The Nameless Vessel
Minel's party stepped boldly into the corridor.
Every breath and footstep returned as an echo, bouncing off the metal walls.
They hunted every Sludge they saw. There was no telling when they might need more blood crystals.
Before long they reached a fork in the path.
The left corridor led toward the grand chapel district where the doll was enshrined. The right led toward the emergency exit that connected to the 4th Floor.
Minel chose the left. The other two would take the right.
"Just follow the route I explained."
There were almost no real threats in the corridors of the 3rd Floor. The Sludges moved at a crawl, and the cultists only shuttled between the worship chambers where services were held and the waiting rooms they had jury-rigged with temporary structures. The occasional Combatant on patrol or High Priest inspecting the chapel halls might appear, but the odds of running into anyone in a space this vast approached zero. Even if they did, the natives moved about as if they owned the place and paid no attention at all; hearing footsteps from a distance and simply stepping aside was enough.
"You said two Combatants were standing guard, right?"
"Yeah."
"What should we do?"
"Don't attack. Just wait nearby."
"Then I'll scout the surrounding terrain in advance. Oh—right."
Hina pulled the Shocker's Heart from her inventory and handed it to Minel. He accepted it with a questioning look.
"Why this?"
"You can use it as a last resort. The cultists who've been poisoned by lightning are impossible to control."
Her eyes and tone carried resolve. If he found himself in a situation with no way out, he was to use it. Put bluntly, it meant turning the cultists into human shields—a ruthless calculation. But for Hina, Minel came first.
He remembered the day they met. A hole had opened in a man's head right in front of her, and she still hadn't lost her composure.
"Got it."
"I trust you'll only use it when you absolutely have to, Minel."
"Yeah."
"Stay alive."
Hina's voice wavered at the end. She seemed to be feeling guilty that her own suggestion—to seize the doll—might be dragging him into unnecessary danger.
Minel answered in a gentle tone.
"I agreed to this too, Hina."
"……"
"So stop worrying about it."
Hina watched him in silence for a moment, then nodded. She knew his nature well enough: if he were going to blame someone later, he simply wouldn't do the thing in the first place.
"We're going."
"See you later."
Hina nodded as if asking him to trust her. Chori clenched her small fists. Minel returned the nod, pulled his hood over his head, turned, and began walking toward the grand chapel.
He moved alone through the long, dark corridor. Along the way he passed several High Priests and technicians, but none of them gave him a second glance. From that he could guess that the death of the cloaked High Priest had not yet become public knowledge.
Minel did not slow his pace. The corridor was already familiar—metal walls, cables, electric lights. Everything he had seen before slid past him again.
The grand chapel hall, packed with worshippers. A voice thick with madness thundered through the entire space, yet he did not spare it a single glance. Mad lips, blank faces, cultists rocking their bodies with mechanical rhythm. Exactly the same as yesterday.
In the distance rose the enormous chimney, towering from the center of the space as if to pierce the sky. Iron railings and the endless clang of metal. That, too, was the same as yesterday.
The entrance leading to the rear chambers. The same two Combatants who had been there yesterday stood guard. They traded idle jokes, barely glanced at the prayer beads he held out, and opened the way. Nothing was different from yesterday.
The temporary walkway. Clattering iron plates, oil-stained walls, a floor that vibrated underfoot. High Priests passed one another without the slightest interest. It had been that way then, and it was the same now.
Minel walked on in silence. He was not even short of breath. There was only the sensation of retracing a memory—same route as yesterday, same scenery.
At last he stood before the room where he had first found the doll. A heavy iron door waited alone in the darkness.
"Empty, just like I thought."
As he drew closer he felt the vibration. The same faint mechanical sound, like breathing, drifted out as before. Would the doll still be there?
Minel steadied his breath and brought the prayer beads to the door. He threw it open with force, and the interior appeared exactly as he remembered.
The walls curved inward like the inside of a sphere, continuous sheets of metal. In the center floated a transparent doll, suspended by countless electrodes and cables. Its hair drifted as if in zero gravity. Threads of lightning seeped across its skin. It exhaled a soft breathing sound at regular intervals and released thick clouds of steam. Just as before, its chest stood wide open and empty—no heart inside.
"It looks like it would fit perfectly……"
The hollow was exactly the size of a Shocker's Heart. But if something that only spawned on the 2nd Floor could activate it, they would never have left the doll unattended like this. And in any case, the entire point of stealing it was to keep it from waking. Inserting a heart was out of the question.
Minel crossed the railing that stretched toward the center and approached. Up close the doll looked even more alive, as if it might start moving at any second. It felt like an exquisitely crafted jointed figure over which an AI had layered impossibly precise graphics. The mere fact of its existence made it a masterpiece of the highest order. No wonder he had been seized by a sense of mystery the first time he saw it.
"……"
The condition that an entire false religion had to be built across the whole 3rd Floor—no, across every 3rd Floor—and fed a ceaseless stream of souls before it could awaken. That alone was enough to prove how extraordinary the doll was. He would not learn its true secret until he climbed much higher. Not ordinary people, at least.
