Godhorn Tech:Volume3 Chapter7

Chapter 7, Section 1

The humans prided themselves in their ability to feel regret

But they showed no sign of mending their ways

“Whoa, what is this!?”

“I-it’s chilly. There’s an actual livable world out here!!”

Eliza Silverstorm’s life in a snowy kingdom had left her entirely unprepared for the desert heat, especially in armor, so she just about collapsed forward in relief.

When Miyabi Blackgarden and the others passed through the giant gate to enter the desert nation, they found the city within to be unexpectedly cool.

That may have been thanks to the water flowing through stone canals.

“Koo,” cried Alma, the living stuffed animal walking by Miyabi’s feet.

The slipper-sized juvenile Wicked God had a flower blossoming on its head. This form was apparently a plant creature known as a dryad – a rare example of the wood element instead of the earth element. …But Miyabi was not as familiar with those magical particulars as Helen Clockgear or Celina Bodenburg, so he was not entirely sure what elements that would be strong and weak against.

They were surrounded by massive ruins with small houses clustered together in the gaps between. A large square pyramid temple sat at the very center and the foot traffic included enough priests and priestesses to surmise this was a religious nation.

Alicia Blueforest’s pointy elf ears stuck out through her long blonde hair to twitch curiously as she stared into the distance.

“So that’s one of the famous pyramids. I’ve never actually seen one before.”

The passersby were full of life.

A lot of them were dressed skimpily, perhaps to fight the heat, but there was a noticeable difference from Kananka Fulpen’s remote island kingdom. The clothing here used a lot of thin silks with clasps and decorations made from gold, silver, or other precious metals.

And there were an awful lot of cats.

Just a quick glance around showed some lazily crossing the street and others curled up atop walls.

“This desert nation is where kitty cats come from,” explained Celina, her jewel-studded black dress fluttering. “A lot of cat lovers who want a thoroughbred will cross the desert to find this place.”

There were a lot of non-feline animals as well. Someone had a hawk perched on their shoulder and another was slowly guiding an enormous cow by waving a small bundle of hay in front of it. But instead of just pets or livestock, they all seemed to have some religious meaning here.

“We should probably buy plenty of water now instead of waiting until we run out and are desperate,” said Helen, viewing a pump-equipped well instead of the canals that kept the flower beds and fruit trees alive. The bored-looking merchant standing next to it suggested there was a fee.

Water could get heavy fast, but with the Compress Cargo magic that divided a material into invisibly small Palette Dice and wound them like ribbons, they could fit 100 times as much in a small bag and carry it around with ease.

Then White Seidr Chosen Knight Eliza gave her silver ponytail a swish and clung weakly to Miyabi for once.

She was not used to flirting for something, so it came off as more innocent.

“M-Miyabi, I beg you…please do this one thing for me. There is something I must have.”

“I can tell the heat’s gotten to you, but start buying cold drinks and frozen treats and you’ll never be able to stop.”

“No, I want that.”

Eliza recovered somewhat after entering the cool shade of a building and managed to point at what she wanted, which made Helen Clockgear bristle.

“Um, a swimsuit!? Did the heat tilt the strait-laced but naughty knight’s internal scales too far in the one direction, giving her a thing for exhibitionism!?”

But Eliza seemed to be serious.

“I’m thinking of the future!!” explained the sweaty knight. “W-we’re going to be staying in this desert nation for a while, right? We’re bound to be walking back and forth across that deadly desert that saps your stamina with every step, so I need to have some defense against the heat.”

Celina Bodenburg shrugged.

“Why not let her have her way? When someone is desperate, telling them no is a good way to trigger a tantrum.”

“Well, when you put it that way…” murmured Miyabi, taking a look at the street stall.

The equipment was surprisingly cheap for its rarity. According to the dark-skinned female shopkeeper: “It looks fancy, but swimsuits doesn’t require any special weaving like with silk lace, so we can keep the price down.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Aren’t you just admitting it’s just some cheap pieces of thick cloth with strings connecting them?”

There was a reason the known cheapskate and only daughter of the Bodenburg Company had been willing to shrug off this unnecessary expense. Class Rep Helen was still confused, but since Eliza wanted this, there was no stopping it.

“Yes!! The North Wind and the Sun effect has finally given us a regular swimsuit wearer!!” exclaimed the crystal radio hanging from Alicia’s neck. “Miyabi, you keep her headed in this direction. Whittle away her shame and get her used to skimpier and skimpier outfits until she’s only wearing a set of three small stickers or a lewd V-shaped swimsuit! I’ve already seen this sword and sorcery world has bandages of the standard and adhesive varieties, so either one’s a real possibility! Ohhh, at long last I get to witness a real fantasy with no obtrusive beams of light obscuring the best parts!!!!!”

The large street was lined with a wide variety of shops, not just the swimsuit one.

Some were stone buildings and others were carpets laid out on the roadside.

An item shop’s discount shopkeeper was yelling something about even the smallest items here containing ancient wisdom since this was the world’s oldest civilization, but a wise old man who heard it had something else to say:

“He makes it sound nicer than it is. Most of it is lost technology. We can maintain the ruins so they last longer, but we don’t know how to create new ones. Not that he would care since he’s just yanking out parts and selling them.”

They also heard a few people talking about the sacrifices. Something was going on at the temple and you would be paid if you helped. But no one mentioned any specifics and there were too many rumors.

“Nhh,” groaned Onelife Shiftup. “There are some weird tents lined up over there.”

There were an unusual number of independent fortunetellers for a religious nation. Miyabi considered taking a look, but Helen grabbed his sleeve to stop him.

“No, Miyabi. I-if they’re real, they would know you own a Godhorn Tech!”

“Ehh? Do we really have to be that cautious?”

“Um, it would be safe if they were a fraud, but then why would you want to pay them your hard-earned money?”

The overly diligent government worker seemed unaware that you could still enjoy the experience knowing it was fake.

An innocent boy told them where the water came from.

“They say a god lives in the ruins. Or I think they said the god ‘resides’ in them? Only the priests and priestesses can maintain the ruins, so we have them to thank for the water we drink and food we eat.”

Miyabi’s party was searching for the Godhorn Tech user.

One of the priests or priestesses that represented the nation seemed like their best bet.

Their first idea was to check the biggest ruins in the center of the city.

Its size was impressive enough, but as they approached, it became clear the building was made by stacking up square stones. Miyabi could not imagine how much effort had gone into that since he couldn’t carry even one of the stones. It was such an unusual sight that he was worried the whole thing might collapse in an earthquake. He did not know how it was built, but he did not see any pillars or other supports a log cabin used.

“This is the desert nation’s temple?”

“The pyramid, yes,” confirmed Alicia.

It was made of thick stone and had no windows, yet the inside was cool and remained strangely bright without any candles or lamps.

Onelife crossed his arms inside what felt like a bright cave.

“Hm, not quite the same as an underwater cave. Those caves have a bluish shine from reflected sunlight.”

“You’re full of useless trivia, aren’t you?”

“Gah hah hah! All pirates love underwater caves!! …If only an enclosed cave didn’t keep a sailing ship from catching the wind.”

Maybe mirrors were directing the sunlight inside and maybe it was some form of magic. There were occasional brighter spots of light that caused a light burning pain in the skin.

Miyabi grew nervous as they walked deeper inside.

“W-we sure got in here easily. Isn’t this like a central castle in a kingdom? And I still have my control sword.”

“Heh heh. Miyabi, I am glad to hear you have learned how to act like a proper gentleman. Gone are the days when you barged right into my king’s castle while still armed.”

“Does anyone have a mirror I could borrow? I’ll use this unnatural – magical? – light to melt this snowy knight.”

“Hyah!?”

The sunburn-like pain made Eliza tremble like a newborn fawn. She fell to her knees and tearfully clung to Miyabi’s hip as if to beg for her life. Heat had a way of making her honest, but reacting so strongly to light made her seem more like a vampire.

Alicia sighed.

“Do they not use fire inside the pyramid because they’re afraid of it being too airtight? With all this stone stacked up without the slightest gap between, consuming the air with flames would get you asphyxiated pretty quick.”

The interior was also gorgeous.

Everything from the carpet below their feet to the candlesticks by the walls were polished to a shine.

12-year-old King Kanaka Fulpen raised an eyebrow.

“I sense spirit pressure…coming from the building itself? But who’s contacting it? It almost feels like an abandoned ship adrift at sea.”

“…”

Sensing something, butler automaton Number 8 frowned slightly.

Just then, an old man in a splendid robe walked out to them. His robe was mostly white, but the excessive gold thread and gemstones made it look very heavy. It had a different look to Celina’s dress. Hers was all about increasing the value of the clothing itself, while the old man’s was about spending money to make oneself look important.

He had to be one of the desert nation’s priests.

“The ancient gods will grant their wisdom to any who seek it, so their temple must be open to all.”

“Who are you?” asked Miyabi.

The priest shook his head.

“Wouldn’t this be easier if we remained anonymous? As long as you are speaking with the ancient gods and seeking their wisdom, we choose not to trouble ourselves with differences in nationality and affiliation.”

Alicia and Helen stepped closer to Miyabi.

“(So what now?)”

“(Don’t we need to pass on our message in some form or another?)”

Then Celina whispered in his ear as well.

“(It did seem like that devil swordsman was after Godhorn Tech users.)”

That gave Miyabi a basic plan, so he faced the priest again.

“Th-then, let’s say there’s an issue we would like some divine wisdom on.”

“Then you must first purify yourselves.”

The priest smiled and showed the newcomers how it was done.

“Please grab a pinch of salt and sprinkle it over your head.”

They did so and he nodded, satisfied.

Miyabi was unfamiliar with their teachings, so he could not even imagine what meaning this held. And he was honestly a little scared. What if this was their final sterilization before they were cooked whole?

“Thank you.”

“Then let me tell you why we’re here.”

Miyabi slowly began to explain.

Eventually, the old priest cut him off with a sigh.

“I see,” he said. “In that case, you would be better off speaking with someone else.”

“!”

Helen’s shoulders shook.

Kananka also went on alert, his brown skin tensing.

“Passing us over to the military? Or just taking us into custody?”

“Not at all. If this is about the horn, you should speak with the horn’s owners.” The priest slowly shook his head. “You should speak with the twin priestesses who were chosen by the Executive Ground – our Godhorn Tech.”

Miyabi parroted back a word he could not afford to overlook.

“Twins?”

He recalled what Moebius had told him when they met.

“Including my Lucifer Horn, there are currently 10 Godhorn Techs in existence.”

“But a certain rumor has been going around among us.”

“There’s an 11th somewhere out there.”

If this was true…

“Your Godhorn Tech has more than one user!?”

“Is that a problem?”

Yes, it meant the number of Godhorn Techs did not match the number of users.

But the priest did not see the issue.

“Oh, perfect timing. They have just returned, so I can introduce you.”

They heard two sets of footsteps approaching behind them.

The boy spun around to see them.

They were both brown girls. They had an unshakable lack of expression and black hair cut at shoulder length. Maybe it was the desert style and maybe it was meant to help with the heat, but their clothing did not leave much of their flat chests and bright thighs to the imagination. Instead of a slitted skirt, it looked more like they had a piece of cloth hanging down the front of their hips and another on the back. The jangling sound seemed to be from the thick chains hanging from the back of their hips like a tail. Those may have had some kind of sacred meaning to the locals. Same with what looked like dog and cat ears on their heads.

Yes, the different types of ears were the only difference between them.

They were otherwise identical.

They both held a control axe taller than they were. Their slow movement made it feel like time flowed differently for them as they crossed their axes together and viewed Miyabi’s party with blank eyes. The priest introduced them.

“This is Acacia Flightheart and Ixea Flightheart, the elites of our temple and the high priestesses given the honor of the Godhorn Tech.”

Chapter 7, Section 2

The two girls left the desert nation’s giant temple with composed expression and the thick chains swaying from the back of their hips like tails.

Miyabi’s party quickly followed after them.

The instant they left the pyramid and reentered the heat of the sun, Eliza Silverstorm’s head lolled back like she had been physically struck. Then she slowly retreated to the shade of the palm trees. The noble knight’s soul was growing more and more sluglike.

“Ugwah…it’s way too hot out here.”

“She’s as bad as any A/C addict. And didn’t she say the city felt chilly earlier?”

The radio hanging at Alicia Blueforest’s chest gave an exasperated comment, but now was not the time.

The square stone buildings lining the street must not have been enough because a lot of merchants were hawking their wares from tents or simple cloths. That showed just how many people there were here. It would not be hard to lose sight of the twins.

Number 8 pointed ahead without a bead of sweat or any concern on his face.

“Over there, Miyabi.”

They ran down the row of palm trees, passed by a street stand selling dates – something like giant raisins – crossed a waterway using a bridge, and finally managed to catch up to the twins at a circular plaza filled with strange creatures called camels.

Miyabi Blackgarden raised his voice so they would not get away.

“Hey, wait, hold on!”

“We heard what you had to say, but we have business of our own to attend to. Don’t we, sister?”

“We do, sister. We had only returned for a progress report. We must get back.”

Acacia and Ixea.

When they were lined up next to each other, it was easy to get them confused.

And their cold rejection was not enough for Miyabi to give up.

Because…

“I can’t abandon them when they use axes. They could have used any kind of weapon for their control device, but they chose an axe! That’s how you know they’re good people!!”

“I know you grew up in a lumberjack village, Miyabi, but that is not how most people view the world!!” said Helen. “Would you try to make friends when an axe murderer shows up at the campsite!?”

The users of the Godhorn Tech that protected the nation had to be fairly well-known, but none of the passersby paid them any heed. Maybe the ordinary people assumed those famous twins wouldn’t just be out in the city like this.

“What kind of underwear are they wearing?”

Miyabi spoke an entirely unrelated question out loud and a low kick from young Kananka Fulpen did nothing to discourage him.

He was curious.

How could he not be?

Those twins’ outfits could not be explained away by the heat of the desert nation.

Acacia and Ixea’s clothing glittered with golden stitching and was very different from what the ordinary people wore. It probably had some important meaning for their role as priestesses but Miyabi knew nothing about that and he could only focus on two things: their flat chests were only covered by suspenders and a single horizontal piece of cloth, and their lower body was only covered by a fluttering piece of cloth hanging down the front and another down the back, not quite qualifying as a skirt. The sides left their sides, ribs, skinny bellies, and hip bones all exposed.

They did have a piece of cloth wrapped around their hips, but it was as high up as their navels.

There was nothing at the height you would normally expect for the side strap of underwear. Nothing at all!

So what was going on under there!?

The philosopher’s stone had its own opinion on the matter.

