14. Melting Point (39)
14. Melting Point (39)
TT3 had roughly 130 types of fanatics. On lower difficulties, you could handle them easily as long as you dodged and jumped properly. But on higher difficulties, clearing a stage meant knowing the exact strategy for every single variant.
I had been knocking out hotel staff and assassins as I made my way forward. Now, in the corridor leading to the central control room, I faced dozens of fanatics. Their bodies were marked with two crossed spirals forming an X.
That symbol was the emblem of the Voodoo Cult in the games. The only ones who had it branded onto their flesh like that were the fanatics.
I didn't know exactly what abilities they possessed, but I wasn't intimidated in the slightest. I had every attack pattern these creatures used in TTT memorized.
"Stop that man!"
At a shout from the one who looked like their commander, the two nearest fanatics lunged at me. Their arm joints bent back like the forelegs of a praying mantis, morphing into sharp blades.
A skilled warrior could probably gauge the reach and trajectory of those swings after watching a few times. But I could picture them perfectly in my head without having seen them firsthand. I'd watched these moves tens of thousands of times in the game. With my hands still in my pockets, I evaded all their attacks with minimal movement.
"A one-two here! Then a right hook. There we go. A horizontal slash followed by a diagonal slash! Exactly as I expected."
"Gah!"
"You bastard!"
My relaxed attitude must have gotten under their skin. Their faces twisted with rage. At that moment, the trajectory of their scythe-blades suddenly reversed.
The movement clearly exceeded the normal limits of a human joint. But I didn't panic. I just leaned back and let those pass by as well.
The shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints of a 'scythe fanatic' could all bend backward. On the easiest setting, they just swung their arms like a normal person. On the hardest, every joint moved independently, making their attacks curve and twist wildly.
This dodging — what a nostalgic combat sensation. Thanks to the Smiling Man's composure buff, no matter how dangerous and brutal the fight got, I could move my body with the cold precision of someone playing a game.
I caught the blunt spine of their scythe-blades with my hands. Then I tore them straight out of their bodies. With a sickening crunch, the entire arms came away from their torsos.
"Gyaaah!"
Blood and flesh spattered across the floor. The two men rolled around screaming. I tossed the ripped-off blades aside, and the remaining fanatics drew a sharp breath and backed away.
"That's all it takes to scare you?"
I had subdued the hotel employees while minimizing physical trauma. I hadn't gone out of my way to hurt the assassins more than necessary either. But I had no intention of holding back with these ones.
"E-everyone, rush him at once!"
At the commander's yell, fanatics with various bizarre modifications threw themselves at me. Aside from the commander, the rest of them didn't seem to recognize who I was. That was why they could charge in so fearlessly.
Some hunched over and launched vertebrae from their backs like spines. Others turned their skin into a rock-hard keratinous shell to boost their defenses. A few split their heads wide open and lashed out with sticky, whip-like tentacles from inside.
These were all enemies whose patterns I knew, and I was thoroughly familiar with their coordinated attacks as well. Just a glance at their movements let me predict where they'd be standing and in what posture a few seconds later.
If I operated my current body, I could crush all their attacks with sheer power. But I didn't. I had my pride as a top-level Tril Trillo player. I used nothing but a purely human body to dismantle their patterns one by one.
"Graaah!"
"S-stop...!"
"Spare me!"
The ones launching spines from their backs got their backs snapped. I ripped out tentacles wherever I could grab them, took the venom sacs that came out with them, and jammed them into the gaps of the keratin armor. In less than a minute after the fight began, half the fanatics were writhing on the floor.
"D-demon...."
"W-what in the world...."
When I'd decided to save Anais, I'd braced myself for a clash with the Voodoo Cult. I intended to leave maximum terror in their minds. That way, they'd never think of messing with my people again.
"You dared to flaunt that mark in front of me with such a pathetic showing?"
There was some personal feeling mixed into the brutality I showed them, too. The pattern on their bodies dredged up unpleasant memories.
The brand the Voodoo Cult carved into their fanatics had been Wonderstein's symbol since TT1. But I'd known that pattern even before the first entry in the series came out.
It had also been the symbol of the Church of Omnipotence I was once part of.
The Church of Omnipotence incident had been a huge global story from the moment the media broke it. Mass human sacrifice, brutal human experimentation, the police's dramatic arrest operation, the bloodshed during the suppression—all of it.
The sensational details made it prime material for all kinds of fiction. Social-issue films, crime dramas. Manga and web novels frequently featured evil pseudo-religions modeled after the Church of Omnipotence.
The Tril Trillo series was one of them. Likely because Wonderstein's image—using the promise of salvation to exploit deformed humans—resembled the cult leader of the Church of Omnipotence.
In particular, some elements of the Voodoo Cult featured in TT3 seemed clearly inspired by the Church of Omnipotence incident. The way they offered replacement body parts to those who lacked them, branded them 'fanatics,' and used them as tools.
Seeing that pattern in a game hadn't stirred any particular emotion. By then, documentaries and fact-based movies had already recycled the case to exhaustion; seeing it used at a fantasy level was almost refreshing. That was what drew me to the Tril Trillo games in the first place.
