Under the Ice (4)
He had been dragged out. Alan looked up at the mouth looming overhead.
Its rate of grinding down the crystal was nearly identical to theirs now, so being caught had only ever been a matter of time. Even this outcome was one of the futures he had predicted.
And yet, oddly enough, it hadn't chewed. It simply swallowed them whole and shifted them toward what he could only assume was its stomach.
"Maybe it was too hungry to bother chewing?"
"Is that what matters right now? Who knew we'd end up as worm shit."
"One might think of it as lending our strength to the earth and its plants before returning to Mother's embrace."
Cayden and the MM Corp employees, who had overheard this three-way exchange, were struck speechless. Was that really the sort of conversation to be having at a time like this?
Alan, still half-lying where he'd been dumped, shook the shoulder of the man tangled up with him. Steven was staring blankly into empty air.
"The connection to your real body was severed the moment we were swallowed. Or you cut it yourself, perhaps."
"If you were going to die anyway, you should've taken that thing down with you. Instead your puppet just slips right out."
The Blue Lady was still moving. A few of the people had recovered their wits enough to cast spells or slash at her innards with mana blades, but they couldn't so much as leave a scratch.
Alan happened to glance upward. Judging by the pressure being exerted on his body, the Blue Lady was heading for the surface.
"We're ascending."
"What are you talking about—"
"It's stopped moving. I think we're at the surface."
"Why would it—aaah?"
Suddenly everyone's bodies tipped to one side. The stomach, sealed until now, opened, and they came pouring down through the fang-lined mouth.
Some were scraped raw by the razor teeth and bleeding freely, but not a single person had died.
The ones who fell sorted themselves, quite naturally, into two groups. Steven, whose connection had somehow been restored in the interim, likewise rose to his feet.
It was night outside. Beneath the bright moon, the Blue Lady rearing up on her coils looked like something out of no world a person could reasonably call real.
Krrrrrrr!
The Blue Lady let out a strange sound and stared at something. Alan turned his head to follow her gaze—and found someone there.
A figure who had been sitting with his back to them rose to his feet. A man with black hair and crimson eyes was looking their way. He brought to mind a beast—a bear, above all.
"The Destroyer..."
One of the MM Corp employees muttered.
Only now did Alan take in their surroundings: they were standing in an enormous crater, as if a meteor had fallen. It was also the scar left behind when Solsdos had tried to bomb the Destroyer into oblivion with strategic magic.
The very air seemed frozen solid. While everyone else stood rooted in place, Alan alone moved.
He called for Box and drew something from within it. A small vessel made of the Icesteel he had mined bit by bit. It carried a chill of its own, which made it ideal for storing certain things.
Alan used one of his spiders to carry the vessel over to the Destroyer, who simply watched it come with a blank expression.
Taylor, having regained his senses, whispered.
"What the hell is that?"
"Honey."
"I thought you were joking when you said that before..."
"Sharing food is a gesture of goodwill, isn't it? He isn't attacking, so I'd call it a success so far."
The Destroyer, gazing at the honey-filled vessel, fixed his eyes on Alan. Whether that gaze held hostility or mere indifference, Alan couldn't begin to guess—but he pressed on regardless.
"If that doesn't suit your taste, how about this one?"
He sent over a second vessel. The spider set it down at the Destroyer's feet and flipped the lid open with its forelegs.
"What's that one?"
"Helmet flowers pickled in honey."
Perhaps because this place was so still that even the wind kept its distance, Alan's voice carried in every direction.
"The madman... He's negotiating with something that simple and stupid... Hm?"
Contrary to Steven's words, the Destroyer picked up the vessel and sniffed at the honey. The face portion of him transformed into a bear's muzzle, and a long tongue flicked out to lap at the inside of the container.
While everyone stood frozen at the Destroyer's appearance, Alan was subjecting his existence to close observation.
For one thing, he looked a good ten centimeters taller than the average male orc. The black hair and red eyes he displayed in human form were similar to Alpha's.
That can't be simple coincidence. Which means they're related by blood—or at the very least, the same people.
Since the Primeval Forest was a place where creatures of the distant ancient past ran wild, some rough dating was possible. Given how much time had passed, kin of the same era seemed more likely than direct blood relations.
