Mitou Shoukan://Blood-Sign Volume 7 Chapter 3

"Why am I still alive?"

"Oh? You make it sound like you overcame death all on your own."

(Stage 03 Open 07/20 19:30 Open)

Doctor S Awaits the Hunter in the Shadows of a Legend

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Kyousuke no longer remembered how far he had run through the white crystal cave or what route he had taken.

In fact, no amount of struggling could have let him escape the White Queen before his eyes. She was already the strongest at just one, but there were now enough of her to fill the city like an army of the dead. There was no hope. In that case, it was obvious what had happened.

"Thirty-oooone, thirty-twoooo, thirty-threeeee…"

That counting continued from somewhere.

That lovely voice echoed endlessly like she was starting a game of hide-and-seek. And that was not the only voice. After all, there was more than one Queen this time. The voices arrived from all directions as if to surround poor Kyousuke. She seemed to be toying with him using the madness of a group, something she had never had before due to being unique.

She was letting him escape.

She was clearly just having fun.

"Nowww, then. Brooootherrrr, what will you do?"

"Will you continue with your plan to destroy me, the White Queen you hate so much? Ee hee hee!"

"But, but. I can infect people this time. Nowww, who am I using as a host for this one? A member of Bridesmaid? Or a villager from Houbi Village? Oh? But can you just kill them? Well, can you, bunny???"

"Ugwah!! Aghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?"

They were not here.

The Queen's voice echoed in from a distant location, using the complexly curving cave like a speaking tube.

The ma.s.s of sound seemed to envelop him.

"Ready or nooooot, here I cooooome!"

"Ready or nooooot, here I cooooome!"

"Ready or nooooot, here I cooooome!"

"Broootherrr, let's flirt and smooch. …Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!"

"Broootherrr, let's flirt and smooch. …Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!"

"Broootherrr, let's flirt and smooch. …Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!"

A strong but dull sound burst out.

It was not Kyousuke slipping and falling. The silver-haired shrine maiden named Meinokawa Aoi had grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the crystal wall.

"Calm down, you fool!!"

"Eek!?"

"I'm honestly amazed you managed to pick up Olivia's unconscious body and flee in that situation, but if you just keep running aimlessly, you'll only end up right in front of one of the Queens. And if she's using her numbers to surround us, escape by normal means will be impossible."

With that said, Aoi pulled Kyousuke forward instead. She wrapped her arms around his head as if holding him to her large chest.

"Do not worry."

"Listen to my pulse. I might be artificial, but the structure is no different. You can tell how calm I am, can't you? That means I haven't let it affect me and I can buy enough time for you to calm down, too. …As a shrine G.o.d, that is my purpose. That role was admittedly forced onto me, but I will not abandon a human child seeking my protection."

Kyousuke's heart rampaged in his chest and he was clearly hyperventilating, but this allowed him to finally regain control of his mind that was madly running full speed ahead.

"Pant, pant…phew…"

"Good, good. Do not worry. If you try to take care of it all at once, you will simply be overwhelmed. Let's take our time and solve it bit by bit. Understand?"

Biondetta had pursued Kyousuke along with Aoi and she shook her head over and over with a hand on the side of her head as if to shake away a nightmare.

"Urp. An atmosphere of death filled with multiple Queens and heavy bedrock overhead. Really reminds you of the Queen's Miniature Garden, doesn't it, sir?"

"Oh, right… I just had to remember that… This isn't the first time the Queen has multiplied… This was a known phenomenon…not something entirely incomprehensible… I'm fine…I'm still fine…"

"However." Biondetta added more while lightly kissing the white snake that slithered out of her cleavage. "Multiple Queens working together is definitely unprecedented. We should a.s.sume this is even more dangerous than the Queen's Miniature Garden."

That meant this was the worst situation in history. That was enough to make him feel faint and he had to focus his mind to avoid blacking out in Meinokawa Aoi's chest.

This absurd situation was not some grand final objective; it was something done just for fun.

She was truly the greatest cheater.

But that was no reason to abandon all thought. They had a veritable mountain of problems to deal with, but that was exactly why their only option was solving them each one at a time.

Kyousuke finally stopped leaning on Aoi and managed to support his own weight.

"Whatever we do, we have no time," he groaned. "The White Queen will start searching for us - just for fun - before long."

"First of all, I want to make sure you know that - unlike me - she is not simply borrowing those forms," said Aoi. "If true White Queens are being ma.s.s-produced, then fighting her head-on would be reckless indeed. In fact, we could not defeat even one of them."

"Since they're working together, I suppose we can't lure them into destroying each other this time."

An unnatural gagging motion entered Kyousuke's throat once more.

He knew this was different, but he could not help but think of Mary Ann destroying the other Queens. He also thought of the White Queen versus the Black Maw. But they could not use that method here.

"If we can't fight her head-on or use any tricks, only one option remains."

Aoi sighed somewhat sadly, perhaps because she no longer had anything to hold to her chest.

"I a.s.sume you mean the Material you are hoping can defeat the Queen. That does seem to be our only hope."

"But we're up against multiple Queens!" protested Biondetta. "You could easily call it an army!!"

"Yes, but each of the Queens has the same specs. So the rest depends on the situation. It would be difficult to singlehandedly defeat 100 people in a simultaneous game of rock-paper-scissors, but things change if you play them all sequentially in 100 different games. Both options are far from easy, but the first step is preparing the proper conditions and environment."

Kyousuke breathed in and out.

The despair was too great for that to stop his cold sweat, but he forced his mind into motion.

"In that case, I'm curious about the fact that she's infecting people instead of simply multiplying or copying herself. That Queen doesn't care about anyone but me, so it seems odd that she would make herself need the bodies of other people."

"…To act as hostages?"

"That means it's possible she's afraid that we could have a chance if she didn't have that means of stopping us."

Kyousuke spoke coldly.

He did not hesitate to use the word "afraid" when it came to that Queen.

