Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Epilogue

Epilogue

Report from Letnahe Kurent.

The Second Grimnoah academy ship has been reclaimed by its students.

After the so-called Warrior Doll’s defeat, the many sea anemone Threats located on the ocean floor were destroyed in an apparent chain reaction. In addition to playing a direct combat role using their mimicry, they seemed to play the role of a gas station that supplied the other Threats with power. A massive amount of energy was confirmed during the battle with the Warrior Doll, so the original lion-like Sparkle (the anti-air laser unit) could likely store just as much energy as the sea anemones, if not more. It is thought its defeat caused a phenomenon similar to a powerful microwave or electromagnetic pulse that caused the spreading chain reaction of destruction.

Without their power sources, the many other Threats are being hunted down until they cease to function.

However, we still do not know how the Threat works.

We do not know if they can gather energy from petroleum, electricity, or other methods, or if they can produce energy within themselves by eating or breathing. Even though they have stopped moving, they may only be sleeping or playing dead. I recommend quickly destroying them so they cannot split apart and cannibalize each other.

P.S.

Do something about the Indian Space Force.

With the Threat destroyed, forcing through a nuclear strike would look unnatural. If it were carried out, it would only increase the risk of further harm to all of you.

“Phew.”

The silver-haired brown-skinned soldier tapped the tablet’s screen to send her report.

She was in the floating general airport’s control tower.

This made her a traitor. If it was discovered she had intentionally included falsehoods in her report, a “grim reaper” would be immediately sent for her.

The Student Council President laughed.

“Oh, dear. Do you actually feel guilt for your misdeeds?”

“Most people do.” Letnahe massaged her shoulders that felt so much heavier now. “I hadn’t mentioned it because it isn’t really something to say on the job, but I am a mother of two. And my husband has no idea what I do for my job.”

“Or about Kiyosawa-sensei, right?”

“…”

She cleared her throat in response.

The wicked woman with both a ring and wristwatch on her left hand fell silent. Which was an eloquent enough answer.

“My point is I would rather not take unnecessary risks,” said the bespectacled wife. “Unlike you, I have something to lose.”

“But you can’t escape it anymore, can you?”

She did not protest the President’s statement.

Acting on emotion and making that emergency call had been her mistake. The wireless data had been intercepted and stolen. She had failed during the “grim reaper” phase meant to make up for that mistake, so now she was captured by an invisible chain.

However.

That was not why she was trembling.

It was true.

The documents she had been casually given showed that the information from Kyouka had not just been a bluff meant to protect them. There was a Threat that carried a massive amount of energy and a nuclear strike would not be as decisive a blow as the military liked to believe. Thus, they really did need to work with these magicians whose powers did not fit inside the existing branches of the military.

(But that isn’t the scariest part of all.)

She was smiling on the outside, but she silently gulped while thinking about her own lifeline here.

(If my betrayal is discovered, a grim reaper will be coming for me. A truly untouchable one with skill several levels above my own. But if that grim reaper manages to destroy “us”, humanity will be throwing out its one and only trump card: Second Grimnoah. Crystal Magic is the only trump card capable of fighting the real Threat.)

Letnahe Kurent was a grim reaper as well.

Her job was to prevent the creation of a tyrant. She was supposed to ensure that Crystal Magic could eventually be dragged down from its throne so that another strongest could take its place.

But at the same time, she had only been willing to offer her life as a grim reaper because there were people she wanted to protect by doing so: her husband who she had sworn her love to with a ring, the children she had had with her husband, and the first love represented by the watch she still could not bring herself to throw out. If she made the wrong move, they could die along with the rest of the 5.5 billion people out there.

“We’ve crossed the point of no return, so we’re in this together. I have people I must protect, so I can’t act as recklessly as you.”

“Oh? That’s an awful thing to say to a girl just because she hasn’t married yet.”

“Anything you might have is wasted without someone to share it with. Now, I don’t care how lonely a life you want to lead, but I do recommend doing everything you can to avoid being dragged down as tangled a path as mine. Besides…”

Smiling, Kyouka hit the console’s switch for the building-wide loudspeakers.

“Hadome-sensei, Hadome-sensei, please come to the guidance counselor’s office to discuss this naughty wife’s behavior.”

The soldier frantically covered the demon girl’s mouth with both her hands.

