Godhorn Tech:Volume3 Chapter8

Chapter 8 Section 1

The ruling king said a vengeful heart was the greatest power.

Little did he know he himself would fall to a blade of vengeance.

The redheaded boy awoke in a cheap inn bed.

He guessed this was the desert nation. He based that guess on the pillow being stuffed with wheat or some other grain, the ceiling being made of stone, and the thin curtain fluttering in a dry breeze. The light shining in through the window suggested it was daytime.

“Ugh…”

“Oh, you’re awake.”

He heard a decadent female voice.

The face staring down at Miyabi Blackgarden belonged to the Necromancer.

“If you had stayed out a little longer, I could have run some interesting tests on you in the name of resurrecting you.”

“Wait…what are you doing here?”

“My boss was just wiping down your body. Very thoroughly, I might add. Were you hoping for something more than that?”

“!?”

The boy sat up in a hurry and immediately felt agonizing pain running through his entire back. He writhed around unable to scream or even breathe. He had lost track of where the chaff pillow had ended up.

“Gah, abwehhh!!!???”

The Necromancer laughed.

“Like I said, you were on the verge of needing an experimental resurrection, so you’re not over the pain yet. Living is full of inconveniences, don’t you think? Now, do you want a powerful drug, or will you bear with the pain?”

“Ah, gah. …I-I’m not taking anything you’re offering. It’ll probably get rid me of the pain by turning me into a zombie.”

“Hm, too bad. But watching you writhe in pain is enjoyable in its own way. The Lucifer Horn carried me here from that Horn Fortress place. Do not forget that I am recuperating under your protection. If you kick the bucket, I lose the peace I need to heal my wound.”

“Carried? You mean you went there and came back?”

“Carrying someone all that way can’t be easy. Fortunately, it feels like it takes no time at all if you make the trip in a suspended animation coffin. I arrived here while frozen in time.”

Did that mean the trip was so terrifying even the Necromancer felt the need to do that? He was a long way off from developing a luxurious sky cruise.

But anyway.

“…”

The Necromancer had been sent here to help. Maybe it was possible for the flying Godhorn Tech to carry her here, but Miyabi could not have given the command while unconscious.

Had the Lucifer Horn done it of its own volition?

Why?

The hat on her head spoke with a child’s voice. Whether or not it really was a child was suspect, though.

“Boss, have you decided to turn over a new leaf?”

“Heh heh heh. I realized the quickest path to being given free rein is to do good deeds. Commit a wee bit of murder just once over your long life and they execute you, but take the side of justice and they praise you for signing the execution papers. Even if you end up authorizing the deaths of dozens every year. Heh heh heh. Morality is entirely determined by your role in society. And as long as people find it useful, they never want to remove a gear in their society, no matter how old and rusted it has become. Heh heh heh heh heh.”

“That’s my boss! You can make healing people’s wounds and saving their lives sound sinister!”

It all sounded like a series of jokes, but she had in fact saved his life.

He rested his head on the chaff pillow and stared up at her in confusion, so she sighed and spoke.

“Do you find it that strange to see me saving someone?”

“You’re the one that told us to make ourselves into ghosts if we wanted to talk to you.”

“And that is what I would prefer.” Even the decadent woman’s most casual comments were frightening. “But only because I am interested in researching life and death. I ignore morality because it insists on getting in my way, so nothing is forcing me to take the path of evil. I will do whatever it is I want and you can decide for yourself if it qualifies as good or evil.”

“…”

“Of course, when I see one of those noble freaks with a lab in their basement who think they can get away with anything if they call themselves necromancers, I can’t help but send in the fruits of my research to tear down their entire mansion☆” The researcher cruelly stuck out her tongue. “You use Compress Cargo, I assume? I recommend packing your bag with a lot of White Sorcery Tools separate from the pocket you have for immediate-use items. Especially when you know the terrain will not be in your favor.”

“Compress…” That reminded him of the person who used that magic. “Oh, right. Where’s Helen? Not to mention Alicia, Celina, and the others!”

“Have you still not noticed the other patients sleeping in this very room? Then you probably need more rest yourself. Still, there was nothing I could do for that automaton – Number 8, was it?”

“!?”

“I mean, he’s a magical automaton. But the Empire built them to last. I have no idea how he can still move after taking so much damage. If only necromancy and anatomy meant anything with that bucket of bolts.”

“Boss, Miyabi’s a beginner, so you need to tell him that’s a black joke before he has a heart attack.”

The hat tried to be helpful, but did that mean they were fine after all? The Necromancer sighed when she saw Miyabi was too shocked to blink.

“Patients who only ever tilt the scales toward life are so boring. Where’s the drama there? I’m not going to continue nursing you forever, so maybe I should let those twins handle the rest since they escaped the attack.”

All the strength drained from his body and the witch hat woman breathed an exasperated sigh.

“Really? You’re going to cry over that?”

“Am I crying?”

“Heh hee hee. Now, now, Miyabi. A real man never cries in front of a girl. I know my perfect boss seems comforting, but she’s actually dying for someone who can support her!”

“Silence, little one.”

“She’s just too much of a dreamer. And she’s still alone because she keeps holding reality to the standards of her dreams. She’s still waiting or her Prince Charming!”

“I said silence.”

“I see,” said Miyabi.

Alicia Blueforest, Helen Clockgear, and the others were safe. And if Acacia and Ixea had escaped the attack, they wouldn’t have been injured at all.

Thank goodness, he thought deep down.

Also, this was not just a case of being lucky. It never would have happened without the Necromancer’s help.

He felt like something may have gone wrong at some point.

What if she had found someone who would patiently speak with her and find some kind of compromise? What if someone had discussed limits with her instead of pushing her away as creepy? What if someone had avoided any conflict or friction and found a way to safely leave her to her own devices instead of trying to oppressively manage her? Then it was possible she might have left her name in history as a famous researcher.

But could he let that remain a mere hypothetical?

Was there really no way for Miyabi Blackgarden to become that person for her?

“I also found him out there.”

“Him who?”

Miyabi turned his heavy head to view the adjacent bed.

The Lord of Ruin was lying there.

“…”

“Whoa!?”

Seeing that masked face was enough for Miyabi to roll off his own bed in surprise. He nearly tore down the papyrus tapestry on the wall. The Necromancer gave him a look mixed with pity.

“Like I asked before, are you too weak to tell who you’re sharing a room with? If your vitals fall any further, you might need some nutrients or a vasopressor. Heh heh heh. Would you like an injection or an IV? Oh, or applying it to your mucous membranes could be fun. Maybe I should just fill every last one of your holes with it for good measure☆”

“B-but? But that’s the L-L-Lord of R-Ruin.”

“What, you didn’t make friends with him after fighting him? Then maybe I shouldn’t have saved him. Either way, he won’t be waking up anytime soon.”

“Don’t sweat it, boss. You’re new to this whole ‘saving people’ business, so you’re bound to screw up sometimes. Lucky for you, you’re cute when you screw up.”

Miyabi saw for himself that Alicia, Helen, and his other party members were lying in the beds. Except there were not enough beds, so Onelife Shiftup was seated on the examining table and nonhuman Number 8 was standing in the corner of the room. …But those two had a history with the Necromancer, so they did not look particularly happy.

The Necromancer ignored that entirely as she looked to something leaning against the wall.

It was the Lord of Ruin’s sword known as a katana.

“Calamity Revenge. The sword was supposedly made with a juvenile’s horn, but the inside has been fried. The sword looks the same, but it no longer functions as a horn.”

“Are you saying Elaine’s arrow did that?”

“If that was intentional, it was a miracle of a shot. You couldn’t even think up that attack without a deep understanding of Wicked Gods.”

The Necromancer herself was a heretical scientist who had used the full corpse of a Wicked God for her research, but this was enough to shock even her.

Elaine Greenforest.

She was a revenge mercenary, the final Godhorn Tech owner, and the 11th.

“?”

The scientist of death had a surprisingly childish look of confusion when Miyabi stared at her.

She had been resting in Horn Fortress to recover from her serious injury and she had been following the actions of Miyabi’s party that entire time. She was blackhearted, but it didn’t seem like she had played a role in the 11th business.

That meant Elaine was the most likely suspect.

“You should count yourself lucky she didn’t detonate a sorcery bomb back there. If she had, you would have been vaporized inside a glass crater.”

After a light knock, the door opened.

The twins Acacia and Ixea peeked inside. Come to think of it, hadn’t the Necromancer said they were spared the attack by the Huge Eye? Elaine may have stopped paying attention to them after Miyabi’s party destroyed their Executive Ground.

“I thought I heard a lot of noise in here. I am glad to see you awake.”

“We nearly lost our way again.”

Miyabi gave them a puzzled look from the floor.

“You asked us what it was we really wanted to do, remember?”

“We have given up our position as priestesses for the time being. We did lose the Godhorn Tech, after all. And the other priestesses can handle speaking with the ruins and extracting water.”

“But…” muttered Miyabi.

“From what they tell me, you are up against a Greenforest dark elf,” said the Necromancer. “Then why not head west from here and visit that razed forest? Heh heh heh. I’ve taken a look around to gather ‘materials’ a few times and it is quite a sight.”

“It’s home to vengeful spirits,” said the hat with an obvious smile in its voice.

Number 8 and Onelife were less than pleased with this new alliance. Not too surprising given how they had been treated.

“…”

“…”

Alicia and the radio put a stop to it.

“Stop.”

“(Fistfights aren’t the only form of justice. If you can’t trust her, then keep an eye on her at all times.)”

Elaine had hit them with a Godhorn Tech attack, so it was a miracle none of them had died. Miyabi carefully checked over his body and then decided to leave the desert nation. They would visit the dark elf forest said to be west of here. And this time, the Necromancer, Acacia, and Ixea would be with them.

But the Lord of Ruin was still in the bed. It was unclear if they could even bring him with them as an ally. Miyabi wanted to figure out how to deal with him before they left.

“So what do we do with him?”

“Yeah, leave him here and he might resume his Godhorn Tech slayer thing when he comes to.”

Miyabi’s eyes widened at the Necromancer’s rational prediction.

“Which is why I’m asking what we should do!”

“Why not trap him somewhere inescapable so we and the world can be safe?”

That only left one possibility.

“Lucifer Horn! Take him to Horn Fortress!!”

“So you finally admit that place is the world’s greatest prison, do you?”

The Necromancer whispered those forbidden words.

They still wanted to see more of the desert nation, but they could not stay here forever.

They had to deal with Elaine Greenforest.

Her Huge Eye could control disasters. They had been helpless against it last time, so if the Necromancer had not come running, some of them might have died.

But that was why they couldn’t leave that revenge mercenary out there. Not even the Lucifer Horn had been any help, so if an ordinary village was subjected to it, it would be a one-sided slaughter. And Elaine had indeed singlehandedly destroyed the powerful Empire to take revenge.

And what if she also had sorcery bombs as the 11th?

They knew exactly where to go.

Plus, there weren’t many places left on the continent they had to check.

They checked out of their inn and left the desert nation. They hadn’t been sure whether it would be better to leave during the day or the night, but they had ultimately settled on the day. There weren’t many landmarks in the desert, so they had feared overlooking one in the dark of the night. They could easily end up walking in circles throughout the night.

