Chapter 418
Chapter 418
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 418
Chapter Title: The Second Purgatory (5)
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Shirone and his party made their way across the bullet-riddled battlefield toward the command post, a tent where the battalion commander was stationed.
Though it was the command post, its position right at the front lines meant one had to shout to be heard over the din of battle.
The noise only subsided to a manageable level once they were inside the tent.
A company commander who had already finished his report stood at attention in the corner. Kanya accompanied Shirone's group to facilitate the conversation.
The battalion commander didn't look up from the strategy map, even after Shirone and his party entered.
“I've heard.”
He was a man with a cold demeanor, his white hair swept back. A thick, stubborn-looking mustache adorned his upper lip.
“Are you the Nephilim?”
Shirone didn't deny it.
True or not, he figured this narrative would be more effective for winning over the rebels.
The battalion commander moved on to the next question as if he didn't care.
“I'll be blunt. Why have you returned?”
Shirone didn't understand the question.
“To the rebels, you're a living myth. But myths are most beautiful when they remain just that—myths. Some of our men consider you an irresponsible deserter. Why have you, a man who already abandoned this battlefield, returned?”
Shirone had a gut feeling that the battalion commander was one of those people.
“I don't have some grand reason. Just as before, I'm here to fight as a mage, true to my convictions.”
“Convictions, you say…”
The battalion commander pulled back the tent's window flap and surveyed the battlefield.
“The light you brought to Sector 73 has become a sun for seventy thousand rebels. I have no desire to see that light extinguished. If you've come back merely for the sake of ‘conviction,’ I'd rather pretend this meeting never happened.”
Shirone realized the battalion commander would not be moved.
His cold eyes held no fighting spirit, only a bitter sense of duty, one born from the belief that they had chosen the wrong path from the very beginning.
“Even if my conviction seems small, our goals may align. I wish to speak directly with the commander-in-chief. Please allow me to go to the rebel headquarters.”
“Request denied.”
An unconcealable hostility glinted in the battalion commander's eyes.
“Alright, I'll be frank. This war is already lost. No, we were on the brink of total defeat. If Heaven's offensive hadn't suddenly halted, it would've been over by now. The gap in our strength was that overwhelming. We've lost countless soldiers. Our only remaining card is to negotiate with Heaven. If you plan on clumsily fanning the flames only to flee again, then the ‘light of Sector 73’ is nothing but an obstacle.”
“But the war is still ongoing. And Heaven isn't making a move right now. This could be an opportunity. If we can figure out exactly what's happening, we have a real chance of winning.”
“Listen here, ‘light of Sector 73.’”
The battalion commander leaned in close.
“Don't you dare judge the Mecha tribe by Nor standards. This rebellion was started by the Nor in the first place. But look at us now. Only we, the Mecha, are dying. The reason Heaven halted its assault? Who could possibly figure that out?”
“I can.”
The battalion commander fell silent. The grinding of his teeth was audible.
“Listen here, you brat. You think I can't see what you're trying to pull? No, I don't know the details. But I can see right through your plan to use us for your own ends. People may call you a myth, but to me, you're nothing but a seed of disaster. A powerless myth who, at best, managed to defeat a single Fairy Chief. Do you have any idea how fiercely we fought while you were gone? You ran away when the fighting was at its peak. What do you think you can possibly change now?”
“I'm going to meet Ikael.”
“Pff…”
A puff of air escaped the battalion commander's lips.
“Puhahahaha! Puhahahaha!”
It was utterly dumbfounding.
Archangel Ikael. Meeting the being who stands at the apex of Heaven's Law?
If it were that easy, hundreds of thousands of citizens wouldn't have died.
“Now I see it clearly. You're no myth. You're a mass murderer who lured countless citizens to their deaths with a silver tongue. Company Commander! Arrest him! And make sure the soldiers don't find out.”
Just as the company commander moved to reluctantly obey, the tent flap was thrown open and an adjutant rushed in.
“Commander! It's an emergency! Giants have broken through the rearmost defensive line and are advancing on us!”
“What? Why the hell? Which bastard lured the giants here? What for?”
“We can't confirm. Ever since we lost contact with Guroi Team 3, our defensive lines have been getting cut off…”
The battalion commander slammed his fist on the tactical table.
“Dammit. But how?”
Variables rarely arose in giant-elimination operations. The reactions of the identity-less giants were always the same.
