Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 18 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: The Minority’s Justice, The Majority’s Evil

June, 2044

Thunderous explosions rang throughout a forest on the border between Altar and Legendaria.

Calling it a “forest,” though, wasn’t entirely accurate, because the trees—the old growth that had stood there until just yesterday—were all but gone now.

The land looked as though it had suffered a relentless aerial bombing, and this unbridled destruction continued unabated. There were no longer even any animals running from the overwhelming noise that shook the earth and sky. How could there be? The battle had been going for an hour now. All the local fauna had either escaped or died long ago.

The only moving things left were two large silhouettes.

“UAAAAGH!” One of the figures was a giant humanoid robot that was over a hundred metels in size. With an echoing roar that shook the ground, it ran at near-sonic speeds before leaping forward.

Its target was the other silhouette—a strange object that looked like three large disks stacked together. Seemingly about a hundred metels in size, the object stood on a singular column-like support that pierced the ground. Its appearance might be compared to the stacked prayer wheels used in Tibetan Buddhism.

However, the living face each of them possessed might make the comparison to religious instruments a bit bizarre.

“Nejirebana!” The steel giant coupled its leap with a spiraling right-hand palm attack called “twisted flower.” The palm would soon grab one of its opponent’s disks, then use its speed and sheer strength to twist and break it.

“Turning Space.”

However, two words from the topmost disk reversed everything. Instead, the steel giant’s right arm shattered.

“...Kodachi!” Not faltering, the giant went on to twist its body in midair and throw a roundhouse kick. This had actually been its plan from the start—the giant had expected the palm attack to fail and was ready to deliver this far stronger blow.

But as the kick was right about to connect...

“Turning Land!”

...the land beneath the steel giant flipped upside down.

The ground itself crashed into the giant, sending it flying.

“NGH!” Despite the impact, the giant spun in the air to brace itself.

However, its movements began to grow more sluggish once it landed.

“Warning: Energy cells depleted. Full Offense Mode can no longer be maintained. Recharging cells would require twenty-four hours spent in a noncombat state. Furthermore, there is a severe combat munitions shortage.”

With a mechanical voice, the steel giant—or rather, the Embryo—declared that it had run out of everything necessary for its ultimate skill. It said all this while in the process of transforming from its robotic form back to that of a battle cruiser.

“In that case, fire every armament the moment you transform! B-type shells for all!”

“Affirmative.” In response to its Master’s order, the Embryo loaded all armaments with the specified type of shell.

And when it had finally become a battle cruiser again, it gunned its engines to full power and surged forward. A moment later, however, the land beneath the battle cruiser was flipped exactly as before.

“BALDR! DO IT! FIRE ALL GUNS!”

“Affirmative.” As the battle cruiser moved, crushing what remained of the trees beneath it, the Embryo obeyed its Master and fired every weapon it had equipped. Hundreds—thousands of shells and missiles flew towards the disks.

Upon seeing this onslaught...

“F o o l i s h.”

...the faces on the slowly spinning disks cracked a smile and spoke these words in perfect unison, their voices strangely distorted.

“Turning Space,” the topmost disk said. All of the heavy ordnance aimed at it flipped around and flew back towards the battle cruiser instead.

That was one of the three great “Turning” abilities the disks possessed—the ability to turn space itself.

The Master of the battle cruiser clicked his tongue in annoyance and switched its engines to full capacity in order to escape, but...

“Turning Land.”

...the face on the middle disk spoke. At its words, the land around it shifted like a table being flipped over.

This was the second “Turning” ability. It allowed the disks to freely warp the landscape around itself, and its effect reached as far as ten kilometels away. Right now, it was using this power to force the retreating battle cruiser back into the trajectory of its own shells and missiles.

“Ah...!” And thus, the battle cruiser was drowned in flames. There was no sign of its Master escaping the conflagration—he must have been engulfed as well. Even the disks could see that he could not possibly have survived it all.

Eventually, the battle cruiser vanished, presumably having succumbed to the fire.

“H e f i n a l l y d i e d,” the three faces of the disks said as they gazed at the flames, chuckling.

This impudent enemy had spent most of the battle outside the range of Turning Space—but in the end, he’d apparently lost his presence of mind. As a result, he had been destroyed by his own weapons.

