Godhorn Tech:Volume2 Chapter6

Chapter 6, Section 1

People can get used to anything.

Any who are no longer satisfied with one taboo will seek out even deeper depths.

The sky was colored a single uniform blue in a way it never was on the continent.

The small king made a suggestion after walking out to the island kingdom’s simple port made of no more than a few wooden docks lined up on the white beach.

“Now, I believe I will join your fight.”

“K-King Fulpen, shouldn’t you stay here and manage your kingdom?”

Helen Clockgear’s voice cracked when questioning the king, presumably because she was a government official. The Republic had no king, but she still had to understand the diplomatic value one held.

Kananka Fulpen smiled a little.

“My kingdom cannot find stability without first eliminating our primary concern. That means the Necromancer who is known as the 11th.”

“We appreciate the help, but are you sure? I thought you couldn’t trust your aides due to the confusion surrounding your coronation.”

“No pain, no gain,” he said smoothly. “Miyabi, could you try making a vague threat with your Godhorn Tech?”

Miyabi Blackgarden was confused, but he had the king’s permission. He took his control sword, which was a little short for a two-handed one, and stabbed it into the beach, producing a large magic circle.

He ordered the Lucifer Horn to attack an unoccupied point out in the ocean.

An extra-large bomb dropped and a pillar of fire burst skyward like a great tower attempting to reach heaven above.

The distant boom arrived after a short delay and large waves pushed in toward the beach.

Panicked voices could be heard coming from the direction of the village.

“Yikes, what now!?”

“Run, run away! I’ve had enough of this! Eek!!”

But these were not just ordinary people. Some well-to-do men rushed out of the forest, but when their eyes met Kananka’s, they collapsed backwards like they had run face-first into a solid wall. They scrambled backwards and then fled.

But that was not all.

“Are you okay, King Kananka!?”

“My intellect is at your service whenever you might need it.”

Others rushed out to see if the king was well.

Kananka sighed.

“As you can see, I do have some problems to deal with, but this has separated the wheat from the chaff. People’s loyalty and allegiance can be so hard to tease out, but this drew it out in a visible form for me. Frankly, I’m thankful. And this means my kingdom will be fine in my absence.”

“I see,” was all Miyabi said.

Then Onelife Shiftup lifted his sandy body from the beach.

“I will join you too. I betrayed the previous king’s ideal of a free ocean, so I need to make up for that no matter what it costs me.”

“Pirate, I need no excuses from you,” cut in Kananka. “You wanted to save your crew’s lives. You need not hide your motivations anymore. You clearly care a lot about them – enough to betray your own principles to save them – so a true king of the ocean must generously recognize the difficulty with which you made your decision. We must remove those parasites as soon as possible. No matter what. I will assist you, as a fellow resident of this free ocean.”

The king paused before addressing a crucial point he could not compromise on.

Young though he was, the king of the ocean’s words held great weight.

“But we must do it the right way – without giving in to the villain’s threats.”

“…”

The one-eyed pirate remained silent for a while.

Then he slowly bowed his head.

“I am in your debt.”

“Okay, next up is Number 8,” said Miyabi. “We have plenty of magical automaton parts after destroying so many of them, so let’s fix up that butler and hear what he has to say.”

“Oh?” Celina Bodenburg put a hand on her hip. “You mean we aren’t pursuing that necromancer who muscles-for-brains here mentioned?”

“We are, but we might have missed something or had a misunderstanding. It’s happened before, remember? It isn’t uncommon to find you were making an incorrect assumption somewhere along the line.” The redhead boy sighed. “I made a huge mistake there with Moebius and this enemy is clearly acting maliciously. I want to avoid any chance of being caught unawares. Besides, a nickname like the Necromancer isn’t much to go on, so it would be best to hear what Number 8 has to say and compare that with the rest of our info.”

“Then are we headed to the criminal city? We left that automaton in an inn room.”

Once out at sea, they found a few ships remaining among the Godhorn Tech wreckage. They could return to the city on one of those.

The ocean journey back took a few days and Miyabi spent the entire time receiving intensive care from Doctor Alicia.

“Agh!? Ow ow ow ow ow ow!!”

“Pipe down, boy. The hand is a delicate part of the skeleton because of all the nerves and joints, so you can’t just wrap it in a magic bandage and call it a day. And when you smash it up this good, it requires some thorough treatment. It’s a good thing the sailors brought so much rum with them, since I can use it for sorcery medicine. If I couldn’t create some White Sorcery Items with my alchemy, you might have forever lost use of your dominant hand!!”

“Y-you aren’t making it hurt on purposhe?”

“This is me being extremely gentle This would normally be so painful you’d die mid-treatment, you fool!”

The sailors paled as they heard screams worse than someone having a dentist work at their cavity all day long, but Alicia Blueforest’s skill was the real deal. And she apparently did not get seasick when she had something to focus on.

By the time the large sailing ship arrived at the criminal city’s port, he had recovered enough to eat with a knife and fork like normal. Something inside his hand still felt off when he clenched a fist too tightly, but it was a miracle that was the only problem left.

Kananka took a curious look around the lively city of stone and metal. All while his small hand clung to Miyabi’s coat.

Celina must have been happy she was back in her hometown because she raised her arms and stretched (with that dangerous rifle still in hand).

“Nhhh… Okay, let’s go repair Number 8.”

They had left the automaton in that sketchy inn, but it was gone once they arrived.

Not Number 8.

The entire inn had been shut down by the authorities.

“Wait, wait, Rudolf? What is the meaning of this?”

The criminal city had no knights or guards. Instead, the Bodenburg Company’s private soldiers kept the peace. For businesses purposes, of course.

“Oh, milady?”

“Huh? If it isn’t Lady Celina!”

Those private soldiers were resting some rather unique weapons on their shoulders. They were thicker than Celina’s flintlock rifle and the barrel was large enough to fit your arm inside. They appeared to be designed to launch gas bombs when they were being peaceful and regular bombs when they were not. They were dragoons, equipped with armor and guns, and they responded in slight surprise when they heard the girl’s voice. They quickly pulled on their horses’ reins to clear the way for her. Their equipment looked scary, but they spoke and acted more like maids and butlers.

As the richest girl on the continent, Celina accepted the special treatment like it was normal. If anything, she acted like they were not treating her well enough.

It turned out dragoons were a high-speed mounted firing unit armed with guns, not legendary aerial knights that rode wyverns and wielded giant spears. This revelation shattered Miyabi’s dreams, earning him a silent and sympathetic pat on the shoulder from Eliza Silverstorm. She had always wanted to be a knight and chosen to serve in the castle, so she may have gone through much the same thing in the past.

The old butler commanding the private soldiers spoke to them with a smile.

“Oh, back already, milady? We value any and all opportunities in this city, so you know what it means when we are forced to make an exception and shut someone down, don’t you?”

“They took it too far?”

“In a world unbound by order, those who cannot judge the boundaries of acceptable behavior must be ruthlessly eliminated. Simply put, a grown adult should have known better. Oh, yes. The prizes the innkeeper had collected are being gathered over there.”

This had turned into a lot of trouble.

They took a peek behind the inn and it was a mess. Weapons, jewels, mystery vases, and strange paintings were piled up everywhere. There was even a rainbow-colored cat in a cage and a tearful and trembling girl with a collar around her neck, but where they part of the “prizes” too?

Celina clicked her tongue.

“The slave trade. Now I see why Rudolf decided to make an exception here.”

“Hmph,” snorted Eliza. “Even I have figured out what kind of establishment that Bubble Bath Paradise is. This criminal city is lined with brothels and indecent theatres, so I hardly see how this is that much worse.”

“Hey, what are you all talking about?”

Miyabi tried to join in, but Big Sis Helen grabbed his head in one hand and dragged him away.

Celina shrugged at Eliza’s accusation.

“We value and any all opportunities people might use to enrich themselves. Knocking on the front door and asking for a job is a very different thing from being kicked in through the front door and forced to take a job.”

“You guarantee people the opportunity to get addicted to the nightlife and gambling, you guarantee them the opportunity to drown themselves in debt, and you guarantee them the opportunity to try and pay it back with absurd levels of interest?”

“Everyone dreams of an opportunity with no risk involved, but that’s as hard to come by as the secret to everlasting life. Not even the Empire’s emperor managed to find that one, so he was destroyed in the end, remember?”

“…”

“My company is not a non-profit charity and we are not kind enough to look after the people who ruined their lives with their own reckless decisions. But this girl is a different matter. No one should suffer for someone else’s debt. In our way of life, everyone should be given the same opportunities, regardless of bloodline or birthplace. …Rudolf! Give her a hot shower and a warm meal. If she has no family – or none she can trust – then hire her on. At least until she is in a position to find a path for herself.”

The old butler gave her a warning first.

“This will increase your expenses again.”

“True, but this is worth the expense. I am buying her the opportunity to live her own life.”

Rudolf reacted with a troubled frown, but he could not hide his enjoyment. Celina had just said no one should carry someone else’s debt, yet she had immediately decided this was not a wasted expense. She knew money could protect people’s lives and that did not just apply to her own life.

Among the prizes, they found the magical automaton seated against a wall.

The repair process was going to make a lot of noise, so they may not have been able to do it in the original inn room anyway.

But what were they to do now?

He looked just like a human, so working at him out on the street would cause a commotion. People might think they were mutilating a corpse, or someone might try to steal him after recognizing him as one of the special automatons who directly served the emperor.

They heard a voice from the side.

In fact, it was a woman’s scream.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!? Wh-what are you- what is that limp thing!? Are you carrying a corpse around!?”

“Miyabi, we have trouble.”

Eliza, who was carrying deactivated Number 8 on her back, was too direct in her response and only assisted the misunderstanding.

The stranger continued shouting.

“Oh, no, no, no, no! Am I a witness now!? Am I going to be erased!? Am I going to end up dumped in the ocean or closed up in a wall!?”

Ideally, she would have run away, but she instead fell flat on her butt.

Who was she anyway?

She was a young woman with short, curly hair, but her clothing was highly unusual. Her chest and hips had only triangles of cloth or armor covering them. Other than that…would you call it a cape? Decorative items resembling a giant butterfly or a large belt were draped down from the back of her neck. She did have parts on her arms and legs that looked like leather armor, but the much more important head and torso were left bare. Her healthy navel and thighs left Miyabi unsure where to look.

Celina gave her a skeptical look.

“That’s not a swimsuit. Not even I have ever seen true bikini armor before. Do you fight in the battle arena that’s all about show business these days?”

“Hweh?” Still on her butt, the young woman blinked a while before coming back to her senses. “Ah!? Yes, yes, I am! Ah ha ha!! I am Queen Cate Tornadodancer, the strongest in the land. Your luck ran out the moment you ran across me, because I can slay bears and tigers with ease. I-i-i-if you don’t want to throw your lives away, I recommend turning yourselves in!!”

She still had not gotten up from the ground.

Her thighs were trembling so much she looked like she would piss herself if someone snuck from behind and shouted boo, so even Miyabi was feeling awkward.

“Um, is she serious?”

“I think she is, yes.” Celina held a hand to her forehead. “I said it’s all about show business, didn’t I? It’s all overly revealing costumes, oversized weapons, and flashy attacks. I doubt she could defeat a single bandit in a real battle.”

“N-not true! I can slay bears and tigers!!”

“Yeah, arena animals that have been tamed, defanged, declawed, and drugged until their muscles barely support them anymore. A pretty clear-cut and severe case of animal abuse if you ask me, but no one questions it when it has history and tradition behind it.”

“B-but…”

The trembling crossed a certain line and she practically exploded.

“Wahhhhhhhhhhhh!! That’s not true! I really, really am the strongest in the land!!”

“Yikes, now she’s crying!? But she’s older than me!!!!!!”

“Miyabi, she’s gathering attention. Find a way to silence her!!” said always dry Kananka, showing no mercy.

Miyabi stabbed his control sword into the ground and the magic circle appeared.

“Lucifer Horn!! Bring her some warm milk and a blanket!!”

The sobbing arena queen was whisked away by a wire.

The Godhorn Tech must not have understood such high-level instructions.

They had to fix Number 8, but they wanted to avoid any further commotion.

However, Celina was not the only one who called the criminal city home. Onelife had built up trust there from the bottom up.

“A lot of people come and go here, so unoccupied houses are pretty common. Yes, you should be able to work in one of those without being interrupted.”

“Why does a pirate know so much about empty houses on land?”

“Gah hah hah. Because I tend to find myself in one of them when I wake up after a bender. Good life lesson for you: stay away from the cheap bourbon they’ve switched the label on. I do sometimes end up in a house someone’s living in, though. Gah hah hah hah!!”

That he could make such a defenseless fool of himself and yet had never been turned over to the private soldiers who protected the peace (or what passed for peace under the giant company’s rule) showed just how much the people here adored him. Miss Celina looked unsure how to feel about that.

However, the magical automaton was indistinguishable from a human at a glance, so working on it as a group might get those soldiers called on them.

The eyepatch man was right.

As they walked down the road, they saw a lot of buildings with no nameplate out front. It was a strange idea for Miyabi who had lived in the same house in the same village all his life, but people frequently came and went here and the resident of a particular house would change a lot. And in between occupants, they would sit empty.

Alicia restlessly held swimsuit Alma close.

“But we don’t have the key. Are we just going to break a window?”

“Now that would gather attention. Oh, dear. Do I really have to reveal this skill?”

Helen mumbled to herself, but Miyabi never actually saw what she did. She made some swift and silent movement of her fingers and then turned the knob to open the main entrance. The entire process took less than 3 seconds, so it almost looked like it had never been locked at all.

Eliza and Onelife quickly checked all the rooms, but there was no sign of delinquent boys or squatters.

Onelife gave the ponytail girl a surprised look.

“You’ve done this before. I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type for this sort of work.”

“I will explain if we have the chance, but I do not have a clean past. I did a lot of dirty work for my kingdom.”

