Echoes
The wind surged violently.
Snow that had never melted from the summit, along with the rocks and soil clinging to the mountainside, were ripped loose and swept along by the gale.
More than the crack of stones tumbling down to smash against the foot of the mountain, the roar of the wind rang out louder still.
Its cry was sharp enough to seem like it was carving the mountain range itself away.
The instant that sense of reality was stripped clean from me, something like a scream filled the empty space it left behind.
I lifted my head. I looked around, then beyond the wind, toward Yggdrasil.
“....”
The tree had summoned a wind so powerful it could shake the entire mountain range simply by existing.
Its trunk was far broader than most of the surrounding peaks.
Its branches thrust upward as if they meant to blot out the sky entirely.
Clouds seemed to snag, then slip free again, on the few branches stretched across that place called the heavens.
Those branches were lush.
On every single one, countless buds could be seen.
Each bud was slowly letting the color it had been holding inside seep outward.
The buds that had been holding themselves back with all their strength until the season of bloom arrived were finally trying to split open their own bodies.
It was a wonder steeped in mystery.
A wonder made of death. Nothing but death, from beginning to end, thick and dark.
“Ha.”
The eye that looked on it burned. The skin beneath my eyes stung.
With the faint sensation of something snapping, something began to flow from beneath my eye.
I almost wiped it away without thinking, then stopped. Dark red droplets fell one after another across the blackened steel. Thick. Hot.
The smell of iron curled against the tip of my nose.
The sticky thing that had just burst from my body was flung away by the wind almost at once, leaving only traces behind.
It was because I had seen too much mystery.
Suggestion. Retreat to a safe location.
I laughed emptily. Then I asked, just as hollowly, “Where?”
There probably wasn’t a safe place left in the world anymore.
Now that Yggdrasil had fully bloomed, nowhere was safe. I knew that because I had seen and learned it in the future.
The surrounding area was already a wasteland.
The moment it finished blooming, Yggdrasil released a powerful erosion wave in every direction.
The conifer forest that could have survived even harsh weather was dried to death by the oncoming wave, and the nameless weeds that had been poking out hints of green from the ground withered gray and brittle.
I might have been able to hold on somehow with my shield, but within any ordinary radius, the land had likely become an erosion zone where life could not survive.
And even if someone somehow lived through it by luck, they would soon be eroded and become a Corrupted.
Unwanted memories rose up.
Once the first Gate of Yggdrasil opened and Origin Species began pouring out without end, every city on the continent came under invasion.
The so-called northern front had always been nothing more than a few lines on a map.
A flimsy defense line had no way to stop anything that broke through and moved south.
And the seeds scattered from the blooming Yggdrasil would grow into yet another Yggdrasil.
A heavy helplessness settled over me. I bitterly called it a rotten story.
“In the end, all I’ve done is confirm that there’s nothing I can do.”
My empty hand clenched tight.
I lowered my head, and the hot mixture in my eyes dripped onto the dirt below.
The echoes of the Origin Species that had set foot in this world filled the mountain range.
Every time the massive Origin Species that burst from the gate planted its feet, the earth itself shuddered.
The thudding vibration shook my whole body.
The very thing I had tried so desperately to prevent was happening directly before my eyes, as brazenly as if it had been called out for all to see.
Its grandeur was terrible, as though it knew there was no means left to stop it now.
If only I could just give up and feel relieved—
──Something hot thudded inside my chest.
“…?”
The last remaining runestone.
The runestone I took out began to shine in the dark.
Like a spark glinting in the darkness, like embers melting into flesh, a faint but unmistakable warmth burned my hand.
Memory flooded back all at once.
“Jusitna, could you stop them?”
Why had they asked that?
The question I had tucked into the corner of my heart started moving again.
Just like the first time, there had been no guarantee I would ever find it.
Even aside from fleeing Nordfjord, there had been so many reasons I might never have found the will and the runestone. They could have come up with plenty of reasons for that, too.
And yet, why.
It had been an inheritance with no promise attached. Giving up would have been easier, in the end.
“Ha, ha ha.”
Without meaning to, I laughed.
I looked down at the red runestone in my palm.
The spark the two of them had left behind flickered in my hand.
Had the versions of them before me left something like this for me, too? Then had I missed the chance to save the world?
