The Birth of Chaos
[Well, Legion Commander? Flawless, isn't it?]
Erzsébet announced with a dramatic ta-da!, unveiling her masterpiece.
What lay on the infirmary bed under a flipped-up blanket was a doll that looked exactly like Simon. Made of spider silk, no less.
"……Hmm."
Simon smoothed the space between his brows with an uneasy expression.
"It's unsettlingly realistic."
[Of course it is! The girl hugs it and snuggles up to it every single day, so I guarantee the realism.]
"……Please, Erze."
And so, late that night, after leaving the decoy behind in the infirmary, Simon and Erzsébet arrived at Pier's Ruins.
[You have come, Young Master!]
Akemus bowed with impeccable courtesy at the ruins' entrance. His frame was so enormous that it looked like a bear folding itself in half.
[Thank goodness you appear unharmed! How is your body faring?]
"Yes, I'm fine now. You worked hard too, Akemus—"
Wait a moment.
Wasn't this the perfect timing to score some points with Akemus?
Thanks for your efforts in battle. You've been through a lot. Phrases like those were far too predictable.
"You were the only Ancient Undead who didn't kill a 'Bishop' in this war, but captured one alive instead, weren't you, Akemus?"
[!]
Akemus's eyes went wide. Simon continued with a smile.
"You did it with me and the Legion's circumstances in mind, didn't you? Thank you."
Akemus's shoulders trembled with emotion.
[I merely did what had to be done, Young Master!]
This is working. Simon bit his thumb lightly with an anxious look on his face.
"But I have nothing worthy of repaying your loyalty with……"
Splash, splash!
It was the sound of Akemus's tears pouring out. He prostrated himself on the floor, wailing.
[Loyalty is not something done in exchange for reward! Merely reigning over us as our lord is enough for me to fight with body and soul! Young Master!!]
[Move aside.]
Erzsébet, looking utterly unimpressed, bound Akemus in spider silk and hurled him away.
[Ahem! Young Masteeeeeer!!]
Leaving the echo of his cry ringing behind him, Simon stepped into the interior of the ruins.
[Oh, it's Simon!]
Prince's head shot up. Pier raised a hand in greeting as well.
[Simon! Simon! That wand woman last time was incredible!]
Prince said, pumping his fists in the air.
[I had no idea she could call us across dimensions! I was just standing around spacing out when suddenly I got summoned — nearly jumped out of my skin!]
Simon nodded.
Love her or hate her, the MVP of this battle had been the legionified Herseba. Going beyond her own mummies, she had pulled in three Ancient Undead and completely turned the tide.
"Which is exactly the problem."
Simon took Herseba out of his subspace and set her down on the altar.
"Herseba's consciousness still hasn't returned."
In this battle, she had surpassed even the extreme limits she'd reached when using the World of Sand during the Duel Evaluation against Shatel.
Pier approached.
[First we must examine the main body. Boy!]
"Yes."
Simon drew Herseba's main body out of his bracelet's subspace and placed it on the altar.
The Life Vessel was beating away steadily, but her Jet-Black reserves had hit rock bottom and shown no sign of recovering, and her mind still hadn't come back.
Recovery first, for now.
Having checked Herseba's condition, Simon turned to the others.
"Everyone, please lend me your strength."
With Simon at the center, Pier, Erzsébet, Prince, and Akemus stood in a circle, spreading their palms toward the Lich's Life Vessel. Their minds were already linked, so no explanation was needed.
"Let's begin."
Jet-Black flowed out from five palms, filling Herseba's Life Vessel. The reserves that had been barely scraping bottom began to rise, little by little.
[Oh! Its capacity for holding Jet-Black is bigger than I expected.]
Prince murmured.
It seemed to be one of the changes that came with Herseba's awakening as a Legion Undead. Even with four Ancient Undead supplying Jet-Black, it filled quickly.
[Boy!]
Pier, who had been observing the situation, called out to Simon.
[Leave the Jet-Black supply to us. You'd best tend to the magic circle's circuits — there may be severed or loosened parts!]
"Good idea."
They divided the work at once.
Simon examined the Life Vessel's magic circle. The Rune Script and core formulas were fine, but just as the seasoned Pier had predicted, several loosened circuits were visible.
