by Sakon Kaidou
“What are those, Hugo?” I asked.
“Oh, just the research papers left behind by the Lich who made this fortress his hideout — Maise or whatever he was called. The concept is similar to the one behind a robot our clan was researching a while back, so I decided to take it to them. You know — as a souvenir.”
“A robot?” I asked. “What does grudge have to do with that?”
“Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way.”
We began walking out of the dungeon, and I was instantly met with a certain problem. Because they had been sleeping for so long, some of the children had become weak, rendering them unable to walk properly. Due to that, we had them ride Silver or carried them on our backs, but...
“Woof woof! Woof woof!” one of the kids cried.
Yep, I still have the dog ears, I thought. And the kids just can’t stop playing with them.
“Me next! Me next!”
“No, me!”
I’m not sure how I feel about this popularity.
The relatively lively children were pestering me for a piggyback ride just so they could reach the dog ears.
“Looks like they’re a big hit,” smiled Hugo.
“...Good to see they’re useful for something,” I replied.
But man, they sure last a long time, I thought. Flamingo had told me they’d be gone by sunset, but it was already evening and they still didn’t show any signs of disappearing.
“How curious,” said Nemesis. “The lack of the Horse Riding skill made you fall down the first time you got on, yet these younglings can ride without any problem.”
Getting the children out of the dungeon was a task that needed more people, so Nemesis was in her human form. She held Silver’s reins as he was strutting forward like a pony.
Since it was unlikely that they had the Horse Riding skill, I was wondering about that, too. I could only assume that making Silver run while riding and simply leading him by holding the reins were completely different things.
“Okay,” I spoke up. “So tell me about this thing about grudge and robots.”
“All right,” nodded Hugo. “The clan I’m in is focused mainly on crafting, and our current main products are Magingears. In fact, the Marshall II — Dryfe’s official mass-produced machine — started out as an original item made by us.”
That robot was actually built from scratch? I thought.
“Since Marshall II’s completion, we’ve been developing new models, variation models, and better-armed models, but recently, we’ve been making plans to merge it with other crafts,” he went on. “One of those plans focuses on the creation of a machine that uses dead people’s grudge as a power source.”
“Well, that sure doesn’t sound good,” I commented. “Why did that plan even exist?”
“Because all of Dryfe’s machines — not just the Magingears — are huge MP sinks,” he answered. “Replacing that MP with grudge would allow us to operate for longer and simplify the usage of stronger weaponry. That’s the grudge power plan.”
“How can grudge become power, anyway?” I asked.
“Heh,” Hugo grinned. “You saw the answer to that just a few minutes ago, didn’t you?”
I did? What does he mean?
“The last magic skill used by the Lich — Deadly Mixer.”
“Oh, that,” I said.
That attack had been immensely powerful. If I hadn’t blocked it with Counter Absorption, I’d have vanished along with the fortress. In fact, the skill was even stronger than Figaro’s chains. It was just that Counter Absorption was tougher now, due to Nemesis being in her second form, so the attack this time just barely hadn’t been strong enough to break through it.
“That was a vile skill that turns grudge into destructive physical power and releases it at the target,” Hugo continued. “Our craftsmen thought that — provided it was released on a smaller scale and handled more carefully — the same power could be used to power our engines. After all, this world already has Living Armor, which move due to the souls of the dead haunting it.”
Living Armor, huh? I thought. A not-too-uncommon monster type in fantasy RPGs.
“One of our members said, ‘If this goes well, we might create a weapon that absorbs the grudge permeating the battlefields and stays active semi-permanently,’” Hugo quoted. “Our clan was intrigued by the idea, so we got the help of a famous Master from the Necromancer grouping and began researching the utilization of grudge power, but...”
Hugo suddenly stopped talking, making me instantly understand how it must’ve gone down.
“It failed, huh?” I said.
“And how.” He nodded. “The prototype was a failure that was both hard to control and had a tendency to go on a rampage. I helped with its disassembly and disposal. It happened back when I was still leveling up my Mechanic job.”
“So, you’re saying that the Lich... Maise had the same thing in his research paper?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “Though modified, the thing we at The Triangle of Wisdom were trying to build was but a machine weapon, while this is more along the lines of a Flesh Golem.”
Flesh Golems were exactly what it said in the name — golems made of joined human or animal flesh. They were common in the more grotesque RPGs.
Now that I think about it, though I’ve encountered a number Zombies and Skeletons here, I haven’t seen a single Flesh Golem... I thought.
“But if the Lich did such research, why didn’t he use it?” I asked. “It sounds pretty strong.”
“Clearly, it was because he couldn’t control it,” said Hugo. “The problem with the grudge power plan was that it involved absorbing the grudge from the surroundings. That was the prime obstruction to any success it could’ve had.”
Hugo momentarily stopped talking and made the child on his back sit on his shoulders instead. Then, with his hands free, he raised up both of his index fingers.
“When a Necromancer uses grudge to power a Living Armor or a Flesh Golem, he normally uses a single person’s grudge or soul for a single unit.”
He then raised all of his fingers on only his right hand, indicating either “five” or just “many.”
