Chapter 14 — Wait, Aliens Are Real?!
They had no idea how to get out of the forest right away. Worrying about it would get them nowhere, so Yogiri decided to sleep. He had used his power quite a bit, so he was rather tired.
Tomochika used the free time to change. Their time traveling through the forest had gotten her clothes quite dirty.
“Hanakawa might have been able to do something if he was with us. He had some power to summon anyone he wanted, so he might have been able to summon someone who could get us out of here.”
“I find it hard to believe he was truly capable of summoning anyone,” Mokomoko replied, “though perhaps it would be worth trying anyway.”
“Well, we don’t even know where he is now.”
“The only place that really stands out in this forest is these ruins. If he is lost, I am sure he will turn up here eventually, don’t you think?”
“Maybe it’s rude to say, but I feel like Hanakawa isn’t very lucky.”
“There is no point in wondering when he isn’t here in the first place. To change topics, as far as making it through the Lost Woods, perhaps there is a method that is a little more certain than killing the entire forest.”
“What’s that?”
“The portion of the forest that was turned into the Lost Woods is entirely outside the hexagon formed by those six enormous trees. It is likely that they serve as the source of the spell creating the warped space. It may be worthwhile to try killing them first.”
“That might work,” Tomochika agreed. “‘The forest’ is so general, but those six trees are easy to distinguish.”
Yogiri’s ability was to kill a specific target, so he wasn’t good at killing only part of a forest. But if the target were those specific trees, there should be no problem.
“Aside from that,” Mokomoko continued, “we could also consider investigating these ruins a little more. It seems the Elven Forest exists to protect them. The actions of the elves also seem to support that. This indicates it is a place of great importance. There may be something here that allows for control of the forest itself.”
“I don’t know how I feel about any of this. Are you sure it’s okay for us to mess up the magic that’s protected this spot for so long when we just want to leave?”
“We have no choice. Anyhow, the elves who would complain about it are already dead.”
There was a possibility of some survivors, but they had decided that trying to search for them would be too difficult.
“First, we should investigate the ruins. If there are no clues, then I feel bad for the elves, but we will have to kill the giant trees. We have spent far too long here already. Our journey may not be a rushed one, but we cannot take things that slowly.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of sick of the jungle,” Tomochika agreed.
The Elven Forest was far from a hospitable environment. She had no desire to stay any longer than they had to.
“So, what do we do about her?” She looked at the baby wrapped in cloth nearby. It had continued to grow and now had a light head of hair. “Will it keep growing if we leave it like this?”
“It appears its growth is slowing down,” Mokomoko replied.
The baby had an adorable sleeping face. They couldn’t see it as anything other than human at this point, so Tomochika couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning it. As she watched, it began to stir, opening its eyes for the first time.
“Huh? It’s awake?”
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!” It began to wail with an earsplitting cry.
“Huh? What? Uhh? What do I do?!”
“What’s wrong?” Of course, the noise woke Yogiri.
“It’s crying! What do we do?!” Tomochika was in a total panic.
“I don’t know. I guess pick it up?”
Tomochika was still hesitant to touch the mysterious baby. Yogiri didn’t seem to have any such inhibitions, though, so he immediately stepped over and lifted it up. And then began to rock it.
“Huh? Are you sure it’s okay to do that?!”
“Who knows?”
Tomochika was unsure about holding a baby who couldn’t even support the weight of its own head yet, but Yogiri didn’t seem to care. After he shook it, the baby quieted down. They didn’t know what had been wrong, but it seemed to be calm again for the moment.
“Now what?” Yogiri asked.
“It feels bad just calling it ‘it’ all the time.”
“You want to give it a name?”
“I don’t know about that, but I feel like we do need something to call it.”
“Hmm. How about ‘the baby’?” he suggested.
“Okay, you’re not even trying!”
“I don’t think this is really the right time to be giving out a name with a lot of thought and emotion behind it.”
Of course, they didn’t know what would happen in the future. Getting too attached to the baby didn’t seem like a great idea.
“By the way, did you change earlier?”
“Yeah. We’re out of the forest, so I wanted something fresh. Are you going to stay like that, Takatou?”
“Good point. I should have changed before going to sleep.” Yogiri fished through their belongings, pulling out a change of clothes.
“They look exactly the same.”
“It’s fine, as long as they cover me.” Yogiri headed to a deeper room, changed, and came back.
“Young man, we have spoken a little of what to do next.”
