Deus Ex Machina
Iris clenched the spear in her grip.
Her vision, sharpened to an extreme, made it effortless to discern what lay far in the distance.
“...Looks like there were others thinking the same thing.”
“The same thing?”
Iris waved for the nearby assist to fall back a moment, then strode forward.
After several minutes of walking she came face-to-face with a group.
Roughly forty people—about twice the number she had brought with her.
Yet with several heroes mixed among them, it did not look like a single powerhouse escorting a cluster of assists the way she did.
“...”
“...”
A brief standoff stretched out before Iris broke the silence.
“...Where are you headed?”
“I don’t see any reason I have to tell you that.”
The man at the head of the group, the one directing the others, lifted a massive greatsword toward her.
“Judging by the look of you, you walked out from that bunch over there?”
“And if I did?”
“Hmm... I don’t know how many heroes you’ve got on your side, but it won’t be enough against us. Go back and tell your leader. Leave the assists and the magic stones you’ve gathered, and we won’t touch anyone else.”
Haa. Looks like a clash is unavoidable.
She had hoped to slip past without trouble if she could help it.
“Hey, not turning around? If you want a fight, go fetch some other heroes. Though even then we won’t just let you walk away.”
The man was already snickering with someone who looked like a friend behind him.
Iris let out a quiet sigh at the pair.
He can’t even gauge the gap between himself and the opponent standing right in front of him. Disappointing.
She had expected a little more from Sirius Academy, the place called the world’s finest institution for training heroes.
“Huh? Hey, what are you—”
“Unfortunately I’m the only hero here, so even if I wanted backup there’s no one to fight beside me.”
“Alone? What do you mean—”
Iris swept her hand through the air and tore open a subspace.
Through the narrow rift that split space itself, a sacred spear bearing the legend of god-slaying revealed its form—the Spear of Longinus.
“Still, I have more than enough strength to deal with a few fools who don’t know their place...”
“H-hey! Everyone, combat stance—!”
He never finished the sentence. A single streak of light lanced out and shattered the barrier into glittering fragments.
At the sight of their leader vanishing in an instant, the others retreated step by step.
They did not fully understand Iris’s power, yet they understood perfectly well that nothing good would come of touching that inexplicable light.
And Iris, facing them, began to intone a declaration.
“Upon all who stand idle, deliver the judgment of binding.”
As the verse left her lips, a colossal cross of light rose from the heavens and drove down into every body.
The crosses looked as though they had pierced clean through flesh, yet they left no wounds. They simply held the people fast, locking them in place.
“You won’t be running. It was designed that way from the beginning.”
Iris strolled among them, plucking the magic stones that slept in their pockets.
Individually the amounts were small, but gathered together they made a respectable haul.
“I won’t kill you. From where you stand... well, I suppose I’m just a plunderer who appeared out of nowhere.”
With that she turned back toward the place where her own people waited.
What now? Hunt magic beasts?
Catching humans was efficient, yet magic beasts could yield a solid score as well once you brought them down.
The moment Iris pivoted, a woman came humming into view from the far distance, arms full of magic stones. The sight was strangely familiar.
“Hehe~ Quite the harvest. Points are rolling in too... Why were there so many assists around?”
“You...”
“Huh? What are you all doing over th—”
Julia, fresh from scouting the area and mopping up the nearby assists, froze with eyes as wide as saucers.
The people she had been working with were bound by unknown crosses of light, and a mysterious woman stood holding a spear. From Julia’s perspective the scene made no sense at all.
“C-can someone please explain what is going on here?”
She turned to one of the students for answers, but the crosses had sealed their mouths completely; not a single word escaped.
While Julia’s gaze darted about trying to piece things together, Iris’s attention was fixed on something else entirely.
Why did she come from the direction I just left?
That was the path where the assists she had ordered to wait were stationed.
And the armful of magic stones Julia carried were the very ones Iris had left in their care.
