Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 16 - Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Minus

A Certain Place in Caldina

While Zhang was in Cortana, suffering through his unexpected encounter with The Blue Sky Songstress, Rascal was sailing on a boat, heading out to do business with someone in the Gambling City of Hermine.

The boat was cutting through the desert dunes as though they were ocean waves. Caldina had access to technologies from all over the world, and sandboats such as this one were a hybrid technology created by mixing Granvaloan shipwrighting, Dryfean magitech, and magic items from Huang He.

In a way, these boats were some of the most advanced creations in the world, but they actually didn’t see all that much use.

The reason for this was that the engine sounds could attract the worms that lived underground, making the journey far more treacherous. These worm monsters were often Demi-Dragon-tier or above, so tians, who naturally wanted to avoid them, preferred to use dragon carriages as they had in the old days.

If they did end up using sandboats, they would opt for the quieter, smaller kind, like the one used by Zhang and Emily.

However, the one carrying Rascal certainly wasn’t that kind of ship.

Instead, it was a massive construct that rode the dunes while exterminating any worms that dared attack it. The creatures, attracted by the engine sounds, were instantly shot to bits by the cannons installed all over the hull, quickly turning them into bits of light. It didn’t matter if they were Demi-Dragon-Worms or Pure-Dragon-tier Dragon-Worms — they all broke before this giant battleship.

Boasting an overwhelming power, this giant vessel sliced through the dunes while thoroughly negating the great menace of the desert worms. It was an outlandish scene, but it made sense the moment one learned that this ship was the headquarters of IF.

Its name was “The Tetragrammaton.”

It was constructed using a three-hundred-metel-long prototype battleship from Granvaloa as a base. A vessel with a dark history, it had been sunk by the SUBM, Twin Moby Dick, during its test run.

Having been sent to the depths of the sea, it was considered unsalvageable; but Zeta — a Granvaloan Superior at the time — knew where it was resting. After joining IF, she suggested to Rascal that they retrieve it, and with a bit of cooperation and the help of one of Rascal’s Superior Embryo skills, they went on to do just that.

Since then, Rascal had repaired and improved the ship many times, using pre-ancient civilization technology to turn it into a fearsome battle cruiser capable of dominating both land and sea.

Now, the vessel served as the mobile headquarters of IF.

“...There sure are a lot of them today,” Rascal said, glancing through the thick window.

What he saw beyond it were the dunes of Caldina — as well as the ship’s mechanical arms, retrieving the loot dropped by the worms.

He was currently the only human on this ship, but he wasn’t the one controlling it.

The Tetragrammaton had an autopilot mode, so Rascal, the only actual person on board, could just stay in his room and prepare for the negotiations.

This ship had many rooms, among which was the sickroom where Zhang had awakened two weeks ago. The group’s prisoners and members alike had their own living spaces here.

“...That dumbass is the heavier ordnance. It could give away our position to Caldina. I’m not in the mood to sneak through the desert on foot again.”

Powerful as it was, The Tetragrammaton wouldn’t be enough for Rascal to take on Caldinian Superiors like The Earth by himself. Luckily, his Superior Embryo had a skill that let him store it away, allowing him to hide and log out.

“Master! I brought tea!” someone cried as they entered the room, carrying a tray with a teapot and cup balanced on it.

Dressed in a maid’s uniform and sporting green, fluffy hair, the newcomer looked like a beautiful girl in her late teens at first glance. A closer look, however, would show that she wasn’t even human.

Most of her body was covered with glossy skin, but her left arm was bare of flesh from the shoulder down, showing its metallic interior. Her well-defined face also seemed to be damaged. There was a large black bandage over the right eye, and her forehead showed signs of something having been removed from it.

She was very obviously a female android — a gynoid — straight out of a sci-fi novel.

Her name was Machina, and she was the Superior Embryo of The Weapon, Rascal the Blackonyx.

“...Machina, turn down the sound and power while exterminating the worms.”