The Destroyer's face had shifted into a bear's muzzle, and with it his tongue had grown larger still, so the meal was over quickly. Having lapped the honey clean, he popped the Icesteel vessel into his mouth as well.
CRACK!
Icesteel, as hard as steel—or harder, depending on the mana it held—shattered with ease. Fragments spilling out between his sharp fangs glittered briefly in the moonlight and were gone.
Taylor asked carefully.
"Should he be eating that?"
"By the strictest definition, Icesteel is just ice."
"Ah... right, it is."
Alan quietly kept studying the Destroyer. His face had gone full bear, so reading his expression was impossible—but somehow, Alan got the feeling he was satisfied.
With the Destroyer standing still, one of the researchers stepped forward as well. Perhaps inspiration had struck from watching Alan's gambit, because from within his white lab coat the man produced a chocolate bar.
The researcher reasoned that the catastrophe of the past had stemmed from a communications failure, and saw possibility in what Alan had just done.
Who in their right mind would offer food to a being that appeared out of nowhere and smashed everything in its path? Such was the difficulty of a simple change in perspective.
"M-my too. A premium chocolate bar made with all-natural ingredients."
"..."
When the Destroyer's gaze swung his way, the researcher's legs wobbled, but he thrust his hand out anyway.
Thud!
The chocolate bar hit the ground with a loud noise. Had the man been so terrified that his grip failed? He had not.
The researcher vanished from the world, leaving nothing but a hand and a foot. What was presumed to be the rest of his remains was flung in a wide spray across the MM Corp combat personnel. As the red, reeking chunks splattered over them, their bodies stiffened all the more.
Skrrk!
Stirred into action by the smell of blood, eel-sized scale-worms punched up through the surface of the ground, bit off the hand and foot, and vanished back into the earth.
The breathing of everyone present slowed to the point where it might as well have stopped. In that dead silence, Alan's mind was spinning at full speed.
Was honey the right answer? Or does the Destroyer simply have his own criteria?
The sample size was far too small to judge. He wished someone else would try, but the mood was such that nobody had the slightest thought of moving.
Fortunately, the ideal candidate existed on the enemy's side.
"Mr. Steven?"
"..."
"Colonel Steven?"
"..."
When Alan looked at him, Steven glared back with eyes that said stop calling my name. Of course, Alan was not a man to be intimidated by such tactics.
"This time, why not deliver the food yourself?"
"..."
Deciding to ignore him entirely, Steven shut his mouth tight and turned his head away.
"At this rate, your men are all going to die. Oh—does it not matter to you, since your real body is somewhere else entirely? If you're going to command a clone, you ought to lead from the front."
Alan noticed sweat trickling down Steven's forehead. He would have loved to investigate whether it was genuine sweat bioengineered into the avatar or merely coolant, but there were more pressing priorities at the moment.
He started to glance at the Destroyer, then pinned his gaze back on Steven. A sudden thought had sparked to life.
"You're sweating. Don't tell me you can't cut the connection anymore?"
The muscles along Steven's jaw tightened slightly. Apparently that was the correct answer.
"You'd have been better off running while you were still inside the Blue Lady's belly, wouldn't you?"
The connection that had been briefly severed inside her innards had only just been restored—but it had worked against him instead. Alan stole a glance at the Destroyer. There was no one else who could hold Steven's mind in place.
The Destroyer looked at Alan and flicked his tongue around his muzzle.
"No more honey, I'm afraid. Spare them, and I'll ship you a fresh supply by courier."
"The absolute madman..."
One of the MM Corp employees swore without meaning to, and it became his last words.
The Destroyer snapped his fingers, and the man lost all human shape, collapsing into something like minced meat. The MM Corp personnel could not so much as flinch as the hideous liquid spread across their bodies.
This time, too, the little scale-worms appeared and took care of the cleanup. The bolder ones crawled across the bodies of the combat personnel, and in the process one researcher who had been writhing in disgust also vanished from the world.
Alan looked back and forth between the Destroyer and his frightened flock.
So he never had any intention of sparing them in the first place.