When Miyabi entered, carrying Number 8’s unmoving form, he found the place was really dusty. The walls were thin, but that barrier seemed to cut them off from the hustle and bustle of the city. Although it felt more like a mysterious mystical barrier than a warm living space.

The building itself had to be about the same size as his own home, but it felt a lot larger. Maybe because it had no furniture.

With no sofa or bed, they had to wipe the dust from the floor and lay the automaton there.

“He is a complicated mechanism, so we should get the dust out of the air as well.”

Clean freak Celina cast a room cleaning magic used in clinics and the like, altering the quality of the air.

They needed a toolbox, an automaton’s gears and cylinders, and several more odds and ends necessary for the work. After some rummaging around, they had a thick pair of pliers, a manual drill, and more lined up on the floor. The radio hanging from Alicia’s neck could not help but comment.

“Yeah, you couldn’t let anyone see this. If someone took a peek in the window, they’d assume you were torturing someone or chopping up the body before dumping it out at sea.”

Number 8.

Miyabi finally got to work on that butler.

“So this goes here…”

“Are you sure that’s right?” asked Alicia.

“Hm!?” groaned Kananka as he helped. “T-this part opens?”

They had the spare parts, but they did not have an accurate blueprint since the Empire that had manufactured him was gone. Without Alicia and Celina’s knowledge of alchemy and Onelife’s experience remaking an imperial automaton arm into a prosthetic for himself, they would have been completely lost. They followed their general predictions to find and replace the necessary pieces that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

“That should be everything,” said Miyabi after shutting a cover.

“Nothing’s happening, though?”

Kananka tilted his head, but the muscular pirate flexed his bicep.

“Nhhh! Nothing like a solid blow to fix a faulty contraption! Go for it!!”

Afraid Onelife would knock Number 8’s head clean off, Miyabi struck the automaton himself. He remembered how Celina had asked him to hit the communicator back on her armored train, so this may have been a ritual for operating machines.

“You savages!” howled the radio. “You actually did it!”

“Compatible parts detected…checking connection. Wiring is in working order.”

“Ahhh, don’t prove them right, you smarty pants robot! Now they’ll think they can treat me that way!”

The philosopher’s stone lamented, but Onelife roared with laughter.

“Gwa ha ha ha! You don’t live with a prosthetic arm this long without picking up a trick or two!”

“H-he’s moving?”

Eliza grew cautious, but young Kananka actually stepped forward.

“How very strange. He is inorganic, yet I sense a pressure much like the spirits.”

Miyabi was coming to understand that “the spirits” was a general term for all unseen powers in the boy’s remote island kingdom. The Empire that built the magical automaton likely had a different name for it.

At any rate, something was circulating within the artificial body and Number 8 opened his eyes once more.

“I want to see if you’re functioning now, but this might be hard for you,” said Miyabi.

“What did you have in mind?” asked the prone automaton.

“Tell me. What happened to your Empire?”

“…”

Silence followed.

This had not worked last time, so tension ran through the others.

But…

“It has been destroyed. Along with the last emperor’s corpse.”

“Phew.”

Helen breathed a sigh of relief and Number 8 slowly sat up on the floor, causing his long bangs to sway.

The hidden half of his face was revealed, showing the cracks spreading where his eye had once been. Countless gears of varying sizes could be seen within.

Common parts like the gears and springs could be replaced, but using generic parts for something as distinctive as his face would give him a weird, patchwork look. So they had left his face untouched.

Miyabi chose to apologize.

“I’m sorry for making you remember something so painful.”

“That is not your fault.”

“Then can you tell us what you did? What role did the 11th – the Necromancer – play?”

More silence.

But the response came much more smoothly this time.

“The Necromancer was originally a guest magical researcher in the Empire. She is a woman age…25 in the current year. Her real name is unknown. She did not care much what other people thought of her, but she did seem aware that she had earned a lot of grudges. I have heard she came from the wealthy class in a small kingdom beyond the reach of imperial law, but on the Empire’s border. That could be entirely false of course, but her facial features and wavy hair do match those of the people in the central inland region. She was known for her rude behavior, but it was a rudeness that understood proper etiquette enough to intentionally break the rules.”

“Wealthy?” Celina sounded truly disgusted. “And necromancy too? Yeah, people tend to pick up the worst hobbies when they have more money and time than they know what to do with.”

Everyone gave the rich girl quite a look, but she did not seem to notice.

Number 8 continued in his cold way.

“She seemed to want people to view her as a pure academic, but unlike a self-proclaimed expert with only superficial knowledge, she definitely has real knowledge and skills. She is a top-class intellectual. Admittedly, the Empire specialized more in inorganic research, but none of our seven universities had anyone with more expertise in the subject of life and death. However, she is severely lacking in the moral compass required to use such specialized technology.”

“That’s always the case with the rich and their hobbies.”

Celina came from the Bodenburg Company which had created its own position through business success, so she may have been wary of the aristocracy whose position, honor, and money were all hereditary.

Eliza, who served a king, and Kananka, who was a king himself, both breathed exasperated sighs.

Number 8 continued.

“Once she lost the Empire’s protection, I have heard she abandoned her home and fortune to live free out in- wihhh!”

“Wh-what!?”

An earsplitting noise led Miyabi to cover his ears and cry out, but Number 8 did not answer. They heard a commotion outside, so they were forced to hide in the bathroom and ashless fireplace.

They waited there a while.

Fortunately, no one was curious enough to open the door and take a look inside. Since Celina had used room cleaning magic to clear out all the dust, it was likely they would have noticed something was amiss even if they did not immediately spot the hiding people.

“What just happened?”

“Sh. Something isn’t right.”

Celina, who was curled up like a cat in the fireplace alongside Miyabi, was right. Number 8’s lips were moving as mechanically as ever, but his voice was not forming human language.

“Ywah, ghhhghghghgh!”

“See? This is why you don’t hit machines,” said the radio.

Onelife tapped the back of his thick neck with his giant cutlass.

“Won’t hitting him again fix him?”

“Yes, best to strike while the iron is hot,” agreed Eliza, pulling out her control lance.

“What is wrong with you!?” wailed the philosopher’s stone.

After several loud sounds indicating a severe misuse of such a fine craftsmanship, Number 8’s voice returned.

“Ywahghghgh…hm, that seems to have done the trick. Thank you.”

“They keep learning the wrong lesson here. I dread to think what they’ll do to me now…”

The radio was concerned, but Celina wanted to get the conversation moving.

“But how did the Necromancer deceive you? Wouldn’t she need to approach you in advance to pretend she was the emperor?”

“She said she could bring back the dead emperor using her necromancy.”

That was a powerful statement.

Number 8 was as expressionless as ever, but the face behind his black bangs seemed to radiate self-deprecation.

“But my memories of the emperor’s appearance have faded so much.”

So the 11th had performed a phony ceremony and appeared to Number 8 again, shamelessly claiming to be the resurrected emperor. That allowed her to change her role from necromancer to emperor.

The long exposure to that extreme environment had damaged the automaton’s recognition to the point that he had fallen for the deception. No, it was not just a mechanical issue. After waiting for so long in that too-pure red world, even that butler would have been desperate for any hope at all. So as miraculous as it had seemed, he had leaped at the chance to once more kneel and bow his head before his master.

The 11th had taken advantage of that vulnerability with a sneer on her face. She had commanded him to set up sorcery bombs, all while sticking her tongue out when he had his back turned.

“She’s a monster,” groaned Miyabi.

The butler automaton slowly stood from the floor and made a request.

“I would like to accompany you.” He was clear and to the point. “She resides in the Bio Rainforest to the east, but that is a dangerous place. That deep forest is much too large to cross without a plan, but I should be able to guide you since I worked with her for a while.”

They stayed in the empty house for that day.

They got some rest to recover from their sea journey and to make sure Number 8 really was in working order again.

The redhead boy was clenching and unclenching his dominant hand while lying on the hard wooden floor.

(It seems fine.)

They were leaving the following morning.

Since this house did not belong to them and was not an inn, they had an extra task to complete before they left.

They had to remove all trace of their stay.

“Even if it’s empty, someone still owns it, right?” said Miyabi. “Yet here we are staying without permission. The criminal city really has gotten to us, hasn’t it?”

“We fixed the leaky roof and exterminated a swarm of Leftovers Flies bigger than a baby, so this was a good deed, really,” insisted Alicia. “Ugh, I didn’t realize the city had its own unique monsters. Gross.”

Making excuses to justify your crimes seemed like the first step toward a life of crime to Miyabi.

After leaving the criminal city, they traveled east.

The magical automaton spoke while walking along the open plains with a uniform pace.

“The Necromancer has a lab in the Bio Rainforest on the continent’s eastern side. An unofficial one with no national affiliation. We should reach it if we travel northeast from here.”

“I’m amazed there’s an actual road to that forest,” commented Miyabi.

The bumpy stone-paved road was partially pushed up by the powerful undergrowth. Eventually, the boy noticed someone he recognized up ahead.

“Huh? Is that that dancer with the bare midriff?”

“Is that how you remembered me, boy? The name is Iris. Iris Tempinvy.”

A slim woman with a midriff-baring blue dress and a long silver braid turned back toward him. She had arrived in the first village’s pub and ended up frequenting the clinic to look after injured Moebius, so what was she doing out here?

She smiled and clasped her hands together in front of her jiggling chest.

“I can’t believe my luck. I thought the Bio Rainforest was my only option left for continuing my recovery magic research, but now I run into some of his friends. Now, now. Where might Moebius Entrance be?☆ Spill the beans so I can nab him and drag him back to that clinic.”

“O-ohh…”

Miyabi was unsure what good a dancer was in battle or on an adventure, but the more party members the better, right?

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

“I’ll send you to Horn Fortress. That’s where Moebius is.”

“Ah ha ha! I’m coming, my guinea pig! Don’t think you can escape my research and experimentation that easily!!”

The dancer may have been the bravest of them all because she actually grabbed onto the wire herself and let it carry her away. She made it look a lot like the trapeze at the circus that had visited his village a while back.

Helen Clockgear stared off into the distance.

“W-wait… If you kept Iris here, she could have done all the sexy infiltration work.”

“Hm, so you’re aware that work is entirely reliant on being sexy, are you?” asked Alicia. “Anyway, the terms like ‘guinea pig’ and ‘experimentation’ give me a bad feeling about her.”

Also, what did the Bio Rainforest have to do with recovery magic research?

There was only one way to find the answer to that: visit the forest for themselves.

This area was relatively warm and the scenery was colored by rolling green hills and blue streams. There was even a stone-paved road, even if it was a bit bumpy due to poor maintenance. Young Kananka occasionally rubbed his body chillily since he was still used to his tropical kingdom. What would he think if he saw the blizzards of the Arsenal Kingdom?

Number 8 spoke up while walking alongside Miyabi.

“Here is a water bottle, Miyabi. You need to stay hydrated.”

“Thanks.”

“Your hair is a mess. I will fix it for you.”

“Th-thanks?”

“Is there anything else I can do for you? No, I am at fault for failing to find anything more myself. Surely I can come up with something.”

“…”

As his (very curvy) teacher, Helen cut in between the two of them.

“S-stop spoiling my Miyabi right this instant! He can be lazy enough as it is!!”

“But I was designed and manufactured to be a butler.” The former imperial servant was unfazed. “I have no intention of rejecting the ideas any of you have about yourselves, but I excel at giving advice concerning preexisting problems.”

“I see. So you’re like a GPS or AI speaker.”

The radio hanging from Alicia’s neck accepted that, but Miyabi didn’t get it at all.

“Hm? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“People have their fortune told because there is something they want to learn about, such as their finances or love life, correct? Don’t the system and tools used – cards, crystal balls, etc. – differ depending on what you want to know? Magical automatons are similar. Just tell me what it is you want from me.”

Helen pouted her lips, still clinging to Miyabi.

She understood Number 8’s position, but she also wanted to avoid the butler’s endless spoiling turning Miyabi into a lazybones who never got up off his ass. The conflict was plain to see on her face.

Miyabi tilted his head.

“So what exactly do you want from me, Number 8?”

“Well, if I could have it my way…yes, I want you to corner me by the wall, slam your hand against the wall right next to my head, and speak the magic words: ‘You belong to me now’.”

“Just how overconfident and arrogant was your emperor!?” asked Helen.

“He went around calling himself an emperor. What did you expect?” said Alicia.

“A Kabe-Don and a demanding attitude? A bit retro, but I guess these are the tastes of a ruined empire.”

The radio was unsure how to judge this one.

Their journey continued smoothly for a while, but that all fell apart once they reached a certain point.

The temperature and humidity skyrocketed.

The colors black and purple became their entire world.

“Ugh!?”

The nature-loving elf held a hand to her mouth and groaned.

They had entered a deep, deep forest.

The trees were more like the tropical ones in Kananka’s island kingdom than the ones in the Blue Forest where Miyabi lived. However, this one had something the tropical forest had not. The entire place had a thin layer of water over it and thick roots spread out through that water like great serpents. The trees were growing on the water instead of the soil.

However…

“Stagnant water, a strange ecosystem, and rotting trees… This isn’t just the forest weeping, it’s like the forest is a zombie begging for a death it can never have. I can’t stand this place!!”

Alicia Blueforest had lived among the greenery all her life, so she had tears in her eyes here.

The poorly maintained road vanished altogether once they entered the forest.

Tree roots and a mysterious dark water took its place.

The water that came up to their ankles was colored black and purple and the concentration was far from even. The more concentrated areas had formed a purple film on top, similar to hot milk. They wanted to avoid touching the filthy water if at all possible, but that extra-concentrated film looked like it would eat their foot down to the bone if they carelessly stepped in it.

“Celina, can your filter handle this if you use your purification magic alongside it?”

“I would have to throw out the entire filter.”

