In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 18 - Chapter 3

Chapter III: It’s War! The Battle on Coastal Waters 

I lent twenty Frame Gears to each participating nation. Two Knight Barons and eighteen Chevaliers. 
Just about every country in the regular world... I mean, the eastern continent, was participating. Excluding Brunhild, there were eighteen participants in total. The tribes from the Sea of Trees weren’t participating because they were so prideful when it came to their physical prowess that they refused to battle inside Frame Gears. Twenty Frame Gears to each of the eighteen countries made for a total of three-hundred-and-sixty Frame Gears. Then, there were fifty being deployed by Brunhild, plus my Reginleif and the nine Valkyrie gears. In total, there were four-hundred-and-twenty mechs ready for combat. 
When Yulong was invaded, we only had two-hundred Frame Gears, so now we had more than twice that. We definitely had the advantage, but we needed to keep in mind that the mutants were trickier than regular Phrase. We couldn’t make light of them. 
Norn and Nia were also here in their Over Gears. I also made Ende come along with his Dragoon. Our forces were completely prepared, there was just one issue... 
“They’re actually emerging in the middle of the sea, huh...?” Doctor Babylon grumbled as she crossed her arms. She was surveying a map on one of her laboratory monitors. 
“How waterproof are our Frame Gears right now?” 
“Reginleif and the Valkyries will be fine, same with the Over Gears and Ende’s Dragoon. Even if you fully submerge there shouldn’t be any issues... Though you should expect slower reaction times thanks to water resistance. The other Frame Gears are a no-go, though. Their cockpits don’t have appropriate sealing measures. They’ll be fine up to their waists, but any deeper and they’ll start taking on water. It could easily endanger the pilots if it comes to that.” 
In a worst-case scenario, our pilots could end up drowned... There was always the emergency escape button, though, so I didn’t think it’d be likely for anyone to actually drown. That being said, someone could fall unconscious and then have their Frame Gear submerged, which would be certain death. It was definitely safer to fight on the land. 
“We still don’t know what they’ll do... Our best bet is to monitor them with search magic after they emerge, then set up defenses in their path.” 
“Don’t forget there’ll probably be airborne ones as well.” We had a few ways of dealing with flying enemies. Reginleif and Helmwige were capable of flying. Brunnhilde, Grimgerde, Rossweisse, and Waltraute (with its cannon equipped) were capable of long-distance assaults, too. I was sure we’d be fine. 
I left the fine-tuning of the remaining Frame Gears to Babylon and her workers, then I left for Brunhild castle. I happened to see Karen nearby, so I walked over to ask something I’d been worried about. 
“You wanna know if the enemy’ll use divine venom?” 
“Yeah. If they started spreading it around, then I wouldn’t be able to participate. Neither would Yumina and the others.” 
“Don’t worry about that, you know? Divine venom is soaked into the earth and air. It basically turns a vast area into an anti-divine zone, you know? But I mentioned earlier that the venom doesn’t mix well with water. The seawater should dilute it and disperse it before it can do any real damage, you know? Plus, it’s a hard substance to create to begin with.” 
That meant the meteor shower might have depleted their current supply of the stuff. 
“Divine venom is created by sacrificing the soul of a god, you know? So we probably have a good idea of what was used to create this batch...” 
“...The servile god who got eaten, huh?” 
That annoying NEET god had his body absorbed, and now his soul was being used to create poison... What a hopeless idiot. He really did get what was coming to him. 
I guess you could consider the divine venom coating Isengard some kind of last curse from that NEET bastard. Why does that asshole have to cause me trouble from beyond the grave? What was he the god of again? Being a total annoying sack of crap? 
“Still, we need to keep thinking up ways to counteract the divine venom... Have you guys been working on anything?” 
“The god of agriculture, er, Kousuke is attempting to cultivate a plant that can absorb the venom and convert it into magic energy. It isn’t going well though, you know?” 
“Is it a hard job?” 
“I’ll say. He’s basically trying to infuse his divinity to create a whole new species linked to him from scratch, you know? It’s even more complex than forming elemental spirits.” 
That definitely sounded tough. That also explained why I hadn’t seen Uncle Kousuke around very much... I made a mental note to visit him with some snacks later on. 
Just as I was thinking about what he might like, my phone started vibrating. It was a call from Ende. 
“Hey, what’s up?” 
“Hey, Touya? Sorry but there’s something I wanna discuss. Could you come over?” 
“To your house?” 
“Yup.” 
Ende, Melle, Ney, and Lycee lived together in a house in the castle town. It wasn’t too far from the castle, so I decided to walk over. 
On the way there I looked north from the terrace to the training field. Rosetta was over there making final adjustments to the Over Gears. 
I could see the prone figures of the two massive mechanical animals, one red and one black. The two Over Gears certainly looked impressive from a distance. And so, I headed a little closer and saw the irritatingly familiar image of a certain pumpkin-pantsed prince. 
“What brings you here...?” 
“Ah, Touya! Most impeccable timing! I never would’ve expected the crown’s abilities could be used in this way!” Robert was practically swooning at the sight of the two Over Gears. 
...This bastard came here with Blau’s ability, didn’t he? Come on, man... I have it bad enough with Karen and the other divines popping up out of nowhere. 
“Nia! Norn! May I ride in that too?! Please! Pretty, pretty please!” 
“Shut the hell up, sleepy!” 
“You should stick to babbling in your sleep. It’s annoying for you to do it awake as well.” 
Robert stepped a little closer and took an iron claw attack from Nia and a shin kick from Norn. He was certainly as irksome as ever, but that was basically this guy’s default state of being. 
“Over Gears are attuned to the Gollems inside them, so only that Gollem’s master can pilot them. Even if you boarded either of these, they wouldn’t move.” 
“Ah, really?!” 
“They’re pretty much exclusive to crown Gollems anyway. Norn’s Leo Noir and Nia’s Tiger Rouge were the same Over Gear structurally, but we couldn’t swap the Gollems operating at the heart of either. We do have another spare frame for parts and stuff, but we don’t have a crown to make use of it...” 
I suddenly covered my mouth, realizing the fatal mistake I’d just made. Robert’s glittering gaze pierced through my very soul. Ugh... I don’t really like being looked at like this by a guy... 
“So you’re saying you could make one of these machines for my crown, Blau?! I can have one to ride in as well? Oh, that’s amazing, Touya! Thank you so much!” 
“N-Now hold on a second... That’s not so simple...” 
“You should just build it already, dumbass. That pesky prince’ll just keep bugging you daily until it’s finished.” 
Damn it. 
Norn’s words felt like they came from her own experience. I cast a glance toward Rosetta, who responded with a sigh. 
“Well, sir! The base is fundamentally identical, so we could make one. Yessir we can! But it’d take a while to tune up and synchronize with his Gollem, sir!” 
“Norn has a lion, and Nia has a tiger... I wonder what I should have! Perhaps a magnificent deer! Although, if you two have cat-based models, perhaps a dog? Oh, perhaps a wolf or a fox! What do you two think?” 
“I can’t really say I give a crap one way or another. Maybe a blobfish? That’d suit your face.” 
“Bear sounds good to me. Why don’t you make like one and hibernate forever?” 
Robert was seemingly unaffected by the girls and their harsh words. I was pretty impressed by his mental fortitude... 
“We won’t be able to make you one in time for the upcoming battle. You’ll be with the other western world leaders, observing the fight.” 
“Hrmm... What a shame! Well, I’ll simply participate next time, then. Do you think you’ll be alright without my power, though? I must admit, I worry a little that you only have Norn and Nia!” 
“Huh? You trying to start a fight with me, idiot?” 
“You’re the last person I want to hear being worried about me.” 
Robert took another iron claw to the face from Nia, then another shin-kick from Norn. He did actually seem genuinely concerned for them, he just didn’t speak with much tact... 
The ultra-masochistic prince cheerily ate all punishments the girls had to offer. 

Welp, I’m sticking around too long. Better head off... I left Robert and the others behind and made my way to the castle town. 
After a while, I walked through the garden in front of the large house near the castle town’s outskirts. Melle, who looked human thanks to my magic device, came out to greet me. 
“Ahhh, Touya. Welcome to our home. It’s been a little while.” 
Even though she looked like a regular girl, she just looked like the Sovereign Phrase to me. She was wearing an apron, and almost gave off the image of a young and happy housewife. I was suddenly filled with the urge to punch Ende in the face. 
I entered the house. It was a good size, but it wasn’t overly fancy or anything. Ende, Lycee, and Ney were waiting for me inside. 
It wasn’t polite of me to show up without a gift, so I opened up [Storage] and gave some cookies to Lycee. 
“Sorry to bother you. There was just something I wanted to discuss.” 
“What’s up? Is it something to do with the battle?” 
I sipped some tea as I spoke with Ende. I’d asked him to participate in the fight with his Dragoon, so I was wondering if he had some kind of issue with that. 
“That’s part of it, at least. Melle and the other Dominant Constructs can sense traces of the mutants, since they were formerly kin. They can sense them when they try to emerge from the space between worlds. They can’t tell timing and numbers as well as the guild’s sensors, but there are actually areas where they’re better.” 
“How so?” 
“They can identify the construct classes that are coming through. There are going to be Upper Constructs during the battle tomorrow. But that’s not the main thing here... They sensed that Dominant Constructs are going to come through as well.” 
“What?!” 
A mutant Dominant... 
The Phrase were originally split into two factions. Ney’s side, who wanted to find Melle... and Yula’s side, who wanted to find other means of power. In the end, most of the Phrase got consumed by Yula’s mutant army and became fodder for the wicked god. Ney ended up reuniting with Melle, and joined our side. 
“If the Dominant Constructs that appear end up being Leto and Luto, can you let me handle them? I have a score to settle.” 
“Leto and Luto, huh...? Those were the twins who roughed you up so hard you ran off crying, right?” 
“Crying?! Hey! I might have run off, but I wasn’t crying!” 
“I dunno, man... You seemed pretty desperate to me. You went to another world and got some sacred treasure blades, then Uncle Takeru beat your ass so bad you lost your memories and ended up being used as a pawn by the corrupt nobility of Triharan... Remember?” 
“Auuugh! Shut up! Shut uuup!” Ende closed his eyes and shook his head violently, prompting Ney to smack him in the side of the head. 
“You’re the one who should shut up, loudmouth!” 
“Gagh!” 
Ende slumped down against the couch. 
“I have a score to settle with Leto and Luto, too. Mind letting us do it?” 
“I’m fine with it, so long as you don’t have an issue with me stepping in if it gets too bad.” 
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” 
Ney bowed her head slightly. She’d certainly softened up a bit after settling in Brunhild... She used to be the kind of person who felt like she’d bite your head off. Seemed like Melle and the others had a calming influence. 
It made sense, though. Her goal was always to reunite with Melle. 
“Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask. How many Dominant Constructs are with the mutants?” 
“Back before the golden corruption, it was only Luto, Leto, Yula, and Gila against me. But I don’t know if the situation has changed.” 
“How do you mean?” 
I quirked a brow in response to Ney’s words. I’d beat Gila so that would only mean three of them remained... 
“We came searching for Lady Melle, the sovereign. But it’s possible that Yula called more Dominants from Phrasia. He’d been planning to usurp Lady Melle for a long time, since before we started traveling through worlds. I’d be surprised if he didn’t have more Dominants on his side.” 
And if those Dominants became mutants... Let’s face it, they definitely would, then they’d probably end up joining the upcoming invasion force. 
If the emerging Dominants weren’t Leto and Luto, then I planned on having Moroha, Takeru, and Karina take them on. In times like this, it was best to turn to the gods for help... Even if I was a god myself, I was a trainee! They had a job to support me! 
“Oh, right... Ende, do you think you can beat mutant Dominant Constructs?” 
“Hey... Don’t think so lightly of me. I’m a disciple of the god of combat himself, right? Ahaha... Do you know how many times I’ve faced death in that hellish training? Ahaha... Ahhh... Y-You have no idea what I’ve faced... M-My mind is clear, my heart is pure... Ahaha... Ahahahahaaaah... Augh...” 
I didn’t know what Ende was recalling, but his eyes swirled around in his head, and he began to laugh bitterly. I honestly worried about his health sometimes... 
“Get it together, Endymion.” 
“Ack. Y-Yes, I’m fine. Thank you, Melle. I was just thinking about my training.” 
Melle shook Ende a little, and he returned to normal. I wondered if Takeru wasn’t going a little far with the training. Frankly, I didn’t want Elze to turn out like this guy, so I was a little worried about her. 
“...Thanks for the snacks.” 
I was wondering why Lycee hadn’t said anything during my entire visit. That mystery was answered when I looked at her and saw the entire bag of cookies was gone. She certainly operated on her own wavelength... 
...Are we gonna be fine tomorrow? No, I’m sure we will be. We’ve prepared everything we possibly can, now all that’s left is to crush the enemy. 
We’ve got new allies with us... They’ll probably help. Probably. It’s definitely gonna be fine. 
Probably. I think. 
 
