The Split Tunnel
As if further conversation were a luxury it couldn't afford, the Death Eye's cannon port opened at once.
The war machine looming over them was a sphere two meters in diameter. Large, certainly, but since it couldn't very well haul shells around one by one, its bombardment naturally drew on mana — and the source of that mana had to be a mana reactor, or more likely a mana fusion furnace.
It'll be a fusion furnace.
Allen ducked under the curving beam of light as he thought. Even with his mind half elsewhere, the powersuit — faithfully copying Sion's movements — executed the optimal evasion for every incoming attack.
Occasionally it moved a little too fluidly, leaving Allen's body protesting in pain.
"Oh? You can tell?"
The man piloting the Death Eye didn't answer, but that silence alone was reply enough — which meant there was still room for improvement. Allen found that genuinely delightful.
Which rune would work best in a situation like this?
His deliberation was brief. He had been thinking ceaselessly about how to counter the Death Eye from the moment he first laid eyes on it, and now he drew one of those prepared answers out of storage.
The rune canvas wriggled, tracing symbols into the air.
[Refraction], [Reflection]
Against an attack made of pure light, what defense could be more fitting? The moment the runic waves wrapped around the powersuit, they surged forward with it.
Just as Allen had calculated, the instant the beam struck the outer armor it bent wildly in every direction. The [Reflection] rune contributed little, but [Refraction] made its presence emphatically known, slamming the light down into the ground.
Allen closed the distance in a rush and pressed his arm flush against the Death Eye's hull.
"I wasn't planning on hacking."
The Death Eye was originally a military weapon; there was no telling what kind of vicious firewall might lurk inside it. Allen enjoyed exploration, but adventure was something to approach with caution.
He took the man's words as a kind of provocation. He had plenty of other options; there was no need to cling to the one his enemy had just handed him.
"The surest way to break a machine is to rip out its core components."
It was a statement on par with cut off a man's head and he dies, but Allen genuinely believed it. Repair and disassembly were his specialties.
When he struck the damaged surface armor with his palm, the distortion grew worse. He gripped it, tore it away, and pulled the hidden muzzle out into the open.
Even with the intact cannon spitting beams at point-blank range, the [Refraction] rune made them miss — though a few still got through, the powersuit's durability held firm.
Allen slipped his arm into the hole he'd made. Pack a machine with enough equipment and its interior defenses grow thin. The Death Eye's shield was useless at this range anyway; it had no choice but to permit his touch.
At last, Allen's hand found the Death Eye's heart.
"Found it."
The man's voice cut off mid-sentence.
"Same here."
Appearance could be changed, but mana was hard to fake. Allen carved the man's mana signature into his memory.
Years of age in that voice. Probably Colonel Steven, the one commanding the armed forces.
He was a far more dangerous man in person than behind remote control.
For now, though, there was a more immediate matter to settle. When Allen withdrew his arm, the small mana fusion furnace he'd torn free came sliding out after it, trailing along like a tethered organ. Liquefied mana dripped in a steady stream from the mana cables hanging off it like veins.
"What a waste."
"You know, that little performance just now was pure Professor Oros."
He turned to look — part of the collapsed rock had been cleared away, leaving a gaping hole, and Taylor was crawling out of it.
"You're safe. Thank goodness."
"I was more worried about you than about us."
"The Death Eye is a machine too, after all. Speaking of which — you know Professor Oros?"
"That peculiar orc? Of course — he's a famous explorer in this line of work. Did you switch careers to physical hacking because of him?"
"I simply chose the most efficient method available."
"The professor says the exact same thing. That he keeps the enemy out with muscle so his brain stays protected."
"...Let's just get moving."
Once they passed through the punched-out hole, a path split cleanly down the middle revealed itself. The left wall was made of massive Icesteel crystal, the right of ordinary cave rock — terrain that looked as if someone had built it deliberately.
And unlike the surface, something seemed to flicker faintly within the opaque depths of the Icesteel.
