Crossroads (1)
The Port District of the T&C Special Trade Hub.
A blast door ground open, and a single spacecraft glided smoothly through into the city below.
Printed across the hull of the ship as it settled onto the dock was the Möbius strip — the emblem of the Yujin family.
The moment the ship's hatch hissed open, crew members clutching metal hard cases disembarked at a brisk pace.
"We're short on time. Move quickly."
"Yes, sir! Master Minseok!"
The East Asian man directing the crew was Minseok Eugene — once a servant of Jungwoo Yujin, and now the butler of Sihyeon Yujin.
At Minseok's command, the servants attending Sihyeon Yujin moved with drilled precision, opening the hard cases and beginning to assemble the components inside.
"My lady."
While his subordinates set to work, Minseok bowed his head to the woman who had disembarked last.
Clad in a pure white bodysuit, she was the master of everyone gathered here — Sihyeon Yujin.
"Once the assembly is complete, we will depart immediately — well within five minutes."
…….
Sihyeon gave no answer, sweeping her gaze across her surroundings.
'Something is wrong here.'
The Port District was crowded with warships and vessels whose crews had come to attend the Board of Directors Meeting, yet people were almost nowhere to be seen.
Even the androids that appeared now and then were far from ordinary. Three arms apiece — combat models, clearly — and yet they were performing work that should have belonged to ordinary laborers.
'Some catastrophe I know nothing about has struck this city.'
Considering how pervasive anti-android sentiment was throughout Megacorp, machines moving on this scale in place of people was anything but normal.
'If manpower has fallen this short, there are only two possibilities. Either a catastrophe of staggering scale produced horrific casualties, or...'
The outbreak of an unidentified plague.
Before coming here, she had learned through the media that the Edgerton Knights had been involved in some unsavory affair.
'Still, destruction on that scale by the Silver Lion Knights is unlikely.'
She herself was Shadow-born, and she knew well that House Edgerton's Silver Lion Knights were composed of gene-modded humans.
Powerful as they were, they were not numerous enough to gut a space city's population to this degree. Short-handed as they were, they would lose to the ground forces of the planetary defense fleet.
And besides, the media had said nothing about mass killing. The Zhao family were sworn rivals of House Edgerton — if Edgerton knights had massacred civilians in large numbers, they would never have let it pass in silence.
Which left only one answer.
"Pass the word to everyone. Activate reinforced suits and put on masks."
"Pardon?"
"There's a plague going around."
Judging by the fact that her White Maiden had shown no reaction whatsoever, this was not a disease that traveled through the air. But the people here were about to make unavoidable contact with certain individuals for the sake of the mission — so if they wished to avoid infection, the preparations had to begin now.
At Minseok's order, the servants who had been mid-task powered on their reinforced suits and donned their masks in unison.
'Did some other faction carry out a terror attack, then?'
It wasn't that she lacked suspects, but every one of them stood far removed from the sort of terrorist who would wield biological weapons.
'Akira Yujin is still in this city.'
The Yujin family were grandmasters of gene manipulation and bioengineering, and as such had considerable expertise in biochemical weapons built on viruses. If the head of such a family was unaware that a plague was spreading through his own city, then this virus was no ordinary danger.
'Or perhaps he knows — and chooses silence.'
That crafty old fox was more than capable of it. Pressuring the General Manager mentally through the Board of Directors, ensuring no attention could be spared for the city. Of course, a man who treasured his own life above all else would surely have taken pains to keep himself virus-free.
"It is finished."
Minseok's voice broke into her thoughts. By the time she looked down, an intricate machine assembled by her servants sat before her.
It was a Gremlin Torpedo manufactured by Star Union, converted by Sihyeon's servants into a time bomb.
The Gremlin Torpedo was originally designed to disable rival factions' warships: upon detonation, the nanomachines within burst free and devoured every scrap of metal in the vicinity. Sihyeon's subordinates had modified it so that a far greater number of nanomachines could spread across a vastly wider area.
"Good work. Then let's move."
From here, they would carry this bomb to the heart of the city — the Underground Reactor.
