The Art of Proving It (10)
"This is better, anyway. It was only a matter of time before I showed my hand."
"You don’t need to be so hard on yourself. No one can make cool-headed decisions all the time, everywhere. Unless you’re an artificial intelligence that can only ever choose the most efficient option, sooner or later you’re bound to make a decision based on emotion."
"...That’s not just empty flattery."
Wounded by Agares’s words, I bit my lip. The truth was, he wasn’t wrong. I had let a moment’s feeling overrule me, made an emotional decision, and only afterward started trying to justify it.
For someone in a position to control a faction, it was neither wise nor right. I simply hadn’t been able to stand it. The instant Lena’s throat was cut, rage had flared through me, and I’d wanted to kill my opponent by any means necessary.
"In a world that was already in chaos, the players are now running wild in earnest. I was planning to move a little more slowly, but at this point, even if we reveal ourselves, we won’t be so thoroughly targeted that we’ll be destroyed, will we?"
"Of course. It’s a perfectly reasonable thought."
He answered with a voice laced with amusement, as though he saw through everything. It was starting to look like I was making excuses, but there was no taking it back now, so I had to find some way to make it sound justified.
"We’ve got a way to mass-produce troops now. There’s no need to keep hiding. The land we’re standing on now—I’m going to devour it completely."
Since things had come to this, I decided to make a clean break. I did feel a little sorry for the locals in this strange world, people who’d been dragged into one disaster after another and sacrificed without ever having a say, but now wasn’t the time to worry about their circumstances. We had too much on the line.
[1. Complete Conquest of Brant Barony]
[2. Direct Assault on Waut Barony]
I issued the orders in quick succession, choosing my next target.
First, I would wipe out the ones I had deliberately left breathing. Then I would move on to the next place.
"Your loyal soldiers are scattering to carry out your grand decision. There will likely be clashes before long. But is that all?"
"What?"
"A subordinate who throws away even their own life to carry out your command—surely that deserves praise, doesn’t it?"
While I was switching screens and taking stock of the overall situation, Agares spoke up first and dropped a remark with clear meaning behind it.
Only then did I notice a new icon blinking in the corner of the display.
"What is this?"
"Please check the newly unlocked function. It was your sincere anger that ultimately released this power."
Conscious Link
The name was Conscious Link. According to the requirements, it unlocked at a Synchronization Rate of 35 percent or higher. Without my noticing, I had already reached that threshold.
"So what exactly is it?"
"You’ll understand once you try it. More importantly, you’ve already used this power unconsciously before."
Agares left it at that. Which meant I had no choice. I’d just have to try it.
Conscious Link
The moment I touched it, I felt my body collapse beneath me, and my eyes fell shut. I lost consciousness exactly like that.
The last thing I remembered, thankfully, was my body toppling backward onto the soft bed behind me.
"So this was the place?"
When I came to again, I was standing somewhere strangely familiar.
A dark, empty space like the void of outer space, with countless star-like points glittering within it. There were even more of them than the last time I had been here.
"To be exact, Conscious Link connects your consciousness to your avatar’s body. But since the Grand Lord’s consciousness is linked across the entire Ascalas race, it appears in this vast form."
"So this is inside the Grand Lord’s consciousness."
Agares appeared beside me and explained without preamble. It sounded absurd, but believing it or not wouldn’t change anything, so it was easier to accept it.
And now I understood why he had urged me to come here.
I started walking without saying a word. It was clear enough now. The higher my Synchronization Rate climbed, the more natural and comfortable this space felt to me.
I could tell at once where everything was. The place I arrived at after walking there was where someone was floating gently in the darkness.
Unlike the other minions, whose existence had been reduced to little more than fragments, these ones retained a firm sense of self. I stopped in front of Lena, whose body in reality remained intact, unlike in the real world.
"The shock was so great that Lena’s consciousness sealed itself in order to survive. To reactivate this consciousness within the regenerated body, your power is needed."