“We have to say goodbye to this nation’s food now,” grumbled Miyabi as he walked out through the stone gate.

They had bought some water and lunches of dried foods, but he was hesitant to eat that when he knew it was the last they had.

After walking through the desert a while, Helen looked back the way they had come.

Their footprints were plain to see in the fine sand, so they left a long, serpentine trail behind them.

“I can’t believe it, but I really have gotten used to the desert.”

“I’m afraid my usual forest will feel chilly now that I’m used to this heat,” ominously commented Alicia.

They were so accustomed to walking through the desert that they could actually chat while doing so.

Then the twins called out to Miyabi Blackgarden from behind.

“Miyabi, pant, wait up,” said Acacia.

“I’m thirsty, Miyabi. I want water,” said Ixea.

Helen’s eyes widened in surprise.

An outsider like the (busty) glasses woman was actually more accustomed to the desert climate.

“Eh? You’re kidding, right? You two are the first to call it quits!? But you’re locals! You’ve lived in this desert all your life!”

“Yes, but they were the people’s precious priestesses.” Alicia placed an exasperated hand on her hip. “They rarely left that well-maintained city or their fancy temple and they had escorts when they did travel to the desert ruins.”

Come to think of it, hadn’t they seen Acacia and Ixea’s camels running into the desert during the mess with the Executive Ground?

The priestesses were staggering like zombies, but they approached the redheaded boy from the side when they did catch up. They did not want to burn their butts on the sand, so they leaned on him for support in lieu of sitting down for a break.

The summer(?) festival of careless body contact had begun.

“Miyabi, I can’t keep this up.”

“Carry me, Miyabi.”

Eliza, who was even more strait-laced than Helen in some ways, stared in shock.

“Hold on!! You never told me the rules allowed for that!! Carry me too!!!!!!”

“What, is the heat getting to you again!? Don’t you have any resistance at all!? And you can’t justify anything and everything by claiming ‘the rules’ allow for it!!”

They were only two smaller girls, but the sun was beating down on him and the desert sand made for poor footing. The dunes were like ocean waves frozen in time, so it was a lot less flat than picture books let on. Miyabi had a lot of trouble with those two wearily clinging to him from either side. The twin attack plus the desert heat worked much like the hellish heat that swarms of weak bees used to kill powerful hornets.

Helen took a strong stance to get the healthy (and lewd) brown zombies off of him.

“Get away from him, you two. Your body heat is going to kill him.”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Actually, it’s not all that bad.”

“Oh, right. I forgot how much of perv you are!!!!!! You can’t just accept everyone’s advances, you know!?”

“Pant, gasp.” Alicia wiped sweat from her brow. “But, boy, how can you tell those twins apart? I get mixed up when they’re right next to each other like this.”

“Really? They each have a pretty distinct ‘feel’ to them. Acacia is stricter and less accommodating while Ixea likes to cut corners.”

“Are you mocking me?” asked both twins at once.

The elf only looked more confused.

“See, they said the exact same thing.”

“Ixea is lazy, so she was only going along with her sister so she doesn’t have to think for herself. But if Acacia said she would carry all our luggage as a newcomer to the party, Ixea would immediately break away.”

Alicia stared at the twins, trying to tell them apart, but she only ended up feeling like a mirage was going to make her see three or four of them.

The radio hanging from her neck took a more condescending stance.

“Heh. Miyabi, I see you have stopped viewing them as the single category of ‘twins’ and instead discovered the unique charm of an older sister and a younger sister even if they are the same age. You are one step closer to being an adult of impeccable taste. Next, I recommend studying up on the difference between tights and stockings. That way you can immediately jump down the throat of anyone foolish enough to confuse them!!”

Was it bad that praise from the radio put him on the defensive?

Sweaty Acacia pouted her lips like a child while she draped her arms around his neck from the side and leaned her full body weight against him like the melted cheese on a piece of toast.

“Miyabi, you told us to do what we wanted to do as individuals, not as twins.”

“So I will find what I want to do in this vast world.”

They were completely serious.

This was the stereotypical result of an overly serious or strait-laced person shifting into gear in the wrong direction. He sometimes saw the phenomenon with Eliza Silverstorm and Number 8.

Then Acacia Flightheart spoke a forbidden word.

“…Meow.”

“Acacia!! Aren’t you taking our newfound freedom a little far!? Just because you wear cat ear decorations doesn’t mean you can so shamelessly clench a loose fist and bend your wrist like that!!!!!!”

“Ixea, I am searching for whatever it is I really want to do. And how can I judge that without trying it out for myself?”

The sterile environment had been contaminated. It felt like the contents of the sealed and sterilized container was being transformed.

“How long until they start figuring out who they want to do?” commented the radio, earning it a flurry of punches from the female party members.

Meanwhile, they heard a dull thud.

They looked over to see a Beast Nova surprisingly close by. They had failed to notice it earlier because a large dune was in the way. The scorpion was larger than they were and its head looked small compared to the rest of it. And a long arrow was sticking into the center of that head.

A young man in a green cape and hat approached the dead scorpion and pulled out the arrow.

Helen looked impressed.

“Wow, looks like he defeated the Beast Nova for free. Are you a volunteer who keeps the roads safe?”

“So hunting us down is considered a charitable act of love and peace now, is it?”

The glasses woman’s comment had the elf feeling blue, but the young man saw things differently.

“This is not for free. I get food out of it,” he said, turning back their way.

“You…eat these things?”

Miyabi looked skeptical, but that only confused the young man further.

“From that direction, you must have come from the desert nation. All the meat the street vendors sell is-”

“Stop – not a word more. I do not know who you are, but we bought some lunches there. You had better not scare us by insisting it’s made from something gross!!” shouted Celina Bodenburg, looking legitimately distressed.

“I’m Harber Snipe-Eat.” The young man with a bow did not seem to mind. “And you don’t need to worry about what you’re eating. The strong capture and eat the weak. That is the law of nature. And that includes the Wicked Gods spoken of in stories. Even they will wait for travelers on a desert path and devour them if they have no weapons or magic to defend themselves.”

“So anything is allowed if you’re strong enough?”

“Doesn’t that sound a lot truer to nature than being crushed by a swarm of the weak?”

People were not always going to agree, but using their greater numbers to insist on their point of view felt like it would be accepting his premise that anything is allowed if you are strong enough.

It was a lot smarter to just agree to disagree.

And with that in mind, something else caught Miyabi’s attention: Harber’s bow.

That was the same type of weapon used by Elaine Greenforest, who they were on their way to confront.

“Aren’t bows hard to use? An old man at my village ended up writhing in pain after he hit his ear with the string.”

“That is no laughing matter. It is a risk anyone who relies on the bow and arrow carries with them at all times. The open desert here is fine, but a thick forest is pretty frightening. If a large animal bursts out of the bushes right next to you, you have no guarantee you can bring it down in a single attack.

“Hm. I thought they would do more damage at close range.”

“Bows are not as deadly as you might think. It’s safer to increase the killing power by adding poison or magic to the arrowhead. Because if your attack fails to kill, it’s their turn to attack you. That’s the problem with a surprise attack – you don’t have time to prepare all that.”

Miyabi started to like Harber while talking to him.

They did not agree, but Harber gave simple and accurate advice. He may have been similar to the Necromancer in that sense.

Miyabi felt like he would come to regret it if he pushed Harber away over a simple difference of opinion.

“Do you have any reason to stick with the desert? If not, I know a place that’s at least more comfortable than here. It’s called Horn Fortress.”

“If I can find food there, I don’t care where it is.”

Miyabi stabbed his control sword into the sand and winked.

“That settles it then,” he said as the magic circle spread out.

Harber had been wandering the desert.

If he had not been reliant on the desert nation, then he must have found somewhere he could be self-sufficient.

They found the answer soon enough.

While crossing the desert and taking breaks in the shade of rocks or at small oases, the sandy ground started to grow harder. Sparse grass also came into view. They had apparently left the desert.

“I can’t point to any one thing.” Kananka Fulpen spoke cautiously. “But this place feels so desolate.”

The grassy ground and the flowing stream might be enough to camp out for the night, but Harber must have had a reason to head out into the desert and catch a giant scorpion.

“Why is the presence of life fading only now that we have left the harsh desert?” asked Kananka.

“There’s a good reason for that,” whispered Alicia while viewing a world of death reminiscent of the lunar surface seen in plays. “We are entering the famous Green Forest.”

After walking across the plain a while longer – and stopping to eat their lunches along the way – the forest’s trees came into view. That had to be the Green Forest, the home of that race of dark elves.

Except the forest was black.

Pitch black.

“This is awful.”

Miyabi was the first to groan a response after seeing the scene spreading out before their eyes.

This was not like the Bio Rainforest the Necromancer had called home.

This forest was entirely empty.

Even more so than the vast desert. It had been burned down, leaving only the scorched ground and trees behind. The trees that still looked like trees had become black charcoal shaped like trees.

The stream was clear enough to see the white ash sediment at the bottom, but it was too clear.

Nothing lived inside that water, so there was nothing to dirty it. It would remain perfectly clear forever, like a birthday cake with no one to cut it into pieces. Just sitting there on the table in an abandoned house.

“It looks safe to drink at least,” said Celina, crouching down and passing some river water through her filter the size of a beer mug. She also cast purification magic on it, so it was probably perfectly safe.

But none of the others agreed with her.

Even if it contained the exact same well water people normally drank, they would be hesitant to drink from a cup left at a grave as an offering. Something about this place similarly gave them pause.

Like some faint sense that hung over the entire dead forest.

Hearing a “koo” from down at his feet, Miyabi looked down to see Alma was once more a white stuffed animal. That was the same form as in the first village. Did that mean there was nothing to learn from this dead forest? …Alma too refused to eat that “birthday cake”. The creature’s young age may have made it more open in its judgment.

The Flightheart twins nervously huddled together and looked around.

“Is everything outside the desert this ‘quiet’?”

“Maybe so, Acacia. But maybe we are simply too accustomed to those ruins.”

Number 8 shook his head.

“No, I sense no burden here. And I usually sense some just as background noise no matter where I am.”

“…”

Alicia looked like she was suppressing a bad headache.

Eliza placed her hand above her eyes to look into the distance.

“What is that over there? It looks like an enormous tree…or the remnants of one.”

She was right.

One tree in the center towered far higher than the other trees that had been frozen in time by the blaze. None of the manmade towers or ruins they had ever seen came close to its height.

Its impressive height almost seemed to be piercing through the world itself.

It had broken away partway up, so just how tall had it been and how expansive had its branches back when it was whole?

“It was apparently known as the Celestial Tree.” Celina sighed. “The people of the emerald forest supposedly believed it kept the sky from falling.”

“Well, that one was proven wrong,” groaned Onelife. “Glad the sky’s still up there, though.”

“At the time, the Empire feared the Arsenal Kingdom and the desert nation would join forces, since they were both nearly as powerful as them,” said Helen. “The difference in power was small enough that, if those two stopped fighting over the #2 spot and formed an alliance, they could have challenged the Empire’s #1 spot. But to put a stop to that, something needed to be done about the vast forest that connected the east and west from the north and allowed people and things to be covertly transported between nations.”

“The Empire hoped to rid themselves of a problem, but they only earned the ire of the dark elves,” said one twin. “Not to mention that any covert operations in the forest were being done by humans intruding on their land and the dark elves had no intention of joining the fight themselves.”

