The Three of Us (3): Free Fall
I swung the Caliper of Wisdom, detonating every last phron I had painstakingly stockpiled. A heavy thud rang out as the monster’s belly caved inward. It shrieked in a grotesque register and tumbled sideways.
“How dare you lay a hand on Rustila?”
Rustila could not be allowed to die. Without her talent, the universe was finished. Fortunately she was still breathing.
“Idel!”
“Are you all right?”
“This isn’t the time to worry about me!”
I knew that. I leaned my full weight onto the caliper. Against the creature’s bulk the force was laughably small, but I was aiming for something else entirely.
The Caliper of Wisdom was an instrument personally forged by the Outer God Cartesia. Its first function was to measure distances down to the subatomic scale; its second was to inflict direct damage on conscious entities.
“Kiiieeeek!”
No matter how thick the hide or vast the health pool, it dealt physical harm. Yet that alone was insufficient. I offered the spent phrons as payment and requested a follow-up strike from Cartesia.
Outer Deities gathered in legions, and relations between different legions were abysmal. The beast we faced belonged to the Maxwell faction. Cartesia, by contrast, was a Descartes-type. We were simply the shrimp profiting from a whale war.
The collateral knocked Zernya unconscious in a froth of foam, but she would be fine. I was certain of it.
I wrenched the caliper backward. The abdomen split open; eyeballs spilled out like ruptured organs.
I did not stop. I drove the outer jaws deeper. A nicotine-like sludge gushed out in squid-ink bursts.
A Descartes-type Outer God’s skill destroyed the mind rather than the body. The target need not be human. Any structure possessing neurons or their equivalent could be manipulated. Intelligence capable of dialogue was, of course, unconditionally vulnerable.
The Lenaniai’s cranial region began melting like lava.
First its language centers were obliterated.
“Grk… khk.”
Then its very mode of thought collapsed.
Thud. Thud.
In the end the neural circuitry was ruined so thoroughly that even the simplest stimulus-response loops became impossible. The body was visibly melting despite the purely mental assault.
The instant its movements dulled I recalled the caliper. All that remained was to save Rustila and Zernya.
I reached first for Rustila in the distance.
“Rustila!”
Our hands locked. I yanked her into my arms, then pulled the unconscious Zernya close as well. Thanks to the doctor’s petite frame, cradling both girls at once was manageable.
“Idel, wait—!”
That was when the lifeless monster toppled. Not in any random direction—directly toward the cliff.
“……Ah.”
The sickening sensation of weightlessness. One wrong move and we were dead. I understood that perfectly.
I kicked off the monster’s hide, flailing for solid ground. Land. Dirt. We had to get back atop the cliff. The slightest error and all three of us would die.
My heart felt leaden. The harder I struggled, the more powerless I became. Our center of mass had already crossed the edge; gravity was claiming us.
In one final act of desperation I summoned the caliper again.
— No phron remaining.
— No phron remaining.
— No phron remaining.
— No phron remaining!
— I said there’s no phron left!
AHAHAHAHAHA—!!
“Damn it…”
“…Idel! Clench your teeth and pull your chin down!”
“What?”
“Hurry—!!”
I bit down hard and tucked my chin exactly as Rustila ordered. She had adopted the same posture. Our last desperate struggle had failed. We were now in free fall.
One second. Two. Three.
We kept falling.
Four. Five. Six.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
Sudden regret washed over me.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
Everything was the result of my own arrogance. A mistake. There must have been a better way, a smarter method. The hubris of thinking I knew the original story had driven me straight into a trap. I was no web-novel protagonist; I was merely an ordinary human.
Ah. If only I could have at least earned that doctorate…
With that final thought, my vision went black.
— You have defeated the S-rank monster ‘Lenaniai’ by using the Caliper of Wisdom!
— Acquired 25,000 phrons as reward!
Nine B-rank inspectors dead. Three A-rank inspectors dead. In addition, roughly forty hired security personnel and bodyguards sustained moderate to light injuries and were being transported to hospitals. Seventy percent of the northwestern sector of the Dodeca Forest had been destroyed. Among the students present, there were two seriously wounded and eight lightly wounded. The identity of the monster that appeared in the area remained unknown.
