Clues (3)
"C-Captain? Gaaahk!"
"E-Everyone, retreat!"
"H-Hiiiiiik!"
The cyborgs who had gathered in the combat information center at the captain's words froze at the sight of me, shrieking and recoiling in horror. Unlike some of the other cyborgs, these ones hadn't had their eyes modified, so they recognized what I was right away.
There are times when not knowing is the better deal, after all.
The cyborgs who laid eyes on me reacted in all sorts of different ways.
"S-Spare me, spare me, spare m—guhk!"
The first group lost their will to fight immediately. They dropped to their knees and prayed until their hands wore raw, and then I tore their heads off.
"Damn you, traitors of Star Union! I'll execute you pers—GYAAAAAH!"
The second group channeled their rage at the captain who had betrayed them. They charged at him, only to be sliced in half at the waist by one of the bone-blade arms jutting from my back.
And then there was the last group.
"Everyone, take cover!"
"We have to subdue it!"
A small minority kept their nerve and came at me head-on. They hid behind the computers and machinery of the combat information center and opened fire.
Pulses of depleted uranium rounds poured down over my body.
Each time they did, the outer skin beneath my fur — no, my scales — rippled like the surface of water, absorbing the impact of every shot.
Synthetic Scales: Your outer integument has been replaced with synthetic scales. By utilizing these scales, specific regions of the body can be hardened.
The entire outer skin covering my body had now been replaced by a layer of extremely fine scales, thanks to the new trait I'd acquired from devouring the Screamers: Synthetic Scales.
The true value of this trait lay in its ability to harden my body's weak points. When physical impact struck, the scales over the affected area rearranged themselves, temporarily boosting my defenses by a wide margin.
With this trait, I can protect my Monster's Tentacles and my auxiliary organs.
In my Avatar of the Hunt form, the auxiliary organs beneath my jaw were already shielded by a hardened carapace, but in my normal state they were completely exposed.
I advanced on the cyborgs, weathering the hail of bullets with my own body.
"F-Fuck! Nothing's working on this thi—kraak!"
"Fall back! RETREEEEAT!"
The cyborgs who had so bravely kept pouring fire even as I closed the distance were scythed down by the four bone blades beneath my jaw.
The moment the cyborgs realized their bullets were useless, they seized on the distraction of their dying comrades to bolt. My tail lashed out at the retreating backs of enemies who had turned to run.
"AAAAGH!"
The cyborg standing comparatively close was struck by my tail and sent flying, slamming into the wall. It was probably a mercy that his death had been painless.
"L-Let go of meeeeAAAAGH!"
The cyborg caught in the pincer claw at the tip of my tail writhed, then screamed as the claw began to close. This was the same pincer that had crushed the hardened metal skeletons of Screamers — a cyborg had no chance of resisting it.
The cyborg vomited up a mouthful of fluids laced with shredded viscera, and within seconds went limp, a corpse. I tossed the body aside casually and went after the ones still running.
"W-Wait, waitwaitwait — AAAAH!"
"H-Hiik, s-stop... urk! Khak, khak!"
Before the Avatar of the Hunt wore off, most of the cyborgs inside the ship's hull had been dealt with. All except a chosen few.
Because I need somewhere to plant my parasites.
The maximum limit of my Parasitic Colony, amplified by my Type effect, was ten hosts. One of them was already inside Mother of the Sky, so I left exactly nine survivors.
"Y-Yes... we... will follow... our new master."
On the blood-drenched deck of the combat information center, the parasite-dominated cyborgs knelt before me.
I had spared them for two reasons.
First, there were still plenty of androids and drones aboard this ship. These nine would serve to neutralize them. The kids and I could roam the ship smashing everything ourselves, but there was no reason to waste effort on things that wouldn't even yield Genetic Essence.
And second, they make decent insurance for when Star Union comes hunting.
To deceive any pursuit force, the captain and the ship's command staff had to remain alive. There was every chance the other side would try to verify the biosigns of this vessel's captain or senior crew.
That takes care of the groundwork for seizing the ship.
Perhaps because I was so much stronger than before, commandeering a warship hadn't taken long at all. Aside from the Screamers — an unexpectedly dangerous opponent — it had wrapped up without any real variables.
When you think about it, the Screamers actually gave me more than they took.
Setting aside the clue they provided about Star Union's players, I'd secured brand-new Genetic Essence out of it.
In the game, Screamers were classified as machines rather than living creatures, so they yielded no Genetic Essence at all.
But the improved Screamers on this ship were different. Built from Hulk Mutants as raw material, they had yielded several varieties of Genetic Essence.
Getting the Coldblood traits out of it was pure luck.
Coldbloods were a species built on a reptilian-humanoid base blended with beetle-type insect features. From their appearance alone you'd take them for an NPC race, but they were one of the playable species.
