Apocalypse Witch:Volume5 Chapter2

Chapter 2

Part 1

Natalena Blast couldn’t breathe.

A blank area in her mind expanded to eat away every thought there.

The world looked blurry around her, but was that due to the tears in her eyes?

She shook her head with her back still against the wall. She could tell she would faint if she wasn’t careful. And if that happened, there was no way she could save Karuta’s group.

What was that about?

What did they mean a journey into death!?

“Dang.”

Natalena slapped her small hands against her cheeks to force her mind to face the reality before her eyes. She focused on what she needed to do.

Did she need to directly confront Karuta’s group? Of course not.

They were the Four Living Gods, the world’s strongest. Meanwhile, she was just another Crystal Magician. Remember when they fought at the Crystal Beach. It had been hopeless when it was 1-on-1, so what chance did she stand against all four of them? And who would save them if they forcibly stopped her before heading to their own dooms!?

(Let’s see, the time is…7 at night!)

Natalena checked her phone and clenched her teeth.

Karuta’s group had called this their final day. They had said they were contacting the human string pullers soon. She needed to assume they were dead if no alternative was found before midnight.

That only left 5 hours.

But it also meant there was still a chance to change their destiny!!

Natalena doubted it would be that easy. Karuta’s group wasn’t stupid and they weren’t saints. The world’s strongests had thought through every possibility they could come up with and still chosen self-sacrifice. The answer wouldn’t be simple enough for a Subcategory Regulation 1 to come up with it on her own.

Which meant…

(I can’t keep this to myself. I need to gather as many people as I can so we can all put our heads together!)

They each might not be a match for those four, but there would be so many more of them.

Second Grimnoah was a school. Why wouldn’t they rely on the power of numbers when they needed more?

But who could she get to help her here?

“First the teachers! With the grownups’ approval, the students will be a lot more willing to help out!!”

There was no time to waste, so she took off running.

The view past the side deck and across the dark ocean felt so very wrong.

A line there stuck straight up toward heaven.

That was the space elevator’s silhouette.

“Kh.”

(No.)

It felt like an ominous symbol of death now. The human string pullers were waiting there for the Four Living Gods. In order to sacrifice those four by ejecting them into space to draw the Threat’s attention.

(I won’t let that happen!! I don’t care if it’s selfish and, um, I’m willing to set aside the future of the Earth!! I couldn’t protect my sister…I could only watch helplessly as the worst came to pass. I refuse to let that happen again!!)

“Sophia-sensei!!”

“?”

Young Natalena slammed on the brakes when she spotted that nervous Subcategory teacher. The ship was resupplied on the Port Days, but the teachers must have returned to the ship. Natalena initially thought that was lucky, but she stopped herself. That word didn’t apply as long as the Four Living Gods were marching toward their doom.

She didn’t know how influential Sophia Firenze, who was carrying a lot of brand-name boxes, was in the faculty room. Actually, she could guess it wasn’t much. But the woman was still a teacher. She had to be far more useful than one powerless student. And Natalena had planned to talk to anyone she came across anyway.

As many as possible.

She needed everyone’s help.

“Please help me! Um, Karuta-senpai and the others, well, they said they’re going to contact the human string pullers!!”

Why was she so hesitant to come right out and mention the self-sacrifice and ejection into space?

Perhaps she still hadn’t gotten over the shock of learning of it herself.

(No, don’t do that. You need to face the ugly truth!! We can’t come up with a solution if you don’t mention the most important factor! Um, that’s how Karuta-senpai always does things!!)

And Sophia was far from calm herself.

She had gone pale before being filled in on the details.

“Oh…oh, no.”

“Sensei?”

“Um, Jane-san. I am, uh, in no position to fight the human string pullers.”

“Do you know something? Like, um, how to save Karuta-senpai and the others!?”

The teacher used Natalena’s usual pseudonym and Natalena nearly grabbed at her shoulders and shouted back at her, but then it hit her.

The woman was shaking. It was an unnatural tremor, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.

Sophia Firenze.

Wasn’t a weapons researcher named Chrisbart Firenze one of the human string pullers? This was a big deal for her in a different way than it was for Natalena.

“Argh!! That’s not a good reason! If a family member is doing something wrong, shouldn’t you do everything you can to stop them? Um, I will explain everything, but there really is no time. We can’t afford to be delayed because you’re too afraid to act!!”

“B-but…”

The teacher squeezed her eyes shut and spoke in a vanishingly quiet voice, but she threw out all the niceties of being a teacher.

She exposed her feelings to Natalena, no matter how ugly, pathetic, dark, and filthy they were.

“You all might think of the human string pullers as detestable villains, but no matter what the other 5.5 billion people out there might say, all I see is that kind uncle who gave me so many wonderful memories growing up.”

“!!”

Finding out a family member or a friend was a bad person was not fun. Having your suspicions confirmed was unbearable.

All that shopping during today’s Port Day may have been a way of distracting herself from her worries and nerves.

Anyone would feel that way, adult or child. That was why young Natalena did not scorn or insult the much older woman. Anyone who had seen the past battles would know that every person out there was doing everything they could to keep on living. That desire couldn’t be pretty or ugly.

“I don’t want to fight my uncle. In fact, I can only see this going badly whether I do or not. I’ll do anything else, even offer up my own life, so please let me sit this one out. I don’t want anything to do with this!!”

But that wasn’t an option.

That choice wouldn’t save anyone.

Natalena Blast understood better than anyone what failure here felt like. She wasn’t working based on assumptions here. She knew this from firsthand experience.

“I…”

The young girl clenched her teeth hard.

She gathered up what had been stewing inside her for so long – an empty dream that could never come true – and threw it right in the hesitant adult teacher’s face.

In other words…

“I wish I could punch my sister right in the face and stop her from making that mistake!! But Anastasia Blast, world’s strongest, isn’t here anymore, so that isn’t an option anymore and it never will be! But it’s not too late for you! Um, you can still stop Chrisbart Firenze. You can still stop your family member from making a terrible mistake!!!”

The teacher still didn’t know what it felt like to cross that line, but the young girl had crossed it and there was no going back.

Natalena knew how foolish and meaningless it was to try to find peace by turning away from the unbearably cruel reality standing in your way.

“You can still walk that painful path,” said Natalena, sounding thoughtful. Her small hands squeezed hard at the woman’s upper arm. “Nothing I can do can save my sister now, but, um, you’ve been given a free chance to achieve a goal that’s even more unreachable than immortality for me! Look into my eyes! Do you see the darkness there!? This will be you too if you screw this up!! Don’t you want to protect your irreplaceable family member!?”

She didn’t receive a response.

The teacher with the same name as one of the string pullers fell to her knees, clung to the girl, and burst into tears.

“I, sob, I!!”

“Yes.”

“I can really say I want to save him? Even though he’s, sob, one of the human string pullers manipulating the 5.5 billion other people!?”

“You can. I would do the same if my sister was still alive. Even if what she was doing is wrong. And you still have that chance. It’s not too late for you.”

Natalena didn’t think this adult was weak for letting her feelings out like that.

In fact, she felt people only walked to their own doom because they lacked the courage to let out their feelings.

Like Anastasia Blast of the Problem Solvers or Utagai Karuta of the Four Living Gods.

What if they had been able to say they were scared, in pain, and fed up with it all?

What if they had said they didn’t want to die?

What if they had asked for help?

Would things have gone differently for them?

Why couldn’t they do that when they were just as human as everyone else?

“Sensei,” said Natalena Blast, holding Sophia in her arms. She was young, but she was one of the people challenging a great unfairness. “I want to save Karuta-senpai from being thrown into space to draw the Threat’s attention. And, um, this has nothing to do with him being a Living God or the fate of the world. So will you help me?”

Part 2

Subcategory gym teacher Kiyosawa Hadome sighed.

He hadn’t needed to try to overhear those two’s conversation. It may have even been audible off the ship and in the port where the resupplying was still underway.

And he didn’t need to think very hard about this one.

Chrisbart Firenze.

Sophia’s uncle had paid for Kiyosawa Hadome’s tuition. Not everything had to be about the fate of the world or exacting justice. Your reasons could be a lot more personal. And what if someone you cared deeply about was making a terrible mistake? There was only one answer: stop that plan even if it meant marching up to the man and decking him.

Also.

He could never accept a choice that meant trapping those four children with grand reasons like “the future of the Earth” and “protecting humankind” and then throwing them out into space.

That only meant physically keeping so many lives from being lost, but that was not the same thing as saving the world.

Kiyosawa Hadome scratched his head with a big hand and muttered to himself.

There was only ever one path for him here.

“Stop being so stupid, you little brats.”

Letnahe Kurent, the silver-haired, brown-skinned teacher in a white military uniform, used her thumb to operate a special mobile device for operating with military secrets. Anyone with the proper knowledge would have known her uniform said she was a commander in the navy.

She was an Indian naval officer, a temporary teacher at Second Grimnoah, and part of the human string pullers.

She was also a sinful woman who was a mother of two and had yet to get over the pain of her first love.

(Now, then.)

She looked up from the small screen and turned her eyes to the many city lights shining in the night.

(Today is a Port Day. Most of the students will be on the island and will fail to notice what is happening. How can I make this announcement? Natalena-san and Sophia-sensei may think they can gather enough people by running around and shouting, but that won’t be nearly enough.)

The best option was to use the internet.

