Godhorn Tech:Volume1 Chapter1

Chapter 1 Section 1

In that time, cracks had formed in the world.

The contradictory beings known as Wicked Gods soon emerged from that great womb.

My everyday life has just a hint of the mysterious mixed in.

But I only ever thought of it as providing a nice spice to life.

So never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be forced into eating a giant plateful of pepper.

A sudden white beam blotted out the blue of the midday sky.

“How powerful is that thing?”

The boy felt the weight of the blade in his wrists. He also felt an icy chill.

He had wobbled to the side and bumped into the massive boulder that had towered above him like a cliff face. But now it was broken and only rose to his hip height.

Miyabi Blackgarden, a redheaded 15-year-old boy with sawdust goggles on his forehead, just about forgot he was in a deep forest. He gulped, but not from the fear of touching a combat sword for the first time in his life.

The sword was no more than a conductor’s baton.

The actual destruction had been caused by the thing that seemed to cover everything overhead.

“Koo,” groaned the slipper-sized white creature at his feet upon seeing something.

It covered its mouth with small hands(?) and walked on two legs. It had a single round horn on its forehead and its stuffed animal eyes may have been viewing the massive artificial bird formed from countless straight and curved lines. Or maybe it was viewing what little that attack had left of its playground. Dark soil and greenery had been torn up and blasted into the air, so their scent filled Miyabi’s lungs. It was all another scar of destruction.

The scenery itself had been torn apart.

An entire section of the forest had been eradicated without a trace and the dark soil below had been torn up. The trees had to have stood 10 to 15 meters tall and parts of the forest had been too thick to allow much sunlight through, but all of that had been stripped away, exposing the ground to the sun. From a bird’s-eye view, you might have seen the scars of destruction formed a perfect circle.

Miyabi’s mind nearly went blank.

He could not even stop himself from blurting out some meaningless words.

A massive form measuring several dozen meters long soared by overhead. That bomber was an artificial monster with bat-like wings spread.

“No one told me it would do that!”

But the clock was ticking all the while.

Even Miyabi knew what it meant when he heard several whistling noises in quick succession. His was not the only “strongest” on the field. They had provoked something extremely dangerous. If he continued standing there in a daze, he would be blown to bits in only a few seconds.

He was hearing the enemy’s attacks.

And those attacks were meant to take his life.

“Alma, follow me!!”

“Koo koo!”

The bipedal creature could not speak human language. Miyabi gestured forward and they both ran through the deep forest. He had already been told where he needed to go.

“Celina is a Godhorn Tech user just like you are now.”

He recalled the words of that jerk he would much rather forget.

But with death only a step away, he threw open all the drawers of his memory to gather up every piece of information that might help him survive just a little longer.

“That is a colossal sorcery weapon with a Wicked God horn built inside. You need to stay on the move. Standing still will get you killed.”

The control sword he had been given felt so heavy.

It was short for a two-handed sword, but it still had a blade. Yet it did not feel remotely adequate.

He was always playing around in the mottled sunlight of this forest, but now it felt like the green stomach of great monster.

Something poured down from the sky at fearsome speed. But this was not from the bomber. After they whistled sharply through the air, explosions erupted on the ground. Miyabi snatched small Alma up from the ground and dove behind a nearby hill mere moments before a tree trunk thicker than him was transformed into a storm of splinters sharper than Beast Nova fangs and tore horizontally through the air. It might as well have been a solid wall of blades. Without his quick action, the two of them would have been shredded.

They never should have been illuminated by the sunshine this deep in the forest, but too many trees had been torn from the ground.

Who would have believed this was the result of lead masses fired high into the sky from outside the vast forest and allowed to drop back down from there?

It was a terrifying collection of sorcery technology.

It probably involved alchemy. Even a boy from a backwater village knew alchemy could do amazing things with metals and chemicals. Alchemical processing could apparently create massive fires and great heat.

“You okay, Alma?”

“Kyoo…”

He had to interpret any response at all as a good thing given the circumstances.

And that didn’t just apply to Alma. He was just an ordinary boy who had trouble keeping away the beasts of the forest.

However…

“For now, you can put off training your own body to move the way you want it. Learning to cross rivers and climb trees can wait until you have plenty of time to work on it.”

Those things had tremendous destructive power.

But that was not all they could do.

“Because right now, you can already make the terrain itself your ally. There was some weird static back when I transferred the contract to you, so maybe that’s why. …But anyway, learn when to use the creation and when to use the destruction. If you come across a cliff face, you can tear it down. Or if you want to climb over it instead, you can build up the land in front of it. Listen, you need to make everything around you into your ally. That’s a handy shortcut for turning you superhuman.”

(Are you kidding me? So if I keep this up, I’ll turn into one of those monsters too!?)

He heard more whistling.

The enemy shots were flying in from outside the forest, but the magic imbued in these ones did not wait until they hit the ground.

A blinding flash of light burst at a point in the sky and lightning crashed down all over the area. The attack dropped like a suspended ceiling to crush the entire field below.

“Ahhhh!?”

With the deadly blade in one hand and Alma in the other, Miyabi held his breath and scrambled out from behind the hill.

This was well beyond anything he could avoid on his own.

If this had been a wide-open field, a thick bolt of electricity would have crashed down on his head and roasted him. He was only still alive because this was a deep forest and the lightning was diverted toward the trees instead.

And that was not all that happened.

One shell passed over his head and hit well behind him, spreading a white frost in every direction. He had a bad feeling about what would happen if that caught up to him. He would probably be frozen solid in an instant.

“Alma!!”

He tightened his grip on his partner who resembled a white stuffed animal and ran like a bat out of hell. He jumped right over a hip-height stone, circled behind a simple charcoal burner’s hut, and crossed a river using the log lying across it.

The icy wave freezing everything white stopped when it reached the water, but Miyabi did not stop running. He quickly located an area with no bushes or other underbrush and rushed there. The next shell had to have already been loaded, so he had no time to breathe a sigh of relief.

Even with a special power in his grasp, all he could do was run away.

But at the same time, how was he still alive when his enemy was going to such lengths to kill him?

Instead of him parting the grass, he felt like the scenery itself was parting to let him through.

His enemy was using magical artillery.

Those alchemically-made projectiles were falling from the heavens like deadly rain, so the situation had already left “normal” far behind.

There had to be another power at play.

He had a way of fighting back. It did not actually boost his strength or muscles, but just knowing he could fight back allowed him to move the way he normally would instead of locking up with fear.

“Godhorn Tech Bomber – Lucifer Horn.”

He even had it in him to look into the blue sky overhead while he ran through the forest.

He was not just a helpless victim here. He could directly fight back.

“Is that monster really mine now?”

“Koo koo!” wailed the young life in his arm. Strangely, it was that nonhuman creature that reminded him what it meant to be human.

“That’s right. Surviving this comes first,” he muttered under his breath, reminding himself of his primary objective.

His feet carried him further through the green forest.

Even on the receiving end, it took him a bit to realize the density of fire was dropping. His opponent was not attacking as effectively. Instead of concentrating fire on his location, they were scattering shells across a wider area, hoping the target hiding in the forest would make a mistake and reveal his location.

Of course.

If even one of those happened to hit him, he would be killed just the same.

That was when he caught a glimpse of something through the trees.

He saw a gold color.

After a moment of confusion, surprise colored his face. That was blonde hair.

Given all the obstacles found in the deep forest, he had to be literally a stone’s throw away.

The voice he heard was of a lovely girl.

“We both possess Godhorn Tech, so why not cut loose and enjoy this?”

(She’s really close. And not even trying to hide!!)

That reminded Miyabi of a carnivorous beast standing at the top of the food chain. Instead of holding her breath and lying in wait for her prey, she would simply devour her prey because she was feeling a little hungry.

He had assumed she would be standing alongside the colossal weapon. He had assumed he still had a long way to go since it was nowhere to be seen. But there she was. She had left the collection of magical technology outside the forest far behind her while she continued on alone. For improved accuracy, she gave instructions from nearby her target and the alchemy shells would be launched over her head.

The boy cursed his right foot. He had taken the step before noticing her here, but it had still been careless of him.

The girl who reigned supreme had accurately detected his location through the trees.

“Celina, only daughter of the Bodenburg Company, at your service!!”

Several shells whistled down from the sky.

He decided it was fortunate she could not fire the shells directly at him. The arcing trajectory created a lag before they hit. He clenched his teeth and raced forward. The ground was torn up and blasted into the air over a few dozen meters of where they landed. Even trees standing more than 10 meters tall were obliterated like thin glass, so he was dead if he was caught in one of the explosions.

They were close enough for a raised voice to reach, yet the girl did not seem remotely afraid.

(Kh.)

“You okay, Alma?”

“Kyoo.”

Alma was dizzy and for good reason. The explosive blast and metal shrapnel were not the only threat. Even if they escaped the explosion itself, the booming noise was like a solid wall that sapped their strength when it hit them. But Miyabi knew all too well what would happen if he let his shaky legs come to a stop.

“My, my. Playing hide and seek, are we?”

In the near distance, the gold he had glimpsed between the trees slipped away.

Had she put more distance between them, or had she moved behind a thick tree to use it as a shield?

“Did you think that was enough to escape my company’s Schwarz Schütze!?”

That man’s voice played in his woozy mind like from a record player.

“Godhorn Tech does more than destroy. Especially for you with your unusual contract. If the firing is too intense to move in, try creating a Decoy Wall.”

“?”

For the first time, a change came over the girl singing happily deep in the forest.

As the shellfire only grew more intense, Miyabi tossed Alma to the side and held an empty hand out toward an empty patch of land.

The necessary words sprang unbidden from the depths of his mind.

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

Immediately, a green mass rose up with a dull thunk.

It was a wall. Each individual piece was a Palette Die, a piece of the undergrowth packed together into a box-sized mass, and enough of them linked together to grow taller than Miyabi himself.

The girl beyond the forest growth probably had two reasons to panic.

First, the simple fact that the sudden obstacle caused her to lose sight of Miyabi.

And second, a shell that was supposedly under her control suddenly veered off of its perfect arc like an invisible string had tugged on it.

The temporary barrier was obliterated, but that was its purpose.

Miyabi and Alma were out of danger while the enemy’s attacks were focused on the decoy, so they were already running to their next position. They were still on the run, but they could get by using that. And approach their enemy in the process.

“Your imagination is the limit. Right now, you can create anything out of the Palette Dice.”

That should not have been possible.

The power held by the boy and the girl was built for destruction and nothing else.

“Once you create something, you can register it with that control sword to automate the process next time. The materials used cost extra, of course. A momentary delay can mean the difference between life and death in battle, so it can’t hurt to reduce the time spent as much as possible.”

“Okay, let’s get closer to this Celina girl, Alma.”

“Kyoo.”

Miyabi got moving while encouraging the white slipper-sized creature that was feeling dizzy from all the loud noises.

They were still being targeted.