Soaking up that water must have affected the trees because the leaves overhead were colored bright red, light blue, and other colors. Different branches growing from the same tree would have different colors of leaves growing from them. The red and yellow just looked dried up, but what had they absorbed to create those toxic pinks and blues? The trunks and branches had what looked like human faces covering them. Miyabi leaned in close to get a better look and found those were some kind of enormous moss. The trunks were coated in moss, plants and vines tangled around them, and they all absorbed each other’s nutrients. The soil was too weak to support them all, so the half-rotting plants had to leech off of each other for what little nutrients remained.

The weak would die off in this world.

That was the way of life anywhere in nature, so why did it appear so much more sinister here?

Everything was so wet and soft.

It was so bad Miyabi feared he would sink in and never again escape if he tried leaning against a tree.

Helen could hardly believe her eyes either.

“This is the Baboulas Rondo Bio Rainforest. The rich never could build any villas here because the tree roots were too strong, but it was supposed to be a beautiful forest where a mangrove enveloped the ruins of a megalithic culture. When did it turn into this?”

The dark, stagnant water reached their ankles and the serpentine tree roots were tangled around the stone ruins sitting in that filthy water. There was a nearly trapezoidal stone building, a circular plaza, and a giant face of unclear purpose. All the many ruins were dissolving away. A wet sound inexplicably came from within the thick tree trunks. Miyabi could not even guess what kind of animals lived here.

Celina held a hand over her mouth.

“Urp… I should have asked Rudolf for more detailed geographical information.”

“What, do you do business out here? With who?”

“Miyabi, pass north through the Bio Rainforest and you reach a desert nation. But thanks to the trees, ruins, water, and roots getting in the way, all of our shipping routes – including the Schwarz Schütze – took a detour around the forest. That may be why it took us so long to notice something was wrong.”

The situation here may have been even worse than the ruined Empire covered in red dust.

Celina grew even paler.

“But I can see why it would be a bad idea to walk around at random searching for the Necromancer. We would probably die long before finding her.”

They heard a dull splashing sound and Helen looked over in that direction before immediately going pale.

“U-um, there’s some kind of fish in that shallow water, isn’t there? I didn’t get a good look because the water is so dark, but I didn’t like the look of it one bit!”

On closer inspection, the thick tree root contacting the sticky water there had a bite mark in it. As if to say this was something’s territory. And that location would be difficult for any land animal to get at.

“P-please tell me we’re not talking about teeth so sharp they can take off our toes if we’re not careful!”

“A fish? Something like my kingdom’s freshwater Steel Piranhas wouldn’t be so bad.” Kananka looked reluctant to explain this. “But we need to hope it isn’t anything like the Bloody Candiru. See, they use an insta-kill attack where they sneak up on their target and charge straight toward a fish’s gills or a land animal’s crotch. And they can jump from the water, so lifting your hips out won’t save you. Their fins act like the barb on a fishing hook, so once they’re inside, there is no removing them. The occasional tourist who isn’t aware of the danger ends up with one right up their butt.”

“M-M-Miyabi, isn’t there anything we can do!? I demand you come up with a fundamental solution right this instant!”

Miyabi was plenty afraid of the creepy opaque water himself. He didn’t know the first thing about necromancy, but he had no desire to scoop up and drink something with that color.

“We can have Number 8 guide us and we need to stay out of the water. We can walk on the roots, driftwood, large lotus leaves, and stone ruins. Really, anything that’s sticking out of the water should be safer.”

“I just hope it all forms a convenient path to where we need to go.”

Kananka’s concern was valid.

And when nature did not provide them with a path, they had to make one themselves.

“Gwohhhhh!!!!!!”

They used Onelife’s brute strength to break down a rotting tree at the base, creating a makeshift bridge. Alicia actually looked relieved when she saw the tree felled by those powerful arms. She may have seen it as putting the tree out of its misery.

But even with all that, the journey was far from safe.

“Yikes.” Helen paled. “I’m afraid I’ll slip on that wet log or my foot will break right through the rotting wood.”

“Whoever loses a game of rock-paper-scissors can go first and test it for us.”

Number 8 ignored the cowardly humans’ complaints and crossed the bridge without batting an eye.

He moved with such purpose none of them had time to stop him.

“Magical automatons are immune to toxins, so I should be the one to test such things.”

“That’s a dangerous way of thinking. I bet that’s what led the Empire to its doom.”

Miyabi viewed the polluted area next to them as they cautiously crossed over after Number 8.

“We might have no choice but to step in that filthy water at some point, right?” he said to Kananka directly behind him.

“?”

“You see the patches of oily film? The purple ones, I mean. It would be best to avoid those.”

Miyabi was proven right once they had crossed the log bridge.

As soon as a falling leaf touched a patch of film that looked 100 times grosser than the film atop hot milk, it was enveloped and melted away with a sizzling sound.

“The water below those purple patches is so dark I’m afraid we would overlook one.”

“Carry a long stick and poke around ahead of you while you walk. If it starts to smoke and dissolve, don’t go that way.”

No one laughed at Miyabi’s suggestion.

The Necromancer had apparently built a base inside this deep forest in search of a sort of freedom different from what the criminal city offered…but all of this was only the side effects. What in the world was she researching in the depths of this forest? And how did a single person manage to distort an entire region so thoroughly?

They could see why the Necromancer had chosen a magical automaton like Number 8. His malfunctions had made it easier to deceive him, but he had also needed to travel through this forest. No normal person could manage that.

The butler automaton was the only one who did not look concerned.

“This way,” he said.

Rain as warm as blood began to fall.

Miyabi Blackgarden could not tell if this would wash away some of the black and purple filth or if it was even more dangerous.

He suddenly realized Alma had transformed again.

The creature was colored white with the horn sticking further out from its forehead than ever before. Alicia said this was a unicorn form.

“Alma doesn’t even come up to our knees, so this filthy water is a matter of life or death. This form must be better for purifying the filth. Ohh, don’t you worry, Alma! I’ll carry you the entire way!!”

Number 8 had worked with the Necromancer before, so he guided them through the Bio Rainforest full of toxins, mangroves, and stone ruins. The surface of the filthy water would occasionally part in the distance and a toxic-colored carnivorous fish would leap straight up. Maybe they were eating bugs flying near the water, but maybe they were showing off their ability to kill Miyabi’s party.

A distant look came over Kananka when he saw a wriggling fish that resembled a loach.

“Aaaand there’s a Bloody Candiru. Hard to believe they’re a type of catfish. And this one is a good bit larger than the ones in my kingdom’s freshwater. It looks 50cm, which is more than enough to destroy a human down there.”

“Eek!? I-i-i-is it going to lock onto us from below!?”

“I can see a freshwater Needle Fish too. Those react to reflective objects and can punch right through armor.”

Meanwhile, they heard some movement.

But this time it was not from the water. The rustling of leaves meant something was approaching on land. Celina jumped and grabbed onto Miyabi.

“Kyah!? Wh-what now!? Is one of the Necromancer’s gross experiments attacking!?”

“Miyabi, restrain that idiot! It’s a person! Don’t let her shoot them!!”

Eliza’s sharp command surprised even Miyabi.

A person?

Skeptical, he looked over and found it was true. A man was peering out from the entrance to one of the stone ruins half-buried in tree roots. The rustling came from the vines hanging down over the entrance. The middle-aged man wore filthy rags and his hair and facial hair were a mess.

On closer inspection, the ruins were larger than Miyabi’s home. The structure was built a level up from the water, keeping the black and purple water and its carnivorous fish and turtles out. The strange plants did not appear to be growing inside the stone ruins either.

But what was someone doing here?

Helen groaned when she saw the chest of his rags.

“The Elder Art Research Institute. That practical research institute is the best in the field of extreme environment biology. What is one of those magical elites doing in this rotting forest?”

“Because he is a former elite, I assume. Take a look around.”

Alicia gestured over with her chin.

He was not alone. Several more gazes focused on Miyabi’s party from the other stone ruins, from the branches overhead, or from hollows in the trees. They created the tense atmosphere of an exclusionary village facing outsiders.

Yes.

These were not travelers. This was clearly their territory and they lived here.

“E-eek!? I-I’m not causing anyone any trouble. That’s why I came to this forest in the first place! Mumble, mumble…no, now isn’t the time to see if they know anything about the Missing Dice. Hee hee hee hee!!”

A suspicious man was staring at them from the entrance to a nearly trapezoidal stone structure, but he did not seem to be speaking to them.

“Are they working for the Necromancer?”

Helen was wary, but that did not seem to be the case.

A stir surrounded Miyabi’s party.

“Leave us alone. We just want the freedom to do what we want. We don’t care about you, so just leave us be.”

“We’re not interested in necromancy. This forest is now a market of unspeakable research. You want to know what I’m doing here? What part of unspeakable didn’t you get?”

Miyabi felt like he had a vague understanding of this place. The rotting forest felt like it was taking years off his life every time he took a breath, but there were people who found it much more comfortable than anywhere else in the world.

Former elites.

Academics shunned for their research.

This was their final sanctuary. They were willing to sacrifice years off their life for every minute or second they could get to make progress on their research. The Necromancer’s violence may have looked like a sort of independence movement to them. Miyabi took another look around the contaminated forest.

“None of them care what’s happening around them.”

“A lot of them have never even seen the Necromancer,” flatly said Number 8. “They are just using each other. It is more like mutual parasitism than a commune.”

What had the dancer named Iris said when they ran across her on the way here? The Bio Rainforest was her only option left for continuing her recovery magic research.

When intellectual pursuits hit a dead end, they ended up here.

There were indeed people who were drawn to the rotting forest as a comfortable place for them. And they were all geniuses much smarter than Miyabi.

Kananka held his aching head.

“This forest is unbelievable. The pressure is running wild, but this isn’t the spirits.”

“M-most of the continent isn’t like this! There are plenty of beautiful places!!”

Afraid of causing a diplomatic problem, Eliza frantically started listing the continent’s better features.

The temperature was bad and the humidity worse. Celina wiped off her brow with a handkerchief and looked resentfully up at the blood-warm rain.

“I kind of excepted the Necromancer to be alone.”

Number 8 fielded that one.

“Mages in every taboo field imaginable gather around her. It can be hard to tell since they use the unmanaged and unprotected ancient ruins for their homes and labs, but it may be best to think of this as a sort of research village.”

“Hm, a group of people with an established society? Sounds like a job for our resident information gatherer.”

Alicia gave Helen a sidelong glance and the philosopher’s stone delivered the finishing blow.

“That’s right! A job for Venus!!”

“You expect me to wear that in this humid mess!?”

Miyabi’s party could tell they were not welcome here, but the locals made no attempt to attack them. These people and the Necromancer were mutual parasites trying to suck each other dry and these academics had grown detached from reality (or rather, they had all ended up here because they hated the demands of ordinary society). They felt no sense of obligation or compassion, so they did not even consider sending word to the Necromancer.

There were shops here, but Miyabi’s party had no way of using them. They did not even use money. Instead, they used a barter system where people traded their research results, either as a finished product or a blueprint. Information was valued more than food and water in this rotting forest. Acquiring those daily necessities required a combination of purification and disinfecting magic.

Celina held a hand to her forehead.

She looked as pale as someone who had toxic sludge dumped over their head.

“A-a world without money? This is a fundamental attack on capitalism.”

Meanwhile, they heard a somewhat frantic voice.

“Huh? What’s this, what’s this? Not every day we get some non-recluses in this rotting forest. Who’re you?”

“?”

One researcher approached them in a much more friendly way than the others.

She was a short-haired glasses girl. Her hat and her round pants were somewhat reminiscent of pumpkins.

She rested a large broom on her shoulder and smiled amiably at them.

“I’m Candy Lunaticover, a former Godhorn Tech researcher. Nice to meetcha☆”

“A Godhorn Tech…researcher!?”

Celina’s eyes widened at that casually-dropped bombshell, but Candy herself seemed unaware it was a shocking thing to say. She shrugged like it was nothing.

“A former one. Now I’m just one more eccentric researcher living in this rotting forest.”

“But why?” asked Eliza.

Candy winked behind her glasses.

“I designed all sorts of Godhorn Techs. I dunno how many were actually built, though.”

“…”

There would be more designers than just her, but if that were true, her power would have been distributed to multiple countries.

On the other hand, you could invent whatever glorious past you wanted for yourself inside this polluted forest.

“I’ve been everywhere on the land, in the sea, and up in the air, but that’s as far as I could go. I hit a dead end. The deep sea was pretty fun, but even that’s so limited. Once you can go anywhere you want in the world, it all feels so boring. None of it’s exciting anymore. But after agonizing over that one for a while, it hit me.” She pointed a finger skyward. “I’ve never been to the moon, have I? Woo hoo, wouldn’t that be cool!!”

“Are you serious?”

That was too large a scale for Miyabi to even comprehend, but Candy Lunaticover put her hands on her hips and laughed at the top of her lungs.

“As a heart attack! That’s why I’m spending all my time developing this explosive multistage flying broom. Yahoo! …Unfortunately, this research has a weensy little problem of not being profitable, so no country wants to fund it. I’ve heard of someone who works as a dancer to fund her research, but I’m not built for that sexy stuff. That left just one option: this paradise for recluses who just want to research in peace.”

“But isn’t this place dangerous? Everything around you is contaminated and there are tons of strange creatures.”

“Like I said, this is a last resort when you can’t find the freedom to research anywhere else. You have to be prepared for some health drawbacks. I’d be out of here in a heartbeat if there was a nicer place where I could research.”

“…”

“What’s with the meaningful silence? Wait, do you know a place that isn’t polluted where I’d be free to research!? Where is it!! Out with it!!”

Horn Fortress was isolated by a thick barrier or the cracks in the world, so no one would get after anyone for what they were researching there.

Candy rubbed her chin and looked up into the rainy sky.

“Hm, so you use the Lucifer Horn – a bomber type? Not the approach I would’ve taken, but I get the concept. Yes, there’s no rule requiring the broom to be launched from the ground, is there? Amazing! And if I go with a midair launch from sufficiently high altitude, I wouldn’t need a nosy country’s permission to build a surface launch pad. Yes, this could work.”

“?”

She started speaking to herself and calculating something far beyond Miyabi’s understanding.