“H e a n d t h e d a r k m a n w h o d i e d f i r s t w e r e a t r u e n u i s a n c e.”

“W e w e r e i n j u r e d.”

“T h e h u m a n s w i l l h a v e t o p a y f o r t h i s.”

The strange entity’s name was “Divine Disks, Spindle.” It was an Ancient Legendary UBM that had lived in this area for a long time and ruled over its people with an iron fist. Despite being inorganic, it was also carnivorous; perhaps the most distressing thing about its dominion was that it demanded human sacrifices to feed on—and even seemed to derive excitement from this.

Many tians had challenged this creature in the past, including combat-focused Superior Jobs from Tenchi. However, not even the likes of them could bring this entity down. That was just how strong the disks were.

If the overseer of UBMs were to look at this creature, he would surely describe it as “an Ancient Legendary that was absurdly close to Mythical.” If it defeated just one more UBM, in fact, it would no doubt ascend to the Mythical tier outright.

Today, a mere two people had attempted what so many before them had failed to do—and they both had met with abject defeat.

The first opponent had died early on when the bottom disk used its “Turning Life” skill, which accelerated his cell division cycle, causing them to multiply so rapidly that he burst into pieces. The other had just vanished within his own artillery barrage.

Once again, the Divine Disks had emerged victorious.

“W e a r e f a t i g u e d. L e t u s f e a s t t o h e a l o u r s e l v e s.”

“O n e v i l l a g e s h o u l d s u f f i c e.”

“A g r e-e-e...” However, as they were in the process of planning their victory celebration, the third disk’s words trailed off into nothing. Its spin, normally steady, had also become unstable—almost as though it had suddenly gone rusty.

“W h a t i s w r o n g?” the other two disks asked. However, it returned nothing but silence.

Eventually, the disk stopped spinning completely. The eyes on its face rolled backwards, and it opened and closed its mouth like a fish out of water. Then, suddenly...

“Goodbye.”

...a voice that sounded nothing like its own escaped its mouth before it shattered from within.

Without much flair or fanfare, one third of a near-Mythical creature instantly died.

“W h...W h a t?! B r o t h e r...b r o t h e r... W h a t h a p p e n e d...?!”

“W h a t i s t h i s?! W h o?! W h o...d i d t h i s...?! U n f o r g i v a b l e!” The remaining two disks were shocked by the sudden loss of someone who had been with them all since their creation. As bewilderment overtook them...

“Ohh, so you were brothers? My condolences. I see I’ve done you some great harm. Committed a crime you can never forgive.”

...they noticed someone standing within the motionless face of their brother.

“I do find that very satisfying, though.” The person—an unremarkable young man with black hair and black eyes—said all of this with a smile.

It was the same human who had been killed by the third disk’s “Turning Life” earlier.

“Y o u...y o u a r e a l i v e?!” the other disks cried in shock.

“I happen to have a body that does not die when split apart. Thanks to Shu’s distraction, I was able to enter your brother with little effort.”

The man said all these outrageous things in an incredibly matter-of-fact manner as he looked up at the two remaining disks. His eyes showed no pride in having defeated a third of such a powerful creature, but neither did they betray any disdain or fear. He looked as tranquil as someone gazing out at the sunset over the sea.

“Y o u... C u r s e y o u! Y o u r d e a t h i s n i g h!” The top disk was overcome with anger and set the man as its target for Turning Space. In several moments, he would be twisted right out of his body along with the space he inhabited.

“Focusing on me right now is dangerous,” the man casually remarked, pointing at the still-burning fire.

“...Strength Cannon.”

As soon as the voice issued from the smoldering wreckage, a shell of light broke through the veil of flame.

“W h...W h a t...?!”

And just like that, it was over. Before the top disk could change Turning Space’s target, and completely ignoring the second disk’s ability to turn the land, the shell of light flew towards the top disk.

“...Just fuckin’ break already.” The shell reached its target at the same time as those words did, and the immense power within utterly obliterated the disk.

“G h... G h a h...”

“B r o t h e r...!” As the top disk died, the second let out a wail of grief.

The man responsible, however, was standing in the fire with an indomitable grin on his face. As he looked up at Spindle’s final remaining disk, he made his Embryo—now in its cannon form—disappear.