“Heh. I get the reflexive temptation to say they aren’t wearing any, but as a true panty connoisseur (a position that leads me to rate your adventure quite highly overall) I cannot judge this one so simply. This looks more like a cleverly-laid trap to me. Even Tutankhamun wore something like a loincloth. I expect they are only giving the illusion of a delicious treat while actually remaining fully guarded by a tall T-shaped affair. …But mysteries are meant to be solved. And if you want to solve this one, look to the terrain. Use the pyramid, Miyabi. Those steep stairs might as well be designed for looking up skirts. Fetishes are often a twisted form of people seeking after what has been hidden from them, so now is the time to open your eyes to who you truly are, Miyabi Blackgardeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!!!!!!”

“What is wrong with you two?” groaned Alicia. With the crystal radio hanging from her neck, there was no way for those two to have a private conversation.

It was clear that pursuing those girls’ secrets over the mysteries of the world was going to get them killed, so now was not the time for a ridiculous side quest.

As frightening as this was, Miyabi had to face it head on.

He could not afford to lose sight of those twins, so he gathered his strength and shouted everything he could say at the moment.

“A-anyway, that guy – the one with the magic sword – really is dangerous! He will hunt you down if you have a Godhorn Tech. And once he finds you, he’ll tear your Godhorn Tech apart from within!!”

The brown twins both tilted their heads.

A butterfly fluttered over their heads, perhaps drawn by the flower beds supported by the canals.

Maybe that was the natural reaction for someone who had not experienced that fear themselves. Miyabi himself might have reacted the same in their shoes. Bisecting a Godhorn Tech with a single sword slash beggared belief.

“God, this is taking forever,” said the impatient radio. “People won’t listen to you just because you’re right. You’ve gotta draw their interest!”

“Nhh, then lure them in with something. We need to buy enough time for them to listen!”

That advice seemed to hold further implications coming from a wanted criminal like the pirate. He sounded more like a professional kidnapper.

Unfortunately, they did not know what the twins were interested in or enjoyed to eat. They only had so long to find something to stop them, so Miyabi ran around seeing what the street stands had to offer. They lived here, so Miyabi figured they had to like something here. He tried offering them a thin and cheap meat snack he bought at a nearby stand.

Acacia Flightheart was unmoved by the fried food.

Maybe he should not have brought her something he could only describe as a mystery meat.

“Hmph.”

“H-how aloof can she be?” muttered Alicia.

“Umm, might she be more friendly with someone who didn’t start talking about her underwear one minute after meeting her?” speculated Helen.

“Don’t worry. This is just the initial phase of a tsundere. Keep at it!” urged the radio.

The fried treat had failed, so Miyabi fed it to ever-hungry Alma.

Next, he set his sights on Ixea.

As hot as the desert was, there was apparently a market for more than just cold things. While Alicia and the others bought time by bringing up the weather and waving around a desert plant like a cat toy (they dubbed it a “priestess toy”), Miyabi bought a skewer of hot meat. He had a feeling they had told him what kind of meat it was, but he had been too preoccupied to pay attention.

Miyabi and Alma were the hungry types who always chose pork cutlets or meatballs for a snack when on a trip, so he kept offering meat products to the delicate girls. Lady Celina, who chose cake and tea even when hiking outdoors, clearly wanted to criticize that decision, but…

“…”

Ixea Flightheart actually seemed interested. Overall, she backed away, but her head stretched forward with small nose sniffing. She was cautious of Miyabi himself, but she could not fight her curiosity in the food.

“Sniff sniff.”

“Oh, she’s smelling it. I think she’s interested.”

“Wait, this isn’t the kind of tsundere I had in mind.”

Ixea snatched the skewer from him.

The philosopher’s stone was confused, but it looked like they had had this figured out.

“So could we win her over all at once with some colorful sweets recommended by a fancy 5-star pâtissier?” asked Celina.

“No, Miyabi. Don’t listen to the rich girl who doesn’t know how much anything is worth. We only have so much travel funds, so go for something cheap that children would like. Don’t worry! Children will believe anything is a shortcake if it has a strawberry on top!!”

Acacia gave her identical twin a critical look, but there was also a hint of jealousy in her eyes. The fact that neither brown twin left suggested they were both interested. Miyabi followed the rich girl and young woman’s advice by focusing on the sweet foods. He approached again and again with new items.

He brought them cookies, crepes, and cake.

It was possible Acacia and Ixea were unaccustomed to luxury items.

“Phew,” sighed Ixea.

Acacia held her sister’s shoulders and finally spoke.

“That old man was probably the Lord of Ruin. His skill with a sword is said to be extraordinary.”

“Hm?”

When Miyabi showed interested, Ixea continued for her sister.

“If you would like to continue this conversation, follow us. Now, let’s go, sister.”

“Yes, sister. We can’t stay here any longer. We need to return to the western ruins.”

“Hey!”

The twins climbed onto two of the camels tied up in the plaza and vanished into the city. Miyabi had been careless. He had assumed camels were as slow as they looked, but they actually moved as quickly as horses.

“So they left after all. Did I do all that for nothing?”

Miyabi’s complaints were understandable.

“You have little experience with women,” rationally judged Number 8.

“Gah hah hah!” guffawed Onelife Shiftup. “You probably should’ve held their interest longer than that!”

But…

“No, this was not the boy’s fault.”

Someone else was burning with rage.

Their cheeks were puffed out and their long elfin ears were standing tall.

“How can they ignore someone’s kindness like that!? Maybe they deserve to be cut in two by that magic sword!!”

“Koo!? Koo…”

“Hey, um, the crowd is keeping their distance,” warned the radio.

“This is curious,” said Helen Clockgear. “With those twins controlling one of the 10 Godhorn Techs, we officially have an 11th.”

“Could either Acacia or Ixea secretly have another one?” asked Eliza.

“Any country with two would have extraordinary power,” said Celina. “Wicked God horns can’t be produced on demand. Even my company could only create the Schwarz Schütze.”

“My Empire only officially owned the Divine Doll. We did have spares for all its parts, an extra horn, and several magical automatons capable of controlling it, but it was all kept separated to facilitate repairs. The emperor feared the possibility of a mass-produced model being stolen and the Empire being torn apart from within by a clash between Godhorn Techs, so he never even tried to protect our lengthy borders with more than one. He said the ability to make a retaliatory strike was enough of a threat to prevent an invasion by another country.”

“…” Miyabi thought for a bit and then threw in the towel. “So maybe it’s the Lord of Ruin and maybe it’s the twins. This is so confusing.”

“Ha ha! No use worrying over it. Just figure it out one step at a time!” Onelife’s simple thought process came in handy at times. “What is it we know? Gwohhh, we know those twins are headed to the western ruins! So that’s where we’ll go. We’re bound to learn something new there!”

“Agreed.”

Miyabi smiled a little.

The twins had said they were headed west, so Miyabi also left the city, returning to the desert.

Young Kananka was wiping sweat from his brow before long.

“Pant, gasp. I-I thought I was used to the sand, but it’s so much worse without the crashing waves nearby.”

“Speaking of, you’re handling this oddly well, Onelife.”

“Oh, me? Bearing with the glaring sun and rationing your drinking water isn’t that much different from life on a ship. Hah hah!”

Heading out into the vast desert with a goal no more specific than “search the west” sounded like suicide, but they fortunately found a sort of road. The feet of many people had packed down the soft sand, giving them a path to follow.

“Ah ha ha!”

They heard someone laughing.

They had their hands boldly on their hips below the scorching sun.

“Ha ha ha ha ha!! Who’s laughing now!? Bet you all wish you had bought swimsuits too!!”

“Seriously, an actual bikini knight!? That naughty knight is a blot on her kingdom’s reputation. Or wait. Did the small taste of exhibitionism she got on the island nation get her addicted!?”

Helen (who dressed up in lewd costumes more than anyone) could not believe her eyes, but there was no stopping the heat-addled knight.

Miyabi returned to his old question.

“It still just looks like underwear to me.”

“Miyabi, it’s about the texture. Note how it glistens when wet with sweat or water and you’ll see the difference. Underwear becomes see through when it absorbs water, while a swimsuit repels the water, causing it to bead up. Both are enjoyable in their own way.”

The radio was getting philosophical.

Helen changed the subject while doing her best not to look at the bikini knight.

“There really is nothing but sand, sand, and more scorching sand out here.” She looked out across the rolling dunes reminiscent of a stormy sea. “It’s truly incredible. This has to be a major risk when it comes to preserving order as well.”

“?”

“Think about it, Miyabi. Countries and villages can easily exile someone if they are rumored to hold some nonexistent treasure. What if they did that to someone out in this harsh desert so devoid of landmarks? And they could always feign ignorance if it failed.”

“Ah ha ha. Did you see a play about an inheritance conflict, Helen? That kind of thing doesn’t happen in the real worl-”

They heard a scraping sound.

They saw someone pulling up a stone buried under the sand, digging below that with a shovel, and hiding a black bag there.

Miyabi could only scream.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaahh, for real!? Did we really run across someone hiding their bloody knife or glove in broad daylight because they couldn’t wait until nightfall!!!???”

“Huh?” The shoveler was a brown-skinned boy with curly blond hair. “Ooh, you weren’t supposed to see this. I need to find a different dig spot.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!! Don’t hide criminal evidence right in front of us. I might not be an official of this nation’s government, but I can’t just overlook this, you know!?”

“Criminal? No, you misunderstand.” The shoveler spoke in a gloomy way, poking the large bag with the tool of his trade(?). He breathed a heavy sigh before continuing. “This is a job from a merchant in the desert nation. These are the documents detailing a purchase plan. See, he’s terrified of the outsiders in the Bodenburg Company controlling the market for everyone’s daily necessities, so he plans to bring together a bunch of small local shops to create a solid local production base. But he doesn’t want his rivals sniffing out his plans beforehand.”

“My, my. So you work for the competition.”

Celina gave a bewitching smile with a hand on her soft cheek.

The look on her face said some light competition could actually help energize the market.

“My job is to hide people’s secrets and the (figurative) skeletons in their closet.”

He did not sound proud of his work.

He may have seen it as no more glamorous than selling vegetables or fish at the market.

“The desert is a big place and it’s littered with old, weathered ruins no one knows about. Bury a secret out here and there’s almost no chance of anyone else digging it up. This is so much safer than hiding it in a safe that practically announces there’s something valuable there. I’m the only one who knows where it’s buried and, with so much desert to work with, I never run out of space to bury more. Thanks to that, I get plenty of work as a guardian…or I used to.”

He glared over at them.

The fact remained that they were not meant to have seen this.

The shovel boy breathed a heavy sigh.

“I really don’t want to believe it’s time to call it quits.”

“Hm?”

“This isn’t the first trouble I’ve run into. I’ve earned the ire of several groups and some strange assassin – I think called Shadow Crack – has supposedly been sent after me. I wish I could hide myself right now, but unfortunately, I can’t bury myself in the sand.”

Miyabi crossed his arms and thought for a moment.

“What if you could hide somewhere other than the desert?”

“Without anyone knowing, you mean?”

“It’s called Horn Fortress. It’s surrounded by a weird barrier and by the cracks in the world, so you can’t reach it by ordinary means.”

“I see. That sounds promising.”

The blond-haired brown-skinned boy grinned and held out his right hand.

What did a handshake with him signify?

“I’m Ginger Sandstrike. If you’ve got any secrets or skeletons in your closet you need hidden away, just come to me.”

The Lucifer Horn flew by overhead.

They discovered more than just human life.

“Hmm, are these grassroots? Never thought I’d find them here.”

Onelife tilted his head while moving his feet out of the way.

Miyabi had thought the desert was nothing but sand, but there was so much more to find there. For example, palm trees, cacti, and other plants that could survive in the heat.

“Wow, what is that weird tree!? It’s so big!”

“It must be a baobab,” said Alicia. “They look strange, but from what I’ve heard, they evolved that way because it’s the best shape for them.”

“Are you sure they didn’t evolve the wrong way? They look like giant, ugly carrots.”

“Which allows some of them to live for more than 5000 years. Survival logic is not judged by human aesthetics. Nature truly is powerful.”

There were animals as well. Unfortunately, that included hideous local Beast Novae like a scorpion bigger than they were or an antlion that created its own quicksand.

Miyabi started to think they should have asked that Ginger guy to be their guide.

“I’ve never seen creatures like these,” he said, carefully walking around a giant bowl-shaped patch of quicksand resembling a crater. “Do you think those fried and skewered meats were made from these local ingredients?”

“Th-think too much about it and you won’t have much of an appetite, Miyabi.”

Also, the white bikini knight had been restlessly rubbing her legs together for a while now.

She also hooked her finger and messed with the butt of her swimsuit.

“What are you doing?” asked Alicia. “Is the bikini riding up back there?”

“More than I thought. And when the wind blows, the sand gets in-”

“Okay, we get it. Don’t you dare destroy any more of our manly dreams, you failure of a knight.”

The radio gave a deep rumble of a warning for once.

Eventually, the ruins came into view.

Several pillars stood on a stone-paved ground, with a foundation and L-shaped remnants of stone walls hinting that a square building had once stood there. It was a lot smaller than the pyramid temple in the desert nation, but it was larger than the oases they had seen here and there. Did it serve some kind of special purpose?

“Are these the ruins we want?” asked Miyabi.

“I do sense people here,” confirmed the magical automaton. “And I sense a pressure bearing down on me.”

“I sense a powerful spirit pressure too,” said Kananka. “This place must be even more consecrated than the temple in the middle of that city.”

At any rate, Miyabi took a look around and spoke half in prayer below the scorching sun.

“Where are those twin priestesses – Acacia and Ixea? If they’re not here, then the trail’s gone cold. We’ll have to search at random.”

They heard voices coming from the stone arch at the crumbling entrance to the ruins.

A few commoners were arguing with the priest-in-training who appeared to be their guide.

“Don’t push, please don’t push. All sacrifices should come this way. Please stay in line. The end of the line starts here.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!!” yelled the radio. “How flippant can you be!?”

“Y-yeah, I’m not sure what to make of this one!” said Alicia.

“Hold on. Something isn’t right,” said Helen (who had clear sweat building up in her large cleavage).

They took a closer look.

“Yes, it’s finally my turn.”

“Hurry it up, will you!?”

“This is my chance to be a sacrifice. I might even get recruited as a priestess!”

The people gathered at the far end of the stone plaza had bright excitement in their eyes.

Celina was taken aback by this.

“This does not feel as…tragic as I was expecting.”

“What are they even talking about? A chance to be a sacrifice? Recruited as a priestess? They make it sound like this isn’t the end for them.”

Eliza remained cautious, but the muscle man did not.

“Enough. If you want to know what’s going on, you march on up and ask them!”

When the muscular man (and wanted criminal) approached, everyone paled, so Miyabi quickly intervened.

“Oh, are you here to be sacrifices?” asked the priest-in-training. “Please wait a moment.”

