Beast of Psyguil 08 (3)
A pungent smell woke me.
The moment I opened my eyes, what hit me was the stench of harsh chemicals — so caustic that the auxiliary organ beneath my jaw began to ache.
Where am I?
The first thing I saw was a forest of tubes. Hundreds — no, thousands — of green glass cylinders lined the interior of a dark cavern, arrayed like pipes in some vast organ.
It looked less like a research facility and more like an ancient catacomb.
Why am I here?
When I'd evolved from Juvenile to Sub-adult, and again from Sub-adult to Young Adult, I had experienced visions. The first was a confrontation with Amorph; the second, a confrontation with memories of my childhood.
They were different kinds of visions, but both were built from things I had seen before, elements drawn from my own memory. This place, however, was a space I had never visited — not in reality, not in the game.
And this never happened during Transcendence before, either.
Was Transcendence Stage 2 somehow different from Stage 1? Was the hallucination, like during evolution, a sign that it was fostering my growth in some way?
...I don't recognize this place, but it might hold an important clue.
There was still plenty of time before the Transcendence completed, so I moved toward the nearest glass tube.
It was filled to the brim with a thick, green chemical solution. The liquid was so murky I couldn't see a thing inside it — but my auxiliary organ's judgment was different.
Something was in that fluid.
I drew my face close to the tube.
The moment my slender auxiliary organ was about to touch its surface—
The cavern I stood in transformed into a white void in an instant. The glass tube in front of me shattered and vanished in the blink of an eye.
The colorless white space shifted again just as quickly, this time into the interior of a hospital. The caustic chemicals were gone, replaced by the familiar smell of antiseptic, and I could hear the steady beeping of life-support machines weighing a patient's life in the balance.
I knew where this was. But what concerned me more was what I'd seen a moment ago.
What was that just now?
In the instant before the tube vanished, the object inside it had been briefly exposed.
It was the offspring of some creature. The juvenile of a living thing that seemed strangely familiar.
"If you hadn't taken it that day, none of this would have happened!"
A shout rang out, as if to wipe the thought from my mind.
In the corridor outside the hospital room, two adults with blurred, unrecognizable faces were arguing.
"And you think that's something you get to say to me? Do you have any idea who's paying these treatment bills?"
"Oh, please. Treatment bills? You've never cared about the child at all."
"What did you say?"
"You play the doting parent in front of the cameras, but when was the last time you so much as held the kid at home?"
Their conversation was a script I'd heard until I was sick of it as a child. They always fought with the exact same lines.
But there was something more important than that right now.
The specimen I'd just seen — it had unmistakably resembled an Amorph Hatchling.
Not exactly the same, though.
The number of arms, the presence or absence of the auxiliary organ — it differed greatly from the Amorph I knew. That creature's arms were even less developed than an Amorph Hatchling's, and it had no auxiliary organ beneath its jaw at all.
I was still turning the creature over in my mind when the door of the hospital room in front of me swung halfway open. Beyond it stood a child.
A child wrapped tightly in bandages from head to face. At the sight, it suddenly came back to me.
Ah. So this was that day.
The vision I was witnessing now was one of the turning points of my life.
The moment I recalled that fact, I could no longer follow the thread of thought about the creature in the tube.
This was the day I learned I had gone from being a family's precious gift to being a burden.
Seeing a nurse walking up the corridor, the child closed the door.
Unconsciously, I reached out my hand toward the doorknob. The instant my fingers made contact, my mind plunged into darkness once more.
Somewhere in the forests of the Saintopia 02 continent.
This place was packed with redwoods so colossal they would not have been outshone by skyscrapers or towers, and even at high noon the forest lay in deep gloom. The dense canopy of branches and leaves swallowed the light before it could reach the ground.
At the heart of that dark forest stood a formation of figures.
Ten in total. Every one of them wore a full-body reinforced suit, and over it a poncho bearing a distinctive insignia.
The emblem — a purple diamond set within an ivory inverted triangle — was the symbol of the Cult race's army: the Warband.
True to their name, they carried every manner of weapon. Cold steel like axes, blades, mauls, and spears; ranged firearms such as bows, rifles, and net guns; and even defensive and support equipment — alloy shields, shield activators, and medical kits.
A Cult warband is always prepared, thoroughly and without exception, to handle any enemy it might face. They were deliberately over-armed so that no matter what menace they encountered, they could respond with ease.