Mokomoko shared what she and Tomochika had discussed while he was asleep. Yogiri didn’t have any objections, so they decided to start by searching the ruins.
“What do we do with the baby?”
“I guess we have to bring her with us. But holding her the whole time sounds rough.”
“Shall we create a baby carrier?” the spirit suggested.
“Do you know how to make one?”
“It can’t be that difficult.”
Mokomoko grabbed a piece of cloth, folding it over to connect the edges to each other and create a ring, and laid it diagonally over Yogiri’s shoulder. Then she fiddled with it to create something like a pocket around his chest. In effect, she had created a simple sling.
“So I guess I’m stuck carrying her after all,” Yogiri said as they put the baby into the sling. In spite of Mokomoko improvising it on the spot, it seemed fairly sturdy.
“What are we supposed to do with such a small baby, though?” Tomochika asked.
“What happens if it wants milk?”
“Don’t look at me! It’s not like I’ll be able to give it anything!”
Seeming to find Tomochika’s desperate refusal amusing, the baby started to laugh. Since Yogiri was holding on to the infant, Tomochika carried the backpack.
Stepping out of the building, she immediately felt like something was wrong. It was too dark outside, even though it was supposed to be the middle of the day. She looked up.
A huge crowd of enormous objects were floating in the sky.
◇ ◇ ◇
Killing a single human didn’t require an entire fleet. No matter how powerful the target was, sending a few of their leaders after him would be more than enough. The “pirates” hadn’t brought almost their entire fleet into the Foundation to kill Yogiri. The reward of ten quadrillion credits was appealing, so they intended to fulfill their end of the contract, but even more enticing was the chance to enter a Celestial Foundation with no resistance.
These pirates possessed enough firepower to crush a Celestial Foundation from the outside. However, all that would gain them were mineral resources and energy. The art and cultural assets created by the civilization within the Foundation couldn’t be obtained by attacking from the sea, so the fleet had come inside to plunder everything of value from this world. Their ships were enormous freighters, giant storehouses.
The pirates started by searching for Yogiri Takatou’s location. Finding a single human within a Celestial Foundation was child’s play for their science and technology. The reward for the job was first come, first served, so they decided that finishing the job as soon as possible would be best.
Of course, the idea of someone offering ten quadrillion credits for the assassination of a single human boy was absurd. It would be best to assume he posed enough of a threat to warrant that reward. But the pirates’ confidence in their abilities would not be swayed. They had turned entire Celestial Foundations into their enemies and destroyed them utterly. At this point, even the gods ran in fear from them.
They weren’t the least bit concerned about some instant death power.
◇ ◇ ◇
“Uhh...what are those?” Tomochika asked.
Enormous streamlined objects were floating in the air. They filled the sky, blocking out the sunlight. There were enough of them that they could only be called countless, filling the space overhead as far as the eye could see. Counting them seemed impossible.
“Spaceships?” Yogiri guessed, searching his memory for anything similar. The best he could think of were the unrealistic ships he’d seen in manga and anime. “I’ve never seen a real one before...”
“They look kind of alive.”
The vessels were covered in a sort of metallic armor. But beneath the gaps in that armor appeared to be living tissue. They also expanded and compressed over time, like they were breathing. Whether they were animals of some kind or not, they seemed soft and flexible underneath.
“What are they? Did they stick metal plates all over a fish or something?” That’s how it looked to Yogiri.
“Actually, we did get attacked by a whole bunch of robots earlier. Are these types of things that widespread?”
“They’re not going anywhere, just sitting still. I wonder what they want?”
“If they’re spaceships, does that mean there are aliens inside?”
“I’ve been attacked by people calling themselves aliens before, but that was back in our world.”
“Oh, so aliens are real. Nothing really surprises me at this point—okay, this does, though!” Tomochika shouted. “Really? Aliens are real?!”
“With things like youkai and ESP around, the existence of aliens isn’t that strange, is it?” Mokomoko said.
“I was more surprised about other worlds and their people existing than I was about aliens,” Yogiri remarked.
“Are they after us?” asked Tomochika.
Mokomoko thought for a moment. “I have no idea. They’re spread over such a wide area, I find it hard to believe—”
As they watched, something dropped from one of the floating objects.
“Huh? Don’t those look like people?” Tomochika’s eyesight was good enough to tell what was coming down. Whatever they were, they struck the ground and splattered. “Are they killing themselves?!” She was taken aback by their unexpected behavior.