“No, that’s not what-”

“Hey, no cutting in line, bikini girl! We were here first!!”

The smiling girl, who wanted to be a priestess, gave Miyabi’s party a cheerful warning. Her excitement about what was to come shined through even as she rebuked them.

Then they heard a deafening explosion. And felt a powerful tremor. But the shaking was variable, like a living thing was crawling around.

Cracks ran through the parched stone ruins.

“Whoa!?”

“Koo!?”

When Miyabi and Alma left the crumbling wall, a stir was spreading through the people around them. A few of the stone pillars started to collapse unpredictably.

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

The original size of the stones and the original seams between them meant nothing. Several cubes of stone were extracted and rearranged vertically to forcibly prop up the heavy pillars.

But he could not cover the entire ruin himself. He had reflexively moved to protect the powerless ordinary people, so his own party had briefly entered a blind spot.

Stones larger than people’s heads collapsed. Celina Bodenburg started, but the flintlock rifle she normally used to protect herself (with a powerful offense) was of little use.

Something tackled the girl out of the way to protect her.

It was a tame Beast Nova that looked like a scantily-clad girl with falcon wings for arms.

That messenger harpy was in fact…

“M-Millovannes!!!???”

“Wow. With the way she was always slashing at her owner with those talons, I assumed she hated the girl, but apparently she’s just an extreme tsundere,” groaned the radio behind the rising cloud of sand.

Celina crawled forward while down on all fours from being knocked to the ground. She clutched the sand that had flowed into the scorching ruins and squeezed it in trembling hands for one second, two seconds, three seconds.

“I will never forget you… But I must move on, Millovannes. Damn this desert nation’s Godhorn Tech! It’s time for some delightful revenge!!”

“You got over that awfully quick for someone you claim to be family. At least look sad for more than three seconds! You humans scare me more all the time!!”

The entire scene had left the elf in tears.

Fortunately, the capable harpy was skilled enough to survive on her own. Since she crawled out of the rubble and flew off into the sky, she must have avoided being crushed to death. Maybe it was this treatment that kept her from ever getting closer to Celina.

Meanwhile, the brown-skinned people in the area did not just sit around waiting to be crushed.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.”

“We weren’t enough! Run away!”

The line scattered.

A commotion spread as they fled for their lives.

“Hey, wait! Come back, sacrifices!”

The priest-in-training ran out into the scorching desert to pursue the fleeing people, but it still did not feel very tragic. Miyabi had the feeling no one was going to die there.

“Wh-what is going on here?” asked the elf, her long ears wiggling.

“The tremor is unstable but somehow orderly,” analyzed Number 8 with his eyes shut.

A second and third tremor reached their feet. The sand on the ground began to flow disconcertingly in some places. Dunes collapsed and quicksand formed.

“That priest said something curious,” said Helen.

“What part!? It all sounded crazy to me!!” shouted back Miyabi.

“ ‘The end of the line starts here.’ ”

“Hm, he did say that, didn’t he?” agreed Number 8.

“Hold on,” said Kananka, something about this bothering him.

“Does that mean the people who fled weren’t the only ones in the ruins? Th-there were more further in!?”

It seemed wrong for Eliza to be so strait-laced while equipped with a bikini. Miyabi looked back over at the stone ruins on the verge of collapse, but they were too large for him to make any quick judgments.

The chosen knight said what needed to be said at times like this.

Even if she was hooking a finger to fix the butt of her swimsuit while she did so.

“These tremors must be from the Godhorn Tech. But what are those twins hoping to accomplish by bringing it to these ruins? Are they hunting something so big it requires a Godhorn Tech?”

The radio asked the fundamental question here.

“But…what kind of opponent would a Godhorn Tech have trouble with?”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Koo?”

They all fell silent and Alma tilted its flowery head.

Everyone but the juvenile Wicked God had reached the same conclusion.

“Could it be the Lord of Ruin!?” shouted Miyabi, setting them all into motion. “This is bad. They might even speed up their use of sacrifices to fight back. I don’t know how they use them, but they’re necessary for their Godhorn Tech, right? We need to stop both sides of this fight!!”

Either way, they had to check and make sure no one had been buried alive deeper inside the ruins.

Once inside, they found the ruins did not continue on underground. And the ceilings had entirely collapsed. The sun beat down on that roofless indoor space as they traveled through a labyrinth of crumbling stone walls.

“Nwohhh!? I’m being pulled into the sand!!”

“Wait, everyone,” said Helen. “The meathead pirate is caught in some quicksand!!”

“Huh? I thought that was a solid rock wall, but my hand passed right through it.”

“Miyabi, that must be a secret passageway created with a mirage,” said Kananka. “You see this along the coast in my kingdom, but seeing it artificially constructed is unusual.”

“Someone please save the macho man!!” shouted Helen, so the ever-obedient Number 8 fished the man out with his morning star.

The ruins, being ruins, had more traps than Beast Novae. They progressed deeper in while avoiding spears from the walls and swinging guillotines. With the scorching sun shining in through the crumbled ceiling, it at least did not feel dank and gloomy.

“It’s like a mall with the underground floor open to the air,” grumbled the radio. “It’s hard to say what’s underground and what’s aboveground, or what’s indoors and what’s outdoors. Reminds me of a convertible.”

They encountered a variety of people along the way.

The place was dangerous, so the people familiar with it may have viewed it like a secret base. …Although inattention created by that familiarity may have been the most dangerous thing of all.

“Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. I’m afraid not even Priestesses Acacia and Ixea can control it this time. But then what are we supposed to do!?”

A veteran priest worked to calm a girl who was pale faced with terror, but then he murmured to himself.

“They’ve lost control again. Is the Executive Ground just too much for us to handle? Sure, it’s supposed to resonate with the ruins, but we don’t actually know how that works.”

Further in, a calmer priest explained things further:

“We have the ruins to thank for our desert nation, the oases, and all our water, but we didn’t actually build any of them. Is the Godhorn Tech the same? Could the resonance with the ruins be some kind of warning?”

“The priests said they were providing everyone with equal opportunities when they chose those twin sisters despite their social status,” said an old man who looked resigned to his death. “But do we even need that Godhorn Tech? I understand that rulers want power, but what good is a power you can’t control?”

Fortunately, they did not see anything too serious, such as people trapped underground or crushed below a fallen wall or pillar. Miyabi used the Palette Dice to create a sturdy path of stone and then gestured for the remaining people to evacuate while his party continued on in.

“Doesn’t something about this still feel off?” Helen touched the side of her glasses. “The sacrifices still want to do their jobs – there’s no tension there.”

“And based on what they’ve said, this isn’t an enemy attack,” said Kananka.

“True,” agreed Eliza. “I get the feeling their own Godhorn Tech is running wild.”

“Oh,” said Miyabi.

He had spotted Acacia – or was it Ixea? Regardless, he had seen one of the Godhorn Tech users up ahead. But just the one. The brown girl was viewing the vast desert from a hole in the wall.

But what was that out on the desert?

It was swelling up in places, like something was crawling below the sand.

“There one is,” said the radio, but Miyabi tilted his head.

“But which one is she?”

The slender girl must have heard him because she toward him and spoke so stiffly and expressionlessly she sounded like a ventriloquist’s doll.

“Hello. I. Am. Acacia.”

“Okay, this is definitely Ixea. Don’t shove the blame on your sister!”

“Why won’t you leave us alone?”

“Your axes are cool. I ended up with a sword, so I’m honestly jealous.”

Ixea Flightheart’s face had expressed no emotion since they first met, but now it twisted into something hard to read. Miyabi only saw that forestry tool as a taste of home to soothe his homesickness, but he could see Alicia and Helen slapping their foreheads. Maybe Ixea now saw him as a weirdo. Maybe a fair assessment since underwear and axes were pretty much all he had talked about since meeting her.

But anyway.

Miyabi sighed.

“You’re too relaxed for this to be the Lord of Ruin.”

“S-says the boy acting all relaxed with a real Godhorn Tech running wild out there,” pointed out Helen.

“What are you even doing out there?” asked bikini Eliza, looking out into the distance. “Tilling the desert?”

More and more tremors ran through the ground. It appeared to be avoiding the ruins, but the sandy ground was crumbling away. Sand billowed out like cumulonimbus clouds.

“I couldn’t do it.” Ixea stared out at it all. “Maybe the ruins just weren’t in a good mood.”

“?”

“Priests and priestesses can be rejected from the ruins for how they live their life. Although you can change that if you can directly read their mood.”

“…”

“…”

Kananka and Number 8 intentionally held their tongues.

Ixea did not seem to notice.

“It was my sister’s turn today, but this does not look promising.”

“Nhh. Are you saying you can’t control your own Godhorn Tech?” groaned Onelife.

“That’s insane.” Celina’s eyes widened. “A berserk Godhorn Tech will only destroy your own country!!”

Eliza groaned and held a hand to the center of her bikini chest. Her ridiculous outfit did nothing to change her strait-lacedness and she was reminded of what had happened in her Arsenal Kingdom.

But there must have been more to it than that because Ixea made a suggestion after noticing Eliza.

“Oh, are you okay? You should probably move into the shade.”

“Wh-why me specifically? I’m the only one with the foresight to change into a swimsuit.”

“Showing too much skin reduces your defenses against the sun’s rays, so you actually take more damage.”

The local girl did not pull her punches.

Without their roof, shade was surprisingly difficult to come by in the stone ruins. Miyabi ended up holding out his hand and rearranging the stone plaza to create a sun-blocking roof. Eliza was feeling dizzy, so she lay down in the newfound shade.

A hint of surprise appeared on Ixea’s expressionless face as she looked alternately between Miyabi and the makeshift roof.

“What did you just do?”

“I don’t know myself. It seems to be some kind of error.”

“An…error, you say?”

It was Miyabi’s turn to look surprised.

He saw something like affinity in Ixea’s expressionless face.

But the bikini girl interrupted before he could ask what it meant.

“Ugh, sorry about that. Please continue.”

“If you insist,” sighed Ixea. The look was already gone from her eyes. “But things could be worse. My sister and I lived in the alleys before we were taken in for our talent. You could say our warm welcome proved we have what it takes.”

“So what’s all this about sacrifices?” earnestly asked Helen.

“Ugh,” groaned the chosen knight.

“You should probably give your knight some water first.”

As one of the temples, there was water here. They scooped up some in a collapsible metal camping cup and handed it to Eliza, who sat up and eagerly drank it. She held it in both hands and gulped it down like a hungry baby with a bottle.

“Gulp, gulp…”

“Oh, dear. I get the feeling she would swallow just about anything right now.”

Ixea gave the radio a look before getting back on topic.

“A pilot must board the Executive Ground to control it, but my sister and I could never keep it stable.”

“So you brought more people onboard?” asked Miyabi.

“I see,” said the automaton. “Like changing from piano four hands to a full orchestra.”

Eliza lay back down, the heat making her hate everything going on around her.

“Ugh…ughhhh!”

“Hm, you should probably find something to fan her with,” calmly suggested Ixea.

Alicia’s mouth formed a small triangle.

“That bikini ponytail has gotten awfully shameless of late, hasn’t she?”

They were not even calling her a knight anymore. Eliza Silverstorm’s identity was in crisis. Remove the bikini now, and she would have nothing left.

Miyabi and the others gathered big palm leaves from the hot sand.

By bundling a few of them together, they could function as a large fan. Miyabi held it in both hands and fanned it in Eliza’s direction.

She only lay there, sweating.

“Sigh. I’m never getting up again…”

“Does she think she’s a queen?”

Even Ixea was sounding exasperated now. People could learn the wrong lesson when they solved a problem in the wrong way.

But the defenseless bikini girl felt too nice to even consider moving from that spot.

Until, that is, a sudden tremor shook the stone below her and she shot to her feet. The rapid motion pushed the bikini straps’ knots to their limit.

Something burst straight up from the desert. Was it a snake or a centipede? It was large enough to rival a small tower in size, but the very tip looked more biological. Three round pieces of armor clacked open and shut like an eye or a maw.

This was the Executive Ground subterranean tank.

It was unclear how exactly it traveled through the ground, but the thick armor itself was rotating in alternating directions. The tooth-like blades, bits, and rollers used to dig through the ground looked like brutal weapons.

Was it a snake, a worm, or a centipede?

It wriggled in a horrifying way that made it look alive, so Celina (who had added a bayonet to her hunting rifle to make it even more deadly) grew pale.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew. Aren’t you the top of your nation? W-why would you make it look like a big, wriggling mess?”

“Your Schwarz Schütze was big, long, and black too,” point out Alicia.

“B-but it wasn’t a snake! Leave it to an elf hick to not understand the beauty of trains!!”

Since they had chosen that form, it must have had some special meaning for their desert nation. Maybe it was a sacred symbol of their nation’s protector, or maybe they had intentionally made it creepy to scare away any enemies.

“The cobra is a royal symbol,” explained Ixea, still watching the distant Godhorn Tech. “Hee hee. Strange, isn’t it? Our religion controls both the sun and the underworld and believes in the rebirth of mummies and our nation chooses its leaders equally from the wealthy and the poor, yet here we are clinging to an old, outdated image of the pharaoh. We claim to put equality first, but maybe people can’t help but throw it all away so some charismatic person can rule them and make them feel safe.”

Ixea’s shoulders shook in expressionless laughter, but Miyabi could not tell what was so funny.

Also, what were mummies?

The Executive Ground towered above them like a castle watchtower, but more of it had to still be hidden below the sand. Miyabi could not even imagine how big it was in all.

“Oh, that is not what I thought you meant by sacrifices.”

“It is modeled after the people sacrificed as grave goods. Theoretically, the more people who accompany a pharaoh in his grave, the greater his power in the next life. But if that control method were a success, it would mean sending a deadly weapon to the front line while stuffed full of living people. The term sacrifice seems appropriate, don’t you think?”

Ixea watched as the colossal device dove back into the sand. It almost seemed to be dissolving into the ground.

“I don’t understand humans.” The elf sounded exasperated. “You create weapons to protect people, but then you put people onboard those weapons to operate them. Why are you so fixated on having the power to fight? And if the Lord of Ruin arrives, he’ll just slice right through that thing.”

“The Lord of Ruin, hm?”

Ixea’s shoulder-length black hair swayed as she repeated the name.

The bizarre Godhorn Tech was below the sand once more. They could hear the occasional explosion or tremor, but they could not tell where it was or where it was going. It may have been similar to Kananka’s submarine in that way.

At times, a torrent of quicksand would burst from belowground, its face would emerge from the sand, fine sand would shoot out like a glowing blade to tear through a boulder, and a sandstorm would appear to hide its great form while it dove back into the sand.

It had several methods of offense and defense that used every aspect of the harsh desert.