He could just barely avoid the shells by creating a Decoy Wall as tall as himself, but he was no bullfighter waving around a colorful cloth. He felt a squeezing at his heart whenever the dark soil was torn from the ground and the bark stripped from the trees.

He could barely breathe, but stopping was not an option.

Something far worse would happen to him if he did. Running away was meaningless when the entire vast forest was in her attack range. It would be as foolish as trying to run away from the lightning in a storm. But if he moved in close, she would be hesitant to fire shells that caused large explosions. He could taste the dark soil and the crushed grass on his lips, so he wiped them off with the back of his empty hand before taking the next step forward.

This was not a path worn down by animals.

He had to dodge thick trees and the knee-high underbrush and bushes caught at his legs. The squawking of the birds he disturbed made it hard to concentrate. When he stepped on a large rock, his foot slipped. He felt like the entire world was trying to get in his way. His fear was sharpening his senses, but the excess information only wore at his nerves more.

“The Decoy Wall will eventually be destroyed, but the enemy’s attacks will be focused on it while it lasts. You can approach the enemy head on during that time. The trick to survival is placing your next Decoy Wall before the previous one is destroyed.”

He couldn’t be that far away.

As the bird flies, he was literally a stone’s throw away. He had at least caught a glimpse of her blonde hair through the trees.

“Now, a single Decoy Wall isn’t going to gather every enemy’s attention. They can be weirdly picky. But for an enemy in the field, try making a field wall first.”

He heard a voice barely audible over the rustling of the leaves.

“A decoy meant to throw off my aim? You certainly know how to get under my skin.”

But he still tensed. Even though he knew the very simple equation of “stopping = death”.

“But that is meaningless if I just destroy everything in the area. My hail of bullets will crush you beyond recognition!”

Miyabi Blackgarden’s mind nearly went blank.

The rules had changed.

No longer were the massive shells flying high into the sky before dropping back down. One shot past right next to him. The thick forest of 10 to 15 meter trees and the dark soil below were torn away, leaving a massive ditch behind.

The girl herself was in between, but she still fired the weapon from behind her. Even though she would be destroyed if a shot strayed even slightly.

Then Miyabi’s nose detected further danger. This was not a whistling or the bright flash of magic, but he was certain of it.

“There’s something wrong with the air.”

By then, his uncertain concern had become a definite fear.

“Alma, jump into that ditch!”

“Koo!”

The many explosions all blended together at this point.

Destructive projectiles were released in a rapid-fire burst from right to left. These were smaller than the previous projectiles, but there were so many of them. A thousand, if not ten thousand, thumb-sized metal bullets were spewed out in the span of a single breath. He could not sense any human will behind the way the bullets surged and twisted around. He was reminded of the chameleons he had seen in picture books. The fearsome band of destruction struck back, pursuing them like a long tongue seeking its prey.

But just before it could reach them, Miyabi and Alma dove into the absurdly long and 2m-deep trench that had just been torn into the ground (by the girl’s own alchemy shell). Miyabi lived in a peaceful village and was unfamiliar with the idea of trench warfare, but he had known the trench was the only way to avoid having his and Alma’s flesh and blood splattered across the ground along with the splintered tree trunks and branches pouring down all around them.

The destruction was so great he was actually worried about the girl causing it. She could trust her weapon this fully if she wanted, but did she really understand what would happen if it screwed up?

However…

(Can I use this?)

The trench was only a meter or two deep, but that was better than nothing. If he stayed crouched, the rapid-fire sweeps would pass right over his head. He gestured Alma over with his head low and then continued further down the trench.

Dark soil and splinters poured down on him from above.

He looked up curiously and saw a tree trunk thicker than him flying his way.

“Koo!?”

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

He immediately raised a hand and a few cubes of dirt formed a flat panel in midair. He did not bother giving it any girders and just let the panel cross the ditch over their heads. It was a makeshift bridge, but he used it more like a roof. He grabbed Alma and dove beneath it in a panic just before a dull “boom!!” erupted overhead. The tree trunk bounced off the roof and flew in a different direction. The two of them would have been smashed by the giant tree hammer if not for that roof.

(This isn’t even a 1-on-1 fight. Just getting close to her is gonna get me killed.)

“Koo koo!”

“Yeah, I know. We just cheated death there, so I should record what I felt there. I’m not letting any of this get away.”

He recorded it in his control sword.

He decided to name it a Bypass Bridge.

It was said necessity is the mother of invention. Even if he only knew the saying from a major play. At any rate, free use of that bridge would likely come in handy for movement and defense. He wanted to make sure he could instantly construct one just by thinking the name in his head.

His target was the girl named Celina and he could not reach her by following this straight path torn into the ground. But he did have the sword he had been given.

“It’s okay, Alma. This isn’t a dead end. So calm down. Don’t panic.”

He spoke more to himself than Alma while awkwardly stabbing the double-edged sword into the ground, causing a magic circle to appear.

He still didn’t really know how to use it, but he mimicked what he had seen.

“Lucifer Horn, take care of this.”

A massive form cut by overhead.

A thick beam of light dropped from heaven to earth and tore through the familiar forest like it was being dragged after the form in the sky. Up ahead, another trench was drawn perpendicular to the one he was in now.

Or that was the idea anyway.

Blinding light and a sizzling sound became his entire world.

The ground was torn apart.

“Kyah!?”

The girl must have been buffeted by the blast because he heard a surprisingly cute scream in the distance.

Miyabi himself was knocked to the ground and belatedly realized his mouth was full of dirt. After a few seconds, he spat it out. Not daring to get up, he grabbed his sword in one hand and Alma in the other before crawling forward like a slug. He managed to roll down into the straight line of destruction he had just created.

It was deep enough to hide him, making it a path of life. The beam must have melted the dirt or stone because the inside of the path had become smooth as glass.

“Kh.”

He got up, sat with his back against he still-hot wall, and took a deep breath.

“You all right, Alma?”

“…”

No response. It may have been upset with him.

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

He held out his hand in a seemingly random direction.

The scattered glass, dark soil, and splinters gathered together to form a small doll. But this was more than just playing in the dirt. It was as well made as the dress-up dolls found on the item shop’s shelves. Miyabi himself was surprised to find he could make things like this instead of just walls, bridges, and other construction work. Alma accepted the reconciliation gift by hugging the prize in its front legs(?) while Miyabi ducked low and continued through the makeshift ditch.

They could not actually reach their goal this way.

The ditch continued in a straight line, but it did eventually end. If they climbed back up onto the surface, Celina would locate them again and they would be right back in the middle of that hellish hail of bullets.

Recalling the blinding light and deafening booms from before, Miyabi once more stabbed the tip of his sword into the bottom of the hole. It broke through the hardened glass-like ground to reach the soil below.

Doing this scared him.

It scared him a lot, but he needed more.

“Lucifer Horn, get me right over there. Use intersecting strikes to build a connected path!”

His senses were more used to it the second time.

The bomber soared across the sky, dropping a thick beam of light that tore through the ground along its path.

It repeated the process to add a few more ditches at different angles. Was the unseen girl relieved because she assumed the attacks had missed? He hoped so. If she realized this was meant to create trenches for him, then he would be killed like an ant as its colony was flooded with water.

“Let’s circle around toward her.”

“Kyoo.”

He continued through the zigzagging labyrinth built a level lower than the ground and gradually approached that strongest opponent. The depths of the trenches varied. Some were only hip deep, but others had walls that rose well over his head. Not too surprising since they had been created by tearing apart the ground with beams of light.

He continued on not so much because he thought he could win, but because he thought his trembling legs would stop if he did not have a concrete goal to work toward.

“Even Godhorn Tech users are ordinary people. They can be defeated by moving in close and getting a single attack in.”

Yeah, I’d noticed, silently griped Miyabi. That’s how you got injured and forced this pain-in-the-ass onto me.

“I think I can manage from here,” said Miyabi while pressing his thick gloved hands against the dirt wall.

“If you can’t reach the top no matter how much you jump or leap, then try gradually raising the ground to form steps.”

This was just like when he made the Decoy Wall.

He pictured the boxes in his head and held his hand out toward the surrounding dirt.

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

“Godhorn Tech is powerful, so make sure you don’t trap yourself in a massive hole of your own creation.”

Packed soil quickly formed a stairway…or a close enough approximation. The steps were too tall, making it hard to climb, but he would just have to deal with that. And this time, he had deactivated the “lure” effect the Decoy Wall had used. He did not want his stairs to direct Celina’s alchemy shells right into the trench. Deadly metal shards would quickly fill his entire world if that happened.

He now had stairs.

This also looked useful in a wide variety of situations. He had created it out of necessity, but it couldn’t hurt to register it in his control sword. Then again, his opponent might not give him the chance to use it any other situation.

“I should probably give it a good descriptive name. Layer Stairs should work for now.”

“Koo!”

The Decoy Wall, the Bypass Bridge, the doll, and now the Layer Stairs.

He did not know how much he could do with this and he did not have time to test it, but he wondered if he could create an entire house or tower if he knew what he was doing.

(The power of destruction is much simpler and plenty scary, but this creation is disturbing in its own way. For one, how am I moving any of it when I’m not even touching it? I hope it isn’t sucking out my stamina or life force or something.)

Because he did not understand how it worked, he felt a shudder crawling from his fingertips to the core of his body. He forced that down and slowly climbed the pseudo-stairs while staying low. He was moving as cautiously as a lizard.

(It isn’t about distance or direction.)

He used every bit of amateur knowledge he had.

He loathed every single noise he made. The rustling of his clothing and his audible gulping pissed him off.

Alma started moving out ahead, so he grabbed it by the back of the neck to stop it while he tried to find anything he could to give himself hope. He had not even made the actual attack yet, but his heart already felt like it was going to burst from tension.

(I want to get between Celina and that Godhorn Tech in the distance…did she call it Schwarz Schütze? A shell that massive will tear right through me and she won’t want to blow herself up.)

He detected a sweet aroma.

It was more like honey than flowers.

But he consciously held his breath while hiding behind a bush.

He was smelling fancy black silk, an artificial perfume, the starch to get the wrinkles out of clothing, and the beads of sweat appearing on the young girl’s skin.

She was even closer than he had thought.

He and Alma may have been more sensitive to artificial smells because they were on the brink of death and coated in dirt and plant juices, but she was still only 10 meters away at the most.

And she did not seem to have noticed them yet.

Now that he had a better look at her, he really could not believe she was causing so much destruction. She looked 14 and maybe younger. Either way, she was definitely younger than him. Her shoulder-length blonde hair was parted to the sides with pure gold hair clips and every bit of her white skin was smooth and well cared for, giving her the shine of a stage actress. She wore a black dress adorned with golden embroidery and red gems, which was not exactly hiking attire. On her legs and feet, she wore black knee socks and polished pumps. And despite wearing a long skirt, the front was left wide open, leaving her thighs exposed. All in all, her dress looked a lot like a giant jewelry bag.

If that were all, he might have looked like he was hiding in the bushes and plotting to attack a noble girl who had gotten lost in the mountains.

