Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 16 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue: Two Worlds, Two Mes

City of Commerce, Cortana

[The UBM, “The Rebirthing Infestation, De Vermis,” was defeated.]

[Selecting MVP.]

[“Benetnasch” was selected as MVP.]

[“Benetnasch” is presented with an MVP special reward — “Rejuvenating Grubwear, De Vermis.”]

Following that message, white boots dropped in front of Benetnasch.

Benetnasch had no attention to spare for them. He was focused on the scorched hole that De Vermis had vanished into.

The heat it created had reached Benetnasch, but the effect of the flame pit on the surface of the earth was minimal. Abyss Cannon was a weapon that could compress and focus its firepower, so it hadn’t delivered any life-threatening damage to anyone outside the established radius of six hundred metels.

Within the radius, though, some of the buildings had collapsed, while the ones next to the fiery pit were on fire.

The destruction in that particular area was devastating in its own right — and it was a kind of devastation that had already been caused by someone, somewhere, at some time.

Gate to the Afterlife — Persephone was an ultimate that could bring back any tians and creatures that had lived in the past and release them as they were in their prime. This meant that it could bring back long-forgotten devastation that was beyond the power of Masters.

His skill was rightfully feared because of it, but Benetnasch wasn’t one to care about what people thought.

There was only one thing in his sight, after all — his desire and the path leading to it.

“Hm. The skill on the reward is a lesser version of the original,” said Persephone.

She’d picked up and examined the boots before Benetnasch even looked at them.

“It transforms the wounds of the wearer into maggots, which in time become like the original skin, flesh, and organs. It also gives SP cost reduction and automatically restores it when worn. Not bad at all, but...”

Silence.

“...it goes against your tastes, so I will only treat it as a Resource for my ultimate skill.”

The purple gate created by Persephone was already turning into bits of light. The Amber Abyss Squadron had also transformed back into souls and returned to rest within Persephone.

“So, what do we do now? Should we meet up with Hugo’s group?” Persephone asked.

“...No, I’ll log out for a bit,” said Benetnasch. “I’ll come back in about an hour and then we’ll go undercover and travel to Melkava. We can’t keep Vina and Trim waiting too long.”

“Ohh. Well, you did say that you didn’t want them to see this city.”

The names Benetnasch spoke belonged to children he’d saved.

“Saved” was a relative term, though — he’d merely brought them back as undead after they’d died in a particular tragedy.

In a way, it was him grasping at a possibility again.

But as he was now, this was the most he could do, and even that came with many conditions that had to be fulfilled.

Thus, he hoped that would not be the case in the future.

“Yeah. I need to hurry back to them.”

“But what of the information you are meant to receive?”

“...Knowing Sefirot, they can contact me no matter where I am. I don’t think I need to give them an address or anything.”

“That is true.”

Benetnasch then opened the menu and logged out.

◇

Coming back to reality, Benetnasch — or, rather, the person who played him — opened his eyes to see the ceiling of a lightless room.

It was particularly dark because of the rain outside, and with the curtains closed it was hard to tell if it was day or night.

Then, with a hand as brittle as a dry twig, he picked up his mobile device.

There was a missed call and a voice message from his mother; after listening to the latter, he sent a message saying “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.” Then, a moment later, he added “I’m sorry I can’t come back home for spring break” before sending it off.

Spring break didn’t actually mean much to him.

After all...he almost never actually attended the college he’d enrolled in last year.

With the message sent, he stood up, revealing legs so thin that anyone looking at him would worry about his health.

He went to the bathroom, showered for a moment, then went to his fridge to take out a tube of nutritional food and mineral water before wolfing it down as though it was a chore just to nourish himself.

He then went back to bed, put on Infinite Dendrogram’s headset and logged back in.

Once again, he returned to that world as King of Tartarus, Benetnasch...abandoning reality...and abandoning his flesh.

◆◆◆

Southwest of the City of Commerce, Cortana, Large Quicksand Patch

Some distance from Cortana, there was a giant patch of quicksand that had existed for over a hundred years now.

It had a diameter of three hundred metels, and it was said that nothing ever escaped from it.

It seemed like an antlion pit, and that was actually a very apt description.

It was the habitat of Sandhole Worms — Pure-Dragon-tier monsters that looked like antlions and possessed a skill that created quicksand.

As a secondary effect of the environment control AI’s save point, Sandhole Worms and other wild monsters were instinctively unable to come too close to Cortana.

Because of that, this patch of quicksand was right outside the save point’s monster-repelling radius.