"Also, we still don't know how she's infecting people. Depending on the answer, it might be possible to heal them."

Biondetta was not the only one shocked by that suggestion.

Even Meinokawa Aoi's eyes widened.

"W-wait. Are you saying you still haven't given up?"

"That's right."

"You can look at this situation and still set your objective to saving them!?"

"Is that anything for a shrine G.o.d to say? Can't you see them wandering in search of help? If I did anything else, the name Alice (with) Rabbit would lose all meaning. That's the only reason the Queen would bother making more of herself when she's already the strongest on her own."

Yes, the White queen already reigned at the highest peak, so it was hard to think she would be trying to strengthen herself. Whether as an individual or a group, the strongest was the strongest. It was an inexact way of thinking, but when she was an infinite being from the beginning, there was no reason to gather a group of her. Then why the infection? The Queen always placed Kyousuke at the center of her world, so the answer was self-evident.

The Queen wanted to make Kyousuke hers by breaking his spirit and removing his attachment to all other things.

She longed for the moment when he took the easy route and relied on the strongest.

She was trying to create a dependency in which he could not survive without that strongest and he could find nothing else to hold pride in. Just as a soccer player would most hate having soccer taken from them and just like a student admitted to a prestigious university would fight desperately to not have their academic records taken from them.

In other words…

"She's trying to get me to kill them myself. That is the Queen's goal."

Needless to say, accepting a game suggested by the White Queen was the height of folly, but he was free to save them in a way that surpa.s.sed the Queen's expectations. He had to outdo her and present the answer without ever giving up. That was the proper course of action for s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke.

He had to end his confusion. He had to regain his will of steel.

And after that, he had one important task to perform.

"Let's observe the White Queen."

"Are you serious, dammit!? I was hoping to suggest we hurry to the center, reach the cruise s.h.i.+p at the summit as soon as possible, create the vessel which can contain your trump card Unexplored-cla.s.s, construct the Material itself, and immediately begin the battle to destroy the White Queen!!"

"There are too many questions concerning this infection. Accepting it as just something the Queen can do is the same as refusing to think. …If we can figure out how it works, we can make a further judgment about whether or not they can be returned to normal…no, about whether or not they can be saved."

"Now, a question: do you want this to leave a bad taste in your mouth or not?"

"Okay!! Fine!!"

Let us discuss Toy Dream 35.

That city had nothing as shady as a combination of a used tools shop and garbage collectors.

Even if you possessed something worth absolutely nothing, anyone with any at all love for antiques would never think of making a little bit of money by giving it to someone who would melt it down and reuse it. If you did see a combination like that, it was best to consider another possibility:

…Could this shop be buying up anything, stolen or not, and melting down the valuable metals in anything that seemed sketchy to make it untraceable before selling it again?

"Boss, here's the report on today's job."

"Oh? Did we have a job too questionable to discuss over the internet?"

The sun had set, but the heat island made sure the night was still blazing hot. That awful night contained so much heat and humidity that it made one wonder if a corpse sitting outside would begin decomposing faster now than at midday.

A middle-aged man had shown up at a needlessly gaudy shop in C Block's Chinatown and the modified China dress beauty named Lu Niang Lan tilted her head at him from behind the counter. She accepted a wide variety of jobs, so she did not remember the details of all of them. (That also proved just how stable her foundation was.)

Before answering, the stubbly man in cheap work clothes enjoyed a sip of the chilled oolong tea the beauty served him.

"I mean that container. That had top priority, right?"

"Oh, Kyousuke-chan's job."

"We dealt with the organic portion by mixing in oil filled with aerobic bacteria to create humus for growing forced vegetables. It will soon be used in the home garden of some wealthy young housewife with too much time on her hands. The container itself was broken down into pellets and thrown into a blast furnace so it can be used for the metal beams in a luxury apartment."

"Hmm. Everyone's always talking about a recession, but money and free time still gather in the places doing well."

"Tell me about it. Well, our job is a lot easier when there are plenty of people with no sense of danger whatsoever."

"Why is it that gathering money doesn't seem to lead to happiness?"

"Boss, it takes someone who moves around as much cash as you to say something like that. Yes, someone who moves it around instead of just gathering it. Happiness isn't something you work your a.s.s off in search of; you need to set up camp in front of the prime spots where it'll roll right into your lap. Even this shop was blown to smithereens, but how many days did it take to rebuild it again?"

"Oh, come now. I have a sweaty man telling me how jealous he is of me, so I still have a ways to go. Didn't you know? The truly happy don't have to do anything to be loved by everyone. And with those people, they don't even notice that anything they don't like is automatically eliminated from their everyday surroundings."

"So like the really cute girl in your cla.s.s? People tend to say everyone's born with a set amount of luck, but they don't often talk about whether or not you can shove your luck deficit onto someone else. …Oh, right. I did take a sample of the regenerated product and I'll run an a.n.a.lysis on it, but I doubt we'll find out what it was originally. So the same as always, I guess."

"So you'll take care of it?'

"Exactly. The work tools for our housework service are always discarded after use, so those will be disposed of too. It's kind of incredible. I miss the days when a disposer would create meat dumplings and send them to a mountain pig farm or ocean fish farm as 'animal food'."

"You see that a lot in movies, but it isn't actually all that reliable since undigested human hair will end up in their droppings."

"Well, if you do as sloppy a job as they show in the movies. They won't shut up about making the recent Toy Dream movies as realistic as possible, but they can't exactly give people lessons on how to actually get away with murder. So what was that container anyway? A corpse?"

"This is Alice (with) Rabbit we're talking about, so I seriously doubt that."

"Oh, well that's no fun. I thought we were quietly disposing of a little 'accident' so he could maintain his legend."

"My. Are you the type who feels more excited than disappointed when an idol's infidelity comes to light?"

"Don't act like you're any different, boss. I know you find other people's misfortune to have the sweetest flavor of all. You wouldn't fit in with Illegal otherwise."