“They’re coming.” 
Markers began falling down all over the place on my map. Upper Constructs needed more time to get through, so the markers all represented Lesser and Intermediate Constructs. 
The Dominant Constructs would take time to come out as well... The ideal situation would be to mop up all the mooks before the real threats showed up. 
“How annoying... Wish they’d just appeared in front of us.” 
I could hear Elze’s annoyed voice come out from Reginleif’s cockpit comms. I understood her feelings. 
I looked at the emergence zone with a divinity-infused [Long Sense] spell, but I could only see flying mutants. 
Given my map’s markers, the rest were probably crawling along the seafloor. 
“They’re headed directly southwest, then... Seems like Yumina’s prediction was entirely correct.” 
“Yup. That’s probably the case.” 
Hilde was on the mark. Before the mutants had shown up, Yumina suggested that the mutants might have been trying to make a beeline for Isengard. 
Just as she’d said, that was exactly the direction in which they were headed. And that meant they’d have to pass by Panaches first. 
I’d already received permission from the king of Panaches to deploy soldiers to his territory. I’d summoned several Valkyries to record the battle, which was being transmitted to a live feed back at the Brunhild HQ. 
All the leaders of the east and west continents would be watching that screen, the King of Panaches included. 
I had four-hundred-and-twenty Frame Gears lining the Panaches coastline. 
All of them stared out to sea, waiting for their enemy to appear. 
If it was any other terrain, I’d have used [Meteor Rain] to trash a bunch of them, but I held back due to fears of causing a tsunami. 
“Touya, are we cleared to deploy against the flying ones?” 
“Think so... Yeah, we are.” 
I gestured up toward Linze’s Helmwige. It was in flight mode, ready at my command. 
The only two Frame Gears that had flight-based capabilities by default were my Reginleif and Linze’s Helmwige. Rosetta had, however, engineered several flying packs for the Valkyrie gears. Yae’s Schwertleite and Hilde’s Siegrune had both used them in the past. But unfortunately, we realized that they put too much strain on the pilot and the machines, so we had Doctor Babylon go back to the drawing board... She didn’t design anything in time for this fight, though. The Over Gears had taken priority. 
To be honest, having flying attachments was a pretty niche and situational requirement anyway. If the enemy didn’t show up above the sea, then Brunnhilde’s sniping, Grimgerde’s barrage, and Rossweisse’s waveform attacks would’ve been more than enough to deal with airborne foes. 
I had Reginleif float upward and stop level with Helmwige. 
“Linze, stay within Brunnhilde’s firing radius. Yumina, support Linze with your sniper.” 
“One shot, one kill. I’ll handle this.” 
I was more than comfortable leaving that side of things in Yumina’s hands. 
Reginleif soared through the air. Though the sea’s surface was calm, I knew that beneath the waves, an army of mutated monsters was coming for us. There were roughly a thousand airborne mutants headed our way like a flock of birds as well. 
“Fragarachs activate! Mode Change: Dagger!” 
The twelve wing-esque crystal slabs on Reginleif’s back immediately shifted into forty-eight tiny daggers. Then, they began orbiting the mech. 
“Let’s go! [Gladius]!” 
The forty-eight orbiting blades shimmered in the sunlight, rushing headlong toward the inbound flying foes. 
I used my divine sight to verify the locations of the cores and pierced through them precisely. The crystal blades danced through the air, leaving a glimmering trail behind them as they cut mutant after mutant. The creatures melted down into goop and faded into the sea. 
The mental strain behind that attack was rough, though... Manipulating forty-eight blades at once, even with the boosted mental capacity from [Accel], was a difficult task. 
Linze’s Helmwige masterfully took down the ones that slipped through the cracks of my attack. The two revolver cannons on her wings automatically sought out enemies and pummeled them with crystal projectiles. 
Just like Leen’s Grimgerde, it didn’t run out of ammo. We had them set up to automatically reload via teleportation from Babylon’s ammo stores. 
Still, if we had revolver cannons on all our Frame Gears, we’d definitely run out of ammunition too quickly. Plus, it increased the risk of friendly fire. 
Yumina’s sniper shots took the ones Linze and I missed every now and then. True to her word, she was capable of firing through the core of each one with just a single shot. 
Her aim was incredible, especially since she didn’t have divine sight. I wondered if she was using her foresight ability to assist her aim... Maybe she saw the images of the future and knew exactly where to hit. Thanks to Linze and Yumina, I’d already taken out more than half the flying enemies. 
I checked the radar map in my cockpit, and the mutants on the seabed were still marching toward the Panaches shoreline. They’d already moved beneath us, so I decided it was best to worry about dealing with the flying ones. 
I used [Gladius] to melt more and more of the mutants. And eventually, their numbers were thinned to a quarter of the original amount. 
“Touya! They’re making landfall now!” 
I heard Sue’s voice through the speaker and turned the camera feed toward the beach. A vast swarm of coconut crabs, crawfish, and other crustacean-shaped mutants emerged from the depths. The filthy constructs scuttled along the beach, exuding a murky golden glow as they marched onward. I saw a few isopods and regular crab-shaped ones, too. 
“Looks like our guests have arrived. Time to roll out the welcome wagon!” 
Leen and Paula were inside Grimgerde’s cockpit, weapons primed. Various segments on the black Frame Gear’s body began opening up. Arms, chest, legs, and waist... all opened, exposing Gatling cannons and pod missiles. 
“Get blasted, sea scum!” 
A hail... Or rather, a total storm of crystal bullets crashed down upon the landborne mutants. Countless enemies were reduced to barely recognizable shapes, utterly obliterated by the barrage. 
“Wow! Let me give it a go, too!” 
Sue’s Ortlinde Overlord raised its right arm high into the sky. I knew what was coming next... 
“Cannon Knuckle Spiral!” 
The powerful rocket-powered punch slammed into a group of mutants, mowing them down with ease. The arm wasn’t stopping there, though. It skidded across the beach and plunged into the sea, kicking up sand and saltwater all over the place. 
The rocket-punch continued mowing through submerged enemies until it eventually broke the surface and created a vast pillar of water in its wake. That attack was seriously strong... 
Sue’s Frame Gear really wasn’t suited for combat against fodder. 
“Let us roll, let us!” 
“Yeah.” 
“Let’s do this!” 
Yae’s Schwertleite, Hilde’s Siegrune, and Elze’s Gerhilde charged out onto the beach. The Frame Gears behind them, piloted by soldiers from all around the eastern continent, took up their arms and charged as well. 
“I’ll support you from behind!” 
Lu’s Waltraute swapped out to its C-Unit and began swiftly supporting the others across the battlefield. 
The C-Unit was a long-range cannon on the right shoulder, allowing Lu to snipe the enemies one after the other. 
Music began blaring from Rossweisse’s speakers. 
...This song of all things. I don’t imagine Sakura’ll have a satisfying answer if I ask her why she chose this one. 
It was a song by a famous rock band from England. Specifically, it was by their lead vocalist. His band members arranged this version and had it released after he died of illness at forty-five years old. I had the original release, too. 
The lyrics were direct and to the point, with lines like, “I was born to love you.” The lead singer’s voice was powerful enough to shake anyone down to the soul. 
Sakura’s voice rang out across the battlefield, just as clearly and powerfully as the original singer’s voice. The soundwaves reverberated against the ether liquid inside the Frame Gears, giving them temporary boosts. 
“Brunhild knights, charge!” 
“Belfast knights, move out!” 
“Don’t hold back, Regulus knights! Show them that we’re a force to be reckoned with!” 
The knights began to clash against the mutants as the battle music invigorated them. Steel clashed against muddied gold, smashing the Lesser Constructs to bits. Then, they began tactically surrounding the Intermediate Constructs as well. 
The ground was littered with smashed cores and black sludge. It was a little late to think about, but I hoped this wouldn’t pollute the sea at all. I was kind of worried this would turn into an oil tanker spill situation or something. The waters looked mostly okay, though, so I figured it was probably fine. 
“Oh?” 
I looked over to the beach and saw two mechanical animals charging around the mutant horde. It was almost as if they were competing. 
The two Over Gears emitted shockwaves that prevented the mutants from even approaching them. The enemies were blasted over by the shockwaves, allowing the knights to rush in and stab them while they were down. 
At a glance, it seemed like a clever, coordinated attack. But I knew better. They were just charging around as they pleased. 
“Hey, Over Gears. Don’t go charging into our allies, okay?” 
“Hey, geez. You think I’d do something like that? Trust me here.” 
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself now. You’re the kinda person who charges in without thinking.” 
“Excuse me?!” 
I sighed slightly as the two started bickering over the comms. But thankfully, a shining goddess appeared to save me. 
“Nia... I’m fairly sure I’m always telling you not to charge on blindly.” 
“Est?! H-Huh?! Why are you here?!” 
The deputy leader of the Red Cats, Est, appeared behind Nia in her Red Lynx Frame Gear. 
“I didn’t invite the Red Cats to participate this time around, but I let Est deploy with our knight order. I needed someone to keep you in check, after all.” 
“Jerk!” 
“Now, now. Enough of that. I thought you’d be fine left to your own devices, but it seems like I really do have to tug at your reins...” 
Est’s Red Lynx deftly leaped into the air and straddled Tiger Rouge. Seemed like when she said that stuff about rein-tugging, she meant it literally. 
“Now, then. Hi-ho, Nia! Away!” 
“I’m not a horse!” 
“There’s nothing wrong with being a horse. Now, let’s work hard together... Unless you don’t want dinner, that is.” 
“Augh!” 
Tiger Rouge rode out along the shore with Red Lynx on its back. They were fighting pretty well together. It really spoke well to their history. 
The battle was slowly becoming more of an all-out brawl, but we clearly had the upper hand. Brunnhilde and Waltraute were doing a great job of supporting the less experienced pilots. 
I suddenly received a message from Ende’s Dragoon. 
“Touya, Upper Constructs inbound. Melle says there are three of them.” 
“What?!” 
Three... This wasn’t the first time multiple big ones had shown up. I remembered the incident with the nautilus and the peacock. Come to think of it, that was the first time we ever saw mutated Upper Constructs. 
Three of them would be a struggle, though... Especially with Dominant Constructs coming in after them. 
“Touya, look at the sea!” 
I turned in response to Yumina’s voice and saw an enormous whirlpool forming nearby. Wait, the Upper Constructs are showing up here instead of with the Lesser ones?! 
The whirlpool kept on growing larger until it resembled an antlion’s nest made of water. 
Eventually, the middle of that whirlpool began to fracture, and space itself started cracking. 
The cracking spread to the left and right and reality at the center of the whirlpool shattered like a mirror. The whirlpool vanished, replaced by three massive creatures above the sea. 
“Incoming!” 
The first one came crashing down into the water. It stood up on its hind legs as if to intimidate us. It was small for an Upper Construct and had the shape of a stag beetle. 
That still didn’t mean it was small by human standards. It was about as tall as an office building. I had a feeling even our Frame Gears could be crushed up in its mandibles. 
The second one floated on the sea’s surface. It had a star-like shape... It was clearly some kind of starfish. It slowly rotated as it floated along the water. 
It was over a hundred meters long, at least as wide as a baseball stadium. 
The final one that pushed itself through space and appeared before us was... A Dragon. 
It was a two-headed Dragon. 
It had the physical appearance of a western Dragon, the kind of bulky fire-breathing monster you’d see in stories of knights and chivalry. This one didn’t have any wings, though. 
Spikes jutted out from its body from head to tail. It even had gnarled horns sticking out of its chest. 
The worst thing about it was its size, though. It had to have been at least one and a half times as large as the starfish. This was absolutely the largest Upper Construct I’d ever seen. 
The two-headed Dragon splashed down into the water, all four of its clawed feet digging into the seabed. Water splashed all over the place. 
It was only then that I noticed the figures standing atop the Dragon’s heads. Two Dominant Constructs with muddy-gold protrusions on their bodies. They almost looked like identical twins, but one was male and the other female. They weren’t very tall, either. They didn’t give off the vibe of a man or a woman. Instead, they were more like a boy and a girl. 
Two Dominant Constructs with similar appearances... Don’t tell me that’s... 
“Touya, you promised, remember?” 
I heard Ende’s voice on the comms. 
“So that means they’re who I think they are?” 
“That’s right. Leto and Luto. The ones that caused the whole mess for me a while back.” 
I looked back up toward the Dragon and saw the twin mutants cackling atop the heads. 
“It would appear we have a great many spectators, Luto. Whatever shall we do?” 
“We must greet our new friends with open arms, of course.” 
The two-headed Dragon dug its feet into the seabed even more as it aimed its heads at the shoreline. Crackling electricity began to dance all over its body as particles of light gathered in both of its open mouths. 
OH HELL NO! Two enormous lasers beamed from the Dragon’s mouths in the blink of an eye, sending out a burning flash of light into the vicinity. 
“[Shield]!” 
I cast a defensive spell, empowered by my own divinity and Reginleif. Usually, the barrier was invisible, but it glowed with divine light as it stood in the path of the two particle beams. 
In most cases, a spell imbued with divinity was unbreakable, but since the enemy was empowered by the wicked god, the circumstances were far from normal. The barrier I’d set up gradually began to crack and strain under the force of the incoming blasts. 
Fortunately, it managed to endure the full brunt of the attack, but it shattered to pieces right after. 
“Way to attack hard right off the bat, geez...” 
I was a little worried for a second there. I hadn’t expected them to do that. 
“Hey, Ende. I’m gonna move these two someplace else. You good to take them after that?” 
“Yeah. You can leave it to me, Melle, and the others.” 
“Gotcha. Let me just set that up for you then. Fragarach Mode Change: Chain!” 
The forty-eight daggers orbiting Reginleif joined together and formed chain links, then combined into a single large chain. Both ends of the chain had weighty phrasium ball weights attached to them. 
The chain, imbued with my divinity, orbited Reginleif as it gradually lengthened. 
“Go now. Snare those two Dominant Constructs, Gleipnir!” 
The phrasium chain hurtled toward Leto and Luto at incredible speed, wrapping itself around them like a crystal snake. 
“What is this?!” 
“How is this...?!” 
The two ball weights dragged down as the chains bound Leto and Luto, drawing them both together. 
I knew it wouldn’t last long, so I deftly sent the two of them blasting toward a sand dune away from the main battle. 
“Gh!” 
The chains around the duo started to crack under their resistance. Given that they had the wicked god’s muddy divinity, I wasn’t surprised. 
I didn’t want the Fragarachs breaking this soon into the fight, so I released them from their bonds, dropping them to the sand below. 
The two of them landed without issue, but it wasn’t over for them. 
“[Prison]!” 
I used my sealing spell to lock them up. Under ordinary circumstances, they wouldn’t have been able to escape. 
Unfortunately for me, I was pretty sure that if they focused their attacks, they’d be able to get out at some point. 
Well, if they could focus, anyway. 
“They’re confined to that area. Do what you want with them now.” 
“Cheers, Touya.” 
The black-and-white Dragoon sped toward the dune, holding Melle and the other two Phrase girls in its hands. 
The Dragoon came to a halt and they all leaped down to the ground. Then, Ende popped open his cockpit and joined them. 
“Hoh. And here I was wondering what this was all about. Are you not the former sovereign and her ragtag gang of weaklings?” 
“Goodness me, Ney? I never would have imagined you teaming up with Endymion of all people. I was sure you ran back to Phrasia in tears, tail between your legs like the good little dog you are.” 
Ende and his allies walked through the [Prison] threshold, ignoring the jeering from the twins. I’d set it up so anything other than the mutants could pass through it. 
“...Leto. Luto. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Melle called out to the twins as she and her allies stood to face them. 
I was a bit worried about how they’d fare, but I decided to trust in them. I had a lot to do, after all. 
I transformed the Fragarach chain links back into flat boards and had them rest on Reginleif’s back. We had to deal with the incoming Upper Constructs. 
“Touya, how shall we handle them?” 
I didn’t reply to Yumina for a few moments, since I was contemplating our course of action. 
“Sue, deploy your Overlord against the stag beetle. Sakura, you support her. Yae, Elze, and Hilde, take Linze with you and target the starfish. Leen, Lu, and Yumina... You cover the knights and attack the Upper Constructs when you have an opportunity. I’ll handle that two-headed Dragon. If you guys take down your target, immediately go and back up the other girls.” 
The stag beetle was seventy or eighty meters long at most and Sue’s Ortlinde Overlord was thirty meters, so I was sure it could hold back the beetle if it came down to it. 
Ortlinde had been designed from the ground-up as a defensive Frame Gear anyway. It had impeccable defenses. If you added in Sakura’s music as support, they’d be unstoppable. 
I was a bit concerned about the starfish, since I didn’t know how it would attack, but I had faith in the four girls I’d sent after it. 
All I had to do was take out the two-headed Dragon as quickly as I could, then help the others as needed. 
I’m counting on you, Ende. Don’t let those Dominant Constructs get over here. 
“Valkyries, move out!” 
I reactivated the Fragarachs on Reginleif’s back, then flew off toward my target. 
 