Despite their fearsome looks, they were highly intelligent, and their tragic lore gave them a genuine cult following among players.
In the lore, the Coldbloods had once competed with the Cult for dominion over the universe — and in the present timeline they were a completely fallen people. They had gained power in exchange for their pact with Vortex One, but the price was mortgaging the fate of their entire species.
Nowadays they've been reduced to cultist worshippers of Vortex One or slaves sold off to other races.
For players who chose the Coldblood, the goal became liberating and saving their groaning, suffering kindred.
Someone on the community forums once called it "the dinosaur version of Exodus."
Anyway, because of that lore, Coldbloods were scattered in small pockets across the universe. If your luck was bad, you might not see a single one until the late game, when free travel through space opened up.
So I'd assumed acquiring their traits would be something that happened much, much later.
That labor supply ship was crawling with Coldbloods too. No idea why, though.
Every internal-organ-related trait I'd acquired had come from Coldbloods.
Whether Coldblood genetics played some crucial role in Screamer development, or the labor supply ship I'd devoured just happened to be unusually packed with them, I couldn't say for certain.
Whatever the cause, the end result worked out in my favor.
Synthetic Scales, which could shield my weak points, and the Revenant Organ — a trump card for the decisive moment — were gifts I had never seen coming.
Though there were a few parts that left something to be desired.
I had swallowed several new traits along with the Screamers, but the rest had all been things I already possessed.
Hulk Mutants were usually synthesized from wildly different genetic stock, but these Screamers were not. Like mass-produced copies, they were all built from identical genes.
Maybe they were deliberately standardized, since they were meant to be Screamer material.
Identical genes meant identical appearance — and identical taste.
...Now that I think about it, my stomach turns a little.
The taste of the Hulk Mutants used as Screamer stock had been truly dreadful. Bad enough that I felt an involuntary urge to unhinge my jaw and claw the inside of my own mouth.
Going by everything I'd experienced so far, the more genetic combinations a creature carried, the better it tasted. Sihyeon Yujin had been that way, and so had the Edgerton family's knights.
This time, that formula had shattered.
It was revolting.
It was close to the taste from that one time I'd squeezed an entire fistful of toothpaste into my mouth and chased it with orange juice. To be precise, it was like that, with an extra pinch of salt on top.
I finally understood why Adhai had scrabbled at my tentacles with her forepaws back then. It was absolutely not a flavor anyone would crave on a regular basis.
Well, the calorie count itself was high, so I suppose that's something.
The taste had been terrible, but the energy packed into them was, in true Hulk Mutant fashion, absurdly dense. Even now I felt comfortably stuffed.
With fullness like this, I could probably end the Avatar of the Hunt and... oh. It's ending right now, actually.
Speak of the tiger and it appears.
Smoke began rising from my body as my physical structure started to shift. The effect of the Avatar of the Hunt was expiring.
My body, grown to roughly eight meters including the tail, shrank back to five. The lengthened fur contracted to match my reduced frame, and the bone-blade arms on my back withered away at a rapid pace.
Before long the bone-blade arms peeled off like dead keratin sloughing from skin and crumbled to dust. The same change overtook the bony carapace that had sheathed the auxiliary organs beneath my jaw.
The instant every transformation finished, I hurriedly began stuffing the cyborg corpses in the combat information center into my mouth — a preemptive measure against the hunger that always came knocking once the Avatar ended.
But something was off.
I'm... not that hungry?
It was true that the gnawing ran stronger than usual, but not strong enough to rob me of my reason. At this level, a few cyborg corpses should have settled it easily.
Is this the Clever Underdog's doing too?
Sure enough, once I'd polished off three corpses, the Avatar's side effects vanished on the spot. Perhaps befitting a special state specialized for survival, it also slashed my energy consumption to an extreme degree.
I'd thought it was a downside, cutting my combat power...
Being able to use the Avatar of the Hunt without worrying about the aftermath was a genuine merit. Beyond that, it seemed to synergize beautifully with traits that burned through stored energy in massive quantities.
Say, for instance, God's Whip.
God's Whip, acquired by devouring the Cult's orbital weapon known as the Thunder God, was the most powerful ranged attack I possessed.
Unlike the original, it carried no fourteen-day cooldown — but in exchange, its output dropped to two-thirds or below, and its energy consumption was enormous.
But what if I entered the Clever Underdog state first? I would be able to wield God's Whip far more freely than at any other time.
Sustained barrage might still be out of reach, but for someone as starved for ranged options as I was, it would be rain in a drought.
The only pity was that I couldn't run it that way in my normal state.
No use moping. I'll just acquire what I need later.
Having settled the Avatar's side effects, I rose to my feet. Right on cue, Mother of the Sky came into the combat information center with the kids in tow.