But now, the final defensive line had been breached.
He didn't know where the Law had gone awry, but for him, who had lived today just as he had yesterday, there was only one possible explanation.
The battalion commander grabbed Shirone by the collar.
“See that? You're the cause of all this. Guroi was destroyed because of you, creating a tactical breach. And now you're going to get our entire battalion wiped out!”
Kanya cried out, ready to die.
“Commander! That's a baseless accusation! Shirone—!”
“Silence! Does a pilot who couldn't even protect her own gear have any right to speak?”
The adjutant urged him.
“Commander! Your orders, please! At this rate, we'll be annihilated in less than thirty minutes!”
The battalion commander equipped the Piper hanging on the wall. After pocketing the Arc and grabbing the Signa and X-ed, he glared at Shirone as he exited the tent.
“Get out of here. I can't stand the sight of you.”
Kanya shouted.
“Commander! They can help us fight!”
“Didn't you hear me? Shirone is the one who changed the giants' Law! Our job is to fight the enemy, not hide behind some deserter!”
As the commander left, Kanya had no choice but to follow.
She too was a soldier and couldn't just stand by while her comrades died.
“Shirone, I'm sorry.”
She offered a sad smile as she left the tent.
“But I was so happy to see you.”
He knew it was her way of saying goodbye.
But Shirone hadn't let go of the thread of hope just yet.
*A change in the Law. The Law can be altered by the manifestation of will, he'd said. Could it be that…*
Gangnan spoke.
“The situation is worse than we expected. Can we really get the rebels to move like this?”
Sein said.
“We still have plenty of cards to play. There's Tagis, for one. The problem is the headquarters. From what I heard about the military supply community, they're keeping their location hidden, which means we likely won't get any information from the mainland either. We have to do something now.”
Zulu said.
“I think the change in the giants' Law is the important part. It's unbelievable that the giants, whose only Law is to head for Jotunheim, would engage in collective action. Can anyone offer an explanation?”
No one could.
In Heaven, where the Akashic Records existed in a materialized form, the Law was an artificial system. But in the world Shirone's party came from, it was simply a term for the principles of the universe.
Just as the flap of a butterfly's wings could cause a hurricane, countless minor variables were all interconnected. Trying to pinpoint where the Law had changed was an impossible task.
Gaold proposed his own method.
“Let's just wipe out the giants first. If we save their lives, I'm sure they'll let us meet their commander or whoever.”
Shirone raised his hand.
“Leave that to me.”
“No. It's too dangerous. You have a special mission. Don't think for a second that your life is your own.”
“No. I believe this is a matter of the Law.”
Sein asked.
“Do you have a hunch?”
“Yes. But please think of it as an experiment rather than a hunch. There's something I absolutely must confirm here in Heaven.”
***
“All units, attack! Do not retreat!”
Seven giants seized a single Guroi, slammed it to the ground, and began to stomp on it, crushing it to pieces.
The cockpit was destroyed, and the terrified pilot screamed. But a second later, even that was silenced.
“Dammit! Aaaargh!”
The battalion commander, arriving late, fired his Arc repeatedly. He fired wildly, without taking aim.
And yet, the giant was hit.
But the fact that the giant was unfazed made the commander's heart sink.
“Dammit! Dammit!”
They were beings that humans were never meant to handle in the first place.
What did their mortality matter? What did it matter that their lifespans were fixed?
For defying God, humanity had lost the path to eternal life. And now, they faced the extinction of their species.
“Aaaargh!”
When the battalion commander struck the giant's leg with his Signa, the giant, feeling the pain with a delay, slowly turned its head.
The sight of its vacant pupils sent a chill down his spine.
“The heretic… must be purged.”
His legs trembled, and he couldn't suppress the groans escaping through his clenched teeth.
“Hnngh. Hnnngh.”
As the giant approached, the commander's face contorted as if he were about to cry.
He had witnessed countless deaths, but his own was something new, incomparable to any other.
“The heretic… must be purged.”
“N-No. I'm not a heretic…”
As the giant's fist came crashing down, the commander squeezed his eyes shut and let out a soundless scream.
Grrrrrrr…
A deep, guttural growl prompted him to slowly open his eyes. Before him stood a beast he had never seen before, a wall of black fur and muscle.
