Chapter Four: The Rabbit Skips Through the Darkness
Royal Capital Altea
It was now two nights before the peace talks. The Masters who’d taken up the position of bodyguard were still free to do whatever they wanted.
Those involved could be generally categorized into two groups.
One group of Masters would join Altimia the following morning and act as her bodyguards on the road to the peace talks, which would be taking place at the Altar-Dryfe border. They were able to do this because they had a lot of free time in real life — maybe they’d been laid off, or something similar.
The other group consisted of the Masters who would go straight to the border. They would also be participating in the peace talks, but their real life schedule prohibited them from traveling there alongside Altimia for the entire way, so they would instead meet up with everyone else at a settlement near the border.
“All right, Riser — let’s check out one more place!”
“You’re drinking too much, Bishmal. We’ve got bodyguard duty tomorrow, remember?”
Masked Riser and Bishmal — the sixth and seventh on the kingdom’s duel rankings — had also answered the call, and they would be part of the first group. They had already left Gideon — their Dendro hometown — and arrived at the capital, where they (mostly Bishmal, actually) were sampling the local bars.
Bishmal clung to Riser’s shoulder as they walked through the lively downtown area.
“Hahahah! Hey, I’ll just get a ride in your Hermod’s sidecar again. You’ll wake me up if something happens on the way, won’t ya?”
“You’re relying on me way too much,” Riser sighed under his mask.
What a pain, he thought. However, he didn’t argue against Bishmal’s idea, which was probably a sign of the companionship they’d forged through their long-lasting dueling rivalry.
“By the way, did ya hear? Our boy Ray started a clan and got in the rankings.”
“I heard about it a week ago, yes.”
“His clan’s in second! That’s amazing!”
“It really is.”
“...Oh. Sorry, Riser.” The position of second place in the clan rankings held a special meaning to Riser. After all, he was the temporary sub-leader of a clan called Babylonian Battlegroup... which had once occupied that very position in the rankings.
The leader, Foltesla, had yet to return, and Shulka — the sub-leader who’d given the role over to Riser — was traveling the world. Riser had no idea where he was now.
After losing Claymill, their original hometown, to the Tri-Zenith Dragon, many of the clan’s members had quit. There were so few left now that you could count them on two hands.
Accordingly, they’d dropped off the clan rankings a long time ago.
“It’s fine,” said Riser. “When our leader returns, the Babylonian Battlegroup will aim for the top once more. All I can do until then is keep the clan going, battle as a duelist, and protect the kingdom.”
“Riser...” He’d lost so much to Gloria, but that was exactly why he was so determined to protect what little he had left. That was the primary reason he took up the bodyguard job for the peace talks.
“What about you?” Riser asked. “You didn’t join Ray’s clan?”
“Nope. I’m not the clan type,” Bishmal answered. And if I did join a clan, I already know where I’d go, he added, silently.
“But man, a newbie like Ray’s already in the rankings, huh?”
“It’s all because of his connections... and his personal strengths.”
“I guess. Ray’s not the only one who’s been on fire recently, though... look at Kashimiya, bro. That guy actually beat Tom.”
“...Yeah.” Tom Cat — the second in the duel rankings. To Bishmal and Riser, he was like an impassable barrier. Duels were generally one-on-one clashes of solo battle-focused fighters, and Tom Cat’s multiplication ability completely shattered that premise. He’d been a wall for Altar’s duelists since before Infinite Dendrogram was released.
When Figaro had defeated Tom and become the current champion, Bishmal and Riser had been both shocked and happy. After all, it was clear proof that Tom wasn’t unbeatable, which only hardened their resolve to challenge and defeat him.
However, even though Figaro had managed to scale that wall, it remained impassable for both of them.
After Foltesla had disappeared, but before Kashimiya and Rosa had come to Altar or Juliet and Chelsea had started climbing the ranks, Riser and Bishmal fought for third place while challenging Tom every chance they got.
No matter how many times they tried, though, they could never defeat him.
And while they failed time after time, the roster of top duelists began to change.
