Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 16 - Chapter 5

Chapter Five: The Machine Knight of Ice and Roses

Armored Pilot, Hugo Lesseps

By the time we arrived at the source of the screams, we found a scene of absolute mayhem.

People were fleeing in all directions while countless Masters engaged in fighting something that turned them into bits of light one after the other.

My low AGI made it hard to see it, but there was definitely something moving around at an incredible speed.

The first time I did manage to see anything properly was when it used an axe to split open a Master’s head.

The figure was a girl, wearing a dress so drenched in crimson blood that I couldn’t tell the original color.

With her disguise gone, her face was different, but I was certain that this was the very same girl I’d met at that café.

“The Murder Princess,” said Persephone. “This is my first time laying eyes on her, but she is truly something. I can see why she is in the same clan as The Weapon... She is clearly on a rampage, but she’s killing them one by one.”

“What now, Hugo?” Cyco asked.

I knew why she was asking me that question.

She wanted to know what I, myself, would do now.

I closed my eyes and pondered. Teach had told me to suppress the Murder Princess using La Porte de l’Enfer. I was reluctant to use it against a little girl, but I couldn’t just sit by and let the casualties pile up.

More than that, I felt that I had to stop the girl from doing this for her own sake.

Neither Yuri nor Hugo could tolerate the disaster before them.

“Cyco... Let’s do this!” I shouted.

“Roger that!” she responded. I used Instant Release to take out my White Rose, summoning a pure white Magingear into the bazaar.

The scene attracted many eyes...including Emily’s.

Under the gaze of all present, I rushed to enter White Rose.

It only took me a few seconds, but that was a long time when dealing with someone who moved at supersonic speeds. As I put my hand on the edge of the cockpit, the Murder Princess fixed her eyes directly on me.

I looked right into them and saw...tranquility.

Despite the violence she was committing, her eyes were as still as a calm lake.

She’s gonna kill me, I thought.

She had plenty of time to reap my life while I boarded the cockpit.

I expected her blade to reach for me next...

“...”

...but she did nothing.

She allowed me to enter my Magingear. It was as though she didn’t see me as an enemy.

She then looked away from me and resumed moving at supersonic speed, disappearing from my sight.

While that was happening, I finished boarding White Rose.

“Cyco!” I called, ordering Cyco to merge with White Rose and become its frozen armor.

“La Porte de l’Enfer!” she shouted the moment the fusion was complete.

This was a skill that Froze X% of any targeted creatures’ bodies with a probability of X%, where X equaled their kill count of their own kind.

It activated the moment it was used, then ticked every thirteen seconds afterwards.

Because of this, anyone that had killed a hundred or more of their own kind would instantly freeze solid, just like the dozens of Masters I’d faced in Gideon.

“Wh-Whoa...!” a Master voiced his surprise.

“What the hell...? Is this one of her skills?” another one asked. I was in too much of a hurry to set the skill’s target, so I ended up just using it indiscriminately. As a result, many other Masters had their bodies partially or completely frozen.

That wasn’t what truly mattered here, though.

“...What became of her?!” I asked. Moving at supersonic speed, she was too fast for me to follow, so I didn’t know where she was or if she had even been affected by my skill.

I knew the extent of La Porte de l’Enfer’s power.

I’d used it against skilled Masters back in Gideon and even tested its viability against Superiors with Fran.

However, I’d never once used it against a combat-focused Superior. If it didn’t work because of, say, the sheer difference in power output of our Embryos, then I would have no means of stopping her.

As such worries flickered through my mind, I looked around as I suddenly heard a voice.

“H-Hey! The Murder Princess... She’s Frozen!”

Looking for the source of the voice, I moved White Rose’s camera-eye.

There, I saw an ice statue of a girl holding two axes.

◇◆

City of Commerce, Cortana

With Emily neutralized by La Porte de l’Enfer, the situation was brought under control.

One could say that this positive result was pure coincidence.

Normally, Hugo would’ve been instantly killed while he was boarding White Rose. In her killing mode, Emily rushed towards and murdered anyone she deemed an enemy.

However...Hugo had chatted with her before she’d entered her killing mode.

Although briefly, they’d had a pleasant exchange back at the café. Emily remembered it, and that was enough for her to recognize him as a friend even in the heat of battle.

While killing mode made it far easier for her to see strangers as enemies, those that normal Emily had already deemed to be friends would still be hard-pressed to become her targets.

That was what had made it possible for Hugo to enter his Magingear and activate his skill without interruption.

And the ultimate result of that was his act of giant-slaying — a high-rank Master subduing a Superior one.

The onlookers were filled with shock.

