by Yuu Miyazaki
Apparently, they had determined that since Kirin was too strong, they should focus on Ayato instead. Well, they’re not wrong.
“Hey—wait! …Augh!”
He didn’t have the time to weigh his options anymore. There’s no way around it now. I have to break the seal and…
He leaped back a good way to distance himself from the creatures and landed near the entrance of the park. Just as he was about to focus his prana, another fireball came flying.
Only this time, it wasn’t aimed at him.
Clearly on a low trajectory, the fireball exploded at his feet with a low boom. The paving stones underneath him began to crack apart from the point of impact.
“Wha…?” Seeing that this wasn’t good, he automatically tried to leap to safety—but he was too late.
When he looked up, an area of about five yards in every direction from him had fallen away to form a giant hole. That fireball couldn’t possibly have carved away at the city’s foundation itself—which meant the ground must have been weakened in advance.
“Mr. Amagiri!”
Kirin jumped into the hole and reached out to him.
Ayato also extended his hand to grab hers. He felt her pull him up.
Kirin had managed to get ahold of the edge of the hole with her other hand, and she hung there, holding on to him.
“Are you okay, Mr. Amagiri?”
“Yeah, you saved me just in time—”
But their relief was short-lived.
They heard an ominous cracking sound, and the piece of the edge to which Kirin clung mercilessly crumbled away.
The dark abyss swallowed them both, leaving behind only their panicked screams.
“Is that the end of Act One?”
Sitting in front of an air-window and looking bored, Ernesta stifled a yawn. The display showed a scene where Ayato and Kirin had just fallen into the depths of a giant hole.
“I wonder how they’re gonna explain that huge hole in the ground. There’ll be trouble if the city guard finds out, don’t you think?”
“I hear there was construction planned there anyway. But that’s not a concern for now.” Camilla, seated next to Ernesta, was diligently checking the data being delivered by the probe at the scene.
“So that’s the Phryganella viscous attacker, huh?” Ernesta said. “Not all that impressive for Tenorio’s ace in the hole.”
“That’s a bit harsh. I found it very interesting.”
“I guess the mana circulation control and the mimicry transition technology were pretty cool. But the rest? All standard. Way standard. I mean, if they can change shape, they should do something more interesting than just that lizard thing. Y’know, like a penguin or a kitty!” Ernesta reached for a plush toy of some strange creature and held it in her arms, plopping her chin on top of it.
“You’re just talking about what you’d want to do… In any case, it appears that the protoplasm transformation–utilizing prana can take on only a prerecorded shape. And that currently, each core unit can store only one shape.”
Camilla had opened an air-window of her own and was checking information leaked to her from their mole at Tenorio. Bioenhancement was Tenorio’s technological specialty. While Ernesta’s assessment was not exactly glowing, Camilla thought that there were many praiseworthy aspects to it.
Still, it was nauseating to think of the process behind that technology.
“Only one type? Even more unimpressive. Well, I guess that’s about the best Tenorio can do without the Great Scholar.” Ernesta was losing what little interest she had. “Besides, those things are way too weak. What good are they even supposed to be?”
“They can’t do much about that. Tenorio’s not exactly developing specialized living weapons, after all. Those are just by-products.”
“Well, sure, but right now my dolls are like a million billion times stronger.”
A million billion? What are you, in kindergarten? Camilla thought.
“If we could say one thing in their defense, it’s that their opponent was too strong. Seidoukan’s top-ranked student achieved her rank for a reason.”
“Hmm, I’ll give you that. There aren’t that many people in our school right now who can face someone at her level head-on.”
“Yes. Many of the stronger students in the practical class graduated—including the winning tag team from the last Phoenix.”
“Well, that’s some of the reason why we get to take the lead.”
The air-window switched to display a different scene.
“Ooh, is this Act Two?”
“I’m told this is the part that clique was banking on, at least.”
“Oh, is it now! Then let’s see what they’ve got!”
The first thing Ayato felt was the impact—then the cold, and a sense that he couldn’t breathe.
…Am I underwater?!
It was dark and there were air bubbles all around him, making it hard to discern his surroundings. But it felt like he had fallen into some deep body of water.
He couldn’t tell up from down, so he calmed himself and let his body go limp. He should start floating back up to the surface, but for some reason, that wasn’t happening. Rather, it felt like he was sinking deeper and deeper.
Well, duh! I’ve got this weight vest on! he realized. He frantically removed the obstacle and swam toward a faint light that had to mean up.
He broke the surface with a splash and drew in a massive lungful of air, finally thinking he might be safe.
At first, he’d assumed that he must have fallen into the lake, but that didn’t seem to be the case now.
It was a frighteningly vast space. High above, he could see the hole where they had fallen in, but there were more than a few strata of ground in between. Even underground space was utilized for various purposes in Asterisk, and someone had gone to the trouble of digging through all that to make the hole.
It was clearly a man-made trap.
