Godhorn Tech and the 11 Destroyers:Volume 2

Novel Illustrations

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Preface

Color Illustration 1

“Please, Miyabi. Do not let go of my hand!!”

Eliza Silverstorm

A member of the Arsenal Kingdom’s White Seidr Chosen Knights. Former owner of the Icicle Bullet Snow Sleigh.

“Urp, blehh…”

Alicia Blueforest

Girl belonging to the Blueforest race of elves. Dabbles in alchemy as a hobby.

“Hey! Don’t just open my cover out of desperation!”

Crystal Radio

A philosopher’s stone that Alicia made with alchemy. Talks like an adult human man.

Color Illustration 2

“Why am I always the one sacrificed on the altar of sexy!?”

Helen Clockgear

Republic official in Miyabi’s village. Specializes in infiltration and intel gathering.

“You’re the one that wanted to know what a bikini is.”

Celina Bodenburg

Only daughter of the world-renowned Bodenburg Company. Former owner of the Schwarz Schütze Armored Train.

Color Illustration 3

Godhorn Tech Bestial Corpse – Deadman’s Fenrir

A heavy tremor shook the ground and continuous sticky sounds soon followed.

A colossal four-legged beast had appeared.

Pieces of it were rotting away and parasites spilled from the sewn-up wounds. The forcibly-attached Wicked God horn glowed faintly.

Miyabi Blackgarden

A perfectly ordinary boy from the first village. Inherited the Lucifer Horn Bomber and pursues the 11th who uses sorcery bombs to cause damage across the land.

The Necromancer

A scholar who performs secret experiments using forbidden necromancy. Owner of the Deadman’s Fenrir Bestial Corpse.

Terminology

Palette Dice

Construction units perceivable by some Godhorn Tech users and alchemists. Envisions the materials of the world as cubic dice. They are a collection of the elements that make up the world and it is said they can even influence fate when brought together.

Control Device

A human-sized weapon that links with the Godhorn Tech itself. The user’s own possession is transformed into a new weapon that provides control. The user and Godhorn Tech are connected by a contract, so if their control device is stolen, they only need to have another weapon registered as a control device, meaning there is no risk in having the device itself stolen. They tend to be larger than the original tool or weapon, presumably to accommodate the link with the Godhorn Tech.

Magic

A popular technical system that is well-known even among the commoners. This world’s civilizations are not all that advanced, but life is still comfortable thanks to magic allowing excellent hygiene and more. Baths and bathrooms are not an issue. But there is only so much magic a single person can use, so reaching greater levels of power requires something else to boost one’s magic. The best example of this is the Godhorn Tech that uses a Wicked God horn.

Philosopher’s Stone

Crystallized knowledge created with alchemy. They are extremely valuable in and of themselves, but their knowledge can also be extracted by combining them with a crystal radio or a writing tool. Whether they chan change the nature of metals or provide immortality differs between schools of alchemy, so two different stones both called philosopher’s stones might be made of entirely different materials.

Excerpts

• The Lucifer Horn records its battles to assist its self-improvement. When the user views these records, it rearranges the voice data based on its own analysis and interpretation to test its ability to compress the meaning of statements and understand the situations being described.

• Coordinate A2: Blue Forest.

• Sorcery bomb detected. Schwarz Schütze detected.

• User registration updated. Unknown error detected during update process.

“Godhorn Tech Bomber – Lucifer Horn. Is that monster really mine now?”

“I’m leaving my Godhorn Tech with you, so don’t you forget this one thing. You have just one task here. And that isn’t to defeat Miss Celina!!”

• Entry: The battle was initially between Moebius Entrance and Celina Bodenburg, but Moebius’s injury meant the user registration was updated to Miyabi.

• From there, the Lucifer Horn followed Miyabi’s instructions and continued the fight against the Schwarz Schütze.

“The 11th is completely unregistered and exists as a ‘shadow’ lurking below the surface.”

“There’s a monster on this level. Without any country managing them?”

“They stay hidden, causing devastation whenever they feel like it. And unlike the other 10, their Wicked God horn is not built into a weapon. They use the energy flowing from that horn to create massive sorcery bombs. And these bombs are made to look identical to trees, rocks, or whatever else.”

(Is that it? That’s the 11th’s sorcery bomb. I can protect everything if I destroy that!!)

“Bomber Lucifer Horn!! Please, protect everyone for me!!”

• Entry: The sorcery bomb was disguised as a large tree right next to Celina.

• On Miyabi’s instructions, the Lucifer Horn destroyed it while avoiding Celina. Celina could not sense the sorcery bomb’s presence and she once more viewed the Lucifer Horn as a target.

“This is a surprise, but Moebius need not be my opponent. I only wish to prove that I am the strongest by defeating the Lucifer Horn. I must prove that no Godhorn Tech can surpass the Schwarz Schütze. You are a lot like him in one way, though: that arrogant concern for your enemy. But never mind that. From now on, you shall be an enemy of Bodenburg.”

• Coordinate A2: Azul Titanio Village.

• The Schwarz Schütze is now an enemy.

“Celina Bodenburg and the Armored Train Schwarz Schütze. You know why Miss Celina fights, so you can set the perfect stage for her and guide her there. That means you can move the battle outside the village.”

• Entry: On Moebius’s advice, Miyabi chose to defeat Celina now so he could focus on dealing with the sorcery bombs.

“You’re telling me to sell her your Lucifer Horn!?”

“Don’t forget, it’s yours now.”

• Coordinate A1: Independent Militaria Material Kingdom Territory

• Attack on the Schwarz Schütze begins.

• Sorcery bomb detected. Icicle Bullet detected.

• Entry: Miyabi pretends to make a business deal with Celina to board the Schwarz Schütze.

“The Wicked God horn built into Godhorn Tech might as well be pure energy. Safely removing one is a very different task than simply installing one. Not even our company has reached that level, so we must visit the snowy Arsenal Kingdom far to the north.”

“Money is simple. My father always says so. As does my mother. With money, people will accept you. With money, you can grow. With money, you can do anything you want. With money, you can even protect people’s lives. With money…your parents will call you a good girl.”

• Entry: Celina and Eliza Silverstorm make contact via radio.

“We received another letter. An anonymous letter. It alleges that a portion of your train has been replaced with one of the 11th’s sorcery bombs.”

• Entry: The Schwarz Schütze was derailed by a surprise attack from the Icicle Bullet.

“But that’s the Wicked God horn’s sealed container. Are you saying the sorcery bomb was placed on the horn!? Could someone really replace a component here!?”

“I want mother and father to look my way…to say I did a good job. But do this and they…they won’t love me anymore. So please!!”

“I won’t take anything from you. I will become your strongest. But not for Bodenburg. I will become the strongest for you.”

• Entry: Alicia Blueforest and Helen Clockgear arrived at some useful conclusions.

“A third party would have had a very hard time approaching the fully-equipped Schwarz Schütze and sabotaging it en route.”

“That means someone already knew where it would be derailed and was lying in wait to swap in the sorcery bomb after it came to a stop.”

“And they had it replace a piece of the Schwarz Schütze.”

“It would be simplest to assume that was the 11th.”

• Coordinate A1: Independent Militaria Material Kingdom – Castle

• The Schwarz Schütze was destroyed

• The Icicle Bullet is now an enemy. The attack begins.

• Entry: A largescale riot had broken out across the entire fortress state.

“Drag that incompetent king from the throne!!”

“No more military expansionism! We demand peace!!”

“Why are we paying to fight foreign enemies when we can’t put food on our tables!? The taxes are the real enemy!!”

• Entry: All the White Seidr Chosen Knights save Eliza agreed with the rioters and plotted to drive out the king who supported the Godhorn Tech.

“The people’s anger comes from his failure to lead. Do you have any idea how much money was poured into the Icicle Bullet!? The heavy taxes needed to pay for it have left the people starving. Our noble knight’s spears are rented out to other countries like lowly mercenaries and thugs!! Acquiring foreign currency? We’re supposed to be the noble chosen knights, paragons of our kingdom’s virtues!!”

“But…”

“No one wanted that Godhorn Tech! No one but this king here!! Behold the true will of White Seidr! The will of every last one of us, save you!!”

• Entry: With no other options, the chosen knights intended to use the Icicle Bullet to defeat their king. If successful, it was evident the castle town located between the castle wall and the castle itself would be destroyed.

“Please. Stop the Icicle Bullet. Please use your power to protect the Arsenal Kingdom!!”

“Here’s your target, Lucifer Horn!! Attack here nowwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!”

• Coordinate A1: Independent Militaria Material Kingdom – Gate

• Icicle Bullet defeated.

“I am saying I was not colluding with the 11th to destroy the company’s Godhorn Tech.”

“B-but! One of my train’s components was only swapped out with the sorcery bomb after it had been stopped by you. That means the 11th knew in advance the time and location that would happen!!”

• Entry: With the problem in the Arsenal Kingdom (common name of the Independent Militaria Material Kingdom) resolved, discussion turned to the aforementioned letter.

• The sender’s identity was revealed.

“There isn’t much to tell. I received an emergency notification and moved to stop Celina. He is a legendary fixer who is allowed to possess a Godhorn Tech as an individual because he uses its power to resolve any trouble that crops up between countries. The letter was from Moebius Entrance.”

• Data optimization complete.

• The Lucifer Horn will continue to record its battles.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 Section 1

People’s fear led to doubt. The have-nots doubted the haves while the haves doubted themselves.

And they all chose the same method of finding peace: to attack.

Moebius Entrance.

Confronting that man required turning back from the snow-covered Arsenal Kingdom and returning to the first village. The Schwarz Schütze had taken them the majority of the way there, but they would have to trek through the cold on the way back. That meant taking time to prepare for the journey in the Arsenal Kingdom.

But the 15-year-old redhead boy with sawdust goggles on his forehead did not remember any of it.

He knew he and the others had walked around the fortress city surrounded by those thick walls, but he did not remember how he had spent his time there.

“S-sorry,” he vaguely recalled a puppy-like chosen knight saying. “Tours of the castle are currently canceled due to all the confusion. But only because everyone is working so hard to fix our current situation instead of insisting someone else do it. In that sense, this is a step in the right direction.”

She wore gorgeous armor, including fine silverwork, a feather headdress, and a miniskirt, but it also possessed excellent magical defenses. She was one of the elite White Seidr Chosen Knights, but she was now running around fixing up the castle town with the ordinary soldiers.

The heat of the riot had faded from the icy city, so everyone was working to gather up the trash and repair the crumbling wall.

“Sorry, but no tours today,” he half-remembered a chosen knight saying with a condescending look. “Nothing good comes of the commoners seeing chaos in the castle. You should leave now.”

The icicles and frozen waterways were likely an intentional part of the city’s design in this snowy land.

“Sigh, the place is finally looking like a city again,” he partially remembered a tomboyish chosen knight commenting. “I have more strength than I know what to do with, so I really wish they would send some jobs my way. I’ll do anything – even lay bricks or paint walls!”

“Eh? You were wondering if all the Arsenal Kingdom’s knights are women?” He must have asked a knowledgeable chosen knight that at some point. “It’s not a requirement, but it is true most are. Hee hee. But we do have male knights. Look around and you might just find one.”

But.

He felt like he was wandering through a dream.

He must have left the Arsenal Kingdom at some point, but he didn’t remember doing it. He would not have questioned it if someone told him the memories were merely implanted in his head.

The shock had left him feeling utterly pathetic.

Betrayals did not just leave the victim brimming with rage toward the traitor. It was more complicated than just hating an enemy. They found themselves unable to trust themselves after trusting the traitor like that. It left a deep emotional scar.

“Moebius.”

“Hold on, boy. I thought you were shopping around to prepare for our journey.”

He did not even hear Alicia Blueforest, an elf who looked 13 or 14.

Instead, he stabbed his thick blade into the deep snow.

That control sword had a short blade for a two-handed sword, but who would believe it had originally been a machete? It was in fact a special control device used to send commands to the Lucifer Horn.

He let his anger take control of his voice.

He felt like he had lost all other emotions.

He shouted the name like he was preparing to tear the man’s throat out with his teeth.

“Moebius Entrance!”

“Wait!! Summoning that thing in this blizzard accomplishes nothing. Snatching yourself up with its wire will only throw you out into the sky!!”

The short elf’s white dress fluttered as she grabbed at Miyabi to stop him. Concluding that was not enough, Helen Clockgear, a young black-haired woman in a tight skirt and glasses, struck the back of the boy’s neck with the pommel of her knife. He collapsed into the snow, and Eliza Silverstorm, a professional fighter of the White Seidr Chosen Knights, grew flustered.

“But why?” shouted blonde Alicia, scooping the boy up from the snow. “Why would he be pulling the strings!?”

None of them had the answer.

Nor would they until they returned to where this journey had begun.

They knew the answer awaiting them would please none of them, but they had to return to the first village. They had arrived comfortably enough in the Schwarz Schütze armored train, but the way back would be on foot, meaning the white snowscape would bear its fangs.

Just one step outside of the gate transformed their surroundings into one of biting cold.

“Are we really headed in the right direction?” groaned Celina Bodenburg, whose black dress left her shoulders bared even in the frigid temperatures. “We aren’t going to end up stranded out here, are we?”

They could not continue traveling through the night.

As impatient as they were, a night blizzard would be fatal. When they spotted a village along the way, they would take a short detour to find an inn. If they did not, they had to camp out in a cave or some other shelter.

Today, they were in a rocky mountain cave.

“Ugh, how many days has it been now?” asked Alicia. “How I miss stretching out in a nice bath.”

“Why is this forest elf only interested in burning trees for warmth?” added Helen. “But to be fair, I’m just as sick of this snowy land as she is.”

Helen was soaking a towel in boiled water. When they couldn’t find an inn, even that was a luxury. She had loosened her jacket and tied up her black hair to rub the wet towel against her nape, breathing an alluring sigh. The towel really was their replacement for a bath. Not only did it clean them off, it warmed them and helped them relax, albeit to a limited extent.

“Koo,” cried the stuffed animal creature called Alma.

That juvenile Wicked God was currently in a red phoenix form. It was only the size of a slipper, but its own warmth kept it nice and cozy. It looked a little sleepy.

Celina was passing water through a portable filter the size of a beer mug and using the purified water to cast Aqua Wash magic on her hands, eliciting an exasperated comment from Alicia.

“When did you humans forget how to play in the dirt and vegetation? We are surrounded by water out there. Just fill a pot with snow and place it over the fire. You aren’t going to sterilize our dinner with ethanol and formaldehyde, are you?”

“This may be difficult to understand for a nature-loving elf who thinks bathing in the same natural springs as an elephant or hippo will actually get her clean, but a cute and elegant lady must be ever vigilant when it comes to cleanliness. You should thank me for this kind gift – have some deodorant.”

The wild elf, whose long hair and nape gave off a sweet feminine scent, fled as she was sprayed with a disinfectant magic that used purifying silver as a catalyst.

Miyabi was curled up by the rocky wall and did not join in the horseplay.

His shell was shut tight around him.

Even in the freezing cave, the gloomy-eyed boy only ever brought up one topic.

The passage of time did nothing to remove the roiling mass within his heart.

“I don’t know why he did it.”

Throughout their break, he had been staring out from the cave entrance into the thick curtain of snow while muttering fragments of a conversation with himself.

He seemed to be releasing his doubts in advance in order to escape the nightmare. The pressure building in his heart was so painful he refused to eat.

He felt bad doing this to Eliza.

Starting a journey with this hanging over their heads had to be rough, but he could do nothing to break free of the weight bearing down on him.

“But from the beginning, I only ever did what he told me. He told me to take his Godhorn Tech and he told me to search for the 11th’s sorcery bombs.”

He felt used.

His own words threatened to tear him apart.

“He was even the one who told me to contact Celina and send the armored train to the Arsenal Kingdom!”

He had no real motivation. There was no treasure waiting at the finishing line. But he had to push on. Like it was his penance for being so gullible.

Still, each step brought him closer. If nothing else, the path he took would not betray him.

And before he knew it…

“Wow,” gasped Eliza, her silver ponytail swishing behind her.

The snow had vanished from the ground.

That proved they had left the northern lands where the Arsenal Kingdom held sway and that they were approaching the first village. Their feet trod on dark soil and their eyes fell on sparse green undergrowth. They saw the occasional wooden fence, suggesting this area had once been a ranch.

To the chosen knight in miniskirt armor, the white of snow was the natural color for the landscape, so this must have been an unusual sight for her.

But Miyabi only felt gloom.

He was approaching the person he most wanted to see but least wanted to hear from.

Moebius Entrance was waiting. The better one of them knew him, the more keenly aware of that fact they were.

Celina Bodenburg, only child of a massive company, was the first to address it.

“He was the one who chose that forest for our battlefield and injured himself protecting Miyabi.”

She had known the man before even Miyabi.

It had been a hostile relationship, but still.

“Are you saying he did all that to set this up?”

“You mean he dragged Miyabi into this in order to attack the Schwarz Schütze?” Helen placed a finger on the side of her glasses. “So he could send Miyabi after you, use that letter to have Eliza attack, and then lie in wait in the snowy forest so he could replace a portion of the derailed train with a sorcery bomb!?”

How many times had they discussed it now?

How many times had he seen it in his nightmares?

“Pant, gasp. We’ve finally – finally! – made it back,” said Alicia, her shoulders rising and falling. “I’m taking a bath and sleeping for three days straight.”

Yes.

Miyabi Blackgarden had returned to the first village.

That logging village was half enveloped by the Blue Forest. The rhythmic pounding and sawing of tools on trees was unchanged. The small village of log houses seemed cut off from the world’s changes.

Small.

Miyabi was a little surprised to find that adjective in his head. Had the journey really changed him that much? The place had felt so comfortable and complete when he was living here, but now its peace looked fragile and undefended.

“Oh, you’re back, Miyabi?”

“Your parents just went back home a bit ago. You barely miss each other an inordinate amount of the time.”

Some of the neighborhood workers called out to him, but the redhead boy did not respond.

“Is…?”

“Hm?”

“Is Moebius Entrance still here?”

He threw open the door to the clinic, but the place was empty. The wheelchair was gone too. He only found the stillness unique to an empty space.

No…

“Yikes!?” cried Helen after casually peeking below the bed, a habit she had picked up as a “government official”. “That’s Iris, the dancer who was looking after Moebius. …Good, she’s still breathing.”

Miyabi checked too and saw a silver sparkle. It was the dancer’s braid. She had been laid on her side and shoved under the bed in a pose that could not have been comfortable.

If Moebius had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t have had to run off or harm the person so kindly nursing him back to health.

Miyabi tried to fight the dizziness as anger swelled out within him. He now knew that bastard had done more than just trick a gullible fool like him. Moebius had even attacked someone doing him a favor.

“Goddamn it! It really was him.”

He had to shout.

If he did not use that as an outlet for his anger, he was certain he would collapse on the spot.

This new revelation weighed on him that heavily.

“Moebius really was the 11th!!”

“…”

“He set up the sorcery bombs, he had us pit our Godhorn Techs against each other, and he made sure Celina’s was destroyed. Why would that scumbag do all that!?”

Just then, Alma started hopping up and down on the windowsill.

“Koo? Koo, koo!!”

“What is it, Alma?” asked Alicia. “Oh…boy, set your wailing aside and take a look out the window. I see a wheelchair out there, so this is your last chance to catch him!!”

He seriously considered breaking through the wall to get at Moebius faster.

But he stopped himself at the last second and used the door instead. Maybe he wanted to prove that he, unlike that man, was still human.

He had already drawn his control sword and readied it in both hands.

He wanted to vomit remembering that this power was borrowed from that man.

“Moebius!!”

He spotted the distinctive wheelchair in the middle of a public square where anyone could see it. He also saw the man seated in it. He saw the long red hair and the thick coat that could have belonged to a noble or a pirate. He could not see the man’s face, but his mind’s eyes still saw the grin he knew would be plastered on the man’s face.

He could no longer view that smile the same way. Even if the movement of the eyes and lips was identical, it would only look cruel and mocking now.

But Moebius had his back turned.

He had to have heard Miyabi shout his name, but he said nothing.

A powerful tremor shook the entire village.

“Whoa!? Wh-what is that!?”

Celina had seen something while struggling to keep her footing.

Something had just stepped in from outside the village.

But what was it?

It almost looked like a thick castle wall, but…no. It appeared to be a colossal suit of bipedal armor, but its excessively wide torso was more reminiscent of a stretched accordion than realistic body proportions. It could likely create a crater in the ground with a single punch, but its size was not the only unusual thing about it. Its shoulders and chest appeared to be crammed full of as many projectile weapons as the Schwarz Schütze and the Lucifer Horn. It leisurely crossed the village’s border, crushing the fields and fences underfoot, and ignored all the surrounding chaos and confusion. It never hesitated, even when a house stood in the way.

No one could remain standing.

The boy heard piles of logs crashing to the ground.

His party and all the villagers struggling with the logs could only stay on all fours as they bore with the terrible shaking. Attempting to flee may have actually increased the risk of injury.

“Is that…a Godhorn Tech!?”

Helen’s eyes bugged. The Republic had no Godhorn Tech of its own, so not many people there had seen as many as she now had.

Moebius did not so much as glance back at them.

Were Miyabi and his control sword not even worth his attention?

“Took you long enough, Number 8.”

Was that someone’s name?

“So what’s the plan? Hoping to take me away with you?”

Someone stood at the feet of the giant armor.

He looked like a young man with half his face covered by black hair. He wore a tailcoat the color of the night, making him look like a butler. The source of the tremors had to be even more badly shaken, but he used motions as precise as clockwork to negate it, allowing him to stand tall without the slightest waver. He seemed cold and unfeeling, making him seem just as unshakeable as ever-grinning Moebius, but in a different way.

“…”

“Is the Divine Doll hard to operate even for one of you?”

The young butler never responded.

The Divine Doll crouched down and then its massive hand approached the wheelchair. It could have crushed Miyabi’s house with those fingers, but it instead grabbed and lifted just the one person. The butler also hopped onto the giant hand.

Miyabi immediately squeezed his control sword tight.

“Wait, Moebius!!”

“You mustn’t, Miyabi!!” Eliza stepped forward to stop him. “Think of the damage a Godhorn Tech battle would cause this village!!”

“Kh!!”

They were not the only ones in the village. The loggers and hunters who made their living in the forest had yet to get back up from the ground.

Meanwhile, the Divine Doll turned 180 degrees.

Almost like the worms crawling on the ground meant nothing to it.

Moebius did not look back even once. Miyabi could imagine the man’s look of scorn for Miyabi’s inability to actually fight.

The tremors resumed.

The Divine Doll made the ground quake when it walked. It leisurely left the village with Miyabi’s party pinned by the shaking. Its slow movements made one wonder if it even saw this as “running away”, but each step covered a great distance.

“Hm? It’s headed south,” commented Alicia, sounded exasperated. “That leads to the ruined Magic Empire.”

“Come to think of it, I had heard of an automaton that continues to protect those ruins,” said Eliza.

“Koo?” groaned Alma with a head tilt.

The creature may have been responding to the word “automaton”.

Miyabi felt a fire lit inside him as he listened to them speak.

He squeezed the control sword’s grip tight and muttered under his breath.

“Moebius and Number 8.”

But his power was borrowed.

And it was so insignificant that Moebius had not even tried to retrieve it.

Miyabi understood that, but he still could not bring himself to abandon it.

“He toys with us all without ever wiping that damn grin off his face!”

Chapter 4 Section 2

Miyabi Blackgarden’s party left the first village with just one goal in mind.

“If we’re going to catch up to Moebius, we need to reach that ruined empire.” His voice was clear but somewhat hoarse. “I’m getting that bastard to tell me the truth and then I’m settling the score with him.”

“…”

Alicia Blueforest viewed the boy from the side, but she decided against saying anything.

After traveling a while south, they stopped seeing inns.

Something like scarecrows dotted the weed-covered plains, suggesting these had once been farmlands.

The road was nothing more than brown wagon wheel ruts running along the green plains, but even that grew spotty. In fact, the weeds and grass faded away, leaving nothing but exposed dirt. The only remnants of the road were long, narrow puddles that actually made it harder to walk.

The blonde elf wiped the sweat from her brow and viewed the surrounding wasteland with obvious frustration over the absence of green. There were no cats or rabbits here. Her face lit up when she espied a creature covered in fluffy fur, but she screamed after realizing it was a Plague Rat the size of a small dog.

The desire to rest was written plainly on her face.

“D-damn. I guess we are close to the Empire of all places.”

“Um?”

“It has already been destroyed,” explained Helen. “The entire area has been fully polluted, some say as a reaction to the advanced sorcery technology they used. That has cut off the main road leading north to south, so people and things cannot travel through that polluted land without the use of a monster like the Schwarz Schütze. The lack of shops and homes is just a taste of what is to come.”

“With my company’s armored train gone, the only standard route left has to take a lengthy detour out into the ocean to bypass this area. And we were really hoping to keep costs down since we support so many people’s lives in this region.”

Helen Clockgear and Celina Bodenburg both sounded bitter, but that did not change what they needed to do. The talk of pollution was concerning, but Moebius Entrance and Number 8 had gone to that polluted empire.

They could not expect any more inns during this journey.

There was no guarantee they could find a cave to camp out in every single night and, if a cave happened to be a nest of those giant unclean Plague Rats, any attempt to rest there would only wear down their stamina further. After walking a while longer and feeling a lot closer to that ruined empire, they decided to stop for the night.

They had discovered a run-down sailing ship inexplicably abandoned on the land.

It was more than 50 meters long and the deck stood 7 meters above the ground. They guessed it had been used to sail across the ocean, not just along a river.

“Let’s take a short break there,” smiled Helen Clockgear.

“I can keep going.”

“Miyabi.”

The forceful tone in her voice demanded he obey.

Really, he had simply failed to notice how late it was until she forced him to notice.

The sun had vanished beyond the horizon and it had grown dark. They could not even guess what kind of Beast Novae awaited them in this unknown land, so continuing any longer would be dangerous. The Mobile Fire magic could provide illumination in the night, but it could only do so much. Miyabi had already learned just how thoroughly the darkness grew out in the true nature found outside the villages and cities.

A Godhorn Tech provided the greatest destructive force, but it was not an all-powerful shield. And the darkness was always an ally to the attacker. What did it matter if he was a Godhorn Tech user? If a Plague Rat the size of a small dog snuck up and sank its fangs into his calf, complications from the many illnesses they bore would kill him just the same as anyone else.

“Sigh, okay.”

He sounded uneasy and he held a hand out toward the ship.

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

Once he recited the incantation, blocks of stone emerged from the filthy ground and rearranged themselves to create a sturdy boarding stairway. He had registered this one under the name Layer Stairs.

Normally, Godhorn Techs could only destroy, but an error in his registration transfer had given him the power to create as well.

Celina looked somehow happy as she raised both hands and stretched her back.

“Good, good. This looks like a merchant ship, not a warship, so if the interior is intact, we should be as comfortable as in any town. Ohhh, I’ve so missed a kitchen and bath!!”

But once up top, the entire ship wobbled, either from the wind or its poor balance. With a structure of at least 50 meters, it felt like an earthquake.

Alicia cautiously reached for the side deck’s rusted railing.

“Hm, I don’t know how it ended up on land, but this does not look safe.”

“It might shake so much you need to hold on for purchase or the entire ship might roll over, but the time to choose is now, Miyabi. Yes, if your face is going to end up in someone’s chest, what size would you prefer!? If you’re in a flat mood, I think that slender and strait-laced Eliza might just be even better than Celina.”

The crystal radio (containing a philosopher’s stone) hanging from the elf’s neck was trying very hard to earn a punch from one of the girls.

“Don’t those sails only make the problem worse?” Celina sighed while wiping off her hand with a handkerchief. “They catch the wind and raise the center of gravity.”

“This ship is not sailing anywhere, so it might be safest to tear down all the masts.”

Eliza may have been the type to take any task to its extreme.

The job was simple but hard work.

Miyabi used the knowledge from his logging village where everyone made a living growing and felling trees. Plus, he had the control sword and Godhorn Tech at his disposal.

He used the thick blade to slice through the base of the masts like he was cutting an opening in a bag and then let them fall so they tumbled off of the ship. Great clouds of dust rose each time. It was his upbringing in the logging village that let him so accurately control the direction in which they fell.

The task took enough focus that it distracted him from everything else. But he felt like garbage once he realized he was distracting himself like that.

“…”

“He was important to you, wasn’t he?”

Once all the masts were down, Eliza wiped off her mouth with a handkerchief and asked him that.

He slowly looked up from the weathered deck.

“What do you mean?”

“I only knew Moebius Entrance through his letters and his legends as a fixer, so I never really knew him. But you did, didn’t you?”

He shook his head. The action made him wobble, so he pressed his back against the wooden wall.

“I didn’t.” He was speaking from the heart. “I’m not even sure what I saw anymore.”

“Koo…”

“He gave me his Godhorn Tech.” He slid down to a sitting position. “He asked me to do something about the 11th’s sorcery bomb. I just happened to be there and it could have been anyone, but during that journey, I thought I had come to understand who I wanted to be.”

He clenched his teeth and hung his head. There was no hiding this, so he just let the words spill out.

“But I was in the palm of his hand the entire time. I thought I was saving someone, but he was using me to make everyone I met suffer.”

“Boy…” said Alicia, sounding different from normal.

“It can be…hard when someone breaks a promise between men,” said the radio, also differently.

“I never would have left the village without that. I never would have met anyone. He gave me that opportunity. Without him, I wouldn’t be who I am now. Nothing can change that.”

His breathing was heavy.

He so desperately wished to deny the reality sneering at him from the back of his mind. He covered his face with his filthy hands.

“Or I thought nothing could!!”

“…”

Celina stared silently down at the boy.

But she finally spoke.

“No.”

“?”

“Maybe Moebius was manipulating you. And maybe that led to the destruction of my Schwarz Schütze.”

He did not even want to contemplate that possibility.

He had thought he was hunting down the 11th to prevent any further harm from those sorcery bombs, but he had only been spreading that very harm.

But strangely, he saw no anger or resentment on Celina’s face. There was a gentleness in her eyes.

“But you don’t need to disparage yourself like this.”

“Even though I more or less destroyed your Godhorn Tech?”

His own words stabbed into his chest like tiny thorns.

Hurting Celina would change nothing. Was he trying to make everyone else feel the same pain he was? He curled up in a ball of self-hatred.

“Even though. Because I also gained something from that.”

But she did not hesitate to respond.

She was even smiling.

Smiling in a way she had not when he first met her.

“Look around you, Miyabi. You too have gained something from all this.”

He raised his head.

His view expanded. He was surrounded by people worried for him while he curled up and trembled.

“Yes, the people.” Celina placed a hand on her flat chest. “None of this changes that you met all of them. You have made some new, and unparalleled, business partners.”

“Correct.” Eliza nodded, shaking her long silver ponytail. “Your destruction of our Godhorn Tech opened a new path for my king, my kingdom, and myself. None of us would have been saved without you there.”

“…”

“You may have been following the path Moebius laid out for you, but the bonds you built with the people you met were not part of that,” she stated. “What if Moebius never imagined destruction could be beneficial?”

“I’ll admit it.”

Finally, Miyabi got some more words out.

He was hesitant, but he felt like he could let his weakness show around these party members.

It was slow, but he stood back up.

“It was a shock. I didn’t know him long, but Moebius meant a lot to me.”

“…”

“He gave me the chance to leave my village. He was irritating and questionable, but he shined so bright. I could tell at a glance he had something I didn’t. Yeah, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at all happy when he gave me his Godhorn Tech or when I protected everyone from the sorcery bomb.”

Helen said nothing, but the look in her eyes was kind.

“But that’s why I have to get the truth,” grumbled Miyabi. “I have to know why he’s spreading those sorcery bombs as the 11th.”

Chapter 4 Section 3

Miyabi Blackgarden was used to camping out now.

He stretched his arms on the abandoned ship to help wake his sleepy body in the morning sun.

He stepped out onto the weathered deck.

He found long-eared Alicia Blueforest munching on some bread for breakfast. The open deck probably made for a more enjoyable meal than the indoor dining hall where a permanent musty smell had settled in. He used a knife to cut a slit in an oblong piece of bread, smeared butter inside, stuck some jerky within, and then cooked it until it was nice and crispy. It was only possible thanks to the firewood they had secured by breaking up one of the masts he tore down yesterday.

“Not far to the ruined Magic Empire now,” said Alicia.

They left the ship.

The ground was still nothing but dark soil.

They had spent all night afraid those dog-sized Plague Rats would attack, but the things were nowhere to be found now. However, that was no reason to celebrate.

“This means not even the Plague Rats dare approach this place, doesn’t it?” cautiously concluded Helen.

After walking a while longer, an odd color joined the scenery: red.

As Miyabi wondered what it was, it overtook everything.

A red and shining dust covered the land as far as the eye could see. All of the buildings had collapsed, melted, and sunk into the ground, so it was hard to even imagine the city that must have once stood there.

“Is this…the pollution!?”

Miyabi started to take a step back and nearly stepped on an apple lying on the ground.

He managed to avoid it, but then a thought occurred to him.

“Wait, how long has this apple been here?”

There was no fruit tree nearby for it to have fallen from and not many travelers came through here.

Had one of the few eccentric travelers dropped it?

Or had it been here ever since the Empire fell?

The apple would have been exposed to the elements on the ground there, yet it still shined bright. It was unnaturally pristine. Even a wax sample’s colors would have faded in the sun.

It was almost like the entire fruit had been submerged in a special chemical to preserve it.

“I-I definitely want to avoid eating that,” groaned Celina Bodenburg, staying as far away as she could while poking at it with her rifle’s bayonet.

It was just as concerning as hearing a salesman insist a little too hard that “This milk is fresh. Don’t believe the lies. It’s as fresh as can be.”

“Rusty mana,” said Alicia who was self-taught in alchemy. The entire view here was covered by that scarlet dust that even dyed the rising sun as it floated into the air. “Mana is the natural power at the root of all magic, but when it deteriorates, it transforms into a nuisance that clings to all things. It surrounds everything, effectively isolating everything from everything else. It even repels and kills the ‘invisible things’ needed to make bread or cheese.”

“That explains the lack of Plague Rats.” Eliza Silverstorm placed a handkerchief over her mouth to avoid breathing in the red dust in the air. “This place is not dirty. Quite the opposite. It is so clean nothing can live here. It may be similar to a river of undiluted bleach.”

It was possible to be too clean.

This place took purity too far.

They could see red quagmires dotting the ground. Was that the result of the dust concentrating, or of it growing wet? It definitely had to do with the dust, but the exact requirements were unclear.

The wind blew a cloud of red dust from the ground up ahead of them.

Celina’s eyes widened.

“Hey, um, does anyone have any magic for protecting the mouth and nose!? Maybe called Toxin Away or something!?”

“Does the Bodenburg Company name everything like it’s athlete’s foot medicine?” complained the radio.

That girl was enough of a clean freak to carry around a portable water filter and silver-catalyst disinfectant magic, but even she could tell this was overdoing it.

“I wish you could create specialized magic like that,” Alicia sighed. “Besides, I thought a perfectly sterile world was exactly what you wanted? Ugh, a handkerchief over the mouth is about all we can do, isn’t it?”

“Wow,” said Miyabi as he appreciated just how complete the Empire’s fall had been.

“Kyoo…”

Hearing an odd cry, he looked down to find Alma had already transformed into a sort of black cat.

“Ohh, the shadow element!?” exclaimed Alicia. “Is that supposed to be a Greymalkin?”

Everyone had their own way of fighting it, but Alma had decided to be the opposite of the “deadly purity” of the red dust. If that was meant to repel the dust to remain safe, then the form may have been more aggressive than it looked. And either way, it was unlikely to protect Miyabi and the others.

“I-it’s a good thing I was using Compress Cargo,” groaned Helen while holding her small bag close. “Otherwise, this might have ruined all of our water and food. I bet that red dust gets in everything while it blows in the wind. Ugh, I thought my hair was feeling gritty. Not to mention my chest…”

The red ground crumbled and something came into view further down.

The objects lined up along a stone wall appeared to be bookcases. The parchment plans spread out on a desk resembled the design of a Godhorn Tech. It was unclear how valuable that would be, but there was no retrieving it anyway. Not only did a chemical-smelling red waterfall flow inside, but some of it bubbled up before crawling around on its own.

That caught Miyabi by surprise.

“I-it’s moving like it has a mind of its own?”

“Its movement is simply modeled after such things. Mimicking an animal’s movements is an efficient way of searching its surroundings and capturing its target.”

But that did not explain why the red slime was so intent on surrounding everything around it and turning the former imperial land into a red wasteland.

Maybe it was designed to do so, but that just led to further questions.

Also, the crawling red slime was not the only thing here.

“Are those the Empire’s famous magic automatons?” asked Celina, biting her thumbnail at seeing treasure she could not get at.

“Automatons?”

Come to think of it, that term had come up in reference to Number 8.

“Something that looks human but is not. Their specs and sizes can vary, so the Empire used colossal ones for military and construction purposes and miniature ones for medical purposes. I have heard they would send automatons smaller than a flower’s pollen into a patient’s body so they could directly cut away the disease from within. This is all a thing of the past, of course.”

The ones in the underground space below were all ordinary human size.

They had no hair, clothing, or even skin. The ball-jointed dolls were struggling within the red quagmire.

It all produced the sizzling sound of a caustic chemical at work.

“They’re fighting the red sludge. Have they been doing this the entire time?”

“Huh? Celina, haven’t you been through here before? On the Schwarz Schütze, I mean.”

“Why would I want to look outside in such a dreary area? Enjoying a good book and some delicious tea was a much better use of my time.”

That was not all. When they peered down into the split ground, they saw the bookcases rattling as thick magical tomes took flight like butterflies or birds and crashed into the lit candles. This was a purely inorganic conflict with none of the usual rats or roaches in evidence. A human like Miyabi had no way of telling how many sides there were or how they determined who was on what side, but they were doing it all on their own and he figured the party could avoid it all if they avoided provoking those things.

Alicia shut her eyes and muttered to herself.

“To think this is the massive Empire that came so close to conquering the entire continent not too long ago.” The words were bitter in her mouth. “It hasn’t even been a full year since it fell, yet these piles of rubble are all that remain. Even this scarlet mana was originally the all-purpose experimental material they had artificially created with their advanced technology.”

“Cough, cough!”

“Are you okay, Alma? Hmm, this red dust must be rough on a juvenile, even in that shadowy Greymalkin form. …If only I had a cloth to cover your mouth. Oh, how about you take shelter in my clothes?”

“You dare enter that unexplored zone kept off limits even to me!?” roared the crystal radio hanging from the elf’s neck.

Helen of course ignored it.

“The Empire once controlled a third of the continent. They were a major threat to the Republic. Not that we could focus on a foreign war when our primary city was embroiled in a civil war against the old monarchy,” she said. “Their military might was supported by advanced magic technology and even their Godhorn Tech was left in the hands of a special magic automaton, not a human. To ensure their strongest power was never used in error.”

“And that’s Number 8, huh?” Miyabi viewed the shocking scenery of red, red, and more red. “He’s continued protecting this place even with no one left to protect.”

“The Arsenal Kingdom could not ignore the Empire either. You could even say the Icicle Bullet was built as a defensive Godhorn Tech as a direct response to our fear of the Empire,” confessed Eliza, her large lance resting on her shoulder. That snow sleigh’s ramming attack had packed a punch, but since it required snow on the ground to move, it indeed could not be used to invade other countries. “We viewed them as our greatest enemy, but only because we admired what they had accomplished.”

Miyabi was honestly afraid to keep going, but he knew Number 8 and the Divine Doll were up ahead. Which meant Moebius would be as well.

He pulled his shirt’s collar up over his mouth as he trudged on through the red world.

“Urp, this is awful,” groaned Alicia.

That elf had been born in a filthy forest teeming with life, so this excessive purity had her long ears drooping.

After a while, they noticed some patterns in the red ruins. The rows of trees that looked frozen in time while surrounded by their fallen leaves showed the outlines of a major road. The foundations of angular stones and bricks showed where buildings had once been. They even spotted some dry fountains. A broken metal fence surrounded a large section of land, suggesting a considerable building had once stood there.

“They apparently called it a university,” said Eliza. “I never visited it myself, but instead of an apprenticeship or tutoring system, the Empire filled a large building full of hundreds or even thousands of people to provide them all with the same high-level magic education. And over a short period of time, too. Yet they were not trying to master a form of group action, like with knight or soldier training. I have even heard they competed among themselves over the tests and their standing in the class. They would keep their head down on their desk and choose to be alone within a room full of other people, something I have trouble imagining myself.”

That sounded like it would exclude the people who were not a good fit for that education format, but the Empire must not have cared if they had some dropouts as long as enough people succeeded. In Miyabi’s village, people would study as an apprentice at their own pace so they could learn the logging business while also pursuing their own dreams, so the Empire’s way of writing off some percentage of the population as “acceptable losses” sent a chill down his spine.

It might sound noble for the Empire to treat their automatons just like they treat their people, but what if they achieved that by reducing their people to the level of the automatons? The people were like no more than cogs in the machine.

Helen sighed.

“They covered a third of the continent, so I guess they decided they had people to spare.”

Then they heard a scraping metal sound.

Were more magical automatons fighting their endless battle somewhere in this red world?

Miyabi pulled his jacket’s collar over his mouth as well and turned toward the noise.

“The hell is that?”

He saw something odd there.

Was it some kind of confrontation?

On one side was a girl in an octopus-like mask. Why was he so sure she was a girl when he could not see her face? Because she wore her red hair in a side ponytail and because her skintight leather outfit revealed the shape of her figure.

“Oh, baby!! Black leather with a high-leg design!? What’s she supposed to be, a phantom thief? Or a sexy dominatrix? That bulging chest and indecent crotch are exactly what I’m looking for in a fantasy setting!!!!!”

The radio rejoiced, but Miyabi was not quite sure what he was looking at. Why cover her face and barely cover anything else?

And.

On the other side was a giant suit of armor standing two meters tall. The mass of steel was almost entirely round, but it was running away with its hands held protectively over its head. It behaved surprisingly feminine. Almost like the heroine in a children’s book.

Celina reflexively aimed her flintlock rifle from a short distance away and then spoke with her eyes on the exhibitionist in the weird mask.

“She might be a salvage hunter.”

“A what?”

“Basically, they are professional thieves who recklessly visit this dangerous ruined land and dig up old lab equipment and books. …That look tells me you are wondering how I know. Because my company buys more of their finds than anyone else.”

That business was so greedy it sounded borderline criminal.

Also, if that creepy octopus mask was what the experts wore, was it indeed dangerous to walk around this scarlet territory with their faces exposed?

The party was feeling a lot more anxious now.

“B-boy!! Hand me your goggles!! You aren’t using them, so you don’t mind, do you!?”

“Shut up, these are mine!! Hey, don’t just snatch them away! Noooo fairrrrr!!”

Eliza sighed at the idiots’ petty conflict.

The way the rusty mana could keep an apple fresh and shiny for years was certainly disconcerting, but if an expert thief was willing to operate with so much skin exposed, it must not have been deadly on contact or anything.

“Then what about that giant armor?” asked Eliza.

“That I can’t say,” said Celina. “Her next target perhaps?”

Anyway, finding an actual person here changed things significantly.

Number 8 and Moebius Entrance could use the Divine Doll and the only way of combating that Godhorn Tech was the Lucifer Horn, but that would mean a clash between two of those colossal sorcery weapons. A simple stray shot was of course a threat, but just the red dust blown into the air from an explosive blast or shockwave would be bad enough.

Even if this girl had special equipment, Miyabi stilled wanted to give her a chance to escape first.

But when he approached her to warn her, she was focused on something else entirely.

He heard two voices.

“Fshoo shoo shoo!! Now this is a find. The more human a magic automaton acts, the better its parts must be☆”

“No, really, please! I’m just an ordinary maid!”

Make no mistake.

The “fshoo shoo shoo” came from the octopus mask exhibitionist and the “I’m just an ordinary maid” came from the giant armor.

Miyabi’s eyes widened.

“What the hell!? Why does the magic automaton sound like the normal one!?”

“Fshoo? What’s this, some competition? You’ve got guts trying to steal from the great Marietta Diggrave!! Fshoo!!”

The octopus mask girl was willing to wield her giant shovel against human and automaton alike, so she seemed to be lacking in the sense department.

But just as her attention was diverted toward Miyabi’s party, the giant armor took a step back. With that sliver of safety, the armor flipped up the helmet’s visor.

“Please look at me! I’m not an automaton, see!? I’m a human in here!”

“W-wait? There’s actually someone in there!?”

Celina’s flustered shout earned an introduction from the timid girl inside.

“I-I am Angela Custardmare.”

The octopus mask shrugged off the claim.

“All I see is old tech so advanced it looks human. Fshoo, I’ll be set for life after this one☆”

Uncertain whether this was a human or an automaton, Miyabi hesitantly approached the armor. The visor looked tougher than a set of iron bars and, even with it raised, the armor was too tall for him to see inside from the ground.

“This should do it.”

He had to grab at the thick, round armor with his arms and legs and scramble up it. He was a teenage boy, but he had a hard time thinking of this as climbing up a teenage girl’s body. Unfortunately, the octopus mask girl (in revealing clothing) was winning that particular battle.

“Let’s take a look in here.”

“A boy!? No, that’s a bad i-”

Miyabi peeked inside the helmet.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

He collapsed to the red ground, arched his back, and screamed.

Eliza immediately readied her enormous lance.

“What did she do to you, Miyabi!?”

“No, wait. I didn’t do anything. Sigh, why does this always happen? Agh!”

The giant armor held her head and the visor fell back down.

She skillfully pushed it back up again.

“Whoops… Um, the thing is, I used to work as a maid in a certain mansion, but unfortunately, the nobles who wanted to be my master ended up killing each other in a death game.”

“…”

“Their wives all blamed me and trapped me in this Prison Armor. Ugh…I really don’t know why it had to happen to me.”

“Unfortunate Beauty, hm?” Alicia sounded somewhat exasperated. “A talent like that sets you up for a difficult life.”

“D-does that mean Miyabi wasn’t harmed at all?” hesitantly suggested Helen. “Wow, that really is ecstasy on his face, isn’t it?”

“Hey, let’s not be ridiculous. He has a long-eared elf on his right and a curvy young woman on his left and you expect me to believe that round armor is what gave him his sexual awakening!? This swords and sorcery fantasy is too kinky even for me!!”

The radio’s lament stabbed through Miyabi’s heart, bringing him back to his senses. He blinked the hearts out of his eyes and managed to focus on reality once more. He realized having the hots for that round heavyweight was just plain rude to Eliza and her miniskirt armor.

The maid inside that armor was too beautiful to view directly.

He felt bad for Angela, but he agreed she would be too powerful without that thick armor sealing her away. He had never known cute and pretty could have a lethal dose. She had to be around his age, but she did not at all look that way.

Meanwhile, Celina brought a hand to her slender chin.

“Hmm, was that cruel death game the work of Strange Guide?”

“Oh, I don’t care about that. It wouldn’t bring the dead nobles back to life or anything.” The maid was surprisingly practical. “If anything, I want to find a way to remove this Prison Armor. Well, I can actually remove it just fine, but before long, it comes back to me like a magnet. It at least gives me enough time to wash my face or take a bath if I try hard enough.”

A maid too beautiful to gaze upon would strip down and bathe. All while rushing to beat the time limit. That thought made Miyabi even dizzier. Simply imagining the scene caused the capillaries in his eyes to burst, so Angela’s loveliness was like an anti-adolescent toxin.