This included the many Masters that had been battling Emily...as well as Zhang Zangqi — Emily’s only real ally in this city.

“Wh-What...?” he stammered as he observed Emily’s Frozen form through the vision of a bird jiangshi.

When La Porte de l’Enfer was activated, Zhang had been nowhere near her. After Emily had begun her “chain,” Zhang had obeyed Rascal’s words to the letter — “If a massacre breaks out, just wait it out in a safe place before pickin’ her up.”

Emily’s rampage was no doubt something that would attract the other Superiors.

It was an unusual situation, but Zhang’s primary objective was to survive, and his secondary objective was to collect information. He was hesitant to leave Emily, but he did so anyway to fulfill these two objectives.

Thankfully, he’d gone far enough to leave the range of La Porte de l’Enfer.

If he had been nearby, he’d have been turned into an ice statue just like Emily.

However, he was in no state of mind to appreciate the danger that he’d narrowly evaded.

Emily...someone so powerful Froze in an instant... he thought, stressed. I must save her. Rascal said that I should not, but with the situation being what it is, I need to retrieve her no matter the cost. I doubt even he’d expected that she’d be neutralized like this.

As things were, Emily’s Frozen body would either be shattered or locked away, and both of those things would lead to her being sent to the gaol.

With that in mind, Zhang rushed to Emily’s aid...

“Ah...!”

...but the very moment he stepped into La Porte de l’Enfer’s range, the skill had another thirteen-second tick, which instantly Froze his right leg.

If he had been just a couple seconds later, he would’ve been an ice statue; he was lucky to get away with just a leg.

“I am not sure how this works, exactly...but I see that I cannot enter either,” he said. However, his observational jiangshi were untouched by the ice, which told him that jiangshi were unaffected by whatever this was.

Zhang came to the conclusion that he might be able to use his jiangshi to approach and retrieve Emily.

“Drag-Worm Jiangshi, move!” he said. “Will they make it in time, though?” Positioned outside and moving through the ground, Drag-Worm Jiangshi weren’t fast monsters. They couldn’t even be compared to the High Dragon Jiangshi he’d possessed in Huang He and Hermine.

Zhang was worried that they wouldn’t make it to his location before Emily was shattered.

If it had been Rascal in his place, however, he wouldn’t have been the least bit anxious. Instead of calling for reinforcements, Rascal would’ve merely resumed his hunt for information.

“No matter what, Emily’ll be the last one standing. That’s the result, and it ain’t ever gonna change.”

Rascal had said those words a mere hour ago.

He hadn’t said that for any reason as simple as Emily’s Kill Leader skill and the immense stat boosts it gave her.

No. The true value of the Murder Princess lay elsewhere.

◇◇◇

Armored Pilot, Hugo Lesseps

“Cancel La Porte de l’Enfer...” I said.

“Okay,” Cyco replied and did as told.

At the same time, she thawed everyone out besides the girl.

“Whoa... I’m back.”

“So this was the Magingear guy’s skill. Damn, he completely stopped the Murder Princess.”

“I feel like I’ve seen this skill before...” I heard such voices around me, but I had something more important to focus on.

Hurriedly, I established a comms line with Teach’s Blue Opera.

“Teach, can you come here right away?” I asked.

“Kay kay,” she replied. “Ya met the Murder Princess, didn’ cha?”

“Yes... I neutralized her with La Porte de l’Enfer.”

“Niiice one!” She gave me an impressed whistle.

“...What do I do now?” I asked.

“Just wait there. Oh, but she had a friend, so watch out for him too, okay?” she said.

That much was true. Back at the café, the girl had been accompanied by a man with the air of a guardian. If he was actually with her, then he certainly wouldn’t ignore a situation like this.

“All right,” I said.

“Okay then. I’ll head there after I’m done talkin’ here. I won’t be long,” Teach said before cutting the call.

She must’ve been talking to King of Tartarus, Benetnasch.

“Persephone, is your Master... Hm?”

I called out to his Embryo using the unit’s speaker, but I got no response.

I looked for her using the cockpit’s monitors, but she was nowhere in sight.

Well, she had said that she couldn’t fight, so it would make sense for her to flee the scene.

Regardless, I had more important matters to attend to.

“Cyco, stay alert,” I said. “The man who was with the Murder Princess might come to retrieve her.”

“Roger that.”

I had to keep an eye on my surroundings until Teach showed up. However, when I started looking around, I noticed that there were a bunch of Masters around White Rose.

One of them — a man with a mohawk — spoke to me.

“Thanks for that. You’re the one who Froze her, right?” he asked.