But a stock was pressed casually against a shoulder that looked as delicate as glasswork. That stock was joined by a flintlock mechanism, a gun barrel, and a sinister blade attached below the barrel.

In other words, this was one of the bayonet-equipped hunting rifles preferred by residents of the underground.

“…”

Yes, gunpowder and lead.

In a world run by magic, guns were the symbol of outlaws. Even in forestry villages where encounters with wild animals were common, bodyguards and hunters primarily used bows and arrows enhanced by magic. Guns, on the other hand, were expensive, but required no talent to use and supplied the same deadly force to anyone who used them. They were an uncontrollable weapon that could destroy the order of a village or entire kingdom if enough people had them.

Also, Miyabi recognized the material used for this one.

Without thinking, he glanced down at the double-edged sword he held in his hand. That control sword was made from the same material as that rifle larger than a folded umbrella. That meant the gun was a control device as well. Miyabi and Celina had both been entrusted with an embodiment of destruction capable of tearing apart the scenery in a single strike.

He had already known that.

He could not let his guard down.

“My Bodenburg Company must prove we can provide the world’s greatest distribution.”

The wind carried the girl’s sighing voice toward him.

He doubted the statement was meaningful.

It was an obvious display of confidence, an obvious provocation, an obvious threat.

But…

(Is it only bluster?)

He frowned behind the bushes while close enough to pick up her scent.

(Is she saying that to mask how afraid she really is? Because she’s lost sight of us? Or is she feeling rattled because she can’t seem to defeat us despite supposedly having the strongest power?)

“That is why our prized Schwarz Schütze is here and that is why I am here! Yes, I will defeat you to claim the title of strongest for myself, prove that we can provide the continent’s safest trade route by blowing away any bandits or disasters that might threaten the products en route, and thus establish the Bodenburg Company as the ultimate brand!! Yes, yes, nothing can stop me now.”

Don’t let her get to you, thought Miyabi, shaking his head.

He might have found an unexpectedly human side to her, but he still had to keep moving. He had a goal too. If he let this half-formed empathy stop him, he would be wasting his one and only chance.

So.

He grabbed the sword’s grip in both hands and burst from the bushes.

“Ah! When did you get-!?”

Celina turned toward the sound of feet on the grass, looking just like a girl who thought she saw a ghost while out at night. Even though her sinister rifle was aimed accurately his way with the stock against her shoulder.

And…

“Armored Train Schwarz Schütze, obliterate him!!”

The metal giant waiting outside the forest could be heard moving even here. It had to be aiming all of its many cannons his way.

He thought his heart was going to freeze.

Yes.

Miyabi was borrowing a power. His dull machete, which could not even slice through thick branches, had been replaced with a sharp-edged control sword, he could create any number of tools or obstacles just by holding out his hand, and Lucifer Horn could perform aerial bombings with destructive light.

He had thought he could somehow get by if he only had to face the rifle.

So his extreme tension came from something else.

“Are you stupid!? You’ll hit yourself too!”

“An acceptable result. My goal here is absolute victory.”

Her voice was cold.

His eyes met hers as she peered at him through the gun sight next to a large half-rotted tree.

“You must die here to prove this is the strongest Godhorn Tech!!”

Time seemed to stop inside Miyabi. Only that man’s voice echoed through his head. His mind focused solely on the goal he had set for himself.

“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!!”

How had this happened?

Answering that requires rewinding time a little.

Chapter 1 Section 2

My everyday life has just a hint of the mysterious mixed in.

But I only ever thought of it as providing a nice spice to life.

So never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be forced into eating a giant plateful of pepper.

“Kwehh.”

A silly-sounding cry echoed through the forest.

The sun managed to penetrate the treetops, so this forest was not all that dark and dank. Technically, it was only that way because people had cut down some of the branches. The biggest of the trees were so thick you could have made a decent-sized boat by felling them and hollowing them out, the plentiful underbrush filled the small herbivores’ stomachs, and lovely flowers colored the gaps between it all. The wide variety of the forest’s vegetation made it a valuable resource to Miyabi and the other villagers. They loved and looked after the forest just like a fisher loved the ocean and a potter loved the earth.

Miyabi Blackgarden wore enough clothing to protect his skin from the sharp branches and stiff leaves and something lay at his feet. It looked a lot like a white slipper-sized stuffed animal, but it was actually a living thing. It was covered in white fur, it walked on its hind legs, and it could skillfully operate its front legs like hands. Its most notable feature was the single round horn growing from the center of its forehead.

“Eh? Are you tired, Alma?” Miyabi looked down at the mysterious creature that had lay down on its back to say it had given up. “We’re here for your food because you always eat through everything I get you. C’mon, let’s go.”

“Koo!”

They knew this forest well. It might look wild at first glance, but the people who frequented it knew it had paths for people to follow and anything blocking out the sunlight overhead could be cut away with a machete or saw.

Miyabi was only an apprentice. He had grown up in a foresting village, but he was only now able to travel through the forest without a guide leading the way. His master knew exactly how to use your blade to make the mountain happy, but he had not reached that point himself.

(Now, then.)

He trudged onward through the underbrush (while dreading the thought of angering his master by stepping on a rare herb or bud) and he came up with a mental list like he was preparing to go shopping.

(I need to find something I can feed Alma with. Let’s start with the deep forest.)

“Koo koo!”

The ground at his feet was growing awfully noisy.

“What? You don’t smell anything tasty in here?”

Alma could not speak human language, but Miyabi could get the gist of it from the creature’s gestures and expressions. It helped that Alma was bipedal and used human gestures with its front legs.

“I’m looking for firewood. Hm, I guess I could cut off this thing’s branches.”

“Koo!?”

“You can’t eat firewood? Yeah, I know. But I can sell the firewood and use the money to buy you food. A dozen of these will probably get me around 5 methods.”

“Koo?”

Bipedal Alma put a hand (leg?) on its mouth and tilted its head. That gave the same “koo” a different nuance.

He was only an apprentice, but he could be patronizing when he had someone who would listen to him.

“Then you can eat bread, fish, or whatever you want,” he said with an air of smugness.

“Koo koo!!”

“I could charge even more if I made charcoal out of it. Then you could have some dessert too.”

“Kyooi☆”

“That’s right. We can do anything as long as we’ve got this forest and its trees. They’re what puts dinner on the table.”

Alma began hopping up and down at Miyabi’s feet while he pointed this way and that.

A few thinner branches were sticking out relatively low down on the tree trunks. Their presence did not seem quite natural, so the adults may have intentionally left them behind for the apprentices.

Miyabi drew a large machete from its sheath.

The goggles on his forehead were meant to protect against sawdust, but he rarely had a chance to use them. They distorted his vision enough to cause dangerous mistakes in his work.

Growing up in this peaceful rural village had left him much more familiar with blades than his peers in the cities. Despite what the plays would have you believe, cooks and carpenters knew a lot more about blades than legendary heroes.

“Let the trees grow wild and the dirt will rot, so cutting them back is an important job.”

(Not that they let me look after the trees much since I’m still in training.)

For today, he limited himself to only cutting away the lower branches that got in his way. He used the large machete he wore at his hip. It could be used to cut back the flora and to repel the smaller forest fauna. But it was not meant for actual hunting, so it would only discourage the animals from approaching. Even with that self-defense, he knew he needed to make a quick escape if he ran across any of the Beast Novae whose heads came up above his hips.

In fact, he was thoughtlessly swinging that machete when it bounced back with a dull clang. But it had not been bested by the tough scales of a legendary dragon. It had simply failed to cut through a thicker branch.

“Ow!?”

“Koo koo!”

Alma’s cries were not out of concern. Its eyes were bright as it urged him to hurry up with the branches so it could be fed.

Miyabi shook his hand, grimacing at the tingling coming from the machete’s grip.

“It’s no use. I can’t cut through that. You would need a really nice blade or one with a magically-enhanced edge.”

This was all he could do.

A machete found lying around the village was not going to be all that sharp and an apprentice like him could not use any real magic. With the Search Sign magic, the trees he could and could not cut through would have glowed different color, making the difference obvious at a glance. But only because the adults had marked them in advance.

Just then, he heard a lovely girl’s voice from above. But instead of a tree trunk or branch, it came from the top of a boulder.

“Hold it right there, human. What do you think you’re doing in the territory of the proud elves!?”

She spoke in a way more reminiscent of a wrinkly old woman or a muscular and mustachioed military commander, but she was in fact a lovely girl. She was an old hag who had spent an eternity at the age of 13 or 14.

Miyabi looked up at the figure in a white dress holding a wooden staff.

“Just when I thought I might get some peace and quiet today.”

“Wha-?”

She had distinctive long ears parting her long blonde hair and they rose in indignation.

He didn’t care, so he ignored her.

“C’mon, Alma. Let’s give her a wide berth. Slowly now.”

“Koo…”

“Get your human butt over here!”

The elf had a garland of flowers on her small head and tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

“B-but not because I climbed too high and am too scared to get back down! Just climb up here now!”

It could be hard to believe, but Alicia Blueforest there was the ruler of the forest.

If he was cruel to her, she would…no, the village elders would be angry with him and they might just begin a strange ritual where they presented offerings to her. So Miyabi sighed and walked toward the sharp boulder.

It was about three times his height, but that was difficult enough since he could not use much magic. He tried to avoid cliffs whenever possible, but he had learned firsthand how to move through the forest. You could even say the forest had been his playground since he was little. He viewed the entire boulder, spotted the handholds, and arrived at the top only a few minutes later.

Alicia sat down in relief when he arrived. She was only equipped with a white dress thin enough for light to pass through, a garland of flowers on her head, and a wooden staff, so he imagined it had to hurt to sit on the rough rock.

“Phew, finally made it. Okay, let’s get down from here, elf hag.”

“Oh, no!?”

The hag lifted her small butt a bit from the rock and held down her dress with both hands.

“Y-you saw, didn’t you? Thanks to that miraculous low angle!?”

“Do I have to shove you off to get you down?”

“Oh, Alma! I knew you would valiantly come to my aid!”

The instant she saw the slipper-sized thing scramble up to the top with its little arms(?) and legs, Alicia was all smiles. She sat back down and spread her arms to welcome it with all her might.

Then she drooped an extreme bombshell.

“Yes, a juvenile Wicked God just has a brighter soul than some filthy kid.”

A Wicked God.

That was a terrifying term, but neither Miyabi nor Alicia seemed bothered by it.

And when she hugged it and rubbed her cheek against it, Alma only looked like a stuffed animal that had learned to resist. It pushed back at Alicia’s cheek with its small front legs. Using a surprising amount of strength.

“It is truly tragic that this average face was the first thing you saw upon hatching. It could have been any face, so why this bland and average one?”

“Alma, leave her here. It’s time we got going.”

“Don’t! You! Dare!” The profoundly aged elf began to throw a tantrum. “I am going too! You are taking me with you! I hate that you must always be with Alma due to that blasted imprinting effect, but it is not everyday you get to observe a real live Wicked God! Hmph!!”

