Chrome Shelled Regios:Volume1 Chapter6

Chapter 6: On the polluted earth

"It" has been living inside the earth for a long time. Without moving, only ingesting polluted substances from within the soiled earth, for a long time.

Maybe "It" doesn't even have a sense of time, living beneath the surface without ever feeling discomfort, moving slightly between sleeping and waking to eat soil. Time is wasted away in slumber.

However, the time to awaken is approaching. Since "It" is already a Mature Form, living by consuming polluted substances is possible. But It's offspring are different. Since the larvae form are intolerant of pollution, they can't digest it. That's why they need unpolluted nutrition.

In order to thrive, it can no longer sleep. With the cracking of the earth, the signal to awaken begins ringing.

◇

The sounds of grinding pipes screeching echoes all over the place. The violent shaking of the floor causes Nina to lose her balance, but Layfon catches her by the arm.

For a moment, there was a sparkle on her face. Feeling that he just did something which shouldn't be done, Layfon thought of letting go of her arm. However after reconsidering it, he only stood up.(!)

"What...is this...?"

To overcome the sound of metallic screeching all over the place, Nina raises her voice. Otherwise, her voice won't be heard by Layfon, who is standing next to her.

"It's a Cityquake." (!)

Layfon also raises his voice.

"This is... a Cityquake?"

(Looks like this is the first time Nina has experienced such a thing.)Layfon thinks, as she looks at her surrounding with confused face.

"At first it was shaking up and down; maybe the city took a misstep into a ravine..."

Layfon carefully checked the pattern of the shaking. At first it was shaking vertically, and then it was shaking diagonally. The bucket and brushes that were near their feet are now sliding freely along the floor.

(If it took a bad step, maybe it's sliding into some kind of hole?) If so, then this was the worst possible situation. A city which cannot move is perfect prey for filth monsters.

Nina, who was momentarily overwhelmed by the shaking, has quickly recovered herself and shouts, "There should be an emergency call! We have to return, quickly!"

"But the floor is unstable! We can't move around yet!"

"Even so, we still have to go back!"

Nina shook off Layfon's hand and stood up, Kei running through her body. Using Internal-type Kei to enhance body movement, Nina runs between the gaps of the pipes, as if weaving them together like a needle.

"Ah, the hell with it!"

Also using Internal-type Kei, Layfon chases after Nina. Even faster then Nina, Layfon quickly moves forward, as if he is half-flying.

In front of him, Nina is running through a passageway suspended in mid-air.

"She's too reckless."

Although that is the shortest route to go to the surface, it is a risky action. At the moment, the passage is swinging left and right, as if saying it could collapse at any moment. As such, it wouldn't be strange if Nina, who is running with all her strength, suddenly gets thrown out from the passage.

There isn't even the time to use the stairs. Layfon is moving while kicking off the various pipes.

There wasn’t time to use the stairs. Layfon leaped upwards, using the pipes around him as footholds. Beneath the corridor was the center of the gears, where the Electronic Fairy resided. While chasing after Nina, he detected Zuellni on the edge of his vision, an existence pulsating with dim light. In the form of a child, Zuellni was gazing at the deep earth with a terrified expression. She was curled up, as if she was too scared and she was trying to hide in somewhere narrow.

As if she was peeking at some terrifying existence and hoping it wouldn’t surface…… and Layfon got his confirmation.

“Oh, no!”

Muttering, he jumped off the last pipe to land on the corridor.

“Wait up!”

Just as Nina was about to run past him, he again grabbed hold of her wrist.

“Let go! There’s no time to spare!”

“Yes! No time!” Layfon said, his anger matching hers.

Even the bold Nina paused, caught by his aura. She stared at him with wide eyes as he shouted. “This is an emergency. We don’t have time to laze around. If we don’t escape……

“What did you say?”

“Hurry up and head for a shelter. We need every single second we have.”

