Ch.196Request Log #016 – Transformation (7)

The monster’s hand held a large lumberjack’s axe. The woman connected to it—or rather, the woman who owned that arm—was desperately stabbing her own arm with a sharp wooden splinter, but it was futile.

She seemed to be trying to maintain some intelligence by suppressing the complete transformation into a monster through the ritual markings on her arm, but she couldn’t fully prevent it. Eventually, her entire body would become a monster.

At times like this, I was truly grateful that other monsters couldn’t communicate. I increased the distance between us. I pulled the bolt on my Doppelgewehr, ejected the cartridge, and loaded a new bullet.

“Close your eyes.”

If I blew her head off while those ritual markings remained, the transformation wouldn’t spread. The woman shook her head violently. Despite her pain, she drove the wooden splinter deeper into her arm.

It seemed to be a fragment that had broken off when the ogre monster smashed through the floor. Her hand gripping the splinter was bleeding from embedded thorns, but she only pressed harder.

The stabbed arm went limp momentarily. Perhaps the core hadn’t fully transformed yet. If it were truly a monster’s arm, such a wooden splinter wouldn’t have stopped it. Even limp, it trembled.

“No, no, please, please. Originally that dwarf would adjust the ritual markings and I’d return to normal… That, that, you too…”

We spoke simultaneously. We said completely different things. Actually, they were exactly the same thing, but my words were self-deprecating while hope infused hers.

“Right, a Doppel.”

“Ah, you’re from the Argonne Invincibles, aren’t you… They said you people understand rituals well! That, that, please. There must be a way…”

I had to remove my finger from the trigger guard. In this woman’s eyes, I wasn’t a Doppel. She only saw the heroic name I’d earned through unjust means.

Was this intentional? Not an intelligent monster, but designed this way? If only one arm became monstrous while the rest remained human, perhaps they thought we wouldn’t attack. They were right—I was hesitating now.

Killing her would be most certain. Killing her would be cleanest. Even if she survived, the outcome was obvious. Either the ritual markings would fade and she’d fully transform, or she’d face a lifetime of contempt.

Rather than that… Rather than that. Rather than that? Are we living because life is better than death? Any life was better than death. Having decided to help, I spoke.

I’ve always been a problem solver. Usually I was the fixer, but right now I’d be the solution.

“Where is the ritual marking?”

“On, on the back of the hand… Ah, aah! Step back! The, the regeneration is already…”

As strength returned to the axe-wielding hand, the woman clawed at the floor as if trying to escape from her own arm. Impossible, of course. One must live with such attached rituals.

The ritualist’s command must have been to guard this place no matter what, so it would fight to the bitter end. Only a piece of the dwarf’s heart and a few drops of blood had escaped from here.

I grabbed the abnormally large monstrous hand. Even though this woman was maintaining her consciousness, she was a failed experiment. Only we cursed Invincibles were successful products of rituals meant to strengthen humans.

I gripped the thumb to prevent it from holding the axe. I completely twisted it backward. The woman who thought I would hold her hand and resist screamed.

“Th-thank you. Ah, aaagh! What, what are you doing…”

“I don’t plan to just hold your thumb until the transformation reaches your head. The ritual marking causing the transformation is on the back of your hand, and the one suppressing it is on your forearm. I’m going to cut it off. Prepare to stop the bleeding.”

The woman wrapped herself with her monstrous arm. It seemed two bodies could move as one when survival was the goal.

In this narrow space, I could easily kill her. Though her arm was monstrous, her head was still human. I could simply rush her left side where the arm couldn’t protect her.

She looked at me with disillusionment and spat out words. They were monotonous and frustratingly predictable. But in this situation, no one could easily trust others.

There was nothing else she could say to someone who suddenly declared they would cut off her arm.

“You, you’re just seeing me as a monster too… To those dwarves I was Doppelbane. To you…”

People who have suffered lose the ability to empathize with others’ pain. They become immersed in their own suffering. No, perhaps in this era, there’s simply an epidemic of empathy drought.

I didn’t have the journalist’s talent for reassurance or persuading such people. I was just another ordinary barbarian of 20th century New York suffering from the empathy drought. Only greenhouse environments remained unaffected.

Human language and communication are so imperfect that there’s no way to explain more than a third of what one feels. The receiver gets only a third of that third.

My hand tightened on the Doppelgewehr. Without trust, she was just a monster. I had plenty of ways to kill her. So… let me try something uncharacteristic.

I had experienced effective communication once. It was so effective that I had been subjected to magic that made me experience not just sensations but someone else’s experiences directly.

It was the death magic of that French guy brought in by the stowaway. The magic was simple enough to understand its principle. It was just mixing mana as a catalyst with words. Mana was also a catalyst for communication.

I slowly gathered mana through breathing. I hadn’t properly used magic lately, so I should have accumulated some. It was barely enough mana to light a cigarette, but it was at least one chip to throw into the pot.

“We’re… just people who got fucked over unintentionally. People who must take responsibility even if we didn’t want it.”