“Is there any way to escape that?” asked Helen with an exasperated sigh.

“Um, the Prison Armor was bound to me using a fairly special contract. It involved Under Lilith, a Demon Lord whose name is found in major ‘Super Kingdom’ level contracts.”

“Th-that name’s in the spells related to Godhorn Tech contracts too.”

“Ah ha ha. That’s just how much effort went into creating this armor prison. I was lucky to learn the half-legendary abandoned library here has the magic book needed to negate that ‘Super Kingdom’ level curse, but as you can see, I ran into this shovel-wielding idiot.”

Miyabi and Celina exchanged a glance.

Under Lilith’s power was great, but not a 100% guarantee. There had even been an error when transferring the Lucifer Horn’s contract from Moebius to Miyabi.

Fortunately, that had let him use the power of creation on top of the destruction.

When he explained that, the maid clapped together her large armored hands and danced a jig. She was close enough that he was terrified he would be caught in the joints of that thick armor.

“That’s wonderful news!! Joining you might be better than blindly searching this vast and dangerous red kingdom. And if that doesn’t work, my only option might be trying blast the armor off with one of those rumored Godhorn Techs.”

“You’re the first person I’ve seen who wanted to be attacked by a Godhorn Tech,” said Alicia. “Just how powerful is that curse?”

“By the way, what about you?”

Miyabi’s question earned a cackle from octopus masked Marietta.

“Fshoo shoo shoo!! Where that thing goes, I follow. I’ll be rich once I disassemble it and sell it for parts. Treasure awaits☆”

“Were you not paying any attention at all!?” shouted Helen while bristling. “I get the feeling she’s going to murder someone with that shovel if we don’t give her some basic education first!!”

At the moment, their top priority was getting these survivors out of the empire’s ruins. Number 8 and Moebius could pick up on their movements at any moment.

“Take care of it, Lucifer Horn!”

A colossal form with bat-like wings roared through the sky and the thick wire dangling from it snagged the back of the black high-leg outfit, carrying the wearer away to Horn Fortress.

“It needs to do that again,” calmly stated Eliza Silverstorm.

“U-umm!! Couldn’t you at least take us both away at once!? This wait time is so awkward!”

They had successfully evacuated(?) Marietta and Angela, but that was not the end of it. Miyabi’s party had to continue onward and locate Moebius and the butler automaton named Number 8.

A clash was almost guaranteed no matter what happened.

That was the entire point of their preparations and the entire point of evacuating those two.

After reminding himself of all that, Miyabi felt a great weight in his gut.

“…”

Countless red quagmires dotted the land, giving off a chemical odor.

They had to avoid those, but they would never get anywhere if they walked around them all.

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

Red boxes were extracted from the ground.

But he was not interested in the actual Palette Dice made from that material that was so pure it became deadly to all forms of life. By removing those cubes from the ground, the water(?) filling those red quagmires drained into the newly-formed holes.

“Ewww, what is all that stuff left at the bottom?” Celina sounded nervous. “They aren’t bones, are they?”

“As long as it isn’t human bones, I don’t care,” said Miyabi.

“That’s elfphobia,” cautioned Alicia with a glare. “And to answer your question, I think those are dinosaur fossils. Those thick rusty ponds have dissolved the ground and started to erode the ancient fossils they exposed.”

“What does that mean?”

“In dust form, that stuff is so pure it can kill you, but once it thickens into a liquid, it can dissolve organic tissue. Simply put, it purifies things by physically destroying them. That sludge is deadly to all forms of life, so try to keep your good deeds and righteous acts to a minimum here.”

They continued on while trying their best to avoid provoking the red slimes wandering the area. Those things were frightening, but they tended to gather into a few larger clumps, making it unlikely anyone would accidentally step on one.

They gained nothing by fighting anything here, so if they wanted to avoid pointless injury, it was best to ignore those things and keep going.

The journey felt so empty and unsatisfying, but after crossing another red chemical-smelling bog and approaching a surviving rectangular stone wall, they glimpsed some movement through the crimson sandstorm.

It was more than 100m away.

“Another automaton?”

“No, wait. An automaton wouldn’t be using a wheelchair. They could just get a replacement part.”

The radio was right.

“Shh!”

Miyabi pressed against the crumbling wall and took a peek through the arching gate that looked so strange with no other structures around.

“There’s someone there. In fact…”

His tension grew. Moving even a few centimeters wore on his nerves so badly. He used the crumbling wall as a cover while peering around its edge.

They were a long way away, but there was no mistaking it. A man sat in a wheelchair and a butler stood tall.

“Is that Moebius and Number 8?” groaned Helen when she saw it too.

“You do not need to rush out toward them,” warned Alicia. “Why not eavesdrop on their conversation instead?”

Miyabi’s party slowly passed through the arch to enter an area that had once been surrounded by walls. Something felt different about this place, almost like they had set foot in a king’s tomb.

Celina spotted a metal sign half-buried in the red dust.

“The Imperial Archives?”

“As the name suggests, this was a private collection of old texts made by the last emperor,” explained Eliza. “Not everyone could make a request to read the books like they could with their national library, but it was rumored the magical books here were much more dangerous.”

Eliza had mentioned the universities as well, so why did someone from the Arsenal Kingdom know so much about the Empire?

The chosen knight shrugged with a hint of self-deprecation when she noticed Miyabi’s gaze.

“My kingdom had plenty of mines and metals, but little magical technology. We once put together a plan to send in a spy who would steal dangerous texts from the bookshelves here, but it was abandoned because the risk of military retaliation was too great if discovered.”

So she had her reasons.

The books collected here had been so rare people were willing to cross borers to get at them, but they were now exposed to the red dust. Not even Eliza wanted to pick one up and flip through the pages.

They walked through a cemetery of books that would be forever preserved.

They moved from cover to cover, making sure the figures in the distance never noticed them. Fortunately, the stone walls and bookcases coated in red dust provided plenty of cover.

They walked silently alongside the red-coated ancient tomes.

Once Miyabi had covered half the distance, the wind carried the voices to his ears.

The scratchy sound was mixed with the sound of the blowing red dust.

“I do apologize. Was the ride comfortable enough?”

That was Number 8. His voice was polite…and nothing else. There was no emotion to be found there.

“It was a literal pain in the ass.”

The response from the wheelchair carried an obvious smile.

The voice rang so intensely in Miyabi’s ears that the veins at his temples bulged.

Those two appeared to be facing each other from across a large crystal chandelier that had fallen to the red ground after its chain broke. The ceiling that had once supported it was gone, but some vestiges of the walls remained.

“I had assumed the Empire’s advanced magical tech would be more delicate.”

“We took three breaks along the way. On my own, it would have taken less than a day.”

Miyabi listened to Moebius’s pointless jokes from where the row of bookcases came to an end. He felt faint when he heard the enjoyment in the man’s voice.

“That bastard!!”

“Restrain yourself, boy.”

He clenched his teeth while Alicia held him back.

They still weren’t exactly close. It was risky, but he moved from the bookcases, ducked below a long table, and slowly crawled closer. He knew he could keep going from there.

The conversation across the fallen chandelier continued in the distance.

“Why take me all the way home with you? Afraid you couldn’t win an away game? Thought I might have a trap in place?”

“It had nothing to do with holding an advantage. I brought you here for a reason.”

“Oh, a reason? That narrows it down.”

Moebius’s mocking tone did nothing to slow Number 8 down.

The butler continued speaking with his long bangs covering half his face.

“There is only ever one thing that motivates my actions.”

“Yeah, I thought that might be what they used to mess with you.”

“What do you mean?”

Something was up.

Miyabi’s party moved from the end of the long table and hid behind another stone wall. There was another table there. Food and drink would not have been served here, but it looked a lot like a restaurant counter and it contained quills and what looked like ledgers. Miyabi ducked below that to hide, but his mind was in utter chaos. He started to wonder if those two had noticed their approach and this conversation was disinformation meant to confuse them.

“What’s that about messing with him?”

“I get the feeling there is more to this.”

Eliza primarily fought on vast snowy plains and had little experience in sneaking around labyrinthine urban areas, so she had trouble positioning her enormous lance. She had to tilt it on its side and place it alongside the stone wall while she got right to the point.

Helen nodded from behind another bookcase.

“Does that meant Moebius was taken from the village against his will?”

“Hmm, we can’t make out enough of their conversation to say for sure,” added Alicia.

“Why not tiptoe even closer?” suggested the philosopher’s stone.

Approaching further would be risky, but they did it anyway.

Miyabi slowly opened the door behind the counter, revealing more of that red world. No buildings remained standing, only the occasional walls.

He slowly walked on, remaining behind those walls.

Nowhere was safe anymore. A sorcery bomb had been set up in the forest next to the first village and those were powerful enough to blow away the forest and village both.

He continued approaching until they had reached the last of the surviving walls.

He held his breath and listened.

He was pretty close now.

The stone wall was thick, but they would hear if he rapped on it.

“It’s true I manufactured some sorcery bombs in advance.” Moebius’s words stabbed into Miyabi’s heart. “One for the forest where I met the kid and one for the Schwarz Schütze.”

Miyabi could not fight the wave of dizziness.

“!?”

“Quiet. This is just as much of a shock for me.”

Celina steadied his shoulders and they both concentrated on the voices.

“But I was only a copycat.” Moebius Entrance had a distinct self-deprecating smile in his voice. “I just used the bomber’s horn to pulls off something similar to what the real 11th does. And I could only stock up so many bombs, so it was a bit of a gamble whether I could draw them out before I used them all up.”

“…”

“But only the real one would know I was a fake.”

He clearly stated his goal.

A crunching sound came from the wheelchair and magical automaton.

Miyabi risked a glance to see they were slowly circling around the fallen crystal chandelier as they confronted each other.

Why?

It was like a game where one approached while the other kept their distance.

They were both so cautious, like they could not let the other approach too close.

“And since you were the first to react, you must be working for the real one. You proved it yourself by falling for my trap. Or do you have another explanation?”

“What are you talking about?”

The question flowed out so easily, but that may have been what made it so unnatural.

The young man in the wheelchair narrowed his eyes toward the butler automaton standing motionless in the red wind.

“You’re an automaton, so whose orders are you acting on now?”

Moebius’s focus was elsewhere. He was physically gazing into Number 8’s eyes, but he was looking through those eyes to some other place.

The shattered crystal chandelier reflected the light in a twisted form.

That symbol of ruin was coated in red dust.

“This isn’t over until I reel in the 11th. I’m no legendary fixer. Not when I failed to stop so many of those sorcery bombs. The aftermath is truly horrific. The children, the elderly, the pregnant, and the sick are slaughtered along with everyone else! …So I need to cut this off at the source. I might earn some grudges and I might dirty my hands along the way, but it’s all worth it if I can stop it from ever happening again!!”

The dizziness vanished.

The doubt was gone.

The boy clung to the red stone wall with both hands and whispered too quietly for anyone to hear.

“Moebius.”

“That’s more like it,” whispered the radio. “We can still get closer, so how about we find a better position to listen in?”

They approached even further on the other side of an almost fully collapsed wall. Only a door remained at the far end. This all counted as outside now and the divisions between rooms were no more, but opening that door would still mean breathing the same air as that man.

Miyabi felt like he could sense Moebius’s emotions through the door.

“I’m sick of hearing the screams. And you should understand how I feel after you lost your entire Empire to a Godhorn Tech made from a Wicked God horn!!”

“What nonsense is this?”

But the automaton was not following along.

As if to say he could not comprehend the emotional aspect.

“The 11th? A trillion years could pass and I would only ever serve one master: the emperor of the Unified Cassul Blanc Sorcery Empire.”

“Then answer me this,” cut in Moebius. “What is your beloved emperor’s name?”

“…”

Silence.

“…”

Silence.

“…?”

Silence, but of a different type.

The wind blew, whipping up a cloud of red dust. The black bangs half-covering Number 8’s face were lifted.

The area around his eye was cracked and a complex arrangement of tiny gears audibly turned within.

This proved he was mechanical.

This proved he was damaged and that damage was spreading.

Were the gears audibly straining because the red dust had gotten inside?

“Yeah, you’re pretty badly broken.” Moebius sounded mournful, like a bad feeling of his had been confirmed. “Anyone you meet looks like the emperor to you now, don’t they? Which means you’ll obey anyone’s commands. That’s why you didn’t even question it when some stranger had you set up those sorcery bombs.”

Alicia’s eyes widened in confusion on the other side of the door in the surviving wall.

“I don’t get it. What does that mean?”

“He’s talking about some malicious roleplaying,” answered the philosopher’s stone hanging from her neck. “Someone used the automaton’s malfunction to pretend they were the emperor. And it was even easier than faking your identity on social media. That guy intends to serve his dead emperor until the end of time.”

“Someone abused his loyalty to have him commit crimes?” Eliza clenched her fist tight. “This 11th individual has made a mockery of someone’s loyalty to their ruler. He might be an enemy and a lifeless automaton…but there are lines you simply do not cross.”

“More importantly, Number 8 is behaving oddly,” whispered Helen while peeking out from behind the wall.

They heard and felt a heavy rumbling.

The contradiction must have been too much for the red-stained butler to accept. He held a heavy metal ball that was connected to his staff with a thick thread of electricity. It was a strange weapon made with unknown technology.

That morning star alone could beat a heavily-armored knight to death in a single blow. With a magical automaton’s superhuman strength and sturdiness, pure weight would be more efficient than a sharp sword or spear. He could simply crush his foe’s thick armor and helmet along with the squishy person within.

But that efficient destruction was not the true threat of that weapon.

“From the control weight to the horn core.”

Light spread out from the metal ball after it dropped to the red ground.

That light formed a giant magic circle.

“Divine Doll – tactical open.”

This time, even the sound was blown away.

It all radiated out from the thick wall towering up behind Number 8.

It looked like a king’s castle.

At first, Miyabi thought it was just another of the Empire’s ruins, frozen in time and left to be weathered away by the rusty mana.

But it was not.

It placed giant hands on the ground and stood up on massive legs before shaking just enough to throw the red dust off of itself. The result was comparable to a sandstorm.

This was the strongest Godhorn Tech of the lost Empire – the Divine Doll.

Redness obscured the sun and a darkness similar to evening set in. The only person remaining on their feet in the dust storm was the magical automaton standing calmly alongside the Divine Doll.

“This is the Empire, the continent’s greatest country, ruled by the glorious emperor.”

A new red sandstorm roared up.

The silver armor had raised its colossal foot in order to mercilessly crush its target seated in the wheelchair.

“The great emperor’s rule has created a blessed land of eternal peace for all its people. All unauthorized intrusions are forbidden and no one must be allowed to insult the emperor. If you doubt his existence, his power, and his great deeds, then know you have committed an unforgivable crime.”

“How sad. This red wasteland can’t even return to nature, but you claim this place has eternal peace?”

He was faced with great violence and a strange red glow, but the puny boy hiding behind a surviving wall no longer hesitated.

He spoke after using the crumbling shelter to escape the sinister redness.

“We can’t wait any longer.”

“Yeah, that light’s back in your eyes now, kid,” said the radio.

“Let’s do this!!” roared the redhead boy.

He kicked open the surviving door and entered the same world as those two.

He was there to protect Moebius Entrance, his party member.

The air shook around him, but not because the Divine Doll’s foot had crashed down upon the wheelchair.

Just before it could, the Lucifer Horn had soared by and fired a beam of light that knocked the giant back a bit.

The redness burst into the air.

He could see that man grinning even through the deadly-pure rusty mana.

“You’re right in the nick of time, you cute little hero.”

What was that young man thinking while he maintained his jocular tone? He viewed his old control sword like it was shining bright.

Miyabi did not look back that way.

He took up a position to protect that suspicious man and he no longer doubted his actions.

“I’m no hero. Just so you know, I doubted you the entire journey here.”

“That excessive honesty is part of what makes you a hero.”

“I’m giving you a piece of my mind once this is over.”

But that would have to wait.

In front of him, another figure was muttering to himself with a hand on his head.

“Force deleting self-contradiction…eliminating unnecessary doubt.”

Number 8 continued to produce a straining sound. Almost like sandy gears forced to turn. He held something while he lowered his head.

He called it a control weight, but it was more of a morning star.

The unique blunt weapon connected the grip and metal ball with electricity. It was a powerful weapon in its own right, but it also controlled the Godhorn Tech.

“I must serve…must serve my emperor…in all things.”

“But I’ll start with him!!”

If Miyabi did not win here, the truth he had discovered meant nothing.

So.

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

The Divine Doll was a colossal suit of silver armor.

It towered above Miyabi and its chest and shoulders were far broader than any ordinary proportions. It had the shape of an extended accordion, making it look like a massive fortress wall.

Its pounding footsteps shook the ground too much for the average person to remain standing and it could do far more than that. Whether the giant punched, stomped, or tackled, any one of its attacks would be fatal. And not just to an individual. It could tear through armies.

Then there was the issue of its size.

Miyabi’s party had to find some way to attack it.

“But up close, we can only aim for its thick feet!”

“I-I doubt my rifle is enough to defeat that thing.”

Knife-wielding Helen and rifle-wielding Celina both sounded flustered. Approaching would not help them damage it and they would instead be one-shotted by a stomp.

That meant Miyabi had to fight alone.

Yes….

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

Boxes of the unpleasant red ground were torn away.

He stacked them up into some Layer Stairs to create a makeshift boarding ramp.

White Seidr Chosen Knight Eliza Silverstorm raced up that ramp.

“The Icicle Bullet never did engage the Empire’s Godhorn Tech, but I was trained to battle you.”

She leaped from the peak of the right triangle to reach the top of the Divine Doll’s head.

She flipped through the air, her ponytail whipping after her, and jabbed in her massive lance with precise aim.

“Prepare yourself!!!!!!”

She used the pull of gravity to strike down like a lightning bolt, producing the groan of straining metal.

Number 8 ignored the attack.

“Set priority.”

“!?”

A horizontal sweep of a giant fist brought down the red right triangle of stairs. Eliza landed on the Divine Doll’s arm and ran toward its shoulder.

She made an additional attack.

She jumped from the enormous shoulder toward the head. She scored a clean hit of her lance on its silver face at maximum acceleration, but she was the one who grimaced. She jumped back and into the empty air to avoid a strike from the giant palm.

“I can’t break through!! Now I see why my king never considered anything other than a Godhorn Tech to defend ourselves. A jack of all trades could never penetrate this armor!!”

“Now is not the time for analysis!” shouted Alicia, eyes wide. “I swear your strait-lacedness is going to get you killed someday!!”

Miyabi manipulated the Palette Dice again. He broke apart a lonely imperial flag and a twisted metal railing and constructed a hammock-like cushion to gently catch the falling knight.

The giant silver armor looked down at them.

Its enormous shoulders burst open and metal spikes flew out in a fan shape for a concentrated downpour of destruction. Each spike was taller than Miyabi.

Miyabi held up his hand.

Those javelins or extra-large arrows dropped like a solid ceiling, but he held up a giant stone umbrella to protect Eliza.

Moebius whistled.

“So that’s the power of creation, huh? I’d mastered the destruction side, but I could never fight like that.”

“Are you aware you’re his #1 target!?”

“I’m also aware you would never leave a poor injured man to die.”

That guy always had a retort.

Miyabi spoke harshly, but he had to bite his lip to keep the tears at bay.

Everything was back to “normal”.

If he had not sworn to himself he would never cry in front of Moebius, he probably couldn’t have stopped it.

“Miyabi. The Divine Doll’s horn extraction system uses the ‘auto-fighting sword’.”

“The what?”

“That’s the magic its designers gave it. Just like Miss Celina’s used alchemy and strait-laced Eliza’s used Seidr magic. As big as they are, a Godhorn Tech will have a specific design motif – a type of magic it always uses. Your Lucifer Horn is no exception.”

Even the Lucifer Horn?

That caught him by surprise. He had entrusted his life to that Godhorn Tech several times already, but he now realized he did not even know what kind of magic that trump card used.

“And the Divine Doll was built on the framework of a spiritual sword that flies through the air and slays any enemy once it has been drawn. That idea was expanded upon and reinterpreted to the point of producing this kind of firepower. Doesn’t that sound perfect for a lifeless magical automaton’s weapon?”

“Hm?”

Number 8 tilted his head a little.

He did not seem offended at the “lifeless” descriptor. If anything, he accepted it as accurate.

“I need not focus only on the Godhorn Tech battle. This land is dangerously pure, so why not use that to my advantage? There are other ways to efficiently damage biological life.”

Helen frowned at the red dust floating in the air.

“Is this our chance?”

“Maybe we can’t damage the Divine Doll, but what about Number 8!?”

Helen and Alicia stepped forward.

Number 8’s electrically-linked morning star was powerful, but it had to be difficult to use. It was also not made for defense or for attacking multiple enemies coming from different directions.

But…

“This, for example.”

He made a merciless strike with the metal ball, but not against Alicia or Helen. He attacked the red ground at his feet.

It was a lot like a smokescreen.

The red dust coating the ground burst into the air to cover everything in all 360 degrees. Alicia and Helen were forced to slam on the brakes.

“He used the rusty mana!?”

“It is deadly to life, but not to us.”

The automaton’s unchanging voice spoke from the other side of that red world.

The wind roared as the Divine Doll lifted its enormous foot to follow Number 8’s example.

The stomp was coming.

The noise was on another level altogether. A veritable mountain range of red dust spread out, rushing in like a solid wall.

“Are you serious!? It isn’t that simple!!” protested the radio at Alicia’s neck. “This mystery substance has got to harm machines too!!”

“Magical automatons are not feared for being indestructible. We are feared for our lack of hesitation.”

A single eye glowed through the red curtain.

It belonged to the eternally-faithful artificial butler.

“That is why the emperor had no choice but to provide excessive defenses for the Empire. They were meant to repel external invaders and to prevent any internal fracturing.”

They could not afford to let that cloud hit them, but that did not leave them with many options.

Miyabi stabbed his control sword into the red ground and raised his voice.

“Do it, Lucifer Horn!!”

“So predictable.”

Miyabi froze when that voice interrupted him.

The beam of light tore a line in the ground to blow away the approaching red cloud that was so pure it could kill organic life, but Number 8 did not bat an eye.

“If I can predict your flight path, I can fight back. Divine Doll.”

They had seen this attack already. The towering silver armor’s shoulders launched javelins in a fan shape.

This time, they were launched into the red sky and seemed to blot out the sun.

The Lucifer Horn twisted around in protest, but a few of the scattered metal spikes still stabbed into the bomber with their sharp tips. The spikes had small feathers on the rear, so were they meant to be arrows? There were too many of them to avoid even with a rapid turn.

The bomber lost its balance.

“Lucifer-!?”

“Did you think you were untouchable in the sky? Greater altitude is an advantage, but not an insurmountable one. The phalanx gastraphetes was originally used as an anti-air weapon to shoot down enemies of that sort.”

Number 8 dispassionately explained his actions.

They were both fighting to the best of their abilities, so Miyabi could not expect to remain unscathed throughout. He understood that. He really did, but this still came as a shock. He had never even imagined the Lucifer Horn taking damage. He was almost like a small child who fully believed that his father was invincible.

“And the effectiveness of this tactic remains unchanged. I need only repeat my actions.”

Miyabi heard a sticky sound.

To his disbelief, Number 8 had stuck his morning star’s weight into a sticky red bog.

With a snap of his wrist, he swung it around.

“D-dodge!!” yelled Eliza Silverstorm, eyes wide.

It did not matter if the electrically-attached metal ball hit them or not. The entire party leaped out of the way in different directions and Miyabi knocked the wheelchair onto its side so he could lie protectively atop Moebius.

Sizzling sounds surrounded them.

If even a drop of the red slime got on them, it would tear their body apart. He understood that.

“Heh heh.”

But an odd sound reached his ears.

Moebius was laughing. Even though his wheelchair was on its side and he could not have dodged even if it was not.

It weirded Miyabi out.

This was the legendary fixer, a side of the man he had not seem before.

“What? How are you so calm?”

“Huh? Because, boy – heh heh – he gave you all the hints you could want. Looks like these imperial automatons let you play on easy mode. No one’s better at assisting humans, I guess.”

“…?”

Miyabi did not understand at first.

But he gasped when he heard the sizzling again.

None of his party member’s skin was dissolving, yet the audible destruction continued and a disconcerting red steam filled the air.

It came from the half-crumbled stone wall, the fallen crystal chandelier, and even Number 8’s morning star ball.

“It works on more than just living things?”

“Never overlook any information. That radio said it must harm machines too, remember? And that imperial butler said himself that magical automatons aren’t feared for being indestructible.”

It all fell into place from there and Miyabi shouted the answer.

“Then it’ll work on the Divine Doll too. We just have to find a way to send it into one of those red bogs!!”

Easy enough to say.

However…

“Argh, and how are we supposed to do that!?” shouted Alicia, her tree branch staff tight in her hands.

The elf could boost her physical abilities with alchemy potions and the chosen knight was powerful enough to wield a massive lance, but neither of them could make that giant budge. There was no way they were forcing it into a red bog. Even if they tried, they would only get stomped as they approached.

Number 8 did not see this plan as a threat.

“The Divine Doll is the vast Empire’s shield. It will not give ground even if you send in your aerial Godhorn Tech.”

The Lucifer Horn had two weapons: the beam of light that shot down and tore through the ground and the bombs that dropped to the surface and exploded. Both were enormously powerful and thus tricky to use. Using them at such close range would mean surrounding Miyabi’s party with a red cloud or dumping the red sludge on their heads, killing them.

But…

“Who said I’d be doing that?”

Miyabi had it in him to smile.

He held out the hand not holding the control sword.

He held it toward the red ground for a power he had already demonstrated.

By removing chunks of the ground, he could create waterways for the red sludge to pass through.

He just had to repeat the process.

But instead of removing the sludge from their path, he guided it toward the Divine Doll’s feet.

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

The result was the sticky but heavy sound of a great mass moving all at once.

It came from the Divine Doll’s feet. Red steam erupted from there and then the colossus began to sink.

A deadly artificial lake had formed.

Miyabi had torn down the side of a red bog and sent it through a waterway situated a level lower to create a new bog where none had been before.

That new one was of course located precisely where the Divine Doll stood.

The bog was a mere puddle for something of that size, but it still sank.

Technically speaking, it was dissolving.

Eventually, it lost its balance and toppled backwards. That had to have done considerable damage and it was entirely covered in the red sludge now.

Its greatest enemy turned out to be the very doom the Empire had brought upon itself.

“It’s stopped, boy!!” shouted Alicia.

“Fire that massive cannon you’re so fond of!!” added the radio.

Miyabi’s control sword pierced the crimson ground filled with so much rusty mana.

A large magic circle opened at his feet.

“I’m on it.”

That colossus had fallen.

The magical automaton by its side could not have escaped unscathed after the red dust and sludge were dumped on his head.

Number 8 was staring into empty space.

“Ksshh. Yes, yes. As you…wish, my emperor.”

“That’s enough of that, Number 8.”

“But…but then what…remains for me to protect?”

Number 8 had set up sorcery bombs across the continent.

A great many people had suffered for it.

According to Moebius, not everyone had survived.

But.

Even so.

No matter what anyone said, the magical automaton was not at fault. The blame lay squarely on the 11th who had known he was malfunctioning and used it to pretend to be the emperor.

“Number 8!!”

“Nwahhh!!”

The emperor was gone. The Empire was no more.

Nothing the magical automaton could do would change that history. His best efforts could not protect anyone, could not erase that tragedy, and could never bring about the promised peace and prosperity.

But that did not mean his desperate struggle and his malfunctioning mind’s drive to protect his beloved Empire had accomplished nothing at all. They had struck a chord within Miyabi.

So.

Miyabi Blackgarden rushed straight in and caught the attacking morning star on his thick sword. The Divine Doll was trapped in the red bog, but he still clashed with the magical automaton so trusted by the former emperor that he had been granted that Godhorn Tech.

He attacked the butler who the emperor had trusted more than any of the empire’s many humans, who had felt he owed a powerful obligation for that trust, and who had done everything he could to live up to his emperor’s expectations.

This was not about being living or lifeless or being born as human or inhuman. Could Miyabi’s feelings defeat this man’s? Could he demonstrate something inside him that was greater than this man who had remained alone in the ruined Empire and continued to protect that land even as it slowly destroyed him? That was the true nature of the battle Miyabi had chosen.

His enemy’s attack was heavy.

When metal ball clashed with double-edged blade, Miyabi felt his wrist bones rattling. But for some reason, that weight pleased him.

Both Moebius and Number 8 had been driven by honest motivations.

He did not dodge nimbly out of the way, but not because he cared about protecting the red ruins around him. He had to look the imperial butler in the eye and face him in a proper duel. Only by accepting his opponent’s earnest feelings did he earn the right to speak to him on equal footing.

He could not let the 11th abuse those feelings.

“Your heart is pure, Number 8. No matter what someone tricked you into doing, no one can deny the purity of your feelings!!”

He had to direct his hatred toward the correct person.

Committing a crime did not mean someone could never again seek out help.

So.

There was nothing at all wrong with wanting to save this lifeless automaton! With that conviction in his heart, Miyabi could stand on equal ground. It created a powerful support for his soul.

Just like Number 8 could throw out all else when he thought he was acting on behalf of his emperor.

Miyabi refused to let anyone defeat him when it came to the power of his feelings!!

“That loyalty belongs to you and you alone. I won’t let anyone else corrupt it!!”

He gave the command.

That massive airborne shape had been damaged and he knew he was pushing it too far, but after he deflected the metal ball, he stabbed the control sword into the red ground and raised his voice as if in prayer.

He shouted to his weapon flying unsteadily overhead.

“Isn’t that right, Lucifer Horn!!!???”

A white beam of light dropped from the sky and blew the dissolving Divine Doll to pieces.

Time seemed to distort.

Everything played out in slow motion for Miyabi.

He saw Number 8 blasted into the air like a dried leaf. He reached out an arm to catch him, but Alicia grabbed that arm with her entire body.

Time sped back up.

“Can’t you see all that red sludge on him!? Touch him and not even your bones will be left!!”

In that sense, he had gotten off easy.

He heard a dull crashing as the imperial automaton rolled across the red land, covered in red, but never wavered in his resolve. For better or for worse, his crawling scraped the red sludge off onto the ground.

“Emper…emperor…I…I…”

“Oh, no!!” shouted Moebius in his toppled wheelchair.

“What’s the matter!?” Miyabi looked puzzled. “We’re all dead if we don’t stop the Divine Doll!!”

“Since the Godhorn Tech and automaton are both artificial, their damage is linked. And if Number 8 is destroyed, we lose any way of tracking down the phony emperor who was giving him orders. This solves nothing if we don’t catch the 11th, so we need to get that information out of him!”

But it was too late.

“Bshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Whoa!?” shouted Alicia.

“Sigh, he’s puking like a new hire who celebrated a little too hard at his welcoming party,” groaned the radio. “As a fellow machine, that is exactly what I hope to avoid.”

Celina’s hands wandered wildly through the air as she watched Number 8 spew white steam everywhere.

And…

“W-we have to stop this. Yes, even if that means attacking him!”

She drove the stock of her rifle into the butler’s head.

That did stop the white steam, but…

“He’s stopped moving.”

Helen was right.

If they could not speak with him, they could not figure out who had pretended to be the emperor. For the 11th, Number 8 was a safety measure, not a crucial lifeline. Even now, they might be leisurely setting up the next sorcery bomb.

“What do we do?” asked Miyabi.

Moebius sighed while the boy righted the wheelchair for him.

He brushed the red dust from his coat before speaking.

“What, ready to follow my instructions again already?”

“Damn. You’re just saying that because you’re out of ideas too, aren’t you!?”

“Hey, provoking adults is a dangerous habit.” Moebius grinned. “Anyway, if he’s broken, he’s broken. But he’s a machine, so we can fix him. How’s that sound for a plan?”

“But the Empire that created him is gone. Where can we find parts for a rare automaton?”

The magical automatons, red slimes, magic books, furniture, and everything else in this danger zone of rusty mana continued to fight all on their own, but that constant struggling meant they would be in bad condition. Trying to use bad parts could actually make the damage worse.

But Moebius did not seem concerned.

“We happen to know a girl who can provide us any product under the sun, don’t we?”

At first, not even the girl in question knew who he meant.

“…”

Celina silently tilted her head for a while before realizing everyone’s eyes had gathered on her.

“Eh? Me?”

“The Boooodenburg Companyyyy,” sang Moebius. “Don’t you offer everything a person could need, from pacifier to coffin? Your home and the company’s headquarters are located in a famous port city. It’s the continent’s largest criminal city, home to pirates and mercenaries, where money is king and the law has no power.”

Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 3

The island was starting to feel a lot more civilized.

That was largely thanks to Garret Goldcave, a dwarf and expert craftsman.

The old man may have had a better example of femininity than Curse Cleaner Sophia Calamity-Jinx or Martial Artist Victia Magnumfist, who had been lying around naked since the island was deserted. At the very least, he was wearing clothes.

A few buildings and manufacturing facilities were taking form on the empty island.

It was crudely made, but having a furnace meant a lot. It could refine ordinary dirt and sand into bricks and glass.

“Hmph,” snorted Garret, sounding annoyed. “I still have a lot to do before I’m ready to work with metal.”

He had found some sulfur and niter on the island, but it would be a while before he could create alchemy gunpowder. Iron came first. But finding items from several steps ahead in the process made his current level of skill and equipment feel all the more inadequate.

On this desert island, he had to figure everything out on his own. Iron ore would be hard to come by, but he could at least separate the iron sand out from the beach’s sand. Still, he had to go through a few other steps before he could create blades and hammers out of that iron sand.

Sophia viewed the buildings with delight.

“Good, maybe we can finally be of some use. Instead of just sending them sexy swimsuits, sexy swimsuits, and more sexy swimsuits.”

“Ha ha ha! But I have a feeling Miyabi would love a world of nothing but sexy swimsuits!”

“Eh? Miyabi likes to wear them? I never would have guessed he was into that!”

Victia made no attempt to correct Sophia’s mistaken interpretation. Idiots came in many forms, but the kind that failed to explain themselves properly tended to spread confusion.

Meanwhile, two new rookies had just arrived.

“Fshoo shoo shoo!! This supposedly desert island is littered with wreckage. Someone may have lived here before. Only one way to find out: grab my shovel and dig, dig, dig☆”

“Y-yikes!”

The octopus mask and giant armor were both shouting about something or other.

The island may have been cursed to never see any traditional femininity.

Profiles

Marietta Diggrave

Age: 16

Sex: Female

Height: 153cm

A salvage hunter who digs up the remains of a ruined kingdom to gather advanced magical lab equipment and sell it to used item shops. Known for aiming big, but the high price of the treasure maps means she barely scrapes by despite the high profile of her jobs. Her excessive mask is more of a good luck charm or jinx, so it may not be strictly necessary.

Angela Custardmare

Age: 15

Sex: Female

Height: 200cm (140cm inside)

A maid known for her extreme loveliness known as the “Unfortunate Beauty”. Strange Guide once led a death game in which several nobles killed each other with her as the prize and the nobles’ wives responded by enclosing her in the unremovable Prison Armor. She wants a Wicked God horn in order to free herself from the armor.

Number 8

Apparent Age: 20 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Designed as Male

Height: 190cm

A magical automaton created from the advanced technology of the massive Empire that once ruled a third of the continent. He was given the humanoid Divine Doll Godhorn Tech as the foundation of the Empire’s defenses. He continues to obey the emperor’s commands even after the Empire’s fall, so he continues to protect the ruins of the capital. The extreme environment causes his damage to grow by the day, which has likely negatively affected his internal memory.

Godhorn Tech Silver Armor: Divine Doll

Pilot: Number 8

Affiliation: Unified Cassul Blanc Sorcery Empire (since destroyed)

Size: About 8m tall

Colossal silver armor. Obeys Number 8’s orders and works to slay its enemies. Wields swords, spears, and bows, but their great size turns them all into enormous blunt attacks. Number 8 was created to protect the Empire’s massive borders on the emperor’s orders. The Divine Doll obeys his orders unconditionally, so if he were to malfunction, the Divine Doll would follow along. Design motif: the sword which automatically fights to bring victory to its wise owner.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5, Section 1

The Wicked God horn brought peace.

But it also fueled the next catastrophe.

Night had fully fallen.

They could not relax enough for a strategy meeting inside the ruined Empire covered in the mystery red dust called rusty mana. How could they when it could destroy the Divine Doll when at high enough concentrations? They could not leave Number 8 where he was either. Washing off the red sludge was not enough to rouse him.

That was why Miyabi’s party returned to the ship abandoned on dry land near the Empire’s ruins.

Maybe the wind played a role, but the red had not yet encroached upon the wasteland to the north.

The fact that the mysterious abandoned ship actually seemed comfortable may have shown just how tough they had gotten.

“Phew. Purification magic just can’t compete with some everyday necessities. Like a shower,” said Celina. “I just hope that little adventure didn’t take years off of our lives.”

“Based on the samples the Republic has taken, short-term skin contact has no effect on life,” said Helen. “Assuming it hasn’t been concentrated into that sludge, of course. Long-term oral or mucus membrane intake has been shown to cause abnormal growth in certain Beast Novae.”

“Discriminatory language!!” shouted Alicia. “What are you saying, that my chest is going to grow overnight!? Am I going to have watermelons bouncing around on my chest!? Oh, Alma, they can be so hurtful! Please comfort me!!”

The girls’ voices sounded muffled but not because Miyabi Blackgarden’s mind was elsewhere.

The abandoned ship’s interior remained intact and that included the bath.

That was one of the main reasons they had turned back instead of continuing onward. They had wanted someplace they knew they could rest, but they had also been dying for a bath. And there was still plenty of firewood made from the felled masts.

The radio had been thrown to the deck outside.

Miyabi was sitting with his back to a weathered wood wall and he could hear the girls’ voices through that wall.

He shut his eyes and focused on the fact that everyone was safe.

“These are the moments you live for, aren’t they?”

“Moebius?”

The young man rolled up with a smile.

He had fought using the Lucifer Horn more often than Miyabi and saved many more people. He had fought with entire regions, whole countries, and maybe even the full continent riding on the outcome. How many times had he been able to indulge in the relief of knowing his party members were all safe afterwards?

He was a legend – a fixer who made a living taking jobs that saved entire countries.

“The girls have let their guard down due to the unique mixture of exhaustion and the joy of survival, so now’s your chance to peep!!”

“It scares me that someone like you controlled a Godhorn Tech for even a moment.” The redhead boy breathed a somewhat exasperated sigh. “What are you going to do now? Stick with us?”

“No, giving you the Lucifer Horn would’ve been pretty pointless if I did that. I want to leave the world’s troubles behind and relax. Live that slow life that’s all the rage these days☆”

“…”

Scratch the somewhat.

Miyabi was truly exasperated now. Meanwhile, Moebius Entrance whispered something under his breath.

“(Also, you’ve started down a different path from me. The power of creation, huh? If I helped you out, you’d be right back on the boring-as-hell path of destruction, destruction, and more destruction.)”

“Moebius?”

“It’s nothing.” He shook his head. “Anyway, I’ll be searching for some comfortable place in the middle of nowhere to settle down. Some friendly place with no sign of Godhorn Techs or the fight against the 11th.”

“Then I know just the place.”

Miyabi grabbed the short control sword in both hands and stabbed it into the ship’s deck.

“Lucifer Horn!” he roared before Moebius could say a word. “One-way trip for one!!”

A wire dangling from the heavens caught the grinning young man’s wheelchair.

“Wait, what are you doing!?”

“Oh, right! I forget to mention!!” Miyabi quickly shouted to the wheelchair being yanked from the deck. “The Lucifer Horn can use bombs now! You should have told me it could adapt to new weapons like that! I might never have figured it out!!”

Moebius himself had set up Horn Fortress as a secret base, so he was in no position to refuse.

Moebius Entrance was enjoying a pleasure flight with imminent death as a constant companion.

But while he clutched the wheelchair’s armrests for dear life, a different tension filled him too.

He must have known no one could hear him way up in the air, but he still spoke aloud. Or maybe he said it aloud because he knew no one could hear him.

“Hold on. The Lucifer Horn’s horn extraction system was witchcraft. It should only have that energy beam attack created by injecting a special potion into the horn to forcibly boost its light.”

He looked straight up at the Godhorn Tech carrying him.

The legendary fixer seemed to be complaining directly to his former partner.

“I had no idea you could do that.”

Back on the abandoned ship, Celina Bodenburg had apparently finished her bath. She still had steam rising from her as she poked her head out and saw Miyabi.

“We’re all done in there. Oh? What are you doing out here?”

“Ridding us of a peeping tom.”

Celina gave a start and moved back a few steps when she heard that. Then Alicia Blueforest, also fresh out of the bath, arrived with Alma’s black cat form in her arms.

“There you are, boy. The bath is free. Go soak in our used bathwater.”

“I-in what world is that a normal thing to say!?” protested Celina. “There is something wrong with you!”

The elf usually bathed outdoors, so she could be careless about such things. An unexpected encounter with a defenseless elf was sometimes how an innocent boy got a crash course on the female body.

Helen arrived last and sighed in exasperation.

“This elf might live a wild life of stealing vegetables from people’s fields, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t more civilized. Speaking of which, our next stop is your hometown, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Celina Bodenburg got down to business. “Our next destination is the criminal port city where my company has its headquarters. It is south from here and will take a while on foot.”

Alicia Blueforest gave her a skeptical look.

“I don’t like the sound of that description.”

“Ahem. To make this as simple as possible, I would describe the city like this.” The local actually cleared her throat first. “That place is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad news.”

Wet-haired Helen Clockgear held her head.

“The Republic really does have it marked as ‘visit with extreme caution’. It’s best to assume it isn’t anything like a normal city.”

“Koo?”

“Then maybe we should make some preparations before we go there.” Miyabi Blackgarden rubbed his chin. “Do we head straight there, or do we make a detour to a safe town beforehand?”

They ended up choosing the direct route.

Their reasoning was simple: they had to deal with Number 8. They had no idea if he was even fixable, but any chance they had now might go to waste if the vibrations of dragging him around or the wind, rain, and other weather conditions caused further internal damage.

“This would be so much easier if you had the Lucifer Horn take him to Horn Fortress,” complained the radio hanging from Alicia’s neck.

“Wouldn’t we tear that half-broken thing to pieces if we tried snagging him with that wire? Then we would lose any information he has on the 11th.”

Miyabi had exposed an injured man to that exact same treatment, but that was a sign of how much he trusted Moebius Entrance. He knew dropping that legendary fixer from the sky wasn’t enough to kill him.

Helen took charge like usual and spread out a parchment map.

“This is how it looks on the map. Once we arrive south of the Empire’s ruins, we take a curving path southeast to reach the southernmost point of the continent.”

“We can’t just pass through here?”

Miyabi pointed at the actual plains, not the ones on the map. A stone-paved road drew a line across the green grassy ground.

“The map shows a crack there, so no.” Helen shook her head and traced her finger along a sewing needle to magically transform it into a compass. “How it works still isn’t known, but there are impassible deep cracks in the ground at some places. Dangerous miasma flows out, so no one knows what things are like deep inside.”

“There are rumors saying a Wicked God will crawl back out if you throw a nonhuman species inside,” said Alicia.

She went on to explain that those rumors were entirely baseless.

Miyabi’s takeaway was that they had to read the map carefully to avoid dying. They ended up leaving the stone-paved road to travel along a side path of packed-down grass.

It helped to have an experienced traveler in your party.

The color of the sky seemed to have changed. It was now a brilliant bright blue.

The air also carried an odd smell.

It was not quite the same as rot. It was a unique scent, but not a bad one.

“I can finally smell the salt in the air,” said Celina.

“Salt?”

Miyabi pictured the small shaker on the dinner table, but that could not be what she meant.

“Oh? Miyabi, is this your first time to see the sea?”

“See the see? What?”

“Hee hee. Then this might come as a shock for you.”

The rich girl was in a stupendous mood.

Miyabi noticed something else before they arrived. He heard something he did not recognize.

“What’s that? I’ve never heard so much meowing. Does your city have a lot of cats?”

“Ho ho ho. Kitties aren’t the only creature to hunt down fish at the oceanside, Miyabi. Those are seabirds.”

It turned out there were a lot of different seabirds.

There were some crow-sized ones with white wings that were related to swallows and there were even some that looked like scantily-clad girls with wings for arms.

“Gasp, those are harpies!” shouted Helen. “They’re dangerous Beast Novae!!”

No one paid the elf’s cry of “discriminatory language!!” any heed.

“It’s just that kind of city.” Celina shrugged. “And harpies are great. They’re smart enough to do what you tell them and they always return home when you send them out from your window. Both humans and monsters trust them. You can love them as a pet or give them jobs. They’re especially useful as hunter harpies who accompany you on hunting trips or as messenger harpies that deliver letters to distant locations.”

“If you want a clever pet, just get a dog. Why would you start talking about chaining up nonhumans and raising them as pets when you know an elf can hear you?”

“If a dog had the face of a cute girl, it would be a thing of nightmares, you stupid elf. There’s nothing beautiful about them.”

They heard the flapping of wings and then a large form swooped down toward Celina, so she held her arm out horizontally as a perch.

“My Millovannes is very well behaved, as you can see. Hee hee. Now, now, Millovannes, we can love on each other later. Oh, you spoiled thing, you’ll make Miyabi jealous if we do this in front of him. Oh, you☆”

U-um, uh, isn’t it slashing at your face with its thick talons? Um. Miyabi very much wanted to say something, but the more mature Helen and Eliza covered his mouth.

He was not to shatter the friendly girl’s dreams.

Celina was smiling so happily even with something red spurting from her badly-damaged forehead and temple.

“Anyway, you will see plenty of the port’s many seabirds once we are in the city. So, Miyabi, are you a dog person or a cat person. If the former, you can take a look at the well-trained guard dogs and military dogs. If the latter, you can check out the swarms of thieving cats hoping to snag some fish. Welcome to the criminal city where everyone loves their pets☆”

“Hm, so it works on the theory that delinquents have a soft spot for abandoned cats, does it?” said the radio. “It is true the lonely delinquent girl with a damaged heart is something you’ll only find in a fantasy world! I’m hoping for a fashionable and good-looking blonde gyaru!! Especially if she’s handy around the house, loves baths, and looks after any of the gang when they catch a cold!!”

“Oh, no. A big city like this is sure to be crawling with elfphobes!” said Alicia. “Please don’t let me be captured in a giant bug net and sold off at some market somewhere!!!!!”

And.

“Ohh!” shouted Miyabi.

Once they crossed a certain line, the view changed.

A city was built along a gentle downwards slope. All the buildings had white walls and orange roofs and it had a very different feel from his village or Eliza’s Arsenal Kingdom. There was no wall around the city, so it felt a lot more open.

But Miyabi Blackgarden’s focus was elsewhere.

He was not even viewing the city.

His eyes moved past the gentle slope and to the great expanse beyond it.

“What is that? There’s a huge body of water over there!! Is that more than just a lake!?”

“Heh heh heh. That, my friend, is the ocean. Shipbuilding is yet another of the Bodenburg Company’s major industries, so- hey, wait, Miyabi!”

The boy was not listening to her any more than he was viewing the city.

He and black cat Alma rushed off at full speed. They had never seen anything like the ocean before.

“Whoa! Hey, jackass! Watch where you’re fucking going!!!!!”

On his third step down the gentle slope, someone cussed him out.