「You went on quite the rampage. How are the side effects treating you?」
[Zzzzt zzzzzt zzt zzzzzt (An unexpected windfall, honestly.)]
She had been hiding with the kids in a corner of the ship, braced for the possibility that I might go berserk.
I gave her a brief rundown of the Clever Underdog's effects, and she nodded with something like admiration.
「That's a genuinely good trait. The range of applications is no joke at all.」
[Zzzzt zzzzzt zzzzzzt zzt zzzzzzt (It patches up a lot of my weaknesses when it comes to infiltration.)]
「Perfect for backstabbing players, too. They'll never see it coming.」
She was right. As far as I knew, no trait in the game artificially altered the Amorph's size. If I didn't know about it, the odds were high that no one else did either.
My enemies had built themselves into powers capable of fielding entire fleets and orbital weapons. Since my strength alone wasn't yet enough to subdue them, infiltration and deception were the way to fight back.
While she and I were discussing my traits, Number 26 and Adhai came sidling over.
「Big Baby. You not eating any more?」
[Zzt zzzzzzt zzzzzt zzzt (I'm full. You two split the rest.)]
Number 26, having caught my wavelength, stretched a tentacle toward the corpses. Adhai started to follow suit, then paused, glanced at me, and came padding close instead.
[Zzt zzzt (What is it?)]
「Big Adult」「Before」「Different」
[Zzzzt zzzzzzzt (You mean I've changed from before?)]
「Before」「Ugly」「Now」「Charming」「Cannot understand」
Adhai flicked her tail back and forth as she fired off her thought-bursts, her gaze fixed on the scales beneath my fur.
「Now」「Good」
So it's the scales, huh.
Adhai called me magnificent often enough, but my actual appearance didn't have much in common with a Gallagon. The gliding membranes could hardly pass for wings, and the carapace and outer skin covering my body were a far cry from a Gallagon's scales.
With my skin now turned to scales, I'd apparently landed squarely on her tastes.
She studied me for a moment, nodded in evident satisfaction, and trotted off to Number 26's side.
Watching her go, Mother of the Sky couldn't resist a remark.
「My, my. Sparks are just flying off you two.」
Meeting her crescent-moon smile, I felt oddly self-conscious.
[Zzzzt zzt zzzzzzt zzt zzzzzzt zzzzt (Cut the chatter. Aren't you eating?)]
「You know cyborgs don't do anything for me. Better the kids eat their fill.」
Mother of the Sky, like me, could only grow by consuming the flesh of powerful foes. Her growth would likely stall until we reached the Dragon's Nest.
Not that it matters — I already cleared out all the troublesome ones.
With my review of the Clever Underdog trait more or less complete, it was time to move on to the next stage.
I dipped my head once to each of the kids as they ate, then stepped out of the combat information center.
The time had finally come to swallow Ship 98 whole.
"What on earth is that supposed to be?"
"Which part?"
"The Cult, madam! There is a mountain of preparation to be done for the great cause, and instead of listening to anyone sensible, we are off treasure-hunting on the word of some nobody!"
Minseok Eugene, butler to Sihyeon Yujin, could not stand the sight of his master lounging there with such composure.
Ever since the failed assassination of Akira Yujin, everything about Sihyeon Yujin's course of action had struck him as incomprehensible.
Every hour counted — she should be wooing the Yujin family elders still remaining on Earth and building an anti-Akira bloc. Instead, here they were, drifting aimlessly through open space as if on holiday.
Akira Yujin had never been one for public activity in the first place. Aside from the duties strictly required of a CEO, he spent nearly all his time on Earth.
The very reason they had staked everything on the plan to destroy the T&C Special Trade Hub was that he had, for once, left his lair.
"The civil war broke out at the perfect moment — the assassination plan practically fell into our laps! And yet you insist it cannot be done!"
"I believe I already told you: with the power we possess right now, eliminating Akira is not possible."
Sihyeon Yujin said it as if discussing the weather. Every time Minseok protested, she gave him the exact same answer.
Killing Akira is impossible.
She had infiltrated the Yujin family's flagship with her own hands to carry out the assassination. Up to that point, Minseok could believe her — she had even brought back Code Blue's daggers as proof.
What came after was the problem.
"You are still claiming that Akira subdued a Shadow? That is impossible!"
As Sihyeon's closest confidant, Minseok knew exactly how much power a Shadow wielded. And he knew just how formidable a fully-prepared Sihyeon was as well.
Which was precisely why he could not bring himself to believe that she had been overpowered by Akira and escaped by the skin of her teeth.
"I cannot accept it. The more I think on it, the more certain I am that there is some reason you are keeping from me."
At his continued disbelief, Sihyeon's eyes narrowed to slits.
