Chapter 18 — I Have Done It! I Have Reunited with Sir Takatou! I Have Won!
“Excuse me. Coming in. No, I don’t care if you mind. I’m here to collect some points. Thanks. See ya.”
Hiruko used the cylinder she had been given to extract points from the infected in the settlement she had found. From her perspective, they were denizens of a foreign world who made no effort to defend themselves or resist, so she didn’t feel guilty in the least for taking whatever these “points” were from them. She needed to reunite with Luu and therefore needed the energy provided by the infected to pass through the regional boundaries.
“Isn’t there a better way of doing this? Gathering points one by one is such a pain! Hey, Touichirou! Are you listening?!”
There was no reply. Members of the same faction could communicate telepathically, but it seemed like he was ignoring her. Maybe he had grown tired of answering all her questions.
“He seemed like a pretty lazy guy. He was probably just happy to get rid of me.”
Collecting points from a number of settlements, Hiruko had been making her way north. Himeln was in the northeastern corner of the continent, so that was her destination.
After walking for a while, she came across another area boundary. She stuck the filled cylinder into it, and the wall began to glow with a rainbow light, creating a gate. Hiruko stepped through.
“120 more to go, huh? Jeez, this is boring. Seriously.”
There was a limit to the number of units who could enter an area. Each unit had a cost determined by their size, and the limit for a single area was a total cost of one thousand. Hiruko was an L unit, so her cost was five hundred. The cost to move between areas matched that, so it took her five hundred points each time she wanted to cross a border. The infected were an unlimited source of energy, but it took some time for them to revive after extracting a point. In short, collecting the five hundred points that were required to move between areas was a huge pain.
On top of that, while moving to an area under her own faction’s control posed no problem, if the area was under an enemy’s control, she could only enter if her own faction had control of two areas bordering it. So instead of just heading straight north, she needed to conquer territory as she went.
“It feels like someone tried to make a game here, but it’s total crap. There’s no way anyone would win this way.”
The continent was huge, with countless regions. With a limit to how much force one could send into a single area, even if you took control of one place, the enemy could just recapture another one. If someone wanted to win the war, they’d need something in the rules to force the issue, but that didn’t seem to exist, meaning the war would continue forever.
To make matters worse, there was no way to decrease the number of infected on the continent, so no matter how careful one was, the number of infected was always increasing. The only ending this continent seemed to be heading for was that of the Seyla consuming everything.
“Well, if they want to play this crappy game, they’re more than welcome to. I couldn’t care less about it. Where’s the next settlement at?”
Hiruko searched the new area she had arrived in. It was under the control of the Slow Life League, so they had a base at the center. It would be populated only by M and S units. There wouldn’t be any infected there, so Hiruko had no use for it. There were three other settlements, so she plotted a route to visit them all.
“How long is this gonna take?” Thoughts of the road ahead made her feel depressed, but if she didn’t get on with it, it would only delay her reunion with Luu.
Pushing the negative thoughts down, she forced herself up into the air. But before she could start flying towards the next settlement, she noticed the space in front of her starting to warp.
“Huh? Someone coming in from the Slow Life League? I thought they could only teleport to the center.”
In other words, this wasn’t an ordinary occurrence. If teleporting around was so easy, the complicated rules governing the continent would all be pointless. Hiruko kept her guard up as she watched someone emerge from the distortion, but then she recognized her immediately.
“Ma!”
It was Luu, who was supposed to be in Himeln. She had come to find Hiruko first.
“Hiruko! Thank goodness!”
“Man, you’re a lifesaver. You look kinda big, though, don’t you?” The last time they had met, Luu had appeared to be about twelve years old, but she had since grown to the size of a twenty-year-old.
“One of my other bodies came and found me, so we fused.”
“Oh! So you’re finally back to normal? Nah, I didn’t think so.”
A god’s appearance didn’t mean much, but they still had self images that tended to dictate how they looked. Though she had returned to her original appearance, Hiruko felt like Luu’s presence was still quite a bit weaker than before.
“Yeah. Something important is clearly missing.”
“Figures. No way you’d be so weak if you were back to normal. Though you’re already a lot stronger than I am. All right, let’s go home for now.”
“Huh? I told you something important was missing.”
“That’s a problem, but if you stay here in your incomplete form, things could get annoying again. You should go back for now. Once you’re back to full strength, we can start sending our underlings in.”
“But I have to go see daddy.”
“Why’s that? Who cares about that guy anymore? We just stuck with him ’cause he was useful for finding parts of your body.”
“No, we have to. But if I go by myself, he might treat me coldly, so I want you to go with me.”
“Really? I mean, I guess we can if you want. But couldn’t you just drag him along with you whether he liked it or not?”
“I mean...then he would be angry with me.”
“So what? You could fix that easily. But that would bother you, right?”
“Yeah.”
With her current powers, manipulating the feelings of an ordinary human would be simple. But doing so would put an end to Yogiri’s free will. Once you had interfered with a person’s free will once, it would never return. That was one of the few things that gods couldn’t change, making pure, untouched souls incredibly valuable to them.
“Got it. We’ll go find them, then. You can take us there, right?”
