We weren’t born into this world because we wanted to either.

“…No, that can’t be.”

There was one fact I had momentarily forgotten, focusing only on catching and beating her up.

This girl is a weapon of destruction with self-awareness.

Even if she rampages without distinguishing friend from foe, she’s not completely without the ability to think.

-Creak, creak.

Yes, even in the game, when injured, she would sometimes show the composure to leave the battlefield temporarily to catch her breath.

When I realized this and followed after her, her body was already undergoing restoration in various places.

“Ferromagnetic regeneration ability… is it?”

A large amount of iron sand stored in her body.

This iron sand moves automatically by magnetic force, naturally filling in damaged parts or replacing components automatically.

Of course, since it’s just filling gaps with iron sand, it only serves as a first aid role.

But even such a temporary measure is enough to secure the endurance needed for combat.

This doll has a structure that allows her to continuously restore her body and move as long as the energy causing magnetism in the iron sand doesn’t run out.

-Creak, creak.

Deus Ex Machina, restoring damaged parts one by one like this.

Even that is unstable, causing her body to creak, but her clearly opened eyes were directed at me.

“…Who are you?”

She asks me in that state.

“You are… what? What, exactly?”

“…I told you earlier. I’m a teacher.”

“Not fish.”

I said teacher, not fish.

“You, same existence. Never seen. Not human… not human.”

“…If you say that much, teacher will be hurt.”

“Humans, weak.”

An answer returns immediately after my indifferent reply.

Her head creaked irregularly left and right, but still, the girl’s mouth didn’t stop.

“That nature… weak. Because weak, rely on tools. Learned that. That’s why, said they made me. Master said so.”

“…That’s right.”

I don’t deny it.

Humans are weak.

No, more precisely, humans are far too weak compared to their grand ideals.

The best endurance among mammals and a lifespan worthy of being called a long-lived species. High-dimensional intelligence and the ability to handle objects, plus the capacity to handle mana.

But even that is considered insufficient, so humanity has accumulated knowledge and built civilizations to achieve what surpasses their own power.

The girl doll in front of me was a weapon created in that process, existing solely for destruction.

“But why? You, strong? You, who exactly? Same existence as me? Weapon?”

“I’m human.”

I answered firmly to such a girl.

I am human.

That’s an undeniable clear truth that no one can deny.

“I just fight in a different way from ordinary people.”

“Different, way…?”

“…Yes, this era needs this kind of fighting method too.”

Probably in that girl’s eyes, I must look very peculiar.

Generally, humans need means to compensate for their shortcomings, but I had become accustomed to entering the battlefield without any such things.

“Humans……”

But at this moment, what the girl cares about is a completely different aspect from what I had in mind.

“So humans, are still fighting, even now?”

“…What?”

“I thought when I first woke up.”

Soon the girl spoke.

The memory that came to her when she had just encountered the black market dealer who excavated her before being confined in that box.

“This era. Much longer time has passed, than before I slept. Where I lived. Destroyed, and master… disappeared. Those who eliminated master, also vanished.”

Probably she had a big fight right after waking up then.

This girl was created solely for the purpose of destruction after all.

Yes, that’s what I thought when playing the game too, but.

“…But humans still remain. Prospered, and died even more than that. Clearly.”

Deus Ex Machina.

This girl could be called a living history book remembering the past history.

An ill-fated invention that was ultimately buried because dependence on religion and the power of the privileged were too strong inevitably.

But through half a century of war, humanity realized that religion was no longer everything, and began to gradually assign value to things they had been ignoring until now.

The medicine I mastered is like that, and so is the engineering making up this clock tower.

But ironically, while all of these things now enrich civilized society, the reason they were reevaluated was “because they were necessary for war”.

“Humans, kill each other.”

The girl was realizing this while observing such flow.

In the end, all progress achieved by humans originated from conflict at its start.

“Humans, fight each other. Why? Why do they fight?”

I had been thinking wrong from the beginning.

This girl was not created with only destruction in mind from the start.

“Don’t understand. But understand one thing. Humanity’s secret wish? It’s fighting… slaughter desiring each other’s lives….”

It was those who created this girl, or those who possessed her, who desired destruction.

The girl had heard that purpose and thought in her own way, drawing her own conclusion about her reason for existence.

“…Even in this era, is that what they desire?”

As if to prove that such thoughts were not wrong.

Fragments of the past were maintained until this moment.

“Then what will you do?”

“Fight.”

-Clink.

Eventually, blades sprout again from various parts of her body where restoration was completed.

“I am Deus Ex Machina. Tool made for humans. And humans always desire. At any time, they crave fighting.”

Blue lightning flowing from cracks restored by iron sand spreads excessively, gradually burning the clock tower parts existing around.

Boom, boom.

At the moment when parts collapsing from the previous fierce battle fall one by one due to gravity.

“Even if it calls for mutual destruction… that’s what humans are, beings that fight knowing that….”

Even though she had climbed to a position dozens of floors high in such a precarious space, the girl was showing killing intent towards me without feeling any instability.

“Therefore I. Fight for humans. Until I exterminate all humans, until this body reaches its limit.”

The final result humanity will reach is mutual destruction at the end of conflict…

To faithfully predict and fulfill that future.

To become “Deus Ex Machina (Apostle of the End)” as her name suggests.

