, he and all the Dwarves watching the broadcast—

—saw…the sky…

An unknown sky, inconceivable underground…yet they saw it. That of which Til had spoken—just as that which had closed off the sky before had broken, for the first time in six thousand years, it was pried open—that which lay beyond the high blue sky…

“…You feel that, Veig Drauvnir? You see how small you are, how shitty your taste?” asked one of the shadows peering down at him. The shadowy figure glanced at the group that Jibril had saved the moment Veig’s core had broken.

“You gotta fight with people on your level. Sorry, man. You’re just not up to playing me yet.”

Ah, what a small man he had been. Veig looked up at Sora, seeing in him a very different kind of man.

“…Small boobs, big boobs, even humongous boobs; fake boobs and real boobs… They are all boobs…”

A big man… Such a big man. Sora eyed him calmly.

“If you claim to love boobs, how can you speak of right or wrong? Speak of love.”

The big, big man’s voice was so clear you could hear him all the way to nirvana.

“To reject boobs other than those of the uniform ponderous size you favor as fake, and to impose this view on others…”

No censure, no blame, no scorn or spite could be heard in his voice…only the sound of a man who had obtained enlightenment and imparted to the world the truth.

“To speak to such a soul is less than my soul is worth.”

…Dost thou find it wonderful? Then may it be wonderful. No one can violate thy freedom to so find it. Then why, in speaking thy feelings, shalt thou denigrate others’? Indeed…

“Ideal tits? They’re perfect if you work on them? Ahh, how small, how small!!”

It was he, Veig, who had lacked confidence. Whereas this immeasurable man, as vast as the sky, had stood from the beginning far beyond Veig, on a higher plane.

…He was one truly great virgin. Yes…

“If ya want ideal boobs, you’re not gonna have a chance unless you have the guts to go for the woman who goes way the hell past your ideals, are ya?!”

Ah…it was just as his fockin’ niece had said. The child that day had already surpassed him…and now she’d become a fine woman who surpassed his imagination. Sora smiled at this, too.

“…Yeah. It was my limit to pursue mere perfection.”

Veig felt he’d seen for the first time what that child kept yearning for. She hadn’t been looking at the birds. From the very start, she’d been looking at the sky in which they flew…

“…Ah, finally I can see what my fockin’ niece saw.”

That sky one wished for and longed for and pined for and yet could never imagine: that which he’d always pursued…the ideal big tits that surpassed the perfect… Ah, yes…

Bwoing…

Veig gazed innocently at Til as she slept, her rising and falling chest—her humongous boobs. Tits of such excess as to look a little unbalanced, allowing statuesque beauty to crumble. He smiled at this ideal he’d finally found, an ideal beyond limits. He was happy……

Partie 10[edit]

Indeed… Only two in history had seen that divine realm. A third who had opened the door without being able to see it was responsible for this by-product of a successful failure. In the E-bomb shell had been placed two false ethers to conceptually resonate.

“Hey—th-these are heavy; I can’t even stand! ‘Big’ doesn’t even describe these!”

“You see, Dora, this is the conceptual rewrite of ‘big boob(?) essence’—”

“Analysis: Bust value of woman of unknown name. Provisionally categorized under handle ‘megatits.’ Very niche support.’”

“What are you talking about?! These are going to turn back, aren’t they? I can’t live like this!”

“Why, I’m fine if we don’t turn back, insofar as I’ve happened to match Chlammy. ”

“You must be joking! Why do I have even less now?! I won’t tolerate having no boobs! Hey, Fi, saying your small boobs match me, are you indirectly dissing me?! Give me back my boobs!”

“Query: This unit’s bust provisionally categorized under ‘ample bosom’… Questioning conceptual rewrite of ‘big boob essence.’”

“You see, it is not ‘big boob essence’ but ‘big boob(?) essence’—”

And there the ladies cavorted, their boobs changing randomly. Exactly as in the experiment four days earlier, except that this time it worked without an explosion. The conceptual rewriter used Lóni Drauvnir’s “big boob essence” along with one other false essence. Yes, just the same thing had happened as four days ago—instead of an explosion, it was its by-product. In other words:

“To summarize, it seems to be as in the experiment of four days ago, when, according to the sublime teachings of my masters, I engraved on unprocessed essence a seal identical to that for the big boob essence and activated this unidentified essence,” Jibril rehashed for the two who hadn’t been there. “I posit that a two-way reaction with the big boob essence

has generated a composite conceptual rewrite.”

Indeed…the principle was unknown. No one even understood how conceptual falsification worked. Thus, even Jibril was unable to explicate or elucidate this incomprehensibility. But she described it in words in such a rough manner as was possible. So:

“In short—the conceptual rewrite is in the form of a question: ‘Are these big boobs?’”

“These clearly cannot be described as big boobs!”

“Yes, you see, it is ‘big boob(?) essence,’ such as to make everyone ask, ‘These are big boobs?’”

……

Partie 11[edit]

“For the record, this is the first and last time I’m gonna play Cupid for anyone, all right?!”

Sora paid no attention to the commotion. He took the hand of his sister, apparently the only one unaffected: Big boobs? Where?

“For God’s sake, I’m still updating my years alive and without a girlfriend!! And now I’m supposed to help some d00d land a heroine?! And not just any heroine, but the one and only—the real thing—the brown legal Loli monster girl!”

“…I hope you find…happiness.♪ That’s one heroine…out of the running…”

The siblings walked away. Veig heard them loud and clear. He grinned softly at the sleeping face of his niece, who still smiled happily in his arms.

“…Ho… Bitches, I’ve heard your answer… I feel your soul…”

There was something the otherworldly siblings had never spoken of to the end. They hadn’t put that answer into words, or even returned it in their souls. Indeed…

“I was wrong to question you. Thanks for showin’ me…the sky…”

He got the sense that if they could beat this game world, they could say they’d fled to win… So:

“Lemme help ya build the sky of your future. Let’s be bosom buddies.”

They’d overthrow this game world, its rules, everything. They’d beat the world. Just you wait.

We’re coming for you next, friggin’ Earth…












Références[edit]




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