I responded with a nod of White Rose’s headpiece and, trying to be Hugo-like, said, “This is one of my Embryo’s skills. She will remain Frozen for quite some time.”

“Good to know... Should we break her now?”

“...No. My companion will be here soon. She is part of Sefirot. Ace, AR-I-CA.”

“The Blue Sky Songstress, huh...? Yeah, it’s probably safer to wait, then. For all we know, shatterin’ her might just activate her Lifesavin’ Brooch and basically just...free her.”

...I actually hadn’t considered that, I thought. What happened to fully Frozen enemies who had Brooches equipped if their ice was shattered? I hadn’t tested that.

“...I will prepare to use the skill again, just in case.”

“Good to know. Thanks. Without you here, we’d be... Wait, I haven’t introduced myself yet. My name’s Mohawk Rock, and I’m part of the local Mohawk League branch.”

...I’d guessed as much based on the mohawk alone. For some reason, that clan had branches in every country. Dryfe was no exception.

“I am Hugo Lesseps,” I replied. “I am currently independent, but I used to be a member of The Triangle of Wisdom.”

“Aha, so you were. Your Magingear’s like none I’ve ever seen, so I guessed you’d have ties there.”

“I see... Oh, there is one thing you should know. The Murder Princess did not come here alone. Her companion might come to retrieve her. Could you help me keep an eye out for him?”

“Sure thing. Leave it to us,” Rock said before calling out to some other Masters and explaining the situation to them. They soon began looking around for anyone suspicious. He then turned back to me and said, “They are all from our clan. Though, they’re hidin’ their mohawks. For reasons.”

...What is the significance of them hiding their mohawks? I wondered.

“By the way, why’s The Blue Sky Songstress here in Cortana? She’s part of Sefirot, right? Is it somethin’ to do with the mayor?” he asked.

“...I am not at liberty to say, but why are you asking?” I returned. It actually was related to the mayor, but I couldn’t exactly say that.

However, I couldn’t help but wonder why Rock had posed the question.

“Well, if it’s somethin’ to do with the stuff the mayor’s pullin’, I thought that maybe she could help us out. Sefirot is on the president’s side, right?”

“Hm?”

“We Mohawk League were asked by Caldina’s Administration of Justice to investigate Mayor Douglas Coin. He apparently did lots of really bad stuff, but there was no solid proof for any of it. At least, until some time ago, when someone submitted a letter to the administration describin’ a bunch of his crimes in detail. We came here to confirm that... Though, one of our leads — the merchant with ties to the mayor — was just killed by the Murder Princess.”

Apparently, the mayor was involved in far worse things than just keeping the Orb for himself.

...And they were hiding their mohawks to be discreet while investigating, huh? I thought.

Well, a bunch of Masters with mohawks would certainly stand out too much. Though Rock, the apparent leader of this group, had kept his mohawk on.

...I really wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.

“At the very least, I can tell you that we are not with the mayor, so we might be able to assist.” I said. “Though, I would have to discuss it with Tea— I mean, AR-I-CA.”

“Well, that’d be great if you do.”

“By the way, who was it that submitted the letter?” I asked.

“Oh, that would be my Master Dearest.” A third voice joined our conversation. It was Persephone, who’d at some point approached my White Rose without me noticing her at all.

“Persephone, Hugo’s thinking ‘she’s so small I didn’t even notice her,’” said Cyco.

“Gngh... Am I truly that tiny...?!” Persephone groaned in chagrin with her hands on her head.

Well, it was less about her size and more about her being in the camera’s blind spot...

“I just didn’t see you anywhere. Where were you?” I asked.

“I went to retrieve something.”

Retrieve? I wondered.

“So, lady, you said that you know who submitted the letter?” asked Rock.

“Indeed I do. It was my Master, King of Tartarus, Benetnasch,” she answered as if it was nothing special.

“King of... Damn, so there’s three Superiors here? What’s going on in this city? Maybe we should’ve gotten Sec-Gen Omega to come here too?” Rock muttered, saying something quite worrying.

I’d heard that Secretary-General Omega was the Mohawk League’s leader and another Superior... Bringing him here would only make things more chaotic than they already were.

Putting that aside, I faced Persephone and asked, “Why did he make the submission?”

“Well, as I already told you, Master Dearest can see ghosts. He gathered information from the spirits of the mayor’s victims in exchange for assisting in the exposure of his crimes.”

...So that’s the situation, I thought.

“He also used the information he acquired to blackmail the mayor,” she added. “‘Please give me the Orb or I’ll report you to the congress’ and all that.”

“...Huh? But he’d already submitted the letter...” Cyco noted.

