The Meaning of Catastrophe
I still cannot forget that day.
The incident that overturned my life and rewrote every value I held.
Even on a cosmic scale, mine had been a happy existence.
Father prized his own life above all else, yet he never abandoned the duties of a parent. He cultivated the talents we possessed and saw to every lesson that would let us stand on our own. Mother treasured us as the fruit of her love and shielded us from every danger beyond our walls. My older sisters, born ahead of me, doted on me without end, cooing over how adorable I was.
Among them, my eldest sister had carved out a power base of her own beneath Mother, who already held more than half the galaxy. She once told me that once I became independent she would feed me for the rest of my life if I came to her—only to be set upon by the other sisters for saying it.
Had I grown up and left home just like that, I suspect I would have turned into a thoroughly unpleasant person.
But that day taught me that the world, which had always looked so easy, was a place filled with fear.
A Terran—an Earthling who resembled Father—came looking for him.
That day, Father summoned every one of us and said he would show us the destination we were meant to reach.
A star system of no value whatsoever: a barren, wasteland-type planet and a scattering of worthless asteroids. Nothing more.
There, I learned what the word catastrophe truly meant.
The two of them leapt bare-bodied into open space and fought with such ferocity that every planet in the system was destroyed. A single punch carved a colossal scar into a world. A kick erased asteroids from existence. By the time their battle ended, the wreckage of shattered planets had left an entire star system in ruins.
Some of my siblings grew excited, imagining they might one day reach that height. Others despaired that beings capable of such power even existed.
I was among the latter.
If a fight between only two people could reduce a star system to ash, how easily could something like me be killed?
Amazingly, Father won this time—though he had lost to the same opponent before.
The shock of watching an entire planetary system annihilated by a single duel left me terrified of fighting itself. Father and Mother both insisted I had talent, yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not picture myself wielding power like that.
In the end, afraid of battle and of struggle, I shut myself in my room and sank into a private world sealed off from everything outside.
Low gray mist. Trees twisted into ominous shapes. A dense forest where the canopy of leaves blocked so much sunlight that day and night could barely be told apart—a place like a witch's wood from a fairy tale, utterly free of any scent of civilization. And lying collapsed in that incongruous setting was a single boy.
"…Huh……?"
Coming to, the boy blinked and looked around as if none of this made sense.
Pure white hair and white eyes gave him an otherworldly air; his slender frame, almost without muscle, stirred a protective instinct at a glance. The only other oddity was the peculiar garment he wore—top and bottom joined like a single suit.
"Skynet? Answer me, Skynet."
He called for the autonomous AI system his Terran-born father had tamed and named. Instead—
Koo-goo-ook! Kooo!
"Hik!?"
As if answering his voice, the low, ominous cries of birds rose from somewhere unseen. He flinched and curled in on himself.
"M-Mom? Sis? Please answer me……."
Through his bio-device—the biometric information processor—he tried to reach his parents and every sibling. But the display synchronized to his brain and eyes, visible only to him, was cracked and broken. It looked exactly like what happened when the bio-nanomachines that powered the device were hit by an EMP.
What on earth is going on?
He could not understand any of it. The last thing he remembered was gaming in his room as usual. For a boy who had been at the absolute center of a mobile mega-ark 1,152 kilometers across to open his eyes in some nameless forest was simply impossible. From his point of view, making sense of the situation was nearly hopeless.
Then something yanked the boy—whose mind was about to overheat—back into reality.
K-Killing intent……?
Years ago, once his children reached a certain age, his father had made them feel what killing intent truly was, along with the cryptic remark that if they grew up as his blood, they would feel it for the rest of their lives. What the boy sensed now was similar to what Father had shown him—only rougher, more chaotic. Even that much was enough to lock his body solid.
Tak-tak-tak!
From the darkness right in front of him came the sound of something hard being struck. Then, as if answering that noise, a nauseating scrape of friction burst from a short distance away.
Thanks to the blood of his dragon-kin mother, the boy could see somewhat clearly even in the dark. Something stepped into view.
What is that……?
One was a four-legged beast clad in hide like stone, six yellow eyes set in two neat rows, its snout ending in a sharp beak. The other looked much the same overall, but its beak was built for crushing and chewing. The creatures closed in slowly, flanking him from left and right.
"Ah… uwa……!"
Killing intent felt for the first time from anyone but his father set his heart hammering wildly while his lungs refused to work. His face went blue. For a boy who hated fighting and had only ever known struggle through games, becoming prey for unknown monsters was not something he could simply accept. Frozen by terror until he could barely breathe, he could only let out stifled, leaking whimpers even as the creatures drew nearer.
Had the beasts not kept their wariness of an unfamiliar life-form, they would have pounced long ago. But that caution finally reached its limit. Maintaining a set distance, they broke into a rapid charge.
Ta-ta-ta-ta-tak!
"Uwaaagh!"
Terror seized him. He squeezed his eyes shut and collapsed where he stood.
Bakak! Kujik!
"Kyaek!"
"Kak!"
A dull impact rang out. The beasts screamed and were flung back. From the nape of the boy's neck, a strangely shaped lump of flesh had transformed into a long hammer and struck them.
Only then did he remember: the cosmic monstrosity his father had subjugated and refined—the Cryptor—had been given not only to him but to every sibling as a pet. The realization broke the paralysis of fear.
"Hahk! Haaahk!"
The breath that had been locked in his chest burst free. His legs gave out and he dropped to his knees. The beasts lunged at him again, but the Cryptor—wound so thinly around his entire body as to be invisible—counterattacked for its master.
