Chapter 19 — Are You Saying the Philosopher’s Stones Just Collected Themselves, and Now We’re Going to Be Able to Go Home?!
After crushing the Slow Life League and Kingdom of Momurus, the UEG headed to Suudoria Academy. She didn’t know what kind of place it was, but she could use her power to learn what she needed. Most of those who lived there were treated as students whose education consisted of training for battle. Once they reached high school, they began to see real combat. It seemed a little different than the system of the other factions, but to the UEG, they were nothing more than a target for extermination.
Strolling through the grounds of the academy, she executed any student she came across. The girl who had been seeking someone to defeat her had been a little interesting, but she hadn’t offered much resistance and certainly wasn’t the strongest student there. There were a few who were more powerful than her, but compared to the UEG, the difference in their strength seemed minuscule.
After killing everyone she encountered, she discovered there were more students elsewhere. For whatever reason, teleportation magic and illusions had been woven together to turn a group of floating islands into a single continent. More students appeared to populate those other islands.
“Hunting each of them down one by one seems like too much trouble. Perhaps I will leave them to my subordinates.”
She had already come across a number of enemies who would be a fair match even for her envoys, so she would need to check things out on her own first.
“Zakuro,” the UEG called to one of her subordinates. He had been ordered to wander around and kill anyone he encountered.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“How are things progressing on your end?”
“I have finished wiping out all major cities. All that remains is smaller-scale settlements. We’ve been ignoring animals for now, but what do you think we should do?”
“Any creature incapable of understanding our reasoning can be spared. In the end, the entire world will be destroyed, so they will be dealt with in time. Anyway. Come to me. There are not so many powerful beings remaining on the surface, so you may leave the others for now.”
“Understood. But where are you, Overlord? I cannot find you.”
“Hmm. That is right, I am behind some sort of barrier.”
The UEG had no problem seeing or moving through the barriers protecting the floating islands, but for a god of Zakuro’s level, they would be impenetrable. They had even slowed her own search down a little.
“Searching through each one individually would be a pain. I suppose I will destroy them,” she said to herself.
The UEG lifted a hand above her head. Countless rays of light fired from it, flying off in all directions and destroying the barriers on each of the floating islands. The barriers tying the islands together were destroyed all at once.
“There! I feel much better now!”
“I can detect your presence again. You are in the sky?”
“I do not understand the reason, but a number of floating islands were stitched together into some sort of false continent.”
“What the heck? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I am sure it was just some individual’s game. There are a number of powerful beings still here. I wish to leave them to you. I have decided to finish off the last of those who might offer resistance.” Now that she had made contact with him, she could leave the rest to Zakuro.
The UEG searched again. She noticed there was someone below her with significant power. There had been a barrier there, but she had unintentionally destroyed it along with the others.
“Well, well. It appears this individual has some connection to me. How interesting.”
The UEG lifted up into the air, kicking down and punching through the ground. Smashing through the stone road, she kicked her way through a number of floors, making it through a few layers of buildings into an underground cave. There seemed to be something above it that predated even the academy.
“It is around here, is it not?”
“What is this place? I didn’t know there was something like this underground.” Jumping through the hole the UEG had made was a person with a wolf’s head. He was wearing a uniform, so he seemed to be another student. The non-human residents of the academy must have lived underground. “Are you the one who was going on earlier about wiping out all life?”
“That is correct. Fear not; I am more than happy to ignore the small fry as I kill those of power first. The act must be done in its proper order.”
“What? Kill me? Do you realize I’m a third-year? Do you even know I have a skill that prevents me from dying?”
“Of course not.” The UEG fired a beam of light that punched through the wolfman’s chest.
“So what? I’ll heal from that in—”
“No, you will not. It appears you bear the blessing of some god, but nullifying it was no issue for me.” His power didn’t seem to come from Battlesong, so he had absolute confidence in it, but that made no difference to the UEG.
The wolfman dropped to the ground, motionless. With his immortality removed, losing his heart was all it took to kill him.
“Well, well. I don’t know what god you are, but don’t you think this is too much?” a boy with one eye called out from in front of her as she moved to proceed into the cavern.
“I have made my declaration. All that is left is to see how you respond.”