It would have been one thing if the culprit was a rough-looking young man, but unfortunately, this was what looked like a lovely flower seller girl. And this was her reaction when he only almost ran into her.

Seeing the boy tearfully curled up on the side of the road and trembling, Celina put a hand on her hip and smacked her forehead with the other hand.

“How many times do I have to tell you this is a criminal city? C’mon, having your bittersweet fantasies about girls shattered isn’t that big a deal. And word to the wise? Always watch where you’re going in this city.”

“Ohh. Ohhhhhhhh…”

“Leave him be!!” For some reason the radio sided with the depressed boy. “The shattering of your dreams is a rite of passage – a baptism of blood – we all must go through! He just had his soul shredded, so let him mourn!!”

“Oh, dear. That hit him pretty bad, so it might take a while before he recovers. Fine, then. I will help refuel his fantasies. Look, Miyabi, do you see this slight gap between my miniskirt and black socks? Now watch as I lift my skirt and make it grow☆”

“Oh, there is good in the world after all.”

“Dammit, Miyabi! I defended you! And now you don’t even know the difference between pure and lewd? I swear, the young have no taste at all. If you want that obvious junk food sexiness, you already have Curvy McGlassesTits over there! She’s only pretending to be so mature, so if you go crying to her, I guarantee you she’ll hug your face right into her chest!!”

“Don’t drag me into this silly nonsense!!” protested a blushing Helen, her attempt at being an uninvolved observer failing miserably. She did not want to be viewed in the same category as the skirt teaser (who had miscalculated and accidentally lifted the skirt enough to see everything).

The bright sun shined down through dry air, so even a light breeze felt like a great treasure in this memorable tourist destination.

The way the sun reflected off the white walls and orange roofs made it look like the entire city was sending out welcoming rays of light.

However.

Now that the unintentional panty flasher had guided him back to reality, Miyabi took his time to observe the city more carefully.

While the lit areas were indeed bright, that accentuated the darkness of the alleys between the homes and stores. When he peeked inside one of those, he saw the sharp light of several eyes glaring back at him. He got the feeling they belonged to people who did not take kindly to intruders on their turf. In fact, he was pretty sure some of the lights were the glint of sharp blades.

Helen looked around in fear, clutching her bag in both hands. Compress Cargo magic made travel easier since you could fit so much in a small bag, but that also meant you would lose everything if that one bag was stolen. Easy to carry was also easy to steal.

“U-um, where are the knights or guards in this city? I haven’t seen a single one out on patrol.”

“Sigh, we don’t have any of those wet blankets here. We’ve long since driven out anyone who use their supposed ‘justice’ to attack anyone who criticizes their own illicit actions. Order here is preserved by the private troops of the Bodenburg Company!”

“Sounds like the South American and Eastern European cities were the gangs make the rules. She really does hold all the power here, doesn’t she?”

Even the radio was dumbfounded.

If what they saw here was the result of those private troops “preserving order”, they could guess just how effective that really was. It also explained why the Bodenburg Company was so successful. With no government officials to monitor or crack down on their dirty business practices, they were free to go hog wild.

But if you ignored the frequency of encountering crime, the quality of life here did not appear all that bad. The roads were all paved with perfectly smooth and sparkling stones, the white-walled and orange-roofed homes and shops were clean, and the street stalls had plenty of fresh fruits and fishes to go around. The Bodenburg Company apparently brought plenty of benefits to its hometown, so the locals never went hungry. People’s fashion was a lot more refined than at Miyabi’s home village. Befitting the hometown of the girl who was willing to tease a view of her underwear to cheer someone up (while oblivious to the fact that she was actually doing more than just teasing), there was no shortage of exposed skin in the criminal port town. Bare midriffs and exposed underwear straps were apparently the norm here.

Miyabi looked around in a mixture of interest and fear.

“I don’t get how a city can run on crime. How does that work?”

“Wait, Miyabi! Looking down alleys is a good way to get yourself into troub-!”

The local girl tried to stop him, but it was too late.

He had already found some trouble.

A blonde girl around his age or a little older was accompanied by several people dressed all in black. She wore a coat with the hood up…but what was that? Two thick belts hung down from the back of the coat and those belts had several knife blades sticking out. They almost looked like wings made from sharp saws, but letting them flutter in the wind had to be dangerous.

Also, she was not wearing a skirt or pants below the coat. Other than the protectors on her legs, she only wore thick belts around her chest and hips. She was certainly easy on the eyes.

Celina Bodenburg groaned loudly when she peeked into the alley. Seeing this person was enough to make you “a witness”, especially when you knew who she was. The rifle-wielding girl was especially tense because she knew the proper etiquette in this criminal city.

“Geh, why did it have to be the Neverjudge Family? Worse, it’s Phobia, the big boss’s only daughter! You have the worst luck imaginable, Miyabi!”

“What, is she a friend of yours?”

“Miyabi, this is a serious issue. She is from an unbelievably brutal gang. Any ordinary person who gets involved with them is rumored to either end up feeding the fish out at sea or finding themselves at the bottom of a special sort of bath.”

“The fish? A bath?”

Celina cleared her throat with her face somewhat red.

Suddenly finding herself left all alone to explain this to him, the precocious girl spoke more quickly than normal.

“While our company buys and sells goods and information with money, they are a professional criminal group that makes money renting out ‘violence’ as a product. They will do threats, kidnappings, robberies, murders, revenge assistance, eliminating false charges, bodyguarding, rescues, and anything else that can be accomplished through violence. And they do not ask many questions about the ethics of the job. They might attack or defend the same person depending on the specific job they receive.”

“Huh? You mean they do good things too?”

“Either way, their exorbitant fees and the rapidly snowballing interest send all of their clients to hell eventually. Our private troops will work to ‘mop them up’ from time to time, but we never can get rid of these morally-bankrupt loan sharks.”

The gang was surrounding a very different sort of person.

She was wearing a shiny black…was it called a high-leg leotard? Anyway, a very revealing leather thing plus a vest, bunny ears, fishnet stockings, and stilettos. The curvy young woman with her long red hair in twintails was exactly what she looked like.

The radio gave the correct answer.

“Take it all in, Miyabi, and take one step closer to adulthood!! That is an orthodox tuxedo-style bunny girl, one of the classy ladies who work at casinos!!!!!!”

“Could you not imply that I’m a fake one!” cut in Helen.

She would prefer to not transform into Venus, but she also did not want her efforts to go unappreciated.

Meanwhile, a conversation was underway in the back alley.

Celina stayed by Miyabi’s side and leaned forward. She seemed very curious what was going on here.

The first to speak was the gang daughter named Phobia Neverjudge.

She addressed the bunny girl her gang had surrounded.

“Work as our magician.”

“Ugh.”

“Our previous magician was trash. Terrible at following directions, no real skill to speak of, and never covered things up properly. So if you take over that position, we will overlook all that cheating at our casino.”

“Um, and if I say no?”

“You get the usual treatment. We have a special brand for cheaters. Burns an appropriate message onto their face: ‘I’m a filthy cheater. Keep an eye on me, everyone.’ D’you think any casino’ll let you in with that covering your entire face?”

“Ha ha ha, yeah. But I think half the fun in gambling is seeing how long it takes before my cheating is found out.”

“Then your life is already a failure. Interested in buying it back?”

“Ha ha ha, yeah.” The bunny girl’s laughter was weak, but she did have a reason to be laughing. “But, but. It might be miniscule, but I still have a chance. Gambling is so much fun because everyone has a chance to turn things around.”

She had noticed the newcomers and she was very hopeful.

The hope was practically radiating from her.

Miyabi’s mouth formed a small triangle and Celina slapped her forehead.

“Oh, god. Really? Fine, Miyabi, which side are you going to take? The gangsters or the cheater? Neither one is exactly a good person, so just choose whichever one strikes your fancy. Oh, but keep in mind that pretending you never saw anything counts as siding with the Neverjudge Family.”

Miyabi Blackgarden nodded deeply.

The decision was an easy one.

“Why wouldn’t I choose the sexy bunny!? I mean, she’s sexy!!”

“Sigh, is that all Miyabi sees when he looks at me?”

The bespectacled version of Venus looked like she was witnessing the end of the world.

“Tch.”

The born gangster clicked her tongue.

Phobia had also noticed the people at the alleyway entrance. When up to no good, such as when surrounding a target, the gang would naturally be focused on the entrance whether there was someone there or not.

The blade wings shook behind her as she turned to face them.

“Well, well, well. If isn’t the new money girl that thinks she’s a fairy tale knight by sending in private troops she’s paid to fight for her! How badly did you rip off that country bumpkin there when you hired him? Scratch that. I don’t care. Your forces might be more powerful, but the Family is second to none when it comes to pinpoint urban assassina-”

“Lucifer Horn!! Take her away before she can attack!!!!!!”

The Lucifer Horn roared by overhead and its wire snagged the gang daughter, whisking her away. Probably all the way to Horn Fortress somewhere out in the ocean.

The gangsters in black stared blankly now that their boss’s only daughter had vanished before their eyes.

“Ha ha.” Celina burst out laughing while aiming her flintlock rifle at the gangsters. “Ah ha ha ha ha ha!! Miyabi, you are the absolute best! So what now? We have your gang’s heir. And since she’s our new party member, you’ll want to start this new relationship off on the right foot, right?”

“…”

“March on back to whatever hideout that greedy old geezer is rotting away in and pass on a message for me. If he doesn’t want his gang torn apart over some new succession issues at this late stage in his life, he needs to start accepting only the moral jobs that come in and to be a lot more flexible in the payment plans he accepts for the people trying to pay back their loans. And convey it all verbatim. It would be a shame if any miscommunication here led to a misunderstanding that bred unnecessary ill will between us☆”

The several shadowy figures clicked their tongues and left. Miyabi’s peaceful rural upbringing left him unprepared to note the significance of them setting aside their pride and turning their backs on Celina.

Then the shiny black bunny girl collapsed limply to the ground. She ended up with her legs splayed out beneath her in an oddly sexy way. She was around the same age as Eliza and Phobia, but she had an entirely different feel to her.

“Ohhhh, ohhhhhhhh!! You saved me. What even are the odds of turning that one around? Ahh, I’m all tinglyyyyy.”

However, he got the impression she had not collapsed from relief once the fear faded away.

After enjoying some kind of sensation that sent an alluring tremor up her spine, she finally looked up at the others from the ground.

“I’m Eluné. Eluné Jackpot. FYI: professional gamblers almost never give you their real name when you first meet them☆”

“What now? People who go by fake names are almost always up to no good.”

“I did warn you, Miyabi: neither one is exactly a good person. The same applies to anyone in this city.”

Celina sounded exasperated, but was she aware that applied to her too since this was her hometown?

Eluné smiled with her round-tailed butt still pressed against the ground.

“I need to repay you for this. Boy, is this your first time in the city? Then I can introduce you to the absolute best places here.”

“You want him to take information from someone who forgot to check who owned the casino she was cheating in and got dragged into a back alley? That can only end badly.”

“But I want to repay him.”

“Ugh, enough of this,” said Alicia. “Miyabi, why not let her join the party?”

“Fine, but what can a bunny girl do for the party?”

“She can give Venus a few pointers, making her even sexier. And I’m talking about things too indecent for the daylight hours.”

“That is not happening!!” protested the glasses woman, but no one was listening.

The real bunny girl’s face lit up.

“Join your party? I accept, I accept! I can just tell you’re on some exciting adventure! If I let this opportunity pass me by, I might as well retire as a gambler. I’m in, I’m in, I am so in!!”

“Um, okay then. I’ve got another one for you, Lucifer Horn!!”

Another wire arrived to collect the black bunny girl. She was such a risk junky that she actually managed to blow him a kiss while she was swept away into the sky.

After a bit, Eliza tilted her head.

“Wait.”

“What is it?”

“Well…sending that gang daughter – Phobia was it? – to Horn Fortress was fine, but you just sent Eluné there as well. Won’t that just lead to Round 2 once they encounter each other there?”

“…”

“And isn’t that a remote island surrounded by powerful barriers? Sh-she’s trapped there with Phobia.”

They all fell silent. The Lucifer Horn was no longer visible in the sliver of blue sky seen from the narrow alley.

Eventually, Miyabi nodded.

“Well, she seemed to like high-stakes gambles.”

“I just hope this doesn’t end with a dead body in the ocean over there,” said Alicia.

Miyabi’s party had already received an initiation into how the criminal city worked, but they could not let that scare them away.

The only way to make use of the city’s unique resources was to get used to the city’s ways.

They needed to repair the imperial automaton and ask him about the 11th who had pretended to be the emperor to command him.

Eliza glanced around while carrying Number 8’s limp form on her back.

“There is so much here my kingdom lacked. For one, the city is not lit by fires and tallow lamps.”

“Yes, these are cutting-edge gas lamps you see alongside the road. Hee hee. You are in for a surprise tonight. Metal foil is used to color the fires red, yellow, and blue. Each and every shop appears to be shining.”

“Hm. I had noticed glass tubes bent into letters like balloon art, but are those made to be illuminated? That explains why all the signs are transparent and hard to read. For example, what is that shop supposed to be?”

“…”

Celina sealed her lips shut and refused to answer.

She must have been unwilling to speak the name Bubble Bath Paradise out loud.

Helen the hall monitor placed a finger on the bridge of her glasses and stared like she could not believe her eyes.

“The bars are garish, the casinos have no rate limits and are buddy-buddy with loan sharks, I’m willing to bet the pawn shops are full of stolen goods, and those ‘theatres’ look more like the kind of place where the performers take their clothes of for tips. Wow, there’s even a battle arena where people actually lose their lives. Nothing on this street would be legal in the Republic. And the other street at this intersection appears to be nothing but hotels.”

“You’re awfully good at recognizing such establishments for someone who doesn’t approve of them,” said Alicia. “Got more of an interest in some of them than you’re letting on, perhaps?”

“Th-that information is necessary for working undercover!!”

Alma was looking all around from Miyabi’s feet.

“Koo…” said the black cat creature with a shiver.

“What’s wrong, Alma?” asked Alicia. “If you’re scared, then I’ll make a hammock out of my skirt for you. Ha ha ha. Yes, just jump on in!”

“Country Girl Limited Edition Strawberry Picker Chef’s Special Elf! Lift that skirt a little higher! Yes, even higher than that!! Wait, but how am I ever supposed to see that glorious fabric triangle when looking down from your neck!?”

The radio made a ruckus, earning a punch from Eliza and Helen both.

The pure knight was still having trouble reading the signs, but even she was starting to pick up on the indecent atmosphere. She had more doubt and caution in her voice while she carried the deactivated magical automaton around.

“Where is the Bodenburg Company? Don’t we need to visit them to fix Number 8 and get his information on the 11th?”

Celina winked and raised a finger.

“It’s the biggest building of them all. It’s impossible to miss.”

They were walking along the widest and most conspicuous road, but Miyabi still caught glimpses of a world he had never known.

For example, he peeked inside a weapon shop along the way.

“Welcome…except I would recommend against shopping here, kid. Carrying a weapon only makes it more likely you’ll be stabbed.”

For some reason, the shop’s owner firmly turned him away, which seemed like a terrible way to stay in business. The gloomy maid tending to the sharp and blunt weapons in the shop gave him a thin smile.

“Oh? Were you not expecting to find a maid here?” she said. “Hee hee. As a mercenary, I happen to be another of the products for sale. Stop by again if you have a job for me.”

Out of curiosity (a curiosity mostly directed toward the darker side of society glimpsed in this city), Miyabi nervously peeked inside all the stores they passed by. Either they refused to sell to first-timers, or they appeared to have all the more interesting items unlisted so they had to be requested by name. The major port had to be a starting point for a lot of journeys, but the place was not made for tourists.

“The food looks good, though,” said Miyabi, watching some sweets being cooked at a street stall.

“That is known as a crepe, Miyabi. People call this a criminal city, but it actually values freedom more than anywhere else on the continent and people from all sorts of backgrounds end up here. We are second to none when it comes to culture and the arts. Food is no exception.”

But their destination was the Bodenburg Company.

They had the most powerful card in their deck for that. Celina was the company’s only daughter. She was right about it being impossible to miss. The biggest building was visible from any part of the city.

As they approached, they came across a large iron gate. They could see a garden with rose hedges and fountains past the sturdy bars. It was too large to even call a park. Miyabi thought his entire village might have fit inside it. Maids and gardeners were coming and going within and they even saw a carriage driving by. The grand white mansion was enough to leave even Helen of the Republic and Eliza of the Arsenal Kingdom speechless. It was fancier even than the residences of their heads of state.

Miyabi gasped just from looking through the gate.

“That’s incredible.”

“Heh heh. It is, isn’t it?”

“Why is there a naked statue of you in the middle of that fountain? Was it some kind of punishment?”

“Th-that is of my mother when she was younger! And it was not some bizarre form of punishment!!”

Celina had clearly corrected exactly this misunderstanding on more than a few occasions.

She approached the gate with a bright blush on the face that took after her mother.

“Anyway, this is the headquarters of our company. Rudolf!”

“Oh?”

A gray-haired old man – presumably Rudolf – approached from the other side of the gate, but he did not bow. Powerful old men were in no short supply in a logging village, so for Miyabi, this muscular old-timer was like a point of familiarity in an otherwise strange city.

The air was dry, the sun was bright, and Rudolf wore black dress clothes, yet he was not sweating.

“Rudolf, I would like to discuss the company’s inventory. I require a list of all imperial automaton components we have in stock. I have reason to repair this automaton named Number 8.

Rudolf was smiling.

And he continued smiling as he responded.

“And why would I give you that?”

“Surely you aren’t going to say you do not recognize me.”

“I am afraid I must. The Bodenburg Company is run by the wealthiest family at Galletfron Trade Port. Being known far and wide comes at a price. Just the other day, a girl who looked exactly like the young lady rashly stopped by to scam us out of some travel expenses, so the master has ordered us to be stricter in our dealings with anyone, even if they appear to be family.”

“Even your family is turning you away, rich girl?” asked Alicia.

“(Kh!!)”

After the world-famous girl gave the elf one hell of a look, Rudolf made a suggestion.

“You might be a well-disguised fake, but I know I would recognize the real young lady’s exceptional business acumen. Let’s see…this city uses guns more than swords or sorcery, so why not acquire a Divine Crystal Bullet? Yes, just one will do. Bring that to me and I will be able to tell at a glance that you are the real young lady.”

“Hm, that isn’t much info to go on,” said Alicia.

The intellectual glasses woman gave a start.

The elf grinned and turned toward the woman, ready to boss her around.

“Heh heh heh. This sounds like a job for Venus, don’t you think?”

“L-let’s go take a look around, Miyabi! We’ll go over the city with a fine-tooth comb!!”

Thus, Operation Fine-Tooth Comb began.

“We’ll be asking around?”

Miyabi gave a thoughtful look toward Eliza.

Armor and weapons were a common sight in this criminal city full of thugs, so the problem was the thing she was carrying as their “muscle”.

“Then shouldn’t we find some place to keep Number 8? He looks so realistic people might think we’re carrying around a corpse.”

“But people carry drunks out of bars all the time here.”

The local girl sounded casual enough, but Miyabi wondered worriedly why she hadn’t specified where the drunks were being carried to.

They were in front of Celina’s mansion, but they were not allowed inside. Helen was in charge of their finances and she fell to her knees at the thought of renting out an inn room large enough for them all when a party member’s home was this very city.

“The corner room is open right now. I could move you there.”

“No, thank you!! I refuse to even consider any further expenses!!”

For some reason, Helen’s refusal elicited a quiet tongue click from the innkeeper.

The party gathered in a 2nd floor room where they were finally able to lay Number 8 down in a bed.

They needed to speak with him to get information on the 11th.

Miyabi nodded.

“Okay, let’s go find that Divine Crystal Bullet thing.”

“Yes, we cannot get the repair parts without convincing Rudolf.”

Would they find a bullet at a weapon shop?

They discussed the possibilities while descending the stairs, but they received a hint much sooner than expected.

A filthy middle-aged man wrapped in old rags spoke to them as soon as they stepped out of the inn.

“Hee hee hee. I’ve got some information you might just be interested in.”

“If you were that well informed, you wouldn’t look like you crawled out of a trash heap,” said Alicia.

“Now, now. Just hear me out.”

The elf’s exasperated comment was not enough to get him down.

“It’s about that inn you just left. Hm, so you managed to avoid the corner room, did you? That’s good to hear. Wanna know why the place is always empty but always makes a killing? Anyone who stays in the corner room is put to sleep by the special spores or insect scales rubbed onto the pillows and blankets. Once you’re out, they can steal everything of value. The innkeeper’s vault is crammed full of rare prizes.”

“…”

Normally, that would scare them enough to find a different inn.

In fact, this man was probably working for a different inn to guide customers that way. Those rags were a type of uniform. They looked filthy, but the sour smell was more reminiscent of watered-down vinegar than human body odor. It even had a touch of apply sweetness.

But Miyabi’s party had a goal in mind.

“(That means the innkeeper might have some rare weapons. Like the Divine Crystal Bullet that Rudolf guy asked for.)”

“(Even if he doesn’t have one, he might have done some research into potential targets that would have one. When a customer looks like they probably have a lot of valuables, he must try to get them to take the corner room.)”

So it was time to turn right around.

When they brought up the corner room, the innkeeper looked troubled.

But not because he was begging for mercy.

“50 thousand methods.”

“Huh?”

Celina had thought they had him dead to rights, so her eyes widened.

With a solid thunk, he placed a crystal smaller than his thumb down on the counter. The shadow cast by the clear crystal contained a colorful band of light just like when light shined through a water tank.

He grinned and leaned forward.

“For the Divine Crystal Bullet. Believe me, that’s a bargain. You should really be thanking me.”

The criminal city was indeed a criminal city.

Celina’s mouth flapped wordlessly a bit before she got her voice out.

“You expect me to pay 50 thousand methods for a sketchy item with nothing to prove it’s legit!? You could build a house with a decent garden in a rural village for that! You do understand you’ll be out of business if we reveal your misdeeds here, don’t you!?”

“Um, isn’t it wrong to let him get away with it just because we get what we want out of him?” quietly commented Helen, but no one was listening.

The innkeeper had the upper hand here and he was not letting go. He almost seemed to be enjoying it like a game.

“I stole this inn and its land with a forged title deed, so it’s no skin off my nose if I have to move elsewhere. There are tons of poorly-managed vacant buildings around here. Now. I believe the real issue here is that you need this Divine Crystal Bullet for some reason or another.”

“…”

“50 thousand and not a method less. If you’re short on cash, then sell that jewel-encrusted dress of yours. And if that isn’t enough, your underwear too. We can talk after that.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

Being outdone in a business discussion must have been unforgivable for Celina. She tugged on panicking Miyabi’s sleeve, guiding him away from the counter, and then whispered in his ear. With her bayonetted rifle held close.

“(Let’s rob him.)”

“This escalated quickly!!!”

“(Shh. Let’s teach that fucker the meaning of freedom in this criminal city. There’s no use haggling with him. I have a sixth sense for deals that aren’t going to work out. We’d be here for a century without making any progress.)”

“Says the girl who was all over us when we said we would sell our Wicked God horn.”

Celina glared over at the elf.

As for Miyabi…

“We do need that thing to convince Mr. Rudolf…”

“(This innkeeper is clearly taking advantage of us. That Divine Crystal Bullet is no more a piece of glasswork!)”

“But what are we supposed to do?” asked the pure boy.

Celina rubbed a finger against her temple.

“(Well, if we aren’t just going to blow his brains out…oh, I know. We can create our own. You saw what it looks like, right? We can counterfeit ourselves one!)”

The Lucifer Horn connected them to Horn Fortress.

The wire dangling from the bomber could carry people and things to and from that island. They did not know how developed Horn Fortress was at this point, but they did know they had a useful party member there.

The dwarf named Garett Goldcave was an Arsenal Kingdom blacksmith skilled enough to be considered a national treasure.

“That might just work. If we did the work here, someone might notice and word might reach Rudolf.”

They had approval from the glasses woman who preferred to follow the rules but still excelled at conspiracies.

They left the dumbfounded innkeeper behind and returned to their room in his inn. Their only option was to send a letter via the Lucifer Horn and trust in Garett’s skill.

It was complete before sunset.

The dish called pizza turned out to be a controversial choice. Helen and Celina were arguing over whether garlic shrimps were an acceptable topping when the Lucifer Horn delivered a small box wrapped in cushioning.

“Is this it?”

“Miyabi, you don’t know a thing about how guns work, from the firing mechanism to how the lead deforms on impact, do you?” said Celina. “I will give you a thorough lecture later on, but for now, let’s get back to Rudolf.”

They walked to the Bodenburg residence and found Rudolf waiting in the same place as before.

He had not given them a time limit, so had he been waiting there the entire time?

“That was fast. Do you have the Divine Crystal Bullet?”

“Who do you think I am?”

“I would like to see it, if you don’t mind. Excuse me.”

Miyabi had trouble looking the man in the eye, so Celina surreptitiously stomped on his foot with a smile.

“…”

“…”

“Interesting,” said Rudolf with a nod.

Was that a yes or a no? It was a tense moment. Miyabi did not know how things worked in this city, but he was worried they would be subjected to some very creative punishments if it was discovered they had given the man a fake.

“It really is you, milady.” Rudolf smiled. “I knew you would never pay such an absurd price.”

“It was such an obvious setup. That wasn’t even worth haggling over. I bet you knew it was me and decided to have some fun!”

“Ho ho. That is the Bodenburg way.”

Then I’ll never understand it, thought Commoner Miyabi. He could never stand living in a home where everyone made such stomachache-inducing jokes.

“You wished to discuss an imperial automaton, correct?”

“Wait, we’re just going to chat out here? Invite us in already.”

The elf’s complaints did nothing to wipe the smile off of Rudolf’s face.

He continued standing perfectly still in front of the gate.

“I apologize, but the master is in a bad mood within.”

“What’s upset father this time?”

“Pirates,” replied Rudolf. “The loss of the armored train required the company to switch to ocean shipping routes, but a pirate took advantage of the shipping fleet’s poor coordination during the confusion of the switchover. Their defenses should have been sufficient, but they were gathered in a hurry and thus unable to work together so soon.”

“…”

The girl fell silent.

This was a complicated issue, but she may have felt responsible for losing the Schwarz Schütze.

“Only the cargo was targeted, so the crew and mercenaries were unharmed. …However, the pirate was very thorough, almost to the point of mockery. The magical automaton parts you want were no exception. Items from the ruined Empire are rare, so it will be difficult to find replacements on such short notice. Your only option may be to attack the pirate and take back what was stolen.”

“Um, a pirate?”

Miyabi had grown up in the mountains, so the word only vaguely rang a bell.

Rudolf shook his head.

“This one is quite famous, sadly enough.”

He identified the pirate.

“Onelife Shiftup, the one-eyed pirate. He is known to use a special prosthetic arm, so he may have need for imperial technology.”

“Hm.” Eliza brought a hand to her chin. “Does he use a high-tech automaton arm?”

“But not even our company has managed to track him down. People say he is a gentleman thief and that he singlehandedly defeated a Wicked God and broke off its horn. It is hard to say how much of it is a coincidence and how much of it is an intentional strategy on his part, but all the unconfirmed rumors have confused our attempts to find real information on him. We know he is somewhere in this port city, but not his exact location.”

“…”

“We do know, however, that he possesses a powerful Godhorn Tech: the King Knot pirate ship. Unfortunately, that part is undoubtedly true because it is registered as one of the continent’s 10 Godhorn Techs.”

Chapter 5, Section 2

Night had fallen.

It was finally time for the dangerous criminal city to awaken.

Back in their inn room, Celina Bodenburg placed her hands on her hips and breathed from her nose.

“Asking around during the day would be a waste of time. The outlaws are only out and about at night. Now, let’s track down that pirate who stole my company’s cargo! Then we teach him a painful lesson on why that was a bad idea!!”

Village Boy Miyabi Blackgarden was terrified.

He took a nervous look out from the 2nd story window. For reasons he could not explain, the city was now filled with lights dyed in pinks, yellows, and other colors. The place was so much busier than during the day. He knew he had to be imagining it, but he could have sworn the stench of alcohol was seeping in through the window.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? It looks extremely dangerous out there.”

“She’s the expert, so I’m sure she’ll explain it for us.”

Alicia Blueforest jerked her thumb over toward the bunny girl sans glasses.

“Hello, hello! Venus here, at your service!!”

“Don’t you dare gloss over the fanservice like it’s nothing!! I don’t care how many times it’s happened, you’ve gotta show it all in detail! You can’t forget your embarrassment or the impact it has on your innocent heart!! …Miss Elf, I know this will make you jealous, but you need to place me on the floor. This requires drastic measures, so I need a low angle view of that V-shape between the bunny’s legs!!”

The elf tossed the radio to the floor and the sexy young woman crushed it below her sharp heel. It was reminiscent of stopping a rolling ball underfoot.

The bunny girl ignored any possible damage to the jerk.

“Anyway, this city works differently than a normal one. It’s full of thieves, assassins, and resupplying pirates, so there are wanted criminals everywhere you turn.”

“Wait,” said Miyabi. “Are thieves different from bandits?”

“Thieves work very differently from the bandits running rampant in the fields. They are experts at working in a city. Although I can’t tell you if it’s the authorities or the criminals who are so picky about the nomenclature.”

However, one of them was not going to let this go without comment.

Someone even more strait-laced than Helen Clockgear was actually trembling. That person was of course Eliza Silverstorm.

“Wh-wh-what?”

“Oh, yeah. Eliza never saw Venus before this. But didn’t she see the black bunny during the day?”

“Why are you waring that highly indecent and utterly insane rabbit costume, you horny titty monsterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!???”

“Really!? You’re actually drawing your lance over this!? I’m not doing this because I want to, you know!?”

Helen preferred not becoming a mutilated corpse while dressed like that, so she paled and shouted a defense.

This was also Celina’s first time seeing it, but she did not seem all that surprised. She picked up black cat Alma in a classy way.

“Oh, is that all? I was expecting something more after everything I heard. Hee hee. You see bunny girls like that all over this city at night.”

“There’s something wrong with a city that has bunny girls walking around! You don’t wear this kind of thing outside!!”

“I was expecting some kind of strange gimmick, like zippers or bows in some risqué places that could be undone to spice things up, or a special fabric that becomes see-through when viewed through a special magnifying glass. Or maybe thick padlocks on either hip to show you can’t take it off on your own.”

“???”

“Ksh! Wh-where can I buy Bodenburg stock! And I’m not talking about making a quick buck off of some day trading! I want the special shareholder treatment! These ideas are brilliant! Ksh, their next manger has a bright future!!!!!!”

The radio was even more excitable than usual, perhaps due to the beautiful woman stepping on it.

The entire discussion went way over Miyabi’s head.

Afraid Celina would smile and offer to customize their bunny to demonstrate what she meant, Venus spoke rapidly and hurried to the door.

“Yes, well, thank you, but I think I’m going to go change! Just a sec!!”

“Sh-she must want to be fully prepared when the fun begins,” suggested the radio as Alicia finally collected it from the floor.

Helen returned in the jacket and tight skirt of her government official outfit. The glasses were back as well.

“Yes, fully prepared,” she said.

“What!? Not so fast! Why did that lousy door not pop open while she was changing!?”

Being stepped on had not slowed the radio down at all, but Alicia was focused on something else.

“Was she in such a hurry she changed out in the hallway?”

“Is everything she does indecent?” muttered Eliza.

The knight’s comment came as a shock to the glasses woman.

“Wait just a second! Is no one on my side!? Miyabi, you know I’m not like that, don’t you? No, don’t blush and look the other way, Miyabiiii!!”

“Mom, try taking some deep breaths!!”

“I’m not your mom! How can I be indecent and your mom!? Did some Montage magic mess with your mind!?”

Helen tearfully tried to hide her body, but Eliza was ready to get down to business.

“So we’re up against a pirate?” asked the righteous person. “I am more than willing to punish a villain. We should get started as soon as possible.”

Alicia sighed.

“Yes, but we can’t just obliterate the city with a Godhorn Tech.”

“Onelife Shiftup, a one-eyed pirate with a prosthetic arm.” Miyabi repeated the information to make sure he had it right. “Let’s ask around for some information on him.”

Outside, the city was a deluge of lights.

The red, yellow, and blue gas lights were not limited to the main street. Signs everywhere glowed with strange colored fire, the glass tubes shining from within.

Pure as the driven snow, Eliza read off the glowing signs in puzzlement.

“Bubble Bath Paradise?”

“M-Miyabi? Let’s hurry on to find Onelife. Immediately!!”

Celine shouted and pushed on Eliza’s back with both hands before the reality could sink in.

The streets were aflood with noise.

“Just one! You make just the one order and there aren’t any additional charges to worry about!!”

“Hey there, handsome. Remember the name on this sign, okay?☆ We’re open all night long, so you can stop by after the other places close. I won’t force you to stop by now, but how about ending the night here after you visit two or three other places?☆”

“The information desk? Don’t even bother. If you want to have some real fun, you need to know where the unlisted places are. So if you don’t want your courage and savings to go to waste, stop by the Secret Diviner.”

Miyabi had known it was a large city, but he could not believe how many people were crammed inside. It was on an entirely different level from the daytime. He was surrounded by the smell of alcohol and perfume, cheerful cries calling for customers, little shrieks made mostly in jest, and an unidentifiable scent created by the greasy smoke of all the different grilled and fried street foods. Disinfectant magic made with a purifying silver could not even dent the effect this place had.

Miyabi felt dizzy.

“It’s like a whole other world. I don’t understand half the things they’re saying.”

“Nhhh☆ I’m finally home.”

Meanwhile, Celina stretched her arms up with a relaxed smile.

The city operated under different rules at night and these rules must have felt more like home to her. They were surrounded by garish signs and (practically naked) young women in such skimpy outfits it was unclear if they counted as dresses or underwear, but she had the same look as a country child seeing the rhino beetles and shaved ice after returning home.

“Has no one here heard of restraint?” asked a fed-up Alicia.

However, the city’s overwhelming night was not limited to the outdoors. Once they began entering shops to ask around, Miyabi quickly ran into an obstacle.

For example, the owner of a weapons shop had this to say.

“What are you doing out this late? The night is Juicy, so get your ass back home!”

For example, a grinning customer whispered to him while perusing the products at an item shop.

“Oh, dear. Everyone has been so uneasy at night lately. Maybe because Ripped has been causing so much trouble. It’s weird I haven’t seen any of his other pirates around lately though.”

For example, the gorgeous woman serving drinks at a bar welcomed him with a smile.

“Oh, welcome! You might go looking for the younger girls, but my skills at Hard are quite something if I say so myself.”

He had listened carefully, but he had no idea what they meant.

He was stuck blinking in confusion.

“Wh-what? What are they even saying?”

“Oh, dear,” said Celina. “It sounds like some strange new rules have spread across the city while I was away.”

“If it happened recently, it might be related to that celebrity,” suggested Helen.

“Celebrity? You mean that pirate?” Alicia looked bitter. “He isn’t some gentleman thief in a play – he’s an actual criminal. There’s something wrong with a town that lionizes someone like that.”

They found some more unusual people around the city’s night. A young man was drinking at a table outside a bar.

And his long ears were twitching.

Miyabi did not even try to beat around the bush.

“Huh? Are you an elf!?”

“Hm, what gave it away?”

The slender male knight did not seem bothered and did not even set down his mug. He had long blond hair, white skin, and the handsome face of a stage actor, but he was wearing armor and a cape. And instead of deflecting attacks with thick metal, the armor was designed to efficiently and economically spread defense magic across his body. Eliza eyed the armor with a hint of jealousy.

As a fellow elf, Alicia put her hands on her hips.

“What are you doing in this disgusting city? Did you take one wrong step and get sold off by the humans?”

“They finally abandoned that bad habit centuries ago. Modern humans aren’t quite that unreasonable. The world is at peace.”

“Ho ho? I see. So you can look at the world out there and call it peaceful, can you?”

Alicia grinned at him with some obvious hidden meaning behind the look. Almost like she was sneering at a rich kid who had no idea how the real world worked.

Miyabi tilted his head.

“What, do you know each other?”

“My apologies. I am Cliff Blueforest. I originally guarded the Blue Forest, but I had reason to leave and travel the outside world instead.”

“Blue…?”

Miyabi looked over at Alicia, but she shook her head, looking disgusted.

“No, no. We’re not siblings or anything. We’re just both from the Blueforest race. Every elf born in that forest uses the Blueforest name.”

“I also get the feeling he has his act together a lot more than you.”

“Shut up. I can live my life however I want.”

And then…

“Heh heh. Yes, if only we could all live our lives however we want. That would make things so much easier for me.”

Miyabi gasped.

What was that?

It didn’t seem to be ventriloquism, but it had sounded an awful lot like a seductive female voice had come from Cliff.

Cliff himself grimaced.

“You don’t usually make your presence known in front of others.”

“Get a clue, dullard. You seemed to be enjoying yourself for once, so I was feeling jealous.”

Miyabi was not imagining things.

Two different voices were coming from Cliff, but the female one did not match his lips. He also seemed to be conversing with that other voice.

“Hm? Do you, um, have a crystal radio like Alicia?”

“Oh, is that elf a skilled enough alchemist to create a philosopher’s stone? Yes, elves tend to be exceptionally skilled in magic. For me, that means summoning the Demon Lord. Unfortunately, my ceremony worked just fine for summoning her, but entirely failed to control her afterwards.”

“The Demon Lord?”

“Correct, boy. The very same Demon Lords you see in picture books and plays. Those twelve rulers are said to determine the nature of the world around them with their mere presence. This irritating woman who never leaves me alone is one of those Demon Lords that include the great Philia Shout and Rising Dark. This one claims to be Under Lilith.”

“?”

Miyabi was even more confused now.

He recognized that name. She had been involved in transferring the Lucifer Horn’s contract from Moebius and in the incantation used to control the Palette Dice.

According to Angela Custardmare, the armor-trapped maid he had taken as a party member before, that name showed up in contract ceremonies so powerful they were classified as Super Kingdom level.

“Contract Owner…”

“…Under Lilith?”

Celina and Eliza had also used Godhorn Techs, so their eyes grew wide. They likely recognized the name from the incantation they used to link their control device with the Godhorn Tech itself.

Helen, who had never used one, held a finger to the side of her glasses.

“Well, setting aside issues of strength and compatibility, there are a few legends of beings that act as intermediaries. There’s Freyja who commands the heavenly Valkyries and there’s Legba Atibon who is said to manage the ceremonies themselves. It all follows the basic idea of using them to control something else.”

“Like a giant Beast Nova?”

“Discriminatory language!!” shouted Alicia, red in the face and long ears fully vertical.

But different elves must have had different views on the matter because Cliff did not seem bothered by the term Miyabi had used. His pointed ears kept their horizontal orientation.

Miyabi found this strange.

He had thought the name Under Lilith was just part of the incantation. Even if it was someone’s name, he had assumed they were someone who had lived centuries or even millennia ago.

He had never imagined he would be able to chat with them in a bar.

“But we only have her word to go on.”

When Miyabi thought about it, he realized he did not actually know how old any of these elves were. Cliff himself gave a dismissive wave of the hand not holding his mug.

“Taking a demon at her word is never a good idea. She’s just making stuff up since I lost my memories. Trusting her would end badly.”

“Heh heh heh. Believe what you wish,” said the female voice. “Your mind might not survive full knowledge of the truth anyway.”

The elf knight had just mentioned something else that sounded important. He had a lot going on.

“Um, what was that about your memories?”

“I lost them all. I was lucky to even remember the name Blueforest as a clue to my origins.” Cliff sounded bitter. “I was apparently in love with a human and I dabbled in the dark arts to save her from illness, but that’s why I’m stuck with this evil being now. My memories were the price I paid, so now I can’t even remember what she looked like. That is why I now travel the continent searching for some proof that she survived. No matter how small it might be.”

“…”

Under Lilith (or the voice claiming the name) said nothing.

She had mentioned jealousy before, so maybe this was more of that.

And…

“Oh? When did you find some more drinking buddies?”

“They showed up on their own. Just like you always do.”

Someone else walked up to the table.

She too had long ears.

However, the woman had shoulder-length silver hair and alluring brown skin. Her only clothing were some bandages and dark strips of cloth wrapped around her. What had once been a cape was in tatters. However, the way she carried herself showed no sign of injury, so that may have been her idea of fashion.

The whip at her hip looked like it was made from a rose vine and she toyed with it in her fingers as she spoke.

“I am Lillian Greenforest. As you can plainly see, I am a dark elf.”

“Green…?”

Alicia was dumbfounded and the brown woman responded with a bewitching laugh.

“Yes, I come from that forest that was burned to the ground. The survivors are few but we are around. And we have not forgotten what was done to us.”

That last line sounded plenty ominous.

Alicia even had some unnatural beads of sweat on her forehead.

But Miyabi was fixated on another detail.

“D-dark?”

“Hm? Do you need something?”

“A dark elf!? That’s a thing!? That sounds so cool! And the dark part makes you sound rare!!”

“Eh? Huh?”

Lillian was taken aback when he approached with eyes aglitter. The look on her face made it clear she was not accustomed to compliments.

“Boy,” interrupted Alicia. “You need to stop talking about our noble species like a rare collectible. It’s insulting.”

“Oh, did you say something, ordinary elf?”

“Ordinary elf!!!??? That’s even worse!! It is high time I took you aside and taught you just how noble elves are. I never should have let you get away with lifting my skirt and tugging on my ears when you were little!!”

Cliff sighed and provided some advice.

“Be careful around Lillian. She looks cute and all, but her lifelong goal is to destroy humanity.”

“Eh?”

“Oh, you have nothing to worry about. You don’t seem interested in that sort of thing.” Lillian snapped her lithe fingers to call over a waiter and accepted a pink cocktail, the name of which Miyabi could not even imagine. “I consider myself a ‘passive avenger’. My primary targets are sorcery researchers. They make so much progress when I let them use my body as a specimen. Progress on developing magic that will destroy them all. Godhorn Tech is not enough. One day, humanity will create some truly uncontrollable magic that will send them straight down the path to extinction. That is my idea of revenge.”

“…”

“There are so many excellent potential triggers: the aerosol ballistic missiles developed by the Republic’s old monarchy, the Necromancer…oh, and let’s not forget Holy Gate who it’s said truly mastered alchemy. Unfortunately, all those people are half legendary, so contacting them is no easy task.”

Miyabi was unsure how to react to her thin smile.

He could not even tell if she was deadly serious or if she was teasing him. The cocktail glass she was toying with made it even harder to judge.

“By the way, what has you out this late?” Cliff reached for the bar nuts. “You look a little young to be drinking.”

“Solving a riddle.”

“?”

Cliff looked puzzled but curious.

Miyabi hoped he would know what Juicy or Hard meant, but no such luck.

Cliff did have some advice, though.

“I see. I would recommend finding multiple people who use the same term.”

“Why?”

Miyabi frowned and Cliff gave an exaggerated nod.

“For example…yes, let’s say one of the words is Hot.”

“Okay.”

“If a customer at one table orders a Hot, you have no way of narrowing down what kind of dish it is. But what if you also hear a fisherman at the port saying he caught a lot Hots today? And what if a small child pouts and complains that Hots are good but removing all the little bones is a pain? Then you can conclude that a Hot is a fish, right?”

“Hee hee. And this goes beyond codes. Multiple sources is crucial when researching any kind of information,” added Lillian. “Conversely, the key to tricking someone is to isolate them, cutting them off from any information outside of yours.”

Miyabi thanked the two elves and prepared to brave the city’s night once more, but then he turned back and asked them a question.

“Oh, right. What are you two planning to do after this? Will we meet again somewhere?”

“Hard to say. I don’t really have any solid plans.”

“I don’t want to search the entire continent to find you again, so I think I’ll call in the Lucifer Horn and have you join my party. I’d love to borrow your wisdom again, but more than that, I feel like we get along well.”

Cliff smiled a little.

Lillian looked seriously exasperated. She had announced her intentions to destroy humanity, so she was unsure what to make of this human saying they got along well.

But she also looked amused.

“Yes, I am searching the entire world for signs my lover once lived there. I want to be thorough and avoid missing anything, but I can’t reach that Horn Fortress through normal means, can I? Then accepting your invitation seems the best course of action to me.”

“A Godhorn Tech, you say? That sorcery technology is a little too small-scale and – worse – manageable for my use, but I might be able to direct its evolution in a more malicious direction. Besides, I have more lifespan than I know what to do with, so it can’t hurt to take a short detour and check out a new possibility. Hee hee. And the 11th’s sorcery bombs might also make an interesting trigger.”

Once Cliff Blueforest and Lillian Greenforest had been sent to Horn Fortress by the Lucifer Horn, Miyabi’s party resumed their investigation.

They had to find the one-armed pirate Onelife no matter what it took.

“Miyabi, the plan was to ask around some more and find a pattern to the codewords, wasn’t it?”

At Eliza’s prompting, they patiently gathered even more information. They even found a sketchy old man who claimed to be selling a list of codes, but they had no way of knowing if it was legit until they bought it. Celina knew the city best and she advised they refuse.

Still, they managed to find some patterns. They regathered below the colorful gas lamps to discuss their findings.

Alicia counted off on her fingers.

“Um, they said you can find Joy in the Creepy…”

“Koo koo!”

“Hold on, Alma. I’ll get confused if you interrupt!” shouted Miyabi.

They were going to be at it all night at this rate. The city was so different at night, so they wanted to find their answers before dawn. They continued walking around the city gathering information for a while longer.

And eventually…

“Joy is money…Juicy is dangerous…hm, this is actually working.”

“Let’s share what we know so we won’t forget it. And this doesn’t mean I’ve given up on figuring it out on my own!!”

On Celina’s suggestion, they wrote down all of their findings on a piece of paper to compare it all.

“Umm, let’s go with what we know for sure. Tight is the port, Creepy is the back alleys…and Ripped is Onelife himself.” Miyabi went over his thoughts under his breath. “Does that mean he isn’t at the port and is hiding somewhere in the back alleys?”

“Let’s go, Miyabi. Let’s show him exactly whose cargo he decided to steal!”

Celina was liable to charge in on her own, but her rifle was too scary for them to claim she couldn’t handle herself. Their only choice was to rush after her.

They found a dark, narrow alleyway.

Even the moonlight seemed to steer clear of the place.

This underground side of the city would be hidden in shadows during the day and people like Miyabi would never get close, but strangely, it actually brought his guard down once night fell. He felt some relief when he stepped into the alleyway. The gentle shadows seemed to protect him from the garish lights of all the signs.

But that may have been why real tragedy seemed to coat the walls and ground.

“So he’s here?”

The darkness seemed to absorb Miyabi’s question.

The Mobile Fire magic lit at the end of Celina’s bayonet was nowhere near sufficient.

There was only one path with no side paths branching off. All of the windows were boarded up. Almost like whoever was inside wanted to preemptively ensure their safety by ensuring they could never witness something they shouldn’t have.

The boards were like a sign saying “we allow any and all criminal acts here”.

“This is exactly where I would expect to find a criminal,” said Eliza while observing her surroundings.

“Koo?” cried the creepy Greymalkin walking at Miyabi’s feet.

No, Alma was grabbing at the boy’s leg to say it had found something.

“Koo koo!!”

And not just from one direction.

Miyabi looked out ahead and behind him.

“Damn, an ambush!”

Young men wearing rough shirts and bandannas stepped out to block the back alley’s exits.

Even without a ship, they were clearly pirates.