A human silhouette, or an illusion? Come to think of it, even the mining tools couldn't crack it.
Allen stared for a long while, unable to reach a conclusion, and then followed after his companions.
The tactical command post stood near the lake of the Icesteel mine.
"Hm..."
Colonel Steven opened his eyes in a control pod that resembled a hospital bed. As he raised his upper body, a subordinate waiting at his side spoke up.
"Have you finished sorting things out, sir?"
"No. I lost."
"Sir?!"
"All that fuss over one wrecked Death Eye? The field laboratory is still perfectly intact. Send people over to clean up the site and support the wounded."
"Understood."
Without so much as a glance at his departing subordinate, Steven planted his feet on the floor. He wet his throat with warm water as he replayed the movements his enemy had shown him.
Who does he belong to?
His deliberation was short and his action swift. He gulped down the steaming water, then rose from his seat in one motion.
Heading to a corner of the command post, Steven peeled away a thin cloth. Beneath it stood a pitch-black hexagonal pillar — a terminal with direct access to MM Corp's information network, a privilege granted only to commanders like Colonel Steven.
He pulled the memory crystal from the back of his neck and slotted it into the terminal. Blue light spread like a web across the pillar's surface, then condensed into a floating sphere in the air.
"Hm."
Steven pressed his fingers against various points on the sphere. Using the intruder's movements recorded in the memory crystal, he initiated a data search.
The vast trove of data MM Corp had compiled unspooled in a steady stream; he measured the motion similarity of the intruder, discarded the outliers, and set the remainder aside.
Moonshadow Gate
Arctic Fox Excavation Unit
Breaker
In the end, three organizations made the cut. Breaker showed the highest similarity — but that was not proof.
He could have imitated them as closely as possible to sow confusion. He might even have wanted to provoke a conflict between them and us.
In a world brimming with the mystical, evidence could be fabricated without limit. Videos could be doctored with deepfakes; photographs could be repainted by programs.
So if he wanted to hold someone accountable, he would have to capture them and pry their affiliation out of them. With evidence and justification in hand, the other side would fall silent and behave — they'd have no choice.
Eliminate the variables quickly.
Decision made, Steven settled back into the control pod. The moment he closed his eyes, something stepped out of the black cylinder in the corner of the command post with unhurried, deliberate footsteps.
The combat operatives about to dive headlong into the lake spun around at the sound of footsteps behind them.
"You're going in as well, Colonel?"
"Of course. Something's come up that I need to handle personally."
The skin of the man called Colonel was remarkably taut and unblemished. If Steven had a son who greatly resembled him, this was surely what he would look like. Without so much as diving equipment, he plunged straight into the lake.
*
Allen's party had traveled a long way from the passage the Death Eye's bombardment had collapsed. Along the way, they had brought down the tunnel behind them a few more times to buy time.
Once they judged the area safe, they took a rest.
"I'm... I feel like I'm going to die."
"You were clinging to the Panther the whole way here, and now you're dying?"
"Brother Taylor, your standards are simply too high."
"Too high? How so?"
"You served as an instructor for the operatives, and after that you met Brother Allen. My career as an explorer may be short, but I know that everyone you've mentioned is far from ordinary."
"..."
While Taylor wrinkled his nose, Shiba examined Cayden's body. Each time the white light seeped into his flesh, the trembling parts of him calmed considerably.
Mental and physical exhaustion were assailing the man in equal measure — and yet Allen was the picture of vigor.
Even Taylor, who had pushed his own body to its limits more times than he could count, found himself wondering where on earth Allen drew that vitality from. Especially when the Mana Excess Syndrome was supposed to be ravaging him from within.
"Allen."
"Yes?"
Allen answered while tinkering with something. Taylor watched his back for a moment, then spoke gently.
"Get some rest."
"This work is the finest entertainment and the best recharge there is, for me."
"People are consumables. Right now the time for rest feels like a waste, I know — but looking back later, you'll realize it was a necessity."
