Chapter 14
"Nkhilakarn have been dissected so many times during the Space War that there’s nothing new to learn."
"I see."
"But Mijeong is a different story. The Empire wiped them out in a hurry without even properly understanding their power."
So you’re going to open up my head and take a look?
"No means no."
"……Aww."
Absolutely not.
Damn right.
I changed my sex just to stay alive. Do you think I’d die so pointlessly?
You say it won’t hurt and I won’t die, but how am I supposed to believe that?
"Instead, I can share the facts I’ve uncovered myself."
So let’s settle for that much, Researcher Adlam.
"Mijeong’s power to alter reality varies with the scale of its resonance with its kin; when Mijeong uses its power, its host loses random memories; the host gains resistance to extreme conditions such as high gravity and the shock of a jump; Mijeong goes berserk if its host’s head is attacked……"
Right.
After all, if you split my head in half, Mijeong will go berserk.
You’ll die, you know?
"There’ll be plenty of opportunities to use Mijeong’s power in the future, and I’m supposed to revive more Mijeong in accordance with the Emperor’s orders. Though I still don’t know how to do that."
"Cutting open your head would certainly be the surest way…… All right. You promise?"
"……Ha. Yes. I promi—"
Bang!
The rest was drowned out by an enormous boom, loud enough to be heard even inside the ship.
"Ugh……"
Her ears were ringing and her head was spinning.
What on earth had happened?
Had an error in the factory’s management AI caused a chain reaction, turning the entire factory district into one enormous furnace?
"Hah, hah……"
Adlam was lying on the floor, groaning. No body-enhancement surgery had been performed.
Jump-resistance treatment alone didn’t seem enough to withstand this.
Maybe I was relatively unscathed because I’d become Mijeong’s host. I still had no idea why, though.
I had one more thing to tell Adlam.
Apparently, extreme conditions included shock waves violent enough to pass through the ship’s armor and countless bulkheads.
……But first, I needed to find out what was causing this noise.
The sound hadn’t come from inside the ship.
If it had, by now we’d be burning to a crisp or fused with the ship.
Ugh…… Just imagining it is horrifying.
Ever since Mijeong had started parasitizing my brain, my imagination had grown more vivid.
The sensations I imagined felt just like real stimuli.
When I imagined the ship exploding, my body grew hot.
-Are the two of you all right?
"Ah, Captain. I’m fine, but Researcher Adlam……"
"Hah, huh, h-ugh……"
She’d passed out.
Poor thing.
The captain, who’d connected their brain directly to the Razangriff, looked a little worse for wear, but was otherwise fine. So the blast definitely hadn’t come from inside the ship.
"What on earth is going on?"
-I don’t know either.
I was sure it wasn’t the case, but I asked out of courtesy anyway.
"Did those elves go on a rampage or something?"
-No. The Nkhilakarn are quiet. Judging by where the shock wave struck the ship, the source was probably……
The captain’s expression looked ominous.
What is it? What’s wrong?
-Prasada Palace.
Prasada Palace.
The residence of the Furnace’s planetary marshal.
And……
-That’s where the lieutenant went to arrest the Furnace’s marshal.
"That makes no sense! The Furnace’s Federal garrison said they wouldn’t protect the Furnace anymore the moment the Security Bureau’s orders came through. They even volunteered to follow the lieutenant and deal with the traitor to humanity who dared join forces with the elves."
There was no way the Furnace’s marshal, who was no more than a civilian except for jump-resistance treatment, could stand against five Task Force 42 members and a Federal Army squad.
But what was this unease I felt?
-This is only my conjecture, but the Nkhilakarn we captured was a Capitano-class warrior.
The captain brought up some records in midair.
Capitano-class.
If the records of the Earth Empire and the Federation’s memoirs were accurate, the elves’ ranks were as follows.
Marinaio.
They were ordinary combatants. The most common kind, and Federal soldiers could fight them unarmored.
Compagno.
They were elite combatants. You’d need at least an armored soldier to face one on equal terms.
Capitano.
A captain who commanded other Nkhilakarn and communicated directly with the Elders. They were said to be on par with a destroyer.
Elder.