Then she turned back to him.

“You have a deal. I’ll give you my knowledge as a former Godhorn Tech designer.”

“Eh, really!? That title sounds incredible!!”

“Again, former. I’m just a hobbyist now. And all I ask in return is you give me a new research environment. Will you let me work on that Horn Fortress place you mentioned? Pretty please? If it’s nicer than this rotting forest, I’ll gladly accept your recruitment offer☆”

After sending Candy Lunaticover away, Miyabi’s party resumed their march through the rainforest.

The people brave enough to live in this brutal environment appeared to walk across the water using stilt-like toys. Tripping would of course mean soaking yourself in the filth and possibly being killed by the carnivorous fish or the purple film. Miyabi’s party was not keen to try it out themselves.

They stuck to the roots and fallen trees sticking up out of the black and purple goop and watched their step as they traveled deeper in.

And eventually…

“It’s a dead end,” groaned Eliza.

They had come cross a large area of thick water with no impurities on which to safely cross it. There was a stone plaza past it, but it was more than 30m away. With the difficult-to-locate purple film and the various dangerous creatures lurking in the murky water, they felt no desire to cross it on foot.

But the butler automaton did not even tilt his head.

“I can cross it.”

“Ah!!”

He did not give them time to stop him.

Number 8 set foot in the dark sludge and sloshed his way across.

Then he grabbed something.

It was a bundle of rope and he tied one end to their side. After drawing it taut and tying the other end to the other side, he gestured them over.

The rope was positioned diagonally, so they only had to grab it and slide down to reach the other side.

Onelife stepped out in front.

“Oh, now this gets makes my manly soul happy!!”

“Wait, muscles-for-brains!! You need to protect your hands from the friction, or-”

“Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot!?”

The meathead started screaming partway down.

If not for his prosthetic hand, he would have been badly injured.

“He’s captain of a sailing ship, so how in the world doesn’t he know how to handle ropes?”

Thanks to that valuable test run, the others placed some cloth over the rope and used that protect their hands as they slid down. The carnivorous fish reacted to their shadows and worked hard to show off their ferocity in the water below.

However…

“We can’t do this every time. There won’t be a rope at each crossing and these cloths won’t last forever.”

Miyabi responded to his own complaint by holding his hand out into empty air.

It was too late to test these things out once they were already in danger, so he needed to get the trial-and-error over with while they could still afford some error.

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

The fragile rock crumbled and came apart into box-sized chunks which then lined up. The final shape was a bridge. Only Miyabi had this creation power. It had saved him and created footholds or shields countless times. It was only a meter tall and too narrow for a horse to cross, but he successfully created a Bypass Bridge.

But Helen’s eyes widened when she looked down.

“I-it’s breaking apart from where it’s touching the water!”

“That purple film again. There’s no time – hurry across!!”

Miyabi pumped his arms as he pushed onward, but then he sensed a great pressure from beyond the twisted trees. This was not like the researchers from before. The gaze he sensed was fiercer, more instinctual, and engulfed in rage.

Almost like someone lamenting the pollution of their home and lashing out with righteous anger.

Miyabi’s eyes widened.

“A real Beast Nova!? Now!?”

“Discriminatory language!! At least try to fix that habit!!”

Alicia shouted back with Alma in her arms, but now was not the time.

It was huge.

Miyabi had never seen anything like it. Would you end up with something like this if you forced a colossal slug to crawl across a salty surface? It dissolved and crumbled and gathered back together. The sticky life form repeated the process endlessly as it walked shockingly close by.

This creature did not belong in any known ecosystem.

It was bizarre even for a Beast Nova.

Could it only survive in the Necromancer’s base – this Bio Rainforest full of sinister sludge?

“That’s a bird.” Celina reflexively readied her control rifle and grimaced at what she saw through the sight. “I can see shriveled and degenerated wings on its slimy surface and also a twisted beak that doesn’t fit together properly. But I can’t imagine any reason to make something like this, so is this not even a result of the Necromancer’s research? Is this just what extended exposure to that sludge does to animals!?”

Could they defeat this thing or not?

Could they fight at their usual level on such unsteady footing?

If they stabbed a sword into that thing, would its bodily fluids erupt out and splatter onto them?

Several questions spiraled through Miyabi’s mind, always in the negative direction, but the reality was even worse.

“!”

He noticed something.

That thing had not sensed their presence and it was not patrolling its territory in search of food.

He gulped atop the crumbling bridge. That mystery creature might as well have been made of the goop itself, and yet…

“It’s running away…in fear?”

“But from what!?” asked Alicia.

The red, yellow, bright blue, and toxic pink leaves rustled together and ripples ran through the sludge. Countless sounds joined together to form a sinister chorus. They were not as polite as Miyabi’s party. Even when they broke through a rotting branch, fell to the black and purple water, and flopped around there, they never stopped walking.

Because they had bigger things to worry about.

They were on high alert.

However.

When the tremor hit, Miyabi’s feet were nearly pulled out from under him.

No, the shaking was too much for the collapsing bridge, so it broke.

The situation was getting worse at an accelerating rate.

His legs just about locked up in fear, so when he shouted to the others, it was mostly to himself.

“Jump!!”

If it had taken even half a second longer for his mind to catch up, he would have still been standing there when the bridge fully collapsed into the filthy water.

Fortunately, they were only about a meter up. Even as it collapsed, the Bypass Bridge was divided into a few blocks. Some of those remained even as they sizzled and smoked, so they jumped from stone to stone, crossing the pond.

Falling back would only have made things worse for them.

They had no idea what was coming, but they could not avoid it without the freedom to move.

The shaking nearly tripped Miyabi and that would mean falling into the water where carnivorous fish and crabs lurked. He kept jumping from platform to platform until he reached the stone plaza. The circular plaza was situated a bit above the filthy water, but the blood-warm rain kept his back feeling sticky.

Alicia arrived a moment later and worked to keep her balance against the ominous shaking.

“Wh-wh-what is that!?”

“The Necromancer’s Godhorn Tech – the Deadman’s Fenrir,” groaned Onelife, man of the ocean trapped in a rotting forest.

Deep rumblings rang out intermittently. The shaking of the branches overhead allowed water to drip from the leaves, joining the blood-warm rain. They all understood these were massive footsteps.

They could not see it yet, but Miyabi could sense a clear change to the atmosphere. Something known as a king or guardian ruled in this deep polluted forest.

But instead of a ferocious beast found in nature, this was the bizarre product of necromancy. That seemed to best describe how twisted the forest was.

“She didn’t build the Wicked God horn into a piece of stone or steel,” continued Onelife. “Nhh, I’ve heard she stuck one Wicked God’s horn into another’s corpse, forcing the corpse to move again.”

“The pressure is unbearable. And so twisted.”

Kananka gulped while the one-eyed pirate helped support him.

Onelife was not the only one who knew how the Necromancer did things.

Number 8 did as well.

“I have heard Deadman’s Fenrir is a perpetual soul devouring device.”

“A what?”

Miyabi asked about the unfamiliar term while standing back up and Number 8 accurately nodded.

“It is known as a device, but it is fundamentally different from us automatons who use springs and gears to move. The corpse summons parasites and then kills those parasites to endlessly obtain more souls to devour and fuel its movement. It is a contraption of blood and guts that provides its rotting flesh with more strength than a living being could ever produce.”

“You mean…?”

Helen paled and took a quiet look around.

There was a rustling, but it was different from before.

This was not the leaves rustling as grotesque creatures fled from the Deadman’s Fenrir. This was the chorus of something much more sinister moving toward the great corpse. The nature and type of creature was audibly distinct.

The fierce presence was like a thick invisible wall at this point.

Unable to bear the unpleasant pressure, Miyabi glanced in that direction. It was like having a balloon filled with a hose while it was pressed against your cheek. As much as you were afraid of it popping, you would still give in to the urge to look.

And so he saw it.

He saw the color white.

And he screamed.

If powerful Onelife and Eliza hadn’t restrained him, he might have thoughtlessly taken off running and fallen right into the murky water with the deadly film on top.

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

That was a color they hadn’t seen in this rotting forest of black and purple.

A wall taller than any of them pushed in from one direction. Something unidentified softly enveloped the trees, covered the stagnant water, and approached at unchanging speed.

They were bugs.

Something like maggots thicker than a human arm were gathered by the hundreds of thousands to form a massive wave. The carnivorous parasites were drawn by the scent of rotting flesh, unaware they were being lured out as food. Even the bizarre animals transformed by the forest were fleeing in a panic. The carnivorous fish and turtles awaiting prey at the bottom of the dark water were splashing their way out of there. Anything with the misfortune to be caught in that wave would not last long.

What was the worst way to die?

This felt like an answer to that most fruitless of arguments.

They seemed as numerous as the stars in the sky. Even as a mother Beast Novae trampled them underfoot in a last-ditch resistance, the white parasites ignored it all and kept coming. Their losses meant nothing, so they threw themselves into the polluted water and the purple film on top to continue their charge.

There was no stopping them.

Miyabi could not imagine how he could use his Godhorn Tech here. His imagination and ingenuity were at a loss. This natural disaster was truly unstoppable.

“Miyabi,” said Helen Clockgear.

“Y-yes!?”

“Miyabi!! Your power of creation is our only hope here. Instead of running blindly, you need to create bridges and stairs for a planned evacuation. They’re almost here!!”

When she held his head between her hands and shouted straight at him, he finally broke out of his daze.

Yes, running away was not the wrong answer.

The question was whether or not he could give that answer meaning.

They had to settle things with the Necromancer for manipulating Number 8 and Onelife into planting sorcery bombs. That would require facing her Godhorn Tech, the Deadman’s Fenrir. To do that, they could not die here. Being killed by the bugs summoned for it to eat was not how this was meant to go. They hadn’t fought it or even caught its attention yet.

Miyabi clenched his teeth and faced that fear once more.

His priority for now was just to survive.

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

They had no idea what kinds of carnivorous animals lurked below the surface and they might overlook one of the purple patches of film on the surface, so safety demanded they avoid setting foot in the murky water covering the ground here.

But they could not let the swarm of white bugs catch up either.

That was why Miyabi created a Bypass Bridge. But to prevent the filthy water or the shaking of the ground from directly damaging the bride, he gave it no support pillars and only connected the box-sized masses directly to the thick trees.

They just had to avoid touching the dark murky water that was a hotbed of dangers, such as the purple film and the carnivorous fish.

Or so he thought, but once he tried it, the tree trunk thicker around than his torso readily snapped.

“Whoa!?”

With its support broken, the bridge tilted down like a slide, but there was no time to go back and try again. If they stopped moving, the parasites would engulf them. He attached more boxy Palette Dice to the broken end of the bridge, creating the next one.

It ran less than a meter above the water.

And the wall of creepy-crawlies was approaching all the while.

“Miyabi, can’t you burn them all away with the Lucifer Horn!?” asked Celina.

“I could, but I have no idea how far it would blast the filthy water!! Do you want that stuff splashed over your head!?”

“No, but can’t you build a roof over us!?”

He hadn’t thought of that.

He ended up using a Bypass Bridge for it. He held up his hand and built another bridge overhead to cross with their makeshift roof. Then he used his other hand to stab the control sword down at his feet.

A magic circle spread out and he raised his voice.

“Lucifer Horn, tactical open!!”

This time, he dispensed with the tricks and just fired a beam of light from straight overhead.

The blinding light dropped from the sky and then cut horizontally across the world.

First, they had to hold fast against the shockwave.

A short pause.

Then something poured down like a sudden rain shower. It was a mixture of the sticky water and the thick, white bodily fluids of the roasted parasites. None of them could say what would happen if a single drop hit them.

A sizzling as if from acid came from the roof over their heads.

Miyabi still could not relax. It took a lot to worry someone with a Godhorn Tech at their disposal. How much of that stuff would get on them if it ate a hole in their roof and leaked through?

“D-did that work?” asked Celina, holding onto him from the side and still trembling.

Nothing was stronger than a Godhorn Tech, yet this rotting forest was ruled by an anxiety not even the Lucifer Horn could erase.

They heard more rustling.

At the same time, Helen Clockgear looked away from the site of the blast.

“The Necromancer’s Godhorn Tech is made from a corpse that consumes the parasites to continue running, right?” She froze in place with her eyes in that direction. “A-another wall is coming from this direction!! D-did it call them in from every direction!?”

“W-w-w-we need to get out of here!! Alicia, Eliza! Hurry!!”

They looked like pale white worms and like fat maggots thicker than a human arm. No one would ever want to touch one, much less have them approaching in an “attack”.

One of them would have been unbearable enough, but this was a white wall. A tsunami.

This group came from much closer by, so it was going to catch up if they wasted any time at all.

(The Bypass Bridge…won’t be done in time!!)

“Argh!! Grab a stick, boy!!” shouted Alicia, jumping from the half-completed bridge into the stagnant water.

This increased the danger by a lot.

Fortunately, the approaching parasites had forced the carnivorous fish to flee. By poking around ahead of them with a stick longer than a mop, they could detect the milk-like film on the surface. They had to avoid that purple film as they advanced to minimize the damage.

“Onelife! You carry Kananka!!”

“Can do!! Nwahh!!”

The large man let the small king ride on his shoulders, a simple but effective method. It would fully protect Kananka from the water below, but he had to avoid hitting his head on the wet branches a little higher up. And it wouldn’t help at all if the parasites caught up.

“I will carry Alma!” said Alicia. “I’ll hold tight and never let go!!”

It was easily the most hellish escape they had ever made.

A deluge of rustling and splashing sounds pursued them, so they splashed through the filthy water and made their way between the rotting trees.

Their boots were soon full of the lukewarm liquid. It was only water and it made sense for it not to hurt, but the lack of pain still scared them for some reason.

Each step seemed to be taking them closer to death.

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

Miyabi held his hand behind him as he ran.

He was not bothering with a Bypass Bridge at this point.