Second Grimnoah was full of secrets regarding Crystal Magic, but they could not keep people from talking. Letnahe was aware the students had a few unofficial communities set up online. By spreading information on a few of those groups, it would spread to the students in the city.

“And that sounds like a job for me. Leaving it unclear who is betraying who is just how I do things.”

She was a sinful woman who would do anything to achieve her goal, so she had a habit of reminding herself of the core reasons behind her actions. She knew better than anyone that without that core, she would become no more than a disaster shaped like a woman.

Kiyosawa Hadome had decided to do this, so she would support him in secret.

For that, she was willing to betray the human string pullers.

Yamane Deiri nervously peeked down a narrow street filled with toxic neon lights (while carelessly still in his uniform), but he realized something just before deciding to take the next step toward adulthood. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“Yo, Hirosuke.”

“Wh-what? I’m trying to check out all the must-see sights. Like that beach there was the model for the swimsuit episode of Cluster Wars. Yeah, that was the legendary episode where, not only did it give you little girls frolicking on the beach in their swimsuits, but it also put a lot of care into the discrepancy between their swimsuits and their tan lines.”

“What I find impressive is how they can stick a swimsuit episode into a robot anime where they’re always battling out across the solar system and it somehow doesn’t feel out of place. Anyway, Hirosuke, what did you think this Port Day was all about?”

“Eh? A morale boost before the final battle with the Threat?”

“Right?”

Yamane Deiri waved his phone in a skeptical fashion and let his awful friend see the small screen.

“But check this out. That bastard Karuta has decided to do something stupid even though we’re all ready to fight alongside them.”

“You mean he’s fighting to save the world singlehandedly so he can become the idol of every little girl not just on the planet but in the entire solar system? He’s just like that dense Cluster Wars protagonist and his victory harem. K-Karuta, I’m not letting you hog all the little girls to yourself!!”

The Four Living Gods had apparently been searching for an option other than being ejected into space. Deiri and Hirosuke exchanged a nod and turned back toward the port. They saw two other people in school uniforms running in the same direction.

Those two were Matsuda Imi and Hashizaki Tayori, the popular girls from their class.

“Oh, you too?”

“You bet!! I’ll protect you, little girls!!!”

“Take back that ‘you bet’ until you’ve learned how to actually communicate. …So, Yamane, Nekoumi’s complete inability to hold a human conversation has me worried, but, um, the two of us still live in the same spacetime or dimension or whatever, don’t we? We’re not from completely different worlds that just so happen to exist in the same location?”

“Matsuda, where did you pull that fantasy worldbuilding from? You have nothing to worry about. The only hearts I’ll be winning are those of every young woman in the world.”

“Ugh,” groaned Matsuda Imi, giving up.

Gyaru-ish (but motherly) Tayori gave her staggering friend some support and took over the conversation.

“We can’t let Marika go through with this. And this isn’t even about the Four Living Gods. The three of us only just mended our friendship, so it isn’t fair for Marika to leave us again so soon.”

“What she said. …Damn, Tayori stole all the good lines from me.”

Imi sounded like she was teasing her gyaru-ish friend, but she was probably serious.

People generally assumed everything would work out. Since everything had been fine yesterday, they assumed the same would apply to tomorrow. But their past battles had told these students that wasn’t true at all.

But that also meant that, if you took action and put together some kind of plan for dealing with the problem, you could change things.

“God, the problem with those world’s strongests is they’re so strong it makes them fragile.”

“Oh? That’s awfully insightful for you, Yamane-kun.”

“Don’t worry. I’m ready to deal with this. I-it’s time to save Karuta-kun and win the adoration of all the little girls that fawn over him. Like Aine-chan and Jane Ignition-san.”

“Is that all you ever think about, Nekoumi?”

But they had established an important definition here.

The Four Living Gods were a single group of four.

If they were going to save that group and pour all their efforts into that attempt, they needed to count Crystal Girl Aine as part of that group and do everything they could to save her too.

Yamane Deiri, Nekoumi Hirosuke, Matsuda Imi, and Hashizaki Tayori exchanged a silent nod.

She wasn’t just a type of Crystal Magic.

They didn’t even need to get Karuta’s opinion on the matter. Aine herself might define herself that way, but the students who had shared a classroom with her knew better.

Then the student council’s redheaded bob cut girl spoke to them.

“You four.”

She too had to have someone she wanted to protect. Like that student council president who always seemed so perfect because she never let anyone see her vulnerabilities.

It didn’t have to be someone who had shared a classroom with them.

There was an entire world of interconnected people out there.

“It doesn’t really matter, but do you think everyone returning to Second Grimnoah right now is thinking the same thing? I suspect the entire student body agrees with us. I don’t know where whoever started this intends to hold their strategy meeting, but don’t you think that place will end up overcrowded?”

“Are you kidding? So the final battle is going to require a lottery or numbered tickets? Hurry, hurry! We’re already running late!! We can’t give that bastard Karuta any more reason to abandon us than he already has!!!”

The Subcategory and Main Category reacted exactly the same.

Even the teachers joined them for the same reason.

They walked at first, then some of them began running impatiently, and finally some began flying from the city with their Crystal Magic presets, forcing the public morals committee and teachers to blow their warning whistles.

Everyone was already gathering together.

Gathering together and approaching Second Grimnoah.

Part 3

Such a large number of people would never fit in an ordinary classroom. Sophia Firenze, Kiyosawa Hadome, or some other teacher had granted permission to use the gym, but ordinarily, the Subcategory and Main Category students used different gyms.

They were packed in tight and those who couldn’t fit had to use their Crystal Blossom transmissions or watch webcam footage on their phones or tablets.

So many people were willing to go to those lengths so they could help come up with an idea.

(Good.)

Natalena Blast was not the world’s strongest. She had always been a timid girl without the guts to hold a microphone in front of a large crowd.

But things had changed.

She couldn’t let her nerves hold her back. If they didn’t come up with an idea now, Karuta’s group would die in a moving act of self-sacrifice.

So she did not hesitate to stand on the stage at the center of attention.

“Um, to start with, I wanted to ask about something.”

The student council’s redheaded bob cut girl was familiar with the school equipment, so she had handed Natalena a microphone that Natalena now used to gather everyone’s attention.

“Is the Threat situation really that bad? Um, the Four Living Gods aren’t the only ones who can fight. What if we sent out every Crystal Magician here at Second Grimnoah?”

They had in fact fought the Threat, both real and fake, in a group battle before. That meant the Threat could in fact be defeated by human hands.

However…

“That would be difficult.”

This new speaker had to be in the gym, but Natalena couldn’t locate her within the large crowd. Based on the voice, this was Letnahe Kurent holding a microphone somewhere in here. She was the new dance teacher who inexplicably chose to wear a navy uniform.

“You did battle the real Threat to retake Second Grimnoah near the Port of Kobe. The number of Threats there, including the smallest units, was likely somewhere between 10 and 30 thousand.”

A deep mechanical noise sounded.

Someone from the drama club must have finally located Letnahe because a large spotlight affixed to the second-floor railing shined down on her. It wasn’t that dark in the gym, but showing everyone who was talking helped the conversation run more smoothly.

Everyone was here because they wanted to protect someone.

Natalena gave the drama club member operating the spotlight a wave of thanks.

“Th-that’s right. 1000 Crystal Magicians can defeat tens of thousands of the Threat. So, um, i-if we all work together…”

“Meanwhile, the number of Threats gathering outside the atmosphere is more than 300 million.”

“…”

“And that is only that we know of. It may be even more. At that point, it doesn’t even matter how strong each of you are individually. Your numbers are too few to defeat the Threat.”

Plus, there was no rule requiring those 300 million Threats to attack a single place at once.

What if they orbited the Earth while descending upon the entire northern and southern hemispheres at once? The battlefront would be so large that a group of only 1000 could never hope to engage them all.

If they only had to defend Second Grimnoah floating in the ocean, they might be able to hold out for a while.

But that was not the same thing as protecting the world.

Second Grimnoah itself ran on a giant diesel engine The fuel for that and the food, water, and other supplies for the occupants had to be acquired from land. They could not drift endlessly on the ocean without resupplying, so their defeat was only a matter of time if the ordinary world were destroyed.

The situation could hardly be worse.

But they had already known that.

“Um, then let’s get started.”

Natalena Blast gripped the microphone in her small hands.

She calmed her racing heart and raised her voice to protest the world’s unfairness.

“I’m not asking for something guaranteed to work!! Um, just give us any theory you can think of!! We can think about how realistic the ideas are later!! We can’t let the Four Living Gods get away with this. The way they’re throwing away their lives is a mockery of human life including our own! So we need to correct that mistake even if it means attacking our fellow students!! So give me your help!! Give me Second Grimnoah’s help!!!”

Part 4

First and foremost: no one could defeat the 300 million Threats arriving from space.

So what methods remained to save the Four Living Gods?

Part 5

The 7000 Years Theory

“Okay, our top batter is me: everyone’s idol, Imi-san! Let’s start by discussing the Crystal Magic presets we can all use.”

A popular Main Category girl took the microphone in the crowd. Was that Matsuda Imi, who was friend with Karuta’s group?

“More specifically, you know how we won’t die even if we do take a lethal injury? The regeneration preset lets us heal any nonlethal injury in only 30 seconds, but even something that would have killed us only turns us into a crystal statue. And we’ll recover from that after a long period of time.”