“Alright, now it’s our turn!” 
Sue sat inside the Ortlinde Overlord’s cockpit. She was positively brimming with joy. She was excited to finally be on the front lines of a battle. The defensive nature of her mech typically relegated her to the rear guard. 
But this time, she had express permission from Touya, so it was fine to beat the enemies to a pulp. 
“Touya’s always been a little protective of me. I’m one of his fiancees, too! I’m plenty capable! A couple Upper Constructs aren’t a problem for me!” 
“Be careful... Don’t get ahead of yourself... The Grand Duke worries about your rash nature...” 
“Buh... I-I was just amping myself up! I’m not getting ahead of myself!” 
“Good...” Sakura’s soft voice fed through the cockpit speaker, making Sue panic a little. 
She did regret that she’d made such a childish comment. Sue was the youngest of Touya’s fiancees, after all. Yumina and Lu were the next youngest, and they were two years older than her. 
Even though there were only two years between them, Sue thought there was a vast gulp of maturity between her and them. She wasn’t necessarily right about this, though. It was just how she saw it. Still, feelings like that made Sue impatient to grow up faster. She wanted to become more ladylike, just like the girls older than her. 
She’d recently asked her mother Ellen to teach her sewing, proper dancing form, and proper etiquette. The results weren’t exactly befitting a noble lady, though... 
“Well, whatever! Time to crush that beetle!” 
Sue rapidly operated the command console within her customized cockpit. She poured magic through her fingers as she inputted various commands. 
“Cannon Knuckle Spiral!” 
Ortlinde Overlord’s right arm began spinning rapidly before launching off at the elbow. The shining golden right hook flew into the stag beetle, smashing against the surface of its body. 
The right hand whirred against the beetle’s carapace for two full seconds before pulling back, failing to penetrate it. The enemy’s body had cracks all over it, but they regenerated in no time at all. It eventually returned to an unhurt appearance. 
“Hrm. Guess it can’t be beaten that easily.” 
With regular Phrase, destroying the core was enough to kill them. It was the same with the mutants, but since they weren’t see-through, it was hard to track their weak spots. 
Plus, the Upper Constructs usually had multiple cores, so they were even trickier to deal with. 
At a glance, it was easy to assume they wouldn’t be in the legs or mandibles. They’d probably be in the torso or abdomen. 
“If only I could locate the cores.” 
“I can handle that... Rossweisse is a support Frame Gear, so it can do that kind of thing...” 
“It can, Sakura?” 
More musical magic came from Sakura’s Frame Gear. 
The song was the main theme of a movie about a guy who went to the past in a car-shaped time machine. It spread out across the battlefield in a vibrant way, befitting the title “The Power of Love.” Then, it washed over the Upper Construct. 
It wasn’t an offensive ability, so it simply ran through the beetle’s body like a light, pinpointing the location of its cores. 
“There are three cores... One in the head... and two in the chest... They’re positioned in a vertical line, spaced out a bit... I’ll send the readings.” 
“Neat.” 
One of Sue’s monitors displayed an image of the Upper Construct. Three glowing dots were highlighted on the image, showing the core locations. 
“Now I can aim and hit them properly. Just need to figure out a proper attack.” 
Sue grumbled a bit at her screen. It took considerable power to smash through an Upper Construct mutant and reach the cores inside. 
Even with Sakura’s music strengthening Ortlinde, she wasn’t sure if she could do it alone. Plus, all three cores needed to be shattered one after the other, and fast. Otherwise, the regeneration would just kick in. 
She was thinking maybe she should move the drill bits from Mjolnir, the subterranean tank that made up Ortlinde’s legs, to Ortlinde’s arm. Then, she could use a cannon knuckle spiral... 
“I had a feeling it might end up like this!” 
“Huh?! Wh-Wh-What?!” 
Sue was startled by the sudden voice from the speakers. The voice belonged to High Rosetta, the lead maintainer of the Frame Gears and manager of the workshop. 
“We made a special tool for the Ortlinde Overlord, yessir we did! Time to hammer that button! Whammo!” 
 