“Or maybe they feared that nonhuman race was gaining power by doing the humans a favor,” said the other. “Destroying them over an unfounded fantasy sounds utterly foolish to me. Not to mention that the alliance they feared was only a theory. I know our desert nation never even discussed it. But the Empire let their paranoia win out and decided to attack.”

The magical automaton shook his head and spoke like he was piecing together his damaged memories.

“The Emperor did not have grand ambitions. In fact, his fear grew every time our territory and population grew. He feared the possibility of losing what he had. So he was willing to do anything to protect that. Without hesitation.”

“…” Onelife fell silent for a moment. “I can understand the sentiment, but…”

“But I cannot approve of the method.” Eliza shook her head too. “Apologies for speaking ill of your emperor.”

Unsurprisingly, the one who took the conversation in a gruesome direction was the Necromancer.

“This is all extremely fascinating from a necromancy perspective. This place is immersed in so much death that it is crawling with undead monsters that have refused to accept their own death. Be careful as you continue on.”

“Woo! No one makes things exciting like you do, boss!”

Did Elaine live here?

Was it even possible to live here?

Miyabi gulped and walked into the forest. It was just as thoroughly burned as it looked from the outside.

But he did hear flowing water.

But not from the previous river.

“Huh?”

“I see,” said Alicia, breathing from her nose.

In some places, new moss and small flowers were using the nutrients in the burned trees and rough ashes to grow. The next generation was beginning. If that continued, the tragedy would eventually be covered up and made a thing of the past.

“Elaine has been living off of these things,” bitterly groaned Alicia. “Even though she could have found so much more if she left the forest. Makes it look like she enjoys hurting herself.”

Looking further into the forest, they could see the amount of green growing. But it was all down on the ground and not growing thickly through the entire space. There was also moss clinging to the burned trees. The growth was not at all like an ordinary plain or forest.

So at first, they thought they were seeing some kind of small flora or fauna.

Maybe glowing moss or bugs.

But this was something else.

“Work, work, work.”

The faint hovering light spoke in a small girl’s voice.

“I have to gather firewood and draw some water. Work, work, work!”

“These are residual thoughts,” said Alicia.

She did not say what of.

The lights moving so energetically through this lonely world must not have understood none of it was real.

There were so many of them here.

Miyabi’s party seemed to draw lines between those points of light as they walked across the burned forest. They tried their best not to step on the moss and grass starting to grow anew on the blackened trees or the ground covered in ashes and a black powder.

A flashing light spoke with the voice of an old man.

“Things are growing dangerous outside the forest. All we want is to go on living peacefully in our forest, so I hope none if it spreads here.”

A bright light grew larger as if to express its emotion.

“Curse that human empire. Do they think they own this forest!? To your bows, everyone! Buy enough time for the children and elderly to reach the hidden village!!”

It felt like time had come to a stop at some point.

But instead of the entire place freezing at a single time and date, it was like time had been incinerated at different points for each individual.

Miyabi’s party could not see where they were being guided by all this. Or maybe they were traveling into the past instead of the future.

“Hot, hot, hot, hot…”

A sticky light pleaded in an elegant female voice.

“Where is the river? Oh, no. I can’t see it. I can’t see anything. …Is this bumpy mass my face? Where did my face go?”

They could not read the frozen time in some of the lights.

One bursting light was scratchy from the beginning.

“Someone…please. I can’t go on like this…someone please…”

At one point, this forest had been teeming with life.

Right up until it was transformed into what they saw now.

Someone from outside had shown up and burned the entire thing down.

There were fallen trees and murky rivers in their way, but Miyabi was disinclined to move the Palette Dice. They took the long way around instead of crossing over with Layer Stairs or a Bypass Bridge. Creating those things would have been like taking the flowers left at a grave and making a wreath out of them.

Nothing here was to be disturbed.

Doing so would mean destroying these records of lives cut short.

Or so it felt.

“Ugh!”

Miyabi held his head.

Was this unique to dark elves, or did war produce powerful enough grudges to create this?

This was no longer the gentle lights they had seen before.

A distinct vision leapt into Miyabi’s mind.

A beautiful forest spread out before him.

The grass and flowers shined like gems, the blessings of the sun were filtered through the leaves overhead, and the Celestial Tree supported the sky.

Everything shined green in the dark elf forest. That may have been why they so easily sensed the barbaric actions of the humans and burned with righteous fury.

An agitated dark elf warrior was speaking.

“The Empire is finally making their move. They intend to burn down our entire forest. We cannot sit idly by and let this happen. Grab your bows! Repel these humans whose short lives keep them from learning their rightful place!”

A brown girl watched it all with an indescribable look in her eyes.

“…”

(Elaine?)

Miyabi opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

He was not actually here.

A graceful dark elf tugged gently on Elain’s sleeve.

“You say that, but the Empire’s army is massive. I don’t know which automaton number they will place in command, but they will likely send in their Godhorn Tech. We must not underestimate a power we ourselves lack. Elaine, you guide the powerless to the hidden village.”

“But what about all of you?”

“I cannot guarantee you our bows will repel the Empire, but we must at least buy the time needed for everyone else to escape.”

Miyabi returned to the present with a numbness like he had taken a blow to the head.

His hands wandered in search of support and found something with a rough texture. The black charcoal remnants of a tree stood nearby.

“Gh, what was that?”

Miyabi must not have been the only one to see it because Alicia had a hand on her forehead.

“Are Elaine’s thoughts lingering in this place? Or…”

This may have been something like footprints left by whatever burned within Elaine. Regardless, there were no other hints around, so they chose to pursue the residual thoughts through the ruined forest.

They found some discarded items leaning against a burned and collapsed tree.

They were magical automaton joints and broken staffs.

Those were probably the remnants of the weapons abandoned by the magically-powerful Empire.

“…”

Number 8 viewed the remains of his fellow automatons with no discernable emotion on his face.

Miyabi could find nothing to say to him.

Before long, that feeling returned deep in Miyabi’s mind.

He clenched his teeth and prepared for the pain.

Another vision flew directly into his mind.

Embers.

Pillars of fire.

Red.

The color of hell covered all.

Yes, the forest was burning. Scarlet pillars rose all around and walls of heat and smoke divided the space, cutting off any escape route.

Elaine continued gesturing inside the forest even as it transformed into a deadly maze.

“Hurry, everyone! The flames have almost caught up!!”

The hidden village could not be reached through ordinary means.

The gate was opened by following the green flowers blossoming in the forest and completing a set pattern of stabbing sticks into the ground and rolling rocks around. The village itself was best understood as existing in an alternate dimension.

The dark elves who had already escaped were calling to them from beyond the gate.

“Elaine, that was the last of them! You hurry on in and we will close the gate. This space is cut off from the world, so the flames can’t reach us!!”

“But the others are still fighting the Empire!!”

“We can’t wait any longer!! This is all for naught if the flames make it through the gate!!”

“…”

Elaine clenched her teeth and started toward the gate, but her feet came to a stop. Her long ears had picked up a weak voice.

The dark elves were not the only life in the forest. There was so much more.

They were crying out for help.

A beast growled as it dragged along an injured leg and curled up.

Something’s young howled for its mother.

“…”

Elaine couldn’t do it.

She could not stop her trembling.

She was not a vegetarian. Living in this forest meant capturing and eating other living things. She was particularly fond of bird meat.

But this was different.

No one was eating this meat. No one was making a blanket out of the feathers.

The Empire was fueled by hatred, fear, and resentment.

The flames fueled by those emotions would leave nothing behind. Utter annihilation was their goal here. They would turn everything here to ashes and not even collect a single fragment of bone afterwards.

What purpose did these deaths serve? What justification was there to ignore these cries for help? She stood there, clenched her teeth, and shook her head, but it wasn’t enough. What did it matter if they weren’t dark elves? They were still living beings trying so desperately to keep living.

Elaine Greenforest wanted to save them.

She was putting her own life at risk.

She knew that.

But still.

“Wait just a little longer. Please! Just a bit longer!! Then we might not have to regret this for the rest of our lives. We might still be able to look back on this disaster with a smile because we all overcame it and survived!!”

“…”

“I’m sick of this. If we abandon them out there, we’re no better than the Empire. I don’t want to be on the side that takes lives.”

“Dammit. Okay, fine!!”

Elaine turned away from the gate.

She parted the black smoke, broke through the flames, and tried to collect as many lives as she could.

“This way, hurry!!”

She heard the cries of creatures that had not given up on life.

“Run this way if you want to live! The hidden village is right over there!!”

She heard the roars of animals that had not abandoned hope.

But.

Even so.

She heard a dazed voice from one of the dark elves who had already evacuated.

“It’s no use, Elaine…”

“?”

“No, it’s breaking, the fire has reached the Celestial Tree. It’s too late, the fire is already- aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The color red grew until nothing else remained.

Alicia remained motionless for a while after it ended.

If she had seen the same thing he had, Miyabi didn’t blame her.

“…”

Finally, she muttered something under her breath.

She leaned against a burned tree and then slid down to the ground. Instead of a natural tree trunk, a few logs had been erected here. It may have originally been a lookout tower or a simple shelter to keep out the rain.

That was about all that remained now.

Not even the dark elf village hidden in another dimension had survived.

“How can this be…?” said Alicia.

“So Elaine – and the dark elves as a whole – could have saved just themselves, but they couldn’t abandon the pained cries they heard in the forest…and tried to save them all?”

Miyabi sounded dazed. This did not at all fit the Elaine who enjoyed taking on other people’s revenge and then betraying them.

What had happened after she tried to save all those lives?

He had only seen the twisted final result.

“Damn,” spat Miyabi, walking further into the forest.

New moss and plants were crawling up the burned trees. The blackened remains of a horrific act were being covered up by new green.

But what about the people’s feelings?

The cries of a girl with nowhere to go flooded into Miyabi’s brain.

The forest had turned black.

The expansive flames were nowhere to be seen and the Empire’s malice had left.

The battle was already over. Everything Elaine had wanted to protect was gone.

Gone and destroyed.

The girl lay unmoving on the ground, hoping to just weather away along with the ashes.

“…”

The ground rumbled.

She knew what this low tremor was.

“…”

So when she sensed a massive shadow covering her, she slowly raised her head.

A normal person might have fainted upon seeing it.

It spoke in words she could understand.

“You still live, Elaine?”

That giant was the Forest Guardian.

“Why?” muttered the girl. “Why was I the only one to survive? I don’t understand.”

“…”

“Everyone was asking for help.”

She could not even get up, but she still lifted her head in search of something.

“They never gave up on life and resisted far more than I did. So why am I the only one…?”

“There is no deep meaning behind who lives and who dies.” The giant spoke solemnly. “Fortune favored you, Elaine. So now you must live.”

“I don’t want to.”

The survivor had no strength left.

No strength to get back on her feet.

“I’m so tired. Of everything.”

“Elaine, you did nothing wrong.” The twisted being known as the Forest Guardian spoke with a smile. “There is no deep meaning behind who lives and who dies, but it violates the principles of this sacred forest for the blameless to continue suffering forever. …You leave me no choice, Elaine. I will protect your pride.”

“?”

Now was not the time to be asking questions.

Elaine needed to get moving right away.

