Beneath Goldon (2)
“Move.”
Clang!
The scrap metal, already split into six pieces, went skittering far across the floor. The area around the door was clean at last.
“Opening the door now.”
“Got it.”
A door roughly three meters tall. The sword motifs carved into either side looked pretty damn cool. Whoever made this clearly knew a thing or two about style.
Creeeak—
I grabbed the handles and forced the doors apart. A strange magic circle was drawn across the center of the door, but I didn’t sense any particular power from it. Past its expiration date, apparently.
“All right. Ninja entry.”
I jerked my chin at Orphe and Diana, who were standing blankly behind me, telling them to follow.
“Ah! Big sis!”
Diana suddenly shouted.
Whoosh—
Behind Orphe, the scrap-metal fragments rose into the air.
Clack. Clack.
They reassembled like a liver regenerating!
“Cyber-Underground Public Enemy?!”
Was this Delbanas’s boyfriend or something?
[Who… am I? How much time has passed?]
Back in one piece, the scrap heap suddenly started spouting nonsense. Not that I cared.
[You…?]
Clang!
I launched another jet kick.
Thunk!
The thing fell apart again.
“What is this…”
“Resurrection: not allowed.”
If it got up one more time, it was getting the full Okonomiyaki Assassination Technique.
A moment later.
[Calm yourselves. I was mistaken. I have been suspended for a very long time. My artificial brain is not functioning properly.]
A middle-aged man’s voice spilled from the thing’s head. So that earlier genderless mechanical tone had been a disguise?
“Kyaaah~!”
Diana, startled, scrambled on all fours and hid behind Orphe.
“Not going to reassemble?”
[I am not dangerous. I have no intention of causing harm. I wish to make that clear.]
When it came out this submissive, killing it felt a little wrong. Calm and rational—didn’t seem like a typical yokai either. Same category as Lamina and Diana, maybe?
“From now on, no more bad words. Got it?”
For the sake of Lamina, who had given her life for her little sister’s happiness, I decided to spare it.
[I offer my apologies.]
At least it understood language. Convenient.
“Fine. Now get lost. If you’re not gone in three minutes, I really will kill you.”
“I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t seem particularly threatening. Let’s have it guide us. We don’t know what’s further in.”
Good idea. As expected of Orphe, my external brain.
“Guide us. Pull any funny business and I’ll turn you into iron balls.”
[Understood.]
The reassembled tin can pushed itself upright.
[I have several questions. May I ask them?]
“No. Guide us. Now.”
[Understood. I will ask later, at leisure. What do you wish to see?]
“Just the essentials.”
I watch movies through ten-minute O-Tube reviews. Or TreeWiki. Honestly, doesn’t everyone? Unless you’re a total otaku, nobody sits through a two-hour video examining every little detail for fun. Most people skim it, go “Ah~ that one~! Yeah, it was fun~!” and move on. That’s reality.
[Then you would want the ‘reason’ this facility was built. Understood.]
The thing took the lead and began guiding us through the underground base.
“This metal human can communicate calmly, unlike ordinary monsters. It might be a spirit.”
Orphe whispered.
Metal human? If you didn’t know about robots, that was a fair way to put it.
“There’s no scrap-metal spirit that looks like this.”
Not that I’d ever seen a spirit.
[This way.]
The base was enormous. I could almost believe the entire floor of Goldon was one giant underground facility.
“There was a space this wide under Goldon, huh.”
“Does that mean I was running around up there with my friends…?”
“Nin-nin.”
We walked for several minutes.
[We have arrived.]
“What’s this?”
“Ahh!”
“Nin?!”
All three of our jaws dropped.
Gleaming brilliantly.
Parked in the underground parking lot—well, base—was a round spaceship roughly forty meters across.
“A spaceship designed by the Yokai-Nazi Alliance?”
So Delbanas and the Spirit-Yokai had been Nazis. Had they implemented a ‘Human Meat-Quality Improvement Policy’ here too? Nazis who’d held a moon base and an underworld kingdom—expanding into another world wasn’t that strange.
