3. Shell>
Steel’s mouth fell open at the sight revealed before her eyes.
A colossal body. And red fragments covering that body so densely there was no gap between them.
It must have been buried beneath the mountain for no short time, and yet the sight of thousands, tens of thousands of smooth red scales packed across it, like steel shields fresh from the forge, radiated intimidation just by being there.
And the six horns growing from its head. They were not the crude horns of Mudskipper No. 1 from before.
Each one had grown and grown until it looked ready to burst, twisting and coiling, displaying a form like the trunk of an ancient tree that had lived for thousands of years.
Six such horns were set upon the monster’s head.
What was even more astonishing was that this thing was now nothing but an empty shell. The creature, which looked as if it might come alive and move at any moment, was merely a shell.
Like a cicada leaving behind its husk after molting, it was a gigantic cast-off skin left behind by some being.
Only after realizing that it was nothing more than a husk did Steel finally let out a deep breath. And only then did she realize that she had been so tense before the husk in front of her that she had not even been breathing properly.
“So that’s why I couldn’t feel anything. It was an empty shell… No wonder I couldn’t sense it even right under my nose…….”
Steel, who had lived in the Lagrang region for two hundred years and was only now learning that such a thing had been buried in the earth, let out a groan.
“It is not an empty shell.”
“Huh?”
“It has compressed all of its power inside, without letting even a single bit leak out. That is why neither you nor I can feel anything, Miss Steel.”
Sian spoke with a grave expression.
“…
How much energy are we talking about?”
“Far beyond me.”
“Eh?”
“Still, perhaps because so much time has passed, its power has weakened considerably. At first, it must have been far stronger than it is now. It seems the reason the Lagrang region is so fertile was because of this shell.”
At Sian’s words, Steel wore an incredulous expression. Energy powerful enough to make a vast territory fertile over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. It was a strength so immense she could not even imagine it.
“Then that makes even less sense. Why would something leave that much energy behind in a shell?”
“It must be one of two reasons. Either it had no choice…….”
“Or?”
“Or this much energy would not help the newly born being in the slightest.”
“…….”
“Hehe… I thought the story about a seven-horned Harijan was a lie.”
“Haha…….”
Steel laughed as if she found it absurd.
“So this is why those bastards from earlier kept coming back no matter how many times we killed them. If they were being supplied with power from something like this… we probably would have had to kill them several hundred more times.”
“…
Then what do we do?”
They had sealed those things away earlier, but they would break out soon. Such things meant nothing to a Ra-Vander. They would burst out and carry out a massacre.
If they could revive several hundred times, even Sian would struggle. In fact, Sian’s weapon was cracked, and from what she had seen earlier, he was in quite an exhausted state. Without Sian, and if that thing rampaged as it had before, every living creature nearby would be annihilated.
“Hehe. Miss Steel, you always teased me for having bad instincts, didn’t you?”
“…
I did?”
“You were right.”
“What are you suddenly…….”
Steel was about to scold him for spouting nonsense, but when she saw the strange expression on Sian’s face, the words caught in her throat.
“But… there are times when my instincts are good. Heh heh.”
“Hey, don’t you dare think of doing something weird.”
Steel did not know what Sian intended to do, but she suddenly felt an intense need to stop him.
“It only happens very rarely… but when there is only one solution, when I cannot avoid making a choice, I get the feeling right away.”
“What are you…….”
“Good grief. I decided not to go looking for a place to die… but if it’s like this, there’s no other way.”
“What are you trying to do right now?”
Steel asked, frowning.
“If those things keep reviving, I will lose too. If they are strong and immortal, even I have no method against them. The moment my strength runs out… I will be pushed back. Besides, those things will keep chasing me. Not just me, either. They will chase you too, Miss Steel. The reason those things woke up… was because you and I were fighting and ended up stimulating this husk. It was also a mistake that we stimulated it further while training a few days ago.”
Putting the pieces together, the outline became clear. For some reason, the Granain were serving as guards protecting this husk, and in return, they were supplied with power from it.
The reason they had suddenly gone mad and rampaged was undoubtedly related to him using his power near this place. Because his power had stimulated this husk buried deep underground, they had gone berserk like that. If he had known such a thing was here, he would never have trained in this area.
“Ah…….”
“Well… I don’t know how long it will take… but I won’t die. You know, don’t you? I don’t go looking for places to die.”
“You bastard, that’s not what you were saying just now. And we can just run away!”
Steel spoke in agitation, her words spilling out on their own. Just now, this fellow had clearly spoken as if he were heading to his death.
“Hehe. I told you earlier, didn’t I? They will chase us. We cannot run. And one must take responsibility for what one has done. Besides, if someone heard you, they would think I was going off to die. I am going to become stronger.”
This was completely different from before. He was the one who had stirred up something that had been sleeping perfectly well. And he was the one who had to take responsibility for the people who would die from now on.
“You crazy bastard… And you call yourself a superhuman? Throw that away!”
Steel shouted in disbelief. Responsibility toward humans… from someone who cherished his own life that much, no less.