There were very few of them, and they commanded the Nkhilakarn through Capitano-class warriors serving as their hands and feet.
And the Queen.
She was reportedly observed when the World Tree came under attack.
You might wonder what the point was of this childish ranking of combat strength.
Apparently, it helped the Empire understand the bare minimum of their system and improve its response during the war.
-A Nkhilakarn as powerful as a Capitano-class warrior wouldn’t act alone. The Federation’s unofficial records of clashes also say that Capitano-class warriors were always accompanied by Elders.
"No way……"
-And while the Brigadier General was fighting the Capitano-class warrior, no Elder showed up.
This was……
-Perhaps the other one was watching from afar, then went to silence the collaborator when the Capitano-class warrior was unexpectedly subdued by a mere Federal soldier……
……This was the worst.
KRAAAANG!
Another boom crashed over us.
The shock wave was stronger than the first one. It twisted my sense of direction and knocked me down.
"Ugh……"
I barely managed to reach out in time to keep my head from slamming into the floor.
The captain seemed to be suffering badly from the repeated impacts.
It couldn’t be helped, not with the captain’s brain connected to the ship.
"Big Sis Yangyang……"
But I wasn’t connected to the ship’s brain.
Why did my heart hurt so much?
What was this feeling?
Ah. I see. This was……
The feeling that washed over me when I realized someone close to me was in danger, and I couldn’t do anything about it.
Helplessness.
Sorrow.
Self-loathing.
……My eyes were prickling.
Were these tears?
"……No."
-Miss Rubedo?
"I have to go. Let me borrow a hover bike."
You couldn’t know what you could or couldn’t do
until you tried.
…….
…….
…….
Prasada Palace.
The Federal garrison troops stationed at the Furnace, who’d barged in to arrest the planetary marshal, were stunned.
A charred, gruesome corpse in three parts: head, torso, and limbs.
It was probably the Furnace’s planetary marshal.
And.
"An intruder."
An individual Nkhilakarn, the sworn enemy of humanity, whom they’d only encountered in academy lessons.
One they’d been taught was no longer active.
"It is only fitting for an Elder to cast out an intruder."
As the green soldiers struggled to make sense of the scene, the Nkhilakarn spread a hand,
and unleashed a stream of plasma.
Every soldier within range was burned to death.
For the proud Federal soldiers, trained so harshly at the academy, it was an absurdly futile end.
"O-open fire!"
Roused by the shrill warnings of their combat OS, the soldiers concentrated their fire on the enemy with their outdated rifles.
But the dense plasma field the enemy had raised stopped the bullets, and they inflicted no damage.
Bang!
A 30mm anti-materiel sniper rifle fired with a crack.
The bullet pierced the force field and struck the enemy in the head, but……
"Hmm."
The enemy simply turned their head back into place after the impact knocked it around.
There was no sign of injury at all.
"They were just grunts. Well, Ramirez isn’t here, and there are this many of them."
The disappointed Nkhilakarn leaped into the soldiers and spread both hands.
"……Huh?"
A burst of intense heat.
The soldiers in front of the Nkhilakarn’s palms melted in an instant.
Half the squad was dead in the blink of an eye.
Faced with an absurd scene their brains refused to accept, the soldiers froze in terror.
The Nkhilakarn didn’t let the opportunity pass.
Crack.
At a touch, the proud Federal soldiers’ powerful bodies crumpled like plastic.
Those who panicked and tried to flee lost their lives to the plasma and intense heat the Nkhilakarn unleashed.
By the time the Task Force 42 members finished adjusting their power armor and arrived at the scene, it was already too late.
-……!
"Are you Ramirez’s subordinates? Bugs can’t become gods just because they’ve been drenched in divine blood."
-What the hell are you talking about, you elf bastard!
Nguyen’s plasma sword cut through the force field.
More precisely, the part of the field it struck annihilated against the blade, leaving a gap.
"Oh?"
Yangyang fired her coilgun through the opening.
Unlike the sniper rifle, whose power had been diminished by breaking through the force field, the projectile carried its full energy, but the enemy’s full-body armor stopped it.
-Tch. I’ll try again.
-Yes, Lieutenant.
