Chapter 21 — The Destroyer of Worlds, Wielder of the World Slayer
Kyuuzaburou had a little bit of experience dealing with people who could create worlds. That experience had taught him that he could destroy artificial worlds like this one, though one slash wouldn’t go any further than that. Basically, if a world existed on two levels, even if he sliced apart the inner level, it wouldn’t impact the outer level at all. He could just swing again to destroy that outer level, so it wasn’t much of an issue for him, but in this case that property was actually proving to be convenient. Kyuuzaburou had no desire to end this world right now.
Cavern Quest had been split apart. Though he had simply sliced it in two, it would never be able to recombine into one again. Once he had cut a world in two, the two halves would never rejoin, as if they repulsed each other. Once the two halves had separated to the point where anyone could see they were beyond saving, Kyuuzaburou found himself standing somewhere new. The castle he had been in before was gone, his surroundings now characterized by fallen trees.
He was in a destroyed forest, filled with some mysterious creatures squirming about, most likely that invasive species that had fallen from the sky. They looked rather different now, though, as if the plants themselves had been transformed into humanoid puppets. It seemed they hadn’t been sitting idle while he was in Cavern Quest. The trees all lying on the ground must have been a result of their infection.
“I totally forgot about these guys.”
Having destroyed Cavern Quest, it seemed he had been deposited on the surface. He figured the same must have happened to the other players. When a world was destroyed, if there was a habitable world immediately beside it, the inhabitants would be sent there.
“Hmm. It would be pretty lame if I had to use my sword against these things.”
If that was how it was going to end, he should have just done this in the first place, rather than waste his time with Cavern Quest. However, given the way he was surrounded, he didn’t have all that many options.
“It’s too bad I don’t have any good skills for running away.”
The skills Kyuuzaburou had obtained from his travels all amounted to the basic abilities of the people from the worlds he visited. Convenient abilities like incinerating all the enemies in view or flying away were still beyond him.
“I was really hoping I’d get to face the Great Sage directly...”
Destroying the world of someone as brimming with confidence as the Great Sage would have been quite satisfying. He had hoped to do that, but he didn’t seem to have any way out other than using his sword now.
As Kyuuzaburou prepared to swing his blade, the aimlessly writhing creatures around him reacted with a jump. But they weren’t reacting to him. A loud roar came down from the sky. Looking up, he saw an enormous shape floating above him. It looked like some kind of star fort. Kyuuzaburou had seen the spherical vehicles before, or at least something similar, in one of the many worlds he had visited.
“It’s like a whole fleet...”
The sky was filled with star forts. He couldn’t quite tell how many there were, but the army seemed sufficient to destroy a planet or two. Cylindrical tubes poked out from the surface of the forts. They were most likely cannons, and they were all facing down.
“Huh?”
One of the star forts shook as its cannons fired, giving Kyuuzaburou no time to react. That was to be expected of a cosmic-scale weapon, he supposed. Luckily, they had targeted a place some distance away from him. Kyuuzaburou braced himself for the explosion he was sure would come, but the attack ended rather abruptly. The mysterious creatures and the ground around them had been cleanly erased.
One by one, the star forts fired their cannons, appearing to shoot indiscriminately at first, although it soon became clear that they were intentionally avoiding hitting Kyuuzaburou himself. Watching carefully, he could see that the cannons were firing some kind of projectile, which then sucked in its surroundings. He didn’t understand how it worked. It was safe to say he had never seen something similar in all the worlds he visited.
After a short while, the invasive creatures around him had been wiped out. They were supposedly immortal, capable of regenerating completely even if totally incinerated, but there was no sign of them coming back. All that was left was a haphazard, carved-up landscape.
“Was someone up there trying to save me?”
He looked up. One of the star forts shot a beam of light towards him, a figure emerging where the beam struck the ground. It was a man wearing a full bodysuit, one Kyuuzaburou had seen at the gathering before the start of the tournament.
“Hey, you’re one of the guys who was asking questions back then, right?” he asked. “About attacks that were too big in scale... Ah, so this is what you were worried about.”
At the time he had assumed the man was bragging or bluffing, but the scale of this attack was beyond anything he could have imagined. If all of those star forts attacked at once, there was no way any of the participants would have survived. Never mind the battle area in the clouds, the whole field zone would have been annihilated.
“I’m Saiz. Nice to meet you.”
“So? I’m grateful for the help, but you’re not here to fight me, are you?”
“What would be the point?” Saiz replied.
“That’s fair.” But why was he here, then? Kyuuzaburou couldn’t figure out his intentions.
“I want you to destroy the world.”