“Hold on. You’d better not be saying you’re okay with letting Karuta and the others go off and die because of that. That recovery takes centuries if not millennia. If any of us is lethally injured, none of us will ever see them again.”

The mocking rebuttal came from the delinquent boy named Yamane Deiri.

And Sophia Firenze delivered a further attack.

“W-we also don’t know if the regeneration will work if they have been thrown out into space. They might end up stuck in an endless loop of coming back to life and then immediately dying again because they’re out in the vacuum of space.”

“Yeah, I know☆” Matsuda Imi didn’t seem bothered by their remarks. “But don’t you see a loophole there?”

“Um?”

Natalena gripped the microphone up on the stage, but couldn’t come up with an actual answer.

They didn’t have much time and she wanted as many ideas as they could get, so she wanted to shorten the time spent judging the crowd’s reaction. Imi appeared to understand that because she winked and continued.

“Listen. Sure it might be millennia for the living people waiting for them to recover, but it’s instantaneous for the person who died. It would feel the same as going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning. So what if we had every student and teacher killed with the exact same severity of lethal wound? Whether that takes centuries or millennia to recover from, it would feel like only an instant before we all woke back up together.”

Who was it that gasped in realization?

Matsuda Imi shrugged with the spotlight pointing out her location in the crowd.

“Marika and Karuta-kun seemed pretty attached to the students from the first ship, so if we calculated out what kind of wound would match our recovery time to theirs, we could kill two birds with one stone. For example, that Kazamuki Gekiha guy isn’t supposed to recover for 7000 years, but if we match our timing to that, we could instantly travel to that point 7000 years in the future and everyone from both Grimnoahs could meet each other with no more injuries. How’s that for a happy ending!?”

“I-I think that could actually work,” said Nekoumi Hirosuke.

“Not quite,” interrupted Letnahe Kurent. “What happens to the Threat in that scenario? That is meaningless if all of you Crystal Magicians wake up to find the 300 million Threats swarming the Earth. You would be right back where you started. Worse, really, since all civilization would have been destroyed by that point.”

That problem still remained.

However…

“Then let me ask you this: what do those 300 million Threats use for food or fuel?” asked Imi.

“…I see.”

“With that many of them, keeping them fed or fueled can’t be easy. In our fight against them near the Port of Kobe, we saw signs of them passing supplies on the ocean floor, but they don’t seem to eat or drink the resources already on the Earth. That means they can’t become self-sufficient on this planet. 300 million of them is a devastating force and they will quickly conquer the Earth if nothing is done to stop them. But I get the feeling that wouldn’t last long. Granted, my mind can’t perfectly simulate what the world will be like 7000 years from now, but I doubt the Threat will still be walking around.”

There was actual applause.

Not thunderous, but not scattered either.

However…

“Yes, that is a fair point.”

There was a loud scraping sound as someone roughly scratched his head with a large hand.

The interruption came from Kiyosawa Hadome, the gym teacher who made a point of playing the bad guy when it really mattered.

“So let me tear it down with a dose of reality. Your plan may give the Crystal Magicians of Second Grimnoah a path to survival, but what about the other 5.5 billion people out there.”

No one had a response.

They even swallowed their gasps of realization.

“So we instantly wake up 7000 years in the future and the 300 million Threats can’t survive long term, so we can all live happily ever after in the distant future? That’s an awfully self-centered idea that pretends the intervening time just doesn’t exist. So what happens to the powerless 5.5 billion who we’ve abandoned to their fate? You predict the Threat will die off on their own, but are they really the only group that would go extinct on the planet during those 7000 years? I seriously doubt it.”

“Sensei, I won’t deny it’s self-centered, but I do have a rebuttal.”

“What, that we don’t need to care what happens to the kind of people who let themselves be manipulated by the human string pullers?”

Kiyosawa Hadome shut down the rebuttal by giving it in advance, so Matsuda Imi shrugged.

Those who agreed with that argument would be fine with the idea.

But there would be some who didn’t agree.

“Fine, fine. I withdraw my idea!” Matsuda Imi didn’t seem to mind all that much as she raised the white flag. “I’d be fine with that if it was just me, but Tayori’s got a big family with lots of siblings and there’s no way I could convince that homemaker gyaru to abandon them. Besides, Kurent-sensei, who teaches dance for our Main Category, isn’t even a Crystal Magician, so it would be narrowing ‘us’ down to only ‘the Crystal Magicians’. That means we couldn’t save everyone that way and Second Grimnoah would be missing someone afterwards. And Crystal Magic requires an aptitude, so not everyone in the world can use it. I understood all that already, to be honest.”

The silver-haired, brown-skinned teacher cleared her throat.

That may have been a way of warning the drama club member to not shine the spotlight on her.

“Assuming the Threat cannot teleport or warp, they must have spent a long time traveling through space. That means they can last a very long time without resupplying.”

After listening to Kiyosawa Hadome’s last point, Matsuda Imi winked at him with the mic in hand.

“But it was nice, powerful idea to start us out on, wasn’t it? Feel free to make the next theory even more out there. Now, then! We have to save Marika and the others before they can go off and kill themselves when no one asked them to! Stop worrying if it’s realistic and grab the mic!! You shot down my idea, so show me you’ve got a better one yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect cause we might be able to combine several rejected ideas to reach a viable one!!!”

Part 6

The Live Among the Threat Theory

“I’ll go this time. Now that Imi’s gotten the ball rolling, I’ll go with something really out there, just like she wanted.”

The next to take the mic was the gyaru-ish girl named Hashizaki Tayori.

“As I’m sure you all know after fighting the Threat yourselves, they tend to be pretty big. And they’re made of metal. The teachers would probably know more since they actually dismantled and looked inside that one called the Armored Warrior, but the point is their corpses don’t rot.”

She did not receive any kind of response.

She didn’t know what the teachers had seen, but it may not have been something they were keen to remember.

“They kill humans on sight. We still don’t know why that is, but we know it’s true. But they seem to have some level of camaraderie among themselves. Well, there are some ants that will resort to cannibalism when they’re mad, so we can’t fully trust in that.”

“You aren’t suggesting what I think you are, are you?” asked Yamada Deiri, but Tayori ignored him.

“We’ve defeated quite a lot of Threats at this point and we would have recovered their corpses too. So we just have to wear those. At the very least, that should reduce the frequency of attacks a lot more than as undisguised humans.”

They would hand Earth over to the Threat.

On the condition that the Threat did not attack them.

Kiyosawa Hadome led the rebuttal.

“There aren’t enough of them for everyone. And like I said, I can’t accept a plan that abandons the other 5.5 billion to die.”

“That’s true, Sensei, but a lot of the Threats are big. What if we look at it more like public transportation, such as buses or trains, instead of anything personal? That introduces the question of where us humans would live most of the time, but as long as we had a largescale hideout, it would work.”

The idea was based on a lot of assumptions, but it did make sense. And even if they couldn’t agree to it immediately, some part of it could be combined with aspects of the other theories proposed later on.

So far, anyway.

“B-but in that case.”

“What is it, Nekoumi-kun?”

“We have no real guarantee that would fool the real Threat. We might look a lot like the Threat with the defeated shells around us, but that’s only from our point of view, isn’t it? I’ve heard that a flower that has evolved to have bugs carry its pollen will show completely different patterns under a blacklight. To know how good a disguise this would be, we would need to know exactly how the Threat views the world.”

“How is that a problem if we’re using real Threat parts?”

“They might change after death like a flower’s colors fading when it withers after being cut from its roots. When humans die, we rot and become something else entirely. Really, it would be unusual if they didn’t change.”

This was not limited to the ordinary five senses.

For one, the Threat wasn’t human. They might have further sensory organs. They could have a sensor that detected radiation or a sixth sense that detected neutrinos. If they had X-rays or terahertz radiation that let them see through objects, they might be able to see right into the giant shells being worn as disguises.

“The Threat strengthens themselves by tearing away the usable parts from the unmoving corpses we create. We saw that with the decoys and the real ones inside Second Grimnoah. Th-that means they have some way of distinguishing between a living Threat and a dead Threat. Wearing a stolen shell sounds really dangerous to me because they’re sure to notice all sorts of things we wouldn’t. From their viewpoint, wouldn’t we look like a monster walking around wearing human skin?”

To avoid that, they would need to know how to distinguish between a living Threat and a dead one. And from a Threat perspective, not a human one.

“Not to mention that the Threat might not be more accepting as we approach the right answer. I mean, we humans think stylized anime figures are cute, but we find hyper realistic mannequins to be creepy.”

“I don’t like you applying that first part to all of humanity, but is that really how it works?”

“I can sleep like a baby and have the sweetest of dreams when I have my favorite body pillow with me, but I would be terrified if I found a strange mannequin in bed with me. I wouldn’t get a wink of sleep.”

“???”

With 300 million Threats pouring down all across the planet, they wouldn’t have time to figure out how the Threat worked.

Especially not to a point that they would know what the Threat liked and what the Threat found to be creepy.

“At the Port of Kobe, we saw the Threat flashing lights on their bodies in a regular pattern, right? What if we set up LED lights to flash in that same way?”

“A-again, we only know what that looked like from a human perspective. What if they actually communicate using chemical scents synthesized using those lights? Our scentless Christmas lights would stand out and get us attacked even faster.”

Part 7

The Dimensional Leap Theory

Letnahe Kurent sighed while watching the students and teachers grabbing for the mic and then debating their various theories.

