Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 19 - Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Encounters

Sorcerer, Ray Starling

We were on the way to the leveling zone at the very south of the kingdom.

Before heading out, I’d changed my job to Sorcerer. The reason for this was, once again, the axe.

The immense grudge permeating the thing had convinced me that the damage it did to me was curse-based. And since Sorcerer was a job that granted skills that inflicted curses as well as skills that increased resistance to them, I’d picked it up to see if it would have an effect on the axe. If it reduced the damage, great. If it didn’t, I’d just drop the job whenever I needed a low-rank job slot.

“I feel as though you are on the path to wielding both Paladin and Dark Knight,” said Nemesis.

“...That’s not totally out of the question.” I’d heard that mixing sorcerer and knight groupings was the path that led to the dark knight job. It seemed like a combo Juliet would love.

Oh, and it would make me kinda like the protag of the fourth entry in a certain retro RPG series, so Shu would probably like it too.

“Perhaps it is not such a bad idea. It might lead you to a mixed Superior Job,” Nemesis added. I guess it would be like Xunyu’s Master Jiangshi—she got that by combining the Jiangshi job with the Daoshi grouping.

“But I feel like there’s a lot of people who’ve gone down this route. I mean, it’s a pretty classic concept.”

A champion who wielded both dark and light seemed like a tale as old as time. Someone must’ve tried it already, and since it didn’t seem like anybody had found a mixed Superior Job as a result, it probably didn’t exist—or it was a lost job with crazy specific conditions for unlocking it.

“Instead of daydreaming about a still-distant Superior Job, we should focus on the leveling we must do right now.”

“Yeah. Let’s level until we get the resistance skill.”

When we had it, we were going to use our arena to see if the skill had an effect. If it didn’t, I’d switch jobs later and level again.

“...Hm?” As I rode Silver through the skies, I heard a strange sound. It was faint and coming from far away, but I could tell that it would be really loud if I were closer to it.

It was a low hum, like something massive destroying something else, though I couldn’t tell if it was shattering something tough or tearing apart something soft.

The hum was accompanied by a distant, destructive sound that resembled none I’d ever heard.

I might’ve been imagining it, but it kind of reminded me of a sound I’d once heard in Gideon—the noise made by Sandalphon.

“Let’s check it out,” I said. A strange and vague uneasiness was gripping my heart too, so I couldn’t help but change course toward the sound.

“I feel as though we are heading toward trouble yet again,” said Nemesis.

That’s all the more reason to go there, I replied in thought. This place is pretty close to Gideon, you know?

And so, we moved toward the sound. We made it there in no time—and sure enough, something had been happening here. I could tell that much even from a distance.

“...That one doesn’t look so good,” I muttered.

There was a woman lying on the ground, covered in blood. Another woman stood beside her and was working on healing her wounds.

Then, standing right by a carriage with no horse or landdragon attached, there was a woman wearing a maid’s uniform. It made her stand out, but I knew a guy who wore a bear costume constantly, so in comparison it didn’t seem that weird.

And finally, there was one person I couldn’t see fully because there were trees in the way, but glimpsed some girls’ clothing at least.

It looked like a party of four women, and something had happened here that had injured one of them. She was being treated now, but even from here, I could see that the unfortunate girl had actually lost some parts of her body. Even a high-rank job would have a hard time treating that. They’d probably need Miss Eldritch to fully heal—

“Huh...?” My thought was cut short as I realized that the bloodied woman was in perfect health now.

Wow...I didn’t think there was someone besides Miss Eldritch who could treat something like that so fast, I thought. Maybe it’s an Embryo skill?

“Oh...” As I looked at them in shock, the women all looked up at me too.

My eyes met the healer’s gaze.

I felt that it would be rude to just turn around here and leave, so I decided to make Silver go down to them. Also, one of them had been badly injured, so they might’ve gotten into trouble they needed help with.

It sort of felt like Silver was paying extra attention to the woman in the maid uniform, but I had no idea why.

“Hm...?” Suddenly, I heard something. Unlike before, it wasn’t the sound of something giant. It was more like the sound of many small things moving at once. “What is that...?”