The two of them laughed together without taking any of it too seriously.

Finding out they had unwittingly disposed of a corpse or two was not about to surprise them and the same went for something even more dangerous and delicate than a corpse. No matter what was placed on the line ahead of them, they would break right through the law of conservation of ma.s.s because the more they erased from the world, the greater the reward in their pockets. They did not need to beat around the bush on this issue, which just went to show they were both entirely immersed in Illegal.

"Okay, boss, I'll be going. Our business doesn't really get going until midnight, so I've still got 3 jobs to deal with before dawn. The tea was good. You should probably just remake this place into a teahouse. Maybe a book cafe with shelves full of used books."

"You forgot the 'for an amateur' disclaimer. I can't hope to match a pro. …And it seems you're doing good business. Are you avoiding the sun even in prime summer break season?"

"Don't be ridiculous. That's the reason why. I know you know more incidents happen this time of year than any other. Everyone decides to cut loose for summer break, but they get irritated in the hot sun and get completely carried away. Summer is the season of love and corpses. Bye☆"

Discovery meant instant death.

And it was not just her physical strength that made the White Queen the strongest. She was a cut above in every single field. And that of course included her sensory organs and thought ability. Setting up a situation in which they could see her but she failed to notice them was nigh impossible. In fact, it was much, much more likely that the opposite would happen.

In that case, Kyousuke's group's options were extremely limited.

The only effective method they could think of was using the White Queen's traits against her:

In that case…

"Hiss…"

A sound like a broken flute echoed quietly across the surface of the underground lake.

It came from the white snake vessel contracted with Biondetta.

He(?) was not human and he was not s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke. Thus, the Queens would not lock onto him any more than one of the cave's bats or rats when he was acting alone. He was no different from a weed on the side of the road.

Aoi put her hands on her hips and took a deep breath that caused her shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s to rise and fall.

"Hmm. In that case, would I have worked too since I'm artificial?"

"There's no guarantee with you since your structure is too close to human."

Kyousuke's group discussed it while traveling through the underground area and approaching the cruise s.h.i.+p near the summit. They had used the aforementioned ladder in the giant crack as a shortcut to escape the enemy surrounding them. The level of danger was little different no matter where they were, but they wanted to stay as close to their trump card as possible.

It was currently around 10:30 PM.

After more than three hours, the white snake returned after gathering as much information as he(?) could. Only Biondetta could communicate with him due to her contract, so she was in charge of that.

Biondetta and Olivia had spent 24 hours in the loser state, so ingesting nutrients was an important job for them. They had borrowed some biscuits from the emergency food in the shrine(?) by the underground lake, so they split them and ate a quick meal.

"Still…"

Kyousuke looked around once more.

They were inside an unlit s.h.i.+p.

The cruise s.h.i.+p had only been made to slowly cruise along the crater lake which had had no exit, so it was not made to sail at sea. It was modeled after a sailing s.h.i.+p, but it probably only used an electric motor to turn a propeller. It did not have any cabins for spending the night. Only the deck giving a view of the scenery and the dining hall for a light meal had been open to the public. It would have been full with only 30 pa.s.sengers.

They were inside what had been the kitchen next to the dining hall.

Gla.s.s test tubes and flasks were packed in tight along with the cooking tools. A lot of mysterious emblems were carved on the walls and floor. As was readily apparent with a vacuum coffee maker or a pressure cooker, kitchen equipment and lab equipment fit together quite well.

"This should be enough to at least reach the Jewel Blood," concluded Aoi.

It could be done dry or wet and hot or cold, but the narrow gla.s.s tubes resembled a roller coaster.

"To be blunt, preparing a full Joruri Method in such a short time would not be possible. The White Queen has almost certainly begun her search already," said humanity's oldest artificial vessel. She began negatively, but then she puffed out her large chest. "So use my body. We can't prepare it all from scratch, but we can modify what we already have. Just add what you need to my body to remake me into a vessel that can contain the irregular Material you're thinking of."

Adding to that artificial being may have been a lot like intentionally implanting a pacemaker in someone to control their heartrate even though they were not seriously ill.

"…You're willing to do that?"

"I do not mind. I am a shrine G.o.d, so protecting people is my job. Why wouldn't I use every method available to me at the time?"

"I'm asking you as Meinokawa Aoi not as the Queen's lookalike."

The silver-haired girl fell silent for a moment.

A smile appeared on her lips.

"…Don't underestimate me. I had always wanted to escape my role as the White Queen's lookalike. I'm not about to complain about gaining some originality, especially when it gives me the power to finish off the Queen."

Meinokawa Aoi slowly placed a hand on the center of her chest.

And she gave a faint smile.

"Humans are always afraid that the changes to their bodies will mean they are 'aging' rather than 'growing'. But never changing at all is also frightening."

Kyousuke was not a Joruri Method, so he probably could not understand that mindset. But if that girl with eternal life wanted to change, he had no reason to press the matter further.

"Mhh."

And then another voice shattered that solemn mood.

It was Olivia Highland who had come to earlier.

The small girl used both hands to rub the back of her head. That caused her slender bodylines to show through her school swimsuit, which had grown a darker shade of blue after absorbing so much moisture, and even revealed the curves of her ribs which looked as delicate as gla.s.s, but she showed no sign at all of caring.

She pushed out her tiny chest and the light pink rose decoration adorning it, she shook the thick chain worn diagonally across her body and the bag-sized lock hanging from it, and she asked a sulking question.

"My head is still throbbing. This is more than just sleeping on it wrong. Onii-chan, you hit me, didn't you?"

"I guess there's no hiding it then. …Oh, right. Your memories come back while you're looking at me even though your contract was ended."

"I can't believe you!! If you want to indulge in me, then just say so! I won't stop you! If you feel the need to knock people out just because you can't work up the nerve unless they're asleep, then I'm really worried about your future, Onii-chan!!"

"And I can't believe you. That leap of logic was downright acrobatic…"

"I-I'll help you recover, Onii-chan. Work me with me to become normal, okay?"

