Chapter 3: Moving Ambitions
“It’s not impossible, I suppose,” Doc Babylon said as she smoked a new aroma pipe in Babylon’s laboratory. “Taking one’s personality and inserting it into a Gollem’s Q-Crystal isn’t hard in and of itself. The problem is whether or not you can handle it mentally.”
“Your original body is dead, and you now have to live in a mechanical construct. It’s a question of if you could retain your identity with that knowledge,” the Professor added.
“You end up living life as a fake. I think it would be much tougher if you were aware of that fact. The normal outcome would be that you would simply break, personally,” Doctor Elluka also chimed in.
Transferring your memories to a Gollem meant that you yourself still had those memories of that process, so you’d know exactly why you existed, but I wasn’t sure if it was something you could so easily separate in your mind. No matter how much you tried to argue against it, a fake was a fake. You were now an artificial existence, a puppet with copied memories implanted inside of you. Was that something a regular person could withstand?
“However, according to Albus, the original Chrom Ranchesse gradually lost his memories due to the price paid for the activation of the white crown’s crown skill, correct? In which case, being the only owner of his complete memories,
Gould would be the closest to the man himself, no?”
I understood what the Professor was getting at, but it also felt like a little bit of a stretch. Gould and the Chrom Ranchesse that lived five thousand years ago were ultimately two different existences. Gould just happened to have his memories.
“He truly is the ghost of Chrom Ranchesse.”
“That’s a very fitting phrase.”
It was indeed. A different body that still retained your memories of when you were alive? That sounded similar enough to a ghost to me.
“So does Gold not have Chrom Ranchesse’s memories whatsoever?”
“None. That large volume of data that Steph deleted had to have been his memories.”
In other words, it was as Kuon had suggested. Steph really had prevented a calamity.
“So are Gold and Gould the same type of Gollem?”
“Not quite. It would be more accurate to say that they’re duplicates, I guess?”
Doc Babylon responded, putting two images up on the monitor. “On the right is Gold and on the left is Gould from footage Gold captured in the Ark.”
Honestly, beyond the cape and eye colors, they really did look exactly the same.
“Then if we enlarge this…” she mumbled as she zoomed in on their necks—
but nothing looked different to me. “Notice anything?”
“Uh…not really? They look the same to me…”
The outline of the plating, the coloring, the exact marks, all of it made them seem like the same type of unit.
“Wait…even the marks are the same?”
“You’ve got it. We’ve thoroughly examined each of them, and they have the exact same marks in more than one place. Even if they were from the same batch, they shouldn’t be this similar unless they were marks made deliberately.
That’s why they’re more akin to duplicates.”
In other words, they were originally one unit, but then they made a duplicate using something like what we have in the workshop.
“Think about it for a second. At that time, the Phrase invaded, Chrom’s black and white crowns went haywire, and time and space got all messed up. The world’s barrier was restored, and the Phrase were chased into the dimensional gap, correct?”
I nodded while listening to the scientist’s explanation. But wait, why was she explaining this now?
“What if the gold crown was shot through time at the same time as the Phrase? Don’t forget that Steph originally saw Gold falling through a hole in space-time. And then, perhaps the black crown led to another gold crown being brought through from a different timeline.”
“Oh! Through Noir’s Parallel Shift?”
The black crown, Chronos Noir, had the ability to control time and also to interfere with parallel worlds. He could call forth all sorts of things from all sorts of different worlds and times.
If that power had taken effect…did that mean the exact same gold crown was simply pulled from a different timeline? No wonder they had identical marks. Even if they were from different timelines, they were still the same existence. The fact that they had the same marks had to mean they weren’t taken from too far apart in time, though it was hard to tell if it was from the past or future.
In other words, the small marks on Gould and Gold’s plating were caused when they were shot through time.
“But if they were wrapped up in the black and white crowns going haywire, would that not mean that Chrom’s memories weren’t implanted into them?”
“We were working under the assumption that Chrom only implanted his memories after he’d begun losing them as a means to preserve them, but isn’t it possible that he’d actually done it before that? Maybe as a backup in case he had to use the white crown’s crown skill.”
“I understand. You mean that he may have intended to use the memories within the gold crown as a substitute.”
“It’s a pretty crafty way of doing it, but not impossible.” The Professor and Elluka agreed with Doc Babylon’s hypothesis.
Meanwhile, I’m starting to get lost.
“Here, let’s set up a timeline.”
“Big thanks.”
Was I just stupid?
Doctor Babylon began laying out an estimated timeline of Chrom Ranchesse’s movements.
Five thousand years ago, Chrom created the crown series of Gollems in the Reverse World. The red, blue, white, black, green, and purple crowns were made.
Chrom traveled from the Reverse World to the Upright World with the black and white crowns. Paying the price of the black crown’s crown skill, he de-aged from an old man to a young boy. He then traveled to the United Kingdom of Pillaisula.
Chrom learned magic, had a family, and then the Phrase invaded. He began researching how to return to his original world without paying the price; this led to the creation of the silver and gold crowns. He then transferred his memories into the gold crown to try to use them as a substitute for the crown’s crown skill(?).
The Dominant Phrase, Gila, attacked Chrom’s village. He lost his wife and daughter in the attack. The black and white crowns went haywire.
The barrier to the world was restored. The Phrase disappeared from the world. The murder of his family was reset. Two gold crowns ended up existing in this timeline due to the black crown. Each of them was shot forward five thousand years into the future.
Chrom began to lose his memory as a result of the white crown’s price. His contracts with the black and white crowns were reset.
Four thousand years following these events, the black and white crowns were activated by Arthur Ernes Belfast. A fierce war broke out between this world and the Phrase who managed to slip in through a gap in space-time. As a result, the black crown was thrown back into the Reverse World and the white crown entered another slumber under Lake Palette.
A thousand years later, the black crown was discovered by Doctor Elluka. The white crown was pulled up out of Lake Palette.
Steph discovered Gold. She initialized Chrom’s memory, deleting it from Gold. Gould activated still with Chrom’s memories intact. He began putting his plan into motion.
“I think that about sums it up.”
It did make much more sense when it was all lined up like this, but it did kind of make it feel like Chrom Ranchesse was the cause of everything… Well, if he hadn’t existed five thousand years ago, the world would’ve already been destroyed by the Phrase, so in a way, he was the world’s savior. Still, I was pretty sure the man himself didn’t save the world because he particularly wanted to. It didn’t help that the wicked devout and a fallen god had gotten involved and made everything worse.
“That’s your wheelhouse, isn’t it? Having gods as our opponent is a little much even for us.”
“You’re absolutely correct…”
Right, I’m the one who has to do something about this…
“So then, what did Chrom Ranchesse ultimately want to do?”
“Who knows? He was a prodigy who wasn’t content learning from only his own world, so he traveled to a different one entirely to study magic. Maybe he was just after the knowledge of the world?”
“Like trying to make the ultimate Gollem?”
“The ultimate Gollem, huh…?”
I couldn’t explain why, but that felt a little off to me.
In Chrom Ranchesse’s…Gould’s eyes, I felt as if I could see some deep, dark fire of passion. A ruthlessness that didn’t care about what victims he created. If any ordinary person heard me say that, they’d probably wonder what the hell I was going on about. It was a Gollem, but… Just jumping off of the previous conversation, it wasn’t a case of him knowing that he was a manufactured fake and feeling so much despair that he was taking the world along with him, right…?
Plus, he had the power of the fallen god inside of him as well. It might not just be Chrom Ranchesse’s memories affecting him, but the memories and emotions tied to the god of erosion as well. If that was the case, you definitely couldn’t call that Chrom anymore; it was a weird new combined something.
“Still…I never would’ve thought that idiot Maestro would go so far as to become a wicked devout…”
“No wonder we thought the Kyklops felt similar to his work. Everything suddenly makes so much more sense.”
That plague-mask wicked devout…Scarlet. Gould called him Maestro. That was the name of one of the five great gollemancers, an absolute genius Gollem engineer. Doctor Elluka—also known as the Restoration Queen—the wandering Professor, the Seekers who were an organization of Gollem engineers, and the late witch-king were deemed the five great gollemancers known throughout the world.