Alicia was ready to do this, but Alma slipped from her arms and clung to Miyabi’s leg. It looked a lot like it was peeking nervously out from behind a pillar or tree. It was seriously turned off by her behavior.

“K-koo…”

“Agreed. Let’s get down from here.”

Miyabi slid down the 5 or 6 meters of rock, leaving Alicia behind, but then she more or less rolled off after him. She had been terrified of that height, but now she dropped down in an instant. An elf’s bodily structure was different enough to make her much sturdier than a human. Afterwards, Miyabi was left wondering about the mismatch between the fancy, transparently-thin dress and the thick cotton underwear.

Since climbing up or down the boulder did nothing to fill Alma’s stomach, Miyabi got to work chopping down some branches that were in the way, but it was really awkward with Alicia, ruler of the forest, right there. The more serious he tried to look, the more he felt like she was going to erupt at him about how bad his technique was. She even gave him a look of supreme confidence.

If she wanted to, she could learn anything she wanted about the forest’s health. And without using the Search Sign magic that would cause any small scratches and marks to glow. She knew the forest better than anyone, so she knew the state of the greenery without relying on the codes used by the human workers.

She walked out ahead but looked back after noticing something.

Her mischievous smile suggested she had read something on his face.

“Ga ha ha. Build up that experience and you’ll make it eventually, boy. I’ll keep you company until you do. Because if there’s one thing elves have to spare, it’s time.”

“…”

That was disappointing.

It depressed him to know just how pathetic his skills apparently were. He felt so stupid for acting patronizing with Alma earlier.

But regardless…

“Okay, that should about do it.”

“Hey, you’re in trouble.”

A male voice interrupted out of nowhere.

The oddly scratchy voice initially surprised Miyabi, but he jumped for real once he realized it had come from the thing hanging from the strap around Alicia’s neck.

“Koo!?”

“What’s that box? It just talked!”

“This is no box, ignorant human.” The idiot triumphantly put her hands on her hips. “It is a crystal radio built around a philosopher’s stone. You could call it a fount of wisdom.”

“Well, this is nothing like the radios we have,” added the radio itself. “No headphones, for one.”

“This is the ultimate objective of alchemy. Everything in the world is stored in here, but the true stroke of genius is how it takes that silent crystal of wisdom and converts it into a form anyone can understand!”

“That’s not for you to get smug about, Miss Overgrown C-cups. Tall or short, all elves are supposed to be flat as a board. This is basic stuff here.”

“Hm. That, however, is utter nonsense. Is it picking up some other signal?”

“???”

Miyabi could only tilt his head.

Was that a highly technical discussion you needed extensive knowledge of alchemy to understand?

He could not decide whether that was a high-level or low-level conversation.

The radio was not done, though.

“Hold on, I sense the pheromones of an oppressive adult teacher. It’s her. No doubt about it.”

Miyabi’s shoulders shook at the way the radio said “adult”.

He could guess who it meant: Helen Clockgear.

That adult woman was not someone he wanted to get caught by, but for a different reason than with Alicia. Behind her back, the village’s small children had nicknamed her Lecture Lady and Glasses Boobs, which should be sufficient to make a decent guess what she was like.

“You’d better hide fast or you’ve got a looong lecture in your immediate future. You can mash the button all day and the scene never ends. You can put up with it for ages without any choices popping up! So unless you get off to a beautiful woman dressing you down, I’d get running!!”

Sneaking was their only option at this point.

Luckily, the forest provided plenty of hiding places. Beyond the tall trees and giant boulders, there were also curtains of vines hanging down thick enough to use in a game of hide and seek. That could end tragically if there happened to be a swarm of bugs in the vines, however.

They could hear the woman clearly.

Turning around now would make too much noise of their own, so they crouched down in pursuit of cover while moving in a large, slow circle around her.

Her voice reached them on the wind.

“If you ask me, Wicked Gods themselves are frightening enough as giant dragons and krakens, but they pose an even greater threat than that since their horn can be broken off and built into a machine to create those things that even major kingdoms fear. I am not monitoring you because it’s my idea of fun. The Republic has deemed it a necessary measure given the risk. Alma might look small and adorable now, but it is still a Wicked God and will eventually grow larger than a mountain. You took it in without knowing what you were doing and what’s done is done, but do you have any kind of plan for the future there, Miyabi? You certainly don’t seem to! Ahem, um, where was I? Oh, right.”

“Wh-what the hell? Is she rehearsing her lecture for me!? We’re this deep in the forest and she’s talking to yourself!?”

“Sh! If she finds us here, the lecture will be ten times worse. She will use our attempt to hide against us, so just wait it out!!”

Alicia was pushing against him from the side to fit behind the same bush. Miyabi’s primary takeaway was how painful her long ear felt stabbing into him.

That glasses woman had taken her lectures beyond the level of a job. It was more like a way of life for her. She took everything too seriously and may have even been addicted to it.

The worst part? She was a government official sent from the Republic’s capital.

Miyabi and the others fled that cursed area of forest like they had just witnessed an overstressed person sticking nails into dolls night after night.

Or they thought they had.

But just as they breathed a sigh of relief, they heard a rustling in the bushes behind them.

“Oh, there you all are!”

Miyabi’s breath just about caught in his throat, but he suppressed that and turned around with a smile.

Helen Clockgear looked like a beautiful black-haired young woman in glasses. The chest of her top was left unbuttoned, the button below her large chest was actually fastened yet her navel could still be glimpsed below that, and to top it all off, the shortness of her tight skirt was a source of endless fascination for Miyabi. Now, if he were to express that fascination, the strong-willed young woman was liable to answer him with a slap, but her appearance at least would undoubtedly earn a 5 out of 5 score. Assuming the judges were teenage boys, anyway.

If Alicia was a carefree angel, then Helen was a stickler of a demon.

Also, Helen was not an elf.

She had round human ears. She claimed to be an observer sent by the Republic.

“Out preparing to feed Alma again? I will accompany you. The Republic wishes to know everything that Wicked God does, after all.”

“Hot damn! Now that’s what I call jiggle physics. Where’s this world’s controller? Shaking it might make those things go wild.” The pervert of a philosopher’s stone then turned to complain to the elf. “See, if you were willing to take it that far, I might forgive your lack of flatness. That in-between crap isn’t gonna make anyone happy.”

“Silence, stray signal. All breasts have their own unique charm.”

“Whoa!? Did that box just talk!?”

The young woman showed off her intellectual nature by holding a finger to the side of her glasses as she jumped in surprise, but the tiny elf decided to pick a fight with her.

“Anyway, you Republic people are only interested in Alma’s horn.”

The horn.

Miyabi sensed a greater stir over that word than anything else. Even more than a mention of the juvenile Wicked God itself.

(…?)

“The Republic hopes to construct one of those with a Wicked God horn, don’t they?”

“…”

“…”

The big and little ladies silently glared at each other until they were interrupted by the most tactless individual present.

“Excuse me. I do hate to interrupt two lovely ladies getting worked up over nothing, but I must insist.”

“What is it, scrapbox?” Alicia grumbled down at the radio hanging from her neck.

“You might want to take a look at the sky. I’ve been detecting some faint noise in the signal for a bit now.”

That thing never seemed to take anything seriously, but its skill (function?) was real. The elf had said she used her (near limitless) spare time to create a crystal with alchemy.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I sense one of those horns you two are so obsessed with. Trouble always has a way of finding you, doesn’t it!?”

With a great roar, something massive cut by overhead.

Miyabi had no idea what this meant.

A moment later, all the trees, branches, and leaves in the forest were subjected to a powerful blast of wind. Helen predicted the wind’s direction and pressed her back against a tree and Alicia staggered while holding her skirt down with both hands.

That thing was…not alive.

It had to be several dozen meters long and it resembled a colossal bird or dragon with enormous wings, but the collection of straight and curved lines had the glint of metal and glass not found in nature and something about its design looked artificial. Something built by human hands had instantly stolen the leading role from the natural scenery.

It may have been something like a hanger made from bat wings.

But it was unbelievably large and sinister.

“Koo!”

“Hyah!? …You didn’t see, did you?”

“Didn’t see a thing, Cotton Elf Hag.” Miyabi kept a straight face. “Anyway, what was that huge thing!? A ship? A castle? This isn’t making any sense!”

“Godhorn Tech,” muttered Helen Clockgear.

The Republic official had a cold look on her face.

“…?”

“It is a symbol of humanity’s insatiable appetite for destruction,” said Alicia. “The supposedly untouchable Phoenix, Kraken, Fenrir, and more have their Wicked God horn broken off and used as the core for a giant sorcery weapon. The weapons are powerful enough to destroy an entire empire singlehandedly.”

She spoke like she had firsthand experience in the matter.

There was even a touch of anguish, like she was struggling to keep the memories sealed away.

“You’ve got a freaking flying wing bomber in a swords and sorcery fantasy world?” said the radio. “Everything about those Wicked Gods is crazy. How’s the thing even fly without producing any lift?”

“Th-this is serious. What is one of those doing inside the Republic!?”

“Koo…”

“Are you kidding?” The small elf sounded more exasperated than anything as her long ears twitched and she stared into the distance. “I don’t think that one in the sky is the only one.”

A heavy metallic boom shook the air, but this was different from that thing the radio had called a bomber. Another dark mass of metal sat on the ground far, far in the distance. It had to be more than 400m and maybe even more than 500m. Either way, it was large enough to see from within the deep forest. It appeared to rise up like a mountain.

It was a train.

Miyabi had never left this small village and had only ever seen that vehicle in picture books, but this one had sinister tools of killing installed all over it. Namely, cannons. It was like a cross between a train and a warship (another thing the mountain boy was unfamiliar with), but some people would have known the proper name for it: an armored train.

Helen had always been the capable glasses woman in front of Miyabi, but now her mouth flapped like she could not find any oxygen.

“T-two…users?”

“A duel? A deathmatch? Damn, are they really about to pit those huge-ass things against each other???”

The philosopher’s stone’s overly carefree (and baffling) comment must have gotten through to the Republic official because her eyes widened behind her glasses.

“P-pit them against each other? Do they have any idea how much damage a clash between Godhorn Tech will do to this area!?”

Just then, Alma’s head jerked up.

Miyabi should have been paying more attention.

“Koo!!”

Alma took off running, but not away from the conflict. It ran further into the forest.

Had that juvenile Wicked God sensed something?

“Ah. Hey, Alma!!”

Miyabi ran after it, but then he felt a shudder crawling up his spine.

Stop there.

Have Alicia and Helen stop as well, warned some instinctual part of him.

“Um, Alic-”

Immediately afterwards, the world split apart.

Quite literally.

Just as he looked back to have those two stay put, a powerful impact hit him from below and he flipped over. The ringing in his ears was bad and his vision blurred, so he initially thought the problem was in his own head.

The ground was gone.

The flat forest he had just been running through was now audibly cracking open like a broken cookie. The cracks continued to grow even now. That kept him from even standing on the edge to see what things were like at the bottom.