The circuits changed when she went from a summon-type to a Legion Undead.
He straightened the loosened sections and realigned the crossed wires where they had drifted out of place. The more he repaired, the more light bloomed across the Life Vessel.
Before long, the three bands resumed their work. They pumped in Jet-Black like pistons and spread it throughout her entire form, supplying it to the summoning circle in her skull as well.
Soon the wand resting on the altar floated up into the air. The eye affixed to its tip snapped open.
[Huh? Huh?]
Herseba had finally opened her eyes.
[I'm still perfectly fine?! I thought for sure I'd been wiped out of existence!]
"I told you, didn't I."
Simon managed a smile even as he panted, gasping for the breath that had surged up to his throat.
"I'd never lose you."
He'd thought that was a fairly moving moment.
[DIE!]
Herseba went bonk-bonk-bonk, flying around and smacking Simon on the head. Simon retreated, shielding his skull.
"Wh-what was that for, all of a sudden?!"
[You put me through that much agony?! Who told you necromancers get to just use their summons to death until they win?!]
Pier and Prince watched the spectacle with snorts of laughter, but Erzsébet was shaking her clenched fists.
[Some snot-nosed young Lich dares to cut ahead of me for skinship with the Young Master!]
[Getting beaten counts as skinship now?]
Prince asked, blinking round-eyed.
[It does indeed, Prince. Such play may, in fact, be the ultimate……]
[I do not wish to know about your strange tastes, Erzsébet.]
Akemus cut in flatly.
Having pounded Simon to her heart's content, Herseba seemed to have run out of strength and was puffing hard. Simon, too, flopped down onto the altar and clapped his hands.
"Now then, may I have your attention for a moment? There's something I'd like to announce to everyone as Legion Commander."
[?]
Every gaze turned to Simon.
"As Erzsébet said, Herseba is still young and not yet an Ancient Undead. But there's no disputing the power and capability she possesses."
Akemus nodded.
[Her ability to summon all of us, scattered as we were, into the dungeon was truly remarkable, Young Master.]
[She does possess a mummy corps as well.]
"Yes, and so—"
Simon raised his palm and gestured toward Herseba.
"I'd like to treat the legionified Herseba as your equal — as the commander of the mummy corps. Are you all agreeable?"
Pier let out a great roar of laughter.
[Kahaha! She's more than earned it!!]
Erzsébet pressed a hand to her forehead.
[Ugh, she's got no manners whatsoever, but even I acknowledge the girl's ability.]
Prince and Akemus voiced their agreement in turn. Soon all the Ancient Undead had taken up the formal stances of the Legion.
[With the Legion Commander's sanction, in my name as Administrator Pier, I shall raise this dead one's station!]
Vmmmm!
Herseba's main body was engulfed in radiant light.
What Pier was doing now was lifting the restrictions placed on Legion Undead and granting her the authority of a commander — the right to act autonomously, even without orders.
[……]
Herseba looked rather taken aback. A tangle of emotions mingled in her eye, set into the wand.
"I look forward to working with you from here on, Herseba."
Simon said with a smile. He'd thought that, this time, was surely the moment to be moved.
[You think handing me a single promotion means you're off the hook?!]
Herseba flew over and hammered Simon's crown with rapid-fire blows. Laughter, large and small, rippled out from every corner.
And so the Legion gained a new and mighty pillar.
It carried deep significance: this new commander was a being Simon had made with his own strength — not an inheritance from his father, Richard.
The next morning.
Back in the infirmary ward, Simon was once again running his experiments, mixing Jet-Black and Holy Power to create the Void.
Fwoooom!
Another failure, of course. Jet-Black and Holy Power refused to mix, like water and oil. They either scattered apart, or the divinity purified the Jet-Black outright, or the two collided too hard and exploded.
This is tough.
Simon flopped back onto the bed.
No — it's not even tough. I can't see a speck of a possibility.
What unsettled Simon most of all was that the bodily sense that had once let him create the Void was slowly growing fainter.
Back then, I just sort of… slid them together and it worked.
Granted, that had been possible because it was right after meeting that being. Expecting to manage it purely on muscle memory, without knowledge or theoretical understanding, might well have been arrogance on his part.
"Then let's flip the whole approach on its head!"
Simon shot upright and spread out his right hand.
