Infinite Dendrogram [Volume 4]

by Sakon Kaidou

  Veldorbell chose the only one of the four that didn’t do any damage. Most would question this choice, but he had a total of three perfectly valid reasons.

  The first was the possibility of Marie avoiding Percussion’s damage, just like she had before.

  Veldorbell didn’t know how Marie had survived the first Beast Orchestra, and thus believed that the same skill would be countered by the same skill.

  The second was the existence of defensive accessories. Veldorbell had survived Marie’s onslaught because of such items. If Marie also had some of these equipped, it was entirely possible that simple attack power wouldn’t be enough to end her.

  The same reasoning had applied to the first Beast Orchestra, but back then, he hadn’t had a choice, as picking any other of his Legion would have made him deactivate Percussion’s vibration field after using the ultimate skill.

  Wind’s hypnotic music, on the other hand, would cause the opponent to die regardless of any accessories.

  The third reason — and the most important one — was the very melody resounding when Veldorbell combined the King of Orchestras’s ultimate job skill with Bremen’s ultimate skill.

  The most perfect music he had at his disposal in such a state was the one played by Wind. Veldorbell was absolutely certain that it could move the listener’s heart, mind, and soul. The music played by Wind when it was supported by Bremen and the King of Orchestras was nothing short of divine.

  It was simply to die for.

  Far beyond being just “hypnotic,” the music played by Wind was of such excellence that listeners would actually give their lives for it. Some would call it the apotheosis of Charm.

  The sound ignored all resistances and had already made many veterans kill themselves.

  The power in the divine music had yet to fail him, so Veldorbell had limitless confidence in its effects.

  He disliked the motif behind his Embryo. But at the same time, he adored their music more than anyone else in existence.

  Veldorbell, a man who hated Bremen’s form, but was thoroughly enchanted by its sound, believed in the power of Wind’s Beast Orchestra more than anything else in the world. He was absolutely certain that no one could remain alive before this music.

  And yet, Wind’s melody, that had already defeated countless enemies, failed to fell the woman before him.

  “W... Why...?” Veldorbell sputtered, as the life drained from his face. He was surrounded by Bremen — all shattered into little pieces.

  The only reason why Veldorbell had survived Marie’s ultimate skill even after having sacrificed 90% of his life was the fact that his Legion had jumped in to protect him. However, though he was still alive, his defeat was imminent.

  His imminent defeat was the very reason why he’d asked that question.

  “Looks like it’s my win.”

  Veldorbell looked up to see two people before him.

  One of them was, of course, the Death Shadow, Marie Adler. The other was a red girl — the same one that was drawn on the cartridge Marie had loaded into her gun.

  A certain group of people would find her appearance and the fangy, ferocious smile to be familiar, for she was a character from Nagisa Ichimiya’s manga, Into the Shadow. She was called “Daisy Scarlet the Explosion Death.”

  Arc-en-Ciel’s ultimate skill, Phantasmal Raingun, used the same “paint” cartridges that Marie used to create the bullet creatures and focused them on bullets that Marie herself had drawn. The abilities of the creatures depended on the paint used when drawing, and Marie combined the characteristics of her paints to recreate the characters from her manga to the best of her ability.

  Daisy Scarlet was the result of combining red and black paint. She was a vampire that could become explosions. Even as she was merely standing there, small bursts were happening in the area around her. Bremen’s and Veldorbell’s defeat was caused mainly by Daisy’s first explosion, which covered everything in a 100 metel radius.

  “Why... Why are you alive after hearing Wind’s music? It’s supposed to make you throw your life away.”

  Veldorbell didn’t find it strange that he was on the verge of dying. Being in such a state after a clash of ultimate skills wasn’t uncommon. However, he couldn’t understand why Marie and Daisy were still alive.

  Veldorbell already knew that Arc-en-Ciel created bullet creatures. Thus, no matter what kind of creatures Marie created, he would have expected any of them to kill themselves upon hearing Wind’s melody. Be they monsters or mechanical dolls, the music was great enough to make them end themselves. Veldorbell couldn’t believe that it seemed to have no effect.