“Just what are you talking about?” she questioned. Irritation and annoyance filled him at her reaction.

(How could she be used to such peace!)

He just wanted to shout out in lamentation, but Nina still didn’t know anything. If it was Grendan, anyone would have known what Layfon’s expression was about. But this was different in Zuellni. Perhaps the other students here were the same. Just how many people knew of the real situation? The more he thought of it, the more irritated he became.

“Layfon!?” Nina’s angry voice called him back to reality.

He slowly let out his breath and tried to speak in a way that’d affect every corner of Nina’s body.

A simple and absolute message.

“The filth monsters are here.”

◇

The siren rang. Having heard of the information through the phone in his dormitory, Karian immediately left and went to the school building.

His destination wasn’t the Student President’s office. He entered a conference room in the middle floor of a tower that was surrounded by the Military Arts buildings. The few students in the room turned their gazes on him, including Vance.

“What’s the current situation?”

A thin and tall male student replied. “One third of Zuellni’s legs are trapped in the ground, unable to move.” His pale skin looked green.

“Can it get out?”

“Yeah…… it should be able to move on its own under normal circumstances, but now…… well, the legs are stuck.”

Karian addressed Vance. “How’s the evacuation going?”

“The City Police are evacuating the students, but it’s too chaotic, so they haven’t yet controlled the situation.”

“That can’t be helped. We don’t have enough people here who have had real fighting experience. But I hope you can speed up the evacuation as much as possible.”

Next he turned to the representative of the Alchemy course.

“Release the safety setting of all the Dites of Military Arts students, and please hurry and activate the city’s defense system.”

“We’re already on it.”

“Gather all the platoons. We must fight with them as the core.”

Karian once again looked at Vance, who nodded but voiced a question with a stiff face. “Do you think we can do this?”

Everyone looked at Karian.

The problem of an Academy City was that it lacked experienced fighters. Everyone in here was a student. There were no adults in any of the years, from seniors down to juniors. These factors caused the greatest pressure and doubts.

Could they safely pass through this crisis?

“Only a dead end awaits us if we don’t do this. Not only are the Military Students going to die, but everyone in Zuellni,” Karian concluded.

Everyone in the room was holding his breath. Once again, they understood the situation they were in. Under the shadow of death, no one wanted to say “let’s run away”.

Even if they escaped to the outside of the city, they still couldn’t survive on the polluted earth.

“We have to live no matter what. This is for everyone, no, also for our own future. Please understand this reality and move accordingly.”

Everyone nodded at Karian’s icy resolution.

◇

“…… The filth monsters?” Nina said after pausing for half a second. She had taken some time to digest his meaning. This told Layfon how serious her lack of alertness was in regards to the danger around them.

“How could this be! The city should be moving and avoiding the filth monsters. This can’t be happening……”

“A city can only avoid the filth monsters on the ground, and even that has its limit. What Zuelllni encounters this time is the matured mother form sleeping underneath the ground,” he told her his speculation.

The female filth monsters had eggs inside her body. The mother slept in a dormant state until the eggs matured into the forms of filth monsters. The young ones just hatched could not absorb the polluted substance, so the mother would provide them the nutrients she had stored in her body during her dormant state. If this still wasn’t enough food, the babies would devour each other. The mother would choose a few of the leftover ones and care for them till they became fully matured.

And even if that wasn’t enough, the mother would become food for her young.

The nature of filth monsters to reproduce and care for the next generation was this strong.

“The mother wouldn’t become food if there isn’t a need for it.”

If there was food close enough……

“What……”

Nina now understood his deeper meaning.

The people of Zuellni would become food. Nina’s hand trembled.

Horror? But……

“So please head for the shelter……”

“Stop it!”

Her reaction hit him on the face.

“You’re saying to evacuate? You’re telling me to run away!? Do you think this is allowed!”