“This sure is a big cave…”
His best estimate of the distance from the surface of the water to the ceiling was sixty feet. He couldn’t tell how wide it was. To his left, a wall towered over him, but on the other side, there was only the water and enormous pillars for as far as he could see.
There was almost no light—only a minimal amount of scattered rays clung to the walls and ceiling.
“Oh! Where’s Toudou?!” He looked around and noticed weak splashing a short distance away. “Toudou!”
Judging from her desperate struggling, she was obviously in danger of drowning. Ayato suspected that she couldn’t get her weight vest off. He swam toward her in a rush, and she grabbed on to him, her face almost in tears.
Kirin coughed and regained her voice. “Th-thank you, Mr. Amagiri! You saved me!”
“Are you okay, Miss Toudou? Let’s get your weight off—” But then he saw that hers was already gone. “Huh…?”
She made a tiny embarrassed whine. “Sorry, I…c-can’t swim.”
“Oh…I see.” This was something of a surprise to Ayato. He hadn’t imagined that someone with her athletic prowess might never have learned.
Still, Genestella were human, too. Everyone had their strengths and weaknesses.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said. “I brought you into this.”
Kirin had fallen in only because she was trying to save him.
“Don’t worry about me. But where are we…?” she asked once she had caught her breath, still sounding a little nasal.
“I think we’re under Asterisk.”
“Then…are we in the ballast area?” Kirin turned her gaze upward.
“Ballast area?”
“Um, so Asterisk is a megafloat structure, and they use the weight of the water for stability, I think.”
“Oh, I see.” Ayato didn’t know very much about the structure of the city, but that sounded plausible.
“So, then, there must be an entrance for maintenance…” Kirin tried to look around, then
turned bright red.
“What’s wrong?”
“N-nothing! Um, it…it’s just…”
As Kirin groped for words, Ayato suddenly realized the problem.
The fact that she was holding on to him naturally put her face very close to his, so that their cheeks almost touched.
But that was above the water. Under the surface, Kirin’s ample twin peaks were pressing against Ayato’s arm. In fact, it was more accurate to say that his arm was swallowed deep in the valley between them.
“I—I—I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! If only I could swim—!”
“No, no, no! I don’t care, really—”
Still, even a Genestella did not have the stamina to tread water indefinitely while supporting the weight of two people. They needed to find a way out or at least something stable to rest against.
Just then—Ayato caught sight of a giant shadow lurking deep in the water.
“Miss Toudou…?”
“Y-yes?”
“Can you hold your breath for a bit?”
As soon as he said that, Ayato dove into the water with Kirin in his arms. He kicked with all his strength to move them as fast as he could.
An enormous something grazed past them and sent them tumbling underwater.
They somehow managed to hold on to each other, then resurfaced. What they had just seen defied belief.
“What—?” squeaked Kirin.
Ayato laughed helplessly. “Now, this is something else.”
There was nothing more they could say. From the very spot where they had been floating moments ago, a giant dragon reared its head.
Compared to this, the not-dragons that had attacked them aboveground might as well have been mice. Just the part they could see above the water seemed to be almost ten yards long. Its full length had to be well over fifteen yards. From its silhouette, it looked very much like a denizen of the prehistoric world, like a plesiosaur.
The not-dragons from before resembled lizards, but this one seemed more snakelike. Still, Ayato could make out limbs protruding from its thick body, and the sharp row of teeth and giant head reminded him of nothing other than a dragon.
And just like those not-dragons, it was staring at them with a considerable level of something akin to hostility.
“Well, I guess it makes sense,” Ayato said. “They went through the trouble of dropping us down here. They’re not just going to let us go home.”
The purpose of those not-dragons must have been to chase them here—and this giant creature was the main trap all along.
“Ayato… This dragon feels the same as the ones aboveground,” Kirin whispered. She must have sensed its flow of prana.
“So you think it’s really a slime?”
“Probably…”
“That’s not particularly good news, is it?”
If it was the same, attacking it normally with a sword would have no effect.
Either way, there wasn’t much they could do unarmed. He activated his sword Lux and, at the same time, released his seal. In the situation they were in now, he couldn’t afford to hesitate.
The magic circles that shackled him flew apart, and the prana that had been trapped within rose up. The glow faintly illuminated their dark surroundings.
Apparently reading this as aggression, the monster charged with a growl.
Even with his power released, Ayato was not swift underwater. Still, he swam in front of Kirin to protect her and met the charge head-on.
It slammed into him, pushing him through the water while pinned to the tip of the dragon’s nose. He was holding his breath and fending off the huge sharp teeth when he met one of the pillars with that same momentum.
The impact made a craterlike dent in the massive pillar, opening cracks through it in every direction.
“Ouch…”
“A-are you all right?!”
“Oh, sure. This is nothing, but the situation doesn’t look too great…” He had transferred his prana to defense, so the impact did little damage to him. Still, the fact remained that they did not have much in the way of recourse.
The dragon seemed to be checking on the condition of its prey, observing them from a distance. Maybe it was unexpectedly cautious in nature.
