Records from Twenty Years Ago

"...Why the hell is this building so deep?"

What waited for us beyond the door was neither a crowded interior nor the intricate machinery of an astronomical observatory. All that stretched before us was an endless corridor vanishing into the dark.

"Clara."

"Yes, Unnie...?"

"Show me the map of the observatory."

"Ah—right!"

A map of the facility bloomed above Clara's palm. We were on the ground floor—a vast corridor that housed the receiving apparatus. The data-storage archives, though... those sat much farther down, past an elevator ride into the depths.

"What kind of observatory is this big?"

We would have to descend at least another hundred meters. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠There was no way only a single Execution Unit had been deployed for an operation of this scale, and if we got bogged down fighting every one of them along the way... we would never make it in time. That much was obvious.

So I drew my sword. I knew full well it was like carving into my own flesh—but no other option came to mind.

"...Wonder if my body can take it."

"Unnie...? What on earth are you thinking!?"

"Clara, if I pass out, wake me up."

I drew the Winter Sword's true form—its main body. Under ordinary circumstances I never would have resorted to this. The Winter Sword's core devoured an enormous amount of mana, and my ruined body was nowhere near strong enough to handle that kind of output.

But a Saintess was here. A miracle-worker who could save anyone so long as they still drew breath.

"Somewhere around here should do it, right?"

"No—wait—Unnie, don't do something like that in the first place!"

"Winter Sword—Release."

Kiiing—

The inscription carved along the blade flared with light.

May this winter end someday.

The phrase I had whispered to myself every time I marched to war. My last scrap of hope—and the ignition key that awakened the sword's true body. Mana began to flow.

Mana drained from me in great, ragged chunks. Above us, a blood-red static began to churn across the ceiling. Space itself tore open with the crackling of a broken monitor screen.

Kugugugung—!

With a roar that shook the heart in my chest, a colossal greatsword came crashing down. The blade—easily thirty meters long—sliced softly through the floor and began its descent.

The earth parted as easily as tofu. The observatory's thick blast walls, its shields, more than a hundred meters of dense crust—none of it offered the slightest resistance to a sword that ignored physical force entirely.

The enormous wound carved into the ground was wide enough for two people to jump through.

"Uh, Unnie? You're not seriously going to jump, are you...?"

"Excuse me, Clara."

Without a moment's hesitation I scooped her into my arms and threw myself into the dark.

"...Damn it."

A rare curse slipped from the lips of Cardinal Veneto as he personally oversaw the upload.

Two full hours had already passed since the process began. What should have finished long ago was still dragging on, sabotaged by World Government hackers.

At this rate, it would take at least another thirty minutes. Could the Holy Knights hold out that long? The situation was far too grim for him to answer yes.

Like a planetarium, the information vault was a vast hemispherical dome eighty meters across. With none of the celestial observation equipment present, the chamber offered absolutely no cover.

And the numbers were hopelessly against them. Only thirty Holy Knights and priests had been driven back this far. The enemy forces pouring through the entrance only kept growing.

"Shit, push harder!"

"We cannot let them break through! Thirty minutes—hold for just thirty minutes!"

"Kahaha—you really think you can?"

"Gah!?"

They were already pinned into a corner of the dome. In this state they wouldn't last three minutes, let alone thirty. Knights fell one after another as the enemy ranks swelled.

In the end, Cardinal Veneto had no choice but to draw his scripture and try to save a fallen knight.

"May the angels guard thee and light thy path!"

Jjeoeong—!

A blade descending without mercy froze mid-swing. A cross of light had flared before the fallen knight, catching the Execution Unit's sword.

The veteran Holy Knight did not waste the opening. From the ground he swung his mace in a savage arc and crushed the startled enemy's skull.

"Your Eminence! The upload—!"

But the price of looking away from the screen, even for a moment, was steep. The instant the operator's hands left the controls, the upload process began to slip.

"This can't—!"

If he pulled his hands away to help his allies, the upload stalled. If he clung to the screen to keep the upload going, his people were driven back. In a situation with no good answer, his mind raced for one anyway.

Keep the upload running? They wouldn't last thirty minutes either way. Abandon the upload entirely—and everything they had fought so desperately to protect would be for nothing...

His hands froze, caught between impossible choices.

And then, in that very moment, something impossible tore through the collapsing battlefield.

Kwajajak—

With the sound of shattering glass, the ceiling began to split. Every gaze snapped upward to the crackling fracture spidering across the dome.

Like the blade of a guillotine, a colossal sword was falling. Before anyone could even react, two Execution Unit soldiers standing frozen beneath it were crushed and detonated.

