by Sakon Kaidou
Hidden under the everyday scenery of Gideon, the two’s clash had been postponed to a later date.
◇◇◇
The Lunar Society headquarters
“...How pathetic,” Nemesis muttered.
She was at The Lunar Society’s headquarters, in the same room that Ray had awoken in. Having passed out after the staggering loss against Tsukuyo Fuso, he had once again been brought to lie here.
The room had no grates, no guards — nothing in the way of security. And that only served to make Nemesis more conscious of just how powerless the enemy thought them to be.
“Truly... I’m beyond pitiful,” she muttered again as she gently stroked Ray’s hair.
Her evaluation of herself came from her very heart. After all, the defeat at the hands of Tsukuyo had been hers alone. She was simply too weak of an Embryo for Ray to stand a chance. No amount of strategy, willpower, or compatibility could ever make up for the great gap between Nemesis and Tsukuyo’s Embryo, and this truth weighed heavily upon her.
“Ray... You’ve become so strong over the last month...”
Through victories against UBMs or by luck alone, he’d acquired a formidable set of equipment.
Through numerous battles, he’d raised his Paladin level and gained stats befitting the high-rank job.
But most of all, through all the sparring against many veteran players, he’d gained battle experience that would make most newbies like him pale in comparison.
All in all, he was staggeringly more powerful than he had been a month ago.
“And then there’s me... Painfully stagnant,” Nemesis murmured.
Ever since undergoing her first evolution in the battle against Gardranda, Nemesis hadn’t experienced any power progression as an Embryo, and that was the very reason why she was admonishing herself.
The Embryos of the many Masters they’d faced in the mock battles were no doubt strong, and even Babi — who had once been on the same tier as Nemesis — was now two forms ahead of her. Nemesis felt as if she alone wasn’t making any progress whatsoever.
She knew that, were she to reveal these worries to Ray, he would instantly deny it and say, without a hint of falsehood, that Nemesis was growing.
However, as she was now, Nemesis sought power that was more tangible... more direct. Power that she could use to never again let Ray suffer the pain of defeat.
“I want to evolve...” she said through the most sincere sobs as tears formed in her eyes.
She cried, wishing for new powers she could use to uplift Ray... the Master she’d dedicated her heart to.
“Evolution is not something you become impatient over,” someone suddenly said as they opened the sliding door and let themselves in.
“Ah?!” Nemesis gasped as she transformed both her arms into swords and stood to protect Ray. “Who are you?!”
The person who’d entered the room looked strange, to say the least. She was wearing a raiment characteristic of tennyo from Japanese myth, and had long hair that radiated moonlight. However, Nemesis found the very presence of her being far more curious than any visual details.
“‘Who are you,’ you ask?” the entity replied. “Should we present you with the name ‘Kaguya’? Or maybe we should introduce ourselves as Tsukuyo’s Embryo? Or perhaps we should simply say that we are your senior?”
That made it all too clear.
This Maiden is...! Nemesis thought in shock. This was the very same Superior Embryo that she had been so utterly defeated by.
Remembering her loss made her tense. Nemesis mustered her willpower and stood before Kaguya to protect Ray.
“Eheheheh. You look like a mother cat protecting her kitten,” the Superior Maiden giggled with a gentle smile on her face. “Don’t worry, neither we nor Tsukuyo have any intention of touching your Master while he sleeps.”
“As if I can believe that!” Nemesis shouted, thoroughly mad at Kaguya for having the gall to say that. The Lunar Society had kidnapped Ray while he was asleep, after all. “You’re that freakish woman’s Embryo! What do you want?!”
“Eheheh. No need to be so antagonistic. We merely wanted to have a talk with a fellow Maiden.”
“I have nothing to say to you!”
“Now, now, calm down,” Kaguya said as she reached into her inventory, took out two floor cushions, placed them on the floor, and sat down on one of them. “Care to use it?” she said, referring to the other.