  “...Oh, sorry,” said Marie. “Neither me nor this girl heard the melody.”

  “You... You didn’t hear it?” he replied with pure shock in his voice.

  “Yes. After all...” Marie replied as she pointed towards Daisy, “...her explosions blow away the surrounding atmosphere. Sound can’t travel when that happens.”

  An extremely simple reason.

  Sounds were vibrations. As such, they could only passed on through things that could vibrate, like air or water. That was why Marie had Daisy blow away the surrounding air to create a wall of vacuum that no sound could pass through.

  Simple explosive bullets wouldn’t have the power for such a feat, but Daisy, being the result of an ultimate skill, could do it with little trouble.

  If Veldorbell had used Strings’s magic attack or Percussion’s wide-scale attack, this battle might’ve ended in a draw because they could’ve broken the vacuum barrier with sheer sonic force. Wind’s melody, however, wasn’t offensive in nature and was thus useless unless it could reach the opponent.

  “A melody to die for...” muttered Marie. “That’s something I’d love to hear, but now is not the time for it.”

  “...Ha,” chuckled Veldorbell. “Not lending an ear to good music... you really are uncouth.”

  With his gaze full of disappointment, rather than frustration, he closed his eyes.

  Marie aimed the muzzle towards him...

  “Goodbye, King of Orchestras.”

  ...and shot his forehead.

  Thus ended one of the night’s grand battles, and the board no longer had a club on it.

  ◇

  “...Oh, am I tired,” Marie heaved a sigh as she fell to her knees. She then reached into her wristband-shaped inventory, took out a high-quality SP restoration item, and slowly began gulping it down.

  Thanks to her using Art of Vanishing and Phantasmal Raingun, her SP was almost completely drained. Though she had items to restore it, the SP loss was too great to cover with those alone.

  Also, though restorative items that had a weak effect acted quickly, the powerful ones used by Superior Jobs such as herself had a significantly weaker effect when used consecutively.

  She’d need some time until she had enough SP to participate in battle again. Not to mention that she was still damaged from the low-frequency wave attacks.

  And last, but definitely not least...

  “With this, I can’t use red or black anymore,” she sighed.

  Phantasmal Raingun had two major cons to it.

  The first was the necessity to draw the characters on the bullet and the fact that she could only keep a maximum of six of them. The Daisy bullet she’d just used was the only one she had, so Marie was now rendered incapable of using Daisy until she drew her again.

  The second con was the fact that the paints used to make bullets used by the ultimate skill were rendered inaccessible for the next 24 hours.

  The ones used in Daisy were Red Burst and Black Homing. The former was for explosions, while the latter was for homing shots. Now that Marie had used her, she could no longer use her lethal explosive bullets or the ultra-accurate homing bullets for a whole day. This also extended to other Phantasmal Raingun characters that used Red Burst of Black Homing.

  The skill was powerful and versatile, indeed, but its demerits were just as great. Marie’s Embryo’s
ultimate skill drew upon her characters in exchange for draining her reserves.

  “It doesn’t seem like I’ll be able to kill Franklin now,” she sighed again. “But...”

  Just like Veldorbell, Franklin had a weak, non-battle job that surpassed the average battle job due to synergy with his Embryo. Scary as that was, that could be interpreted another way, and...

  “They might actually have a chance.”

  While running away with Elizabeth and during her battle with Veldorbell, Marie had caught glimpses of Ray and Rook heading towards the western gate.

  Their opponent was a Superior. Marie had just barely won against Veldorbell, and Franklin was an entity above the musician. In any normal scenario, two newbies’ chances of victory were lower than negligible.

  Even so...

  “They might just do it.”

  Ray already had a history of defeating creatures stronger than himself, while Rook had been able to cut Marie’s arm off despite being a non-battle job. Considering those facts let Marie have hope that they could win and save Elizabeth.