Kashimiya — a natural at the art of unsheathing, known as the fastest in the kingdom.
Juliet — a talented warrior who used every spatial dimension to its fullest.
Rosa — a master of the one-hit kill, her abilities honed in Tenchi, land of strife.
Time passed, and even more impassable walls appeared in front of Riser and Bishmal. Eventually, they dropped down to sixth and seventh in the rankings. There was even a chance that, given time, Chelsea and the rankers below her would surpass them too.
The two continued to walk without saying a word.
“We’ve been in Dendro for a pretty long time, huh?” said Bishmal, gazing up to the sky with his eyes full of nostalgia.
“Yeah. Switching between here and reality really messes with your sense of time,” Riser replied. “But you haven’t changed one bit since the day we met.”
“Hey, and you’re wearing the exact same thing you were back then. Your suit looked a lot more handmade, though.”
“That’s because it was. There weren’t many crafting-focused Masters around at the time, so I asked a tian craftsman to make it... they didn’t exactly know what a tokusatsu hero was around here back then, though, so it was difficult for me to explain what exactly I wanted in a way they could understand. I was just thankful they did as good a job as they did.”
Riser’s handcrafted tokusatsu hero suit had gone through many upgrades over his time in-game. His earlier ones did have, as Bishmal had put it, a kind of handmade, “amateur” quality to them.
It had become a lot easier to make such suits since then. Tians finally learned what he was talking about from Hero Club’s performances, and there had been an increase in craftsman Masters who knew exactly what Riser wanted.
The demand for suits like his remained low, though.
“By the way, I haven’t seen ya wear that recently,” said Bishmal. “I know that Hermod covers for it, but still.” Hermod was Riser’s Embryo. It had started out as a large motorcycle, but as it evolved, it had developed a hero suit as an additional form. “Did something happen to it?” Bishmal asked.
“I used it too much. Apparently, the next time it breaks it’ll be gone for good.”
“Ohh. Well, that’d be a waste. Keep it around as a souvenir, at least.”
“That’s the plan.” They had been walking while talking about the past, and before they knew it, the crowd around them had grown sparse.
“Oh boy, we wandered away from downtown. Better turn around,” said Bishmal.
“Shouldn’t we go back to the inn and sleep already?”
“No way! The night’s still young!” the hearty duelist cried. He and Riser turned around to head back the way they came, but then...
“Masked Riser and Bishmal — the duel rankers, I presume?”
...An unfamiliar voice called out to them.
“Hm...?” Riser didn’t care much for the fact that someone was addressing them so casually, but even more than that... he felt that something was very wrong.
They had just turned around to return downtown. However, the voice had come from behind them — from a place that was completely devoid of people only a moment ago.
The two turned back to see a boy, who seemed to be on the shorter side, with his hands completely hidden in his pockets. He was dressed in light clothes with no armor, but his feet were covered by metallic boots.
His most notable feature, however, were the two bunny ears sticking out of his hat.
Rabbit ears... I guess they’re like Rosa’s wolf ears? Riser thought, remembering his fellow duel ranker. He’d concluded at a glance that this boy was an avatar built in the character creator.
In fact, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that this boy was no tian.
Riser couldn’t say exactly how he knew this so strongly. If pressed for a reason, he might say it was because the boy seemed similar to a Master he knew well — a Master he and Bishmal had just been talking about.
“Oh! It really is you two!”
Upon seeing their faces, the boy smiled. Riser’s instincts screamed in warning at the sight.
I’ll use Reveal... Hm?
He tried to use Reveal on the boy — but the next moment, he’d vanished from sight.
Then, three things happened at the exact same time.
First, Bishmal shouted, “Riser!” and pushed his friend away.
Second, something hit Riser’s mask and he heard a voice say, “Tch. What a tough mask. I couldn’t cut through it.”
And third, blood began spraying out of Bishmal’s neck like a fountain.
“Wh-What?!” Riser cried. Skilled as he was, even he couldn’t process what had just happened.