But she could not and this was the result.

She failed to stop the eerie sound of a snapping horn.

Her mind went blank.

She did not understand. Nor did she want to.

She had long since hit her limit.

“What did you do!?”

“I broke off my horn,” calmly stated the Forest Guardian. So very calmly. “Elaine, you can create a Godhorn Tech with this. Live the life you want to live and smile as much as you like. The world has taken so much from you, so now it is time you took the life you want. You are free to do whatever you like.”

She heard another deep rumbling, but this was different from before.

This was the sound of something falling, never to get back up. It was a sad, lonely tremor that seemed to tear her heart to pieces.

The girl had been given a clear power that would grant her victory over anyone. And she had lost her final savior.

“Ah, ahh…”

The power had been left to her by that loss.

This time, she truly was alone.

How was this the strongest power? What could that horn do?

That comforting presence had supported them all, watched over the girl from afar, and gently allayed her fears during stormy nights. That warm being had let her know she was not alone whenever she needed to know it. That individual had been more reliable than her father, closer than her oldest friend, and her role model for how to treat a hypothetical apprentice or child in the future.

Elaine knew the Forest Guardian had cared for them all more gently than anyone. She knew he had hidden within the Celestial Tree for fear his giant, bizarre appearance would frighten them.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

No, it was not just her. Everyone who lived in the forest had understood how kind a heart he had and how unnecessarily thoughtful he had been. The dark elves looked different from humans, so they had accepted the Forest Guardian for the same reason they did not judge people based on the shape of their ears or the length of their life. He was so gentle, shy, and fearful, but he was more caring than anyone or anything else and he ended up worrying over anything and everything. So they had not even named their annual forest festival after their guardian. Instead, they had expressed a year’s worth of thanks to the guardian they chose not to name.

His great strength could not be found in this.

The horn was just a horn.

It was a tool directed at a powerful enemy to pierce and kill them. That was all it could do.

A source of violence could never carry the power needed to soothe the girl’s loneliness.

Everything she wanted to protect died.

Everything she hoped for slipped through her fingers.

No matter what she did.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The dull headache was irrelevant.

Miyabi was so furious at being unable to interact with that vision of the past that he didn’t care if his head really was cracking open.

“…”

No.

It wasn’t the past he needed to change. He already had the power to change the present and the future.

He gripped his control sword tight.

Destruction and creation.

How could he use those two powers to reach her heart?

“I was wondering how a wandering dark elf managed to get a Godhorn Tech when they usually take an entire country or company to develop.”

It had come from a hopelessly foolish act of self-sacrifice.

And his visit to the Bio Rainforest had already shown him the world was flooded with unregistered scientists and engineers who were greatly skilled but refused to compromise with society. She would have been able to search someone out.

Miyabi clenched his teeth now that he knew what was contained within Elaine’s Godhorn Tech.

“How did it turn out this way?”

Just then, something appeared before him – a ball of light. It was even larger than the residual thoughts of the dark elves floating here and there.

He could only think of one being this could be.

“I am the Forest Guardian.”

Miyabi did not doubt the claim. He had no reason to.

“I am the ugly guardian who has seen long ages pass from within the hollow Celestial Tree.”

“…”

He had a horn.

So in the world outside the forest, he would be known as a Wicked God.

“Elaine had lost far too much, so she required some power to make up for it. I wanted her to wield my horn’s power to live free in the outside world. She could have chosen for herself what to create and what to destroy – how she would live and what she would leave behind. I wanted her to find happiness and smile as much as she liked without anyone getting in her way. But she was too kind.”

Could Miyabi interrupt?

What would it even accomplish if he could?

“She could have ignored her own feelings, if that was all it was. But she heard the voices of those around her. When she saw someone too weak to carry out their revenge, she understood how they felt. She was too kind to abandon them. She could not refuse them when they asked for help and she eventually started calling it her job. …She no longer even considers whose revenge she is carrying out. It does not even cross her mind.”

The large ball of light vanished into thin air.

She had her hatred of the Empire.

And she had picked up the resentments of complete strangers.

The engineers who had helped make a Godhorn Tech out of her Wicked God horn may have done so in order to get back at the society that had rejected them.

Even though the being who had broken his own horn to save her had not wanted such a painful future for her.

“So that’s it.”

Miyabi understood now.

There were only residual thoughts here and he knew the actual Guardian could not hear him, but he still felt like he had to say this.

“This isn’t what Elaine wanted. It was their wish.”

“I thought she had completely changed. I thought the person who attacked the Empire couldn’t have been the girl I knew.” Alicia reflected on it all. “But she has only been wandering – lost – this entire time.”

The twins took turns asking questions.

“What are we going to do?”

“After she intruded on our business, you aren’t just going to let her go on like this, are you?”

The answer was obvious.

“Of course not,” said Miyabi Blackgarden. “It’s time to end this.”

They were deep in the forest.

Even if it was burned and broken, the colossal tree in the center still looked down upon the entire continent. A kind Wicked God had once lived in that holy ground and watched over the dark elves’ lives.

The green moss was quietly growing there too.

The Celestial Tree did not reject it. It demonstrated a mysterious acceptance of this new greenery bathing in the forest sunlight and of the new form the forest was taking.

And at the base of that tree…

“Ah,” said Miyabi.

He saw silver hair and brown skin.

He saw a strange outfit resembling a whin white negligee or babydoll that left the navel visible. But the many quivers worn around her hips made it almost look like a fairy tale dress.

Then there were the special goggles over the eyes.

Elaine casually emerged from between the black trees.

Small glowing bugs took silent flight whenever she trod on the green moss.

“…”

“What, is this more residual thoughts? Does she have more to tell us?”

He gave her a puzzled look as she slowly approached.

Alicia, on the other hand, widened her eyes.

“No! That’s the real Elaine!! I wouldn’t confuse her with an illusion. She exists in the same time as us!!”

“!?”

Elaine fired a magic arrow from dead ahead.

Miyabi barely managed to dodge it and a disturbingly white explosion erupted directly behind him. He would have been killed instantly had it hit him.

“…!!”

“Nhhh! She does love her tricks, doesn’t she!?” roared Onelife.

“She never could have destroyed my Empire otherwise. Not even with a Godhorn Tech,” said Number 8 calmly but firmly.

“Heh heh heh.”

She laughed.

It was a somehow broken and derailed laugh. The goggles over her eyes served to accentuate the sinister crescent moon of her lips.

She held the long bow in one hand and used the other to toy with the quivers worn around her like a skirt.

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Yes, I had a feeling it wouldn’t be so easy!”

“What’s so funny!?” asked Alicia.

“Oh? Aren’t you supposed to enjoy the game of revenge?”

Something happened within the magical automaton.

Even time seemed to strain.

“Enjoy…?” Number 8 spoke each word like he was crushing them one by one between his back teeth. “Do you have any idea how many lives were lost back then? How many tears were shed, how many people stood up to protect their loved ones, and how many ultimately fell!?”

“Enough, faithful servant. She too is ruled by tragedy,” shouted Eliza, unable to just watch any longer.

The Empire’s army had destroyed the forest and a survivor of the forest had brought down the Empire. They had all been drunk on and ruled by their own power. That power was too great even for nonhumans like an automaton or dark elf.

The power of a Wicked God’s horn.

The power of a Godhorn Tech.

That was why Elaine had not stopped. Why she could not stop.

“I intentionally accept the burden of other people’s lives. Because what greater thrill is there than two lives engaged in combat until one or the other falls?”

“…”

Miyabi’s knowledge of her past allowed her damaged heart to stab into the core of his being.

All that remained of that lonely girl was sneering at him here.

“It’s a game!! A game!! What else could you call it!? They might call me a revenge mercenary, but if this was only a job, how could I ever be so obsessed with it!? You can’t stick with something unless you enjoy it, right? Ha ha, ah ha ha, ha ha ha ha, ah ha, ah ha ha!!!!!!”

Alicia bit her lips with pity in her eyes.

But Elaine continued laughing. She hid her face with goggles, kept everyone away with her bow and arrow, and could not bear the weight of the horn given to save her.

She was more fragile than glass and more brittle than hard candy.

At the same time, she was more sinister than steel and more unclean than dark charcoal.

“Now give me more!! So much more! Surpass all of my expectations so I can finally feel satisfied!!”

With a straining sound, Elaine Greenforest nocked a deadly arrow to her bow that resembled a distorted harp.

She aimed at Alicia, the elf girl she had supposedly spent plenty of time with.

Her melted voice invited in death.

“Entertain me, miss♪”

“Tch. Damn tragedy addict.” The radio clicked its tongue. “She’s developed a taste for blood!!”

Alicia did not avert her gaze even as that piercing dark pressure was directed her way.

“But we spent so much time together. Is there really nothing we can do? A way to keep this fellow elf – my childhood friend – from falling any further!?”

“If you can’t find a reason to give up on her, then you don’t have to.” The redhead boy placed a hand on Alicia’s head and held his control sword with the other hand. “No one here did anything wrong to begin with – not Elaine, not the dark elves, and not the Celestial Tree’s Wicked God. Yet Elaine was led down this path.”

So…

“Help me, Alicia. The rest of you too.”

With the assurance that his party members were watching his back, Miyabi faced the lonely girl who had lost everything and then pushed everything away herself.

Destruction and creation.

What was that strongest power for? What did he want to do with what Moebius Entrance had given him?

That wasn’t even a question.

If he could reach out and grab a trembling hand and if he could add just one more member to his party, he could work up enough courage to directly battle someone with the power to destroy the world.

He had to look her in the eye and raise his voice.

He had to make this crystal clear.

This was not for the world or to do the right thing. He simply could not leave that girl alone any longer. Not one second more. What was wrong with fighting for that?

So he spoke his mind.

So that he could smash the unwanted destiny that had led to this point and create a new path for this vengeful demon who had given up on herself!!

Miyabi Blackgarden simply shouted as his boiling instincts led him.

“Your twisted tragedy ends here!!!!!!”

It was a battle between sword and bow.

The dark elf recited her incantations as if in song.

“Rainmaker: Downburst – Category 3. The number 2 refers to the two extremes, so the gap between the high and the low shall invite in a great wind!!”

A massive amount of air was compressed by a metal arrowhead spilt into two prongs at the tip.

That deadly arrowhead would scatter walls of shockwaves in every direction when it hit.

Their new party member Harber had been right. Elaine’s bow looked frightening at first, but its power was actually boosted by magic. That meant Elaine herself knew it was lacking in power on its own.

Miyabi fearlessly rushed toward her.

He just barely dodged the initial attack and continued forward.

Once close enough, Elaine could not use any exploding magic arrows because their great power would hit her as well. And his sword could reach just fine at that range. She would be forced to use her bow itself for defense, which would also prevent her from nocking an arrow.

And yet…

Despite being a mid and long range specialist, she remained confident even at close range?

“Rainmaker: Reverse Engineering – Category #$%&. The number 4 symbolizes the easily understood colors. By revealing how clouds are formed, I gain the key to making it rain!!”

Surprisingly, she aimed her bow straight down and launched the arrow into the ashes piled up at her feet.

“Get back, boy!!!!!!”

If not for Alicia’s warning, he might have been crushed.

He rolled along the mossy ground, getting ashes all over him, but he felt a prickling pain across all his skin.