"I wasn't asking you to stare up at me and expand on the topic."

Meanwhile, Biondetta seemed to have finished communicating with the white snake.

"Outta the way! This sounds like a job for his big sis. They've always said big b.o.o.bs are the best way of curing abnormal proclivities."

"Oh, no. Now she's added a bizarre conclusion on top of the bizarre premise!!"

"Hold it," said Aoi. "Are you saying my size is not enough, you symbol of gluttony?"

"And now it's spread to all of them? Where do I even start with this!?"

"False accusations are like a long chain in a falling block puzzle game. But anyway, I have something to report."

Biondetta translated what the white snake had seen into human language.

And her conclusion was as follows:

"Vessels?" Kyousuke repeated the most important word. "The infection has only spread to human vessels?"

"So it seems. The action that triggers it seems to be a bite, but at its core, it's still a summoning. The Queen descends into the vessel's body. It only looks like a ma.s.sive, spreading infection because she's summoned into so many of them at once. That seems to be the truth of what's happening here."

"So there were simply that many vessels in Houbi Village? It makes sense for Bridesmaid, but I thought the Meinokawas had developed the Joruri Method to make up for their lack of vessels."

"Not necessarily." Aoi shrugged, causing the chest of her shrine maiden outfit to jiggle rather dangerously. "Why do you think the Meinokawa family understood the bodily structure of a vessel better than anyone else? Why were they blessed with the opportunity to investigate them until they could artificial reproduce one? Because they had enough samples who were willing to help with their research."

"You mean…?"

"The Meinokawa family was originally a bloodline which tended to produce vessels. But if they had turned themselves into a vessel family, they would have been at the mercy of outsider summoners. That became what you call a kom-pleks for them. That is the reason why they wanted to be summoners instead of vessels."

…Kyousuke recalled that Meinokawa Higan was an excellent vessel even after having her ability artificially worn down. It was rare for someone of that talent to be born to a normal family, so it was safe to accept that the Meinokawa family held that kind of secret.

Just because someone relied on a computer did not necessarily mean they were bad at mental arithmetic.

Just because someone relied on a microwave did not necessarily mean they could not cook.

"So between the Meinokawas and Bridesmaid, Houbi Village contains far more vessels than would normally be possible."

"But normally just one Queen can appear in just one vessel, so they must have a way of breaking that limitation and summoning her into multiple vessels at once," said Biondetta. "That would be the key to this."

"So simply put, there is a core Queen who is being used to bend the normal rules?"

"I suppose she would be something like the queen bee. No, maybe more like the one real kid's meal toy placed in a house of mirrors."

Meinokawa Aoi's eyes widened at that.

"So if we got rid of that one doll…?"

"…All of the Queen's would disappear and the vessels would return to normal?"

They all exchanged a glance.

The only one looking displeased was Olivia Highland who wanted Kyousuke and the Queen to get along.

She puffed out her cheeks while her slender fingers toyed with the brim of her large straw hat.

"Why do you just a.s.sume you have to fight her? Mhhh…"

"Because it's necessary."

"You just have to hurry up and apologize, Onii-chan. If you try to act like you're in charge and challenge her, it's obvious she'll just beat you up and make you behave."

"Via."

Not even using her nickname was enough to control her now. She only stuck out her tongue. With her undeveloped bodylines showing through her school swimsuit, which had grown an oddly dark shade from all the moisture, that double blonde braid girl truly seemed to believe Kyousuke could make up with the Queen if he made the first move. And that may have been why she did not sense the danger they were in.

She did not view the White Queen as someone who brought death, even though that was the most basic thing about her. She Simply believed in that just like those who believed that an army was there to protect their nation or that police officers carried guns to protect the peace.

That could always be written off as "childish", but that purity was far too dangerous here.

"We have to figure out which Queen is the core. And whether or not we can just kill that one."

"Yes, even if the other infected Queens are like reflections in a house of mirrors, there has to be some trick in place for the original one's permanent summoning. Simply put, that one uses a different system. We might be able to find a way to tell them apart if we look into that."

"Hey, if we've identified the enemy we need to defeat, isn't it about time you got to modifying my body?"

All at once, the situation had started to move.

They were still at a serious disadvantage, but it meant a lot to have an actual goal in mind.

The enemy was quickly leaving the category of "incomprehensible".

"…White Queen, it's true you're still the strongest for now."

Kyousuke spoke quietly inside the cold kitchen lined with strange lab equipment.

The blue flame in his eyes was cold, but there was great heat hidden in his voice.

"But that's only at the peak of the known route up the mountain. It's time I showed you what humans are capable of."

Meanwhile, Doctor S was facing his own crisis.

He had ended the search in the caves and moved outside for the time being.

Houbi Village had been reduced to ruins by the extraordinary rocket fire, so even the most intact buildings only had their foundations or walls remaining and created twisted silhouettes visible in the dark night. The objects jutting up and tangled together in places were likely the remnants of the wooden festival towers and electric lanterns. No artificial lights illuminated the night and only some red and green particles flowed irregularly around. Those were embers from the attack and fireflies. Doctor S and the rest of the Bridesmaid summoners and Repligla.s.s soldiers had constructed a base on land to join the missile s.h.i.+ps and landing s.h.i.+ps out at sea. Tents made of synthetic cloth were spread out across the remains of the original village.

Doctor S sat atop a broken drum and looked around.

Tents came in a wide variety of types, but modifying those used for circuses allowed one to set up a facility the size of a harbor warehouse in a short period of time. When viewed by satellite, the village would have been transformed like painting a new image on a canvas.

But not everything was about logic and efficiency.

In fact, their timetable was in complete shambles.

"Ohh, ohh. Her Majesty…Her Majesty is here…!!"

"Please forgive me for so insolently sharing the same s.p.a.ce as Your Holiness!!"

"She really exists! Yes, it wasn't just a legend! Her Majesty really does exist!!"