“What do you think?” asked Ixea, half curious and half serious.

“That would depend on how deep it can dive,” mumbled Miyabi.

If it could use the ground itself as a thick shield, the Lucifer Horn’s aerial attacks would have a hard time hitting. He had gouged great trenches into the ground before, but that was the most he could manage. He doubted those beams could actually break into the depths of the earth.

Meanwhile, the Executive Ground could obscure its enemy’s vision with a sandstorm and spew high-speed sand to tear through even boulders. Depending on its range, even the airborne Lucifer Horn could be at risk.

After a while, Miyabi realized the deep rumbling had stopped.

An identical voice spoke from a different direction.

“Sister.”

This one was Acacia Flightheart.

Had she exited the Godhorn Tech because the experiment was over? Miyabi’s party had no idea where that massive sorcery weapon had gone to get the girl back here.

The faintest of frowns appeared on Acacia’s expressionless face.

“What were you talking about? Are they here to mock us for failing to control our Godhorn Tech?”

“The same as before, sister. They wished to discuss our subterranean tank and the Lord of Ruin.”

“Mhh.” Acacia puffed out her cheeks. Still expressionless in every other way, she turned toward Miyabi’s party. “I could have discussed that with you. Stop plotting to contact my sister while I am away.”

“Um…what?”

Acacia approached the confused redhead boy and gave a warning.

“As you can see, my sister is the puppy type, so she is very trusting of strangers. She makes it far too easy, so it takes mere moments before she-”

“Sister.”

“Ahem. Anyway, we should be going, sister.” Acacia paused for a moment and started again on a new topic. “We will handle the Lord of Ruin ourselves. And controlling the Executive Ground is the only way to do that.”

The twins left.

They gave off the pressure of someone who carried the weight of a nation on their shoulders. The village boy had been given a Godhorn Tech, but that was not something he had. He could not keep his eyes off of their departing backs.

After a while, the radio spoke up.

“Hey, aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Koo?”

“Oh, you’re right! I forget to ask them who the Lord of Ruin is! They look like they would know!”

Between the Lines 4

Those sisters could not remember how long they had lived like that.

They had no idea if they had ever had a comfortable home to live in.

Their first memories were of curling up together in the cold alleys. They had watched as so many people walked by without so much as a glance. Abandoned children were far from an unusual sight in their country.

For better or for worse, the extreme environment of the desert forced people to cut the fat and live rationally. The days were blazing hot and the nights freezing cold. They had been forced to do whatever it took to survive there.

They had never known their parents.

They had truly believed they may have been born from one of the buckets or sacks lying around in the alleys.

They had only learned of cooking when they were entirely fed up with the sourness of whatever they could find in the buckets.

They had only learned of clothing when the rags wrapped around them had lost all color.

They had never learned what a bath or a bed were.

It had not been a happy life.

They had assumed that was how their lives would always be.

They had expected to eventually grow weak and die together.

But that had all changed one day.

A kind priest had told them they were special, chosen by the sacred ruins.

The twin sisters were invited to the large temple, where they were given hot food to eat and a hot bath. They were given priestess clothing made of a material they had never before experienced, they were taught to read and write and otherwise educated, and they came to realize how wrong their previous assumptions about the world were.

Their desert nation was reliant on water.

There were no wells or rivers. Dig as deep as you like, you would never find anything.

The water that supported all their lives came from the mysterious ruins scattered across the desert. The nation only really protected the select few who could make a mental connection with the ruins and gather water from them.

And it turned out Acacia Flightheart and Ixea Flightheart had the most suitable wavelength for that.

Thus, they were given the Executive Ground, the desert nation’s prized Godhorn Tech.

So the girls could not abandon the nation that supported their lifestyle, the people who relied on their power, the priests who trusted their talent, or the Godhorn Tech and ruins that gave them such value.

But.

What was it they had really wanted to do, back when they stared up into the night sky from the frigid back alleys?

They had said they would do anything to survive. They had lived day to day by digging through buckets in the back alley. They had no memory of their parents and truly believed they may have been born from one of the buckets or sacks lying around in the alleys.

But no matter how hungry, cold, and weary they were and no matter how much they had resented the invisible presence they could sense in the stone ruins, there was one thing they had never wanted to do.

They had never wanted to wield a tool of killing.

Chapter 7, Section 3

Miyabi’s party had returned to the desert nation.

Camping out in such an extreme environment would have presented too much of a challenge, so they chose to fork over the money necessary for an inn.

Evening had since fallen.

“This country really likes its dried foods. They do it with meat, with fish, and even with fruit.”

“A culture of food preservation suggests there was a period in their long history when food supplies were unreliable. Still, it does have a unique flavor to it. Fish and shellfish must taste different if you slightly rehydrate it before cooking.”

“The spices are different too.”

“Ha ha. Yeah, those were a bit much when water is a luxury item. I bet it wakes you up in the morning, though.”

Miyabi Blackgarden and Kananka Fulpen discussed the food as they walked down a major road.

Alicia Blueforest, Helen Clockgear, and Celina Bodenburg were with them as well, but a lot of their party was elsewhere.

Miyabi made sure to buy something for Eliza Silverstorm, who wanted nothing to do with the great outdoors after the hot sun had worn her out. Number 8 had also stayed inside to focus on something called a “self-diagnostic” related to the fine sand getting inside his automaton body.

Miyabi’s group was on their way back to the inn after grabbing a bite to eat.

But then Miyabi bumped into someone.

However, the impact was unusually low. The person’s head hit him in the stomach, meaning they were about the same height as Kananka. Did that mean they were a small child?

“Oh, excuse-”

He looked down and started to speak, but he was cut off by a jangling sound that could only come from a thick chain.

He finally realized this was a small girl with a thick chain wrapped all around her.

“Eh? Eh? What’s this? She’s walking around like normal, so is this the latest fashion trend in the desert nation? Come to think of it, those twins wore chains like tails. Is this place just really into bondage?”

“Our Bodenburg Company does business all over the continent, but I assure you nowhere is quite that crazy!” insisted Celina. “Hm, a chained child out in the city at night. She might have escaped from some criminal organization or another. We need to protect her!!”

She looked no older than 10 or 12, but Miyabi had trouble judging small children’s ages and couldn’t say for sure.

“Kananka.”

“Hm? I think she’s about my age.”

If Kananka saw it that way, then she had to be exactly 12. A year’s age difference was a big deal in kid society, so they would know how to tell far more than someone older like Miyabi.

She had long blonde hair brushed aside from her forehead and white skin. Aside from the chain, she wore a thin blue dress and an apron. It made her look more like a country girl than a maid.

No one else in the city was dressed anything like her.

Celina crouched down to her eye level and put on a comforting smile.

“Were you brought here by someone, or were you abducted while on vacation? Either way, you’re safe now. There’s nothing to be afraid-.”

“Shut the hell up, you justice-obsessed freak. Keep away from this child with that creepy smile on your face.”

Celina curled up and held her hands over her sobbing face, so they decided to leave her be for a bit.

The young girl continued speaking with an unusually deep voice.

“Rose Dollycastle.” She directed cold, emotionless eyes toward Miyabi. “This girl has not been illegally abducted or sold into the slave trade, so do not worry. (Your worries are more a nuisance than anything.) I am journeying to find a way to break the curse.”

“This girl?” Miyabi frowned. “You make it sound like you and the girl are different people.”

“She probably thinks it makes her more interesting. It’s a common affliction among adolescents. They’ll wear eyepatches or silver accessories or whatever. I’ll admit that chain is pretty extreme, though. Wah hah hah!”

Miyabi was not sure what the radio was talking about, but apparently she was not injured or sick.

Then a black crack ran through the empty space directly above the girl’s head. No, it looked more like a single eye floating there. The pitch-black thing blinked with a mind of its own, narrowed its eye, and turned toward Miyabi’s party.

The girl(?) continued speaking.

“I am not this girl.”

“?”

“I am the chain – the cursed chain. Think of it as cursed equipment that provides both offense and defense. One day, Rose ended up wielding me. Ever since, I have been searching out a way to return her body to her. No matter what it takes.”

Cursed equipment.

On closer inspection, the ends of the chain wrapped around the girl were indeed shaped like scythe or spear blades. There was also something like an hourglass at her flat chest.

“A-a girl this young needed to wield a weapon?” Helen could hardly believe what she was hearing. “And you make it sound like you’ve been searching for a long time. How long ago did that happen?”

The chain(?) readily answered her question while turning its dark gaze toward her.

“Her family was surrounded by several Beast Novae in a mountain blizzard with no hope of rescue, so she had no choice but to wield a cursed weapon to protect them. Are you criticizing that decision?”

“…”

“Unfortunately, she was kicked out of her home because of it. I destroyed her life, so I must restore it to her. I require some means of breaking the chain – breaking myself.”

“Breaking yourself?”

“Isn’t the best way to conquer a curse to destroy its source?”

“I suppose,” sighed Miyabi.

This was more complicated than he had expected. And while the girl was trapped after wielding the weapon, it was unknown if she herself wanted to destroy the chain that had saved her and her family’s lives.

They had only heard the chain’s side of the story – not Rose’s.

(If they might do something they would regret, maybe it would be best to keep them close by.)

“Did you have something to say?” asked the chain.

“No.” Miyabi shook his head and put on a fake smile. “You want to break yourself and I happen to have access to the world’s greatest weapon: a Godhorn Tech. Surely you’ve at least heard of them.”

“That sounds wonderful, but I would like some proof of this power before we shake on it.”

That was easily done.

He stabbed his control sword into the ground, opening a magic circle.

“Lucifer Horn, take this girl to Horn Fortress!!”

Night had fallen.

They had been right to get some dinner before sunset. Miyabi had never lived in the desert before, but it was apparently well known that day and night there might as well have been different places entirely.

Helen Clockgear – or Venus, the bunny girl sans glasses – was muttering to herself alone in the inn room. She could not let Miyabi or the others see this transformation.

“Phew.”

She looked annoyed, but she made sure to strike a pose in front of the large mirror. She used her mannerisms to gather moderate attention and bring down people’s guard, but that was easier said than done. The correct answer was influenced by the current trends, the local character, and even an individual’s personal tastes.

She only had to put on a coat and she was ready to gather intelligence in the city’s night.

The ridiculousness of the outfit did not change the risk she undertook.

“Whenever we’re in need of information, we have a job for Venus. I need to gather whatever intel I can.”

But she was interrupted by Alicia who was hiding out in the room.

“Are you talking to yourself now?”

“Eek!?”

Miyabi, Celina, and the rest did not even bother knocking before barging in.

“Hm. I do wonder why Acacia and Ixea knew about the Lord of Ruin.”

“Right?”

“Not a single surprised reaction after setting foot in this unreal realm of the bunny girl!? Do I have that idiotic bikini armor to thank for this!? Is this just not enough to excite you anymore? Did she trigger some kind of bare skin inflation!? But I can’t show any more than this! You won’t get anything else from me!!!”

Helen bristled and shouted at them, but no one even looked her way.

And speaking of the bikini knight…

“It’s so cold, cold, cold? Why, why, why? Chatter, chatter, chatter.”

“The desert can’t store any heat, so it gets very cold at night!! Change back into your usual armor or you’ll freeze to death!!”

“Now, now, mom. Leave her be.”

“I am not your mom, Miyabi! Why do you start calling me that whenever I’m dressed as a bunny girl!? What disturbing ideas are lodged in the depths of your psyche!?”

“When I say ‘mom’, I guess I more mean the mom at a friend’s house.”

“What did you see when you were little!?”

The cold was so bad their breaths were visible even indoors.

Even Onelife Shiftup was bothered by it.

“Ghh, now this is a bit much. And my metal hand cools off way faster than a real one.”

Eliza Silverstorm was too exhausted to even adapt to the changing environment, so the most she could manage was grabbing a blanket from the bed and balling up inside it. And Alma had climbed onto the bed, so the poor creature was accidentally caught inside with her. She was close to looking like one of the mascot costumes at a crepe or hot dog stand. The desert was making her less and less capable of taking care of herself. If this continued, she might never be able to set foot outside the inn room. It scared the others enough that no one else dared approach the bed.

Meanwhile, someone was rubbing his body for warmth over by the wall.

Thanks to his tropical upbringing, Kananka may not have been accustomed to extreme cold. The young brown king had always experienced sweltering nights, so he had to hold his skinny shoulders against the cold.

“Th-this is not easy. I never experienced this back home.”

“Hey, are you okay, Kananka?”

“I should manage. Ahh, but you’re nice and warm, Miyabi. I think I’ll just nestle up against you until I’m used to it.

“Wait, is Miyabi starting down a new path here?” wondered the radio, but no one was paying any attention.

“The Lord of Ruin.” Celina breathed an exasperate sigh while seated on the windowsill. “With all the ruins, this desert kingdom must have the oldest history on the continent, so they may have more accumulated knowledge than anyone else too.”

“Do you know anything, walking dictionary elf?” asked Miyabi while leaning against the wall, but Alicia only breathed a visible sigh from a corner of the room.

“I generally never leave my forest, you know? All I know comes from the books I would read to pass the time at night. I just happen to have had a lot more tedious nights than a human.”

“Anyway, we need to ask them about the Lord of Ruin,” said bikini blanket Eliza while rubbing her cheek against Alma for warmth.

“N-need I remind you that one of the twins could still be the 11th?” asked Bunny Helen while trembling. “It might be best to ask them what they know before this gets any more complicated.”

“True, but can we really trust them?’ asked Number 8 who stood perfectly still in the center of the room. “Since they too are suspects, they could always lie.”

“If they do, we can use that lie to make our attack. But that requires confirming what they tell us, which will mean more detours,” replied Helen, seeming to have recovered some by focusing on the topic at hand.

That government worker could be strict at times like this. She served her country in a different way from a knight or butler.

“But they’re central figures of their country. How we do we approach them?” asked Kananka while using Miyabi for warmth.

But then…

“Hey, isn’t that Priestess Acacia!?”

They heard a voice from outside.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Koo?”

They all fell silent and Alma pushed Eliza’s face away with its front paws to tilt its head.

They knew what they had to do know, so Onelife roared with laughter.

“Now that night’s fallen, this investigation can really get started!”

“What is even happening?”

Miyabi scratched his head and walked to the door, but Venus alone could not accept this.

“Ehh? Wait, you want me to do a lengthy investigation outside dressed like this!? At least let me put a coat on over the bunny suit! Wait, wait, wait!”

“Hurry it up, horny bunny.”

“Please put back on your normal armor, lewd knight!! Surely you aren’t going to head outside still wrapped in that blanket! I mean, you’ll very nearly be a flasher wearing nothing below their coat. Just let go of Alma and come with me!!”

Helen finally tugged on cocoon Eliza’s ear to drag her into another room.