“…Persuasion is impossible after all, huh.”

If the child in front of me was someone like Dale or Waden.

I would have provided an opportunity to correct the wrong path under the name of education.

Even if it was a villain like Reynold, I could have handed him over to court while keeping him alive to receive proper punishment.

But this girl was a tool.

A being who defined herself as such despite having self-awareness.

A being who realized the conclusion humanity will reach, and thus strives to fulfill that conclusion more faithfully than anyone.

Even if the result is extreme, I couldn’t deny this girl’s words either.

Didn’t even the greatest scientist who actually existed in the previous world say?

If a 4th World War occurs after the end of the 3rd World War that will happen after nuclear weapons are made, that fight will start with stones and sticks.

“So, die……”

-Spark!!

Blue lightning begins to concentrate in her clasped hands.

“Die, human.”

What will spread from its end is a wave composed of powerful energy.

It is the ‘salvation’ that this girl will bestow upon those she faces.

-Boom!!!!

The main cannon destroys everything it passes through, and eventually pierces even the wall behind me, extending outside the tower.

The commotion is big but there’s no damage as there are no buildings comparable to this floor’s height…

But such luck can’t be expected in the future.

-Boom!!

So I knock her down with the maximum allowed speed.

-Bang bang bang!!

Repeatedly jumping while kicking off the collapsed debris.

Then, when her head lowered to the sky as if tracking me, the elasticity of bandages spread in all directions sharply twisted my body’s trajectory.

The moment my body, which had distanced, quickly closed the gap.

“Don’t resent me too much.”

The girl noticed it when my hand was thrust into the crack in her chest that had barely healed with iron sand.

“There’s no need to insist on a head-on battle when this isn’t even a sport.”

Heart extraction.

It’s a technique I rarely use.

I only use this technique when I feel, without empty words, that I have no choice but to kill the opponent.

“Wh-What…. Ack!!”

The girl’s eyes widened greatly when she saw what was pulled out by my hand.

What’s gripped in my hand is a sphere generating blue lightning in abundance. It’s this girl’s power core, and could be called the crystallization of her endless power.

In the game, the orthodox strategy was to accumulate damage to an unbearable degree, destroying the body beyond regenerative power.

But in reality where there’s no concept of HP and you die just by piercing vital points, there’s no need to be faithful to such things.

“…Ah, no.”

Yes, at this moment the girl must have realized too.

That if this core is taken away, it’s over for her.

“No. This, can’t be…!!”

She can no longer continue living.

She can no longer achieve what she pursues.

-Spark!!!

As if responding to that will, the iron sand connected to the core jumps violently while sparks fly fiercely from the core gripped in my hand.

At the moment when severe burns occur on the hand holding the core.

If it wasn’t reinforced with mana, it would have turned to ashes the moment I gripped it.

“I, disappear. That, can’t be…”

But coincidentally, it’s not just this girl who’s desperate.

Once I realized persuasion itself wouldn’t work, I couldn’t drag out the fight any longer either.

-Crackle!

As the temperature rapidly drops from the hand accepting that will, frost begins to form on the back of that hand.

The medical technique Ice Cradle.

This hand, which has taken away heat to the limit, makes it possible to withstand even substances emitting thousands of degrees of heat with bare hands.

-Crunch!!

As the core is completely taken away by my hand, the girl’s body begins to plummet to the floor.

“Ugh, ah…”

Is it painful?

No, there shouldn’t be any sensory points. If she felt pain, she couldn’t have rampaged like that in the game.

But the absence of pain doesn’t mean the absence of self-awareness.

“Give it back……”

Even at this moment, strength is disappearing from the girl’s body.

The energy maintaining self-awareness is disappearing.

“Give it baaaaack!!!!!!!”

This current anguished cry stems from the last struggle before self-awareness disappears.

-Boom!!!!

A fierce wave of power spreads along with that scream.

Unstable rampaging mana spreads around, collapsing everything the wave touches.

The scene where the clock tower parts that were barely maintaining balance collapse one by one.

In this scene like a disaster, the only way to escape for now is to move upwards.

-Crash, boom!

Huge parts.

Even as everything making up this space falls one by one, the girl was approaching to pursue me.

Even as her body collides with collapsing debris, creaking or shattering and bursting into fragments all over.

Directing only mad obsession towards me.

“Little girl.”

I asked while engraving that desperate yet pitiful appearance in my eyes.

“Why exactly are you fighting?”

“Because, I was… made that way!!!”

The answer came immediately.

At the same time, the distance closed rapidly…

No, my speed slowed momentarily as I couldn’t find footing.

“…Is it your will that you were made?”

But the questions don’t stop.

Because I was that curious.

Whether this girl’s desperation was truly her own will.

“No… it’s not.”

The girl denies that question.

That her birth alone was not what she wanted.

“But I was made. So I follow. For humans… that is my reason for existence…”

“…Hehe, following because you were made.”

What truly ridiculous words.

Having self-awareness means you exist on your own and can act on your own.

Is it even remotely possible that just because someone created you, you must follow someone else’s orders?

“Yes, we’re the same.”

But ironically, I was feeling sympathy for such a girl.

“We too.”

If humans too cannot lead their own lives by their own will…

“No human was born into this kind of world because they wanted to either.”

Just following others’ words…

We would be nothing more than tools with self-awareness.