He used all his strength to create a wall taller than he was, but it accomplished nothing. When the white wave hit it, it cracked and the fat white creepy-crawlies crawled inside to devour it from within. That seemed to hint at what would happen to him if those things caught up.

But things could always get worse.

“They’re coming from this direction too!!”

“Argh!”

“Don’t go that way, Miyabi! Look at my stick! It’s discolored from that purple film!!”

If Eliza had not grabbed his shoulders, he might have stepped right into that sticky mess. And that one step would have eaten down to the bone.

This did not seem to be a coordinated attack. The unseen Godhorn Tech of flesh and bone had not seen them yet. This level of pollution and danger was an everyday occurrence for the Bio Rainforest. Ordinary life could never survive here.

Thanks to the murky water and the fat white bugs, their paths forward through the deep forest were severely limited. They were losing options fast, like they were being driven through a funnel.

The next thing they knew, they had climbed up onto one of the stone ruins dotting the forest. A small stone plaza was attached to a nearly trapezoidal building. It put them higher than the filthy water.

“Ugh!!”

“Don’t, boy. Take off your boots and you lose any chance of survival,” warned Alicia. “You don’t want to walk around this forest barefoot, do you!?”

Once on land, Miyabi’s soaked boots felt so heavy and unpleasant. He wanted to strip them off and be rid of them, but that was not an option. He was terrified of being contaminated. Even the blood-warm rain felt clean by comparison. It was actually transparent, which seemed so beautifully pure. Not that he had any guarantee it was safe.

An endless stream of sticky sounds echoed from nearby, so Celina reflexively held onto Miyabi from the side. She had tears in her eyes.

“Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew! What do we do!?”

“…”

Number 8 briefly stopped blinking as he thought.

Only he remained calm.

“Pull that spear from the top of that building and stab it into the water.”

“A spear?”

They would have to burn the parasites away with the Godhorn Tech’s beam if that didn’t work, but they were so much closer this time. When the purple film and parasite juices were splattered everywhere, they needed a roof to keep it off of them, but that was useless if it splattered in from the side. However, they did not have enough time to build a sturdy shelter with a full complement of walls.

To repeat, the parasites were much closer this time.

“Can that spear really repel an entire wall of bugs!?” shouted Miyabi, eyes wide. “They’ll overwhelm me in an instant during a close-range battle!!”

“You will not be using it that way. Do not worry. The Empire that created me was the strongest military nation on the continent. You cannot match my ability to come up with lethal ideas.”

“Dammit!!”

Miyabi scrambled up the nearby trapezoid just like the butler automaton demanded. He grabbed the spear sticking into the gap between two of the giant stones forming the roof, but then he frowned. It was unusual to find a spear where even the long shaft was made of metal. Was this design because the wood would rot away in the Bio Rainforest?

And…

(Why is it scorched?)

He did not have time to pursue that question. Extracting it from the gap was a challenge since the blade was swollen with red rust, but he managed to yank it on out after grabbing with both hands. He staggered back when it popped out and nearly fell from the roof, but he managed to stop himself in time. It was pretty heavy. He shouted down toward the others with rusty spear in hand.

“I got it out, but what now!?”

“I already told you. Stab it into the water.”

On Number 8’s instruction, he threw the rusty spear from the roof. When he saw it clank against the plaza instead, he just about stomped in frustration but lost his balance and nearly slid off the roof. He frantically clung to the stone roof. Destruction and creation were meaningless at this point. It was a job for old-fashioned physical strength.

The wall of bugs was closing in and Helen shouted from the fear.

“Miya-Miya-Miyabi! Tell the Lucifer Horn to take me somewhere else – anywhere else!!”

He felt his internal pressure reaching its limit as he climbed down carefully, not wanting to slip and break a bone. What good was that rusty old spear? It didn’t look like a special magic weapon or anything like that. And if they only wanted a long weapon, Eliza’s control lance looked a lot stronger to him.

Once down on the plaza, he grabbed the spear again. Its excessive weight only made him more impatient. He did not have time to wait around. He jumped from the stone platform, planted his feet in the murky water, and stabbed the spear down with both hands.

Everything but the ancient ruins was ordinary, albeit submerged, ground covered by dirt and tree roots. No, he felt the spear stab into something softer and flabbier. He frowned at how it almost felt like he was piercing a rotting corpse’s chest.

Then he looked back.

“Okay, I did it. What next!?”

“You fool! Get out of the water!!”

“?”

It was not often that Number 8 yelled like that.

Miyabi heard a deep rumbling from overhead. The massive Empire had extended its knowledge in every direction it could and used all it learned for military purposes. The magical automaton containing all of that knowledge yelled a further warning.

“Lightning is about to strike!!”

A pillar of electricity dropped from heaven to earth, striking the spear. Then it spread out across the murky water in a flash.

Miyabi managed to scramble onto the stone ruins in the nick of time.

“Whoa!?”

Kananka helped him to his feet and he looked over to see the fried corpses of the parasites.

“Hm, that worked well.”

“Was that an offensive use of a lighting rod?” groaned Helen.

Eliza belatedly gave her control lance a fearful look. She had it resting on her shoulder, as was her wont, but now she understood how dangerous it was to walk around with the tip sticking up.

Not even the great wall of parasites could escape the high-voltage current traveling through the sticky water. No, the great size of the swarm only made it harder for them to escape. When the lightning reached them from the water, it rapidly spread across the entire swarm since they were packed together so closely. The result was a series of bursting sounds and scorching smells. The water was now covered in parasites lying belly up.

But not even that lasted long.

Passing out must have switched off some kind of defense mechanism covering their bodies because their stomachs and intestines were eaten through by their own filth. With a sound much like flesh being burned by a chemical, their thick skin dissolved away, leaving only an unrecognizable white liquid floating in the dark water. The strange marble pattern was a lot like milk in coffee.

That had dealt with the parasites rushing in from multiple directions, so the rustling sounds were gone.

But solving the problem did not purify it.

The place was even more contaminated than before.

“Breathing in that chemical smoke would be a bad idea. We should hurry on.”

Number 8 was not biological himself, but he calmly assessed the situation.

“Nhh.” Onelife grimanced too. Since Deadman’s Fenrir is here, we must be getting close.”

The flesh-and-blood Godhorn Tech was going to notice that its meal never arrived and it had already caused this much trouble without even noticing their presence. How much worse would it be once it was actually trying to kill them? They wanted to avoid being on the receiving end of a surprise attack inside the deep and disgusting forest.

They needed to move from here, take up positions, and go on the offensive.

When you were at a disadvantage, you always wanted to hold the initiative.

Curious about the electrified water, Alicia crouched at the edge of the ruins.

“Will this water zap us if we touch it?”

“Don’t test it with me!!” protested the radio. “Machines are doubly vulnerable to that!”

Fortunately, her fear was unfounded.

They marched onward through the blood-warm rain, alert for parasites or deformed plants or animals. They could not afford to overlook anything and they could not predict what might happen. They spotted bugs and snakes camouflaged as withered leaves or vines hanging down from rotting branches, so even the nearby trees might bite them if they weren’t careful.

Miyabi used the Palette Dice to create Bypass Bridges, Onelife occasionally rolled large rocks to create new platforms, and Number 8 moved out ahead through the dangerous water to scout things out since he was (supposedly?) resistant to the toxins. Still, every step Miyabi took produced a sticky sound in his boots and all the warmth was sapped from his feet. He was growing seriously worried he would remove his boots to find he had grown webbed feet like a frog.

Helen took a nervous look around.

“Deadman’s Fenrir still hasn’t shown up.”

“It may be finding another supply of dead souls since we robbed it of that first one.”

The scariest part was how Number 8 was not smiling in the slightest, suggesting that was not a joke.

“What is that?” asked Celina, staring into the distance.

An artificial structure jutted up through the rotting leaves.

It was larger than the other ruins.

It was on an entirely different scale, so it may have originally been a temple for the ruling class.

Quarried stone had been stacked up to create an impressive mountain. They had seen a few nearly trapezoidal buildings already, but none had been this large. The stepped walls were covered in hemispherical containers, perhaps to hold fires. It was designed to make itself look big and grand, not purely for functionality.

Were the holes in the walls meant to be windows or doors?

An orange glow akin to red-hot steel came from those holes.

“…”

The contamination was so strong that simply seeing it – not even touching it! – sent a stabbing pain into Miyabi’s eyes.

This had to be the center.

The pollution covering the country-sized Bio Rainforest had spread from here.

“Oh?”

And someone was there.

She stood on the flat stone plaza spread out in front of the building.

She controlled such a large building, yet she was not using its roof for protection.

But it did not look like she had noticed the problem in Deadman’s Fenrir’s meal and rushed out with a weapon to attack the thing.

She was crouching down on one end of the plaza and using a dissolving metal implement to pick up the purple film and place it inside a test tube.

She cared more about research than combat or her own life.

This woman thought the forest was paradise.

“Not often the Bio Rainforest receives visitors who smell of the open sun.”

Miyabi felt like decadent was the best word to describe her.

She had long, wavy purple hair and the attractive features of a stage actress. She also had curvy proportions. Hadn’t number 8 said she had the traits of some region’s wealthy class? She had broken that down to give herself an even sweeter appearance. Almost like an apple beginning to rot.

Her clothing was like a cross between a village’s white sorcerer and a witch. She wore a witch’s hat, skinny pants, a midriff-baring vest, and a white coat. But what were the pants and coat made of? They were strangely oily and patched together. Miyabi held a hand over his mouth when he realized the truth.

That was all rawhide.

And with how patchwork it was, some of that skin might have been human.

Whether it was still alive or dead flesh reanimated with magic, a lizard tail swished side to side from the back of her white coat’s hips.

“You don’t look like more researchers who ended up here after being kicked out.”

“The Necromancer.”

“Correct.”

It was like an attack.

She did not even consider running away or hiding. She may not have been aware anything she had done was wrong.

“But I would really prefer if you showed more reverence and love when you spoke my name.”

Cackling laughter reached Miyabi’s ears.

He readied himself for another foe, but it apparently came from the witch’s hat she wore on her head. A horizontal slit opened in the garment of skin and it spoke human language.

“Boss, I bet they’re new guinea pigs. Y’know, the kind of people who march up to their own execution for some unfathomable reason.”

“That guy’s just like me!” roared the crystal radio hanging from Alicia’s neck. AKA, the philosopher’s stone.

“Let me guess,” said the hat(?). “You’re one of those harem-loving losers who wishes he could get rid of all the guys!”

“Oh, and what’s your area of expertise supposed to be? Hag nostrils?”

“…”

“…”

The tools glared at each other while Number 8 spoke up.

“Necromancer.” The stiffness of his voice had to be more than just being an inorganic automaton. “Does my presence not remind you what you did!?”

“Nhhh!! You’re getting rid of my crew’s parasites!”

The Necromancer was cornered by Number 8 and Onelife, the two men she had manipulated, but she remained calm.

For that matter, she may not have seen this as being cornered.

“I have no interest in a living human or a soulless automaton.”

“Woo, go boss!!”

She was taking control.

Ordinary good and evil held no sway in this rotten forest. This woman had absolute control of the conversation. That scared Miyabi into shouting.

“Who cares what you think!? I just want to know if you’re the 11th or not!”

“Again, why should I bother responding to the living?”

With a rustling sound, she reached for the side of her hip. The rolled-up object attached to her belt there was probably a whip. Only “probably” because filthy strings of saliva dripped from it when she unfurled it.

Yes, saliva.

What kind of animal had that come from? Or had she destroyed an existing animal to force a mutation? Regardless, the whip was actually a tongue measuring several meters long.

It was likely her Godhorn Tech’s control device.

“There is more to the world than meets the eye. I am also interested in vessels capable of carrying ghosts. So if you wish to draw my interest…yes, why not make yourselves into ghosts?”

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

A colossal four-legged beast had appeared.

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

Overall, it may have been similar to a black horse.

However, a horse did not have strange, flabby tentacles implanted in place of a mane. A horse did not have its chest split down the center or its ribs clacking together like fangs. A horse did not have a long, chameleon-like tongue flitting in and out of its split mouth. A horse did not have overlarge muscles tearing its thick skin apart, countless stitches to contain those muscles, or thick chains both inside and outside those wounds to control it in some way.

And an ordinary horse out in the plains did not whinny while shaking a body more than 20m tall.

This was the Deadman’s Fenrir.

It might look small when compared to the Schwarz Schütze or the Icicle Bullet, but there was something blatantly unnatural about an animal that had swollen too large to support itself.

Miyabi felt a chill that shook the very core of his body, maybe because this one was based on an animal.

Or was this his disgust at a corpse that was not even living anymore?

This was closer to being a Wicked God, but it was undoubtedly not one.

In a way, the changes caused by the Deadman’s Fenrir were even greater than the bomber or the pirate ship. Just think how many parasites had pursued them through the Bio Rainforest. The swarm of hundreds of thousands of parasites was not even an attack; it was a form of resupplying and maintenance.

Number 8 had said it summoned the parasites.

Miyabi grimaced at a faint scent hanging in the air. It was not an unpleasant odor. The wounds gave off an oddly sweet scent reminiscent of rotting bananas.

“You are insane,” said Eliza.

During the riots in her own kingdom, she had attempted to act as her king’s shield without insulting anyone else’s feelings. That knight had tried to never give up on anyone, but now her eyes grew wide and she trembled in fear.

She was staring at the horn.

The Wicked God horn.

The sharp and twisted horn glowed softly at the center of the colossal horse’s forehead.

Oh, come to think of it, thought Miyabi in belated realization.

Something wasn’t right.

He had fought several Godhorn Techs now. He had destroyed the Schwartz Schütze’s sealed container and broken open the King Knot’s hull to expose its horn, but this was his first time seeing a horn that was always exposed to the air with nothing to protect it.

“You leave the horn exposed instead of using a sealed container? How can you possibly control something like that? Aren’t you afraid of if it obliterating everything in the vicinity, yourself included!?”

That alone was enough of a taboo, but there was more.

Death plus death would never lead to even a flicker of life.