Nemesis felt as if she was mocking her and was about to refuse on reflex, but then she thought of Ray, reconsidered, and hesitantly sat down on the cushion.
Kaguya then took out a teapot, some tea leaves, a magic flask full of hot water, and prepared some tea.
“...Again, why are you even here?” Nemesis asked.
“We just said that we want to talk,” Kaguya replied. “Oh, by the way, these are high-quality tea leaves donated to us by an adherent. They’re from Tenchi. Do try it,” she offered the tea to Nemesis.
“It’s not poison, is it?” she asked cautiously.
“Heavens, no. Unlike a certain fake chinagirl and the snake, we don’t poison drinks.”
Fake chinagirl and the snake? Nemesis raised an eyebrow, but instead of inquiring about it, she chose to believe her words and hesitantly sipped the tea.
“...It’s good,” she said after one taste. Nemesis had no cause to lie about this, so she didn’t. To her mind, the tea had a gentle flavor that warmed and relaxed the whole body to the core.
“It truly is.” Kaguya nodded as she sipped on her own tea, clearly satisfied. “Oh, would you like some tea cakes with that?”
“...Yes.”
What followed was a short silence. The only sounds in the room were those of Nemesis eating the tea cakes and Kaguya sipping her tea.
Eventually, the Superior Embryo spoke up again.
“It has been so long since we enjoyed tea with another Maiden.”
“Mh...” Nemesis silently thought of how to respond to that, but Kaguya spoke up before she did.
“Due to its nature, The Lunar Society has more Maidens than other clans. However, not every Master who thinks this is not merely a game gets a Maiden Embryo, so the numbers are still quite low.”
“Mhm...” Nemesis nodded as she realized that, indeed, she didn’t sense many of her kind in the surroundings.
Masters who hatched Maiden Embryos had a tendency to consider Infinite Dendrogram to be more than just a game, but things didn’t correlate when it was the other way around. Such a mental state only made it possible for Maiden Embryos to be born, rather than making it 100% certain.
“Also, strangely enough, Maidens’ Masters oftentimes leave us,” Kaguya added.
“They do?”
“We even had some such Masters among those whose Maidens were born at about the same time as yours truly. Officially, they’re still part of the clan, but they live their lives away from here. Do you know why?”
“...I haven’t the slightest idea.”
Neither Nemesis nor Ray could understand the mind of someone who had become a part of a cult and distanced themselves from it, despite not quitting.
However, Kaguya’s answer made it somewhat easy to imagine. “Because they made families with tians,” she said. “If a Master truly sees this world and the other side as equal, it’s not unlikely for them to fall in love with tians.”
“...True,” Nemesis said, nodding.
Entities one didn’t consider to be mere game characters were, indeed, valid targets for romance. In fact, there could also be Masters who saw tians as romanceable despite still seeing them as NPCs.
“The number of such people is growing, both in and out of this clan, and among both Masters with and without Maiden Embryos. Almost five years have passed since Infinite Dendrogram began, after all.”
“Hm?” Nemesis raised an eyebrow, feeling as though the subject of the conversation was changing, or that everything up until now had been nothing but an introduction.
“Our name is ‘Kaguya,’” the Superior Embryo continued. “It’s the name of a heroine from a tale from Tsukuyo’s country.”
“I know The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter from Ray’s memories. It’s common knowledge where he comes from.”
“Oh, so your Master is from the same country as Tsukuyo.” Kaguya formed a smile, which quickly turned faint. “The Kaguya from that story was an entity not of their Earth. She quickly grew to be stunningly beautiful, and eventually returned to the Moon. While she was on Earth, many men fell in love with her and sought reciprocation, but she responded by giving them nigh impossible tasks, and in the end, she went far away from everything she’d ever known there.”
She’s presenting Kaguya as some sort of foreign contamination, Nemesis thought.
“You’re not making your name sound very favorable,” she commented.