Nguyen swung the plasma sword at the force field once more.
But.
"You didn’t think I’d fall for the same trick twice, did you?"
When the Nkhilakarn reached out, the blade disappeared.
More precisely, it was absorbed into the Nkhilakarn’s palm.
"I’ll give it back."
-Dodge, Nguyen!
Though Nguyen had swung at empty air and was off balance, Nguyen forced themself to move out of the way. But the Nkhilakarn, whose body was enhanced with plasma, was faster.
Thump.
A hand touched the abdomen of the power armor.
Plasma and intense heat ignored the armor and poured directly into the body inside.
-Huh.
Nguyen was reduced to a bloody lump with a dying cry.
The power armor’s movements had clearly stopped with its wearer’s death, but the Nkhilakarn didn’t stop releasing plasma and intense heat.
The armor trapped the plasma and heat, which condensed inside it to their limit.
The armor, pushed to its limit, began to swell, and……
-……! Deploy thermal shields! Everyone get down!
Bang!
A massive explosion erupted.
Prasada Palace vanished in its entirety.
The thermal shields they’d generated began to melt as they passed their critical limit.
Soon, after the thermal shields vaporized, damage began to accumulate on their power armor.
Just as the outer armor began to melt, the shock wave subsided.
"Again?"
When Yangyang lifted her head, she saw……
-Ah.
-Fuck.
The Nkhilakarn, with both hands outstretched.
Two members of her team within reach.
Plasma and intense heat began to condense once more.
Yangyang had no time to mourn her comrades’ deaths. She hurriedly generated a thermal shield,
while the other surviving member was a step too slow to grasp the situation.
KRAAAANG!
A storm even more powerful than the last swept over them both.
…….
…….
…….
-Ugh, ……haaah.
Yangyang was completely exhausted, unable to move even a finger.
A wheezing sound escaped her heated lungs.
She couldn’t feel her lower body. Her power armor must have melted and fused to her.
The Federal garrison squad stationed at Bahati: wiped out.
Of the five Task Force 42 members deployed for the operation, four were dead.
Survivor Yangyang: combat-incapacitated.
That was definitely……
The Nkhilakarn, unmistakably an Elder-class warrior, approached the surviving Yangyang.
"Tell me willingly."
-……Hah, tell you what?
"Where El is."
-El? What the hell is that, you bastard?
At Yangyang’s profanity, the Nkhilakarn paused to think, then corrected the wording.
The Nkhilakarn didn’t know what "fuck" meant, but from the context, understood it was an insult.
"You humans call El Mijeong."
-Mijeong? Ha, they went extinct more than 150 years ago. I don’t know why you’re looking for them among modern humans.
"A worthless lie. Not long ago, we sensed a powerful life wave spreading throughout the universe. It was undoubtedly the life wave of El, whom your kind wiped out long ago."
The Nkhilakarn knelt and swept a hand across the ruins of what had been Prasada Palace.
"I immediately asked our longtime ally, but that ally was so useless they knew absolutely nothing."
He meant the Furnace’s planetary marshal.
"Think carefully before you answer. If I find your answer satisfactory, I’ll let you live."
-How am I supposed to believe that?
"We do not lie."
…….
Yangyang faced a choice.
Should she tell him about Rubedo?
If she did, he’d storm the Razangriff immediately.
His target would be to secure Mijeong.
……Rubedo.
He said he’d let me live if I answered?
-……Ha.
Not a chance.
Her lower body had melted, fusing with her power armor.
Even if she survived for now, she’d die before long without treatment.
More than anything, she couldn’t sell that girl out.
-Fuck off.
She made her choice.
"A pity."
The Nkhilakarn approached her.
The Nkhilakarn reached out,
and began releasing plasma……
"Stop!"
At the frail girl’s cry, both the Nkhilakarn and Yangyang turned their heads.
Yangyang knew that voice all too well.
-Ah, no.
"……Found you."
The Nkhilakarn immediately stopped what it was doing and sprang forward.
In the blink of an eye, the Nkhilakarn reached the girl and brought a hand to her face.
"El."
Plasma gathered in the Nkhilakarn’s hand.