Volume 7, 3: A Transparent New Continent, An Opaque Villain

Volume 7, Chapter 3: A Transparent New Continent, An Opaque Villain

Part 1

“Still, I think it must have been quite a shock for the lady as well. She just doesn’t let it show much.”

The Detached Magic Palace had a luxurious courtyard for being in Roppongi, Tokyo, and Misoka, the middle maid sister, was currently speaking there.

“Call it a new land or a new continent if you want, but it’s made a real mess of the power balance in that world, right? Earth problems can’t be solved using the island’s rules any longer. She has to start from scratch in coming up ways to prevent runaway technology like disseminated weapons that use program-controlled nanotech or 235 centrifuge parallel processors that can make the concentration of element #92 much more reasonable.”

The Detached Magical Palace and everything inside it generally belonged to the girl, so the maids were not free to do with it what they wanted. They had to look after things because the red dress girl would not say anything herself, but they were technically borrowing even their personal rooms. So Misoka was lying on a sheet placed directly on the grass instead of inside the gazebo.

Iroka, the eldest sister with glasses and a mole below the eye, sat elegantly on the same sheet. She was the capable sort of maid who kept her posture straight even when her master was not watching.

“The officials of the five great regional cities are requesting to inspect our Detached Magic Palace. Every city must want to create similar a place to strengthen their own forces in response to the changing environment in the other world.”

“Those would be actual government workers, right? They would just bring back Pieces and spread them around like the bureaucrats and politicians want them to. That only makes more enemies for the lady. It’d be chaos.”

“If anything, the miss is the odd one out for viewing the big picture and striking at any openings to prevent dangerous technological development.”

“Isn’t this all about to fall apart? If the five great regional cities start competing to be the next capital city, they’ll start a proxy war in the other world.”

“More than that, we just don’t have the strength to build four or five facilities on the level of the Detached Magic Palace. They keep kicking the can down the road by issuing government bonds, but that isn’t going to work much longer. It hurts that they couldn’t crack down on virtual currencies and online advertising as simple revenue sources. The Pieces have caused the value of the country to plummet, so the related countries’ investment banks only keep Japanese bonds as the price of doing business with us and the actual investors won’t touch the stuff.”

“What if they forcibly take the budget they need by treating it like an investment that’s guaranteed to pay off? All the public funding for Ground’s Nir countermeasures decided on after the Tselika Panic has gone right down the drain, so what if that happens four or five times at once? Plus, if those facilities don’t have the lady in them, they won’t see any success exploring the Labyrinth. When those regional cities can’t get their money back, the economic shock will bring down the entire national economy.”

“What is your point?”

“Why not get out while the getting is good? Remember our idea of making the Detached Magic Palace the world’s smallest country?”

Misoka pointed over while lying on the sheet and a tremor erupted from that point. The warm sun must have reached Haruka, the youngest sister, because she opened her mouth wide while lying on her back.

“Zgh, zghhhhhhhhh! Ugh, mumble, mumble…”

“That’s just normal snoring for her, isn’t it? Not sleep whatever-it’s-called?”

“You can tell just by looking at her she’s perfectly healthy. I’m jealous. And Haruka’s idea is not just a pipedream. I have created digital copies of all the necessary paperwork and submitted it to the necessary agencies and offices over fiber optic lines.”

“And yet I haven’t heard a peep about it. The Diet isn’t going to delay giving approval, eventually say it never went up for discussion due to a communication error, and then hope it just goes away, are they?”

“You are more of a worrier than I thought.”

“Only when it has to do with the lady.”

“That honesty and forthrightness is a skill I lack. Again, I am jealous. As a sign of respect, I will give you a serious answer.” Iroka quietly sighed while rubbing the head of the youngest sister who was making a noise like a powerful vacuum cleaner nozzle. “Simply put, it is being blocked. And quite powerfully at that.”

“We’re talking about 15% of the people’s tax money breaking away. Of course they want to stop it.”

“Yes. I knew it would not be easy and prepared some countermeasures in advance, but all of those were crushed as well. But instead of being done by force, it felt more like it was done by someone who exists outside the rules.”

“Like those Over the Wall people?”

“That I cannot say.”

Those at the peaks of Earth’s power structures worked behind the scenes while crossing every form of boundary: nation, race, language, religion, corporation, etc. But that was why they could seem involved in any misfortune or tragedy once you began to suspect them. Considering an enemy on that level without solid evidence would only trap you in your own invented delusions.

Bespectacled Iroka deftly sidestepped that uncertain area as she continued.

“At any rate, we have no future if we cannot pry open these floodgates. We will only continue to stagnate. There are still a set number of forces that wish to crush the Detached Magic Palace, so if we must fight and compete over our rights and budget, then those regional cities, the defense contractors, and even religious organizations will swoop in to steal everything from us”

“This sounds bad…”

“It is,” confirmed the oldest sister.

But she was a capable maid and that meant doing more than just obediently following her instructions.

“Now, I have an idea to share with you while Haruka sleeps. Would you be interested in causing some trouble on the outside with me?”

Part 2

“O-ohh… It’s shaking, it’s shaking. It’s moving, it’s moving.”

Beatrice spoke from atop the Next Voyager after leaving the island of Ground’s Nir. She held her arms out horizontally to keep her balance next to the pool on the large deck. The ghost ship’s appearance was quite worrying, but it helped a lot that they had Rusalka and Wildefrau’s mastery of the Wind and Ice Elements. They had little difficulty catching the wind on the multiple sails, similar to a clipper. They could control the wind’s direction, so they did not need to go through the rigging work that would take dozens of crewmembers.

The girl was more excited than necessary with her tattered gray cloak fluttering behind her, but that may have been because the unsteady footing brought back the memories of when she was on death’s door after her Shining Weapon was destroyed by the red electricity.

Meanwhile, on the poolside…

“This cow freaked us all out with her made up threat! The ship’s just fine and we wasted our time running around!! This moron was spreading fake news just for fun, but then she goes pale when it causes a panic!!”

“A-all I did was consider the dangers we might face and lay them out on the table. If you’re going to get after me for that, then I don’t think we’re anywhere near as safe as you think we are.”

“Shut up and stick your butt out this way! You played us for fools, so I’m going to spank the ass crammed into those tight shorts!!”

“See, we’re not safe at all!!”

Incidentally, the ship was fine because all of the holes had been plugged up with the all-purpose Diamond Salt that was used for bridges, homes, and weapons in the southern forest. The dogs and cats dressed as butlers and maids must have secretly been working to maintain it.

They were journeying to a new land, but it was still close enough to be visible from Ground’s Nir’s coast. Which was a good thing since Beatrice’s Party had to turn back and return to the island’s Gates before their time limit of a few days expired.

“S-squeal.”

Boo Boo nervously held onto the side deck railing.

He had taken a shortcut to the depths of the Labyrinth, entered the Underworld, climbed to the sun island, and more, but was he afraid of the ocean? Even though they had crossed a much-more-dangerous lava lake in Hermelina’s small metal boat?

He looked back the way they had come while holding onto the railing and keeping his feet planted on the deck.

“The island of Ground’s Nir looks so small already… Boo, can we really get back?”

“Don’t worry, Boo Boo. We haven’t been swept out to sea or anything.”

Beatrice placed a gently clenched fist over her mouth and giggled as she answered. Boo Boo apparently thought of this like being swept away inside a giant float. He had climbed to the heavens and arrived on the sun island before, but he apparently saw horizontal distances differently from vertical ones.

To reiterate, this voyage was only to another shore within viewing distance. Reefs were still a danger, but for the most part, they did not need to stare at a sea chart or compass for this.

Rusalka had climbed to the top of the mast in her leotard and armor and she formed a megaphone with her hands to shout down at the others.

“We’re almost there! Those of you with lots of firepower should be ready to fight back if necessary!!”

“Will do.”

“And ice girl! Your anchor can stop a ship moving this quickly, can’t it!? I’ll be sending in a headwind from the other side, but still!!”

Her voice sounded perfectly clear despite the distance, so she was probably using some kind of Wind Magic. …That meant the megaphone hands were unnecessary, but Huldra’s displays of femininity(?) may have been infectious.

“We’re finally there. Squeal, is the ancient Hero really here?”

“Don’t worry so much, Boo Boo. We might not have to fight right away.”

“I don’t know what kind of person they are, but I hope we can be friends. Boo, fighting is bad!”

That seemed unlikely, but Beatrice smiled and said nothing. Boo Boo was from Ground’s Nir, so he would not know what horrors the witch hunt referred to. And she wanted to keep it that way.