“The Maestro was quite the unreasonable man. Since he was always looking down on others to some degree, he barely interacted with people. We just barely managed to be deemed worth talking to for him even at our level,” the Professor explained.
What? Didn’t that mean he wouldn’t talk to most people?
What did he do when he needed to go shopping? No, wait, he could just use his Gollems…
“I hated him because of how rude he was,” Doctor Elluka said. “He was the kind of person to scoff at any work you showed him. He probably sold his soul to the wicked god just to get the gold crown.”
“I didn’t dislike him as much as you, but I did think he felt a bit unstable.”
“To be fair, you even managed to get along with the witch-king, Professor… You really need to find better friends, you know?” Doc Babylon remarked.
“Hoh hoh hoh! I never thought the day would come when I’d have both of you saying that to me.”
This Maestro might have been a genius, but from what I was hearing, he wasn’t the nicest guy to be around. Honestly, I thought magitech engineers all tended to be the same way in some form or another, especially looking at the three in front of me…
Perhaps some things are better left unsaid. “Maybe they all escaped to Maestro’s laboratory.” “Where’s that?” I asked.
“The Triharan Holy Empire, in a forest at the foot of Mount Paparika. It’s filled with monsters, and isn’t really a place that’s very habitable for humans,” the Professor said.
“Why would he make his lab there?”
“Because he hates people. He once said that he’s much calmer in places where people don’t gather.”
Damn, he was thorough. What happened to make him so averse to human contact? Was he betrayed by someone he greatly trusted? Whatever the case, we had to make that our next destination.
“I know he hates humans, but that didn’t mean he had to stop being one…” Doc Babylon muttered.
“Can one really not return to being human after becoming a wicked devout?”
“Definitely not. The wicked devout are, by all rights, already dead. Their existence is simply held together by the power of their wicked vessel. The moment that’s destroyed, both their body and soul are destroyed with it.” They were basically all Undead… It was impossible to turn them back.
“Well, I pretty much quit being human myself, so I can’t really say anything. Changing topics, we’ve confirmed that any important devices or recorded information in the Ark were destroyed in the blast. All we managed to retrieve was the remains of the ship itself and some Kyklops frames. That, and…”
An image appeared on the monitor showing two Kyklops traveling through the sea holding what looked like a torpedo in one hand each. One was metallic orange, the other metallic green… Those were definitely the wicked devout with the iron and feather masks. So they got away after all.
“This was the last bit of footage sent by one of the probes that we had stationed around the Ark. Naturally, it was caught in the blast as well.”
“What way were they headed?”
“Toward Isengard, but I couldn’t tell you if that was their destination or not.”
Isengard was as chaotic a place as ever, which made it the perfect location for people with a bad history to hide. Did they maybe have bases outside of the Maestro’s lab? I doubted they just lived a nomadic life until they got their hands on the Ark.
Just in case, I tried using [Search], but I couldn’t find the wicked devout, Gould, or even the Kyklops with it. Why were they always so good at hiding? If I had the power to spread my divinity over the whole world, I could find them easily, but unfortunately, I wasn’t quite there yet.
Speaking of divinity…
I left the repairs of the Frame Gears to the scientists and opened a [Gate] to Mismede so I could ask Kraft, the god of crafting, about the sacred treasure.
As per usual, he was leisurely carving wood. Though I wouldn’t call the speed at which he finished them leisurely.
I handed Kraft the sacred treasure, and he closely examined it.
“I see now. It’s had its divinity stolen from it, has it? Now that I look at it, the core has certainly been greatly depleted of your power,” he said with a wry smile. “The weapon itself seems fine. If the only problem is that it’s lost its divinity, then just recharge it with more.”
Hearing those words filled me with relief. If it turned out I had to make it from scratch again…I don’t know what I would’ve done with myself.
“Still, can’t say it’s very good that something with the god of erosion’s power managed to steal your divinity. He can use the power of erosion however much he likes now, and if he can do that, we might have another wicked god on our hands.”
“Yup…”
The previous wicked god was created from a servile god, though he ended up being consumed and fused with his own creation. Unlike the servile god, however, the god of erosion was a full-fledged god, even if there was a little “ex-” in front of that. Use a power like that and it would definitely be possible to make another wicked god.
“A wicked god can’t be made that easily, though. Even if you did manage it, you’d need massive amounts of negative energy to let it grow. You know, like deep grudges, hatred, grief, agony… Stuff like that. That’s why people who worship wicked gods go around spreading calamity. That was the case before too, no?”
Was Gould actually trying to revive the wicked god? No, perhaps he wanted to make a whole new wicked god altogether… If that was the reason he was spreading chaos over the lands again, then we absolutely could not ignore him.
We’ll definitely beat him to a pulp.
“The reason we weren’t allowed to touch the wicked devout was because
they were wards of the wicked god, but what about a Gollem that happened to acquire the power of a fallen god? There’s no problem with us destroying that, right?”
“Wicked gods are born on the surface, that’s why it is the surface humans that must do something about it. Of course, it’s a little much to ask them to take it all on themselves, so we gods are allowed to support them. However, a fallen god is an escapee from the Divine Realm. As such, the responsibility lies on us. Even when the servile god escaped to the surface, the goddess of love came down to take him back, didn’t she? It’s the same idea.”
Right, it had slipped my mind, but that was the whole reason Karen came down here to begin with. Nowadays, though, she only really came to have fun…
Anyway, basically, that meant that we gods could take erosion-god-related enemies down.
“In our minds, wicked gods we leave, fallen gods we annihilate. We’d have settled the matter with the servile god ourselves as well if it hadn’t fused with the wicked god.”
Huh? Did that mean if a new wicked god was born and fused with Gould, we’d be in massive trouble? We wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on him if that happened… But if it was okay for the divine to attack the fallen god, then maybe we could have Moroha or Uncle Takeru take it down before that happened?
“It is possible, but…are you sure you want to take that option? You’re basically saying that you can’t handle the problems in the world that you oversee. Is that not a bit pitiful for a ward of someone like God Almighty? I can already see those handful of gods who disapprove of you growing more disgruntled.”
“Ah…”
People bad-mouthing someone who only got in because of their connections with the CEO and doing nothing of value was pretty natural…
That was close. Sure, it would make things easier, but I can’t rely on another god to solve my problems.
I had no choice but to rely on the kids to deal with the wicked devout, but I had to be the one to figure out how to deal with the fallen god.
“Do remember that this fallen god is but a fragment. As a ward of someone of such high status, I find it very unlikely that you would lose. You just have to be careful to not get everyone in the surroundings too wrapped up in the battle.”
He was right. Sure, it’d be great if we took down Gould, but managing it by destroying half the world first could only be called a pyrrhic victory. Even if I could win, what was important was how I won. I had to make sure to avoid as many casualties as possible. There were already tens of thousands of victims of the conflict, so I had to keep it from getting any worse.
At the very least, now that the Ark was destroyed, it shouldn’t be so easy for them to launch surprise attacks. I’d like to think they’d lost their ability to massproduce the Kyklops as well, but it was a little naive to think the Ark was the only factory they had…
Were they making more of them at the Maestro’s lab?
We’d better find it as soon as possible.
◇ ◇ ◇
The building was in the middle of the forest at the foot of Mount Paparika, near the border with Rephan in the northern part of Triharan. It was a tower that appeared to be around thirty meters tall, roughly the height of Ortlinde Overlord. It was shaped like a rectangular box until around the second or third floor, and then a tall tower curved upward from the left-hand side. In a way, it resembled a lighthouse.
“This is the Maestro’s lab? What a lonely building.”
“Indeed. It doesn’t appear to have changed much since the last time I visited.”
“What boring taste. He should add more spice!”
Doctor Elluka, the Professor, and Doc Babylon all threw in their opinions after I brought them here. I agreed about the bad taste, at least—it felt like some abandoned old ruin. There was even ivy running all over the walls. Still, the Professor said it hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been here. Did that mean it always looked like this? Did the Maestro just never clean the place?
“He’s never cared about his living conditions,” he elaborated. “Nothing was more important to him than his research and development. All he cared about was the facilities he had access to inside.”