  “Heh heh... Still, I can’t leave everything to them,” she said as she threw away the empty restoration item and stood up. “I guess I’ll just do what I do best.”

  With that, Marie Adler began running through Gideon’s streets as she melted into their shadows.

  Chapter Four-Point-Five: Setting

  Paladin, Ray Starling

  “Hh... What?!”

  As Rook, I, and the three newbie girls accompanying us followed the road leading towards Gideon’s western gate, we were overwhelmed by a destructive sound so great it made me want to shut my ears. It came from our left — the city’s ninth district.

  It was the same direction from which we’d heard a musical performance.

  I’d found it strange that someone would play music at a time like this, but the blast of sound that’d just reached us was definitely something more than that.

  What’s happening? I thought.

  “Is that where Franklin is?” I asked myself as I questioned whether we should continue going to the western gate or change directions to the ninth district.

  “Apparently, he isn’t among the ones fighting there,” said Rook before I began to ponder.

  It wouldn’t have been unlike him to notice something I didn’t, but I found it strange that he’d used the word “apparently.”

  “Oh, that isn’t my assumption,” he added. “I got this info from her.” Saying that, Rook looked at one of the three girls accompanying us.

  On a slightly unrelated note, while I was on Silver and Rook was riding Marilyn, the three girls were saddled on fluffy, ostrich-like birds called “Landwings” — the easiest-to-get ridable monsters, apparently.

  Anyway, the girl Rook looked at was holding a tray-like disk in her hands as she presented it to us. It displayed a map of the area from Gideon’s central arena to the western gate, with Roman numerals between I and VII littered all over it.

  “What’s this, uh...?”

  Oh, yeah, I haven’t asked for their names yet, I realized.

  “M-My name is Kasumi...” she said meekly. “I-I’m a Summoner and th-this is my Embryo... Taijitu.”

  Taijitu... I thought, digesting that. A reference to the Investiture of the Gods, I guess.

  By the way, the other two girls were Io and Fujinon, a Barbarian Fighter and Mage, respectively.

  “My Taijitu shows, uh... the location of the Masters within the area and their Embryo forms...” Kasumi said, explaining her Embryo. “According to this... th-there are two Masters in the ninth district, but they’re both on their sixth forms... s-so I don’t think that they’re Franklin.”

  “...What a convenient Embryo,” I said.

  Looking at the tray-like disk, I could see a “VII” marker heading towards the western gate, and it was safe to assume that it was Franklin. Thanks to her, I didn’t even have to think about changing directions.

  “N-No, I-I just... umm... I-I couldn’t do anything in the p-plaza fight, so... I-I... I’m sorry...”

  “Why are you apologizing?” I asked.

  “‘Why,’ indeed.” Nemesis shared my sentiment. After all, Kasumi just helped us out a lot.

  “Uohh...” She hid her face as she moved to hide behind the other two girls. She was strangely good at handling the reins.

  “Sorry about that!” said Io. “Our girl Kasumi is the shy type, as you can see! Oh, but she’s the one who had the courage to tell us to come with you two! After all, we have some white-haired pretty boy and blond young man B-elRGHH!” Before Io could finish her sentence, Fujinon — the last of the three — cut it short with a backhand blow to her side.

  Eh? What was she about to say?

  “Sorry about this idiot,” said Fujinon. “Oh, we only accompanied you because we saw you fight in the plaza and became very interested.”

  “O-Okay?” I replied.

  I wasn’t too convinced, but the aura about Fujinon made me feel like pushing it further wouldn’t be the best idea.

  “You three seem to get along very well,” said Rook. “Have you known each other for long?”

  “Yes,” nodded Fujinon. “We’re all in the literary club in the same school.”

  Friends in real life, huh? I thought. No wonder they all act so familiar.

  “To my eye, the ones with the most familiarity are you and Brother Bear,” commented Nemesis.

  Well, we’ve been siblings for eighteen years now. ...Oh, but I guess that doesn’t mean much when it comes to my sister. She... She’s just so...