(What was that!? She was right in front of me, yet something flew in from another direction!?)

Miyabi was dumbfounded while he got back on his feet.

He saw a faint glow.

It was a fire.

For that one moment, a fearsome pillar of fire entirely surrounded Elaine Greenforest.

“Rainmaker,” said the Necromancer with a grin. She seemed to come alive the closer she was to death. “There are a lot of rainmaking ceremonies, but this is one major branch: using fire to summon water. The smoke is viewed as rainclouds, the fire as the sun, and the water that puts out the fire as the rain. But this does not just apply to water. Lightning can be used to create the smoke and a sandstorm can symbolize the clouds in the sky. If hiding the sun makes it rain, it doesn’t matter if that is done by covering it with dirt or snuffing it out with the wind. Ah ha ha. See? All magic can be used for good or evil – it isn’t just necromancy. There are simply restrictions applied to its usage and you gain more freedom if you break free of the boring restrictions society loves to put on it!!”

“…!!”

He tried to approach Elaine, but more and more of the ashy ground and black trees exploded. But if he thoughtlessly moved back, her bow and arrow would make short work of him.

Kananka read the path of his boomerang.

He was using the minute changes to determine the wind direction, the temperature, the humidity, and more about the air.

“Move in from the west-southwest!! The fire should be weakest there!!”

Alicia flicked a test tube’s cap off with her thumb and downed the physical boosting potion within.

But not even that was enough.

If Helen had not noticed and tripped her, Alicia would have been badly injured. Simply increasing her fire resistance was not enough to charge through the wall of fire. The obvious curtain of flames was being used to camouflage several sharp stone spikes jutting up from the ground.

“Tch!!”

“She used her tricks to take out the Lord of Ruin in a single blow, so assume there’s more to her attacks than meets the eye!!”

Of course, it was not over yet.

Next…

“You’re wiiiide open☆”

With a sound like tearing paper, Elaine launched her next attack while laughing. She intended to blast Miyabi now that he was stopped by the wall of fire and the stone spikes.

She was a survivor of the dark elves who had lost everything when their beautiful forest was burned.

Even an outsider like Miyabi felt like the rage and regret would smother his heart after hearing the story.

Yet she still launched a trident arrowhead with lightning compressed between the prongs.

“!!”

Miyabi was not as skilled with a sword as the Lord of Ruin, so he could not hope to stop the projectile with his control sword. And even if he did manage, the magic contained within the sharp arrowhead would explode in his face.

So instead, he forcibly twisted his body around and dropped to the ashes to dodge it.

It was the most he could manage and even that only succeeded thanks to some luck.

He felt a prickling pain in his skin as time seemed to freeze, but was that the electrical energy grazing him or was it the result of his own extreme tension?

Far behind him, the arrowhead erupted into a terrifying pure white explosion.

“Tch. Cautious thing, aren’t you?”

That was Elaine’s only response. The simple and sloppy impression he got from her had to be from more than just the goggles covering her eyes. She destroyed the environment around her while hoping to maybe be lucky enough to hit. She transformed the terrain, set it on fire, and stained it with blood. She clearly no longer viewed this as her homeland.

“Rainmaker: Low Level Wind Shear – Category 3. The number 1 is an arrow pointing the way. …The wind hurts a lot more when it carries broken branches and hard leaves, doesn’t it? And this place has plenty of remnants of the past.”

“Don’t do this, Elaiiiiiiine!!” shouted Miyabi before he was sent tumbling backwards.

It was like a fan-shaped explosion. Countless branches blew in horizontally, baring the fangs that were their jagged ends.

Miyabi heard cracking sounds from his chest and side.

He coughed violently, but he was not impaled thanks to the thick leather forestry jacket he wore and the depressing fragility of the black and burned branches. They all shattered before piercing through. It almost felt like the many dark elves sleeping in the forest were breaking their own bodies to avoid any further bloodshed here.

The heartache was worse than the physical pain.

It felt like being pummeled by shards of broken gravestones.

Even Miyabi – a complete stranger visiting for the first time – had been hesitant to remake the dirt and trees into Bypass Bridges and Layer Stairs, yet she could do this!?

“Tch. Didn’t work. You’re no fun. Next I can…oh, I know. Maybe I can include the wreckage of the weapons and automatons I picked up in the Empire. There’s no way you can survive that one, is there?”

“Wait…agh. How can you do this…to the forest?”

“It’s just a forest. Or it used to be one. Do you see anything other than that here?”

The forest was already dead.

Who died here and what slumbered here were not an issue of the physical reality. They could burn, roast, and melt down the rest or even tear up the very dirt the dark elves had returned to, but nothing would ever wake them back up.

Why get so angry when there was no one here to be bothered by what she did?

But.

Even so.

Who was she thinking of when she took over other people’s revenge? Was she already so broken?

They stood at the base of the broken Celestial Tree.

Was she no longer even aware that they were disturbing the dead’s slumber by loudly crossing weapons and launching magic in this holy ground packed full of the dark elves’ precious memories!?

(No.)

He didn’t want to believe that.

An image of the past flashed in the back of his mind.

He once more reflected on the regret and urgent request of the Forest Guardian.

(No!!)

He managed to get back up, even if only to crawl.

And he clutched the control sword even tighter.

When the humans had set the forest ablaze, a kind girl had attempted to get the forest animals into the hidden village, failed, and ultimately lost everything. Her decision had been admirable and her motives virtuous. The sensitive girl had broken as a result, but he never wanted to believe she had fallen so far down the path of evil that she could never recover!!

What could he do?

He had to think.

What were his Godhorn Tech and its powers of destruction of creation meant for? He was free to use that much power for good or for evil, so was there really not even a single thing he could do for this girl!?

The Lucifer Horn impatiently awaited his orders up in the sky.

He could not let this end in disgrace. He needed to do something worthy of the title of strongest!!

“Elaine!!!!!!”

“Ah ha ha. Looking for some way to help the dead? Then come join me, human boy. What is a Godhorn Tech and its Wicked God horn good for other than revenge?”

“Kh.”

There had to be something.

Tell her.

Tell her the Forest Guardian had been so worried for her he had carved his feelings into the forest. Tell her that saving her would help soothe the spirits of all of those who had lived in the forest.

Tell her there were ways to comfort an aching heart far more effective than revenge.

You saw her past on the way here, didn’t you!?

“Ha ha ha!! This forest is already dead. There’s no one left here. Not one! Why should I care if I damage it!?”

She snapped her fingers, sending unnatural sparks flying.

The instant they fell on the ash and soot covered ground, her bow and arrow affected the weather, creating an impossible horizontal gust of wind.

It was like a powerful breath blowing on the still-hot white ashes left in the fireplace.

The wind itself became an orange-glowing wall of flame.

Fire, water, wind, earth, wood, lightning, and what else?

Elaine would probably do the same thing with light or a holy power as well.

She could use all sorts of magic, but she depressingly only used it for destruction. Even though her dedication could have been put to better use.

She might as well have been setting a graveyard ablaze. Was she actually setting fire to the land where the dark elves slept after being killed in a fire!?

But the Necromancer sounded amused as she held a long whip made from some kind of tongue.

“She only has the upper hand thanks to all the charcoal and ashes filling the forest, so you only need to get rid of that cause of death. That bitch said a Godhorn Tech is only good for revenge, but you can do more than that with yours, can’t you? You can use it to protect and to save.”

“Lucifer Horn, take care of it!!” shouted Miyabi, stabbing his control sword into the ground.

Something dropped from the sky above.

A massive bomb exploded, pushing back at the approaching flames like another wall.

He did not put out the fire with water.

He fought fire with fire.

“So what? Ee hee, ee hee hee. We dark elves were already destroyed by the Empire’s cruel attack. Ha ha ha ha ha!! Rainmaker: Reverse Engineering – Category @*￥. Wind, dust, and all other ways of controlling the weather and rainmaking can be used to stop you from-!?”

Elaine suddenly stopped and her twisted laughter caught in her throat.

Then a beam of light dropped down.

It landed a bit to the side of Elaine and her wall of flame, but not because it had missed. Miyabi Blackgarden stared straight at her and he never used his Godhorn Tech to directly attack her despite the handicap that placed on him.

Yes, the true purpose of the attack soon presented itself.

A swarm of every type of bug pushed in from all directions.

“This was a dead forest, but that’s a thing of the past. Moss and grass have grown in to overwrite that in places,” whispered the Necromancer, her feet gently resting on the green moss spreading across the ground. “You can find life almost anywhere on the continent: in the desert, on the snowy fields, and even at the bottom of the sea or in a volcano. The fire may have been too much of a hint. Most all living things are drawn toward light. And all the more so in such a quiet forest. The smallest stimulation can draw them out from across the forest. Just like spreading iron sand thinly across a large plate and then gathering it in the center with a magnet.”

“What!?”

“No one can stop the circle of life. Necromancers can make some minor adjustments to the death part, but the overall circle remains unchanged. Just like cheating at the casino to earn cash can never bring down the entire system of currency. And if you summon life to a place overflowing with death, you can neutralize that death. Neither life nor death are anything special, after all.”

The swarm of bugs smothered Elaine’s wall of flames, preventing it from burning or pushing back Miyabi’s party.

Kananka’s boomerang tore through the curtain of black smoke to take a reading, not to attack.

“There is no invisible mass of heat. Miyabi, run straight through!!”

And with the fire gone, the path was clear.

Now it was Miyabi’s turn to attack!!

“Kee hee.”

Just as he was arriving in striking distance, Elaine laughed.

She raised her bow to block his attack and lock their weapons together, but…

“I had hoped to enjoy your resistance a little longer, but all good things must come to an end.”

He heard something other than his sword striking her bow.

Even with their weapons awkwardly locked together, the bottom of her bow stabbed into the ground.

Despite being the one on the attack, Miyabi felt a chill down his spine.

“From the control bow to the horn core – tactical open.”

He knew it was coming, but they currently had their weapons locked together.

“High-Altitude Blimp Huge Eye. Chew it all to pieces!!”

It was a giant sphere.

The sorcery weapon looked so unnatural floating up in the sky with the power of heat.

The eerie sphere was colored black and looked both like a human skull and like a giant eyeball.

It was positioned far higher than even the Lucifer Horn. The bomber generally attacked by dropping something below it, so the Huge Eye was fully protected. The Huge Eyes’ great size made the scale hard to judge, but it had to be above 5000m, putting it higher than a mountain range. The strength of its armor hardly mattered because finding a weapon or magic that could reach that high would be a challenge in and of itself. Celina’s gun and Kananka’s boomerang could not even get close.

And that was not all.

It was the center of a raging spiral of wind. It carried around the destructive power of a natural disaster to lay waste to the surface.

A pillar colored a dirty gray by the ash and charcoal was slowly approaching from the distance.

“A-a giant hurricane?” groaned the radio hanging from Alicia’s neck. “Is this what blew us away in the desert? What kind of fantasy world is this!? You’re not supposed to have weather control devices!”

“The spirits are weeping… They weren’t here before, though. Or did they flee here from elsewhere!?”

The boomerang did not return to surprised Kananka. It had hit a nearby rock and bounced off. That meant something was wrong. Something unseen had diverted its course.

Number 8 looked like he had been transported to some other time.