Everyone seemed to be needlessly worried today. While they went through the delicate procedure to approach the coast, they were not welcomed with a sudden cannon blast like Rusalka had feared.

“The cow’s cowardice has infected the rest of us.”

“Can’t someone do something about this bully of a police officer!? She’s disturbing the peace here and making false accusations like she’s part of the secret police or something!”

Wildefrau, who hid the important bits with a cross sword and the rest with belts, created a weight out of ice and Rusalka, who wore a skintight leotard with thick armor and boots added on, sent a wind back against them to slowly but surely decelerate the Next Voyager as it arrived on the new continent’s coast.

Beatrice looked back at the cross sword nudist who was lying on one of the beach chairs.

“Wildefrau, will that ice anchor last? If possible, I also want you to make a vine or rope out of ice and tie the ship to land. Having it drift away would be about the worst thing that could happen.”

“That’s fine, but don’t you want multiple sources for your safety net? If something happens to me, the ship would drift away and you would all be dead.”

That problem was solved by Huldra sprinkling the contents of the jewel she wore (which was actually a small bottle of colorful potion). Something plasticky swelled out, surrounded the stern of the ship, and acted as a giant weight.

Huldra shined in the light of a pink magic circle that opened in the space in front of her wrists.

“Phew. I finally got to do something Alchemist-y.”

“That’s not metal you’re using, though.”

Hermelina, who was fighting her away along the path of moe with a flat boob window, made that exasperated comment while transforming her Shining Weapon into a metal ladder. They would use that to disembark, but the ones confident in their physical enhancements could just jump down from the side deck.

Gruagach, whose long blonde braid was wrapped in a circle behind her, looked down at the deck floor.

“We can have Kallikantzaros look after the ship, so I seriously doubt anyone will be able to mess with it. We should be going.”

“Have her? You really are the Summoner type, aren’t you? You talk big when it comes to monsters and creatures.”

By the time Hermelina had finished speaking, Boo Boo and Beatrice had already jumped from the side deck to the ground nine meters below. Boo Boo looked around after easily landing.

It was white.

No, the transparent ground may have been reflecting the sunlight. The ground felt like thick glass below his feet and there was no sign of any animals or even plants.

“Boo… This is kind of scary. I can’t find any animal tracks. If I was left here, I would be so hungry.”

“We did load the ship up with food and water, but ugh. This really is an unimaginable scene.”

The pig and cow that loved to eat were equally dejected by the sight. The land was made of the same glass substance as the artificial atmospheric barrier, so it was not exactly a good environment for the living creatures that encyclopedia lover would rejoice to find.

Hermelina created a thin chain with her Shining Weapon and called up a rectangular frame made of a bubble film.

“Okay, everyone, let’s sync our clocks. To give ourselves some extra time to get safely back to the island, let’s only explore for two days this first time. We don’t want to get lost here, so always move around in groups of two or more. Be mindful of the weather too. The previous rules might not apply here, so don’t forget the basics.”

That said, walking randomly around this continent had never been an option.

“Boo…”

Boo Boo held a hand over his eyes to shield against the sun and tried to see to the other side of the land.

“How far does it go? It doesn’t seem to end.”

Yes, it was a continent after all. This was very different from an island that only took three days to walk the perimeter. They did not know its actual area, so if they set off blindly, they might find themselves unable to return before the limit arrived. Even following the same path back could take longer due to exhaustion, the weight of what you were carrying, inclement weather, and more.

Having to find the Hero in this huge space would not be easy. They called it a new continent and new land, but its actual area was still unknown. Plus, it was possible the Hero was constantly moving around herself.

No one else was in his new area.

Was there anywhere left like that on Earth? They faced this virgin land which felt oddly lonely with no one there.

“Okay.”

Hermelina used her soft arms to hoist a handmade-looking flag. The flag was as tall as she was and she used her Screenshot function to take various photos of it from multiple angles. Shining Weapons had a huge amount of space, so she did not need to worry about filling it up.

“We’ll call this our landing point.”

Since the people in the inn town were still shouting and fighting over getting a boat, this was their chance. But Beatrice frowned.

“Hermelina, do the south pole expedition rules really apply in this world? A ton of humans will be here in all sorts of boats, right?”

“Did you not see the UN’s decision, Beatrice?”

“What kind of map-obsessed life do you have to live to find yourself on that site?”

“They said any surveying data of the new continent you bring back will be treated like a Piece. So whoever registers it first wins. Screenshots packed full of coordinate data are the greatest form of intellectual property right now. …Damn, if not for my job, I’d make a post on Nanskagram about making such a historic landing. Anyway, we need to explore. This won’t be done overnight. We’re gonna have to do this, head back, and come back here again. It’s going to be a long process.”

“Chief, what about setting up a new Gate?”

“Try requesting that from the higher ups and every last government official will start wanting one of their own and nothing will ever get done. I’ve arranged to have a full set of Cyrillic equipment sent to us via Okhotsk, so just wait a bit on that.”

“Ehh!? Are you sure that’s a good idea!?”

“The idea of Russian products being cheap is nothing but propaganda the West shoves into their movies. And by propaganda, I mean bullying done while pouting their lips. Just compare their assault rifles and you’ll see who really has the better tech. Same with tanks and fighters. The West is secretly terrified. All those flashy weapons shows are just a way of hiding it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m talking about morals and ethics since that sounds an awful lot like smuggling!”

“It’s too late to act like you’re the only virtuous one around here. Remember that caviar you were so delighted to eat the other day? Did you never stop think where I got that from? I served you a ridiculous feast of a caviar futomaki, so that stuff is part of your flesh and blood by now. You might as well give up.”

“You made me an unwitting accomplice!? A-are you the kind of courier that sticks a small plastic bag in a stranger’s pocket at the airport!?”

A large number of boats would soon be arriving at this new land.

…Which meant there would be competition over the landing points. It might seem like such a vast continent would have plenty of coast, but beaches could not be used since ships required a certain level of height at the coast, cliffs required the crew to climb up them, reefs hidden below the water were always a danger, and using the shortest route from island to continent would mean reduced transportation costs, etc., etc. In the end, there would be a limited number of prime locations. That was why Beatrice’s Party had been in such a hurry to get their ship out here. Once the place was as crowded as the beach during the summer, there would nowhere left to land. And since they had to go to and from the continent every few days, having to pay gears to someone else to use their landing spot each time would add up quickly. So they needed to secure the prime spot before anyone else arrived, spread their wings, and construct a solid base of activity.

Most of the others were unaware of the Hero’s presence. Given what she had done in the past, her technology was probably equal to or greater than the Sage’s. If she was still alive like Abyss claimed and she took hostile action against other lifeforms, the inn town humans who arrived as if sightseeing might end up slaughtered every time they Encountered her.

Even in this Party, Wildefrau, Huldra, Gruagach, and Rusalka seemed less worried just because they had not gone to the sun island.

Only Boo Boo, Beatrice, and the others who had gone to the sun island and seen the trace residual thoughts of the Hero could accurately recognize the threat.

“Beatrice, Philinnion, you two take additional screenshots to prove we were here first. We can register them like Pieces if we bring them back with us, so it can’t hurt,” explained Hermelina. “Huldra and Gruagach are too close to the organization for that. Of course, everything about this will change if we can build a Gate on this continent.”

Boo Boo brought a hand to his mouth.

“Squeal. But can we really find the Hero in such a big place? It feels like a never-ending game of hide-and-seek to me.”

“Well, it certainly won’t work if we try doing it all by foot. We can’t just place Gates all over the place, so for now the name of the game is claiming some territory for ourselves.”

“?”

“Okay, you take care of the first step, Gruagach. Work hard.”

The slit-robed young woman waved lazily and the mourning clothes girl stepped forward. She held a Shining Weapon made by attaching close-range blades on either end of a stabilizer-equipped bow. Boo Boo tilted his head as a few magic circles appeared along the path out from Gruagach’s right eye and then she loosed an arrow into the birdless sky.

Although the arrow itself might as well have been a bird.

It started in the expected parabolic arc, but then it did not fall back down.

White wings burst out from the center of the shaft to beat at the air and it circled above their heads like a bird of prey searching for that prey.

After loosing a few more arrows, Gruagach explained without looking back.

“Filling in the map would take a century of work if we tried to do it on foot, so I am using their eyes and ears to simplify the process as much as possible.”

“Squeal?”

“Hee hee. The key to modern military success is time saving and efficiency.”

She smiled elegantly while bespectacled Philinnion and twintailed Huldra crouched down at her feet and started working on something. The butt of the White Witch’s shorts strained and she gave a troubled look while a yellow magic circle shined from her first-aid kit and she mixed the bottom of a test tube full of a potion.