He looked at her, lost. The light of Kei enveloped her, a symbol of her fighting spirit. He held his breath at the Kei that was more intense and beautiful than the Kei she had exhibited during the platoon match.

She was too naïve.

“What is our power for? What is the meaning of this power in us!? Isn’t this the time? Not for the fights between people, but for our survival. Do you think we are allowed to run away at this time? Stop joking!”

He knew why she was trembling. It wasn’t fear, but the drumming of the heart waving away that fear. Her honest and determined heart had overcome her horror. This was the drumming eliminating her fear.

And that was why it was so bright.

Layfon squinted at that brightness.

He never thought a person’s Kei could be this bright. He knew of someone whose Kei light was more intense than Nina, and someone whose Kei was fiercer. But he knew of no one whose Kei was the same as the Nina’s right here, exuding this level of light.

“…… You really are despicable,” she said in a low voice, suppressing her violent emotion. “You’ve great power. Why don’t you use it for something useful?”

Her eyelids lowered.

“I don’t know the terror of having nothing to eat. I don’t get it, so I can’t fully understand your standpoint with money. But even so, there must be something else that’s worth pursuing? There isn’t a need to use such dirty means to taint your strength and station? From your viewpoint, it isn’t wrong to purely chase after money. But for someone strong like you, you should be able to do something greater than what I can do? Won’t you be able to save many things? If the comrades you want to save are proud of you, then aren’t you also saving their hearts?”

Her words stabbed him like a knife.

The eyes of his comrades at the orphanage when he became a Heaven Blade successor.

Their eyes when he lost his right to the title of a Heaven Blade.

Their sudden change in attitude convinced Layfon that no one understood him.

He had been betrayed.

But could it be them who thought they had been betrayed?

“I’m going.”

“Wait.”

Even if you go, you……. He swallowed the other half of his words.

You can’t possibly win. He was dizzied by Nina’s Kei, but this Kei was just a symbol of her inner heart. A strong heart was no indication of increasing strength.

So what if he said this?

“If we don’t fight now, when do we fight?”

The words she left behind indicated her determination to fight. Besides, what if he stopped her? It was natural for Military Artists to fight against filth monsters – it was their mission given from heaven – the duty of those given Kei and psychokinesis. Anyone would think like this.

If they don’t fight, who would fight?

If it was me……

Layfon was no longer a Military Artist. Even though he possessed Kei, he was no longer duty-bound as he had given up the standpoint of a Military Artist.

He didn’t want to fight for the sake of others.

He made many wrong decisions in Grendan. The attitude of the people around him was a great shock to him.

“Who’s fighting for others……”

Having chased after Nina, he was now back on the surface. He strolled towards the dormitory, listening to the siren and the commotion of people evacuating.

“I don’t have a need to fight anymore,” he repeated again and again, as if chanting a spell.

The dormitory was empty. Of course, everyone had evacuated. The silence made him uneasy. He knew he had come to a place that he shouldn’t be in, but he had no idea where else he could go. He headed straight for his room.

Layfon changed into his Military Arts uniform. The fact that the weapon hanging from his harness calmed his heart mocked him. But since he didn’t enter a shelter, it was right to bear arms for self-defence. Even if it wasn’t for others, he had to fight for his own life.

The weight of the Dite had wiped clean his uneasy feeling, but this only created an unnatural feeling he had about his current situation. The dormitory was empty, and he was in here, doing nothing.

The unnatural feeling that he wasn’t on the field fighting filth monsters.

“Fighting them has become a habit,” he said, mocking his own wound. Back in Grendan, he could make extra money by killing filth monsters, so he was always ahead of everyone, standing alone in the battlefield. For some reason, the number of filth monsters was especially high in the paths of Grendan. The number of fights that Grendan had had could not be compared with other cities.

And that could be why Grendan was called the birthplace of Military Arts.

But this didn’t matter anymore.

“I don’t want to fight for others anymore…….”

He then noticed something was behind the door.