It was coming from the south.

◆◆◆

The Southernmost Edge of Altar, A Mountain Forest Near the Border

Seeing Ray descend put Gerbera into a panic. Why is he here...? she thought.

She already knew who he was. Back when she had been trying to provoke Shu by framing him for a crime, she’d also looked into his brother. Even if she hadn’t done all of that, Ray Starling had become a fairly famous figure after his deeds during Franklin’s Game.

She certainly knew more about him than she would about some random duel ranker, and the fact that he’d happened to be here at this point in time was more than a little unexpected.

What do we even do in this situation? she wondered.

There was no doubt that they’d win if they fought him. The odds of Ray emerging victorious in a battle against three Superiors were beyond low. However, fighting him would still have been a bad decision. If they fought, Ray would find out who they were—and since he was close to their enemies, they would learn about Illegal Frontier’s escape too. Even if Ray got the death penalty, he’d be able to share info about them via online messages or social media in the real world.

If people found out their approximate location, that would be an absolute disaster for them. Anyone could then prepare a kill squad that could give them the death penalty again—

Sechs currently only had a quarter of his HP, while Gerbera’s trusted Alhazred was in no state for combat.

If they were sent to the gaol again, it would be difficult for them to escape using the same means. Sechs had lost his levels, while Hannya must’ve leveled up since leaving the gaol. It was possible that Hannya would be removed from Sechs’s stock of transformations while they were preparing for the second try.

And there was the fact that Red King could have already set up a protection against their trick that would make sure it never worked again.

We could run...but that’s a gamble too, Gerbera thought.

They could maybe escape the danger if they all logged out at the same time. However, the logout process required thirty seconds of zero contact with anybody. That was enough time for Ray to remember their faces. Sechs was currently transformed into The Saint, so he was safe from being recognized, but Ray might spot Candy. If that happened, it was possible that someone would just camp this area and wait for them to log back in.

And if they fled normally instead of logging out, it would only make Ray more suspicious—he could even chase after them to find out why they’d run away. He was also riding a speedy Prism Steed, so it was questionable if they even could run away from him.

Then how about we just kill him really quick...? Wait, no, that won’t work...! In the recent peace talks, it was revealed that Ray had the Death Soldier skill. Even if they killed him, he would stay around for almost a minute—more than enough time to get info about them and take it back.

Also, though Gerbera could only see Ray right now, it was possible that he wasn’t alone. He could have friends nearby—maybe even Shu and Rook themselves. Ray was actually all by himself, but Gerbera had just escaped the gaol and had basically no information about the outside, so her fear was hardly unreasonable.

This isn’t good... He’s the worst person we could’ve bumped into right now! Ray didn’t die right away even if killed, and he had ties to powerful people he could inform about them.

Gerbera had no idea how they had to deal with this, so she decided to leave the thinking to Sechs and Candy.

However...

“...Nhuh?”

...when she looked at them, she saw something that filled her with shock.

Sechs was still assuming the form of The Saint, but in his right hand he held a sword that must’ve been an Embryo from his stock. Candy was in the process of activating Resheph.

They were obviously getting ready to fight.

“Huh? Are we really doing this?! We’re actually gonna fight?!” Gerbera was pretty sure that they—or at least Sechs—would’ve come to the same conclusions she had.

Then again, perhaps they had thought this through even more thoroughly than her and still decided that simply killing Ray Starling was the way to go.

“B-But my Alhazred is almost out of HP... I guess I’ll bring him out anyway, though... Umm...will my bowgun reach from here...?”

“Gerby,” Candy said as Gerbera hesitantly armed herself. “That guy who looks like more of a baddie than us? He’s not the one we’re fighting.”

“Huh?”

Sechs, Candy, and April had already shifted their gazes away from Ray.

And Ray himself was looking away from them, as well.

All three people and the one machine were facing the south—the Altar-Legendaria border.

“A domain...” said Sechs.

“Leader...?” Shock overcame Gerbera as she looked at him. The usual smile on his face, which almost never flagged, was now twisted up slightly. If slimes like him were capable of doing so, he would most likely be breaking out in a cold sweat right now.

