episode_0289

In the burning dawn sea, we tried to evacuate the professor by putting him in a drum. This was because monsters that had already climbed onto the shore were rampaging wildly.

When they pointed to the precarious-looking drum, the professor shouted as if dumbfounded.

“Come on, Professor! Get in!”

“You! What are you doing?!”

“I told you your university sent us to rescue you! Don’t educated people know something like that? Get in quickly!”

Brushing away her wet hair that clung to her face, Professor Bernike vented her irritation.

There was no need to worry about hypothermia. She was wearing a wetsuit, acquired from who knew where.

“This is truly absurd. You want me to ride in a rusty drum like this? It won’t even last a minute before plunging to the seafloor. You ignorant fools. Shouldn’t you have brought a boat? Surely, you’re not going to say you swam all the way here in a drum?”

“Well, not exactly… Oh, right.”

“Ugh, how foolish… Alright, fine. Just get me on a boat quickly.”

Come to think of it, we had the navy. If we called any fishing boat or patrol boat nearby, it would come.

*“Navy! Send a boat to this location, anyone!”*

Soon, a fishing boat approached. The professor, helped aboard, squeezed the water from her hair and gulped down the water we offered.

As the fishing boat moved away from the island, and the professor had composed herself a bit, we began our questions.

“Professor, what is that monster? I know it’s a sea monster, but why did it emerge?”

The Violets asked, watching the monsters approaching the island.

After emptying an entire bottle of water, the professor chuckled and whispered. Her demeanor was like that of a mischievous middle schooler.

“Why did the monster emerge? Because I made it go berserk.”

“Berserk? What do you mean?”

At the unexpected words, I asked, bewildered. I had seen the doctor performing some kind of work in the lab, but surely that wasn’t a way to control monsters?

“Those idiots tried to use this marvelous brain just to make toy controllers. However, you can’t cage a dragon. Moreover, how could barbarians wielding guns and swords possibly confine the greatest intellect in Rustroom, one who possesses both talent and beauty? There was nothing better than a bottle of neurostimulant to mess with that Colonel.”

“Oh, I see…”

The professor’s confident demeanor left me dumbfounded.

When I asked if she had perhaps controlled the monster to escape, her answer was a sight to behold.

“Control? Do you think perfectly controlling a monster is child’s play? Because of the magic power flowing at a cellular level, a general brain-computer interface application is impossible! Even if you implant artificial nerves from the Laplaciana Foundation, it takes three months for complete control. What I did, strictly speaking, isn’t control. I just gave it a neural stimulus. It’s just like the remote-controlled cockroach experiments our first-year freshmen do.”

“Remote-controlled cockroaches? They make you do that in college?”

“It’s a recreational activity for the naive freshmen who just entered, from the Cognitive Neuroscience Department. Anyway, can forcibly moving a living insect by giving electric stimulation to its antennae and nerves be called proper ‘control’? Can dragging something by its collar be called an autonomous walking activity? It’s similar. I just gave electric stimulation to its nerves to make it go berserk.”

“Uh… I don’t get it!”

“Don’t overthink it, I wasn’t expecting you to understand, Mercenary.”

As we tilted our heads, failing to understand, she laughed derisively.

For some reason, I felt offended.

*“Wait, that monster is currently rampaging like crazy after landing on the beach.”*

“But stimulation? Wait, how long will it keep doing that?”

Bernike’s yellow eyes, reflecting the flames on the island and sea, gleamed like a snake’s.

“For now, I administered dozens of liters of hyperdrenaline-type stimulants and acceleron neurotransmitters to its auxiliary brain. Just before escaping, I overloaded the control bio-circuit connected to its main brain and spinal cord. Most likely, the Paronodon’s brain is suffering from excessive stimulation.”

Professor Bernike, for some reason finding it amusing, continuously let out malicious laughter.

“Its state is like… an anger-management patient who overdosed on drugs, came home, and witnessed their best friend cheating with their lover. Haha!”

“Could you explain that in a way we can understand?”