Kwajik! Kwagagak! Kadeudeuk!
Beast and monster clashed. But a beast was only a beast, and a monster was a monster. The Cryptor—terror of countless lives across the cosmos, refined by the boy's father to the extreme of efficiency—overwhelmed them utterly.
Puk! Pupupupuk!
"Keureureureuk—"
"Ppeuteudeu……."
Pierced by a swarm of tiny spear-blades, the beasts cried out once and fell. Their stubborn animal vitality still made them thrash despite mortal wounds—
Ujik! Wajijik!
—but the Cryptor tore into their bodies, dissolving them with digestive fluid and reclaiming the calories it had spent.
"……."
Exposed to the mutual killing intent of creatures intent on slaughtering each other, the boy could only stare blankly at the remains even after it was all over. Then the Cryptor, following the knowledge implanted in it, forcibly hauled his body upright and began moving him somewhere else. The noise of combat, the reek of blood—if they stayed, other things that wanted his life would surely appear.
And so, even as the Cryptor carried him along, the boy only gazed emptily into the air with eyes that had lost their light.
Wiiing! Wiiing! Wiiing!
Maximum alert level engaged. Maximum alert level engaged.
All residents are to cease commercial activity immediately.
Repeating: maximum alert level is now in effect.
An ark-class mobile fortress that served as a galactic commercial hub, with goods worth hundreds of trillions moving through it every day. Inside, countless machine soldiers moved in a frenzy, locking down all motion.
"Wh-What?"
"Hey! What the hell is going on!?"
"W-We're seeing this for the first time too!"
Maximum alert level engaged. All residents are to halt activity at once.
"At least tell us what this is about……!"
You will be warned only once.
The merchants and mercenaries who used the place fell silent the moment gun barrels swung toward them. They knew their masters well enough: push any further and they would be killed without hesitation.
While the machine soldiers moved openly, in the fortress's hidden spaces the cosmic monsters known as Cryptors—transformed into tentacle forms—spread like spiderwebs, hunting for an intruder.
"You still haven't found the intruder!?"
A woman with dazzling white hair and white eyes, white wings spread wide, spoke with raw irritation.
"I-I'm sorry, my lady!"
"We don't understand how this could have happened either……."
Faced with her fury, maids of every race in servant dress bowed their heads and scrambled for excuses.
"Is that supposed to be an answer!? Kaisent—that child is gone! From a Level-Five sector with the highest security rating! Do you even understand what that means!?"
"B-But……."
"Stop making excuses and find him! Now!"
"Hik……!"
"Aaagh!"
Rage so fierce it short-circuited reason erupted from her body as a savage aura. The maids could not withstand it; they screamed and collapsed. In her fury her inner energy had burst free, crushing the flesh of everyone who had entered her domain without her even realizing it.
"Calm down, Idrien."
A woman appeared then—skin a soft violet, hair like obsidian, and four arms in total, a second pair growing from her shoulder blades.
"Calm down? You want me to calm down? My little brother is missing and you're telling me to calm down!?"
"He's my little brother too. Pressuring the maids here won't fix anything."
"……."
Born of different wombs but raised as sisters, Idrien took the cool rebuke hard. She dragged in ragged breaths until she finally managed to rein herself in.
"Cough! Cough!"
"Hahk! Haaahk!"
Only when she settled her energy did the pressure lift. The maids broke out in cold sweat and sank to the floor all at once.
"Go do your jobs."
"Y-Yes……!"
The violet-skinned woman dismissed them. They forced their trembling legs to carry them out.
"…Did you find anything?"
"In Kaisent's room, a strange energy wave flared for a moment and vanished. Fortunately Skynet recorded the wave pattern, so analysis is underway."
At the time Idrien had not been calm enough to think of such things; the violet-skinned woman had clearly investigated on her own.
"And?"
"The pattern is different, but we confirmed it resembles the dimensional transfer signature from when we crossed over from the other side to this one."
"What? Then remnants of the Divine Empire……!?"
"No. That's impossible. We wiped them out with our own hands. And a different wave pattern means it isn't their ability."
"Then what in the world……."
"For now we can only contact Father and wait for him to return."
Their father had set out on a long journey with their mothers, saying he had someone to find. Realizing they could not resolve this crisis by their own strength alone, Idrien bowed her head and wept.
"What do we do……. Kaisent is so kind and fragile—he won't be able to endure anything harsh……."
Among all of Father's children, Kaisent was the gentlest and most delicate. He was so adorable that even once he became an adult she had planned to take him in and raise him for life.
She's got it bad too.
Recognizing that Idrien's feelings sat somewhere past sisterhood and short of romance, the violet-skinned woman sighed inwardly.
His nature is fragile, yes—but Father personally gave him a Cryptor. Unless the dimensional transfer itself kills him, he will almost certainly still be alive.
Colder by temperament than Idrien, she judged that Kaisent dying pointlessly would take truly wretched luck.
And he has the talent Father himself acknowledged.
Their father had looked at Kaisent and said:
For those words to come from a man who could destroy planets bare-handed and travel between stars, the talent could not be ordinary. Even Idrien—the most gifted among the siblings—had only been rated "useful."
The problem is he's too terrified to ever use that talent.
Still, as long as the Cryptor Father had personally refined and modified stayed with him, he could survive even if he dropped into the middle of a battlefield.
The real question is who took him, how, and why. Anyone capable of dimensional transfer technology is no ordinary power.
With their own abilities, there was nothing more they could do. In the end, all that remained was to hope their father—once he received the message—would return and grasp the situation.