  “Ray! What’s wrong?!” Nemesis shouted into my head.

  Ah! Damn, my consciousness almost lapsed out of reality.

  “This has been bothering me for a while now... what is going on with your sister?” Nemesis asked. “Just like with the glasses, I can’t see any of your memories about her.”

  Please, don’t ask. Her very existence makes even less sense than Shu’s. She’s not even in the same genre as us.

  “Anyway, we can now go to the western gate without any hesitation,” I said.

  At the rate we were going, we’d be there in five or so minutes. However, though I didn’t say them out loud, I had two questions on my mind. Both of them were related to the map displayed by Taijitu.

  One was about the central arena, the place currently keeping many Masters inside.

  On the map, there were four “VII” markers, which pointed to Superiors. Two of them were most likely Figaro and Xunyu. Though Xunyu might not appear on the map because the barrier had been stopped right after she’d been defeated.

  With that in mind, though, who are the other two — or three — Superiors?

  The other question was about the surroundings of the western gate, the place we were heading to right now.

  According to Taijitu, there were several dozens of Masters there. They had a wide range of Embryo forms, from II to VI. I assumed that a Master with a radar-type Embryo like Taijitu had found out where Franklin was heading and gathered a group with the intention of fighting him at the western gate.

  That was very good for our confidence. After all, we needed to stop Franklin, but were severely lacking in numbers.

  However, that sentiment of mine almost entirely vanished when I noticed that they weren’t moving at all.

  Taijitu was like an active radar, but the Masters at the western gate were still, as though it was just a picture.

  There was only one exception, for the one closest to the gate, marked as “III.” It was making slight movements.

  For reasons unknown, that marker was making me feel somewhat uneasy.

  ◆◆◆

  Duel city Gideon, the surroundings of the western gate

  It happened a few minutes before Ray got a look at Taijitu.

  Approximately twenty of the kingdom’s Masters had just arrived at the western gate.

  All of them were Masters who hadn’t been in the arena when it had gotten sealed, and who had ha
ppened to not encounter Veldorbell after it all began.

  “This is the place, right?” one of them asked.

  “Yeah. It’s pretty clear that Franklin’s planning to escape through here.”

  Using their job or Embryo skills to predict where Franklin was heading, they gathered at the western gate with the intention of ambushing him here.

  Their predictions and decisions were correct, for Franklin was about five minutes away.

  They were about to prepare themselves for his arrival, but...

  “...What’s that?” They encountered a strange sign. It was placed in the middle of the road in a really unnatural manner.

  The words on it were in the continent’s common language, and to Masters — who were equipped with auto translation — it said this:

  No Master shall pass beyond this point.

  “Isn’t that a reference?” one of them asked, examining it. “What the hell is thi—”

  “Wait! There’s something over there!” One of the Masters pointed beyond the sign.

  There was a large silhouette, standing before the gate as if to prevent anyone passing. It belonged to a Marshall II — no, a Marshall II Revised. It was a humanoid mobile weapon created by the Triangle of Wisdom and fine-tuned for use by a specific individual.

  “That’s a Magingear from Dryfe, all right, but it’s a bit different than their official ones or the ones leaked to Caldina,” the other Master agreed. “We might be looking at one of the Triangle’s bigger members. At the very least, he’s not like the player killers messing up the city.”

  “He’s probably been put there to make sure that Franklin goes by safely.”

  “The mech has higher stats than the average Marshall II, but it’s still just a bit over two times stronger than a Demi-Dragon, at best.”

  “Then I guess he won’t be much of a problem for us.”

  The Masters gauged the machine’s battle potential using Reveal and Identification. That method wasn’t without its faults. After all, these skills couldn’t see the stats or skills of the Marshall II R’s pilot. However, it was clear that the Masters surpassed him and his machine in terms of both numbers and experience.

  “There are way more of us,” one of them said. “We won’t lose even if he uses his Embryo.”