“I even explained it simply enough for a mercenary to understand… Tsk, tsk, fine. To put it simply, it will fight until it dies.”

No sooner had she said that, than the Violet Navy ships that had been drawing the attention of the navy hastily fled.

The Violets on land had already taken refuge far from the coast as soon as they saw the monster, but the confused navy frantically struggled to stop the monster.

Just looking at the radio network, it was a mess.

*“Monster! Oh my god! Code Eta! Code Eta! It’s the Paronodon!”*

*“Damn it! Look at that! It’s armored! It’s clearly been modified!”*

*“Those damn Air Force bastards! Did they modify the monster so they could control it and then release it?!”*

Bernike, eavesdropping on the radio communications, chuckled.

This scene was relayed exactly as it was to the Superintendent, who was flying in on a jet through the radio.

“Superintendent! Did you hear? The operation is over. The professor released the monster.”

As soon as the radio transmission from Violet finished, the Superintendent, in a rare display, frowned and pressed his right hand to his forehead as if devastated.

“This is driving me crazy, Professor Bernike, you really are something else…”

Seijis sighed and muttered. The Paronodon had already overturned the warships anchored there and was destroying the pier.

The navy unexpectedly found themselves starring in a monster movie.

Their role was that of an army being annihilated by a giant monster.

*“Heavy weapons! Where are the heavy weapons? The helicopters? Where on earth is the hunter team?!”*

The scream of an unnamed soldier echoed through the radio network. Unfortunately, there was no way such things existed. Because we had destroyed them all.

All that remained was to fight fire with fire and watch the spectacle. As the Violets watched the battle for a while, staggering soldiers who appeared to be officers came into view.

The familiar figure at the front.

*“…It’s the regional commander. He’s currently heading your way with the assault team. We will subdue that monster!”*

It was Colonel Kurt.

For some reason, he was covered in blood and a complete mess; it seemed he was injured. Officers carrying large bags followed behind him, all looking like hunters.

Well, I don’t know what a great fighter a colonel might be, but it didn’t seem like he could single-handedly defeat that whale-sized monster, swinging dozens of tentacles.

The outcome was already decided.

“I think we should just leave it! We won anyway, so let’s just evacuate the people and go!”

The Superintendent immediately objected to my words.

“We can’t do that. We went there to occupy that island, didn’t we? Have you forgotten that the alliance needs to enter and secure the island? We also need to consider the possibility that the monster, having destroyed the naval base, might turn its attention to the miners.”

“Oh, right…”

Hearing the valid point, I felt deflated. Thinking it over, I realized I had taken it too simply. To think we had to defeat that giant monster.

“I’ll try to catch it somehow…”

“No need for that. I’ll arrive soon, so leave it to me. I just need fire support. I’ll handle the monster.”

“Understood!”

Three minutes later, we could hear the sharp jet engine roar characteristic of a Falchion.

**

Colonel Kurt staggered forward with his officers. Before them stood their subordinates struggling and resisting, and the monster, swinging its tentacles and firing beams of light.

“Damn it! Damn that bitch professor! We shouldn’t have used her. We should have just kept her imprisoned as agreed, or even better, killed her! Then we would have received slow support from the corporation!”

“That’s right! Didn’t they say they’d give us support if we just kept her imprisoned there? There was no need to specifically ask for more equipment!”

His subordinates muttered in furious voices. The Colonel, his left arm tightly bound, slowly opened his mouth.

“Can we trust that one? Such a shallow and impulsive person is not trustworthy. Moreover, that professor was a far more cunning woman. It’s our fault for not monitoring her properly.”

It was a mistake. Though they had taken the request from the corporation as a golden opportunity, the cunning professor devised a scheme when they let their guard down.

By the time he sensed something strange and ran to stop her himself, it was already too late, and Bernike made the monster go berserk, injuring him and causing numerous casualties.

The moment she calmly disappeared into the water, riding on the monster’s back, the Colonel’s ambition to subdue the terror of the deep sea and become the ruler of the ocean vanished like foam.