Then this time—
“Just as you thought, I’m not the kind of idiot who’ll give up that easily.”
A hot breath escaped me. I held back my answer. I held it back, then finally opened my mouth.
“So, of course,”
I squeezed the runestone hard. Its faint heat crossed the steel and reached bare skin.
Weak as it was, it was clear; pitiful, yet all the more fierce for it.
“That’s what I’ll do.”
I had already figured out how to use it the first time.
I gauged the condition of my body.
It was not good.
My vision had gone dim with fatigue more severe than I had expected.
The output of mystery was weaker than before.
I could not call myself battle-ready, not even in jest.
Can I do it?
I shook my head at once. That was the wrong question.
This was something that had to be done.
Something I had to do. Something only I could do. I opened my mouth, full of the taste of blood.
“That’s why I came back.”
At last, I forced my body upright. I lifted my head and faced Yggdrasil straight on.
What I needed now was far more mystery than I currently had. How to make up the difference was obvious. I called upon the runes.
“Thurisaz.”
Sharp thorns burst up from empty air. I sliced open my arm on their points. The wound split wide, and blood dripped down.
I recited the spell from memory.
Ignite the furnace. Drive the key into the wound.
Refine the road of iron. Pave the path from the door to “myth.”
“Still not enough.”
I thought of the prototype generator mounted on Stride. If I pushed the output to its limit, then perhaps—
Limit release is not recommended. Retreat is advised.
“I’m not planning to run. I didn’t come back for that.”
Suggestion—
“If I run from here, who’s going to stop it?”
No answer came back.
A moment later, the machine began to heat up gently.
The output gauge on the HUD shot upward with terrifying speed.
Heat vents opened all over the machine to cool the interior, but even more heat gushed out in response.
Limit release. Generator output r—
Mach—damage exp—cted…. Cauti—n requir—d.
The HUD filled with warning messages.
The dangling cables all around me thrashed violently.
The runestone in my hand devoured mystery with greedy hunger. The more it fed, the larger the ember in my palm grew.
From ember to flame, from flame to blaze.
My consciousness grew clear, then blurred again, over and over.
I could no longer make out the shape of the fire directly in front of me. My vision turned fully red. The rune in my hand glowed white-hot.
It was a heat I knew from somewhere. And a voice I knew.
—The preparation is insufficient. Still, it can be reproduced, however crudely.
The rune clutched in my hand began to melt.
The melted rune took on a long shape.
The long form bent slightly to one side.
Inside the flame, a vivid blade emerged.
Heat pulsed up from the hilt.
The fire meant to burn the world itself gathered a radiant halo of shimmering haze around it.
A sword of flame.
Heat surged from the blade. The steel wrapped around my limbs drank in the heat and grew fierce and hot.
My shield did its best to neutralize the blaze, but it was so hot I could feel the heat reaching the flesh beneath.
The leaves draped over it never even touched it before turning instantly to ash and scattering into the shimmer.
The halo above my head shone with violent brilliance.
“…Hah.”
Enraptured.
Whether because of the flame in my hand or the way mystery was tearing violently out of my body, I couldn’t tell.
The HUD piled warning upon warning about overheating.
Right arm malfunction, arm damage, unidentified component detected…
I fixed my blurred vision on Yggdrasil ahead. The familiar voice whispered to me.
Here, our “fate” will be reenacted.
My decision was brief.
I drove the machine forward.
The outlines of the massive bodies surged before my eyes in an instant. I swung the sword in my hand, and before the blade of flame even touched them, their outer shells melted away and their flesh inside seethed as if boiled through.
Only gray ash remained in the wake of the blade. Without time to inspect the cross-section, I swung again. Every space the blade passed through burst into flame and scattered ash.
The flames, the color of twilight, cast their brilliance in every direction.
My vision was blurred. I could no longer feel my body.
I couldn’t tell whether I was cutting or stabbing.
The tree, the tree burned helplessly.
The Gate sheltered within that serene tree lost its strength.
It defied death and cut straight through it.
Everything visible was burned and melted away.
I had seen this scene somewhere before.
The sword of flame faded, leaving only embers behind.
Unable to recover the memory, I fell through the air.
I drifted farther and farther from the sky. I sank into a deep sleep.
My consciousness, falling away.