It seemed that was why he ended up with this abandoned tower. Honestly, the foundation seemed stable, so it would definitely serve as a functional place to live.
“What’s the plan? Gonna break in?” Doc Babylon asked, but I didn’t actually have an answer ready. If this really was the enemy base, they should’ve realized we were here by now, yet there hadn’t been a peep. Being aware that there was the possibility they were waiting inside to ambush us, I used [Search] to check for the presence of any of them, but got no results.
Guess I’ll take this opportunity to act out one of those detective dramas.
I took out Brunhild and slowly sidled toward the wooden door with my back against the wall, and then I kicked it at full force, my foot going right through it. “Whoa, it’s all rotten!”
I really just broke the door itself. The only thing left hanging there was my leg through the hole. That door wasn’t even acting as a door any longer.
Ow, ow, ow, the wood’s sharp…
As I hopped backward in pain, the part I kicked split in two and the door fell inward.
“That door looked about ready to break the last time I came here too. I suppose he never fixed it,” the Professor said, as the only person here who had ever visited this place before.
“Tell me that before I kick the door, please…” I groaned.
We peeked past the destroyed door and saw a place so desolate that it looked completely abandoned. Actually, upon further inspection, there was at least some furniture like tables and chairs around, but beyond that, it was basically empty.
The Professor led us through the dusty, empty space to the area that should’ve been the Maestro’s lab, but there was nothing there either.
“It seems he took everything with him.”
“Aw, does that mean we came out here for nothing?” Doc Babylon asked, disappointed.
It wasn’t completely devoid of things, but it surprisingly lacked much. The place probably would’ve been left to rot without anyone knowing it ever existed if we hadn’t shown up.
We made sure to check the tower too, but he’d taken absolutely everything from there. The top floor seemed to be the Maestro’s bedroom, but all that was left was a simple desk and chair, as well as three empty bookshelves.
“Not gonna lie, when I hear the title ‘great gollemancer,’ this is not the kind of room I expect,” I commented.
“He was very picky with his work, you see. You could try to tempt him with all the money in the world, but he still wouldn’t do anything he had no interest in. On the other hand, if he thought the work would be informative for him, he would even do it for free. He ultimately ended up chasing away most of his potential clients, though, given his thorny personality…” One of those picky craftsmen, huh?
Maybe a little too picky, if you asked me. Then again, it was because of how picky he was that he managed to get his hands on the gold crown, so he was probably happy in his own way, even though achieving that goal meant giving up his humanity…
“Hm?”
Doc Babylon was looking at the bookcases from all different angles, pressing her hand against different parts of it.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Does it not look like there’s a bit of a scrape mark here?”
“Let’s see…”
She was pointing at the rock wall beside the bookcase. Right enough, it looked as though something had been dragged across it.
Wait, are these marks from the bookcase being moved?
“Did you not think it a little strange that we had to climb up some really steep stairs just to make it up here?”
“What’s strange about it?”
This tower was four floors, and we’d climbed up stairs that were practically vertical to get up here to the top. The only thing I thought was strange was that it felt like a Gollem engineer should be smart enough to build an elevator.
“Did you not notice? Pay attention to the size of this room, then think about the size of the tower. The room itself is rather small. What do you think that means?”
“Huh? Uh…the walls are really thick?”
“Good answer. But two meters thick seems a bit much for a simple wall, no? It’s not like the place is a fortress.”
Now that she mentioned it…compared to how the tower looked from the outside, this room did feel a little too small.
“Aha, now I see. What you want to say is that this room has empty space surrounding it, don’t you?”
“A space between the inner and outer walls? Could it be…?”
The Professor and Doctor Elluka seemed to have realized something.
Wait, don’t leave me in the dark. What are you guys talking about?
“This has to be it. If I just press along here…”
The small scientist pressed the side of the bookcase, and there was suddenly a little thunk! Then, the bookcase itself started to slide to the side. What appeared on the other side was a flight of stairs that was heading downward. It was a spiral staircase going around the sides of the tower; this had to be what was hiding between the inner and outer walls.
“We going?” Doc Babylon asked. Everyone nodded. We had no idea what was down there, but turning back wasn’t a choice anymore.
Using [Light Orb] to see where we were going, we descended the staircase. I was pretty sure we were already under the first floor by this point. Just what was hiding in the basement?
What awaited us at the bottom was a large room like a warehouse. Stored inside were about thirty or so dusty Gollems—stocky headless humanoid Gollems that were simply left there. They mostly looked adult-sized, though there were some smaller ones mixed in.
“They must be the Gollems that assisted the Maestro,” the Professor observed. “They’re older models, so he probably abandoned them here once he was done with them.”
“I absolutely despise the side of him that is so willing to just abandon things the moment he thinks he’s done with them.”
Though the Professor was calm, Doctor Elluka was clearly furious. I couldn’t blame her. The only reason you’d be able to so easily abandon creations that had spent so long looking after and helping you would be if you truly saw Gollems as nothing but tools. As an inventor who viewed her Gollems as her partners, Doctor Elluka couldn’t see his actions as anything but deeply cruel.
We did a thorough investigation of the place, but found nothing of use. We were definitely looking at a scene from after the Maestro had already grabbed everything he needed. He likely never intended to return here. I could sense the man’s conviction because of how empty the place was.
“Turns out this was all just a wild-goose chase, huh?”
Left with that dismal conclusion, we turned and left the Maestro’s laboratory. A tower to which its master would never return was a lonelier sight than I would’ve thought.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Hyah!”
Moroha smoothly dodged Yakumo’s powerful strike before then dashing right up to the girl in an instant.
“Watch your toes, kid.”
“Whoa!”
Yakumo’s legs were swept out from under her. Though she lost her balance, she managed to recover and roll to the side, gaining distance from Moroha. Moroha never continued into a follow-up attack, however.
“Kokonoe Secret Style: Bee Stinger!”
Yakumo leaped up and unleashed a piercing thrust. Moroha calmly dodged back.
“[Gate]!”
“Hm.”
The tip of Yakumo’s blade moved into a tiny [Gate] and disappeared before reappearing in the space behind Moroha. Everyone watching thought it would be impossible for the goddess to dodge.
“Not so fast.”
“Huh?”
As if going to scratch an itch with a backscratcher, Moroha took her sword and maneuvered it around her back, stopping Yakumo’s blade with the flat of her sword. And she managed all that without even turning around once.
Does this woman have eyes on the back of her head?!
Having deflected the tip of Yakumo’s blade, Moroha leaped forward and thrust the tip of her sword at the young girl’s neck.
“You’re still thinkin’ too simple, kid. If your opponent can predict where you’re sending your attacks with those little gates of yours, it’s nothing better than a parlor trick. Even aiming for the feet would give you a better chance of success.”
“Ngh… I concede…”
Once Yakumo raised her hands in surrender, Moroha lowered her sword.
Apparently, Yakumo had asked Moroha for more strict training because of feeling her own inadequacy during the raid on the Ark. From where I was standing, she had put up a good fight, but to her, there must have been something that left her feeling humiliated. I didn’t see any problem with it, so I granted her my permission, but I hadn’t expected them to go at it all morning.
“Yakumo, I feel like you should take a break.”
“Yeah! It’s not fair that you get to hog all the training time! It’s my turn!” Frei yelled from beside me, clearly desperate to get out on the field. I guess she was at her limit after having to hold in all her energy for so long.
“I feel so close to figuring this out. Please, just one more round!” Yakumo pleaded.
“That’s what you said last time!” Frei angrily shouted back.
If I don’t force them to stop, this is gonna turn nasty.
“[Gate].”
“Ah!”
Frei and Yakumo fell through the gates at their feet as they reappeared back where the other had been standing.
Take a look at my all-powerful swap-no-jutsu…! Just kidding.
“But, father, I can still…!”
“I dunno what’s got you so worked up, but right now, you’re so exhausted that you can barely move right.”
“Y-You could just cast [Refresh] on me and…”
“Absolutely not. Just rest.”
I immediately rejected her request, and Yakumo sat herself down in defeat.
