Chapter 7 — Should We Really Hold On to This? Can’t We Get Rid of It?
The robots hovering in the sky above them seemed to be different from the first one they had ever met. They had four arms, armored yet slender bodies, a single horn on their foreheads, and a single eye on their faces. That much was the same as the creature they had met before, but in addition, these had mechanical wings on their backs and held long cylindrical weapons in their arms.
“It looks like the last guy, plus the ability to fly?” Yogiri remarked.
It was quite an impressive sight. Identically equipped robots filled the sky above the Elven Forest. Of course they stood out and certainly would have triggered the Sage’s aerial defense network, but with this many of them, it seemed the “angels” were hesitant to show themselves.
“This is probably a stupid question, but you can deal with robots, right?” Tomochika asked.
“Probably.” Yogiri hadn’t deluded himself into thinking his power would work on anything and everything, but since he had never had a case where it had failed, he figured it would work. “Hey,” he called out to the robot girl again, “the last one we met was so afraid of me, he didn’t even want to fight. Do you not know anything about me?”
“Of course we have heard about you. But what of it?” She looked down on them with a sneer. Despite her only human feature being her head, she was rather expressive for a machine. “We were already prepared to fight divine-level beings in order to retrieve the fragments of the goddess. Naturally, we have prepared enough firepower to deal with you!”
The robot lifted a hand, and a beam of light tore across the sky. Although it wasn’t aimed at them, it demonstrated a tremendous amount of destructive potential. The trees along the beam’s path were instantly vaporized, and huge clouds of dirt and dust were thrown up into the air. The attack turned a huge stretch of dense forest into a barren wasteland in the blink of an eye.
“Now then,” she continued, “that was only a single unit’s attack, and only at a single digit percentage of its output. Does that convince you? Would you like to surrender the fragment to us now?” The robot acted like she was showing off for an audience.
“You really like these demonstrations, don’t you?” Yogiri commented. “But it doesn’t matter what you show us; I’m not giving it to you.” He looked down at the lump of warm flesh in his hands. Even though he wouldn’t mind getting rid of something so gross, it was the only clue he had for the whereabouts of the missing Philosopher’s Stones, so he couldn’t just hand it over.
“I see. This is your final warning. You still have no intention of complying?”
“Yeah, we’re good.”
“All weapons, open fire! Use your maximum output! Reduce this land to ash!”
The robots hovering in the sky turned their cannons on Yogiri as one. Light began to collect at the tips of their weapons. Releasing their full power seemed like it was going to take some time, as the balls of light slowly grew in size and intensity.
“Can I ask a few questions?” Yogiri asked.
“What is it? It’s too late if you want me to stop them.” The robot answered as if she was taking pity on them, like she was expecting them to beg for their lives.
“I was just wondering, won’t you get hit by this too?” If the previous attack had only been a tiny fraction of the weapon’s output, then at full power they would probably destroy the entire Elven Forest without much trouble. That would annihilate anyone in the forest, including the robot herself.
“This is a simple communication terminal. Losing one or two of them is of no concern.”
“Okay then, what about the fragment of the goddess? Won’t it get destroyed too?”
“If it was so fragile as to be destroyed by the likes of these weapons, there would be no value in searching for it in the first place.”
The lump of flesh must have had considerable power hidden within. Still no idea how it ended up in our backpack, Yogiri thought.
The killing intent grew gradually stronger. He could see it as a black haze covering the entire area, leaving no room for escape. Although the robot girl spoke condescendingly, she had prepared a significant amount of firepower to take him down, showing just how seriously she took him. But she had misunderstood the exact threat he posed.
“Die.”
With a single word, the army of giant robots vanished.
“What happened? Why did they disappear instead of falling into the forest?” Tomochika said.
“What?!” cried the robot girl. “They weren’t even in this dimension...”
Yogiri figured their bodies were in another dimension and had been killed there, cutting off their connection to this world.