“No, I killed them,” said Yogiri. “Or rather, they died on their own.”
They were far too dangerous. Their existence alone was enough to kill everything around them. At least, that’s the aura they exuded. So just before the invaders got close enough for that power to affect the three of them, Yogiri’s power activated automatically. Even to him, it seemed like they had died of their own accord.
“What were they?” Tomochika asked.
“Whatever they were, they’re splattered now.” Their original forms hadn’t survived the impact. “If they’re coming down here, does that mean they’re looking for us?”
“Oh! Something else is coming!”
This time, three of them descended, dropping down in a new location about fifty meters away. Killing intent filled the air. Whatever abilities they possessed, they could kill Yogiri and Tomochika at any point if they were close by.
Their appearance was bizarre. One was a naked man whose muscles were so bulky they seemed impossible. One was a human figure made of red string. One was a mechanical doll, moving around on wheels with countless arms. They began to approach.
“You are—”
“Die,” Yogiri cut the creature off. It and its two companions stopped moving immediately.
“They were trying to say something, weren’t they?” Tomochika asked.
“Yeah, but they’re way too dangerous. I can’t afford to hear them out.”
As they’d gotten closer, he’d felt the deadly presence from them getting stronger. He’d had to kill them before they could get close enough to use it.
“Are they really aliens?” Tomochika asked.
“It seems they’re after us, but I don’t remember offending anyone like this.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. They could be related to someone you’ve already killed.”
Yogiri didn’t have an answer to that. He couldn’t even count the people he had killed, so he couldn’t say with confidence that they were totally unrelated.
“Either way, that’s no reason to let them kill us.”
The floating objects in the sky all turned. If they were ships, it looked like they had turned to face him. And then they opened their mouths. The openings were lined top and bottom with teeth. The air began to shake as the vessels roared. Deep within their mouths, a light began to glow, growing brighter and gathering intensity until it seemed they were about to fire.
“Die.”
“Yeah, I thought so.” Tomochika had easily guessed what was about to happen.
◇ ◇ ◇
They were filled with confusion. The killers they had sent had been unable to do anything. That was unbelievable. Resistance to instant death was a given in battles that occurred in the celestial sea.
Instant death. Reflection. Time stop. Time reversal. Spatial severance. Total erasure. Conceptual attacks. Causality erasure. Such things were possible for virtually anyone in the sea, so the leaders of the pirates were more than capable of neutralizing them.
But those elites, veterans of hundreds of battles, had been killed without offering the slightest resistance. Considering this the worst case scenario, they analyzed the situation. But no one could understand what had happened. There was no indication they had received any damage. They had just dropped dead. They had ceased to function. There didn’t seem to be any cause to the effect or an activation of any power.
The phenomenon was just too irrational, so they stopped thinking about it. They couldn’t get stuck simply because they didn’t understand what had happened. They decided to use the ships’ cannons. They would gather energy and focus it on the island beneath them. If a single one of the more than a hundred million cannons hit their mark, the entire island would be annihilated. It wasn’t the kind of weapon they wanted to unleash within a Celestial Foundation, but the loss of a single island was tolerable collateral damage. There would be plenty of plunder to be gained from the other landmasses.
They ordered all cannons to fire.
◇ ◇ ◇
The light gathering in the mouths of the countless ships winked out. And then they fell.
Whatever power they had used to stay floating in the air, it was only natural that they’d fall if they died.
“Wait, are we safe here?! Won’t they land on us?!”
“I think we’re probably fine,” Yogiri answered.
Luckily, it didn’t seem like any of the ships would land on them. Though they filled the sky, there was plenty of distance between each ship. The enormous objects struck the ground all at once, shaking the earth violently, crushing everything underneath them. The ruins, the rainforest, and the six enormous trees were all crushed and completely destroyed.
“Looks like we won’t have to go out of our way to kill the trees after all,” Yogiri observed.
“Forget the forest; it looks like the whole island is in danger,” said Tomochika.
“Hm. The greater the foe, the greater the damage done by felling them...” Mokomoko murmured.
But the ships had been targeting them, so their only option was to kill them first. If the environment around them sustained significant damage as a result, that wasn’t Yogiri’s problem. He had no intention of sitting down and dying. He wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever it took to get them back to their world.
“Did you get all of them?”
“I don’t know. I only killed the spaceship-looking things, so the people inside could still be alive.”
By killing the ships, he had stopped the attack. There was no need to do anything more at this point.
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