Young Adult (4)
In the cruiser's situation room, the pirate boss fell silent the moment she heard my voice.
I could hear her taking a very shallow breath, which told me she was thoroughly shaken.
｢…Amorph. Rank 5.｣
She said it in a faintly trembling voice.
The first words out of the boss's mouth — no, out of the player's mouth — were, unexpectedly, about my identity.
She knew exactly who I was.
Well, I did make quite the spectacle of myself back then.
This wasn't me being self-absorbed. There simply weren't many Amorph players who waged psychological warfare on their enemies with skinned corpses.
If she'd been a player who enjoyed the game for any length of time, she would have heard of me at least once.
｢You've got some nerve. Do you even know who I am?｣
“Hu·man·i·ty. Rank·twen·ty. I'd·presume.”
｢Good. You know your stuff.｣
After seizing the situation room, I'd been busy with something else until the transmission came in — going through the information stored on the computer about the pirate boss.
The pirate boss — the woman talking to me through the communicator — was named Muriel.
The exact same name as the Rank 20 Spacedog player from the game.
Never met her in person, though.
Not long after she'd become a ranked player, I quit the game over an academic probation. That was why I'd never crossed blades with Muriel directly.
That said, even without fighting her, I'd gathered a fair amount of information about her. What race she played, what faction, what clan, and so on.
She wasn't Cult back then, though?
As far as I knew, the Rank 20 Muriel had been a cyborg Spacedog. That was exactly why I hadn't considered the possibility that the pirate boss was a ranker until I confirmed her name on the computer.
Of course, that's not to say there were no Cult Spacedogs…
But that Cult pirate ranker had been a man, not a woman. The Rank 11 American player — I remembered him well, since we'd fought a few times.
In any case, the photo of Muriel floating on the computer monitor was unmistakably a female Cultist. A Cultist with deer antlers, no less — the symbol of the Cult royal line.
No idea why an antlered Cult royal is out playing pirate, but.
If she really was a ranker, she would know exactly how much an antlered Cultist could get away with in Cult society.
She wouldn't have brought a mere cruiser either. She'd have dragged an Imperial Carrier along with her.
I'll dig into that piece by piece.
Right now, I knew almost nothing about the players in this world. Whether she and I were the only players here, or whether there were others besides us — the unknowns piled up.
Which meant I needed to wring every scrap of information out of this conversation with her.
｢You beating me in rank only ever happened inside the game. You really think a mere sub-adult can take me?｣
Surprising. Even with her cruiser hijacked, she was remarkably confident.
Does she have something up her sleeve?
I knew she'd earned an ugly reputation — people calling her a queen bee and worse.
But even so, she was a ranker of Space Survival.
Unless she was someone impersonating the Rank 20 player, she was bound to be hiding a trump card.
Maybe I should keep her talking a little longer.
“Ha·ving·your·cruis·er·sto·len·and·still·so·proud.”
｢Hmph. That ship is nothing but a fraction of the power we hold.｣
“‘We’?”
What did her “we” mean?
It could have been referring to the Humanity Cartel, but that wasn't the nuance I got. Thanks to the Amorph's unique Super Sense, I could read a fair amount of the emotion carried in a voice.
That didn't sound like subordinates. It sounded like comrades.
Which meant another player — or something on par with one — was working alongside her.
Even as I turned that over in my head, she kept talking.
｢A mere sub-adult hunting this planet down deserves some credit, I'll admit. But that's where it ends. If you'd stayed quiet, I might have let it slide.｣
“Do·n't·mis·take·things. You're·the·one·who·shot·down·my·ship·first. Hard·ly·your·place·to·com·plain.”
｢How idiotic. You think I'd just leave an unidentified intruder alone? Besides, you're nothing but the weak right now. The weak have no right to protest to me.｣
Her words sounded childish, but they cut straight to the heart of this world.
Space Survival was a dystopia ruled by the logic of the strong devouring the weak — survival of the fittest, nothing more.
Further conversation is pointless.