“Whoa!?”

He had his hands full just not falling in himself.

The cracks raced out and he had to crawl on all fours to scramble away from the newly slanted land. Approaching the edge would only men sliding off and being dumped down with all the dirt.

“Miyabi!!”

Helen called out to him from the other side of the newly-formed chasm.

He thought she was going to give him some clever solution. Or maybe come to his rescue by throwing him a rope or building a makeshift bridge.

But the adult woman did nothing of the sort.

“There’s nothing I can do for you here, so just stay away from the edge! Don’t even think about trying to cross it. The cracks might continue to spread, so it’s too dangerous!!”

“Wait, how far do these cracks go? How deep!?” shouted Alicia. “There had better not be any miasma seeping out from the depths to corrupt my sacred forest!!”

Not even the grownups could help.

His world felt a lot smaller all of a sudden. A great pressure weighed on him like the scene around him was ready to collapse in on him at any moment. He felt like he had been thrown from the box labeled “safety” before he had time to grow up. He could not meet back up with Alicia and Helen even though they were right there. He did not know what was happening, but the ground had shaken violently a few times already. He had to stay away from the edge.

But that was no guarantee of his safety.

He had to keep himself alive now. That basic rule of life weighed on him more than ever before.

(Where’s Alma?)

He looked around and spotted the color white.

The creature was using its small body to slip below some bushes.

“Get back here!!”

“Oh, hey, Miyabi!” called Helen. “Where should we regroup!?”

“We can’t do it anywhere around here,” said Alicia. “Those kids are nothing but trouble. We need to find somewhere to circle around all this damage!”

“Got it. Let’s see, where did I put my map of the forest?”

“I don’t need you to guide me. I know this forest like the back of my hand, so follow me!!”

As expected, the impacts and shaking did not stop. The ground quaked from time to time.

Something was happening.

Miyabi felt certain he would be happier in the long run if he never saw whatever this was.

“Koo koo!”

“Wait, Alma! Dammit, I hope the others managed to get away!”

Alma was unusually quick today. It kept slipping between rocks and below bushes, so he had to pay careful attention to avoid losing sight of it.

(I don’t believe it. The thing’s heading further and further in.)

They kept moving farther away from Alicia and Helen. Those two had said they were finding a way around that large crack running side to side, but how far had they gone?

“Godhorn Tech,” muttered Miyabi while chasing after Alma.

Those massive sorcery weapons were built around a Wicked God horn so humans could wield a Wicked God’s power.

“What do I do if I run across someone who controls something like that?”

Alma’s stuffed animal body came to a sudden stop.

Miyabi finally managed to snatch it by the back of the neck, but Alma flailed all four limbs to struggle. The forest’s trees thinned out up ahead and he sensed someone there. Shocked, he hid behind a thick tree before peeking out at the scene.

“There they are.”

“Koo.”

“I’ve never seen them before, but those have to be the Godhorn Tech users, right?”

One was a girl.

Her shoulder-length blonde hair was tied on either side and she wore a black dress adorned with golden embroidery and red gems, which was not exactly hiking attire. But she was given a sinister appearance by what she held in her hand: a hunting rifle with one of those bayonets the nobility loved so much. Miyabi lived in the forest, but even his village only used bows to keep animals away. The only guns he had ever seen were wielded by the gangs in plays. The girl holding the strange flintlock rifle was unfamiliar to him. She was an outsider, not one of the villagers.

The other was a young man older than Miyabi.

He had long red hair and he wore a fancy jacket and pants. But he did not have the look of a nobleman. He would have looked more at home hunting down pirates aboard a warship. The term “prodigal son” fitted him to a tee.

He held an enormous double-edged sword.

Miyabi doubted he would even be able to lift the thing.

“I can’t believe this.” The young man was the first to speak. “I don’t want to battle you to the death, you know?”

“Maybe you don’t, but I do.”

The girl was undaunted.

She must have been relying on more than just that glistening rifle. Some deeper, more fundamental part of her being remained unshaken. Even though she was all alone deep in the forest and confronting a man wielding a sword large enough to smash through armor.

“I, Celina of the Bodenburg Company, shall defeat you, Moebius Entrance, and take the title of strongest Godhorn Tech!”

In fact, the young man called Moebius seemed taken aback.

“That’s all?” He looked like he very much wanted to believe he had misheard. “You’re going to split the continent apart in a Godhorn Tech battle for nothing more than that?”

“Oh? Reputation is everything in business.” The blonde girl – Celina? – laughed and did not hesitate to reply. “Especially when it comes to the trust the Bodenburg Company would earn if we could wield the strongest power to construct safe trade routes where not a single thief can approach the products.”

“Is that so? But I don’t see how this area could possibly survive that.”

Miyabi’s shoulders jumped while he pressed his back against the other side of the thick tree.

He might not understand the situation, but he could not let that statement slide. These people were very clearly talking about his village and the forest around it. Without giving the villagers a say.

“And I’m not just talking about scorched earth or a crater. The terrain itself will be altered. Got anything to say about that? Once it’s done, it’s too late to start feeling a pang of regret in that promising chest of yours, young lady.”

“I will ignore your incessant rudeness for now.” The blonde girl’s smile was unbroken. “It is true I would prefer to avoid profitless environmental destruction, but we are talking about an undeveloped forest in the middle of nowhere. No one even lives here. In fact, if you think of this as me going out of my way to develop it into something more…”

They were making assumptions.

Without getting any of the locals involved.

“Once I blow this entire forest away…yes, I know. My company can take responsibility and remake it into one of the finest resorts on the continent. Will that be acceptable?”

“Not on your life, you idiot!! We live here!!”

Miyabi and Alma rushed out without considering the consequences.

Time ground to a halt.

“Ah.”

“You…”

He moved in between the two monsters.

The foolish action seemed to catch Moebius by surprise even more than it did Celina. He took his eyes off his enemy and shouted wide-eyed at the boy.

“You’re the idiot here!”

Miyabi honestly did not understand what happened next. To him, they were both invaders threatening to take away everything he had ever known.

Which was why it came as such a surprise.

Moebius Entrance shifted his position to protect the boy who was so out of his element.

The blonde girl grinned and moved her rifle.

She would grasp this opportunity, no matter how it had come about.

But instead of raising it to aim, she stabbed the bayonet into the ground.

And she sang.

“Armored Train – Schwarz Schütze: Tactical Open.”

A giant magic circle appeared at her feet.

Pressure followed.

This pressure was much “sharper” than what Miyabi felt when he encountered a wild animal in the forest. The invisible wall was so solid even an amateur like him could tell he was sensing the killer intent coming from a human being.

But the epicenter of the tremor was not the girl or the magic circle. It came from much, much further away. From something waiting outside the forest far behind the girl.

She laughed loudly while carrying that intense pressure.

“My, my. Thinking you can look after an amateur while facing down Godhorn Tech? Maybe you really are the strongest…if you can pull it off, that is. Ohhh ho ho ho!!”

He never heard the end of her laughter.

His vision was dyed white.

He did not hear anything for quite a while afterwards.

He had no idea how long it lasted.

Alchemy.

That word wavered in the back of the boy’s hazy mind as he lay on his back.

Alicia Blueforest had gotten hooked on the subject to make use of her extreme surplus of life. It apparently involved the research of metals and medicines, but he was pretty sure one specific application was “alloys”, a mixture of multiple metals. And researching medicines required methods of heating and cooling.

Yes.

Heat and metal.

It had not even felt like the attack was thrown in from a great distance. It had felt more like a lightning bolt of orange-glowing metal had dropped from the sky.

The instant it had hit the ground, the world had gone white and exploded.

That kind of destructive power was not possible with the large cannons seen in picture books. Alicia’s devotion to alchemy had resulted in that talking radio(?), so this felt like a different type of alchemy altogether.

At any rate, that was not something to be directed toward someone even on accident.

Miyabi wondered if that scorching blast could fight on equal or greater footing than an actual Wicked God.

He was glad Alicia and Helen had not come with him. He had not been directly hit, but all his joints still ached. All his organs were writhing and he was burning up, but he could not stop sweating. He was so very thirsty.

(Where’s Alma?)

The first thing he noticed was the unpleasant sensation of dirt in his hair. When he tried to get up, he found his head was heavy, but he forced himself to move regardless.

There was a cliff face in front of him.

Looking up from the ground, he could see it rose for probably 10m.

The thing was…he didn’t recognize it. The forest was basically his backyard, yet he could not figure out how he had found himself at the bottom of a cliff in an open field.

“Ow, ow…”

He still felt woozy, but he decided to take it as a good thing he could feel pain. His body had not been torn apart.

That was actually a surprise.

(This isn’t one of those stories where I’m dead but haven’t noticed yet, is it? I’m amazed I wasn’t hurt worse.)

“Alma, are you okay? Good, you don’t have any bumps.”

“Koo…”

“But where are we? The forest didn’t have a cliff like this, did it?”

Lying nearby, Alma looked up at the cliff as well. It was tall. It was also fragile, made from dark soil. He doubted he could climb that without special equipment. That meant he had to walk alongside it. He had been hoping to find a gentler slope up to the top, but the further he walked, the stranger he found this. Where was he? He was painfully reminded of his inability to use magic like a real expert. He was sure one of the village’s workers would have immediately known where they were.

But before long, the truth dawned on him. A painful and unwanted truth.

“Wait…is this new? One blast from that dumb-looking Celina girl did this!?”

The terrain had changed.

The scenery had fallen apart.

This was far more power than any individual should ever wield. His mind was focused less on how exactly she had done it and more on how terrifying it was for this much power to be at the whim of someone’s emotions and personal interests.

Then he heard something.

“Ugh…”

He initially did not interpret it as a voice, so it slipped past his notice. He was not expecting to find anyone here.

But when he viewed the cliff face made from the crumbled, torn, and transformed terrain, he saw a young man groaning on his back with his torso trapped below a boulder embedded in the bottom of the cliff.

“Don’t call her dumb where she can hear you. She won’t go easy on you just cause you’re an amateur.”

“Who are you, old man?”

“Old…”

Moebius seemed more bothered by that than any crisis to the world, but Miyabi was too busy viewing the boulder and the dirt on top to notice.

“Are you trapped under that thing? D-damn, we’ve gotta do something!”

He was afraid touching it would cause the cliff of dirt to collapse, but he could not wisely give up when there was someone suffering.

However…

“Arrrgh…it won’t budge.”

“Koo.”

“Give it up. There’s nothing you can do.”

Moebius actually got after him for trying.

“But you protected us just now!”

“(You really should have been obliterated even with my protection.)” The young man muttered something under his breath. “(Was something interfering with Celina’s horn?)”

“Koo?”

Moebius looked to Alma who only tilted its head.

He sighed below the boulder.

“Anyway, I’m a goner, as you can plainly see. There’s just no way I can move now, so you two need to scram.”

“But…isn’t there anything I can do!? I know, I can find you some healing flowers.”