[This is ‘Ton-Granten,’ a war weapon of the Watchers. Only the Watchers and their servants can pilot it. This base was built to conceal it.]
“The Watchers… what exactly were they? Most information from that era has been lost.”
Orphe was so curious she even switched to formal speech.
[Spiritual beings from another world. They wandered through countless realms before settling in this one. They taught civilization to the people. The price of that civilization was eternal dominion.]
“Then the stories of the Ancient Hero are also tr—”
“Orphe. Can you ask about that later? It’s a waste of time.”
“…Understood.”
Looked like Nazi remnants to me. I had zero interest in listening to some deranged scrap robot’s otaku delusions.
[I have answered your questions. Now I have questions of my own.]
“No.”
[Just one.]
“Get lost.”
[…]
“Why were you here?”
[…]
“This bastard’s not talking.”
One second until Okonomiyaki Assassination Technique deployment.
[M-my built-in artificial brain is damaged, so my memories are uncertain. I believe I was assigned to guard this region.]
“I see. Now get lost. You’ve got three minutes.”
Clearly the type to waste time with useless questions. If it were ‘Karate-Z’ or ‘Jujitsu-V,’ maybe. I wasn’t about to waste my time on some scrap-metal punk.
[…]
“If you don’t leave, I really will smash you to pieces. I don’t joke around.”
Whirr-clack. Whirr-clack.
Watching it quietly power down, it seemed like a decent enough guy after all. Still annoying, though.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
“You brought my axe, right?”
“The battle-axe? Yeah.”
Orphe pulled the axe from a backpack big enough for Diana to climb into. I’d gone back down into the underground waterway and fished this transforming axe out once I could move my body again.
“That metal human seemed to know a lot. Wouldn’t it have been better to ask a few more questions?”
“It said its brain was unstable. You want to chat with a lunatic like that?”
Orphe suddenly stared straight through me.
“….”
Diana copied her.
“What? Something wrong with both of you?”
“…No.”
“Nothing.”
“Then we’re good.”
I poured mana into the axe. The handle lengthened at once.
“You’re not seriously planning to smash everything, are you?”
“I am planning to smash everything.”
“We still don’t even know exactly what it is. We might be able to use it. Even if we can’t, it could help the people of Goldon.”
“Hah. Orphe.”
How did she plan to survive this harsh world being this soft?
“Yokai technology can never help humans. It’s designed to ruin them in the end.”
You only had to look at the ‘cursed demon blades’ and ‘yokai clubs’ that showed up constantly in history books. They might help for a moment, but yokai-technology always destroyed humans in the end.
After I explained it roughly, Orphe accepted it.
Clang!
The spaceship was sturdy, but not sturdy enough to withstand my strength.
“—Demolition party.”
After that, I smashed it to absolute pieces.
“Ninja Rising Technique.”
Had I slept about three hours?
After hours of chopping the spaceship like firewood, my body felt a little stiff. I headed straight for the living room.
“You’re up?”
“Nin-nin.”
“What do you want to do? Leave right away?”
Orphe had already finished packing and even had her backpack ready. She handled everything so smoothly it was truly reassuring.
“Yeah. No point hanging around any longer.”
So what if she wasn’t the Yakuza Slayer?
Orphe was my comrade, my exposition dump, my external brain, and the housekeeper who handled meals, dishes, laundry, and everything else. Listing it out like that made her sound like a multi-role gofer.
Focus on ‘comrade.’
“Aahh.”
Diana, just waking up, yawned and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
To lighten Orphe’s load, maybe I could start leaving the laundry to her soon?
“Let’s go.”
We left the house that had taken us in for months. Since the farewell party had been the day before, no townsfolk came out to see us off.
“I asked last time too, but do you have a plan for next?”
“Of course.”
Honestly, I didn’t.
For now I figured I’d roam the surrounding territories looking for Asayo.
That was when it happened.
Twitch-twitch.