Neither skilled Masters nor the Drag-Worms that made the desert their home could come out of this quicksand alive or overcome the many Sandhole Worms here. Being so close to Caldina’s starting point, this quicksand served as a newbie trap like Altea’s Old Reve Orchard, but even more dangerous.

However...

“GYUAWAAAAHHHHH...!”

...the quicksand was now vanishing, accompanied by the death-screams of the Sandhole Worms within.

The antlion-like creatures occasionally stuck their heads out, but the bodies under their armor twisted and shrank as though being dried out before sinking back into the sand.

This continued for hours, and eventually, the screams of the Sandhole Worms stopped.

With the monsters gone, the environmental effect they were maintaining vanished, and the century-old patch of quicksand became normal desert again.

Then, from the depths of the pit, a small girl’s hand peeked out. Clutched in that hand was an axe, which used its skill to raise her out of the sand, revealing her entire form.

This figure was none other than Emily. Though her clothes were covered in sand, she was in perfect health. There were no wounds on her, and she wasn’t Frozen anymore.

After Hugo had Frozen her with La Porte de l’Enfer, AR-I-CA had thrown her into the quicksand here.

However, the Sandhole Worms within had shattered her Frozen body, activating Survival of the Fittest. She had then proceeded to kill all the Worms attacking her and turn them all into Resources, which was quite a struggle.

Being an immortal Superior, Emily was ultimately able to escape this death-pit.

Silence. Having just come out of the quicksand, Emily looked...very discontent.

In her killing mode, Emily wasn’t supposed to show any emotion — but now, as though profoundly angry about being thrown into quicksand, she was displaying extreme hostility.

“Bad.” Still visibly upset, she actually said something that wasn’t “minus.”

She stood in place, holding Youaltepuztli in her hands...

“...”

...then suddenly looked at the sky.

It was already past sunset — well into the night. As though confirming that, Emily looked ahead — to the city of Cortana away in the distance.

She then raised up the axes in her hands...and crossed them.

This was a preparatory motion for a skill that not even IF members were aware of.

It was impossible to communicate with Emily when she was in her killing mode, while the normal Emily never spoke of her powers to anyone — assuming she was even aware of them.

Even her own allies at IF didn’t know the true extent of Emily’s abilities. Perhaps this was only to be expected, considering that nearly all of them had aces up their sleeves that they concealed even from their own clan members. The one exception was Gerbera, who proudly flaunted the effects of her ultimate skill.

Because of this, most IF members assumed that Emily’s immortality was the result of a passive ultimate Embryo skill.

However, Survival of the Fittest was a standard passive skill.

Her ultimate was something different.

“Harvest...”

And now, she was preparing to use it — the wide-scale extermination ultimate that could easily destroy an entire city-state.

“...Night...”

A calamity unlike any other before was about to hit Cortana...

“...Youaltepuzt—”

“Emily! Are you okay?!”

...when suddenly, the worried voice of Zhang reached Emily’s ears.

Silence. The moment she heard the voice, Emily lowered her hands, and both of the axes returned to their crest.

Emily turned around...

“Mr. Zhan? What’s wrong?”

...and faced Zhang as normal Emily, speaking to him in a childlike voice.

“Forgive me for taking so long. After The Blue Sky Songstress picked you up, I lost sight of her. I ran all around Cortana’s outskirts.”

“Hm...? I...see?” Emily said, tilting her head as though clueless what he was talking about.

She then staggered for a bit before leaning on Zhang.

“Emily?”

“...I’m kinda tired. Emmie wants to sleep...”

And just like that, the girl fell asleep.

Zhang was slightly perplexed for a moment, but he picked her up and left the pit where the quicksand used to be.

After that, he took out the small sand-boat given to him by Rascal from his Garage and left Cortana, taking care not to be seen by AR-I-CA or others.

Once they were some distance away from Cortana...Emily logged out for the day.

◆

Emily opened her eyes.

After logging out, she left her bed and walked around her room on bare feet.

With the exception of the hospital gown she was wearing, she looked exactly as she did in Infinite Dendrogram.

She did seem to be one or two years older than her avatar.

Suddenly, the automatic door to her room opened up, admitting a nurse wearing a white coat.

“How are you today, Emily?”

“Hmm...good!”

“I see. Anyway, I’ll bring you dinner soon, okay?”

“Okaaay!” After seeing off the nurse, Emily looked around her room — a pure white sickroom. She then dragged a chair close to the window, climbed on it, and looked at the scenery outside.

The cloudless sky showed the moon and its beautiful patterns. The veil of night had fallen over the nearby forest, and she could hear the hoots of the owls there.

All by herself, she looked through the grated windows at the night scenery outside.