Babylon, which floated high in the sky above the battlefield, fired a weapon down to the ground. It landed right in front of Ortlinde Overlord, kicking up sand everywhere. 
The sound it made at first was a gigantic thud. Then, as the rest of it fell, it was more of a metallic clinking. 
“That’s...” 
The weapon was a gigantic metal ball with a golden luster. It was attached to a giant chain. The weapon could be called a morning star, but it was positively enormous. It was truly a weapon befitting the Ortlinde Overlord. 
“Yessir, we really went and did it! It’s the anti-Upper Construct giga gravity weapon, the gold hammer!” 
If Sue had more knowledge, she might have responded with “That’s more of a throwing hammer than an actual hammer!” 
“The gold hammer uses [Gravity] and [Prison] to accumulate magi-graviton energy in its ball component as it swings around. Then, when it hits its target, it’ll unleash all the accumulated energy and crush the target to dust, yessir it will! The more you spin it, the stronger it’ll get... But if you swing it too much, Ortlinde Overlord won’t be able to heft it anymore. You gotta be careful, yessir you do!” 
Sue didn’t fully understand Rosetta’s explanation, but she understood that she had a powerful weapon at her disposal. 
Ortlinde Overlord picked up the chain handle of the gold hammer. The chain’s length reached up to the Frame Gear’s chest. The ball lifted with relative ease, so it seemed to be a reasonable weight for the time being. 
Even in that state, it would be a devastating weapon to any regular enemy, but an Upper Construct would need further strength. 
“Alright! Time to be a brave and noble lady... Let’s go!” 
The Ortlinde Overlord began to spin the gold hammer around. It started by swinging the weapon back and forth like a pendulum to pick up momentum. 
Slowly, the gold circle began to spin around in a full circle, picking up speed and kicking up sand in the wake of its wind current. 
The hammer’s position shifted to a horizontal rotation without losing any momentum. Sparks began flying from the golden ball, and Ortlinde’s arm started accumulating severe mechanical strain. 
Sue could tell immediately that the weapon was building up massive force inside. The [Prison] enchantment was keeping that energy stored inside. 
The stag beetle started generating light inside its mandibles. Much like the Dragon earlier, it was trying to unleash a particle beam laser. 
“Oh no you dooon’t!” 
Ortlinde Overlord began to shift, spinning its entire body around like a spinning top to add more force to the gold hammer. And, after reaching the maximum limit that Ortlinde could take, the weapon was let go, flying toward the stag beetle along with all its magi-graviton mass. 
The gold hammer struck true, flying like a bullet into the Upper Construct. Dark particles flowed from the gold hammer on impact, the sheer force of it distorting reality itself around the mutant foe. 
A furious shockwave shook the very space in the surrounding area. 
The body of the stag beetle began to crumble into fine grains before blowing away like dust in the wind. Every part of the creature, cores included, had been turned into powder. 
“Crumble to dust!” 
The twisted, distorted region of space destroyed the stag beetle instantly. When it finally subsided, there was nothing left but the gentle whoosh of nearby waves. 
It was complete and utter obliteration. Despite Sue’s words, there wasn’t even dust left. It was simply gone. 
The gold hammer itself ended up disintegrating as well. It seemed even the weapon couldn’t withstand the force of the energy it was designed to contain. 
“I did it, Touya! I did it! Wait, huh?” 
Sue started celebrating in the cockpit, but Ortlinde Overlord suddenly fell to its knees. Steam and mana particles began rising from its joints, and the armor on its limbs began crumbling away. 
All the monitors and displays inside the cockpit turned off, and the entire machine switched to emergency power. 
“Huh? Why’s it not moving?!” 
“No need to worry about it, ma’am! That’s just the recoil from using the gold hammer, yessir it is! Ortlinde’s just overheated for a bit, that’s all! Seems like we’ll have to tweak Ortlinde a bit more so it can handle the collapsing energy!” 
Sue opened up the cockpit hatch and hopped out of the immobile Frame Gear. The battle was still going on over at the main beach, so she could see the figures of Chevaliers taking on Lesser Construct mutants. 
“Good work...” 
A light pink Frame Gear appeared below Sue. It was Sakura’s Rossweisse. 
Sue pouted a little as she leaned against Ortlinde’s chest hatch. 
“I’m glad I beat that beetle, but I can’t help Touya and the others now!” 
“Don’t worry... I’ll go help them on your behalf...” 
“No fair!” 
Sue knew it was childish, but she couldn’t help but throw a little tantrum. After all, she’d been waiting a while to make an impact with the others. 
“It’s okay... You did good, Sue. Be proud... Monica, please send Ortlinde Overlord and its pilot back to the hangar...” 
“Roger!” 
“Hey... Wait, I’m not done sulking!” 
The kneeling titan, along with Sue, was wrapped up in glimmering light and warped away from the beach. 
Sakura’s Rossweisse was left behind, ready to continue supporting her allies. 
“Now then... Should I help Elze’s group or go to the Grand Duke...? Or wait, maybe I should support Yumina and the knights...?” 
Sakura used search magic within the Rossweisse cockpit to get a grasp on the situation. 
There was no reason to worry about Elze’s group. Elze, Hilde, and Yae were an unstoppable trio when it came to physical combat. 
However, Sakura was even less worried about Touya. There was no way he would ever lose a fight. Hell would surely freeze over before that happened. Sakura’s belief in her fiance teetered on the verge of unwavering, blind faith. 
With all that in mind, it was most logical for her to follow up with Yumina and the knight orders. Rossweisse specialized in support from the back, so she’d be able to make best use of her Frame Gear in a large-scale battle like that. 
Sakura quietly affirmed that course of action before rushing back toward the carnage. 
 
“It really is massive, it is...” When she saw it from Schwertleite’s cockpit monitor, Yae couldn’t stop herself from commenting on the starfish-shaped Upper Construct. 
It resembled a pentagram from above, but from the sides it looked almost like a small mountain. 
It slowly rotated its body as it floated slightly above the beach, sending sand everywhere. Its muddy-gold body shimmered in the sunlight. 
“How will we handle this?” 
“No point wasting time wondering about it! We gotta hit before we get hit, let’s go! [Boost]!” Elze’s crimson Frame Gear, Gerhilde, charged toward the starfish with the vernier thruster on its back. She moved as swiftly as ever. 
“[Fighting Spirit]! Take this, [Cannon Break]!” Gerhilde’s right fist enveloped itself in chi, smashing into one of the starfish’s limbs. 
The pile bunker on Gerhilde’s right arm flew forward and smashed further into the Upper Construct’s body. Cracks started spreading out across its surface. 
“And here’s another!” Gerhilde dug its feet into the sand before following up with a strike from its left fist. The pile bunker on the left arm echoed the movement of its right-arm counterpart, driving deeper cracks through the enemy’s form. 
Muddy-gold fragments splintered to the ground, and the tip of the starfish’s arm fell off entirely. 
“Guh...” Unfortunately, the limb regenerated even as the broken parts melted into sludge below. 
“Figured I wouldn’t get lucky and find a core there, huh.” Elze jumped Gerhilde back, grumbling softly. 
“It’s okay, sis! The regeneration you just caused helped me trace the cores!” Linze spoke through the comms from above. She’d been using Helmwige to observe the enemy from above. 
Regular and mutant Phrase alike needed to divert magical power from their cores to regenerate. That meant tracing the flow of magic through their bodies would allow you to find where their cores were. 
“It seems like there’s one in the middle, and one in each of its five legs.” There were six cores in total. That was a lot, even for an Upper Construct. 
“Six, huh? And we must destroy all of them at once, yes?” Hilde muttered to herself from inside Siegrune’s cockpit. 
“Linze, do you think we can call over Leen and use the Brionac?” Brionac was an enormous magical cannon. It was a guaranteed one-shot weapon that made use of the [Spiral] and [Explosion] spells to fire a specially-charged drillbit bullet. 
It could only be used by Leen and Linze at the same time, since it required massive amounts of magical energy to activate. Even then it only allowed for one shot, making it pretty unwieldy in general. 
“We could do that, but... We only have one shot, and if we leave behind even one core then it would’ve been wasted...” 
“Hm... The battle would definitely be harder if Leen-dono and Linze-dono were put out of action, it would...” 
“Everyone, look out!” Hilde suddenly yelled out, prompting the others to look at the starfish. It had stopped rotating. 
Its five limbs started cracking before splitting from the middle and falling to the ground at the tips. Each limb-tip was loosely connected to the middle portion by stringy, muddy-gold tentacles. 
Those tips reared upward like snake heads. 
Suddenly particles of light began gathering at the end of each. 
“Ah?! We must dodge, we must!” Yae yelled out, and everyone in the area scattered. 
The tips of the disconnected limbs fired out thin lasers, weaker than the ones from the Dragon. 
Everyone in the vicinity could hear a sickening hissing sound as the very sand around them melted into goopy puddles. 
“Watch out! Incoming!” Elze cried out. 
The limb-tips swiveled around and started charging up laser blasts once again. 
Five lasers began cutting through the air, headed directly for Yae and the other Valkyrie gears. 
“Lestian Sacred Sword: Second Wardance!” Hilde leaped from the beach in her Siegrune, slicing one of the tentacles and bringing the detached limb-tip crashing to the ground. 
The tip was then slashed into ribbons in the blink of an eye, melting down into goop on the beach. A small red orb, two meters in diameter, was among the goo. It melted down too. 
But the smashed limb-tip quickly regenerated, returning to its former appearance in seconds. 
The core was regenerated inside it as well, so they were back to square one. 
The whole group jumped back to put some distance between them and the lasers. 
“Just as we’d thought... Destroying one limb does nothing.” 
“Yeah, we’re gonna have to get them all at once.” 
“But there’s only four of us.” 
“Then we need two more, we do... Shall we ask Yumina-dono, Lu-dono, or Leen-dono for aid?” With two more, or even with one more, they could launch a coordinated attack on all five limbs at once. Then they’d be able to quickly go for the central core as a group before it regenerated itself. 
But given the current battle situation, it’d be hard for Yumina, Leen, and Lu to leave their support roles with the knights. 
“Two more, huh? How about us?” 
All the girls cried out in sudden, surprised unison. 
They had no idea where the source of that voice had come from. 
As if out of nowhere, there was someone standing on Schwertleite’s shoulder. There was someone standing on Siegrune’s shoulder too. 
One held a three-meter crystal blade, certainly not something you’d expect a woman of her build to be carrying. The other held a large bow in her hands, and a mighty quiver on her back. 
“Moroha-aneue and Karina-dono?! How long have you been here, how long?” Yae stared in wide-eyed shock at the sight of her fiance’s elder sister atop her Frame Gear. 
“We weren’t planning to help at first, but sitting around and watching just wasn’t enough... I came by hoping to mop up a couple weaklings or something.” 
“Moroha called me over. It’ll be a nice way to while away some time, though.” The two of them spoke playfully, since it was basically just fun sport to them. They were both strong enough to claim something like that fairly easily. 
“So if the five of us go for the limbs, then Karina can shoot an arrow for the middle, so...” 
“No can do! We’re just here to support you, so we’re not gonna do anything that extreme. The one to land the final hit, let’s see... Linze. You can do it.” 
“What...?! M-M-Me?!” Linze practically shrieked in response. Karina spoke so casually about it, but Linze fully knew that if she screwed up the last hit, then they’d be back at square one again. 
That was quite the burden for a timid girl like her. 
“Just be calm and it’ll work out. You’ve been through some hard times, right? But you made it through. I think you’ll be okay. Why don’t you show Touya how much you’ve grown?” 
“O-Okay!” Linze answered with renewed vigor. 
“Alrighty then. Then me, Elze, Hilde, Karina, and Yae will go for the cores in its limbs. When we do that, Linze’ll go for the center core. Got it?” Moroha grinned as she spoke, hefting her sword over her shoulder. Hilde was a little confused as to how they were hearing Moroha so clearly when she wasn’t using a communicator, but she chalked it up to divinity stuff and didn’t think too hard about it. 
Moroha and Karina leaped down to the ground. 
Karina pulled out two bevel nata blades from nowhere, and wielded them in each hand. 
She deftly deflected several lasers using her newly-manifested crystal weapons. 
The four fiancees stared at Karina from inside their cockpits, dumbfounded by her incredible skill. They eventually chalked it up to divinity stuff and didn’t think too hard about it. 
“Alright. Let’s hustle. Everyone except Linze, spread out and destroy your target core within a minute. Got that?!” 
“Gotcha!” 
“Very well!” 
“I understand, I do!” 
“We got this!” 
“Y-Yes, we’ll be fine!” 
“Then let’s go, ladies!” Two goddesses, and three Frame Gears, charged along the sandy beach. 
The starfish’s limbs darted after them, hunting them down with laser strikes. But each and every one of the girls managed to dodge, deflect, or slice back. There was actually only one of them who managed to cut the laser, though. But that wasn’t really a big deal. 
“Kokonoe Secret Style: Sword Flash!” The first one to make its way through was Yae in her Schwertleite. She tore through one of the muddy-gold appendages with strikes swifter than the naked eye. 
Yae immediately spotted the exposed core, and stabbed her katana right through it. 
The core raised a loud shattering noise and crumbled into pieces. That was one down. 
“[Boost]!” Next came Elze in Gerhilde. She pummeled the limb firing lasers at her with the pile bunkers. 
She started with punches clad in divinity, and drove her pile bunkers into the cracks. It could hardly even be called a fight; it was almost like deep excavation or mining work. She was pulling chunk after chunk of corrupted phrasium from her enemy’s body. 
“There it is!” The core became dislodged and rolled out of the limb. Gerhilde scooped her right arm upward and struck the core with her uppercut. Two down. 
“Hup, hup...” Karina ran across the sand on foot, deflecting laser after laser as they fired her way. She displayed every instinct one might expect from a hunting goddess, tracking her prey with merciless precision. 
Karina jumped into the air, landing atop the wriggling limb. She brought her machete down, splitting it like chopped firewood. The core within was sliced down the middle. It crumbled instantly. It was a casual and anticlimactic finish. Just another successful hunt. Three down. 
“Lestian Sacred Sword: Fifth Swirl!” Hilde charged forward in her orange Siegrune, clashing head-on against her target. 
It brandished a crystal blade in its hand, creating a spinning wind around it and splitting apart the muddied phrasium. 
The red core was swept by the updraft, casting it into the sky above. 
“Hmph!” Siegrune’s blade danced through the air, cleanly splitting the core in half as it fell back to earth. Four down. 
“Good job, girls. Now I’ll go for mine...” Moroha smiled broadly, casually swinging her forty-centimeter-wide blade and slicing apart the lasers that came toward her. 
Once again, very casually, she swung her blade in the direction of her target. Even though there was still a considerable distance between them, the shockwave from her motion sliced the limb to pieces. 
Her attack, which seemed to rend space itself, cleanly split the core in half. Five down. 
Moroha, who hadn’t moved a single step throughout all of that, looked up to Helmwige. 
“Looks like it’s time for the finale.” Linze knew from Helmwige’s readings that the central core had begun sending out magical pulses to regenerate the rest of the body. The final core was smack-bang in the middle, she needed to hurry. 
If the regeneration was allowed to continue, then everyone else’s hard work would have all been for nothing. She couldn’t afford to lose here. 
“... H-Here I go!” Linze gripped the controls in front of her and started a sudden descent toward the starfish. 
She focused all her attention on the monitor, lining up the sights for her revolver cannons. 
The moment the sights lined up with the core’s location, Linze pulled the trigger and held it down for dear life. 
Pew, pew, pew, pew!! The hail of crystal bullets fired in rapid succession, raining down upon their target. 
The middle of the starfish’s body was dented and pelted by bullet after bullet. 
Eventually the muddy-gold shell gave way to the red core. But Helmwige’s furious flurry of bullets didn’t stop, landing blow after blow on to the exposed weak point and cracking it. 
But the central core was roughly twice the size of the other cores. It wouldn’t break as easily. If Linze didn’t do something, the other cores would regenerate before she succeeded. 
“I won’t... Give you the chance!” Linze suddenly had Helmwige shift from flight mode into regular Frame Gear mode. 
The shift in forms meant that Helmwige was no longer capable of flight, and it would come crashing down to the ground. But that was exactly what Linze wanted. 
“Hiyaaaah!!” Linze cried out with righteous force, and expertly navigated a drop kick on to the cracked core below. 
This technique was something Linze had learned without even realizing it. After all, she had been carefully watching her older sister’s training more than anyone else. It was the ultimate crystallization of her bond with Elze. An attack picked up simply by paying close attention to her sister’s style. 
The incredible hit utterly obliterated the central core. With that, the starfish-shaped Upper Construct was done for. 
The great creature’s body began melting down into sludge. All the participants in its death moved away and watched it from afar. 
“You did it, Linze! That was totally awesome!” 
“You truly resembled Elze-dono, you did. What a wonderful attack.” 
“Indeed. It was quite the amazing strike. I knew you could do it.” 
“R-Really? Ahaha... I got so into it, it was like my body moved on its own. I’m really happy it worked out...” Linze blushed a little, but she was smiling. 
Thus, they had won their fight. Linze turned her gaze toward the shoreline, and she saw that Touya’s fight against the two-headed Dragon was drawing to a close as well. 
 