It was plainly obvious they were being attacked, though, so he instantly summoned Hermod — his motorcycle-like Type Gear-Arms Embryo. A moment later, he donned the hero suit that came along with it.
“Burstfla—” With the last of his breath, Bishmal tried to activate his ultimate skill that turned his body into flame...
“Ohh. Flame transformation is pretty annoying. Please don’t.”
...But then the boy landed directly on his head.
The mysterious boy’s metal boots had become lethal weapons — they now had guillotine-like blades jutting out of them like ice skates, but much sharper than any mere footwear.
The bladed boots split Bishmal’s head open before he could activate his skill. The resurrection period expired in the blink of an eye, and the duel ranker dissolved into motes of light
The boy landed on the pavement with a loud, metallic clang.
“Bishmal!” Riser called out.
“One down,” said the boy, as Riser’s brain finally caught up with the situation.
“Who are you...?!” he roared.
“I won’t waste my time answering your questions. I’m in a hurry.”
The boy showed no intention of even giving Riser his name, but he’d seen more than enough to know that he was an enemy..
An attack...! This is the capital! You can’t fight here... Wait, no! Thankfully, the alley was empty except for them. If they fought, nobody would be caught in the crossfire. Also, Riser couldn’t help but assume that someone who’d just attacked them out of the blue would go on to attack someone else.
Knowing that, he decided he had to defeat the boy here and now.
“Storming-Man, Gusting Bane Of All Evil — Hermod!” Riser activated his ultimate skill before leaping into the sky.
His Embryo followed him, and they became one.
Riser then accelerated using Hermod’s boosters, reaching the speed of sound — and then blowing past it.
As he gained speed, he traced an arc in the sky and began to spin before finally falling downwards like a meteor from the heavens.
“RISEERRRR... KIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!” This was the ace up Riser’s sleeve — a high-speed, high-powered kicking attack. A single hit from this could easily one-shot an upper-tier Pure-Dragon, or even a Superior Job. It was the kind of attack employed by the tokusatsu heroes whose ranks he’d always yearned to join — a true sure-kill technique.
It was also a skill unique to Hermod — the famed Riser Kick.
Riser opened with his strongest attack, fully intent on killing the mysterious boy...
“Ah...?!”
...Who was already above him.
“Jumping. Kicking. And most importantly, speed. Really, now. You can’t even hope to compare to me on any of these things, Masked Riser.”
Even though he went at several times the speed of sound, he heard the boy’s voice right next to his ear.
“And this is goodbye,” the boy said, slicing through the gaps in Riser’s suit behind both his knees — severing his legs.
With his joints destroyed, Riser could no longer control his kick.
“Ah...?!” Defenseless, he crashed into the pavement with the full force of the supersonic momentum from his ultimate skill behind him.
The impact cracked open a crater-like hole, and the pavement around it flew up into the air without even breaking apart, as though even stones couldn’t keep up with what was happening. The sound and resulting shockwave alerted everyone in the area that something big was going on. Lights began to turn on in the surrounding buildings; screams rang out as people caught a glimpse of the scene.
“Ngh...” At the bottom of the crater in the pavement lay the scattered remains of Hermod and Riser, who already looked like a corpse.
“Still alive...? You’re pretty tough,” the boy said. “I guess you’ve got some half-baked build that boosts both AGI and END? Well, whatever. This will finish you off.”
Peering down at Riser from the edge of the crater, he threw a dynamite-like cylinder bomb at him before turning and walking away.
The explosion that soon followed provoked even more screams, but the boy responsible for it was nowhere in sight.
Wez Sea Route
The sun had already set. A vehicle sped along the path to the Altar-Dryfe border.
However, this was still Altar territory. Technology was sparse here, so this wasn’t a machine, but a car-like Embryo.
“Thanks for driving me, Tomica.”
“It’s fine, big sis. I’m the one who should be apologizing for bringing you out here this late.”
The fifth in the duel rankings, Rosa, had also accepted the bodyguard job, and since she couldn’t log on to Dendro when it was morning in-game, she was traveling to the Altar-Dryfe border ahead of time.