It had been the same when the Destroyer first appeared in the world. He had marched through military installations and destroyed whatever blocked his path. Village or city, he hadn't cared which.
Still, the only reason he wasn't executing that destruction right this second was, in all likelihood, that something here had caught his interest. The Destroyer's eyes had been moving back and forth between Alan, Taylor, and Shiva for some time now.
The Destroyer finished his observation and waggled a finger at the Blue Lady. Her house-sized head slid smoothly down toward the ground.
WHAM!
With a single swipe of his hand, the building went tumbling head over heels. Some of the MM Corp employees were flattened into jerky on the spot.
The Blue Lady's durability was nothing to sneer at either, so she righted herself quickly and returned to her original spot. She took the blow without a whimper—rather, she lowered her head submissively, like a puppy being scolded for a mistake.
The Destroyer whistled and pointed at the remaining MM Corp personnel. The Blue Lady, who had been sitting obediently, opened her jaws wide and swallowed them whole.
CRRUNCH!
Unlike the trip to this place, the sound of things being crushed rang out again and again.
A snack for a sulking pet?
No matter how he looked at it, the relationship between the two of them was closer to master and pet than anything else.
Alan examined Steven, now left entirely alone. With a look of utter defeat, he was muttering to himself.
"Why won't the connection... damn it all..."
The first part was a lament for his own fate; the latter, a curse at the Destroyer who had suddenly appeared before him. A bear's head, close enough that he could feel its breath, loomed down over him.
The Destroyer spread his hand wide, seized Steven by the head, and lifted him up. Steven's eyes rolled back endlessly until only the whites showed, and when he began foaming at the mouth in that state, the Destroyer tossed him back onto the ground.
From behind Alan came the sound of someone swallowing hard. The others had been dealt with, after all—which meant it was now their turn, and they knew it.
The Destroyer turned slowly, then tilted his head slightly. It was a reaction in stark contrast to how he'd handled the MM Corp people.
Taylor asked quietly.
"What, is that some special honey? How good can it possibly be?"
"No, it's just the kind they sell at the market."
"Brother, I hardly think this is the moment for such questions."
The three of them exchanged light banter.
Whether the madness was contagious from Alan, or birds of a feather had simply flocked together, none of them looked remotely sane.
Cayden thought that much, and then fainted. His already depleted mind, confronted with the Destroyer face to face, had drained completely.
While Box attended to the patient, Alan made a show of turning slightly away.
"Are we free to go?"
This time, too, the Destroyer moved with impossible speed. He had clearly been over there a moment ago, yet he appeared before Alan faster than a blink.
The Destroyer raised his index finger and pushed it forward.
How many people had already died at that finger?
When the Destroyer's fingertip touched the visor of the Power Suit, the material—capable of stopping bullets without effort—crumbled to powder and sloughed away.
The finger's destination was the space between Alan's brows. The Destroyer pressed it there a few times, firmly, then pushed Alan's body backward.
He looked past Alan at the rest of the party. At the sight of Taylor he bared his teeth, as if in displeasure, only to tilt his head in apparent puzzlement; at Shiva, he gave a small nod and nothing more.
Only Cayden remained.
"Wait, that man—"
Alan tried to block him, but there was no chance of that. Instead he found himself shoved aside and landing hard on his rear while the Destroyer delivered a smack to Cayden's forehead. It felt like his skull might burst, but mercifully it left nothing worse than a lump.
As the Destroyer turned away as if his business here was finished, the Blue Lady—statue-still until now—opened her mouth. Unlike before, her teeth lay flat on their sides. She wasn't preparing to eat; she was preparing to carry.
Alan's mind snapped wide awake. What, after all, was the fundamental reason he had come to Kasara in the first place? Alpha, whom he had seen in the Primeval Forest.
"Just a moment!"
At Alan's shout, the Destroyer, who had been about to depart, turned his head slightly. Alan seized the opening and drew Alpha's figure on the ground.
He sketched a little girl draped in a bear pelt, then pointed at the Icesteel and ringed Alpha in a circle.
The Destroyer stared at the drawing for a long while. With a bear's face, there was no telling what he was thinking.
No. That's not it. Someone of the Destroyer's caliber would surely—