“To the Administration of Justice, yes...but not the congress.”

...Not lying, but not telling the truth either. This conversational trick was often used to avoid Truth Discernment. My sister was a fan of it too.

Anyway, this meant that the mayor’s misdeeds would be exposed whether or not he gave away the Orb. This Benetnasch seemed to be quite a character...

“Looking at all the grudge in this city, the mayor has gone far beyond all reason,” Persephone continued. “He did not have much time left regardless. The rest of his life will be spent behind bars...assuming he even survives,” she said as she looked in the direction of the mayor’s mansion. “Now, your companion and my Master Dearest should be... Oh dear. This is bad.”

She spoke the last line while looking at the still-Frozen Murder Princess.

A moment later, the twin axes broke out of the ice and flew through the air.

“What?!” A cry of shock escaped my lips. The deadly weapons decapitated two Masters in their path and began to spin around the area.

“It’s an Arms-type Embryo!” a Master exclaimed.

“Tch! They can move around even when she’s Frozen?!” said another. I looked and noticed that the ice statue’s arms were shattered.

This was the price she’d paid to move those axes.

However, the owner’s wounds seemed to matter little to the weapons. They flew around until...

“...Huh?”

...they crashed into the girl’s Frozen frame, shattering it to pieces.

The shards of ice sparkled within the sunlight.

Among those shards were motes of light that were her mortal remains.

Emily had used her own Embryo to give herself the death penalty.

“Sh-She killed herself...?” one Master wondered.

“I guess it’s better than letting us take her out?” said another. “Also, death penalties from losing HP make you drop less stuff than death penalties from using the suicide system.”

With the resurrection timer expired, she’d become bits of light and could no longer be brought back.

“...Oh no,” I muttered. I hadn’t expected this outcome.

It’s in Infinite Dendrogram, sure, but I just pushed a little girl into committing suicide... I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep tonight, I thought.

...At least this whole problem was solved now.

This was the end of my encounter with the Murder Princess...

“Minus.”

...or so I thought.

A moment after I heard a voice speak the word, I heard a powerful sound of something breaking.

I looked around for its source and I soon found it. The Master near me — Rock — now had an axe instead of a head.

It was clearly a fatal wound, and with his head and trademark mohawk destroyed, he quickly dissolved into bits of light.

In his place, there was now only a blood-colored axe, which soon spun and flew to return to the hand of a particular person.

After catching the weapon, she looked around.

It was her. The very same girl who had just received the death penalty — Murder Princess, Emily.

She wasn’t Frozen, and she even had the hands she’d lost when her axes had flown away from her.

She stood, unharmed and ready for battle.

“Wh-What’s going on?!” a Master shouted.

“D-Did someone use a rez item on her?!” a second Master asked.

“Like hell! You can’t use those after the rez timer runs out and they turn into light! And that’s what happened to her! There’s no way she should’ve been able to come back from that!” a third one exclaimed.

Indeed, this was impossible.

Reasonably, there’s no way this could’ve happened.

However, I knew things that others here might’ve not.

I knew of a Master that merged with a kaiju of immense stats.

I knew of a Master that could rewrite the effects of skills to make them far stronger.

I knew of a Master who could see a future others couldn’t.

And I knew a Master who could create armies of tens of thousands all by herself.

They...the Superiors could go beyond what was reasonable and make real what should’ve been impossible.

Knowing this, I understood what was happening here.

“This is the Murder Princess’s...her Superior Embryo’s power...!”

She could die, only to live again.

◆◆◆

About Youaltepuztli

In Infinite Dendrogram there was a concept referred to as “Resources.” It could be described as a kind of “energy” possessed by jobs, monsters, items, nature, and Embryos.

Resource exchanges came in many forms.

When a creature defeated another creature, the latter became experience points that raised the former’s level.

Items used the Resources stored within them to activate various skills.

Upon death, monsters had most of their Resources converted into items.

When Masters or monsters died, the Resources that didn’t become EXP or items were quickly retrieved by the control AI, and the Resource-less bodies instantly became bits of light.

The Resources retrieved by the AI were used in various ways.

Control AI No. 1, Alice — the one in charge of avatars — used the Resources of destroyed Master avatars to restore them.

Control AI No. 9, Caterpillar — the one in charge of environments — used Resources to fix this or that biome, or to improve the areas around save points.

One could say that all life in Infinite Dendrogram depended on the concentration, distribution, depletion, and growth of Resources.

Naturally, there were also Embryos that used Resources.

King of Destruction’s War God Ship, Baldr, and Giga Professor’s Magic Beast Factory, Pandemonium, used item Resources to produce ammo or monsters.

