The Grain

The grain.

When he had first found it and put it to use, he had been glad. Faced with an opponent of a higher order, he finally had a reliable way to kill them even without Chaos.

And now the grain had come to him again, another way out.

Among the countless grains, Yujun found the smallest. Instinct struck.

That one.

He did not believe, as common sense might suggest, that cutting an easy grain would let him escape. So he searched out the smallest of them—and the one that would be hardest to cut.

Not much time. Finish it fast.

He kicked off the ground and leapt into the sky. The smallest grain in his sight hung at a great height, but flight magic carried him there without difficulty, and he swung his sword into it without a moment's hesitation.

The air tore, and something split. The sky came down. More precisely, it broke apart completely, shattering into fragments.

Jackpot.

When Yujun opened his eyes, Sophia was driving her spear at the shield he had raised, while the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Illusion Race poured magic against it without end.

"......They certainly are working hard."

If he had been even a step slower in forming that shield and had been sealed inside the illusion, he might have landed in real danger. In all likelihood he would have been cast out of the Illusion King's world. Then the reward Doctor Sammington had promised him, and the reward for destroying the illusion world, would both have come to nothing. Better to remove every threat quickly, before the work he had already done went to waste.

For the moment, those threats were Sorsin, Sophia, and a number of nobles. Them first.

Nothing matched Weapon Earthquake for sweeping the enemies in front of him away in a single stroke, but he decided to save it. There was no telling what spectacle that skill might raise this time. If it did here what it had done on the surface, blowing apart the underground base that housed the supercomputer could become even harder. Yujun had no wish to wrestle with that kind of trouble, so he reached for Sword Unity again—the skill that had let him dispose of more than a hundred robots with ease. There were several ways to use it. He meant to use it the same way as before.

Three copies of the Absolute Sovereign's Sword took form in the empty air.

Three should be enough.

Honestly, he didn't need as many as four blades to handle a handful of enemies. Fewer swords meant finer control. And above all, three were enough.

Before the Illusion Race even registered them, the fully formed swords began to move. Their speed was set by Yujun's Agility, and his Agility was beyond imagining. He went for the ones with the weakest bodies first. Steel sank home three times over, and three of the Illusion Race fell at once.

By the time Sophia and Sorsin whirled around, it was already too late. Every member of the Illusion Race but the two of them lay on the cold floor.

"What...... is this?"

"Why didn't you tell me a monster like that was here?"

Sophia rounded on Sorsin.

"This is hardly the moment for that. Stop him first."

"If you want me to comply, demand something that makes sense."

Sophia snorted. Only moments ago, before Yujun had been caught in the illusion magic, she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠herself had been a single step from death. She could not imagine winning against him. Keeping her life would be fortune enough.

"What are the two of you doing?"

Yujun said it as he came toward them, unhurried. Tension tight on her face, Sophia clenched the shaft of her spear. Sorsin began preparing a new illusion spell. Yujun was not about to wait for him.

A sword drifting in the air punched through the back of Sorsin's head. The First Prince died without even managing a scream. Sophia's hands trembled. An overwhelming power. Even following the swords with her eyes was difficult. She had watched the Illusion Race die in the space of a blink, and hope left her completely. She bit down hard on her lip.

"I will take my own life. So would you stop coming closer, if only for a moment?"

"No."

"......"

He had no way of knowing how the reward would be calculated once the Illusion King's world was destroyed. If slaying a powerful enemy made that reward larger, he might come to regret, bitterly, having let Sophia kill herself instead of doing it with his own hand.

"I beg you. I can still feel that pain from before. Please......"

"Then move yourself."

"You are the one who will not let me move."

In truth, Yujun had already bound Sophia's body ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with Space Domination. There was no special reason. He had simply felt he had been neglecting magic, and had put it to use once in the middle of a fight. Not knowing that, Sophia mistook it for the start of a torture.

"I—I was wrong! I failed to recognize a true power!"

"What? Why the sudden change?"

"You're trying to torment me, aren't you? To violate me? I know full well the filthy desires of humankind. But I beg you. Just this once, please kill me cleanly."

"What are you even saying."

A clean slash. He gave her exactly what she wanted. He had meant to finish it quickly anyway, and with her spouting strange nonsense he couldn't very well leave her be.

"......I didn't really do anything, did I."

Heminine, behind him, murmured it.

"Oh? You were here?"

"You didn't know?"

"No. I knew. You just weren't much help."

"......I'll admit that."

"If he dies, he can't come back here, right?"

"Sorsin?"

"Yes."

"He won't. He talks as if dying doesn't matter to him, but the side effects are enormous. He can't return unless he pays a considerable price."

"So if he pays the price, he can come?"

"......Yes."

"Well...... if he comes, I can always kill him again. Still, it'd get annoying, so better to finish this before he shows up."