There was more to it.

That teacher in glasses and a white military uniform clenched her teeth.

(That one idea was based on the assumption that Kazamuki Gekiha and the others from the first ship will wake up in 7000 years, but that isn’t even true.)

That was only the official story.

It was a solid enough story that even Utagai Karuta and Amaashi Marika of the world’s strongests believed it, but it was in fact only a false story released to the public. And the key to survival in this thoroughly rotten world was to always question the major assumptions everyone believed to be true.

Letnahe had discovered the truth after doing some digging from the human string pullers side.

(Omotesandou Kyouka is lying to them. I had my suspicions before. She doesn’t use that wheelchair because of her old wounds; she uses it because she gave up her own recovery to boost the recovery speed of the first ship’s victims.)

Their recovery time of over 7000 years had been reduced to less than a year.

And not just one of them like Kazamuki Gekiha – this was every teacher and student on that ship, which meant hundreds of people.

The fact that the president could accomplish that was frightening, but that opened up a loophole.

What if Omotesandou Kyouka regained her full power?

(She is currently the only Regulation 3 in the world.)

Much of the rest was guesswork on Letnahe’s part.

As part of the human string pullers, she had the special privilege of extracting all sorts of hidden information from around the world, but that also meant she was an outsider when it came to Crystal Magic.

(Supposedly, her full power would let her pass through the dimensional barrier. Assuming that isn’t a bizarre bluff, it shouldn’t matter if she is thrown into space. I am not talking about long-distance movement by breaking the lightspeed barrier. They could instantly leap to another habitable planet and survive there.)

Letnahe did not buy for a second that girl was powerless.

She had seen the girl use a strategy that required slowing the arrival of light and sound while remaining seated in the wheelchair.

Of course, that idea shouldn’t have been feasible either.

Even if they could leave the solar system, how far was it to the nearest star? If they traveled there, would they find a miraculous planet with enough water and air for people to survive? If you had enough resources to travel centuries at the speed of light, it would be a lot easier to build a fully artificial planet rather than search out a habitable one.

But the president could skip past all those problems.

She was the strongest Crystal Magician and she could teleport or warp without any kind of tool. If she had a large radio telescope with parabolic antennae lined up in the desert or a space telescope and she used them to search out a few planets with sufficient water and air, she could ignore the distance between them and arrive in an instant. The Threat might pursue, but that would take a considerable amount of time if they could not break the lightspeed barrier. Karuta’s group might die of old age before the Threat caught up and they could always leap to another planet if necessary.

That meant the Four Living Gods would not die after being ejected into space and the Threat would be redirected from Earth, saving the other 5.5 billion people.

It sounded an awful lot like a happy ending.

“Unfortunately, it isn’t an option.”

A nearby student gave her a puzzled look, so Letnahe cleared her throat. She organized her thoughts in her head from there on.

(That plan requires giving up on the hundreds of teachers and students killed on the first ship. That girl abandoned her power and accepted the inconvenience of life in a wheelchair, so I doubt she would compromise on that. The kind of woman who is willing to do anything will never back down when it comes to the core of her conviction. I know because I am the same.)

Letnahe concluded her idea wouldn’t work.

If the Four Living Gods were willing to let others die as long as it saved them, they would have had plenty of alternative options. For example, the 7000 Years Theory that Matsuda Imi had started with and everyone had concluded wasn’t an option. It would be a problem for Hashizaki Tayori because she had a big family and for Letnahe who wanted to save her husband and children more than herself, but the Four Living Gods could have emotionlessly abandoned everyone if they wanted.

They could be cold.

They could list out each problem they were facing.

They would not get complacent because they were powerful.

The four of them alone had defeated the Problem Solvers.

And that had given them the position of world’s strongest.

With that cunning and talent for finding loopholes, the idea had to have occurred to them. The 7000 Years Theory, the Live Among the Threat Theory, and everything else being debated here would have already been discussed by those four. Letnahe was curious how much that wicked schemer Omotesandou Kyouka had revealed to the others at the end, but she would have at least considered and rejected the Dimensional Leap Theory in her own head. Letnahe would have been surprised if they hadn’t come up with and rejected 100 or even 1000 theories she hadn’t even considered.

The first ship’s victims would die when Omotesandou Kyouka did, but she was apparently still unwilling to pull the trigger herself. That suggested she operated on more than pure logic.

If all four of them hadn’t been working in vain to find an alternative this whole time, they never would have all arrived at a conclusion as ridiculous as self-sacrifice.

A greedy desire for survival was not necessarily a beautiful thing. It always meant forcing death onto others, so that went without saying.

But after so much fighting and being hoisted into the position of strongest, those four had to know better than anyone that this was a cruel world where you could never find victory if you didn’t throw out all your nice-sounding ideals and where you would be devoured the instant you let up on the reins.

(They aren’t focused on their own survival. They aren’t placing that as their top priority.)

Letnahe watched the heated debate with icy eyes.

She already knew what the end result would be.

With an optimistic outlook, there would be options left to explore.

But those four would never choose those options. Not because of their strength and not because of their virtue. They had simply been backed into a corner where that wasn’t on the table.

The human string pullers had set everything up to manipulate the world’s strongests in that manner.

(That would explain why you are stumbling so badly when you normally always win, Four Living Gods.)

Part 8

“Hello, hello! Welcome to the global broadcast!! This is Delane!! It’s time for Gold Medalist, the super popular show where I have intense interviews with all those winners in life! Man, wouldn’t it be great if it was me, Cinderella Queen, being interviewed on this show one day!? Anyway, this here is today’s guest. Say it with me everyone: Peeendet Denpasarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

Things on TV were as lively as ever.

Two familiar faces were currently displayed on screen. One was Cinderella Queen, the edgy(?) child star who had done commentary for the Catastrophe. The other was a girl of 16 or 17 seated on the one-person sofa across from the younger girl. She had gorgeous blonde ringlets that clashed with her outfit of a tank top and baggy dance pants. She wore thick basketball shoes on her feet. That was Pendet Denpasar, Karuta’s opponent in the final match of the Catastrophe tournament.

That made her the current #2 in the world.

In other words, she was the next bullet to be loaded as the world’s strongest.

Curly twintailed Marika actually laughed bitterly while lying on the student council room sofa.

“An interview, huh? I bet she’s confused. Ah ha ha. Look at those tears in her eyes. She’s like a scared little mouse. She couldn’t look more uncomfortable on that little sofa☆ God, she’d have looked a lot cuter heading out to the tournament looking like that.”

“She can’t help it. She has no idea why she’s suddenly getting all this attention. She’s probably realized someone has set this up, but as disturbing as it is, she doesn’t know how to fix it. Just like it was for us,” said Karuta, restlessly spinning the modified military flashlight in his hand.

The human string pullers were serious.

They were setting up the next world’s strongest before these four had even chosen death. This TV show was meant to build up Pendet’s image.

Omotesandou Kyouka, the master of this student council room, sighed softly.

Karuta didn’t even need to move behind her large desk and check the computer screen. The adults were clearly delaying their responses to the emails she had sent out. They never would have done that with a world’s strongest before. Everything from Karuta’s group was probably being drowned out by all the requests and reports sent by the many adults.

The center of the world was already shifting.

Karuta’s group was the soon-to-be-abandoned kings, just like the Problem Solvers had been.

Anastasia’s group had seen the writing on the wall, fought against it, and become monsters.

Not even the human string pullers had been able to control that, which was why the human population had fallen to 5.5 billion.

“Thinking back, the Problem Solvers managed to hold onto their position as world’s strongest for nearly a decade.”

“That’s a record. And by a lot,” said Omotesandou Kyouka. She must have seen the actual records and numbers. “Before them, a strongest would last an average of 3 years before being replaced. No strongest was ever meant to last longer than that.”

“And then there’s us.”

“The Problem Solvers died before they could fulfill their role, so we’re being used up right away to pay back their debt.”

The Problem Solvers had attacked the first ship because they had thought they wouldn’t be disposed of if there was no next candidate. Stooping that low to cling to life may have shown a sort of talent. At the very least, Karuta knew he couldn’t do it.

The next strongest would be Pendet Denpasar. How could he kill her and wipe out the magic system at the source of her power for no reason but that?”

“Sacri-sama.”

“Yeah…”

Aine was standing in the corner like a potted plant and she was likely reminding him of the time. Chrisbart Firenze of the human string pullers had demanded a response at precisely midnight.

They only had three hours left.

“Marika. Omotesandou-san too. I’m stepping out for a bit.”

“Feel free to just not come back,” said Marika, lying on the sofa and watching TV.

Her tone was light, but it didn’t sound like a joke.

She didn’t even look his way as she continued.

“That might be one way of saving yourself, right? We know the 300 million Threats are interested in the world’s strongest humans, so they’ll chase after us if we’re ejected into space. That much is certain. But it may not have to be all four of us. Karuta and Aine-chan could make a romantic getaway.”

Karuta waved a hand dismissively as he stepped out into the dark hallway.

On the inside, he was mildly surprised to find that was Amaashi Marika’s theory.

The crystal girl silently followed him like always. Even on this final night.

“Sacri-sama, I will obey whatever decision you make.”

“Yeah.”

“With that in mind, couldn’t you give that option to Miss Marika or Miss Kyouka?”

Karuta laughed quietly at that.