Once outside the inn, Miyabi’s party was assaulted by the biting cold. It was quite a bit colder than when they had been out for dinner. But the canals and crowds kept the city relatively warm at night, so it would be even worse out in the open desert.

Everyone around them was already talking about Acacia Flightheart. It reminded them of how the criminal city had so adored Onelife.

It turned out the religious nation had no custom of going to bed and getting up early.

The city was illuminated by oil lamps and the reflected starry sky appeared to be scattered across the ground. The beauty of the city seemed to be a sign of the how much business was done there.

They passed by a bar when a window burst open and a tipsy man shouted from within.

“A toast to the two priestesses!! Who the hell knows what they actually do, but they get the job done! That way we don’t gotta worry about it ourselves! A toast, a toast!”

The lady at his table was pouting her lips and teasing her glass with her fingertips.

“Priestesses Acacia and Ixea are all they ever talk about. Hard to imagine they used to live in the back alleys. Sigh, why can’t a priest come by and recruit me?”

A fortuneteller woman let a comment slip in a gap between customers.

“The type of customer is so different between day and night, but neither type ever has any real problems. Is that just how peaceful we are thanks to that Godhorn Tech?”

They walked around a while before spotting a familiar brown girl at a plaza.

“There she is, Miyabi,” said Number 8 with no emotion on his face. “It’s that idiot.”

“What are you doing?” asked Miyabi while Alicia calmly grabbed one of the “priestess toys” growing nearby to make sure the girl did not escape.

He thought this was Acacia.

By this point, he had figured out the subtle differences in the twins’ behavior. Their clothing was also subtly different. Acacia’s was feline and Ixea’s was canine.

Also, she was not alone.

The chain swished from the back of her hips and she showed no change of expression as she explained why some man was following her around.

“A stranger asked me for directions.”

“Wow, that is a really good costume,” said the man. “You look just like Acacia! Can you show me to your club? I’d love to down some drinks with you sitting in my lap!”

Onelife placed an arm around the unintentionally inappropriate man’s shoulders.

“Gah hah hah! I think the two of us need to have a chat, man to man!”

“Eh? What? You mean it’s not a costume? That really is Acacia??? Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no, no!!”

The man ran off, showing surprising agility for a drunk.

Acacia still did not seem to understand.

“Oh, did he remember the way?”

“…”

Miyabi was not sure what to say and Kananka felt a need to break the awkward silence.

“I know I never would have made it onto the throne without so many people’s protection, but I think she’s even worse than me.”

“It turns out I interrupted an important conversation with my sister earlier, so I thought I should visit you to apologize and tell you about the Lord of Ruin. However, I forgot to ask where you were staying.” Miyabi’s eyes widened at that casual explanation.

“The Lord of Ruin!? Really!?”

“That was surprisingly easy,” noted Number 8.

“I also forgot how cold the desert night is. It has been too long since I was out this late.”

“Now’s your chance, Miyabi. Grab a blanket from somewhere,” urged the radio. “Heh heh heh. The careless fool just told you exactly what it is she wants. Building up affection points will be a piece of cake now!!”

With no convenient blankets lying around, he had to grab one from their inn room. Which was generally frowned upon.

Acacia looked satisfied inside the blanket that still held some of Eliza’s body heat.

“Ooh, this is nice and warm. But that does not mean I will open up to you.”

“She’s just taking you for all you’re worth!? With the wrong upbringing, this girl could turn into a real problem.”

Acacia had apparently learned by now to ignore the radio’s delusions. Once she had sat down on a bench by the plaza fountain, Miyabi concluded she was not going to leave right away.

The brown priestess began her explanation in an oil lamp’s light.

“You should have seen by now how reliant we are on the ruins. With so much history, we have more antique murals and ancient documents than we could ever need.”

“?” Kanaka tilted his head and briefly fell silent. “You mean…this isn’t something someone told you? Is the Lord of Ruin a figure from some ancient text?”

“I assume you passed through the Bio Rainforest on your way here?”

“Don’t ask me! I’m no navigator!!” replied the muscle man.

“Then stay quiet and let someone else field the question, idiot!!” shouted back the glasses woman.

Meanwhile, Acacia continued her lecture.

“You should have seen stone ruins buried in the vegetation there.”

“Like the ones the Necromancer was using as a lab?” asked Celina.

Acacia shook her head on the bench and toyed with a flower growing in one of the beds supported by the stone canals.

“Those ruins originally belonged to – no, were originally constructed by the Lord of Ruin.”

“Constructed by?” Miyabi felt faint trying to sort out the timeline there. “But that must have been centuries ago – if not millennia!”

“It would have at least been before the foundation of the Empire.”

Number 8’s assessment was more accurate and Acacia nodded.

“Similar to our ancient stone ruins, plenty of records can be found there. It is said the Lord of Ruin created history’s first Godhorn Tech inside those forest ruins.”

That one term cut to the heart of the matter.

“The demon sword Calamity Revenge.”

The chill of the desert night was overwritten by something else.

That name alone seemed as sharp as a blade’s edge.

That sword itself was already such an enigma.

Miyabi’s party had seen it bisect the Deadman’s Fenrir in a single strike. They had abandoned the idea of fighting the Lord of Ruin and failed to even escape, so they were only still alive thanks to some whim of his.

Acacia had been kicking her legs a little while seated on the bench and wrapped in the blanket, but now she stopped moving altogether.

“The records say he broke off a juvenile Wicked God’s horn and forcibly built it into his sword.”

“K-koo…”

“From a juvenile?” said Alicia. “That’s horrific.”

“I believe it was called a sword of slaughter that brings victory to its user but always leaves new conflict in its wake. Even if the wielder wants to stop fighting, their people, their country, and the world as a whole pushes them to fight until they are consumed by it. The fundamental magic it uses is Geas. You could call it a vow or a curse. You bind yourself with a promise and gain powerful magic with which to harm others. It truly is a demonic sword. It restricts its wielder’s freedom, so to have used it for so long without self-destructing suggests a shocking level of skill.”

It was a frightening concept.

Any Godhorn Tech could be described as a double-edged sword, but Calamity Revenge had to be the most prominent example. It almost seemed to punish you for wielding such a deadly power.

“He must have had enough power to commit the taboo of breaking off a juvenile’s horn,” continued Acacia. “There are even records saying this one continent is all we know because he split apart the sea to cut it off from the rest of the world.”

That sounded like something from a fairy tale, but Acacia was serious. Her tone implied that would be within his power.

“It isn’t actually known if today’s Godhorn Techs could defeat a real Wicked God, but either way, the very first one had to be done without a Godhorn Tech and there would have only been so many someone could defeat to claim the horn. But that doesn’t mean the other Wicked Gods would have been okay with it. It is obvious what must have happened when you remember that his kingdom is now buried below vegetation. …He acquired the strongest power he so desired, but that brought about an even greater disaster.”

“…”

The Lord of Ruin.

Was that name meant to say he was lord of a ruined kingdom?

“Then why is he still wandering the world?”

“To make up for his mistake,” clearly stated Acacia. “After breaking off the juvenile’s horn, that ancient king saw the monster writhing in pain and realized Wicked Gods are no different from humans. But after he built the horn into his sword and displayed its destructive power to the world, there was naturally no end to people who wanted that overwhelming power for themselves.”

From there, the brown girl almost seemed to be singing.

With her emotionless eyes looking up into the starry sky.

“The Wicked Gods were made out to be evil.”

Her words were so smooth.

“He was made out to be just for slaying that evil.”

Yet so sinister.

“So the Lord of Ruin still opposes the world that perpetuates that framing.”

“That’s why he does it?”

Miyabi gulped and Acacia nodded.

“He has lived in regret for so very long. He regrets distorting history with the introduction of Godhorn Techs…and he regrets directing people’s greed toward the Wicked God horns.”

“…”

“By ensuring that anyone with a Godhorn Tech meets an unpleasant end and ensuring that anyone who attempts to break off a Wicked God horn is destroyed, he hopes to change how the world works. He appears to be attacking everyone who possesses one, turning himself into the greatest calamity of all.”

“In that case…”

Miyabi thought back to the Lord of Ruin’s apparent agony when Alma had moved to protect them at the exit to the rotting Bio Rainforest.

He thought about why such a powerful man had stopped his attack.

“Did the Lord of Ruin leave the forest because of Alma?”

Then what about when he had dealt with the Deadman’s Fenrir? From Miyabi’s perspective, it had looked like a merciless one-shot kill, but the old man may have been weeping blood below his mask.

With a corpse that had been turned into a rotting sorcery weapon by forcibly attaching another horn, maybe he could clench his teeth and justify his actions by saying he was putting it out of its misery.

But that reasoning did not allow him to attack a living juvenile like Alma.

He refused to commit the same mistake twice.

Even if it put him at a severe disadvantage.

Was that part of his pride as a king?

Blanket-wrapped Acacia’s voice was the only sound in the cold starry night.

“Anyway, contacting the Lord of Ruin should be easy enough. He will appear to anyone with a Godhorn Tech, no matter what, so you don’t even need to do anything.”

“W-wait. Then aren’t you and your sister in danger too!?”

“Yes, but that changes nothing. We cannot battle a Godhorn Tech user without control of the Executive Ground. I don’t know what exactly happened in those unthinkably ancient days, but the Godhorn Tech is a crucial pillar supporting our country. We do not have time to bother with philosophical questions of right and wrong.”

“You have a point,” groaned Number 8.

“It is ironic, really. The more the Lord of Ruin hates Godhorn Techs, the more we must fortify ourselves using them.”

The brown girl’s lips twisted with a hint of self-deprecation.

Maybe it was meant as a smile, but she was so out of practice it didn’t come out right.

“Could we work together?” cautiously suggested Miyabi.

“Just so you know, we consider you a threat as well. You are not bound to any country, you are immune to diplomacy, and you control a Godhorn Tech all on your own. You need to be aware that you could destroy an entire country on a whim if you wanted.”

That was the end of it.

With a rustle of cloth, the blanket dropped to the bench and she left. Miyabi could not stop her.

“The Lord of Ruin might be on his way, so I should not be out here talking.”

They had not solved anything, but time had passed and the conversation had ended.

Miyabi’s party had no choice but to return to the inn for now.

He felt bad continuing to intervene in their lives, but he could not let those twins stay like this. He knew the Lord of Ruin’s power was real. He had seen the threat with his own eyes.

And.

Alicia Blueforest remained behind, all alone.

Well, the radio was still with her.

“Now. I hope that boy has not forgotten that one of the twins might be the 11th. …Their behavior could be an act and their Godhorn Tech’s malfunction could be because one of them is drawing off all the energy to create sorcery bombs.”

“Heh heh. With twins that cute, maybe he doesn’t care if they trick him.”

“…”

Morning arrived and Miyabi sat up in the inn bed, lost in thought.

“Now, where are Acacia and Ixea?”

“Koo!”

“We need to find some way to get their cooperation today.”

Plant Alma had an excess of energy today, perhaps due to sunbathing by the window while in a flowery dryad form. Miyabi and the stuffed-animal creature got ready together and then left their room to meet with the others. After buying some water and meals of assorted dried foods from a street vendor, they made their way out into the desert.

“Sigh, not the desert again. It’s nothing but hot sand, hot sand, and more hot sand.”

Eliza was depressed already. It was blazing hot even in the morning. This time, the chosen knight was wearing her usual armor instead of the bikini. It was just as hot as before, but she had finally learned that wearing less only exposed her skin to sun damage.

“What a shame. I so wanted to see the novice exhibitionist’s bikini tan lines,” grumbled the radio hanging from Alicia’s neck.

Come to think of it, Eliza’s skin was surprisingly untanned for all the sun she had gotten. Instead, it looked faintly flushed. Was that what happened with the pale-skinned people of her snowy kingdom?

The sand began to shake violently when they were still near the city. It happened a second time, a third time, and they eventually lost count. The dunes looked like an ocean’s waves frozen in time, but now they collapsed and changed shape like the flow of time had been restored.

The unnatural quicksand made their footing as unstable as stepping in a shallow forest stream that had a stronger current than expected.

“Whoa.”

The redheaded boy staggered and Eliza had to support him from the side. Her armor seemed to have restored her dignity, so she had regained the gallant look of the sort of opera star every girl wanted to be.

“How can they keep this up in such a harsh environment? They must be continuing their tests with that subterranean tank, so do they do that from dawn to dusk?”

“Where are they this time?” asked Celina just in time for another great tremor. “They must be to the north today.”

They were more afraid of the sand covering up the narrow path of packed-down sand than they were of being swallowed whole by quicksand. The desert was so vast that they would have a hard time finding landmarks. If this path disappeared, they would have no way of navigating back.

For now, they followed the sounds.

They continued on, the hot sand catching at their feet, until some stone ruins finally came into view. They were relieved to find something other than sand they could use as a landmark. Acacia and Ixea had to be doing their tests in there.

Then they saw some people approaching them from the ruins. The details were still unclear, but the people may have found the harsh desert to be safer than the ruins.

While they passed, Miyabi’s party overhead a conversation between a young male artist and a carefree girl.

“Will the priestesses be all right on their own?”

“They said they weren’t accepting sacrifices, so I guess so.”

“Please hurry away. These were the priestesses’ instructions, so there is nothing to worry about.”

A priest waved a small flag to guide the carefree group through the desert. If they fled into the mirage-filled desert at random, they could indeed get lost easily.

Alicia glanced back at that group with skepticism on her face.

“What’s that about? This isn’t how they did things yesterday.”

“Their technology is reliant on the ruins and the chosen priestesses have to stand in harm’s way,” said Miyabi.

“You mean everyone is placing all the nation’s problems on those two’s shoulders?” Helen’s face clouded. “They keep insisting there is a problem, but no one takes them seriously while also blaming them when things gradually get worse? Everyone is so used to peace they fail to notice all the work those two put in. It must be so stifling for them.”

“It isn’t pleasant to hear about, that’s for sure,” said the radio.

“Nhh.” Onelife tilted his head. “But don’t they need the sacrifices to control their Godhorn Tech? You can’t call it a voyage if you let your whole crew off your ship and let it drift out at sea.”

“They did say the sacrifices were needed to restrain the unnatural resonance with the ruins,” said Number 8.

“Although I’m not sure how those sacrifices can help if they don’t know how to sense the spirit pressure,” said Kananka.

Those two’s descriptions were too abstract for the others to grasp very well.

“Hmm. Weren’t the experiments meant to stabilize the subterranean tank using the power of their people?” asked Eliza. “No way to test that without the people.”

“I’m amazed you remember all that when you were all dizzy from your bikini adventures yesterday,” said Celina, sounding impressed (and exasperated).

Just then, they heard a rumbling.

Something appeared to be crawling closer.

“Hold on.” Miyabi asked a careful question. “If they aren’t running their test, then what is this?”