“Yeah. I found you even though we were apart, after all.” Luu closed her eyes, searching for Yogiri. It should have been easy for her, but after a while, she opened her eyes with a look of surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re here. The one who split me apart.”
“What?! Actually, I still don’t know why you were split apart and turned into Philosopher’s Stones in the first place!”
“I don’t remember the details. I still don’t have the part of me that holds my memories. But I do feel angry thinking about them.”
“So what’re we gonna do? Should we go mess ’em up?”
“I wouldn’t stand a chance against them right now...so let’s go meet up with daddy first.” Luu took Hiruko’s hand as space started to warp around them. In her current state, she could move around without worrying about the boundaries.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Uhh...is that a squid? Haven’t we seen one of those before?!”
One attacked our cruise ship on the way to Ent.
“Why is it flying?!”
How should I know?
The creature flying in the sky was supposedly a giant squid, but with how fast it was spinning, Yogiri couldn’t really tell. Something like wings had been attached to its body so that it could gain lift by spinning.
The squid slowly lowered itself to the ground, landing in the settlement in front of them. Once it had come to a stop, Yogiri could finally recognize it for what it was. Ten tentacles sprouted from its long, thin body.
“I’m not sure what it’s doing here, but if it flew up from below, shouldn’t we be able to get out of here on it?”
“Oh! Maybe it’s Degul! The pirate!” Tomochika suggested.
Degul was the leader of the pirates who had been pretending to be a bouncer on the cruise ship they had taken. Putting aside the ethical issue of cooperating with pirates, a vehicle that could fly freely through the air would make getting around a lot easier. And though they weren’t too familiar with Degul, negotiating would be easier with her than if it was a total stranger at the helm.
We still have no evidence it is the same squid we encountered earlier, or that the same people are using it, Mokomoko reminded them.
While that was true, they would just have to find out for themselves. Yogiri approached the beast. As he got closer, it spat something out of its mouth. It was Hanakawa.
Yogiri sighed. “What are you doing here?”
“I would love to know the very same thing!” Hanakawa immediately snapped.
“Weren’t you supposed to be at that academy place?” Tomochika asked.
“Precisely! I was subjected to a horrendous life-or-death training regimen! Someone appeared to rescue me, but then we were immediately assaulted by this thing! It grabbed me and threw me in its mouth! I thought I was going to die for sure, but for some reason I am still alive!”
“I see. Good for you.”
“Please! Please act a little happier to see me alive! We might have never seen each other again! I am one of your very few surviving classmates!”
“Why aren’t you excited, then?”
“Hooray! I have done it! I have reunited with Sir Takatou! I have won! There, is that good enough?”
“Hooray.”
“Please! Surely you can put a little more emotion into it!”
“Actually, I am happy to see you’re okay, though I can’t say your death would be too much of a bother.”
“Why not just leave out that last part?!”
“You two really get along, don’t you?” Tomochika interjected.
“I would much prefer to get along with you than this unsociable child, Tomochika!” Hanakawa cried.
“Uhh, no thanks.”
“Your bluntness wounds me!”
“So, you don’t know what’s up with this squid either?” Yogiri asked.
“Not a clue.”
“I see. Hey, guys inside! Is Degul there? Can we talk?” Yogiri called out.
Shortly after, one of the tentacles dropped down in front of him, splitting open to reveal a staircase. A woman in men’s clothes walked down it. It was Degul.
“What are you guys doing here?” Degul asked.
“We ended up here by accident.”
“Up in the sky?”
“You can get here from the surface. I think it’s stranger for you to get here by squid, personally.”
“So, what do you want?” Degul replied. “We don’t know much about this place. If you want to tell me about it, I’d be more than happy to listen.”
“Can we come on board? There are a ton of these islands floating in the sky with teleportation devices set up between them, but we can’t use them very well. It would be a lot easier if we could fly around.”
“That might be difficult. I don’t mind letting you on board, but flying takes a lot of energy. Our plan was to go back to the surface after gathering some information.”
“Energy, huh? Is that why Hanakawa was in its mouth?”
“Oh, that guy? I did just leave him in the mouth, didn’t I? This thing is somewhere between an animal and a machine. It collects energy by eating other living things.”
“How much would you get from eating Hanakawa?”
“A single person doesn’t amount to much. Then again, he’s kind of fat, so he’d probably create more energy than most.”
“Umm...could I perhaps request you do not speak of my life and death so flippantly?”
“Why not use me?” Scott interjected. “I’m immortal, and I’ve grown quite used to having energy extracted from me.”
“Is that really the issue here?! I’d feel super gross traveling around on a squid that eats people for fuel!” Tomochika cried.
“But if you don’t reach your objective, you’ll never get around to killing me properly, right?” Scott answered. “So there is no need to be concerned about my well-being. You can kill me as many times as you like.”
“Well, if that’s how he feels...” Degul murmured.
“I’m still not sure.” Tomochika had her reservations, but at this rate they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere. They needed some way to travel.
“If he doesn’t mind, why don’t we give it a try? I don’t know how his supposed immortality works anyway.”
“You’re really going to try—huh?”
Once again, the area went dark around them as something blocked out the sun.
“Again?!”
Plenty of guests today, aren’t there? said Mokomoko.
It was too large to tell what it was, but it was clearly falling towards them.
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