“Don’t tell me...?”
With trembling fingers Iris checked her terminal.
There she saw the score she had painstakingly clawed back into the positive drop once more into the red.
“...”
Silence stretched.
Unable to bear the awkward stillness any longer, Julia was about to demand an explanation when Iris moved.
Boom—!
At a speed that shattered human perception, Iris’s body slammed into Julia’s.
“Die! Die! Die!”
“Kya—kyaaaaaah—!”
“J-Julia-nim!”
Iris drove the holy spear into Julia again and again without mercy.
“W-why are you doing this?!”
“Die! Just die already!”
“N-no, what on earth did I even—!”
Mid-sentence Julia suddenly remembered the assists she had eliminated.
Come to think of it... those assists already had exclusive contracts with someone, didn’t they?
And she had never once faced the hero who was supposed to be protecting them.
“Ah...”
Staring up at the descending spear of light, Julia realized something had gone terribly wrong.
Crash—!
The violent rupture echoing from the center of the exam grounds pulled Yeona’s gaze around.
A pillar of light spearing into the sky and the storm that whipped around it told her clearly enough who was clashing in the distance.
“The Hero and the Second Wind Earl, is it.”
Even Julia would struggle to face the Hero without outside interference.
The regressor thought as much while surveying the wreckage of countless unmanned military robots strewn at her feet.
Beep—! Static—!
“H-here is examinee Carmel, here is Carmel... Got it! Signal received—!”
Crunch—!
“Still one unit that wasn’t properly wrecked.”
Yeona smashed the unmanned military robot whose red light still flickered, then rose to her feet.
“Ugh... How many did I take down?”
Judging by the score on her terminal, it had to be hundreds of units.
“No need to bother hunting other cadets. Easy prey that hands out plenty of points is lying around everywhere.”
Chasing scattered hero and assist students all over the field was far less efficient than wiping out the unmanned military robots that moved in packs.
Of course the sheer numbers meant a mediocre fighter would be dead in seconds, but if you already possessed the skill to turn those machines into scrap, there was no better way to farm points.
“Hmm. About forty minutes left until the end.”
If she headed back now, Iris—drained from fighting Julia—would be waiting.
Iris probably still didn’t know her own weaknesses well. Armed with that knowledge, Yeona could finish everyone off and claim first place for admission without much trouble.
And for that...
“There should definitely be a hidden piece around here.”
She rummaged through the identification tags of the wrecked robots.
“Number 666... Number 666... Ah. Found it.”
She tore free the tag stamped 666 and peered inside. Nestled within was a tiny gear that shone pure gold.
“Deus Ex Machina.”
The so-called god of the machine.
Its power was almost insultingly simple.
Insert the gear into any broken machine and the device immediately returned to perfect working order.
The effect applied even to machines that did not use gears at all.
“In the future this thing completely revives R’lyeh.”
And humanity loses control of the seas forever.
Of course, now that the resurrection of the one sleeping in R’lyeh had been successfully prevented, that future no longer held any possibility.
“Still... why was it here of all places?”
Inside a disposable robot used for Sirius Academy’s entrance exam, no less.
She knew the future, yet not every future. What she did not know she either uncovered through repeated regressions or simply ignored.
“Well. That isn’t what matters right now.”
The sole reason she had burned most of the exam time securing this hidden piece was simple.
To repair the broken Maxwell.
Maxwell itself was far from an ordinary machine; there was every chance Deus Ex Machina would fail to work on it.
Yet the same artifact had once resurrected even R’lyeh, a remnant of ancient civilization. A sliver of hope remained.
She carefully fitted the golden gear into the heart of the pocket watch.
Unfortunately, the watch did not stir at all.
As expected... even this can’t fix it.
She sighed and reached to pull the gear free again.
In that instant a violent wave of dizziness crashed over her and she collapsed to the ground.
A moment later the steady tick of the pocket watch’s second hand reached her ears.