There were of course several of them.

“We know you’re looking for Onelife, so don’t bother pretending to be searching for a lost cat. You’ve left tracks everywhere. Did you never think we’d get wind of what you were planning?”

One of the pirates spoke in a deep voice while creeping closer to lay on the pressure.

Why did outlaws care so much about internal rules and hierarchies? Then again, they probably didn’t care if Miyabi’s party understood. They were essentially waving a cat toy in the party’s faces, hoping they would take a step too far. They hoped to lure the party into confirming they were after Onelife.

“With that look in your eyes and the weapons, I get the feeling you aren’t just some tourists hoping to hitch a ride on a wagon,” said the bandanna pirate. “So here’s a word of advice: old-fashioned swords and sorcery aren’t everything in this city. And if you need proof, we’re more than happy to oblige.”

The pirates looked like they belonged on a theatre stage, but with one crucial difference.

They did not use swords or sorcery. Miyabi expected them to draw guns like Celina’s, but even that was wrong.

They pulled out strange bottles with a silver foil pasted all over them. The two wires sticking out from the lid at the top were connected by the intermittent flashing of brutal electricity.

Informed Celina Bodenburg’s eyes widened.

“Leyden jars!? Thugs are making electric toys these days!?”

“Electric?”

Miyabi had no idea what that meant, but the crackling noise was enough to scare him.

“Think of it like mini-lightning,” explained Helen. “When combined with ocean spray, it can knock people out over a wide area, so be careful. I imagine these thugs have them to capture runaway sex workers without leaving any kind of scar.”

“…”

“M-Miyabi? Um, uh, why are you turning away with such a wounded look? N-no! This isn’t about me!! It’s about the enemy!!”

“Mom…”

“Please stop confusing me for your mother whenever you panic!!!!!!”

“Stepmom?”

“What difference is that supposed to make!!!???”

Anyway, if what she said about those bottles was true, they were in trouble.

Even a boy raised in a village of swords and sorcery understood that lightning could travel through water.

The alley was straight and narrow. If they filled the entire space with some kind of spray and then released the electricity, the entire party would be knocked out regardless of how strong any of them was individually.

“The codes spread throughout the city may have been a trap meant to lure us here,” said Alicia.

“I can’t believe how popular that Onelife crook is!” roared Celina.

None of the pirates even flinched.

In fact, they continued to creep closer from both directions.

Eliza’s enormous lance must have been a poor match for the narrow alley because she whispered a question.

“What now? Will you use your Godhorn Tech?”

“…”

“Hey, what now!?”

“…”

The pirates moved even closer, maybe to be absolutely certain. At this range, a pistol or even a blade would be a threat.

But then…

“Hold it right therrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre!!”

A voice boomed out like an explosion.

Then booming footsteps and a booming impact sent a few of the pirates crashing into the wall.

The culprit was a muscular macho man.

He had wild hair and an equally wild beard and he wore a thick coat and a distinctive tricorn hat. Instead of an ordinary eyepatch held in place by string, he had a golden metal plate embedded in the eye socket itself.

He was about as piratey as pirates came and he was extremely fit despite being on the borderline between middle age and old age.

“I appreciate the attempt to protect me!”

A scream was drowned out by another loud impact.

The large man had punched another pirate and the Leyden jar he held.

“But I never asked you to dirty your hands for me!!”

The gust of wind created by his massive fist was enough to blow away the sea spray that would carry the artificial lightning. The target of the punch flew even further than that.

The strangely metallic sound of the blow led Miyabi to realize the man’s arm was a prosthetic.

Then that heavy metal fist dropped down toward him.

The one-eyed old man raised an unintelligible cry.

“Whoa, watch out!?”

“Hm? Oh, my bad. I’ve got a bad habit of losing control in battle.”

Miyabi had held his control sword in both hands to block, but his fingers were still throbbing with pain from the force of the impact. The man laughed it off like it didn’t matter, but without the link to the Godhorn Tech, Miyabi would have been helplessly engulfed in a storm of blows.

Mostly taken aback, Helen listed off some observations to make absolutely certain.

“A pirate. A prosthetic arm. Says they were protecting him.”

“You mean this filthy guy is him?” The radio sounded upset. “Why!? Where’s my eyepatch girl with a miniskirt and cutlass!?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then why respond at all!?”

Everyone ignored the radio’s laments.

The large man pointed at his own chest with his metal thumb.

“I am indeed Onelife Shiftup, the great pirate whose reputation extends out into the ocean since the continent wasn’t enough to contain me.”

He was at least willing to have a conversation, so they explained their situation to him.

“So the automaton parts we need should be within the cargo you stole.”

“I see.” Onelife leaned back against the dark alleyway’s wall, crossed his arms, and groaned in thought. “First, I would like to apologize for what happened here. Nhh, my immense popularity is usually a good thing, but some of them look up to me so much they get a little carried away. But they were acting out of concern for me and meant no harm, so please forgive them.”

“Look up to you?” asked Miyabi with a tilt of the head.

“This guy’s the real deal. He even called himself immensely popular,” added the radio, sounding impressed.

Did this mean those bandanna pirates were not part of his crew?

Celina was of course the one to argue back.

“Don’t you have something more to apologize for? All of that cargo belonged to my company! Return it all this instant!!”

“I already said I was sorry and a true man among men knows how to let bygones be bygones. Still, this is a problem. I need those automaton parts myself.”

“For your arm?” asked Helen.

The one-eyed pirate shook his head.

“No. Well, it’d be faster to just show you. Come with me to the port.”

He gestured them over. He could never be a king or a knight captain, but his actions had a way of drawing everyone’s eye.

He did in fact gather a lot of attention in the city.

There was a clear change as they exited the damp back alley and entered the alcohol-smelling street.

Everyone focused on the one-armed pirate and cleared a path for him in the colorful light of the gas lamps. But not out of fear. Their eyes contained admiration.

The calls for customers ceased entirely and were replaced by heartfelt cheers.

It was like an outlaw parade.

Everyone gathered on the side of the road to see the legendary pirate.

“Everyone looks up to Captain Onelife!” A kleptomaniac girl’s eyes shined bright. “Even groups that never get along will work together for him!”

“He even owns a Godhorn Tech. Rumor has it he broke off a Wicked God’s horn and installed it in his own ship.” An assassin lurking in the shadows truly believed the rumors. “His greatest weapon has to be that powerful presence that makes such a crazy story sound so plausible.”

“A monster who can break off a Wicked God horn and the King Knot pirate ship,” whispered an assassin disguised as a flower seller girl. “Not someone I want to be on the wrong side of.”

The one-eyed pirate led them down the city’s gentle slope until they arrived at the port bordering the ocean.

Seeing the ocean after it absorbed the dark color of the night sky was more of a shock than Miyabi had been expecting. It was so dark, deep, and terrifying. The lamplight grew sparser here and could not hold the darkness at bay and the noise of the city faded into the background. The place seemed cold.

He felt like he was approaching the realm of the dead.

Several wooden piers jutted out from the stone coast of the port. Those appeared to be docks for the ships that stopped here, so many large sailing ships could be seen. They all had large symbols on their sails. Miyabi did not know what any of them meant, but Helen’s jaw dropped as she viewed them.

“That one is from the Empty Fleet that hints at a baseless legend of a sunken ship to trick people into buying fake treasure maps, and that one is from the Blind family of smugglers. A-are none of the ships here legal!?”

“The best thing about this city is how it will let any villain resupply and stay the night as long as they can pay,” said Celina.

“Oh? That’s the same mark I saw on the Schwarz Schütze,” noted Miyabi. “So is that why the Bodenburg Company uses the city so much?”

Celina puffed out her cheeks and kicked him in the shin for that observation, but he had not yet earned enough experience to consider that a reward.

However, the ships were not their biggest problem.

“Hmm. You said his name was Number 8?”

“Have you heard of him?” asked Miyabi.

Surprisingly, the larger-than-life pirate nodded.

“I do own some similar products, after all.”

“No, you stole them from our company!!”

Miyabi was fairly certain the Bodenburg Company had gotten them by paying criminally low prices for items stolen from the Empire’s ruins, but he held his tongue to avoid another kick to the shin.

“The Number Whatever series were special automatons built to have direct audiences with the emperor…or so I’ve heard. A useless privilege now that the Empire itself is gone,” said Onelife. “That one was probably even more special since he was chosen to protect the vast Empire on all sides, but he would have used the same basic design. They would have taken the standard core and reinforced all the external parts to make their strongest model yet. By using ordinary automaton parts, you might just be able to repair him for the time begin. But…”

“But what?”

The man had trailed off for some reason.

He answered Miyabi’s question by jerking his chin over toward some wooden boxes stacked up on the wharf.

“As you can see, all the imperial automatons are packed up already.”

“In those boxes!? Where?”

Miyabi was surprised, but Celina was incensed.

The boxes were stacked up to twice her height, creating a small mountain.

“You stole that much from us, you crook!?”

“Not again!? All those inconvenient facts slipped my miiiiiiiiiiiiiiind!!”

“How can a criminal be so pure!?”

He further proved himself by not letting Eliza’s comment faze him.

“Anyway, the automatons are packed up because I was planning to ship them out.”

“To where?” asked Miyabi.

“This might be hard to grasp for someone from the continent, but there are islands out at sea.”

“At sea? So you’re sending them to a remote island country?” asked Helen.

When Celina noticed Miyabi and Eliza both looking out to sea, she quietly stopped them.

“They’re not close enough to see from here, you idiots.”

“Meh heh heh. I’m talking about a proper monarchy. They’re a lot more peaceful than here.” Onelife needlessly crossed his arms, but he did not look particularly cheerful. “But their king died of disease recently and a boy of only 12 was placed on the throne. They have people who question the succession, others who want to bring down the monarchy altogether, and then there are external forces to worry about. Since they have Godhorn Tech, there’s no end to people after the Wicked God horn. …It’s left a giant mess on the young king’s plate. It’s so bad he can’t even trust his own aides.”

“That’s sad and all, but why are you supporting him?” Alicia gave him a skeptical look. “I doubt you were born and raised there and criminals don’t follow the rules anyway.”

For some reason, he pushed his chest out proudly and grinned.

“The previous king valued the freedom of the ocean. If someone fell overboard or was shipwrecked, he would save them even if they were a foreigner or a pirate. He saved my own men on more than one occasion.”

“In other words, even a pirate can feel indebted to his savior?” cautiously asked Eliza.

“He accepted you regardless of your background. That’s much easier said than done. Especially for someone who has to rule a kingdom. But he did it. I shared his view of a free ocean, so if the new king is having trouble, I’m willing to help out a little. At least until he can find his footing and carry the weight himself.”

Miyabi looked up at the pile of boxes.

“And that means sending automatons?”

“Like I said, he’s surrounded by chaos and confusion and can’t even rely on his own aides. But an automaton army never betrays its master. They’d make decent bodyguards while he solidifies his position. We pirates don’t want any unneeded conflict out on the ocean, so I’m sending a gift to the new king!”

“S-stop acting like the good guy when you stole all of this! B-besides, we only need one of those boxes! We only want to repair Number 8 and hear what he has to say!!”

That Celina was sounding reasonable may have been the biggest sign of how larger-than-life Onelife was.

“Hmm. Okay, what parts do you need to repair him?”

“Eh?”

Flustered, Miyabi turned to Celina for help, but she was little better.

“W-well…”

“How are you going to find the parts you need when you don’t even know what they’re called or what they look like? And let’s not forget there isn’t much light to search by at night.”

Onelife pointed at the “mountain” with his powerful fake thumb and Miyabi had no rebuttal.

“…”

“T-to hell with it!” shouted Celina. “No point in backing out now. We just have to find some automaton parts even if it means opening up every last one of those boxes!!”

It was like a battle.

They had to pull the nails from the wooden boxes, remove the lids, and pull out the contents. The first contained completely unrelated cookware. The next one had books and the one after that had bottles of fruit wine cushioned by balled up cloth. The work never seemed to end and they quickly lost track of how much they had already done.

“U-ughh,” groaned Alicia. “I can’t keep going. I need sleep.”

“Stay awake, you useless elf!” shouted Celina. “We haven’t even opened half of them yet!!”

“S-sorry,” said Eliza. “I did not expect the journey to have worn me out so much. Zzz…”

“You too, Miss Muscles!? How are we supposed to finish with these boxes if our strait-laced and high-horsepower knight gives up!?”

The black sky gradually grew navy blue and then orange. The ocean appeared to be burning.

Dawn had arrived.

Onelife yawned and Alma was curled up asleep nearby, but Miyabi was still working since he always liked to be helpful. He had started to drift off a few times, but he had refused to give in after seeing Celina biting her lip and giving him a tearful but wordless look. The way she tugged at his sleeve and gave him the puppy dog eyes felt like a threat. Curse that younger girl. What did she think she was, his little sister?

In the end, their efforts went unrewarded.

Once even Helen fell asleep, her boobs resting on a box (and her tight skirt butt sticking out toward Miyabi), Celina finally snapped.

“Pant, gasp, pant. Kh, we still haven’t found anything at all!!”

The radio spoke up from around Alicia’s neck as the elf lay face up on the wooden pier.

“It’s like the black hole that forms in a messy person’s room. You end up buying multiple copies of a manga volume because you completely forget you already own it.”

“Argh!! We don’t have time for this!” shouted Onelife. “The new king could be violently dethroned by a conspiracy at any moment!!”

“Th-this is your fault!! You’re the one that stole this stuff and then didn’t even bother organizing it!!”

Celina’s very high-class teeth-grinding did not faze Onelife.

“I’m a pirate! What’d you expect!?”

“Ugh, that shouldn’t be as convincing as it is!!”

Celina flinched back, but Miyabi sighed.

“Hmm. But in that case…”

“Zzz…koo?”

“If we fix Number 8, the 12-year-old king is doomed. If we save the new king, we lose our only clue to the 11th.”

He weighed two terrible options against each other, but then the one-eyed pirate grinned.

“There is one way of having it both ways.”

“?”

“First, I’ll give you the automatons contained in these boxes. No problem with that, I assume?”

“You’d better! They belong to me!” griped Celina, but Miyabi was interested in something else.

“But then what happens to that island kingdom?”

“Oh, that’s simple enough. I wanted to send him some fighters who would never betray him. Emotionless automatons were one option, but outsiders with nothing at stake work just as well. So I just have to give you the job instead. …Assuming you can save 12-year-old King Kananka Fulpen, that is.”

Between the Lines 3

Onelife Shiftup was officially known as a pirate.

There was no doubting that. Finding the criminal city comfortable and choosing it as your home were enough to know someone had something to hide, but he was a known threat who gathered people into a professional criminal group that sailed the sea.

Yet his large-sailed pirate ship looked downright carefree.

It was a Godhorn Tech named King Knot.

Onelife himself had slain the Wicked God and broken off its horn.

Perhaps he only had the luxury of peace because he was surrounded by the greatest power out there.

“Captain.”

A new pirate in a short-sleeved sailor uniform and shorts hopped up and leaned out over the railing. The new pirate was peering out with an extendable telescope and were young enough to appear androgynous.

“Some light is reflecting near the horizon at 5 o’clock. It’s an SOS.”

“Hmm, from a merchant ship?”

The large and muscular man named Onelife Shiftup crossed his arms and listened to the response from the newcomer who kicked their skinny legs with their belly resting on the railing.

“Hard to tell since they’ve almost fully sunk, but I think it’s a warship. Ah ha ha. Maybe they ran right into a reef. The sail is dyed with a gear pattern, so I think they’re from the Republic.”

That made them an enemy of the pirates.

The criminal city did not belong to any country, so it had no military or police agency. The Bodenburg Company’s private troops took the role of knights and guards…but that was just something they did and it was not supported by any international treaties.

So at times, some people with way too much time on their hands would sail out to the distant sea and wipe out every pirate they saw, all in the name of preserving the peace out at sea.

A young man walked over and joined the conversation.

Their criminal group was quite polished as an organization, but their ability to freely share information allowed them lighter footwork.

The young man used the number and position of the gears on the sail to decode the ship’s affiliation like he was identifying a constellation.

“What is a C1 fleet doing this far south? Their glider cannons require frequent resupplying. Hm, are they trying to cover up some kind of scandal maybe? Come to think of it, a lot of Republic funding earmarked for tracking down a Wicked God horn has gone missing recently.”

The skinny young man wore glasses and had an intellectual look, so he was basically asking for a nickname of ‘strategist’, ‘scholar’, or ‘string bean’, but all his information came from the light and frivolous rumors running rampant through the criminal city. In a city where outlaws of various cultures interacted, there was no shortage of gossip and scandalous information. It was their ability to sniff out what was real and what was fake that allowed them to skillfully evade the surprise inspections made by the Bodenburg Company’s private troops either late at night or early in the morning.

At any rate, the sinking ship was Onelife and his crew’s enemy.

But that man among men did not even hesitate.

“Understood. Prepare the rope and boats. How many empty barrels do we have left? Gather them on the deck so we can dump them in the water as floats.”

Outlaws were not generally in the habit of helping those in need.

For one thing…

“What are we even doing? Didn’t we start this hoping to be a naval rescue squad?”

Yes, Onelife’s crew were not thieves who attacked other ships.

The criminal city on the southern end of the continent received a lot of naval traffic, but it was also known as a dangerous region of sea full of reefs, rapid currents, and fierce and violent oceanic Beast Novae. Ships could not even get through if the pirates did not fight the monsters and bring down their numbers (mostly for their own purposes). And since the criminal city was not supported by any specific country, it had no naval rescue squad to help any sinking ships or stranded crews.

So Onelife and his crew had decided to make one themselves.

They had been attacked for it and forced to arm themselves.

They had done so by retrieving the wooden boxes thrown into the ocean by sinking ships. The one exception was their Wicked God horn.

The androgynous young newcomer cackled with their soft stomach resting on the railing.

“We can’t help it. Naval accidents are great for meeting new people. We’d normally never get to meet kings, nobles, holy men, or millionaires, but even they’ll grab a commoner’s hand when they’re drowning out at sea. And once they owe you one for saving their lives, you’re set for life. You can’t guarantee it though, so it’s more like a big lottery.”

“Some people can guarantee those things. Unlike the children’s story about the glass slipper, there are ways of getting ahead outside of those fancy balls us commoners aren’t allowed in. If you calculate everything out and follow a plan while purchasing enough lottery tickets, it counts as a financial investment giving you a stable fortune. Those greedy people think we’re interfering with their business of probability and statistics. It’s pathetic.”

Onelife sighed from his nose as the short kid and the glasses man spoke.

They had saved any lives that would be lost at sea and they had protected those with the same ideals. And eventually, he had become known as the strongest pirate.

He had ended up the exact opposite of what he had wanted to be.

He was sick of stealing. He had grown accustomed to fighting. He had lost count of how many times he had stolen to protect people, let a dangerous weapon sink into the depths, and freed slaves packed tightly into the limited space below a ship’s deck.

“Your thoughts on the matter don’t change what’s happening before your eyes. You can worry about those philosophical issues after saving all the drowning people out there.”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

“Ideally we’ll be discussing what a great job we did in a bar supplied with barrels upon barrels of bourbon. Gah hah hah!!”

That man at the top did have his thoughts, but he knew it did no one any good if he let his crew see the worry on his face.

“Are you ready, men!? We’ve got some rescuing to do!!!!”

Chapter 5, Section 3

Another morning arrived.

Miyabi Blackgarden had overslept for a variety of reasons, but Alicia Blueforest did not even hesitate to throw open the door to his room. They used to bathe together when he was little, so she did not even bother knocking.

“Hey, that buff pirate is waiting at the port. We need to fix Number 8 and ask him about the 11th. I’ll give you time for some coffee to wake up, but then we need to set sail, cross the ocean, and help out that remote island kingdom.”

“How in the world are you so refreshed?”

“Ha ha ha. Because I was the very first to give up last night!!”

Miyabi had stuck with it to the end (after succumbing to Celina’s tearful puppy dog eyes), so he held Alicia’s head between his fists and rubbed at her temples. It did not actually do anything about his drowsiness, but he still felt a little more awake afterwards.

They joined the others in the inn’s small lobby.

They were leaving Number 8 in a room at the same inn. Carrying the motionless automaton onto a ship could raise suspicions that they were planning to dump a body at sea.

They already knew the inn was untrustworthy, so they went out to eat.

Food was one area where the criminal city excelled. Mornings tended to have limited food options, but there was a wide variety of tasty things for sale. Miyabi noticed something as he observed it all.

“An awful lot of it is made to carry with you while you eat it.”

“Because it was all developed for sailors to eat while they worked on their ships.”

For some reason, a hot dog apparently did not count as a sandwich. Celina explained it all to him while munching on a burrito – chopped vegetables and ground meat wrapped in thin bread known as a tortilla. She managed to look strangely graceful while she walked and ate at the same time.

“Man, that burrito you got looks good.”

“Miyabi. I know boys your age love meat, but you need a balanced diet of meat, vegetables, and grains. An extra-large frankfurter is not enough.”

“She’s right, you know? Munch, munch.”

“You too, elf. Grilled corn is not enough for a meal either.”

Black cat Alma ended up with a perfectly balanced meal since Helen Clockgear fed it some of her small canape topped with vegetables and seafood.

“Burrito…”

“O-okay, fine! Here, Miyabi. You can have one bite. …Hold it yourself when you do!!”

They walked to the harbor while eating a light meal of simple but varied foods. Once there, they found the muscle man needlessly crossing his arms in the sun.

“There you are!”

“You have guts showing up in the light of day, thief!” shouted Celina.

“Men of the sea are early to rise. Also, the continent’s rules don’t apply in the island kingdom, so be careful.”

Onelife Shiftup was not even listening.

That may have been why Helen sounded exasperated when she responded.

“And it sounds like they’re going through a lot of political upheaval.”

“Maybe we should go shopping before we leave,” suggested Alicia.

“How about it!? Nwohhh! Ready to set sail!?”

When Miyabi nodded, the man slapped him on the back with his heavy prosthetic hand.

“That’s the spirit! You can have the imperial automatons, but make sure you deliver my gifts to King Kananka!”

“I’m not sure how to feel about this when you stole it all from us.”

Celina Bodenburg looked up at the stacked boxes in disgust, but then something occurred to Miyabi.

“Wait. You aren’t taking us on your ship?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve got other business to attend to.”

“…”

The one-eyed muscle pirate did not even glance over at the glaring local girl.

“I thought for sure she was only a lookalike, but that really is the Bodenburg Company’s heir, isn’t it!? Gotta go!!”

“The coward is making a run for it!! Stop him!!!!!”

But…

“Drat…he’s already gone.”

“The entire city is on his side, so we would never find him,” said Alicia.

Celina clicked her tongue with her rifle ominously at the ready, but it actually looked comical after how fast Onelife managed to skedaddle. He had mastered the technique of hiding behind cover to escape projectiles. No matter how charismatic he was, he was a criminal at heart.

Helen agreed with Alicia’s assessment.

“Tracking down that utter moron would only exhaust us further. Let’s get this errand done with so we can repair Number 8.”

“That is important, but we need to make sure we really help Kananka,” said Miyabi.

The glasses woman looked troubled and kept her response short.

“Involving yourself in another country’s chaos never ends well.”

“Hm,” groaned Eliza Silverstorm with a shadow over her face.

She may have been thinking of the riot in the Arsenal Kingdom. Being as strait-laced as her was a good way to take damage when no one was even talking about you.

“Even so.” Miyabi looked to the horizon out at sea. “It would be easy to do the bare minimum here and just complete the job without worrying about how it turns out. But the other side doesn’t get to choose who comes to help. They have to accept it even if it isn’t enough.”

If they did that here, it was the 12-year-old king who would suffer.

It did not affect them in any way, but it was not a pleasant thing to consider.

“Let’s truly complete this errand before we fix Number 8. We can’t focus on our job if we haven’t repaid our debts.”

“We don’t owe that thief squat! He stole it all from my company!”

Before long, Miyabi’s party was being rocked by the waves on the ship.

The sailing ship was about 30m long.

Instead of giant gears and shafts, the many sailors used thick ropes and a sail to catch the wind and move the ship, giving it a different charm from the Lucifer Horn or Schwarz Schütze. Tugging on the ropes required great strength, but the manipulation of the sail was a complex and precise task.

As a cargo ship, it was covered in wooden boxes tied down with ropes and wires. Compress Cargo was apparently not an option with the gifts meant for the young king. That magic wrapped the microscopic Palette Dice like a ribbon to compress them, but it did not work with living things or with artwork where authenticity was key.

They had spent two nights aboard a sailing ship abandoned on the land near the ruined Empire, but that did not really count. This was a brand new experience for a boy who grew up in the mountains. Eliza had lived in the north, so she did not even dare approach the railing.

“Oh, ohhh. It keeps shaking.”

“Eliza, it’s been three days.”

“Th-that does not make this any less frightening! Please, Miyabi. Do not let go of my hand!!”

Miyabi was not about to argue when she was clinging to him like this. All the softness he felt had him worried that her miniskirt armor did not provide much in the way of defense. That armor prioritized magical defense, so its design was less straightforward.

“Th-the White Seidr Chosen Knights appear before the people on the king’s orders, so our appearance is a matter of national pride. Our armor was designed with parades and other public appearances in mind.”

“Neat.”

“My point is: wipe that grin off your face. This is a symbol of our kingdom’s courage and strength, so viewing it in a sexual light is an insult to the entire kingdom! Don’t you dare think of this as a lucky break!!”

The fact that she felt the need to warn him suggested she was somewhat aware how it made her look.

Meanwhile, someone else had bigger issues to worry about.

“Urp, blehh…”

“Why have you wilted, Alicia? Do elves plant their roots in the land or something?”

“H-how are just fine after spending three days rocking in the waves? My hair is all gross from the sea breeze and I swear the sun is being extra bright just to spite me. …Oh, no. I don’t think I can hold it in any longer!!”

“Hey! Don’t just open my cover out of desperation! I’m into a lot of things, but low-angle shots of a barfing elf is not one of them!!”

The radio sounded truly desperate this time.

The elf’s long ears drooped (after she barely avoided catastrophe), but the trip was full of exciting new surprises for Miyabi. Unlike Eliza, his excitement won out over his fear of the ocean. He got the crew to teach him how to work out the directions using the stars, how to tie some basic knots, and the trick to washing dishes while preserving their valuable fresh water. It all felt like a grand adventure to him. He was a little disappointed the sailors wouldn’t let him have any of the gin and rum they loved so much.

Eventually, they heard some sea birds crying in the distance.

“Oh, I think I see an island!” exclaimed Celina.

“Ugh, gwehh… A-as long as it has a beautiful forest, nothing else matters,” groaned Alicia.

A seabird flew a large circle through a sky much bluer than on the continent and eventually landed on the ship. The large white bird skillfully alighted on the deck’s railing. Eliza had never seen one up close, so she blinked while clinging to Miyabi’s arm.

“So this is a seabird. Interesting. It looks so different from the birds I am used to.”

“You there. If you have business with my kingdom, I shall guide you.”

The seabird…talked?

Miyabi and Alicia stared in shock, but Eliza gave a firm nod (while still clinging to the boy). The white seabird opened its hard-looking beak to speak more.

“As beautiful as our ocean is, the coral is fairly labyrinthine and there are also reefs to worry about.”

“Interesting. So seabirds know how to speak human language. Smart things, aren’t they?”

“I-I assure you that is not normal!” shouted Helen.

With a loud boom, a sharp conical spike burst vertically from the ocean surface just off the ship’s side. It rose higher than the ship’s mast and it appeared to be made of…maybe stone? It could have easily sunk the ship by piercing it from below, but a head-on collision with it would also have been disastrous. The crew frantically turned the wheel and adjusted the sails to turn the bow as much as possible while a few more of the spikes burst from the ocean.

At this point, they felt more like a metal fence surrounding a mansion’s garden.

They appeared to be forcibly guiding the ship along a certain course.

“Whoa!?”

“Follow the path I provide and you can pass the labyrinth of reefs,” commanded the seabird.

“Is this a type of magic that lifts the ocean floor to pierce a ship’s hull with sharp stone?” asked a Celina in disbelief.

“We call it the Shark Tooth. That said, it was originally peaceful magic that fished a livable island out of the ocean.”

With a splashing sound, a massive silhouette cut by below the surface and below the sailing ship.

Whoever this was had full control. Even if their ship was equipped with cannons, they could not have attacked something lurking below the water.

With a more extended splashing sound, the ocean split open and something emerged.

It was…not quite a ship.

Something resembling a massive shark traveled freely through the watery depths.

“That is the Mother Shark submarine,” explained the seabird. “My kingdom’s Godhorn Tech is unbeatable in the ocean. I am praying you do not make yourselves my enemy, visitors.”

This errand was already off to a rocky start.

Nevertheless, they arrived safely on the southern island.

The wharf was very different from the criminal city’s. There was no more than a simple wooden pier sticking out from the white sandy beach. There was no lighthouse or breakwater. They may have dug deep into the sandy ocean floor to accommodate larger ships, but it still felt a lot more natural.

There were bright red flowers Miyabi had never before seen and blue butterflies that looked like fluttering gems.

The strange trees growing directly from the sand were apparently known as palm trees.

“Coconuts are used in a lot of sweets and drinks, so you can find them for sale at the criminal city.”

If Celina saw them as a rare delicacy, Miyabi knew he would never have another chance to try one, so he wanted to try everything he could while he was here.

“Ughh…f-finally back on solid ground,” groaned Alicia, looking truly worn out.

She collapsed face down onto the beach and the radio to protested being plunged into the sand.

“Hey, are you okay? How about some water?”

“Thanks. No, wait, boy! That’s seawat- blehhhh!!!”

“?”

Miyabi looked puzzled and Celina rubbed her temples. Beyond the simple freshwater/saltwater issue, a city dweller like her could not believe he would try to give someone water he simply found lying around. Even when journeying outdoors, she made sure to use her mug-sized filter or to boil it in a kettle first.

“Okay, that’s enough of the classic gags, ocean newbies. We need to get moving.”

“Ew, why is it so salty!? Eh? Eh? Is the whole ocean like that?”

“How far behind are you!? Surely even your mountain village has a salt shaker on the dinner table.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying rock salt isn’t something they dig up from the ground?”

He had seen the ocean at the criminal city, but he had not had a chance to interact with it while on the stone harbor. Same while he was on the ship.

“Sorry, Alicia. I’ll borrow Celina’s thingy to filter the seawater.”

“Not in a million years!! Filtering out that much salt would ruin it in one go! It isn’t designed for that!!”

“Koo,” cheerfully cried Alma.

Miyabi glanced down to see the stuffed animal of a creature had transformed again. This time, it was white with a bluish swimsuit and goggles. The striped one-piece swimsuit was something Miyabi had only ever seen in plays. Except this was a fur pattern, not clothing, highlighting how strange that creature was. Miyabi felt the same as when he first saw a ladybug or butterfly in the forest when he was little.

“Oh, Alma,” said Alicia. “What a cute Kraken you are. I just have to pick you up. I’ll let you nuzzle against me, so come and comfort me.”

“Why is the foul beast the first one in a swimsuit? What about the elf, the glasses woman, the rich girl, or the knight!?”

The sandy radio complained, but the seasick elf was in no mood to respond.

Miyabi looked around curiously.

“So this is the remote island kingdom Onelife was talking about.”

“Ugh, it sure is hot here.”

Eliza’s composed face was dripping with sweat.

Ever-capable Helen looked worried and exasperated at the same time.

“This can’t be a comfortable place for a knight from a snowy kingdom.”

“B-but the place doesn’t feel as on edge as I expected,” said Alicia.

“True. The talk of political upheaval reminded me of the Arsenal Kingdom.”

“Gulp!”

Weakened by the sun, Eliza jumped at the mention of her kingdom’s troubles. Meanwhile, the radio decided to speak some cursed words.

“Who cares about that when there are swimsuits to be worn? This is a tropical island! Where’s all the bare skin!? Of the feminine variety, I mean!!”

There was indeed no sign of rioting or fighting.

A small crab crawled across the white beach without a care in the world.

Standing around near the ship was not going to help anything. The messenger seabird had been flying above their heads, but now it flew inland and above the island’s colorful forest. It may have been asking them to follow, so they nervously prepared to leave the beach for the first time.

But…

“Sneak, sneak.”

“Excuse me, everyone, but someone is attempting to board our ship. Someone who thinks saying ‘sneak’ out loud makes them sneakier, I might add. Attack, attack!!”

A small figure shrieked and jumped straight up.

Acting like a thief was simply not possible with the bright sun shining down on the white sand. Miyabi’s party turned around looking skeptical and found a girl curled up in a pitiful ball on the sand.

She had long wavy hair with a bluish tint to it.

Her skin was abnormally bright and pale for the sunny beach.

And her chest earned at least a “decent” rating.

She looked to be around Miyabi’s age. Kids these days had apparently adopted some bold fashion choices because she wore a tank top and a miniskirt. To be blunt, she looked more fashionable than Miyabi.

But that aside, there were a few major problems. For example, she wore a flintlock gun at her hip, she wore a thick coat to keep the sun and sea breeze off of her, and she wore a black leather eyepatch and tricorn hat that would have looked perfect on a jolly roger.

The gun must have only been a sidearm because she rested a trident on her shoulder. It was unclear if the weapon had its origins in agriculture or fishing, but it would hurt just the same if it stabbed you. Miyabi recalled how a play mentioned that pirates preferred projectiles and long-handled spears or sickles to help attack from one ship to another.

“Let’s gooooooo!!” rejoiced the radio at Alicia’s chest. “No big muscles and no giant beard! This is the kind of sexy fantasy pirate girl I wanted! Who else would you want to nurse you back to health when you come down with heatstroke!? The big hat and miniskirt are so much better than a pathetic bandanna!! Ask anyone what they want in a pirate and this is what they’ll tell you!!!!!!”

Yes, she was a pirate.

Celina was 100% anti-pirate, so her eyebrows arched upwards.

“Heh heh heh. I see, so the vermin of society run rampant in this remote island kingdom too, do they? Very well. I will cleanse this world of them to lay the groundwork for the Bodenburg Company’s greater glory!!!!!!”

“Wait, no, no! I’m not a pirate!! Please take a deep breath and calm down!!”

Helen sighed with a hand on her cheek.

Something about this had bothered her.

“Hm, another fancy-sounding girl. This could get confusing.”

“You even steal my speech patterns, you filthy pirate!?”

“Again, I’m not a pirate!! My name is Charlotte Nightlagoon and I am well-known in the mermaid world. What, did I misinterpret what I saw from the ocean? I can’t believe this!! I thought this was the latest in human fashion!”

The bare-midriff pirate(?) girl’s claim was a little confusing, but then she noticed something and jumped to her feet. Before Miyabi could figure out what was going on, she had pressed up against his back and started whistling nonchalantly.

Some locals with bloodshot eyes arrived.

The brown-skinned men and women in grass skirts and scraps of cloth were carrying fishing nets and harpoons. They wore pots over their heads and held bath covers as shields.

“Where’d she go!? Where did that mermaid go!?”

“She had legs, so she has to still be on the island. If we can only slice up that mermaid flesh, we’d be set!!”

Hadn’t he just met someone who thought saying ‘sneak’ out loud made her sneakier?

He could tell now was not the time to be enjoying the boobs pressed against his back.

He waited until the dangerously-equipped but oddly lighthearted people ran off down the coast before he slowly turned around.

“A…mermaid?”

“Heh heh. Eh heh heh.”

“A well-known one???”

“It’s kind of embarrassing, but I have had several picture books made about me.”

It was hard to notice with her fluffy hair and large hat, but one of her ears looked like a webbed flipper. Miyabi was unsure what to say when he saw her poking her index fingers together in front of her decent or better chest.

“(Wait, so the people on this island eat mermaids? Now I’m worried about this place’s customs.)”

“(Th-their culture might take an ‘anything goes’ stance when it comes to Beast Novae in any form. In fact, I have heard of a country on the continent that slices up only the snake portion of an echidna for food. They apparently have an extreme reaction to certain White Sorcery Items, so the snake tail grows back, giving them an endless food source.)”

Eliza’s unnecessary trivia only worried Miyabi further.

Alicia needed to be extremely cautious as another humanoid Beast Nova, yet she calmly clapped her hands together in realization.

“A mermaid? Oh, is this about the stories of gaining immortality and eternal youth by eating their flesh?”

“Wha-!?”

“Eternal youth…we’d make billions! No, wait. In the long term, we would stop selling anything but the youth-targeted products.”

The glasses woman reacted with excitement and the rich girl by calculating out possible profits, but the legged mermaid waved her hands to stop them.

“W-wait, no, that’s only a superstition! It’s not true!!”

“Hm?”

Alicia only frowned, looking confused, so the long-lived hag elf must not have been too interested in eternal youth.

The mermaid’s gentle tone of voice slipped when she was panicked.

“Mermaid meat doesn’t do that!! Where did that crazy belief even come from? I mean, yikes! I’d dreamed of visiting the land for years, but when I finally get here for a secret vacation, it turns into a terrifying fight for survival.”

Miyabi had a more fundamental question.

“I thought mermaids had the lower body of a fish and swam around in the ocean.”

“I changed that by chugging a magic potion.”

She demonstrated by putting a hand on her hip and tilting her head back.

The way she arched her back pushed out her chest to a troubling extent.

“So I got legs and that was great, but now I can’t get my fishtail back. That means I can’t return to the ocean and I have to live on this hellish island where the superstitions turn my days into a dangerous cooking school of eat or be eaten.”

It was quite possible she was just an idiot.

The oblivious idiot kicked at the white sand with one of the legs she had gone to such lengths to obtain.

“I can’t stand it anymore! If I’m stuck on this remote island any longer, they really are going to devour my delicious body! And not in the sexy way, either! I mean filet me and serve me with your choice of sides!! I need to get off this island! That elf who reeks of grass makes it sound like the superstition has made it to the mainland too, but it should at least be easier to hide there. I just want out of this endless game of tag!!”

“This cargo ship isn’t scheduled to leave for a while, you stupid mermaid who leaves a trail of salty puddles. The ship needs maintenance, it needs to be resupplied with food and water, the cargo bound for the continent needs to be loaded, and the crew needs time off, so it won’t be leaving for two or three more days at least.”

“…”

Charlotte paled and collapsed to the sand. Her soul was trying to escape through her mouth.

“(Miyabi, Miyabi,)” whispered Eliza.

“How about you show her some kindness? The Lucifer Horn can cross the ocean and take her to Horn Fortress. I’ve heard mermaids use an entirely different system of magic from humans, so it can’t hurt to have her on our side.”

The half-dead mermaid lifted her head from the sand.

She got up on her knees, clasped her hands in front of her face, and looked up at Miyabi with unbelievable pressure in her gaze. He could see stars twinkling in her eyes.

“You know a way out of here!? Please let me use it!! I might just find a solution if I can escape to the continent. The alchemist named Holy Gate is practically a legend at this point, but if I can find them, I can have a magic potion made to give me my tail back!”

“Eh!?” This turn of events came as a surprise to pirate-hating Celina.

The against side made their argument:

“We don’t really know who she even is, so we could be accepting a traitor into our midst. We only have her word to go on that she isn’t a pirate, so she might still be a filthy thief. Miyabi, working in a group requires strict management of your wallet. For the above reasons, it would be illogical to accept this suspicious individual into our party. Yes, this has nothing to do with my personal belief that you cannot trust anyone who wants to be a pirate! This is nothing but a logical analysis of the facts!!”

The for side made their much more succinct argument:

“Mermaid equals clamshell bikini.”

“Welcome aboard, Charlotte!! I don’t know what a bikini is, but something about the word calls out to my very soul!!”

“Four words!? Don’t let her seduce you that quick, Miyabi!!”

Celina’s tearful plea did nothing to overturn his decision. The human girl was not willing to strip for this particular issue.

The eyepatch trident flintlock miniskirt bare-midriff mermaid pirate girl idiot (the list never seemed to end) fidgeted awkwardly.

“Um, so could you please send me across the ocean to the mainland now? How are we even going to leave this remote island anyway?”

“Oh, that’s simple enough. Lucifer Horn, we’ve got another one.”

The mermaid tilted her head. It was much too late by the time she realized what was happening.

A massive shape flew by overhead and a wire whipped through the air and snagged the back of Charlotte’s pirate coat.

“Wait, what!? Surely you aren’t going to send me across the ocean like this! If this is supposed to be a joke about catching a mermaid like a fish, it isn’t funnyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”

The doppler effect distorted her voice.

“Sigh.” Helen stared into the distance. “Goodbye eternal youth…”

“Were you really planning to chop her up and eat her, Miss Aging Skin?” asked Alicia. “Anyway, are you sure that was a good idea? I hope the locals don’t mistake us for a sketchy gang of kidnappers.”

However.

Miyabi continued tilting his head even after Charlotte Nightlagoon was long gone. She had left a very appealing word in his mind.

“So what is a bikini anyway?” asked the mountain village boy.

“Yes, yes. It’s only natural to be interested in that sort of thing, but we’re here to meet with King Fulpen and help him however we can. We don’t really have time for any more detours, so-”

Helen came to a stop midsentence.

She had a good reason for it.

Celina Bodenburg put on a full-face smile, flipped her giant travel bag upside down, and shook it.

A pile of colorful cloth formed on the ground.

And a while later…

“Sorry about the wait, Miyabi. Ho ho ho. You were very right. How could we leave the hustle and bustle of the city, travel all the way to one of the finest beaches around, and not put on swimsuits? The serious atmosphere made it so hard to let everyone know I had brought enough to share, but this country boy gave me exactly the opening I needed!”

Celina emerged from a thicket, but Miyabi was far too preoccupied to listen.

What was that?

She stood there with a hand on her hip, but all she was wearing were three triangles of black cloth. They only covered her chest and around her hips and were held in place with some strings. They were also decorated with pure gold and red gems.

This was nothing like the swimsuits he had seen in plays. Those covered the entire body down to the feet. Miyabi gathered all of the fragmentary knowledge he had and found only one thing this could be.

“Eh? Eh? Why are you in your underwear!? We’re outside!!”

“Heh heh. You’re the one who wanted to know what a bikini is.”

“But it’s only three triangles, so…ehhh!? Why is this okay, but seeing up someone’s skirt isn’t!?”

“Now, now, Miyabi. There are some questions you just don’t ask. Don’t try to answer a question that no one wants an answer to. When a girl is willing to bare her skin in public, you don’t look that gift horse in the mouth.” The crystal radio tried to make this sound like a serious issue. “Mwa ha ha! Finally! I was getting worried it might never happen, but the swimsuit event is as much a staple as miniskirt Santas on Christmas and kimonos on New Year’s!! We just needed a hot enough environment to make them strip themselves!! The North Wind and the Sun effect has blessed us once again!!!!!!”

As for the radio’s owner, Alicia’s swimsuit was more modest than Celina’s. It looked a lot like a too-short white shirt and skintight shorts, but the two pieces were fully separated, showing off her navel and thighs.

She formed a hook with a finger to fix the butt.

“How strange. I know this is meant to wear in the water, but I can’t get used to this water-repelling material.”

“Oh, right. I forget you were so shameless you always just go skinny dipping.”

“Boy!! Now is not the time to dig up that mistake from your younger days when you saw me in the forest spring and froze up! I have since learned shame!!”

That swimsuit did not belong to Alicia. She had borrowed it from Celina’s collection.

The elf’s long ears cautiously twisted this way and that.

“Are you sure it’s safe to strip down and play on the beach like this? I thought the locals were upset with their new king for being too young. A riot or armed conflict could break out at any time with that kind of political upheaval.”

“What do you think happens if a group of outsiders with a Godhorn Tech shows up and immediately visits their new king?” asked Celina. “The king will assume it is a trap and grow cautious while the opposition might fear he is gathering power and pull the trigger on a civil war.”

“So you want us to take things slow and get a feel for things first?”

“This is a remote island kingdom located well off the continent, but it has enough of a trade infrastructure to receive regular cargo ships. It is also a little-known resort for the wealthy, so this should put them at ease a lot more than rushing in with a Godhorn Tech and control device at the ready.”

Celina’s reasoning was sound, but Miyabi had trouble following it because he had no idea where he was supposed to look. Her bare belly drew his eye far more than he could have predicted. Were all swimsuits like this, was this an indecent trend derived from the criminal tastes of her hometown, or was it Celina’s personal tastes?

(Wait. If all of them were Celina’s, won’t they all be in her size?)

When Eliza emerged from the thicket a little later, she was wearing a trio of triangles just like Celina. Her figure must not have been that different because she wore it without issue, but her greater height changed the overall impression. It accentuated her slenderness first and foremost.

And…

“U-ugh…”

Helen was the real problem.

Instead of a triangle trio or a two piece, hers had the same silhouette as the bunny girl costume. Celina exasperatedly explained that it was known as a one piece.

But why was she so exasperated?

Helen, an adult, had forced herself into a swimsuit in Celina’s size, so it was full to bursting in certain key places!!

Miyabi stared into the distance.

“Helen…”

“Finally stooped to out-and-out seducing the boy to get at Alma, have you?” asked Alicia. “Glad I’m not a government official.”

“N-no!!”

Helen was practically in tears as she desperately tried to hide the parts where the too-small swimsuit was digging into her body, but she could not fully hide what was going on at her crotch and butt. Not to mention her chest, which was noticeable no matter what she wore.

Eliza put a hand on her hip and sighed. The Celina-sized orange triangles were a little small for her, so she kept having to bend her finger into a hook and fix the butt after she moved.

“This is why I said you should wear one of these…bikinis were they called? Since they are tied together by strings, your height doesn’t matter.”

“I thought covering the most skin would be the least inappropriate option! Why am I always the one sacrificed on the altar of sexy!?”

Yes, a bikini had a separate top and bottom and the chest and hips could be adjusted with the strings, so some extra height was barely an issue. The extra size was only so much of an issue because she had chosen a one piece with the top and bottom connected in a single tube of fabric.

Now, the bikini bottoms looked a lot like triangular underwear, but Miyabi was told he could not wear one. He was new to swimsuits, so all the little rules confused him.

“Stop, Miyabi!!” yelled the radio. “The girls can handle all the swimsuits and bare skin themselves. This is enough. I do not want a punchline where you take a step off that figurative cliff!!”

“Pff. Heh heh heh. If you’re into that, Miyabi, my Bodenburg Company will support you wholeheartedly. Now, what would you like? I recommend this thong with cute frills along both sides.”

Meanwhile, Miyabi’s party moved inland from the coast to the green island.

The boy once more tilted his head.

“Wait, I thought swimsuits were for swimming.”

“Miyabi,” said Celina. “No one chooses a swimsuit for being warm and waterproofed. How are you supposed to show off its design if you get in the water? A swimsuit is meant for the beach or the poolside.”

“???”

He was even more confused now. The full-body swimsuits he had seen in plays had been in swimming scenes. But the formula to answer his question would require flipping several chapters back in his rich and sexy tutor’s textbook (Swimsuits II-B).

They of course found more than just a forest.

Even Miyabi could sense people’s presence further inland.

They made their way toward the most populated area and found something like a village in the tropical forest. The trees apparently kept the wind and the sand out. The buildings all had a unique design. First, they were made out of plant stems and thick logs. For ventilation purposes, all of the walls had been removed. Miyabi had lived in a log cabin himself, but it had not been so open.

All the people’s skin was tanned brown by the bright sun. Their clothing looked like a hybrid of colorfully-dyed cloths and palm leaves, so the girls often had their navels and backs exposed. Their well-tanned and healthy skin was dazzling.