King of Crimes’ Primordial Shifting, Nu, acquired physical resistance and its well-rounded nature by taking most of the Resources meant for its Master’s job.

Emily Killingston’s Soul-Eating Axes, Youaltepuztli, was a Superior Embryo that used Resources far more directly than others.

Their power was simply to reap and store Resources.

Most of the Resources that would have originally become her EXP had actually gone into the axes instead.

Because of this, Emily’s level was lower than it should’ve been, but considering Youaltepuztli’s power, that mattered little.

The axes could turn even tian corpses into light and absorb them. The numbers were estimates, but by fully absorbing a level 100 tian, Youaltepuztli would receive 100 resources. Even a normal murder would give at least half of that.

With Youaltepuztli being a deity as well as a demonic figure in Aztec mythology known to consume souls, one could say that this was a fitting power.

However, that was only the first part of what made it such a fearsome Embryo.

Youaltepuztli could use the stored resources to resurrect Emily.

That was the effect of its passive skill, “Survival of the Fittest.”

When Emily died, her resurrection timer expired, and her Resource stocks were scattered and drained, they would automatically be refilled to bring her back.

Like the blood of sacrifices made to god, the stored Resources would be used to recreate her avatar the moment she turned into bits of light. Whether it was death by external wounds or the result of some status effect didn’t matter at all — Emily would always come back with full health.

One could say that she was doing Control AI No. 1’s job for herself, except instantly and without the need to log out.

That alone made her a fearsome foe, but those fighting her would have an even bigger problem...a fatal one, in fact.

Though the process drained the stored Resources...there was no limit to how many times she could come back.

If Emily was level 100, she could come back by draining 100 Resources.

With her now being level 928, the Resource cost for resurrection had increased.

In a way, that meant there was functionally a limit — she couldn’t come back once her Resources were depleted.

However, including those she’d just killed, Emily had murdered a total of 36,587 people.

That didn’t even include monsters such as worms.

This was what made this skill such a fatal problem for her opponents.

Just how vast were her stores of Resources? And how many times could she use them to come back?

Even if someone was able to drain her Resources by repeatedly killing her, Emily could replenish her stocks simply by killing any living creature.

This meant that she would never fall before her enemy did.

This was the true meaning behind Rascal’s words.

Murder Princess, Emily Killingston was an immortal Master.

◇◇◇

Armored Pilot, Hugo Lesseps

Death was the end of life — the inevitable fate that loomed large over everything that existed. No matter how good or bad, all things ended the moment death arrived.

Infinite Dendrogram had these so-called “undead,” but those were really just a different form of life — not something that came after a truly final death.

Everything was destined to die, and death was something that could never be reversed.

My unwavering belief in this fact was probably the reason why my Embryo, Cyco, was born with the power to punish those who inflicted death upon others.

However, things seemed to be different for Emily. She’d become bits of light, only to return a moment later.

This girl was clearly above even the temporary death that we Masters had been granted.

Emily...was unstoppable.

“Wh...What...?” said someone nearby. It seemed I wasn’t the only one who was dumbfounded by this.

The Masters who had been surrounding Emily, keeping a close watch out for anyone who might try to help her, seemed to be barely moving even to someone as slow as me.

The absurdity of what was happening had essentially left us frozen in place.

Emily, of course, didn’t care about any of that. Instead, she instantly renewed the slaughter.

A transcendental entity who possessed immense stats and could instantly revive from death... She was easily among the strongest Masters I knew. Even Teach was below her, and on top of that, Emily gave off a threatening aura that rivaled the King of Destruction.

“Ngh...! Target those with more than 10,000 and restart!” I shouted out.

“Roger that,” said Cyco.

It only took me a few seconds to activate La Porte de l’Enfer again, but that was enough for nearly ten Masters to die. She was moving at supersonic speeds, cleaving through them one by one.

I could only see the afterimages left by her attacks, but I could tell that she was committing a massacre.

And, for a split second, I felt a chill go down my spine.

Seeing this made me understand that I was a target as well — that she now saw me as an enemy, just like the others.

“La Porte de l’En...?!” I tried to resume La Porte de l’Enfer when I heard the sound of White Rose’s armor being struck, followed by a shock that reached me here in the cockpit.

All the armor made my unit extremely heavy, yet the attack sent it flying backwards, knocking it completely off balance.

“Ugh...!” I used the momentum from that strike to jump and create some distance.

After a moment of floating through the air, the cockpit was shaken by the shock of landing, powerful enough that White Rose couldn’t fully absorb it.

“...Ngh.”

“Cyco?!”