“Hm. Still green. It isn’t turning yellow or blue.”

“That means it’s neutral,” said Huldra. “We still have to test for a few major categories of toxins, but if the ground really is just glass, we might be in luck. If it hasn’t been altered with some weird chemical substance like fluorescent lights or lead glass, we can use this. If there’s no drainage, the rainwater has nowhere to escape. It looks empty now, but there will be large water jugs all over the place before long.”

Hermelina, the woman with slits all over her robe, could not let that one slide.

“Hold on, Huldra! Are you telling us to crawl on the ground and drink from random puddles!?”

“Why are you savages like this? Even the water from your tap was originally rainwater, you know?”

“Ugh, th-that may be true, but the mineral water in bottles and water coolers comes from the Alps or wherever, so it’s nice and clean!”

“You think it’s cleansed by traveling through the wonders of nature such as rotting leaves, animal droppings, and worm carcasses? It’s on a bigger scale, but it’s the same basic idea as a homemade filter made by filling a metal drum with sand, pebbles, and activated charcoal.”

Hermelina held her mouth and gagged, although it was unclear if that counted as being pure or filthy. This might sound like a silly conversation, but these food zen dialogues could send some more impressionable people down the path of never touching artificial ingredients or of eating exclusively organic vegetables.

Since the drones were handling the basic search, Hermelina used her spare time to cut away squares of the thick transparent ground and stacked them up in a dome. Anyone with Earth knowledge might have compared it to an Inuit structure.

Wildefrau frowned.

“What are you doing? If we need shelter, can’t we return to the ship?”

“This is insurance for when we register the Pieces on Earth. A single flag might not be accepted as a base, so it needs to look the part even if it’s meaningless. I want to create a few of these so we can show off a proper ‘base’. If possible, I’d like to build a few lighthouse-like things around the base.”

“Lighthouses?”

“If that’s too much work, some colorful smoke signals would work. It just has to act as a landmark. Once it becomes a social gear that people rely on, they won’t be able to eliminate it so easily.”

“Ha ha ha. You’re turning into one of those arms dealers who controls a local supermarket or hospital, chief. You could win an election in Eastern Europe or Central or South America.”

“Oh, are you enjoying this, Huldra? Seeing that grin on your face makes me feel so happy and peaceful. I’ll have to think back on this when your next pay assessment comes up, so I hope you’re ready.”

“Gyahh!?”

The pink-twintailed girl screamed like an office worker in trouble, but did that mean they were not actually government workers with a stable salary? Beatrice’s external perspective made it hard to tell how much their cover story as a PI office affected their finances. Not that she knew what things were like for a normal private investigator either.

The Holy Swordswoman carrying that log or steel beam of a Shining Weapon sighed half in resignation and half in exasperation as her tattered gray cloak fluttered and she looked up at the blue sky.

“So we use drones for recon in this world too now, huh?”

“Unlike the Labyrinth, this is a wide open space, so this is sure to become mainstream. I mean, the field is just too large to do it with normal manpower.”

“So everyone will be trying to claim as much territory as they can, will they?”

“It doesn’t have to be from the sky. You could set up a tripod somewhere with a good view and gather audio or video in all 360 degrees or you could attach a giant suction cup to the hard ground and check for body heat or the slight vibrations of footsteps. Each action will fill in more of this wide area and it will all join together to create a map of this continent. It’s like completing a jigsaw puzzle one piece at a time.”

“I get the feeling the drones are going to start fighting each other before long.”

“That’s called a smart war, Beatrice. We’re going to be busy. We’re looking at an age where data goes up for auction just like wine and paintings.”

This was difficult to understand for someone born in Ground’s Nir, so the nearly-4m pig-faced giant tilted his head.

“What should I do?”

“We’re claiming territory, remember? Build igloos like this in the places Gruagach has already checked. We’ll connect the dots to create a single route for ourselves. If we bring the survey data back to Earth and register it as Pieces, that road will belong to us.”

…Of course, if they forced people to pay too exorbitant a toll, the other humans would just develop the rest of the land and make their own roads instead.

At times like this, it meant a lot to have someone as powerful as Boo Boo. And he already had enough skill to fold large leaves into something like a tent.

“Squea, squea, squea. Squeal, squeal.”

Every three or four hundred meters, they built a glass igloo. Beatrice used lines of heat to cut chunks out of the thick glass ground and Boo Boo stacked them up with his hands. Even with their Magical reinforcements, the work was as hard as packing up to move for the humans, but since the nearly-4m giant could lift the fridge-sized masses with a single hand, it was as simple as stacking building blocks for him. As a finishing touch, he would place a flag at the top of the dome.

“Squeal, now this is mine!”

He likely did not understand the situation back on Earth, but he seemed to be enjoying himself.

When the sun began to set and the scenery started growing orange, Gruagach raised her head with her eyes shut. She had received some information from the winged arrows circling overhead.

“It seems some of the others have landed a ship on the continent’s coast. They are 2500 meters north of our landing point and there appear to be more than 80 of them. The details are still unknown, but that size suggests a Guild.”

“It’s too late for them now. This region is already covered with our flags.”

Beatrice’s Party had shown some kindness by not spreading their territory along the coast.

“Boo Boo, that’s enough for today. Let’s return to the ship.”

“But, Beatrice, I can keep going.”

“The environment changes at night. If you miss a giant fissure in the ground, you could end up falling into the pit.”

Gruagach’s winged arrows were convenient, but they only provided general information. This illusion was most well-known from the largest salt lake on Earth, but when the ground was entirely white, it was extremely difficult to judge distances and notice details. Trusting too much in that bird’s-eye-view information would be dangerous.

They had used a glowing lichen to fill the glass igloos with light without using fire. If they followed those points, they would not get lost on the way back even if it got dark. With Beatrice’s flames illuminating the way ahead, they would be even safer.

However…

“Urgh…”

Boo Boo’s breath grew white. Beatrice used Magic fire to light the hair rising from her head like an antenna and she held the tattered cloak together to cover her body.

“So we’re faced with the unexpected already… Oh, I get it. This glass ground can’t store heat, so it’s a lot like the desert at night.”

“What does that mean?”

“There’s a drastic temperature difference between day and night. We were right to head back to the ship early, Boo Boo. Let’s eat something hot once we arrive.”

“Squeal, it feels weird to eat when I haven’t been hunting. I just hope nothing bad happens to me for taking it easy.”

Someone entirely self-sufficient viewed things differently.

By the time they arrived back at the Next Voyager on the coast, the sun had entirely set. It was truly frigid. The only one handling it without any difficulty was Ice Waterfall Princess Wildefrau who had the most skin showing. That exhibitionist wearing only a cross sword and belts was an extreme exception since she could use her 100% Water Resistance to soak up to the shoulders in a bath of liquid nitrogen.

And once darkness enveloped their surroundings and the moon came out, the blonde girl in a red negligee emerged from her coffin at the bottom of the ship.

“Yawn… More puny humans are arriving. Now, tell me how much progress you made. I imagine it was all wasted effort, so you can give it some slight meaning by telling me a story to pass the time.”

“Cow, are there any herbs in this world that work like garlic? I don’t care if it’s a soup, a meat dish, or garlic rice - shove as much of it as you can in tonight’s dinner!”

“I am not going along with a plan so self-destructive for a girl.”

The humans were normally focused on exploring the Labyrinth, so they would learn some simple outdoor cooking skills whether they wanted to or not. Those like Beatrice who could not cook at all and relied on simple solid foods were rare. She was often accused of lacking femininity there.

But tonight’s dinner was being cooked by…

“Ugh… This was supposed to a dream come true where anyone but Boo Boo cooking the food meant I got to eat a girl’s cooking, so why do I have to do it, chief!?”

“Because you’re the best cook among us, Huldra.”

This overturned the common association of cooking with femininity, but at the very least, they were not going to end up with a scorched mystery dish or a boiling purple sludge.

Boo Boo let out a white breath as he looked up at the stars filling the night sky.

“Boo. I hope the other humans aren’t having too much trouble.”

“Don’t worry, Boo Boo. These are the people who are always heading down into the Labyrinth and deciding whether they should continue on or head back. I doubt they’ll choose wrong when it comes to that.”

And they would have needed a certain amount of power to end up on top and win a boat at the inn town. At the very least, it was unlikely a Party of only rookies would make it to the new continent.

“Squeal. But can we really get to sleep when it’s so cold?”

“Hm? Won’t we be fine inside the Next Voyager?”