"Just five minutes. I'll be done shortly."
Out of options, Taylor shot Shiba a look. The dwarf monk broke into his pleasant smile and stained his hands white with light.
"O Mother, who ever takes pity on us, here in this place your waiting hands—"
For the first time in a while, he recited the scripture properly and completed his holy art, releasing the light—
"Hm?"
Far from being absorbed, it bounced right off the moment it touched Allen's back, and Shiba's eyes went round.
"B-Brother?"
"I was concentrating and forgot to regulate my mana. Please, try again."
Allen had Mana Excess Syndrome. The surplus mana harmed his body — but it came with a compensation. An abundance of mana meant high resistance to magic, and holy arts were no exception.
When Allen regulated his mana, a gap opened, and the healing art swiftly soaked in.
When Allen finished his work and leaned back against the cave wall, Taylor raised the subject again.
"We went in disguised, but what are we doing about the Panther and Box?"
"I've already taken care of it."
When Allen looked over at Box, the thing that had been scraping at an Icesteel crystal responded at once.
Beep—
Every leg supporting its body dropped away, and the torso rose into the air. Floating like that, it drifted slowly around near Taylor, even adjusting the position of its outer armor on the sly.
"I added the Death Eye's levitation unit and a mana fusion furnace. I repositioned the camera eyes and swapped out the armor, so the silhouette's quite different now, isn't it?"
Where the old Box's torso had been roughly cylindrical, it now resembled a sphere. With the legs gone as well, the shape alone made for a dramatic change.
"Box is settled. What about the Panther?"
Allen snapped his fingers, and the Panther's silver-gray body turned pitch black. The rune script, naturally, was hidden along with it.
"So it's a black panther now."
"If trouble does come, we only need to salvage the soul stone and core components. The other parts would be a loss, but we can't leave behind any clues."
The Panther and Box returned to their original forms. The transformation could wait until it was actually needed.
"Um..."
At the sound of Cayden's voice, Allen turned his head.
"Yes. Go ahead."
"I couldn't ask earlier with everything happening, but — the Panther. How long has it been with us?"
"Since before we came to Kasara."
"Why do I feel like I've never seen it..."
"That's because I applied a perception-dampening field. Mr. Malcolm probably doesn't know about it either."
Taylor still wore a doubtful expression.
"Hearing Cayden talk, the Panther seems safe enough — but what if someone remembers what Box used to look like? Those megacorp bastards will pounce on the slightest clue."
"Going head-to-head is out of the question, so we hide in another company's shadow. Chairman Marshall already made the offer, so if we inquire with Breaker, they'll take us in immediately."
"Honestly, might be simpler just to flip MM Corp on its head."
"A career change to guerrilla warfare? That would let us examine what magitech goes into the equipment a megacorp fields. How enlightening."
"Are you serious?"
"Just joking... probably."
Allen rose as he finished speaking. It was time to move again.
Cayden, strength returned to his legs, stood up on his own. At first he'd wobbled like a newborn herbivore, but now he could walk about with reasonable vigor.
The cave maintained the same character it had shown when they first set foot in it: one wall of Icesteel crystal, the other of rock.
Allen's eyes roamed. The scale worms had passed through here too, apparently — traces of them were everywhere.
"Seems like a fairly big one."
"Bigger than the ones we saw in the tunnel?"
"Look at the size of this cave."
"Narrower than the thing's body, then. Good enough for me."
"More importantly, look at the traces here. Plenty of scrape marks around the crystals, right? That means the scale worms passed by rubbing their bodies against them."
"You think I wouldn't know that?"
"Crystals that even the mining tools can't break — but perhaps they feel different to the worms. Could they absorb mana through contact alone?"
Allen removed a gauntlet from the powersuit and pressed his bare hand against the crystal's surface. A chill deep enough to sting his bones burrowed into his skin.
"The difference between humans and monsters?"
"Allen..."
"Yes,