The girl was right, I could have cast [Refresh] on her and she’d have gotten her stamina back right away, but something like that could have adverse effects on one’s growth. If you had two runners training every day, one casting [Refresh] on themselves every time, while the other let their body recover naturally, the latter would acquire the most natural stamina. Using that magic prevented one’s muscles from developing.
It was one thing to do it to an adult who had already finished their growth period, but using it too much on a child could stunt their growth, and I was certain Yakumo wouldn’t want that either.
“Here I go!”
Having been left to wait for so long, Frei’s first strike toward Moroha was explosive. They were both wielding spears, Frei’s being the sacred treasure. The long reach of the spear put a swordsman at a clear disadvantage, but such knowledge didn’t work against the goddess. She was humming away to herself as she deflected Frei’s barrage of attacks with the spear in one of her hands.
“How much training do I have to put in to reach such a level…?” Yakumo wondered.
“Uh, an impossible amount,” I immediately shot back. Reaching the same level as Moroha? No human could attain that. “That woman is insane on more than one level. At least have Yae as your goal.”
“I doubt I could even win against mother either…”
As much as it was my fault for becoming a god, Yae had halfway stopped being human herself. Then again, Yakumo was a demigod—maybe it wasn’t out of the question? As her father, though, I didn’t really want her to become my strongest child… Marriage proposals would practically disappear.
Wait…maybe this is a good thing.
“Well, just watch yourself, okay? It was thanks to you that our mission in the
Ark succeeded, so don’t take it too hard.”
“But the sacred treasure had its divinity stolen…”
So that was what she was hung up on. There was nothing she could have done in that situation. In fact, I was the one more at fault here—I was so distracted by the idea of the fallen god that I’d completely forgotten to create a counter for the Gluttony Slime. I’d already refilled the sacred treasure with divinity and made some adjustments so it wouldn’t ever get its power absorbed from it again, so Yakumo really didn’t need to blame herself.
This girl was the kind of person who beat herself up over the tiniest of mistakes; she was exactly like Yae in that respect. Both were usually very straightforward, but they tended to be too strict on themselves and overthink things. They were always so stubborn when they got something in their heads, but they could afford to be a bit more carefree sometimes. Well, so long as they weren’t as airheaded as Steph was, at least.
Now, what would I do if Yae was in a slump like this?
“Oh, right. Food.”
“What?”
There was nothing better to help clear one’s head than something tasty. The moment I thought of that, I sent a message to both Lu and Arcia.
“And so, you decided to have a curry party?” Yumina muttered in slight disbelief as she looked out over the large carts lined up with all different sizes of curry around the courtyard. That wasn’t a mistake, by the way—what was being served wasn’t the Mismede cully, but actual curry from Earth. Though to the residents of this world, it just seemed like we’d arranged cully into something better.
The aggressive smell was permeating not just the courtyard, but all throughout the castle. It might be a bit tough on everyone having such a strong, mouthwatering smell hanging in the air right before lunch. I was pretty sure I heard a very loud tummy rumble from somewhere.
“They really made a lot, didn’t they?”
“To the surprise of no one, Lu and Arcia had both gone crazy with it… Through trial and error, they continued their search for the ultimate curry…”
The curries on the menu ranged from the usual pork, chicken, and beef curries to the all-familiar seafood, katsu, and veggie curries, and then stranger ones like curry udon and curry ramen. I could also spy some keema, green, and soup curries off to the side. There really were all kinds present.
In fact, it didn’t stop there—Lu and Arcia had their own original curries on display as well. It was absolute chaos. There was a bright red curry among them all, but…
I value my life, thanks…
The moment it became time for lunch, everyone, from the castle’s knights to the maids, impatiently made their way to the courtyard. Usually, they’d all eat in a separate mess area, but today, they all flowed to where we were waiting.
Hang on, don’t some of these people usually bring their own lunch boxes? Is this the true power of curry?
Next to Yae, who was wolfing down some katsu curry, was Yakumo doing the exact same thing. Had she managed to cheer up a bit? My grandpa always said that eating food helped your mood by making your worries feel a little lighter.
I should try some too.
“Oh, father! Try this black curry I made! I simmered the ingredients for days and also added a secret spice!”
“No, you should have my golden curry! It’s made with a mix of golden spices I concocted myself!”
“Um…”
I’d just gone to grab some chicken curry, but Arcia and Lu slid in and held out a plate each toward me.
So, um… Do I have to eat these? Well, just one or two bites shouldn’t kill me…
What? I had to eat it all? “Which was more delicious?!” Here we go again…
Somehow, I’d finished both plates and now the two were hounding me for an opinion. They were both delicious! So delicious that I couldn’t decide which was better!
To be honest, I wasn’t so culinary-minded that I could determine the small differences. If I had to pick, Arcia’s was easier to eat, but that could also have been because I had Lu’s curry second, so I might have just been full. If I’d eaten Lu’s first, I’d probably have felt the opposite. Though, the idea of it being easy to eat had nothing to do with whether it tasted nice or not.
“Umm, I’d say this is a draw…”
“Then I’ll decide it with this pineapple curry!”
“I’ll decide it with this dry-curry-stuffed squid!” They each whipped out another plate of curry.
Hang on, I don’t have to eat more, do I?
Perhaps I made a mistake asking them to prepare this curry party when all I wanted to do was cheer up Yakumo.
I should’ve asked Crea…
If there was no real conclusion to this, then I’d be stuck eating curry forever, but if I chose one or the other, things would definitely get messy.
In the end, I ate so much curry that I felt ill and fell right asleep. The result of the match? I was unconscious, so I have no clue.
◇ ◇ ◇
Since the day of the great calamity that befell Isengard—no, the world—their country had ceased contact with Lassei to the north and Gardio to the east, both in a political and geographical sense. The cursed thorns that rained down from the heavens and wedged themselves into the earth destroyed the rocks, rotted the soil, and drastically changed Isengard’s surrounding topography.
The land leading to Lassei and Gardio sank to the bottom of the sea, turning Isengard into a small isolated continent. To the north, close to the Lassei borders, there was a lake connected in the shape of a large and small circle, like a little snowman. The two cursed thorns that had fallen there gouged out the earth and water from a nearby river flowed into the lake, creating a much bigger one.
The huge lake, which was about half the size of Eashen, had been nicknamed Lake Calamity. Though the lake was formed by river water flowing into it, it had now become an eerie bright red. However, unlike the red tides caused by abnormal plankton growth, this water was the sharp color of blood.
Perhaps because the curse had seeped into it, no live fish were anywhere to be found. The surrounding areas had become a wasteland, a lake of death where not a single person or plant could be seen.
In the middle of that lake, hovering about ten meters above the water’s surface, was Gould with his gold wings. He was holding some small seeds that he sprinkled down into the lake.
“Wachstum,” Gould muttered as he held his hand over the lake’s surface. Several branches sprung out of the water, growing in the blink of an eye. The branches and roots of the trees grew at an abnormal rate, forming a complex web of shapes.
When the trees finally halted their growth, what was left standing there was a stronghold made of a forest standing in the middle of the red lake.
“So this is the green crown’s crown skill, Vegetative Dominion…”
The man who had spoken those words with a sigh was the plague-mask man, hovering behind Gould with a jetpack. When Gould descended into the plant fortress, the Maestro—no, Scarlet—did the same.
“Put up a barrier immediately. We need to buy time until Porta is ready.”
“All right, leave that to me,” Scarlet said as he pulled out his metallic red rapier and stabbed it into one of the roots. “Summon them, Crimson.”
Several red magic circles appeared in front of him, from which Four-Armed Gollems and Fishmen came crawling out. Following them came a bunch of machinery and magic tools that the summoned beings carried and began assembling.
In no time at all, tall lightning rods were set up on all sides of the tree fortress. Once they were activated, a barrier formed around them.
“Losing the Ark was less than ideal, but thankfully, many of our materials were salvageable from the seafloor. Let us build another factory right away so we can return to our production of the Kyklops.”
Scarlet designated a part of the fortress and began building a mountain of materials. The Four-Armed Gollems once more began to build.
“Schnell.”
Gould sent down one of his gold feathers, and when it lodged into the construction site, the Gollems and Fishmen in a large range around it began moving at a much faster pace. This was the power of the black crown; the penalty was big, so he couldn’t use it too often, but he had no intention of holding back if it would help him move closer to his goal.