Kyouka grinned after removing her finger from the switch.

“You’re willing to go so far to protect him, but you still aren’t willing to speak with him face to face. What a pure little thing you are.”

“Pant, pant! I-I know you’re just teasing me,” insisted Letnahe with a tremor in her voice.

The world’s strongest was selfish. No one could hope to control them.

But it would be the height of folly to insist on controlling them to the point of throwing out the only card capable of fighting the Threat. That would be like someone stranded on a desert island throwing out perfectly good preserved food just because they were afraid of mold. They would be looking away from the fundamental problem.

At the very least, Utagai Karuta had proven that Crystal Magic could defeat the Threat. And he still had room to grow since he was not yet at Regulation 3.

Letnahe had fallen down the path of evil so she could protect people.

But offering herself up to the string-pullers would be entirely meaningless if she lost her family and first love that way.

Which was all the more reason for her decision.

(I can’t get rid of them when they’ve proven successful!!)

And once someone began to fall, they picked up speed quick. Her problems were like cords so thoroughly tangled she could not untangle them on her own.

This required absolute obedience.

The words of this President had to come before those of the man she had sworn her love to with a ring. If she wanted that happy family life to last, anyway.

The silver-haired brown-skinned traitor sighed.

“So we’re villains, are we?”

“Yes.” Kyouka admitted to it. “And you are not my friend. You will serve me.”

She drew a clear line between them.

She must have known that would actually make it easier for Letnahe.

“Then how about a piece of trivia to show you I am serious. To be clear, this is classified information that would get us both executed if it got out.”

“Oh? I hope it’s good news.”

“Have you ever wondered where the real Threat comes from? They attack different parts of the earth at random, but where do they come from?”

Letnahe Kurent pointed upwards.

“From space.”

“…”

“I’m not joking. Why do you think the sea anemone ones blossomed on the ocean floor in order to supply power for the others? The energy pouring down from space dissolves into the ocean and spreads evenly throughout it. The receivers have an easier time of concentrating it down when using the oceans that cover 70% of the planet’s surface. The solid fuel they use is not coal or a rocket propellant. You could call it the margin of error of energy that they fail to gather up.”

It was a simple answer, but that simplicity made it hard to find room to reject it.

“Crystal Magic also talks of energy pouring down from space, doesn’t it? The occult high and low pressure fronts you use are created by the conflict between that energy and the energy coming from the Original Crystal Embryo at the center of the earth. The energy source is already accounted for in your diagram.”

“Hold on. If that’s true…”

“Yes.”

“This is a fight between the inside and outside of the earth?”

According to Karuta’s report, Anastasia Blast of the Problem Solvers had said the following before their battle:

The real issue was the Original Crystal Embryo.

That gave humanity something we did not need.

This changed how she looked at the world.

Why had the Problem Solvers protected that outdated space elevator? Was it because they knew where the true battlefield was located?

Why had Yukino Arakawa managed a space facility that covered the entire planet? What if it was not to aim down from orbit and was actually a breakwater against the Threat arriving from beyond?

“You were granted your powers because you were deemed compatible.”

A note of pity entered Letnahe Kurent’s voice.

She shook her head with the look of someone viewing the monstrous result of a terribly misguided body modification experiment.

“You were made the vanguard of the Original Crystal Embryo that sleeps so deeply at the center of the earth. I cannot say if you are meant to be disposal or not, though.”

A girl stared blankly into the distance.

She was Matsuda Imi, a 1st year in high school. They had escaped Second Grimnoah and returned to the floating general airport for the time being.

“What are you going to do, Imi?” asked gyaru-ish Hashizaki Tayori.

Imi was so worn out her eyes seemed unfocused, but she could apparently hear when people spoke to her.

“Are you going to give up? I don’t think anyone will stop you after everything that happened.”

“…”

Imi remained silent for a while.

But eventually…

“What about Marika?”

“What about her?”

“What will she do?”

“I doubt her plans are changing. She’ll protect what she wants to protect and that means remaining on the front line. I don’t think anything you choose can change that.”

Imi fell silent again.

“Will I change anything if I run away?”

“That depends.”

“Will I never see Marika again if I run away?”

“You can make other friends.”

“But there’s only one Marika.”

Imi turned around.

She turned away from the exit that would let her run away to safety at any time.