“I have seen this,” he said. “This happened in my broken memories. The abnormal sky produced a wind that knocked down all things and sent fish and frogs raining from above. It tore the vaults from their foundations, swept up the mana within, and spread it across the land. That disaster took the Empire’s people and the emperor from me. It was just like a natural disaster!!”

“Hee hee.” Elaine laughed behind her goggles. And she snapped her fingers. “Hee hee hee. This will make that look like nothing. Revenge is all about leaving an impact, so you need to constantly update your methods.”

Small sparks scattered from her fingers, but they had seen this before.

A change came over the ashes the sparks fell upon.

They glowed orange like the tip of a cigarette or a fireplace.

The smallest of embers sent the fine ash into the air and gathered up the air to burn with an explosive intensity. Elaine’s bow and arrow alone had created a thick wall, so what would happen with these powerful winds fueling the fire? It could easily create a pillar of fire large enough to pierce the sky.

Alicia clenched her teeth while viewing the distant pillar of ashes and charcoal.

But she could not give up.

“Nothing will save us if we are caught by that. We need to end this before it arrives, boy!!”

The silver lining was how slow an attack it was.

It was absurdly powerful, but they had some time before the winds arrived and absorbed all the fire burning on the ground.

Now the question was how stubbornly Elaine could hold her ground with her tricks and traps. Miyabi’s party should have the upper hand due to their superior numbers, but she was the type to trick them into attacking each other.

But then something strange happened.

With a dull creaking, one of the black carbonized trees fell toward Elaine. Puzzled, she took a step back and the tree sent ashes and smashed charcoal dust into the air.

But that was all.

The gathered air did not produce an orange wall of flame.

Because the fallen tree had pinpoint crushed the embers on the ground. It almost looked like someone had calculated it out and tackled the fragile tree, but neither Miyabi nor Elaine saw anyone there. That had not been the work of the powerhouses like Eliza or Onelife.

“Miyabi, did you use the Palette Dice?” asked Celina with her flintlock rifle at the ready.

“No,” bluntly replied Miyabi.

Then who had done it?

Next, a boulder rolled onto some embers and some dirt buried some more. More and more unnatural phenomena accurately eliminated the embers that Elaine had sent out as a deadly trigger.

Elaine was badly shaken when she noticed the pale lights flying around like fireflies.

The goggles were not enough to hide how shaken she was.

Those were supposed to mere remnants.

There shouldn’t have been anyone left.

Because it was the loss of everything born and raised here that had made Elaine into what she was.

“The spirits…of the dark elves?”

Yet the unthinkable words came unbidden from her mouth.

She herself accepted it.

“But how? These are only thoughts affixed to specific coordinates. They shouldn’t even have their own personalities!”

“Don’t you get it?” said Miyabi without a thought to strategy.

He had no proof, but nothing required him to give any.

He trusted in the feeling inside himself and gripped his control sword tight.

“The Greenforest race has long regretted wishing for revenge after the Empire destroyed them. Because that wish was placed entirely on your shoulders. So they regretted it, regretted it so very much, and wondered if there was anything they could do to help you. They’re only residual thoughts now and there’s no way they can be conveniently resurrected at this point!! But they’re still trying to save you from the fire they started, Elaine!!”

Maybe it was the lack of strategy that caused crafty Elaine Greenforest’s mind to briefly go blank.

And not even that dark elf could escape unscathed with so many people rushing straight at her.

With her trickery temporarily halted, their greater numbers could do the talking.

She took aim at Miyabi who was moving straight toward her with his control sword in both hands, but someone passed the boy on the left and on the right.

They arrived faster than she had predicted, so she had no choice but to block their attacks with her bow itself.

“Ghhh!?”

Impressively, she managed to dodge Onelife’s prosthetic hand by a hair’s breadth.

But then Alicia’s staff solidly struck her in the side.

Her shoulders slanted just a bit.

Her strength left her.

“Did that do it!?” shouted the radio at the other elf’s neck.

“This ends now, Elaine. Open your eyes to reality. The proud Forest Guardian broke off his horn hoping you would live free and smile innocently. You don’t have to be bound by someone else’s revenge any longer!”

“Heh heh. Don’t be absurd.”

She was still doubled over as the straining in her ribs crossed a line and a red liquid spilled from her mouth.

Yet the beautiful but broken dark elf continued to smile.

And that crescent moon smile looked all the more sinister with the goggles covering her eyes.

“Eh heh heh. You’re the one who saw our plight yet refused to leave your own forest. Heh heh heh hah hah!!”

“!?”

“Don’t listen to her!!” warned the Philosopher’s Stone, but it was too late.

Elaine’s sticky words had latched onto Alicia’s heart.

“Yet here you are. Some childhood friend you are. You ignore us when we beg you for help, but when it’s for your own personal interests, out you come?”

“This isn’t even anyone’s revenge. You just want to tear us apart!!”

But the dark elf did not stick with it. She must not have cared too much if it worked or not. She was willing to sneer and strike with her poisoned claws on no more than the off chance it might come in handy. Even though she was striking the soft heart inside someone’s chest.

Kanaka came to an awkward stop. He had stopped throwing his boomerang at the last second because he was not confident it would come back to him.

A great mass of wind blew through the remaining blackened tree branches.

“Looks like I bought enough time there,” said Elaine.

“You mean…” said Alicia with a tremor in her throat.

“Huge Eye, fill the world with the ultimate thrill. Blow your winds right through me!”

This was a hurricane.

This power could control natural disasters, which were a greater threat than crime and war. This power had even destroyed the Empire through a chain reaction of destruction. That wind was dangerous enough even if it did not absorb the flames. Everyone here knew it after being on the receiving end in the desert. They knew clenching your teeth and planting your feet on the ground was not enough to endure it.

But.

The redhead boy moved to intervene by any means necessary.

“No, this isn’t over yet!!”

“?”

Miyabi shouted to push on Alicia’s back.

There was something there.

It was blackened, falling apart, and abandoned by the flow of time.

But he had succeeded in pulling out something like a giant bat wing. It was more than 10m wide and torn, leaving only pieces of it still intact.

“There’s still something we can do using this!!”

“Koo…”

Alma hopped up and down after finding this remnant of another one here.

In other words…

“Did that wing belong to that Wicked God or whatever it was?” asked Helen, mentioning a crucial term.

Wicked God.

Elaine looked like she had been struck by lightning. There had only been one of those in the Green Forest.

That avenger’s eyes had always pierced straight through her target, but even with the support of the special goggles, she briefly lost sight of something now.

“What? But that…!?”

Her eyes focused on something that wasn’t here.

“What are you doing here!? Why now!!!???”

“We can’t do anything about that hurricane down here on the ground. I’ll admit that.” Miyabi grinned and made a gamble. “So I’ll pave a path to somewhere where we can stop it. Even if it means diving in myself!”

Number 8 looked up.

“Oh, I get it. The fish and frogs falling from the sky.”

“You’ll be helping me, Elaine. Even if you are my enemy!!”

Gravity disappeared.

Miyabi’s party flew up into the sky along with the many branches, trees, and rocks.

They were above the clouds, in a world of pure blue.

There was actually no wind here, presumably because they were in the eye of the storm. Also, the biting cold kept their minds sharply focused.

They were higher even than the Lucifer Horn here. At more than 5000m up, they were in the Huge Eye’s territory. And Miyabi’s party set foot atop that giant sphere in its inviolable airspace.

“Kh, where are we?”

Elaine had been taken along with them and she wouldn’t have any way of backing out this high in the air. The brown avenger’s eyes widened.

“Are we on top of the Huge Eye!?”

“This worked out better than I thought. And in the eye of the storm, your winds can’t reach us.”

Miyabi knew what the awkward Forest Guardian had wanted when he broke off his own horn to give the surviving girl hope. He knew that tragic ruler’s request for her to live the life she wanted to live had come to fruition in the worst possible way.

Miyabi knew about the poor girl whose last remaining savior had died ahead of her, plunging her into the depths of true loneliness. He knew about that shabby avenger whose kindness prevented her from ignoring the cries of others in similar situations and thus could not stop fighting using the great power of her Godhorn Tech.

Miyabi knew all of that.

So he could not push that lonely girl away from the outcome. Whether she won or lost, Elaine Greenforest could never be freed from her bonds unless she accepted the outcome. She was so sensitive that she had broken and could not find her original smile anymore. So she had to be with him on this final stage!!

This was not about giving him an advantage in the fight.

He could not truly end this any other way.

Miyabi readied his control sword in both hands and faced the dark elf.

And he roared.

All so he could reach a future where the Forest Guardian’s wish to protect the girl’s freedom and happiness would actually reach her and she could actually hold someone’s hand once more, even if she still had her reservations at first!!

He had to create.

Yes, now was the time for creation.

Everyone had given up on this avenger, so he would have to create a world where she could smile and live happily!!

“Elaine, no more aimless wandering as a revenge mercenary. I heard the Forest Guardian’s prayer. If this Godhorn Tech only helps you waste your freedom, then I’ll destroy it and take away that power that’s binding you!!”

They stood far up in the sky.

There was no escape from this aerial battlefield in any direction.

But.

Elaine Greenforest demonstrated surprising persistence even while cornered so thoroughly.

She snapped her fingers.

Small sparks were swept away from the Huge Eye and the massive hurricane surrounding them burst into flames.

She had ignited the ashes and charcoal dust swept into the air.

Alma bristled and jumped at Miyabi’s feet.

“Kyoo!?”

Everything was dyed orange and Miyabi felt a stinging heat on his skin, but his core remained cold.

The broken dark elf was saying she would not let any of them escape.

“Fine then. But I will still put revenge above all else. Even if that means burning down the entire world!!”

They were far higher even than the Lucifer Horn and the bomber was only made to attack the surface, so it was unlikely it could even target something higher than itself.

But Miyabi did not hesitate.

He raised his control sword in both hands and pointed the tip toward the lonely dark elf.

There had been no need at all for her to remain alone, but that was the only choice she had found for herself. She had misinterpreted the hope left to her by the others and jumped into the depths of hell herself.

Miyabi knew he had to end this here.

He truly believed it.

“I’ll show you, Elaine.”

“?”

“Show you there is another option for you!!”

He ran along the unstable high-altitude blimp.

Close range should have given him an advantage, but he knew Elaine was too crafty for that to necessarily work.

But this was not a 1-on-1 battle.

If he was betting every part of himself and wielding the entire path he had taken to reach this point, then this tactic was an option for him.

“She uses a bow. Rush in and keep her from using it!!!!!!”

The others all responded to his call.

Helen moved forward with her large knife, as did Number 8 with his morning star connected to its grip by electricity. Celina and Kananka did the same even though their rifle and boomerang were ranged weapons.

As if to say they would not let this continue any longer.

As if to say they refused to let this girl live a life where she seemed to enjoy harming herself.

“Kh.”

Elaine bit her lip.

If not for the goggles over her eyes, she may have narrowed them as if viewing a dazzling light.

But there was no need for that look.

She could join them any time she wanted. She could become one of them. That cracked and broken girl had never needed to isolate herself and obsess over futile revenge!!

“Hee hee hee.”

Elaine Greenforest did not give in even after taking attacks from Eliza’s surprisingly powerful lance or Onelife’s prosthetic hand.

She continued to fight.