"Warband Leader Rays here. What's your status?"
「Edrin here. The village has been burned to the ground completely. No survivors.」
"Again? What in the world is going on? What about the other villages?"
「Olai here. We checked with Memory Sight and came up with nothing.」
This warband, attached to the Imperial Mothership Judge of Damos 08, had descended to Psyguil 08 ahead of schedule on a secret order from its captain.
The order was to capture and bring back Wolf natives before the Cleansing operation commenced. Yet several hours had already passed since they arrived on this continent where the Wolves dwelled, and they had not found a single one.
「Could they have sensed our arrival?」
"Impossible. A primitive race cannot detect an Imperial Mothership's superluminal voyage."
「Could it be those monkey structures drifting outside Psyguil 08?」
"There's no confirmed intelligence linking Mega Corp activity to this planet's Wolves. The cause remains unknown, so don't jump to conclusions."
「Yes, sir!」
"We have time to spare, so Edrin, Olai — keep up the search, both of you."
「Understood, Warband Leader.」
「Yes, sir.」
"The fleet bombardment begins in six hours. Keep searching until two hours remain; if you find nothing, return."
Warband Leader Rays pressed the button on his helmet and severed the telepathic link. The helmet he wore differed considerably from the reinforced-suit headgear used by primitive races.
It protected the full front of the face like theirs did, but since the Cult bore horns on their heads, there were gaps at the temples.
The helmet also carried built-in shield and telepathy functions. Thanks to the devices inside, he could communicate with allies at great distances without any dedicated comm equipment.
Its one drawback was the heavy mental strain — the telepathy function couldn't be left running constantly.
As he cut the transmission, Deputy Chief Warrior Ashen stepped up beside him.
"Warband Leader. You still haven't found any?"
"It makes no sense. It's as though someone swept every Wolf off the continent. Why would anyone do that?"
At first Rays had wondered about pirates, but he judged the possibility slim.
Wolf slaves weren't expensive enough to be worth a pirate's while. On the more habitable of the Cult's many planets, they could be acquired easily and cheaply.
Unless this planet's Wolves were somehow special, capturing other creatures would bring far greater profit.
Rare predators, for instance — like the Gel Arma that dwelled in the Great Swamplands, or the horned king Manuk Arma of the volcanic zones.
Incidentally, the Manuk Arma — what humans called Horned Gigants — were alive and thriving. Rays and his warband had confirmed it themselves before entering this forest, paying a visit to a Wolf village near the creatures' habitat.
"Even our captain, who despises slavery, orders us to bring back Wolves, and the natives have vanished without a trace. I suppose the Wolves around here must be rather tasty."
At her off-color joke, laughter leaked out from the helmets of the warriors standing nearby.
Rays frowned.
"Deputy Chief Warrior Ashen. That remark borders on blasphemy against our captain and a denial of the Cult's Providence. Compose yourself."
"F-forgive me!"
At Rays's cold words, Ashen quickly bowed her head. The other warriors followed her lead and cut their laughter short at once.
Watching them, Rays clicked his tongue.
"Chattering away like that — you've all rested quite enough. We're moving out."
"Yes, sir!"
Sensing their superior's foul mood, the warband members snatched up their equipment and rose in an instant. The sight of them moving in perfect order was the very image of highly trained soldiers.
Yet even looking at his well-drilled subordinates did nothing to lift Rays's spirits.
He knew why the captain of the Imperial Mothership had bent his own convictions to send them to this planet. The captain intended to prepare gifts — to curry favor with the Cult's powerful, securing a future for his men.
And these green young warriors, ignorant of their captain's noble intentions, were busy cracking jokes. Rays could barely contain his exasperation.
Once we return, I'll drill them from the ground up.
While Rays contemplated how to work his subordinates, the warband pressed deeper and deeper into the forest.
Now and then Wood Devils or Nightstalkers lunged at them, but the warband members showed not a flicker of panic.
They were professionals of combat, soldiers of a proper regular army. Unless it was a predator on the level of a Manuk Arma, no living thing on this continent could threaten them.
Besides, their vision was linked through the psychic technique called Soul Link, so even ambushes found no purchase.
And so the warband under Rays roamed the forest in search of the Wolves hiding somewhere within it.
Perhaps thirty minutes had passed since they resumed their march. Leading from the front, Rays combed meticulously through crevices in the rocks and between branches, determined not to overlook even the smallest trace.