She was going there using Oboroguruma — the Embryo of a fellow K&R member, Tomica.
Oboroguruma could seat several people and travel at hundreds of kilometels per hour for long periods of time. It was also a self-driving vehicle that automatically avoided obstacles, so it could maintain these great speeds despite being tethered to the ground.
“If my darling can come online before the peace talks, take him there too,” said Rosa.
“I will! Though, he’s faster than this car...”
“He’s a sprinter, though. He can’t maintain that speed for long, so you’re still the best transport we’ve got.”
“Eheheh. Thank you.” As they talked, Rosa watched the landscape passing by outside the vehicle.
The nights in this land were dark, lit only by the stars, so most people wouldn’t be able to see the scenery at all. However, as someone with a build specialized in ambushes regardless of the time of day, Rosa had the Night Vision skill, which let her see the surroundings as if it were noon.
“What a nice view,” she said. “I should take darling on a date here.”
“Umm... why not make it a picnic with the entire clan instead?”
“I’ll do you one better: me, you, and darling. Just the three of us.”
“Yes, please!”
“Ahahah! I’ll suggest it to him sometime... Hm?”
Suddenly, Rosa’s canine ears twitched. Despite what some people assumed, her base hearing ability was no different than a normal human’s. However, as an ambusher, she’d acquired the Hearing Enhancement passive skill, and though her hearing still wasn’t as strong as a wolf’s, she was still quite a bit better at picking up sounds than an ordinary human.
“Sis?”
“...Sounds of battle? No, that ain’t it.” After noticing the noise, Rosa began to detect a certain pattern to them.
First, there would be the clatter of moving dragon carriages, footsteps, and the thunder of replica Prism Steeds or SMPS.
Then, there would be sounds of battle — or rather, the sound of a single attack.
And after that, silence. All the clamor of travel would vanish entirely.
Rosa knew this pattern well. She’d woven it herself many times over.
She was hearing ambushes.
Someone was launching surprise attacks on someone, then moving on to other targets. Just like Rosa and the others, the targets seemed to be en route to the Altar-Dryfe border. She guessed that they must also be rankers hired as bodyguards for the peace talks.
In that case, the attackers could only be...
“Hm...?!” At that moment, Rosa caught sight of something strange.
For a mere split second, a silhouette had appeared in the scenery reflected in Oboroguruma’s side mirror.
It was a rabbit-eared young man, only about as tall as Kashimiya.
However, the reflection didn’t last, and a moment later, something landed with a thud on the car’s roof.
“E-EHHHH?!” Tomica exclaimed in surprise.
“Tomica! Shake him off!” Rosa howled.
“EEEEK!” Tomica quickly grabbed the handle and drove Oboroguruma into a spin.
The car managed to stay grounded despite the sudden movement, and whoever was on the roof... remained there.
Blades had sliced through the roof, acting as anchors that kept their assailant firmly affixed in place.
“Wh-What’s going on?!”
“Tomica... Sorry, but I’m gonna break this!”
“EEHH?!” Ignoring yet another shocked scream from Tomica, Rosa took out her Embryo. Gashadokuro...
“A Kill Supreme!”
...And engaged the Nobushi Princess’ ultimate job skill, which could only be used as the first attack.
Their assailant’s legs were basically stuck to Oboroguruma’s roof, so there was no possible way for them to dodge this deadly attack.
Despite that... Rosa missed.
Her target had vanished a moment before it landed, and her ultimate job skill only succeeded in blowing away the roof.
“EEEEEK!” While Tomica panicked, Rosa’s mind was silently racing.
She was really straightforward when it came to strategy and tactics — but when it came to pure fighting instincts, she had what some would call a “beastlike sense of smell.” She could tell by this enemy’s reek that he must be after her alone.
“...Tomica,” she said. “I’m gettin’ off.”
“E-EXCUSE ME?!”
“Use your ultimate skill to flee to the capital.”
“Eh?! Ah — I get it! But why can’t you stay with me...?”
“Because this guy would follow us back... to K&R’s headquarters.” That was why Rosa would remain behind. She alone would face the enemy who was trying to kill her and let Tomica escape.