Aine expressionlessly tilted her head while matching his speed to walk alongside him.

“What was so funny?”

“Nothing really. I was just noticing how much we’ve grown.”

If this had happened a few months ago, he felt like they might have fought each other to determine who got to live. But here they were trying to push survival onto each other. Even Crystal Girl Aine, the least human of them, was doing it.

Karuta considered that kind result.

“We can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“300 million Threats are after the Four Living Gods. If even one of us remains on Earth, the Threat swarm might ignore the group in space and crash down to the surface. That invalidates the choices both groups made.”

Marika probably wasn’t seriously suggesting it.

In fact, if that out-of-control childhood friend was seriously considering something, she wouldn’t suggest it out loud like that. She would increase the odds of success as much as possible by saying nothing, forcibly restraining Karuta and Aine, and preventing them from doing anything else. This was the girl who would burn away her childhood friend’s limb and cover the wound with molten metal to prevent the regeneration.

Karuta’s mild surprise wasn’t with Marika’s idea itself. He was surprised that extremely emotional but harshly realistic girl would indulge in an empty fantasy she knew wasn’t a real possibility.

Death was frightening.

Maybe you couldn’t avoid it, but you still wanted something to save you psychologically.

It wasn’t a surprising turn of events. But he felt like he was getting a glimpse of the vulnerability she had always worked so hard to keep hidden.

What about Omotesandou Kyouka?

Her behavior didn’t seem as obviously out of the ordinary as Marika’s.

“Then again, continuing to check her work emails at this point is unusual.”

“Sacri-sama?”

Tomorrow would never arrive for them, so there was no point in checking on her work.

Supposedly, anyway.

At this point, they should have been writing their wills and purifying their bodies. Or if they were going to die anyway, they could try drinking or smoking just once before the end. But Kyouka’s behavior seemed too ordinary. She may have been preserving her usual routine because she wanted to believe it wasn’t too late.

Anyone would be scared given the circumstances.

And an extreme fear of death was like a giant mirror reflecting your true nature back at you. Utagai Karuta walking through the halls like this was part of that too. He was descending to the bottom level of the central hull that linked Second Grimnoah’s three hull shape together.

The crystal statues that had once been the teachers and students of the first ship were gathered here.

He checked the numbers to locate the correct door and opened it. he slowly pulled out the sliding bed within.

No change.

If it was only going to end like this, maybe it would have been easier to die sooner.

“Hi, Gekiha,” said Utagai Karuta.

No one was listening and there was no response. The greeting was entirely meaningless, but Aine didn’t say anything while standing alongside him. She did not even tilt her expressionless head.

“It turns out humanity can’t defeat the Threat. It’s not about trying harder or anything like that. It was set up that way from the start. Ha ha. Makes me wonder why we even bothered taking revenge on the Problem Solvers. It was going to happen sooner or later. Even if no one had stopped us and we had all graduated from the first ship, we would have been killed as the new world’s strongests anyway. Funny, right?”

He was surrounded by silence.

He looked down at his former friend and spoke all on his own.

“But we’re still going to protect the world.”

Protect.

Perhaps it was arrogant to use that word here.

He already knew that not all the Threat were bad. They had already slaughtered the Armored Warrior and the tadpole Threats who had only wanted to try out studying at a human school. Was he trying to imply the Threat had no reason to kill them?

But he was still afraid to die, so if someone was threatening his life, he would view them as evil no matter the circumstances.

They had done the same thing themselves. They had so strongly denounced the Problem Solvers when they were only acting out of fear as well, so he had set up a double standard for himself.

Was that the ugly and vivid truth of human nature?

After a self-deprecating smile, he went ahead and said it anyway.

“You’re supposed to wake up after about 7000 years, right? I’ll make sure there isn’t a Threat to be seen when you open your eyes. I hope you can accept that as a compromise, Gekiha.”

That ugly nature was something the world had acquired after they had taken revenge and become the Four Living Gods.

Kazamuki Gekiha had died before all that, so he hoped he would be purer than that.

“Sacri-sama.”

“…I know.”

Karuta gave a small nod when Aine called out to him.

They still had some time until midnight.

But…

“We need to act soon to avoid any further trouble. If we wait until midnight, we might run into Deiri, Natalena, and the others.”

Second Grimnoah was a fortress built to make efficient use of the Four Living Gods. Of course they would be aware of everything going on there. They knew all about the meeting Natalena, Letnahe, and so many others were holding in the gym.

And not even the Four Living Gods were confident they could win in a group battle against more than 1000 teachers and students who could use Crystal Magic.

He appreciated the thought.

But he couldn’t have them interfering at this point.

More than 300 million Threats could start pouring down on Earth at any moment. The human string pullers had given a concrete time limit. A single day of hesitation could mean the beginning of an unstoppable invasion of the entire planet and the 5.5 billion people who lived there. And there was no turning back time. Once that happened, it was too late for Karuta’s group to feel regrets.

The Four Living Gods could not survive whether they remained on Earth or were launched into space. That much was certain.

So which was the better choice?

The answer couldn’t have been more obvious.

If they succumbed to that pleasant kindness, they wouldn’t just lose their lives – they would lose everything.

“…”

Utagai Karuta returned his friend to the storage container, shut the door, and walked to the exit. He looked back from the door and quietly bowed. After spending more than 10 seconds like that, he raised his head and slowly walked up the stairs. Aine silently followed him.

“Aine.”

“Yes, Sacri-sama?”

“Sorry for getting you involved in a fight we never could win.”

“I am not sure what you mean.”

They climbed step after step after step.

Once out on the side deck, they found the childhood friend and president waiting.

Those two smiled bitterly.

“I thought I told you to run away.”

“You could’ve run away too, Marika.”

Everyone else would still be fiercely debating what to do in the gym. They were taking this very seriously in order to save the four gathered here. That made Karuta so happy he was afraid he might start crying, but he knew he could not rely on that.

“Karuta-kun, did you not write a will?”

“I decided not to. I’d be embarrassed if I left something behind and people started deifying me.”

“You could have at least written something for your family.”

“You’ve seen how many old authors and Bakumatsu period samurai have their private letters – even love letters – shown off in museums. Besides, anything I wrote would end up being nothing but complaining. I don’t want everyone seeing that.”

“Kee hee hee. But did you use a special tool to wipe your secret hard drive? What about your online storage and browser history? Deleting it the normal way isn’t good enough.”

“Bff!?”

His childhood friend’s teasing laughter made him do a spit take.

Was that really something for a girl to bring up?

The president elegantly placed a hand on her cheek.

“My, my, Karuta-kun. Hee hee. You should have come to your intellectual upperclassman who knows all about computers. Don’t worry. I will permanently delete it all without peeking☆”

“I know better than to trust that smile, you schemer. Plus, that’s more embarrassing than asking for a baby bottle, so no one would ever take you up on that offer!”

The crystal girl didn’t seem to understand (which Karuta’s idealistic view of girls told him was how it should be), so she expressionlessly tilted her head.

“Sacri-sama?”

“It’s nothing. I can handle this myself, so you don’t need to worry about it!”

Marika cackled and held her sides. It was possible those two had planned this to break through the gloomy mood.

But the time had come regardless. They were reluctant to leave, but they also didn’t want to wait too long and have their friends gather around.

“So are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Two of them could not use the flight preset, so Aine picked up Karuta and Marika picked up Kyouka, wheelchair and all. Then the Four Living Gods jumped over the railing.

They flew toward the dark silhouette of the space elevator stretching up toward heaven.

This was the first step on their journey into death.

Part 9

They crossed the dark sea.

Their destination was more than 5km away – which meant it was beyond the horizon – but since it was an elevator that rose vertically into space, they could see it clearly even at this distance.

The space elevator was located on a naval float attached to a small island in the south sea. According to Kyouka, the float would move within certain limits to cancel out the irregular shaking of the wire caused by the wind and other factors.

A light was flashing from there.

Aine and Maika used their flight presets to make a gentle landing on the artificial float that measured more than a kilometer on each side.

Someone stood there.

An old man in a lab coat.

“I was waiting for you.”

“Are you Chrisbart Firenze?” asked Karuta as soon as Aine lowered him from his princess carry position, but the man did not bother confirming it.

Karuta was still suspicious, but he didn’t see any bodyguards or any other fighting force around. The man really was completely alone. The human string pullers seemed awfully defenseless for such a powerful group working from the shadows. It was only natural to suspect the possibility this was a body double or agent.

After all, the man was dealing with the world’s strongests who were doomed to die. And the human string pullers were the ones who had set that up. For one of the bastards who intended to go on living, being attacked in a last-ditch attempt to survive had to be the greatest risk.

But the old man snorted in laughter at Karuta’s doubts.

“The greatest tool of self-defense is information, not power. Bodyguards or a body double would have the opposite effect. People are strongest when alone.”

“…”

“I take it you do not agree. But you should know all too well what fate awaits you four who acquired the world’s strongest power.”

Karuta stepped behind Omotesandou Kyouka and grabbed her wheelchair’s grips.

Aine’s sword and Marika’s rapier Device were more powerful than his modified military flashlight. He wanted to keep their hands free if possible.

The old man turned around and simply said “follow me”.

The lightweight aluminum alloy ground was paved with asphalt and was perfectly sturdy. It did not look all that different from an old-fashioned airport or rocket launch site. Except the massive “smokestack” in the very center made it all look very strange indeed.