“Okaay! More importantly, do you think Emily and Zhang have made it to Cortana yet?!” The way she so casually swept aside her Master’s order made Rascal sigh before answering.

“...Yeah. As long as they didn’t run into a Superior or some Mythical, they should be there by now. If they get into that kinda trouble, though... Worst-case scenario, Zhang will die and I’ll know that through his Contract. They’re fine.”

He said all of this as though the prospect of little Emily running into Superiors or Mythicals didn’t worry him one bit.

“Good to hear! I still need to get back at Emily for beating me at Othello fifty times in a row!”

“Machina... Don’t ya think that’s way too much?”

“I’m using most of my processing power on other things! If I want to win, I need to rely on your strategy! That goes for Othello too! I won’t win if you don’t stand behind me and tell me what to do!”

“...What’s the point of you playing when I’m making all the moves?”

“I might be able to win by myself with some optimization! I would only need about a hundred more games!”

“...That so?” Rascal whispered as though tired, taking a sip of the tea Machina had brought.

Then, not speaking a word, he slowly set the cup back on the tray before saying, “Hey, you dumb hunk of scrap...what did you use as the water for this?”

“Elixir! You’re tired, so I poured a whole five bottles!”

“That so...? Drop down and give me five hundred push-ups.”

“Why?!” After giving that order, Rascal picked up the cup of tea again. As awful as it tasted, it was made using five Elixirs — each one costing 100,000 lir. It would be a waste to throw it out, so he drank it properly, all the while making a bitter face.

Boiling the Elixirs had made them lose their effects, so dealing with this only made him feel more tired than he was before.

As his idiot maid began doing her push-ups, he began looking over a certain set of documents.

“My frame...my frame is creaking... Ah, what’re you looking at, Master?”

“This here has info about recent sightings of independent Superiors and pre-Superiors. I bought it at the DIN in that town we stopped by yesterday. I haven’t gotten the chance to look at it yet.”

“Ohh?”

“It’s way easier to bring in those who aren’t already working for any faction. Zeta was able to take the Hell General away from Dryfe, though. First she stole the Orbs from Huang He, then did this... It’s damn impressive.”

Rascal couldn’t help but respect Zeta’s ability. As a capable Superior, the Hell General must’ve been heavily supported by Dryfe. Rascal honestly had no idea how Zeta had been able to convince him to join IF.

He couldn’t possibly have guessed that she merely broke the Hell General’s underdeveloped mind in a duel, then persuaded him to join by enticing him with various things he needed.

“Wasn’t Gerbera the one you recruited?! And the both of you are sub-leaders! Zeta really is capable!”

Being reminded of the now-jailed problem child made Rascal hurt inside — or perhaps that was just all the boiled medicine starting to take its toll.

“...I know I might be responsible for hiring Gerbera, but saying we’re both the same rank makes me look kinda bad, don’t ya think?”

“I’m not putting you down, but you should feel guilty! Yep!” Machina said, puffing out her chest.

“That so...? Then, with a guilty heart, I order my Embryo to do five hundred more push-ups.”

“Ugh?! Why are you so sadistic to me?! You’re nice to other people!”

“...I wouldn’t be this way if you got your shit together,” Rascal sighed as he resumed reading the documents. Machina was a natural at putting her Master in a foul mood.

Upon reaching a certain page, though, Rascal stopped.

“...I see. So that one’s near Cortana now. They might bump into each other.”

“Who do you mean by ‘that one?’”

“Someone you know. We fought in the desert and the nearby ruins were destroyed before we could completely empty them.”

“Oh yeah! Ace, right?!”

“We had a similar encounter with her, but we’re talking about independents here! It’s the other one!”

“Other one...other one...ohh...” With that, Machina recalled who Rascal was talking about and nodded to herself, doing her push-ups all the while. “Huh? Wait, isn’t Cortana the place where Emily went?” she then asked.