“How careless of me. This used to be a buffer zone between Altar and Legendaria, and the border is nearby... I should have considered this possibility.”

“Wh-What’s going on...? A domain? Whose?” As panic gripped Gerbera, Sechs gave her a reply.

It was a single word, simple enough, and a common staple of fantasy fiction...but also something Gerbera had never faced within Infinite Dendrogram.

It was...

“...An Overlord.”

A moment later, the forest grew restless—and a bizarre-looking horde charged toward them.

◇◇◇

Sorcerer, Ray Starling

“What the hell are they...?!” Swarming from the direction of Legendaria was a horde of bizarre-looking creatures shining like mithril.

They resembled clay figures crafted by a child, except even more crude. It was like someone took some clay, made a torso, and just slapped some limbs plus a head on it and left it at that.

There were two kinds of these creatures in the horde: flyers who had wings awkwardly attached to them, and walkers who looked kinda like gorillas. They shared some features, but their shapes were so messed up that it was hard to tell if they were the same type of creature.

Unlike Franklin’s mod-monsters, these things didn’t seem to have any degree of intentional design behind them.

Despite looking like a toddler’s first attempt at sculpture, they all had a very strong presence. If I had to guess, they were high Demi-Dragon-tier in power, if not actually Pure-Dragon-tier.

And there were dozens of them—easily over fifty.

They weren’t nearly as numerous as Franklin’s Suicide Series, but if they had such a strong presence and could actually fight, they’d be a real danger.

“Are those just some Legendarian monsters?” I wondered. “But they...”

Things would’ve been easy if that were the case. However, perhaps the strangest thing about these already-strange creatures was that they were all surrounded by an iridescent aura.

I felt something powerful behind that—something even more powerful than the creatures themselves.

“Assuming that is not merely a skill that the monsters all happen to have...is it the effect of a Territory Embryo? Or is it one of those so-called Advance types derived from Chariot?” Nemesis asked.

“You might be right...” I said with a nod.

The aura could be the work of an Embryo, but the creatures themselves were clearly monsters of some kind and not just part of a Legion type.

There was one major giveaway that this was the case—there was text above them which said “Thrall.” There were dozens of creatures, all in different shapes, but they all had the same name.

Ten of the winged ones flew toward me, while the rest swooped toward the women below.

I’d gone down far enough to hear the women talk, and they seemed to be far more knowledgeable about this than me.

“They’re pretty freaky... Are they a Legion Embryo?” I overheard one of the women say.

“No. They are the result of a skill granted by a job, most likely Overlord. I have fought Overlord Gula in the past, though, so it cannot be her.”

“Affirmative. They are the servant creatures of Overlord Acedia—the result of the skill ‘Enthrall.’”

“But...‘Overlord?’”

I’d heard Azurite mention an “Overlord Ira,” so I already knew they existed in Infinite Dendrogram. Why would someone like that attack us, though?

“I would have guessed you would know about this, April,” said the healer as she stabbed the ground with her sword and used a skill. “Rumbling Treework.”

A group of trees then sprang out of the ground and charged toward the creatures, running on their roots as though they were feet.

“Is this gonna be enough...?”

“No. It will only buy us some time. This skill uses the Resources...or rather, nutrition in the ground, so it is on the weaker side. Though the fact that it can be cast instantly makes it quite useful in spite of that.”

I looked and sure enough, the creatures were absolutely destroying the newly summoned trees.

They really are tough, huh? I thought as the winged creatures approached me.

“Tch! Purgatorial Flames!” I could tell I’d be done for if they got close, so I used Silver’s mobility to stay at mid-range and sent some flames their way.

I couldn’t put out a forest fire if I started one, though, so I made sure to not fire downward. I couldn’t use Hellish Miasma either, because that might risk hurting the women we’d come across.

I don’t even know if it’d work on those monsters anyway, I thought.

“April, now is a good time for an explanation,” the woman with the sword told the woman in a maid uniform as she spawned more tree monsters.

“Enthrall is one of Overlord Acedia’s core skills. It turns inanimate objects into monsters.”