Perhaps to prevent aircraft collisions, there was an evenly-spaced vertical line of red lights stretching skyward. Those were slowly flashing. The line of lights stopped tens of thousands of meters high because that that was as high as it was possible for aircraft to fly. However, there was likely an air defense system that would activate if an airplane or helicopter flew too close without permission.

The space elevator looked like an obsolete relic. But on closer inspection, not a single bolt was rusted. It was perfectly maintained. This was the final lifeline for the 5.5 billion people on Earth, so they could not have it lost in an accident or terrorist attack.

Chrisbart spoke without looking back.

“I will not ask if you are ready. The fact that you arrived on time shows you each possess the necessary resolve.”

“Second Grimnoah is less than 10km away. And Crystal Magic flight can exceed Mach 2 if you try. If Natalena and the others have realized what’s happening, they might attack the elevator to prevent us from departing.”

Karuta was pushing the president’s wheelchair while asking about that because the large artificial island did not have any kind of electric cart like you might find at an airport or golf course. Walking the full distance was a real pain.

“I appreciate giving us some more time right at the end, but neither of us can let anything jeopardize this final chance. You yourself said we had the necessary resolve. If you have a shortcut, feel free to use it.”

But the lab coat man did not seem to mind.

He shrugged without looking back.

“We are the human string pullers, remember?”

“…”

“We control everything by providing just the right stimulation to all of those called humans. By providing the right information and the right situation, we can ensure those students’ good will never leads to action. Or we can convince them to swallow their tears and see you off because that is what you wish.”

That was their power.

That was the true malice that not even the Four Living Gods had been able to defeat.

And it did not matter to Chrisbart that one of the teachers he was targeting shared his last name.

Karuta had a harder time understanding those terrifying monsters than he did the Problem Solvers or the real Threat.

“By the way,” said Chrisbart Firenze on the way to the base of the elevator.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

“?”

Karuta was not sure what he meant.

The old man did not look back, but Karuta finally sensed what he must have meant. Chrisbart was focused on Karuta, but not directly. His interest was in Crystal Girl Aine who he had summoned and who obeyed him.

“…”

Aine did not respond in any way. Was she not interested or was she intentionally ignoring the man? It was hard to tell when she was always so expressionless.

They arrived at the base of the space elevator.

It looked a lot like a landmark broadcast tower. Some of the same technology may have been used to construct it. The base was shaped like a giant C that enveloped the space in front of it and was split into a few different floors. Karuta thought that shape looked familiar and realized it was used for malls that surrounded a plaza or park. It may have been intended as a special international airport or tourist attraction before it went out of business and was taken over by the human string pullers.

The restaurants and shops appeared to still be functioning. At the very least, it wasn’t full of empty shops and the mannequins weren’t covered in dust. Perhaps it was the same idea as having shops for soldiers on a military base.

“How many people does it take to run the elevator?” asked Marika, looking up at the giant “smokestack”.

“Around 1000 if you include the air defense operators. The operation is fully handled on the surface, so the space section is empty. But even with that many, most of the work is handled by computers.”

Were all of those thousand part of the human string pullers? Or was a minority sending out falsified orders to manipulate some other larger organization who had no idea what was going on here? It was impossible to tell from here and it honestly didn’t matter either way.

As a relic of when this was either an international airport or a tourist destination, the entrance area contained a row of ticket gates that reacted to either a paper ticket or an annual pass card. Their power appeared to be shut down, so Chrisbart walked right through one gate.

The elevator was past there.

The elevator car was like a train car tilted up on its end. Karuta guessed that was to obscure how many people and materials were being carried up each time, but apparently that was not the case.

Chrisbart explained.

“Your destination is in geosynchronous orbit 36 thousand kilometers from here. The Earth’s gravity, air resistance, the wire’s shaking, and other factors will reduce the elevator’s speed, so even at maximum power, it will take you three days to arrive. The elevator is more cost effective and safer than a rocket, but much, much slower.”

“Three days?”

“That was accounted for when calculating out your time limit, so you need not worry about running out of time.”

Having it happen all at once was a terrifying thought, but could they really spend three full days slowly committing suicide? And once they started, there was no turning back.

Traveling more than 10 thousand kilometers each day was extraordinarily fast. If a truck driver drove at 100km/h all day long without even stopping to sleep, how far could they travel in one day? And traveling vertically was a lot more difficult than traveling horizontally.

“You lived together in an RV when hunting down the Problem Solvers, didn’t you? There is a shower, bathroom, and kitchen stocked with everything you will need for your short stay there. Although they are designed for use in zero-g, so they cannot be used like normal. You have come this far, so we don’t want you to starve to death inside the elevator.”

That explained the size of the elevator car. Taking a plane to the other side of the planet took around half a day, so three days for travel was a major restriction. That may have been the real reason it had never caught on, not the international and technological issues. Ordinary people wouldn’t have anything to do even if they did spend all the money necessary for the long trip into space.

Space was not the only unexplored area. For example, people could spend a mountain of cash to take a deep sea probe thousands of meters underwater. That was enough to see or experience something brand new. But most people didn’t do that. They weren’t interested in a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Why was that? It was like taking an overseas trip where you couldn’t even leave the hotel. Once something became a real possibility, did the realistic inconvenience come into view and cause a journey into a world of dreams to lose its luster?

The Four Living Gods were being abandoned here. They were being crammed into a cramped corner of death that everyone had already lost interest in.

And the process would take days.

They approached the elevator car, Karuta pushing the wheelchair.

“When do we leave? The sooner the better, if you ask me.”

“How rational of you.”

The boy smiled a little at that assessment.

The human string pullers knew how to manipulate humans, but they sure didn’t understand humans. He only wanted to get this over with before the uncertainty inside him could take over.

Part 10

Chrisbart Firenze sighed after seeing those teenagers off to their deaths.

They had only been given three days’ worth of food.

There were no supplies on the space station in orbit. They truly had been given a one-way ticket. After leaving, they would not have enough water, food, or air to stay in the station or even to return to Earth.

But those four had not seemed disturbed.

They may have been drawing on every last ounce of strength to suppress their feelings, but they had managed it.

Just like all the previous world’s strongests he had seen.

(I act like I’m not the one that paved their path to hell and keeps the cycle of death running smoothly.)

The old man in the lab coat shook his head and threw out his sentimentality.

Something else was bothering him.

“That girl.”

Was her name Aine?

Chrisbart Firenze knew that the Original Crystal Embryo was no longer at the center of the Earth. Since Crystal Magic continued to function regardless, the only possible conclusion was that the Embryo had gained the ability to move on its own, had left the center of the Earth, and had moved somewhere near Second Grimnoah.

What if she was it?

Of course, this was only a fantasy with no evidence to back it up.

(Does she call him “Sacri-sama” because he is a “sacrifice” she is using as a stepping stone? Is that title a combination of his function and her respect for how he gave her freedom by summoning her from the center of the Earth, even if it meant becoming one with him?)

Chrisbart was a weapons researcher at heart.

And that included research on Crystal Magic.

(Does Crystal Magic only function on Earth because the Embryo was located at the center of the planet? If so and if it really has broken free of that restriction, then it is possible those four could use Crystal Magic in space.)

He doubted that would allow them to defeat the 300 million Threats.

The difference in numbers was simply too great.

But what if they made full use of Crystal Magic to construct a habitable environment for themselves? They wouldn’t even need to search out a habitable planet if they had the power to create an environment with water, air, and everything else they would need.

Would it be possible for those four to live free even after being launched into space?

“No.”

Chrisbart concluded he was being too optimistic.

Really, that was no more than wishful thinking.

He was surprised to find even he still had the capacity for guilt inside him.

At the very least, Crystal Girl Aine had not told the others what she was.

So no matter what she was, she had no intention of taking things in that direction.

Part 11

They heard a deep rumbling and felt a slight floating sensation.

But while Karuta and Aine looked out the thick, double-pane window, they could tell just how fast they were moving. It had taken them less than a minute to arrive above the clouds.

The transparent outer layer that resembled a smokestack only covered the first 30 thousand meters.

The first.

Yet that was already more than three times the height of Everest.

Since there was very little dust, dirt, or even air past that point, the elevator car was left directly exposed to the atmosphere. They continued on and on, guided by the carbon nanotube wire.

The higher they went, the farther until the horizon and the more they could see. They saw the lights of the city on the coast and a cluster of lights on the ocean with some other smaller clusters gathered around it.

Those were Second Grimnoah and its guard ships.

“…”

Was the debate about how to save them still ongoing on that ship? Or had the others noticed their escape and begun pursuit? But it was too late. Once they were in outer space, Crystal Magic could not catch up to them.

Natalena and the others could not reach them now.

“Ooh, they were generous. The fridge is packed. Is this dry-cured ham? Ah ha ha. There’s even caviar!”

Meanwhile, Marika was more interested in the contents of the elevator car, so she was exploring the kitchen area. She had focused on the ingredients rather than the microwave and oven bolted to shelves, so she was bent over with her butt sticking out his way while searching the fridge.

“Dry-cured ham? Caviar? Isn’t that all space food made to be eaten in zero-g?”

“Don’t ask me. It’s all packed in thick plastic. It looks like you cut open the mouth of the bag, stick that in your mouth, and squeeze the contents out with her hand.”

