Catherine also agreed that Soph’s magic had been excessive.
“It certainly was excessive magic. There’s almost nothing left. No black stones, and all the machinery has melted away.”
There was nothing left inside the deeply gouged basin.
More than anything else, she seemed displeased that the black stones were gone.
On top of that, every trace of the people had been blown away as well.
Margreta, who had been checking to see if any relics remained, shook her head too.
“There’s nothing. Even if there had been something, it would all have been destroyed.”
When Catherine and Margreta reproached him, Soph clamped his mouth shut.
Being scolded by women seemed to have come as quite a shock to Soph.
When Soph fell silent, the women immediately brought up something else.
“I thought there might be something, but I never imagined a wizard’s soul would be inside the staff.”
“So the reason Mr. Hyeon grew strong so quickly, and the reason he could learn several kinds of magic, was all because of the wizard’s soul.”
I told the two of them, who were looking at me meaningfully, the wizard’s name.
“The wizard’s name is Shamek. I call him Soph.”
“Then I’ll call him Soph too.”
“I’ll do the same.”
As soon as I told them his name, the two of them started calling him by it.
“How did Soph end up inside the staff?”
“How did you come to meet Soph?”
“How does Soph sense the outside world? Does he see through Hyeon? Or does he see through the staff?”
“How much magic does Soph know? Of the magic Mr. Hyeon uses, how much of it is magic Soph uses?”
The questions continued after that.
I answered the ones among them that seemed all right to tell.
While I was answering, Soph did not say a word.
I asked Soph.
[You haven’t fainted, have you?]
[No.]
Fortunately, that was not the case.
[Then why are you so quiet? You’ve finally become able to talk with other people. The magic for conversation itself doesn’t seem all that difficult either.]
Of course, that magic required fairly delicate technique, since it expressed sound by vibrating the air.
But it was not difficult magic for Soph.
[That is not it. What those two said gave me much to think about.]
Fortunately, it did not seem to be because of their scolding.
[It seems it would be troublesome for me to speak directly with others. I do not think it is good for someone who died tens of thousands of years ago to become involved with the present world.]
What he said next was also different from what I had expected. This did not sound like Soph.
If that was the reason, then talking with me was the same.
[I am not a real person, nor am I a soul. I am merely an ego contained within the staff. No different from an AI imitating a person. I am a being that belongs to you, so I think it would be better to convey my words through you, as before.]
A soul, an ego, an AI. The discussion had become more complicated than I expected.
This was a philosophical matter that was difficult for me to understand.
Still, for the person concerned, it seemed it was not something he could simply ignore.
[Then let’s do that for the time being.]
In the end, I decided to follow Soph’s wishes.
After I conveyed Soph’s decision to the two of them as well, we headed toward the spectator seats.
The spectator seats were empty.
It seemed the people who had been watching us had gone down underground through the stairs.
We followed them down the stairs.
As we descended, I asked Catherine.
“Are there any people among those who were in the spectator seats that we need to keep alive?”
“You mean, are there any people we need?”
If it had been anyone else, they would have asked if I meant people we needed to save, but Catherine understood what I meant right away.
At her question, I nodded.
“Yes.”
After thinking for a moment, she shook her head.
“If the taming had succeeded, there would have been a need to keep the researchers alive, but now I don’t think they’ll be of any use. The ruins specialist is beside me, after all… There’s no one we need to keep alive.”
I asked again.
“Is it the same for Old Man Stone?”
“Yes. It would be better if he were gone. If he’s alive, this will turn into a political fight. If there are no survivors, cleaning things up afterward will be easier.”
I nodded at her words.
Margreta asked,
“Why did you ask that? Are there a lot of people we need to deal with?”
This time, I shook my head.
“If we don’t need anyone alive, I don’t think we’ll have to take action ourselves.”
With my super-senses, I could check the situation beneath the ruins.
I could not tell exactly what was happening inside, but I could tell the location and number of living beings.
The number of people still alive was rapidly decreasing.
***
At the same time.
Harris Stone, the head of the Stone faction, was running desperately.
There was no one around him. Not a single one of the people who had come underground with him was in sight.
Instead, screams could be heard from behind him.
They were the death cries of his subordinates as they were killed by the test subjects.
All of his subordinates had been caught by the test subjects, and only he, an energy user, had survived.
Replacing everything with the black stones they had brought this time had been a mistake.
The monster whose black stone had been replaced first had obeyed well, so they had installed them in all of them this time, but like the monster aboveground, all the test subjects had gone berserk.
The test subjects called scouts, and the test subjects called magic monsters, had all begun rampaging.
They were black stones he had brought under the pretext of the terraforming ruins and the spatial transfer ruins, and yet things had turned out like this.
The old man could not believe the situation.
“This makes no sense. Do they know what kind of kingdom I built?”
It was a kingdom he had built for himself after becoming an energy user.
A tower of his own, built by deceiving other families, deceiving the government, killing people, and winning them over.
A small kingdom of his own that would continue even after the humans of Earth had all died.
That kingdom was now facing a grave crisis.
But the old man did not give up.
“It isn’t over yet. There’s a way.”
The experiment had ended in failure, but his power was still firm.
His nephew and some of the vigilantes had died, but there were more vigilantes.
The newly obtained black stones were gone too, but he only needed to get more.
His faction still remained, and his secret was still being kept.
There were people above who knew of this incident, but since the test subjects were running wild, it would be difficult for them to survive unscathed as well.