“I’m...okay. She only threw an axe... It shattered part of me, but stopped at the armor before returning to her,” she said.

Thanks to a damage reduction skill, Cyco’s frost armor, and the unit’s own armor, White Rose, actually boasted the strongest defense of any Magingear.

However, that single thrown axe carried enough power to penetrate it regardless.

“What’s the damage on the armor...?” I asked.

“A small dent; that’s it,” Cyco answered.

That’s still damage, I thought.

Still, the Mythical alloy armor that my sister built hadn’t been destroyed.

Fran’s creation could still stand for now, but it wouldn’t last long if Emily decided to focus on it until she tore it apart.

“Where’s Emily...?!”

“...There. Frozen,” Cyco said. We’d successfully activated La Porte de l’Enfer, Freezing her once again.

However, the axe flew out once more, shattering and reviving her yet again.

Strange as it seemed, she didn’t attack me this time either, instead targeting other Masters.

It seemed that she was in a state similar to the one granted by berserk-type skills. I couldn’t see any reason or logic behind her attacks.

There was no clear order for whom she targeted either. I was the one Freezing her, but she ignored me in favor of slaughtering other Masters, seemingly at random.

...Maybe it was all about distance and level?

I was relatively low-level and was further away from her than the others, so that might explain why I wasn’t high on her list of priorities.

“Minus... Minus...” She massacred Masters, repeatedly reviving herself after either being Frozen by La Porte de l’Enfer or suffering deadly damage from some other Master’s ult.

The scene was downright hellish.

“There’s no end to this...” I said.

“Do you have any ideas?” Cyco asked.

“...All that comes to mind is destroying those axes.”

Those two instruments of slaughter must’ve been Emily’s Superior Embryo. Without those, she wouldn’t be able to revive herself.

“...But destroying those is impossible,” I added. Just now, one of the Masters had used an ult on one of her axes, clearly aiming to break it, but the weapon hadn’t even been scratched. Moments later, it killed that same Master.

Damaging an Arms-type Superior Embryo was extremely difficult. I knew this quite well after seeing how not even Xunyu managed to destroy Figaro’s Embryo; Figaro himself could only harm Xunyu’s after enhancing the effects of his own Embryo.

It was obvious that White Rose’s firepower wouldn’t be nearly enough to destroy those axes. That was probably true for Teach too.

Altar’s King of Destruction could probably do it...but we didn’t even have a prayer of getting his help right now.

“There’s nothing we can do...” I said. Ray and that Rook guy could probably find a way to victory in this situation, but not me.

I’m not good enough to stop the girl’s killing spree... I thought, with self-derision.

“...And that’s acceptable to you?” Cyco asked.

“Of course not! But I...” There’s nothing I can do anymore... I can’t do anything here that would possibly help.

“Hugo... ‘A knight who protects women,’” Cyco silently said.

“...Huh?” I asked, hearing her words clearly. It seemed like her response against my inner whining.

“Cyco? Where did that come from...?”

“That’s what you wanted ‘Hugo’ to be, right?”

“That’s...” I said, before trailing off as I pondered her words. That was definitely what I wanted out of Hugo.

I wanted him to be a knight who protected women and defeated any threats to their happiness — the thorn for every beautiful flower. The Machine Knight of Ice and Roses.

That was the image I had for Hugo and the role I played — the hope I had entrusted to him.

“She won’t stop no matter what,” Cyco said. “She will kill many people, including those you wanted to protect.” I listened to her intently as she spoke. “I was born from your desires. Because of this, I will protect you and your wishes,” she continued.

Her words made me feel like the frozen armor covering White Rose was actually embracing me.

“Trust me to protect everything. Don’t turn your back and give up. Don’t look away from your wish.”

“Cyco...”

She was named after the frozen hell, but what she’d said warmed my heart like few things could. Her words had reached my very heart, and they had helped me remember a different set of words I’d once heard.

“Stop wallowing in doubt, young lady.”

I’d heard that said back when I was so full of doubt that I could neither move forward nor turn back.

It had been spoken by one of Ray’s friends — the sharp-tongued boy I hated more than anyone in Infinite Dendrogram.

However, I knew full well that his words had hurt me so much because he was exposing the truth I had been trying so hard to avoid.

Those words had come back to me because I was fully aware of that fact. Even as they hurt me so deeply, his words now served to spur me onwards.

This had also reminded me of a particular scene — the memory of a Master facing an enemy far greater than himself, yet without even thinking of backing down.

“...Don’t turn your back, Hugo,” I said to myself. Choose your path and move forward, no matter how powerful the enemy may be. Those two would’ve never backed down in this situation, and neither should you.