That explanation only made it sound like a jelly drink made by throwing the ingredients in a juicer and creating a cold goop, but that was just how Marika talked since she was halfway to being a gyaru. The food was probably fine. Space food these days was supposed to be good enough to sell at souvenir shops.

Unlike in a rocket, they weren’t strapped into their seats with sturdy belts. They didn’t need puffy spacesuits or helmets either. The president was still wearing her uniform and she moved around in her wheelchair to grab a magazine. However, the car was tall and you were meant to reach the different levels with a ladder. She would need some help when she needed to reach the shower or bed.

“I’ll be fine,” said Kyouka, flipping through the magazine. Apparently that capable upperclassman girl was still interested in the summer fashions even though she would never return to the surface again. “The gravity will be gone soon and the concepts of up and down will lose all meaning. I should be able to swim through the air by propelling myself with my hands on the walls.”

Karuta was mildly impressed she had thought it through this far.

He decided he needed to give those issues more thought himself. He didn’t want to carelessly remove a drink lid in zero-g and have the liquid floating all around. How did the shower, bathroom, and laundry work? It might seem silly with the bigger issue facing them but he was worried about all of the plumbing.

Their three-day journey would take them to the geosynchronous satellite at an altitude of 36 thousand kilometers. That meant their first day would bring them more than 10 thousand kilometers up. The international space station was about 400km up, so they would be in a complete vacuum by then.

The fact that the first day included so many changes may have been a blessing.

The psychological pressure would be much greater during the 2nd and 3rd days when they traveled through nothingness the entire time.

“How long ago was that ‘the Earth is blue’ quote again?”

Marika joined Karuta by the window.

That modern high school girl loved to snap photos of everything from today’s meal to beautiful scenery, but she didn’t have her phone with her now. Probably because she didn’t want to see the message alerts. And it was unclear how long it would still receive a signal anyway. Would it lose a connection quickly, or would they keep a connection the whole time thanks to a satellite signal or the elevator’s wire itself acting as a communication cable?

“It’s night right now, so the ocean and sky are both black. But will it look blue once we get high enough?”

“No, it will remain black as long as it isn’t facing the sun.”

“You mean we won’t get to see the blue Earth? After launching ourselves into space?”

“The trip takes 3 days, so the Earth’s rotation is going to take us into the sun eventually, won’t it?”

But that meant the 100km space elevator was constantly rotating around with the Earth. That was a strange thought when they were currently traveling up that line. Would the centrifugal force not cause it to snap?

Marika pressed her hands against the thick double-pane window made to block radiation.

“The temperature in space varies a lot based on the presence of sunlight, right? Are carbon nanotubes resistant to heat? I mean, it’s 100 thousand kilometers long in all. And they say the metal rails on railroad tracks change length between summer and winter.”

“Don’t ask me. Maybe they wind it up with a reel to keep it tight.”

There were some specks of light on the otherwise dark surface of the Earth. They gathered to form cities, thick highways connected those cities, and lots of lots were traveling between them. Some trends were noticeable from this distance. People really did settle along the oceans instead of in the treacherous inland mountains and then they connected their settlements with thick roads. The lines of lights located more inland were probably large rivers. It was incredible to think how each one of those lights – whether they belonged to a house or a vehicle – had a person inside.

There were also some red lights. Those were not neon signs. Maybe they were slash-and-burn farming in the Southeast Asian forests, or maybe there was some other reason, but they had to be manmade fires.

“Marika, can you still use Crystal Magic?”

“What, fallen head-over-heels for your mature childhood friend’s cute battle mode?”

Marika casually shattered the Crystal Blossom on her chest to power it up and pulled a rapier Device out of thin air.

Then Karuta turned toward the crystal girl who was always standing by his side.

“?”

Aine tilted her head in response.

If it was true that Crystal Magic only functioned on Earth, he had expected Aine to withdraw into him at some point, but that hadn’t happened. Had that theory been mistaken, or was there something in this space that was allowing Crystal Magic to function? If this would only lengthen Aine’s fear and suffering, he felt kind of bad about doing this to her.

“We should see some shooting stars soon,” said Kyouka.

Come to think of it, didn’t that president girl have an interest in astronomy?

“Tens of thousands of small debris and meteor pieces enter the thermosphere, the top layer of the atmosphere, every single day. The lights are too small to see from the ground, but we are close enough to see them now. A meteor shower pales in comparison to the spectacle we should get to see.”

“Really? So like pouring rain? Or like overturning a bucket?”

“In a way, they kind of are pouring down from space.”

“Karuta-kun? Aine-chan? You two should really learn how to not make it sound so banal.”

Would seeing this make the trip to space worthwhile?

Would it be enough to believe they really did want to keep the Threat away from that planet full of so many beautiful people and things?

“Marika…”

“What do you want?”

Karuta spoke to the childhood friend looking out the same double-pane window.

He said the words none of them had been able to bring themselves to say.

“No one’s watching anymore, so you can cry if you want.”

Those words felt forbidden.

There were no further words. He couldn’t remember what Marika had said while clinging to his chest. He had a vague memory of her unfairly hitting him a few times while she cried. He didn’t remember what he had done either. He knew he must have shouted something. Her tears were contagious, so he knew he must have cried too. They had all cried. None of them tried to stop it. Even Omotesandou Kyouka had transparent tears in the corners of her eyes and yelled something that hadn’t made sense.

They were too far away.

Their voices couldn’t reach anyone.

It would have been the same for the past world’s strongests.

Anastasia’s group had feared this more than anything.

Crystal Girl Aine was the sole exception, only tilting her head with no apparent expression.

The skirt of her white combat dress silently floated up in an unnatural way.

“Hey, Aine? Fix your-”

“Hmph!!”

Marika jabbed her fist into his side with a definite anger that hadn’t been there before. But it was still a light blow for the world’s strongest. Unnaturally so. In fact, Marika was propelled slowly backwards after the hit.

Gravity was gone.

They had moved too far away from the gravity’s source: Earth.

Marika grew red in the face and shouted while holding down her short skirt with both hands and slowly spinning in the air.

“You just had to interrupt that emotional scene by focusing on the little girl panties created from yourself, didn’t you!? Give me back my pure, youthful tears!!!”

“I-I don’t see how this is my fault.”

“My, my,” said Kyouka. “I wonder what the past world’s strongests did here. Is this a trial all of the strongests have passed in secret?”

“And you need to do a much better job of covering up those surprisingly cute ones!!”

“Sacri-sama, you have not given me an oral command. What am I supposed to do?”

“Stop tilting your head and start covering up your underwear!! Aine, you don’t have to be completely naked for human shame to kick in!!!”

Part 12

The zero-g proved to be a bigger problem than expected.

Marika tried to change from her skirt into track pants, but she gave up on that plan when it earned her glares from Kyouka, the fashionable upperclassman, and even from inhuman Aine. She ended up continuing with the “hold down the floaty skirt when necessary” plan, but that was far from perfect. Each time there was a careless mistake, Karuta would get punished for it, which meant a lot of getting hit by the girls.

Omotesandou Kyouka smiled and made a suggestion.

“Hitting doesn’t have the same oomph in zero-g, so I say we switch to electrical punishments. You know, like zapping him with the hair dryer.”

He really wished they would do better at holding their skirts down instead of improving the punishments. In fact, this would only do more damage, which didn’t solve anything for anyone.

And zero-g had other effects as well.

“Ugh.”

“What’s wrong, Aine-chan?”

“Miss Kyouka, your boobs have unfairly increased in size.”

“Have they? No, I don’t think this is their size. It’s probably that gravity is no longer holding them back. That means less strain on my shoulders, so I’m all for it☆”

Being trapped in the same room as a bunch of girls was a problem. Karuta had to do his best to look anywhere but there. That devilish president was sharp (which she seemed to use to tease him as much as possible!!) and she giggled when she noticed how he was acting, but how else was he supposed to react to this!?

In his attempt to look away from Kyouka, he saw Marika sleepily approaching.

“Play with me, Karuta.”

“Oh, no! Another minefield!!”

All his shouting was making him thirsty.

In zero-g, straws were valuable. Except they got sick of using them and were now having fun squeezing out the contents of the drink packs and eating pieces off of each other’s floating globules of colorful liquid. Even a lab water flea could think of that game when out in space, but it was actually quite dangerous since you weren’t guaranteed to get all the small droplets and those could cause mechanical trouble while out in space.

Karuta was stuck catching a few juice globules in his mouth on Aine’s expressionless request and his thoughts shifted a bit toward the belt-covered sports equipment in the next room.

“Come to think of it, you wouldn’t have to worry about your skirts if you had just changed into those bulky spacesuits, would you?”

“For three days in a properly-heated compartment? Don’t underestimate the female body, Karuta-kun. That would lead to a hell of delicate parts getting much too sweaty,” remarked Kyouka.

She normally had to remain seated in her wheelchair at all times, but the tires were useless without any gravity to press them against the floor. She had abandoned the wheelchair and now floated in the air. She had made up some aphorism about space bringing people freedom and stretched.

“The waterless shower is pretty interesting, but space is really inconvenient for sleeping.”

“Yeah, I don’t like having to strap myself down so I don’t float out of bed.”

For once, they were in agreement with Aine who preferred cramped places. She looked uncomfortable floating out in the open. The idea of sleep freeing you from the worries of the day did not exist in space.

Their shared life here would not last forever.

This was the third and final day.

The sunrise and sunset did not exist out here, so the food disappearing from the fridge was the biggest reminder of time’s passage.