She cast magic, launched arrows, and sometimes swung the entire twisted bow like it was a whip. Miyabi’s party remained a step away from reaching her. They were constantly repelled and forced back.

The lonely girl had learned how to get by in her loneliness.

She did not even seem to care when one of their attacks landed cleanly.

“Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!”

“Stop…stop this, Elaine!!”

Alicia struck with her wooden staff and winced when she felt it crack something inside Elaine.

Mercilessly killing Elaine would be meaningless.

That was not their idea of victory.

But nothing Alicia said changed a thing.

The dark elf’s bloody laughter and the wall of wind surrounding the high-altitude blimp – no, the fiery cyclone – were only growing in intensity.

Elaine swung her slender arms while cackling in a way that squeezed at the hearts of all who heard it. She even repelled Onelife who was said to have slain a Wicked God.

“Nhhh!?”

“I keep landing accurate blows, so how is she still conscious? This does not compute.”

Elaine was of course paying a price for the amount of raw power she was forcing out of her body.

After knocking back Onelife, her arm had grown bluish from internal bleeding.

It was amazing the bones were unbroken.

Number 8 shared his analysis with the others and the Necromancer toyed with her tongue whip and sighed in exasperation.

“She certainly is tough. Are you sure she’s still alive? With that kind of disregard for her own wellbeing, I would be amazed to find she hasn’t dabbled in necromancy.”

“You’re killing it today, boss!”

“I imagine her own brain chemicals have put her in the zone. Her sense of pain is completely gone, so physical blows aren’t going to knock her out.”

“…”

After a short silence, Number 8 made a suggestion.

A suggestion as a subject of the Empire she had destroyed.

“Then do we kill her to stop her?”

“No!!” screamed Alicia.

The ever-cunning elf gripped her wooden staff tight, squeezed her eyes shut, and failed to stop the tears.

And she shouted loud enough to tear open her own throat.

“I won’t abandon her this time! I finally left my forest and she’s finally at arm’s reach! So I won’t abandon her this time!!”

“Don’t worry, miss,” roared the radio. “A real man won’t abandon a girl in need. Right, Miyabi!? Forget strategy and tactics. This is a swords and sorcery fantasy where anything goes and you’ve got the strongest power in your grasp, so remember what it is you want to do here!!!!!!”

“Sigh.” The Necromancer sounded exasperated. “If we can’t stop Elaine without killing her, then we’ll have to find some other way to win.”

That was it.

They only had to win. And that didn’t necessarily mean aiming for Elaine.

And this was bound to work against Elaine more than anyone else.

It only took a split second for Miyabi to reach a decision.

“Scatter!!”

“?”

The dark elf’s laughter momentarily stopped.

And in that moment…

“Now we’re talking!! I was pretty sick of having to pummel such a scrawny girl anyway,” said Onelife. “If I’m gonna fight something, I want it to be even tougher and bigger than me!!!!!!”

“I see you’ve already conveniently edited out your memories of attacking me so mercilessly in the Bio Rainforest,” said the Necromancer. “Idiots are such a mystery.”

Maybe because you aren’t a girl, thought Miyabi and she glared at him like she had read his mind.

Onelife and the Necromancer ran in opposite directions like they were repelled by each other.

“Ixea, we need to fight as well.”

“Indeed we do, Acacia. We finally get an outside view of someone trapped by a Godhorn Tech. I feel like I’m seeing my old self, which kind of pisses me off.”

The twins wielding giant axes actually moved back with their hip cloths fluttering in front of them.

“What are you doing?”

The dark elf viewed the entire scene through her special goggles.

And then she cried out in alarm.

“No!”

She tried to ready her bow, but Miyabi had moved right up in front of her.

Sword clashed with bow before she could nock an arrow.

With their weapons locked together, Miyabi smiled savagely in front of the girl. In a pure clash of force, he could place more force on his thick, two-handed sword than she could on her bow.

“Hey, Elaine. If you need an elf babysitter, I’m your guy. I’ve had to put up with Alicia’s selfishness and short temper all my life, after all.”

“Kh!! M-move! Move out of the way!!!!!!”

“Not happening, no matter what. Your drive for vengeance, your trapped heart, and your twisted hope can all go to hell. The Forest Guardian left this task with us. He trusted us when we only ignorantly walked into this forest! We also saw the ghosts of the dark elves who gathered together to help end your life of revenge!! So I’ll shatter the chains binding you. Every last one of them!!”

Yes.

Her magically-enhanced projectiles were a threat, but she also had to focus on defense when challenged at close range. And it went without saying which of their weapons was better suited for blocking blows.

Shining steel drew out large arcs. The movements resembled the tilling of the soil.

More and more heavy impacts rang out.

But not against Elaine Greenforest. The heavy hitters like Onelife and Number 8 were attacking the Huge Eye below them.

Miyabi’s party only needed to spread out and smash the armor of the blimp they stood on. And they had to keep that up until it could no longer fly under its own power.

Its overwhelming altitude had been its greatest shield, but now they could reach it and damage it.

Elaine forcibly kicked at Miyabi’s legs with their weapons locked together and she used the brief opening to roll back and away.

She only gained 5m, but it was enough for her to use her bow as a projectile weapon again.

“Tch!! Rainmaker: Flood – Category 4. The number 1 indicates a single direction. Produce a massive deluge following the unhesitating arrow! Make the wingless intruders slip and tumble down to their dooms!!”

Water sprayed out toward Miyabi with greater force than a hand-pumped fire hydrant. He really was doomed if he was knocked over the edge this high up. He practically fell on his face in his haste to avoid it.

He just about slipped off anyway, but someone grabbed his hand.

“This isn’t over yet!!”

It was Alicia Blueforest.

She was drenched and covered in embers and ashes, but she poured everything into keeping the fight going.

She was almost embracing the human boy as she shouted with powerful conviction.

“I won’t let it be over. I will not let your hope die here, Elaine!! You might try to shake free of our grasp, but I will never let go of your hand!!”

Elaine herself was at risk of slipping and losing her balance.

With such unstable footing, that water attack was far more frightening than an immediately deadly one.

However.

A bow was a bow. It could not attack in every direction at once.

She still may have been able to deal with Miyabi’s entire party attacking her at the same time, but her defenses were not enough when more than 10 people split up and attacked the balloon instead. And if she started firing her exploding magic arrows at random, she could easily catch herself in the blast.

So she could not stop it.

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

Miyabi held out his hand and raised his voice.

He could not take out pieces of the Godhorn Tech itself, but the blazing cyclone surrounding them had swept up trees and boulders from the dead land.

(Sorry!!)

He felt like he was vandalizing a grave, so he silently apologized.

But he wanted to save this girl no matter what it took.

He wanted to grant the dark elves their wish. With a mental image of grabbing something in midair, he broke those materials down into cubes and reconnected them.

He formed a massive stake.

He positioned it above the high-altitude blimp and then stabbed it down into the black armor like a lightning strike.

He felt a dull tremor.

The thick spike had smashed its way into the Huge Eye’s armor.

Elaine was initially dumbfounded, but then she shouted what was more a prayer than anything.

“This isn’t over!!”

“So what if it isn’t?” replied Number 8. The uniformed butler gave a powerful swing of his electrically-linked morning star. “Elaine, you were powerful enough to destroy the vast Empire, so your power to kill may be greater than anyone else’s. Maybe even more than the Lord of Ruin who only knew how to make head-on attacks. But your power of revenge cannot be used to protect someone! You provide less of a defense than a single piece of tissue paper!!”

He drove the stake further in.

Onelife continued with his large cutlass in hand.

“Nwohhh!! Feeling frustrated, or maybe jealous? You might’ve been able to stop us if you wielded some power other than revenge. Maybe you could’ve done more than sit there and pray!! But there’s nothing you can do! You’ve got no trump card for when you really need it! That’s why you resort to revenge and despair!! …Does this hurt to hear? If you feel even the smallest ache in your heart, then it’s not too late. Show us you can reach for a power that avoids regret and precludes the need for reveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenge!!!!!!”

Onelife used his great arm strength to drive the stake in even more, but then he was knocked from his feet. Something had exploded beneath him.

It was like an invisible volcanic eruption. By widening the wound, the gas used to keep the blimp afloat may have erupted out.

More and more of the thick armor was torn up, starting from the edge of the gash.

The metallic wound spread endlessly.

But they could not just calmly observe the widening hole.

Their footing had noticeably tilted. That meant the Huge Eye itself was tilting.

“It’s falling?”

At first, Elaine stared blankly down at it.

She could not believe this was happening.

“What, what!? How can this happen!? This is my power! It has always been with me and it was to always be with me!!”

Had that been her one and only bond remaining?

Had she chosen to stay with that massive sorcery weapon forever, transforming her into an incarnation of destruction?

Just as the damaged Godhorn Tech tilted even further, Elaine staggered. There was not all that much room to stand on atop the round blimp.

Miyabi’s skin was stinging.

He grimaced.

The ashes and charcoal powder were burning and the heat contained in the fiery cyclone had to be greater than in a blacksmith’s furnace.

If any of them left the eye of the storm, they would be enveloped by the scorching orange wall of swirling fire and burned to ashes before they even hit the ground.

“Watch out!” he shouted, but he was too far away.

So.

It was someone else’s hand that reached out and grabbed her.

The hand belonged to her childhood friend Alicia.

Alicia grabbed her, pulled her close, and held her tight.

“?”

Elaine actually looked puzzled. The confusion was palpable even with her eyes hidden behind the goggles.

Alicia was not going to let her look like that any longer.

She ignored the smell of her own burning hair and the pain of her burning skin as she spoke.

“I will not let this end here. I won’t let it end in death after coming this far. No matter what!!”

“Kh.”

Groaning was not enough.

Miyabi reached his empty hand out to the two of them.

“I need to create a wall to keep them from falling!”

(Please, Forest Guardian and dark elves. I’ll be breaking down and transforming your homeland and resting place, but please lend Elaine your strength one last time!!)

The natural materials that had been swept up this high were broken down into Palette Dice that dropped down and stacked up vertically.

He barely made it in time.

The wall holding the two girls in place was black and burned, but it was definitely made from the trees so loved by the dark elves.

“Wh-why?” stammered Elaine.

“Shut up,” shouted Alicia, biting her lip. She paid no attention to the black soot covering her cheeks and clothes. “Why do I need a reason!? I’m here to actually save my childhood friend this time!”

“The Wicked God that gave you that horn didn’t want this. He offered you his horn hoping you would fly freer than anyone, smile bright, and be happy. He told you to live the life you want, but you never could find what you wanted to do. Or were you too afraid to stop fighting and find a different path for yourself? Were you afraid you would have it taken away from you again? So you were afraid to stop even after your revenge was complete. You thought helping other people with their revenge would be easier because that was the one place you had found success! You decided that was the only way you could be happy, narrowed your view of the world, and stuck with the one thing you knew you could do!! Even though you could have seen so many new things if you had looked away from that path just for a moment. Isn’t that right, Elaine!?” Miyabi slowly approached those two. “But the more you repeat the same thing, the less you get out of it. There is no freedom there. You must have known that yourself, which is why you had to escalate things in that closed-off world. You never did actually save anyone while helping with their revenge, did you? Of course you didn’t. Dress it up however you like, violence is still violence. I’m not calling it good or evil – I’m saying your hands end up just as bloody either way!!”