“If it is not training, then could it be combat?” suggested Number 8, earning a groan from Miyabi. “What are Acacia and Ixea using their Godhorn Tech to do!?”

They encountered some Beast Novae while hurrying toward the ruins.

The desert monsters looked like giant snakes or bugs. The lack of water and the extreme temperature differences between day and night had created a very unique ecosystem. There were antlions with control over quicksand, dung beetles that flipped on their backs and toyed with infection bombs larger than they were, and many more.

“Whoa!?”

“Just get ready for battle!”

They did not need to defeat them all. After repelling them, the ground shook hard enough to crack open. The panicked monsters scattered and fled. The man-eating antlions emerged onto the sand and crawled awkwardly around and the wagon-sized dung beetles rolled away on their own filthy orbs.

They had avoided an all-out war with the Beast Novae, but they could not relax yet.

Eliza gulped and extracted her large lance from the flabby belly of an antlion (which was pretty gross-looking once out of the sand).

“It looks more like they fled in surprise than tried to attack. But what from?”

“Koo…”

“This isn’t the time to grimace in distaste,” said Alicia. “If they attack us, we have to fight back.”

“Oh, how unusual. You usually defend the Beast Novae.”

“How many times do I have to tell you that the cute species like us are not the same as those monsters that crawl around eating living flesh!? Come here, Alma. I will carry you on my head.”

They continued through the desert.

They spotted two camels on the way, but not wild ones. These still had saddles and reins like a horse would wear.

They did not have nametags, but their owners were obvious enough after seeing the glittering golden equipment. Not to mention the feline and canine decorations attached to their ears like earrings.

“Do those belong to Acacia and Ixea?” asked Miyabi.

They had arrived in the stone ruins.

After observing the desert around the ruins themselves, Helen pointed into the distance.

“Oh, is that it!?”

A massive cloud of sand rose from a great shape.

That had to be the desert nation’s Godhorn Tech: the Executive Ground.

However…

“What is this wild and irregular pressure? What is happening here?”

Kananka and Number 8 were both rendered speechless.

“This is more than just resonating with the ruins.”

“Hold on. Is that what I think it is!?”

An enormous object burst from the hot sand.

A massive snake covered in thick armor used tooth-like bits and blades to kick up the sand. But what they saw was only a portion of the weapon that had so destroyed the scenery. Part of it remained buried below the sand. It must have had a great many joints because it moved in an eerily biological way that made their skin crawl to watch, but it also looked like a piece of mining equipment that tore through the ground to dig tunnels. But that colossus was not the center of this scene. It moved three round pieces of armor to open its great maw, but another figure was facing the Executive Ground.

He wore a white mask.

He wore loose clothing.

He held the world’s oldest Godhorn Tech.

“…”

“The Lord of Ruin!?” shouted Miyabi.

Onelife clenched his prosthetic fist.

“Now that villain is turning his blade on those twins!?”

“Did they send out the subterranean tank to battle him? They must have let the sacrifices go to keep them out of this deadly battle,” concluded Eliza with a mixture of approval and exasperation.

“B-but they couldn’t control it even with the sacrifices, right?” said pale-faced Helen.

“They would not have been much help if they could not sense this pressure,” said Kananka, looking like staying on his feet was a struggle.

Helen supported him with a hand on the shoulder and finally started shouting.

“Th-th-th-then are Acacia and Ixea in any condition to fight!? What can they do if they can’t control the Executive Ground!?”

The face covered by the smooth, eyeless and mouthless mask tilted slightly.

The blade flipped around.

“The subterranean tank and I can both kill with a single strike. We have entered a mutual contract that remains in effect until this promise is fulfilled.”

The glint of reflected sunlight showed the path of the blade after the fact. Even at a distance, Miyabi could not see at all what the sword did in real time. The desert’s poor footing and the scorching sun did nothing to restrict his divine speed.

The serpent or worm that was the Executive Ground writhed in pain, forming a massive arch in the air, and then dove back down into the dry sand. No, fleeing may have been the better word.

The desert continued as far as the eye could see, but it felt far too small now. The Lord of Ruin’s presence was just that great. It would have been one-shotted if it had not shed some of its armor and diverted the blade’s path with a thick cloud of sand.

The Lord of Ruin’s sword was the Calamity Revenge.

Was it Celina who had called it a Godhorn Tech slayer when they first saw it in the Bio Rainforest?

Muscular Onelife could also be extraordinarily destructive, but the Lord of Ruin’s destruction was of a different type altogether. The one-eyed pirate wielded brute force and weight like he had an endless supply of energy within him, but this sword was cold and sharp and it calmly cornered its foe before accurately destroying them.

Did the twins have any chance of winning even if they managed to fully control the Executive Ground and draw out 100% of its power? It was impressive they had survived even that initial attack.

“It doesn’t matter if they can control it,” muttered Miyabi in a daze.

“Koo?”

“Acacia and Ixea plan to throw the uncontrollable subterranean tank at the Lord of Ruin to try and repel him. They want to protect their country even if it means their own destruction.”

“I see.” Surprisingly it was the cold magical automaton who responded first. Or maybe it was no surprise since he had failed to protect his own homeland. “I would do the same if it would save the country I was responsible for.”

“B-but they can’t keep this up! They control that from inside, just like I did my Schwarz Schütze, don’t they? Those twins are still in there!”

“This could be our chance, Miyabi.” Kananka made an odd suggestion. “You might have an easier time of it if we attacked the Lord of Ruin now, making it 2-to-1. He made a surprise attack on the Necromancer’s Deadman’s Fenrir to bring down the number of enemy Godhorn Techs, remember? That suggests he doesn’t want to fight more than one at once.”

“Will you stop the subterranean tank or the Lord of Ruin, Miyabi!?”

Miyabi fell silent considering Alicia’s question.

“…”

And.

“…”

And.

“…”

And.

He gave his answer.

“Let’s stop Acacia and Ixea.”

That settled it.

Miyabi faced his enemy and adjusted his grip on the control sword.

“We might have more opportunities to fight the Lord of Ruin, but we don’t get a second chance if those two lose their lives. This is our only chance to save them! So that’s what I’ll do, even if they resent me for it!!”

No one objected.

The small king loved by the sea and the spirits smiled gently.

“If that is your decision, I will assist you. Show them how to use a Godhorn Tech, Miyabi!”

Moving quickly through the desert was a challenge in and of itself.

Just like at the beach, the fine sand gently absorbed the energy of their feet on the ground, eating away their speed.

Meanwhile, they were up against a subterranean tank, a Godhorn Tech designed for use in the desert.

Only that colossus could move freely through the sand that caught at everyone else’s feet, so it moved too swiftly to ever reach without a plan.

Also, the Executive Ground did not keep its face above ground at all times. In fact, it had to be safer while submerged in the sand. It could wait for the desert to wear its opponent down with the heat of the day or the chill of the night and then attack from below once they were too weak and distracted.

But.

Its current opponent was an exception.

“Another Godhorn Tech.”

An old man wore a smooth white mask with no eyes or mouth and casually held a fearsome demon sword in one hand.

He was the Lord of Ruin.

“Eek!?”

Helen ducked down and covered her head, even though he was still so far away. Normally, there was no way a sword could reach them from that distance, but they all ducked down, their legs seizing up with fear. They knew on an instinctual level that “normal” meant nothing here.

“The subterranean tank and I can both split the sandy terrain with our blades. We have entered a mutual contract that remains in effect until the subterranean tank has been destroyed.”

Their opponent bound the field with a curse that benefited only him.

With a single strike, he split open the sandy ground, mercilessly exposing the Executive Ground attempting to hide there. The thick armor of the ground accomplished nothing and the Godhorn Tech itself was damaged. The tooth-like blades and bits meant to dig through the sand were torn away like a fish’s scales and cracks visibly ran through the rollers. Nevertheless, the great serpent or worm wriggled in its berserk state, targeting the Lord of Ruin with unpredictable movements, but…

“Argh, this had better do the trick!!”

Celina’s sniper shot struck what looked like a red ball of glass embedded in the Godhorn Tech’s head. The crimson liquid within sloshed around. That had to be more like the inner ear than an eye. With its midair attitude control sensor shaken, the venomous snake was thrown off course during its sharp leap toward its prey. Acacia and Ixea had been robbed of one of their few chances to strike.

Miyabi was not going to just stand idly by.

That great serpent was a massive tunnel digger that could move freely through the sandy ground. Only the Lord of Ruin could thoughtlessly stand up to that serpentine collection of bits and rollers, but Miyabi had a Godhorn Tech of his own: the Lucifer Horn bomber.

He stabbed his control sword into the ground, opening a magic circle at his feet.

“Tactical open,” he shouted. “Blow it away!!”

Sensing the danger, the Executive Ground opened the three round armor pieces that complexly folded together to form a mouth. It aimed its open mouth toward the sky and fired absorbed sand with enough speed to function as a cutter.

Fearsome attacks were launched from the sky and the earth.

But they did not collide in between.

Because Miyabi had not been targeting the subterranean tank itself.

Thus, the Lucifer Horn managed to avoid the skyward attack by a hair’s breadth.

But what had the bomber’s beam accomplished?

It crashed into the ground next to the Executive Ground. The ultra-hot beam tore into the ground, transforming the fine sand into sticky glass. It was a miniscule change when looking at the desert as a whole, but the melted glass gummed up the digging bits and blades.

With a terrible grinding, the desert rejected the serpent. Its blades were a poor match for the sticky goop. It was a horrific analogy, but it was just like how a blade lost its sharp edge to the blood and fat after cutting down enough people.

For a brief moment, the subterranean tank lost its greatest advantage: the ability to dive below the desert and move rapidly through the sand. Unable to even hide, it writhed up on the surface.

Its gaping maw turned toward Miyabi this time.

And it produced voices. The voices of the twins.

Miyabi could hear the girls despite the distance, so the serpent’s internal cavity must have amplified the voices like a trumpet. If that ability was refined and the noise concentrated in a single direction, it could probably function as an acoustic weapon that knocked people out by rattling their heads. Then again, the uncontrollable Executive Ground was unlikely to allow such fine-tuned control.

“Tch!!”

“Why must you interfere!?”

Acacia and Ixea spoke from within the Godhorn Tech, so Miyabi yelled back at them.

“And why must you do everything you’re told!? Why didn’t you even hesitate to board the Executive Ground!?”

The girls spoke one after another.

Each statement blended into the next so well it was hard to tell which was which.

“That goes without saying.”

“We cannot protect the desert nation without controlling this Godhorn Tech.”

“And we will protect our country even if we cannot control it!”

“Even if it means sacrificing ourselves!!”

It sounded a lot like they were trying and failing to speak in unison.

So Miyabi spat out more questions.

“Because someone told you to? Because those priests took you in? Because the people are counting on you? Because you were given control of the Executive Ground?”

A single attack from that blade of compressed sand – no, a single tackle – would be enough to kill Miyabi, but he directly faced and shouted at that colossus.

“That isn’t what you want to do. That’s what’s been forced onto you!”

“Silence. You have no right to speak about our inner feelings.”

“That’s right. Our feelings are our own!”

“…Our?” Something bothered him about that, so he pursued that feeling. “Our, us, we. You’re always talking about the two of you together and never just yourself! So whose feelings are really in control of the Godhorn Tech!?”

“!?”

“!?”

The twins trembled in response.

“You decide this is the right thing to do because your sister says so.” The more he spoke, the more the idea felt wrong to him. “The people do it to you, you do it to them, and you do it to your sister! Everyone is shoving responsibility for your decisions onto each other!! So what do you have that’s your own? That’s why you can’t control the Godhorn Tech. Who does the Executive Ground really belong to!?”

Godhorn Techs were controlled through a contract.

Miyabi, Celina, and even inhuman Number 8 had faced their strongest power through a 1-on-1 contract. The Icicle Bullet had been controlled by majority rule determined by Eliza and the rest of the chosen knights, but that was because they each understood the importance of their vote and cast it with the appropriate tension.

They knew their choices would have significant results.

But what if someone lacked that realization?

This had nothing to do with the “mood” of the ruins or a lack of skill on the twins’ part. This nation had erred from the very beginning. It made perfect sense that they were incapable of holding their Godhorn Tech’s reins.

“I-I…”

“No, we…!!”

It came from head on.

The subterranean tank fired ultra-pressurized sand from its gaping maw. A direct hit from that would cleave through a rocky mountain like a giant’s sword.

But Miyabi did not even flinch.

He only swept his empty hand to the side and packed together sand to create a Decoy Wall. By diverting their aim just slightly, the nightmarish attack tore through the air right next to him.

He kept his eyes on them and raised his voice again.

“I’ll drag you out of that centerless cradle, so do some self-reflection, Acacia, Ixea! I won’t act like you’re both basically the same. I will hear what it is each of you really want individually!!”

They had said he could destroy a country on a whim, so he would show them that he could also save two girls on a whim. And to do that, he was willing to face the Godhorn Tech that was a collection of all of the desert nation’s power.

The Lucifer Horn’s beam could tear through the sand and the metal maw could approach through the ground to devour Miyabi.

Then there was the white mask.

The Lord of Ruin acted as a wild card in this fight.

The Executive Ground had been troubled by the glass made from melted sand, but it forcibly shattered the cooled and solidified glass to free its thick bits and rollers.

It was close enough now that a glass shard scraped Miyabi’s cheek.

But he did not have time to worry about that. If it dove back below the surface, he would lose his chance to win this. He forgot all about backing away as he stabbed his control sword into the hot sand.

A giant magic circle opened at his feet.

“That won’t…!!”

“…work again!!”

The twins shouted from the fully-opened mouth.

He ignored their claim because he was not thinking of melting the sand to create more glass. That Godhorn Tech was used to protect an entire nation, so he had never expected the same move to work more than once.

“Lucifer Horn, break it down!!”

With a deafening boom, the Executive Ground was once more repelled from the sand, but this time its tooth-like blades and rollers were not gummed up with melted glass.

A massive bomb had fallen and exploded on the surface.

It initially only seemed to damage the surface, but that was not the case.

“Your Executive Ground might rule this desert, but loose sand isn’t nearly as hard as packed-together sand, is it!?”

Alicia brought a test tube to her mouth, drank the physical boosting potion within, and gave a fierce roar.

“Ha ha. I see. A gravity anomaly, huh? Gravity is actually different at some points on the continent. For example, the locations of iron ore deposits hidden below the desert. You altered the density to create an obstacle that can, for a brief moment, stop the subterranean tank in its tracks!!”

The Lord of Ruin was approaching.

The unwanted third party approached the desert Godhorn Tech and his blade flashed as it was released from its scabbard.