Its fur was the color of ink and as smooth as silk. Its body was as sleek as a panther's, but it had six legs. Its face was flat, and tusks over a meter long jutted from its mouth. As it took the giant's punch, it dug its claws into the ground, cracking the earth.
“W-What is this thing?”
“What do you think? It's a Cougar, a 3rd-tier monster.”
Gaold and the others had arrived.
Zulu stepped forward and snapped his fingers. The Cougar turned with a cute, questioning sound, “Grrr?” that didn't match its massive frame.
“Go play.”
Kraaaaaaang!
The Cougar launched itself off the ground, and as it flew, his vision opened up as if a black curtain had been drawn aside.
Every time the beast's claws swiped, chunks of the giant's body were torn away.
Such was the power of the Cougar, considered the strongest of the 3rd-tier monsters in terms of athleticism.
The battalion commander, who had been staring at the battlefield as if mesmerized, slowly turned his head.
“Who… who in the world are you?”
Gaold grinned, his smile stretching from ear to ear.
“Human. Just like you.”
***
“Rena! Rena!”
“Sis!”
Kanya spotted Rena fighting, trapped between giants. She lunged, pulling her sister into an embrace and tackling her out of the way.
A giant's foot slammed down where they had just been, the impact shaking the ground and jolting their bodies as if they'd landed on a sheet of rubber.
Faced with a Law she had never experienced before, Rena was terrified. Then, seeing Kanya was on foot, she felt her over.
“Sis! Are you hurt? Where's your Guroi?”
Tears welled up in Kanya's eyes before she could even speak.
Her poor sister. It broke her heart to know that she would have to part with her like this, without her ever having experienced anything good in the world.
Rena seemed to sense something and smiled.
“I'm okay, sis.”
Kanya rubbed her cheek against Rena's.
Her sister was smart; there was no way she didn't understand. The bodies of their comrades already littered the ground around them.
She had already decided on her final words.
Rena had waited so long, and Kanya desperately wanted to tell her this one thing before they died.
“Rena, Shirone is…”
“Shirone?”
Rena looked up at the sky as she spoke. Following her sister's gaze, Kanya's eyes widened in shock.
Shirone was flying in the sky, his golden wings unfurled.
*So this is what war in Heaven looks like.*
The view of the battlefield from above was gruesome.
The giants slaughtering humans looked no different from humans slaughtering ants.
*But I can end this. If this works…*
Shirone cast Shining Impact. A brightness rivaling the sun blinded everyone.
The effect was even more pronounced in the encroaching twilight.
“Guaaargh!”
“Damn it! What was that?!”
A moment later, people regained their sight.
The terror of being blinded was significant even for the giants, and they became even more frenzied, letting out monstrous roars.
Just then, something flashed in the sky, and a brilliant, multicolored light bloomed across the night sky.
Rainbow-hued patterns shimmered across the plains, now veiled in the curtain of twilight, and everyone, giant and human alike, looked up.
“W-What is that…”
Shirone hovered above, a massive Ataraxia complete above his head, looking down on them all as he beat his wings of light.
The Mecha tribe was dumbstruck.
Shirone's current appearance was an exact mirror of the beings the citizens of Heaven truly feared.
“Uwaaah. Uwaaah.”
Hundreds of giants rumbled the earth as they bent their knees, their mouths hanging open as they began to weep like fools.
The giants, too, were beings of the Law.
Even in their state of lost identity, Ikael's magic circle exerted a powerful presence deep within their instincts.
“Regulator… of the Law…”
As if kneeling wasn't enough, the giants lowered themselves further, pressing their foreheads to the ground.
At last, the humans came into view.
But they only glanced at each other for a moment before their gazes returned to the sky.
“The Nephilim…”
A single word, long forgotten, escaped the heretics' lips.
“Sis, Shirone is here.”
Rena, held in Kanya's arms, was sobbing.
Though some had cursed him as a deserter, though others claimed to regret defying God because of his deception, she had never once doubted Shirone. To her, this was nothing short of a miracle.
“You're right, Rena. Shirone… he really must be a descendant of the angels.”
With golden wings more magnificent than any angel's, and the resplendent, five-colored halo—the symbol of an Archangel—floating above his head, Shirone had returned.
From the light of Sector 73, to become the light of Heaven itself.
“Nephilim. Nephilim.”
“Regulator of the Law…”
Everyone was kneeling at Shirone's feet.