And she waved toward her friend who was walking this way.

“I’ll stand up to it.”

Her movements were still awkward, but she was getting back on her feet.

“I won’t run away gain. No matter what.”

Marika scared her.

That had not changed. No matter what she thought in her head, her pain still rejected that girl. As long as she had a goal and knew she was doing the right thing, that girl could pin down her struggling friend and magically cauterize her wound without a second thought. Imi’s breathing grew heavy just remembering it.

But the time she had spent laughing with that girl on Second Grimnoah were also a reality. Marika laughed a lot, noticed even the small things, and made any day exciting just by being around.

She had known from the beginning that Marika had a twisted side.

And without that twisted side, Imi would have been fully crystalized back there.

So…

“I won’t let the ‘world’s strongest’ title win.”

She would take Marika’s hand once more.

Maybe the Threat was not the core of the problem.

“Marika is my friend. I won’t let our ordinary lives be consumed by war.”

Are you afraid of the world you live in?

Then you must stand up to that fear and overcome it yourself.

The dawn arrived.

The artificial rain had stopped. The oil fire out at sea had died down and the cleanup of the leaked oil was beginning.

Utagai Karuta scooped up dirt with a shovel and poured it into a hole at his feet.

“Those trucks are from museums,” said Yamane Deiri with bags under his eyes. “They apparently use them to carry dinosaur fossils. Basically, everyone’s afraid of leaving food behind for the Threat, so all the Threat wreckage is being dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. I dunno where it’s all being taken, but I hear it’s being put away somewhere no one will ever see it again.”

“…”

“Are you sure you don’t need to report that?”

Karuta did not respond.

The Port of Kobe was a modern port covered in asphalt and concrete, but it was a wide enough area that spots of unpaved dirt or gravel-covered dirt were common enough. Karuta had just finished levelling out one of those dirt patches after burying the armored warrior’s head. The shovel sticking into the ground almost looked like a grave marker. He understood this sentimentality was meaningless, of course.

Deiri referred to the remains of the unspeaking Threat as “wreckage”, so he apparently saw them as machines, just like drones.

Karuta was not so sure.

The Threat could act without a goal in mind and find meaning in pointless things.

The Warrior Doll’s eyes had seemed so much more straightforward than his own. It had fought fair and square from beginning to end and it had seemed to wordlessly praise its adversary even after its vengeance failed.

Had Karuta’s revenge been so praiseworthy?

Had he been open to accepting other ways of life?

Call it revenge if you like, but all he had done was play dirty and deceive his opponent. He had thought avengers could only be bloody criminals, but what if that assumption was wrong? What if his ugliness had not been the result of seeking revenge? What if the fundamental problem had been the part of him that led him to choose those methods for revenge?

The Warrior Doll had not tried to bring the ship, Gekiha, and the other crystallized people down with it.

Karuta had won the physical bottle but lost the moral one.

He had never imagined the Threat would make him feel that way.

“Sacri-sama.”

Aine pulled up his shirt and dove out from his stomach.

She had taken a lot of damage in the fight against the reddish-purple armored warrior, so she had been healing her wounds inside him. Just like Marika, Natlena, and the others would let their crystal armor “sleep” inside them to repair it.

“Are you ready to go now?” she asked with a tilt of the head.

“Yeah. Unlike you, I didn’t do much.”

“Didn’t do much? But I am part of your Crystal Magic.”

“All I really did was shine my flashlight around to blind them. You’re in control of all the real magic stuff.”

“…”

“And I wouldn’t it to turn out that way regardless.”

The crystal girl did not look happy with his answer, but he did not correct himself.

He tapped his finger on the handle of the shovel sticking into the ground.

“Unlike him, I don’t want to wield a sword so I can reach an emotional death. Maybe it’s too much for me, but I’ll accept this result if it’ll protect the people I care for. I will follow my path, even if it’s the path of the devil.”

He could see the ocean past the wharf.

Various work ships were moving all around to clean up the oil, but he also saw another ship slowly approaching. That was the Second Grimnoah academy ship – the home ground they had risked their lives to reclaim.

The crystal girl glanced over at the shovel he had stuck into the ground.

And she asked a question in her usual way.

“If I die, will you bury me like that?”

“I’ll learn any magic and clench my teeth in battle to make sure I don’t have to.”

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