“We’re talking about a ghost ship full of drafts, plus it’s as wide open and deserted as a school at night. Hm, maybe it would be best to gather in a single room to keep our heat together.”

The suspenders cow held her shoulders, squishing her boobs in the process, but then someone’s eyes lit up as they licked their lips.

“This is my chance! Yes, gather around everyone and don’t be shy! We need to stay as close together as possible to preserve our warmth!!”

“Huldra, you’re sleeping outside. Outside the ship. Why? Because you’re gross.”

“Don’t be surprised when you wake up to find a pillar of ice outside!! Wahhhhh!!”

Part 3

Once outside, things were not that bad.

The girl that the Detached Magic Palace had been built for was one thing, but the maid sisters were not restricted from coming and going. They frequently visited Tokyo for their daily shopping, so they were not particularly excited about being there this night.

Second Sister Misoka placed her hands behind her head as she walked below the streetlights.

“Are you sure about this? Isn’t this like treason against the state or something?”

“I have already submitted the necessary paperwork, so this is their fault for refusing to accept it without even providing a reason. Besides, our loyalties lie with the world’s smallest independent nation we are about to create, so Kasumigaseki and Ichigaya have no right to complain at this point.”

“That means Tokyo will be a foreign country, won’t it? Wow, I’ll need a passport to visit the convenience stores around here!”

Due to the city lights, the moon was the only visible light in the night sky.

Whether she was serious or not, Misoka chuckled before asking a question.

“So where are we headed?”

“Akasaka. We have business at the Ushigashira Shrine.”

The centers of Roppongi and Akasaka were less than two kilometers apart, but they still retrieved their mid-sized motorcycle from a monthly-payment parking lot they used under a fake name. Needless to say, this was insurance in case they ran into trouble and had to shake pursuit.

Misoka tossed a spare helmet to her older sister and continued the conversation.

“Well, now that we’re this far away, Haruka can’t chase after us even if she does wake up.”

“I hate how these helmets flatten my hair…”

With that, they drove straight to the Ushigashira Shrine which illuminated its building and trees with indirect lighting. They hid the motorcycle not too close and not too far before making a full circle around the shrine grounds on foot.

“I was expecting more security than this.”

“Nothing is more worthless than digital security that only runs at set times. Human security scares me the most since you cannot trick human eyes and they can make truly unpredictable random patrols.”

Misoka and Iroka moved swiftly as they spoke. The grounds were surrounded by a tall wall, but climbing over that was a simple task with two of them there. They quickly crossed that barrier and stepped onto the gravel garden. They avoided the komainu and sacred trees lit up from below and crouched low to run from shadow to shadow.

“We don’t get to use these techniques often. That training was a waste of time.”

“That just goes to show how much the miss is protecting us on a daily basis. We must never forget to be thankful.”

In truth, the two of them were not after anything in the Ushigashira Shrine. They were not interested in its thick safe or secret underground storeroom.

They just needed to enter the building.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Over the Wall. Well, one member of that group. I apologize for showing up without an appointment, but our master is in a bit of a bind. I hope that you can forgive us.”

Iroka got down on one knee in the unlit room and spoke in a flat voice that sounded like she was reading off a magic spell.

And in response.

The room’s paper lanterns came to life without warning. The soft flickering light was clearly fire and not light bulbs. Was that caused by static electricity, microwaves, or something else? The trick was unclear. It was possible the two intruders could be roasted in an instant using the exact same technique.

The oppressive silence made them hesitant to even breathe.

When Misoka audibly gulped, a change came over the surrounding atmosphere.

“Do not use that name. You might scare everyone off for no good reason.”

It was a wrinkly old woman’s voice.

And it suddenly rang down from the ceiling.

They had successfully made contact.

Contact with one of the beings who manipulated the course of the world from the shadows after crossing all boundaries: nation, race, religion, language, ideology, corporation, academic field, social class, etc. This was far more meaningful than some obvious safe.

Glasses Iroka said more with her head still bowed.

“But lowly and thoughtless people such as us do not even know your name.”

“Call me whatever you want. They only started worshiping me at this shrine in the modern era anyway. And our tomboy has no problem treating me like her own grandmother.”

“But…”

“Well, I guess I can’t expect you to let your guard down as much as that shrine maiden princess. I mean, she is the Connective Maiden - the one who connects us without fear.” The voice from the ceiling sounded somehow exasperated. “Anyway, maid, make sure your respect is directed to the proper person. There need only be one person to whom you bow your head. I am not so petty that I would try to take what is in your hearts as well.”

“…I am forever in your debt.”

“Hah hah. Not even we talk in that stuffy way anymore. Now, girl, what brings you here today?”

“Wouldn’t someone of your position already know exactly what we are doing?”

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Is that so?” said Iroka.

She was a data expert, but that was why she realized instantly that this was not someone that could be bargained with. The only option was to display every card she had in her deck and apply as much pressure as possible.

“In order to protect our beloved master, we are attempting to remake the Detached Magic Palace into the world’s smallest nation. We have already submitted all the digital paperwork, but it is being stopped at some point. …We would like to know who exactly is doing this. Whether we are to convince them to take our side or threaten them into stopping, we must know who our target is.”

“I see.”

Was the person they spoke with really in the attic or not? That remained unclear, but the sharp presence they felt was like having a knife pressed against their throats.

After a pause, the wrinkly voice spoke again.

“That is a difficult question to answer.”

“I am aware of that, but this is for our master and I must insist.”

“You fool. Do not underestimate me. I am not talking about the power balance.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“It is simply a difficult thing to explain. Your enemy definitely exists, but it would be hard to say they have a physical existence. Even though they definitely are there.”

“Hey, granny, if you’re dodging the question to stall for time, just come on out and say it. This isn’t our last stop tonight.”

Iroka kept her head bowed as she glared over at her rude sister, but the voice from the ceiling actually sounded delighted.

“Excellent. I do enjoy seeing a girl who is frank and to the point. In fact, maid, you should not give your blood relatives a look like that.”

“My apologies. I am unworthy of your kindness.”

“Now, you wanted to know your enemy’s identity, correct? Very well. I imagine the answer will only confuse you, but that is your right. It is, however, up to you whether or not you will accept the answer. The answer is a subway station.”

“Huh? A station???”

“Yes, the subway station closest to the National Diet Building. Now do you get what I mean?”

“…The Japanese government’s largest underground nuclear shelter?”

“It dates back to before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was said to be a secret facility meant to contain the Diet members and top government officials in an emergency, but that is not enough to explain it. That facility is meant to keep the Japanese government running even if the capital is hit by a nuclear attack. That means it contains everything necessary to run the country. In that sense, you can think of the personnel as no more than gears used to keep the system running smoothly. The most important part is actually the machinery. The core of that facility is the supercomputer that forms the foundation of the executive network needed for this highly digitized society.”

There was a rumor about this.

It said that a certain being controlled everything in the country. And it said that being was not the Diet or the so-called Restaurants, but in fact an enormous mass of semiconductors.

“So our enemy…”

In other words.

In other words.

“…is a simulator?”

Part 4

“Why do I hate humans? That’s simple. Because they’re so foolish I would rather not believe I am one of them.”

That comment was made in the Iberian Orc village partway up the mountain.

On that gentle night, the pig-faced giants were seated around a fire. The red-armored and white-miniskirted Sage was smiling as she looked after the kids running around them, but the tone of her voice was the polar opposite.

Perhaps to work off some energy before going to bed, the little pig doll creatures asked her to play with them, but they did not seem to understand what she was saying. They may have thought it was part of some game of make believe.

“It was such a boring form of extinction.”

The elder alone was different.

That 5m giant gave the Sage a complicated look.

“It was no more than environmental changes and natural disasters brought on by global warming. No country or corporation could be accurately pinpointed as the cause. Since humans play no role in causing natural disasters, we just accept them as inevitable. If only a clear causal relationship could be established, there would have been anger. Our era had grown too developed.”

Some tearful kids ran over while screaming. Some of the naughtier pig dolls must have tried to sneak out of the village at night and seen something scary. There was a sound of rattling bones. Was that a jewel in a cowboy hat glinting in the moonlight from the forest?

The Sage always viewed the simple life on this island as such a bright thing. Almost like she was viewing a treasure that was forever beyond reach.

“However, there was a disaster environment simulator.”

She spoke the decisive words.

Most likely, it had not originally been built to destroy anything.

“That changed everything. That demon could calculate back through the butterfly effect, so it could find a cause for any and all catastrophes. It could find a target for the people’s hatred. …From there, it came down to arguing over blame and fighting silly wars. When you get down to it, no one ever knew if the simulator’s answers were even accurate and it was possible some engineer included some extraneous parameter in the equations. But when an AI displays an answer on the screen, everyone assumes it’s correct even if they have no idea how it was reached. How is that any different from a religion that kneels before a demon?”