The kingdom did not receive many visitors, but it was open to them. The people who spotted them seemed used to it. That may have been the influence of the previous king who had apparently rescued people at sea regardless of their status or affiliation.

They had been chasing after a legendary mermaid with nets and harpoons, but they seemed to be much more relaxed when an unexpected treasure(?) was not in the offing.

None of them seemed fazed by Alicia or Eliza’s swimsuits.

Celina must have been right about the island receiving relatively frequent tourists from the continent. Helen (with her overly small swimsuit wrapped so tightly around her body) opted to hide behind Miyabi. His back stiffened at the various sensations and breaths reaching it.

“This is the holy island ruled by King Kananka Fulpen! The Godhorn Tech our king inherited is super strong! The Mother Shark keeps our island peaceful!”

An energetic boy gave a fairly generic greeting, but they heard some other things as well.

“I don’t care whose butt is on the throne as long as we’re guaranteed a good catch. That’s the king’s #1 job since only he can speak with the invisible spirits. The Godhorn Tech honestly scares me. Makes me think the mainland’s gonna show up to get at its horn.”

The young fisherman described his king in a very different way from the old man who had sat on the Arsenal Kingdom’s throne.

“I look slim? Why, thank you,” said a girl who was proud of her figure. “A diet of fish and seaweed is the secret to health. I’ve never eaten non-seafood meat, so life on the mainland sounds so strange to me.”

The island was overflowing with nature, but it was fairly small. They had to be reliant on the sea to survive. Receiving the sea’s blessings was their top priority, so it sounded like protecting the sea was just one part of that.

Helen nervously looked around from behind Miyabi.

“(Hm, is eating a mermaid the ultimate form of receiving the sea’s blessings?)”

“(I have to wonder if any humans have actually eaten one,)” said Alicia. “(Wouldn’t there be stories of an immortal islander here if they had?)”

It may have been an imaginary food for these islanders. They may have thought mermaids were as real as the tsuchinoko or skyfish. No one had ever caught one, so you could claim whatever you liked about them.

All the islanders mentioned the House of the King and Spirits, which was the largest mansion in the village. But its lack of walls kept it from feeling as imposing as mansions usually did.

It felt more warm than grand or daunting. Miyabi felt at home in this small village surrounded by trees.

He looked up at the building made from palm trees and a grass roof.

“This one is bigger than the others, so is this the place?”

“Only two guards…a-and the entire building feels too simple for a king’s residence,” said Eliza. “Do they not decorate things in their culture? No, they must have gold and emeralds on the island. Maybe they just treat royalty differently from the continent.”

You could view it as a form of honorable poverty.

The lack of walls presented the king as an advisor the people were free to visit.

When the king and the people lived similar lives, there was less friction between them and the king could detect any problems in the kingdom as quickly as the people could.

Even in a small society, the powerful could horde wealth and build themselves up above the rest, but the royalty here did not. Choosing to suppress one’s greed and live alongside the people was a virtue. That gave the island kingdom a very different look from Eliza’s Arsenal Kingdom or Number 8’s Empire.

“But it’s a double-edged sword.”

Celina chose to deflate Miyabi’s honest admiration.

She may have sniffed this out with the senses she had developed in the company her parents had built from the ground up.

“Declining your own majesty allows people to think you don’t deserve the power you have. We already heard someone complaining about the king. This might work during the good times, but when the kingdom is shaken by misgovernment or natural disaster, it may allow others to plot to overthrow the king.”

“You mean kindness isn’t enough?”

“For those in power, standing above the rest is partially a safety measure. An isolated island like this needs to be self-sufficient, so a poor fishing season or a lack of water could easily be blamed on the king’s power.”

Come to think of it, Onelife had been worried about this.

The new king had taken the throne at only 12 after his father died, but not everyone agreed with that.

Kindness was not enough.

An outlaw pirate may have understood those blunt rules more than anyone, so he had sent Miyabi’s party in to break the jinx. He had asked them to help the new king in exchange for the magical automatons.

“Sigh, thank goodness. I shouldn’t need to do that on this peaceful island.”

Since they had found the king’s residence so easily, the glasses woman breathed a sigh of relief (blowing a heated adult breath onto the back of Miyabi’s neck).

“Yes, I shouldn’t need to transform into Venus.”

But Alicia whispered into her ear.

“Don’t be so sure. If the people here have never seen a bunny girl, it might catch on as an explosive new fad.”

“Wow, this place is a treasure trove of possibilities!” rejoiced the radio. “Let’s remake the island into a fishnet stocking empire!!”

“That’s all the more reason not to! I don’t want to be responsible for that!!”

Helen shuddered as the party entered the House of the King and Spirits.

After an aide welcomed them in, a brown boy with short, bluish hair emerged to greet them. His clothing was dyed a bright blue using some fish or flower found in the ocean or on the island, but he was very clearly nothing more than a small child. He was young enough that the distinctions between the sexes were blurred. Miyabi could see why even a criminal like Onelife would be worried about the boy’s wellbeing.

He looked too soft to place in harm’s way in the dog-eat-dog world of royal politics.

“I was already informed of your arrival.” His voice would have sounded regal if it were not such a high-pitched soprano. “You are the foreigners from the mainland, aren’t you?”

“Are you the king?”

There were no chairs or sofas, so the young king sat directly on the empty floor. It was an unusual arrangement for Miyabi’s party, but if the king was doing it, it had to be the polite thing to do. They followed suit. Celina and Eliza were more familiar with the continent’s etiquette, so they were more uncomfortable with this than the others.

“I would like to introduce myself right away, but we have certain courtesies that must be followed in our kingdom.”

“S-such as?”

Had it been rude to visit the king without being invited first?

Miyabi shrank down nervously, but the brown boy shook his head to say the problem was not with who they were.

He winked as he explained.

“The sun shining down from heaven and the azure sea surrounding our kingdom are our greatest treasures and I do understand it must have been exhilarating to see them for the very first time. I am even willing to take it as a compliment. That said, how about you change into ordinary clothing before we discuss the future of my kingdom?”

So…

“Sigh. That swimsuit was weird, but it feels wrong taking it off before ever swimming in it.”

“S-sorry about the wait, everyone.”

Alicia, Helen, and the rest soon returned, back in their normal clothing. That clothing was meant for journeying in, so it was not quite formal wear. Still, it was about right for holding a secret discussion.

“Now, then.”

The brown boy waited until they had all settled in before straightening up himself.

Straightening his spine was all it took to change the atmosphere around them. No matter his age or how he looked, he had what it took to be a leader.

“I am Kananka Fulpen, the new king ruling over the islands, people, and spirits of the Fulpen Maknika Ocean Kingdom.”

“I’m surprised you gave us an audience without an appointment,” said Celina.

“We have long received a lot of useful knowledge from those who arrive on our shores. Plus, one of you owns a Godhorn Tech. Outside knowledge, technology, and excitement is a much-needed cultural stimulant for a closed environment like ours, so I could never ignore this opportunity. That said, we are very busy with the upcoming coronation, so we cannot do much even for valued guests like you.”

“About that.”

Eliza glared at Miyabi for interrupting. She was all about chivalry, so she demanded respect of kings from any culture.

“Do you know a pirate named Onelife?”

“…”

Kananka wordlessly prompted him to continue.

Still seated on the floor, Miyabi explained the situation with plenty of gesturing. Alma mimicked the gestures, but probably didn’t know what any of it meant.

“He asked us to come here and gave us some gifts for you. I just hope there’s something we can do to help.”

“I see. So you know him.”

“Are you saying you really do know him too?”

Miyabi’s face lit up, but something was wrong.

“If I had known, I might have handled this differently,” continued Kananka. “No, enough about Onelife. What is your name?”

“M-me? Miyabi. Miyabi Blackgarden.”

“Miyabi, you do not seem like a bad person. In fact, I quite like you.”

That was an ominously phrased compliment.

And that impression was accurate.

“But unfortunately, you have brought a great calamity to this island.”

“Eh?”

Something rang in his mind.

He recognized the regular, high-pitched alarm.

“What!? I’m detecting…a sorcery bomb!?”

With an island this small, one of those could wipe the entire kingdom off the map.

“Does that mean the 11th is on this island!?”

He sprang to his feet, but Kananka remained calm.

“Wait a moment. I think it must have been hidden among the gifts you brought. Miyabi, you seem capable of sensing this bomb.”

“…”

“But did you think you were the only one in the entire world capable of that? The spirits speak to us all equally. It is just that not many know how to listen.”

Kananka winked and he seemed to be calling n some kind of invisible power or phenomenon that he referred to as “the spirits”.

“Are you, um, using your Godhorn Tech’s power?”

“I see. So you use that to boost your natural ability? Fascinating. That is not what I do. The ability to converse with the spirits is a requirement to rule as king here. I can use this power to predict the weather and the height of the waves. One of the king’s duties is to ensure the people can catch enough fish. Not even I understand how it works. All I can say is I was born this way.”

That put him above Moebius and Miyabi.

But the upshot here was that Kananka could also sense the sorcery bomb’s threat.

Maybe even more accurately than Miyabi could.

“Maybe it used a timer to switch on and maybe its box was shielded in some way. Either one would explain why we did not sense it until now.”

“Why would they be so careful about it this time?” asked Alicia.

“It may be a response to the previous bombs being disarmed,” suggested the radio.

“Meaning?” asked Miyabi.

The philosopher’s stone spat out the correct answer, just as a philosopher’s stone was meant to do.

Even if no one wanted to hear that answer.

“Listen, the last two bombs – the one in the forest and the one at the Schwarz Schütze – were both bluffs by Moebius. That would mean, Miyabi, that this is your first time encountering a sorcery bomb from the real 11th.”

“Oh.”

“Again, Moebius’s bluffs were only meant to draw out the 11th, so they would have been set up so they wouldn’t actually detonate. But that changes from here on out.”

“So the real 11th would have been watching Moebius’s decoy bombs from afar, or sending Number 8 in to check it out for them? So they know everything that happened, including how those decoy bombs were disarmed by someone?”

“That would mean they already see you as a major threat. They go to the effort of disguising the bombs as part of the scenery, remember? But not because they’re bored and setting up a high-stakes game of spot-the-difference. The real 11th doesn’t want you interfering at all. If they’ve figured out that you can detect them in advance, of course they’ll think up a way of keeping you from doing that.”

That was a truly unpleasant idea.

Eliza was getting antsy.

“We can discuss the reasoning behind it later. This is not my kingdom, but I cannot sit here and let innocent people die!!”

“Like I said before, my Mother Shark is unbeatable in the ocean. It can pierce any warship from below and bring down any flying object. But it’s powerless against an enemy once they arrive on the beach.”

This was not an attack by brute force.

Whoever had set it up had won the kingdom’s trust and learned detailed information on its internal situation before putting together the plan. And they had to know that detonating a sorcery bomb here could destroy the entire island.

“Onelife Shiftup…” muttered Miyabi.

Moebius had had his reasons, but this was different. The 11th had deceived Number 8 into setting up the sorcery bombs. Miyabi knew he should have been more careful after learning their enemy used such underhanded methods. Feeling used, he repeated that hated man’s name to himself.

“So was he the 11th? I should have paid more attention! Now I see why he found every excuse he could to keep us from repairing Number 8!! Because he didn’t want the automaton to give us his name!!”

Miyabi and Eliza rushed from the House of the King and Spirits. They were initially surprised that Kananka didn’t follow them, but then they recalled him saying he was unbeatable in the ocean but powerless on land.

Anything could happen in a confused situation and there were apparently some who did not approve of his coronation. The king had to avoid being killed at all costs. If he was, it would plunge the kingdom into chaos.

“We need to locate and destroy the sorcery bomb.”

The glaring sun worked against them.

Miyabi had to work hard to organize his confused thoughts and figure out what he needed to do.

“We can identify Onelife’s gifts by the wooden boxes. He tricked us, so the boxes should already be inside the village. I’ll just destroy them all until the bomb’s reading is gone!”

“Koo!!”

The threat likely came from the boxes they had brought with them, but those boxes had already been unloaded from the ship and carried to locations around the village. When Miyabi’s party attempted to remove the nails from one, a slender human arm punched through the wood from within.

No, it only looked human.

“A magical automaton!?”

“You mean he loaded the boxes with more than just the bomb!?”

This one did not look as human as Number 8. It was more like a well-made ball-jointed doll. It had no clothing or skin.

Onelife had said he would not send the automatons if Miyabi’s party visited the remote island kingdom instead.

But that promise too had been nothing but words. That traitor had been planning all along to send in this fighting force.

Celina clicked her tongue.

“He said he wasn’t using Compress Cargo on the gifts to preserve the artwork, but now we know the real reason. Sorcery bombs and magical automatons are too complex to store that way!”

The rustic islanders looked confused at first.

They did not properly grasp the threat, so their initial fear may not have been directed at the sorcery bomb or the imperial automatons.

It was only when Alicia’s staff gave a roar and Celina obliterated the automaton’s head with her rifle that the entire village erupted with screams. When the people paled, fled in a panic, tripped, and cowered in place, they were not trying to escape the automatons. They feared the people wielding real violence capable of dealing out death. They shook their heads in protest after seeing Miyabi’s control sword, not the automatons bursting from the boxes.

“Ugh, no good deed goes unpunished, I see!” complained Alicia.

“Seeing their fear is better than seeing them as silent corpses!!” said Eliza.

The pure white knight wielding a giant lance in both hands was the perfect honor student through and through.

Several automatons appeared around Miyabi, the sand crunching beneath their feet.

Miyabi’s eyes met those of one of the automatons.

He thought he might be able to strike back and break through their formation. He thought he might be able to destroy them by ordering an aerial bombing from the Lucifer Horn.

But he hesitated for just a moment.

In that moment, Eliza thrust her enormous lance in from the side, smashing the automaton’s head.

Inorganic parts scattered with a sound deeper than a plant pot breaking.

“Miyabi!! Don’t look at them like Number 8. These are mass-produced models without any high-level intelligence!!”

“Kh.”

His fear must have shown.

But more and more of the boxes were being broken from within and more magical automatons appeared, swinging their limbs wildly. They were targeting the panicked and fleeing islanders.

They only ever fought as ordered.

There was nothing they wished to protect and nothing they detested. Those empty ball-jointed dolls simply carried out their orders one after another.

Miyabi squeezed his eyes shut.

Then he raised his control sword for the sake of the living people here.

“Sorry!!”

He heard a dull impact and the dry crack of something breaking.

He felt the splitting destruction of something inhuman.

He clenched his teeth and felt like vomiting…and he hated that he was able to suppress it.

“That said, the automatons are appearing from multiple locations simultaneously,” said Helen. “The ordinary houses here have no walls, preventing the people from locking themselves in. If we don’t prepare a better location before beginning the battle, we’ll have a hard time protecting all of the islanders!”

“I’m aware of that!!”

Miyabi raised the hand not holding the control sword.

He had a power that sat opposite of destruction.

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

Something rose from the sandy ground in response. It was an iron hemisphere larger than a tent and made from gathered iron sand. That shelter could protect against the automaton’s blade-hard fingers.

“Get in!!”

He gestured toward a cowering youth and raised his control sword again to buy time. Dodging was not an option, so he had to clash directly with the automaton arms.

His bones strained and pain spread across his palms.

He was receiving the special power of a Godhorn Tech, but he was not actually trained in swordplay. The fragility of his fundamentals was all too clear in a direct battle like this.

But he still clenched his teeth, endured, and pushed back.

“Hurry inside!! You’ll be safe in there!!”

The paralysis finally wore off and the brown-skinned youth took a small child’s hand and rushed inside the metal shelter.

The automaton clashing with Miyabi was destroyed by a giant lance.

Eliza spoke to the boy while they stood back to back.

“Do you know why they were suddenly able to move just now, Miyabi?”

“?”

“Because the people accepted that your sword is a tool to protect them, not a weapon to threaten their lives. So they no longer need to fear it. Now they can rely on it. …Remember this, Miyabi, because this is the joy of being a protector knight. If you never forget this accomplishment, you can always grow stronger!!”

One of those iron shelters was not enough.

They could use as many of them as they could get.

Of course, those makeshift shelters were meaningless if the sorcery bomb detonated. The entire island kingdom could be wiped off the map or sink into the ocean.

So he would not let that happen.

He had put the islanders at ease. He had earned their trust. So now he had to hold up his end of the bargain. He had to locate the sorcery bomb and keep it from detonating. This was his own battle now.

“Ohhh!!”

He would not let it end prematurely.

He clenched his teeth, challenged a new automaton, and asked about something he had noticed.

“These are imperial, right? But they don’t seem as persistent or unpredictable as Number 8.”

“Eliza said these are the mass-produced models, remember?” said Celina. “Their internal parts are mutually compatible, but they are much simpler than the eight primary models that answered directly to the emperor and guarded the Empire from eight directions.”

That meant there were a lot of them, but they brought nothing new to the table.

If they were inferior to Number 8, a tactic that worked against him would work here.

The magical automatons alone would not be enough to destroy the island, which was why Onelife had focused on the sorcery bomb and sent the automatons to buy time as insurance. The automatons were slow and not all that durable, so they were easily damaged with Eliza’s lance and Celina’s gun.

After they had destroyed around half of the boxes, the ground shook and an explosive blast reached their ears.

But it was nowhere near them.

“Whoa!? Wh-what!?”

Miyabi’s jumpiness must have been contagious because Helen clung to the younger boy without thinking. She was certainly soft in places, but he was mostly afraid of the thick knife she was holding and being none too careful with.

“Eek!? Did it detonate!?”

“No, that was too far away. And I recognize this…”

Eliza and Celina joined the conversation because they too had operated one of those strongest weapons.

“That sounds like Godhorn Techs fighting,” said Celina. “But whose are they!?”

“Whatever the answer, there won’t be much left of this island if we don’t deal with the sorcery bomb. We can deal with that later. We need to address with the more immediate problem first!”

With a goal in mind, Miyabi used the resonance alarm ringing in his mind to search out the sorcery bomb.

His sixth sense finally gathered on a single point.

“It’s in that box!!”

He raised his control sword, stabbed it into the box, and smashed up the contents.

Until the sound in his head completely vanished.

The 11th was an artist, just like a top-rate pâtissier who could create sweets indistinguishable from an actual shoe or jewel. The sorcery bomb could replace anything and it was apparently powerful enough to wipe out an entire castle and its castle town once it detonated.

But on the other hand, the detonation method was so complex that it would not trigger when attacked. Finding it was the hard part because it would be smashed by brute force once it was located. Moebius had taught him that, so Miyabi felt no fear.

“Pant, pant.”

“I-is it gone? Is it safe now!?”

The box had been destroyed. Alicia repeatedly asked for confirmation while holding swimsuit Alma tight. Only Miyabi could tell the reading was gone, so of course she was worried.

“Damn that pirate. I bet he was originally going to bring the boxes himself, but he saw an opportunity to have us bring those ‘gifts’ for him!”

They heard footsteps on the forest sand.

Kananka Fulpen was walking their way. The giant weapon in his hand was a bent…what even was it? It may have been his Godhorn Tech’s control device. But his balance was off and he was clearly favoring one leg.

The young king did not let the pain show in his voice.

“Yes, I had a feeling this would happen.”

“King Kananka, you’re hurt!” shouted Helen.

The king himself did not seem bothered.

“I only have my own naivete to blame. The possibility of a trap occurred to me, but I still opted not to sink you and your entire ship.”

He wobbled to the side.

Miyabi rushed over to support him and the younger boy slipped down to the sandy beach.

Eliza looked unwell as she watched.

“W-we need to treat him. If the king collapses here, the panicked and anxious people’s emotions will explode!”

“Gh…don’t worry about me. I simply had some trouble calming the raging spirits. I was caught in the anger erupting from the control wing.”

“The spirits” appeared to be a general term for any unseen powers, but those powers came in many forms. Miyabi’s party was unsure how this one translated into their own words.

Kananka smiled bitterly and waved his giant weapon made of stone polished so bright it shined like a gemstone.

That had to be his Godhorn Tech control device. If that had done it, he must not have been injured in an attack by the automatons. Could damage to the Godhorn Tech itself reach the wielder through the control device? Miyabi had not used his enough to know.

Kananka had called it a control wing, but what was that weapon called? Miyabi was curious, but he could not quite find an answer. It didn’t seem to be a bent sword or club.

“What is that thing? Could it be an axe!?”

“Miyabi, why are your eyes sparkling? Also, that is not an axe.” World-traveler Celina’s eyes widened. “How unusual. Not everyday you see a boomerang.”

“Oh? You’re familiar with them?”

“There is not a product my Bodenburg Company doesn’t sell☆” She winked with a hand on her chest. “But the ones created by the continent’s craftsmen do not actually return to the thrower. They are such a strange device.”

“They are, but why does Miyabi look so disappointed?”

“Oh, this forest-obsessed boy just loves axes,” explained Helen, rubbing her temples.

According to Kananka, his control device had attacked him after his Godhorn Tech went berserk in some way.

The question was what had caused it to go berserk. But…

“You hurt your ankle, didn’t you?” said Alicia. “Miyabi! Go find something to cool it with!!”

According to the villagers who nervously peeked out from their shelters, the blessings of the ocean always took priority on the island. He ended up bringing back several types of seaweed they had in stock. They must have been similar to mint because his fingertips felt a cool sensation as he massaged in freshwater to rehydrate them.

“Will this work?”

“Wrap it around his ankle.”

“The pirate wants to create a diversion and confusion,” said Kananka, seated with his small leg extended. “My Mother Shark is unbeatable in the ocean, so he intentionally caused chaos on land to create problems for the island’s protector. Even the sorcery bomb was a diversion.”

“You mean…?”

Miyabi was cut off by an especially loud explosion.

It was a scary thought, but if true, it meant Kananka could not run away.

“My Mother Shark was defeated while patrolling the ocean. Because I was distracted.”

“It was defeated so easily?” groaned Knight Eliza, but King Kananka was unshaken. He was the kind of leader who accepted his failures and used them to do better in the future.

“There is no denying it.”

“Hm, we should probably fix his ankle in place,” said Alicia

“What about with taping? Are there any vines around here?” asked the radio.

Miyabi entered the forest full of unfamiliar plants, but he was fortunate to find plenty of vines.

“Here you go. Let’s get his ankle fixed up.”

“Yes. It might hurt some when we bind it, but bear with it, new king,” said Eliza.

Kananka did not even wait for them to finish their treatment before continuing the conversation.

“More importantly, the Mother Shark is no longer defending the island. You might be able to mess with one if you’re clever enough, but it takes another Godhorn Tech to actually destroy one. I hate needing to leave the fate of my kingdom in the hands of guests, but what choice do I have?”

Miyabi thought for a bit.

“Onelife supposedly broke off a Wicked God horn and built it into his pirate ship.”

“Th-that has to be an embellishment!”

Rejecting something because it was hard to believe only narrowed your viewpoint.

Celina’s protest was mostly just wishful thinking.

“We’ll know soon enough I suppose,” bluntly concluded Alicia. “The explosion came from the beach. That damn muscle man has brought his whole Godhorn Tech onto the island!”

The battlefield was on the ocean this time.

Miyabi’s party rushed through the forest to reach the beach, hearing enormous artillery shells crashing down all the while. They were hitting much too close for comfort, so Miyabi diverted their aim with Decoy Walls while they ran across the sand.

The tropical forest opened up all of a sudden.

The two Godhorn Techs were all jumbled together.

The sharp ram on the bow of the King Knot pirate ship had pierced the side of the Mother Shark submarine, forming a giant letter T in the waves crashing down on the beach. The 50m ship and the 60m sub created a single massive work of art.

The giant sailing ship had emerged victorious.

The many sails caught the wind to spread out grandly, large cannons lined either side of the ship, and the brutal ram made from the Wicked God horn itself rose up from the bow. This was another ruler of the sea, built with a wholly different design philosophy from Kananka’s. The lord of the deep had been pierced through, pushed up onto the beach, and laid out on the chopping block. Insolent was not enough to describe this pirate.

A strange tingling pain covered Miyabi’s cheeks as he approached.

This was an act of evil, yet it appeared majestic and powerful.

Even the radio could scarcely believe it.

“It really dragged that thing onto the beach. I thought the Mother Shark was supposed to be unbeatable in the ocean!”

“You have to do whatever you can, Miyabi,” said Helen.

Nothing remained to protect the island.

Miyabi stepped forward, control sword in hand, as if to break free of the fear binding him. He finally set foot on the beach. The pirate ship was still functioning. If he didn’t stop it, it would destroy this small island in no time.

A dull rumble shook the air as the cannons on either side of the ship began to move.

A chill ran down Miyabi’s spine.

“Here it comes. Stay away from the Decoy Walls and dodge!!!!!”

A flash of light.

A deafening boom.

The King Knot kept the appearance of a ruler even as it abandoned its mobility by sailing up onto land. It could not be destroyed by any normal means and anyone who so much as approached would be obliterated by a storm of shells.

Miyabi and Celina discussed it after he created a thick wall of sand…which was really camouflage for the makeshift trench he gouged across the beach and rolled inside to hide.

“Fire, water, wind, and earth. Is there anything it can’t do?”

“This is not alchemy. I-it might be using talismans or amulets.”

“Talis-what? Amul-huh?”

“The difference is whether or not they activate automatically. T-think of them as a type of magic charm. They say sailors can tell directions by looking to the stars, so I imagine he’s developed a way of extracting that constellation power and sealing it in a charm. Gh.”

Celina’s logical analysis may have been her way of conquering the fear.

But it wasn’t enough.

This thing’s power was real. Revealing how it worked did not cause that power to wither away.

The rich girl’s slender shoulders trembled. The more she learned about it, the worse it got and she appeared to have hit her limit. She was half in tears as she clung to Miyabi.

He had never before seen the moment logic was overwhelmed by emotion.

“Wh-wh-wh-what can we even do against that kind of firepower!? Th-th-th-this is so stupid! We can’t survive that pirate’s nonsense!”

“I can control the sand, so maybe I can make the ground collapse below it. If I dig into the sand enough, it might fall on its side.”

“Th-that isn’t enough. I doubt it would explode just from falling on its side. Isn’t there some better…more foolproof and perfect plan for- yikes!?”

Just then…

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

A valiant roar erupted nearby.

The strait-laced person was strait-lacedly charging toward the headwind of shells with lance at the ready. And not even in the trench. She was on the flat beach with nothing to use as a shield.

“Th-th-that…strait-laced moron!!!”

Celina’s eyes bugged out, but none of them had expected what happened next.

Eliza made a chance discovery.

“Oh? The cannons cannot target me when I am this close to the ship.”

The cannons were lined up near the deck, so they could not aim down far enough to hit Eliza directly below them.

“Goooo!!” shouted Alicia. “Destroy the cannons while we can!!”

That was no easy feat.

This was a Godhorn Tech, after all. The fear did not go away just because it was motionless on the beach and could not directly fire on you from that close.

Another explosion erupted from the beach.

It was not a direct hit, but the blast still knocked Alicia over onto the sand. The noise of the cannon firing was enough to make you dizzy. Celina was an expert with guns and gunpowder, so she explained that artillery could do direct damage with the shell and indirect damage by wearing down the target’s morale from all the noise and shaking it produced even when it missed. Helen grimaced at exactly that pain and ran over to collect the dizzy elf.

“Damn, that thing’s tough!!” said Celina.

“But it can’t keep this up forever,” said Miyabi. “We’re wearing it down little by little.”

The thick control sword gave a roar and the cannons were destroyed one after another.

They had found a weakness and slipped into a blind spot, but they were still scared. Even in these relatively favorable conditions, there was always a possibility that the ship would crush them all with some kind of brute force attack. What if the recoil of the cannons caused the ship to lift from the ground and crush them? The Godhorn Tech gave off that sort of mythical aura. Enough to make Miyabi worry unnecessarily and nearly come to a stop.

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

He plugged a cannon’s muzzle with sand, causing it to blow itself up.

His control sword smashed the last of the cannons.

And just as he neutralized all of the pirate ship’s weapons…

“Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!”

Someone yelled even louder than the explosions.

The scent of sweat joined the salty aroma of the ocean.

Miyabi looked up to see a man with a prosthetic arm standing on the pirate ship’s deck. He wore a distinctive hat, a gold metal plate in his empty eye socket, and a coat. It was undoubtedly Onelife Shiftup.

“There you are, pirate!!”

“Since you were using the magical automatons and a sorcery bomb, I take it you’re the 11th?”

Onelife responded to Miyabi’s question by jumping down from the ship.

He landed with a boom and a cloud of white sand burst into the air. The bright sunlight glinted off his imperial prosthetic arm and his abnormally large cutlass.

“All those inconvenient facts slipped my mind!” he roared.

“Then I’ll just have to remind you. Control sword – tactical open!!”

A clash had finally developed between the two Godhorn Tech users.

The King Knot was grounded and all of its cannons had been destroyed. The ram on the front was its most powerful weapon, but even that was useless when the ship could not move. But that was no reason to relax. The control device was a powerful weapon in and of itself. Celina and Eliza were still useful in a fight even after losing their Godhorn Techs, so they needed to be prepared for a special attack that combined an ordinary weapon with magic.

Or so Miyabi thought.

And he was not entirely wrong.

But…

“Ugh!?”

After the heavy clang, he was the one who bent backwards along with his control sword. This was more than a clash between swords. It was like a bizarre execution method where he was ordered to hold back a tackle from a rhino or elephant using only a thin metal panel. He could easily die if he did not catch the force in a way that kept his bones from bending and breaking.

Onelife’s sword technique was far from refined.

But he made up for it with such great power that he took complete control of the battle. Weight and weapon meant nothing. Clever tricks were meaningless. When he took a step, the beach exploded and a great mass of air roared out. He was a raging storm of violence that tore through the puny world around him. Miyabi did not choose any of his moves. If he did not react to each of Onelife’s attacks first and foremost, it would all fall apart. He could tell on an instinctual level.

“Bwa ha ha ha!! Pathetic!! Simply pathetic!! You should’ve trained yourself until your steel was a storm and your blade the crashing waves. If you hope to break my control blade and kill the sailor, you’ll need an attack capable of shattering an oceangoing vessel! Clench your fist then and you might just reach me!!!!!!”

This made no sense.

Something was missing here. Plus…

“How is this real? Why is he stronger without his Godhorn Tech!?”

Eliza’s eyes widened, control lance in hand.

Miyabi’s party had him outnumbered, but they could not keep up with him. In fact, he pushed them back and threatened to break their flesh and bones if they let up for even a moment. Like an invisible hand was squeezing at their spines.

“The King Knot is only a trophy celebrating my life.”

The prosthetic arm pirate laughed.

He laughed and easily raised his massive blade.

“A real man does his own fighting!!!!!!”

That meant he was not even using the control device to boost his own magic.

He really and truly was only using his own muscles and the prosthetic arm, yet he could battle Godhorn Techs and had broken off a real Wicked God’s horn. He only saw the cutlass as a stick so sturdy he didn’t have to worry about breaking it.

“I-I don’t understand. What do we do about a musclebound freak like this!?”

Celina decided it would be silly to face someone like him in a close-range battle, so she kept her distance and focused on firing her gun.

Guns promised the same destructive power to anyone who used them, but that also meant not even the greatest expert in the world could increase their power. Celina applied magic to her bullets – primarily alchemy related to lead – but she must have been reaching the limits of what that could accomplish. She clicked her tongue while quickly pushing in more powder and another bullet with the long, skinny rod.

The pirate had a pistol at his hip, but he made no attempt to draw it. He may have only used it to send signals with the light and sound. He knocked all the projectiles from the air with his thick cutlass, but he was gradually forced onto the defensive. Of course, he was enough of a monster to be fighting a long-term battle while fully exposed to the threat of magical bullets.

They outnumbered him but could not manage to surround him.

Miyabi clenched his teeth and stabbed his control sword into the beach.

“Shoot him, Lucifer Horn!!!!!!”

The bomber cut by overhead, dropping a beam of light as it went.

The thick beam tore across the beach, approaching Onelife to envelop his enormous body.

But…

“Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!”

With a boom, the light scattered like ocean spray.

The pirate’s enormous cutlass was held skyward. He had sliced through the Lucifer Horn’s beam, scorching the sand around him.

The beam had not been any weaker than usual.

It had been hot enough to melt the sand into glass. And yet…

“Worthless!! No soul in it at all. If you want to kill me, come at me with love in your blade. Yes, love – a form of admiration. A surprise confession’s enough to scare even me!! I’d be bedridden for a week, you landlubberrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!”

“I-is this idiot impervious to blades and bullets both? Not even Miyabi’s bombing worked! Do his muscles break the laws of physics or something!?”

Helen could handle everything from housework to assassinations, but she was out of breath, her shoulders rising and falling. She was not used to the tropical heat or the sand catching at her feet, so it all sapped at her stamina. At this rate, Miyabi’s party would be worn down first and then a fatal attack could reach them once their movements slowed.

“No, we might still have a chance,” said Celina, rudely wiping the sweat dripping down her chin.

“What a coincidence. I was thinking the same thing,” said Eliza.

“Care to share with the rest of us!?” shouted Miyabi.

“We took out the King Knot’s cannons, but the Wicked God horn remains.”

“Destroy the sealed container to release the horn within, and not even that musclebound freak can ignore it,” explained Celina.

Miyabi finally got it.

“So you’re saying I just have to keep attacking the ship, right!?”

He changed targets.

“Use this, strait-laced girl!”

Alicia tossed a delicate glass container.

The skinny test tube soared into Eliza’s outstretched hand and she gave the colorful liquid within a puzzled glance, so the elf alchemist grinned.

“That’s the secret alchemy potion I use to boost my physical strength. It’s pure magic, so not even caffeine can compete. You won’t be getting a wink of sleep tonight!!”

Not even that would be enough to reach Onelife’s level, but Eliza and her enormous lance was their heaviest hitter. Once the alchemical boost was added to her innate horsepower, they sent her to the ship while Miyabi and Celina faced Onelife.

“Buying time?”

The man took a thundering footstep.

That was all it took to drain all color from their surroundings. The world was deprived of freedom and pressure bore down on them from all directions. An unseen wall pressed in on Miyabi’s party.

“Against me? How? Have you forgotten I slayed a real Wicked God and broke off its horn with just my own two arms?”

But.

Onelife was not the only confident one.

“Oh? Miyabi, this idiot seems to be mistaken about some things.”

“Yeah, we aren’t here to sacrifice ourselves and buy some time.”

Onelife narrowed his one eye questioningly, but it was already too late.

They had achieved their goal.

“We were using your confidence against you to lure you to this very spot.”

A thunderous sound rang out.

Alicia and Helen had rushed in, the former swinging her staff in from the side and the latter holding her thick dagger.

The real threat there was Helen Clockgear whose assassin skills included applying magic or potions to her blade to provide special effects.

Not even an embodiment of thick muscles could ignore a paralysis potion.

“Gh…”

Even then, it only lasted a moment.

The mass of muscles stagged backwards and bumped into his own ship.

No.

He staggered back against the hole in the hull that Eliza had created, bumping against the thick outer shell of the sealed container that kept the Wicked God horn stable.

“Celina!!”

The girl fired a bullet through the crack in the armor to stimulate what lay within. She did not hesitate to pull the trigger because she knew hitting the man would not kill him. Plus, she was not aiming at the pirate. A flash of bluish-white lightning scattered from within the ship.

A hint of panic appeared on Onelife’s face.

“Nhh!?”

“Hey, Onelife. Why didn’t you just come with us?” Miyabi glared at Onelife and held his control sword at the ready so the man’s great strength could not reach Alicia, Celina, or the others. “I doubt we were originally part of your plan, but our presence shouldn’t have kept you from taking that cargo ship. If you had visited the island as part of our group, you should have had an even easier time setting up a trap close to Kananka.”

“…”

“The people at the port adore you and the butler called Rudolf said you didn’t harm any of the crew when you attacked the trade ships. You put your crew first and you don’t harm people doing honest work, right!? I thought you didn’t like earning people’s trust through deception!”

“All those inconvenient facts slipped my-”

“Like hell they have! Where is your crew!? That pirate ship only has a captain!!”

“!?”

Yes.

This had been bothering Miyabi.

Onelife was so adored at the criminal city, yet Miyabi had not seen any of his actual crewmembers. Some youths had so looked up to the man that they had attacked Miyabi’s party with something called electricity to protect him. If he had been recruiting, he would have had a flood of hopeful crewmembers.

No.

It made no sense for him to lack a crew. But then where had they gone?

“A nonsensical mission, a missing crew, and the shadow of the 11th… Yeah, I think I get it now. This is just like with Number 8. I already know the real 11th is willing to trample on people’s feelings and make use of whatever someone cares about most to get their way. So you’re telling me everything!! What is it you’re dealing with here!?”

Miyabi was done attacking bad people for being bad. With Moebius Entrance and Number 8, he had learned that everyone had their own reasons or circumstances driving whatever they did.

So.

So surely the same applied to Onelife Shiftup.

Control sword clashed with prosthetic hand.

Miyabi was the one pushed back, but then Eliza’s lance joined in. Alicia’s staff and Helen’s thick knife also cut in as soon as one of them was pushed back. They refused to let an opening develop. Celina fired her rifle to scatter the sand at Onelife’s feet, knocking him off balance.

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

“Nhhh!?”

Miyabi created a large box of sand and simply chucked it at his adversary.

The pirate easily smashed it, but that scattered fine sand everywhere. It got into the joints of his complex prosthetic arm, causing it to groan.

It malfunctioned.

“Onelife!!”

Miyabi leaned in with his entire body weight.

He pushed forward on his control sword, forcing back Onelife and his metal arm.

He pushed him against the hull of the pirate ship, through the broken armor, and toward the sealed container, where sparks were flying.

The sinister serpent of sparks seized his spine.

Not even his extreme muscles could protect him from a direct attack with the horn’s power.

“Gwohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“Out with it already!! Tell me what led you to do all this!!”

“Miyabi!! Any further and you’ll be caught too!!”

Helen shouted a frantic warning, but the boy did not even look back. He did not take his eyes off of the powerful pirate for even a second.

Even now, Onelife remained a formidable opponent.

He forced his locked-up prosthetic arm to move, pushing his cutlass against Miyabi’s control sword.

With a dull clang, the grip slipped from the boy’s hand. The sword spun through the air and stabbed into the sand a short distance away.

Ordinarily, he might have let his party members take over while he retrieved his sword.

But he moved forward instead.

Because the pirate had thrown aside his enormous cutlass.

That just left clenching their fists.

“Onelife!!!!!!”

“Nwahh!!”

They both threw their punches.

In a pure exchange of fists, Miyabi would have had no way of defeating Onelife. This was the legendary pirate who had singlehandedly slain a Wicked God and broken off its horn. What could a boy who had rarely ever gotten into fights back in his home village do against that?

Miyabi’s punch was terribly light and no match for Onelife’s.

Miyabi’s body was terribly small and no match for Onelife’s.

Miyabi’s speed was terribly slow and no match for Onelife’s.

But.

“Owwaaahhhh!!!!!!”

The roar of agony came from Onelife.

Then his biological fist tore through the air.

Miyabi dodged it so barely a few strands of red hair scattered in the wind while he sent in his own fist!

Yes.

He could not let himself fear because he was more fragile than Onelife Shiftup.

He could not let himself worry because he was smaller than Onelife Shiftup.

He could not let himself give up because he was weaker than Onelife Shiftup.

After all, all of those things pointed to another fact.

Miyabi had something that Onelife did not!!

“How!? How can you possibly keep up with me in a pure fistfight!?”

He still hadn’t been hit.

He still wasn’t dead.

Onelife was of course surprised by this. Because the boy was showing off some things that the legendary pirate could never hope to have.

He felt fear, so he carefully calculated out the best distance to attack from. His attacks were too light, so he searched for the best way of putting his weight behind them. The haves and the have-nots all had their own way of finding victory under any condition. Miyabi could not pull off the feats Onelife had demonstrated, but Onelife could not struggle as hard as Miyabi. People were not overwhelmingly powerful because they were superior and people were not obsessively persistent because they were inferior. Rock, paper, and scissors were all equal. This was no more than a person named Miyabi clashing with a person named Onelife. All of the preconceptions and added values were unnecessary.

A deafening crack shook the air.

It did not come from Miyabi’s fist.

Onelife’s metal fist had caught the boy’s cheekbone.

“Is…that…”

But there was no victorious grin on Onelife’s face.

He had landed the punch, but he was the one who looked struck.

Even after feeling the heavy blow to his cheekbone, the light in Miyabi Blackgarden’s eyes did not waver.

“Is that all you’ve got, pirate!?”

“Kh.”

This was the legendary pirate. The great man everyone admired.

Was his legend really this shallow?

The boy who should have been knocked out with the very first punch threw his other hand toward Onelife’s face.

It landed.

He was a child who didn’t know the first thing about martial arts, but Onelife’s pillar was definitely shaken.

“You’re the 11th? Defeat you and all our problems are in the past? You really expect me to believe that!!!???”

He shouted.

He roared.

Nothing he said could actually negate the damage done to his body. That one clean hit had dyed the right half of his vision an unnatural red.

But he kept going regardless.

Because there was no other way to reach this man.

“Everyone looked up to you as a pirate, so what would you gain by tricking Number 8 into setting up those sorcery bombs!? None of it fits, so no one would be satisfied with an answer like that!! You said it yourself. You did. You said a real man does his own fighting. So you’d never choose to hide a bomb no one can find and then flee to safety while the city is blown to hell!!!!!!”

More dull impacts rang out.

There was no room for Helen’s assassin techniques or Eliza’s expert warfighting skills.

It was 1-on-1.

For this moment only, the fate of the continent and the Wicked God horns didn’t even matter.

It was simply a battle between men.

“Show me.”

He was beaten and battered.

It was a hellish scene where the boy seemed to be further crushed the more he kept fighting.

Yet he did not fall back.

It was absurd, but it was puny Miyabi who pushed forward, still shouting and showing off his bloodstained teeth.

“Show me the real Onelife Shiftup, the pirate everyone looks up to!! Is the legendary pirate really someone who bites his tongue, clenches his teeth, and does some job someone forced onto him? Is that the true form of Onelife Shiftup who naturally gathers a crowd when he walks down the street, creating an impromptu parade!? Of course not. So please, I’m begging you! Look me in the eye and tell me to my face that isn’t who you are!!!”

He kept pushing.

Fist hit fist and he felt something inside him bending, but he ignored the pain and roared at close range.

A crew had gathered around this man, attracted to his way of life.

Others had unofficially worked, and even committed crimes, to protect the pirate.

Could he really be the cowardly 11th? Was that really how this journey ended? Could Miyabi shove all blame onto him, refused to listen to his side of the story, strike him down as the bad guy, and then return to first village to live happily ever after?

Why did that feel so wrong?

It had to be wrong.

Miyabi Blackgarden had to believe in this. If he could not prove that Onelife was the kind of pirate he was known to be, he would be stomping on all those people’s feelings! And if Miyabi let himself be defeated here, that was exactly what would happen!!

He had to believe.

He had to continue believing and find the true answer. He clenched his teeth to do exactly that.

Just once more. Just once.

As battered as he was, he could still clench his fist one last time!!

“Owaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

“Owaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Two fists flew in, compressing the air between them.

A dull sound erupted.

Silence fell.

The one left with a grin on his face was Onelife. Their fists had collided head on. Miyabi’s fist had embedded itself in the pirate’s prosthetic, but it had been flattened in that shape. Almost like a clump of clay thrown against a thick fortress wall.

Onelife had caught Miyabi’s fist on his thick, heavy prosthetic and mercilessly broken it. This was not about technique. There was no trick to avoiding it.

Miyabi had lost in the field of pure solid toughness.

“It’s over, boy. You can’t defeat me.”

“As an outlaw pirate, you must know a thing or two about guns and cannons, right? So it’s funny you overlooked this.”

But.

Something strange happened. The boy with the crushed fist had a cruel smile on his face.

Because…

“You don’t want a bullet that’s just hard and nothing else. Softer lead allows it to be crushed and transfer all of its force to its target.”

Miyabi did not have a gun. Everything he knew about them came from Celina.

But that was no reason to fear every little thing.

He would use even the smallest and most trivial facts to take another step toward victory!!

After a short delay, a powerful force passed through the pirate’s prosthetic arm and entered his body through the shoulder.

Onelife teetered backwards and finally staggered back. His back plunged toward the damaged sealed container revealed through the ship’s broken hull. His great form was swallowed up by bursting sparks.

“You had no reason to attack Kananka and this island,” roared Miyabi, his crushed and badly bleeding fist still held out in front.

His eyes were directed dead ahead.

This was not over yet.

He could not call it a win until he saved this man. It was that conviction that kept him from collapsing no matter what happened.

“And the most unnatural element in all this is the 11th. What did they say to you!? What did they use to make you do this!?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“Because I’ll do something about it.”

He didn’t even need to think about it.

“So spill the beans and pass the baton to me!! I’ll fix it all for you!!!!!!”

Onelife’s giant body was shaking.

Miyabi’s attack had been powerful enough to crush his own fist, but it was unclear if it had actually affected the man.

But each of the boy’s attacks had pushed Onelife’s back against the Wicked God horn and all of its energy unleashed by the broken sealed container.

Each attack had exposed him to a shock so powerful an ordinary human – and even a powerful Beast Nova – could not have survived.

He had been knocked back, but it was only when something else inside him broke that he slowly opened his mouth.

“…”

The boy was reckless and foolish, but Onelife was defeated by the look in his eyes. As if to say that had wounded him far more than the fistfight or the sparks coming from the horn.

“Parasites…”

“?”

“My entire crew was infected…and the 11th is the only one who can heal them.”

“That’s more like it.”

That was a starting point.

Onelife had had no choice but to obey. He had clenched his teeth and done things that violated his principles, but he had been fighting all alone the entire time.

He was not the 11th. There was someone else pulling the strings.

Knowing that was enough. Those words brought new life to the boy’s half-broken soul. He had nearly sacrificed his own life for it, but now he was glad he had chosen this path.

This was enough fighting.

There was just one thing he had to say now. He owed it to this man for working up the courage to reveal the truth to him.

“Leave the rest to us. We’ll clean up this mess!!”

In that final moment, the one-eyed pirate smiled.

It was small, but nothing like the other smiles he had given.

“Boy!”

Someone tossed something to Miyabi from the side.

His battered hand caught the control sword that Alicia had thrown and he stabbed the tip into the beach. A large magic circle opened at his feet and he roared a command.

Everything was dyed white.

The King Knot pirate ship and the Mother Shark submarine were both blown to bits in two brilliant explosions when the Lucifer Horn’s beam hit them.

“D-do you think maybe you overdid it?” nervously asked Alicia.

“No, that blast only has him sleeping comfortably. Just all sprawled out there,” replied the exasperated radio.

The pirate was convulsing on the beach and looked unlikely to wake back up anytime soon.

Alicia finally turned back toward the redhead boy who had nearly been caught in the blast but was still sent rolling across the sand.

“Okay, boy, enough smiling and pretending you’re fine. Show me that hand you’re hiding behind your back! God, you really smashed that up good, and I don’t even know if I can make my usual White Sorcery Items with the different vegetation and ecosystem on this island!!”

“Miyabi, this might sound like a lecture from an old hag with stick up her butt, but this is actually a reward. You need to use the ears of your soul to translate this before her usual rebellious phase returns: ‘Oh, why must you always come home covered in mud? You are just hopeless, you know that?’ This world has no more need for towels! So before starting on dinner, fill your heart with her love and compassion and then join her in the bubble baaaaaaath!!”