Before she could question the “we,” I gathered mana in my lips, tongue, and vocal cords. Speaking with the scent of ozone, I recalled the scenery of the Argonne Forest.

I summoned memories I didn’t want to revisit. No effort was needed. How much had I remembered and recalled today, feeling sensations like acid reflux, just to come here?

The blood of comrades scooped by hand pouring over my head. The feeling of blood remaining like brands and ritual markings despite not being carved by knives, layering rituals over my entire body. The power felt with each heartbeat.

I opened my mouth. I hoped this much mana would be enough.

“Behold with what blood we were baptized. Know that it was not the lamb.”

She couldn’t block the magic. Her arm went limp. Her gaze fixed on empty space as she began feeling around with both her normal arm and the transforming one.

She was searching for comrades. She was being seduced by sensations deceived by mana as a catalyst. Either way, it didn’t matter. To her, it would feel real.

I clapped once in front of her face. She hurriedly regained her senses and looked at me. She lowered the arm that had been shielding her body with all her might. She whimpered.

“To you, I wasn’t a monster.”

She barely managed to say those words and couldn’t speak further. Only someone whose life had been ruined by rituals could manage even this much empathy.

I took off my coat and my shirt with bullet holes. Blood had seeped through, but it was from skin wounds, not deeper injuries. I could manage.

I used my shirt to bind her arm for proper hemostasis at the armpit. Her broken thumb was regenerating. We didn’t have much time.

I pulled out a dagger. The house walls were wooden. I clicked my tongue to get her attention, then spoke. I could hear what sounded like angels’ wingbeats. Just one for now.

“Put your hand against the wall. It’s going to hurt terribly, so bite down on something. I’ll nail it to the wall to secure it, then cut it off. Understand?”

The journalist once said I was like electricity, always finding the fastest path. Generally untrue. Sometimes perhaps correct. The woman bit down on my coat like a gag and raised her monstrous hand.

Even the monster’s eyes showed fear. Whether it feared what I had shown, feared being cut off, or was simply part of this woman’s body, I couldn’t tell.

I placed the dagger against the back of her hand and used a club as a hammer to drive it in. Despite the gag, her screams rang out, but that wasn’t my concern. The reliable dagger’s handle shattered.

The dagger fixed her hand to the wooden pillar like a nail. I picked up the axe the monster had been holding. If I’d known this would happen, I should have learned some swordsmanship from the elves.

Fortunately, I was familiar with axe work. There was no hesitation. Someone who doesn’t hesitate to put holes in dwarves’ heads wouldn’t hesitate to do something relatively decent.

Though the sandcastle had collapsed, was there still a pile of sand to rebuild? I couldn’t answer. I brought the blade down precisely, like when breaking the iron fence posts in front of the trenches.

The arm was severed along with the suppressing ritual markings. The monstrous arm that fell to the floor instantly transformed the remaining human flesh, but having no more flesh to consume, it just writhed while pinned to the wall before quietly stopping. The woman shed thick tears while biting my clothes hard enough to damage her teeth.

There was significant bleeding, but she wouldn’t die if she got medical attention. It was time to deal with the unfinished dwarves. I jumped down through the hole the ogre monster had smashed through, axe in hand.

They seemed to be trying to go upstairs to check if the woman had dealt with me. They turned around. Seeing me jump down unharmed, one of them sat down. He closed his eyes.

“Open your eyes. You wanted this. You wanted me to come here, so you shouldn’t close your eyes.”

We all bear our own responsibilities. The dwarf knelt and shouted. He showed both hands.

“Surrender! I surrender! You too…”

A monstrous howl erupted from his throat. I had no intention of listening to talk of surrender from those who turned surrendered prisoners into monsters. I brought the axe down. I twisted it.

The dwarves trying to go upstairs froze. They fell into panic, overcome by horror and fear. The vessel containing humanity was empty, poured out to quench the thirst of the woman upstairs.

I heard angels’ voices from outside the window. The sound of a submachine gun being loaded, magically amplified to be heard inside. A shout loud enough to resonate throughout the house followed.

“Cease hostile actions inside! Angels under the God-President’s orders are here. There’s nowhere to escape from angels on flat ground! We will enter if criminal activity continues!”

Just a few more steps. And I hated seeing the dwarves now looking relieved. Did angels use larger caliber guns? Judging by how the Rat-Catcher had withstood them, probably not.

They’d come in soon even if I did nothing. Angels were already visible at the back door in the kitchen. Was it a gamble? Of course not. If they didn’t know about the Argonne Invincibles, they couldn’t handle them.

I ran straight ahead. Bullets showered at the sound of my footsteps. A pistol bullet grazed my cheek. It narrowly missed my eye. One hit my forehead but slid off without breaking bone.

I pressed the axe blade against the neck of a falling dwarf and rammed him into the wall. A bullet from an angel entering through the kitchen’s back door hit my back. My legs still moved, so it hadn’t hit my spine. I continued.