The teachers who received the interim report wore grim expressions.
“…At least no students died. That’s a relief.”
“No. There are three missing persons. Until we confirm their status we cannot say there were no fatalities.”
“Damn it…”
The faculty now had two pressing concerns. The first was how to announce the reallocation exam results under these circumstances. The second was whether the incident should be made public.
The second issue was especially thorny.
“We should handle this transparently.”
“Absolutely not. This will not simply blow over.”
“Since it is almost certainly the work of an Outer God, reporting immediately to the government should at least prevent us from being dismissed.”
“You only say that because you don’t understand the situation.”
“My conscience won’t allow it. I vote for full disclosure.”
“Are you all insane? If I’m kicked out of this school I have nowhere else to go!”
Opinions refused to converge. At that moment a surviving A-rank inspector burst in.
“Lotus Grade Chief! A female student is asking to see the teachers!”
“Who is it?”
“A silver-haired girl with golden eyes. She says her name is Seti von Adelbain Rheinland…”
“Haa!”
It was over.
“Adelbain… and Rheinland?”
“A girl using both family names?”
“Was there a child born between the two houses?”
The second-year teachers who had only just joined the meeting had no idea what was happening and could only stare in shock.
“There is one new student this year.” Kendra kindly explained. A genius born between a direct descendant of the Rheinland family and a collateral member of the Adelbain family.
“What should we do? Shall we let her in?”
“Just a moment…”
The grade chief pondered briefly, then spoke.
“Let her in.”
The door opened. A girl with snow-white hair entered. Her face was haggard as if she had lost a family member; her hollow golden eyes held no trace of intellect.
“…I can’t see my brother or my sister.”
The girl barely managed to speak.
“One is Idel von Rheinland. The other is Rustila Kersil. Those are the names…”
“Those two are still listed as missing,” Teacher Karlen answered with a sigh. The surrounding instructors immediately elbowed her.
“Read the room…!”
“…But reality is reality. She deserves to know.”
Karlen had been one of the teachers who voted to make the incident public. She therefore intended to tell the girl the unvarnished truth.
“From the circumstances it appears they fell from the northwestern cliff along with the monster. We are currently searching that area.”
“It’s already been two hours since the incident. Why haven’t we received any reports?”
“That side was never supposed to be used as an exam site. The Dodeca Forest itself is enormous; we have no idea how long a search will take.”
The girl’s face crumpled as though she might cry. She frowned and bit her lip.
“Hey, you can’t just say things like that.”
Kendra slapped the back of Karlen’s head, then knelt before the teary-eyed girl.
“We’ve received a report that there’s a lake at the bottom. Also, although the slope is steep, the cliff itself isn’t that high. If they can swim, they could be found quickly.”
“That idiot can’t swim…”
“……”
Kendra’s mouth snapped shut. Until a positive outcome emerged, no words could comfort the girl. The only thing left was to hold her, soothe her, and send her on her way.
Yet Seti wished to remain with the teachers. The second-year instructors and the more conservative first-year staff swallowed nervously and watched her with wary eyes. Kendra read the room, brewed cocoa, and brought it to Seti.
Outside, night had fallen and rain began to pour. A downpour so fierce that launching helicopters was impossible.
“Bad luck,” Seti muttered, grinding her teeth.
Her parents had never shown her interest. Her half-siblings had kept their distance or treated her cruelly. In elementary and middle school she had been treated like a flower on a cliff simply because of her prestigious family. The girl who had no one to open her heart to felt that losing Rustila would be the same as dying.
And then…
“Brother.”
Her half-brother from a different mother. Only a few months ago he had been the bastard she wanted to kill most in the world. Now, for some reason, she was worried about him. It was strange. It also ached. The ache threatened to drive her mad.
If she lost both of them—if she lost even one—how could she possibly go on living? She did not want to imagine it. She wanted to avoid it. She never wanted to experience anything like that.
All she could do right now was pray for the rain to stop.