“Yeah. I guess I should inform Zhang, just in case... But, man, this is interesting. As a Master, I’d like to see how Zhang and Emily would handle ’em. If at all.”

“Okay! Changing course to Cortana right now!”

Following those words, with a low hum, the room — or, rather, the entirety of The Tetragrammaton itself — began to shake as it turned.

Machina’s mere thought was enough to move this giant battle cruiser.

However, that wasn’t unexpected. The Tetragrammaton’s autopilot functioned because Machina, as Rascal’s Superior Embryo, was controlling it. As foolish as she appeared to be, she served as the ship’s helmsman as well as its central computer.

“Don’t! I told you, I’ve got negotiations in Hermine!”

“I get it! You’re just pretending to have negotiations! You actually don’t want me to change course at all!”

“I see... Looks like I’ll have to take off your defective ears and clean them real good!”

“Yaay! Master’s gonna clean my ears! What a rewa— OW OW OW! Don’t pull on them! That hurts!”

As they argued, the entire vessel shook, but they were soon back on course towards their business in Hermine.

All of this, however, had rather made them forget to inform Zhang and Emily of the coming storm.

◇◇

Armored Pilot, Hugo Lesseps

A little while after Teach told me about the location of Cortana’s Orb, we were asked to share the table with a pair of other customers.

“Ice creeeam! Ice creeeam!” Clearly excited to eat some ice cream, one of these customers — a little girl — sat down while singing that song, all smiles.

The other person was a man who looked to be in his thirties, and he sat by the girl’s side wearing a somewhat exhausted expression.

He seemed like her guardian, so at first I assumed they were father and child, but then I noticed the crest on the girl’s hand — and the lack of a similar crest on the man’s. This marked her as a Master and him as a tian.

Personally, I didn’t feel that it was that strange for tians and Masters to associate. Even The Triangle of Wisdom had tian employees like Lufia.

“Hngh... Nh?” Cyco suddenly let out a quiet groan while tilting her head to the side.

I looked at her face and noticed that she didn’t seem too well.

“What’s wrong, Cyco?”

“I feel kinda...chilly.” Chilly? In this weather? Was it because of the ice cream? It was so hot that it was more like a milkshake than ice cream right now, though...

“I’m going back in for a bit,” she said before returning to the crest on my left hand.

That made the little girl’s eyes go wide with surprise.

“Wow! She was a ‘Mayden!’” she said, flashing a childish smile brimming with wonder and joy. “Mister, you’re a ‘Mastar’ too!”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Wow! Wow! That’s sooo nice! I never saw a ‘Mayden’ before!”

“Huh? Ohh, right...” I was a Master with a Maiden Embryo and knew other people like me, so I tended to forget that Maidens were actually pretty rare.

This girl surely wasn’t the only one who had never seen a Maiden.

“Umm! The ones I saw were, uh...a slimey, a buggy, a thingy you can’t see...and another thingy you can’t see!” A slime guardian, a bug-like guardian, and two Embryos she couldn’t see... Territory types without any visual effects, maybe?

A part of me noted that she probably couldn’t say that she “saw” those Embryos if she “couldn’t see them,” but this was just how conversations with children went — nuanced in a very strange way.

Also, the girl really wasn’t very good at speaking. She looked about ten, but her actual age might’ve been even lower. Many people on the younger side created avatars older than themselves. I myself was one of them...

The tian man accompanying her might’ve seemed anxious exactly because this girl was so childish. It seemed likely that, since the girl was so young, her actual guardians had gotten a trustworthy tian to look after her.

“Ah. There’s Machinya too!” she said.

“‘Machinya?’”

“Machinya is very very clumsy and very very bad at Oshello! Rashcal always gets mad at her! But we are friends!” Based on the flow of the conversation, this “Machinya” was an Embryo as well as her friend. Since she said she’d never seen a Maiden, it must’ve been a humanlike Guardian instead, like that one succubus.

“Hm...?” Feeling that something wasn’t right, I turned to Teach.