Antenna-like pink hair poked out from beside a tree.
Looking this way and that.
I was going to lose my mind. Everything went dark in front of my eyes.
“Miss Muka?”
Orphe, who had somehow kept her sanity, called the demon’s name.
“Hello~! I’m Muka~!”
The demon appeared before us carrying a bizarre instrument and a bundle.
“You’re leaving now, right~? Where are you going~?”
“Somewhere unconditionally farther than whatever place you’re thinking of, Miss Muka.”
“Then~! I’ll just assume you don’t have a set destination~! Adventurer~! A request~! A request~!”
Muka handed me a wooden piggy bank.
“This is my entire fortune that I’ve saved up until now~! Goldon’s safe now~! So I want to leave my hometown and go to the big stage—Neo-Solitron~! I’m requesting protection all the way there~!”
“You could have asked Miss Sayleen and gone ahead.”
“That person~! How should I put it~? The atmosphere around her is scary, you know~!”
And I look like small fry?
Be grateful you’re not Yasayo.
“Neo-Solitron? Not Solitron?”
Orphe, curious about everything as usual, pressed for details.
Wait. Solitron?
— My name is Delamion. Three hundred years ago, the kingdom called me the ‘Butcher of Solitron.’
Was that the place?
“Ah~! You don’t know~! They’re rebuilding it into a major city under the leadership of the Sword Saint Society~! The Red Whale Magic Tower invested heavily too~!”
The Sword Saint Society.
An SSS-rank samurai collective. It would definitely be crawling with bastards like Aileen.
“Let’s go.”
“Robin?”
“It’s fine. Let’s go.”
Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?
No matter how many small fry I cleaned up around the edges, the situation wouldn’t be resolved. For paradise, I had to walk into their jaws and finish it. And now I finally had the strength to do it.
“Ohoho~! Wonderful~! Let’s go~! Just thinking about singing my songs for the people of Neo-Solitron makes me so happy~!”
Neo-Solitron was set as the goal.
Then all that remained was to keep moving forward.
That was the path of the Runaway Ninja.
On a night when all of Goldon slept in peace, two guards chatted as they made their rounds.
“Big sis’s face is going to be priceless.”
“I’m curious what she’ll write back. Ugh, terrifying.”
The snickering pair were Eunice and John.
“The boss—no, Mr. Robin left this morning, right?”
“You’re still calling him that? How badly did he put you through the wringer?”
“Just… force of habit.”
“Force of habit, my ass. I heard he left with Muka.”
“Muka…. She’s a good person, but…”
She hadn’t exactly been Goldon’s favorite bard. John deliberately let the sentence trail off.
“Huh? Someone’s over there.”
Eunice, scanning the surroundings, narrowed her eyes.
“Hm?”
“That way.”
John’s gaze followed the direction Eunice indicated.
In Goldon’s plaza, where the old tree had once stood, a person was kneeling.
“…Should we report it?”
“It’s just one person. Let’s go check first.”
John and Eunice approached slowly, lanterns held out in front. The outline became clear at once.
“Who is that?”
“That kid. The little one who cried when they cut down the tree.”
“Ah. Kiddo. What are you doing? Aren’t your parents worried?”
Before a human-shaped wooden statue, a boy was praying. The statue had been painted pitch-black with some kind of pigment.
“I was offering a prayer to the guardian deity of Goldon.”
The boy’s face was serene. John and Eunice looked at the statue again. It bore a subtle resemblance to the man who had appeared during the siege.
“Should we offer a prayer too?”
Eunice asked playfully.
“Sure.”
“Huh?”
John, who was always serious, dropped to his knees and began to pray. Eunice hesitated, then followed his lead.
Please keep Goldon at peace.
An ordinary prayer from ordinary people.
That prayer held for a while.
“What is this?!”
“These clothes… th-this is Dorn!”
“There’s a corpse buried under Goldon~!”
“Look here! There are strange books!”
“What do these things mean?”
At least until, a few days later, a mass of corpses was discovered in the underground waterway.