Some kneeled on the spot, some were carried to a far-distant land on a wave of ecstasy, and some fainted and convulsed on the ground. Bridesmaid celebrated their greatest moment as a Queen-wors.h.i.+ping cult.

There was a simple reason for that.

Pure white appeared in the dark shadows like a field of lilies in the moonlight.

And there were uncountably many of them.

In all 360 degrees, no matter where you turned, you would only see more and more White Queens. As her very first researcher, Doctor S understood her nature. The White Queen would show no interest in anything other than s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke. In a way, he had set it up that way, so of course he did.

Because Kyousuke had failed, this roller coaster no longer had a safe guiderail.

Facing just one wild Queen was a disaster in and of itself, so being surrounded by her in every direction was best viewed as being trapped by a crueler fate than being in the path of a giant meteor being pulled down by the tendrils of gravity.

In that case…

"…Umm, I would like to ask a question."

"Yes, what is it?"

One of the Queens answered him while politely bringing her hands together in front of her and cutely tilting her head. But she was not about to give him such a sweet look just because he was s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke's father. And being part of Bridesmaid, which served her, was not a guarantee of anything. The Queen's interest was only in him himself; no other factor would get her to focus on him.

So Doctor S stated his question bluntly from the broken drum he sat on.

"Why am I still alive? I honestly a.s.sumed I would be killed instantly once the infection and spread began."

"Oh? You make it sound like you overcame death all on your own."

"This isn't anything that cool."

While answering, the man used his medical inhaler to adjust the oxygen level while using the air pressure tubes in his riding suit to squeeze his body. Together, these simulated a hyperbaric oxygen environment to externally control his brain activity. It was a lot like fiddling with a dial to dig through his memories.

"It's just that I saw something more frightening than death during July of 1999. The rest is an issue of priorities. I've already selected the problem I wish to conquer first, so I might seem unconcerned about lower priority issues such as my own death."

"Well, in that case, your driving force is rooted in phobia rather than philia. …Although you have some serious issues since you get as close as possible to the thing you fear instead of distancing yourself from it."

"That's just how humans work. Did you not know why those Toy Dream cities are doing such good business all over the world? We humans are a contradictory lot. We want to get as close as possible to danger while maintaining a front-row seat of absolute safety. No luxury could be greater."

"Don't try to pretend you're not a coward."

"Oh, my cowardice is the entire point. I will admit it's pathetic, though. Even now, it could easily explode within me at any time if I didn't tune my thoughts externally like this."

"Is that an application of hyperbaric oxygen therapy? That said, I believe I was taught that excess oxygen intake not only leads to hyperventilation but that the reactive oxygen that changes form within your metabolism is one cause of aging."

"I stopped caring about aging after the fear turned my hair white. You would never know it, but I'm actually a fair bit younger than I look. My hair has been like this ever since I saw you that first time. Although I'm not about to claim I'm exactly young anymore."

Whatever Doctor S may have thought, the White Queen did not seem to have any real feelings about that.

So the twintail girl readily changed the subject.

To the man, this was like hesitantly walking through a minefield where one misstep would blow him away, but she readily announced a change of destination on a whim.

"What is with that S name?"

"Oh, this? It was originally a pseudonym I used for the long-term project with Kyousuke, but it was convenient enough and I ended up borrowing it ever since. Well, with the later Miniature Garden, it was entirely about inertia or maybe a good luck charm. That was an utter failure that didn't match the requested specs, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. So from there, I was probably hoping for someone who showed some promise. How that turned out goes without saying."

"Your project, hm?"

"He is my child. I will not lie about that. I simply used every research tool available to me."

"But that is not enough to fully explain this."

"You mean why it had to be a s.h.i.+royama? Not even I know. I can only a.s.sume it was a divine revelation." Doctor S smiled bitterly at his own trauma. "Oh, and it might look like Kyousuke is driven by phobia, but it's actually philia. You can rest easy about that."

It sounded like he too was changing the subject on a whim, but he was not actually.

"My, my."

The White Queen smiled while happily clasping her hands in front of her chest. She looked like a girl who had received information on the boy she liked from a cla.s.smate.

This was the only way for Doctor S to access the White Queen. He could not get a single word out of her otherwise. When he was lost, when he could not see the ground below his feet, and when his soul was trapped by the fear of landmines, the only way to course correct was to speak Kyousuke's name. That would allow him to set down his raised foot.

"I'm scared."

Was his voice actually reaching the twintailed Queen?

And even if it was, this might not change the fate of this man in a lab coat and riding suit.

"I'm so very, very, very scared. But that is why this s.h.i.+ver down my spine is the one thing I can't erase by manipulating the oxygen. How much safety can we maintain and how close can we approach danger? Some say it is the ability to control fire that makes humanity special, but I see things otherwise. Our one and only treasure is the ability to not just control fire but approach that danger and enjoy the thrill of it. There are insects that commit suicide and beasts that torment others, but no other living creature holds entirely meaningless values."

As Doctor S spoke from the broken drum, his words were not directed at anyone in particular.

He was letting himself hear his own thoughts to apply some self-suggestion and encourage himself.

"We conquered ghosts and UFOs. We removed the fear of poetic prophets and the Aztec calendar. We can use our own words to explain the Tunguska Event and the supposed nuclear destruction of an ancient city by an Astra. We have fully researched most every mystery of the universe and the human body. We have turned it all into safe and boring attractions, leaving nothing to fear. …With the one major exception of you."

"Iiiii seeee. So for you, what happens after death is something you either already understand or a trivial matter you can calculate out if need be. You know the equations, so you just have to leave the ma.s.sive amount of calculations to a supercomputer which can work out the answer at more than a billion calculations a second."

"Ha ha. That's right, that's right. The White Queen is the one thing where I can't even find an equation to use as a starting point. No matter how I look at or frame the problem, all I get are unknowns upon unknowns. It could be zero, infinity, an imaginary number, or anything else; if I could see just one value, I could confirm the safety, mark out the danger with a dividing line, and find a way to get as close as possible to that line."