That was enough to cause some kind of emergency because the curled-up serpent collapsed flat down on the sand. It looked to be more than 70m long, proving yet again that Godhorn Techs were absurd. How could something so large move so freely through the sand?

Miyabi did not have time to lament this unexpected attack.

“Now’s my chance!!” he shouted instead.

He stabbed his control sword into the ground and a white beam stabbed down from the sky.

The serpentine silhouette writhed in agony. Its three round armor pieces wriggled as its maw opened wide and the girls’ voices emerged.

“Kh, how dare you!!”

“We need the Executive Ground!!”

Miyabi had a fundamental question about this.

He looked to his heart, searched out the question there, and let it out.

Definite power filled the ordinary boy’s words.

“Is that Godhorn Tech really protecting your nation? The Republic doesn’t have one and the Arsenal Kingdom got rid of theirs, but they’re still doing just fine!”

Acacia snapped back at him.

They were cheap words drawn out on reflex.

“It is our only defense against that enemy right there! The Lord of Ruin!!”

“He never would have attacked if not for the Godhorn Tech!!”

“…”

“…”

The twin girls said nothing more.

They fell silent.

“Oh, did that actually get through to them?” hesitantly asked Alicia.

“Then what about you?”

But the older twin’s strangely gloomy words left the great serpent’s mouth, soon followed by the younger twin’s.

“That’s right, sister. All other Godhorn Tech owners are a threat. It is our duty to fight them.”

“It’s not working!!” Helen looked up into the sky. “You aren’t reaching them!!”

“Do we have to stop them by force after all?” asked Eliza, raising her lance.

Miyabi was actually smiling.

Belligerently.

“Fine by me. This just means we duke it out until we reach an understanding.”

“Well said!!” responded Onelife for some reason. “I’m sick of running away. Nwohhhhh!! It’s time for a chat through the medium of violence!!”

It was time to really do it.

That one strike from the masked Lord of Ruin had been powerful indeed. The subterranean tank was left lying out on the sand, which meant something had gone wrong and it could not dive back below the sand. And before the 70m colossus could recover, direct hits from Kananka’s boomerang, Miyabi’s control sword, and more pushed its writhing past the limit.

Onelife Shiftup scored a direct hit.

This went beyond his imperial prosthetic or control blade. With him, you were lucky if an attack could be described scientifically at all. The real threat was when he used his muscles to throw all that troublesome logic to the curb. Yes, he forcibly held one of the many rollers in place with his arms.

“Hwa ha ha!! I slaid a Wicked God with my own two hands! Did you think the Lord of Ruin was the only monster out there!?”

“…”

The blade flashed without warning.

The white mask kept them from reading the man’s emotions, but the Lord of Ruin sent a merciless attack toward Onelife’s neck after he announced he had killed a Wicked God.

“Oh, no you don’t!!”

Celina’s bullet intercepted the line of light, redirecting it ever so slightly. Otherwise, it would have sliced right through Onelife’s protectively raised arms and his neck behind them.

The Lord of Ruin fell back, expecting a counterattack.

A giant morning star connected with electricity crashed into the sandy ground. Without that, a series of sword strikes would have reached the pirate. The path of the attacks bent again and again, like thunderbolts on their way to the ground.

“Thanks! You saved my rear!!”

“I require no thanks. I was only hoping to break his mask and get a look at his face, but he moved too quickly.”

“But what’s with all the support and defense? Nhh, since when am I Mr. Popular!?”

“Be warned, everyone. Show an idiot some kindness and he will get the wrong idea.”

The woman who braved the night life as a bunny girl could be cold about such things.

Eliza Silverstorm held her giant lance at her hip and kicked powerfully off the sand.

The meathead was not the only one to make a charge.

But they were not after the Lord of Ruin.

They had said from the beginning that their target was the Executive Ground. They had said their object was to rescue the twin priestesses.

So they did not hesitate.

“Once more!!!!!!”

Approaching from another angle, she jabbed her lance into a gap in one of the joints in the great serpent’s armor. It was meant to hinder movement more than cause damage.

And once the serpent had been slowed even slightly, she raised her voice.

“Miyabi, deliver the finishing-!?”

A dull snapping sound cut the chosen knight off.

Her method had been correct. She had done her very best, but the Executive Ground did something unexpected.

It forced itself to move with the lance still piercing it.

One of its enormous gears broke and shattered, sending shards larger than the average axe blade soaring through the air. One metal fragment spun through the air and hit Miyabi right in the face.

The color red flew.

“Boy!?” shouted Alicia before she was rendered speechless.

A line of red blood ran across the boy’s cheek just below his right eye. A few centimeters higher and it might have gouged his entire eye out.

But.

Miyabi Blackgarden’s challenging gaze was unchanged. He did not even reach up to feel the wound.

Because they were right there.

Those girls had been given the massive power of a Godhorn Tech, but they had not been given even a taste of freedom. The priests and the people had shoved all the country’s troubles on those girls’ shoulders until they were being crushed below the weight.

Their lives were being threatened by a foe as fearsome as the Lord of Ruin, but they had been left out here all alone, not a single person in their country attempting to help them.

(No.)

Miyabi Blackgarden clenched his teeth.

He squeezed his control sword in both hands so tight he seemed to be cursing his own word choice.

(You aren’t all alone There’s someone here for you. There is someone stupid enough to rush out into the desert for you and stand between you and the Lord of Ruin’s blade. And it’s not just me. That describes every single one of us out here right now!!)

He was not afraid of any pain he could ignore by clenching his teeth.

Unfortunate coincidences and a mocking destiny were not worth fearing.

If he could reach out and find them – if he could help bring them freedom as long as he did not give up – then this temporary blood loss wasn’t worth even a moment’s thought!!

So.

The possessor of a Wicked God horn gave a roar while slamming his sword blade into the desert at his feet.

This was the only way to show respect for the strait-laced knight who gave him this opportunity.

He could only do this because she had done everything she could to rescue those twins.

So he had to make sure she would not regret that decision.

“I’ve got this, Eliza!! Tactical open!!!!!!”

First, a bomb was dropped and detonated in midair.

That on its own was meaningless.

At most, it could sweep all the fine sand from the desert sky. With the air cleaned of all impurities, a beam of light shot down from heaven to earth.

This time, the brutal light scored a direct hit on the serpent.

The utmost care was taken to ensure it did not hit Eliza who was still nearby, a sharpshooting feat akin to shooting an apple off someone’s head with a bow and arrow.

A strange sound left the great maw.

It was not the girls’ voices this time.

Maybe it was the accumulated damage and maybe it was as safety feature kicking in, but Acacia and Ixea were spat from the great maw. They collapsed into the hot sand with the tail chains jangling from the back of their hips.

“Ugh!?”

“Ghh!”

Just as the Lord of Ruin directed his sword in their direction, Miyabi stabbed his sword into the sand and the Lucifer Horn passed by overhead with a fearsome gust of wind.

A brutal beam of light tore across the ground, creating a wall of flames between the Lord of Ruin and the twins.

After protecting them with that massive shield, Miyabi faced the Lord of Ruin directly.

This was who he wanted to be.

Gone were the days when he would look the other way and flee.

“…”

“Stand back, Lord of Ruin!! This isn’t your fight!!!!!!”

Something strange happened.

The Lord of Ruin slowly raised his demon sword again and then stopped moving.

This was no attack; it was more like someone brushing aside the cobweb in front of their face. It was a passive action, not an active one. He was measuring the distance between them and attempting to read his opponent’s breathing. Almost like he was trying to judge Miyabi’s intentions.

A painfully tense equilibrium formed between their blades.

It made no difference how much distance there was between the two blade tips.

Miyabi was silently asking about the old man’s stance on this battle. Before entering the direct clash, he used his sword to ask how the Lord of Ruin hoped to win.

It was such a foolish and childish question.

In true combat, how you won was irrelevant. His opponent could have shoved past the boy while insisting that history was written by the victors.

But the Lord of Ruin was different.

In whatever form it took, he was still a king. So he would not ignore that childish question.

But.

Someone else was even more confused.

Ixea spoke in a groaning voice while lying on the ground, the hot sand lightly burning her skin.

“Wh-what? Why did you save us?”

“No, sister. We must return to the Executive Ground.”

“Not yet!!” shouted Miyabi, his control sword directed toward the distant Lord of Ruin as a warning.

This miracle would not last forever. The boy himself did not understand what was allowing him to stop the Lord of Ruin’s attack right now.

But it gave him a tiny, seemingly impossible opportunity.

If he did not use that to grab the small hands sticking out from the stormy ocean, he would never find them again.

So he would make use of this opportunity no matter what!!

“You still haven’t told me why you want to fight so badly!! That’s a singular you! I want to know what you think, Acacia! And what you think, Ixea!”

Silence followed.

Then the words spilled from the twin sisters while they tasted sand.

“Because…”

“Because…”

It sounded like they were regurgitating an imprinted idea.

“Because we have to repay the priests for taking us in,” said Acacia.

“That’s what the priests want.”

“Because we can’t protect the country without the Godhorn-” began Ixea.

“That’s what the people want!”

There was more to this. Something was still hidden deeper.

Miyabi believed people were not so simple. He had bet his own life on the idea.

Acacia and then Ixea gave individual answers.

“Because my sister…”

“Because my sister is working so hard.”

“That’s just what the sisters want!!!!!!”

No.

That wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

They were holding back and giving the wholesome answer people expected of them, but their heart wasn’t in it.

Which was why the Executive Ground would not respond.

It could not.

It wanted something else. It might be pathetic and it might be unsightly, but there had to be some pure, unadulterated feelings born deep within their hearts. Once the Godhorn Tech heard that, it would lend each girl as much power as they needed.

In a way, the Executive Ground had seen this country’s cruelties more than anyone else. It had seen how everyone piled more and more pressures on those girls, pushing them ever closer to the breaking point.

It didn’t matter if it was messy and ugly. Because revealing those things without fear was a form of trust.

They only had to cast it all aside and be honest about what they wanted.

Their talents were wasted like this.

And Miyabi was not going to let it end like this.

No matter what it took.

“…”

“…”

“Forget what everyone else wants. You don’t need to put yourself in harm’s way for anyone’s reasons but your own!! What is it you really wanted to do! I’m not interested in what anyone else has to say! What did you each want as individuals!?”

“…”

“…”

And.

Finally.

The girls’ true selves emerged from the great depths in which they had buried themselves.

“I don’t want to mess with the Godhorn Tech.”

“I want to be free to do what I want with my sister.”

It was twisted.

They weren’t in sync.

“I…”

“I…!!”

They were at odds.

They did not fit together at all.

“I want to go see the rest of the world!”

“I want to stay home and relax!”

Miyabi smiled.

He couldn’t help it, although he did keep his control sword at the ready.

“I finally got different answers out of the two of you. But that’s how it should be.”

Lowering his sword from the Lord of Ruin would be much too dangerous. The tension squeezing at his heart was equivalent to crossing a deep ravine on a bridge made from a single long hair.

But he did not hesitate to stab his control sword into the ground. Because the elation he felt was even greater.

He had extracted what each sister really wanted. He had stripped their thoughts bare. He had convinced them to trust him that much. What good was the Lucifer Horn if he would not use it here?

He opened the magic circle and spoke.

“From the control sword to the horn core – tactical open!”

He would end this here.

That thought was enough to erase all fear of the bleeding below his eye.

He could worry about that later.

Right now, all his focus needed to be on Acacia and Ixea’s futures.

He would do whatever it took to clear a path for them each.

He would create them each a future.

And for that, he was willing to endure any pain and battle any adversary!!!!!!

“This is my way of saying thanks. So answer their honest desires, forced onto them by no one, Lucifer Horn!!”

A tremendous blast blew away the colossal weapon that had bound those twins.

It was over.

The Executive Ground had been destroyed.

Its wreckage and components were strewn across the vast desert. Would this too become known as “ruins” one day?

But not everything was over.

“…”

The Lord of Ruin silently turned to face Miyabi.

Miyabi moved in front of collapsed Acacia and Ixea and raised his control sword.

But.

He realized he had made a fundamental misunderstanding.

Despite the white mask’s lack of eyes, the Lord of Ruin’s gaze pierced the center of the boy’s body like a sharp stake. The tip of his demon blade remained fixed on Miyabi.

He was a king.

He did not make a habit of finishing off those who had already lost to another.

The Lord of Ruin always chose to battle whoever possessed the strongest power.

The killer intent emanating from him was refreshingly pure in its bluntness.

Miyabi actually felt bad for doubting him as he waited this long.

“Sorry, Lord of Ruin.”

“I had a feeling it would come to this,” said the radio watching the two swords held at the ready.

No one could stop this now.

The crystal radio knew that, but it still expressed regret.

“You got rid of the Godhorn Tech holding him at bay, so of course he goes straight for you now!”

“I will destroy.” A muffled voice emerged from the smooth mask. “I will destroy all Godhorn Techs.”

These were the words of a king who had converted his solid conviction into actual combat power.

Seeing his opponent save someone was not enough to shake his resolve.

“They should not be. I will correct the mistake I introduced into the world!”

Miyabi also kept his eyes on the Lord of Ruin.

The Lord of Ruin saw him as an enemy. He had diverted his attention from his immediate target to focus on Miyabi instead. Calamity Revenge was no longer directed toward Acacia and Ixea. Miyabi could not let that go to waste.

The time had come to face the greatest of foes.

Miyabi Blackgarden again adjusted his grip on the control sword.

“Everyone, take care of Acacia and Ixea.”

“Koo?”

“He’s after me since I have a Godhorn Tech. I’ll keep his attention!!”

“You will not escape.”

As soon as the words were spoken, an impossible explosion occurred right next to Miyabi.

Celina screamed.

Muscular Onelife immediately moved to protect her and was blasted backwards.

Did the man see the rest of his party as targets too?

“Wait, wait, wait, wait!!” screamed the radio at Alicia’s neck. “That pirate’s in imbecile, but didn’t he slay a Wicked God all on his own!? And yet he was taken out in a single blast!?”

What had happened?

This attack had come from a different direction, so it couldn’t have been from the Lord of Ruin.

The magical explosion almost seemed to have blocked the escape route for Miyabi’s party members, but something wasn’t right. That had been a projectile attack. An arrow had flown in, stabbed into the ground, and then exploded. That wasn’t at all how the Lord of Ruin did things.

Was someone else working with him?

Number 8 carefully observed their surroundings.

“A bow and arrow? Are we trapped?”

And.

Alicia Blueforest felt a cold sweat despite the heat of the sand.

“Wait, this arrow…”

She seemed to have some idea who this person connected to the masked old man was.

“But it couldn’t be!”

Then they heard a voice.

It came from the same direction as the arrow.

Someone slowly emerged from behind a sand dune and addressed Alicia.

“It has been so very long since I saw you and your healthy forest.”