“Still… we can start again… we must…”

“No, it ends here.”

Colonel Kurt, who had been muttering with vacant eyes, snapped his eyes open.

A man in a suit, whom he had never seen before, stood holding a crossbow and a one-handed sword.

He instinctively knew that man was an intruder.

The Colonel, about to give an order, felt that his subordinates’ reactions were unusually quiet.

When he turned around, he was standing alone. Everyone else had fallen, bolts embedded in their heads.

“How?”

Seijis didn’t feel the need to answer.

So the Colonel found a sword plunged into his chest as he tried to continue speaking. The Superintendent, with faint annoyance, revealed a past that had vanished beyond time.

“The terror of the deep sea, you thought you could subdue it with your paltry schemes? That monster?”

“How did you find that out…”

“Too many have been hurt by your vain ambition. Your delusion ends here.”

“!”

The Colonel’s neck was severed. His head, even in its last rolling moment on the ground, did not cease questioning.

Seijis turned, and blocked the Paronodon, which was heading elsewhere on the pier.

This monster, a blend of a whale, an octopus, and a legendary dragon, seemed to have undergone some modification, as its head and main body parts were covered in jet-black Gigasteel armor plates.

Indeed, the Colonel was repeating his mad actions, just as remembered.

*’How much sweat I poured fighting that monster with Adela…’*

Instead of immediately drawing his sword and charging, the Superintendent decided to fulfill what the Violets expected.

“Violets, I need fire support. Something very big.”

“Understood!”

Before the radio communication from Violet had even finished, two biplane transport aircraft appeared high above the naval base in the distance.

As the rear ramp opened, a metal cylinder, looking like an enlarged drum, fell from the sky.

The barrel bomb, filled with about a ton of explosives and shrapnel, was as savage as its appearance, but its precision as it swayed and flew towards the target could not be ignored.

The Violet guidance device attached to the top of the bomb continuously steered its wings, advancing towards the target.

Bang! Boom!

Intense explosions erupted successively on its body. As the shockwaves struck the Paronodon’s body, the magic power enveloping its skin fiercely repelled them, creating flashes of light.

Though it didn’t sustain fatal injuries, the impact to its head must have been considerable, as the Paronodon writhed in pain and stumbled.

Some of the armor attached to the monster’s body clattered off. Immediately after, Seijis charged like lightning.

Swish! Twang!

A volley of bolts, infused with furious magic, pierced the eyes densely packed on its head.

As its vision vanished with the explosions, the monster shrieked and wildly swung its pillar-thick tentacles.

The spot where the bolts struck was devastated, but the target had already dodged. Seijis moved quickly around the monster.

Flying sword energy mercilessly cut down its tentacles.

Soon, a hand reached upwards, the crossbow vanished, and an axe with strange patterns appeared in the air.

Whoosh!

The figure vanished in the instant Raihax Hybern Form 1 was unleashed. The monster, looking around with its intact eyes, had to witness the hateful human striking its tail.

Thump!

“Aargh!”

Its auxiliary brain, reinforced with armor, was shattered. Its previously functional tentacles limply drooped, and the monster’s movements became sluggish. The monster thrashed, trying to shake off its foe. As the Superintendent landed, turning towards the sea, the monster, its mouth wide open, came into his view.

Rumble!

Again, a massive shield was summoned from the air. The shield and the beam of light collided, and streams of light, splitting into two, swept across the sea.

From the boat that had departed with the professor, they could see Violets who had been observing the battle nearby being swept away by the aftermath and evaporating.

Seijis deflected the immense pressure transmitted through the shield, then leaped into the air.

The shallow intelligence of the monster, consumed by rage, sensed danger.

With desperate movements, it barely managed to move its remaining tentacles and struck at the air.

It was futile. Seijis used a tentacle as a stepping stone in mid-air and charged directly over its head.

Raihax Hybern Form 5, a flawless throwing technique manifested in an instant.

