Toward the Heights (3)
Srrring···
"This one's a real pain in the ass. What number was that?"
"The sixth, sir."
I collected my sword and hoisted the android onto my back again.
The closer we got to the center, the more frequently we ran into goblins. Sometimes it was just ordinary goblins wandering about, and other times their numbers included a Warrior or two. With our sixth encounter already behind us, fighting goblins had become almost routine by now.
It was honestly exhausting, though···
Looking at the points displayed on my status window, a satisfied smile crept onto my face. I hadn't gained a single point all this time, but ever since I started absorbing the [stone], I'd somehow accumulated another 3. Little drops of water make an ocean — someday I'd have a few hundred saved up.
'···Still, should I tell Arwen my secret before she deactivates?'
Even now, she was silently watching me absorb the [stone]. She showed no particular sign of pressing the issue, but she was clearly thinking something was odd. For some reason, I felt a twinge of guilt.
"Whew. So where are we now? This place is really different from everywhere we've seen so far."
I asked Arwen while glancing around, partly to change the subject. It wasn't a pointless question — this place, where I'd just fought my last skirmish with the goblins, was a little unusual. Everywhere we'd wandered so far had felt unmistakably like the inside of a research lab, but this was closer to a sprawling factory floor.
Enormous machines of unknown purpose lined the space in droves. Familiar conveyor belts stretched out in long, unbroken rows. But the strangest sight of all was the cylindrical tanks made of a transparent material.
They filled every inch of visible space, dense as if they were the main attraction of this entire floor. Tilted at an angle along the walls, stacked layer upon layer up to the second and third floors — practically five — most of them had already shattered.
"This is the Chimera research sector. The military outsourced production contracts to us as well."
"Chimeras?"
"A kind of genetically engineered combat organism. Ah — they're completely different from Enhanced Humans, so please don't get the wrong idea."
"Enhanced Humans aside, then··· is this whole lab's concept biotech?"
"Hmm··· we researched other fields too, but broadly speaking, the focus was on the life sciences."
"Then is there anything like a good tonic lying around? Elixirs, maybe?"
I glanced sidelong at the yellowish liquid remaining in the broken tank as I spoke. A place that manufactured biological weapons might well have something like that.
"There are."
"Oh?"
"However, we would need to descend to at least fifteen floors below ground. Those are valuable assets, after all. Security down there is extremely tight as well, so getting them out would be quite difficult."
"Even with you along?"
"I was never granted that level of authority. And so much time has passed that they've almost certainly degraded by now."
"I see···"
I clicked my tongue in disappointment and started walking again. Honestly — why was there never anything I could just coast on?
Ku-rum!
De-de-de-de-de···
"Ugh, there it goes again."
As we trudged along in silence, the rumble sounded once more. The vibration that began in the ceiling came rattling down the walls, making the shattered tanks shudder violently. The rumbles were occurring more and more frequently — to the point where I was getting used to them.
"We should hurry. The tremors are growing stronger. There's no telling when the stairways might collapse."
"Right. I can't afford any wasted trips."
Luckily, the emergency stairs toward the center were still intact. The lights were functioning normally, and I couldn't spot a single crack. Unlike the stairwells shoved into corners, these seemed to have been built with a bit more care — being centrally located, presumably.
"Speaking of which — those Chimeras. Were they cultivated in those tanks we passed?"
I said to Arwen as I climbed the stairs toward the second floor. Even on the way here, the transparent tanks had been packed to bursting. Thousands of them, at the bare minimum — the sheer scale of it had left me numb.
"That's correct. Do I detect some concern that the Chimeras might still be alive?"
"A little? Goblins alone are enough of a handful. If those things were wandering around too, that'd be a nightmare."
'Or maybe not. Would they just fight each other?'
"That won't happen. Chimeras are engraved with a self-destruct code from the start, designed to prevent them from surviving too long."
"Oho···"
"They can also reproduce, but that function is remotely controlled as well."
"Then I don't need to worry?"
"Of course not. No researcher in their right mind would be foolish enough to unleash Chimeras without any safety measu—"
KEE-E-EK!
THUD!
Something monstrous burst into existence from above, cutting Arwen off mid-sentence. Unfortunately for it, the creature had no wings, and in the blink of an eye it swept past us before kissing the floor. I leaned out over the stairwell and peered down.
A person-sized monstrosity, flattened flat and leaking some unidentifiable yellow fluid. It was far away and smeared into pulp like a squashed rat, making it impossible to guess what it had originally looked like.
But···
"Pretty sure that was a Chimera?"
"Hmm··· Could it not be some goblin-like Phantasm?"
"It's dead, and the corpse isn't disappearing. At the very least, it's not a Phantasm."
"···"
No way something reduced to that state was still alive. Arwen apparently agreed, because she said nothing more.
"Weren't there no researchers dumb enough to do that?"
"It seems the culture shifted quite a bit while I slept."
"Oh my."
KKEU-AANG!
KEE-II-IK!
But our leisurely chat didn't last long. Horrific shrieks began echoing down from far above.
"What's going on up there? You're not picking anything up?"
"It's outside my detection range. Apparently a battle has broken out near the first-floor stairwell."
KEE
YAAAK!
CRACK!
Another monstrosity swooped past the side of the stairs. This one, unfortunately, slammed into the stairwell's edge instead of the floor, and its body snapped clean in two.
And with that one leading the way···
"Good Lord."