Miyabi had assumed the horn had been forcibly reattached, but that was not an accurate description.

Another horn had been attached atop the broken horn, almost like grafting a plant.

The dead Wicked God’s body had been hijacked by another horn.

And that horn would be a portion of a different corpse.

Everything about it came from necromancy.

A faint glow came from the chains moving from rotting wound to rotting wound, and even to the tip of the horn. The unnatural number of eyes convulsed and glared at Miyabi’s party, but it was unclear if this was a conscious act or not.

That was enough to push Miyabi past his boiling point.

“Necromancer!!”

“What has you so worked up? You use a Godhorn Tech too, don’t you?” With sticky control whip in hand, the decadently woman opened a giant magic circle at her feet and whispered in an exasperated way. “You build a dead component into your weapon, draw out its power, and use it to your ends. All Godhorn Techs are a product of necromancy, so don’t get mad at me just because I don’t bother hiding that fact.”

Miyabi had known from the beginning that this was never going to end without a battle.

He stood a step up from the filthy water, on the plaza in front of the massive stone temple.

He faced a powerful foe there. This woman was the one Moebius Entrance had been pursuing. She had used the sorcery bombs herself and tricked or forced Number 8 and Onelife Shiftup to distribute them.

She was the 11th.

She was the source of it all.

A roar exploded from the Deadman’s Fenrir.

The great black horse neighing toward the heavens sent a physical shockwave radiating out from it. The invisible compressed wall tore the stone plaza from the ground, smashed it in midair, and used the scattershot debris to create a wall of destruction.

Miyabi did not bother holding back.

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

He used the stone plaza itself to build a thick wall. He could not dodge the blast sweeping in horizontally, but he could avoid a fatal blow by sacrificing the wall.

He heard a bubbling sound as the smashed and scattered stone rapidly dissolved. This had not just been an explosion or shockwave. Some unseen factor had been spread with it.

“I thought it was only superstition.”

Crouched for safety, Alicia sounded dazed.

This was not her first time fighting against a Godhorn Tech, but Miyabi had never seen the elf so overwhelmed.

“They say any nonhuman that crawls back out of the miasma-spewing cracks in the world becomes a Wicked God. They say that potential is what makes us Beast Novae. I always thought they had made it up to justify their discrimination of nonhumans. And yet…”

Something like a black mist was flowing from the colossal horse’s mouth.

“Mi…asma?” muttered Miyabi, but it still didn’t feel real. He did not know much about magic, so he only thought of it like the secret to immortality spoken of in picture books. “Has she…has that freak been experimenting with that too!?”

“FYI.” The Necromancer smiled with her tongue whip in hand. But this was not a daring grin. She looked delighted that she had this chance to finally show off the result of her research. “That really is no more than superstition. External exposure to miasma has such a miniscule effect on the cellular level that any tissue would rot away long before any major changes had manifested. Conversely, injection or inhalation has too great an effect, so the tissue refuses to remain stable, resulting in something more like collapse than transformation. Thus, kicking a monster down into those cracks won’t create a Wicked God. That is the only logical conclusion.”

“…”

“Heh heh. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Humans do not run on petroleum. So if you want them to, you need to replace all of their blood vessels and internal organs before attempting the transfusion.”

So she had done so.

Most likely, none of this work had been absolutely necessary for the creation of a necromancy-based Godhorn Tech. None of it sounded so key and critical.

It was more like she had discovered an unusual metal and wanted to run every test she could on it.

This was just one of a battery of tests.

Finding that the superstition was indeed a superstition was a satisfactory result for her. She had violated the corpse’s dignity by ripping out its organs, reinforcing its network of blood vessels, and injecting it with untouchable miasma for nothing more than that.

“Can-” Helen shouted half in a panic while palely gripping her thick knife, that’s paralysis and poison magic were feeling awfully unlikely to accomplish much of anything at the moment. “C-c-can we contact Candy? She’s a Godhorn Tech designer, isn’t she!?”

“She claimed to be, anyway. And I doubt she would know anything about a flesh and blood one like this. This is like nothing we’ve seen! It has to be highly irregular!!”

This was nothing like the taxidermy Miyabi had seen at his village. Taxidermy preserved a large animal in its most impressive state so it could be shown off as a hunting trophy. The hunters were not cutting open the animal to alter it, harm it, or make it suffer. But the Necromancer enjoyed this. She had given up a comfortable life in a city and accepted life in this dark forest for it. And she had spread pollution for it.

“The corpse is only a corpse.” Young Kananka held a boomerang about as tall as he was. “The dead may not feel pain, but there is a downside. For example, it can’t heal even the smallest of wounds!!”

“Hm, I see. So we just have to attack and attack until it falls apart. In that sense, you are more of a weapon than a creature, Deadman’s Fenrir!!”

Celina readied her bayonet-equipped rifle.

The enemy was a 20m colossus, but the real fear was the miasma spewing from its mouth and the pollutants like the filthy water and the purple film spreading out around the plaza. They could not get close or stray too far, so keeping the right distance and continuing to attack with projectiles would be the best fighting style.

“Now.” The Necromancer smiled a little without even cracking her whip to send an additional command. “Is that really true?”

The stone boomerang glittering with magical jewels was large enough that Miyabi had mistaken it for an axe, so it was more brutal than a guillotine blade. Celina’s rifle fired alchemy-enhanced bullets, so it could attack with fire, ice, or any other type of damage.

But more than that…

“Watch out!!”

With the sound of scraping stone, sparks tore a line in the ground. This was an attack style no ordinary horse could pull off. It lowered its head and charged while scraping its horn along the ground. If Miyabi had not pushed Celina out of the way, the sharp horn would have hit her torso when the horse swung up its head. That deadly attack was meant for a confrontation with another Godhorn Tech, so it may have torn her to pieces more than skewer her.

The close shave left Celina staring wide-eyed, forgetting to even reload her gun.

“What!? It charged right into our attacks!?”

This was not a simple case of thick skin.

In fact, its muscles had swollen so far its skin had been split from within. The skin had to be as fragile as a rotting fruit’s.

Yet it had pushed through.

There was a simple reason.

“The wounds are closing?” Kananka could not believe his eyes as he skillfully caught his returning boomerang. “Can this corpse heal itself!?”

There was magic that transformed defeated birds and beasts into meat on the bone, but it was unlikely to work here. Target Cooker could apparently one-shot undead enemies because they counted as lifeless meat, but it would probably only take out a small portion of this massive corpse. And it could heal that damage soon enough.

Normal weapons were not going to cut it here.

Miyabi was the only one who could use a Godhorn Tech, but causing an explosion at this close range would splash them with the filthy water, the purple film, and any carnivorous fish that had failed to flee in time.

Miyabi immediately stabbed his control sword down at his feet.

“Please, Lucifer Horn! Combine your abilities!!”

First, a giant bomb dropped from the bomber.

Then a thick beam pierced it like a sharp kick from behind.

All sound vanished.

But the bomb did not detonate in midair. Instead, it was given a “push”, accelerating it down at unthinkable speed until it embedded itself in the colossal rotting horse’s back.

“That’d be classified as a photon rocket,” shouted the radio. “That’s better than a bunker buster! We’re talking future tech here!!”

The bomb exploded while fully buried in Deadman’s Fenrir’s rotting bones and muscles. The idea was for the blast to push out at and squash the internal organs, without any of the destructive power escaping.

But…

“What?” groaned Miyabi.

He heard a straining sound.

The massive weapon should have been buried inside that rotting body, but the jagged remains of its covering were pushed back out and rejected by the rotting muscles. Blood the muddy color of oxidized wine spilled out as the object restricting its movements was extracted. It was like a snake spitting back out the shell after swallowing an egg whole. It even tore open its own wounds further.

The remains clattered to the ground.

Stabbing a bomb inside it was not enough. This was not a living creature. It was a Godhorn Tech – a massive sorcery weapon – created from one.

“Sewing it up by hand was never going to be enough, so I added a self-healing function,” explained the Necromancer.

The colossal black horse extended its chameleon-like tongue and groped at its own body with it. Both the dark surface and the inside of the grossly-split wounds.

“It is a perpetual soul devouring device.”

“Kh.”

Miyabi had heard that ominous term before.

How had Number 8 described it?

“By devouring the parasites hoping to gorge on its rotting flesh, the Deadman’s Fenrir obtains the ticket needed to make use of their dead souls. Each one might be small, but that can be overcome with sufficient quantities.” Then the Necromancer pointed in a seemingly unrelated direction. “And this rotting forest provides as large a supply as you could ever want.”

The entire scenery seemed to strain.

Miyabi’s body and mind were not working in harmony. Just like when a bug fell from overhead and your hand reached out on reflex even though touching it was the last thing you wanted to do. He knew that was happening here as he stood on the stone plaza with control sword in hand, but his head still slowly turned.

And he saw it.

“They’re coming…”

He could only give the answer in a daze.

“The parasites are coming!! It’s that white wave again!!”

Hundreds of thousands of carnivorous parasites thicker than his arm were approaching. He could never survive if the wave swallowed him up. The enemy Godhorn Tech was right in front of him, but he had to redirect the Lucifer Horn’s focus elsewhere.

He stabbed the blade into the seamless stone ground and roared at the top of his lungs.

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

A corner of the rotten forest was sliced through by a beam of light and a massive explosion erupted a moment later. That had to be more than just the Lucifer Horn’s bombing. The gases emitted by rotting meat may have gathered in the forest.

“Do not fear, Miyabi. I can detect the state of the air using the path my boomerang takes. That explosion will not affect us!!”

But it did burn away the wave of parasites just before it hit them.

In addition to direct damage, they could obstruct the Deadman’s Fenrir’s recovery by cutting off its supplies. The damage was working, so they could force a win as long as they prevented it from continually recovering.

“By the way.” With a snap of the Necromancer’s wrist, her tongue whip swished through the air like a ribbon. She had it draw an arch over her head while still loose and relaxed. “Those parasites you so loathe are in their adult form. They are not larvae waiting to become pupae.”

“…?”

This was strange. And confusing.

What had the Necromancer just knocked from the air?

“'Which means the eggs and babies are much smaller.”

“This is bad, boy! Build a roof immed-!!”

Alicia tried to shout a warning after realizing something, but it was too late.

Something much more unpleasant than the blood-warm rain dropped on Miyabi’s right eyelid.

And it was not alone.

Something like the rice used for pilafs and paella dropped toward them like the stories of frogs and fish falling from the sky.

Except this “rice” was all squirming and wriggling.

Miyabi’s bombing and the flammable gas explosion had launched the parasite larvae high into the sky.

Hadn’t Onelife’s crew been infested by the parasites without noticing? That could not be explained with the ones thicker than an arm. The infection must have come from the eggs or larvae.

The realization caused Miyabi’s mind to explode.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

“Deadman’s Fenrir is packed full of convenient features, both inside and out, but the biggest problem is how I have to work so hard to ensure I am not infected myself.”

The Necromancer sounded like she was complaining how high veggie prices were recently. It was unclear if she was even speaking to Miyabi’s party.

Miyabi started to reach for his eye in a panic, but Alicia grabbed his wrist to stop him.

“Don’t rub your eye!! These parasites have been swimming through all that murky water. Maybe they were all in the especially dangerous purple film. I will get it out, so don’t move. Crush it with your finger and you’ll absorb all of the toxins right then and there!!”

“Eek!!” screamed Helen from elsewhere. She was throwing away her disinfectant and bandages. “This too!? Oh, and this!! It’s all soaked with parasites and filthy water!! Ugh, we can’t use any of it anymore!!” Convenient recovery magic did not exist in this world.

Magically healing wounds and disease required the creation of physical healing items known as White Sorcery Items, but a hand wound would require a different type than a leg wound.

Helen had said before that Compress Cargo was convenient but was poorly suited for combat since there was a 2 second lag before you could extract an item.

She must have kept her recovery White Sorcery Items in small pockets on her clothing instead of in her bag, but that had come back to bite her. Not that it mattered since the parasites and sticky water would have ruined them as soon as she removed them from Compress Cargo anyway.

In other words…

“Now, care to remind me who it was that can’t heal in this battle?”

“!!”

“The border between life and death is a fickle thing. But don’t worry. Humans do not cease moving just because they are dead. I will make very efficient use of you. I will turn you into something just as impressive as that Wicked God horn that continues to function in its broken state. Makes the difference between life and death seem downright trivial, don’t you think?”

“Damn you!!”

Was she saying it didn’t matter?

Alive or dead, humans were humans. And the dead ones were actually useful to her research. So did that mean she had no qualms about blowing away cities with sorcery bombs and creating piles of corpses?

Alchemist Alicia clicked her tongue, pulled out some test tubes, and tossed them all toward the water. Her physical boosting potions must have been ruined too.

They were growing disordered.

No, they had been disordered.

“Heh heh heh heh heh. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

The Necromancer roared with laughter.

That cruel researcher in the rawhide coat swung her tongue whip to knock away the small parasites raining down from overhead.

“Necromancy scares you? So it should be suppressed? There is obviously more to the world than meets the eye, but it’s taboo to even try to research ghosts? Not to mention that Godhorn Techs could be called necromancy since they use a Wicked God’s horn. And you thought I would fall short of the rest of the world in my own field? Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha hah hah ha ha ah ha ah ha ha!!”

“You’re the coolest, boss!!”

“Don’t just irresponsibly flatter her, you fool!!”

The radio shouted in protest, but things were heating up in a very bad way.

And.

Miyabi Blackgarden made a terrible mistake.

His enemy was the Necromancer and the greatest threat was the Deadman’s Fenrir.

The parasites and toxins were only distractions.

“Ah.”

He heard something scraping at stone, but it was still only dumb luck that he managed to push Alicia out of the way in time.

Finally and far too late, he turned to face the crux of the issue. He could see orange sparks charging toward him. They grew until they filled his vision. There was no dodging them now. He had seen this attack before.

The 20m or more horse was charging in at its top speed.

The Wicked God horn rushed in from below, thrusting up toward his gut.