“However, grudge power absorbs all the surrounding grudge,” he said. “And it doesn’t matter how many and varied the source creatures are.”
That was enough for me to understand the problem.
“So the individual grudges start fighting for the lead, and that makes the thing impossible to control, right?” I asked.
“Right,” he nodded. “At least, that’s what happened with the experimental machines our clan created. Our people then tried using both magic techniques and programming to ensure control, but apparently, their efforts were in vain.”
Grudge-powered creatures seemed comparable to action game characters that were being controlled by tens of people fighting for the controller. There was no way they’d act properly.
“In the end, they went on rampages and began acting based on the consensus of the grudges,” he went on.
“Consensus?” I raised an eyebrow.
“It always boiled down to the expansion of the grudge. They’d begin attacking either undead or other grudge power machines and attempt to merge with them. Then they’d react to the grudge — and negative emotions in general — of the living, and attack them instead. They’d continue rampaging like that until they broke.”
...Man, that sounds bad, I thought.
“And so, the project was a failure,” Hugo continued. “It was made clear that, while the grudge of many could be gathered and used for offense with skills such as Deadly Mixer, unifying and controlling it was a fool’s errand.”
“I see.” I nodded.
As we talked, we finished going up the stairs and finally returned to the surface.
“...Huh?” I said.
A moment later, Nemesis, I, Cyco, Hugo and even the children... all shook with dread.
I could feel weak vibrations below me a
nd heard voices coming from the outside — though it was arguable whether the term “voices” was appropriate. It was more like a choir of the macabre. Weeping, crying, sobbing, bellowing and just about any other possible sound representing negative emotion. That was more than enough for me to grasp that something alarmingly abnormal was happening outside.
“...Hey, Hugo.” Urged by the bad feeling I had — or, rather, the very certain chills going down my spine — I spoke up.
“Yes?” he replied.
“If grudge power isn’t controllable... what would happen if you used it regardless?”
“Heh, that’s obvious,” he said.
Beyond the gates leading outside, within the light of the sun sinking to the horizon, I saw the shadow of something massive.
“The uncontrolled grudge-powered thing would start absorbing the surrounding grudge, converting it into power, reacting to negative emotions, killing the source if it’s alive, and once again absorbing the residual grudge,” Hugo said.
I heard a loud roar and felt the ground under my feet vibrate as the massive thing shuddered and shifted.
“It would repeat that ad infinitum... and thus you’d have a rampaging monster equipped with a semi-permanent engine.”
The beast outside the fortress came into sight. It looked like it came straight out of hell.
The first thing I saw were its repulsive legs, clearly made from human corpses. Then, as it moved nearer, I became certain of what it was.
The creature with the words “Revenant Ox-Horse, Gouz-Maise” above its head was a gigantic undead that seemed more abnormal the more I looked at it. It had the head of an ox, the silhouette of a horse-man, and dead, familiar faces mixed in with the parts forming it. And it had a naming pattern used only by Unique Boss Monsters.
The visages of the dead were voicing words or merely sounds that were thick with negative emotion.
They were the Gouz-Maise Gang members that Hugo had killed. I could even see the faces of those we’d encountered back in Gideon.
...That was enough for me to conclude that it was made of the corpses of the gang.
“I see,” said Hugo slowly. “It looks about the same as the predicted result.”
Hugo took the documents out of his inventory and began looking through them. Sure enough, there was a picture of an ox-headed horse-man with countless dead faces on it.
“So he prepared for his own death by making a plan to create that thing by sacrificing everyone in the Gouz-Maise Gang,” I said.
“Or perhaps he merely planned to use the surrounding corpses, and it just so happened that the ones around him were those of the bandits,” added Hugo. “The ox-head, however, was a guaranteed ingredient.”
Well, he’s certainly following the plan, I thought.
“ＦｆＧｇＳｓｓＦｆｆＳｓＤｄｄＷｗＳｓＳＤｄｓＳＤｄｅＥＷｗＤＡｓｓＳａＡＡａａＡａＡ———！！”
Gouz-Maise was passionately smashing something to pieces, letting out a roar no sane mind could comprehend.
Exposed to that noise, and such violence, the children started to scream in fear. Cyco embraced them to make them feel safe and gently tried to calm them down.
“Is that your...?” I began.
I noticed that the thing Gouz-Maise was breaking was the Magingear used by Hugo. Even though it no longer had a hint of its original shape, the monster didn’t stop attacking it. Since it was running solely on the power of countless grudges, it was currently on a warpath. Due to that, I’d have expected it to spread its violence with no rhyme or reason, but it seemed to focus solely on the Magingear.
Are most of the ones that became the “ingredients” of that thing actually acting united due to their collective grudge towards Hugo and the robot? I thought.
“I’m the one who killed most of them, after all,” he said. “It’s only natural for my Marshall II to become its target.”
So, even in that state, they haven’t forgotten their resentments from when they were alive... Wait, no. It’s more like that resentment is all that they are.
“Heh.” Hugo grinned. “I feel like I’m looking at Rodin’s Gates of Hell.”
“Ironic of you to say that, Hugo,” said Cyco.