"Humans feel both hope and fear about the things they do not understand. Once you had made your way all around the earth, the occupation of adventurer died out and the seeds of hope for the entire species were lost. Even with outer s.p.a.ce, you could predict the majority of the star map using radio telescopes."

"So what is your answer?"

"Do you desire your own death that badly?"

"Dying here would be simple. That is no more than an easily predicable result. Queen, surely you can bring people a much crueler fate."

"Hmm. That is true." The silver twintailed Queen placed her index finger on her slender chin. "The things you have brought into this world should indeed be called hideous, but without them, brother and I never would have met. Isn't that enough of a reason to give you a stay of execution?"

"Akura Taisaku from the Queen's Miniature Garden similarly pulled the selfish trigger when he could no longer bear that freefall with no guarantee of safety, but you didn't hesitate to smash him into paste. …And I am well aware you allowed his cells to remain active so he lived on for more than 300 hours while splattered across the walls and ceiling. And he was aware the entire time that there was no hope at all of saving him."

"Oh, you do know your trivia, don't you? Did the two of you get along because you both have severe phobias? If I recall correctly, you developed the Miniature Garden and he ran it. But I can't have you acting like that Queen and the Queen before you now are the same." The White Queen giggled. "There is a simple reason for treating you differently from Akura. The presence of an ordinary sort of man will not change much of anything. So even if the middle point was altered somewhat, that war would have ultimately happened and brother and I would have parted ways. But you were different. That is all this is."

"Hmm." The inhaler man slightly adjusted the oxygen level like a tuner. "If you killed me here, disguised it as some kind of error, and 'returned' right away, you might just gain Kyousuke's favor."

The White Queen's shoulders jumped.

But not because some gears had jammed. It was the opposite. The phrase Doctor S had spoken were the magic words to rob the silver twintailed Queen of all of her plans. Without even looking at her face, it was obvious that linking her to Kyousuke had sent pleasure signals coursing through her body.

But the strongest of the strongest suppressed it.

Doctor S calmly viewed that result.

"I see. That is a magician's trick." He nodded once. "You are arrogant in all things and everything you do can be judged humble when compared to what you are actually capable of. But you are afraid. You are shockingly cowardly when it comes to Kyousuke. Basically, with the obvious target of Doctor S around, Kyousuke will look elsewhere. So even if you are manipulating things from behind the scenes, you are harder to spot. That's what this is about, isn't it?"

Some might call it clever and some might call it cowardly, but they could not forget that this was the White Queen. It was highly irregular for her to even take failure and loss into account when she put together a plan.

"But even before that, the core factor in you and Kyousuke parting ways at the Queen's Miniature Garden was murder. A mere murder caused that. But I am his father. Whatever he might say, you cannot imagine how much more your relations.h.i.+p will be twisted if you take it a step further and kill his parent. I can see why you would be afra-…"

The White Queen silently tilted her head.

The pull of gravity caused her silver hair to flow creepily over.

And a moment later, the Queen's slender arm stabbed into the center of Doctor S's chest before he could finish his sentence.

It truly only took an instant.

It was as smooth as sticking one's hand into a ma.s.s of custard and yet not a drop of blood was spilt.

The White Queen's right hand had pierced the researcher's chest far too deftly. No, that was not simple destruction. It was a type of spiritual healing. While completely ignoring the pectoralis major, diaphragm, ribs, sternum, and various arteries and veins in the way, the White Queen easily pulled something out.

He did not even have time to stand up from the broken drum in surprise.

He was forbidden to take any unpermitted action while in the presence of Her Majesty.

That was simply how the world worked.

"Father."

The ma.s.s of muscles in her hand was pulsing. It was someone's heart.

The Queen's strongest was not limited to pure physical strength.

She could bring out the greatest skill in every single field.

"I respect you for bringing brother into this world, but I have no intention of getting to know my in-laws well enough to live in a two-generation household."

The frightening part was not how she removed his heart with no pain or resistance.

It was the fact that she could bring hand-to-hand combat to this level. If she wanted, she could remove all of Doctor S's organs and rearrange them as she saw fit. It was just like moving a human brain into a pig or sheep developed for organ transplants. No, it need not be organic. If she felt like having some fun, she could create a human-faced dog or even a human-faced train. She could easily create a chimera that would cause anyone who saw it to lose their mind.

"Please do your very, very, very best not to get between my brother and me. I may not look it, but I can become a tad indiscriminate when it comes to him. Even if you are his father, I might do something inappropriate without thinking."

"…Oh, how scary. It would seem this thrill ride still has room for improvement. If not for the experimental guiderail named Kyousuke, I would have been tossed from the roller coaster."

"Yes, I suppose so. Your unsightly racing heartrate is probably caused by noradrenaline, so it would come from the fear and shock based on your phobia."

"It really is scary."

But that was the entire point.

Doctor S's confidence was renewed after seeing this madness that would have made anyone look away. Not even the G.o.d in heaven could restrain this ultimate strongest. And there was but one person in the world who contained the possibility of holding her reins.

Only s.h.i.+royama Kyousuke. Completing that failure was the only option.

"I am a priest, not a shrine maiden. Directly touching you is meaningless; my goal is to approach as close as possible. I wish to safely enjoy the world's greatest and most dangerous freefall, but I do not actually wish to jump to my death."

"That is fine then."

The White Queen grinned and returned the heart in her right hand to Doctor S's chest. It was a casual action, like someone placing their father's pocket watch back on the shelf.

There was no red stain on her white glove and that eternally unsullied white spoke.

"Now, then. I think it's time I got serious about teasing brother. Hee hee hee! Any chance to directly touch him is valuable. …I can't have him growing accustomed to my appearances. Each and every one of our trysts needs to feel fresh and new! If I am going to show him just how impatiently I have been waiting to make contact with him, I have to make sure I leave an impression: kaboom!!"