It was like an upside-down lightning strike.

It seemed to gouge into space itself and Miyabi’s jacket tore.

Red blood flew and he felt his body twisting.

Yes.

He had escaped a direct hit.

The Lucifer Horn had flown by overhead, dangling a long, long wire that caught at the enemy horn and yanked it to the right.

That had forced the Deadman’s Fenrir off course, but the Lucifer Horn did not escape unscathed. The wire had been forcibly snapped and the intense force pulling back at it actually threw the bomber off balance.

It had been hit in the battle against the Divine Doll and it was possible it would eventually hit its limit if he forced it to do things like this much longer.

And…

“Gahhhhhhhh!?”

Some terrifying cracking and popping sounds came from within his body, but he did not have time to focus on that. Even if the attack had only torn his clothing, it had still exposed him to a great force and sent him into a rapid spin. He felt like a rag being wrung out. He could not even tell which way was up, much less brace for impact with the ground. He failed to do much of anything before his back slammed down against the stone plaza.

Now he could not even breathe.

It felt like his vision had shattered into a million pieces.

He could only scream unintelligibly.

“Music to my ears.”

He could not respond to the Necromancer as she approached him.

The decadent woman crawled on top of him and whispered.

“Good boy. You are now a step closer to death. So allow me to take a step closer to you. Remember when I said to become a ghost if you wished to speak with me? I like boys who know how to do what they’re told. So keep it up. Just stop your heart, cease your breathing, and die. Then I will love you. The pain and suffering are unbearable, aren’t they? If you want a peaceful and loving embrace from me, your best bet is to die.”

“Damn, sounding pretty sexy, boss!”

“Yes, shut your eyes. This may be too much for a child. But if you want, you can take a peek.”

“!!”

But he noticed the instant her attention was diverted away.

He clenched his teeth and swung his right hand from the ground.

His control sword had originally been a machete, but it was not small enough to aim for the head of someone on all fours over him. He failed to gain much speed, so she easily grabbed his wrist, sat down on him, and swung her head back.

She winked.

Then she slammed her forehead against his. Hard.

“One.”

She restrained his other hand before he could even think of using it.

And she did it again.

“Two.”

The blow rattled his brain like taking a hammer to the head, so he could no longer see her even though she had to be right there in front of him. Perhaps he had lost the ability to recognize the thing in front of him as a face. He shook his woozy head and she released his hands to grip her tongue whip with both her hands.

But not to whip her poor living sacrifice.

A wet sensation assaulted his throat. She had wrapped the whip fully around his neck.

“The closer you approach death, the closer I will approach you. So why not just die here? When you foam at the mouth, I will lick your lips clean. When the blood drains from your face, I will taste that delicious pallor. So there is nothing to worry about. You fear death because you know it to be painful and miserable, right? But that is a silly misconception. There is no pain or fear in true death. I am an expert on the subject, so you can trust me.”

“Gah…”

It was hopeless.

There was nothing he could do.

By now, he had noticed something was amiss. The Necromancer intended to strangle him to death, but why wasn’t anyone attacking her defenselessly exposed back? The answer was simple: they couldn’t.

Deadman’s Fenrir spewed miasma from its mouth, called in countless parasites with its sweet rotting flesh, and kicked the filthy water and purple film into the air with its hind legs.

That corpse was an incarnation of death and pollution.

And it was a Godhorn Tech.

With Lucifer Horn and Deadman’s Fenrir, it was a clash of the strongests. But what if one side was lost? No matter how powerful his party members were and even if they had once wielded one of the 10 Godhorn Techs, they could not hope to win with only ordinary weapons or control devices.

A tremor of the ground assaulted Miyabi’s back.

Helen had lamented that she could no longer heal them.

Had some of them been hit by Deadman’s Fenrir and taken out of the fight? If he did not get them out of this forest and to safety as soon as possible, they could reach a point of no return.

If Miyabi died, it was all over.

So much that he cared for would be crushed below that Godhorn Tech’s rotting feet and then the smashed bones and organs would be made into this woman’s playthings. And it was the same for everyone on the continent. With each city or castle blown away by the sorcery bombs, she gained more corpses and dead spirits.

He could not lose.

He could not afford to lose.

Yet…he could not think of anything to do.

“Accept the natural phenomenon of death.”

The tongue whip constricted so tightly around his neck he felt like his head was swelling.

“You’ve lost all your baby teeth at your age, haven’t you? As a boy, your voice has changed too. Are you starting to grow a beard? Were you surprised when you first saw the hair down there? This is no different. The ordinary changes can seem scary at first, but after the fact, you realize they were nothing to fear. So experience death and overcome it. This is the final rite of passage we all must complete.”

More than the breath, it was the lack of blood to his head that caused his thoughts to scatter.

Even the concept of “resistance” faded away.

“Kah…ah?”

“The one advantage of the living is how each and every one of them can be made into a corpse if you kill them. I shall make an adult out of you.”

So when it first happened, he had no idea if he was imagining it or not.

Either way, he saw a sword slash drop from heaven like a bolt of lightning.

He had no idea what had happened. In fact, was this even possible?

Deadman’s Fenrir was instantly split in two and its two halves stickily collapsed into the dark water. From the horn on the forehead, down the thick neck, and all the way across its large back, the beast was sliced into two perfectly symmetrical pieces.

Someone stood there.

Someone with such an overwhelming presence that the Necromancer, who had twisted the very environment, was overshadowed.

“Eh? Huh?”

“A-a one shot!?”

The decadent woman and her inhuman hat were both taken aback. Still straddling him, her hands loosened on the tongue whip strangling him.

Miyabi could not get up, but he could get his voice out now.

“Cough, cough, cough!! W-who are you!?”

No response.

He looked like an old man.

But he could not guess at an accurate age because the man wore a smooth mask that fully hid his face. He wore a loose outfit that looked like some kind of foreign attire and he held…a sword?

Had he really slain Deadman’s Fenrir with no more than that?

Again, was that even possible? That thing was a colossal rotting horse swollen to 20 meters with a Wicked God horn attached. How had he done it!? A human-sized sword should have been like a toothpick to it!!

Light flashed a moment later.

It came from the side and targeted the Necromancer.

“Gah…ah!?”

There was nothing she could do.

The horizontal line of red appeared below her chest but above her navel.

She had been attacked with a blade capable of slaying a Godhorn Tech in a single strike. No defensive stance or evasive maneuver could have avoided this. The critical mask made by the researcher of death was freezing up after witnessing something truly unexpected. With her legs spread to straddle the boy, evasion had not been an option.

Red sprayed out.

The color splattered across Miyabi below her.

She collapsed forward with a look of disbelief, so he caught her in his arms. Even she still had the warmth of life in her.

Only then did the world return to normal.

He was no longer viewing the world through the oddly detached viewpoint of someone approaching death. He felt the air on his skin like normal and his tunnel vision had faded away.

He held the injured Necromancer and scooted backwards. He wanted to get as far away from that masked old man as possible.

Then he heard his party members’ voices from quite nearby.

They were so distinct he was amazed he had not heard them until now.

“Gh, what is with that sword? Its presence is just as powerful as Scwharz Schütze. Wait, could that sword – that katana – be a Godhorn Tech!?” shouted Celina, wiping the filth from her head with a handkerchief. Miyabi could not say if she had been knocked to the ground during the battle or if the eruption of gore from that bisection had hit her.

Some others agreed with Celina’s instincts that something was wrong here: Number 8 and Kananka Fulpen.

“What is this pressure? It is interfering with my internal components.”

“That man himself isn’t normal. This abnormal pressure is even greater than that monstrous corpse!!”

The massive magical empire and the remote island kingdom had both developed their own theories about unseen powers in order to harness them. They were speaking from that expertise here.

That old man himself was out of the ordinary.

He said nothing.

Miyabi could feel the Necromancer’s warmth in his arms.

He could sense her pulse and breathing gradually weakening. Worse, it felt like the deep sword wound was pulsing separately from her heart.

His tunnel vision was gone.

That meant he could focus on something other than his own death.

That allowed him to identify the most pressing problem.

“This is…agh…bad. If the Necromancer dies, what happens to the pirates’ parasites!? How do we get them an antidote or vaccine or whatever!?”

“!?”

Onelife grimaced.

The masked old man did not seem to care.

“The horn.”

He spoke in a way that said he could not see anything else in this wide world.

His voice was unusually dry and scratchy even for an old man. After hearing that, Miyabi would not have been surprised to find there was nothing but a gaping hole behind the mask. In fact, finding an ordinary human face would have felt wrong.

“You too possess a Godhorn Tech.”

The tip of his sword was directed at Miyabi Blackgarden.

He was only interested in the boy out of all the people here.

This was not over yet.

Whoever he was, he was not here to rescue Miyabi.

“Hey, we should get the hell out of here.” The radio sounded dazed. “This is what I’d call an unwinnable fight. Trying to fight a master swordsman is better known as suicide!!”

“Kh…”

Miyabi was only holding the Necromancer in his arms because she had fallen toward him, but she felt like an entirely different person from the one who had intentionally straddled him. No matter how light you might call them, a human was still a heavy burden to carry. This opponent had bisected a Godhorn Tech from beyond his sword’s length. There was no escaping him while carrying something heavier than a sack of flour.

But she was the key to everything.

Even if she was an undisputable monster who had desecrated life, distributed sorcery bombs, and done so much harm to the natural environment here.

There was no saving Onelife’s pirates from the parasites without getting her to say how to heal them. Miyabi had promised that man he would solve that problem.

Just then, Miyabi heard something like an approaching wave.

A swarm of parasites had crashed into the masked old man from the side. Only one being in the world could do that: Deadman’s Fenrir.

“That undead freak survived such a clean bisection!?” shouted the radio. “Is everyone in this crazy jungle a monster!?”

Miyabi did not answer. Instead, he clenched his teeth and adjusted his grip on the Necromancer’s limp form. Then he turned his back on the sword-wielding assailant.

The parasites rushed in. The panicked Beast Novae must have been pushed to action as well. The Godhorn Tech had forcibly reunited its two halves using its many tentacles and it snapped through the rotting trees as it kicked off the ground and charged in for a do-or-die attack.

However.

There was no ground-quaking roar or shockwave.

The sound of the sharp blade slicing through the air was far too light.

It was enough to make you want to cry.

That was all it took for one side to be defeated, so the sense of danger racing up Miyabi’s spine remained unchanged. He could not bear to look at it. Now was not the time to stand and gawk. The Deadman’s Fenrir could not have thought its attack would result in something different from before. It would be bisected again, but it made that final attack regardless.

It had lost, but it still forced the masked old man to focus on it. It could take some of his time, no matter how small. And it had decided that was good enough.

As long as it created enough of an opening for the Necromancer to escape!!

“I get it.”

Miyabi looked away.

Like he was shaking free.

He considered how many sacrifices had been made to give him this 1-second opportunity. He reflected on the nobility of making such a choice without hesitation.

So he carried the injured villain away while shouting back at their savior.

“I have her, so don’t you worry, Deadman’s Fenrir!!!!!!”

The fear of that masked man’s gaze pierced Miyabi’s back, but he brushed it off.

At any other moment, he might have frozen on the spot, but no paralysis could stop him now.

He had to do this.

Of course, his efforts would be little obstacle for that old man wielding a special sword known as a katana. His most desperate efforts would be casually sidestepped.

But he had a moment to work with.

To use this hard-won opening to its fullest, he and his party ran as fast as their feet would take them.

They had just one goal: leave the deadly necromancy forest with their lives.

“Hey, I thought that was just a corpse with another Wicked God’s horn attached, so something like moving a dead frog’s legs! Why did it protect the Necromancer without being told to!?”

Helen kept trying to look back as she ran, but Eliza stopped her.

The chivalrous knight may have had her thoughts on the matter.

“Stop, it would be crass to search for an answer there. We know it wielded its great power to save someone. What else do we need to know!?”

But all of this would be for naught if the mysterious intruder caught up to them.

The Necromancer was a villain.

She was a hopelessly bad person.

But her life had been entrusted with them. She had desecrated death, toyed with people’s bodies, and become the center of the forest’s pollution, but that Godhorn Tech had still served its lonely master.

Perhaps it had wanted to guide her away from necromancy and in a healthier direction. Perhaps it had failed to do that and decided to at least keep her company.

There was nothing to suggest that.

It was probably just a figment of Miyabi’s imagination.

But even if the Deadman’s Fenrir was nothing more than a pile of flesh, its final act had shined with the light of a soul. There was something noble within it. It had style and grace. It carried some unseen factor that a simple village boy like Miyabi Blackgarden could respect.

Which was why it had refused to die even as it rotted away.

The woman was a hopeless villain, but Miyabi would never forget how that creature had fought to the very end to protect her!!

“Kh!!”

However, the reality they faced was cruel. He had decided not to abandon the Necromancer, but he could barely carry her. Plus this kept him from using his hands.

And the Lucifer Horn was near its limit.

He would be lucky to get in a single surprise attack. It would likely be cut down in an actual battle.

“I don’t think we can use our weapons or Godhorn Tech. We need to focus on escaping!” he shouted.

He did not even have time to use the power of creation to move the Palette Dice and create Bypass Bridges or Layer Stairs. Onelife tore a branch from a rotting tree and Alicia and Helen grabbed long sticks to poke at the filthy water ahead of them and search out paths they could use.

“Something doesn’t add up,” said Miyabi while carrying the Necromancer’s limp form. “He sliced the 20m Deadman’s Fenrir in two with a single strike.”

“Yes, and!?” asked Alicia.

“But that didn’t happen when he attacked the Necromancer. Look, she’s badly injured but intact. Why? There shouldn’t have been much left of her.”

Alicia gasped and Miyabi continued.

“You were saying that weird sword – was it called a katana? – might be a Godhorn Tech, right? Is there some secret there?”