“Yeah, I figured it couldn’t do the turning thing fast enough,” he said. “An hour is more than enough to figure out how fast you operate.”

The voice that was currently speaking belonged to the man from the battle cruiser.

“W h a t...? H o w? Y o u s h o u l d h a v e b e e n d e a d t o o...”

“Sorry, but the ‘B’ in ‘B-type’ stands for ‘bluff.’ Those special shells sure put on a hell of a show, but they don’t actually do much.”

As if to prove his point, the man showed no signs of discomfort as he stood next to the roaring fire.

“...They did burn my costume though,” he added with a sigh. “This show’s on the rougher side, I guess.”

Indeed, his costume’s top half had been completely burned away, leaving his upper body exposed.

“C u r s e y o u p u n y h u m a n s...! Y o u w i l l p a y f o r w h a t y o u d i d t o m y b r o t h e r s...!”

“...And that would be why you lost.”

“W h a t...?”

“Ya spent your days actin’ like god up in these mountains, only dealin’ with weaklings—forcin’ them to pay you tribute in sacrifices. Of course you’d lose your instinct for combat.”

“W h a t...?!”

“And that’s why ya don’t even recognize an obvious distraction. Holy shit, how much time can ya waste talkin’ when you’re up against the two men who just killed your brothers?”

That was when the last disk realized that the black-haired man was nowhere in sight.

“Shapeshift: Linker Arm of the Destroyer, Macht Kanone!”

He was standing in one of the creature’s blind spots, his left arm transformed into one armed with a cannon. Both the arm and the weapon looked exactly like the one possessed by the man with the battle cruiser.

“Once again...goodbye.”

The cannon fired, and the last of Spindle’s divine disks vanished like mist.

◇

Divine Disks, Spindle. A terrible being that regularly demanded sacrifices from the local villages—a creature that was taboo even to touch—had thus met its end at the hands of two people.

However, if anyone was present, they might not recognize them as human.

One had changed into a raccoon-like costume, which just made him look like some new kind of monster; the other had completely shed any semblance of humanoid form and become a black slime shaped roughly like a starch cake.

“...I raccoon we won,” said the former, awkwardly replacing “reckon.”

“It seems that way,” said the other. “Oh. It appears the MVP reward went to me.”

“Well, you made the winning move. No surprise there.” They—Destroyer, Shu Starling, and King of Crime, Sechs Würfel—were talking so casually that it was hard to believe they had been in a fierce battle mere minutes ago.

Although the conclusion seemed anticlimactic, Spindle certainly hadn’t been an easy foe.

The Divine Disks were extremely powerful, with their stats and skills alone making its defeat a difficult challenge for either one of them.

They’d ultimately won for two reasons. Shu had pointed out the first—that Spindle had lost its touch for combat. The second was the fact that Shu and Sechs were working together. They had both acted as distractions to create openings the other could take advantage of. Without such cooperation, Spindle would’ve won despite its rusty combat instincts.

Perhaps “cooperation” wasn’t quite the right word, though, since they weren’t actually coordinating whatsoever.

They both possessed a degree of confidence—or perhaps it was more like vigilance—that did not plan beyond thinking “this is what he’s gonna do next.”

They knew each other well enough to make such guesses and be correct almost all the time.

They clearly didn’t know everything about each other, though, as evidenced by the fact that Shu was looking at the starch cake next to him with slight surprise and thinking, Huh...this guy can’t keep up his human form if he’s tired?

Sechs’s Embryo was a Type Body called “Nu.” Its base form was that of a slime, and his human form was actually a result of a transformation. At this moment, he was so fatigued that he couldn’t even assume his regular appearance.

This seemed like a golden opportunity to send this criminal to the gaol, but Shu had no means of doing that now. He’d just used his first form and his ammo stocks were depleted, so he had no way to deal damage to someone immune to physical attacks. Things might be different if he had the King of Destruction Superior Job, but he would only acquire it after about a month of real-life time following this encounter.

As he was now, however, he was powerless against Sechs.

“Apologies for taking the MVP reward,” Sechs said as Shu looked down at him. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

“It’s fine,” said Shu. “The only reason I signed myself up fur this was because it pissed me off that children were bein’ wagoned off as human sacrifices.”

“Oh, that is true. I am certain you will not be thanked for this, however.”