“When I think of it that way, this isn’t the worst.”
The old man slowed his running pace.
It was a major failure, but he could still recover.
Moreover, the experiment had not failed completely.
There was still one test subject left.
The test subject at the place he was heading to now.
That test subject had also had its black stone replaced, but it was still quiet.
“It was a test subject handled with several times more caution, so the result should be different.”
As long as that test subject succeeded, all the other failures could be ignored.
That was how important that test subject was.
A little while later, the old man arrived at his destination.
No more screams could be heard.
Nor could the test subjects’ monstrous cries be heard.
Creeeak.
The old man put his strength into opening the enormous iron door.
It was an iron door the old man had ordered his people to attach.
If the test subject used its strength, a door like this would be useless, but there had been many people who had seizures at the sight of the test subject, so he had had no choice.
When he opened the door, a vast space appeared.
This was an underground plaza connected to the Colosseum aboveground.
A waiting area for the beasts, people, and monsters that went out into the Colosseum.
Right now, an enormous monster occupied the space inside.
A gigantic black monster filling more than half the plaza.
Pillar-like tentacles pierced through the walls.
It looked like a huge spider lodged inside the walls.
“Test Subject Zero. In Trappist, they call it the Control Object, don’t they?”
Test Subject Zero, the Control Object, was alive.
The test subject, which had machinery mounted on its back like the scout monsters, saw the old man enter and slowly lifted its tentacles.
The old man, who had been carefully observing the monster, was overjoyed when it showed no particular reaction.
“As expected, my research hasn’t failed yet. Since a successful case has appeared like this, I only need to keep correcting the errors!”
It did not matter if all the other test subjects were ruined.
Through his research until now, he had learned that as long as he had this Control Object, he could create other test subjects.
In the end, there was nothing to worry about.
“As expected, you are my final stroke of luck.”
How delighted he had been when he discovered this living test subject in the ruins.
So delighted that the human corpses and relics scattered around the test subject had not even entered his eyes.
This test subject was the final piece of his kingdom.
The ultimate force that would protect his kingdom.
Once this test subject was complete, he would have nothing left to fear.
“And yet he even lied, saying he had caught this test subject. He must be dead by now, but he was a man who spouted nonsense rather well.”
The old man clicked his tongue as he recalled the young Asian man he had met a short while ago.
Because of that Asian man, many things had gone wrong.
The countless black stones he had brought. And the test subject samples.
If those samples continued to increase, people would have no choice but to suspect his army of test subjects.
And while it was also a problem that many people would come because of the black stones, the greatest problem was the terraforming ruins.
Until Earth was destroyed, the truth of the ruins had to remain buried.
At that moment, a human voice came from outside the iron door.
“It wasn’t nonsense. I have caught a Control Object before.”
It was the voice of the Asian man he had thought was dead.
Three people entered through the door.
They were the Asian man and the women he had seen above.
“My God. You were hiding even this monster?”
“You’re insane. Do you know what kind of monster this is? This isn’t a monster people can face… No, I suppose one person can face it.”
The daughter of the Ashford family frowned, and Catherine shook her head as she looked at the Asian man.
The old man could not understand.
“How are you alive? There should have been test subjects.”
Not only aboveground, but on the way here as well, several test subjects should have blocked their path.
The old man had thrown his subordinates to them as bait and fled, yet those people had all come here alive without any bait.
“I told you earlier. I’ve faced all kinds of monsters like that.”
The old man burst into anger.
“Are you saying you took down all the test subjects?”
At his words, Margreta nodded.
“There were more than I expected, but Hyeon took them all down.”
“This time, he didn’t make an excessive attack, so we were able to recover all the machinery and black stones as well.”
Catherine added.
Perhaps it was something only they understood, because the Asian man shook his head at Catherine’s words.
“Impossible…”
The old man stared at the Asian man with a vacant expression, but the man was not looking at him.
Frowning as he looked at the test subject, he soon nodded.
“As expected. So that’s it. The black stone was insufficient.”
“What?”
The old man asked again, but the young man kept muttering while looking into empty air.
“You implanted an ordinary Akzar black stone into a Control Object, so of course it would be insufficient.”
The old man did not know who he was talking to, but he could understand what he meant.
The old man turned around.
The dark blue-black stone attached to the machinery on the test subject’s back.
It was the black stone they had brought this time.
“So we didn’t succeed in taming it. The black stone’s performance was lacking?”
“And it recognized the black stone attached to this spear.”
This time, the Asian man answered the old man’s words.
The old man had no time to be surprised by what he said.
Thwack!
Because the old man was struck by a tentacle and sent flying.
Thud.
The old man slammed into the wall.
His breath caught in his throat. His body would not move.
But he felt no pain.
The old man knew why.
He had gone beyond the range where he could feel pain.
That meant he was on the verge of death.
The old man felt wronged, but he could not help having his eyes stolen by what he saw before him.
“So you recognize it. Do you want this?”
The Asian youth raised his spear.
The spear changed.
It still resembled a spear, but the old man could tell.
That was a staff made from old wood.
A beautiful staff embedded with three jewels.
“It may not even be half of what it was now, but I can’t take it lightly.”
Saying that, the man charged at the test subject with the spear in hand.
Light burst from the spear, and pillar-like tentacles were severed.
Magic erupted from the spear, and the monster screamed.
Before the dying old man, a battle between a hero and the Demon King unfolded.
Cleanup (1)