“The revenge mercenary…Elaine Greenforest!?”

She had silky semi-long silver hair, brown skin…and long ears. She wore special goggles over her eyes, perhaps to assist with her magical bow. The goggles did not cover her full face like the Lord of Ruin’s mask did. While the Lord’s gave the impression he would coldly hunt down and kill any who fit his criteria, her exposed mouth gave her a more cruel and mocking look.

She wore sheer, white clothing similar to a see-through negligee, but the additional decorations made it look something like a princess’s dress.

She held a large bow that resembled a twisted harp.

The many things spread out around her scantily-clad hips like a large skirt appeared to be quivers.

She was from the Greenforest race of elves.

Hadn’t their party member Lillian Greenforest also used that last name? And hadn’t she said that the scattered dark elves were all intent on destroying humanity?

The radio responded to the appearance of this girl in a white dress so sheer her skin color showed through.

“Hey, you didn’t tell me you were friends with an ultra-rare dark elf! Introduce me!”

“The Greenforest race’s forest was burned down by the Empire.” Alicia sounded like she was reliving a nightmare. “And this is the Godhorn Tech user who retaliated by burning down the entire Empire.”

“…”

A cracking sound hinted at something happening within Number 8 despite his unchanged expression.

Alicia clenched her teeth and shouted at the other elf.

“I was wondering where you had gotten off to!!”

“I don’t want to hear any complaints about a last-minute helper when you’re fighting as a group,” whispered the long-eared goggle girl with a smile on her visible lips.

The Lord of Ruin was blunt.

“Enough talk. Fulfill your contract, girl.”

“Yes, yes. Whew, you have been cursed bad if you can legitimately treat such a long-lived elf like a young girl. Do the hidden rules of this world bind you like invisible chains?”

“?” Kananka noticed something. “Do her weird goggles let her detect spirit pressure? No, that’s not it.”

“…”

The Lord of Ruin said nothing.

Elaine shrugged and sighed, as if surrendering to the silent pressure coming from his mask.

“Yes, fine. We’ll have to end our delightful chat here. Sorry my client is so impatient.”

Her feet audibly trod on the hot sand.

She nocked an arrow to her large bow and slowly pulled the string taut while whispering to herself. The incantation created a fire that transformed the sharp arrowhead like a melted sugar sculpture.

“Rainmaker: Thunderstorm – Category 5. Gather, cataclysm. Heaven is ruled by the number 3, so the three-pronged arrowhead contains the thunderclouds.”

The metal arrowhead split in three on its own and a blinding light appeared between the prongs, as if lightning were gathering there. How was it contained there and what would unleash it? Miyabi did not want to know anything about this threat, but his focus was naturally drawn toward the light.

They were trapped between the Lord of Ruin and Elaine.

He was unsure if he should direct his sword ahead or behind.

“I can hear them weeping.”

“Kh…”

Helen groaned as she covered Miyabi’s back so he could continue facing the Lord of Ruin.

The old man spoke beneath his mask. His muffled voice contained a, concentrated and malevolent heat. He may not have meant for anyone else to hear it.

“I will not let any more horns be taken. I will destroy the very idea that Wicked God horns have value!!”

“Oh, no! We have no escape route!”

Eliza clenched her teeth and looked this way and that.

But it was too late.

There was no cover to be found in the open desert.

“I must end this. I must bring death to all the sinful horn owners!!”

Just then, Elaine Greenforest unleashed the energy built up in her bow. White light burned through the air, leaving a glowing trail behind. The magic arrow tore through the air with terrifying speed.

And.

It flew straight toward the Lord of Ruin, her supposed client.

“Eh!?”

The dull sound of impact was so raw that Miyabi thought his own heart had stopped.

The sound came from the center of the old man’s chest.

His surprise was palpable even with the smooth white mask covering his face.

“Ghh!?”

“Yes, I will carry out your revenge without delay. You asked for the destruction of all Godhorn Tech users. That includes you, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t want to leave the contract incomplete, now would I?”

Miyabi felt no relief.

Elaine Greenforest’s smile was much too dark.

When Onelife finally managed to get back up, he was trembling from what had happened, not from his own pain.

“A-a sneak attack?”

“I never knew even cowardice could appear impressive when taken far enough!!” spat out Eliza.

But Elaine did not seem to care.

She lived in an entirely different world from the knight.

“Yes, this is revenge.”

This was someone who had dedicated her entire being to that one word.

The dark elf girl grinned darkly with the goggles hiding her eyes.

“I am not in the business of helping people. You loathed yourself, so I will heal that rotten wound that can only be closed with misfortune and tragedy.”

“Gwohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?” roared the Lord of Ruin.

But the arrowhead embedded in his chest detonated first.

Everything was dyed white.

By the time Miyabi could see once more, the Lord of Ruin was nowhere to be found.

Was he collapsed behind one of the rolling dunes?

Or…?

“But you had the same plan, didn’t you? You wanted to destroy the Godhorn Techs and their users, so I bet you planned to finish it out by killing me and then killing yourself.”

Only the demon sword remained.

But the dark elf did not let the Godhorn Tech remain stabbed into the sand.

“Just to be thorough☆”

“!?”

“He hired me to eliminate every Godhorn Tech and their users, after all.”

With a shockingly ordinary thunk, an additional arrow stabbed into Calamity Revenge’s blade. She actually stuck her tongue out as she did so.

Another explosion.

More white.

Once the dazzling flash had faded, only Elaine remained standing. It seemed unlikely the silver-haired, brown-skinned girl could have defeated the Lord of Ruin in a direct battle, but she had something that allowed her to tear down the rules of a direct battle. There was something so terribly disconcerting about her.

The special goggles made it impossible to follow the movement of her eyes.

The goggles could not just be to keep the sand out, but it was unclear what kind of support they provided. Whatever they did, they made a deadly combination with her bow and arrow.

Since no one could not read the emotion in her eyes, the way she licked her lips appeared all the creepier.

“Now, what to do about the rest of you?”

“…”

But Miyabi’s thoughts had turned elsewhere.

He pointed out something he had noticed.

“Even as he was dying, the Lord of Ruin never did use a sorcery bomb.”

Eliza realized he was right.

“Now that you mention it. But what does that matter?”

“We now know the 11th wasn’t Acacia, Ixea, or the Lord of Ruin.” Miyabi glared at this new threat with his control sword in hand. “But we’ve seen all the Godhorn Tech users.”

Miyabi, Celina, Eliza, Number 8, Kananka, Onelife, the Necromancer, Acacia, Ixea, and the Lord of Ruin made 10.

And the very last person on the list was Elaine Greenforest.

“The job must continue even without the client, so maybe I should continue his revenge.”

“You’re the last one left. Are you the 11th?”

“…”

Hearing Miyabi’s suggestion, Number 8 silently glared at Elaine. She used a bow and arrow, magical explosions, and (most importantly) betrayal. She was a true monster who had gone out of her way to choose cruelly deceptive tactics and one-shotted the Lord of Ruin. It went without saying what would happen if they tried to attack her without a plan.

And dying here would accomplish nothing.

It was Number 8’s many past regrets that allowed him to resist the urge to rush in for a simple attack.

Miyabi hated it.

The butler automaton was working so hard to resist, so Miyabi hated how he couldn’t resist speaking up himself.

“Are you placing sorcery bombs around the continent just like you once destroyed the Empire!?”

“Oh, now that one was fun. Fish and frogs rained from the sky. Those humans had never doubted their own science, so seeing them fall to their knees and pray to a god they claimed not to believe in was the funniest thing ever. No, scratch that. The funniest part was how they were killed by the very rusty mana they had created themselves☆”

“…!!”

Number 8 clenched his teeth hard.

Miyabi thought he could actually hear the artificial teeth grinding together.

This was someone who would destroy a country on a whim. This was what Miyabi could have become.

“From the control bow to the horn core – tactical open!”

She recited it in a singsong voice.

The instant the bottom of her bow stabbed into the sand, a sinister magic circle appeared at her feet.

“High-altitude blimp Godhorn Tech: Huge Eye.”

Something floated overhead.

A giant shadow began to blot out the sun overhead.

This ruler of the sky was on an entirely different level. It followed a completely different concept from the Lucifer Horn that tore through the air with its wings. This strange flying object was shaped more like a big sphere. It almost looked like a black skull. Its size was unclear. They could see it, but it was too far away to trust the apparent scale.

“Tch!!”

Miyabi readied his control sword and prepared to stab it into the ground.

But he stopped.

He could open the magic circle and summon the Lucifer Horn…but then what?

The unidentified Godhorn Tech was so far above it looked like a speck. Yes, it’s altitude was simply too great. It floated well above where the Lucifer Horn flew.

The bomber fired its weapons down from above.

It was not made to target something positioned higher than it!

And the high-altitude blimp did not release a downpour of heavy steel beams, nor did it tear through the ground with a powerful beam of light.

Just as Miyabi had feared, it did not at all attack like a bomber.

Elaine Greenforest smiled as she spoke.

This was the brown girl who had sunk the fangs of vengeance into a symbol of the artificial after her natural forest had been burned to the ground.

“Blow it all away and raze it to the ground♪”

There was a gust, a gale, a squall, a tempest.

All forms of windy violence produced a massive explosion that assaulted Miyabi’s party.

It was a storm.

The Huge Eye was a Godhorn Tech that controlled meteorological disasters.

And it had once destroyed an entire empire using that.

It was the master of natural disasters.

Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 6

“Whoa!?”

Iris Tempinvy, the dancer and recovery magic researcher, looked up despite being inside a stone building.

The magical lighting had suddenly gone out, leaving the windowless corridor in darkness.

And the trouble was not isolated to her location.

“What? Why did the shower just shut off? Did I make another bad bet in life?”

“Just put a towel on, you gambling-obsessed bunny. And why were you wearing your bunny ears in the shower?”

“Wait, can you see in the dark?”

By biting her canine tooth into an herbal flower petal instilled with moonlight, Iris could see every single drop of water falling from Eluné Jackpot’s twintails.

Iris sighed with pupils unnaturally dilated.

“This isn’t a failure of any magic in particular. We keep adding more and more to Horn Fortress, but I’m not sure I ever heard what was at the core.”

“I dunno either. Some kind of generator maybe? Or a transmission? Anyway, that old dwarf would know best how all the magic works. Damn that old man. No matter how cutely I beg him, he still won’t build me a casino.”

The bunny girl failed to mention that she had been carving driftwood and stones to create her own dice and dominos. She had even gotten the help of Phobia, the gang daughter who had previously wanted her dead, and Charlotte, the mermaid who got bored after 3 seconds of inactivity, to sneak into the printing room and try to create some playing cards.

Once the dancer walked through the dark, castle-like structure in search of Garret Goldcave, she found him almost immediately. He must not have liked to use magic for anything other than construction because he had already been relying on candlelight.

The light was dazzling to Iris since she had drugged herself to see in the dark.

“It uses the Wicked God horn,” said Garret.

“The horn?”

“Yes. This place was given to Miyabi by the Lucifer Horn, after all. I assume you have noticed how any magic we activate stays in effect without us needing to supply any more power. The massive core powering it all is the Wicked God horn itself. So Horn Fortress’s very existence grows unstable when either Miyabi or the Lucifer Horn are defeated.”

“For real? Then could the entire island sink into the ocean if they die? So our fates are decided by some battle fought on the other side of the world?”

“It is a distinct possibility. Why do you think we’re creating useful tools here and sending them to the front line?”

“I see,” sighed the bare-midriff dancer.

In the darkness, her thoughts turned toward her secret weapon. It existed in her territory: the clinic.

The alluring researcher placed a lithe finger on her chin and winked.

“Then maybe I should send them something useful as well. I’m sick of simply doing what I’m told back here, so I’ll send them something that’s sure to throw them all off balance and send everything in a different direction.”

“?”

“Yes, she would do nicely.”

Profiles

Acacia Flightheart

Ixea Flightheart

Age: 13

Sex: Female

Height: 145cm

Twin sisters with the highest position among the priestesses who access the desert religious nation’s ancient ruins to distribute water and other blessings to the people. Acacia is the older twin and Ixea the younger. A priest discovered their talent while they were living on the streets and they were given the privilege of controlling the Executive Ground. Neither sister is very assertive and it can be hard to tell what they are thinking. Their duty is to protect their nation, but are having some unexplained difficulties.

Ginger Sandstrike

Age: 17

Sex: Male

Height: 185cm

A “guardian” in the desert religious nation who takes items related to people’s past and hides them deep in unexplored ruins. He had the legendary assassin Shadow Crack sent after him after a client lost trust in him, but he has dealt with so many sketchy jobs he has no idea which client it might have been. He is trying to escape Shadow Crack while also searching out the person who put the hit out on him.

Godhorn Tech Subterranean Tank: Executive Ground

Pilot: Acacia Flightheart & Ixea Flightheart

Affiliation: Pure Hibis Aclia Oracle Nation

Size: 5m diameter, 75m length

A Godhorn Tech based on the pyramids derived from the mythology worshiped by Acacia and Ixea. Looks like a massive snake and makes the entire desert its ally by traveling freely through the ground to attack its enemies. Just as a pyramid grants greater authority the more grave goods it contains, it increases its power by swallowing more people. Since the “grave goods” were generally buried alive, these people need not be killed as they are eaten. However, the interior environment is poor and there is a risk of asphyxiation during a long-term battle. Design motif: pyramids and mummies.

Rose Dollycastle

Age: 12

Sex: Female

Height: 145cm

When lost in a mountain blizzard and surrounded by monsters, she grabbed a cursed chain and broke its seal to protect her family. Ever since, her body has been fully hijacked by the chain. But the chain’s mind does not approve of sacrificing another intelligent being to possess a body of its own, so it is journeying in search of someone that can destroy it. Since it is only borrowing the body, it shows no mercy against anyone who would try to harm the girl.

Godhorn Tech Demon Sword: Calamity Revenge

Wielder: Lord of Ruin

Affiliation: None

Length: 1.4m

Contains a juvenile Wicked God’s horn and carries a powerful curse. Brings its wielder victory, but creates new conflict in return. Its curse is powerful, but the used curse must bring harm to the user as well. It cannot curse just the enemy. Thus, the use of killing curses is theoretically possible, but would realistically mean self-destruction. Design motif: Geas.

Lord of Ruin

Apparent Age: 70 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Male

Height: 178cm

An ancient king who created history’s first Godhorn Tech by breaking off a Wicked God horn and placing it within his own sword. To obtain a horn from a creature too powerful for a human to defeat, he chose to slay a juvenile. He regrets that foolish choice and feels intense hatred for the individuals and groups that have constructed Godhorn Techs after him. He has lived far longer than a single lifespan should allow for, but he appears to keep his body moving through sheer force of will, like a curse burned into his very flesh.

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