After that, there had been no escaping disaster.

A machine had destroyed the human race, but it had not required an army of murder weapons covered in composite armor. It had only required logic and a “whisper” that produced suspicion and doubt.

If you let someone deceive you, it was your own fault.

The Sage believed in that principle. If the 8 billion members of the human race at the time had actually used their own heads and held onto enough power to apply the brakes, it never would have ended like that.

Humanity had been destroyed by their own delusions.

How could they possibly record that embarrassing fact in the history books?

Part 5

The morning sun had risen.

The Next Voyager ghost ship shined orange in the dawn.

“Ugh… Shiver, shiver.”

Boo Boo only wore his loincloth even on a snowy mountain, so it had to be cold indeed for him to be rubbing his hands together on the deck. He could see his breaths and the deck pool was covered with thick ice. A human probably could have gone skating on it.

“I-I’m gonna die. I-I-I-I-I’m totally gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiie…”

Huldra shivered next to him after being kicked out of the girl’s room and partially transformed into something like a frozen food. There really was white frost on her eyelashes.

“Squeal. Are you okay, Huldra? Maybe I should stick you in the sunlight so you can thaw.”

“Abababa, ababababa.”

“Don’t die, Huldra. I’ll warm you up. Boo, where’d the hot water go!?”

Just as he started carrying the pink-twintailed girl (like a princess), Holy Swordswoman Beatrice happened to step outside and chaos soon followed.

The more unsightly parts will be omitted, but the following quotes sum it up well enough.

“Heh heh heh heh. No, this won’t do at all! That needs to be cooked through before it’s edible!!”

“Calm down, Beatrice! It’s okay! That’s just a sign of male friendship!!”

“Are you sure about that, Hermelina? I mean, Boo Boo doesn’t know what any of us look like on Earth, so the Huldra we see there is all that counts. Eh heh heh heh heh heh heh…”

The Holy Swordswoman entered a rather dangerous state with her tattered gray cloak spread out behind her like a demon lord, but the flirty pink-twintailed cheerleader did not notice because she was hallucinating from the cold.

“Wow, what a warm campfire. Thank you so much.”

“My, my. This Little Match Girl situation is only increasing her girliness. The unfortunate girl is always the star, so aren’t you only making the gentlemen holding her want to protect her all the more?”

“Wildefrau! Stop trying to make this even worse, you black-hearted girl! Argh, I can’t stop her on my own! Someone help me restrain this bomb fuse girl!!”

While Beatrice burst into flames with a magic circle behind her back, Gruagach and Rusalka kept the perfect distance to cook some salted river fish pierced on sticks as a quick way to secure some breakfast.

Boo Boo and Philinnion rubbed their eyes afterwards.

“Squeal, my body feels so warm after getting some food.”

“I know. Although that might have more to do with the sun rising higher into the sky. Ah, I really want to go back to sleep.”

Once that confused meal was complete, it was back to claiming territory. They had taken quite a lead the day before, so they only needed to keep that up. However…

“Huh?”

“What is it, Beatrice? Did you finally come back to your senses?”

“No, I was perfectly sensible from the beginning. But isn’t something about the ground different from before?” asked Beatrice while looking out across the glass land from the 9m height of the ghost ship’s side deck.

“Squeal, it’s broken all over the place!”

“Eh?”

Surprised, Gruagach quickly loosed a winged arrow into the sky above.

“You’re right. There are cracks covering a very wide area. And some other areas have been submerged, creating something like ponds and lakes. Could that be seawater?”

“Wait, we haven’t gotten back to Earth to register that data yet…”

“If the terrain changes before we do, won’t our data be rejected as inaccurate when we try to submit it as Pieces?”

Philinnion, who had grown even more cow-like in her pointed witch’s hat, joined the conversation as the unpleasant reports continued. Boo Boo and Beatrice jumped down from the deck to check for themselves, and…

“Ah, ahhh! The igloo I built is crumbling!”

“Wait, Boo Boo, don’t run over there! There’s a huge crevasse in between. That means we can’t use this route anymore.”

They had spent the entire previous day building glass igloos at set interval to create a “road”, but this meant all their efforts had been wasted.

Philinnion, Wildefrau, and the others were dumbfounded when they arrived.

“What happened? We all slept like babies last night, didn’t we? Wouldn’t we have woken up if someone had used powerful enough Magic to split apart the ground?”

“This may not have been intentional.” Wildefrau crossed her arms and raised her index finger. “This land is primarily made of silicon. In other words, it is glass. And the temperature difference between day and night was pretty extreme. Maybe it could not withstand that difference and broke all on its own.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Hermelina in her flat boob window priest robes. “Doesn’t that mean this terrain change isn’t a one-time thing? If this happens every single day, we’ll never be able to fill in the map. Registering the data as Pieces will become an unattainable dream. And this changes even more frequently than the Labyrinth!”

As expected, this was not going to be easy.

If they could not construct a route to safely cross the vast continent, they could never find the Hero. She stood at the turning points and sought victory whenever possible. And she did not care what happened to Ground’s Nir in the process. La Signora’s presence was definitely a threat, but there was no way to plan a proper journey across a continent where the terrain changed randomly every day. And if they rushed things and tried it anyway, they would end up cut off from the ship, which would spell their doom.

“Squeal. Is there no way to stop that cracking?”

“Hmm. Theoretically, it wouldn’t split if the temperature difference wasn’t so great, so we should be able to prevent it by keeping a fire going throughout the night…but we can’t do that across the entire continent.”

Moving at random would accomplish nothing.

They were stuck here for the moment.

They could not advance without coming up with a fundamental solution to this glass continent where the terrain split at random on a daily basis. They could not even consider searching for the Hero like this.

Part 6

“Hmph…”

Once morning arrived, Haruka of the three maid sisters was being even cuter than normal with her cheeks puffed out. The Detached Magic Palace was a Western-style mansion, but the older two sisters were seated in the entrance hall using a Japanese-style seiza.

“Um.”

“We really are sorry. We have learned our lesson.”

Iroka and Misoka could not look the youngest sister in the eye while she stood in front of them with hands on her hips. Yes, the general power balance was decided by seniority, but the older sisters were not powerful enough to completely overturn the scales of good and evil.

“But you don’t regret what you did, right? WTF! Did you really think I wouldn’t how you wanted to finish that sentence?”

“(Hey, Aneki, It saddens me to hear our cute little sister using internet slang in everyday conversations. You’re in charge of this digital stuff, so aren’t you letting her roam a little too freely out there!?)”

“(Yes, I may have been too confident in my filters. I was careless. How can I ever look the miss in the eye again?)”

“Quiet, both of you. And no more messing with my computer and phone while claiming it’s for my own good!”

This was not quite the same as pouring oil on the fire.

When that littlest maid entered angry mode, she would burn hotter no matter what you threw on the fire - even if it was a shortcake or a teddy bear. The only person who could reclaim that youngest sister’s smile was their master. It would be a long wait until that girl returned.

“So what kind of adventure were you two having while I was asleep? And what did you find out?”

“You see, Haruka, we only kept it from you because we wanted to protect our cute little sister, so-…”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

“Aw, crap. She’s definitely making us go without food now.”

“We discovered that our troubles are caused by a simulator that controls the government from deep within the subway station closest to the National Diet Building.”

“Hey, no fair, Aneki! Don’t turn on me just because it’s looking bad!!”

Misoka shouted fiercely at her from the side, but the capable glasses girl kept a calm expression while seated on the floor. After all, going without food would be far too tragic. She was the perfect older sister in all things, but she wanted no part of a low-sugar diet meant to eliminate carbs from her life. The look in her eyes would be the same as an abandoned dog on a rainy day.

“Our enemy is not human. It has no desire and feels no fear of loss. That means we can’t convince it to work with us or threaten it to back off. All it does is find the optimal solution for the Japanese government and complete each step of the process. That explains why my countermeasures were so ineffective. We are standing on the rails it has set up. If we do not come up with a plan specific to this opponent, we can only wait for the giant runaway train to hit us.”

They did not know how many factions and organizations there were in this country, but it all felt so hollow once they began discussing an unseen simulator. All those things were like tentacles extending from the simulator’s fat main body and all the obvious conflicts and hidden malice was no more than a stimulant meant to control the masses more efficiently. And the people being used were not even aware of the role given to them.

“So what exactly are we going to do? We already know this country has no future if it decides milady is disposable despite all her hard work.”

