EP.302 The Gears in My Head
Maximilian quietly caught his breath. With his mind, he chewed over the words I had spoken; with his body, he controlled his ruined form. The gears inside his mangled body slowly reassembled themselves.
Joints creaked as they resumed operation. Insufficient blood pooled toward his head. His reason, hazy as if veiled in mist, flickered as it tried to reclaim its light.
'I tried to become a god?'
Maximilian scoffed, and the shock of that action gave him a headache. Right now, he was in such a state that even his own snort could deal him damage.
Even with his body in such a disastrous condition, his thoughts did not stop. Click, clack. The gear in the very center of Maximilian's head turned slowly.
'I never believed in god. From the moment I was born without both arms, I never once leaned on the unseen for even a single moment. What supported me was my prosthetic arm; what guided me was alchemy. God never watched over me. It was only me.'
No matter how fatal a crisis descended, his brain kept moving. This was not a matter of will but of function.
Because Maximilian had driven gears into his own head.
The small mechanical device he named the Thought Gear, contrary to its name, did not think in his stead. If anything, it was closer to whipping his brain.
It forced blood into his head and crushed his brain. It blocked off the parts complaining of fatigue, and reattached emotion and reason whenever necessary.
Therefore, even if he was exhausted, hungry, or in pain, his brain did not dull. Fear, anger, and confusion could not interfere with his thinking. Even if the King of Beasts roared, his body moved, and he even ignored the Princess's authority. If necessary, he acted. Even if it was close to forbidden.
Maximilian earned his qualification through that.
The qualification to move solely by his own will, regardless of fate or limits.
'...You are wrong, King of Humans. I have no need to become a god.'
"Because I am already the god of my own life!"
Maximilian exercised the qualification he had gained. Following his own will, he thrust out his prosthetic arm whose frame was grotesquely exposed.
"I was only trying to give them a chance! To those others without qualification! A chance to become masters of themselves!"
Even with a battered body, if one has the will, one can use their Unique Demon Art. Maximilian concentrated his mind, and the stopped gears all began turning at once.
The Steel Beetle twisted its body, breaking its long silence. Until now, I had been suppressing it, but since I had stepped back, there was nothing to stop the Steel Beetle. The massive weapon that had overwhelmed even the King of Dogs with sheer force creaked as it tried to unleash power it had not been able to use....
That was all.
"The word 'qualification' sounds nice, but aren't you spinning things a bit too conveniently for yourself? To summarize, you were trying to drive gears into other people's bodies, weren't you?"
I shrugged.
The Steel Beetle's stretch stopped at a creak. If mechanical devices could experience full-body paralysis, it would look exactly like that. The Steel Beetle convulsed painfully without even being able to use its tremendous power.
Maximilian tried to move the Steel Beetle multiple times, but failed as many times as he tried. The exoskeleton surrounding the Steel Beetle did not move at all.
"I was merely showing an ordinary reaction to that. What human would stand still when another human says they'll drive gears into their body? They would resist desperately. And not just out of fear."
I pointed at the Steel Beetle so Maximilian could see clearly. Between the massive gears forming the exoskeleton, very small gears were inserted.
Two interlocking gears turn well together. Then, what if you insert another gear that touches both of those well-turning gears simultaneously? What happens when three gears interlock with each other?
They don't turn at all.
If one gear turns clockwise, the interlocked gear must turn counterclockwise. That's the basic principle of gears. But if there's another gear interlocked with both of those, that gear would have to turn both clockwise and counterclockwise.
It's a contradiction.
"Look at the Steel Beetle. When an odd number of gears forms a loop, it stops like that. Even with this simple mathematics, gears become useless. Only you use them; others can't. No, others won't."
"Kugh...!"
"Give up now. You have no moves left."
Until just a moment ago, he still had gears to throw. He had magical power to use alchemy. He had protective gear to defend his body.
That was only until Historia's spear-sword intent struck him, of course. Now he was nothing more than a walking corpse with a prosthetic arm.
I walked step by step toward him, who had lost all means of resistance. There were a few gears scattered around, but this meager amount posed little threat. Gears, too, are only valuable when strung together.
He had no means to stop me. An average human could be crushed with just the prosthetic arm, but unfortunately for him, his opponent was me. If my hand even touched his body, I would use his Unique Demon Art to reverse all the gears inside his body. Including the Thought Gear.
Maximilian drooped his head as if he had given up everything and staggered.
Just two steps now. The distance between Maximilian and me was only that much. When only two steps remained until death, Maximilian grabbed his right arm with his left arm. The prosthetic arm vibrated intensely. Outwardly, it looked like he was trembling with fear.
"No! I will not stop!"
That couldn't be. The vibration of the prosthetic arm was its death throes right before breaking. Crack. The joint between the right arm and shoulder came loose, and the left arm finally pulled the right arm—its lifelong rival—out from his body.
Having finally made even his own arm into a weapon, Maximilian swung it with a desperate cry.