Level: X
Grade: Advanced
When electricity, souls, and a heart gather together, it awakens as a one-of-a-kind true body. The puppet's power changes according to the charged electricity, the collected souls, and the inserted heart—and there is no upper limit.
A perfect medium crafted beyond the boundary of flesh and machine. Once complete it becomes more than a mere weapon, retaining the full potential of a human being. The moment it awakens it serves the one who names it as its master, yet the more souls that have been poured into it, the stronger its own will becomes. It will not follow blindly. Caution is advised.
Normal, Advanced, and then Rare—that was the order. Advanced sat below the Digital Vein he had obtained from the Arcade. Just as Urare had said, the doll itself did not seem especially precious. Not for something prepared by gathering cultists across the entire 3rd Floor—every 3rd Floor—and even boasting of thousands of years of groundwork.
Yet the mystery he had felt the instant he first laid eyes on it had been real. Perhaps what mattered was not the doll, but the sheer number of souls accumulated inside it over those millennia.
"First things first—escape……"
Minel muttered the words lightly and examined the area around the doll. Thick cables filled his grip. Enough current ran through them to kill an ordinary person, but to Minel they meant nothing. One by one he yanked free the cables that bound the doll.
Zzzt—!
Zzzzt—!
Sparks flew, but they only brushed past his body. With his electrical resistance he paid them no mind.
"Done."
Once every thick cable had been pulled free, the doll swayed slowly, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Minel reached out and grasped the doll's form. A brilliant light faded away with a soft hiss, and it was absorbed into his inventory.
"……Easier than I expected."
As if the room itself had overheard his quiet remark, every light inside suddenly died.
Kuuuung—!
The sound of current cutting out rolled through the space. One after another the lights that had flowed along the walls were swallowed by darkness. In that instant the air itself changed. Even the faint mechanical hum vanished, leaving only the beat of his own heart to fill the room.
Minel's pupils narrowed. Instinct spoke clearly.
He had been found.
He wasted no time. He hurled himself through the doorway. Outside, no one stood waiting, yet hurried sounds rose from every direction.
"The power's out! Something's definitely wrong with the doll!"
"Damn it! Of all times!"
"There's a problem with the generator too. Everyone to the grand chapel—get the cultists under control!"
"Call every Combatant and technician! Move!"
A swelling chorus of voices began to close in around Minel like a tightening net. Footsteps layered over one another from every side until he could no longer tell which direction they came from.
Thud, thud, thud—!
Thud, thud, thud—!
Minel dropped low and moved quickly. Then a loud voice cut through the noise from somewhere nearby.
"Hey! You're supposed to be heading to the grand chapel!"
He turned his head. Among the people rushing past, one man was staring straight at him—the High Priest with the striking mismatched eyes.
No choice.
Minel gave a short nod, then snapped his head around and began walking swiftly toward the grand chapel. Yet he could still feel the mismatched-eyed High Priest's gaze locked on his back. Worse, the man's footsteps began to close the distance at a run.
"Wait! Hey! Stop!"
Minel ignored the shout and slipped nimbly into the stream of people hurrying the same way. He let the crowd carry him naturally away from the mismatched-eyed High Priest and emerged into the grand chapel together with the other High Priests.
The hall was packed—not with ordinary worshippers, but with fanatics who had already lost all reason.
"……"
The first thing that reached his ears was dissonance. The massive water wheel turned only in fits and starts, creaking and grinding. Gears that no longer meshed properly scraped against one another, the sound echoing through the entire chamber. From the metal pipes surrounding the generator came a hiss of escaping steam and pressure. The service had already stopped.
The fanatics tried to force their broken chorus onward, but their voices trembled as unsteadily as the machinery around them. Electrodes that should have been spouting flame only flickered at irregular intervals; now and then they burst with a sharp bang and belched black smoke. Cables dangling from the walls shivered though no wind blew. From the central chimney, pitch-black smoke rose in broken, choking columns. Somewhere a short-circuited current crackled and spat, painting wild white flashes across the shadows. Even the floor vibrated to an uneven rhythm.
The High Priests stared at one another with stricken faces.
"Why…… why won't the lightning continue?"
"Has Urare grown angry……?"
"That can't be. It can't be……"
Terror seized the fanatics. They raised both hands high and began to pray, but their shaking voices were swallowed by the metallic din and carried no force at all.
Amid the chaos Minel kept his lips pressed tight and scanned every direction, searching for a way out. Then a shout exploded from behind him.
"That's him! That's the one who went into the doll's chamber yesterday!"
He turned. The mismatched-eyed High Priest was pointing at him and yelling to the Combatants nearby. Minel's gaze locked with theirs in midair.
The Combatants openly drew their weapons and whispered something into the receivers at their ears. At once every Combatant scattered throughout the hall turned toward Minel and settled into combat stances.
A quiet exit was no longer possible.
Minel drew Silence and Noise from his inventory.