“Indeed.” Kaguya smiled for a moment before looking at Nemesis with her most serious expression yet. “‘Kaguya’ might be our name, but we feel that, to Masters, all Maidens, Embryos, and tians alike are akin to Kaguya... or perhaps it’s the Masters who are the Kaguya in this situation?”
Depending on one’s perspective, that was either a vague comparison or a solid truth without a hint of dramatization.
“...What are you implying?” asked Nemesis.
“You love your Master, don’t you?”
“NHUH?!” Nemesis exclaimed. The question caught her completely off-guard and was shocking enough to make her rise up from her cushion.
“A budding affection. A feeling of attraction. Isn’t that the innocent emotion we call ‘love’?”
“D-D-Don’t be absurd! That’s not... I’m not... W-Well, I won’t deny I find him likeable, but that’s only...” Nemesis tried to deny it, but her inability to do so made her all flustered.
“But no matter how much we love them, we and our Masters will eventually have to part ways,” Kaguya said.
Those words made Nemesis’s expression completely freeze solid. “What kind of—”
She tried to say “What kind of nonsense is that?” but Kaguya cut her off and continued enforcing her point.
“Surely you have considered this. Their reality is on the other side. They are nothing but guests here. They don’t die in this world because their very lives here are evanescent.”
That was nothing but the truth. Masters were called “players” for a reason. To them, the world of Infinite Dendrogram was a game. Even if they recognized it as a world inhabited by intelligent beings, they were still merely visitors. And though Maidens’ Masters didn’t see this world as a game and could make it a part of their lives, they could never make it the core of their beings.
“And so, when the end comes, they will return to the other side, while we will stay here,” Kaguya said, emphasizing that the Masters’ actual ending was different from the ending of them coming here. “The end might come in the form of their death on the other side. Or perhaps they will merely lose their will to be here. Or maybe the thing that binds them to this world will disappear.”
Indeed, there were many ways in which it could end. It could happen at any time, too. And that was exactly why...
“When that happens, as you are now, you will be left with nothing but despair.”
This was true. With her love for him still in her heart, Nemesis would be rendered incapable of meeting him ever again. And being an Embryo, she wouldn’t be able to interact with the world or anyone else unless her Master was here, meaning that she would be left with nothing but the memories of the days she’d spent with him... and an ending with no continuation.
Nemesis had tried to avoid thinking about this harsh truth, but Kaguya had made her all too painfully aware of it.
“Why did you tell this to me?” Nemesis wrung out those words and looked at the Superior Embryo with a hint of grudge in her gaze.
Nemesis knew full well that her anger was misplaced. This harsh truth was something she should’ve faced by herself a long time ago.
Upon seeing the sorry state the young Embryo was in, Kaguya gently caressed her head. “Eheheheh.”
“Nh?! What are you doing?!” Nemesis exclaimed, taken aback by the abrupt move.
Paying no heed to her reaction, Kaguya softened her expression and gave Nemesis a smile. “Forgive us for that. We came here to talk about something more Maiden-like, but your teary plea for power to help your Master made us want to warn you.”
“Well... much obliged.”
“Oh, but leaving you with just a warning is quite sad, so let us give you some advice to help you fight the despair when the end comes,” Kaguya said as she extended her finger and lightly poked Nemesis’s chest. “If possible... you should confess your feelings as soon as you get the chance. The earlier they bloom, the more memories you will make for you to treasure.”
Thus the experienced Maiden bestowed the young Maiden with the most straightforward and sincere love advice.
“...I will keep that in mind,” said Nemesis. “But whether or not I will act on it is another matter.”
Still, Kaguya’s words made her cheeks slightly rosy, and her expression was now soft, housing little of the gloom from just a moment ago.
Upon seeing that, the Superior Embryo formed a satisfied, gentle smile.
“Then we will take our leave now,” she said. “When your Master awakes, Tsukuyo will likely approach him again.”
“I really wish she wouldn’t,” Nemesis sighed.