"I am your master. Surely you haven't forgotten that fact?"
"......"
Minseok shut his mouth. At the sight, Sihyeon shot up from her seat.
He flinched at the sudden movement, but he did not look away.
"I will ask you one final time. Answer with care."
"......"
His hand started toward his trouser pocket — for the barest fraction of a second — before stopping. Sihyeon did not miss it.
"Minseok Eugene. Whom do you serve?"
"...The rightful heir of the Eugene family, Sihyeon Yujin."
I am loyal to the rightful heir of the Eugene family, Sihyeon Yujin.
On its face, it sounded like an oath of submission. But Sihyeon caught it — he had chosen his words for their double meaning, quite deliberately.
And no wonder: she was Sihyeon Yujin, and at the same time, she was not Sihyeon Yujin.
In other words, Minseok was declaring that his loyalty belonged to the original Sihyeon Yujin — not to the copy standing before him.
Sihyeon read the implication perfectly, and chose not to call it out. No — to be precise, she could not call it out.
"Return to your post. I have work to do."
"...Yes, madam."
Minseok seemed to have decided today was not his day, for he raised no further objection. He offered a perfunctory bow and turned to leave the office.
Hand on the door handle, he murmured something under his breath.
"...And keeping a rival close at her side, on top of it all. What is she thinking. Tch."
Once Minseok was gone and she was alone, Sihyeon dropped heavily back into her chair and muttered at the empty air.
"A pathetic display, that was."
At her words, the metal suit standing in the corner of the office stirred. Its design was a grotesque marriage of powered armor and walker — a bizarre silhouette standing a full two and a half meters tall, colored the deep black of the void beyond a spaceship's hull.
Moreover, the suit enclosed its occupant head to toe in the manner of the powered armor worn by Edgerton's Silver Lion Knights. Resembling less a person than a Star Union android, it spoke in a voice threaded with mechanical static.
「Not at all. It was more instructive than you'd think. I gathered a great deal of information I didn't previously have.」
"What charming tastes you have, Layla Chamberlain."
The identity of the figure in the black metal suit was Layla Chamberlain — once the General Manager of the T&C Special Trade Hub.
"You seem to have plenty of leisure for information-gathering. The suit must be fairly comfortable inside."
「Oh, it is. No sleeping, no eating, nothing required of me at all. You can't imagine how nice that is.」
An inorganic voice, starkly at odds with her casual tone. Her vocal cords had been destroyed beyond repair; without mechanical assistance, speech itself was impossible for her now.
Infected with a virus so lethal that not even genetic modification could undo the damage, she could not survive more than a few seconds without that life-support suit.
And it was Sihyeon who had provided her the suit — which meant Sihyeon effectively held Layla's lifeline in her hand.
"That was a slip of the tongue on my part."
And yet Sihyeon bowed her head. Watching this, Layla let out a sound of intrigue and pressed on.
「You are more interesting than you look, you know.」
"Meaning what, exactly?"
「From what I understand, everyone who undergoes the Shadow procedure ends up a lunatic of one flavor or another. Bloodthirsty slaughterers, warmongers, extreme obsessive-compulsives, and so on. You, of course, are no exception.」
"How flattering."
「The way I see it... you're less like Noble Capital than even Akira Yujin. The way you handled your butler just now, the way you treat me — all of it.」
"I did what was necessary. When I want something, I take it by whatever means required. Isn't that the operating principle of the Noble Capital?"
「Hm. If you say so.」
Layla plainly didn't believe her, but Sihyeon meant every word. Inside her, a goal she could confess to no one was growing with startling speed.
A goal that belonged to her alone — not to Sihyeon Yujin the original, and not to Minseok.
But this was not the place for that conversation. Sihyeon changed the subject.
"More to the point, you came here for a reason, didn't you?"
「Ah. Nearly forgot.」
Layla opened the backpack mounted on her suit and drew out a white mechanical device. It was a drone, half-destroyed and clearly beyond function.
「I found it while scouting outside. It was mixed in with an asteroid cloud, on the verge of falling apart, so I fished it out.」
"This is Star Union hardware. Why would it be out here?"
Reading the small number etched into the drone's hull — 98 — Sihyeon was seized by a strange feeling she couldn't name.
A powerful premonition told her that something critically important was stored inside that machine.
"Are there any other drones besides this one?"
「The asteroid cloud appears to have destroyed the rest.」
"I'll need to check whether the data has been corrupted."
「Is that wise?」
"There may be valuable information inside."
She pulled a cable from her office desk and connected it to the drone.
At once, broken fragments of holograms burst to life above the desk in a chaotic swarm.
"!"
「Th-this is—!」
And when the two of them saw what the data contained, they could do nothing but stare in shock.