'Hm?'
As she moved with her subordinates, Sihyeon sensed a strange current of psionic power.
'Cult? No. That is...'
Deep within the city, a profoundly alien psionic power had flared for an instant — then vanished.
'No way?'
"My lady?"
When Sihyeon stopped in her tracks, Minseok called out to her.
She looked back and forth between the bomb and the city's center.
On one side lay Sihyeon Yujin's long-cherished wish — a golden opportunity to eliminate Akira Yujin and purge the Yujin family's enemies in a single stroke. On the other...
"My lady, you must move. Now."
…….
It was a choice she should never have wavered on. She was Sihyeon Yujin, after all.
The woman who had stood in silence finally made her decision.
"...There was something I needed to think about. Let's go."
As she walked, she cast one last glance toward the heart of the city.
'I can't be certain it was him. And even if it was, there's no way he survives a collapsing space city.'
The 'thing' that had killed her would be buried along with the falling city.
'...And if it survives anyway.'
Then she would tear loose the very chains that bound her, with her own hands.
Having fired Psychic Breath twice in quick succession, I barely managed to hold on to my fading consciousness.
Even a blast rivaling a White Gallagon's breath had struck home, and still the Necrofector had not gone down.
"I... I am the most migh—"
Its outer skin flayed away entirely, leaving nothing but bare bone and muscle, it staggered a few steps and collapsed. Its heartbeat slowed, and slowed, and then stopped. The Black Shroud wrapped around its body reverted to the shape of ordinary black mourning garb.
'Whew.'
I had been tending to my auxiliary organs, and only after its death was confirmed did I finally allow myself to relax.
'A terrifying enemy.'
Alone, I could never have won. 'No. 26 was a huge help.' Adhai, too, who had gone to face Code Red in my stead, had done her part.
I looked at No. 26. She hadn't loosened her guard for an instant, watching in case the corpse of Black rose again. Feeling my gaze, she sent a worried ripple asking if I was all right.
[Bzzt bzz bzzt (I'm fine. Are you?)]
｢I'm fine. Wounds like these heal quickly.｣
As always, she worried about me before herself. I was about to send a ripple of thanks when I felt my body change.
'Hunter's Avatar has ended.'
Relief that it hadn't run out before I killed Black, and disappointment that it ended before I could eat the corpse — both at once.
'Still, if I could get even one of Black's genes, it'd be a... huh?'
My thought never finished. An instinct of overwhelming intensity had seized my mind completely.
'Wh-what is this?'
A monstrous hunger, maddening enough to drive me out of my mind, slammed into my brain. I'd been through it a few times and thought myself used to it, but this was on another level entirely.
'Could it be the fatigue and side effects of Psychic Breath...'
Suddenly, everything seemed pointless. I was simply hungry.
｢Big Baby! Eat, quickly!｣
Someone beside me was speaking, but I couldn't tell who. A strange sensation — and yet the voice carried a smell that whipped my appetite into a frenzy. And true to my expectations, fragrant meat appeared before me. I swallowed the hunk of flesh in one gulp.
'Not enough.'
Text boxes floated up before my eyes, squawking something or other — I had no idea what they said. More to the point, I was starving. Why did I have to hunger like this?
'If you need something, take it.'
Words I'd heard since I was a child. If there was something you needed, you took it. That was the life of a winner.
｢■■■, ■■ ■■ ■■■■■!｣
'There's food right there.'
That chattering voice. If I ate it, this dreadful hunger would surely fade. The moment I thought that, more food appeared before me. Compared to the last, the smell was wrong — wrong enough that even starving, I didn't want it.
'Shut up and eat.'
Childhood flickered through my mind. If you don't eat now, you'll never eat again. You must eat. No matter what. I forced the foul-tasting food down, gagging it in mouthful after mouthful.
My stomach was somewhat full now, and my mind swayed in and out of focus. Eat all of it, right now. No — what am I... no. Still not enough. Wait a moment. Wait! I can't wait!
'A delicacy, wafting a wonderful scent, right in front of me.'
No. Wait.