I could hear their conversation with no issue at all now. I was pretty surprised by that myself, but then I thought that maybe Silver was making it so that their voices reached me. It wasn’t in his description, but if he had some control over the air, it was possible that he could do something like that. After all, he did have that mystery skill, and not even Integra could fully make sense of him.

“The power of the monsters it creates—Thralls—depends on the material and SP used. Their material appears to be mithril, and their power is about medium.”

Mithril? Well, that explained why the silver shine felt so familiar—it was close to the material Rook’s Liz was made of. I doubted these things could transform like Liz could, but I was pretty sure in their current form they were tougher and stronger than she would be anyway.

“Anything else?”

“Thralls obey no one but Overlord Acedia and cannot be transferred to others. In exchange, they take up no party slots or minion capacity.”

“Huh? That sounds kinda unfair.”

“The price for that is steep, however. With the exception of HP and SP, Overlord Acedia has the lowest stats of all Overlords. Additionally, Overlord Acedia cannot join combat using their own body. All the work necessary for them to secure the Resources to preserve themselves is exported to the Thralls. You could say that these creatures are less like Overlord Acedia’s servants and more like their limbs.”

“...‘Overlord’ is a pretty fancy name, but that just makes them sound like someone who needs to be in a hospital.” I didn’t know what I had to be more surprised by: the details of the Overlord Acedia job or the fact that that woman knew them.

I took a better look at the group and realized that the one they called “April” had ball joints, like a doll. Maybe she wasn’t even human? Silver seemed pretty curious about her too, so perhaps she had some relation to the first Flagman? Was she one of the “Prism Persons” that Integra had mentioned?

“Hm...”

“Leader? What’s on your mind?”

“A Sacrifice that cannot fight on their own...transforms inanimate objects into monsters...that is almost like...”

April’s words seemed to have made the woman she called “leader” think about something. As she did, though, the Thralls on the surface broke through the trees and closed the distance between them.

The winged Thralls chasing after me were unrelenting too. They didn’t seem to care one bit about being set on fire—they were inanimate objects to begin with, so they didn’t even try to protect their own lives. Even as the Purgatorial Flames melted their bodies, they tried to ram into me with whatever was left.

They didn’t seem to be using any kind of combat technique either. They were only doing whatever they could to charge and crash their bodies into me. I really doubted that it would be enough to kill me, but I didn’t want to find out. “Inanimate objects made of metal aren’t a good matchup for a god like me, buuut...I’ll just spread some little guys that disassemble mithril and see what happens!”

“You made something like that? I can hear every weaponsmith in the world crying right now.”

The woman I hadn’t seen clearly began swinging a large, blunt object—probably her Embryo. I could hear the sound of something spraying. It must’ve been spreading something.

Just to be safe, I made Silver create a Wind Hoof barrier to protect us from whatever it was, but...

“...They’re not melting.”

“Whaaat?” The Thralls on the surface had apparently just been hit by something that “disassembled mithril,” but they didn’t seem to be affected at all.

“Either the material structure is different, or it’s not reaching them. If it’s the second thing, then it’s gotta be that shiny aura’s fault!”

“What is that aura, April?”

“No data found. Overlord Acedia has no skills with such an effect.”

If that wasn’t a job skill, then...it had to be an Embryo, right?

“So it’s a job skill that creates minions and an Embryo that enhances them...? This seems like a standard combo...not what I’d expect from an Overlord,” said the woman with the bowgun as she launched an assault toward one of the Thralls. It didn’t seem to have an effect, though—the creature was just too tough. “Yeah, I don’t have the attack power for this. Mithril and I just don’t get along... Also, is it just me, or are Leader and April the only ones putting up a fight?”

“How about we just leave them to the baddie up there?”

“That’s a great idea.”

They decided to make them my problem like it was no big deal. Also, “baddie”? What the hell? I had no idea why, but hearing that from these women just didn’t feel right to me.

“My friends...and Ray Starling,” said the leader.

“Huh?” I didn’t expect to hear my name here, but...well, the videos had made me pretty famous, so it wasn’t that weird for people to know who I was.