It was then that something out of place caught his eye.
Between the thick trunks, he glimpsed what looked like a pink balloon. He activated the psychic technique Clairvoyance to examine it more closely, but by the time the technique was ready, the balloon was gone.
"Warband Leader?"
All ten of them present were sharing their vision through Soul Link. Rays was about to ask his subordinates about what he'd seen—
That was the moment.
"Ghhk—?!"
"Uuugghh!"
Rays and the warband members clutched their helmets against a sudden, thunderous noise. It lasted only an instant, but it was so deafening and so dread-laden that hearing it made consciousness itself waver. One warrior collapsed to his knees, dizzy from it.
Seeing their state, Rays issued orders immediately.
"All personnel authorized to use your kits! That noise may have affected your minds — administer the treatment agents and psychic suppressants now!"
At the command, the warband members hurriedly opened the medical kits at their chests and drew out injectors. Rays did the same, jabbing one into his thigh like the rest.
"What was that?"
"...Unknown. Deputy Chief Warrior Ashen. Check the men for abnormalities."
"Yes, Warband Leader."
They held position for about five minutes. A few of the warriors were bleeding from their eyes and ears, but beyond that there were no particular injuries.
"The enemy could appear at any moment. Check everything thoroughly — miss nothing, however small."
"Understood!"
The warband gripped their weapons and assumed the highest state of alert. Far tenser than before, they moved through the forest with careful, deliberate steps.
Perhaps five minutes after they set out again, Rays noticed something strange.
...It's too quiet.
Until the noise incident, there had been the occasional Wood Devil attack, the cries of birds, some rustle of life.
Now there was nothing at all. As though the entire forest had died.
Only the footsteps and breathing of the warband members here filled the air.
Rays was not the only one having such thoughts. Unease was threaded through the other warriors' breathing as well.
As an unnameable dread slowly ate away at the warband, one warrior abruptly opened fire with the purple spray-gun he carried.
Thanks to Soul Link's shared vision, Rays could see what his subordinate was aiming at. The man's target was a single tree several dozen meters away.
And there was nothing on the tree.
"Hold! Cease fire!"
Rays bellowed the order. His subordinate, who had been blindly unleashing psychic flame at an invisible target, came to his senses only upon hearing it.
"What in the world did you see? There's nothing there!"
"I-it, it was... th-there..."
Pressed by Rays, the warrior could only stammer, unable to get the words out. Noticing something was deeply wrong with the man, Rays pulled off his helmet.
Inside was the face of a Cultist terrified out of his wits, like a frightened child.
"Th-there was a monster! C-countless eyes were staring right at me!"
"Eyes? What eyes?"
"Pink ones — they're, they're still— eep?!"
Rays questioned him again, but the warrior only kept repeating the words eyes and pink.
Left with no choice, Rays took a sedative from the man's kit and forced the injection into him.
This sedative, developed by the Cult, was extremely effective at calming soldiers who fell into panic mid-battle. The warrior's vision grew hazy, and the trembling of his body stopped.
Even under the powerful sedative, however, a shadow still clung to his face.
"Calm now?"
"...Yes."
"What did you see just now?"
At the question, the warrior shuddered again — though he no longer fell into complete panic as before. Trembling with fear, he nevertheless forced himself to convey what he knew.
"Y-you won't believe me, but... there was a monster shaped like a balloon."
"A balloon?"
"At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks. But then countless eyes suddenly sprouted from its body, and it just... stared at me."
A monster shaped like a balloon.
Rays thought of the thing he'd glimpsed just before that ear-splitting noise had erupted.
Could it be?
"I'm checking everyone's vision! The rest of you, stay on your gua—huh?"
As Rays swept the warband members' vision through Soul Link once more, he realized one was missing.
There were ten present, counting himself. But the vision streams now showing through the link numbered only eight.
"Koshei? Koshei, where are you?"
"She, she was right behind me... huh? Sh-she was there just a second ago!"
The warrior guarding the rear flailed in confusion as he realized the comrade who should have been behind him had vanished.
While every eye was fixed on the man whose mind was unraveling, another one of them disappeared.
"...Ashen. Contact the Mothership."
"Sir?"
"Tell them Rays's warband is under attack."
"Y-yes, sir!"
Rays had been right.
Somewhere in the forest, unknown beasts lay hidden.
And their offensive had already begun.