The two-headed Dragon launched bladed spines toward Reginleif. 
But the twelve crystal spheres orbiting the Frame Gear easily countered them. 
The Fragarachs had taken sphere form, and operated as autonomous defensive satellites. 
“Alrighty. Time to wrap this up... I need to check in on Ende, and I’m a bit worried about the knights too.” The battle was shifting to our favor. Unfortunately, the Lesser and Intermediate Constructs had been stronger than we’d anticipated. Some of our knights had been overpowered, but things still looked positive. 
Sue and Elze’s teams had wrapped up their battles, so they’d definitely be able to go help the regular knights. I needed to hurry up and go help the others. 
The two-headed Dragon opened both of its mouths, preparing for another beam blast. 
“Nope, not happening.” The twelve spheres transformed into two lances that propelled themselves toward the gaping mouths. 
The lances crashed their way into the Dragon’s maws before spreading open like umbrellas and starting to rotate. 
The two lances began drilling through muddy-gold carapace until they pierced through the backs of the Dragon’s throats. 
Both heads cracked and shattered above the jaw, and they melted into sludge like usual. 
But the broken pieces immediately regenerated and reformed the heads in no time at all. I wasn’t exactly surprised, but it was worth a shot. 
“Now, let’s see about those cores...” 
I used my divine sight to look the Dragon up and down. Chest, belly, and tail... There were three in total. It was a little annoying, but easily manageable. 
I called one of the two lances to Reginleif’s hand, and transformed the other into twenty-four daggers. 
I then merged those daggers with the lance, and formed a much larger heavy lance. 
“Alright, let’s do this.” I charged toward the two-headed Dragon, heavy lance in hand. 
I smashed Reginleif right into the Dragon’s chest, caving it in slightly through sheer force of momentum. 
It had a tough exterior, but I’d expected that. The defense was certainly higher around its chest than it was on its heads; even the heavy lance wasn’t working its way through the damn thing’s body as fast as I wanted. I wished it would just die faster so I could get to the others. 
“Apotheosis!” Reginleif suddenly found itself surrounded by my divinity. With that, the heavy lance started to cut through my enemy’s body like butter. 
The lance kept sliding through the corrupted phrasium until its tip pressed against the chest core. 
“Shatter!” Reginleif mercilessly shattered the core to bits. 
I quickly turned the lance around with a swift U-turn, and then I charged back toward the Dragon. 
This time I was aiming for the core in its belly. 
The heavy lance used its divinity-clad aura to shatter the carapace and meet its mark. 
Reginleif pushed onward, smashing through the other side of the Dragon, crushing the second core in the process. 
“It’s over for you now.” Reginleif turned once more, and flew toward the Dragon’s tail like an arrow. 
The tail core was much less protected than the other two, and thus it took only a simple thrust from the heavy lance to obliterate it. 
Black smoke began rising up from the two-headed Dragon as it crumbled. 
The last of the Upper Constructs had fallen, bubbling down into waxy goop. 
“That was pretty easy, huh. Now then... Time to go help every-” 
“Touya! Three-o’clock! One of the mutants!” Yumina alerted me to an Intermediate Construct shaped like a sea anemone. It had two Chevaliers caught in its tentacle-like snares. 
The tentacles sucked both Frame Gears into the mutant’s body, absorbing them in a matter of seconds. 
“Flora! Are those pilots okay?!” Flora was stationed at the emergency medical center on the beach. 
“They’re okay, you see. The two of them used their emergency escape devices.” I was relieved to hear that. Deaths may have been an inevitability when it came to some wars, but I still wanted to keep any losses to a minimum. 
The Frame Gears that got eaten were from Brunhild. It had probably taken advantage of an opening in their defenses when the two of them were moving to support others. 
The tentacled anemone looked a little tougher than the rest of them. 
I hefted the heavy lance and prepared to take it out, but it suddenly started moving strangely. 
It began backing away from the shoreline and heading into the sea. 
I watched it, confused, as something worse suddenly happened. Space itself cracked around the anemone, creating a rift in the air. 
The sea anemone shuffled backward into the space between worlds, vanishing into the crack with the two Chevaliers it had stolen. 
And then, like a video being rewound, the crack in space sealed itself back up again. The anemone had escaped. 
“Wait, was that...?” 
I was frozen in shock by the unexpected event. I’d seen something behind the anemone, through the gap in space. It was distinctly humanoid. It was probably another Dominant Construct, lurking in the shadows. “...Worrying about it won’t do anything. We need to get this battle finished.” I tuned Reginleif’s communicator to the general channel. 
“The Upper Constructs are all dead! This isn’t a battle anymore, it’s a hunt! Wipe out all the remaining enemies, don’t leave any alive!” 
“HOO-RAH!” The knights all roared ferociously. The Frame Gears all charged ahead with renewed vigor, smashing mutant after mutant. 
We’d already dealt with around eighty percent of them. The only major part of this conflict was in the hands of Ende and his group. 
I shifted my Fragarachs to daggers and sent them to support the knights. As I maneuvered the blades, I activated my divine sight to look over to the [Prison] Ende was battling inside. 
It was a little rude to peek on them, but I was a bit concerned. 
The [Prison] was cut off from the outside world, but my divine sight allowed me to view the unusual battle going on within. 
 