Paling, Miyabi looked around at the ground, but the young man smiled bitterly.

“I appreciate the thought, but there’s nothing you can do.”

“So you expect me to leave you to die!? When that monster of a girl is still wandering around!?”

“She’s not the problem.”

That made no sense.

Celina Bodenburg was an embodiment of destruction and the greatest threat.

She could transform the terrain in a single attack, she wanted him dead, and he was trapped below a boulder. Once she found him, he would either be obliterated right away or slowly tortured to death. An outsider like him would put his own life first. He wouldn’t care what happened to Miyabi’s village or the forest they had protected for generations. Had that pompous asshole even bothered to figure out that Alicia, Helen, and the others were in the forest? A single stray shell would be the end of them all.

Those Godhorn Tech users had waltzed in and decided to destroy everything for their own selfish reasons, so what else could there be? What could possibly be a greater problem?

Did something like that really exist and was that why the trapped man was putting himself second and staring up at Miyabi???

“It isn’t about the little lady. She isn’t even aware of it.”

Moebius’s gaze was calm but powerful.

As if to say he could not afford to die before he said this.

“So I wanted to get her to escape if I could.”

“What…?”

“This forest has been rigged with something far worse.”

“Rigged?”

That was an odd word choice.

Almost like some malicious person had been sneaking around and up to no good. It was a very different concept than the Godhorn Tech that, for better or for worse, was very in-your-face about the threat it posed.

“What’s this about the forest? And the village too? What are you talking about!?”

“Listen. I’ll explain it all.” Moebius could not speak all that loudly while collapsed on his back, but his words carried a strength that silenced panicking Miyabi. “Including my Lucifer Horn, there are currently 10 Godhorn Techs in existence. Different countries and companies built them for the prestige they bring,” he explained. “We know the number because they’re so dangerous there’s a registration system in place to keep track of them all. Each of the 10 is equipped with a Wicked God horn, so their energy can’t be denied.”

“Koo…”

“But a certain rumor has been going around among us.” He glanced over at worried Alma. “There’s an 11th somewhere out there.”

Even ignorant Miyabi felt like it was worth ignoring the pressing situation to hear this out.

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

“There’s a monster on this level.” The boy felt faint. “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.”

That alone left the boy speechless, but the young man’s next statement only made it worse.

“And these bombs are made to look identical to trees, rocks, or whatever else.”

“…”

“Once the time comes, they go boom. Using the power of Godhorn Tech. In a way, it’s even worse because this power isn’t controlled. A castle town built of thick stone would be obliterated if it was in range of the blast.”

“But…”

If that was true, this open forest and remote village didn’t stand a chance.

Miyabi had already seen enough destructive power to literally rewrite the map and he could not think of any reason why Moebius would be lying now.

“Where is it? What does it look like?”

“They’re an artist.” That word felt terribly out of place. “You’ve seen those pâtissiers who can make sugar sculptures indistinguishable from real shoes or gems, right? This is the same. It might be a brick wall and it might be a wagon wheel – anything can be remade into a weapon of war.”

“…”

“We’re talking about a formless Godhorn Tech. In a way, that makes it the most dangerous of them all.” The man breathed a heavy sigh. “The only good news is that the sorcery bombs are not delicate things. Simply put, you could throw one in the fire or run it over with a wagon and it wouldn’t go off. That means you can stop it from detonating by attacking and destroying it once you locate it. The complexity of the trigger condition works in our favor there. So as long as you know where it is, even an amateur can deal with it.”

“But why here!? What did we do to deserve this!?”

Still pinned below the boulder, Moebius shook his head.

He looked sincere for once, so he may have been ashamed of his inability to stop this.

“Like I said, the 11th is a shadow lurking below the surface. If we knew their reasons and could predict their next target, we would’ve stopped them by now. You can’t predict this person with any motive as simple as money or resentment.”

He finally got to his main point.

This expert wielded the strongest power and had pursued his foe this far, but now he had to raise the white flag.

“So run away. You might just survive if you run full speed away from the forest right this instant.”

“What?” Miyabi shook his head. He knew he was being unreasonable, but he could not stop himself. “You want me to what!? You yourself said the sorcery bomb thing is hidden somewhere in the forest, didn’t you!? How can I run away and leave that here!?”

“I’d agree with you, except for one thing: how do you plan to find it on your own?”

That shut him up.

Unlike the boy, Moebius was facing the reality of the situation.

“Like I said, even an amateur can deal with it once you know where it is, but that’s the trick. Locating it is the hardest part. Not even I could do it without borrowing some power from the Lucifer Horn flying up there.”

“…”

“So run away. The 11th’s sorcery bomb is bad enough, but the ignorant little lady’s Schwarz Schütze is a Godhorn Tech too. If she fires again on a whim – maybe just to be thorough – everything from here to the horizon will be irrevocably changed. So you need to run away before that happens. Got that?”

Miyabi could find nothing to say.

If he stayed, he would die. Trying to play the hero would accomplish nothing. He bit his lip, hesitated, exhaled, and turned toward Alma. Alma said nothing, simply staring up at him. He stopped there, like he was trying to keep his eyes off of Moebius.

“…”

At the last second, he stopped himself.

“What will you do?”

“I’m not exactly flush with options at the moment.”

“My village is here! And Celina will die once the time comes, won’t she!?”

Silence followed.

He had intended to spur Moebius to action, but he received the last response he had wanted.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t enough,” he spat. “Hey, you control that crazy Godhorn Tech weapon, right?”

“Yes, and?”

“Lend it to me.”

Moebius could not believe his ears.

Miyabi may not have understood what he was really asking here.

“Then I can move that boulder off of you, have Celina escape, and rescue Alicia, Helen, and the others still in the forest.”

Moebius’s know-it-all mask slipped. Or maybe Miyabi had shattered it.

The mere boy thought this was the right thing to do. If innocence was the only way to keep going and if knowledge would only make people freeze up with fear, then he was fine with not knowing anything here.

It was true that knowledge would help in the creation and destruction. It was a lot like knowing how to select and arrange firewood. But all the knowledge in the world still needed an initial spark to start the fire.

Miyabi did not know how to explain it in words, but he felt like anyone watching him would understand as long as he did not lie to himself.

He calmly looked up.

He told himself to face forward and create a path for himself.

“And lastly, I’ll destroy that sorcery bomb in the forest and save the entire village.”

Without warning, a beam of light dyed the blue sky pure white.

Miyabi was caught off guard.

Celina’s armored train had taught him that Godhorn Tech’s destruction could upturn the terrain and tear apart the scenery, but he still wasn’t prepared.

“I only wanted to destroy the boulder on top of that old guy.”

He had wobbled to the side and bumped into the massive boulder that had towered above him like a cliff face. But now it was broken and only rose to his hip height.

He stood atop a small hill.

No, that hill had not existed a moment before. The flat forest now had several steep drop-offs. The route of the mountains had entirely changed.

He had only wanted to get rid of all the dirt on top of Moebius. He had succeeded in that much, so the man was now freed.

But that was not all he had done.

The village had protected the forest for decades and centuries. The experienced workers had carved countless marks and signs into the branches and trunks of the trees. None of it meant anything anymore. Nothing would glow after using Search Sign magic. Miyabi had taken it all away. He had blatantly transformed the land itself.

He held a double-edged sword.

That was the control sword.

It was more compact than the one Moebius had used, but it still required two hands to use. It was a deadly tool clearly designed to kill. It carried a chill not found by the machetes and knives used to provide sustenance. No one would believe that his usual machete had twisted and transformed into this when he made the contract.

“How powerful is that thing?”

“Koo.”

“No one told me it would do that!”

The atmosphere was shredded as a giant winged shape passed by overhead.

That was the Lucifer Horn.

But he could not let it shake him. Moebius had dragged himself out from under the shattered boulder, but he was too badly injured to escape on his own. And if Celina was still in the forest, she would have seen Miyabi’s attack. Once she realized her enemy was alive and could fight, she would strike back.

To finish the job.

And not even Celina Bodenburg knew about the extra-large bomb hidden in the forest. If he screwed this up, then Moebius, Celina, Alicia, Helen, the forest, and the village would all be lost.

“Koo, koo.”

“You’re right. We saved Moebius, so now we need to find the 11th’s sorcery bomb.” Miyabi used his words to focus on his goal. “I need to save them all without dragging Celina into it.”

The only thing he had to rely on now were the things Moebius had told him. He had been thrown into the thick of it without any practice or training, so he might even destroy himself with this borrowed power.

“He said my Wicked God horn will resonate with the powerful energy.”

The horns resonated.

Or so Moebius had heard from a philosopher’s stone he had met before. Moebius himself understood it more by instinct, though.

(That means there’s more than one of those philosopher’s stones. To think there’s another alchemist out there weird enough to want to create such an annoying tool.)

Miyabi’s thoughts turned toward the radio hanging from Alicia’s neck, so he may have been trying to ignore the reality of his situation.

He was about to enter hell.

Each of the armored train’s shots could destroy the terrain itself and they would soon be raining from the sky. He would have to achieve his goal while running through that deadly downpour.

He did not know who had set up the sorcery bomb, but he could not allow it to detonate.

“The sorcery bombs can be disguised as anything, but there is a way to locate them.”

He focused his mind.

It felt like gathering strength between his eyes.

He ignored the explosive blasts, imagining himself in a tranquil cave.

And he focused on his ears.

“It’s a lot like a sound. Pay attention for a high-pitched ringing in your ears that never goes away. That means there’s one in your area. The shorter the gaps between sounds, the closer you are. It might be a stump or a boulder, but you need to destroy it once you find it. The blast won’t trigger it early, so just focus on destroying it.”

He heard a high-pitched whistling.

He ran away, just barely getting out of the blast radius, but the cracks in the ground caught up to him and Alma. The two of them fell to the bottom of the crater.

That had not just been a mass of metal.

Magical shells made with alchemy came in many forms, including lightning and ice.

But he had still managed to approach his target.

He could hear something else, but not with his ears. It seemed to come from the center of his body. It was precise as the ticking of a clock and higher pitched than the previous whistling.

He had finally found what he was listening for.

He sighed in relief at this step in the right direction, but this also meant it really was here. If he did not track it down and destroy it, his home village would be destroyed.

“I doubt Miss Celina knows it’s there.”

Moebius had sounded certain and his voice had carried something other than anger or resentment.

“She’s doing everything she can to protect the organization created by her parents. …Please. Will you save her since I’m too useless and stupid to do it myself?”

After climbing out of the crater, Miyabi held out his empty hand. He packed together a bunch of undergrowth to create a Decoy Wall. It drew Celina’s fire to divert it away.

“So with this contract, I can make a request to the Wicked God horn using Demon Lord Under Lilith as an intermediary?”

“Koo?”

“And he said I can only use it like this because of an error in the contract transfer. I think he said it unnaturally expanded the abilities normally used for maintenance and repair of the Godhorn Tech.”

The whole thing creeped him out.