"I'm hardly one to talk, but…"

"Yes?"

"You really are cruel."

The White Queen was entirely unfazed by his great insult.

She placed her hands on her cheeks as her eyes grew damp, her breaths grew heated, and a tremor ran down her spine.

"That is because I love him…!!"

"Hey!!"

"Nyahh!?"

Kyousuke heard a bizarre cry and then saw Biondetta grabbing onto Olivia's skinny hips. The little girl was facing forward with her b.u.t.t sticking out and Biondetta was preparing to spank her. Even if she was wearing a swimsuit below, Olivia seemed worried about her miniskirt and pareo in this pose, so she kicked her skinny legs around, blushed, and tried to bite at the older girl.

"Wait, what do you think you're doing to me!?"

"What am I doing!? You're the one that tried to sneak over and remove the fuse to my Incense Grenades so they wouldn't activate! That really is a life or death issue!!"

"…Tch."

"That click of the tongue settles it: I'm definitely spanking this a.s.s!!"

"Nyahh!?"

"Those are the laws in my country!!"

"What country is that!?"

The two of them argued back and forth, but Olivia skillfully escaped Biondetta and fled toward Kyousuke. She circled behind him and used him as a s.h.i.+eld. Her swimsuit must have gotten oddly twisted while in the waitress demon's grasp because she messed with the shoulder straps inside her decorative collar and the b.u.t.t within her pareo.

"Look at that incarnation of violence, Onii-chan! You need to keep away from someone like that!!"

Olivia was not contracted with anyone, so she could not maintain her memories without a summoner or vessel in her field of vision. That meant she could not sneak around when no one else was around and would have to use bold pickpocketing techniques and prestidigitation if she was going to do anything.

Vigor seemed to escape Biondetta's mouth like steam.

"Sir, please move out of the way. It is my duty to deliver a finis.h.i.+ng blow to that insolent a.s.s."

"Nn! The White Queen is definitely the only person for you, Onii-chan. The Queen is kind, so she wouldn't get mad about something as trivial as this."

Kyousuke did not have it in him to correct her ridiculous a.s.sessment, but that was not his focus at the moment anyway.

"Aika, have you managed to check with the satellite yet?"

A military satellite might sound like something quite special, but the satellite network was not actually all that st.u.r.dy.

The bikini girl responded via his smartphone.

"Well, no matter how advanced things get, they can't escape the nature of wireless connections. They can strengthen the directionality all they want; the signal still scatters in other directions and the opposite is just as true. I can read from and write to the signal all I want. Although no matter how useful this is, I'm still stuck in the position of logistical support…"

"Meaning?"

"You need to give more credit to your proud shut-in here. And with my eternal rival Olivia Highland showing up while I was out of the loop, I am seriously worried about your future, Onii-chan!!"

That put a smug look on Olivia's face as she clung to his arm.

"Ee hee hee. Even if we're on other sides of the world, there is no separating two souls who were truly meant to be together. Grin, grin."

"You thief!! Do you want me to fire the seven s.p.a.ce station tools on top of your head!?"

"Tee hee. And a school swimsuit is the standard…no, it's justice. I mean, a bikini little sister is just mixing up the symbols to the point of incomprehensibility."

"Via."

"Agrbrbrbh!! O-Onii-chan, you're not blameless here either! When did you two get so close again!? I-Is there really magic in a school swimsuit!?"

"Please, Aika, don't you go crazy, too."

"Pant, pant, gasp, gasp… Okay, okay. Here's the satellite feed. Remember that I'm the truly useful little sister of your soul. Bridesmaid has hacked into and altered the records in the government and private satellites, but they shouldn't underestimate the true administrative privileges of Government…"

When they saw the image sent from Aika, Kyousuke's group had very nearly accomplished their goal.

Houbi Village had been overwritten.

Bridesmaid had used their landing Repligla.s.s, which resembled sports kites, to carry supplies from the beach and they had set up their own camp using synthetic tents. Each tent was the size of a harbor warehouse and they had also built some diesel power generation bases and a labyrinth of trenches and seawater-filled ditches.

The silver-haired shrine maiden, Meinokawa Aoi, sounded exasperated.

She pressed her soft cheek against the boy as she peered at the small screen from the side.

"This is incredible. There is no sign of the original village."

"But it's a simple matter." Kyousuke sighed. "This is a temple. And on an urban planning level."

"You mean like Edo or Kyoto?" asked Waitress Biondetta as she tilted her head and gave a food pellet to her white snake.

"That's right," confirmed Kyousuke. "It can be feng shui or whatever else, but they're using the terrain itself to guide the flow of a great power and gain a special advantage from it. A temple uses four walls to cut itself off from the world and opens an entrance in a specific direction to allow the wind through in order to invite in a higher being with a divine name belonging to a specific element, and there are countless examples of pulling it off at the level of a city like this. By creating their fortress according to plan, Bridesmaid seems to have successfully invited in the White Queen."

Their landing operation had involved 18,000 rockets and plenty of landing craft.

But Bridesmaid had not wasted anything.

"Hm? But, sir, but they only built up their temple of tents after firing all those rockets on the city. Then what about the rockets that should have fallen on Olivia's head?"

"They came from the ocean." Kyousuke's expression remained unchanged. He did not even bother questioning Olivia about it. "We just have to a.s.sume they prepared in advance. I'm guessing they built a temple on the ocean floor so it couldn't be seen by satellite. Then they extended that to include Houbi Village on land. I mean, that labyrinth of trenches is filled with seawater, right?"

Of course, if the ocean-bottom temple was enough to fulfill their needs, they would not have needed to remake Houbi Village. It may have been like a bridgehead giving them a foothold from the sea to land versus the actual fortified line taking them deeper inland.

"That would be how we were controlling fate and manipulating probability. They were building a royal capital that invites good fortune."

(But good fortune for whom…?)