“Leto. Luto. It’s been some time.” Melle raised her voice, but the twin Dominants only replied with smirks. 
“Before I left Phrasia, did I not entrust you two with the duty of advising the new Sovereign? What happened?” 
“Haaaah. Do you really think that we wanted to babysit your successor? We wanted something more fun, something more engaging.” 
“Indeed. That’s why we joined Yula in crossing across worlds. Yula, Gila, and even Ney so earnestly went out there to search for you... But we didn’t care about that at all. We saw a golden opportunity, you see. We realized that we didn’t have to exercise restraint in these new worlds we’d cross through.” 
Melle narrowed her eyes in response. 
“And just where is Yula now, hm? Isn’t he the one behind all of this?” 
“Who knows? We don’t exactly interact with him very often. Ever since Yula gained this golden power, he’s been off doing all kinds of things. We don’t know the details, and we don’t want to know.” Melle sighed quietly. She knew that Yula had always been a secretive sort. But she was a little surprised that he hadn’t revealed any of his plans to the twins, who were supposed to be his allies. 
Back on Phrasia, Yula was considered the most accomplished scientist around. Even Melle couldn’t help but be impressed by his endless thirst for knowledge. 
But that thirst paved the way for a dark obsession. Yula would sacrifice anything, employ any method, all without regret. If it was for the sake of discovery, he’d use and abuse anything he could get his hands on. His heart was clearly ice cold. 
“It doesn’t really matter to us what Yula is doing. Isn’t that right, brother dearest? So long as we’re having fun, we don’t really have any complaints. Now then, is that all you wanted to ask us? Can we get around to killing you now? In truth, we don’t really need the Sovereign’s power anymore, but it might be a nice little addition to our forces if we can claim your core here and now.” 
“If you so much as touch Lady Melle, I’ll take your cores and crush them into dust.” 
“My, you certainly do talk the talk. Pity you can’t walk the walk, Ney.” Leto taunted Ney with a smug, sadistic grin. 
Ney glared back with fury boiling over behind her eyes. 
Luto, who stood by his sister, suddenly turned his gaze toward Ende. 
“We allowed you to escape last time, Endymion. But this time we’ll ensure you meet your end. It might be a little nice if we gut you in front of the Sovereign, don’t you think? It would add a little spice to the confrontation. But, hm... How shall we kill you? There are so many methods to pick from.” 
“Yeah, I gotta admit I’m stuck thinking too, you mutated bastard. I’m wondering just how I should go about beating the crystal snot out of you.” Ende rolled his shoulders and spoke casually, refusing to give in to Luto’s provocation. 
Luto adopted a slightly frustrated expression, staring Ende down and spitting a few words back. 
“Did we give you brain damage or something? How exactly do you intend to hurt us, hm? You couldn’t do a thing last time.” 
“Well, I was thinking I’d get right up close to you like this.” Ende suddenly appeared in front of Luto; it was if he hadn’t moved his body at all. His motion was so swift it resembled teleportation. 
“Wha-?!” 
“And then I was thinking of putting all my power behind a right hook.” Before Luto could even react, Ende’s arm had pulled back and pushed forward, slamming a clenched fist right into the Dominant Construct’s cheek. 

Luto flew backward, his neck bent at an odd angle. He writhed slightly as he rolled along the ground. 
“Brother dearest?!” Luto kept crashing and rolling along the ground until he hit the wall of the [Prison] and finally stopped. Leto looked on in shock. 
He scrambled to his feet and glared in confusion over toward Ende. Deep cracks ran through the carapace on his right cheek, but they quickly mended themselves. 
“You wretch... How dare you?!” 
“Don’t get mad because you can’t walk the walk, Luto. Anger clouds one’s judgment, you know. Emotional weakness creates physical weakness in the heat of combat. That’s one of the things my master taught me.” 
“Don’t talk down to me! Don’t get so conceited, you little shit” Luto snarled, kicking up off the ground and madly charging at Ende. He swung out his right fist toward Ende’s face, almost in an attempt to pay him back for the earlier blow. 
But, just at the last second before impact, Ende caught the incoming strike with his palm. 
“Wh-?!” 
“That’s it? Elze is a lot scarier when she uses her [Boost] spell. If I couldn’t block something as weak as that, then my master would definitely chew me out about it.” Luto’s eyes widened as his confusion deepened, and Ende was quick to take advantage of that. The white-haired youth spun around and delivered a brutal backspin kick to the Phrase’s lower back. 
“Bwugh!” Luto was blasted back yet again, kicking up sand as he rolled along the dunes. 
“Guh!” His sister, Leto, attempted to rush to his aid. But she found her path blocked by Lycee and Ney. 
“Out of my way! Move!” Leto suddenly reshaped her arm into a wretched-looking muddy-gold blade. She brought it swinging down toward Ney. 
Even though it was only a trace amount, that blade was imbued with the wicked god’s divinity. Ney was a Dominant Construct, but she was far less than the divine. If she didn’t dodge, there’s no way her body would be able to resist the slash. 
But... What Leto felt in the next instant was not the satisfaction of having cleaved through her enemy. She felt a hard resistance against her limb, and a clashing sound. 
She looked at her arm in confusion, and saw Ney blocking it with a sword. 
Ney smiled wide, almost laughing at her mutated foe. 
“I was a bit worried for a sec, but it looks like that Touya guy was right! It worked!” 
“J-Just what is that blade?!” Leto swung her sword-arm again, and then a third time. But the silver-white blade in Ney’s hand parried the hit at every turn. That was to be expected, of course, for Ney’s blade was no ordinary weapon. 
It was one of the sacred treasure blades that Ende had pilfered from another world after his loss to the twins. 
Touya had taken them back after all that business was dealt with, but he’d allowed Lycee and Ney to borrow them for this battle. 
Even if they were Dominant Constructs, they were still Phrase lifeforms. That meant there was a chance they could be consumed by the mutants, or converted. Touya decided that granting them the divine weapons would give them the necessary protection. After all, the blades had just been laying around in his [Storage]. 
Touya got permission from the other gods and had then handed them over. 
“You know, Ney. I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but... You and your little friends really piss me and my brother off! You’re always getting in the way of our fun!” 
“That’s really funny, actually. I was just thinking about how much you piss me off! How you always did whatever you wanted, and how you never gave Lady Melle the proper respect. We were allies before so I put up with it, but now you’re my enemy... So I can tear you apart and finally be rid of you!” 
“Shut the hell up, bitch!” Leto screeched, flailing her sword-arm furiously in Ney’s direction. 
Even though Ney had a sacred treasure, Leto was still a lot stronger than her. It was taking all of her power just to deflect the strikes raining down on her. 
But, taking advantage of Leto’s distracted state, Lycee took her chance to strike. She slashed at the blade-arm, severing it cleanly and saving Ney from further peril. 
Leto’s right arm thudded to the ground and began melting into slime. 
“Gh... I didn’t even notice you! You always have been forgettable, you bitch!” Leto jumped back, regrowing her missing arm in a flash. 
Lycee stared back at her, brandishing the divine blade in her hands. 
“Are you okay, Ney?” 
“Yeah. I’m okay, somehow... Couldn’t you have helped a little sooner?” 
“You two were having a conversation, I didn’t want to interrupt...” 
“Th-That wasn’t really a conversation...” Ney was a little bewildered by Lycee’s nonsensical reasoning, but she just shrugged it off. 
Even back on Phrasia, Lycee was considered an oddball. 
She wasn’t a bad girl by any means, but she often behaved in an atypical way. Hell, she’d even been part of Yula’s group with Ney, but somehow she ended up joining Endymion without anyone noticing. 
Ney originally believed she’d been tricked by Ende into doing that, but she couldn’t exactly deny that Lycee probably did it on her own. Still, Ney would take any chance she could get to yell at or punch Ende, so she was happy to pretend like he was a bad influence on the girl she viewed very much as a little sister. 
“Hm? So you’ll both be facing me? Very well. If you want to fight so bad, let’s make it a real one!” Leto’s body shifted, as a muddy-gold metal spilled out from inside her. It began coating her, fixing jagged armored pieces on to her arms, legs, torso and more. 
In a short while, every part of her body aside from her face had been covered in the thicker material. It was some kind of enhanced version of the crystal armor that other Dominants could equip. 
“You bastard, Endymion! Don’t you dare mess around with me! You’re nothing, you hear me?! Nothing! Gahahahah!!” Ney and the others glanced over toward the sudden yelling, and saw Luto clashing with Ende. He’d covered himself in the golden armor as well. It certainly wasn’t surprising that the two of them were so synchronized. 
“Now, let’s take this from the top. I’ll crush you to bits, Endymion.” 
“Indeed, it’s as my dear brother says. Lycee, Ney. I’ll pulverize your cores. I’ll eat you alive.” 
Luto VS Ende 
Leto VS Ney and Lycee 
The Sovereign stood away and watched. The battle within the [Prison] was about to reach fever pitch. 
 