“I see. Then I guess we have to fight, but a battle between gods won’t be settled that quickly. It’ll be a huge pain, so why don’t we just agree not to mess with each other?”
“I care not how you feel about it. If you do not wish to fight, then you may die,” the UEG said bluntly.
Her interest was in what lay in the depths of this cavern, so she couldn’t care less about the students who were continually appearing to harass her. She continued off into the cave, punching the boy in front of her as she walked past him. He was sent flying and dropped into a heap on the ground.
“You were once a human, were you not? Your like have obvious weaknesses, so you are no match for me.” Not in the mood to play around, she decided to clean things up immediately.
“I-Impossible. How...” Being unable to dodge or block was unbelievable to him, and the pain was equally absurd.
“The fact that you were once human is your weakness. Taking your powers away from you when you were still weak was simple. I have no such weakness. From the moment of my birth, I was a god.”
Walking leisurely past, she crushed the boy underfoot. It seemed he had been quite strong, but she was tired of this. The only one who had been fun to play with on these islands was Touichirou.
As she made it into the depths of the cavern, her surroundings began to change. The stone walls were replaced by writhing flesh.
“Hmm. So this is what they call the Seyla? Did they not realize it was just below them?”
The UEG continued through the fleshy cavern. The walls had been infected by the Seyla, but she had no problem touching them. The Seyla came from her, after all.
The cavern around her was like a building made of flesh. It had hallways and rooms inside it. There were things like sofas and tables made of flesh inside as well, but she didn’t know what they were for. Following the presence she had found, she made it to the center of the structure. A person was embedded in one of the walls. Fused into the wall itself, she had become the heart of this structure of flesh.
“So, you are the original. Can you speak?”
There was no reply. The individual didn’t appear to have any cognitive ability left. The UEG decided to probe the person’s mind herself. In the UEG’s world, reading someone’s mind like that was a taboo, but she had no other choice if she wanted to learn anything from them.
This was a person who had taken in part of the UEG. She had used something the UEG had created to create her own followers in this world. Once her mind had been broken, the Sages who ruled this world had made use of her. Pieces of her body were scattered across the floating islands. It seemed she was being used as an energy source for this false continent.
“I cannot fathom their purpose...but I cannot forgive them for using my followers as a tool like this. Once this academy has been laid low, I will put an end to these Sages.” The UEG touched the Seyla, absorbing it into herself. Even if only connected to her in a minor way, it was unpleasant to see the Seyla used like this. As something born from the UEG, absorbing it back into herself was easy. After she had absorbed the entire structure of flesh, all that was left behind was the rocky cavern.
“I can leave the rest of the small fry to Zakuro. There should only be a few beings remaining who require my direct attention. Hmm...I suppose they are in the nation known as Himeln.”
A quick search revealed the locations of those she was looking for. For some reason, the capital of Himeln had been destroyed, but their powerful queen was somewhere else. Though she didn’t know the situation, the UEG decided to find the queen first.
◇ ◇ ◇
An enormous object fell from the sky as Yogiri’s group watched in shock. Its landing was hard enough to shake the ground around them. Unable to stand, Yogiri hurriedly grabbed on to Tomochika.
Honestly, you look rather pathetic.
“I wouldn’t mind falling that much, but I figured this was a good chance to grab her without it seeming unnatural.”
“I don’t really care, but could you at least not say it out loud?” Tomochika replied. Neither she nor Degul had been fazed in the slightest. Their footing was stable enough that a little shaking wouldn’t bother them.
Scott and Hanakawa, on the other hand, were thrown to the ground.
“What is that thing?” Yogiri asked. “It’s so big, I can’t tell.” A large white mass had landed in front of them.
“I feel repulsed just looking at it!” Hanakawa added.
“It’s not one of those ‘George’s’ again, is it?!” Tomochika asked, thinking back on the army of cockroaches they had once faced.
“Looks closer to a maggot to me.” Yogiri couldn’t see the long, plump, white body as anything else.
“Maggots are still super gross!”
At first glance, it did appear to be an enormous maggot with large, transparent wings. Countless human legs sprouted from the bottom of its rotund body.
Hmm. Rather than a maggot, do you not think it more closely resembles a termite queen? Look, do you not see the head, up at the front?