Given her whole posturing about strength and weakness, negotiation was off the table.
If I wanted detailed information, I'd have to meet her in person and drag it out of her mouth myself. Fortunately, I had plenty of useful tools for making people tell the truth.
“Sounds·like·you've·fal·len·for·this·world.”
｢Ha. Live in this world long enough and everyone does. You know it too, don't you? What kind of place this is.｣
I was about to end the conversation there when she handed me a crucial clue.
Long enough?
I hadn't even been in this place half a year.
Granted, I'd spent nearly every single day since arriving doing something or other, so it had felt long. But not long enough to warrant that phrasing.
Muriel and I arrived at different times.
She had without question spent far longer in this world than I had.
Now that's interesting.
I had another reason to keep my grip on Muriel, whatever it took.
｢And another thing. You think I've just been chattering away at you mindlessly, don't you? All this pointless conversation?｣
“What's·that·sup·posed·to·mean?”
｢Do I look like an idiot to you? You think I left the cruiser with no preparations at all?｣
She spoke as if the very idea were laughable. As if she'd planted some kind of trick aboard the ship.
“You·don't·mean…a·bomb?”
｢Oh?｣
“You·Space·dogs·sure·do·love·your·bombs.”
The fang-worms I'd scattered throughout the ship before seizing the situation room had reported a hazard to me: remote-detonated bombs laid around the reactor.
They'd been installed with remarkable stealth, and there was no record of them in the ship's computer — which told me Muriel had laid them with the ship's theft in mind all along.
If I hadn't fought the Spacedogs aboard that research vessel, the bombs might never have occurred to me. Planting explosives in the very heart of a ship was a thought almost too perverse to imagine.
｢…Ha. It's true. That's Rank 5 for you, huh?｣
The bombs were already dead — I'd severed their wiring.
Perhaps she'd confirmed that fact herself, because Muriel let out an exclamation.
But the emotion seeping through her voice was nothing like what I'd expected.
It wasn't shock or dismay.
It was relief.
｢Clever, I'll give you that. But did you really think that was all I prepared?｣
｢Unknown energy flow detected in planetary orbit. Danger. All personnel evacuate immediately.｣
The instant Muriel finished speaking, an alarm blared through the situation room.
Orbit? Don't tell me—
｢It's a shame about the ship. But if it's bait thrown to catch a ranker, it's a bargain. Wouldn't you say?｣
I didn't hesitate. I got out of the situation room immediately.
There was only one thing an energy flow in orbit could mean.
Orbital bombardment.
A bombardment delivered by a fleet could be detected by the cruiser's ship AI. But she'd said unknown energy flow — whatever was firing right now was no spacecraft.
A Unique-grade weapon!
Among the Unique-grade weapons only the Cult could obtain, there was a satellite weapon designed to strike specific locations from orbit.
Its name was the Thunder God.
A satellite weapon that ran on its owner's psionic power as fuel, driving a colossal bolt of lightning down onto a target.
"Lightning" made it sound weak, but its destructive power exceeded a nuclear bomb. Once it struck the ground, everything in that region could be written off as destroyed.
It had the drawback of a fourteen-day cooldown per shot, but firing it before engaging a powerful enemy was a guaranteed advantage — which was why it had been one of the most popular pieces of equipment in the game.
An adult could tank it. Right now, I can't!
Even as a young adult, taking a direct hit from the Thunder God's lightning meant instant death.
I scrambled down through the hole I'd bored beneath the cruiser, burrowing toward the depths.
This isn't enough.
I was well over a hundred meters below the surface, but I couldn't afford to relax. The nest had filled in the hole I'd dug after I went underground, but this was nowhere near sufficient.
I hurriedly dug deeper, straight down.
When I'd sunk several hundred meters below the surface, the link to my fang fairies severed.
A heartbeat later, a violent tremor rolled down from above.
The Thunder God's lightning had struck the ground.
“Whew. What a sight.”
The Thunder God's lightning was so powerful it was visible even from far away from the cruiser. The bolt that had flown down from planetary orbit swept every last cloud from the night sky, leaving it perfectly clear.