Luto charged ahead, morphing both of his arms into blades. 
The Phrase’s crystal armor was a technique that took the life energy from inside a Phrase’s core, and projected it outwardly. 
It was similar to the fighting spirit used by Elze and Ende. 
Luto, having imbued himself with this armament chi, was now capable of phenomenal strength and explosive speed. 
“Raaargh!” Luto slashed toward Ende. Unlike Ney and Lycee, Ende wasn’t wielding any divine weapons. If he took a strike like that, then he’d surely be torn asunder. 
However... Ende didn’t move from his position. He simply exhaled deeply and focused all his power within a spot beneath his navel. 
“Fighting Spirit: Energy Release!” 
“What?!” Ende’s body began to emanate chi as he garbed himself in raw fighting spirit. But this wasn’t any ordinary chi; it had divinity mixed into it. It wasn’t pure like Touya’s, but it was more than enough to contend with the wicked god’s muddied force. This martial chi was truly befitting of the god of combat’s disciple. 
Ende’s hands, clad in fighting spirit, clapped down on the incoming blade and caught it. It was almost like a magic trick, but this was the real deal. 
“Haaah!” 
“Nh?!” Ende then twisted both of his hands, and broke off the arm-blade. He tossed the blade aside before smacking the back of his hand into Luto’s face. 
Luto’s shattered arm started regenerating as he flew backward. He rolled on the ground a few times before steadying himself and standing. 
Luto turned back toward Ende, but suddenly his body spasmed. An impact crater appeared on his right shoulder, as if an invisible fist had hammered into it. 
“Guh! Wh-What is this?!” 
“Dang, I missed. Seems like my energy release isn’t quite good enough for combat yet.” Ende grumbled quietly, his right arm extended. The further the distance, the lower the accuracy and strength. His abilities still weren’t refined enough to use at range, it was easier for him to just directly punch his enemies. 
“Now, let me pay you back for the time you two messed me up.” Ende ran full pelt at Luto. Luto was powered up, though, so he could now read Ende’s movements. 
His newly-regenerated arm had been specially grown to be more dense and durable. He was prepared for the incoming strike. 
Ende’s punch connected with the defensive arm. It groaned and cracked slightly, but it didn’t break. 
He then took his chance to send a thorn-studded punch right back toward Ende. 
But his white-haired foe dodged the strike just barely, spinning in place and turning Luto’s world upside down. 
“Gwuh?!” Luto slammed into the ground, finding himself the sudden and swift victim of an over-shoulder throw. 
Ende tried to follow up with a downward punch against his fallen foe, but he had to jump back to avoid the laser blast coming his way from the side. 
The terrible heat ray pierced the space that had previously been occupied by Ende’s head. 
The laser carried on until it hit the [Prison] wall and dissipated. 
Ende turned toward the source of the blast, and he saw Leto staring at him incredulously. 
“Die, vermin!” She began charging up another blast at the tip of her blade-arm. 
Ende dodged it with a swift backstep, putting distance between him and Luto. 
Luto then used that opportunity to scramble to his feet and slash his blade arm at Ney, who was in the middle of charging toward his sister. 
“Guh!” Ney used her divine weapon to parry the blade arm. Luto quickly changed his strategy, reaching out his arm further to wrap around his sister’s body. He pulled her toward him. 
Leto flew upward, spun in midair, and landed next to her twin. 
“Crud, I wanted to beat them while they were separated...” Ende grumbled a little as he looked over at the twins. They’d taken a defensive posture, standing back to back. 
They were twins, and they seemed to have perfect teamwork. When they worked together, they could perform far more than twice as efficiently than they could alone. 
“Sorry. We couldn’t keep her held down.” 
“Yeah, sorry.” 
“It’s alright. I couldn’t take out Luto, either.” Ende stood opposite Ney and Lycee; they surrounded the twins on either side. 
Ende maintained his aura of fighting spirit, kicking off from the ground and charging forward. Luto came swiping at him with his sword arm, but Ende’s divinity-laden fist tanked the attack with little difficulty. 
Luto was rendered defenseless, leaving him open for Ende to kick his side. 
But... Leto moved from behind her brother, and jabbed her sword arm toward Ende like a spear. 
“Gah!” Ende had to contort his entire body just to avoid the strike. He retreated on the spot. 
Leto had attacked Ende without even looking in Luto’s direction. She kept her gaze trained on Ney and Lycee, but still managed to effortlessly intercept Ende’s attack. 
“These guys are a real pain...” 
“I believe that should be our line. I’m angry that you meaningless little mooks have harmed us to this degree. Yula would laugh if he learned about this. Leto, sister dearest! It is time to put an end to this!” 
“You’re right, brother dearest. I’m getting quite tired of this. I’m especially irritated by that weak little woman just watching our battle from the sidelines. Let’s play our final card.” 
Leto sneered directly toward Melle, who was hiding a good distance behind Lycee and Ney. 
A cracking sound rang out as several crystal rods, around the size of bamboo reeds, started jutting out in a spiral pattern beneath the twins. 
The rods pushed upward and upward, elevating the duo higher and higher, liquefying at the top and engulfing their bodies. 
A single form remained after the grim transformation, revealing an eight-legged mass where the twins once stood. 
It was a great spider. The twins’ bodies from the waist upward jutted out above the spider abdomen and thorax. 
There was a demonkin species known as the Arachne. It had the upper body of a woman, and the lower body of a spider. The giant spider in front of them certainly resembled an Arachne, but it had two upper bodies that covered both sexes, and it was made of metallicized, muddy-gold phrasium. 
“What is that, your true form or something?” 
“This is a power granted to us by Yula. We’ve kept it sealed until now because we find it unsightly, but that matters not now. We’re going to slaughter you and consume your wasting corpses!” Luto’s voice was the most prominent, but there were traces of Leto’s voice undertoning it. The twins had become one, in the most complete sense of the word. 
Ende could trace the magic flow through its body. Their cores had been inside their throats when they had human forms, but now both cores had moved toward the spider body’s center, and they were acting as one. 
Leto’s right arm morphed, and so did Luto’s left. Before long, each arm took the form of a giant pair of scissors, two pairs in total. 
They weren’t animalistic pincers like a crab claw; they had straight-up become long, metallic scissors that you might find in a kitchen. 
“Take this!” The closed pair of scissors jabbed toward Ende. 
Ende leaped backward, causing the weapon to dig itself into the sand. 
“We’ll tear you in half!” Leto’s voice was the more prominent sound in that scream, with a little bit of Luto’s undertoning it. 
The second pair of scissors came rushing forward, opening up wide and stretching toward Lycee. 
“Lycee!” Ney ran toward her sister, who hadn’t reacted well enough in time. 
Leto’s scissors weren’t trying to cut Lycee down the middle; they were aiming for her neck. She was trying to instantly kill Lycee by shattering her core. 
Even a Dominant Construct couldn’t regenerate if their core was destroyed. The act would mean certain death. 
Just as the scissors closed around Lycee’s exposed throat, they stopped. A high-pitched sound rang out. It wasn’t that they stopped of their own volition, it was more that they’d been stopped. 
“Wh-?!” A phrasium pillar had emerged from the ground in front of Lycee, blocking Leto’s scissor attack by catching the blades. 
“Damn it!” Leto channeled more corrupted divinity into the blades, strengthening them. The pillar was destroyed. Fortunately, Lycee managed to escape within that time frame. 
“You dare get in our way?!” Leto turned and glared toward the source of the phrasium pillar. It was Melle, the Phrase Sovereign. 
“This was a battle that Endymion and the others wished to partake in. I intended to simply watch over it from afar... Using that as an excuse. But I think I need to re-evaluate my approach here. You two are still fellow Phrase, no matter your opinions. I suppose I’ve been unable to get over that hurdle, and I’m unable to bring myself to bear arms against you as a result.” 
“Pah. We’ve long since discarded the droll life of a mere phrasium lifeform. We have the power to do whatever we like.” 
“That’s right! We’re no longer shackled by that inferior life! We’re finally free! We can kill all those that wrong us, rampage in lands yet unknown, live however we like! Most importantly we need never serve a Sovereign like you, ever again!” 
“My... You two really are too far gone now, aren’t you?” Melle sighed softly, looking down at the ground. She slowly raised her head and faced the beast before her. 
“I am the Sovereign of all Phrase. Thus I must see to my duty and put an end to your carnage. Prisma Chain.” Phrasium pillars began jutting out of the ground all over the place. The pillars transformed into connecting chain links that stretched out and attached to one another. They then shrank down, immobilizing the massive spider. 
“Guh! You little bitch...!” The monstrous spider began to tear at the crystal chains binding it. Leto and Luto became so preoccupied with freeing themselves, that they didn’t notice the white-haired young man with the trailing scarf charge toward them. 
“Wh-?!” 
“Sacred Combat Art... Divine Palm Spiral!” Ende held his palm up, he gathered divinity inside it. The young man took a firm step forward and drove the swirling golden light into the spider’s body. 
A large impact rang out, but... Nothing seemed to happen. Leto and Luto were seemingly unharmed. 
“And with that... I have my vengeance.” 
“What are you talking ab... Ugh?!” 
“What? No... What have you done to us? This can’t be, it isn’t happening! No! We...” Leto and Luto began melting into thick, muddy goop. 
The two of them realized what had happened in their last moments. Ende’s palm strike had shattered their cores. No damage had been done to any other part of their body. The shockwave of divinity that had been pressed into them specifically targeted the points that would kill them. 
The divinity of the wicked god, which had been protecting their cores, paled in comparison to the real divinity that Ende benefited from. 
The spider body collapsed completely, black smoke hissing upward from it. Leto and Luto’s original bodies lay there amidst the sludge, and soon they began to melt down themselves. They were unable to retain their own structural integrity. 
They gasped and moaned, opening their mouths one final time in unison as if to say something... But no words ever came. 
Ney looked away in sorrow and shame. Even though they’d pledged their souls to the wicked god, they were still her former allies. She quietly thought about how close she had been to meeting a similar fate. 
When Ney finally opened her eyes, she just saw the soot-like outlines where their bodies once were. The twins, once Dominant Constructs just like her, had been snuffed out completely. 
“Ney... You good?” 
“...Yeah. I’m good.” Ney gave Lycee a curt response. Even if they had a complicated relationship, Ney had known Luto and Leto for thousands of years. It was understandable she’d feel mixed about their deaths. 
The bitter mood was suddenly broken by the appearance of a Frame Gear. It was Touya in his Reginleif. 
“Looks like you guys are just about done.” 
“Yup. Same with you.” Ende extended a thumbs-up in response to Touya’s voice. 
Just like that, the four walls of the [Prison] around them shimmered away like snow. 
“We just need to mop up the stragglers now. You mind deploying your Dragoon to help?” 
“Man, you can’t let a guy rest at all, Touya. Yeah, I’ll help. Just be sure to pay me for my services.” 
“Sure, sure. I’ll treat you guys to whatever. Pork cutlets, tempura, grilled eel, you name it.” 
“...Why are you just listing off food? I mean, I understand why but still...” 
Ende sighed and glanced back at the three girls behind him. Even though they didn’t take in any energy from calories, they still ate a lot of food. An overwhelming amount of the money Ende earned from the adventurer’s guild ended up going down their hungry gullets. 
Ende had no doubt that the three of them could wolf down a whole Dragon without issue. 
In the end, Ende shrugged his shoulders. He’d have preferred money, but it would probably end up getting spent on food anyway... Having Touya pay him with meals would save time for all parties involved. 
 
“Guess that’s the end of that.” I leaned back in Reginleif’s cockpit, summoning a map of the area on the central console. There wasn’t a single enemy mutant left. We’d finished cleaning them up. 
We’d suffered some damage, but nobody had died. The biggest losses were the two Chevaliers taken by that weird anemone, and the Ortlinde Overlord being pretty heavily damaged. A few of our other Chevaliers were considerably damaged too. 
My head started to hurt just thinking about what would come next. First up we’d have to arrange a world leader summit to discuss our plans. I had a feeling that the leaders of the western continent would better understand the severity of the situation now, at least. 
Given that two Frame Gears had been stolen, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had Frame Gear-shaped mutants showing up at some point. 
So now I had to think about a countermeasure for something like that... I just had to hope that Doctor Babylon would take care of it. 
If Ende and the others were right, then the only Dominant Construct left was Yula, but something was bothering me... 
The humanoid shape I saw when the anemone fled... It didn’t feel like Yula at all. 
It was possible he had called more Dominants from Phrasia to help him, but I didn’t know what to make of the situation. 
It was pointless worrying about it, though. We needed to act on what we did know, not ponder on what we didn’t. 
I flipped on the common channel along Reginleif’s radio transmitter, and spoke up. 
“Attention all soldiers, our mission is complete. I’ll trigger my magic to teleport you all back where you need to be, so hang tight.” 
 
It had been two days since we’d repelled the invasion. Several world leaders had gathered in Brunhild to discuss our plans. 
As I’d expected, actually seeing such a terrible battle happen before their eyes was enough for all the leaders of the western continent to understand the gravity of the threat. They were well aware that, unless we cooperate, the world could face ruin. 
Primula, Triharan, Strain, Allent, Gardio, Lassei, and Panaches were all granted Frame Unit VR simulators to train their knights. I asked that they prepare squads to help fight in coming conflicts. 
On the political side, things were all progressing smoothly... But not everything was going so well. 
“Frame Gear mutants, hm... They may take that approach. After all, appropriating weaponry is a common tactic in warfare. Isn’t this why I told you that our general infantry should have self-destruct buttons installed by default?!” 
“I still think that’s going too far...” I had a feeling that nobody would want to pilot our Frame Gears if they were rigged to blow. 
I sighed quietly as Doctor Babylon mulled over blueprints on her desk. 
“So... that Yula person, is he some kind of engineer?” 
“Ah, well... According to Melle, he’s like an engineer, a biologist, a politician, a smooth-talker... All kinds of stuff... A genius, essentially. Though apparently, Melle has always been more knowledgeable than him when it comes to more esoteric stuff like magic.” 
“Hrmph... And now that genius has a hold of my precious little Frame Gears, huh? He probably wants to tinker and change them. There sure are a lot of jerks out there who mooch off the hard work and technology of others and try to pass it off as their own? Isn’t that right, Touya?” 
Please don’t guilt me like that... I know I’ve been re-inventing common Earth stuff over here, but gimme a break... 
“Do you think he might be dabbling in Gollem technology as well?” 
“Given the Isengard situation, it’s likely.” 
“It’s possible that he got interested in Frame Gears because he started looking at Gollems. Still, I have my pride as an engineer, you know?! I won’t lose. That’s why I need you to show me more visual references for my upcoming projects, okay?” 
 