“Didn’t anyone tell you that wouldn’t work on me?” he asked.
“How?! We should be able to attack unilaterally!”
“Attacking from a place where no one can fight back isn’t really fair.”
“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound very convincing coming from you,” Tomochika commented.
“Anyway, I’m not giving this to you, so let it go.”
As Yogiri spoke, the robot girl suddenly collapsed. They had no idea what she had tried to do, but his power had automatically activated to kill her, so whatever she had planned must have been something potentially fatal.
“I still don’t understand what that was about,” Yogiri complained.
“But this is what the Aggressors are looking for, right?” Tomochika asked. “So are they going to keep coming after us?”
“Mokomoko, can you contact the first robot we met?”
“Hm. It did say it would tell us how to return home once we had the energy and coordinates. All right, I have made contact. All that is left is to await its reply.” Mokomoko was capable of transmitting electromagnetic waves, so it was easy enough for her to contact the Aggressor.
“I feel kind of bad for getting Fuwat involved...” Tomochika said, looking down at the fallen elf with a sad expression. If Fuwat hadn’t been trying to guide them out, this never would have happened to her.
“We had no choice,” Mokomoko replied. “Our only other option was never escaping the forest.”
“I won’t say we didn’t do anything wrong, but we’re not the ones who killed her,” Yogiri added.
“Well...even if the people around us die, all we can do is keep moving forward.”
“That sounds like it’ll cause even more problems.” The village already viewed humans as their enemies. Even if they tried to explain, Yogiri couldn’t imagine the situation ending well.
“There is no need to worry. The elven village has also been destroyed.”
“From that beam of light?”
“Yes. The Aggressors’ demonstration struck the village directly.” Leaving the Enju android behind, Mokomoko had flown up into the sky to survey the damage.
“Okay, then...I guess we’ll have to pretend we didn’t see anything!” Tomochika said.
“Precisely! That is the correct course of action for a member of the Dannoura family!”
“But her body is still right here in front of us.”
Yogiri pulled a shovel from his backpack. He didn’t know what kind of funeral rites elves held, but if they left Fuwat lying there, she would just be eaten by wild animals. He felt they should at least bury her.
“This would have been a lot easier with Furemaru. Maybe I shouldn’t have killed it.”
“No, if you had not, we would have been unable to rest easy from here on out,” Mokomoko replied. “We could not have used it comfortably, so there is no need to concern yourself.”
Even though they realized it was more to make themselves feel better, Yogiri and Tomochika worked together to give Fuwat a proper burial.
◇ ◇ ◇
After a while, an enormous robot descended from the sky.
“Long time no see.”
“Allow me to preface this discussion by saying I have no connection to what just happened here.”
“Starting with excuses, huh?” Tomochika commented.
“The robots that attacked us knew about me,” Yogiri said.
“They must have reviewed our shared database. While we belong to the same organization, we are members of different factions.”
“You decided not to fight me, but this group attacked anyway. Why?” If he didn’t understand the cause, they might be harassed again.
“She must have thought she was capable of defeating you. In my case, I was only equipped to perform scouting operations when we first met.”
“Is this the thing you were looking for?” Yogiri asked, holding up the lump of flesh.
“That is correct. Could I convince you to surrender it to me?”
“Not right now. Once I know what’s going on, we can think about it.” He knew that his answer was vague, that was all he could offer at the moment.
“Understood.” The robot backed down without complaint.
“So, what exactly is this thing?”
“It is one part of a god. It is a powerful object, enough to disrupt the power balance of an entire world.”
“What do you plan on doing with it? Taking over some other world?”
“I do not know what my superiors intend, but even if they do not plan on threatening other worlds with it, it is not something we can allow another world to possess.”
“Sounds complicated...” Yogiri had thought it might be okay to hand the fragment over, but he had no idea what they would do with it. If it could be used to destroy other worlds, he wouldn’t be able to let them have it in good conscience.