The power to destroy was frightening enough, but this change was something not even Moebius understood.

But right now, he had to recite the lines whether he liked it or not.

“And if it gives me an edge, I’ll take it.”

He left the Decoy Wall behind, jumped into the trench created by Celina’s straight-line blast, and used the bomber’s support to send sharp beams of light tearing through the forest. He crossed that labyrinth of interconnected trenches to gradually approach the strongest girl while avoiding the machinegun fire.

The ringing in his ears changed.

With every step he took, the space between the high-pitched noises shrank.

He was closing in.

This had to be the correct direction.

He looked up from his improvised trench. That did not actually give him a view ahead, but his ears picked something up.

Something other than the inner response to the sorcery bomb.

“Father, mother, please wait for me.”

Celina did not know.

She stood confidently on the ground one level above, oblivious to the danger she was in and unaware that her whispered words were overhead by the person sneaking up on her.

“I will achieve victory here and prove that Schwarz Schütze is the strongest. That will create the trust needed to provide the safe trade routes needed to further grow our Bodenburg Company.”

She was selfish, willful, and unbelievably dangerous.

She preferred to wield a gun, a symbol of outlaws, and she would undoubtedly bring disaster to this village and forest.

But.

Miyabi felt the sorcery bomb was much more despicable. The unseen 11th remained hidden, not even willing to accept people’s ire.

“I too am a part of the family, so I am prepared to do whatever it takes to protect the company you have built. So this does not scare me in the slightest. I can handle this just fine.”

“It has to be close.”

The phantom ringing in his ears was nearly a solid tone now, which should have been a good thing.

But he felt more panic than anything. For a simple reason.

“Is she right next to the sorcery bomb!?”

He held his hand toward the dirt within the trench and lined up the box-sized Palette Dice to create his imperfect Layer Stairs. There was no looking cool climbing those. He scrambled up them like a lizard and then found the sweet scent of a girl instead of the stench of torn plants and soil.

But that was not his focus.

A large, half-rotten tree stood right next to Celina Bodenburg.

The warning tone in his mind rang with such intensity the scenery around him seemed to gain wild new colors.

“Ah! When did you get-!?”

The girl spun around and raised her fancy rifle, but her movements were painfully slow. No, was it the speed of Miyabi’s own mind that was out of whack?

“Armored Train Schwarz Schütze, obliterate him!!”

He still could not see it.

But something like a pressure drew out straight and curved lines. Something wriggled along the surface of the rotted tree, like a coiled snake or a slug. It was definitely what you would call a magic circle.

(Is that it?)

He was sure of it, even though he had never seen one before.

He knew for sure that thing was meant to bring an end to this world.

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

“Koo!”

He flipped his sword around and stabbed it into the ground, creating a giant magic circle at his feet.

The sorcery bomb was not a delicate thing. It would not detonate early, so he could attack it however he liked to destroy it.

So he chose to use the strongest power he was currently borrowing.

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

Blinding beams and deafening explosions filled his senses.

The thick beam of light sliced through the ground along a straight line shifted to the side of the bomber’s path. The beam’s path would only barely miss him.

But more importantly, Miyabi noticed what the bomber was aiming toward. He grabbed the grip of his control sword again and squeezed tight without pulling it from the ground.

“No!!!!! I said everyone. You don’t get compromise by giving up on or abandoning Celina!!”

He could not see or hear anything, but he still felt the wind blowing against his cheeks. While the giant device passed by overhead and tore through the ground with its beam, it forcibly altered its course, like the zigzag of a lightning bolt, to avoid the girl and skillfully blow away just the tree.

(It…heard me?)

His view was blocked by the light and smoke, but he still felt like everything had opened up before him.

(And it actually listened?)

That was due to the beam launched from the Lucifer Horn and it was also due to the explosion blasting all that smoke into the air. He only had his hearing to go on, but not his external hearing. He focused on the alarm in his head.

“The ringing is gone?”

He felt a need to say it out loud.

The tree had been blown away.

But what happened then? There had been an explosion, so could that have been the bomb going off?

He thought he would die if he did not confirm for himself that the sorcery bomb was destroyed. The anxiety was going to crush him.

“Did I…do it? Did I destroy the sorcery bomb and save the village!?”

He knew he had survived here in the cloud of smoke.

That should mean it had not detonated.

“Oh, right. Where did that Celina girl go!?”

Suddenly and silently, the thick curtain of smoke parted as if split, revealing a girl in a black dress adorned with golden embroidery and red gems.

She appeared directly behind Miyabi.

Close enough for a heated breath to reach his ear and something soft to touch his back.

“I see. That control sword must mean you are the next user.”

“!?”

(I can’t move. Dammit, she completely snuck up on me!)

That large rifle would be hard to use at such close range, but he had not forgotten about its bayonet – that is, the thick knife attached to the end.

“Your name,” she bluntly stated. Her cold voice was polite but made it clear disobedience would be punished with death. “Please state your name.”

“M-Miyabi…”

“Very good, Miyabi. Your honest response is praiseworthy in a way. An unusual name, but that is all I need. The Bodenburg Company’s power surpasses that of every major country on the continent and I will pour it all into researching your full name and other personal information. Oh, and if that was a fake name, you will come to regret the decision.”

She sounded exasperated.

But also impressed.

“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.”

Even gulping could lead to death here.

The pounding of his heart rang far too loud in his ears.

“You are a lot like him in one way, though: that arrogant concern for your enemy.”

He noticed a subtle change to the temperature of the breaths on his ear.

Was she truly exasperated now?

“But never mind that. From now on, you shall be an enemy of Bodenburg.”

He felt a soft touch on his cheek and then a gust of wind blew through the surrounding smoke.

“Was that her lips!?”

He looked back but found she was already gone.

He knew it was silly of him, but his emotions were in turmoil. He was losing track of just what feelings were running wild in his heart.

Even though her message was clear: I could kill you right this instant if I wanted to, but I will not. For now.

However, he did hear a voice somewhere in the forest.

It had a teasing, singsong quality to it.

“From the control rifle to the horn core – tactical close. Schwarz Schütze, disarm and await further orders.”

A low metallic rumbling came from outside the forest.

“Trains are meant to move. I was only using 30% of its true power, so make no mistake about your chances.”

Miyabi looked around with the double-edged sword in hand, but he could find no glimpse of that conspicuous blonde hair or dress. Yet she was not shouting in anger, so she could not be far.

“Also, I had set this stage with Moebius in mind. I, Celina Bodenburg, shall withdraw for now and set aside some later time especially for you. This crucial event shall prove the Bodenburg Company possesses the strongest power, so I need to put on the best show possible, don’t you think? So I will prepare the finest stage on which to kill you.”

The gap in skill level was simply too great.

Miyabi Blackgarden had only been a target to the very end.

“Farewell, my fated enemy. Please await the next available opportunity.”

And with that, she really did disappear.

Her voice, her presence, and her piercing pressure were all gone.

“…”

Left behind, Miyabi stood in a daze.

The most he could do was mutter to himself.

“She never did notice the sorcery bomb. Is she more careless than she lets on? Is that all-knowing thing just an act?”

“Koo.”

“Hm? What is it, Alma?”

“Koo koo!!”

“Ow! You don’t have to bite me! Especially not repeatedly!”

The mystery creature was in a bad mood, so Miyabi had to guard his own legs.

“Anyway,” he said before a rustling of the undergrowth interrupted.

Some familiar voices followed.

“Hey, what in the world happened?”

“A-are you really still alive, Miyabi!?”

It was Alicia the elf and Helen the government official. Either they had found the end of the giant crack and walked around or they had thrown a rope across and used that. He was relieved to find no stray shots had hit them, but he also felt deeply exhausted.

“First, I have to explain all this to them.”

A sketchy young man’s voice reached him from a different direction.

“H-hey, you’re not just going to leave me out here, are you?”

“And I have to deal with that old man.”

Miyabi held his head in his hands.

“Sigh. How did I end up with all this extra work on my plate?”

The Lucifer Horn roared by overhead.

That ultimate sorcery weapon was built around a Wicked God horn.

Character Profiles

Miyabi Blackgarden

Age: 15

Sex: Male

Height: 165cm

A perfectly ordinary boy with a friendly nature and a tendency to get involved in everything. Yet he keeps finding himself caught up in very non-ordinary problems, like Alma growing attached to him after hatching from a Wicked God egg and receiving the Lucifer Horn Godhorn Tech from Moebius.

Alma

Age: Unknown

Sex: Unknown

Height: 25cm

Probably the only juvenile Wicked God currently known to humanity. Miyabi was the first person it saw after hatching from its egg, so it tends to view him as its parent. Sometimes and during certain circumstances, it grows larger, but the sample size of 1 makes it impossible to say if that is a trait of all juvenile Wicked Gods or if it is unique to Alma.

Alicia Blueforest

Apparent Age: 13 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Female

Height: 140cm

An elf of the Blueforest race. Elves have always been a friendly species with a fair amount of contact with humans, but Alicia is especially friendly and regularly visits the human village. She is interested in human techniques and has picked up alchemy as a hobby, so she wears a radio-shaped philosopher’s stone around her neck.

Helen Clockgear

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Height: 168cm

A Republic official who was sent from the central capital primarily to observe Alma, the juvenile Wicked God. She calls herself a government official, but her actual position is closer to being a spy tasked with infiltration, intel gathering, and sabotage. But on a personal level, she is starting to accept Miyabi and Alma who have grown so innocently attached to her.

Moebius Entrance

Age: 22

Sex: Male

Height: 185cm

The most powerful of the fixers, those who accept “personal requests” to resolve any trouble that the rich and powerful do not want becoming public knowledge. His skill can be inferred from the crazy fact that he possesses a Godhorn Tech despite not belonging to any specific country. And his skill extends beyond using that Godhorn Tech.

Godhorn Tech Bomber: Lucifer Horn

Pilot: Miyabi Blackgarden

(Previous Pilot: Moebius Entrance)

Affiliation: None

Size (LxWxH): 30m x 50m x 5m

A Godhorn Tech shaped like a giant bomber. Generally unmanned. Contains a lab for the creation of chemicals from plants. Injection of the chemicals is used to activate the Wicked God horn so it can fire powerful energy blasts. Extremely powerful, but the excessive tune-ups of the already high-power Wicked God horn cause it to overheat and stop firing if used too much. Design motif: witchcraft.

Celina Bodenburg

Age: 14

Sex: Female

Height: 155cm

Only daughter of the world-renowned Bodenburg Company. She was raised to believe money can solve all problems, giving her a domineering personality. But her skill is real and she was left in charge of the Schwarz Schütze, foundation of the company’s shipping routes.

Between the Lines 1

This is a story about Celina Bodenburg.

It takes place a few days before she arrived at the Blueforest forest.

Every age of every world has its villains.

A free and open world still gives power to villains.

It gives them as much power as it gives anyone else.

“Man, talk about easy money,” said Dake Grassland, the large bearded man who led the group.