She hadn’t said a single word since we’d been joined by the girl and the man. Her expression hadn’t changed, but the atmosphere around her was different somehow.

Most notably, the iris of her right eye — her Superior Embryo — was changing intensely, like a kaleidoscope.

Also, for some reason the tian man accompanying the girl was sweating profusely, and it didn’t feel like it was because of the heat.

“Mr. Zhan, you’re swetting a lot. Are you okay?”

“Yes... No need to worry.”

“Really? But talking so much made me very swetty too! It’s sho hot! Your clothes look very hot too, mister!”

“Ah. Yeah. But I’m used to wearing this in the desert.”

I was curious about Teach and the tian man, but I couldn’t just ignore the girl.

“I never get this hot over there, so it makes me very tired.”

“‘Over there?’”

“Outside of Dendrogryam!”

“Ohh. Well, it’s hard to feel heat like this if you don’t live somewhere that’s hot.”

“Yeah! And I’m always in a bed inside a white room with air-condishonining, so I only feel hot or cold when I’m here!” A bed inside a white room...a hospital, I assume?

I vaguely remembered reading an internet article that talked about hospitalized children who go on trips inside Infinite Dendrogram. The monsters, though, made it necessary for them to be accompanied by skilled attendants. It always reminded me of the adventurer guild quests from low-level Masters looking for bodyguards who would escort them to scenic locations.

“Your ice cream, little lady,” a waitress said as she brought the girl’s order in.

“Yaay!” the girl cheered.

Just like Cyco’s, the ice cream instantly began to melt, but...

“Wow, it looks so tasty! Thank you very much, it was delishus!”

...it all vanished in the blink of an eye, leaving the cup empty.

“...Huh?” The sudden change left me perplexed. The tian employee who brought the ice cream also tilted her head in confusion, whispering, “It was just there, wasn’t it?”

However, Teach and the tian man had different reactions.

The tian man seemed surprised by something, while Teach...was smiling.

“Little lady, did you really have to eat the ice cream at supersonic speed?”

“Huh? But it would melt if I didn’t...”

“Ha ha hah! That’s true! It wouldn’t be ice cream if it melted! With the weather like this, I guess it makes sense to eat it before it melts! Well, your experienced time is still the same, so maybe it really is better.” While Teach laughed, the girl used her spoon to eat what little remained of the ice cream.

The peaceful scene did nothing to change the meaning of their exchange.

Teach had just said that this little girl moved at supersonic speeds — an impressive feat available only to a select group of individuals, most of them battle-focused.

“...W-Well, you got your ice cream, so let’s go, shall we?” the tian man, still somewhat shocked, said as he laid down the payment and stood up in such a hurry that it seemed awkward. “Okaay! Bye-bye, mister and miss!”

The two then left the café, leaving me and Teach behind.

“Yu, follow those two.”

“Huh?”

“While I go retrieve the Orb, you keep an eye on those two. If something happens, use La Porte de l’Enfer to suppress them. It’s a hard counter to them, I’m sure of it.”

“Teach, what do you...?!”

“If I explain, they’ll get away. Act now. I’ll give you the details through Telepathy Cuffs.”

That was when I realized she was completely serious.

She’d kept her composure even when fighting the Huang He mafia back in Hermine, yet all of that was completely gone now.

I also realized that to her, that exchange with the girl was about more than just the supersonic speed.

“All right...” I’d ask for details later. For now, I stood up and went out to search for the pair.

“‘Machina’ and ‘Rascal’... Haven’t heard those names in a while,” I heard Teach say behind me, her tone dense with displeasure. “A girl Master who says those names like they’re friends... If she’s who I think she is, then things might get really bad.”

◆◆◆

City of Commerce, Cortana

Overcome with unease, Zhang rushed through the streets of Cortana with Emily beside him. That conversation...her eyes and aura... There is no mistaking that she knows, he thought.

Not even Zhang expected Emily to reveal IF-related information so casually.