“Just wait…I’ll definitely fix this twisted world…”
Deep within Gould’s—Chrom Ranchesse’s—camera eyes were the flames of a terrifying obsession.
◇ ◇ ◇
“The hell’s that?!” Tangerine exclaimed from the cockpit of her orange Kyklops. Peacock, who was standing beside her in her own green Kyklops, was likely thinking the exact same thing. After the two of them had managed to escape from the Ark with their lives, Peacock had used her wicked vessel’s ability to search in order to find where Gould and Scarlet had gone.
Since they were both wards of the wicked god, they were able to pass through the barrier the two of them had erected.
It was in the north of Isengard that the wicked devout were able to meet up once more.
“What exactly is this place? Did you take over a town of the elvenfolk or something?”
“This is our new base that was created by Gould’s crown skills,” Scarlet answered without turning around. “Our living quarters are on top of the large tree to the south. If you wish to rest, head there.”
He was most interested in the Kyklops the two had arrived in. More specifically, he was interested in the three-meter-long cubic pitch-black container they had brought along with them.
“It was fortunate you were able to retrieve this from the Ark. I was afraid I’d have to build it again from scratch.”
“I was the one who blew the Ark up. If I didn’t make sure to grab at least this much, I knew you’d nag later.”
“That was unavoidable. It is a much better outcome than the Ark falling into enemy hands. The sacrifices may have been big, but as a result, we have acquired a power much greater than the Ark.”
“Oh yeah?” Tangerine skeptically asked, raising her eyebrow. Scarlet turned his gaze to the southern edge of the fortress where a large monolith with a red crystal embedded inside of it stood. Etched into the monolith was ancient magic writing. It was a device designed by Gould and built by Scarlet. A red light was being emitted from the large crystal like a laser, slowly forming a magic circle on the shore of the lake where the fortress was built.
Once it was complete, strange creatures began to crawl out of it. Though they looked human, their bodies could hardly be described as being made of flesh and blood. Like the Cydevils that Gould and Scarlet had created, they were bodies fused with machines, a metal mask sitting on their heads.
Those masks took all kinds of shapes, from dogs to cats to birds to even crocodiles. Each of them carried their own metal weapons like spears or swords or staffs. Mechanical Beastmen was likely the most accurate way to describe them.
“Are these summoned beasts?”
“Rather than beings from the spirit world, they are Undead summoned from the underworld through Gould’s black crown ability. He chose servants who suit our goals and called them through.”
“Are they corpses?”
“Ones fused with machinery, yes. They’re very similar to Gollems, practically
Cydevils, really. They aren’t alive, you see.”
The masked mechanical monsters orderly lined up along the shore, and then not a single one of them moved a muscle, showing absolutely no sense of having their own impulses.
They really are just Undead, Tangerine thought.
“Man, if Graphite were still alive, he’d be all over them,” she remarked.
“Perhaps.”
Scarlet’s response was clipped. He felt it somewhat silly to even use those words. The wicked devout already had their souls absorbed by their wicked vessels, so they weren’t much different from the corpses standing over there. The only difference was that they still had their own sense of self.
Still, although it was the only difference, it was a big one. Scarlet had something he wished to obtain even if it meant turning his body into nothing more than an Undead. Even his own life was irrelevant if it meant he could acquire it. And so, he made a deal with the devil. A devil known as Gould.
“Those mechanical soldiers of yours definitely look like a force to be reckoned with, but they’d be no match for Brunhild’s giant soldiers, you know?” Peacock bluntly stated.
“I will figure something out. We’re currently developing a frame different from the Kyklops,” Scarlet replied before guiding the two of them to a building that looked like a hangar. They were both left stunned by the bizarre new mech. Its body was slimmer than that of the Kyklops, with a short torso but long limbs, arms bent into a Z-shape at the elbows, and knees bent in the opposite direction of a human’s. Its hands and feet ended with sharp claws, making it look much more like a beast than a man.
“I’ve named it Baphomet. It can move much more freely than the Kyklops, and can easily exchange what equipment it has. This makes it possible to create all manner of mechs from just the one base.”
Tangerine looked up at the Baphomet’s head after hearing Scarlet’s explanation.
Oh, so the curved horns are meant to be a goat’s.
Naming it after Baphomet, a goat-headed demon, was very appropriate.
In truth, Scarlet had thought up the ability to change equipment after observing the Waltraute, but he was too prideful to admit that fact.
“I had been pondering how to plant combat knowledge into them, but thanks to what you both brought back, that issue has been resolved.”
A Four-Armed Gollem opened the container the two wicked devout had salvaged. Inside it was a transparent case that contained a large round crystal that looked like a massive human brain. It was a Q-Crystal, which was pretty much a Gollem’s brain. That large Q-Crystal stored all of the memories inside the Kyklops’s Q-Crystals—a mother Q-Crystal, you could say. All of the combat data from the Kyklops was backed up inside of it.
Using that, the Baphomets could inherit the data from the Kyklops, as if transferring experience points, allowing them to battle at top condition.
“Where is Gould?”
“Over there,” Scarlet said as he looked over at the central part of the tree fortress where there was a pyramid-like structure that resembled an altar. “A…ring?”
On top of the pyramid altar was a gold metal ring covered in intricate designs that was about five meters in diameter. It was fixed to a base and was glowing like a sunrise over a mountain. Standing in front of it was Gould, glowing a similar golden light. He held out his small hand to the ring, and part of it began to slide around in a circle. The many inner and outer rings moved one after the other as if a puzzle was being solved. They turned in different directions like the dial of a safe until they all came to a stop. The ring was letting out a low hum, but besides that, nothing else had changed.
However, Tangerine noticed a small light in the middle of it for just a moment.
“What does this thing even do?”
“…Who knows.”
Tangerine frowned at Scarlet’s clipped response. She’d already realized that both he and Gould were hiding something. She wasn’t about to criticize them for that—they were never companions that trusted each other, after all. Honestly, they could do what they wanted so long as it didn’t cause her any problems, but she couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed.
“I’m just gonna assume it’s some experiment. Well, whatever, do what you like. We’re gonna go rest.”
Tangerine went off to the living quarters with Peacock. Meanwhile, Gould was busy trying to figure out what the problem was following the experiment.
“My method is not the problem… Then is it a difference in the output? Are there not enough souls to fuel it? In that case…”
The little mechanical puppet with the memories of a genius Gollem engineer was steadily advancing toward his goals.
◇ ◇ ◇
“There’s been a Behemoth sighting in the Sea of Trees?”
“Yes. And a very big one, bigger than even an Upper Construct. We can also confirm that it has powerful regenerative abilities.”
My eyes widened at Relisha’s report. A Behemoth even bigger than an Upper Construct? How was something like that missed for so long?
“Its name is the Tree Dragon, Yggdrasil. It’s a Dragon recorded in so few records that no one knows if it even exists. Or, it was, at least.”
“It was previously extinct, then?”
“Yes, and has now supercharged to become a much more troublesome foe.”
In other words, it was another magic beast that had been called through a distortion caused by the wicked devout.
Do they bring anything of value?
As Grandma Tokie’s servants, the time spirits would close up the tear, but we’d have to handle the beast that popped out. I asked Luli if she could do anything given it was a Dragon and all, but Yggdrasil was categorized as a Fiendrake, so it wasn’t under her purview.
“Useless lizard,” Kohaku muttered. Luli refused to take that sitting down and immediately lashed out at her. I let them fight among themselves, but I’d much rather they took it outside.
“The tribes of the Sea of Trees have sent an emergency request for aid,” Kousaka continued, holding out a letter sent through the Gate Mirror. As he said, it was a request from Pam, the chieftain of the tribes, asking for reinforcements.
I’d tried to give them smartphones before, but they didn’t take them, saying they found it too complicated to use. Getting them to at least accept a Gate Mirror was the best I could do. That said, the tribes didn’t make use of written text much, so all the letter contained was a simple “ENEMY HERE. SEND HELP.” It felt kind of like one of those old telegrams from long ago.