The radio’s noisy nonsense got it stepped on by the complaining elf while she wrapped a special bandage around the boy’s broken fist. Helen approached, imbued her thick knife with magic, and transferred a purple light to him. But not because he was beyond saving and she wanted to put him out of his misery. She was actually applying some light paralysis magic to help him with the pain.

Eliza glanced over at them and rubbed her temples.

The chosen knight was looking down at the unconscious pirate.

“If only this man could have found a master he could serve. We need to ask him some questions, so how about we dump some water on him?”

Finding a metal bucket in this remote island kingdom would have been difficult, but they did find two empty halves of a coconut lying on the beach. Someone must have already removed the contents. Miyabi’s hand felt weird as it rapidly healed, but he used it to scoop up seawater in the coconut and approached Onelife. He had taken a lot of damage too, but Miyabi mercilessly dumped the water on the collapsed pirate’s face.

“Ugh…”

That was precisely when Kananka came to check on them, still favoring one leg.

“Hm, so is it over?”

“Kananka.”

“Relax, Miyabi. My kingdom has its own standards of propriety. We are not in the habit of beating someone who has already been punished and had a change of heart.”

Kanaka smiled a little. He may have been exasperated to see Miyabi trying to protect someone who had been his enemy just a moment before. But Kananka was little different since the pirate had also tried to destroy his kingdom.

“Our way is to welcome any who reach our shores as guests, remember?”

“…”

Onelife opened his eyes.

Young Kananka nodded and continued.

“I would like to know who our true enemy is. If you do not tell me that, I cannot punish this 11th person.”

“I don’t know when it happened.” The pirate remained on the ground, but the look on his face said this story was even more painful than his wounds. “But my beloved crew started collapsing one after another. I sought out academics, white sorcerers, and experts from the underground before finally learning it was caused by some parasites they had never seen before. But the back alley doctors available to criminals like us couldn’t do anything about it.”

Miyabi could use ordinary doctors and shops, so that was difficult for him to understand.

But someone had definitely suffered because of it.

“Only she could do it.”

“She?”

“She shamelessly called herself an expert.” Onelife gave a self-deprecating smile. “She said the target would show itself if I kept stealing imperial automatons. And if I dealt with that target in a specific way, she would remove the parasites from my crew… It’s silly really. I mean, she was obviously the one who gave them the parasites in the first place.”

“And who is this ‘she’!?”

“I don’t think anyone knows her real name.”

But that did not mean Onelife Shiftup had nothing to say.

“The Necromancer.”

That was her de facto name.

“She owns a Godhorn Tech and she uses forbidden necromancy.”

Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 4

“That’s a mermaid!!”

“Mermaid flesh makes you immortal! Find her!!”

Charlotte Nightlagoon was on the run.

It was a small island and she had given herself human legs, so there were not many hiding spots for her. She needed to slip aboard a ship and leave the island before the islanders could organize a more thorough search.

“Pant, pant, goddammit. In what world do people surround you in order to eat you?”

She was crouched down and hiding behind a relatively thick portion of the island’s tropical forest.

That was when she heard a small child sobbing.

She clicked her tongue and frowned below her decorative eyepatch.

“Father,” cried the child.

She peered out from the thicket to see a brown boy who only came up to her hips rubbing his eyes and trudging along.

He looked like he had wandered around in search of the mermaid flesh until he was sick and tired of it.

“No, please don’t die, fatherrrr!!”

(God, really!?)

Eating mermaid flesh did not actually make you immortal. If it did, the mermaids would have stooped to cannibalism long before humans got into the mix. And Charlotte was not a selfless saint who was willing to offer up her own body over some silly superstition.

She wanted to run away.

She wanted to leave this island.

But.

“What choice do I have!?”

It was the middle of the night and Charlotte knew good and well she shouldn’t be doing this, but she snuck over anyway. This was the middle of the village, the most dangerous area for her.

She approached the building known as the House of the King and Spirits.

It was a king’s residence, yet it lacked walls. The king’s lifestyle was kept open to the people, tearing down any division between him and those people. That political system relied on the goodness of the people, which just felt dangerous to Charlotte, who was from the privileged class among mermaids. It did make her fond of the king, however.

Right now, a screen was placed around the bedroom area.

The islanders considered diseases to be unclean and used the screen to keep them from escaping. They were a strange group since humans knew nothing of microbes, despite using them to make delicious wines and cheeses, but she could tell they had woven the screen from the stems of plants they had learned through experience were excellent at disinfecting disease.

Charlotte spoke through the screen.

“You’ve gotten old.”

“…Is that you?”

“You really have gotten old if you can’t defeat such a minor disease.”

She heard a quiet breath of laughter.

He must not have been able to get up.

“I apologize on behalf of my people. Our silly superstitions have caused nothing but trouble for you here.”

“They’re only so desperate for the supposed immortality my flesh brings because they want to save you, right? They’re a good people. I can see how much they care for each other.”

“In my generation, anyway.”

“You think the next will be different?”

“Can I ask something of you?”

“I’ve had my fill of trouble, so-”

“Stay with my son, Kananka. He is still young and I am sure there will be trouble as his coronation approaches.”

“God, really!? You can’t just tell me what it is before I have a chance to refuse!!”

“Ha ha. I knew you would say that, so I made sure to get it out first.”

Another laugh was followed by a coughing fit.

The coughing was terribly wet, like fluid was building deep in his chest.

“I am not asking you to watch over him until he is an adult.”

“Yeah, the next king is gonna be super vulnerable. He might even be killed before he can grow up.”

“This is my son’s and my kingdom’s responsibility. I cannot keep you here long term. A king must know what his own destruction would mean and maintain the proper tension throughout his life. He must know how to protect himself. At the same time, he must be prepared to let the crown pass to the next generation sooner rather than later.”

“…”

“So my son must handle his official duties himself, but I want you to protect him outside of that. If he wants to leave the island and have some fun, go with him. I am not asking for an absolute oath or anything. Just remember your promise from time to time and stop by when it is convenient.”

“Hmph,” snorted Charlotte, a hand on her hip. “You have gotten old. Leaving me behind like this is bad enough, but you’re also forcing a young child onto the throne before he’s even learned how to make friends.”

“Shameful, I know.”

“But I know how serious you are about this. I guess that’s worth a favor or two.”

The bedridden king made one last request.

He could barely get out of bed anymore and his death was unavoidable at this point, but he had been waiting so very long for this one thing.

“Then how about just one more before I die?”

“Fine. One last song.”

A mermaid’s song could affect people’s mind.

So of course it could numb the pain in someone’s final moments.

“So you see, it’s really a touching story!! Ha ha!!”

“Ehhh!? We had a ton of newcomers this time, so why do you get all the focus!!!???”

Profiles

Phobia Neverjudge

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Height: 157cm

Only daughter of the Neverjudge Family, which accepts any job requiring an armed solution. They do bodyguard, rescue, kidnapping, and assassination jobs, all without asking too many questions. With the presence of Wicked Gods harming the Family’s reputation, she is working to slay the Wicked Gods herself. She has failed to discover the identity of the legendary assassin Shadow Crack and she suspects they are an elf, making them impossible to track down when viewing only the human side of the equation.

Eluné Jackpot

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Height: 160cm

A gambler who constantly tests how far she can push her luck. After trying more and more crazy gambles, she has reached the point of seeing if she can survive a direct confrontation with a real Wicked God. When she speaks of luck, she includes how long it takes for her cheating to be discovered. Rumor has it she has even used her incredible luck to cheat her way into a contract with Under Lilith.

Cliff Blueforest

Apparent Age: 18 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Male

Height: 185cm

An elf knight who once risked his life binding a contract with Demon Lord Under Lilith to save his human lover from a deadly illness, successfully saving her life. As payment, all his memories of that lover were erased and he now travels the world in search of any proof that she lived a happy life. All elves of that forest use the surname Blueforest, so he and Alicia are not related.

Lillian Greenforest

Apparent Age: 18 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Female

Height: 162cm

One of the dark elves who were forced to scatter across the land after their sacred forest was destroyed. A ‘passive avenger’ who offers up her own body as a specimen for magical research to advance human military technology, hoping all the humans will kill each other with the results. She is searching for the alchemist named Holy Gate to advance humanity’s doomsday clock.

Onelife Shiftup

Age: 56

Sex: Male

Height: 200cm

The legendary pirate who once slayed a Wicked God with just the one arm, broke off its horn, and remade his own ship into a Godhorn Tech. His larger-than-life personality and refusal to sweat the small stuff gives him a powerful charisma. His popularity allows him as much notoriety as the entire Bodenburg Company that controls the criminal port city. He is more frightening when directly attacking with his prosthetic combat arm than when using a control device or Godhorn Tech.

Godhorn Tech Submarine: Mother Shark

Pilot: Kananka Fulpen

Affiliation: Fulpen Maknika Ocean Kingdom

Size (LxWxH): 60m x 30m x 11m

A submarine resembling a giant shark with the power to raise the ocean floor. By sending up the Shark Tooth reef below an enemy ship, it can sink even the most unsinkable warship. The legend of a great being fishing up islands for people to live on was remade into this weapon of war. Unbeatable at sea, but helpless once the enemy reaches the island it must protect. Motif: island creation myth.

Charlotte Nightlagoon

Apparent Age: 16 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Female

Height: 156cm

A tomboy who is well-known in the mermaid world(?). Taught herself how to make a magic potion to give herself legs so she could indulge in some wild partying on the surface. But she learned too late that she could no longer return to the ocean without her fishtail. While disguised as a pirate(?), she is searching for the unmatched alchemist named Holy Gate so she can acquire a magic potion to regain her original form.

Kananka Fulpen

Age: 12

Sex: Male

Height: 130cm

The young king who rules some islands far south of the continent after his father’s untimely death. Well-versed in a method of contacting spirits that differs from the continent’s magic, can sense coming changes in the weather and the natural environment, and is tasked with ensuring the island catches enough fish. Uses the Mother Shark Godhorn Tech to protect the islands he rules.

Godhorn Tech Pirate Ship: King Knot

Pilot: Onelife Shiftup

Size (LxWxH): 50m x 12m x 30m

A pirate ship that has mastered the use of talismans (automatically-consumed charms). The method of determining directions from the constellations has been expanded to fire that star power as a weapon. The weapons can only be charged at night, but they can imbue their shells with various elements: fire, water, wind, earth, light, shadow, etc. As a pirate, Onelife wanted the ability to respond to any national force sent to take him out. But since he has an extraordinary enough body to slay a Wicked God with nothing more than a cutlass, he only views the Godhorn Tech as support. Motif: talismans.

Chapter 6

Chapter 6, Section 1

People can get used to anything.

Any who are no longer satisfied with one taboo will seek out even deeper depths.

The sky was colored a single uniform blue in a way it never was on the continent.

The small king made a suggestion after walking out to the island kingdom’s simple port made of no more than a few wooden docks lined up on the white beach.

“Now, I believe I will join your fight.”

“K-King Fulpen, shouldn’t you stay here and manage your kingdom?”

Helen Clockgear’s voice cracked when questioning the king, presumably because she was a government official. The Republic had no king, but she still had to understand the diplomatic value one held.

Kananka Fulpen smiled a little.

“My kingdom cannot find stability without first eliminating our primary concern. That means the Necromancer who is known as the 11th.”

“We appreciate the help, but are you sure? I thought you couldn’t trust your aides due to the confusion surrounding your coronation.”

“No pain, no gain,” he said smoothly. “Miyabi, could you try making a vague threat with your Godhorn Tech?”

Miyabi Blackgarden was confused, but he had the king’s permission. He took his control sword, which was a little short for a two-handed one, and stabbed it into the beach, producing a large magic circle.

He ordered the Lucifer Horn to attack an unoccupied point out in the ocean.

An extra-large bomb dropped and a pillar of fire burst skyward like a great tower attempting to reach heaven above.

The distant boom arrived after a short delay and large waves pushed in toward the beach.

Panicked voices could be heard coming from the direction of the village.

“Yikes, what now!?”

“Run, run away! I’ve had enough of this! Eek!!”

But these were not just ordinary people. Some well-to-do men rushed out of the forest, but when their eyes met Kananka’s, they collapsed backwards like they had run face-first into a solid wall. They scrambled backwards and then fled.

But that was not all.

“Are you okay, King Kananka!?”

“My intellect is at your service whenever you might need it.”

Others rushed out to see if the king was well.

Kananka sighed.

“As you can see, I do have some problems to deal with, but this has separated the wheat from the chaff. People’s loyalty and allegiance can be so hard to tease out, but this drew it out in a visible form for me. Frankly, I’m thankful. And this means my kingdom will be fine in my absence.”

“I see,” was all Miyabi said.

Then Onelife Shiftup lifted his sandy body from the beach.

“I will join you too. I betrayed the previous king’s ideal of a free ocean, so I need to make up for that no matter what it costs me.”

“Pirate, I need no excuses from you,” cut in Kananka. “You wanted to save your crew’s lives. You need not hide your motivations anymore. You clearly care a lot about them – enough to betray your own principles to save them – so a true king of the ocean must generously recognize the difficulty with which you made your decision. We must remove those parasites as soon as possible. No matter what. I will assist you, as a fellow resident of this free ocean.”

The king paused before addressing a crucial point he could not compromise on.

Young though he was, the king of the ocean’s words held great weight.

“But we must do it the right way – without giving in to the villain’s threats.”

“…”

The one-eyed pirate remained silent for a while.

Then he slowly bowed his head.

“I am in your debt.”

“Okay, next up is Number 8,” said Miyabi. “We have plenty of magical automaton parts after destroying so many of them, so let’s fix up that butler and hear what he has to say.”

“Oh?” Celina Bodenburg put a hand on her hip. “You mean we aren’t pursuing that necromancer who muscles-for-brains here mentioned?”

“We are, but we might have missed something or had a misunderstanding. It’s happened before, remember? It isn’t uncommon to find you were making an incorrect assumption somewhere along the line.” The redhead boy sighed. “I made a huge mistake there with Moebius and this enemy is clearly acting maliciously. I want to avoid any chance of being caught unawares. Besides, a nickname like the Necromancer isn’t much to go on, so it would be best to hear what Number 8 has to say and compare that with the rest of our info.”

“Then are we headed to the criminal city? We left that automaton in an inn room.”

Once out at sea, they found a few ships remaining among the Godhorn Tech wreckage. They could return to the city on one of those.

The ocean journey back took a few days and Miyabi spent the entire time receiving intensive care from Doctor Alicia.

“Agh!? Ow ow ow ow ow ow!!”

“Pipe down, boy. The hand is a delicate part of the skeleton because of all the nerves and joints, so you can’t just wrap it in a magic bandage and call it a day. And when you smash it up this good, it requires some thorough treatment. It’s a good thing the sailors brought so much rum with them, since I can use it for sorcery medicine. If I couldn’t create some White Sorcery Items with my alchemy, you might have forever lost use of your dominant hand!!”

“Y-you aren’t making it hurt on purposhe?”

“This is me being extremely gentle This would normally be so painful you’d die mid-treatment, you fool!”

The sailors paled as they heard screams worse than someone having a dentist work at their cavity all day long, but Alicia Blueforest’s skill was the real deal. And she apparently did not get seasick when she had something to focus on.

By the time the large sailing ship arrived at the criminal city’s port, he had recovered enough to eat with a knife and fork like normal. Something inside his hand still felt off when he clenched a fist too tightly, but it was a miracle that was the only problem left.

Kananka took a curious look around the lively city of stone and metal. All while his small hand clung to Miyabi’s coat.

Celina must have been happy she was back in her hometown because she raised her arms and stretched (with that dangerous rifle still in hand).

“Nhhh… Okay, let’s go repair Number 8.”

They had left the automaton in that sketchy inn, but it was gone once they arrived.

Not Number 8.

The entire inn had been shut down by the authorities.

“Wait, wait, Rudolf? What is the meaning of this?”

The criminal city had no knights or guards. Instead, the Bodenburg Company’s private soldiers kept the peace. For businesses purposes, of course.

“Oh, milady?”

“Huh? If it isn’t Lady Celina!”

Those private soldiers were resting some rather unique weapons on their shoulders. They were thicker than Celina’s flintlock rifle and the barrel was large enough to fit your arm inside. They appeared to be designed to launch gas bombs when they were being peaceful and regular bombs when they were not. They were dragoons, equipped with armor and guns, and they responded in slight surprise when they heard the girl’s voice. They quickly pulled on their horses’ reins to clear the way for her. Their equipment looked scary, but they spoke and acted more like maids and butlers.

As the richest girl on the continent, Celina accepted the special treatment like it was normal. If anything, she acted like they were not treating her well enough.

It turned out dragoons were a high-speed mounted firing unit armed with guns, not legendary aerial knights that rode wyverns and wielded giant spears. This revelation shattered Miyabi’s dreams, earning him a silent and sympathetic pat on the shoulder from Eliza Silverstorm. She had always wanted to be a knight and chosen to serve in the castle, so she may have gone through much the same thing in the past.

The old butler commanding the private soldiers spoke to them with a smile.

“Oh, back already, milady? We value any and all opportunities in this city, so you know what it means when we are forced to make an exception and shut someone down, don’t you?”

“They took it too far?”

“In a world unbound by order, those who cannot judge the boundaries of acceptable behavior must be ruthlessly eliminated. Simply put, a grown adult should have known better. Oh, yes. The prizes the innkeeper had collected are being gathered over there.”

This had turned into a lot of trouble.

They took a peek behind the inn and it was a mess. Weapons, jewels, mystery vases, and strange paintings were piled up everywhere. There was even a rainbow-colored cat in a cage and a tearful and trembling girl with a collar around her neck, but where they part of the “prizes” too?

Celina clicked her tongue.

“The slave trade. Now I see why Rudolf decided to make an exception here.”

“Hmph,” snorted Eliza. “Even I have figured out what kind of establishment that Bubble Bath Paradise is. This criminal city is lined with brothels and indecent theatres, so I hardly see how this is that much worse.”

“Hey, what are you all talking about?”

Miyabi tried to join in, but Big Sis Helen grabbed his head in one hand and dragged him away.

Celina shrugged at Eliza’s accusation.

“We value and any all opportunities people might use to enrich themselves. Knocking on the front door and asking for a job is a very different thing from being kicked in through the front door and forced to take a job.”

“You guarantee people the opportunity to get addicted to the nightlife and gambling, you guarantee them the opportunity to drown themselves in debt, and you guarantee them the opportunity to try and pay it back with absurd levels of interest?”

“Everyone dreams of an opportunity with no risk involved, but that’s as hard to come by as the secret to everlasting life. Not even the Empire’s emperor managed to find that one, so he was destroyed in the end, remember?”

“…”

“My company is not a non-profit charity and we are not kind enough to look after the people who ruined their lives with their own reckless decisions. But this girl is a different matter. No one should suffer for someone else’s debt. In our way of life, everyone should be given the same opportunities, regardless of bloodline or birthplace. …Rudolf! Give her a hot shower and a warm meal. If she has no family – or none she can trust – then hire her on. At least until she is in a position to find a path for herself.”

The old butler gave her a warning first.

“This will increase your expenses again.”

“True, but this is worth the expense. I am buying her the opportunity to live her own life.”

Rudolf reacted with a troubled frown, but he could not hide his enjoyment. Celina had just said no one should carry someone else’s debt, yet she had immediately decided this was not a wasted expense. She knew money could protect people’s lives and that did not just apply to her own life.

Among the prizes, they found the magical automaton seated against a wall.

The repair process was going to make a lot of noise, so they may not have been able to do it in the original inn room anyway.

But what were they to do now?

He looked just like a human, so working at him out on the street would cause a commotion. People might think they were mutilating a corpse, or someone might try to steal him after recognizing him as one of the special automatons who directly served the emperor.

They heard a voice from the side.

In fact, it was a woman’s scream.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!? Wh-what are you- what is that limp thing!? Are you carrying a corpse around!?”

“Miyabi, we have trouble.”

Eliza, who was carrying deactivated Number 8 on her back, was too direct in her response and only assisted the misunderstanding.

The stranger continued shouting.

“Oh, no, no, no, no! Am I a witness now!? Am I going to be erased!? Am I going to end up dumped in the ocean or closed up in a wall!?”

Ideally, she would have run away, but she instead fell flat on her butt.

Who was she anyway?

She was a young woman with short, curly hair, but her clothing was highly unusual. Her chest and hips had only triangles of cloth or armor covering them. Other than that…would you call it a cape? Decorative items resembling a giant butterfly or a large belt were draped down from the back of her neck. She did have parts on her arms and legs that looked like leather armor, but the much more important head and torso were left bare. Her healthy navel and thighs left Miyabi unsure where to look.

Celina gave her a skeptical look.

“That’s not a swimsuit. Not even I have ever seen true bikini armor before. Do you fight in the battle arena that’s all about show business these days?”

“Hweh?” Still on her butt, the young woman blinked a while before coming back to her senses. “Ah!? Yes, yes, I am! Ah ha ha!! I am Queen Cate Tornadodancer, the strongest in the land. Your luck ran out the moment you ran across me, because I can slay bears and tigers with ease. I-i-i-if you don’t want to throw your lives away, I recommend turning yourselves in!!”

She still had not gotten up from the ground.

Her thighs were trembling so much she looked like she would piss herself if someone snuck from behind and shouted boo, so even Miyabi was feeling awkward.

“Um, is she serious?”

“I think she is, yes.” Celina held a hand to her forehead. “I said it’s all about show business, didn’t I? It’s all overly revealing costumes, oversized weapons, and flashy attacks. I doubt she could defeat a single bandit in a real battle.”

“N-not true! I can slay bears and tigers!!”

“Yeah, arena animals that have been tamed, defanged, declawed, and drugged until their muscles barely support them anymore. A pretty clear-cut and severe case of animal abuse if you ask me, but no one questions it when it has history and tradition behind it.”

“B-but…”

The trembling crossed a certain line and she practically exploded.

“Wahhhhhhhhhhhh!! That’s not true! I really, really am the strongest in the land!!”

“Yikes, now she’s crying!? But she’s older than me!!!!!!”

“Miyabi, she’s gathering attention. Find a way to silence her!!” said always dry Kananka, showing no mercy.

Miyabi stabbed his control sword into the ground and the magic circle appeared.

“Lucifer Horn!! Bring her some warm milk and a blanket!!”

The sobbing arena queen was whisked away by a wire.

The Godhorn Tech must not have understood such high-level instructions.

They had to fix Number 8, but they wanted to avoid any further commotion.

However, Celina was not the only one who called the criminal city home. Onelife had built up trust there from the bottom up.

“A lot of people come and go here, so unoccupied houses are pretty common. Yes, you should be able to work in one of those without being interrupted.”

“Why does a pirate know so much about empty houses on land?”

“Gah hah hah. Because I tend to find myself in one of them when I wake up after a bender. Good life lesson for you: stay away from the cheap bourbon they’ve switched the label on. I do sometimes end up in a house someone’s living in, though. Gah hah hah hah!!”

That he could make such a defenseless fool of himself and yet had never been turned over to the private soldiers who protected the peace (or what passed for peace under the giant company’s rule) showed just how much the people here adored him. Miss Celina looked unsure how to feel about that.

However, the magical automaton was indistinguishable from a human at a glance, so working on it as a group might get those soldiers called on them.

The eyepatch man was right.

As they walked down the road, they saw a lot of buildings with no nameplate out front. It was a strange idea for Miyabi who had lived in the same house in the same village all his life, but people frequently came and went here and the resident of a particular house would change a lot. And in between occupants, they would sit empty.

Alicia restlessly held swimsuit Alma close.

“But we don’t have the key. Are we just going to break a window?”

“Now that would gather attention. Oh, dear. Do I really have to reveal this skill?”

Helen mumbled to herself, but Miyabi never actually saw what she did. She made some swift and silent movement of her fingers and then turned the knob to open the main entrance. The entire process took less than 3 seconds, so it almost looked like it had never been locked at all.

Eliza and Onelife quickly checked all the rooms, but there was no sign of delinquent boys or squatters.

Onelife gave the ponytail girl a surprised look.

“You’ve done this before. I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type for this sort of work.”

“I will explain if we have the chance, but I do not have a clean past. I did a lot of dirty work for my kingdom.”

When Miyabi entered, carrying Number 8’s unmoving form, he found the place was really dusty. The walls were thin, but that barrier seemed to cut them off from the hustle and bustle of the city. Although it felt more like a mysterious mystical barrier than a warm living space.

The building itself had to be about the same size as his own home, but it felt a lot larger. Maybe because it had no furniture.

With no sofa or bed, they had to wipe the dust from the floor and lay the automaton there.

“He is a complicated mechanism, so we should get the dust out of the air as well.”

Clean freak Celina cast a room cleaning magic used in clinics and the like, altering the quality of the air.

They needed a toolbox, an automaton’s gears and cylinders, and several more odds and ends necessary for the work. After some rummaging around, they had a thick pair of pliers, a manual drill, and more lined up on the floor. The radio hanging from Alicia’s neck could not help but comment.

“Yeah, you couldn’t let anyone see this. If someone took a peek in the window, they’d assume you were torturing someone or chopping up the body before dumping it out at sea.”

Number 8.

Miyabi finally got to work on that butler.

“So this goes here…”

“Are you sure that’s right?” asked Alicia.

“Hm!?” groaned Kananka as he helped. “T-this part opens?”

They had the spare parts, but they did not have an accurate blueprint since the Empire that had manufactured him was gone. Without Alicia and Celina’s knowledge of alchemy and Onelife’s experience remaking an imperial automaton arm into a prosthetic for himself, they would have been completely lost. They followed their general predictions to find and replace the necessary pieces that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

“That should be everything,” said Miyabi after shutting a cover.

“Nothing’s happening, though?”

Kananka tilted his head, but the muscular pirate flexed his bicep.

“Nhhh! Nothing like a solid blow to fix a faulty contraption! Go for it!!”

Afraid Onelife would knock Number 8’s head clean off, Miyabi struck the automaton himself. He remembered how Celina had asked him to hit the communicator back on her armored train, so this may have been a ritual for operating machines.

“You savages!” howled the radio. “You actually did it!”

“Compatible parts detected…checking connection. Wiring is in working order.”

“Ahhh, don’t prove them right, you smarty pants robot! Now they’ll think they can treat me that way!”

The philosopher’s stone lamented, but Onelife roared with laughter.

“Gwa ha ha ha! You don’t live with a prosthetic arm this long without picking up a trick or two!”

“H-he’s moving?”

Eliza grew cautious, but young Kananka actually stepped forward.

“How very strange. He is inorganic, yet I sense a pressure much like the spirits.”

Miyabi was coming to understand that “the spirits” was a general term for all unseen powers in the boy’s remote island kingdom. The Empire that built the magical automaton likely had a different name for it.

At any rate, something was circulating within the artificial body and Number 8 opened his eyes once more.

“I want to see if you’re functioning now, but this might be hard for you,” said Miyabi.

“What did you have in mind?” asked the prone automaton.

“Tell me. What happened to your Empire?”

“…”

Silence followed.

This had not worked last time, so tension ran through the others.

But…

“It has been destroyed. Along with the last emperor’s corpse.”

“Phew.”

Helen breathed a sigh of relief and Number 8 slowly sat up on the floor, causing his long bangs to sway.

The hidden half of his face was revealed, showing the cracks spreading where his eye had once been. Countless gears of varying sizes could be seen within.

Common parts like the gears and springs could be replaced, but using generic parts for something as distinctive as his face would give him a weird, patchwork look. So they had left his face untouched.

Miyabi chose to apologize.

“I’m sorry for making you remember something so painful.”

“That is not your fault.”

“Then can you tell us what you did? What role did the 11th – the Necromancer – play?”

More silence.

But the response came much more smoothly this time.

“The Necromancer was originally a guest magical researcher in the Empire. She is a woman age…25 in the current year. Her real name is unknown. She did not care much what other people thought of her, but she did seem aware that she had earned a lot of grudges. I have heard she came from the wealthy class in a small kingdom beyond the reach of imperial law, but on the Empire’s border. That could be entirely false of course, but her facial features and wavy hair do match those of the people in the central inland region. She was known for her rude behavior, but it was a rudeness that understood proper etiquette enough to intentionally break the rules.”

“Wealthy?” Celina sounded truly disgusted. “And necromancy too? Yeah, people tend to pick up the worst hobbies when they have more money and time than they know what to do with.”

Everyone gave the rich girl quite a look, but she did not seem to notice.

Number 8 continued in his cold way.

“She seemed to want people to view her as a pure academic, but unlike a self-proclaimed expert with only superficial knowledge, she definitely has real knowledge and skills. She is a top-class intellectual. Admittedly, the Empire specialized more in inorganic research, but none of our seven universities had anyone with more expertise in the subject of life and death. However, she is severely lacking in the moral compass required to use such specialized technology.”

“That’s always the case with the rich and their hobbies.”

Celina came from the Bodenburg Company which had created its own position through business success, so she may have been wary of the aristocracy whose position, honor, and money were all hereditary.

Eliza, who served a king, and Kananka, who was a king himself, both breathed exasperated sighs.

Number 8 continued.

“Once she lost the Empire’s protection, I have heard she abandoned her home and fortune to live free out in- wihhh!”

“Wh-what!?”

An earsplitting noise led Miyabi to cover his ears and cry out, but Number 8 did not answer. They heard a commotion outside, so they were forced to hide in the bathroom and ashless fireplace.

They waited there a while.

Fortunately, no one was curious enough to open the door and take a look inside. Since Celina had used room cleaning magic to clear out all the dust, it was likely they would have noticed something was amiss even if they did not immediately spot the hiding people.

“What just happened?”

“Sh. Something isn’t right.”

Celina, who was curled up like a cat in the fireplace alongside Miyabi, was right. Number 8’s lips were moving as mechanically as ever, but his voice was not forming human language.

“Ywah, ghhhghghghgh!”

“See? This is why you don’t hit machines,” said the radio.

Onelife tapped the back of his thick neck with his giant cutlass.

“Won’t hitting him again fix him?”

“Yes, best to strike while the iron is hot,” agreed Eliza, pulling out her control lance.

“What is wrong with you!?” wailed the philosopher’s stone.

After several loud sounds indicating a severe misuse of such a fine craftsmanship, Number 8’s voice returned.

“Ywahghghgh…hm, that seems to have done the trick. Thank you.”

“They keep learning the wrong lesson here. I dread to think what they’ll do to me now…”

The radio was concerned, but Celina wanted to get the conversation moving.

“But how did the Necromancer deceive you? Wouldn’t she need to approach you in advance to pretend she was the emperor?”

“She said she could bring back the dead emperor using her necromancy.”

That was a powerful statement.

Number 8 was as expressionless as ever, but the face behind his black bangs seemed to radiate self-deprecation.

“But my memories of the emperor’s appearance have faded so much.”

So the 11th had performed a phony ceremony and appeared to Number 8 again, shamelessly claiming to be the resurrected emperor. That allowed her to change her role from necromancer to emperor.

The long exposure to that extreme environment had damaged the automaton’s recognition to the point that he had fallen for the deception. No, it was not just a mechanical issue. After waiting for so long in that too-pure red world, even that butler would have been desperate for any hope at all. So as miraculous as it had seemed, he had leaped at the chance to once more kneel and bow his head before his master.

The 11th had taken advantage of that vulnerability with a sneer on her face. She had commanded him to set up sorcery bombs, all while sticking her tongue out when he had his back turned.

“She’s a monster,” groaned Miyabi.

The butler automaton slowly stood from the floor and made a request.

“I would like to accompany you.” He was clear and to the point. “She resides in the Bio Rainforest to the east, but that is a dangerous place. That deep forest is much too large to cross without a plan, but I should be able to guide you since I worked with her for a while.”

They stayed in the empty house for that day.

They got some rest to recover from their sea journey and to make sure Number 8 really was in working order again.

The redhead boy was clenching and unclenching his dominant hand while lying on the hard wooden floor.

(It seems fine.)

They were leaving the following morning.

Since this house did not belong to them and was not an inn, they had an extra task to complete before they left.

They had to remove all trace of their stay.

“Even if it’s empty, someone still owns it, right?” said Miyabi. “Yet here we are staying without permission. The criminal city really has gotten to us, hasn’t it?”

“We fixed the leaky roof and exterminated a swarm of Leftovers Flies bigger than a baby, so this was a good deed, really,” insisted Alicia. “Ugh, I didn’t realize the city had its own unique monsters. Gross.”

Making excuses to justify your crimes seemed like the first step toward a life of crime to Miyabi.

After leaving the criminal city, they traveled east.

The magical automaton spoke while walking along the open plains with a uniform pace.

“The Necromancer has a lab in the Bio Rainforest on the continent’s eastern side. An unofficial one with no national affiliation. We should reach it if we travel northeast from here.”

“I’m amazed there’s an actual road to that forest,” commented Miyabi.

The bumpy stone-paved road was partially pushed up by the powerful undergrowth. Eventually, the boy noticed someone he recognized up ahead.

“Huh? Is that that dancer with the bare midriff?”

“Is that how you remembered me, boy? The name is Iris. Iris Tempinvy.”

A slim woman with a midriff-baring blue dress and a long silver braid turned back toward him. She had arrived in the first village’s pub and ended up frequenting the clinic to look after injured Moebius, so what was she doing out here?

She smiled and clasped her hands together in front of her jiggling chest.

“I can’t believe my luck. I thought the Bio Rainforest was my only option left for continuing my recovery magic research, but now I run into some of his friends. Now, now. Where might Moebius Entrance be?☆ Spill the beans so I can nab him and drag him back to that clinic.”

“O-ohh…”

Miyabi was unsure what good a dancer was in battle or on an adventure, but the more party members the better, right?

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

“I’ll send you to Horn Fortress. That’s where Moebius is.”

“Ah ha ha! I’m coming, my guinea pig! Don’t think you can escape my research and experimentation that easily!!”

The dancer may have been the bravest of them all because she actually grabbed onto the wire herself and let it carry her away. She made it look a lot like the trapeze at the circus that had visited his village a while back.

Helen Clockgear stared off into the distance.

“W-wait… If you kept Iris here, she could have done all the sexy infiltration work.”

“Hm, so you’re aware that work is entirely reliant on being sexy, are you?” asked Alicia. “Anyway, the terms like ‘guinea pig’ and ‘experimentation’ give me a bad feeling about her.”

Also, what did the Bio Rainforest have to do with recovery magic research?

There was only one way to find the answer to that: visit the forest for themselves.

This area was relatively warm and the scenery was colored by rolling green hills and blue streams. There was even a stone-paved road, even if it was a bit bumpy due to poor maintenance. Young Kananka occasionally rubbed his body chillily since he was still used to his tropical kingdom. What would he think if he saw the blizzards of the Arsenal Kingdom?

Number 8 spoke up while walking alongside Miyabi.

“Here is a water bottle, Miyabi. You need to stay hydrated.”

“Thanks.”

“Your hair is a mess. I will fix it for you.”

“Th-thanks?”

“Is there anything else I can do for you? No, I am at fault for failing to find anything more myself. Surely I can come up with something.”

“…”

As his (very curvy) teacher, Helen cut in between the two of them.

“S-stop spoiling my Miyabi right this instant! He can be lazy enough as it is!!”

“But I was designed and manufactured to be a butler.” The former imperial servant was unfazed. “I have no intention of rejecting the ideas any of you have about yourselves, but I excel at giving advice concerning preexisting problems.”

“I see. So you’re like a GPS or AI speaker.”

The radio hanging from Alicia’s neck accepted that, but Miyabi didn’t get it at all.

“Hm? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“People have their fortune told because there is something they want to learn about, such as their finances or love life, correct? Don’t the system and tools used – cards, crystal balls, etc. – differ depending on what you want to know? Magical automatons are similar. Just tell me what it is you want from me.”

Helen pouted her lips, still clinging to Miyabi.

She understood Number 8’s position, but she also wanted to avoid the butler’s endless spoiling turning Miyabi into a lazybones who never got up off his ass. The conflict was plain to see on her face.

Miyabi tilted his head.

“So what exactly do you want from me, Number 8?”

“Well, if I could have it my way…yes, I want you to corner me by the wall, slam your hand against the wall right next to my head, and speak the magic words: ‘You belong to me now’.”

“Just how overconfident and arrogant was your emperor!?” asked Helen.

“He went around calling himself an emperor. What did you expect?” said Alicia.

“A Kabe-Don and a demanding attitude? A bit retro, but I guess these are the tastes of a ruined empire.”

The radio was unsure how to judge this one.

Their journey continued smoothly for a while, but that all fell apart once they reached a certain point.

The temperature and humidity skyrocketed.

The colors black and purple became their entire world.

“Ugh!?”

The nature-loving elf held a hand to her mouth and groaned.

They had entered a deep, deep forest.

The trees were more like the tropical ones in Kananka’s island kingdom than the ones in the Blue Forest where Miyabi lived. However, this one had something the tropical forest had not. The entire place had a thin layer of water over it and thick roots spread out through that water like great serpents. The trees were growing on the water instead of the soil.

However…

“Stagnant water, a strange ecosystem, and rotting trees… This isn’t just the forest weeping, it’s like the forest is a zombie begging for a death it can never have. I can’t stand this place!!”

Alicia Blueforest had lived among the greenery all her life, so she had tears in her eyes here.

The poorly maintained road vanished altogether once they entered the forest.

Tree roots and a mysterious dark water took its place.

The water that came up to their ankles was colored black and purple and the concentration was far from even. The more concentrated areas had formed a purple film on top, similar to hot milk. They wanted to avoid touching the filthy water if at all possible, but that extra-concentrated film looked like it would eat their foot down to the bone if they carelessly stepped in it.

“Celina, can your filter handle this if you use your purification magic alongside it?”

“I would have to throw out the entire filter.”

Soaking up that water must have affected the trees because the leaves overhead were colored bright red, light blue, and other colors. Different branches growing from the same tree would have different colors of leaves growing from them. The red and yellow just looked dried up, but what had they absorbed to create those toxic pinks and blues? The trunks and branches had what looked like human faces covering them. Miyabi leaned in close to get a better look and found those were some kind of enormous moss. The trunks were coated in moss, plants and vines tangled around them, and they all absorbed each other’s nutrients. The soil was too weak to support them all, so the half-rotting plants had to leech off of each other for what little nutrients remained.

The weak would die off in this world.

That was the way of life anywhere in nature, so why did it appear so much more sinister here?

Everything was so wet and soft.

It was so bad Miyabi feared he would sink in and never again escape if he tried leaning against a tree.

Helen could hardly believe her eyes either.

“This is the Baboulas Rondo Bio Rainforest. The rich never could build any villas here because the tree roots were too strong, but it was supposed to be a beautiful forest where a mangrove enveloped the ruins of a megalithic culture. When did it turn into this?”

The dark, stagnant water reached their ankles and the serpentine tree roots were tangled around the stone ruins sitting in that filthy water. There was a nearly trapezoidal stone building, a circular plaza, and a giant face of unclear purpose. All the many ruins were dissolving away. A wet sound inexplicably came from within the thick tree trunks. Miyabi could not even guess what kind of animals lived here.

Celina held a hand over her mouth.

“Urp… I should have asked Rudolf for more detailed geographical information.”

“What, do you do business out here? With who?”

“Miyabi, pass north through the Bio Rainforest and you reach a desert nation. But thanks to the trees, ruins, water, and roots getting in the way, all of our shipping routes – including the Schwarz Schütze – took a detour around the forest. That may be why it took us so long to notice something was wrong.”

The situation here may have been even worse than the ruined Empire covered in red dust.

Celina grew even paler.

“But I can see why it would be a bad idea to walk around at random searching for the Necromancer. We would probably die long before finding her.”

They heard a dull splashing sound and Helen looked over in that direction before immediately going pale.

“U-um, there’s some kind of fish in that shallow water, isn’t there? I didn’t get a good look because the water is so dark, but I didn’t like the look of it one bit!”

On closer inspection, the thick tree root contacting the sticky water there had a bite mark in it. As if to say this was something’s territory. And that location would be difficult for any land animal to get at.

“P-please tell me we’re not talking about teeth so sharp they can take off our toes if we’re not careful!”

“A fish? Something like my kingdom’s freshwater Steel Piranhas wouldn’t be so bad.” Kananka looked reluctant to explain this. “But we need to hope it isn’t anything like the Bloody Candiru. See, they use an insta-kill attack where they sneak up on their target and charge straight toward a fish’s gills or a land animal’s crotch. And they can jump from the water, so lifting your hips out won’t save you. Their fins act like the barb on a fishing hook, so once they’re inside, there is no removing them. The occasional tourist who isn’t aware of the danger ends up with one right up their butt.”

“M-M-Miyabi, isn’t there anything we can do!? I demand you come up with a fundamental solution right this instant!”

Miyabi was plenty afraid of the creepy opaque water himself. He didn’t know the first thing about necromancy, but he had no desire to scoop up and drink something with that color.

“We can have Number 8 guide us and we need to stay out of the water. We can walk on the roots, driftwood, large lotus leaves, and stone ruins. Really, anything that’s sticking out of the water should be safer.”

“I just hope it all forms a convenient path to where we need to go.”

Kananka’s concern was valid.

And when nature did not provide them with a path, they had to make one themselves.

“Gwohhhhh!!!!!!”

They used Onelife’s brute strength to break down a rotting tree at the base, creating a makeshift bridge. Alicia actually looked relieved when she saw the tree felled by those powerful arms. She may have seen it as putting the tree out of its misery.

But even with all that, the journey was far from safe.

“Yikes.” Helen paled. “I’m afraid I’ll slip on that wet log or my foot will break right through the rotting wood.”

“Whoever loses a game of rock-paper-scissors can go first and test it for us.”

Number 8 ignored the cowardly humans’ complaints and crossed the bridge without batting an eye.

He moved with such purpose none of them had time to stop him.

“Magical automatons are immune to toxins, so I should be the one to test such things.”

“That’s a dangerous way of thinking. I bet that’s what led the Empire to its doom.”

Miyabi viewed the polluted area next to them as they cautiously crossed over after Number 8.

“We might have no choice but to step in that filthy water at some point, right?” he said to Kananka directly behind him.

“?”

“You see the patches of oily film? The purple ones, I mean. It would be best to avoid those.”

Miyabi was proven right once they had crossed the log bridge.

As soon as a falling leaf touched a patch of film that looked 100 times grosser than the film atop hot milk, it was enveloped and melted away with a sizzling sound.

“The water below those purple patches is so dark I’m afraid we would overlook one.”

“Carry a long stick and poke around ahead of you while you walk. If it starts to smoke and dissolve, don’t go that way.”

No one laughed at Miyabi’s suggestion.

The Necromancer had apparently built a base inside this deep forest in search of a sort of freedom different from what the criminal city offered…but all of this was only the side effects. What in the world was she researching in the depths of this forest? And how did a single person manage to distort an entire region so thoroughly?

They could see why the Necromancer had chosen a magical automaton like Number 8. His malfunctions had made it easier to deceive him, but he had also needed to travel through this forest. No normal person could manage that.

The butler automaton was the only one who did not look concerned.

“This way,” he said.

Rain as warm as blood began to fall.

Miyabi Blackgarden could not tell if this would wash away some of the black and purple filth or if it was even more dangerous.

He suddenly realized Alma had transformed again.

The creature was colored white with the horn sticking further out from its forehead than ever before. Alicia said this was a unicorn form.

“Alma doesn’t even come up to our knees, so this filthy water is a matter of life or death. This form must be better for purifying the filth. Ohh, don’t you worry, Alma! I’ll carry you the entire way!!”

Number 8 had worked with the Necromancer before, so he guided them through the Bio Rainforest full of toxins, mangroves, and stone ruins. The surface of the filthy water would occasionally part in the distance and a toxic-colored carnivorous fish would leap straight up. Maybe they were eating bugs flying near the water, but maybe they were showing off their ability to kill Miyabi’s party.

A distant look came over Kananka when he saw a wriggling fish that resembled a loach.

“Aaaand there’s a Bloody Candiru. Hard to believe they’re a type of catfish. And this one is a good bit larger than the ones in my kingdom’s freshwater. It looks 50cm, which is more than enough to destroy a human down there.”

“Eek!? I-i-i-is it going to lock onto us from below!?”

“I can see a freshwater Needle Fish too. Those react to reflective objects and can punch right through armor.”

Meanwhile, they heard some movement.

But this time it was not from the water. The rustling of leaves meant something was approaching on land. Celina jumped and grabbed onto Miyabi.

“Kyah!? Wh-what now!? Is one of the Necromancer’s gross experiments attacking!?”

“Miyabi, restrain that idiot! It’s a person! Don’t let her shoot them!!”

Eliza’s sharp command surprised even Miyabi.

A person?

Skeptical, he looked over and found it was true. A man was peering out from the entrance to one of the stone ruins half-buried in tree roots. The rustling came from the vines hanging down over the entrance. The middle-aged man wore filthy rags and his hair and facial hair were a mess.

On closer inspection, the ruins were larger than Miyabi’s home. The structure was built a level up from the water, keeping the black and purple water and its carnivorous fish and turtles out. The strange plants did not appear to be growing inside the stone ruins either.

But what was someone doing here?

Helen groaned when she saw the chest of his rags.

“The Elder Art Research Institute. That practical research institute is the best in the field of extreme environment biology. What is one of those magical elites doing in this rotting forest?”

“Because he is a former elite, I assume. Take a look around.”

Alicia gestured over with her chin.

He was not alone. Several more gazes focused on Miyabi’s party from the other stone ruins, from the branches overhead, or from hollows in the trees. They created the tense atmosphere of an exclusionary village facing outsiders.

Yes.

These were not travelers. This was clearly their territory and they lived here.

“E-eek!? I-I’m not causing anyone any trouble. That’s why I came to this forest in the first place! Mumble, mumble…no, now isn’t the time to see if they know anything about the Missing Dice. Hee hee hee hee!!”

A suspicious man was staring at them from the entrance to a nearly trapezoidal stone structure, but he did not seem to be speaking to them.

“Are they working for the Necromancer?”

Helen was wary, but that did not seem to be the case.

A stir surrounded Miyabi’s party.

“Leave us alone. We just want the freedom to do what we want. We don’t care about you, so just leave us be.”

“We’re not interested in necromancy. This forest is now a market of unspeakable research. You want to know what I’m doing here? What part of unspeakable didn’t you get?”

Miyabi felt like he had a vague understanding of this place. The rotting forest felt like it was taking years off his life every time he took a breath, but there were people who found it much more comfortable than anywhere else in the world.

Former elites.

Academics shunned for their research.

This was their final sanctuary. They were willing to sacrifice years off their life for every minute or second they could get to make progress on their research. The Necromancer’s violence may have looked like a sort of independence movement to them. Miyabi took another look around the contaminated forest.

“None of them care what’s happening around them.”

“A lot of them have never even seen the Necromancer,” flatly said Number 8. “They are just using each other. It is more like mutual parasitism than a commune.”

What had the dancer named Iris said when they ran across her on the way here? The Bio Rainforest was her only option left for continuing her recovery magic research.

When intellectual pursuits hit a dead end, they ended up here.

There were indeed people who were drawn to the rotting forest as a comfortable place for them. And they were all geniuses much smarter than Miyabi.

Kananka held his aching head.

“This forest is unbelievable. The pressure is running wild, but this isn’t the spirits.”

“M-most of the continent isn’t like this! There are plenty of beautiful places!!”

Afraid of causing a diplomatic problem, Eliza frantically started listing the continent’s better features.