The Gates of Hell, huh? I thought. Yeah, watching this gathering of dead sinners is much like looking at that sculpture. And on the note of Rodin’s sculptures, it’s high time I stopped being The Thinker and actually did something about that abomination.
“Well, Master?” spoke Nemesis. “Do we defeat it?”
“I’d love to if I can, but...” I could feel it in my bones. That thing was stronger than even Gardranda. Hell, I was certain that ten out of ten fights between Gouz-Maise and Gardranda would end in Gardranda’s defeat.
“Man, creating UBMs is just unfair,” I mumbled.
“Normally, it’d be completely impossible,” said Hugo. “I know a person who can do something similar — with a higher standard, too — and even he has yet to create a single UBM. In fact, if it were possible to mass-produce UBMs, someone would be making them nonstop. After all, defeating them gets you special rewards.”
So they could constantly create items such as my Miasmaflame Bracers, huh? I thought.
“That ‘Revenant Ox-Horse, Gouz-Maise,’” he continued, “is the result of several unfortunate superimposed coincidences.”
“Accidents?” I raised an eyebrow.
“First of all, this place is bad,” he said. “It’s an abandoned fortress on an ancient battlefield. There are tons of corpses filled with grudge right under our feet.”
He pointed at the ground, then at himself.
“Second, I killed most of the gang. Due to that, the surroundings became thick with the grudge of vile scoundrels and got covered in fresh corpses. Corpses of people from a single group, even. There was even the Strong Gladiator Gouz — a real tough guy.”
Next, he pointed at me.
“Third, you cornered Maise and pushed him into using the Crystal of Resentment — a concentrated gathering of grudge — as a medium to release a Deadly Mixer. Though you survived it, the dense grudge that didn’t get used with the skill was released into the air. And let’s not forget the Lich’s own grudge after you killed him.”
Finally, he pointed at Gouz-Maise.
“Lastly, someone activated the grudge-powered undead creation spell that was mentioned in the papers — Undead Grudge Construction. It used the surrounding grudge and corpses to form a grudge-powered Flesh Golem. However, due to the conditions being far too good, the resulting undead greatly surpassed its original specifications and — because of how abnormal and otherworldly it was — reached the realm of UBMs. With a slight change of perspective, it’s safe to say that this creature is the child born from you, me, and the Lich.”
“Well, that sure sucks,” I said. “So, what now?”
“We simply lack the power to face it,” replied Hugo. “It’s far too strong an enemy for just two high-rank Masters and their low-rank Embryos. Not only that, but — as things are — it’s highly incompatible with Cyco’s power, and... well, just look at my weapon.”
After shifting his gaze at the Magingear — which was reduced to a pile of scrap with pieces so small they could each be held in hand — Hugo heaved a long sigh.
I could still use Vengeance is Mine in the same way I’d used it against Gardranda, but it would be far more complicated in this case. Since the battle with the demon, I had gotten some levels, equipped the Miasmaflame Bracers, learned Purifying Silverlight, and become stronger overall.
However, the difference between Gardranda and that thing was just far too great. Its size alone was at least four times greater. Its height was about the same as that of an eight-story building. And naturally, its stats were much higher. I wasn’t confident that I could survive until I charged up the damage needed to kill it. I also had only one more Counter Absorption use.
There’s little doubt that I’d die if I fought it, I thou
ght.
“True,” agreed Nemesis. “...Hm?”
What’s wrong? I asked.
“I just felt something strange... but it instantly went away. Was I just imagining it?”
“Ray,” Hugo addressed me. “For now, our priority should be taking the children — including the ones in the carriages — and leaving this place as quickly as possible.”
He pointed at the two carriages with the newly-kidnapped children inside them. Unlike the one at the front — which Hugo had destroyed with his preemptive attack — those two were in fine shape.
It was good thing that Gouz-Maise was too busy destroying the Magingear to do anything to harm the children. I could only assume that it was because they were sleeping, and thus weren’t releasing any negative emotions that could’ve attracted it. Whatever the case, it was good that they were okay.
“Yeah, the carriages look ready to go at any time,” I said. Both of them were already linked to horses.
Why didn’t it attack the horses, though? I thought. Does it only react to people?
“Thankfully, both Cyco and I have the Piloting skill,” said Hugo. “It works with carriages, too, to a certain extent, so we can both handle one carriage each.”
“What about after we escape, though?” I asked. “Just leaving it there to do its thing doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“We’ll go to the Adventurer’s Guild and tell them everything about it,” answered Hugo. “It’s a UBM, after all. There will be lots of Masters who’ll go after it to get the special reward. Though, since I’m with Dryfe, you’ll have to be the one to tell them about it.”
“All right,” I nodded. “Now, let’s find the right timing to get to the carriages and... Ah!”
As we were about to act out the plan we’d set up, the situation suddenly changed.
We had been too unobservant...
...and we had failed to consider a certain scenario.
“Mommyyy! Daddyyy!”
It was the scenario in which the children in the carriages woke up and walked out of them.
“ＧｇＨｈｕＵｓＳｓＤｄＳｓｓＤｃＣａＡａａＳｓｓＷｗｇＧｂｂＢａＡＳＡａＡＡ！！”