The local villages had long tolerated the practice of offering sacrifices to the Divine Disks. This was because the land was Spindle’s territory, and that deterred most other monsters from entering. Outside of the need for human sacrifices, this place was actually on the safe side compared to the rest of the world.

The villagers believed that instead of worrying about some unknown monsters that could consume all of them, it was better to pay a “tax” of their own children to ensure the safety of the rest. “The devil you know” and all that.

In a way, it was like a religion that treated Spindle as a god.

This was especially clear when Shu had declared that he would defeat the UBM—only to be showered by loathing gazes and ceaseless verbal abuse.

Destroying this monster that demanded sacrifices was, from their perspective, a grave sin and a heavy crime.

And that was exactly why Sechs also wanted to defeat it.

“In the long run, defeating that UBM might actually increase the number of casualties here,” Sechs said. “I am certain that the victims themselves do not believe that you have done the right thing. That may even include the parents of the sacrificed children.”

“Probably,” Shu replied, his voice nonchalant. “I did what I wanted. To me, that was the right decision. It just also happened to be wrong for those villagers. That’s all there is to it.”

“...So you are not afraid of being in the minority.”

“If I changed my opinions just to be part of the majority, I’d stop being myself and lose my sense of what’s right.”

“Your sense of justice, you mean?”

“Nothin’ that grand. I just don’t give up on the possibility I want. That’s the one thing that won’t change no matter who tries to deny it—or how many,” he said, looking back at the place where Spindle had once stood. Nothing of it was left. “This time, I just wanted to break some shitty spinnin’ top that demands child sacrifices, so that’s what I did. I won’t regret it no matter what anyone has to say about it.” Within his suit, he cracked a smile. “Well, I’ll still get in touch with my contacts in Altar and Legendaria to have them build a defense network here. A freshly opened monster habitat ain’t safe, and I can do that much.”

Saying nothing in response, Sechs looked up and considered Shu.

He was a man for whom the opinions of others didn’t matter at all—they were merely by-products of his actions. To him, all that mattered was that he did what he wanted. He was the only one who needed to see the purpose and value of anything he did. He influenced other people, but was immune to influence from them. It didn’t matter if he wore an animal costume, played the comedian, or obliterated those who stood before him—his nature remained unchanged.

He had a well-established, powerful sense of “himself.”

He was one who delivered his justice even in the face of terrible adversity.

Sechs thought many things about this person before him, and found himself a little bit ■■■■■■■.

“We are directly opposed,” he finally declared.

“Hm?”

“I came to defeat the UBM because I wanted to do exactly what the majority was against. You came to defeat the UBM in order to do what you felt was right. Our actions and their results are the same, but we are thoroughly opposed otherwise.”

“We’ve always been like that, haven’t we? Like, since the time we met during that whole Theresia thing,” said Shu. This wasn’t a new concept to him.

“That is true. You keep her status as The Evil a secret to protect her, while I keep it a secret because it’s bad for the world. We truly are opposed.”

Shu did what he wanted and delivered his justice.

Sechs did what the world didn’t want and spread his corruption.

They were indeed directly opposed, but that was exactly why they occasionally saw eye to eye.

One man’s justice could clash with another’s, but justice and evil could interlock like gears and begin to turn.

That might have been a good way to describe their relationship.

That might’ve been why Sechs didn’t actually dislike Shu, despite the fact that he’d thwarted many of his crimes.

That wasn’t the only reason, though. In spite of being Altar’s most wanted criminal, Sechs didn’t have many personal desires...but Shu had caused him to develop one.

When he gets a Superior Job and becomes my equal... he thought as he looked up at Shu. I will have him do that until...

This desire had stuck its head out of its hiding place, but not far enough for him to say it out loud.

The time for that would come later.

◇

The two then went on to part ways.

They would spend their days encountering one another regularly—chatting, quarreling, and even cooperating like they had done during their encounter with Spindle. Sechs certainly saw Shu as a friend and someone special to him, while Shu didn’t actually hate this loathsome criminal all that much.

However, after a year in Dendro time, right before the first Knight-Machine War, the two would finally clash. It was a battle that no Master or tian ever knew about—a deadly struggle between the giants of steel and darkness.

Destruction and Crime—the kings of both had fought until they shattered.

Begin Episode: “King of Crime.”