The Sea of Trees wasn’t part of the alliance, but they did have a treaty with Brunhild, so we couldn’t ignore them, which meant we definitely needed to provide aid. We were still suffering casualties after the battle at Lassei, however, so we were limited in how much support we could send.
For some reason, when I went up to Babylon to confirm how repairs were going and to explain the situation, Quun turned to me with sparkling eyes.
I’ve got a really bad feeling about this…
“What wonderful timing! I just finished the most perfect weapon!”
“Weapon? For the Frame Gears?”
Previous experience immediately told me that it was going to be some completely bonkers weapon. I couldn’t refuse her, though, so I at least tagged along with her to the hangar to see what she’d made.
“Take a look! Feast your eyes on the vibrating rotary blade, the Chainblade!”
“You mean a chain saw?”
Attached to a massive sword blade were a bunch of small phrasium blades. That big engine on the handle was probably what rotated it. Like I said, it was literally just a big chain saw.
And yet another unexpected gimmick is added to the collection…
“The little fine blades mean this weapon doesn’t specialize in cutting, but in shaving down! It’ll crush the wound so thoroughly that it won’t be able to regenerate easily! I guarantee you that it’ll turn even the wicked god into mincemeat! Calling it a killer of the divine would be no exaggeration!”
Hey, did you forget that your papa’s a god too? And you’re half god? What a frightening creation…
Still, she was probably right that it would work wonders against that Tree Dragon, especially since it looked like it could slice through thick bark easily. Apparently, Yggdrasil was a Dragon made entirely of trees, which was why it took so long for the tribes to notice it, despite it being a Behemoth.
Quite literally missing the Behemoth for the trees, huh?
First we had that stampede in the desert, now we’ve got this Tree Dragon in the Sea of Trees… Did these dimensional gaps never transport from a different place than where they opened? If the creature was pulled from the desert in the past, it would only appear in the desert in the present. If the creature was pulled from the Sea of Trees in the past, it would only appear in the Sea of Trees in the present. Maybe Yggdrasil had lived in the Sea of Trees before being transported here.
Since it was a Dragon made of trees, I’d considered just burning it, but that risked damaging the Sea of Trees as a whole, and live trees were resistant to fire anyway. There was so much water inside of one that heat didn’t travel very easily. Even if you managed to burn its surface, you often failed to burn the insides. And since Yggdrasil was a living creature, wouldn’t its water content be even higher than a regular tree? At worst, we could end up burning down the Sea of Trees and Yggdrasil would come out perfectly fine.
“Take it from me, this weapon is actually really good. The biggest bottleneck is the need to prepare a source of mana separately to use the thing, but you can account for that with replaceable mana cartridges. It won’t immediately slice through things, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s more likely to be able to cut than bounce off. It’s a fun little trinket.”
Doc Babylon’s rare unadulterated praise had Quun puffing her chest out in pride. She was exuding the aura of someone who wanted to be praised, so I gave her a good pat on the head. Admittedly, I was a little worried about how easily she was appeased by a good compliment…
“How many do you have?”
“I have three prototypes and one finished one. Oh, and one that’s made for the Ortlinde Overlord.”
She’d even made one for the Overlord? This Dragon was about to get torn to pieces, the poor thing.
“If you give us an hour, we could duplicate ten more with the workshop.”
It only took an hour to make ten of something like this? That meant they made one every six minutes…
What is this, cup chain saw?
I wasn’t about to deny that it was a real lifesaver, though. Apparently, they were able to do it that fast because the structure wasn’t that complicated. Did that mean chain saws were really simple to make too?
Yggdrasil wasn’t acting up right now, and it wasn’t heading toward any of the villages either, so we did have a few hours of leeway.
“All right, get started on producing them, then. We’ll head out an hour from now.”
“Roger that.”
Leaving the engineers to work their magic, I went to notify the knights to prepare to head out. We’d be the only ones on the field this time, since the tribes of the Sea of Trees weren’t part of the alliance. We’d purely be acting as Brunhild, which was good friends with the Rauli Tribe, home to the current Treelord.
This would also be the first time the knights would get to sortie on Val Albus. It would be faster to just teleport there using [Gate], but I’d never been to the areas near where Yggdrasil currently was, and it also served as good training for occasions where I wasn’t around to teleport people. Now that the Ark was destroyed, there was no need to hide the existence of the Val Albus anymore, so we’d use it as a transport vessel going forward.
Naturally, it had a camouflage feature, so we didn’t need to worry about causing a commotion when people caught sight of it. The fact that it could even avoid leaving a shadow was incredible. They said something about a “refractive index,” but hell if I knew what that meant.
Anyway, it’d be nice to let the knights enjoy their first flight through the air. Or at least, that was what I’d have liked to say, but I was actually going to be using [Gate] to get us and the Val Albus relatively near to the Great Wishing Tree first. From there, it wouldn’t take us even half an hour to reach our destination.
Got the wives and kids notified, so it’s time for me to get ready.
◇ ◇ ◇
Thanks to Quun’s Chainblade, we managed to take down Yggdrasil without much of a fuss. In the end, the Overlord sawed its head right off. Like Doc Babylon said, it really did seem like something we could get some good use out of… Sure, it couldn’t slice right through something all at once, but in exchange, if you were persistent enough, it was guaranteed to make it through. Wouldn’t that account for the enemies’ weapons too?
If I had to list any negatives, it was that wires and any other threadlike materials could very easily get tangled in it. Yggdrasil’s body had a lot of little vines that were getting all caught up in it. Then again, when it got too wrapped up in the Chainblade, the thing ended up cutting right through them all anyway, so it never stopped rotating. Though, if something like phrasium rope or wire was to get caught up in it, it’d probably be too tough to immediately slash through it and therefore jam the thing. I did make sure to tell the wielders that, of course.
Anyway, we’d learned that we could, in fact, make use of it, so we’d massproduce more and give it to those who wanted one. The body of the Kyklops were made of a special alloy that used orichalcum—it could be cut with phrasium, so we’d almost definitely find some use for the Chainblade.
The wicked vessels unfortunately would be impossible, however. They might be able to chip them in some way, but they’d immediately repair themselves. Was there really no choice but to use a sacred treasure to take down another sacred treasure? Not that wicked vessels were sacred treasures per se, of course.
On a related topic, we’d discovered a slight mishap with the sacred treasure. We tested using the sacred treasure with a Frame Gear in the fight with Yggdrasil. Thanks to the Optimization trait it had, it adjusted its size depending on its wielder. Linne had been a little uncertain about it, but she’d been able to equip the gauntlets to the Gerhilde just fine. This wasn’t a problem.
The real problem was Quun’s Grimgerde.
The shape of her sacred treasure was a gun, but the Grimgerde’s right hand had the Gatling gun equipped, so she had no way to hold it. Her left hand had been designed as finger Vulcans, so although it had five fingers, it couldn’t do very precise movements, which meant it couldn’t grip things very well.
Thankfully, the Gatling gun was detachable, so it was possible to simply remove it and have her equip the sacred treasure that way, but at the same time, the Gatling gun was the Grimgerde’s main weapon. The thought of removing it seemed to make Quun really upset…
“I need to find a way to equip the sacred treasure without removing my weapons!”
Thus, she managed to find a way to have the Gatling gun slide up to the Grimgerde’s elbow to allow her to hold the sacred treasure. I didn’t think it was all that necessary, but according to Quun, it was important to account for all scenarios. It was a case of, “I thought this might happen!” I would be lying if I said I understood her…
◇ ◇ ◇
“Got some rare materials, so I thought I’d bring ’em over to you.”
“Oh, now these are certainly something…”
I took the materials that dropped from Yggdrasil to Kraft over in Mismede as a little gift. I was the only one in the present time that had these materials. I was pretty sure Kraft would be overjoyed at getting his hands on such rare wood. Such godly materials should go to a god of crafting, naturally.
“This wood is tough but without any peculiarities or dead knots, and it’s light to boot. You’ve brought me something interesting, indeed.”
Kraft used a broad-bladed knife to swiftly cut a piece of lumber to an appropriate length, then took another fairly large knife to shape it before alternating between a chisel and file to create a wooden sword in a flash. And when I say in a flash, I mean it. It took him about a minute.