In the region where the lightning had struck, a vast nuclear cloud surged upward — the cruiser's reactor had detonated.
Not even a jungle packed with redwoods hundreds of meters tall could withstand a catastrophe like this.
A colossal demon of fire swallowed the jungle whole, along with every creature that dwelled within it.
Watching countless lives wink out, Muriel clapped her hands in obvious delight.
“The Thunder God really is reliable. Its performance never disappoints.”
｢…….｣
Mother of the Sky gritted her teeth, watching the Thunder God in operation for the second time in her life.
This was not the first time the weapon had been fired on this planet. Muriel had used it when she captured Father of the Earth and Mother of the Sky.
Father of the Earth had been a Volf named entity with astonishingly high defense, but even he hadn't been able to endure the Thunder God's lightning.
Worse, he had shielded Mother of the Sky with his own body, covering her to take the bolt in her place.
Because of that, he'd been reduced to a hair's breadth from death in a single strike, and he was beheaded during the battle that followed.
“Heh heh. Even a Rank 5 couldn't possibly survive that lightning, right? I mean, what was his name again — Father of the Earth? Even he got wiped out by one shot of this thing.”
｢…….｣
“Well, safety first, as they say. I should see the corpse with my own eyes.”
Muriel called over a few of her underlings.
“Boys, go with Mother of the Sky here and check on it for me.”
｢…Don't make me laugh. You think I'd take orders from you?｣
“Hm? Isn't that obvious?”
With that breezy reply, Muriel unslung the short spear she'd been carrying on her back. Then, with an utterly indifferent expression, she ran a young male Volf through with it.
｢You—! Two years! For two years—!｣
“Do you have ‘family’ to throw away like that?”
｢I'll kill you! I'll tear you apart however it takes — I'll kill you!｣
“Oh my, how scary. But before you manage to kill me, I think these adorable little ones here will die first.”
｢…Grrk.｣
“If you want your family to live, you'd better listen to me. Rank 15.”
｢…Damn you.｣
Faced with Muriel's threat, Mother of the Sky had no choice but to bow her head once again.
Thought I was dead for a second there.
I'd managed to escape the Thunder God's radius, but that hardly meant I was perfectly safe.
The reactor explosion and the bombs — those two elements had combined into a monstrous inferno that penetrated deep into the tunnel I'd burrowed.
Thankfully, my carapace had hardened with my evolution into a young adult, letting me endure within that torrent of destructive energy.
And by pure fortune, the Thunder God's lightning shook the ground so violently that my tunnel collapsed, burying the heat that had been about to swallow my whole body — it couldn't pursue me any further.
I waited underground until the aftershocks of the explosion died down, then climbed back to the surface.
The land that had once been dense with redwoods and undergrowth had become nothing short of a desolate wasteland.
Where the cruiser had stood, to put it plainly, only sand remained, and the distant jungle still roared in the flames.
So this is what I've become.
I had devoured countless lives by now. Humans included among them.
And yet some corner of my heart had always harbored a certain thought — that since they weren't people living in the same world as me, it was fine.
Which might be why I'd approached Muriel so ambiguously, of all people — an actual human being.
Even knowing full well that she was the one who had threatened not just me, but No. 26 and Adhai as well.
That was how it had been.
But now, that hesitation had withered away completely.
Someone who drops lightning on people's heads? Killing her would count as self-defense, wouldn't it?
Crawling up out of the earth, I set off at speed toward the burning forest in the distance.
I couldn't tell whether the heat radiating from my body came from the nuclear aftershocks — or from my fury.
It didn't matter either way.
The Thunder God's cooldown is fourteen days.
Whether that had been her trump card, or whether she had something still hidden, I didn't know.
But it no longer mattered.
I won't kill her right away.
There was information I needed from her first.
Instead, I would teach her that there were things far more frightening than death.
With every strategy and every tool at my disposal.
Just how terrifying an enraged Amorph could be — she was about to find out.