“What…is that?” muttered Marika, looking out the window.

Karuta focused that way too and saw something new there. A bunch of artificial objects formed something like a net overhead.

“That would be the Sunny Side Up Project, a network of space stations made from a solid foam material. You know, the one run by Yukino Arakawa of the old strongests.”

Kyouka’s explanation brought it all back to him.

That network covered the entire Earth, didn’t it? The centrifugal force would differ at different points, but that would have all been forcibly dealt with using God-Worshiping Magic. The last he had heard, control had been lost and it was breaking apart with its master gone, but that didn’t mean the entire network would be cleared away immediately.

It looked like there was a gaping hole in the network around the space elevator.

That proved the elevator had been considered a greater priority than Yukino’s secret weapon.

However…

“No, not that.”

“?”

When Marika’s further comment made Karuta take a second look, he saw an object glistening darkly in the powerful sunlight.

That was the Threat.

Specifically, a bunch of giant spider crab ones all tangled together.

That meant the Threat had animal forms even out in space. Did that mean similar lifeforms existed on another planet? Or would they change form further after descending to the surface and cannibalizing their own?

Given the distance, that clearly wasn’t just one of them. A whole lot of them had to be forming a big ball in space like bugs gathering together to survive the winter. That one ball had to contain hundreds, thousands, or even more.

The group that had occupied Second Grimnoah off the Port of Kobe had been in the tens of thousands.

That group alone would be too much for the four of them to defeat.

And there were more than 300 million in all. How big was the enemy force?

“…”

Karuta fell silent, but then another change came over the elevator car. The floating sensation grew. Most likely, it was tugging them in the other direction as it slowly decelerated. Inertia still existed in zero-g.

They were approaching their destination.

“Karuta-kun.” Kyouka brushed her long hair to the sides in zero-g. “We need to get ready soon. Although I doubt we even need to put on those spacesuits.”

“What happens when we reach the space station?”

“We board a separate launch shuttle. The station is 36 thousand kilometers from the surface and the station itself is 10 thousand kilometers to strike a balance with Earth’s gravity. That exceptionally long space elevator is constantly rotating in accordance with Earth’s rotation and revolution. A shuttle’s rocket engine can fly us to the tip in less than an hour.” Kyouka calmly explained. “After that, we don’t even need explosives or fuel. We can use the massive centrifugal force or the force of the wire’s own swaying to launch ourselves with enough speed to leave the solar system once we cut ourselves free of the station.”

However, this was a journey into death with no actual destination. They would divert the 300 million Threats’ attention away from Earth and give the people there even a few years of peace. This was an empty coffin used to preserve that state of peace by using up each new world’s strongest.

Marika looked confused.

“Wait, I thought everything was weightless in space. Won’t the slightest push send you forever in the same direction?”

“There are a lot of things that will decelerate you, like the gravitational pull of other astronomical bodies and solar winds which are clumps of ions. A true vacuum is only a theoretical concept. Even space is a treasure trove of dust and garbage.”

Was that how it worked? It was probably best to trust the beautiful astronomy lover on this one. Given the actual risk to their lives, they probably shouldn’t have been discussing this, but they were likely only distracting themselves like someone starting to clean their room on the day before an exam. Besides, no amount of thinking would reveal a solution to their problem.

They had already made up their minds.

Their deaths were assured whether they remained on Earth or went into space. If they let their resolve falter, it would only mean more people dead.

They were scared, of course.

But more than that, they had had seen how the world’s strongest could abuse their power.

What kind of strongest did they want to be?

At the very least, they did not want be the kind that would put 5.5 billion people at risk just because they feared death. They had defeated the Problem Solvers for that, so they would not take that path themselves.

Their view of the starry scenery vanished.

The elevator car had arrived in the space station’s interior hall.

After one final shake and a metallic thunk, it came to a stop.

Out of habit, Karuta checked the modified military flashlight at his hip. That showed just how nervous he was, but he felt silly as soon as he did it. What was he going to fight at this point? But as ridiculous as it was, he couldn’t even crack a smile. No amount of struggling or fighting would be enough to escape death.

The series of compressed air sounds was likely the two airlocks joining together.

The red lights on the wall all turned green.

That likely meant they could open the airlock.

“…”

This really was the end.

He was briefly tempted to punch Marika and Kyouka in the gut to knock them out. He wanted to leave them here. But that was meaningless. The Living Gods would be the first ones killed by the 300 million Threats even if they did remain on Earth. He was growing uncharacteristically charitable as a way to avoid focusing on his fear of being ejected into the endless expanse of space, but he couldn’t forget the entire reason they were doing this.

Things from here on wouldn’t be like the space elevator. The shuttle ride would be a one-way trip without even a temporary goal.

This really was the end.

He would die.

Without even being to protect these three girls.

He silently cursed the human string pullers for not filling the elevator car with an invisible gas that knocked them all unconscious for some automatic process to load them into the deadly shuttle. Couldn’t those villains be kind enough to rid them of the need to see their doom slowly approaching?

He felt like they were performing sokushinbutsu.

They had chosen to bury themselves alive where they waited for death to finally arrive. And they were wishing for world peace the entire time.

“Let’s get going,” he said, but no one expressed agreement.

All four of them may have had someone they had wanted to protect. Even if it meant leaving that someone here. But none of them did so. Karuta, Aine, Marika, and Kyouka approached the airlock, looking less than pleased about it. The president looked back toward her wheelchair in an uncharacteristically worried way, but she must have decided it was meaningless. She left the device behind and floated toward the exit.

They were scared.

Of course they were, so they wished they could numb their hearts as they continued on.

Because as things were, they would break before they reached death.

Even though this was the right thing to do.

They lowered the large levers on the outside of the door and opened it.

Through the airlock, they found a space larger than a train station concourse. If there had been gravity, the size would have been enough to forget they were in space.

And there was something there.

It came without warning.

“We have been waiting for you, superior terrestrial carbon structures. AKA, the world’s strongest humans.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Utagai Karuta froze.

He didn’t understand.

Why was he hearing someone speaking?

Someone was waiting on the supposedly unmanned space station?

The human string pullers hadn’t mentioned this. Hadn’t Chrisbart Firenze said the space elevator was managed entirely from the surface and there was no one on the station!? Then who was this that had so easily obliterated the seemingly all-knowing human string pullers’ plans and calculations!?

“You’re…kidding.”

But.

Perhaps it wasn’t surprising this had slipped past the human string pullers.

Because the person in front of them was not human.

The black carapace and slimy green light were not any different from the giant spider crab variety.

But this one was clearly different from any that Karuta and the others had ever seen. They had come in many forms, such as a tadpole or a lion. There had even been the Armored Warrior who changed their appearance based on their hatred toward humanity after feeling betrayed.

But this was something else entirely.

“Sacri-sama.”

Something audibly sliced through the artificial air.

Even as she floated in the zero-g space, Crystal Girl Aine moved in front of Karuta and drew her transparent katana out of empty air.

“That is not human, thus it is likely outside the human string pullers’ control. Things are not going according to plan.”

“…”

So Aine saw it that way too?

She agreed this being wasn’t human?

If the human string pullers could control something like this, they never would have gotten their own hands dirty.

Karuta had completely tensed up. He couldn’t even pull the modified military flashlight from his hip.

This was an utter monster.

This was something on another level entirely.

She had transparently white skin, shining eyes, and glossy black hair. A sticky green light crawled along her pitch black metallic clothing that could have been armor or a dress. Without the black “armor” that fused with her soft skin, she might not have seemed so monstrous. If she had walked by in Second Grimnoah wearing a school uniform, he would have just assumed she was another student. That was how human she looked.

She looked to be 20 or maybe older.

Her allure was even stronger than Regulation 3 Kyouka’s.

But this was only based on human assumptions.

No one could actually say how old she was. In fact, a lifeform that didn’t live on a rotating and revolving planet might not even have a compatible concept of “age”. They might even measure their “service life” by distance traveled or number of accesses. She was just that far removed from humanity – and biological life altogether.

“Karuta-kun,” cautioned Omotesandou Kyouka.

She was looking at the wall.

No, she was looking at what should have been a window. The entire wall should have been transparent, like at an airport, but something covered the outside. Enough darkly glistening somethings packed in so tight that there wasn’t a gap left open.

They were shaped like giant spider crabs, water bears, and blue-ringed octopuses.

Needless to say, these were the Threat.

As crazy as it sounded, this space station had functioned as the final trump card protecting 5.5 billion people, but it had been taken over so easily!? How could this happen? Karuta’s group were willing to sacrifice their lives to redirect the Threat’s attention, but they had ended up diving right into a giant creepy cocoon made of thousands or tens of thousands of Threats gathered together.

They couldn’t act as decoys or redirect attention like this.

The human string pullers couldn’t hope to control things anymore. The plan was meaningless if the world’s strongests were captured before leading the 300 million Threats away from Earth! They were really and truly going to die for nothing!!!

“Congratulations.”

And.

They heard one of the last words they had expected.

It was not that this being was failing to communicate. It was more like the mind or feelings behind the word were twisted beyond recognition.

The countless Threats surrounding the station produced creaking noises while the woman with a pitch black sheen spoke.

She smiled as gently as a divine mother and spread her arms wide.

“Congratulations, world’s strongests! You are safe now. You need not fear death now that I, Transline, have collected you!!”

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