I pressed my last weapon, a pistol, against the side of a dwarf who was hugging the staircase wall, hoping the angels would kill me. I pulled the trigger repeatedly.

After shooting him twice in the side, I fired three more shots at his head as he began to stagger. Bullets also hit my forearm. I dropped the gun.

I heard wingbeats. Fuck. An angel who had entered through the kitchen door was flying toward me, leading with golden crafted wings. There was no way to dodge.

It would just be like getting hit by a car. No, a train? Probably closer to a car. I somehow raised my bullet-riddled arms to protect my head. Fortunately, the angel decided to ram my neck and shoulder.

I felt a heavy impact. Yes, more like a train. I’d never been hit by a train, but it must feel like this. This was the first time I’d flown like a leaf since the connection ritual was activated.

The wooden house’s wall broke more easily than expected. The window shattered, and I was thrown to the ground along with the angel. I couldn’t breathe properly. My ribs must have broken and caused internal injuries. I tried to get up but failed.

Being hit by a flying angel and breaking a couple of ribs? That’s just foreplay. While I steadied myself with this nonsense, the angel’s heavy foot stomped on my back where the lead bullets were embedded.

Though I could barely speak for lack of breath, I sneered. It was better to treat angels this way.

“If you want credit, keep me alive. Take me in alive. Tell me the charges.”

“Resisting officer commands and mass murder charges.”

“Not to my liking.”

The angel stomped harder on my back. Damn, it felt like having a statue placed on my back. Not just any statue—partly gold, so even heavier.

“Then?”

“Go upstairs. There’s a woman who’ll die of blood loss if you don’t take her soon. Look at what’s fallen beside her, and I’ll expect you to dust off my clothes too.”

One angel flew up to the second floor with a submachine gun. Annoyingly, he entered through the hole created when the angel threw my body. Soon, another angel broke through a window and flew up carrying the woman.

The angel stomping on my back sneered. Ah, right. I never had good memories with police. Only prostitutes could be expected to be kind from the first meeting.

“The jury will love this. That’s all. Arrest him.”

Two other angels lifted my body. This was the first time I’d been this battered since the Great War. I had some lawyer connections anyway. Out of habit, I turned my head.

A red car I’d seen in the distance was approaching. It stopped in front of the Gretchen farm. While angels aimed submachine guns at the car, a man got out.

This man was a fighter. His knuckles were scraped, and his body was covered in hair like a barbarian or pre-transformation werewolf. His sideburns connected to curly beard bristled unpleasantly.

The man boldly showed his ID to the angels pointing guns at him. It was a Divine Security Bureau ID. His other hand held several documents. He pointed repeatedly at the sky as he spoke.

“Warren, agent of the Divine Security Bureau. I’ve received direct orders from above. Here’s the criminal extradition request and authorization… and, well, all the necessary paperwork, so check it. Who’s in charge here?”

The angel who had stomped on my back raised his hand and slowly examined the documents. He blurted out angrily as if it were an absurd story.

“Is this how our most honorable superiors handle things? An extradition request with complete personal information for a criminal who hasn’t even been interrogated, and fuck! Why is the police commissioner’s seal on the authorization?”

The man sneered. He raised both hands to shoulder height as if to say this was just how their work was.

“Not very devout, are you? Anyway, hand over the criminal. Argoni, can you walk?”

Though I could barely speak, I bit back sarcastically. I wanted nothing to do with the God-President. The fact that he knew I was an Argonne Invincible meant that figure had definitely intervened.

“Couldn’t the omniscient one learn social skills? What a creepy way to handle things.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know. But He seems to know exactly which ribs of yours are torn… Let’s go while I’m asking nicely, Argoni. You saw us, right? We sent the other agent to the hospital. By His mercy. Yeah, by His fucking great mercy, He’s looking down on you, so you should be grateful.”

For such vulgar speech, he had good insight. Or perhaps the God-President was acting as his eyes.

Realizing there was no other option, the angel in charge gestured. The angels pushed me forward, throwing me down. I had no intention of exaggerating my injuries from the frontal collision with the angel.

At least my legs didn’t have many bullets in them. Straightening my back made my sides ache. I straightened up anyway. I faced the fucking apostle of God.

“Since He’s never bestowed anything even once, how would I know? And everyone rejoiced as the God who descended from the machine solved all problems. Is this how you’re going to end it?”

The man in the red suit burst into laughter. He laughed so heartily that people around were startled.

“I like your temperament, Argoni! But you’re not that smart. My superior didn’t call you to solve problems. Rather, He called you to give you problems. He’s calling you to solve them with all the steps written out. Ah, even talking is tiring. Let’s go, kid! Here, your belongings. Take them.”

Somehow, he threw me my duffel bag that should have been in the bushes next to the Gretchen farm. It contained all my rifles, pistols, shotguns, the dagger with the broken handle, and the improvised club.

So resistance is futile. I had long ago given up dreaming of a merciful God, but by the time I opened the car door, or when I got into that car, I also abandoned the belief that the God-President was at least fair.