There was a comparatively tiny head and partial torso attached to the front of the enormous body. It appeared to be that of a woman. Though it was only her upper half, she seemed to be growing out of the maggot’s body.
“This is getting even more disgusting!” Tomochika yelled.
“Isn’t it kind of mean to call her gross?” Yogiri commented.
“I-I guess so. Sorry—wait, why am I apologizing?!”
The maggot-like body began to squirm. The unsettling movement was accompanied by countless holes opening up in its sides, which began to spit out clumps of flesh, each dropping to the ground with a wet plop.
“What the heck?! What is that?!”
Tomochika was starting to lose it. Yogiri couldn’t say he felt great about what he was seeing either. He felt instinctively repulsed by the sight in front of him.
“This is bad. That thing is an L unit. I never knew they could do this sort of thing.”
“Scott, don’t just leave us in the dark here!”
“Right. I told you there is a maximum of two L units for any one area, right? But technically, that is only a limit placed on movement between areas. In short, if you can create L units already inside the boundary, you can have as many as you want.”
“I...see?” Tomochika responded. “L units are like that prince, right? I never really found out how strong he was.”
“We’d have been in trouble if we’d given him room to show how strong he was, so don’t you think it was better to kill him before that happened?” said Yogiri.
“I guess so. More importantly, can you let go of me already?”
Yogiri had continued to hold on to Tomochika the whole time, but once she said that, he had no choice but to let go.
“Well...I’m sure it will be no problem with Takatou’s power,” Scott said. As he was speaking, the woman at the head of the giant white mass turned to face them.
“Greetings. I am the queen of Himeln, Elisabelle. Sending my forces in to die one at a time seemed foolish, so I have come to bring our full strength to bear at once.” It seemed the kingdom of Himeln had turned its full attention on them.
I suppose this brings the cycle of revenge to an end. The entire royal family intends to kill you, young man, Mokomoko remarked.
Even knowing it was useless, Yogiri tried to talk her down. “Come on, let’s stop this. We’ve only been fighting back to defend ourselves. This isn’t something that deserves the head of state coming to deal with things in person.”
“No, no, this is precisely that kind of situation. Those of us who prize military power so greatly cannot allow our forces to be struck down without reprisal. Even if that revenge puts an end to us both, it must be done,” Elisabelle said slowly. As expected, trying to convince her had been pointless.
Well...I suppose it is common practice to kill those who look down on you for a martial house.
“Really? Is our family like that? Even now? I’m pretty sure there are a lot of people looking down on my sister!” Tomochika replied.
She is...not the true successor, so she does not count. You may look down on her as you like!
“How does that work?!”
The newly birthed lumps of flesh began to transform. Tiny compared to the mother that had birthed them, they began to line up.
“Daddy!”
Yogiri turned around at the sudden shout from behind them. Hiruko and a girl he didn’t recognize were standing there.
“Oh, it’s Hiruko!” Tomochika exclaimed. “I guess you two can get around even with those weird barriers!”
“That was only thanks to Ma. Now that she’s powered up, she can ignore those barriers like they’re nothing.”
“Is that Luu?” said Tomochika. “If you’ve grown that much, does that mean you found more Philosopher’s Stones?”
Yogiri hadn’t recognized her, but Tomochika realized the young woman was Luu.
“Yeah. Some Philosopher’s Stones had fused together into another version of me, and they came and found me. Once I fused with her, I became like this.”
“So, is that all the Philosopher’s Stones, then?”
“I think there are only one or two left. I still don’t have the parts that hold my memory or my soul.”
“Do you think you can get us back to our own world now?”
“Depending on the distance, probably. Even if we can’t move all at once, we should be able to get there by stopping off at different worlds along the way,” Luu answered casually. It didn’t sound like it was going to be very difficult.
“Huh? We barely did anything on this continent. Are you saying the Philosopher’s Stones just collected themselves and now we’re going to be able to go home?!” Tomochika’s surprise was exaggerated, but it was a surprising turn of events. Most of their problems had just been solved.
After all the time we spent wandering around here... Mokomoko didn’t seem particularly happy about it either.
No Comments Yet
Post a new comment
Register or Login