"All right."
It couldn’t be helped that I felt awful about it. Up to now I’d harmed many people indirectly, but Lena was different from the rest. She was one of my own, and perhaps the person in this world who trusted me most of all.
The value of a life being different... was only natural.
This is my duty.
I had chosen to become a monstrous being for my own sake alone. Which meant that I had to be able to protect my people, those who stood with me, at the very least.
***
Ascalas’s nest, built deep in the forest. Strictly speaking, it had only been a kind of base until now, but once the Grand Lord learned the Incubation skill, its meaning changed.
Inside the nest, protected by special webs, there was now a nutrient reservoir for storing supplied nourishment and an incubation chamber that drew on that nourishment to produce soldiers.
The sight of bloody masses and cellular clumps twitching and writhing as they took shape, like mold growing at an impossible speed, was grotesque beyond measure.
"..."
Lark stood alone in such a place. The fourth high-rank Ascalas species, newly evolved into a Knight. Through the mask that covered his face, he watched someone being rapidly cultured inside a translucent cocoon.
To think she actually revived herself from that state.
The being he was staring at in a daze was Lena.
Only the upper half of her body below the neck had been restored so far, but the rest was regenerating quickly as well. It was, quite literally, a recovery that defied common sense, though Lark knew exactly how much nourishment had been consumed to regenerate her.
All of it had been decided by the Grand Lord. Not a trace of hesitation. Not a trace of doubt.
That wasn’t all. Lark had felt the Grand Lord’s rage the moment Lena was struck down by the enemy. Such a fierce anger that it shook even his own heart, the heart of someone who maintained his ego through the linked web of consciousness.
And yet Lark liked that anger.
He trusts us too.
They were not pawns. They were not disposable tools to be used and cast aside. He couldn’t say he trusted them as much as he did Lena, but he did believe in them, and he did cherish them.
For Lark, who had once been an ordinary human and had never received a single ounce of help from anyone, that was more than enough.
[Seize the lord’s castle and completely conquer Brant Barony]
Lark stepped out of the nest and looked around. In every direction, the many nests scattered across the area had continued producing troops, and those forces now stood at his side.
Their purpose was to seize the various castles of Brant Barony, which had been deliberately left standing. Lark had been waiting for this moment. The moment to achieve revenge and fulfill his wish.
If I get my revenge, maybe I can find myself too.
But he wasn’t fighting only for revenge. Karin had spoken of it before: the true desire he himself longed for. Lark knew he had been recognized because of that desire, though he did not yet know what it was, and he wanted to find it.
"Let’s go!"
Lark immediately set out with the large-scale force. Their destination was the nearest castle. The plan was to take it completely, before it could continue avoiding them or pretend not to notice and finally let its guard down.
"E-emergency... Emergency!!"
As expected, the targeted city was thrown into chaos and panic. The momentum of the approaching Black Beetles was nothing like anyone had anticipated.
The monsters that had lived in the deep forest and called themselves beasts had gathered in staggering numbers, formed into proper ranks, and were advancing in force.
"No way. They don’t usually attack castles, do they?!"
"You never know! Prepare the defenses immediately!"
The city, which had only just begun to recover some semblance of peace, was plunged into a life-or-death crisis in an instant. The administrator responsible for command over the city was trembling himself, yet still barked orders as he tried to force the soldiers into battle formation.
As some had hoped, the enemy did not simply bypass the castle. Their direction was still fixed on it, and the atmosphere made war inevitable.
"Commander. How are we supposed to fight these things?"
"Th-that..."
Meanwhile, the knight commander now leading the knights was sweating coldly in confusion. He did have experience, but that experience was limited to wars between humans or hunts against monsters.
There was no way he was familiar enough with fighting a new breed of lifeforms that knew neither pain nor hesitation to command them naturally.
"They’re getting close!"
But their time to react was limited. Before they could even properly assemble their forces, the relentless black tide crashed straight into the castle.
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