I didn't know why the thought came, but that delicacy had thorns. That delicacy must not be eaten. No — it must be eaten. Eat it, and I would gain the essence I desired. That one must not be eaten. There was no time to wait.
I lunged at the delicacy. Its intoxicatingly delectable aroma tickled my auxiliary organs.
'Thorns, my ass.'
There were no thorns after all.
｢■■■■, ■■ ■■!｣
She was being so loud the back of my head itched. No — what nonsense, since when does prey have a mouth? Stop it, all of it. It's all in my head.
'Time to eat.'
I began to open my mouth — and stopped. She was telling me to eat?
'Time to eat!'
No. She was...
｢■■■, it's okay.｣
The ripple she sent flowed along the tentacle behind my head. An intangible signal reached my brain, and its meaning was parsed.
'Eat quickly!'
I shut my mouth. A single tentacle rising from her body stroked my jaw. And then my auxiliary organ and her tentacle gently entwined.
The moment they did, I felt something like a tiny spark leap from the tip of the organ. At the same instant, a text box flared up before my eyes, blazing with light. Those two lights awakened me to a fact of tremendous importance.
Humanity
'No. 26?'
The instant I realized what — who — I was pinning down, the world snapped into brightness. The fog banking my mind blew away at once, and sensation of my own body came flooding back.
My stomach ached badly enough to cramp, but it was no longer the ravenous void that had stolen my mind moments ago. I relaxed the grip of the hand holding No. 26.
'How did this happen?'
What I had just done was far beyond anything my own will had sanctioned.
'Was it the fatigue of Psychic Breath stacked on the side effects of Hunter's Avatar?'
Psychic Breath drains the spirit to its very limit. When I fought at the apartment complex, I blacked out after using it. Thanks to Perfect Organism and the Psionic Enhancement Type effects, my limit had risen to two uses — and ordinarily I should have passed out after firing twice in a row, yet the trait and type effects had kept me conscious.
But the fatigue from two Psychic Breaths and the loss-of-reason side effect of Hunter's Avatar had overlapped, and the synergy had turned vicious. The mental damage was incomparably worse than usual — no, to be precise, it wasn't merely worse; my instinct had consumed me whole.
'Good grief. Never again.'
The double-stacked side effects of two traits had produced something far graver than I could have imagined.
｢Big Baby?｣
No. 26 called to me — she must have decided I'd come back to myself. I had very nearly devoured her, without any will of my own at all. I apologized to her at once.
｢I'm fine!｣
[Bzzzzt bzzzzzzt (I just went insane back there. I'm so sorry.)]
｢No need to apologize. As long as Big Baby is all right, that's enough.｣
She rippled her body with light as if to say everything was fine, but I examined her form thoroughly all the same.
The one mercy was that I hadn't attacked her. If I had actually struck out to devour her, things would have been far, far worse. 'No. 26 has no healing ability.' Unlike me, her injuries took a long time to mend. A critical wound, and it would simply be over.
I checked her over again and again, but aside from the wounds she'd taken fighting Black, I could find no new injuries on her body. A few of her tentacles were smeared with blood and gave me a fright, but sensing their scent, I found it wasn't hers — it was Cult blood.
'So after Black, she gathered up the Cult corpses lying around these ruins and fed them to me.'
She had done everything in her power to put me back to rights. As gratitude and some unnameable emotion welled up in me, I suddenly remembered the cluster of text boxes that had hung in the air. I looked at them, and one among them glowed brighter than all the rest.
It was the Humanity trait — the one I'd acquired long ago by devouring a pirate. A trait I'd dismissed as useless all this time had played the decisive role at the critical moment. Though exactly what had acted as the catalyst, I couldn't say.
'It definitely activated when I made contact with No. 26's tentacle.'
Trying to recreate the moment, I reached to touch her tentacle again.
｢Big Baby, Little Baby is coming over there.｣
[Bzzt (Hm?)]
No. 26 slipped her tentacle away and pointed at the sky.
Just as she said, Adhai was flying toward us.
'Oh no.'
With several patrol ships hot on her tail, no less.