It all seemed to be on such a grand and exaggerated scale at first, but it only made sense if it connected to the White Queen who they wors.h.i.+ped.

And only about a day had pa.s.sed between leveling the village and constructing their fortress. Bridesmaid had done an incredibly speedy job of laying out the groundwork and remaking all of Houbi Village into a temple for the Queen. It normally took centuries to build a grand temple, so this alone was an extraordinary accomplishment.

"The permanently summoned Queen in the center is different from the infected Queens who are spreading out like a house of mirrors," said Kyousuke. "And if we tear down the temple structure, the permanent summon system will malfunction. So unlike the infected Queens, the permanently summoned one will blur with static. There should be a slight lag before it reaches the infected ones. …Let's use that to locate their core. The infected Queens are a false reflection, so we don't have to fight them. Destroying the one at the core should cause them all to disappear."

"So it's sabotage, is it? Oh, this is sounding right up my alley."

"Biondetta." Kyousuke made sure to calm down the vengeance demon who could not stop grinning. "We need to use multiple observation methods. I'd like to use Aika's satellite image and also send out a few drones. As long as you know how they're made, you just need to take apart a smartphone and an electric shaver to make one. Even if Bridesmaid interferes, I want to at least get a blow in."

"…What if they use Incense Grenades? No cam-er-uhs or sen-sers work inside an Artificial Sacred Ground, right?"

"Wherever they concentrate the Incense Grenades will be where they're protecting the core Queen."

But that left another problem.

"Boo."

Olivia puffed out her cheeks, fidgeted with her double braids, and spoke up while showing no concern for the undeveloped bodylines showing through her school swimsuit.

She wanted the two people she loved to make up(?).

"Even if you know which one, the Queen is still the Queen. Can you beat her, Onii-chan?"

Yes, that was the biggest problem.

Just because she had multiplied did not mean each individual White Queen's value had dropped. The Queen was still the Queen. Challenging her head-on without a plan was a fool's errand.

Identifying the core Queen was the same as finding a deadly precipice. Approaching that Queen was no different from reducing his own lifespan. This place was more frightening than a jungle roamed by a man-eating tiger. Misjudging his distance from death would get him eaten in the very first attack.

He could not think of himself as special.

No matter what, he had not left the category of human.

"We'll just have to cheat," said Kyousuke.

He turned back toward the silver-haired shrine maiden named Meinokawa Aoi.

He recalled each piece of lab equipment and the explanations Aoi had given in that cruise s.h.i.+p.

"How long will it take to complete?"

"Hm. I adjusted it for the expanded components seen in your plans, but you can see how much is in gla.s.s container there."

With a cry of "oryah", Aoi leaned against Kyousuke to turn him around using her soft warmth.

"Blood wors.h.i.+p can be found all across the globe. Some see shed blood as unclean, but others see the blood of important and holy people to be holy. There are simply too many examples to list off."

"So by adjusting the balance between good and evil from the outside, you can create an affinity for a specific Material, right?"

"Blood is a biometric and an individual identifier, but it can also be readily altered by your eating habits or by drinking perfume. Just how many products are advertised as giving you clean blood? You can even go further and directly alter the quality of your blood by transplanting a heart or marrow. We just have to take that even further."

Her eyes were directed toward a thick, wet sound.

That kitchen contained a variety of lab equipment and a roller coaster of gla.s.s tubes. A red liquid floated in a clear cylindrical container that held nearly 20 liters.

"We have no time," said Meinokawa Aoi. "I would normally like to create an artificial organ or marrow to produce the blood and then directly implant that in my body, but that would take too long. Our only option is to directly create the necessary artificial blood, inject it into my veins, and temporarily change the quality of my blood to tune me to the Material. …It should be finished soon. The contents need to be compressed until they glow like a red jewel."

"Jewel Blood, hm?"

"That Western name doesn't fit the traditional atmosphere, but there's no helping that. We were always greedy."

It looked like it would take about an hour longer.

The Blood-Sign method was a contract between a human and a Material, so the better the human would fit in on the pages a biology textbook, the easier the Material could recognize them and synchronize with them. Olivia with her royal blood, royal flesh, and royal soul was the extreme form of that. Aoi was using that to consider the traits of an individual Material and create a vessel that would best be recognized by it. It was not the best comparison, but a carnivore's sense of smell was quite different from an herbivore's. The silver-haired shrine maiden was apparently greatly altering the amplitude of that.

The smaller the discrepancy between them, the less the resistance and friction. This was necessary to summon a non-existent Material into her body.

"This will complete the artificial vessel you need, but what about the all-important Material? You plan to create a new Unexplored-cla.s.s and embed it in the other world for the sole purpose of defeating the White Queen, don't you? And its divine name will be constructed only from the vowels which are not dyed by the Sound Ranges of the Three. You showed me the theoretical anatomical drawing, but that isn't enough to create it. Are you going to use a secret life-creating technique such as the alchemical homunculi or Kabbalic golems used for the Regulation-cla.s.s?"

"I have an idea in mind."

"…Hm. Whatever it is, the trick will be how to shave off time and prioritize efficiency."

Aoi glanced over at the collection of equipment filling the kitchen.

She was saying those tools could create most anything, but you could not use them for more than one thing at a time. While creating the Jewel Blood needed to alter her own body, they could not construct the anti-Queen Unexplored-cla.s.s. That said, they could not win without both, so they could not just ignore one or the other.

"This is going to be tricky."

"I agree with you there, but physical work is not all a summoner needs to do. While I'm resting my body, I can start on some mental work."

The most important piece of mental work was running strategy simulations against the opposing summoner.

"Biondetta."

"Yes?"

"Do you think Doctor S is still alive? Or did he die when all those White Queens showed up?"

"Hmm. That's not an easy question to answer, but I'd like to suggest 7-to-3 that he's still alive."

"Why?"

"Based on the satellite images, the fortress temple created on top of Houbi Village has maintained order. If a group of White Queens was on a rampage, i