“...It’s time to choose, Hugo,” I reinforced to myself.

Also, right now the circumstances were completely different from what they had been at that time. Back at Gideon, I had been forced to choose between standing against my sister or letting a tragedy happen.

The thing that had filled my heart with doubt was entirely in the past. This time, I only had to choose between fighting or giving up.

When I thought about it like that, it became very obvious what Hugo Lesseps had to do!

“...All right, Cyco,” I said. “Neither I...nor Hugo...will give up!”

“Yeah. Do your best,” said Cyco.

I decided to keep moving forward and face this threat. Since that was my decision, I had to reexamine my options here.

“Hmm...”

Back when facing Fran, Ray had supposedly told her something like this: “It means that not even you — a Superior — were able to create a monster that was invincible just because.”

That was exactly it — not even Superiors were unbeatable.

Even if they seemed invincible, they must have a weakness of some kind.

Think, Hugo. Her immortality has to have a flaw, I thought.

“...Wait.” And then, it finally hit me.

Currently, Emily Froze every thirteen seconds, then used her axes to shatter herself and return from the dead.

The important thing to note was that...she wasn’t actually immune to Freezing.

Though she could kill herself to come back from it, La Porte de l’Enfer was still effective at neutralizing her.

“Another thing I’ve observed is that the power of the flying axes can vary widely...”

Emily’s axe-throws were significantly stronger than the flying attacks the axes did on their own. I could only guess that her throws were empowered by Emily’s STR, while the axes themselves weren’t.

White Rose’s armor couldn’t withstand the former, but it was strong enough to hold against the latter.

“...Also, her actions after Freezing have already become like a routine.” Once Frozen, Emily herself couldn’t move, so the axes instantly broke off her hands and flew.

If they were in flight the moment she Froze, they would stop attacking and focus on shattering her. It seemed as though they would do this even if they were close to killing their targets.

That meant that the axes would automatically move to kill and revive Emily the moment she was incapacitated. They had to do that.

“...And if they didn’t shatter her, she would still be Frozen.”

Her revival needed a trigger — her death. She couldn’t come back if she hadn’t actually been turned into bits of light.

Emily was immortal because of her deaths.

In that case...!

“Cyco! Use White Rose’s second battle mode.”

“...The anti-artillery defense thing? You know it’s costly, right?”

“My MP wouldn’t last long regardless!”

White Rose was a heavy unit with always-active defense skills, making it a real MP sink. The drain on my reserves was even bigger when La Porte de l’Enfer was active.

This was White Rose’s greatest flaw, even mentioned in the manual Fran had given to me — it was built for endurance battles but could only be used for a short while.

It was like a tank that quickly ran out of gas.

This could also be said about its synergy with Cyco.

Anyone who’d killed a hundred or more of their own kind would instantly be defeated by La Porte de l’Enfer, but anyone with a smaller number of kills — like that Rook person — would be drawn into a war of attrition.

White Rose’s ideal position was that of a unit that defended against the enemy’s attacks while slowly suppressing them with La Porte de l’Enfer.

But with my high-rank MP reserves, it couldn’t be used for long; unlike Ray with his Grudge-Soaked Greaves, I had no way to make up for this shortcoming.

This was a design flaw of White Rose that I couldn’t address at this point, and the second battle mode that I was about to use was only going to make it worse.

I couldn’t even keep that battle mode up for five minutes...but it let me do things I couldn’t do otherwise.

“In this situation, it’s our only choice...!” I said.

“Okay,” Cyco replied. I input something into the console to the side of the piloting gear and waited for the right moment.

Emily was currently slaughtering Masters even as she was Frozen and shattered by her axe every thirteen seconds.

There were at most two seconds between the moment Emily was Frozen and the moment she was revived.

Those two seconds would decide everything.

“Cyco! Count down until the next tick!” I barked out an order.

“Eleven, ten, nine...!” She did as told.

However, the next moment...

“Minus.”

“Ah...!”

...Emily, still barely visible to me, launched an attack against us in earnest.

I looked around and realized that most of the Masters were already dead.

“Looks like we are her targets now... But...!”

Emily had thrown both of her axes.

They spun in the air as they attacked the other Masters still standing. Emily herself was attacking White Rose with her bare hands.

“Aghh...?!” Her blows were powerful, throwing my unit off balance. They were even more intense than Rook’s Demi-Dragon’s attacks, and White Rose’s frame was starting to creak in agony. This was especially baffling because this unit was far stronger than the one I’d had back then. That meant that Emily’s bare fists were worlds above even Demi-Dragon charges.

“Damage on external armor. A crack has formed,” Cyco said.