"...?"

"What in the world..."

Everyone in the chamber locked up as if turned to stone.

A thirty-meter sword that had smashed straight through the thick shields of the information vault. Confronted with something so far outside the bounds of understanding, every soul present simply stared at the rupture.

And then, through that crack, a girl descended.

A silver-haired girl, cradling a pink-haired girl in a princess carry, her entire body wreathed in a crimson wind. The killing intent that flooded outward rooted everyone where they stood.

It was the instinct of prey facing a predator.

Every sense they had was screaming the same thing. Move carelessly and you die. This one is not in her right mind. Run.

"...What a mess. Here too."

Tat—!

Among the chaos of over a hundred people tangled across the planetarium floor, the girl's footsteps rang out with unnatural clarity. Clutching the Saintess tight against her chest, completely blocking her view, the girl murmured under her breath.

"Winter Sword—Release."

Jjeojeojeojeong—!

With a sound like splintering glass, the embedded greatsword shattered into hundreds of fragments. As she purged the residual poison from her system and began to calculate, the shards began to writhe, radiating a sinister light.

"Clara, close your eyes and cover your ears."

"Y-Yes...?"

"This isn't something you should see."

Maybe it was just a small, selfish wish of mine.

What Clara admired was the Sword Saint who saved people. I didn't want to show her the one who killed them. I didn't want the few bonds I had left to see me at my worst, and I didn't want a girl destined to be loved by all as a Saintess to witness something so cruel.

"Ignition phrase input: May this winter end someday."

Really... if I kill people like this, will that long winter ever end?

A hollow thought drifted through me—and then a storm of blood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠swept the room.

"Press them! They're unarmed—huh?"

"Shit, what the hell is—"

"Gyaaaaah!?"

"S-Spare me... ghk—"

"That crazy—"

"Grrk..."

"..."

A scarlet tempest blotted out the world. Screams lashed my ears like a howling wind, and instead of rain, human blood came pouring down. The dying curses and resentment of the fallen stuck thick and heavy to my heart.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

It wasn't a battle. It was a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠slaughter. Of the one hundred and twenty World Government agents who had filled the chamber, not a single one remained alive.

Strangely enough, I felt no guilt.

Was it because I hadn't cut them down with my own hands? Or simply because none of it felt real? Because this was nothing more than the end they deserved—men who had used the sword techniques I created to murder the innocent? Because there was neither need nor reason for pity?

It didn't matter.

Right now, there was far more important information to confirm.

"Are you all right, Your Eminence?"

"...Thanks to you, I'm fine."

"I'm glad."

I answered as I turned my gaze to the screen. The upload percentage had already dropped into the sixties.

We couldn't leave it like this. The upload had to keep going—but as long as the hackers were hiding somewhere and interfering, that was impossible.

So I decided to try a little shortcut.

"Excuse me for a moment?"

The reason a supercomputer that should have brushed off mere hacking and finished the job in no time was running this slowly was simple: the internal systems had collapsed, and its processing power had plummeted.

Which meant all I had to do was pull processing power from outside. My brain, already drained from summoning the Winter Sword's true form, couldn't handle it—but I had an insurance policy for exactly this kind of situation.

I took out the silver pocket watch. It had no USB connector or anything of the sort, but Alice had handed it over without a word of explanation, so I figured it would be fine.

"Haa..."

I didn't bother worrying about whether it was okay to connect a dimensional server run by the World Government to the Vatican's systems.

If the government had held complete control over the dimensional server, they never would have unleashed something like a virus in the first place. In the end, the dimensional server was its own faction—tangled up with the World Government in ways that weren't entirely clean.

So I set the pocket watch on the upload terminal without a second thought.

"Like this?"

A hologram of a golden-haired girl materialized above the pocket watch. At the same instant, every virus the hackers had been using to gnaw at the upload system evaporated as one.

Of course it did. There was no way their portable terminals could possibly overcome the sheer computational power of a dimensional server.

"Who is that...?"

"An associate of mine."

I answered the startled Cardinal and rebooted the upload sequence. Unlike before, when it had crawled forward at one percent per minute, the loading bar now filled with refreshing speed.

And just as the upload got properly underway—

Alice's hologram, monitoring the stream of data, plucked a single file from the flow.

Patzut— A faint spark crackled, and a tiny file appeared in the holographic girl's hand. It was an old document bearing three words: Babel Tower.

Before the Cardinal could even open his mouth to stop her, Alice flicked the holographic file onto the upload terminal's screen.

And with that, a record that had slept for twenty years began to play.