While Nemesis had absolutely no love for Tsukuyo Fuso, she no longer felt the same about the woman’s Embryo. Kaguya’s eyes as she looked at her were much like those of a worried senior or an elder sister, which made her feel slightly peaceful.
“Oh, another thing,” Kaguya spoke up again. “Here is some Maiden-like advice for you... If you get another chance to use ■■■, you should cancel it until you’re at least a high-rank. Otherwise, your evolution to high-rank might be postponed by a whole year or so.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, too... but what is that, anyway?”
Nemesis could tell what Kaguya was referring to, but she couldn’t even hear it as spoken word.
It — ■■■ — was the thing that had activated in the middle of the battle against Gardranda, forced Nemesis to evolve, and provided her with Like a Flag Flying the Reversal — the most optimal skill for the situation.
She still didn’t know what it actually was, but she could tell that it was the reason why she was evolving so slowly.
“It’s what causes Maidens... no... what causes Embryos to be what they are,” Kaguya said. “It’s a meaningless function that has already been lost... but it still exists in Maidens and Apostles.”
“Apostles?” Nemesis raised an eyebrow. She had never heard of such a category before.
Kaguya ran her mind through her memories and spoke. “While we are the products of a sense of danger, Apostles are the products of a sense of duty. The function remains solely in Embryos that can only be owned by those whose will isn’t vague.”
“...I don’t understand.”
Kaguya had spoken nothing but the simple truth, but Nemesis had been unable to comprehend it. Or, more like, she just didn’t have the right foundation to be able to understand it.
“You will come to understand it eventually,” said Kaguya. “Perhaps when you are on the same stage as we are... Oh, my.” Her gentle, considerate smile vanished. She put on a stern expression and looked at an uncertain direction.
“What is it?” asked Nemesis.
“We have a guest.”
A moment later, the roof of the room they were in was torn off by chains.
◇◇◇
Paladin, Ray Starling
When you fell asleep in Infinite Dendrogram, your consciousness fell asleep with your body, just like it did in reality.
However, when you were forcefully made unconscious, things were a bit different. The body would be under the effects of the Fainting debuff, while the consciousness would
still be awake in a space away from the body, where only the mind existed.
“Here again, huh?” I sighed. The first time I’d entered this state had been during the battle against Gouz-Maise. Back then, I’d been flung into a world that replayed my memories, and I’d encountered its creator — the dark red silhouette.
A month of Dendro time had passed since then. During this interval, I’d Fainted a few times while exploring the Tomb Labyrinth or doing other things, and I’d found myself standing in a pitch black space, just like now.
Unlike the first time, there was neither the memory world, nor the dark red silhouette.
All there was was a sign saying “Coming Soon...”
“...Seriously, just what is ‘coming soon’?” I demanded.
The sign had probably been placed there by the dark red silhouette, the Miasmaflame Bracers, Gardranda.
Just like how it was with any other mental status effects, Fainting was fully applied to the body, but the player protection function prevented it from actually affecting the Master’s mind. Because of that, when we Fainted, instead of actually losing consciousness, we were just forced to wait in this empty space until the effect wore off.
Apparently, Gardranda had learned to take advantage of this. Just like she’d recreated my memories here, she had now placed this sign.
“Well, if I can’t meet her this time, either... I guess all I can really do is wait...”
I’d wanted to confirm a few things with her, but alas. Still, at the very least, I could spend this waiting time thinking things through.
I closed my eyes and remembered the battle — if you could call it that — I’d just been in.
Compatibility... isn’t enough to win against someone with absolute power.
Those were the last words Tsukuyo Fuso had told me before I Fainted.
This hadn’t been my first time facing a Superior. I’d had a few accidental encounters with them, sparred against them, and, of course, fought Franklin.
I compared those experiences with my “fight” against Tsukuyo Fuso.
It was completely unlike the time I’d faced Franklin, who’d prepared a weapon specifically against me.