The axe, leaving his hand, rotated in an arc. The axe cleverly avoided the tentacles.

Thud!

The axe split the monster’s skull and crushed its brain.

The trembling axe flew backward as if defying time, returning to its master’s hand.

The Paronodon’s massive body convulsed as if electrocuted, then died on the spot.

A silence then fell.

The Violets simultaneously let out cheers.

“Whooaaah!”

“Victory!”

“A guardian of the sea has been born!”

The Violets rushed towards the Superintendent, who was calmly wiping blood from his body.

“What, what are you doing?”

“One, two!”

Celebrating their victory, the Violets lifted the Superintendent high.

**

After the battle, the Violets collected their spoils.

*“Guns! Ammunition!”*

First, they collected the vast amounts of weapons and ammunition from the armory, and emptied the headquarters’ safe of anything valuable.

The money earned here would be used as compensation for the enslaved miners.

Since there were so many spoils, money was not an issue.

*“There’s an armored vehicle here. Now if we drive this around…”*

*“Hey! Who cares about an armored vehicle? Look at this! It’s a robot!”*

Violets lined up in front of a miraculously surviving walker. This was to try sitting in the cockpit one by one.

They had ridden all sorts of vehicles, but this was their first time riding a walking robot.

Since it also had cannons and machine guns, it would probably be quite useful.

*“Let’s pick up the cannonballs too. It should be fine if we just take the gunpowder, right?”*

Since they had raided a military base, there was no end to what they could pick up.

Even if they just raided the food storage, there was a heap of food.

Already, their minds were full of thoughts of roasting a whole barbecue.

“Move it, quickly!”

“Ugh…”

As they captured and sorted the surviving prisoners, and worked on clearing the debris, ships approached from beyond the horizon.

It was the Allied fleet. There were warships, and it was quite large.

Airships could be seen flying in the sky.

*“That, that emblem looks familiar…”*

The lion emblem on the airship was very familiar.

As I fumbled through the network to recall the memory, the Superintendent urgently called out to us.

“The Alliance is coming. Let’s go greet them.”

“Huh? Understood.”

As I looked at the approaching airship, the emblem became clearer. I remember now. The identity of the Allied forces was…

“The Cascadia family?”

No, they were people we knew. Why didn’t he say anything?

“But Superintendent, why didn’t you say anything? Isn’t Adela unnie someone we know?”

Only then did I notice a playful smile faintly appearing on the Superintendent’s impassive lips.

“I told you that someone you know would be coming. Adela is coming, but the one arriving here today will be someone you’ve never met before.”

“Someone I’ve never met before?”

“A very important person. That person is…”

While listening to the Superintendent’s explanation, heavily armed airships slowly landed at the maintenance hangar where they had finished their preparations. Their scale was immense.

The anti-gravity engines slowly faded, slowing down, then deployed their landing gear and descended silently to the ground.

As soon as the ramp opened, hunters armed with full plate armor and Adela unnie walked out.

“Unnie!”

“It’s the Student Council President!”

Thinking about it now, I wonder if we’re giving the mine as a gift to Adela unnie.

A bright smile spread across Adela unnie’s face when she saw us.

I was about to run up to be praised, but the Superintendent stopped me. It was as if he was saying we shouldn’t go because the most important person hadn’t arrived yet.

And then, a dignified-looking man descended next, accompanied by his attendants.

As unnie’s smiling expression instantly turned solemn, we instinctively knew who that important person was.

Because the Superintendent had told us.

“Is that the person?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The first true magnate from a prestigious family we had seen since Cordo.

*“It’s Adela unnie’s father!”*

The descendant of an old prestigious noble family, Grand Duke Alister of the Cascadia family, approached us.

“So you are the Violets my daughter spoke of.”

No sooner had he finished speaking, than all the Violet brigade members shouted.

“It’s the Duke!”

“Hello! Unnie’s Dad!”

“Whooaaah!”

As soon as they greeted him, everyone except for me, the Duke, and the Superintendent flinched in shock.

I don’t know what the problem was.