The temperature was bad and the humidity worse. Celina wiped off her brow with a handkerchief and looked resentfully up at the blood-warm rain.

“I kind of excepted the Necromancer to be alone.”

Number 8 fielded that one.

“Mages in every taboo field imaginable gather around her. It can be hard to tell since they use the unmanaged and unprotected ancient ruins for their homes and labs, but it may be best to think of this as a sort of research village.”

“Hm, a group of people with an established society? Sounds like a job for our resident information gatherer.”

Alicia gave Helen a sidelong glance and the philosopher’s stone delivered the finishing blow.

“That’s right! A job for Venus!!”

“You expect me to wear that in this humid mess!?”

Miyabi’s party could tell they were not welcome here, but the locals made no attempt to attack them. These people and the Necromancer were mutual parasites trying to suck each other dry and these academics had grown detached from reality (or rather, they had all ended up here because they hated the demands of ordinary society). They felt no sense of obligation or compassion, so they did not even consider sending word to the Necromancer.

There were shops here, but Miyabi’s party had no way of using them. They did not even use money. Instead, they used a barter system where people traded their research results, either as a finished product or a blueprint. Information was valued more than food and water in this rotting forest. Acquiring those daily necessities required a combination of purification and disinfecting magic.

Celina held a hand to her forehead.

She looked as pale as someone who had toxic sludge dumped over their head.

“A-a world without money? This is a fundamental attack on capitalism.”

Meanwhile, they heard a somewhat frantic voice.

“Huh? What’s this, what’s this? Not every day we get some non-recluses in this rotting forest. Who’re you?”

“?”

One researcher approached them in a much more friendly way than the others.

She was a short-haired glasses girl. Her hat and her round pants were somewhat reminiscent of pumpkins.

She rested a large broom on her shoulder and smiled amiably at them.

“I’m Candy Lunaticover, a former Godhorn Tech researcher. Nice to meetcha☆”

“A Godhorn Tech…researcher!?”

Celina’s eyes widened at that casually-dropped bombshell, but Candy herself seemed unaware it was a shocking thing to say. She shrugged like it was nothing.

“A former one. Now I’m just one more eccentric researcher living in this rotting forest.”

“But why?” asked Eliza.

Candy winked behind her glasses.

“I designed all sorts of Godhorn Techs. I dunno how many were actually built, though.”

“…”

There would be more designers than just her, but if that were true, her power would have been distributed to multiple countries.

On the other hand, you could invent whatever glorious past you wanted for yourself inside this polluted forest.

“I’ve been everywhere on the land, in the sea, and up in the air, but that’s as far as I could go. I hit a dead end. The deep sea was pretty fun, but even that’s so limited. Once you can go anywhere you want in the world, it all feels so boring. None of it’s exciting anymore. But after agonizing over that one for a while, it hit me.” She pointed a finger skyward. “I’ve never been to the moon, have I? Woo hoo, wouldn’t that be cool!!”

“Are you serious?”

That was too large a scale for Miyabi to even comprehend, but Candy Lunaticover put her hands on her hips and laughed at the top of her lungs.

“As a heart attack! That’s why I’m spending all my time developing this explosive multistage flying broom. Yahoo! …Unfortunately, this research has a weensy little problem of not being profitable, so no country wants to fund it. I’ve heard of someone who works as a dancer to fund her research, but I’m not built for that sexy stuff. That left just one option: this paradise for recluses who just want to research in peace.”

“But isn’t this place dangerous? Everything around you is contaminated and there are tons of strange creatures.”

“Like I said, this is a last resort when you can’t find the freedom to research anywhere else. You have to be prepared for some health drawbacks. I’d be out of here in a heartbeat if there was a nicer place where I could research.”

“…”

“What’s with the meaningful silence? Wait, do you know a place that isn’t polluted where I’d be free to research!? Where is it!! Out with it!!”

Horn Fortress was isolated by a thick barrier or the cracks in the world, so no one would get after anyone for what they were researching there.

Candy rubbed her chin and looked up into the rainy sky.

“Hm, so you use the Lucifer Horn – a bomber type? Not the approach I would’ve taken, but I get the concept. Yes, there’s no rule requiring the broom to be launched from the ground, is there? Amazing! And if I go with a midair launch from sufficiently high altitude, I wouldn’t need a nosy country’s permission to build a surface launch pad. Yes, this could work.”

“?”

She started speaking to herself and calculating something far beyond Miyabi’s understanding.

Then she turned back to him.

“You have a deal. I’ll give you my knowledge as a former Godhorn Tech designer.”

“Eh, really!? That title sounds incredible!!”

“Again, former. I’m just a hobbyist now. And all I ask in return is you give me a new research environment. Will you let me work on that Horn Fortress place you mentioned? Pretty please? If it’s nicer than this rotting forest, I’ll gladly accept your recruitment offer☆”

After sending Candy Lunaticover away, Miyabi’s party resumed their march through the rainforest.

The people brave enough to live in this brutal environment appeared to walk across the water using stilt-like toys. Tripping would of course mean soaking yourself in the filth and possibly being killed by the carnivorous fish or the purple film. Miyabi’s party was not keen to try it out themselves.

They stuck to the roots and fallen trees sticking up out of the black and purple goop and watched their step as they traveled deeper in.

And eventually…

“It’s a dead end,” groaned Eliza.

They had come cross a large area of thick water with no impurities on which to safely cross it. There was a stone plaza past it, but it was more than 30m away. With the difficult-to-locate purple film and the various dangerous creatures lurking in the murky water, they felt no desire to cross it on foot.

But the butler automaton did not even tilt his head.

“I can cross it.”

“Ah!!”

He did not give them time to stop him.

Number 8 set foot in the dark sludge and sloshed his way across.

Then he grabbed something.

It was a bundle of rope and he tied one end to their side. After drawing it taut and tying the other end to the other side, he gestured them over.

The rope was positioned diagonally, so they only had to grab it and slide down to reach the other side.

Onelife stepped out in front.

“Oh, now this gets makes my manly soul happy!!”

“Wait, muscles-for-brains!! You need to protect your hands from the friction, or-”

“Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot!?”

The meathead started screaming partway down.

If not for his prosthetic hand, he would have been badly injured.

“He’s captain of a sailing ship, so how in the world doesn’t he know how to handle ropes?”

Thanks to that valuable test run, the others placed some cloth over the rope and used that protect their hands as they slid down. The carnivorous fish reacted to their shadows and worked hard to show off their ferocity in the water below.

However…

“We can’t do this every time. There won’t be a rope at each crossing and these cloths won’t last forever.”

Miyabi responded to his own complaint by holding his hand out into empty air.

It was too late to test these things out once they were already in danger, so he needed to get the trial-and-error over with while they could still afford some error.

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

The fragile rock crumbled and came apart into box-sized chunks which then lined up. The final shape was a bridge. Only Miyabi had this creation power. It had saved him and created footholds or shields countless times. It was only a meter tall and too narrow for a horse to cross, but he successfully created a Bypass Bridge.

But Helen’s eyes widened when she looked down.

“I-it’s breaking apart from where it’s touching the water!”

“That purple film again. There’s no time – hurry across!!”

Miyabi pumped his arms as he pushed onward, but then he sensed a great pressure from beyond the twisted trees. This was not like the researchers from before. The gaze he sensed was fiercer, more instinctual, and engulfed in rage.

Almost like someone lamenting the pollution of their home and lashing out with righteous anger.

Miyabi’s eyes widened.

“A real Beast Nova!? Now!?”

“Discriminatory language!! At least try to fix that habit!!”

Alicia shouted back with Alma in her arms, but now was not the time.

It was huge.

Miyabi had never seen anything like it. Would you end up with something like this if you forced a colossal slug to crawl across a salty surface? It dissolved and crumbled and gathered back together. The sticky life form repeated the process endlessly as it walked shockingly close by.

This creature did not belong in any known ecosystem.

It was bizarre even for a Beast Nova.

Could it only survive in the Necromancer’s base – this Bio Rainforest full of sinister sludge?

“That’s a bird.” Celina reflexively readied her control rifle and grimaced at what she saw through the sight. “I can see shriveled and degenerated wings on its slimy surface and also a twisted beak that doesn’t fit together properly. But I can’t imagine any reason to make something like this, so is this not even a result of the Necromancer’s research? Is this just what extended exposure to that sludge does to animals!?”

Could they defeat this thing or not?

Could they fight at their usual level on such unsteady footing?

If they stabbed a sword into that thing, would its bodily fluids erupt out and splatter onto them?

Several questions spiraled through Miyabi’s mind, always in the negative direction, but the reality was even worse.

“!”

He noticed something.

That thing had not sensed their presence and it was not patrolling its territory in search of food.

He gulped atop the crumbling bridge. That mystery creature might as well have been made of the goop itself, and yet…

“It’s running away…in fear?”

“But from what!?” asked Alicia.

The red, yellow, bright blue, and toxic pink leaves rustled together and ripples ran through the sludge. Countless sounds joined together to form a sinister chorus. They were not as polite as Miyabi’s party. Even when they broke through a rotting branch, fell to the black and purple water, and flopped around there, they never stopped walking.

Because they had bigger things to worry about.

They were on high alert.

However.

When the tremor hit, Miyabi’s feet were nearly pulled out from under him.

No, the shaking was too much for the collapsing bridge, so it broke.

The situation was getting worse at an accelerating rate.

His legs just about locked up in fear, so when he shouted to the others, it was mostly to himself.

“Jump!!”

If it had taken even half a second longer for his mind to catch up, he would have still been standing there when the bridge fully collapsed into the filthy water.

Fortunately, they were only about a meter up. Even as it collapsed, the Bypass Bridge was divided into a few blocks. Some of those remained even as they sizzled and smoked, so they jumped from stone to stone, crossing the pond.

Falling back would only have made things worse for them.

They had no idea what was coming, but they could not avoid it without the freedom to move.

The shaking nearly tripped Miyabi and that would mean falling into the water where carnivorous fish and crabs lurked. He kept jumping from platform to platform until he reached the stone plaza. The circular plaza was situated a bit above the filthy water, but the blood-warm rain kept his back feeling sticky.

Alicia arrived a moment later and worked to keep her balance against the ominous shaking.

“Wh-wh-what is that!?”

“The Necromancer’s Godhorn Tech – the Deadman’s Fenrir,” groaned Onelife, man of the ocean trapped in a rotting forest.

Deep rumblings rang out intermittently. The shaking of the branches overhead allowed water to drip from the leaves, joining the blood-warm rain. They all understood these were massive footsteps.

They could not see it yet, but Miyabi could sense a clear change to the atmosphere. Something known as a king or guardian ruled in this deep polluted forest.

But instead of a ferocious beast found in nature, this was the bizarre product of necromancy. That seemed to best describe how twisted the forest was.

“She didn’t build the Wicked God horn into a piece of stone or steel,” continued Onelife. “Nhh, I’ve heard she stuck one Wicked God’s horn into another’s corpse, forcing the corpse to move again.”

“The pressure is unbearable. And so twisted.”

Kananka gulped while the one-eyed pirate helped support him.

Onelife was not the only one who knew how the Necromancer did things.

Number 8 did as well.

“I have heard Deadman’s Fenrir is a perpetual soul devouring device.”

“A what?”

Miyabi asked about the unfamiliar term while standing back up and Number 8 accurately nodded.

“It is known as a device, but it is fundamentally different from us automatons who use springs and gears to move. The corpse summons parasites and then kills those parasites to endlessly obtain more souls to devour and fuel its movement. It is a contraption of blood and guts that provides its rotting flesh with more strength than a living being could ever produce.”

“You mean…?”

Helen paled and took a quiet look around.

There was a rustling, but it was different from before.

This was not the leaves rustling as grotesque creatures fled from the Deadman’s Fenrir. This was the chorus of something much more sinister moving toward the great corpse. The nature and type of creature was audibly distinct.

The fierce presence was like a thick invisible wall at this point.

Unable to bear the unpleasant pressure, Miyabi glanced in that direction. It was like having a balloon filled with a hose while it was pressed against your cheek. As much as you were afraid of it popping, you would still give in to the urge to look.

And so he saw it.

He saw the color white.

And he screamed.

If powerful Onelife and Eliza hadn’t restrained him, he might have thoughtlessly taken off running and fallen right into the murky water with the deadly film on top.

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

That was a color they hadn’t seen in this rotting forest of black and purple.

A wall taller than any of them pushed in from one direction. Something unidentified softly enveloped the trees, covered the stagnant water, and approached at unchanging speed.

They were bugs.

Something like maggots thicker than a human arm were gathered by the hundreds of thousands to form a massive wave. The carnivorous parasites were drawn by the scent of rotting flesh, unaware they were being lured out as food. Even the bizarre animals transformed by the forest were fleeing in a panic. The carnivorous fish and turtles awaiting prey at the bottom of the dark water were splashing their way out of there. Anything with the misfortune to be caught in that wave would not last long.

What was the worst way to die?

This felt like an answer to that most fruitless of arguments.

They seemed as numerous as the stars in the sky. Even as a mother Beast Novae trampled them underfoot in a last-ditch resistance, the white parasites ignored it all and kept coming. Their losses meant nothing, so they threw themselves into the polluted water and the purple film on top to continue their charge.

There was no stopping them.

Miyabi could not imagine how he could use his Godhorn Tech here. His imagination and ingenuity were at a loss. This natural disaster was truly unstoppable.

“Miyabi,” said Helen Clockgear.

“Y-yes!?”

“Miyabi!! Your power of creation is our only hope here. Instead of running blindly, you need to create bridges and stairs for a planned evacuation. They’re almost here!!”

When she held his head between her hands and shouted straight at him, he finally broke out of his daze.

Yes, running away was not the wrong answer.

The question was whether or not he could give that answer meaning.

They had to settle things with the Necromancer for manipulating Number 8 and Onelife into planting sorcery bombs. That would require facing her Godhorn Tech, the Deadman’s Fenrir. To do that, they could not die here. Being killed by the bugs summoned for it to eat was not how this was meant to go. They hadn’t fought it or even caught its attention yet.

Miyabi clenched his teeth and faced that fear once more.

His priority for now was just to survive.

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

They had no idea what kinds of carnivorous animals lurked below the surface and they might overlook one of the purple patches of film on the surface, so safety demanded they avoid setting foot in the murky water covering the ground here.

But they could not let the swarm of white bugs catch up either.

That was why Miyabi created a Bypass Bridge. But to prevent the filthy water or the shaking of the ground from directly damaging the bride, he gave it no support pillars and only connected the box-sized masses directly to the thick trees.

They just had to avoid touching the dark murky water that was a hotbed of dangers, such as the purple film and the carnivorous fish.

Or so he thought, but once he tried it, the tree trunk thicker around than his torso readily snapped.

“Whoa!?”

With its support broken, the bridge tilted down like a slide, but there was no time to go back and try again. If they stopped moving, the parasites would engulf them. He attached more boxy Palette Dice to the broken end of the bridge, creating the next one.

It ran less than a meter above the water.

And the wall of creepy-crawlies was approaching all the while.

“Miyabi, can’t you burn them all away with the Lucifer Horn!?” asked Celina.

“I could, but I have no idea how far it would blast the filthy water!! Do you want that stuff splashed over your head!?”

“No, but can’t you build a roof over us!?”

He hadn’t thought of that.

He ended up using a Bypass Bridge for it. He held up his hand and built another bridge overhead to cross with their makeshift roof. Then he used his other hand to stab the control sword down at his feet.

A magic circle spread out and he raised his voice.

“Lucifer Horn, tactical open!!”

This time, he dispensed with the tricks and just fired a beam of light from straight overhead.

The blinding light dropped from the sky and then cut horizontally across the world.

First, they had to hold fast against the shockwave.

A short pause.

Then something poured down like a sudden rain shower. It was a mixture of the sticky water and the thick, white bodily fluids of the roasted parasites. None of them could say what would happen if a single drop hit them.

A sizzling as if from acid came from the roof over their heads.

Miyabi still could not relax. It took a lot to worry someone with a Godhorn Tech at their disposal. How much of that stuff would get on them if it ate a hole in their roof and leaked through?

“D-did that work?” asked Celina, holding onto him from the side and still trembling.

Nothing was stronger than a Godhorn Tech, yet this rotting forest was ruled by an anxiety not even the Lucifer Horn could erase.

They heard more rustling.

At the same time, Helen Clockgear looked away from the site of the blast.

“The Necromancer’s Godhorn Tech is made from a corpse that consumes the parasites to continue running, right?” She froze in place with her eyes in that direction. “A-another wall is coming from this direction!! D-did it call them in from every direction!?”

“W-w-w-we need to get out of here!! Alicia, Eliza! Hurry!!”

They looked like pale white worms and like fat maggots thicker than a human arm. No one would ever want to touch one, much less have them approaching in an “attack”.

One of them would have been unbearable enough, but this was a white wall. A tsunami.

This group came from much closer by, so it was going to catch up if they wasted any time at all.

(The Bypass Bridge…won’t be done in time!!)

“Argh!! Grab a stick, boy!!” shouted Alicia, jumping from the half-completed bridge into the stagnant water.

This increased the danger by a lot.

Fortunately, the approaching parasites had forced the carnivorous fish to flee. By poking around ahead of them with a stick longer than a mop, they could detect the milk-like film on the surface. They had to avoid that purple film as they advanced to minimize the damage.

“Onelife! You carry Kananka!!”

“Can do!! Nwahh!!”

The large man let the small king ride on his shoulders, a simple but effective method. It would fully protect Kananka from the water below, but he had to avoid hitting his head on the wet branches a little higher up. And it wouldn’t help at all if the parasites caught up.

“I will carry Alma!” said Alicia. “I’ll hold tight and never let go!!”

It was easily the most hellish escape they had ever made.

A deluge of rustling and splashing sounds pursued them, so they splashed through the filthy water and made their way between the rotting trees.

Their boots were soon full of the lukewarm liquid. It was only water and it made sense for it not to hurt, but the lack of pain still scared them for some reason.

Each step seemed to be taking them closer to death.

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

Miyabi held his hand behind him as he ran.

He was not bothering with a Bypass Bridge at this point.

He used all his strength to create a wall taller than he was, but it accomplished nothing. When the white wave hit it, it cracked and the fat white creepy-crawlies crawled inside to devour it from within. That seemed to hint at what would happen to him if those things caught up.

But things could always get worse.

“They’re coming from this direction too!!”

“Argh!”

“Don’t go that way, Miyabi! Look at my stick! It’s discolored from that purple film!!”

If Eliza had not grabbed his shoulders, he might have stepped right into that sticky mess. And that one step would have eaten down to the bone.

This did not seem to be a coordinated attack. The unseen Godhorn Tech of flesh and bone had not seen them yet. This level of pollution and danger was an everyday occurrence for the Bio Rainforest. Ordinary life could never survive here.

Thanks to the murky water and the fat white bugs, their paths forward through the deep forest were severely limited. They were losing options fast, like they were being driven through a funnel.

The next thing they knew, they had climbed up onto one of the stone ruins dotting the forest. A small stone plaza was attached to a nearly trapezoidal building. It put them higher than the filthy water.

“Ugh!!”

“Don’t, boy. Take off your boots and you lose any chance of survival,” warned Alicia. “You don’t want to walk around this forest barefoot, do you!?”

Once on land, Miyabi’s soaked boots felt so heavy and unpleasant. He wanted to strip them off and be rid of them, but that was not an option. He was terrified of being contaminated. Even the blood-warm rain felt clean by comparison. It was actually transparent, which seemed so beautifully pure. Not that he had any guarantee it was safe.

An endless stream of sticky sounds echoed from nearby, so Celina reflexively held onto Miyabi from the side. She had tears in her eyes.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! What do we do!?”

“…”

Number 8 briefly stopped blinking as he thought.

Only he remained calm.

“Pull that spear from the top of that building and stab it into the water.”

“A spear?”

They would have to burn the parasites away with the Godhorn Tech’s beam if that didn’t work, but they were so much closer this time. When the purple film and parasite juices were splattered everywhere, they needed a roof to keep it off of them, but that was useless if it splattered in from the side. However, they did not have enough time to build a sturdy shelter with a full complement of walls.

To repeat, the parasites were much closer this time.

“Can that spear really repel an entire wall of bugs!?” shouted Miyabi, eyes wide. “They’ll overwhelm me in an instant during a close-range battle!!”

“You will not be using it that way. Do not worry. The Empire that created me was the strongest military nation on the continent. You cannot match my ability to come up with lethal ideas.”

“Dammit!!”

Miyabi scrambled up the nearby trapezoid just like the butler automaton demanded. He grabbed the spear sticking into the gap between two of the giant stones forming the roof, but then he frowned. It was unusual to find a spear where even the long shaft was made of metal. Was this design because the wood would rot away in the Bio Rainforest?

And…

(Why is it scorched?)

He did not have time to pursue that question. Extracting it from the gap was a challenge since the blade was swollen with red rust, but he managed to yank it on out after grabbing with both hands. He staggered back when it popped out and nearly fell from the roof, but he managed to stop himself in time. It was pretty heavy. He shouted down toward the others with rusty spear in hand.

“I got it out, but what now!?”

“I already told you. Stab it into the water.”

On Number 8’s instruction, he threw the rusty spear from the roof. When he saw it clank against the plaza instead, he just about stomped in frustration but lost his balance and nearly slid off the roof. He frantically clung to the stone roof. Destruction and creation were meaningless at this point. It was a job for old-fashioned physical strength.

The wall of bugs was closing in and Helen shouted from the fear.

“Miya-Miya-Miyabi! Tell the Lucifer Horn to take me somewhere else – anywhere else!!”

He felt his internal pressure reaching its limit as he climbed down carefully, not wanting to slip and break a bone. What good was that rusty old spear? It didn’t look like a special magic weapon or anything like that. And if they only wanted a long weapon, Eliza’s control lance looked a lot stronger to him.

Once down on the plaza, he grabbed the spear again. Its excessive weight only made him more impatient. He did not have time to wait around. He jumped from the stone platform, planted his feet in the murky water, and stabbed the spear down with both hands.

Everything but the ancient ruins was ordinary, albeit submerged, ground covered by dirt and tree roots. No, he felt the spear stab into something softer and flabbier. He frowned at how it almost felt like he was piercing a rotting corpse’s chest.

Then he looked back.

“Okay, I did it. What next!?”

“You fool! Get out of the water!!”

“?”

It was not often that Number 8 yelled like that.

Miyabi heard a deep rumbling from overhead. The massive Empire had extended its knowledge in every direction it could and used all it learned for military purposes. The magical automaton containing all of that knowledge yelled a further warning.

“Lightning is about to strike!!”

A pillar of electricity dropped from heaven to earth, striking the spear. Then it spread out across the murky water in a flash.

Miyabi managed to scramble onto the stone ruins in the nick of time.

“Whoa!?”

Kananka helped him to his feet and he looked over to see the fried corpses of the parasites.

“Hm, that worked well.”

“Was that an offensive use of a lighting rod?” groaned Helen.

Eliza belatedly gave her control lance a fearful look. She had it resting on her shoulder, as was her wont, but now she understood how dangerous it was to walk around with the tip sticking up.

Not even the great wall of parasites could escape the high-voltage current traveling through the sticky water. No, the great size of the swarm only made it harder for them to escape. When the lightning reached them from the water, it rapidly spread across the entire swarm since they were packed together so closely. The result was a series of bursting sounds and scorching smells. The water was now covered in parasites lying belly up.

But not even that lasted long.

Passing out must have switched off some kind of defense mechanism covering their bodies because their stomachs and intestines were eaten through by their own filth. With a sound much like flesh being burned by a chemical, their thick skin dissolved away, leaving only an unrecognizable white liquid floating in the dark water. The strange marble pattern was a lot like milk in coffee.

That had dealt with the parasites rushing in from multiple directions, so the rustling sounds were gone.

But solving the problem did not purify it.

The place was even more contaminated than before.

“Breathing in that chemical smoke would be a bad idea. We should hurry on.”

Number 8 was not biological himself, but he calmly assessed the situation.

“Nhh.” Onelife grimanced too. Since Deadman’s Fenrir is here, we must be getting close.”

The flesh-and-blood Godhorn Tech was going to notice that its meal never arrived and it had already caused this much trouble without even noticing their presence. How much worse would it be once it was actually trying to kill them? They wanted to avoid being on the receiving end of a surprise attack inside the deep and disgusting forest.

They needed to move from here, take up positions, and go on the offensive.

When you were at a disadvantage, you always wanted to hold the initiative.

Curious about the electrified water, Alicia crouched at the edge of the ruins.

“Will this water zap us if we touch it?”

“Don’t test it with me!!” protested the radio. “Machines are doubly vulnerable to that!”

Fortunately, her fear was unfounded.

They marched onward through the blood-warm rain, alert for parasites or deformed plants or animals. They could not afford to overlook anything and they could not predict what might happen. They spotted bugs and snakes camouflaged as withered leaves or vines hanging down from rotting branches, so even the nearby trees might bite them if they weren’t careful.

Miyabi used the Palette Dice to create Bypass Bridges, Onelife occasionally rolled large rocks to create new platforms, and Number 8 moved out ahead through the dangerous water to scout things out since he was (supposedly?) resistant to the toxins. Still, every step Miyabi took produced a sticky sound in his boots and all the warmth was sapped from his feet. He was growing seriously worried he would remove his boots to find he had grown webbed feet like a frog.

Helen took a nervous look around.

“Deadman’s Fenrir still hasn’t shown up.”

“It may be finding another supply of dead souls since we robbed it of that first one.”

The scariest part was how Number 8 was not smiling in the slightest, suggesting that was not a joke.

“What is that?” asked Celina, staring into the distance.

An artificial structure jutted up through the rotting leaves.

It was larger than the other ruins.

It was on an entirely different scale, so it may have originally been a temple for the ruling class.

Quarried stone had been stacked up to create an impressive mountain. They had seen a few nearly trapezoidal buildings already, but none had been this large. The stepped walls were covered in hemispherical containers, perhaps to hold fires. It was designed to make itself look big and grand, not purely for functionality.

Were the holes in the walls meant to be windows or doors?

An orange glow akin to red-hot steel came from those holes.

“…”

The contamination was so strong that simply seeing it – not even touching it! – sent a stabbing pain into Miyabi’s eyes.

This had to be the center.

The pollution covering the country-sized Bio Rainforest had spread from here.

“Oh?”

And someone was there.

She stood on the flat stone plaza spread out in front of the building.

She controlled such a large building, yet she was not using its roof for protection.

But it did not look like she had noticed the problem in Deadman’s Fenrir’s meal and rushed out with a weapon to attack the thing.

She was crouching down on one end of the plaza and using a dissolving metal implement to pick up the purple film and place it inside a test tube.

She cared more about research than combat or her own life.

This woman thought the forest was paradise.

“Not often the Bio Rainforest receives visitors who smell of the open sun.”

Miyabi felt like decadent was the best word to describe her.

She had long, wavy purple hair and the attractive features of a stage actress. She also had curvy proportions. Hadn’t number 8 said she had the traits of some region’s wealthy class? She had broken that down to give herself an even sweeter appearance. Almost like an apple beginning to rot.

Her clothing was like a cross between a village’s white sorcerer and a witch. She wore a witch’s hat, skinny pants, a midriff-baring vest, and a white coat. But what were the pants and coat made of? They were strangely oily and patched together. Miyabi held a hand over his mouth when he realized the truth.

That was all rawhide.

And with how patchwork it was, some of that skin might have been human.

Whether it was still alive or dead flesh reanimated with magic, a lizard tail swished side to side from the back of her white coat’s hips.

“You don’t look like more researchers who ended up here after being kicked out.”

“The Necromancer.”

“Correct.”

It was like an attack.

She did not even consider running away or hiding. She may not have been aware anything she had done was wrong.

“But I would really prefer if you showed more reverence and love when you spoke my name.”

Cackling laughter reached Miyabi’s ears.

He readied himself for another foe, but it apparently came from the witch’s hat she wore on her head. A horizontal slit opened in the garment of skin and it spoke human language.

“Boss, I bet they’re new guinea pigs. Y’know, the kind of people who march up to their own execution for some unfathomable reason.”

“That guy’s just like me!” roared the crystal radio hanging from Alicia’s neck. AKA, the philosopher’s stone.

“Let me guess,” said the hat(?). “You’re one of those harem-loving losers who wishes he could get rid of all the guys!”

“Oh, and what’s your area of expertise supposed to be? Hag nostrils?”

“…”

“…”

The tools glared at each other while Number 8 spoke up.

“Necromancer.” The stiffness of his voice had to be more than just being an inorganic automaton. “Does my presence not remind you what you did!?”

“Nhhh!! You’re getting rid of my crew’s parasites!”

The Necromancer was cornered by Number 8 and Onelife, the two men she had manipulated, but she remained calm.

For that matter, she may not have seen this as being cornered.

“I have no interest in a living human or a soulless automaton.”

“Woo, go boss!!”

She was taking control.

Ordinary good and evil held no sway in this rotten forest. This woman had absolute control of the conversation. That scared Miyabi into shouting.

“Who cares what you think!? I just want to know if you’re the 11th or not!”

“Again, why should I bother responding to the living?”

With a rustling sound, she reached for the side of her hip. The rolled-up object attached to her belt there was probably a whip. Only “probably” because filthy strings of saliva dripped from it when she unfurled it.

Yes, saliva.

What kind of animal had that come from? Or had she destroyed an existing animal to force a mutation? Regardless, the whip was actually a tongue measuring several meters long.

It was likely her Godhorn Tech’s control device.

“There is more to the world than meets the eye. I am also interested in vessels capable of carrying ghosts. So if you wish to draw my interest…yes, why not make yourselves into ghosts?”

A heavy tremor shook the ground and continuous sticky sounds soon followed.

A colossal four-legged beast had appeared.

Pieces of it were rotting away and parasites spilled from the sewn-up wounds. The forcibly-attached Wicked God horn glowed faintly.

Overall, it may have been similar to a black horse.

However, a horse did not have strange, flabby tentacles implanted in place of a mane. A horse did not have its chest split down the center or its ribs clacking together like fangs. A horse did not have a long, chameleon-like tongue flitting in and out of its split mouth. A horse did not have overlarge muscles tearing its thick skin apart, countless stitches to contain those muscles, or thick chains both inside and outside those wounds to control it in some way.

And an ordinary horse out in the plains did not whinny while shaking a body more than 20m tall.

This was the Deadman’s Fenrir.

It might look small when compared to the Schwarz Schütze or the Icicle Bullet, but there was something blatantly unnatural about an animal that had swollen too large to support itself.

Miyabi felt a chill that shook the very core of his body, maybe because this one was based on an animal.

Or was this his disgust at a corpse that was not even living anymore?

This was closer to being a Wicked God, but it was undoubtedly not one.

In a way, the changes caused by the Deadman’s Fenrir were even greater than the bomber or the pirate ship. Just think how many parasites had pursued them through the Bio Rainforest. The swarm of hundreds of thousands of parasites was not even an attack; it was a form of resupplying and maintenance.

Number 8 had said it summoned the parasites.

Miyabi grimaced at a faint scent hanging in the air. It was not an unpleasant odor. The wounds gave off an oddly sweet scent reminiscent of rotting bananas.

“You are insane,” said Eliza.

During the riots in her own kingdom, she had attempted to act as her king’s shield without insulting anyone else’s feelings. That knight had tried to never give up on anyone, but now her eyes grew wide and she trembled in fear.

She was staring at the horn.

The Wicked God horn.

The sharp and twisted horn glowed softly at the center of the colossal horse’s forehead.

Oh, come to think of it, thought Miyabi in belated realization.

Something wasn’t right.

He had fought several Godhorn Techs now. He had destroyed the Schwartz Schütze’s sealed container and broken open the King Knot’s hull to expose its horn, but this was his first time seeing a horn that was always exposed to the air with nothing to protect it.

“You leave the horn exposed instead of using a sealed container? How can you possibly control something like that? Aren’t you afraid of if it obliterating everything in the vicinity, yourself included!?”

That alone was enough of a taboo, but there was more.

Death plus death would never lead to even a flicker of life.

Miyabi had assumed the horn had been forcibly reattached, but that was not an accurate description.

Another horn had been attached atop the broken horn, almost like grafting a plant.

The dead Wicked God’s body had been hijacked by another horn.

And that horn would be a portion of a different corpse.

Everything about it came from necromancy.

A faint glow came from the chains moving from rotting wound to rotting wound, and even to the tip of the horn. The unnatural number of eyes convulsed and glared at Miyabi’s party, but it was unclear if this was a conscious act or not.

That was enough to push Miyabi past his boiling point.

“Necromancer!!”

“What has you so worked up? You use a Godhorn Tech too, don’t you?” With sticky control whip in hand, the decadently woman opened a giant magic circle at her feet and whispered in an exasperated way. “You build a dead component into your weapon, draw out its power, and use it to your ends. All Godhorn Techs are a product of necromancy, so don’t get mad at me just because I don’t bother hiding that fact.”

Miyabi had known from the beginning that this was never going to end without a battle.

He stood a step up from the filthy water, on the plaza in front of the massive stone temple.

He faced a powerful foe there. This woman was the one Moebius Entrance had been pursuing. She had used the sorcery bombs herself and tricked or forced Number 8 and Onelife Shiftup to distribute them.

She was the 11th.

She was the source of it all.

A roar exploded from the Deadman’s Fenrir.

The great black horse neighing toward the heavens sent a physical shockwave radiating out from it. The invisible compressed wall tore the stone plaza from the ground, smashed it in midair, and used the scattershot debris to create a wall of destruction.

Miyabi did not bother holding back.

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

He used the stone plaza itself to build a thick wall. He could not dodge the blast sweeping in horizontally, but he could avoid a fatal blow by sacrificing the wall.

He heard a bubbling sound as the smashed and scattered stone rapidly dissolved. This had not just been an explosion or shockwave. Some unseen factor had been spread with it.

“I thought it was only superstition.”

Crouched for safety, Alicia sounded dazed.

This was not her first time fighting against a Godhorn Tech, but Miyabi had never seen the elf so overwhelmed.

“They say any nonhuman that crawls back out of the miasma-spewing cracks in the world becomes a Wicked God. They say that potential is what makes us Beast Novae. I always thought they had made it up to justify their discrimination of nonhumans. And yet…”

Something like a black mist was flowing from the colossal horse’s mouth.

“Mi…asma?” muttered Miyabi, but it still didn’t feel real. He did not know much about magic, so he only thought of it like the secret to immortality spoken of in picture books. “Has she…has that freak been experimenting with that too!?”

“FYI.” The Necromancer smiled with her tongue whip in hand. But this was not a daring grin. She looked delighted that she had this chance to finally show off the result of her research. “That really is no more than superstition. External exposure to miasma has such a miniscule effect on the cellular level that any tissue would rot away long before any major changes had manifested. Conversely, injection or inhalation has too great an effect, so the tissue refuses to remain stable, resulting in something more like collapse than transformation. Thus, kicking a monster down into those cracks won’t create a Wicked God. That is the only logical conclusion.”

“…”

“Heh heh. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Humans do not run on petroleum. So if you want them to, you need to replace all of their blood vessels and internal organs before attempting the transfusion.”

So she had done so.

Most likely, none of this work had been absolutely necessary for the creation of a necromancy-based Godhorn Tech. None of it sounded so key and critical.

It was more like she had discovered an unusual metal and wanted to run every test she could on it.

This was just one of a battery of tests.

Finding that the superstition was indeed a superstition was a satisfactory result for her. She had violated the corpse’s dignity by ripping out its organs, reinforcing its network of blood vessels, and injecting it with untouchable miasma for nothing more than that.

“Can-” Helen shouted half in a panic while palely gripping her thick knife, that’s paralysis and poison magic were feeling awfully unlikely to accomplish much of anything at the moment. “C-c-can we contact Candy? She’s a Godhorn Tech designer, isn’t she!?”

“She claimed to be, anyway. And I doubt she would know anything about a flesh and blood one like this. This is like nothing we’ve seen! It has to be highly irregular!!”

This was nothing like the taxidermy Miyabi had seen at his village. Taxidermy preserved a large animal in its most impressive state so it could be shown off as a hunting trophy. The hunters were not cutting open the animal to alter it, harm it, or make it suffer. But the Necromancer enjoyed this. She had given up a comfortable life in a city and accepted life in this dark forest for it. And she had spread pollution for it.

“The corpse is only a corpse.” Young Kananka held a boomerang about as tall as he was. “The dead may not feel pain, but there is a downside. For example, it can’t heal even the smallest of wounds!!”

“Hm, I see. So we just have to attack and attack until it falls apart. In that sense, you are more of a weapon than a creature, Deadman’s Fenrir!!”

Celina readied her bayonet-equipped rifle.

The enemy was a 20m colossus, but the real fear was the miasma spewing from its mouth and the pollutants like the filthy water and the purple film spreading out around the plaza. They could not get close or stray too far, so keeping the right distance and continuing to attack with projectiles would be the best fighting style.

“Now.” The Necromancer smiled a little without even cracking her whip to send an additional command. “Is that really true?”

The stone boomerang glittering with magical jewels was large enough that Miyabi had mistaken it for an axe, so it was more brutal than a guillotine blade. Celina’s rifle fired alchemy-enhanced bullets, so it could attack with fire, ice, or any other type of damage.

But more than that…

“Watch out!!”

With the sound of scraping stone, sparks tore a line in the ground. This was an attack style no ordinary horse could pull off. It lowered its head and charged while scraping its horn along the ground. If Miyabi had not pushed Celina out of the way, the sharp horn would have hit her torso when the horse swung up its head. That deadly attack was meant for a confrontation with another Godhorn Tech, so it may have torn her to pieces more than skewer her.

The close shave left Celina staring wide-eyed, forgetting to even reload her gun.

“What!? It charged right into our attacks!?”

This was not a simple case of thick skin.

In fact, its muscles had swollen so far its skin had been split from within. The skin had to be as fragile as a rotting fruit’s.

Yet it had pushed through.

There was a simple reason.

“The wounds are closing?” Kananka could not believe his eyes as he skillfully caught his returning boomerang. “Can this corpse heal itself!?”

There was magic that transformed defeated birds and beasts into meat on the bone, but it was unlikely to work here. Target Cooker could apparently one-shot undead enemies because they counted as lifeless meat, but it would probably only take out a small portion of this massive corpse. And it could heal that damage soon enough.

Normal weapons were not going to cut it here.

Miyabi was the only one who could use a Godhorn Tech, but causing an explosion at this close range would splash them with the filthy water, the purple film, and any carnivorous fish that had failed to flee in time.

Miyabi immediately stabbed his control sword down at his feet.

“Please, Lucifer Horn! Combine your abilities!!”

First, a giant bomb dropped from the bomber.

Then a thick beam pierced it like a sharp kick from behind.

All sound vanished.

But the bomb did not detonate in midair. Instead, it was given a “push”, accelerating it down at unthinkable speed until it embedded itself in the colossal rotting horse’s back.

“That’d be classified as a photon rocket,” shouted the radio. “That’s better than a bunker buster! We’re talking future tech here!!”

The bomb exploded while fully buried in Deadman’s Fenrir’s rotting bones and muscles. The idea was for the blast to push out at and squash the internal organs, without any of the destructive power escaping.

But…

“What?” groaned Miyabi.

He heard a straining sound.

The massive weapon should have been buried inside that rotting body, but the jagged remains of its covering were pushed back out and rejected by the rotting muscles. Blood the muddy color of oxidized wine spilled out as the object restricting its movements was extracted. It was like a snake spitting back out the shell after swallowing an egg whole. It even tore open its own wounds further.

The remains clattered to the ground.

Stabbing a bomb inside it was not enough. This was not a living creature. It was a Godhorn Tech – a massive sorcery weapon – created from one.

“Sewing it up by hand was never going to be enough, so I added a self-healing function,” explained the Necromancer.

The colossal black horse extended its chameleon-like tongue and groped at its own body with it. Both the dark surface and the inside of the grossly-split wounds.

“It is a perpetual soul devouring device.”

“Kh.”

Miyabi had heard that ominous term before.

How had Number 8 described it?

“By devouring the parasites hoping to gorge on its rotting flesh, the Deadman’s Fenrir obtains the ticket needed to make use of their dead souls. Each one might be small, but that can be overcome with sufficient quantities.” Then the Necromancer pointed in a seemingly unrelated direction. “And this rotting forest provides as large a supply as you could ever want.”

The entire scenery seemed to strain.

Miyabi’s body and mind were not working in harmony. Just like when a bug fell from overhead and your hand reached out on reflex even though touching it was the last thing you wanted to do. He knew that was happening here as he stood on the stone plaza with control sword in hand, but his head still slowly turned.

And he saw it.

“They’re coming…”

He could only give the answer in a daze.

“The parasites are coming!! It’s that white wave again!!”

Hundreds of thousands of carnivorous parasites thicker than his arm were approaching. He could never survive if the wave swallowed him up. The enemy Godhorn Tech was right in front of him, but he had to redirect the Lucifer Horn’s focus elsewhere.

He stabbed the blade into the seamless stone ground and roared at the top of his lungs.

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

A corner of the rotten forest was sliced through by a beam of light and a massive explosion erupted a moment later. That had to be more than just the Lucifer Horn’s bombing. The gases emitted by rotting meat may have gathered in the forest.

“Do not fear, Miyabi. I can detect the state of the air using the path my boomerang takes. That explosion will not affect us!!”

But it did burn away the wave of parasites just before it hit them.

In addition to direct damage, they could obstruct the Deadman’s Fenrir’s recovery by cutting off its supplies. The damage was working, so they could force a win as long as they prevented it from continually recovering.

“By the way.” With a snap of the Necromancer’s wrist, her tongue whip swished through the air like a ribbon. She had it draw an arch over her head while still loose and relaxed. “Those parasites you so loathe are in their adult form. They are not larvae waiting to become pupae.”

“…?”

This was strange. And confusing.

What had the Necromancer just knocked from the air?

“'Which means the eggs and babies are much smaller.”

“This is bad, boy! Build a roof immed-!!”

Alicia tried to shout a warning after realizing something, but it was too late.

Something much more unpleasant than the blood-warm rain dropped on Miyabi’s right eyelid.

And it was not alone.

Something like the rice used for pilafs and paella dropped toward them like the stories of frogs and fish falling from the sky.

Except this “rice” was all squirming and wriggling.

Miyabi’s bombing and the flammable gas explosion had launched the parasite larvae high into the sky.

Hadn’t Onelife’s crew been infested by the parasites without noticing? That could not be explained with the ones thicker than an arm. The infection must have come from the eggs or larvae.

The realization caused Miyabi’s mind to explode.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“Deadman’s Fenrir is packed full of convenient features, both inside and out, but the biggest problem is how I have to work so hard to ensure I am not infected myself.”

The Necromancer sounded like she was complaining how high veggie prices were recently. It was unclear if she was even speaking to Miyabi’s party.

Miyabi started to reach for his eye in a panic, but Alicia grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“Don’t rub your eye!! These parasites have been swimming through all that murky water. Maybe they were all in the especially dangerous purple film. I will get it out, so don’t move. Crush it with your finger and you’ll absorb all of the toxins right then and there!!”

“Eek!!” screamed Helen from elsewhere. She was throwing away her disinfectant and bandages. “This too!? Oh, and this!! It’s all soaked with parasites and filthy water!! Ugh, we can’t use any of it anymore!!” Convenient recovery magic did not exist in this world.

Magically healing wounds and disease required the creation of physical healing items known as White Sorcery Items, but a hand wound would require a different type than a leg wound.

Helen had said before that Compress Cargo was convenient but was poorly suited for combat since there was a 2 second lag before you could extract an item.

She must have kept her recovery White Sorcery Items in small pockets on her clothing instead of in her bag, but that had come back to bite her. Not that it mattered since the parasites and sticky water would have ruined them as soon as she removed them from Compress Cargo anyway.

In other words…

“Now, care to remind me who it was that can’t heal in this battle?”

“!!”

“The border between life and death is a fickle thing. But don’t worry. Humans do not cease moving just because they are dead. I will make very efficient use of you. I will turn you into something just as impressive as that Wicked God horn that continues to function in its broken state. Makes the difference between life and death seem downright trivial, don’t you think?”

“Damn you!!”

Was she saying it didn’t matter?

Alive or dead, humans were humans. And the dead ones were actually useful to her research. So did that mean she had no qualms about blowing away cities with sorcery bombs and creating piles of corpses?

Alchemist Alicia clicked her tongue, pulled out some test tubes, and tossed them all toward the water. Her physical boosting potions must have been ruined too.

They were growing disordered.

No, they had been disordered.

“Heh heh heh heh heh. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

The Necromancer roared with laughter.

That cruel researcher in the rawhide coat swung her tongue whip to knock away the small parasites raining down from overhead.

“Necromancy scares you? So it should be suppressed? There is obviously more to the world than meets the eye, but it’s taboo to even try to research ghosts? Not to mention that Godhorn Techs could be called necromancy since they use a Wicked God’s horn. And you thought I would fall short of the rest of the world in my own field? Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha hah hah ha ha ah ha ah ha ha!!”

“You’re the coolest, boss!!”

“Don’t just irresponsibly flatter her, you fool!!”

The radio shouted in protest, but things were heating up in a very bad way.

And.

Miyabi Blackgarden made a terrible mistake.

His enemy was the Necromancer and the greatest threat was the Deadman’s Fenrir.

The parasites and toxins were only distractions.

“Ah.”

He heard something scraping at stone, but it was still only dumb luck that he managed to push Alicia out of the way in time.

Finally and far too late, he turned to face the crux of the issue. He could see orange sparks charging toward him. They grew until they filled his vision. There was no dodging them now. He had seen this attack before.

The 20m or more horse was charging in at its top speed.

The Wicked God horn rushed in from below, thrusting up toward his gut.

It was like an upside-down lightning strike.

It seemed to gouge into space itself and Miyabi’s jacket tore.

Red blood flew and he felt his body twisting.

Yes.

He had escaped a direct hit.

The Lucifer Horn had flown by overhead, dangling a long, long wire that caught at the enemy horn and yanked it to the right.

That had forced the Deadman’s Fenrir off course, but the Lucifer Horn did not escape unscathed. The wire had been forcibly snapped and the intense force pulling back at it actually threw the bomber off balance.

It had been hit in the battle against the Divine Doll and it was possible it would eventually hit its limit if he forced it to do things like this much longer.

And…

“Gahhhhhhhh!?”

Some terrifying cracking and popping sounds came from within his body, but he did not have time to focus on that. Even if the attack had only torn his clothing, it had still exposed him to a great force and sent him into a rapid spin. He felt like a rag being wrung out. He could not even tell which way was up, much less brace for impact with the ground. He failed to do much of anything before his back slammed down against the stone plaza.

Now he could not even breathe.

It felt like his vision had shattered into a million pieces.

He could only scream unintelligibly.

“Music to my ears.”

He could not respond to the Necromancer as she approached him.

The decadent woman crawled on top of him and whispered.

“Good boy. You are now a step closer to death. So allow me to take a step closer to you. Remember when I said to become a ghost if you wished to speak with me? I like boys who know how to do what they’re told. So keep it up. Just stop your heart, cease your breathing, and die. Then I will love you. The pain and suffering are unbearable, aren’t they? If you want a peaceful and loving embrace from me, your best bet is to die.”

“Damn, sounding pretty sexy, boss!”

“Yes, shut your eyes. This may be too much for a child. But if you want, you can take a peek.”

“!!”

But he noticed the instant her attention was diverted away.

He clenched his teeth and swung his right hand from the ground.