Emily was actually breaking the Mythical alloy armor with nothing but her hands.

“My body too...” she added.

“Cyco, are you all right?!”

“Don’t worry...!”

Cyco and White Rose were still somehow withstanding this onslaught.

“We’re not...giving up yet!” I declared. We waited out this several-second-long barrage that felt like it lasted minutes, and survived to see the moment come.

“Three, two, one...!”

Cyco finished the countdown to La Porte de l’Enfer’s next tick — and once it came, Emily instantly Froze yet again.

“White Rose, purge all armor! Second battle mode!” I shouted. A moment later, all the armor that Emily had cracked and bent was removed.

This wasn’t due to her attacks, however — I had done this purposefully.

Cyco quickly transformed into armor to replace the pieces that were detached.

“Axes incoming!” she cried. They had instantly switched from attacking the Masters and were now returning to Emily to shatter her.

However, before that happened, I activated White Rose’s final trick.

“Boucliers Planetes!” The axes were on their way to kill and release their Master.

Just like before, they approached Emily — but unlike before, they were reflected by White Rose’s armor, now floating around her Frozen body.

The axes couldn’t reach her.

“Hugo!”

“We...did it!”

This was White Rose’s second defense mode — Boucliers Planetes or “shield planets.”

These were floating shields that protected the target from a distance. They were remote-controlled armor-pieces originally designed to protect White Rose from artillery and magic while maintaining distance, preventing the damage from leaking to the main frame.

I had a degree of control over it as well as some automation settings, giving me multiple ways to protect White Rose...or anything else I wanted. Even the enemy.

Emily’s axes crashed into the armor over and over again, but without her stats empowering them, they couldn’t damage the Mythical alloy, which was just as I’d expected.

They seemed to be automatically prioritizing Emily’s destruction, showing no intention of actually attacking White Rose itself. The weapons only continued to repeatedly crash into my shields, unable to break through and kill their Master.

“This...is checkmate,” I said.

This was the only way I could win this.

I’d protected her from her flying axes, preventing her death — and with it, her revival.

Ironically, protecting her was the only way to defeat her.

◇

“...Cancel La Porte de l’Enfer,” I said. “I’ll focus my MP into maintaining Boucliers Planetes.”

“Roger.”

“You get some rest, Cyco.”

“...Okay. I’ll take a break.”

I canceled La Porte de l’Enfer while Cyco, completely drained, transformed from her armor form back into a Maiden.

I didn’t intend to move the unit or use any skills from now on. The MP cost of Boucliers Planetes alone could be recovered using MP consumables.

The Freezing debuff of La Porte de l’Enfer continued even if the skill was canceled. The length of the effect actually scaled with the amount of their own kind the target killed, so as long as no one shattered her, the Murder Princess would be Frozen for days.

She would probably have to log off before it expired, but the Frozen debuff prevented people from logging out.

This meant that she would have to use the suicide system in order to actually disconnect from the game.

Or perhaps her family would start to get worried that she’d been logged in so long and try to remove the headgear, forcefully activating the suicide system.

...At least, I was pretty sure that was how it worked.

Regardless, the suicide system would obviously override her resurrection ability. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had to use her axes to kill herself, and she would’ve already been revived by now anyway.

That made it clear that this battle was over.

I watched the axes continue their futile attempts at breaking through the shields and killing their Master — their other half.

“...Why?” I peeked at her through the Boucliers Planetes and thought, Why did she massacre all these people?

Of course, I knew that not everyone was a Maiden’s Master like myself.

There were those like Dryfe’s Hell General — people who only saw this world as a game and thought that tians were just NPCs whom they were free to break like any other object.

The Murder Princess’s fighting style was pretty “game-like” too.

Fighting her made me feel like I wasn’t actually facing another human. What I felt was instead the shortsightedness of primitive AI enemies from old games, as well as the calculating coldness of an emotionless machine.

Many had died here, and my surroundings were far more empty than they had been before.

The tians who had populated this bazaar had all run away, while the Masters that had survived didn’t even amount to twenty.

Besides them, there were the tian corpses...or what was left of them, anyway.

This horrific sight made me understand why she was wanted in every country, and why she was one of the most infamous Masters in the world.

“...Why?” I muttered. The girl I’d met at the café didn’t seem like the type of person who was capable of something like this. She’d spoken of other people’s Embryos like they were friends, all smiles.

She had been like a normal, purehearted little girl.

“How did you end up becoming the Murder Princess...?” I asked — but of course, the ice statue didn’t answer.

The battle was over, and the only sound left in the bazaar was the metallic clang of the axes striking Boucliers Planetes.