"What a rare spectacle."
Chimeras kept free-falling as if it were raining. No — looking closely, goblins were mixed in there too. They must have been fighting each other up above.
THUD!
SPLAT!
CRUNCH!
An orchestra of unpleasant sounds — things that had once been alive being crushed on impact. Making accidental, forced eye contact with the creatures plummeting headfirst, I hurried up the stairs as fast as I could.
KEE-IK
"···That was a genuinely horrific experience."
The lineless bungee jumping continued until I pushed open the door to the second floor. Dozens of them had fallen, at least. Toward the end, the pile of corpses below had started acting as a cushion — things that should have died were pathetically clinging to life.
'A waste of the [stone], sure···'
It had been a chance to earn free points, after all. But it would be a problem if I carelessly let them catch sight of me. No more variables than necessary — that was the rule.
"Whew··· anyway, we finally made it to the second floor. The Repair Shop is somewhere around here, right?"
"Yes. It's nearby."
I steadied my ragged breathing from the mad dash up the stairs and scanned our surroundings. A large, circular space centered on the emergency stairwell exit, littered haphazardly with small tables and chairs. Spotting a sizeable menu board, it seemed this had once served as some kind of café.
"What is this place?"
"One of the rest areas of the arboretum I mentioned before. Though 'arboretum' hardly does it justice — in terms of scale, it's closer to a resort forest. Look outside, and I think you'll be surprised."
"Surprised by wha— whoa···"
The moment I stepped out of the café, I couldn't hold back my gasp at the vast space that unfolded before me. Sitting on relatively high ground, the view below was visible for quite some distance. An endless forest of withered, skeletal trees stretched out before my eyes.
Just how big was this place?
"Now turn around. In an open space like this, with sightlines in every direction, hiding a massive emergency stairwell would have been difficult. It seems they staged it like this."
At Arwen's words, I turned my head back toward the café we'd just exited.
···There stood a single colossal tree, stretching upward without end.
"Did they disguise it as a tree? The scale of this is insane···"
A thick, long cylindrical emergency stairwell structure. The designers had employed it as a kind of tree trunk — meaning cafés and similar facilities had been built vertically along the cylinder, one after another. Add to that the observation decks jutting out sideways at irregular intervals like branches, and the whole thing evoked a single living tree.
"If the forest had still been alive, it must have been a spectacular sight."
"It was one of the most popular attractions. And yet this place, too, is hardly peaceful. I'm detecting a large number of lifeforms."
"How many?"
"Several hundred in this vicinity alone. The life signs keep fluctuating — I estimate they're engaged in combat."
"Excellent."
"I'm sorry?"
'Come to think of it, this isn't a bad situation at all. It would've been a real problem if a single faction had seized the upper floors. But if they're all too busy tearing each other apart···'
Then perhaps I could play the fisherman reaping his catch from two quarreling clams.
'Not that any of that matters right now.'
First things first — the Repair Shop. Thankfully, it was supposedly close by, just beyond this enormous arboretum.
Dead for ages, yes, but the forest still held plenty of trees that kept their shapes. More than enough cover to slip past the inhuman monsters locked in ferocious battle as if they'd met their sworn mortal enemies. Thanks to that, I made it out of the dead forest without fighting even a single engagement.
"This is··· a city, huh."
What greeted me as I emerged from the arboretum was scenery you might find in any ordinary city. Towering buildings and small shops standing in place of dirt and trees. Perhaps because of the height of the high-rises, the ceiling above showed no intention of lowering — it climbed skyward without limit.
"It's this way···"
"Hm? Why is this place so small?"
I'd expected us to head into one of the elongated towers, but Arwen led me weaving through a labyrinth of narrow alleys until we arrived at what looked like a corner store. It was far too shabby to be called a Repair Shop.
"That's because it's privately operated. The owner ran it as a hobby, but it was famous for its quality. Five stars."
"You've got all kinds of weird data loaded up in there, don't you?"
"Browsing the bulletin boards when I'm bored is one of my hobbies, you see."
Piiyooong
Arwen manipulated something, and the shop's door slid open automatically, the lights flickering on. In contrast to its run-down exterior, the interior was reasonably tidy. Beds lined up with sheets that were only lightly coated in dust.
"Alright, up we go."
I brushed the dust off one of the beds in a rough sweep and laid the android down. The stubbornly lingering gray dust billowed up at the arrival of its first guest in ages.
"This place is intact. Perhaps because there's no food here, neither goblins nor Chimeras have broken in."
"So how do you actually do repairs here? There aren't even any proper beds for it—"
"The repair facility is in the back. This room is for recovering and stabilizing after repairs. Androids need their rest too, in their own way."
Arwen waved her hand elegantly, and the bed holding the android slid smoothly toward the back on its own. The door at the far end was designed to be invisible from the ward. It split open diagonally and swung wide, revealing what looked like an operating theater.
The most striking thing was the ceiling, studded from end to end with delicate mechanical arms built for precision work.
Piii—
The android's body was transferred seamlessly onto the operating table, and a beam of blue light swept down from the ceiling, passing over it from head to toe.
"There really is a great deal that needs repairing. It's practically at the level of a full body replacement."
"···Can't say I'm surprised."
"There are no biological organs, but the metal components are still in good condition. Since we're at it anyway, let's use only the finest parts available. Oh? This is···"
Arwen, who had been fiddling with the operating room's computer, let out a small cry of delight.
What is it?