The way this woman talked, though, made me feel like there was some closeness there beyond just having heard of me. Had we met somewhere before...? “Be alert... I believe the main one is coming,” she continued, pointing in the direction the Thralls had come from, where there was now another silhouette.

“What...?” This figure had “Thrall” above its head, just like the others, but it was completely unlike the other Thralls.

First of all, its shape was different. While the others looked like nothing but simple clay figures, this one had a very distinct and proper design. The best way to describe it was “bipedal landdragon.” Its most notable feature was that the tip of its nose, horns, limbs, and tail were all blades.

The shape alone made it obvious that it had care put into its construction that no other Thrall did. But besides that, it also had a different color. It still had the same iridescent aura, but unlike the mithril Thralls, this one shone a brilliant scarlet.

I’d seen this color in Quartierlatin—on the scarlet marionette used by Dr. Mario.

Tom had said that the material was...

“Hihi’irokane!” The Mythical-tier metal...it was pretty much the greatest crafting material in Infinite Dendrogram, surpassed only by MVP rewards.

April had said that a Thrall’s power depended on the material and SP used. Here, the material was of the highest quality, and I could tell from the shape alone that a lot of SP was used in its creation.

This had to be the Overlord Acedia’s heavy hitter. I’d fought Logan’s Legendary Gigaknights before, and I felt like this thing was a cut above even them.

Though, this just made me wonder why this Overlord was going this far just to deal with us. Was I the target here? Was that lab coat lunatic involved in this? And if these things were targeting that group of women, was April the reason? Was it all the knowledge she had about this Overlord Acedia? I had no clue. I didn’t have enough info to even guess.

While I considered Overlord Acedia’s reasons, the scarlet Thrall looked over the others.

And then...

“...G h e.”

...made a strange sound as it used its sword-arm to pierce one of the mithril Thralls.

“Huh?” Friendly fire? What’s this all about...hm?!

“Move away.”

“Get back!”

The woman the others called “Leader” and I shouted that at the exact same time. However, the change happened before our voices reached anyone. The scarlet Thrall’s sword-arm became even more red and began shining like molten metal.

A moment later, the mithril Thrall that it had run through boiled and scattered. The intense heat had made it evaporate from the inside and explode.

“Huh...?!” The mithril clad in the iridescent aura was scattered in every direction like the shrapnel of a frag grenade.

Our warning reached them right as the explosion happened. Everyone jumped back, covering their faces. The heat could burn us, but the actual explosion was far enough away that it wasn’t that much of a threat.

It was an attack that sacrificed one of their own, but it wasn’t enough to be fatal...or so I thought.

“Huh?” Pieces of mithril broke through the Wind Hoof barrier and touched the hand I’d flung over my face.

A moment later, my consciousness began to fade.

“This...is...” I felt dizzy and couldn’t think straight. My vision was hazy too. But despite that, I was able to check my stats and noticed a status effect—Forced Sleep. “...So...that’s...why.” I didn’t even have to think to know what had caused this.

This must’ve been the plan all along—the Thralls had simply charged at us instead of doing anything resembling combat because their goal was to just touch us with the aura. Contact was all they needed. And what that aura did was force us to fall asleep, essentially ending the battle right then and there.

When we were finally asleep, Overlord Acedia would be able to do whatever they wanted with us.

“Neme...sis...”

“Of...course...!” Before my consciousness faded, I drank an Elixir, and Nemesis switched to her second form. She was being put to sleep herself, but she was still able to complete the transformation.

However...none of that did any good.

We were still falling asleep. The Elixir had once negated the UBM Gardranda’s miasma, while Nemesis’s second form flipped its effects into buffs. The fact that neither of these things were working could only mean one thing...

“Supe...rio...” I’d recalled the time I’d fought Miss Eldritch and how she’d given me a debuff so overpowering I couldn’t do anything against it.

The realization that the opponent was a Superior was my last thought before my consciousness disappeared.

Below, I could see that all the girls except the one dressed as a maid had collapsed as well.

And in the moment right before my mind vanished, an unfamiliar voice reached me from somewhere.

“Welcome to Dreamland.”