“Ugh...” 
I grumbled quietly as Doctor Babylon inched closer and closer, steam practically firing out of her nose. It sure sounded proper when she said she wanted visual references, but she was basically just asking to watch more mecha anime. 
I didn’t mind showing them some more, but I didn’t want them getting inspired by something weird. I mean, it was true that weird ideas had done pretty well for us in the past, but still... 
I didn’t want us to lose just because I’d been hesitant to help, so I begrudgingly agreed, leading all of them to the garden. 
The usual suspects like Rosetta, Monica, and Elluka (with Fenrir) were gathered there. But I was surprised to find that Sue, Sakura, Linze, and Cesca were there as well. Even Paula and the heavenly beasts had tagged along. 
“We’re fans of this annie may stuff, too!” Linze spoke so excitedly that I dared not correct her. Now all I had to do was decide what to show them. 
Cesca started preparing tea and snacks, so I started flicking my finger along my smartphone. 
...This one won’t do. I don’t wanna show something scary like a planet getting cleaved in half. Plus, the ending to this one is so sad that Sue would probably get traumatized. 
...This one’s... good, for sure, but it’s more like a political drama than an actual mecha battle anime. It’d probably go over their heads for the most part. 
I guess a simple one is probably better. Oh, how about this one... It’s less of a mecha anime and more about plastic models instead. It’s a pretty relaxing show, and it’s quite fun too. It also has a lot of robot model designs, so I’m sure it’ll make Doctor Babylon happy... Though I’m not so sure if it’ll help them come up with any new tech. 
I projected the screen into the air with [Mirage] and began playing the show. Then, I left them to their own devices. 
“Ohhh, they’re watching one of those annie mays? That makes sense...” Yumina had been curious why Linze, Sakura, and Sue hadn’t shown up for afternoon tea. 
Cesca was up there watching stuff too, so Renne came in to refill our tea. 
“...Wish I could’ve watched too...” Lu grumbled softly as she reached out for a cookie. She was quite the budding anime fan. 
Lu was making cookies for the afternoon tea when Doctor Babylon called her, so she couldn’t come up to watch with the others. 
“I’ll send the shows to your smartphones later, okay?” 
“Oh, really? Thank you!” 
“That’s rather convenient. This thing here... We can share information between devices instantly. I can imagine it being useful for world leaders to share or read news...” Leen murmured as she played around with her smartphone. I wasn’t quite sure we’d be able to make great use of info-sharing, since less than a hundred people had smartphones. 
Then again, since most of those people were world leaders, I had access to information from them pretty easily. They were probably only giving me information they’d been cleared to share, though. 
“In the world I came from, regular citizens had access to news from all over the world. You could even find out stuff about individual peoples’ daily lives if you wanted.” 
“Wh-What? Were the citizens constantly monitored or something?” Lu looked almost afraid of the idea. 
“No, no... Nothing like that! It was information that people voluntarily gave up. Like, uh... if you decided to write something like ‘These cookies are really tasty!’ on a certain platform, then anyone with a smartphone would be able to see what you wrote, friend or stranger.” 
“I-I wouldn’t mind if that happened, I suppose... But isn’t it scary to know a total stranger could learn things about your life?” 
“Yeah, a bit. That’s why sensible people don’t share too much. Most people only write things that they’re happy with other people knowing, but some overshare...” 
I could probably make some kind of social network in this world, but I’m not sure how well the people would adapt to it... 
You’d often see it online, someone posting something like, “I’m objectively right,” only to immediately get flamed by someone saying, “This is literally wrong. It’s so wrong you should feel bad.” I didn’t really want arguments like that to break out between users in this world. Especially not if it escalated to fights breaking out between countries based on shitposting. 
I guess a blog would be a better start... Actually, yeah, that’s a good idea. 
“Hey, Lu. Would you be interested in starting a cooking blog?” 
“A cooking what?” 
“You can take pictures of the food you make and post them to a special virtual space with instructions on the recipe and stuff. Then others would be able to see and try their hand at cooking on their own. That would allow people from different places to try different dishes that you can show them. Like, uh... if someone from another country decided to look at your blog, they could see a Brunhild-original recipe on there and try making it at home.” 
Fortunately, the ingredients available on the western side of the world were pretty similar to the ones in the east. That wasn’t too surprising, since both worlds were pretty similar. 
I was sure that most people would be able to make Lu’s dishes, except maybe the more niche stuff. The Grand Potentate of Lassei showed me that his side of the world had rice, too. 
“That sounds quite good, yes! We could share dishes from all kinds of countries, not just Brunhild. That would probably bring the people closer together.” 
“Yes, you’re right. We could probably spread Mismede’s cully around like that. It might get citizens interested in what the rest of the world has to offer.” 
Yumina and Leen nodded in approval. Food was often the first step of general interest, so that sounded good to me. 
Then again, food worked differently in different cultures. It took a little bit of forcing to get the people of Egret to try eating those Tentaculars, after all. Still, none of the world leaders had any issues with the varied meals I’d served them when they came to Brunhild. 
In the end, the blog readers would be able to consult the recipes anyway. It wouldn’t be like they were forced to cook everything. 
I don’t think there’s anything I’ve eaten around the world that I’ve hated, come to think of it... 
Wait... Hold on... That shitty stuff I had back in Yulong! It was that Orc meat char siu rip-off! 
Some monsters tasted delicious, like Dragons and Bloody Crabs... Tentacular was also good, depending on the preparation. I personally hated the meat of humanoid monsters like Orcs, but there were probably people who enjoyed it. 
“Hmm... Well, I’d like to start with snacks and sides, I think. I can probably manage that, Touya. I’d really like to.” 
“Alright, let’s give it a shot, then.” 
I borrowed Lu’s smartphone and took a photo of the cookies. 
“So you could use this photo, then write down the ingredients and the steps for making them. Portion sizes, what utensils you’d need, and so on. Think that’d work?” 
“I think so. It’s just like learning from the recipes you taught me first, right? I don’t have a problem with that.” 
Ah... Right, I gave her most of the recipes. Maybe I should just look up Earth recipes and then copy and paste them... Oh, wait... The ingredients have different names here. I’ll just leave it to Lu. 
I think we should consider some special apps. Maybe a [Fireball] app that launches fire if you press a button. That’d be cool... But a touch extreme. 
Defensive apps that activated [Shield] or [Reflection] sound good, though! 
I decided to think more about this later. 
I returned to the lab and found everyone engrossed in front of the anime screen. Your eyes’ll turn square if you stay that close, you know? 
“We need to start developing flight-units! Some kind of simple combination-style one.” 
“No, ma’am! It has to be a beam sword, ma’am! If we condense magic particles into a specific space, we can turn it into a beam sword!” 
“No, that won’t do at all! It’s gotta be cannons! We could reduce the size of the Brionac and feed it power directly from Babylon!” 
“...If we use Gollem G-Cubes as a transmission medium, we should be able to amplify general output.” 
Welp. Didn’t take them long to start brainstorming. Can’t you guys just sit back and enjoy the show like Sue? 
I was glad that they liked the show, but later on, Sakura kept singing the opening theme over and over. That was a little bit annoying. 
 
Isenberg, the machine city, was once the proud capital of Isengard. But now it was in a sorry state of decline. 
Ever since the witch-king fell, nobody was left to bring order back to the place, and thus it lost citizens by the day. There were many political reasons for the exodus, but most people left because of the strange black clouds in the sky. 
One day, the citizens of Isenberg noticed black clouds above them. The ominous clouds would often rumble with thunder and spew black rain below. The people viewed it as an omen of death and made haste to depart. 
The capital, at this point, was a desolate land. There wasn’t really anyone left. 
The scout Gollems, Bastet and Anubis, had finally arrived at this forsaken city. They found themselves at a loss when they realized the extent of the carnage. 
“Sis... Just what is all this?” 
“I can’t say for sure... Whatever it is, it’s... not right.” 
The bodies of the dead littered the city streets. Everyone who hadn’t fled was now a corpse on the ground. The departed had twisted expressions of anguish painting their faces. Oddly, there were no signs of injury on any of them. 
The bodies were strewn about in all kinds of places. Some were on stairwells, others slumped over dining tables, others fallen on park benches. It was as if they’d all died suddenly during their daily routines. 
But the strangest thing of all was the condition of the bodies. There were no signs of decay. It looked as though they’d only died about an hour earlier. 
But Bastet knew that this couldn’t be possible. The clothing on the bodies was frayed and weathered, evidently exposed to the elements for a long period. 
All they could deduce from this was that something here was terribly wrong. 
“Was it a disease, maybe?” 
“Maybe, but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Let’s investigate.” 
The black dog and black cat dashed up to the top of the tallest building in the city, the Isentower. 
The royal castle had previously been the tallest building, but it was destroyed when the witch-king went haywire. 
The two scouts figured climbing up to the top of the Isentower would give them a vantage point. The doors to the tower were closed, but that didn’t exactly mean much to the duo. Their claws were fashioned from crystal materials even more potent than orichalcum, so the entrance gave way to a few simple swipes. 
The noise was incredibly loud as it rang out into the desolate city... but nobody came to investigate. It seemed there were no survivors holed up in the tower. 
The two animals began ascending the black iron stairwell. They’d seen from the outside that the top of the tower was home to an enclosed viewing platform, so they continued higher and higher. 
When the two made it to the top, they approached one of the windows on the viewing platform and looked down upon the city. 
From there they saw the sprawling city streets, the black clouds in the sky, and... it. 
“...Just what in the world is that?” Anubis muttered, almost fearful, prompting Bastet to turn and look his way. 
The two of them had eyesight far beyond humans. In fact, their sight was better than that of regular cats and dogs as well. Hell, the distance they could see at would even give an eagle a run for its money. And, with those camera-lens eyes of theirs, they looked far to the south of Isenberg. There, they saw a great mass of gold that dominated the landscape. 
The mass of gold was composed of pencil-like pillars that jutted out of the ground. A cluster of massive, muddy crystals. 
Bastet didn’t see this as some randomized formation. From her point of view, the sprawling structure almost resembled a crystal palace. 
“What should we do, sis? Do we investigate over there?” 
“...No, I don’t think that’s wise. Look at the area around it. If we got too close, it would be very dangerous.” 
“Huh? What? Wait... Augh! Th-That’s so gross...” 
Anubis refocused his gaze, looking around the crystal mass. He couldn’t help but notice that part of the formation on the ground was moving. He increased the magnification of his vision and realized what he was looking at. Skeletons. Numerous muddy-gold human skeletons, marching in formation as if in an unconscious trance. 
“There are too many there for us to try getting past. We’re running out of time, anyway. We need to head back, or we won’t be able to meet with the Grand Duke at the designated hour.” 
“Ohh, okay!” 
“Our job is to extract information, remember? If we overreach and end up being unable to report back, all our work here will have been for nothing. Let’s conclude our mission here and now, and then return to Brunhild.” 
“Okey-dokey.” The two animals turned and began walking down the cold iron stairs of the Isentower.