The Master that was with The Blue Sky Songstress seemed clueless, but she herself suspected us from the moment we sat down, and those suspicions were confirmed when Emily spoke Rascal’s name.

And to top it all off, Emily performed the absurd feat of eating ice cream at supersonic speed.

Zhang hadn’t even known that she was capable of that, and he certainly didn’t expect her to do it in front of someone who could be one of their enemies.

With that, the disguises given to them by their accessories became completely pointless.

“Emily, why were you so incautious in front of our enemies?” Zhang asked.

“Huh? Enemies? Who?”

“The Blue Sky Songstress and the other Master. We were sitting with them,” Zhang answered, still holding Emily’s hand.

“But the mister and miss weren’t enemies...” The girl tilted her head in confusion. “I mean, they weren’t minuses. Also...”

“Also...what?” Zhang already heard the word “minus” before, so he was more curious about what she had to say beyond that.

However, before Emily could answer...

“Whoa, would ya lookit that. Travelers? In a place like this?”

“Heh heh heh heh heh. What brought ya to our alley? Lookin’ for somethin’?”

...a bunch of men — clearly not respectable individuals — stepped out in front of them and blocked their path.

Armed and with malicious grins on their faces, they moved to surround the pair.

...I made a grave mistake. I was so focused on getting away from the café that I chose the wrong turn, Zhang thought.

He was deeply familiar with their type. They targeted those weaker than themselves and took their valuables or even lives. While in charge of the Huang He mafia in Hermine, he used to suppress these kinds of people every time they overstepped their boundaries.

Another thing he knew about them was that they were often terrible at gauging their targets’ power.

“Wow, the brat’s a damn Master.”

“Heh! I’m not gonna be scared of a little girl just ’cause of that.”

“Hey, you two — if ya don’t wanna get hurt, ya better start layin’ down your cash.”

The thugs hadn’t the slightest clue that Zhang was a Superior Job or that Emily was part of Illegal Frontier. They didn’t even entertain the idea that they were the weaklings here — they assumed that these two were no different than their usual victims.

In this particular scenario, Zhang and Emily’s disguise accessories were actually a drawback. If they revealed their true powers, those who came to Cortana in search of the Orb would be wary of them, so the accessories were set to make them look non-threatening. Even Reveal would show fake stats that made them look like common folk, so perhaps it was hard to blame the men for thinking they were easy targets.

Though, in a way, the criminals’ mistakes weren’t quite fatal yet. Perhaps if they felt an instinct or something warning them to run, this encounter wouldn’t escalate any further.

After all, they were still in her gray zone.

But then, they sealed their own doom.

“You gonna just stand there or what?!” The largest man among them stuck out his weapon...

“Fork over the money! I’ll kill ya!”

...and said those words — the greatest mistake of his life.

“...Minus.” Two sounds followed, and Zhang needed a moment to figure out their source.

The first sound was a voice as cold as ice, and Zhang just barely realized that it belonged to Emily.

The second sound only lasted for a split second, making it extremely hard to guess what it was.

It took Zhang a long moment to figure out that it was the sound of a blade splitting the man from the top of his head to his groin.

The blade in question was a reddish-black axe that shone with a faint luster like dried blood. Its overall shape was similar to a tomahawk, but the blade was styled like the spread wing of a raptor.

That detail made the blade look like decoration, but any doubts about its ability to cut were dispersed by the fact that it had just severed a human in half.

And the one holding this blade...was Emily.

The blade that had just brutalized a man was clutched in her right hand, but she held another one just like it — though still unbloodied — in her left. She was facing away from Zhang, and though the appearance of the axes was the only thing that had changed about her physically, her aura was completely different.

“Emi...ly?” Zhang hesitantly called out, but the girl didn’t turn to him.

This made it impossible for him to see her expression. Somehow, he doubted that it even looked human.

However, from the angle of her neck, he could at least guess what she was looking at.