He’s insane… That’s even faster than I can make one with [Modeling].
The god went straight back to his wood-chopping station, stood up a stump of wood, and cut it right in two with the sword.
Hang on, someone other than Moroha can cut wood with a wooden sword?!
“Hm, might have sharpened it too much. I was considering making something for your kids, but if I don’t blunt the blade, it’ll be way too dangerous.”
Was he aware that my kids were already using real swords on a regular basis?
After making adjustments, Kraft handed me the wooden sword. I was surprised by how light it was. Not that I thought it would be heavy, but now that I was holding it myself, I could feel how much lighter it was compared to a regular one. It was like the difference between a wooden and a plastic bat. I personally found that if a sword was too light, it would end up being harder to use, but kids like Frei could probably use it no problem…
“How are things going with the sacred treasure? Managing to use it all right?”
“Yeah, good enough. Though it’s my kids using it, not me…”
It was pretty ironic that I couldn’t wield the sacred treasure that I had personally created. Though to be fair, it wasn’t even accurate to say I couldn’t wield it, it was that I shouldn’t wield it. If a ward of God Almighty like myself were to use the sacred treasure, I would no doubt end up influencing the world to a very noticeable degree.
Sacred treasures like Sousuke’s instruments or my smartphones were fine, but it became a lot riskier with a weapon. That said, using the harpbow as a harp would probably fly. Not that I could play the harp to begin with.
“Once we take down the wicked devout and the remnants of the fallen god, I’ll be sealing it away in [Storage].”
“Smart decision. If you try to store it in the Divine Realm’s treasury, you’ll never be able to find it when you need it most, which is unfortunate when there’s no guarantee you’ll never need to use it again.”
Gods came in all shapes and sizes, and some could be particularly troublesome, just like the servile and fallen gods that had escaped to this world. What Kraft was trying to say was that there was always the chance I’d need to get involved in related conflicts in the future.
A battle between gods is no laughing matter…
“Many gods love battle, after all. From gods of martial arts to gods of war… In the past, I would’ve referred to the god of combat like this, but in his case, he puts more emphasis on training others, so he’s less of an issue. He seems to mainly look forward to the growth of his students nowadays.”
Apparently, Uncle Takeru used to have nothing in his sights but pursuing the pinnacle of combat. It took hundreds of millions of years before he started calming down and became who he is today. Even gods were young once.
It wouldn’t feel right to only bring a souvenir back for Frei, so I had Kraft make another wooden sword for Yakumo, and then little wooden animals for the rest of the kids. Naturally, I made sure to pay him for his services. It was a little expensive, but it was cheap when you consider it was made by a god…kind of.
Anyway, I said my thanks to Kraft and returned home with all the freshly crafted creations. While I was walking down the corridors of the castle, I bumped into Hilde, so I asked if she could hand the wooden sword over to Frei —but she refused.
“Didn’t you say it’s a present? You should give it to her yourself.”
That was very true. Frei and Yakumo both happened to be at the training grounds when I went with Hilde, so I handed the wooden swords over to them right then and there.
“Wow, it’s so light! It’s so easy to swing!”
“Thank you very much, father.”
The two happily accepted the gifts and went straight to giving them a swing— weapons really were one of those things you couldn’t help but want to try out the second you got your hands on them. The girls went straight into a mock match. I was glad they looked so happy. Just this once, I would ignore the incredibly violent sounds of their swords, ones that wooden ones really shouldn’t be able to make…
Apparently, everyone else was in the living room. When I headed over, the rest of the kids, except for Steph, Linne, and Yoshino, were having tea and lazing around together with Leen, Linze, and Yumina. I showed the wooden animals I’d had Kraft make and let the children pick whichever ones they liked.
Quun went for the bear, Arcia the dog, Elna the small bird, and Kuon abstained.
“I can wait until the other girls come back.”
“What a gentleman! You’re such a wonderful older brother, Kuon!” Yumina exclaimed, then madly pat Kuon. Resigned to his fate, Kuon simply stood there with a distant smile on his face.
“Hang in there, Kuon…” I muttered.
“Mother Yumina in the future isn’t this aggressive with him…” Quun
awkwardly said and smiled, having overheard.
Well, Yumina had achieved her lifelong dream (?) of giving birth to a successor, so her enthusiasm made sense, but even she would calm down after six years.
“We’re home!”
Suddenly, Steph, Linne, and Yoshino all appeared in the living room at once. Gold was with them too. Yoshino must have teleported them here. I’d already warned them so many times to be careful where they teleported because they could give people a fright, yet…
“Daddy, here, for you! We found it in the left forest! It’s a present!”
Just as I was about to scold Yoshino, Steph shoved a small wooden box into my face as if to discourage me from doing so. A present? Left forest must have meant the western forest. Guess that was where they’d been out to play.
Brunhild wasn’t particularly home to many strong monsters, but there were wild dogs and wolves in the area, so I’d much rather they didn’t go out on their own like that… Not that my kids were weak enough they would be taken down by some stray animals, of course.
We did have the incident with Kuon and Allis running into the Marchosias, though, so it could be a little worrying. Maybe I was overthinking it, but I did want them to be more alert. That aside…
“What is this?”
“Open it, open it!”
Not even showing a little bit of doubt toward the excited Steph, I opened the lid of the box.
“EEEYAH!”
My hand slipped the moment I saw what was inside. The box fell onto the carpet, and what was inside came wriggling out and began crawling all over the floor.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
“Oh my.”
Linze and Yumina screamed in unison, while Leen sat there, looking mildly amused.
They were bugs—three caterpillars, to be precise. They were quite big, at least ten centimeters long. Those caterpillars were letting off a rainbow light as they wriggled about at my feet.
“Wh-Wh-What are these?”
“Aren’t they super pretty? I caught them!” Steph exclaimed.
Pretty…? Well, the color sure is something! But ignore the color and it’s just a caterpillar!
“Were you always scared of bugs, darling?”
“I’m not scared, it just gave me a fright!”
I didn’t dislike bugs, really. I just didn’t particularly like them either. I could touch beetles and cicadas fine, but I was a bit more grossed out by larval bugs.
…Sorry, that was a lie. I really didn’t like them.
I was relatively okay with bugs that had a hard shell, but these kinds of caterpillar-like bugs were too much for me. It was weird when you considered I could even squish a cockroach with a slipper perfectly fine.
“See?” Linne said as she turned to Steph with a sigh. “Even if the colors are pretty, everyone hates the bugs, Steph.”
“Really? But they’re so pretty… Daddy, do you hate them?”
“I don’t hate them, I’m just a bit bad with them…”
I was waffling with my words trying hard to not hurt Steph’s feelings after she’d been kind enough to bring them back as a gift. Meanwhile, Leen was crouched down on the floor, picking up the caterpillars and returning them to the box.
How the hell can you grab them with your bare hands?
Then again, she was a fairy who used to live in a forest, so bugs were probably an everyday thing to her.
“Yup, there’s no doubt about it. These are rainbow silkworms.”
“Silkworms?”
As in, they weren’t caterpillars? Then again, silkworms were basically a kind of caterpillar, so it didn’t change much.
“Rainbow silkworms produced beautiful silk threads with a dazzling rainbow luster. It was said that the silk spun from them was greatly favored by the upper classes.”
“Wow… Wait, what’s with the past tense?”
“The elders of my village told us they’d gone extinct around two thousand years ago.”
They’re an extinct species? Oh no…
“They must have come to this time through the dimensional gap with that extinct creature Kuon and the others fought that one time. Hehe, what an unexpected find. You did well, Steph.”
“Yay, I did something good!”
A wide smile burst out on Steph’s face as Leen gave her a gentle pat on the head.
Apparently, rainbow silkworms were bred exclusively by one country two thousand years ago, but they’d all gone extinct because of some experiment. They used to live out in the wild, but after being captured and bred by humans, their vitality gradually weakened. If memory served, even our silkworms had been so domesticated that they couldn’t live out in the wild anymore.
“These were a wild, undomesticated species of silkworm. If we could improve their way of life, the fabric made from their silk would undoubtedly become a mainstay of Brunhild. I didn’t think the wicked devout could be anything but a nuisance, but no, it turns out they can be useful too.”