“That is why we planned to begin a counterattack after taking a quick nap, but then we happened to find the gatekeeper of hell waiting for us.”

“What. Exactly. Are. We. Going. To. Do?”

“…”

“…”

“If you don’t include me, I will clean up your rooms while you are gone. Do you really want to come back to an empty box of a room? Not a scrap of your personal possessions will remain. I mean, we are borrowing it all from milady, so we should be returning it anyway. Do you want to see just how clean a maid can make a room when she really puts her back into it?”

Those veteran older sisters decided now was the time to shift into a full prostration.

Part 7

They would never make any progress if they stayed on that cracked new continent. Beatrice made a quick decision with her tattered gray cloak flapping in the wind and had the Next Voyager carry them all back to the island of Ground’s Nir.

“Everyone is facing the same problem,” said the Holy Swordswoman on the ship. “Whatever the solution is, there’s sure to be more competition for whatever it requires. If we don’t get our hands on the materials soon, we’ll be caught in a commotion just like with the boats!”

“B-but, Beatrice, we can’t procure the materials if we don’t know what the solution is. We don’t have the assets to hoard everything.”

“I hate to say this, but we need help from someone shrewder than us.”

“Squeal? Shrewd?”

“It means smart, Boo Boo. I really wish we had another option, but where is that historical shut-in these days?”

They would have preferred to land at the port near the inn town, but if they angered Kallikantzaros any further, she really might bite them. They had no choice(?) but to land at the shoal by the southern forest.

Noble Dancer Rusalka sighed in her skintight leotard plus armor.

“So got any ideas?”

“I mean, there’s really only one possibility.”

Staying in the mangrove controlled by bipedal dogs and cats would accomplish nothing, so Beatrice led them across the salt bridges to cross the southern forest and reach the usual mountain. Boo Boo tilted his head as the type of trees changed.

“Huh? Are we going to my home?”

“No, not today. Well, this still kind of counts as your home.”

Hermelina’s group (which included the nudist and the mourning clothes girl) wanted to head back to the inn town to gather information, so they parted ways while Beatrice, Boo Boo, and Philinnion followed something like an animal trail.

Finally, they heard a rhythmic sound much like hammer strikes. Some familiar-sounding boos and squeals were mixed in.

“Oh? That bestial odor is getting stronger,” said Philinnion with her pointed witch’s hat swaying on her head.

It was not exactly a pleasant smell, but she may have had some resistance to it since she dealt with potions on a regular basis. There were plenty of smells worse than the body odor of living creatures.

The tall underbrush suddenly ended.

They found a relatively large grassy clearing with several leaf buildings.

This was the Iberian Orc village.

“Oh, it’s almost entirely back to normal!?”

Boo Boo sounded surprised, but Philinnion tilted her head next to him.

“Come to think of it, why is Boo Boo still living on his own now that everyone was freed from the Red and living in the village again?”

That was likely because he could not invite their nemesis Abyss into the village but he also could not abandon her when she was so helpless, but Beatrice did not bother explaining all that.

Some smaller round creatures approached while making higher-pitched boos and squeals.

“Are you from outside?”

“Poo, sniff sniff. I don’t smell any presents.”

“Make sure you go greet the elder. Squeal.”

The scorching red color of their skin had changed and they were no longer overcome by a powerful urge to attack and destroy.

They had been freed from the Red disaster caused by the artificial atmospheric barrier.

The sight of so many Iberian Orcs alive and enjoying themselves in their own village was an emotional one.

However…

“(Huh? With all these pig-faced giants here, um, how am I supposed to tell them apart from Boo Boo?)”

“(Don’t be rude, cow. If your facial recognition is that bad, maybe you need new glasses.)”

“Poo, poo, poo. Squeal, squeal. Miss!”

Beatrice hugged one of the pig dolls while pouting her lips.

Boo Boo tilted his head.

“Squeal, is that your friend, Beatrice?”

“Heh heh heh. I’ve met him a few times. I even gave him a proper name. Because of that cute noise he makes, I call him Poo P-…”

“Don’t you dare call him that.”

Philinnion’s voice dropped frighteningly low for once, but the Iberian Orcs were not their top priority at the moment.

A skinny Royal Elf wearing a short green dress was extending her arms and legs in a dance at the center of the village square. With a visual like that, even the sweat leaving her skin and hair glittered like the morning dew.

Beatrice put a hand on her hip with the tattered gray cloak fluttering.

“Quit showing off over there.”

“This is a holy ritual. Do not interrupt me, barbarian.”

Long-eared Sibyl continued dancing as she responded. She was apparently doing more than showing off her lovely form within a village of nothing but pigs.

She managed to look divine even while performing an energetic dance and she had more to say.

“There is not that much to worry about now that Boo Boo there has opened the path of reconciliation with the humans, but it would be safest to give this village a proper purpose and justification for its existence. I am giving those who live here the official protection of the three royal families. That forbids any outsiders from messing with them.”

Boo Boo heard what sounded like a sheet beating at the air, so he looked up. A brown girl and white woman stood next to each other atop the roof of the elder’s house. The two of them together were Archangel Marinka who represented the sun - including the solar eclipse.

Philinnion tilted her head with her large chest squeezed between her suspenders.

“But you’re missing the royal family of the sea, aren’t you?”

“No. I will not let Vivian’s death be a meaningless one. I will bury her in this land and have the powerful and honest Iberian Orcs act as grave keepers. That gives them a legitimate reason to occupy this holy ground. And the unworthy are forbidden from setting foot here.”

It may have been unpleasant to have your homeland turned into a giant grave, but the Iberian Orcs had lost a purpose for their great combat power now that the threat of Ultimate Weapon Abyss was gone for good. And unlike military weapons, they could not simply be disposed of. Giving them a new purpose may have been a form of salvation for them.

At any rate…

“Since you’re here, it looks like I guessed right. Where is the Sage?”

“In there.” Sibyl formed a lovely bridge as part of her dance and pointed in a certain direction with one foot. “But since you did not see the Sage while she had shut herself off from the world, this might be too great a shock for you.”

“?”

Sibyl’s foot was pointed toward the largest of the leaf houses. Needless to say, that was the elder’s. It may have functioned as a gathering place and not just a residence. Boo Boo and the others walked there and heard movement within before even entering it.

When they had found the central shaft while trying to follow the Sage, Boo Boo had seemed to give a quick prayer while viewing the ruins of this house, but…

“Boo Boo, what’s the etiquette for entering the elder’s house?”

“Squeal. You yell real loud. Like this: Elderrrr!”

The prayer had apparently been his response to the ruined state of the house and was unnecessary in its current lively state. He pushed aside the leaf door like it was a curtain.

A shocking sight awaited them.

Someone who looked an awful lot like Beatrice was laughing loudly with her head between the giant elder’s legs in what could maybe be called a piggy-back ride.

“Squeal!? I’m scared! Wait, stop that, Sage! I’m wobbling too much!!”

“Wa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

“I’m scared!?”

The Sage was swinging that 5m body around in a piggy back ride (with the piggy on top) and the elder quickly grew tearful while he was shaken back and forth. The Sage raced around the house while the round pig dolls chased after her, squealing all the way. They were insisting they go next on that frightening human back ride.

Beatrice froze up and summed it up in two simple words.

“You’re insane.”

“Don’t worry, Beatrice,” said Philinnion. “You’re pretty much the same when it comes to Boo Boo.”

The Sage noticed them and briefly stopped, giving the elder enough time to pretty much roll off of her.

“Oh, wait, elder. …Dammit, you rude people. Why did you have to interrupt at the best part?”

“The thing is…”

“Use adhesive. The quick-drying kind. It would probably be fastest to cut into the trunks of the Sticky Cedars around here to gather their sap by the bucket or to steal tons of honey wax from Sucking Bee hives. The Diamond Salt in the southern forest wouldn’t be bad either. Of course, you can’t use any of this as is. You need to use it as a Mixing ingredient so you can get a large enough quantity of the final product.”

The red-armored and white-miniskirted Sage cut her off and gave that explanation while the little pig dolls climbed up her body. She used one hand to support a small child that took the wrong path for the ascent and bumped his head against the overhang of her large breasts.

“Sorry, but this trick is used for car maintenance and home renovation products back on Earth. Although there is a risk of getting trapped inside during an accident or disaster. Once you have that, use it to build a path across the continent. Is that all you needed? I want to have some fun. Lots and lots of fun.”

“How-…?”

“How did I know what you were going to ask? Did you forget I am with Sibyl who holds the three royal treasures which can see almost anything? …Of course, that ‘almost’ is important to remember.”