He drew a small magic circle at his fingertips, then drew out blood and Jet-Black, mixed them in a six-to-four ratio, and passed the blend through the circle. An exquisite emerald mist flowed out.
<Cloud>
Maybe it was because he'd borrowed it so heavily during the recent incident, but using the Cloud that Silaje had taught him felt a little awkward.
But in the end, this technique was a power he had honed himself — an asset of his own. He decided there was no need to seal it away.
"All right! Now, with this Cloud…"
Keeping the Cloud sustained in his right hand, Simon spread open his left palm.
"If I raise divinity and slam them together—!"
Jiggle!
This time, it didn't explode. Instead, when the Cloud and the divinity met, something strange happened.
Like a game of tail-tag, the divinity and the Cloud had begun spinning around each other, one chasing the other in circles.
"What is this?"
Simon hurriedly jabbed at the badge-shaped alter ego of Pier that he'd set aside in the corner.
"Pier! Pier! Look at this!"
[Hmm? What is it, boy?]
Simon lifted the alter ego and adjusted its position for a good view. Pier's alter ego narrowed its sockets.
[Kheheh! What in the world is this bizarre thing?!]
"I mixed Cloud with divinity and it turned into this!"
The spinning power soon went POP! and burst. Fortunately, Farahan's sound-blocking magic circle kept the noise from leaking out.
"One more time…!"
He raised Cloud and divinity again and clashed them together. Once more, a spinning, top-like force was born.
[Hmm, I see!]
"Did you figure something out?"
[Open your eyes wide and watch closely, boy.]
Pier continued in a grave voice.
[The Cloud is breaking apart. When the divinity stimulates the Cloud, the Jet-Black inside it shies away from the divinity and crowds toward the edges. Look — the tip of the Cloud has turned black!]
"Ah…!"
He hadn't noticed because it was rotating, but Pier was exactly right. The tip of the Cloud was stained black.
It had begun as a combination of divinity and Cloud, but as time passed, what remained was divinity on the left, Simon's 'SM-1' blood in the middle, and Jet-Black on the right.
The divinity lunged to purify the Jet-Black, its natural opposite — but the 'SM-1' standing in its way blocked it, and the whole mass seemed to whirl round and round in place.
Then, the moment the membrane of blood thinned and the Jet-Black and divinity collided—
BOOM!
That was when the explosion occurred, just as it had.
"This is fun, though!"
Simon shouted, his face lit up with excitement.
"Couldn't we actually use this as-is?"
[Kheheh! Hard to say. I don't quite see a practical application.]
"With this technique, we might be able to hit an enemy with Jet-Black and divinity damage simultaneously!"
Already thrilled by his new discovery, Simon's ears had shut out Pier's voice entirely.
He clumped together Cloud and divinity once more, formed the spinning force, and lifted it gently into the air.
"!!"
Suddenly, it slipped out of his control. The two forces, whirling like tops, careened around the infirmary on wild, unpredictable trajectories, then shot out the window and slammed into a nearby tree.
The impact scattered the SM-1 membrane — and the divinity penetrated straight into the Jet-Black.
KA-BOOM!
An explosion erupted.
The tree lurched violently, and with a long shhhhaaaaa—, its leaves came raining down like a downpour.
"S-see that, Pier?! Not what I expected, but at this level it's plenty valuable even in real combat—!"
"WHOSE DOING WAS THAT!!"
Simon dropped flat in an instant. Beyond the window, a furious dorm supervisor was charging over, his face beet red.
Simon peeked outside, then scratched his cheek sheepishly and said in a very small voice,
"M-maybe it needs a bit of refinement before field use…"
Pier roared with laughter. The way this perfectly sensible boy lost his mind whenever he discovered something new was every bit the spitting image of Richard.
[A bit? It will need a great deal of refinement. Though it seems far removed from that 'Void' you wielded before!]
"You're right. It's definitely drifted away from the power of the Void. But still—"
A completely original technique, Simon's and Simon's alone — born from an idea seeded in the Void.
"It's still in the testing stage, but if I were to give it a name…"
A power that was neither Jet-Black nor divinity.
Simon pictured it in his mind: Jet-Black, blood, and divinity whirling together in a dizzying spiral.
"How about Chaos?"