Leen had a wide grin on her face. I wouldn’t be against turning it into one of our main industries, but that would mean we’d have to look after them, right?
“Don’t worry your little head, darling. I won’t tell you to look after them. Let’s see… How about we start by asking Flora to improve their quality a little? We have to breed them first. Then…” Leen railed off, seeming very on board with the idea of making a business out of the rainbow silkworms’ threads.
As one could tell from her attire, she was quite the fashionable girl. Linze was the one best at embroidery, but Leen would frequently give her own thoughts on designs. There was no way she could give up the chance to have the best quality fabric possible.
Maybe it would be smart to get Zanac involved as a fashion designer… Then again, he’d recently gotten really busy with orders from across the continent for his well-received bridal service that he’d just started up, so would he even have the time to help? He was a merchant in his own right, so I doubted he’d pass up a chance like this if he could find the time, but still…
“Huh… Brunhild is actually famous for its sericulture industry in the future, but I never imagined Steph would be the cause of it,” Kuon muttered to himself with a slight sigh.
I see. So this turns into a big success, huh?
“Still, it’s amazing that they managed to survive. A normal bug would’ve been eaten by the birds by now.”
“Despite their appearance, rainbow silkworms are a type of monster. They have natural magic applied to them in the form of cognition disruption, so birds and other beasts can’t find them so easily.”
“Huh? They aren’t regular bugs? Wait, they aren’t dangerous, are they?”
“From what I’ve heard, they don’t even have any form of venom, so I doubt they’re very dangerous. All it is is magic that makes them harder to detect, after all,” Leen explained. It only made the fact Steph spotted them way more impressive.
“Do you really think a simple bug’s cognition disruption could get past our children?”
“Yeah, good point…”
Our kids had really sharp instincts. Even vague hunches like “I think it’s this way” or “It’s probably this” often struck true. Was this something they came with as demigods? Why did I not have the same level of instinct? Was it because I wasn’t born divine?
“Anyway, let’s return to the western forest tomorrow. There might be more rainbow silkworms. We might even be able to find some cocoons.”
Leen was getting excited again. It was rare to see her like this over something other than magic. It was the same way that Quun got hyped over magic items. Like mother, like daughter.
“Hey! What are those cute little animals you all have?!”
“Souvenirs from father. There’s one for you too, Steph. Which would you like?”
Steph had caught sight of the wooden animals with her sharp eyes and immediately latched onto them. I subtly did a quick search on my phone for more rainbow silkworms while they did that and found that there were a good dozen of them left.
Dimensional holes would absorb everything in their surroundings and spit them out in the future. For all we knew, the leaves and branches around them were from trees that were now extinct. Not that I would be able to tell, since I wasn’t exactly a botanist.
When I showed Leen the results, a very wide smile formed on her face. She was nowhere near as bad as Doc Babylon, but Leen was quite the mad scientist herself… That must have been who Quun inherited it from…
◇ ◇ ◇
The moment we entered the western forest the next day, we immediately found a dozen silkworms and several rainbow cocoons hanging from tree branches. The cocoons were far larger than I imagined they’d be—was it because they could spit out a lot of thread?
Anyway, I used [Search] to gather every last one of them, and when we gave them to Flora in the alchemy tower, it only took a few hours for her to spin all the thread out of the cocoons, and another few hours for Rosetta in the workshop to turn it into silk. It was a great help, but why did it feel like I wasn’t being told something?
The silk made from the rainbow silkworms was softer than regular silk, and it had a beautiful glossy sheen, giving it that very luxurious feel. On top of that, it changed color when you ran mana through it; the color that came out depended on the strength of the mana. It didn’t take much mana to activate the effect, so even regular citizens would be able to make use of it.
Would the price of the silk be achievable for the common citizen, though? From the way I was watching Zanac break down into tears right in front of me, the answer was probably no.
“This is…! The legendary rainbow silkworm silk, arcobaleno…! I never imagined the day would come when I would lay my very own eyes on it…! Thank the heavens I chose to join hands with you, Grand Duke…! Thank you so much, thank you so much…!”
Suddenly, he was bowing reverently in front of me. Was it that legendary? This arcobaleno silk was only mentioned in a few ancient texts, and although it was known to have existed at some point in the distant past, the fabric itself no longer existed in the world. It had practically become an unknown by this point.
And that made sense—those silkworms were supposed to be extinct, after all. To those in the fashion industry, it was a legendary fabric.
Zanac had been shocked by the moon silkworm fabric that had been kept in Babylon, but his reaction this time was well beyond even that. At least the silk from the moon silkworms was known to still exist, even if it was rare, but the arcobaleno silk was barely found in texts anymore.
“Surely there’s a piece of that silk that’s had preservation magic cast on it somewhere?”
“Arcobaleno silk has natural magic deflection, so it’s impossible to cast any kind of magic on it. No silk would last two thousand years, no matter how carefully you stored it,” Leen explained, having joined me at Fashion King Zanac.
No wonder it’s been lost to history.
“Wow, it really does change based on the type of mana you run through it!”
Zanac picked up the arcobaleno silk and let out a cry of joy upon watching its color change as he ran his mana through it. Though the silk deflected magic, it didn’t deflect pure mana, so even Zanac could immediately change the color.
“It’s beautiful, is it not? Clothes made with this silk can have their color changed based on one’s mood or the occasion. Even without running mana through it, it’s already so beautiful. Noble ladies will absolutely be unable to resist it.”
“Yes, indeed! This will sell just by virtue of being such a luxury silk! Do you intend to turn this into a state business?”
“We want to eventually, but for now, we don’t have enough silkworms. We’ll prepare the silk, so we’d like to ask you to design dresses to sell in your shop.”
“Thank you so much! I will put my heart and soul into its creation!”
Leen and Zanac began their own negotiations, which immediately left me out of the loop. My only involvement with fashion was when Leen would sometimes ask if there was a dress with some image that she had in mind, and then I would look up with my smartphone any dress designs that fit that condition and send them to her.
Bored, I turned my gaze out the window, and suddenly, a translucent girl clad in a jade glow burst through the window, yelling all the while.
“Terrible news, terrible news! Oh, Celestial Spirit King, I have absolutely terrible news!”
It was Aerial, the Wind Pillar Spirit contracted with Linze. She was still in her spiritual body, which allowed her to pass right through the window, so Leen and I could see her, but Zanac and the other staff in the shop couldn’t. They wouldn’t be able to hear her either.
“Is something the matter?”
“No, nothing.”
“Sorry, I’m gonna pop off to the bathroom.”
I stood up and headed for the bathroom, Aerial obediently followed behind, perhaps realizing what I was doing. When I closed the door, I sighed and whispered back to her.
“And? What’s the terrible news? Linze told me you’d gone back to the Spirit Realm for a bit.”
“Yeah, I’d been back talking with everyone in the Spirit Realm, but that’s when the Puretree felt a sudden disturbance. There’s this ominous maelstrom up north.”
“An ominous maelstrom?”
The Puretree was something me and Uncle Kousuke had created in order to cleanse Isengard of the divine venom. It was a sacred tree where spirits lived, and though young, it would apparently one day turn into a spirit itself.
Was Aerial saying that Puretree felt a disturbance? The Puretree sat in a forest around the middle of Isengard. Further to the north, the closest country was Lassei, though they were still separated by an ocean.
“Wait, did something happen in Lassei?”
We did just have a battle with the wicked devout there—had there been some negative aftereffects?
“No. It’s on the same continent, so further south from there. The spirits said it’s too suffocating to go any further, that it’s like the cleansing power of the
Puretree is being absorbed, like some abyss…”
The Puretree’s power was being absorbed and the spirits were too scared to go any closer… The answer came to me right away: the fairies were scared of the power of the wicked devout—no, the former god of erosion’s power.
This pretty much confirmed that the wicked devout were currently based in Isengard. If not all of them, at least Gould.
Like an abyss, huh?
“He who fights monsters might take care, lest he thereby become a monster.
And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
That was a Nietzche quote, right? I’d become a divine monster long ago, so it was a little late for me. I intended for my mind to remain human, however.
With a wry smile on my face, I returned to Leen.