The Sage really was the Sage. She was on a different level even after going soft.

“If only those treasures could transmit instead of just receive. Well, trying to force that usage could easily end up as an attack that tears apart the ground below our feet, so maybe it isn’t worth the risk.”

This meant not even the Sage and Sibyl could say for sure where the Hero was hiding on that new continent in the ocean. That was one thing to which she did not seem to know the answer. Was the Hero skilled at staying concealed, or was it a simple matter of distance? This was an entire continent, so they could only hope their goal was not actually on the other side of the planet.

“Wa ha ha!”

“Squeal!?”

“You little ones are so light. You need to grow up big and strong. But for now, you’re helpless in my grasp!”

The pig dolls screamed in enjoyment as they flew through the air.

The Sage seemed to care more about the village here than the fate of the world. That may have been for the best. At the very least, no one wanted her to bring chaos to the world again.

Part 8

Now, then.

“Squeal. So what was all that about add-hee-siv?”

“The Sage is basing it on the nature of glass. I see. I guess if you need cunning, she would be the one to go to. Philinnion, how should we go about acquiring this?”

“Good question. We could get it at the inn town, but it’s pretty cheap stuff. If we went around buying it all up, people would take notice and realize how useful it would be. We don’t want it turning into a hot commodity. If we needlessly increase its supposed value, we’ll be stuck in the same place we were with the Shocking Tingle Peppers.”

“Then I guess we should discuss this with Hermelina and Huldra. If we come up with a convincing reason for needing the adhesive, no one will question it. Let’s go the pubs and inns to spread the word about how our ghost ship is falling apart. If people know we need lots of materials to repair it, they’ll ignore it when we’re rushing around gathering stuff.”

“(You’re pretty cunning yourself. And your mind works quick. The two of you aren’t all that different really.)”

“I am not like that Magic-obsessed freak. Do I need to milk you?”

Boo Boo was no longer afraid to visit the inn town. He descended the mountain with Beatrice and Philinnion and entered the bustling city.

Everyone must have been stopped by the cracking glass continent issue. The stone-paved roads were full of people back from an attempt. A lot of people were running around trying to gather information.

Someone raised a hand in greeting.

“Hey, how you doing?”

“Squeal.”

They had no real purpose and were just passing by. But they had not been speaking to Beatrice or Philinnion. The Holy Swordswoman tilted her head.

“Boo Boo, have you already made some friends?”

“I’ve started talking with the humans lately. They say the animal trails I make are easier to travel on.”

Boo Boo made sure to walk on the side of the road so his giant frame did not get in the way and he was no longer seen as out of place here.

“(Feeling jealous? Grin, grin.)”

“(I-I am not! I really will milk you, cow!)”

They met up with Hermelina’s group who were just hanging around after checking some of the restaurants and pubs where information tended to gather. Hermelina must have appreciated having a definite goal beyond simply “gathering information”. When she heard the plan, she gently stretched her back to forcibly push out her flat chest.

“I see. We can’t keep the glass continent from cracking, so we make it so the cracks won’t widen.”

“Although for now we can probably only cover a single strip of land like we’re laying out asphalt.”

“That’s fine. We’re not trying to actually develop the land. We just have to find the Hero. I do want to establish some bases as Pieces in order to avoid unnecessary trouble such as tolls and waiting our turn at the coast, but we can’t get so caught up in that that we forget why we’re doing this in the first place. …But this means we yet again have to spend a ton of gears to acquire materials, doesn’t it? Sigh, I really want to build some ETC tollbooths in this world. Everyone would hate us if we did, though.”

“Squeal. So what’s going to happen?”

When Boo Boo tilted his head, Hermelina started to answer but then got a troubled look on her face.

“Glass reinforcement, huh? I guess giving the name of a novelty good wouldn’t do much for someone from Grand’s Nir, would it?”

“Demonstrating it would be fastest.”

Beatrice grabbed a glass from the table and rubbed something all across the surface. Then she used Fire Magic to quickly dry it.

“Look at this, Boo Boo.”

“Ah!?”

The pig-faced giant cried out because Beatrice let go of the glass. But there was no high-pitched shattering sound when it hit the floor. There was only a dull sound and the glass itself seemed to grow white.

But that was not what happened.

It was technically covered with small cracks, but the adhesive rubbed over it allowed it to keep its shape after shattering.

Beatrice winked as she explained.

“It’s the same idea as the security film placed over windows. If we can make enough of this, we can prevent the glass continent’s cracks from growing even after it breaks.”

Part 9

“Pant, pant!”

This was highly unusual. Iroka, oldest of the three maid sisters, was breathing heavily and she wiped sweat from her brow. She must not have had it in her to pull out a handkerchief.

She could not run any further.

Her vision was blurring.

She leaned against the wall next to her. The chill of the concrete felt nice, but she also knew this was dangerous. Just like the chilly feeling after a bath, this would take away more of her body heat than necessary and she might be unable to move by the time the cold feeling caught up with her.

“Sigh…”

She blinked again and again, but it did not bring her vision back into focus. That was when it hit her. She removed her glasses, wiped the lenses off with a handkerchief, and put them back on. Her vision was much better now, so she must have been running quite frantically.

The cold fluorescent lights illuminated what looked like a straight stretch of underground passageway. This area took so many 90-degree turns that she could not see what lay ahead.

How had she ended up here?

Where were Misoka and Haruka?

She tried to remember, but a dull pain exploded deep in her mind. She groaned and leaned against the hard and chilly wall again.

The subway station closest to the National Diet Building.

The simulator hidden in its depths.

If that was getting in their way, the answer was simple: destroy it. The machine’s very existence was not officially recognized, so its owner would have no way of accusing them if it was lost.

That said, they could not exactly carry in drills and pickaxes and start smashing stuff. If they could not be made to pay through the official channels, there were plenty of more illicit ways to take revenge.

That meant they needed a form of destruction that would not be so obvious from an outside perspective.

Fortunately, they were up against a simulator. It was only a machine. Thousands of people in dozens of sections would be complexly interlinked to create a system so large no one could see its full scope. It was unlikely an external cyber attack would be of any use.

But that was fine.

The different staff members would show more restraint about each other in such an environment. They would assume someone else knew what they did not and that assumption would grow. So if someone snuck in and replaced one of the disks lined up in the boxes with an illicit ROM, no one would know what had changed in the whole.

Without an accurate picture to compare to, they could not search for mistakes.

(What happened?)

It had gone well most of the way.

They had made it deep within the thick concrete shelter without being noticed.

Or so they had thought.

(Misoka, Haruka. What happened?)

“What a pain.”

“!?”

Iroka gasped and looked around when she heard a wrinkly voice out of nowhere. This was a straight concrete passageway. There was no sign of anyone hiding there and the voice did not sound like it came from around a corner. The bespectacled oldest sister slowly looked to the source of the sound: up.

It came from the nuclear shelter’s ceiling.

“It is true I gave you the hint, but I didn’t expect you to rush straight here. You know how woefully unprepared you were now, don’t you? I recommend leaving and trying again later.”

Iroka recognized the voice.

She was cautious, but she did not take any specific action.

“You are up against a simulator, something that properly inspires people’s sense of danger to help save their lives. But if that ability is abused, it can easily crush people through extreme external stress.”

“Does this mean…you were on their side too?”

“Their side, hm? I do not know what lines you are using to divide up the world, but it seems you still do not properly understand what it means to be Over the Wall. I have crossed all barriers. I am not bound by the power balance of the common world.”

“…”

“Not that being Over the Wall was even meant to refer to that in the first place.” There was a hint of self-deprecation in the voice. “I will guide you to the exit. You can regroup with the other two on the surface. But if you try this method again, you will not be so lucky a second time. There is only so much I can do to hide your actions.”

“Are you using my sister’s lives to threaten me?”

“We both hold the other’s Achilles’ heel. If you three die, it would make my selfish shrine maiden princess sad and I would prefer to avoid that if at all possible.”

“Shrine maiden princess?”

“I already explained her true nature to you.” The voice from the ceiling did not elaborate. “Hurry it up. The enemy’s fingers can easily shred the human psyche. Attempting to understand this with the Newtonian physics you believe in is useless.”

“What did it have me do?”

“That is an oddity even among those who are Over the Wall.”

“What?” Even Iroka gulped here. “No matter how good its specs, it is still just a machine. Why would you give it that title?”

“It would seem you indeed have a mistaken understanding what it means to cross all barriers. Wealth, academic history, and even being a biological being are not all that relevant when it comes to qualifying.”

The fluorescent lights flashed according to a pattern. It began right in front of Iroka and seemingly flowed further down the straight passageway. She took that to mean “follow me” and dragged her body along while it felt as heavy as a wet blanket.