“I mean, I was probably going to eventually,” Kyuuzaburou said, “but I don’t like the idea of doing it because someone told me to.”
“I saved you, didn’t I?”
“And if you hadn’t, I would have destroyed the world to save myself. But true, I did find your display kind of interesting.” Kyuuzaburou had destroyed all kinds of worlds on his travels, but this was the first time someone had understood his power and then asked him to use it anyway.
“I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” Saiz said. “I just want you to make sure you destroy the Great Sage whenever you do get around to destroying the world.”
“Hmm. Whether I could cut him down myself or not, I was thinking of trying to meet him. But what about that Yogiri Takatou guy? You’re not interested in me killing him?”
“I’ve got nothing against him. I joined this game to get at the Great Sage.”
“I guess I was just kind of going with the flow.” For someone like Kyuuzaburou, who would appear in another world if something happened to the one he was currently in, such threats weren’t much of a concern to him. He had joined Cavern Quest because it looked like fun. He didn’t have much of an opinion on Yogiri Takatou. The Great Sage seemed like a much more interesting person to him. “So, what exactly do you want me to do?”
“I think you can probably figure it out by looking up,” Saiz explained, “but I have the ability to travel between worlds.”
“Sure. I guess you’d have the technology for that.” Though there wasn’t much evidence to support the thought, he had assumed that was the case.
“So, this world being destroyed isn’t so much of a big deal to me. The world being reset is a different matter. I had already traveled somewhere else, but when the Great Sage reset the world, I was brought back. Basically, it looks like that’s going to happen again in the future, which is a problem for me.”
“I see. So the problem isn’t this world or Yogiri Takatou, it’s the Great Sage himself.”
“It’s a bit overly simplistic, but if I kill the Great Sage, then problem solved, right?” Saiz explained.
“Guess so. If that didn’t work, I wouldn’t know what to do next. So, you’re asking me to do it?”
“I’ve heard about you, Kyuuzaburou Suzuki. The destroyer of worlds, wielder of the World Slayer. A sword that can cut through anything, with which a single swing slices the world in two.”
“Ugh, is that what people are calling me? ‘World Slayer’? ‘Destroyer of worlds’?” His sword was just a sword to him. He hadn’t given it a special name. He had never given himself that kind of name either, so it was kind of embarrassing for others to be calling him that.
“The Great Sage’s abilities are an unknown quantity. I might be able to defeat him myself, but with your help, victory will be more certain.”
“Fine. I’ll cut him up for you.” Kyuuzaburou had no idea where the Great Sage was, nor did he have any way to travel to find him. If Saiz was willing to take him to meet the Great Sage, Kyuuzaburou was more than happy to oblige. “Take me there and consider it done.”
“No problem. I’ll count on you, then.”
One of the star forts fired a beam of light, enveloping the pair. The next moment, Kyuuzaburou was standing on the bridge, a room full of seats and technological gauges.
“Is this the inside of one of those star forts? I’m surprised there’s no one here.” Kyuuzaburou returned his sword to its resting place. He could swing the sword from anywhere at a moment’s notice. There wasn’t really any need to draw it every time, but it felt better to do it that way.
“They’re all controlled by AI,” Saiz explained. “The control room here is just for decoration. I wanted to create a good atmosphere.”
“Couldn’t you have brought me here without wiping out all those weird things?” Kyuuzaburou asked. “The transport seemed pretty instant.”
“Doing so without your permission would just be kidnapping, wouldn’t it?”
“How conscientious of you.”
“It comes with having this much power,” Saiz replied. “If you wield it carelessly, everything goes to hell. I have to keep myself under control.”
“Anyway, do you actually know where the Great Sage is?” Kyuuzaburou asked.
“Look over there,” Saiz said, pointing to a large monitor. Something like a map of the world was displayed on it, with a number of glowing points. Those points likely referred to specific individuals. All of them seemed focused around one particular spot. He flicked a finger, causing the map to expand. “This is where everyone who was kicked out of Cavern Quest ended up. They’re all pretty close together.”
“Which is the Great Sage?”
“He’s this blue one. Red is us, and yellow is everyone else.”
The Great Sage seemed to be about a hundred kilometers away. If they were walking, it would be a mind-numbing distance, but with the star forts they might as well have been right beside each other.
“If he hides himself, all the sensors working together won’t be able to find him. Now is our chance.”
“Well, if you take me there, I’ll get it done for you.” Kyuuzaburou could hardly live a peaceful life in a world filled with those infectious creatures from the sky. He figured it was about time to finish this world off and move on, Great Sage or no.
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