“It is likely a Wicked God horn,” answered butler-uniformed Number 8, made from the best technology available to the Empire who had once operated the most Godhorn Techs on the continent. “When the Deadman’s Fenrir was defeated, I sensed two invisible pressures. The second sent a massive amount of energy into the wound and shredded the target Godhorn Tech from within. He intentionally let the powers of his own horn and the target’s horn reflect off of the inside of the Godhorn Tech’s skin to tear the initial wound further open. But a human’s body does not deflect that kind of energy, so it would simply leave your body. Just like how a window does not shatter when shot by a sniper rifle.”

“So that thing was developed as a…pure Godhorn Tech slayer?”

Celina gulped with a look that said she had never even considered the possibility before.

But the magical automaton expressionlessly shook his head.

“I am not so sure. It may be that he found a different use for a weapon that already existed. Since he was planning to fight Miyabi’s Lucifer Horn, he may have simply forgotten to switch it to anti-personnel mode.”

This opponent used a sword, so they were safe as long as they did not let him approach or see them.

Or so Miyabi thought.

“Get down, Miyabi!!”

“!?”

Kananka sensed something and shouted a warning. The instant Miyabi lowered his head, everything was sliced through at the same height. It was a horizontal sword slash. Even the blood-warm raindrops were sliced through, all the rotting mangrove trees slid to the side partway up, and they collapsed toward Miyabi’s fleeing party.

Of course…

“Gahhhh!?”

This was not a case of missing due to poor aim. When the trees fell, they splashed up the dark water onto Miyabi’s party. None of the extra-concentrated purple film was in it, but the water could still be fatal to the Necromancer with her open wound.

“What, is this the horn’s power too!?” asked Miyabi.

“You can’t use them so directly,” explained Eliza. “Why do you think they’re kept inside a sealed container? Release their power as-is and an explosive blast will spread in every direction, transforming the entire rotten forest into a massive crater!”

Eliza had answered on reflex, but she may have accepted for herself that the she was seeing something that violated the rules as she understood them.

“The rain is trembling…but not because it laments the pollution it will find once it falls. Does it fear that blade?” muttered young Kananka. His phrasing was based on his culture, which made it hard to understand. “I can’t believe that man. I bet he swung his sword to slice through a falling raindrop with enough force to rapidly vaporize it. Then he used that water vapor to ‘push’ at things. That is how he sliced through the trees.”

“You mean a single raindrop was superheated and instantaneously stretched out impossibly thin and wide? Th-that’s absurd!” shouted the radio. “That’s beyond what brute force can accomplish!! This goes beyond modern science. Can you really adlib your way to nonsense like that!?”

Then Alicia came to a stop and cursed.

“Damn!! That must have stirred things up in the water. Hurry back the way we came!!”

“Back!? But the masked old man is after us!”

“Do you want that purple goop to dissolve your legs!?”

The sight of Alicia’s stick dissolving into chemical smoke was enough to silence Celina’s objections.

But the Bio Rainforest was vast and labyrinthine. If the direct route was cut off, they would have to take a lengthy detour. Kananka was exhausted and veered off course, so the pirate had to grab him.

If they lost their bearings, they could end up wandering in circles.

“Look to the sun,” said Eliza, mostly for her own benefit. “Use it to keep your bearings.”

The rotting forest’s fauna included everything from the white parasites to mutated monsters that did not even qualify as ordinary Beast Novae anymore, yet none of it was in evidence. While the Deadman’s Fenrir had skillfully made use of the parasites, this swordsman pushed everything away.

He could do all this even from a distance.

They could not give up just because they had been stopped and forced to take a detour. If he got close, they had no chance of winning. They had all learned that lesson today.

“Pant, gasp!!”

Alicia clicked her tongue when she saw Miyabi trying to catch his breath.

“Tch. Carrying that injured woman is slowing us down!”

“Boss…”

“God, she is nothing but trouble.” The radio was not happy. “If not for the parasites, we could just dump that villain out here!”

“No!” shouted back the hat. Even after everything, it could not abandon this emotional bond. “Don’t leave her behind!! I’ll do anything, so please!!”

“…”

“Please!! Save the boss! Wahhhhh!!”

Miyabi knew it was not worth it, but when he heard that, he clenched his teeth and once more gathered strength in the hands holding the unconscious woman. Deadman’s Fenrir and the mystery hat were a disturbing pair, but the Necromancer had not been alone. They had tried to protect her from isolation and they had left her fate in Miyabi’s hands. Even though they cared about her life more than anything.

She was a villain, so she could never be forgiven.

Once they had a way of rescuing Onelife’s crew from the parasites, they could leave her to die.

But was that really true?

The Necromancer was undeniably a bad person, but it was up to Miyabi to decide if she lived or died. If he dropped her in the purple film floating on the water, the toxins entering through her wound would rapidly destroy her organs and blood.

In fact…

Would it even matter if he saved her? She had promised to save Onelife’s crew, but she was a known liar. There might not even be an antidote or vaccine for the parasites.

The part of him arguing to give up on her was a weakness he had to fight.

“Ghhh!!”

He pushed the weariness from his arms to fill them with further strength. He could not drop this wounded woman.

He kept running.

He ran without looking back.

He didn’t even want to know how close the deadly assassin had come. It was a miracle he had not been cut down from behind already.

The enemy had only a sword, yet his actions were entirely unpredictable.

That was a sword-sized Godhorn Tech, but it was not just a source of raw power. There was clear skill behind its usage, both in the Godhorn Tech slayer move that one-shotted Deadman’s Fenrir and the long-distance slash using vaporization. Miyabi would never be able to use it in the same way.

The Necromancer slowly opened her eyes in Miyabi’s arms.

“Ugh…you? Why?”

“I honestly don’t know. Part of me is still telling me to dump you here!” desperately shouted Miyabi. “But we can’t remove the pirates’ parasites without you. And more than that, those two were struggling to save you despite being powerless! That Wicked God worked to save a rotten villain like you even though it meant bisection and this other guy kept begging us to save his ‘boss’!!”

“Uhh…”

The decadent woman grabbed the brim of her hat with trembling fingers.

Then she looked up at Miyabi.

“You…”

“You made this mess, so you’re gonna clean it up! You were behind the pirates’ parasites and the sorcery bombs, so this should’ve been the end of it! So what’s the deal with that masked old man!?”

He shouted and ran until the Bio Rainforest’s exit came into view.

Eliza’s weary face lit up.

“Pant, pant. Almost there. We’re almost at the exit!!”

The escape had been tougher on her with her large lance and armor weighing her down, so she had obvious relief and hope in her voice as she made sure her feet did not get caught in the dark liquid.

But…

“Ugh!?”

He stood there.

Right in the way.

The white masked old man held his fearsome blade casually in one hand after reaching the exit ahead of them.

Miyabi bristled and shouted.

This one old man scared him more than all the monsters and parasites filling the forest.

“Goddammit!! We just can’t lose him!!”

Time ground to a halt.

He could not ask the Lucifer Horn to fight anymore.

No, he probably wouldn’t even have the time to stab his control sword into the ground and activate the magic circle.

The man took a sharp step forward.

He faced them with his eyeless and mouthless mask.

Miyabi could only watch helplessly as the sharp sword swung upwards to aim toward his neck.

And then…

“Koo!!”

A small cry and figure intervened.

That was enough for the old man’s sword to hop up and away from the party. Almost like he wanted to avoid taking that small, defenseless life more than anything.

“!?”

The old man froze in place and appeared to be analyzing his own action.

And then he came to a realization.

“Oh, ohhh…”

“Wh-what is this?” asked Alicia. “What did Alma do?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

He screamed like he was trying to tear apart his throat and chest.

Miyabi gave a start, but the masked old man had already vanished. Miyabi had not even seen him jump in any direction.

None of them could move for a bit.

“A-are we safe now?” Miyabi asked in a daze.

“Koo?”

Horn Fortress was found somewhere out on the ocean.

That secret base had started out as a desert island and Moebius Entrance now smiled thinly there in his wheelchair.

“If he’s causing trouble across the continent with such a large group in tow, he’ll probably run across him before long.”

He sounded both sad and irritated.

Even if he had a smile on the surface.

“History’s very first Godhorn Tech user – the Lord of Ruin.”

Meanwhile at Horn Fortress 5

Development is coming along nicely, concluded dwarf craftsman Garett Goldcave, looking up at a giant structure.

Before, he had only built some small stone or brick buildings here and there on the island, but he had added on enough extensions that they were now complexly intertwined and stacked on top of each other, creating a bizarre sort of castle. He had not planned this out, so the interior had an inefficient and labyrinthine layout, but it was accomplishment enough that the unplanned structure did not collapse under its own weight.

He was finally at the point where the materials abandoned around the island would be useful.

He and the others could do most anything with the facilities they had created. Whether they wanted to cook or manufacture, they just had to draw out an accurate plan of the fuzzy idea in their head, process the materials, and assemble them.

For example, they could create bombs for the Lucifer Horn and help it resupply.

He had of course received help from the others in this.

The dwarf craftsman was joined by many other technicians. The gasmask girl named Marietta Diggrave had gathered imperial documents without realizing their value. The maid named Angela Custardmare had frequented enough mansions and castles to know a lot about their structure. The bunny girl named Eluné Jackpot and the gang daughter named Phobia Neverjudge were familiar enough with crime to know how to construct secret tunnels and doors. The former Godhorn Tech designer Candy Lunaticover could bring everyone’s fragmentary ideas together into a final product. The nonhuman and non-dwarf knowledge of the elves like Cliff Blueforest and Lillian Greenforest had come in handy as well. All of their knowledge had fused together to develop the unorthodox techniques needed to keep such a bizarre castle standing.

(Still, I think I was right to create some gargoyles and golems as soon as I was set up for metalworking. We can all design things and come up with ideas, but I need more help on the actual construction side of things.)

“Yes, you’re all such good boys. It’s time for your daily winding.”

He had the look that a grumpy old man reserved for his grandchildren.

This here was one of the biggest facilities.

“Nhhh… It’s been so long since I was kicked out of my guest researcher position in the Arsenal Kingdom and forced to earn my research funding as a traveling dancer, but I finally have a clinic all my own!!”

Iris Tempinvy, the dancer with a long silver braid, lifted her arms and stretched her back. She primarily researched supposedly-impossible recovery magic, but she had apparently been working as a dancer to fund that research.

Garett gave a snort.

“Hmph. Clinics are best when they’re rarely used.”

“Unlikely to happen on an island crawling with venomous snakes, venomous spiders, bears, tigers, and even the undead. Of course, we have all of them to thank for the plentiful materials and food.”

That brought into question what exactly they ate on this island. Life on a desert island was not always pleasant.

“Shouldn’t we consider trying our hand at some fields or paddies?”

“I think none of us wants to accept that we’ll be stuck on this desert island long enough for crops to grow, but it is true we’ll run out of animals eventually if we keep relying on hunting alone.”

Garett and the others had walked all around the Horn Fortress island, making it into their own backyard, but they had not run a detailed ecological survey. They could be stuck fighting against starvation tomorrow if they ended up killing and eating the last of some birds or beasts that they mistakenly thought were plentiful.

“If we do plant some seeds or seedlings in a field, the animals might come along and try to eat them,” said Garett.

“Wouldn’t that just mean more delicious meat for us?” asked Iris.

“Sigh. If I want someone to till the dirt, maybe I should go to Marietta since she’s an expert at digging holes. But this will work differently from the previous construction. I hope I don’t let my guard down and injure myself.”

“Oh ho ho. I hope you bring me plenty of scrapes and scratches to work with.” Iris laughed in delight, slapped the center of her chest, and winked. “We have a clinic now. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for the excitement of a serious wound. Moebius is a fine guinea pig, but it gets boring with just the one.”

“…”

“I also want to experiment with some trickier magic! Anyway, I just need patients, so make sure you come to me with any injuries☆”

Profiles

Cate Tornadodancer

Age: 18

Sex: Female

Height: 160cm

A former queen of the battle arena. It was recommended that she retire because she won so reliably it hindered the gambling side of the arena’s business, so she now wanders the world using the money she had won. Her skill was developed in the show business of the battle arena, so it isn’t much use in real battles and she can’t let anyone know her journey’s true purpose is to retrain herself from the ground up. Her ultimate goal is to be strong enough to break off a Wicked God’s horn.

Candy Lunaticover

Age: 14

Sex: Female

Height: 155cm

A genius designer known as the youngest person to draw up the plans for Godhorn Techs. Since she has already conquered land, sea, air, and even the deep sea, she has set her sights on outer space as her final frontier. She is searching for a Wicked God horn in order to create an explosive multistage flying broom capable of breaking the bonds of gravity.

Godhorn Tech Corpse: Deadman’s Fenrir

Pilot: The Necromancer

Affiliation: None

Size: Shoulder Height – 18m, Head Alone – 6m, Shoulder to Rear – 24m

A real Wicked God corpse had its horn removed and another’s horn attached to forcibly restart it, making for the most unorthodox Godhorn Tech of them all. More like forcing a rotting corpse to continue moving than a simple organ transplant. It is overflowing with various parasites and its dead flesh calls in more parasites to be killed. The souls of those dead parasites are converted into necromancy power, making it something like a semi-perpetual motion machine.

The Necromancer

Age: 25

Sex: Female

Height: 167cm

A researcher who continues to run secret experiments using forbidden necromancy. Her top priority is giving form to her own experimental wishes, so she does not even consider the harm or influence those experiments will have on her surroundings. Her research includes Wicked Gods where she has created the Deadman’s Fenrir by controlling a Wicked God corpse with another one’s horn. She has pride in her use of death as a researcher, so she is infuriated by the perverted nobles and anyone else who call themselves necromancers to justify their own interests.

Lord of Ruin

Apparent Age: 70 (actual age unknown)

Sex: Male

Height: 178cm

A mysterious person wearing a smooth mask who is likely an old man. Wields an unidentified sword that can bisect a Godhorn Tech in a single strike. He appears to possess great skill instead of just raw power. For example, he can launch long-range slashes using rapidly vaporized water. The only partial comfort is that he only seems interested in Godhorn Tech owners.

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