'If it's lacking, I can fill it. If it's broken, I can fix it. If it's inadequate, I can improve it. If it's impossible, I make it possible! I will not stop!'
Who would think someone would pull out their own arm and swing it. It was a surprise sword-drawing technique that exploited a gap in consciousness. No matter how wounded he was, Maximilian was a strong practitioner who had reached the Six Viscera Realm. The speed of swinging his own arm as an axis was tremendous. The gears on the prosthetic arm clattered as if trying to bite into me.
But I am a mind reader. If it was a carefully calculated movement, I could read it even more clearly.
Instead of avoiding the swinging left arm, I reached out my hand to meet it. Compared to his prosthetic arm, my hand was frustratingly slow, but speed is relative anyway. My fingers would reach him before his arm could hit my face. The prosthetic arm and my hand crossed, and a gear caught on the tip of my fingernail.
The endlessly long battle ended there. Maximilian's body stopped dead as if he had been taxidermied in a photograph.
The prosthetic arm touched my cheek due to inertia, but that was it. Feeling the cold sensation against my cheek, I murmured.
"...I was going to reverse all the gears and break them, but you managed to stop the gears even in that moment."
Just as I could stop turning gears, he could do the same thing. The moment Maximilian detected the gears in his body malfunctioning, he stopped all their movement.
It was the best response he could make. Though it didn't change the situation.
"Even so, with gears spread throughout your entire body, you won't be able to move. Buying a few seconds of time before you die is the best you can do."
As expected, strength drained from his body. When the gears stopped, his body couldn't support itself.
I don't mean to dismiss it. No, actually, I want to applaud him for squeezing out every last possible move until the end. But if I let go of this hand, he would move again, so I made the sound of applause with my mouth instead.
"Clap clap clap. You are truly amazing. I'm not deceiving or mocking you; I mean it sincerely from the bottom of my heart. You were truly an amazing and honest person until the very end."
Thinking about it objectively, it wouldn't make sense for me to lose.
Aside from wearing a prosthetic arm, Maximilian had filled the inside of his body with gears to strengthen his physique. Thanks to that, he was incredibly sturdy and could move on par with practitioners who had mastered Qigong. It seemed he had claimed to be a Qigong practitioner who had mastered Qian Kun Gan Li on his own, and that his ability to control gears was the Li trigram, perhaps because that part was too troublesome to explain.
Anyway, thanks to that, I started with an overwhelmingly advantageous condition where just touching him meant victory—so advantageous it was almost cowardly. The powerful allies Aji and Historia were a bonus.
No matter how weak I was and how the other side had reached the Six Viscera Realm, this battlefield was not just tilted but completely overturned. It was entirely due to Maximilian's skill that he brought such a disadvantageous fight this far.
"It's just that your direction was too misaligned. Those who have reached the level of Demon God naturally change other humans; they don't struggle against them. In contrast, you tried to struggle against all other humans. Even to the point of fighting a proxy war with me."
Holding the prosthetic arm with one hand, I pulled out a card with the other. Ace of Diamonds, the multi-purpose skewer. I perform alchemical transmutation with my remaining magical power. A familiar sensation filled my palm.
I held the skewer in a reverse grip and raised it to the height of Maximilian's head. Even though his thoughts had nearly stopped, Maximilian's bloodshot eyes unconsciously followed the tip of the skewer. Even in such a state, life instinctively guards against death.
"Farewell, Maximilian. I will affirm only your wish. I will remember the dream that couldn't be fulfilled. Even if I can't grant your wish, I will write that such a wish existed and keep it in a corner of the ossuary. The King of Humans acknowledges you. Maximilian, you were no god, but you were a warrior who was not cowardly."
After offering him a brief tribute, I moved my hand. The skewer plunged into his temple.
Thud—I felt the sensation of breaking through something hard....
I tilted my head. That was because the skewer I had clearly aimed at his head was piercing something else.
A tree was growing.
A tree that had somehow sprouted through the concrete floor was blocking my skewer. Its branches swaying gently.
The situation was so still that it felt as if the tree had always been there and I had simply failed to notice it and swung the skewer.
That couldn't be.
This was the Military Nation. A military headquarters that covered the ground with concrete and had long since cut down any useless trees for firewood. There could be no trees in this land that had concrete instead of soil and bricks instead of wood.
Even if there were, it would be rare for a species to grow through such thick concrete. Even if it were such a species, there was no way it could grow to the height of a person in mere seconds!
It was definitely an artificially caused phenomenon. Someone had made a tree grow to protect Maximilian. Whether that was possible was another matter!
But who?
"I apologize, my King."
The answer came from beneath the ground.
At first, it was a sprout. Next, it was a sapling. Within a few seconds, what had been a sprout became a large, thick tree standing tall before me.
It was the most silent explosion in the world. Nature's explosive, bearing green smoke and brown sparks, covered me in an instant.