It was unclear if she was satisfied with what she saw, but she climbed off the chair and returned to bed, sitting atop it and waiting for dinner. She was well used to the meals served at the psychiatric hospital by now.

“Today was so fun too...” she said as she recalled walking around with Zhang, eating ice cream at the café, and looking around the bazaar — nothing more than that.

She would pay no attention to the time she’d apparently lost.

It was only the fun times that ever stayed with her.

“What should I do tomorrow?”

Like any innocent child, Emily wondered what the next day would bring.

◇◇◇

Armored Pilot, Hugo Lesseps

The amber-colored dragon summoned by KoT instantly ended the battle.

The UBM was purged by the dragon’s flames, concluding all that had happened in Cortana that day.

As a new day dawned, the city began to relax.

Teach had contacted Caldina’s capital and called for aid. They had already arrived and were working to get things under control, assisting the people who were injured or lost their homes in the chaos. They’d also declared that due to the mayor’s death, Cortana would be briefly put under the direct control of the congress, and they prepared to investigate those who had close ties with the late mayor, among other things.

The happenings here had caused quite a stir, but they weren’t anything particularly damaging in the long term, especially compared to what would’ve happened if De Vermis had been allowed to grow — Cortana could’ve been destroyed entirely.

I was also told that if the burning pit created by the amber dragon had connected with Cortana’s oasis, it might’ve caused a steam explosion that would’ve wiped out the entire city.

Benetnasch had probably accounted for that when picking the “six hundred metel” range, but I couldn’t help but notice how desperately the Masters and tians handling the aftermath worked to cool the burning pit.

I would’ve liked to help, but unfortunately, La Porte de l’Enfer didn’t work on objects, so I had to leave it all to them.

“...Benetnasch, huh?” I hadn’t seen him, Persephone...or Emily, for that matter, since my last encounters with them.

They might’ve left the city without anyone noticing. I wasn’t completely certain, but I was pretty sure that Emily hadn’t been sent to the gaol either.

There was a chance that I would meet them again someday.

With those Superiors gone from Cortana, Teach — the one who was still here — seemed to be extremely busy.

In spite of it all, she was Sefirot — a Master given special privileges by the president herself. It was expected that she would have a lot to do.

Appearances aside, Teach was actually pretty hardworking, so she must’ve been really busy right now.

...If only she were this dedicated in her personal life. I could respect her without any reservations.

“I see a lot of words like ‘in spite of,’ ‘appearances aside,’ and ‘if only’ in your mind.”

“...Well, it is about Teach, you know?”

As for me and Cyco...we weren’t citizens of this country, so we couldn’t actually help that much. At most, we would occasionally dispose of some rubble using White Rose. But with many Masters gathering to help, it was already done.

Now, I was just waiting for Teach in a café, just like I had yesterday.

In silence, I pondered a variety of things.

Back in Hermine, the matter of the Orb had been accomplished with few casualties, but here, many people had died.

Emily was supposedly here because of the Orb, and she’d killed a number of people. Investigations also revealed that the mayor also murdered many for the power of the Orb.

And we obviously couldn’t forget those that died after De Vermis was released.

Yesterday might have marked the end of an entire major city...but that wasn’t even the last of the events surrounding the Orbs.

Teach now had two of them, while one had been destroyed at the mayor’s mansion, leaving a whole four more of these Huang Hean treasures scattered across the continent.

I didn’t know if all of them were in Caldina, but Teach had said something terrifying about them: “I did some extra lookin’ up and it turns out that one of the seven stolen Orbs has somethin’ worse than a Mythical.”

A UBM that surpassed Mythical in status.

That could only mean that a creature more than a match for a SUBM was now in someone’s hands, lying dormant in its Orb, always on the verge of being released. Seeing the kind of trouble an Ancient Legendary like De Vermis had caused, I didn’t even want to imagine what that one would do.

However, I wouldn’t hesitate to prevent that from happening.

I was basically dragged into this Orb hunt, but if it would prevent incidents like this one, I would see it through to the end.

Abandoning it...would it make it hard for me to sleep at night.

“Yu! Cy! Kept ya waitin’, huh?”

As that thought passed through my mind, Teach entered the café.

“Teach, good work with every...thing... Teach?” I tried to express my respect for the hard work she’d been doing, but then I noticed something on her neck.

“What is iiit?”

“You have more hickeys than before.”

“Ah,” she said, putting her hand on her neck.

Other side, I thought. Actually, there’s some on both.

“...Teach?”

“Ah hah hah. Well, you know the maid I told you about yesterday? The one who was gonna poison me?”

“Yes.” The one she was pillow-talking with straight until dawn.