But facing men who wore that symbol on their flesh in reality, not on a computer screen, was profoundly revolting. It was like feeling nothing seeing Nazis in uniform in a game but feeling pure disgust when neo-Nazis blocked your path and picked a fight in real life.
"Gah... in less than three minutes... wiped out...."
I'd subdued all the fanatics. Only the man who seemed to be their leader remained. He wore a troubled expression for a moment, then gritted his teeth and charged. He must have figured that, knowing Wonderstein's usual temperament, even groveling wouldn't earn him any mercy.
"Raaargh!"
His right arm swelled. Clothes and skin burst with popping sounds as crimson muscle fibers hypertrophied explosively. A 'Super Strength Fanatic,' then.
That pinkish mass of muscle served as both a cannon-like offensive weapon and a sturdy shield. One punch thrown with a battle cry brought a wall crashing down in rubble.
It looked one or two steps above the muscle strength I had without drinking Yurakne's tea. Probably around 9.0 or 10.0. Umon's normal strength would be about that level.
Still, knowing the strategy meant there was no real reason to fear this enemy. Like most of his type, you just had to target anything besides the reinforced area. When he tensed his muscles for the next attack, I slipped forward and twisted off the joint connecting his arm to his body.
"Uwaaah!"
The pink mass of muscle snapped back like a stretched rubber band and slammed into the wall. The room beyond the crumbling wall—what looked like the central control room—was exposed.
"Well, look at these familiar faces."
I dropped the fanatic commander I'd been holding to the floor. Three people I knew well stood inside.
"The Mario Three Brothers."
They looked startled for a moment when they saw me, but they quickly steeled their expressions and took up combat stances. Individually, each one wasn't that powerful, but together, the three could exert a force surpassing that of an Apostle. That was how they could appear as a stage boss.
"It is an honor that you remember people like us, Cult Leader!"
"We would prefer to step aside...."
"But we have our orders!"
The 'Hive Mind' that had dominated the hotel staff was a spell centered on Mario Dunellon. The other two each had their own spell, centered on themselves.
One of them stomped the building's floor hard with his foot. The entire hotel shuddered and rumbled as if in an earthquake.
This was the spell centered on Mario Montura. He was a Madosa of Oikos, the Demon God of the household and domestic duties. Oikos was known as a Demon God who appeared to those who cherished their homes and were devoted to their families, bestowing blessings.
By that description alone, Oikos didn't sound particularly dangerous. In fact, historically, it was said to have been a Demon God on the benign side for humanity.
But lately, the places this Demon God manifested were mostly abandoned, isolated manors or households living cut off from society in the hinterlands. As human reason advanced, rational thought developed, and an age arrived that banished even the darkness of night, those were the only places left where a Demon God could take root.
In the original game, the magic Montura demonstrated was what a homeowner used to defend their domain. You could turn the house into a labyrinth to trap intruders, or wield the house itself like a living creature to repel them. In the game, he turned the entire Florand city hall into a deathtrap to attack the players.
But just like the city hall in the game, this hotel wasn't his home. The same way Mario Dunellon had needed an extra magical medium to exploit the hotel staff, Mario Montura would need one here.
In the original story, the mayor, the mayor's official seal, and the mayor's letter of appointment had served that role. Destroying just two of them had been enough to nullify the magic. It would probably be similar here.
"This entire hotel is no different from my own stomach!"
His declaration was nothing special.
I stood with my arms crossed and watched the ceiling, floor, and walls of the building writhe.
"Ha ha, even you must be flustered, Cult Leader! When the three of us combine our powers, we can surpass an Apostle. I'll grant you the fanatics—body manipulation is your specialty, after all! But there's no way you can figure out the strategy for a magic you've never seen before!"
His audacious claim made me burst out laughing. Who did he think he was saying that to?
"I don't know the strategy?"
I uncrossed my arms and let out a low chuckle. I'd considered just ending this with raw power, but they had to go and provoke me again.
"Let's see you try, then."
The moment I spoke, the ordinary corridor instantly contracted, rushing inward to crush me.
***
The Mario Three Brothers had seen Wonderstein exactly once, when they joined the Voodoo Cult. Even then, they'd only exchanged greetings and moved on without a real conversation.
They'd never encountered him since, but they'd heard rumors—about the things he'd done, the power he held.
But he knew nothing about them. The abilities they were unveiling today had never been shown to anyone inside the cult.
The information gap, plus power exceeding an Apostle. They'd thought that would be enough to put up a real fight against the Cult Leader. It didn't take long for them to realize how mistaken they were.
He tore apart their three-man cooperative magic with absurd ease. Mario Dunellon's 'Hive Mind,' Mario Montura's 'Moving House,' Mario Albercle's 'Weapon Fusion'—he struck precisely at their weaknesses as if he'd known them all from the start. Weaknesses even they hadn't been aware of.
"Cough!"
The three Marios tumbled through the building wreckage and vomited blood. Bodies broken in multiple places and unable to move, covered in dust, they watched the blond man approach.