She was looking at the men who were still alive — and who had just witnessed one of their own be split in half, his entrails spilling onto the ground and starting to reek in the sweltering heat. They could barely process what was happening.

“Huh...ah? Huhh?”

“H-Howard? Huh? B-But he’s a...high-rank...” They stared at the man’s remains in disbelief.

But then they noticed Emily...looking right at them.

“AIEEEE?!”

“A-AHHHHHHHHH!”

Just what was it that they’d seen in her gaze?

Whatever it was made them flee in abject terror, some tripping over themselves.

However, one remained, practically popping a blood vessel as he glared back at her with his face twisted in rage.

“My bro... YOU FUCKIN’ DEMON!” The man raised up his two-handed sword, but the moment he did that, Emily threw the axe in her left hand.

Spinning wildly, it flew into the man’s raised arms and severed them at the elbows...

But then it flew back like a boomerang...and decapitated him.

When the axe returned to her, there were now two bodies on the ground — one without a head and one split in half.

Upon seeing this, the remaining men screamed again and fled with even more fervor. However, Emily merely watched them run away, showing no intent to follow.

Throughout it all, Zhang wasn’t moving a muscle.

It wasn’t fear that had immobilized him — he hesitated to move because for all he knew, that could set her off.

Once the men were completely out of her sight, Emily began to do something else.

She stuck an axe into each of the remains.

At first, it seemed like she was getting rid of the bodies, but that wasn’t her aim.

The axes began absorbing the remains as though they were drinking water. The corpses dried up at an immense speed — and soon enough, the water within them as well as each and every cell they had were completely gone.

Then...they turned into motes of light.

Tians were supposed to leave behind corpses, yet here, they had turned into light and vanished like monsters and Masters.

The motes soon mixed with the passing desert wind and were completely gone out of sight.

Once that was done, Emily turned back to Zhang.

“Mr. Zhan? What’s wrong?”

Emily’s curious eyes as she gazed at Zhang were all innocence. They were pure — certainly not the eyes of someone who’d just committed a brutal murder.

This perplexed Zhang, making it hard for him to respond.

But eventually...

“Emily...”

“Yes? What is it?”

“...What were you going to say?”

...he spoke up, but didn’t ask about what happened just now.

Perhaps he simply needed a moment to collect himself before asking about the brutality he’d just witnessed.

Regardless...he certainly didn’t know that he would get his answer immediately.

“When?”

“You said ‘They weren’t minuses. Also...’ You were about to say something, right?”

“Oh! I remember!” Emily said. “I was saying that if they were enemies, they’d just go away somewhere. That’s why that mister and miss weren’t enemies!”

Cryptic words, spoken with an innocent smile.

“‘Go away somewhere?’”

“Yep! People who become enemies hate me, so they get away from me. I wonder where they go...”

As terrifying as it was, Zhang’s Truth Discernment didn’t go off.

The one flaw the skill had was that it didn’t react to words that the speaker honestly believed were true.

This meant that Emily actually thought that people who became her enemies simply went away from her...when the reality was that she killed them. Every last one of them.

So this...is her “true nature,” huh? Zhang now fully understood what Rascal had meant.

When faced with someone she saw as an enemy, Emily was like a machine that instantly sliced them apart. However, she didn’t actually remember any of these murders.

If Zhang somehow became her enemy, she would instantly kill him and not even recall the event.

Just...how? How does a person like her come to be? Zhang had been through a lot and seen all manner of people, yet the true nature of the little girl before him sent chills down his spine.

At the same time, however, he now understood that this Emily was the same Emily that he’d heard rumors about.

She was the holder of the Superior Job “Murder Princess,” which was unlocked by killing at least ten thousand people using melee weapons.

She was the bearer of the Superior Embryo, “Soul-Eating Axes, Youaltepuztli” — a pair of blood-colored hatchets.

She was the most infamous serial killer among all Superiors...Emily Killingston, “the Kill Leader.”