They had no guarantee that wall would last forever. It could crumble away in an unexpected gust of wind or the Huge Eye could tilt even further, dumping Alicia and Elaine into the fire. Or the fiery cyclone could heat up further, roasting everything in the eye of the storm.

But he had just one thought about that: so what?

Why had he come all this way otherwise? He wanted to grant the Forest Guardian his wish!!

“You never needed to help people with their revenge. When you discovered their problems, maybe you could have given them advice and stopped the tragedy, effectively saving them from their own path of violence!! Then you could have broken free! You could have found a happiness you had never before experienced!!!!!!”

“…”

“Don’t trample it all underfoot, Elaine.”

No matter what he said, he was an outsider who had arrived after the dark elf forest had been burned down. He had not arrived in time or even realized it was happening. He was no more than a human boy. Ordinarily, acting like he understood better than her might have been an insult to her and all the other victims of that tragedy.

But there were times when the people with a direct connection lost their way.

There were things that could only be seen with a more detached viewpoint.

That was why this task had been given to him.

He felt the weight of the burden the Forest Guardian had placed on him. He was an outsider and a human, but he did everything he could to gather up as much as he could.

He wanted to give them some kind of solution.

Even if he had only gathered 1% of Elaine’s bloody resolve, his words still carried some unseen power. They carried some piece of the Forest Guardian’s feelings.

So he would hesitate no longer.

He let go of his own support and his shoes slid down along the slope.

Maybe he didn’t know what he was talking about and maybe he was only rubbing salt in the actual victim’s wounds, but he knew he had to use his words to carry these feelings to that lonely girl!!

He would drag her out of this.

That was the only thought on his mind as he went in deeper.

“Don’t trample on the idea of risking your life to save people! Don’t use your resolve as an excuse for taking the easy way out!! Are you kidding me, Elaine!? The Forest Guardian broke off his own horn for you and you expect me to believe this was the person he was picturing with a smile on his face!? How long are you going to continue worrying him? Tell me, Elaine Greenforest. If you truly believe you’re meant to live this silly life of self-harm as a revenge mercenary – if you truly think you’re happy – then picture that kindhearted Wicked God in your mind and tell me all this was for the best!!!!!!”

Even through her goggles, she was clearly shaken.

Her breath and her words caught in her throat.

She couldn’t do it. She simply could not approve of her silly life as a revenge mercenary while in the imagined presence of the Forest Guardian.

“But…but.” Without a doubt, Elaine had taken more damage from this than any of the physical blows. “It comes to me so naturally. Revenge feels so comfortable. I mean, I’ve done it so many times there’s nothing to worry about. There are no surprises there, so it gives me stability.”

“No. That isn’t stability. Walking endlessly down a path with no end in sight isn’t a journey. That’s called being lost. Elaine, you haven’t found your path and you haven’t created anything. You’re just lost!!”

“You mean to say the Wicked God and the others didn’t want this? But then how can I trust anything I’ve seen in this world?”

“It’s not too late to find the kind of happiness that will let the dark elves and the Forest Guardian rest in peace! And I’ll help you find it. Listen, Elaine. You don’t need to be all powerful to find freedom. So what if you can’t save yourself? Who cares if you’re helpless? I’ll show you what true creation is. Because we’ll create a new home for you!!”

As Miyabi slid down the slope, he finally arrived within arm’s reach of the two girls.

He could reach them in the most natural and ordinary way.

“So come back to the wider world, Elaine!!”

“Ah…”

They were all shaken even more wildly than before.

The Huge Eye was not going to last.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Miyabi’s consciousness flashed in and out.

Which meant he was still alive.

“Koo…”

Alma cried quietly while lying face up on the ashes. At least the little thing wasn’t hurt.

He could tell they had crashed somewhere.

The blackened trees were knocked over and there may have been a large crater.

There was no sign of a wildfire. Had the fiery cyclone vanished already? When the Huge Eye had lost its balance, it may have lost its power to maintain the whirlwind, which cut off the supply of air and allowed the flames to extinguish naturally.

Those flames had continued burning like a furnace as long as they had a supply of air, but that also meant they went out once that air supply ended. Miyabi knew some about fires due to living in a forest. Because they had to avoid a forest fire at all costs.

“Elaine, are you all right?”

He had no strength left, so he crawled across the black ground to reach Elaine.

He approached slowly but surely.

“…”

She did not seem able to move.

She may have been in a state of shock.

“You have so many party members, so why did you come check on me first?”

“How is that even a question?” he immediately asked. “Because you’re one of those party members now.”

Of that he was certain.

He slowly stood up.

“You aren’t the 11th. If you had sorcery bombs in addition to your flying Godhorn Tech, you could have rained bombs down on us from the sky or something.”

“What was I even doing?” murmured the girl with her eyes hidden behind goggles. “The Forest Guardian only did that because he was so worried for me.”

“Forget it. Think of it like no more than a long dream.”

“Ugh,” someone groaned.

“?”

Elaine moved just her head to see another elf crawling over to her. Her beautiful skin and blonde hair were filthy, but she didn’t care in the slightest.

“Are you okay, Elaine?”

Alicia’s voice was scratchy.

She entirely ignored the ashes in her hair, the soot on her cheeks, and the injuries across her body.

She was not here to hurt someone.

None of them had been risking their lives for anything as silly as that.

“Thank goodness. Thank everything I never gave up on you.”

She touched Elaine.

She used her trembling fingertips to feel her body heat – the warmth that confirmed she was alive.

This is what she had been fighting for.

She stood up to the Godhorn Tech that had destroyed the powerful Empire for this.

So now she could not stop the flood of emotions.

“Hic, sob…”

She hit her limit.

Alicia held her childhood friend in her arms with clear drops building in the corners of her eyes.

And the dam broke.

“Ugh, wahh. Wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

The redheaded boy smiled just a little.

It wasn’t often you felt immensely glad you had risked your life.

This was one of those times.

It was a nervous and timid thing, but Elaine Greenforest, who had grown so comfortable with destruction, slowly reached a trembling hand to the back of the girl crying for her.

The other girl’s face crumpled too. She did not make a noise, but it was obvious even with the goggles.

Miyabi exhaled and leaned back against a black and burned tree before speaking under his breath.

He was looking up into the sunlight filtered through the forest’s branches.

“Hey.”

There was nothing to worry about.

She had been broken, but now she had been given a second chance.

“Did you see that, Forest Guardian?”

Onelife and Number 8 watched it all from a short distance away.

The first to speak was the one-eyed pirate.

“Are you over your grudge?”

“Hmph,” spat out the magical automaton. “I will do something she could not: end the cycle of revenge. I can’t think of a better form of payback for a revenge mercenary.”

Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 7

“Oh, we really changed some things, huh?” said Ginger Sandstrike, using his shovel as a cane and looking to the distorted horizon even though he couldn’t actually see anything there. “I didn’t think we could have such an affect, but we really did influence the outcome.”

“Horn Fortress might be destroyed if Miyabi dies, so we had better have some influence.”

A dancer’s outfit fluttered in the sea breeze.

Iris Tempinvy, a dancer (and recovery magic researcher), had been sent to the front line after treating the Necromancer’s wound. Without her, Miyabi’s party might have succumbed to their wounds after the Huge Eye attacked them in the desert nation.

The blond and dark-skinned “guardian” gave her a cynical smile.

“And here I thought we would be trapped here forever ‘just in case’ he needs us eventually.”

“Do not even joke about that!”

Iris’s eyes widened.

People were willing to do whatever it took to survive. Their greatest motivator was not dreams or ideals; it was anxiety and fear. When they looked back, they saw a stone structure nicer than a royal castle in the center of the island. That was the result of all the additions they had made here. There had been no plan in its construction, so the boxy rooms sticking out from the sides did make it somewhat ugly.

They had standard facilities like a clinic, a smithy, and a potion mixing lab and they also had odder choices like a blueprint library and a fish tank for rare but small fish they could use for potion ingredients. They had simply built everything they could think of that Miyabi’s party might need out there.

At first, the Lucifer Horn had only circled overhead without ever coming close, but not it would sometimes descend toward the ocean when it had nothing else to do. Ships could not visit this island, but they had still built a wooden pier in order to access the Lucifer Horn.

The bomber was now letting them perform maintenance and load bombs. It acted arrogant, but it also let them do whatever they wanted. Almost like a cat curling up in an old lady’s lap near the fireplace and asking to be patted. The group at Horn Fortress may have seen a side to the Lucifer Horn that Miyabi was unaware of.

On the other hand, their building was missing one thing necessary to call it a castle.

It had no defensive weapons, arrowslits, or murder holes.

“It sure is peaceful here,” said Ginger in a somehow rusty voice, making Iris wonder what kind of life he had lived before coming here. “This place doesn’t even have the weapons needed to defend itself. Thanks to the barriers surrounding us and the miasma coming from the cracks, we don’t have to worry about robbers or armies. There are some Beast Novae on the island, but they’re more like a source of food and materials than a threat.”

“Oh? Why do you sound so disappointed?”

“I’m not really.” Ginger, who would be decently handsome if he kept his mouth shut, twisted his lips up in a grin. “I’m just a cynic, so when I see a 100% peaceful environment, I can’t help but assume there’s something sinister lurking below the surface. I mean, what would you think if you were introduced to ‘a city of eternal peace where all social problems have been solved and everyone is guaranteed happiness’?”

“Hmm… I would want to move there, but I would wonder what the odds were of being chosen.”

“See, you’re trusting. That spiel would make me suspicious. Now, what if someone was selling you ‘a hyper dangerous dragon that never, ever betrays its master – definitely didn’t eat its last master!!’ ”

“Sounds like the perfect home security system. Wouldn’t be long until there was one in every house.”

“Okay, wow. I underestimated you. Ah ha ha. You are really trusting!”

Profiles

Harber Snipe-Eat

Age: 20

Sex: Male

Height: 170cm

A pure hunter who makes a living by hunting animals. No matter how human a monster looks, he will still try to slay it and he is cold-hearted toward nonhumans like elves. He thinks the deadly act of hunting can be fully explained by the natural world’s food chain. If a human village is destroyed by a monster, he considers that too to be the natural way of things. He hunts and eats animals because that is his place in the food chain, not because he has any real animosity for them.

Elaine Greenforest

Apparent Age: 14 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Female

Height: 145cm

A dark elf girl who took revenge on the Empire for burning her forest and slaughtering the other dark elves. After destroying the Empire with the power of her Huge Eye Godhorn Tech, she began traveling the continent and using that power to fulfill other people’s revenge as a “revenge mercenary”. The motive for her actions is up to whoever hires her, so her actions are impossible to predict, in a way making her even more dangerous than the Lord of Ruin who is bound by his own way of thinking. Appears to be an old friend of Alicia Blueforest.

Godhorn Tech High-Altitude Blimp: Huge Eye

Pilot: Elaine Greenforest

Affiliation: None

Size: Details Unknown

A giant one-eyed blimp floating at extreme high altitude. Can control the atmosphere and can eliminate its enemy by creating a massive hurricane with itself as the eye. The hurricane can be controlled by moving the blimp, but it cannot be eliminated at will. Once it has been activated, it must go away naturally. Even with so much power, its elevated position protects it from most any attack from the ground. Design motif: rainmaking.

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