“Hehe. If that is what it means to be a superhuman, I would rather not be one. In any case… it was fun while it lasted. Please take good care of my family. And take this.”
Sian grinned, unfastened the Nitsmatan from around his neck, and placed it around Miss Steel’s neck.
“You bastard… You said you weren’t going off to die…….”
“I’m leaving it with you because it might break. Please keep it safe. That is mine. It is my most treasured possession.”
Sian strode toward the red scales. And before Steel could stop him, he placed his hand upon them.
Food…….>
“Heh… Says who?”
The husk, which had shown no movement at all, suddenly began to writhe madly. The husk left behind by a mighty, nameless being. Because it had been left behind by an existence far too powerful, it possessed a faint will of its own, and after awakening from its sleep due to an attack that threatened it, it was in a state of maddening hunger. It had lost far too much energy while asleep.
For that reason, it had no intention whatsoever of letting go of this high-energy mass that had placed a hand on it. The husk cut off all the energy it had been sending to the “guards” that protected it and began to focus on the being in contact with it.
Crrrrrk!
The entire husk shook even more violently, and before long, it swallowed Sian at a ferocious speed.
“…
What?”
Steel stared blankly at the grotesque spectacle unfolding before her. The enormous red scales moved rapidly, wrapping around Sian. Starting from the place where Sian’s hand touched it, the red wave began crawling up his arm, and soon it was not enough for it to swallow Sian—the entire gigantic shell began moving to devour him.
Like a swirling red sea. Even the skeletons scattered on the floor changed form, returning to scales and joining the ranks. The horns twisted and twisted until they became like wires, winding around the vortex along with the scales.
The scales rotated at tremendous speed around the swallowed Sian, forming a huge red sphere. Even after becoming a sphere, the rotation began to accelerate further, and the enormous red ball gradually, little by little, began to shrink in size.
As the sphere compressed and its size diminished, its rotation also slowed, until, when it had shrunk to about one meter in diameter, it emitted a bizarre sound and could no longer compress any further.
Crack, crackle.
An egg of red scales trying to shrink further and crush something, and something inside resisting it.
From the outside, no energy leaked out at all. It was nothing more than an ordinary-looking red egg.
But Steel, who knew what was happening inside, could not bring herself to lay a hand on the red sphere. Even if she touched it, she would only become nutrition for that husk, and that would not be of much help to little brother Sian.
If she could not touch it herself, and if some unrelated bastard touched it and only got in the way… then the answer was to bury it completely.
“Little brother, hehe. If you insist on acting cool all by yourself, isn’t it the wife’s role to support you properly? I’ll let only the two of you fight… so win and come back.”
Murmuring so, Steel began drawing Vander up throughout her entire body.
Crrrk. Crackle.
And when power gathered in her whole body as if it would burst, she twisted her entire frame and slammed the ground violently.
Boooom.
Her fist and the earth collided, and the ground shook as if an earthquake had occurred. No, an earthquake had actually begun.
Already weakened by the clash between Sian and the Granain, and made unstable when the red husk emerged, the ground could not withstand Steel’s blow. The surrounding terrain and the foothills of the Sky Mountains began collapsing entirely around the red sphere.
Rumble. Crash.
The red sphere was buried hundreds of meters underground, and in its place remained only the traces left by the collapsed mountain range.
“Well, good. Nice and clean. When you come out, little brother, you’d better treat me really well.”
But a job could only be called perfect if the finishing touches were clean as well.
Steel launched herself away to check on the bastards she had buried earlier.
Steel arrived at the place where she had buried the Granain and carefully looked around in every direction. If those things came back to life and wandered around, then there would have been no point in Sian fighting that shell earlier.
She had collapsed a mountain on them, but there were signs that the ones that had already finished regenerating had tried to dig through the earth and crawl out from all directions. However, perhaps because the source that supplied them with power had vanished completely, or perhaps because of the aftereffects of excessive regeneration, they had all collapsed with their bones turned to powder.
“Hmm… Are they all dead…….”
The rest did not matter, but she had to confirm those three from earlier. Steel dug through the ground and burrowed inside to check whether the three were dead or alive.
Fortunately, all three had lost their lives. The supply of energy had been cut off during regeneration, and they had all died.
Steel recovered the Krona-phone that had been lying on their bodies and tucked it into the necklace she had received earlier.
“Good. The finish is clean too.”
Steel wore a satisfied expression, but perhaps something bothered her, because she collapsed the entire pit and launched herself away.
And there was one figure watching from afar the place where Steel had disappeared.
It was Rodebal.
“Phew… If I had been even a little later, it would have been disastrous…….”
“I know.”
Rodebal answered the strange resonance echoing inside his head.
Unable to be certain that the monster-like woman had completely disappeared, Rodebal waited a day before beginning to dig down into the ground she had collapsed. Then he gathered their bones one by one and sorted them.
After that, he moved toward the Sky Mountains, the pure white domain that no one could find.
The domain of Dragona, ruler of the Sky Mountains.
If it was this area, which neither the Harijan living in Krona’s domain nor the humans belonging to Liona’s domain could invade… no one would be able to find him until he had built up his strength.