His control sword had originally been a machete, but it was not small enough to aim for the head of someone on all fours over him. He failed to gain much speed, so she easily grabbed his wrist, sat down on him, and swung her head back.

She winked.

Then she slammed her forehead against his. Hard.

“One.”

She restrained his other hand before he could even think of using it.

And she did it again.

“Two.”

The blow rattled his brain like taking a hammer to the head, so he could no longer see her even though she had to be right there in front of him. Perhaps he had lost the ability to recognize the thing in front of him as a face. He shook his woozy head and she released his hands to grip her tongue whip with both her hands.

But not to whip her poor living sacrifice.

A wet sensation assaulted his throat. She had wrapped the whip fully around his neck.

“The closer you approach death, the closer I will approach you. So why not just die here? When you foam at the mouth, I will lick your lips clean. When the blood drains from your face, I will taste that delicious pallor. So there is nothing to worry about. You fear death because you know it to be painful and miserable, right? But that is a silly misconception. There is no pain or fear in true death. I am an expert on the subject, so you can trust me.”

“Gah…”

It was hopeless.

There was nothing he could do.

By now, he had noticed something was amiss. The Necromancer intended to strangle him to death, but why wasn’t anyone attacking her defenselessly exposed back? The answer was simple: they couldn’t.

Deadman’s Fenrir spewed miasma from its mouth, called in countless parasites with its sweet rotting flesh, and kicked the filthy water and purple film into the air with its hind legs.

That corpse was an incarnation of death and pollution.

And it was a Godhorn Tech.

With Lucifer Horn and Deadman’s Fenrir, it was a clash of the strongests. But what if one side was lost? No matter how powerful his party members were and even if they had once wielded one of the 10 Godhorn Techs, they could not hope to win with only ordinary weapons or control devices.

A tremor of the ground assaulted Miyabi’s back.

Helen had lamented that she could no longer heal them.

Had some of them been hit by Deadman’s Fenrir and taken out of the fight? If he did not get them out of this forest and to safety as soon as possible, they could reach a point of no return.

If Miyabi died, it was all over.

So much that he cared for would be crushed below that Godhorn Tech’s rotting feet and then the smashed bones and organs would be made into this woman’s playthings. And it was the same for everyone on the continent. With each city or castle blown away by the sorcery bombs, she gained more corpses and dead spirits.

He could not lose.

He could not afford to lose.

Yet…he could not think of anything to do.

“Accept the natural phenomenon of death.”

The tongue whip constricted so tightly around his neck he felt like his head was swelling.

“You’ve lost all your baby teeth at your age, haven’t you? As a boy, your voice has changed too. Are you starting to grow a beard? Were you surprised when you first saw the hair down there? This is no different. The ordinary changes can seem scary at first, but after the fact, you realize they were nothing to fear. So experience death and overcome it. This is the final rite of passage we all must complete.”

More than the breath, it was the lack of blood to his head that caused his thoughts to scatter.

Even the concept of “resistance” faded away.

“Kah…ah?”

“The one advantage of the living is how each and every one of them can be made into a corpse if you kill them. I shall make an adult out of you.”

So when it first happened, he had no idea if he was imagining it or not.

Either way, he saw a sword slash drop from heaven like a bolt of lightning.

He had no idea what had happened. In fact, was this even possible?

Deadman’s Fenrir was instantly split in two and its two halves stickily collapsed into the dark water. From the horn on the forehead, down the thick neck, and all the way across its large back, the beast was sliced into two perfectly symmetrical pieces.

Someone stood there.

Someone with such an overwhelming presence that the Necromancer, who had twisted the very environment, was overshadowed.

“Eh? Huh?”

“A-a one shot!?”

The decadent woman and her inhuman hat were both taken aback. Still straddling him, her hands loosened on the tongue whip strangling him.

Miyabi could not get up, but he could get his voice out now.

“Cough, cough, cough!! W-who are you!?”

No response.

He looked like an old man.

But he could not guess at an accurate age because the man wore a smooth mask that fully hid his face. He wore a loose outfit that looked like some kind of foreign attire and he held…a sword?

Had he really slain Deadman’s Fenrir with no more than that?

Again, was that even possible? That thing was a colossal rotting horse swollen to 20 meters with a Wicked God horn attached. How had he done it!? A human-sized sword should have been like a toothpick to it!!

Light flashed a moment later.

It came from the side and targeted the Necromancer.

“Gah…ah!?”

There was nothing she could do.

The horizontal line of red appeared below her chest but above her navel.

She had been attacked with a blade capable of slaying a Godhorn Tech in a single strike. No defensive stance or evasive maneuver could have avoided this. The critical mask made by the researcher of death was freezing up after witnessing something truly unexpected. With her legs spread to straddle the boy, evasion had not been an option.

Red sprayed out.

The color splattered across Miyabi below her.

She collapsed forward with a look of disbelief, so he caught her in his arms. Even she still had the warmth of life in her.

Only then did the world return to normal.

He was no longer viewing the world through the oddly detached viewpoint of someone approaching death. He felt the air on his skin like normal and his tunnel vision had faded away.

He held the injured Necromancer and scooted backwards. He wanted to get as far away from that masked old man as possible.

Then he heard his party members’ voices from quite nearby.

They were so distinct he was amazed he had not heard them until now.

“Gh, what is with that sword? Its presence is just as powerful as Scwharz Schütze. Wait, could that sword – that katana – be a Godhorn Tech!?” shouted Celina, wiping the filth from her head with a handkerchief. Miyabi could not say if she had been knocked to the ground during the battle or if the eruption of gore from that bisection had hit her.

Some others agreed with Celina’s instincts that something was wrong here: Number 8 and Kananka Fulpen.

“What is this pressure? It is interfering with my internal components.”

“That man himself isn’t normal. This abnormal pressure is even greater than that monstrous corpse!!”

The massive magical empire and the remote island kingdom had both developed their own theories about unseen powers in order to harness them. They were speaking from that expertise here.

That old man himself was out of the ordinary.

He said nothing.

Miyabi could feel the Necromancer’s warmth in his arms.

He could sense her pulse and breathing gradually weakening. Worse, it felt like the deep sword wound was pulsing separately from her heart.

His tunnel vision was gone.

That meant he could focus on something other than his own death.

That allowed him to identify the most pressing problem.

“This is…agh…bad. If the Necromancer dies, what happens to the pirates’ parasites!? How do we get them an antidote or vaccine or whatever!?”

“!?”

Onelife grimaced.

The masked old man did not seem to care.

“The horn.”

He spoke in a way that said he could not see anything else in this wide world.

His voice was unusually dry and scratchy even for an old man. After hearing that, Miyabi would not have been surprised to find there was nothing but a gaping hole behind the mask. In fact, finding an ordinary human face would have felt wrong.

“You too possess a Godhorn Tech.”

The tip of his sword was directed at Miyabi Blackgarden.

He was only interested in the boy out of all the people here.

This was not over yet.

Whoever he was, he was not here to rescue Miyabi.

“Hey, we should get the hell out of here.” The radio sounded dazed. “This is what I’d call an unwinnable fight. Trying to fight a master swordsman is better known as suicide!!”

“Kh…”

Miyabi was only holding the Necromancer in his arms because she had fallen toward him, but she felt like an entirely different person from the one who had intentionally straddled him. No matter how light you might call them, a human was still a heavy burden to carry. This opponent had bisected a Godhorn Tech from beyond his sword’s length. There was no escaping him while carrying something heavier than a sack of flour.

But she was the key to everything.

Even if she was an undisputable monster who had desecrated life, distributed sorcery bombs, and done so much harm to the natural environment here.

There was no saving Onelife’s pirates from the parasites without getting her to say how to heal them. Miyabi had promised that man he would solve that problem.

Just then, Miyabi heard something like an approaching wave.

A swarm of parasites had crashed into the masked old man from the side. Only one being in the world could do that: Deadman’s Fenrir.

“That undead freak survived such a clean bisection!?” shouted the radio. “Is everyone in this crazy jungle a monster!?”

Miyabi did not answer. Instead, he clenched his teeth and adjusted his grip on the Necromancer’s limp form. Then he turned his back on the sword-wielding assailant.

The parasites rushed in. The panicked Beast Novae must have been pushed to action as well. The Godhorn Tech had forcibly reunited its two halves using its many tentacles and it snapped through the rotting trees as it kicked off the ground and charged in for a do-or-die attack.

However.

There was no ground-quaking roar or shockwave.

The sound of the sharp blade slicing through the air was far too light.

It was enough to make you want to cry.

That was all it took for one side to be defeated, so the sense of danger racing up Miyabi’s spine remained unchanged. He could not bear to look at it. Now was not the time to stand and gawk. The Deadman’s Fenrir could not have thought its attack would result in something different from before. It would be bisected again, but it made that final attack regardless.

It had lost, but it still forced the masked old man to focus on it. It could take some of his time, no matter how small. And it had decided that was good enough.

As long as it created enough of an opening for the Necromancer to escape!!

“I get it.”

Miyabi looked away.

Like he was shaking free.

He considered how many sacrifices had been made to give him this 1-second opportunity. He reflected on the nobility of making such a choice without hesitation.

So he carried the injured villain away while shouting back at their savior.

“I have her, so don’t you worry, Deadman’s Fenrir!!!!!!”

The fear of that masked man’s gaze pierced Miyabi’s back, but he brushed it off.

At any other moment, he might have frozen on the spot, but no paralysis could stop him now.

He had to do this.

Of course, his efforts would be little obstacle for that old man wielding a special sword known as a katana. His most desperate efforts would be casually sidestepped.

But he had a moment to work with.

To use this hard-won opening to its fullest, he and his party ran as fast as their feet would take them.

They had just one goal: leave the deadly necromancy forest with their lives.

“Hey, I thought that was just a corpse with another Wicked God’s horn attached, so something like moving a dead frog’s legs! Why did it protect the Necromancer without being told to!?”

Helen kept trying to look back as she ran, but Eliza stopped her.

The chivalrous knight may have had her thoughts on the matter.

“Stop, it would be crass to search for an answer there. We know it wielded its great power to save someone. What else do we need to know!?”

But all of this would be for naught if the mysterious intruder caught up to them.

The Necromancer was a villain.

She was a hopelessly bad person.

But her life had been entrusted with them. She had desecrated death, toyed with people’s bodies, and become the center of the forest’s pollution, but that Godhorn Tech had still served its lonely master.

Perhaps it had wanted to guide her away from necromancy and in a healthier direction. Perhaps it had failed to do that and decided to at least keep her company.

There was nothing to suggest that.

It was probably just a figment of Miyabi’s imagination.

But even if the Deadman’s Fenrir was nothing more than a pile of flesh, its final act had shined with the light of a soul. There was something noble within it. It had style and grace. It carried some unseen factor that a simple village boy like Miyabi Blackgarden could respect.

Which was why it had refused to die even as it rotted away.

The woman was a hopeless villain, but Miyabi would never forget how that creature had fought to the very end to protect her!!

“Kh!!”

However, the reality they faced was cruel. He had decided not to abandon the Necromancer, but he could barely carry her. Plus this kept him from using his hands.

And the Lucifer Horn was near its limit.

He would be lucky to get in a single surprise attack. It would likely be cut down in an actual battle.

“I don’t think we can use our weapons or Godhorn Tech. We need to focus on escaping!” he shouted.

He did not even have time to use the power of creation to move the Palette Dice and create Bypass Bridges or Layer Stairs. Onelife tore a branch from a rotting tree and Alicia and Helen grabbed long sticks to poke at the filthy water ahead of them and search out paths they could use.

“Something doesn’t add up,” said Miyabi while carrying the Necromancer’s limp form. “He sliced the 20m Deadman’s Fenrir in two with a single strike.”

“Yes, and!?” asked Alicia.

“But that didn’t happen when he attacked the Necromancer. Look, she’s badly injured but intact. Why? There shouldn’t have been much left of her.”

Alicia gasped and Miyabi continued.

“You were saying that weird sword – was it called a katana? – might be a Godhorn Tech, right? Is there some secret there?”

“It is likely a Wicked God horn,” answered butler-uniformed Number 8, made from the best technology available to the Empire who had once operated the most Godhorn Techs on the continent. “When the Deadman’s Fenrir was defeated, I sensed two invisible pressures. The second sent a massive amount of energy into the wound and shredded the target Godhorn Tech from within. He intentionally let the powers of his own horn and the target’s horn reflect off of the inside of the Godhorn Tech’s skin to tear the initial wound further open. But a human’s body does not deflect that kind of energy, so it would simply leave your body. Just like how a window does not shatter when shot by a sniper rifle.”

“So that thing was developed as a…pure Godhorn Tech slayer?”

Celina gulped with a look that said she had never even considered the possibility before.

But the magical automaton expressionlessly shook his head.

“I am not so sure. It may be that he found a different use for a weapon that already existed. Since he was planning to fight Miyabi’s Lucifer Horn, he may have simply forgotten to switch it to anti-personnel mode.”

This opponent used a sword, so they were safe as long as they did not let him approach or see them.

Or so Miyabi thought.

“Get down, Miyabi!!”

“!?”

Kananka sensed something and shouted a warning. The instant Miyabi lowered his head, everything was sliced through at the same height. It was a horizontal sword slash. Even the blood-warm raindrops were sliced through, all the rotting mangrove trees slid to the side partway up, and they collapsed toward Miyabi’s fleeing party.

Of course…

“Gahhhh!?”

This was not a case of missing due to poor aim. When the trees fell, they splashed up the dark water onto Miyabi’s party. None of the extra-concentrated purple film was in it, but the water could still be fatal to the Necromancer with her open wound.

“What, is this the horn’s power too!?” asked Miyabi.

“You can’t use them so directly,” explained Eliza. “Why do you think they’re kept inside a sealed container? Release their power as-is and an explosive blast will spread in every direction, transforming the entire rotten forest into a massive crater!”

Eliza had answered on reflex, but she may have accepted for herself that the she was seeing something that violated the rules as she understood them.

“The rain is trembling…but not because it laments the pollution it will find once it falls. Does it fear that blade?” muttered young Kananka. His phrasing was based on his culture, which made it hard to understand. “I can’t believe that man. I bet he swung his sword to slice through a falling raindrop with enough force to rapidly vaporize it. Then he used that water vapor to ‘push’ at things. That is how he sliced through the trees.”

“You mean a single raindrop was superheated and instantaneously stretched out impossibly thin and wide? Th-that’s absurd!” shouted the radio. “That’s beyond what brute force can accomplish!! This goes beyond modern science. Can you really adlib your way to nonsense like that!?”

Then Alicia came to a stop and cursed.

“Damn!! That must have stirred things up in the water. Hurry back the way we came!!”

“Back!? But the masked old man is after us!”

“Do you want that purple goop to dissolve your legs!?”

The sight of Alicia’s stick dissolving into chemical smoke was enough to silence Celina’s objections.

But the Bio Rainforest was vast and labyrinthine. If the direct route was cut off, they would have to take a lengthy detour. Kananka was exhausted and veered off course, so the pirate had to grab him.

If they lost their bearings, they could end up wandering in circles.

“Look to the sun,” said Eliza, mostly for her own benefit. “Use it to keep your bearings.”

The rotting forest’s fauna included everything from the white parasites to mutated monsters that did not even qualify as ordinary Beast Novae anymore, yet none of it was in evidence. While the Deadman’s Fenrir had skillfully made use of the parasites, this swordsman pushed everything away.

He could do all this even from a distance.

They could not give up just because they had been stopped and forced to take a detour. If he got close, they had no chance of winning. They had all learned that lesson today.

“Pant, gasp!!”

Alicia clicked her tongue when she saw Miyabi trying to catch his breath.

“Tch. Carrying that injured woman is slowing us down!”

“Boss…”

“God, she is nothing but trouble.” The radio was not happy. “If not for the parasites, we could just dump that villain out here!”

“No!” shouted back the hat. Even after everything, it could not abandon this emotional bond. “Don’t leave her behind!! I’ll do anything, so please!!”

“…”

“Please!! Save the boss! Wahhhhh!!”

Miyabi knew it was not worth it, but when he heard that, he clenched his teeth and once more gathered strength in the hands holding the unconscious woman. Deadman’s Fenrir and the mystery hat were a disturbing pair, but the Necromancer had not been alone. They had tried to protect her from isolation and they had left her fate in Miyabi’s hands. Even though they cared about her life more than anything.

She was a villain, so she could never be forgiven.

Once they had a way of rescuing Onelife’s crew from the parasites, they could leave her to die.

But was that really true?

The Necromancer was undeniably a bad person, but it was up to Miyabi to decide if she lived or died. If he dropped her in the purple film floating on the water, the toxins entering through her wound would rapidly destroy her organs and blood.

In fact…

Would it even matter if he saved her? She had promised to save Onelife’s crew, but she was a known liar. There might not even be an antidote or vaccine for the parasites.

The part of him arguing to give up on her was a weakness he had to fight.

“Ghhh!!”

He pushed the weariness from his arms to fill them with further strength. He could not drop this wounded woman.

He kept running.

He ran without looking back.

He didn’t even want to know how close the deadly assassin had come. It was a miracle he had not been cut down from behind already.

The enemy had only a sword, yet his actions were entirely unpredictable.

That was a sword-sized Godhorn Tech, but it was not just a source of raw power. There was clear skill behind its usage, both in the Godhorn Tech slayer move that one-shotted Deadman’s Fenrir and the long-distance slash using vaporization. Miyabi would never be able to use it in the same way.

The Necromancer slowly opened her eyes in Miyabi’s arms.

“Ugh…you? Why?”

“I honestly don’t know. Part of me is still telling me to dump you here!” desperately shouted Miyabi. “But we can’t remove the pirates’ parasites without you. And more than that, those two were struggling to save you despite being powerless! That Wicked God worked to save a rotten villain like you even though it meant bisection and this other guy kept begging us to save his ‘boss’!!”

“Uhh…”

The decadent woman grabbed the brim of her hat with trembling fingers.

Then she looked up at Miyabi.

“You…”

“You made this mess, so you’re gonna clean it up! You were behind the pirates’ parasites and the sorcery bombs, so this should’ve been the end of it! So what’s the deal with that masked old man!?”

He shouted and ran until the Bio Rainforest’s exit came into view.

Eliza’s weary face lit up.

“Pant, pant. Almost there. We’re almost at the exit!!”

The escape had been tougher on her with her large lance and armor weighing her down, so she had obvious relief and hope in her voice as she made sure her feet did not get caught in the dark liquid.

But…

“Ugh!?”

He stood there.

Right in the way.

The white masked old man held his fearsome blade casually in one hand after reaching the exit ahead of them.

Miyabi bristled and shouted.

This one old man scared him more than all the monsters and parasites filling the forest.

“Goddammit!! We just can’t lose him!!”

Time ground to a halt.

He could not ask the Lucifer Horn to fight anymore.

No, he probably wouldn’t even have the time to stab his control sword into the ground and activate the magic circle.

The man took a sharp step forward.

He faced them with his eyeless and mouthless mask.

Miyabi could only watch helplessly as the sharp sword swung upwards to aim toward his neck.

And then…

“Koo!!”

A small cry and figure intervened.

That was enough for the old man’s sword to hop up and away from the party. Almost like he wanted to avoid taking that small, defenseless life more than anything.

“!?”

The old man froze in place and appeared to be analyzing his own action.

And then he came to a realization.

“Oh, ohhh…”

“Wh-what is this?” asked Alicia. “What did Alma do?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

He screamed like he was trying to tear apart his throat and chest.

Miyabi gave a start, but the masked old man had already vanished. Miyabi had not even seen him jump in any direction.

None of them could move for a bit.

“A-are we safe now?” Miyabi asked in a daze.

“Koo?”

Horn Fortress was found somewhere out on the ocean.

That secret base had started out as a desert island and Moebius Entrance now smiled thinly there in his wheelchair.

“If he’s causing trouble across the continent with such a large group in tow, he’ll probably run across him before long.”

He sounded both sad and irritated.

Even if he had a smile on the surface.

“History’s very first Godhorn Tech user – the Lord of Ruin.”

Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 5

Development is coming along nicely, concluded dwarf craftsman Garett Goldcave, looking up at a giant structure.

Before, he had only built some small stone or brick buildings here and there on the island, but he had added on enough extensions that they were now complexly intertwined and stacked on top of each other, creating a bizarre sort of castle. He had not planned this out, so the interior had an inefficient and labyrinthine layout, but it was accomplishment enough that the unplanned structure did not collapse under its own weight.

He was finally at the point where the materials abandoned around the island would be useful.

He and the others could do most anything with the facilities they had created. Whether they wanted to cook or manufacture, they just had to draw out an accurate plan of the fuzzy idea in their head, process the materials, and assemble them.

For example, they could create bombs for the Lucifer Horn and help it resupply.

He had of course received help from the others in this.

The dwarf craftsman was joined by many other technicians. The gasmask girl named Marietta Diggrave had gathered imperial documents without realizing their value. The maid named Angela Custardmare had frequented enough mansions and castles to know a lot about their structure. The bunny girl named Eluné Jackpot and the gang daughter named Phobia Neverjudge were familiar enough with crime to know how to construct secret tunnels and doors. The former Godhorn Tech designer Candy Lunaticover could bring everyone’s fragmentary ideas together into a final product. The nonhuman and non-dwarf knowledge of the elves like Cliff Blueforest and Lillian Greenforest had come in handy as well. All of their knowledge had fused together to develop the unorthodox techniques needed to keep such a bizarre castle standing.

(Still, I think I was right to create some gargoyles and golems as soon as I was set up for metalworking. We can all design things and come up with ideas, but I need more help on the actual construction side of things.)

“Yes, you’re all such good boys. It’s time for your daily winding.”

He had the look that a grumpy old man reserved for his grandchildren.

This here was one of the biggest facilities.

“Nhhh… It’s been so long since I was kicked out of my guest researcher position in the Arsenal Kingdom and forced to earn my research funding as a traveling dancer, but I finally have a clinic all my own!!”

Iris Tempinvy, the dancer with a long silver braid, lifted her arms and stretched her back. She primarily researched supposedly-impossible recovery magic, but she had apparently been working as a dancer to fund that research.

Garett gave a snort.

“Hmph. Clinics are best when they’re rarely used.”

“Unlikely to happen on an island crawling with venomous snakes, venomous spiders, bears, tigers, and even the undead. Of course, we have all of them to thank for the plentiful materials and food.”

That brought into question what exactly they ate on this island. Life on a desert island was not always pleasant.

“Shouldn’t we consider trying our hand at some fields or paddies?”

“I think none of us wants to accept that we’ll be stuck on this desert island long enough for crops to grow, but it is true we’ll run out of animals eventually if we keep relying on hunting alone.”

Garett and the others had walked all around the Horn Fortress island, making it into their own backyard, but they had not run a detailed ecological survey. They could be stuck fighting against starvation tomorrow if they ended up killing and eating the last of some birds or beasts that they mistakenly thought were plentiful.

“If we do plant some seeds or seedlings in a field, the animals might come along and try to eat them,” said Garett.

“Wouldn’t that just mean more delicious meat for us?” asked Iris.

“Sigh. If I want someone to till the dirt, maybe I should go to Marietta since she’s an expert at digging holes. But this will work differently from the previous construction. I hope I don’t let my guard down and injure myself.”

“Oh ho ho. I hope you bring me plenty of scrapes and scratches to work with.” Iris laughed in delight, slapped the center of her chest, and winked. “We have a clinic now. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for the excitement of a serious wound. Moebius is a fine guinea pig, but it gets boring with just the one.”

“…”

“I also want to experiment with some trickier magic! Anyway, I just need patients, so make sure you come to me with any injuries☆”

Profiles

Cate Tornadodancer

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Height: 160cm

A former queen of the battle arena. It was recommended that she retire because she won so reliably it hindered the gambling side of the arena’s business, so she now wanders the world using the money she had won. Her skill was developed in the show business of the battle arena, so it isn’t much use in real battles and she can’t let anyone know her journey’s true purpose is to retrain herself from the ground up. Her ultimate goal is to be strong enough to break off a Wicked God’s horn.

Candy Lunaticover

Age: 14

Sex: Female

Height: 155cm

A genius designer known as the youngest person to draw up the plans for Godhorn Techs. Since she has already conquered land, sea, air, and even the deep sea, she has set her sights on outer space as her final frontier. She is searching for a Wicked God horn in order to create an explosive multistage flying broom capable of breaking the bonds of gravity.

Godhorn Tech Corpse: Deadman’s Fenrir

Pilot: The Necromancer

Affiliation: None

Size: Shoulder Height – 18m, Head Alone – 6m, Shoulder to Rear – 24m

A real Wicked God corpse had its horn removed and another’s horn attached to forcibly restart it, making for the most unorthodox Godhorn Tech of them all. More like forcing a rotting corpse to continue moving than a simple organ transplant. It is overflowing with various parasites and its dead flesh calls in more parasites to be killed. The souls of those dead parasites are converted into necromancy power, making it something like a semi-perpetual motion machine.

The Necromancer

Age: 25

Sex: Female

Height: 167cm

A researcher who continues to run secret experiments using forbidden necromancy. Her top priority is giving form to her own experimental wishes, so she does not even consider the harm or influence those experiments will have on her surroundings. Her research includes Wicked Gods where she has created the Deadman’s Fenrir by controlling a Wicked God corpse with another one’s horn. She has pride in her use of death as a researcher, so she is infuriated by the perverted nobles and anyone else who call themselves necromancers to justify their own interests.

Lord of Ruin

Apparent Age: 70 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Male

Height: 178cm

A mysterious person wearing a smooth mask who is likely an old man. Wields an unidentified sword that can bisect a Godhorn Tech in a single strike. He appears to possess great skill instead of just raw power. For example, he can launch long-range slashes using rapidly vaporized water. The only partial comfort is that he only seems interested in Godhorn Tech owners.

Epilogue

The humans prided themselves in their ability to feel regret

But they showed no sign of mending their ways

The first order of business was treating the Necromancer’s wounds.

They could finally lay her down once they had left the Bio Rainforest and there were far fewer toxins around. It was little more than a camp out in the middle of a field, but it made a lot of difference. Because of how messed up that rainforest had been. You weren’t supposed to have to deal with purple film and carnivorous fish in a forest where any injured person would be killed just by lying down.

“Bwah!!”

Miyabi took a deep breath. The air seemed to have physically changed the instant they left the rotting forest.

As had the temperature and humidity.

“The wind feels so nice.” Celina Bodenburg wiped the sweat from her brow. “The climate is entirely different, even though our coordinates are more or less the same. Why is that forest like a greenhouse?”

“The unnaturally captured heat might explain why the entire forest is fermenting,” replied Helen Clockgear, sitting on the green grass to catch her breath.

The air felt so fresh, which showed just how awful an environment that forest had been.

At any rate, the world had entirely changed.

There was no more black and purple water at their feet, so they could lower an injured person to the ground.

Onelife Shiftup laid his coat down on the ground and Miyabi Blackgarden laid the Necromancer on top of it while practically falling over himself. He was at his limit. His arms felt like they were never going to move again.

A red wound ran in a horizontal line below her chest and above her navel. Blood was still seeping from it.

Miyabi was only an apprentice, but he had been born and raised in a forestry village. With everyone using hammers and saws, he had seen his fair share of injuries, but this was something else entirely. Just seeing it sent a soul-rending chill running from his fingertips to the core of his body.

It had been so sharp.

So merciless.

This deep wound was no accident; it was an intentional attempt to take someone’s life.

“Wh-what do we do about this? Where do we even begin!?”

They had to get started.

It was a race against time.

Yet his mind had gone blank and he couldn’t shake the feeling.

What was he supposed to do? Helen was his usual go-to person for help, but the recovery medicines and antidotes in her small pockets had all been ruined by the Deadman’s Fenrir’s parasites. The natural herbs and nuts had been contaminated by the dark water and the concentrated purple film. The Necromancer only had herself to blame for that, but she really was going to die at this rate.

“Pant, pant…”

“Her blood pressure is dropping and her breathing is shallow.”

Number 8 and the philosopher’s stone were monitoring the woman’s condition.

“This is bad. If she dies, we’ve lost our only information source.”

“Boss.”

Helen searched through all of the medicines and bandages she had on hand, but she screamed when she found a rice-sized parasite that had stubbornly stuck with her. She quickly crushed it below her boot’s heel to make sure it could not spread outside the forest. That ruled out using any of those.

“A-anyway, we need to treat her. We need medicine…and something to close the wound!”

“Okay, fine.” Alicia Blueforest beckoned Celina over. “Hey, rich girl, help me out. We both know some alchemy, but if you want to act like an expert, you’ll have to prove it by saving someone on occasion.”

“U-unlike you, I work with metals, not medicines.”

Celina sounded confused, but she did seem to know how to deal with wounds and injuries better than Miyabi. Thinking back, she had journeyed on her own a lot, even if it was in an armored train. She may have been accustomed to dealing with injuries and illness as a part of looking after herself.

They all had to provide what knowledge they had.

“Right now, I need your gun. Aim it into the sky, new money.”

“Huh? You mean we aren’t searching through the grass for usable plants!?”

“Barren land like this only grows persistent but useless weeds. But some migratory birds prefer to eat rare medicinal herbs and their seeds. And if they’ve flown in from afar, they should have eaten some safer fruits from beyond the reach of the forest’s pollution.”

“I see. I should have known a filthy elf who lives out in the mud would think differently.”

“Oh, some Spring Carriers. See that bird with the pink tailfeathers? Their appearance reflects the food they’ve eaten. Try to take that one down in a single shot. The loud gunshot will scare the entire flock away.”

“L-laying on the pressure will not make my aim any better.”

With an earsplitting gunshot, feathers brighter than blood scattered in the air.

Young Kananka Fulpen looked away.

Come to think of it, his island kingdom apparently ate mostly fish and seaweed, so they may not have been in the habit of eating birds. And Kananka himself had sent out seabirds as magical messengers.

“Isn’t your boomerang meant for hunting?” Celina sounded exasperated. “Why aren’t you used to seeing dead birds?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is a defensive weapon used to knock down the shells fired by an invading ship before they can reach the island.”

“Please tell me you’re joking! Because the alternative is terrifying!!”

But for now, they needed medicinal herbs.

The party walked to where the bird fell, Alicia quickly chopped up the migratory bird with a small knife, and she pulled some undigested plants and seeds from its stomach. Miyabi had expected its stomach contents to be gross vomit, but it was surprisingly clean. He saw no sign of stomach acid and the pink flowers and seeds were still recognizable.

“Birds generally swallow things whole instead of chewing them with teeth,” explained Alicia. “And it depends on the species, but the Spring Carrier intentionally holds back on digestion to feel fuller longer with less food. Otherwise it would be so busy searching for food all day it would never have a chance to fly.”

The rest was simple enough.

Alchemy could create magic when given the appropriate materials. Miyabi watched as Alicia used fire to heat up a glass device similar to a siphon coffee maker to sterilize it of any unseen parasite eggs. Then she stuck the materials inside to create the medicine. The plant seeds were dissolved, the flower petals were crushed into a powder, and that powder was transformed into a liquid. She was using fire and hot water, but the changes were so different from when Helen cooked.

And the clock was ticking the entire time.

The Necromancer’s life was fading away.

“There, all done. This should do the trick!!”

Helen gave a nod of approval after swishing the colorful liquid in the flask.

The Necromancer appeared to be unconscious, but her body jerked unnaturally when they wiped down the wound to disinfect it. That meant she could still feel pain and was still alive. Her back arched and even more blood flowed out.

“Hold her down! Hurry!”

“Ugh!! This is one bad wound.”

Eliza Silverstorm was used to war, but even she groaned when facing that wound head on.

Helen would take on assassination jobs at times, so she remained calm.

“Frankly, she’s lucky to be in one piece after taking a hit from a sword that sliced right through a Godhorn Tech. And we can keep it from getting worse. Here goes!”

For better or for worse, they were given some time to think.

And eventually…

“Is she…okay?”

Miyabi did not even wipe the sweat from his brow. Both his hands were red.

Chosen Knight Eliza responded to the boy’s fears.

“I have fought in many battles. Do you see the red returning to her pale cheeks? She is also sweating again. Those are both signs of recovery.”

“All of her vitals are stabilizing.”

It was unclear what exactly he was doing, but Number 8 could apparently detect people’s life signs by holding out his hand and closing his eyes.

She was safe for now.

Which allowed them to think about other things.

“Hold on,” said the radio. “Her blood itself might be a defense against the parasites.”

“?”

“She lived out there with all those parasites. Granted, she kept some of them away with her whip, but she still must have some antibodies in her. You have butter in this sword and sorcery fantasy world, right? Or maybe sugar refinement? Then you should be able to do centrifugal separation with a hand-spun device. We can’t take too much blood since she’s already lost so much, but…oh, I know. If you mix a small amount of blood with saline and spin it around, you might be able to gather enough of the separated components to create a serum.”

Miyabi had no idea what antibodies were, but Alicia nodded in understanding. The alchemist elf explained that they were like an elemental defense built into your body. It did make sense that the Necromancer would not want to be affected by her own toxins and parasites. In fact, wouldn’t she have a hard living in that forest without a resistance?

Kananka’s face lit up.

“Then you can save the pirates with that! That’s excellent news!”

“…”

“Hey, cheer up, old man,” said Miyabi. “Now isn’t the time to feel guilty about what you did.”

“Agreed,” said Alicia. “Risking your life and throwing away your life are too very different things.”

“No matter how many detours you took along the way, you can save your crew now. So smile and accept it.”

“Yes…but…”

“No matter how it happened, saving lives is its own reward,” plainly stated Number 8. “I was not up to the task and the Empire was enveloped in the red you saw. I would redo it all if I could. Never let that happen to you, human.”

“Anyway, who was that with the magic sword?” asked Helen, wiping the blood from her hands.

“It was a special katana. It also appeared to be a Godhorn Tech itself,” said Celina.

Eliza had apparently viewed the old man in a different light.

She put her hands on her hips and explained.

“His sword technique was extremely refined, but I did not recognize it. Even though I have researched the military sword techniques of all my kingdom’s potential enemies. It may be an older style no country uses anymore.”

“He didn’t say much, but what he said was curious.” Kananka slowly repeated the words, like he was carefully contemplating them. “You too possess a Godhorn Tech.”

Miyabi gulped.

“You mean he’s intentionally targeting Godhorn Techs with nothing but a sword? So he only attacked the Necromancer because he was waiting for her?”

“Hm. Then could he have attacked me or King Kananka if he had chosen a different order?” asked Onelife.

“We never did get confirmation that the Necromancer is the 11th,” pointed out Miyabi.

Helen looked skeptical.

“You think it might not be her? But we know she was pulling the strings with Number 8 and the pirate.”

“That is true.” Miyabi took a cautious tone. He carved away the foreboding roiling within him, gradually revealing its shape. “With everything Deadman’s Fenrir could do, would she really need sorcery bombs? And blowing things away without a trace doesn’t sound like her. I mean, look at that forest. Wouldn’t you expect her to pollute the entire area and build up her own territory there?”

“But she also said all Godhorn Techs count as necromancy since they use a Wicked God horn. We’re talking about a mad scientist with all her screws so loose they fell out long ago. I could see her breaking her own rules when it’s convenient for her.”

The decadent woman was still unconscious.

Her hat was not saying anything. It was impossible to tell if it was refusing to speak or if it had fallen asleep after wearing itself out sobbing.

“If only we could ask her directly.”

The magical automaton’s words were always accurate but not always easy to implement.

Night had fallen.

“It’s lucky the Lucifer Horn can still fly. I’m not sure what we would have done if it couldn’t bring us firewood.”

Helen was tending to their magically-lit campfire.

They had taken turns looking after the Necromancer, but she was still in a deep sleep. Still, Number 8 had been right about her vitals stabilizing. It may have been safe to move her now.

They could not leave her at this camp forever.

Miyabi Blackgarden placed a wet handkerchief on her forehead and repeated the same thing for the umpteenth time.

“She still isn’t waking up.”

“Boss…” weakly moaned the hat.

It had been so silent before, but it had recovered a bit.

They could not walk all the way back to the criminal city while carrying the wounded Necromancer. That city was home to endless fighting and would thus have plentiful medical facilities, but that was not a short journey. There was a risk of her wound reopening before they arrived.

But what other option was there? He could only think of one thing. And with Moebius, they had already transported an injured person that way.

“Let’s send her to Horn Fortress for now,” concluded Miyabi. “We can speak with her once she wakes up.”

“You’re going to carry her with that wire!? When she’s asleep!?”

“Hm, then we need to create some kind of stretcher for her. The tent…alone wouldn’t work. Do you mind if I take apart the bag used to carry it?”

“You, automaton! Stop fixing the flaws in Miyabi’s plan!! He’ll never learn if you keep spoiling him as the perfect butler!”

No one listened to Helen’s reasonable complaint.

Miyabi summoned the Lucifer Horn.

It could not fly anywhere, but it was helpful enough just sending things to the safety of Horn Fortress. Instead of attaching the wire at a single point, they connected wires of their own to all four corners of the stretcher with the patient strapped down. Then they attached the wires together above, making a rectangular pyramid.

The colossal bomber flew by overhead and took the Necromancer and her hat away on the stretcher.

The rest of them needed to deal with their current situation.

“Like Miyabi was saying, the Necromancer was pretty powerful herself,” said the radio. “Why would she need to stick to sorcery bombs when she was so multitalented? Her specialty was biological stuff, which those bombs aren’t.”

Miyabi thought for a bit before responding.

“Then should we focus on someone fixated on Godhorn Techs and Wicked God horns?”

For example, that white masked man?

“That swordsman,” said Eliza.

“It does seem likely he could be the 11th,” agreed Alicia. “Maybe he uses any means necessary to kill Godhorn Tech users.”

“But that makes him easy to predict.”

The philosopher’s stone was right.

“He will appear wherever you find a Godhorn Tech and its user,” softly stated Miyabi.

Miyabi Blackgarden.

Celina Bodenburg.

Eliza Silverstorm

Number 8.

Kananka Fulpen.

Onelife Shiftup.

The Necromancer.

And the white-masked old man.

He pictured all of them in his mind and groaned.

“Since there are 10 in all, there aren’t many candidates left. And if he cares about the Godhorn Techs and not their users, we can rule out Moebius.”

For the same reason, the Arsenal Kingdom’s Chosen Knights, who had controlled theirs by majority rule, would be safe now that the Icicle Bullet was no more.

“We should be able to get ahead of him if we know who the remaining options are.”

Number 8’s suggestion made Alicia gasp.

“…”

“What is it, miss?” asked the radio around her neck.

The elf shook her head.

“Well, I do know the name of one…but I have no idea where she would be nowadays.”

“Oh, in that case.” Celina raised a small hand. “There is one place I know has one of the few remaining Godhorn Techs.”

“?”

“My Bodenburg Company has built a distribution network covering every part of the continent. There is a desert nation north of that Bio Rainforest. We should probably visit that massive religious nation and warn their Godhorn Tech user.”

The sun was setting, so they decided to spend the night in the tent and head out in the morning.

The desert was apparently past the Bio Rainforest.

They were extremely reluctant to revisit that forest and travel to the other side, but they did so anyway.

The tropical forest was just as gross as ever, but it showed signs of gradual recovery with the Necromancer gone. There was also no sign of the old man.

A chilly wind was driving out the uncomfortably stuffy heat.

Alicia sounded impressed as the blood-warm rain continued to fall.

“Nature is incredible.”

“Safe travel through here would do wonders for our company. Eh heh heh. We could take the shortest route between the criminal city and the desert nation. Ooh, and we could even look into the former researchers hiding out in the forest and try recruiting some of them.”

Miyabi still didn’t understand any of Celina’s business talk, but he was glad she was calm enough to count her chickens before they hatched like that.

And.

They finally made it out of that creepy black and purple forest.

“This is…a desert?”

The world had changed.

Was this really a part of the same continent? Kananka’s island had been hot, but not like this. There was nothing but fine sand as far as they eye could see – no plants and no water. The rolling dunes of that sandy world resembled an ocean frozen in time. No one could live in such an empty place. That was plain to see just by looking at it.

The heat was like what you felt when removing pottery from the kiln.

“This is incredible!!” shouted mountain boy Miyabi.

“Ohh, this is worse than just no forest – there’s no grass or flowers either. It’s all so dry.”

The elf was always sapped of energy in the absence of greenery, so this was a trial so soon after the rotting forest.

There was no stone-paved road here. Maybe none had ever existed and maybe it had long since been buried below the blowing sand.

“Koo…”

“I know, Alma. Painful, isn’t it? Here, I will hold you.”

“N-no concern for the machine who’s vulnerable to fine sand and temperature changes, I see!” protested the radio.

“I feel your pain,” said the magical automaton.

“I don’t want sympathy from a guy! Anyway, the days out here are hot as hell and the nights are cold as hell. Either way, it ain’t gonna be pleasant.”

“There is a country full of people here somewhere,” said Helen, providing no details whatsoever.

When they observed the sandy desert carefully, they could see what may have been paths. Those were the safest and shortest routes between villages. As they followed one, they saw some fleshy plants growing from the sand, meaning there was water here.

Then Miyabi saw a small pond.

His eyes widened.

“Oh.”

“Waterrrr!” rejoiced Alicia. “Greeeeeeen!!”

“Someone stop that idiot before she strips and jumps in!!” shouted Helen.

“No, don’t stop her!” shouted back the radio. “I want to see a bathing elf! A real one!! Did we skip 5G to go straight to 6G!! This is moving blazing fast!!”

Miyabi was closest, so he tackled her slender hips, knocking the elf to the sand where she screamed and flailed at how hot it was. But holding her down until it subsided was the only way to reclaim peace. He had to harden his heart and keep his weight on her.

In the short time he was focused on that, Alma had undergone a new transformation while seated on the edge of the oasis and soaking its short back legs in the water. A flower was blossoming from the creature’s head.

Celina crouched down and poked at the flower.

“Is this…a dryad?”

“This isn’t the earth element. Is it wood? The thing’s become a plant to soak up all the water for itself,” said the radio, sounding disgusted.

But one of them was in no state to join the silly conversation: Eliza, born and raised in a snowy kingdom.

“Pant, pant. Th-that island kingdom was bad enough, but this is on another level…phew.”

Kananka sighed.

“I do understand that seeing some water can be calming.”

“Nhhh!! It’s no ocean, but it’s something!!” agreed Onelife.

“Don’t you dare! This blessed oasis is reserved for bathing elves, not smelly muscle men!!” shouted the radio so forcefully its voice distorted.

Celina put a hand on her hip.

“Sigh. It’s an oasis all right. We were lucky to find it. People need water to traverse the desert, so we should reach the desert nation if we follow the oases.”

They had not noticed it before, but there was some kind of rock jutting up from the center of the oasis. It was too smooth to be natural and it pointed sharply up toward heaven. It had a giant slab sticking diagonally into it, so it may have been a makeshift building with a simple roof. Whatever it was, it was clearly artificial.

“?”

Number 8 looked puzzled for once.

“What an odd sensation. I feel a slight pressure in my chest.”

They continued across the scorching desert after that.

Knowing there would be more oases up ahead filled them with hope. They could actually observe their surroundings now. They could see other stone ruins further out from the oasis, but these were different from the ones in the Bio Rainforest. There were giant statues of four-legged beasts and great rulers and there were enormous square pyramidal structures. The boy could not even imagine what they had been built for.

After passing through a few more oases, a large city came into view. It was nothing like they had seen before and it was a living, growing place, not ancient ruins.

“Pant, gasp.”

Miyabi wiped sweat from his brow in a world where simple walking was a wearying affair.

“Is that it?” asked Alicia. “Have we finally found the desert nation?”

“K-koo…”

“It is called the Hibis Aclia Oracle Nation, country elf. Oh? There are people gathered near the entrance. Is that…a sign?”

Helen was right.

A sign had been erected in front of the large gate. It appeared to contain some kind of notification. Three or four youths viewed it for a bit, but then they nodded and entered through the gate.

Kananka made a reasonable guess.

“It might explain the process for entering the city.”

“So it isn’t just the sand and heat. There is something going on here. I just hope it can explain this pressure I feel.”

Number 8 was fighting something unseen and Celina tilted her head next to him.

“Hm? I don’t remember that sign there last time I visited.”

“We’ll know what it is when we read it. Let’s take a look.”

Miyabi walked up to the sign.

The words jumped out at him: Sacrifices wanted. Inquire within.

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

They all fell silent.

Miyabi spoke for them all.

“Why do I get the feeling we’ve walked into trouble again?”

Afterword

And with that Godhorn Tech is at Volume 2!

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

Volume 2 begins with the suspicion of Moebius’s betrayal, but how did you like it? Personally, I enjoyed getting to use all those ocean Godhorn Techs. We already had the Lucifer Horn, so now they’ve covered land, sea, and air. The scariest part is how Godhorn Techs refuse to be contained by those categories. I think that’s what really makes it feel like a sword and sorcery fantasy.

Speaking of sword and sorcery fantasy, I wanted to include a lot of variation in the different party members. While the ruined empire and the regional island nation are very different places, I thought it would be boring if everyone was a representative of some country or other. That is why I prepared more varied hierarchies for them to rule at the top of, like piracy, business, or research. I hope you can view the Godhorn Tech world from several different angles by seeing how the characters view the world from their different stages.

Since this project began as a game scenario, it was not designed to be sliced into novel-sized chunks, but while Volume 1 was nothing but girls outside of Miyabi (oh, and Moebius too), Volume 2 includes a lot more important dudes, giving it more variety. We’ve got a butler automaton, a charismatic muscle pirate, a young king, and a swordsman old man. …Hm, looking at the list like that, there isn’t a standard hero or mage, is there?

Anyway, you should be able to see how this volume’s boss characters were a lot more eccentric than Celina and Eliza in Volume 1. That’s because we couldn’t exactly make the Necromancer or the Lord or Ruin be the first boss (and thus the first new party member)!!

The story is also the tale of Miyabi traveling around the continent.

He primarily fought in the northwest side of the continent in Volume 1, but this time he took a big U-turn and trekked across the continent while even making a detour to an island nation outside the continent. I think I showed a lot of variation in the climate and topography. What did you think of it all?

I hope you have found a favorite among the many characters and Godhorn Techs, but I also hope you found a favorite region. I shoved all my favorite fantasy elements into this. Everyone speaks the same language and uses the same currency because that’s just how it works in games, but I really enjoyed giving each city a unique feature in its topography, climate, economic foundation, culinary culture, etc. The most prominent example this time may have been the criminal city where the mixture of different cultures led to a blossoming of art and food.

I give my thanks to Haimura-san and Tabata-san who did the character designs and KeG-san who was involved in designing the characters’ alternate outfits. Tabata-san also drew the novel version’s illustrations. I also want to thank Square Enix, everyone else involved in the game’s production, and my editors Miki-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san. More party members!! Selecting scenes to draw the whole Miyabi Army couldn’t have been easy. Thank you so much for going along with my nonsense again.

And I want to thank the readers. This second volume only exists because all of you wanted to know what happened next. This project has transformed a lot, but I am so happy that there are still people out there who can enjoy it. Your enjoyment means the story, the lore, the characters, the Godhorn Techs, and every single background tree made for the project were not for nothing. You reading this and enjoying it with us completes the large circle that began with the original project. I can never thank you enough for allowing the project’s stopped clock to move again and for saving Miyabi and the others. Thank you so, so much!!

And I will end this here.

Oh, no! I let my guard down and now the Necromancer is running wild…

-Kamachi Kazuma

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