“If—if I’m going to slow you down, please let me go!” Kirin blurted. “If you get hurt because of me, then I—I…”
She trembled in Ayato’s arms, tears rolling down her face.
“Hey—hey, Miss Toudou?”
“I really am useless. No matter how good I am with a sword, I just—I hate it! I can’t stand people getting hurt for my sake!” Kirin sobbed, shaking her head in frustration.
Ayato let out a long breath, then softly drew her close and petted her head. “It’s okay. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“But—but—!”
“That thing would be no match against you out of the water, right? And I gave you a decent fight. Couldn’t you have a little more faith in me?” Ayato admonished her gently, looking straight into her eyes.
“But that’s…”
“And one more thing. Don’t ever talk about yourself that way. You’re kind and strong… You’re a wonderful girl.”
“Huh—?” Kirin stared at Ayato for a few moments in surprise. Then her cheeks flushed pink, but she nodded resolutely. “Okay! I—I won’t.” She scrubbed at her tears and lifted her head, looking determined.
“That’s good to hear.” Ayato petted her head one more time, then switched weapons to the Ser Veresta. As he channeled his prana, black symbols rose up to darken the white blade. “Now what we need is something to stand on.”
He lightly swung the Ser Veresta, being careful not to let the blade touch the water.
He carved a section out of the thick pillar as easily as if it were made of tofu, making just enough space for the two of them to stand. Doing damage to things that were apparently significant to the city’s structure gave him some pause, but at the moment, there was no way around it.
When he lifted Kirin onto the landing first, the dragon pounced on the opportunity to rush at him from behind.
Without even turning to look, Ayato casually waved the Ser Veresta at it with one arm. Before the sharp row of teeth could find their target, they were severed from the mouth, and the head of the dragon went flying.
The head melted in midair and before long was wiggling its way through the water to retake its form.
Ayato climbed onto the landing to join Kirin. “Yup, looks like it’s the same as the ones from up there,” he muttered with a frown, watching it regenerate.
The dragon seemed even more cautious after that attack and circled the pillar while keeping a distance of some ten yards. It clearly wasn’t stupid.
After a while, it begun to gather mana at its mouth, just as the creatures aboveground had. A giant fireball formed quickly, then launched like a missile toward Ayato and Kirin.
With a light swing of the Ser Veresta, the projectile scattered like a cloud and evaporated. This was child’s play compared to Julis’s power.
“This’ll go on for a while, unless we figure out something else,” Ayato muttered.
He could go on the offensive, but that meant that he would have to leap in and he’d get one shot to finish it off. That might work against an ordinary foe, but if this one was built like the slimes above, he had to be sure to strike at its core.
“Miss Toudou, can you read the flow of its prana?”
“Oh—yes. Sort of…”
“Can you tell where its core is?”
“That’s hard… I think it’s constantly moving around inside its body.”
This really was a troublesome opponent.
“Well, then I don’t have much choice. I’ll have to try.”
“Try what…?”
As Kirin looked at him questioningly, Ayato lifted the Ser Veresta high.
“Yeah. I’m not very good with this—actually, I’ve never been able to do it. But I have to take a st
ep forward sometime.”
With those words, Ayato poured his prana into the Ser Veresta.
Meteor Arts—they were techniques that could temporarily raise the energy output of a Lux by concentrating prana into the manadite core. Prana enhanced physical abilities, so it was relatively easy to heighten one’s defenses, as Ayato had done moments ago. But the ways in which it could be used for offense were limited, as channeling prana to conventional weapons had little effect. Channeling prana could be a powerful technique in bare-handed combat, a method for which Jie Long students were well-known. Otherwise, one needed material that would react strongly to prana as the medium—which was to say, manadite.
Ayato, however, had never successfully used Meteor Arts before. His prana was so massive that the Lux would break, being unable to withstand the strain. Ideally, he would be able to adjust for it, but he had never been very good at such delicate control of his prana.
So he had given up on it, until now.
“This one should be able to handle it,” he said.
The Ser Veresta growled as if in response.
Absorbing his seemingly inexhaustible prana, the Ser Veresta changed shape little by little. The black symbols spread and the blade itself began to grow in pace with them.
“Wow…” Kirin gasped.
The Ser Veresta grew with accelerating speed, and quickly grew to over ten yards long. The blade let out a low roar, and the black symbols danced madly around it.
The dragon seemed to feel the instinct of fear and turned, about to flee—but it was too late.
With a shout, Ayato brought the enormous sword down, and the dragon’s body evaporated the moment it made contact with the blade. He kept slicing through to the part of it that was still underwater.
The water boiled away at an astounding rate, swirling madly in an explosive gust. Steam rose furiously and toyed with Ayato and Kirin’s hair like a storm. It reminded them of the fog aboveground from earlier, but the mists faded this time, and there was not a trace of the dragon left to be found.
“Whew… Well, not bad, I guess.”
Ayato had never expended that much prana in his life. The fatigue felt satisfying.
The aftereffects of breaking his seal, however, could hardly be described that way. He grunted at the sudden pain.