“It turns out she was staying at the same inn as me after that. She wasn’t there when the mansion went down, so she was perfectly fine.”

“That’s a...silver lining on a dark cloud, as they say.”

“What dark cloud? It’s all clear skies for her! You should’ve seen how happy she looked while she was sleeping!”

“Teach...?”

“Well...I met up with her after the whole thing yesterday and she was pretty freaked out. I mean, think about it, her workplace got blown apart and her boss and colleagues all died! Anyone would panic!”

“And...?”

“I spent the whole night comfortin’ her.”

...Silly me for ever thinking she was hard at work. I want my respect back, I thought.

“I hope you die,” said Cyco.

“I’m gettin’ some déjà vu here!”

Thanks to her, the worries I had just moments ago were blown away. Did she have a natural talent for destroying my inner conflicts?

That aside, there was something I had to ask her now. It had been bothering me since yesterday.

“Teach,” I said.

“What is iiit?”

“Yesterday, you fired lightning shells at De Vermis... Wasn’t that the power of the UBM Orb you retrieved last time?”

“ACK?!”

...She actually said that. With her mouth.

“Didn’t you say that you passed it over to a courier?”

“Uhh...yeah. That’s what I told you, but...”

“...Teach?”

She reached into her flight jacket’s inner pocket and...took out the Orb before putting it on the table.

“I actually had it this whole time... Ah ha ha.”

“...You could’ve just said so.”

“You lied to your disciple. How awful,” said Cyco.

“Ughh...?! I-It wasn’t my idea! It was all old man Grand!”

What did she mean by old man Grand?

“It’s a long story, but...” she began, launching into her explanation.

◇

After retrieving the Orb at Hermine, Teach had apparently contacted the capital with a comms device.

“So yeah, I got the first Orb. Can ya send someone to take it off me?”

“Impossible.”

And just like that, she was denied a courier.

There were multiple reasons for this, apparently.

First of all, Orbs weren’t items that could be placed in inventories. That meant that Masters left them behind when they logged out, making them a bad choice for carrying them. Even if they were put up to the task, there was a chance that greed would get the better of them and they would make a run for it with the Orb in order to have the special reward for themselves.

The only Masters who could be trusted with the Orbs were other Sefirot members, but the only one of them who was both fit for courier work and wasn’t too busy was Teach herself.

Tians weren’t a good option either, though, because Caldina didn’t have many that were powerful enough.

Almost none of them could stand their ground against pre-Superior or greater Masters, and if someone learned that a tian was carrying the Orb, it was likely that powerful Masters would attack them and take it.

By process of elimination, the most powerful and reliable courier was Teach herself.

However, she also couldn’t stay logged in all day and night long, so just about anyone could take the Orb from her by simply picking it up from where she logged out.

If someone found out that she was still holding it, she would certainly be targeted somewhere.

Thus, the first thing she had to do was lie to me — her only companion — by telling me that she didn’t have the Orb.

Neither I nor Cyco had Truth Discernment, and Teach already knew that.

Telling us that the Orb was “with a courier” was also a very deliberate act.

It was possible that someone could attack me while Teach was logged out and interrogate me about the location of the Orb.

If I truly believed that the Orb had been passed to a courier, Truth Discernment would detect that as a true statement.

The same would be true if anyone had asked me if the Orb was in Ace’s possession.

Because of this, anyone who tried to get information from me would end up searching for a fictional courier.

Apparently, this trap that turns the useful Truth Discernment skill against the user was thought up by the person Teach had called “old man Grand” — King of Toys, Grandmaster — and Teach had put it to use right away.

As for how Teach had dealt with having to log out with the Orb in her possession... Well, she simply buried it in the sand of the dunes or the dirt of the cities after attaching a simple transmitter to it. Trapping it was an option, but that would make it discoverable using the Trap Perception skill.

Since I’d truly believed Teach’s words, this whole “courier” thing had been a good decoy.

◇

“...But now we know that you still have it,” I said.

“Uhh, yeah,” Teach said. “But that’s not a problem anymore.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. In response, Teach put a map window on the table, expanded it, and pointed at it before saying, “Drag-Nomad is close to Cortana now. With Blue Opera, I can make it there within the day and give Prez both of the Orbs I got.”

I see. With the courier work nearly done, there was no harm in telling me the truth now.

“So yeah, I’ll be flyin’ there soon. There’s a buncha stuff I gotta do there, so you’ll have to wait for me here in Cortana, okay?”

“Okay. I have school anyway, so in a way, this is good timing.”

I can still stay here for about six hours of Dendro time, but if I don’t have anything to do, I might as well log out now, I thought.