The stone-paved roads between large cities were crucial infrastructure for bandits as well. Especially in the endless expanses of plains where the knights’ attention was lax and the patrolmen could be bought off. That “prime real estate” would naturally be caught up in turf wars between bandits, but that was not a problem for this group.

There was a reason why they could so easily monopolize this artery of trade.

“Hey, Professor. You sure this is all you want for your share?”

“I am.”

“I’m not complaining about paying out less since our expenses have gone way up as our group’s gotten so big, but you could really stand to ask for more. It’s honestly weirding us out that you’re not.”

Dake kept a jocular tone, but he noticed the other person did not do the same.

A gloomy girl looked back at the bandit leader. Her name was Airi Downerzone. She wore a thick cloak pulled up over her head, but below that she only wore a negligee so thin the color of her skin showed through. The outfit was unusual for travel or for sleeping. She almost looked like a grim reaper wearing nothing but a cloak.

The teenage girl known as the Professor said little.

She lived in her own world. Time seemed to move at a different speed for her.

“I only need enough to survive off of.”

“Really?”

“But you did say I could take the ‘trash’ you have no use for yourself, didn’t you?”

She made it sound like she was doing them a favor by disposing of some defective items and trash, but the pressure behind her words would not take no for an answer. The pressure was all the more powerful because she herself was not aware of it.

There was something else she wanted far more than the obvious treasure.

Something the bandits could never imagine a use for.

Dake Grassland was honestly curious, but in an unusually perceptive moment for a bandit, he could tell that getting greedy here would end badly.

That girl had singlehandedly given them complete control in this area.

In this world of swords and sorcery, the sorcery side of the equation was incredibly powerful. The bandits had failed to master the sword but also lacked the guts to go for something as new as a gun, so they had been left with axes and hammers that relied on simple weight. Even as a group, they could not hope to face someone like that.

Airi had annihilated anyone who attempted to intrude.

But it was no more than coincidence that the gloomy grim reaper girl had joined this group in particular. If another organization would have helped her gather “trash” more efficiently, it was this group that would have been blown away while her magic tore into the ground.

“So what kind of ‘trash’ was there this time?”

“You mean the Beast Nova, right?”

Dake Grassland jerked his bearded chin toward the toppled wagon.

The grim reaper girl walked over with her thick cloak dragging behind her. Yes, she was clearly dragging the cloak, yet she moved in complete silence. That was enough for the bandit leader to shudder since he had failed to make it sneaking into mansions as an urban thief, so he had been forced to accept the outdoor life of a bandit where they only had rum to drink and dried meat to eat and never got to take a proper bath.

A change came over Airi when she peeked behind the wagon.

She smiled.

She had not batted an eye while blasting other bandit groups with powerful magic and converting them into fertilizer, so this smile was even more chilling than when she had calmly crushed and killed.

“Excellent.”

“Really?”

“That is a harpy. Flying Beast Novae are ideal because you can easily restrain them by breaking their wings.”

The figure seated on the ground trembled.

She could apparently understand human language.

“Couldn’t you just catch one of the wild monsters out there?”

“Capturing them alive is the hard part. My magic is so powerful I end crushing them instead.”

They were talking about a girl with giant falcon wings instead of arms. She was probably meant to keep away other monsters instead of as a product to be sold. Just like how people would wear a tuft of wolf fur on a necklace to ward off animal attacks. By taming a powerless Beast Nova and living with it, the hope was its smell would rub off on you and others of its kind would choose not to attack. Merchants who made long journeys by wagon often used that trick.

Then again, that was why they were often targeted by humans instead of monsters. Only wealthy merchants had the money to spare to tame a Beast Nova, so they might as well have been walking around with a sign saying “attack me, I’m rich”.

“There are several cracks in this continent,” said Airi Downerzone with her sticky smile intact. “A dark mist known as miasma rises from deep below the surface. Humans cannot fly over it or descend into the cracks to investigate, so these create what are known as World Barriers.”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“I am researching them. If a Beast Nova falls into the depths of those cracks and manages to crawl back out alive, they break past the limits of their own species, becoming a Wicked God. …Now, that is only an old legend without any real reason to believe it, but I want to see it happen.”

The harpy started shaking her head.

Was she calling that story a lie, or was she protesting the idea of having the experiment run on her?

If it manages to crawl back out alive.

I want to see it happen.

Airi had no guarantee of the subject’s survival, nor had she ever seen it work. Even though she had tested it several times. In plays, throwing someone alive into the miasma-filled cracks in the continent was a standard way for gangs to execute traitors.

Just then, a subordinate interrupted.

“Dake, there was a kid hiding in the wagon. What do we do with him?”

The bandit leader glared at his subordinate more than necessary because he was worried the youth had overseen the pathetic look on his face a moment earlier.

“Tch. A young boy?” he growled at the terrified youth. “What do you even do with that? We can’t sell him to a brothel or to the mines.”

“If you have some ‘trash’ needing disposal, then give it to me. I can toss it into the crack along with the harpy.” The cloaked girl smiled thinly. The smile seemed to split across her face. “Hee hee. Ee hee hee. I’ve thrown a few Beast Novae into the cracks, but never a human. Who knows, maybe the legend grew distorted over the ages. Maybe it really needs to be a hum-”

Before she even finished her sentence, a massive shape plowed into Airi Downerzone from the side.

“Hm? Hmm?”

Celina Bodenburg made some puzzled noises inside the Schwarz Schütze.

That mass of alchemy was 500m long, yet it broke the rules of trains by not needing a fixed track. The armored train constantly created new metal rails and constantly laid them out on the ground using the two rollers lined up on the front car, allowing it to travel across sand, snow, or whatever other terrain the continent threw at it. Now, the metal rails were so solid not even the average illegal diggers could remove them. That left ugly marks on the land, so she had a personal rule of avoiding roads, campgrounds, and other areas where people would see the result.

(What a pain. These small negatives really add up, so you can’t ignore them. Maybe I should invest a bit more in environmental protection before it influences our brand image.)

She was the queen of land travel.

The bandits had been out of luck the moment she encountered them. But the tragedy was only going to get worse for three primary reasons.

First, the Schwarz Schütze was a Godhorn Tech, a sorcery weapon so massive it towered over people, but it was by no means slow. The sensors installed all over the train searched its surroundings and accurately picked up even the smallest oddity.

Second, Celina Bodenburg was obsessed with money, but she was also a young girl with a lot to learn about business. That meant she would still get involved in issues with no chance of profit, calling it philanthropy or advertisement.

“Oh?”

And third, she had noticed the emblem on the side of the toppled wagon.

“Now that is a problem. They might be a tiny regional company, but we do business with them.”

With a dull roar, an unseen power grabbed at the girl and tugged her to the right.

The massive armored train had taken a wide curve to make a U-turn while the many alchemy cannons on its roof accurately rotated. That weapon could fire over a mountain range dividing two countries and crush the battlefield on the other side, so it was extreme overkill for protecting a trade route.

Instead of horses, the bandits were riding on the backs of giant six-legged ants made of metal. They had likely stolen those Slaughter Ants. They were 5m long and they might have been nigh untouchable with 1000 of them at their disposal, but their opponent this time proved why the “nigh” was necessary.

In this world of swords and sorcery, the sorcery side of the equation was incredibly powerful.

Especially when that sorcery was a 500m mass of alchemy equipped with a legendary Wicked God’s horn as a direct power source.

(Fools. Those are the parliament defense troops we sold to the Republic. They’re our products. Some official must be selling near-new malfunctioning ones in the name of research.)

“From iron to copper, from copper to lead, from lead to tin, from tin to mercury, from mercury to silver, from silver to gold, and from gold back to iron. Metals grow through the cycle of combination, death, and resurrection. Oh, great serpent, create a closed spiral and construct eternal stability. Here I choose seven-groove rifling with a right-hand twist.”

Of course, the Slaughter Ants coming her way had to be disposable decoys.

Schwarz Schütze’s crystal sensors danced gently along the river surface to accurately detect the other group trying to sneak from the field. That group was using the fancier winged model of Slaughter Ants.

After attacking one of the glorious Bodenburg Company’s business partners, they had realized they stood no chance, abandoned their weaker subordinates, and made a run for safety to ensure they did not lose everything.

“Set the Knight of Wands warhead – that is, fire in fire.”

She knew exactly what they deserved: death.

“Swiftly eliminate all worldly obstacles to our expert work, Schwarz Schütze.”

With a deafening boom, the world was compressed.

But it was not the swarm of gray-shining Slaughter Ants that was blown away. The green ground covered in weeds was torn up and the dirt blasted into the air became a storm that shredded the air and the bandits like a shotgun blast. A single attack changed the course of the river and created a new lake.

A second and third attack followed.

This would continue until the girl was satisfied.

This army of bandits was using illicitly-obtained military weaponry to arm themselves like a national cavalry, but such a minor threat was shredded like wet paper.

A criminal organization’s value came from their ability to remain hidden.

The more legendary the criminal, the less was known about them. For example, not even the national intelligence agencies knew if the top-class assassin known as Shadow Crack was a man or a woman.

So it should have been plain as day what would happen to bandits who carelessly revealed their presence like this.

“Calcination, coagulation, fixation, dissolution, digestion, distillation, sublimation, separation, incineration, fermentation, multiplication, and projection. From the 12 operations found in the 12 constellations, I choose the 1st – the Ram’s calcination.”

Trains were meant to move.

The Schwarz Schütze’s greatest selling point was the combination of its simple mass with its ability to act as the continent’s greatest ceremonial ground for alchemy. When combined with a technique capable of breaking all matter down at the smallest level, it became a deadly weapon that would crush any obstacle in its path, no matter the strength or size.

“I offer one final tribute. Those lives would normally be worth no more than the ashes you leave behind, but today is special. I will have our research division reveal your identities and send a small monetary gift to your families. Although I imagine they disinherited you long ago if you are out here working as bandits.”

No one ever heard their filthy pleas for their lives, but they only had themselves to blame. They were out here in the middle of nowhere to ambush and kill their targets.

Unlike the first pass, the train did not even shake when it hit them.

The alchemic operation of calcination referred to exposing a specimen to such intense heat that the solid was reduced to a powder.

“Hm, that should about do it.”

The countless sensors on the exterior of the armored train picked up footage of a harpy and small child staring in a daze. The ground had been torn up, the path of a river changed, a new lake created, and the entire map rewritten just to save those two. They may have felt their lives were not worth all that.

(And that is the correct conclusion as a businessperson. Advertisement and marketing are only given such large budgets by the companies large enough to have begun the cycle of money making money. If you want to avoid driving yourself into bankruptcy with unprofitable philanthropy, then don’t try this at home.)

“Now, then.”

After plowing that land without batting an eye, Celina Bodenburg threw out her cold tea and made some more.

If she wanted to call this the strongest power, she needed to create enough legends that everyone already knew what she could accomplish.

That also meant she could not allow anyone else to reduce the quality of her efforts.

She already had a target in mind.

“I will destroy you next, Moebius Entrance.”

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