“You said that if we had the energy and coordinates, you could return us home,” Mokomoko said. “We have acquired said coordinates. Would it be possible to use the energy from this fragment of the goddess?”
“While the fragment does possess an immense amount of energy, I do not know how to tap into it at this point in time.”
“We don’t know how we would use the Philosopher’s Stones either, do we?” Yogiri said.
“I guess it was kind of strange for us to be collecting them when we don’t actually know how to use them, huh?” Tomochika replied.
“I always figured we could ask a Sage.” Yogiri turned to the robot. “Hey, if you can send us back to our world, I’ll give you this fragment thing. Can you supply the energy?”
The robot paused, thinking for a while. “I shall discuss the matter with my superiors. However, I believe it will take some time.”
“That’s fine.” They could always continue searching for Philosopher’s Stones, but it would be more efficient to work on another method of getting home at the same time.
The robot lifted off, disappearing into the sky. As with when it had first arrived, it seemed to teleport away.
“So, a fragment of the goddess. I don’t really want it...but what happened to our Philosopher’s Stones?” Yogiri looked closely at the lump of meat. It seemed to be alive, so he was hesitant to shove it back into the bag. That said, holding it wasn’t particularly appealing either.
“Hm. Occam’s Razor says that when attempting to explain something, one should avoid adding needless assumptions or conjecture. In other words, think as simply as possible,” Mokomoko said.
“Meaning?”
“The Philosopher’s Stones have disappeared, and that flesh has taken their place. That would mean the stones transformed into that.”
“How?!” cried Tomochika.
“Such an explanation would allow us to avoid positing that some hypothetical thief took it, since I am always on guard against our surroundings,” Mokomoko continued. “It is possible that there exists someone who would be capable of stealing from us without alerting me, but there would be nothing we could do against someone so capable.”
“That’s true,” Yogiri agreed. “If someone has superpowers like that, there’s nothing we could do to stop them.” If the stones had been stolen, they had no way of figuring out who had done it or where they were now.
“The Philosopher Stones were round, transparent rocks,” Tomochika said. “Are you saying they turn into this over time?”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with time, since it sounds like they’ve been around for a while. But we were told that when a Sage dies, the stone inside their body loses its power. If the Philosopher’s Stones were these fragments of the goddess in disguise, would they act like that?”
“Hmm...I give up! Thinking about it won’t help.” Tomochika threw in the towel. As she said, they could do nothing but speculate at the moment, which wouldn’t do any good. They would need more information if they wanted to understand more about the fragments.
“So what do we do with this thing?” asked Yogiri. “Do you want to hold it, Dannoura?”
“Why me?! This is a guy’s job, right?!”
“Does it matter if it’s a guy or a girl holding it?” Yogiri felt she was being a little unreasonable, but pushing it on her didn’t sound much better, so he ended up carrying it himself. “I don’t mind carrying it, but holding it in my hands like this doesn’t seem like a great way—whoa!” As he stared at the lump of flesh, it started to move. “This thing really is gross. What...”
The lump trembled and then made eye contact. Eyes had appeared and were now looking back at him.
“Dannoura, it’s growing eyes...” Even though he called them eyes, they were really just black spots. But he just got the impression that they were used for taking in light.
“Whoa, you’re right. It’s changing shape, isn’t it?”
“It is... If that’s where the eyes are, I guess that’s its head?” The end with the eyes was growing a little bigger, while the opposite end was becoming thinner. “Should we really hold on to this? Can’t we get rid of it?”
“Of course not!” Tomochika exclaimed. “I’m not going to touch it, though!”
“Hmm...it seems to be taking on a shape similar to the initial stage of a fetus,” Mokomoko observed. “But normally, it would be much smaller.”
“If it’s a fetus, we shouldn’t leave it out in the open air like this, should we?” Yogiri replied. But they didn’t have much choice. Yogiri could only hold it in his arms, treating it like something fragile.
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