Yujun and Heminine pushed quickly through the underground laboratory. Some floors had robots stationed on them and some did not, but floors holding a hundred or more were the more common case. He had wondered what facility could possibly be important enough to warrant so many combat robots, and as he cleared the place and skimmed the research materials, he understood.

They're researching nukes.

They had spoken of invading other planets, and it had not been empty boasting.

If I'd just brought the whole underground down, that would have been a disaster.

Dozens of nuclear warheads sat deep beneath the ground. Nor were they only here. A second base outside the city was packed with them as well. Every preparation was already complete.

If RTZ-3080 were to drag those nukes into the Tower of Infinity...

They would meet extinction not at the Demon God's hands, but by nuclear fire. Even Yujun could not think of a way to stop that.

Nothing guarantees the warheads here will actually reach the Tower of Infinity.

And this was the Illusion King's world. A virtual world.

"Heminine. Is it possible the Illusion King's world is actually connected to a world in another dimension?"

"......Why do you ask all of a sudden?"

"This place doesn't feel like a world that was created as a virtual construct."

"What makes you think that?"

"It's hard to explain. I can't see any grains."

"What? Grains? What are those?"

"You don't know, I see. Then telling you wouldn't help."

"......Are you ignoring me?"

"It's not that. Even if I explained, it wouldn't mean anything unless you could see them yourself."

There were no grains here.

Could the Illusion King who created this place simply be so far above me that the grains don't show at all?

That was possible, but he didn't think the odds were high.

Unless the Illusion King had become a god and built a new planet with his own hands, a virtual world couldn't be this perfect.

Which meant he had one more reason to destroy the supercomputer.

Yujun pushed his pace higher still. From here on, there would be no such thing as conserving his strength. A chain of impacts tore through the floors, but he held wide-area skills back as far as he could. A nuclear warhead going off was not an option.

The planet would be gone before I even collected my reward from the Doctor. Better to be careful.

Restricting those skills did nothing to slow him. It was thanks to putting his new skill, Sword Unity, to thorough use. The drain on his mental power was heavy, but his proficiency climbed so visibly the more he used it that he wasn't tired. If anything, he was exhilarated.

Growth isn't only a matter of levels going up.

Using a skill over and over, and the work of mastering it, might give him more than a rise in level ever could.

The more I use Sword Unity, the clearer it gets. This skill is genuinely broken.

Taken by itself, Sword Unity was only about as strong as its rank suggested. But once it began to synergize with his Swordsmanship trait, the efficiency turned monstrous. The hundred-odd robots he had first thought a burden were no match for him now. Twenty seconds was enough to clear the lot.

And so time passed, until they reached the fiftieth floor ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠underground. Heminine, who had kept her mouth firmly shut and simply watched until now, finally spoke, admiration plain on her face.

"It's honestly astonishing how the time keeps shrinking......"

"Why say that now."

"You. I think you might even be stronger than my father."

"That's belated too."

"My father...... have you seen the Illusion King?"

"No?"

"Then how do you know?"

"You're the one who said it."

"......"

"Still no sign of the supercomputer. It really might be at the very bottom."

"But what is that supercomputer, exactly? The translation isn't working at all."

"Probably because it doesn't exist in the Illusion Realm. To put it simply, a golem that's incredibly smart but can't move?"

"......That doesn't really land."

"I can't make it any easier than that with the head I've got."

Then Yujun's face hardened.

"Wh-why? What's wrong?"

"I'll go on ahead."

"So suddenly?"

"If we delay any longer, the base could blow. No—past the city. The planet itself would go."

"It's that serious?"

"It's urgent. Very. So......"

Yujun left Heminine behind and dropped to the floor below. He could not afford to lose another moment. His senses were open to their fullest range, and he had felt the nuclear warheads beginning, slowly, to move. No target had been fixed, but the mere fact that the warheads had stirred was a crisis on a knife's edge. If they detonated in the ground this instant, that alone would be a disaster.

But perhaps it was a blessing in disguise. Because the warheads had shifted, he learned something: the location of the supercomputer, RTZ-3080. It was faint, but Yujun felt some kind of signal travel toward where the warheads lay. Sensing it surprised even him, yet he had vaguely thought it might be possible, which was why he had driven his senses to their limit.

The supercomputer was on the seventy-second underground floor. Why the seventy-second in particular, he didn't know, and it didn't matter. What mattered was that he was closing in on the objective Doctor Sammington had set, and that finishing the job would soon put the Stone of Omnipotence in his hands.

He reached the seventy-second floor in an instant. The floors above no longer concerned him. He smashed through the door, and hundreds of robots were waiting there to greet him.

"Now that's what I call a welcome."

Grinning wide as a madman, Yujun called on both skills at once.