“Oh yeah. School,” said Teach. “Man, I’m unemployed myself, so I kinda forget that you’re busy.”

...How am I supposed to respond to that?

“By the way, Teach,” I said.

“What is iiit?”

“You’re not hiding anything else from me, are you?” The first Orb-related incident in Hermine, the secret courier work... I felt like Teach had been hiding things from me ever since we’d met.

So, wondering if there was anything more I didn’t know about, I posed that question to her.

In response...

“I am.”

...she casually responded in the affirmative.

“Of course you are...”

“Yep. But it’s got nothin’ to do with Orbs. You can trust me on that.”

“...What is it about, then?” I asked, slightly exasperated.

“About me, you...and Fran, I guess.”

...I certainly didn’t expect to hear my sister’s name there.

“Is this—?”

“Uh, nonono,” she cut me off. “I can’t tell you now, but...you know what?” She folded her arms and seemingly thought about something for a moment before saying, “I’ll tell you either when you get a Superior Job, or when Cy becomes a Superior Embryo.”

“...What’s with those conditions?” The former was only achievable by the first person to make it to each job, while the latter had yet to be accomplished by even a hundred players in the whole world.

“That’s way too hard.”

“You think so? I’m pretty sure you and Cy will get there eventually,” she said with an amused smile. “So do your best, okay? I’ll be waitin’.”

Her heterochromic eyes were fixed on me, looking as serious as she could get.

◇

After that, I parted ways with Teach and logged out.

After taking off the headset, I heard songbirds singing as dawn broke.

Looking at the time, it was past five in the morning. There were two hours left until breakfast at the dorms, and three until classes began.

I could have taken an hour-long nap, but a good shower to wake me up was probably better than a lackluster sleep.

I took off my clothes and entered the bathroom attached to my room. Using the panel on the wall, I turned on the shower and stood beneath it.

I was glad that we didn’t have roommates here in Lorraine’s Girls College — I might’ve woken mine up with my showering.

“Ahh, I needed that.” After cleaning myself, I dried my hair and body before changing into the school’s uniform.

There was an hour left until breakfast, so I used the time to go through the texts that would come up in today’s classes.

Even with that done, I still had some free time, so I looked at some video sites for the first time in a while and...

“...Ah.”

...there was a video called “Hell General, Logan Goddhart gets REKT!” in the rankings for the gaming category.

Uploaded several days ago, it showed how the top player in Dryfe’s duel rankings had lost against an Altarian newbie...him.

“...He’s the same as ever.” Watching him fight Hell General in the video reminded me of his battles against Gouz-Maise...and Fran.

Earlier, remembering those things made me feel both longing and guilt. But now, I felt a bit proud... I could look straight at that video without feeling bad in any way.

It might’ve been because I — Hugo — had chosen to stand up to impending doom just like he did.

“It would be great to talk to him about the recent happenings someday.” That day, before we faced each other, we’d met up at a café and had this exchange:

“All right, then. Guess this is goodbye for now. Oh, should we add each other on the friends list?”

“...Not now. Let’s do it next time we meet...or the time after that.”

I’d said that because I knew that we would be enemies “next time” and that if we were to become friends, it would necessarily be “the time after that.”

We hadn’t met again after our meeting as enemies.

I didn’t know if he still saw me as an enemy or if he believed we could still be friends — but personally, the next time we met, I wanted to make it up to him and, if possible, be on good terms again.

“I guess it might depend on his relationship with my sister... Ah.” As I said that, I noticed the name of the person who had uploaded the Hell General video.

It was easy to guess who it was...

“...I see she’s still sour.” Apparently, my sister was still stuck to him like slime, gathering info about him using methods that were basically stalking.

She must’ve gotten the footage through all of that, and it showed me just how obsessed she was.

Thinking of their relationship, I grew slightly exasperated and let out a sigh.

“Yuri! The cafeteria’s about to open up! Let’s go!”

That was when a friend — Sonya — came to invite me to eat breakfast together.

“Okaaay,” I said as I closed the video site.

It was time to put aside the Orbs, KoT, Emily, and Teach, as well as Fran and Ray.

There were many problems in Infinite Dendrogram, but they would have to be dealt with later.

The Machine Knight of Ice and Roses, Hugo Lesseps would have to rest for a moment. Until today’s classes ended, I would be Yuri Gautier — a third-year middle school student in Lorraine’s Girls College.

I was both Hugo and Yuri — and without either, I would be no one.

“Yuri?”

“Comiiing!”

Called by my friend, I left my room and took a step into a life as Yuri.

To Be Continued in the Next Episode