“I got no idea who he is or where he’s from, but... wait, no... this timing... Anyone who dies now won’t be able to come to the peace talks... So that’s your plan, huh?”
“Ah? Sis?”
“Go, Tomica! Go and warn the others about this! Especially my darling!” Rosa kicked open the door of the Oboroguruma and leaped out of the speeding vehicle.
“Remnants of Warrior Dreams — Gashadokuro!”
At the moment she jumped, Rosa used Pure-Dragon-tier bones to create an exoskeleton that greatly improved her stats.
“The Fail-Safe Drive — Oboroguruma!” Tomica also used her ultimate skill, making both her and the vehicle dissolve into a hazy mist.
The enemy tried to catch up to the car and jump on it again, but his body simply passed right through it.
Oboroguruma was now floating like a ghost, passing through objects as if they weren’t there. This was the effect of its ultimate skill.
The enemy was now completely unable to touch either of them, and had no choice but to let Tomica go.
“Stop starin’ at our girl’s ass!” Now fully armored in her exoskeleton, Rosa launched an abrupt attack at her assailant — only for him to vanish right before the hit landed and reappear a short distance away.
“She’s not even a duel ranker, so I thought she’d be a pretty ordinary high-rank, but it seems like she actually has a pretty interesting skill,” he commented.
This was the same boy who’d defeated both Riser and Bishmal at the capital. He’d since left the city to find and ambush Rosa and Tomica, who were moving at hundreds of kilometels per hour.
“You a Dryfean Master?” Rosa asked.
“Who knows? There’s no real reason to tell you, is there?”
“Nope... I’m gonna beat you up either way!” Rosa howled as she charged at the boy.
“Too slow,” the boy said. “You’re like a tortoise. Though, with a shell like yours, cutting your flesh is going to be difficult.”
He put his hand, hidden in his long sleeves, on his chin and pondered.
“I’ll do this, then.” After whispering this, he vanished again — and placed bombs at every opening in Rosa’s exoskeleton.
“Huh?!” A moment later, there was a chain of explosions. At point blank range, the bombs were able to easily blow away Gashadokuro’s exoskeleton and expose Rosa’s flesh.
“If a tortoise shell is in the way, you just crack it open.” The boy’s blade-boots then pierced into one of the holes left by the bomb, tearing out Rosa’s heart in one swift cut.
The wound was fatal, and her head drooped lifelessly.
“Oh, and I already know about that little trick.” Rosa had used the effect of her substitute-creating special reward to maneuver behind the boy, but he simply launched a roundhouse kick that sliced her head clean from her shoulders.
“Ah...!” Rosa’s face was frozen in a silent scream, full of chagrin; she received the death penalty immediately.
“I suppose that’s all the Masters who were on the way to the border...” And with that, the boy vanished, leaving the night road empty.
Altar-Dryfe Border Surroundings, Vermina Village
That night, at a village close to the Altar-Dryfe border, two girls were talking and gazing up at the stars together. The concept of air pollution didn’t exist in Infinite Dendrogram, so the sky was full of beautiful, twinkling lights.
“By the way, classes advanced in Japan, didn’t they? Did you make any friends?”
“...None in that realm are worthy of being sworn to the darkness as my companions.”
“That bad, huh?” One of the girls was dressed like a pirate and had a youthful face, while the other was clad in black, gothic-styled dress-armor. The former was Chelsea the Vagrant Golden Sea, while the latter was Juliet the Black Crow — respectively the eighth and fourth in the duel rankings.
This village was close to the location of the impending peace talks, so they’d arrived here in the afternoon and were now waiting for Altimia and the other Masters who would arrive tomorrow.
“You’re a nice girl, though,” said Chelsea. “You’re just a bit hard to approach at first.”
Juliet tended to speak in an overly complicated way even in real life. She knew it made her seem like a weirdo, but it wasn’t something she did consciously. Anxiety over her odd way of speaking also made her tongue-tied whenever she made an effort to talk normally.
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