“I will tell you what it means to be Over the Wall.”

“Onee-chan!?”

Her vision grew bright.

She found herself below the blue sky. This was not an official subway exit. She thought it had to be some kind of emergency exit or maintenance hatch, but when she looked back, she saw nothing of the sort. She was in a large park. She could not find a cleverly hidden door or even any kind of thick wall whatsoever.

Misoka and Haruka stood in front of her.

They seemed to have been mysteriously led here as well. Iroka must not have been the only one who could not remember what route they had taken to get here.

How far had they walked?

Was this really real life?

While considering those meaningless questions, Iroka recalled what she had heard while walking.

“Any being that has crossed the barrier between worlds is considered Over the Wall. Thus, anyone with that title is not contained within the framework of ordinary physics. My discoverer ignored the original myths and called me Tiamat, but I am not the only one like this. Not one of us found on this planet can be called purely human in any form. So even if something beyond human understanding occurs, you defenseless humans can only accept it for what it is.”

Part 10

They needed an adhesive that functioned like window security film.

Beatrice’s Party was making progress on gathering supplies in the inn town, but time was an issue. When thinking about exploring the glass continent, they had to consider the travel time to and from it as well. They could only stay in this world for a few days and they had already needed to head back to the inn town due to an unexpected setback.

They were at about the halfway point timewise.

Any mistakes would eat up further time, so even though they had a lot of free time, they could not take any bold actions either. It was an odd in-between state.

“Wouldn’t it be best to reset things for ourselves?” With her skinny body covered by a skintight leotard and thick armor, Rusalka made a reasonable suggestion to the others. “If we made our way to the continent now, we would only have to head back almost immediately, right?”

The glass continent would crack unpredictably due to the temperature difference and the terrain would change. They had gathered plenty of surveying data and Screenshots in their Shining Weapons, but those were unlikely to count as Pieces back on Earth. However, that did not matter at the moment.

Being in their top condition was more important.

If they returned to Earth to recuperate, they would have the full limit of a few days to work with again.

“Squeal. I can work on my own just fine.”

“There’s no recovering from a mistake when on your own, so don’t. Besides, once on the continent, you have to consider the possibility of running across the Hero. La Signora is bad news. Nothing about her is logical and it’s all on a ridiculous scale. You can’t try a one-on-one confrontation with someone before even knowing how powerful they really are. Got that?”

Besides that, Boo Boo would never have worked with window security film before. They could not have him start working on his own when he did not know what he was doing.

This was different from a marathon or relay race with a set goal. They had to keep in mind that there could be unexpected holes anywhere in that undeveloped land. Taking the time to build a proper road would end up saving time in the long run.

Beatrice waved lightly at the others.

“I’ll be going then, Philinnion, Hermelina.”

“Sure. But let’s at least decide on a time to meet back up. I don’t want any delays due to that.”

“Crap, I’ve been in this world so much lately I bet I have tons of paperwork and emails piling up.”

With that, the girls started toward their respective Gates back to Earth.

When the red dress girl returned to Tokyo, she found bespectacled Iroka holding a white porcelain teapot instead of small animal-like Haruka.

“Hm? What’s going on, Iroka?”

“It is not like I am incapable of preparing tea, miss. I just usually leave it to the more suitable person.”

Did that mean Haruka was busy with another job or not feeling well?

“If you need to change up your shifts, just tell me.”

“Not to worry. She is a tough little girl. Given the look on your face, would you prefer some cocoa over elegant tea?”

The red dress girl did not really have anything to do, so she was only messing around on her phone when Haruka finally showed up.

“Oh, are you back, milady?”

“So what happened?”

That simple question was not given a clear answer.

This return to Earth was meant to reclaim her usual internal rhythm, such as her internal clock, but she was so on edge that she doubted she could get any sleep. She felt she had no choice but to rest in the living room sofa.

While holding the remote and watching TV, she felt more focused on the action of flipping through channels than on watching the afternoon shows. Unlike the past, there were so many stations to choose from. With cable or satellite included, you could find yourself wandering through specialist channels for crazy samurai movies and world heritage documentaries.

“?”

She felt something soft on her thighs and found the second sister had brought her a lap blanket.

“…Thanks, Misoka.”

“It’s fine. This is your home after all.”

The hot cocoa and lap blanket must have soothed her nerves. It was like a dam breaking. Sleepiness overwhelmed her and her vision blurred while she heard the maid finish her sentence.

“No matter what might happen.”

After getting some rest, the red dress girl returned to the world of Ground’s Nir.

“?”

The red-armored and white-miniskirted Holy Swordswoman rubbed the tattered gray cloak between her fingers. She tilted her head because her memories felt half real and half like a dream. That said, she was already in this world. They had set a time and a place to meet up, so she decided to focus on the trouble here for now.

It was evening.

They had their preparations in order this time. After meeting up with the others at Boo Boo’s brick house, they used the Next Voyager ghost ship to reach the glass continent.

“Hyah! This place gets so cold once the sun sets, doesn’t it? Maybe we should have waited a bit longer and arrived in the morning!”

It was not even cold yet, but the memories were enough for Philinnion to hold her shoulders, squishing her large breasts between her arms. Meanwhile, (flat) Hermelina saw things differently.

“This is perfect, actually. The Sage’s advice is only a theory at this point, so I want to test it out to make sure it works. I don’t want to find we wasted an entire day of work again.”

Armored leotard Rusalka tilted her head.

“So you want to see the adhesive’s effects before putting in too much work with it?”

“Exactly. So hurry! If we don’t solidify some of the land before it gets completely dark, it won’t be a proper test!!”

The giant ocean survey ship was meant to carry a crew of more than a thousand, so it had been simple enough to load it with plenty of large barrels along with all their food and water. They had taken the island’s natural adhesive substances like Sticky Cedar sap and Sucking Bee honey wax and then Philinnion and Huldra had used Mixing to add filler materials that increased the quantity without reducing the effectiveness.

Once down on the glass land in the fading sunlight, Hermelina planted another flag.

“No more wasted effort. Let’s start by hardening this area.”

She took some Screenshots containing coordinate data and saved them on her Shining Weapon so she could use them as Pieces back on Earth.

Boo Boo carried a large barrel over and carefully tilted it. A thick, translucent goop with an acrid chemical smell silently spread out.

“What should the rest of us do? This adhesive is meant to hold the ground in place, so I’m afraid stepping in it will get us permanently stuck there.”

Cross sword and belt Wildefrau started getting worried, but cheer uniform Huldra replied with a somewhat bored voice.

“It only reacts to glass objects, so we’ll be fine. It technically dissolves a thin layer of the ground and binds with that. You should be able to spread it around with a normal mop or rag without your tool hardening up.”

In other words, they were going to draw a thick line across the white land as if with a giant brush and that would create a safe road which would not crack. If the ground did not break and the terrain did not change, they could register it as Pieces and make it their own. They would need quite a lot of adhesive, but this was easier than laying asphalt.

“Squeal. Since we don’t know which parts will crack in the cold, shouldn’t we try spreading this in different directions?”

“Good point. …We need to think about what to do if we wake up tomorrow to find it wouldn’t have affected the part we worked on regardless. Wildefrau’s below-zero attacks should be able to create similar cracks, but it would be best to test it in the natural environment.”

If they registered this landing point as a Piece, they would be using this as their base from now on. It would be helpful to draw out several lines to create a spider web of pathways they could use.

Hermelina wiped sweat from her brow and shivered from the chill that finally reached her.

“Now it really feels like we’re claiming territory.”

“I might cry if we wake up tomorrow morning to find nothing but cracked crevasses like before.”

Beatrice’s ominous comment earned some light anger from Philinnion and Huldra.

The real work would begin the following day.

Their previous trip here had taught them all too well how cold it got at night. Once the sun had fully set and the stars appeared in the night sky, they stopped working and returned to the Next Voyager.

“Oh, no! I can already see my breath! Nature’s freezer is back!!”

“Scramble up the ladder if you want, Philinnion, but since you have fingerless gloves, I would recommend not touching the metal with your bare fingers. Don’t blame me if your skin gets stuck.”

They had met up fairly late, so most of them had already eaten. Boo Boo was hungry despite having eaten already, so suspender boobs Philinnion gave him some dried meat that did not need to be prepared. Feeling full was more important than nutrition here, so something he could chew on for a while was best.

That left one thing to consider: how were they going to survive this frigid night?

“What’s there to worry about? Just wrap yourself in fire.”

“I know, right? Just have 100% Water Resistance and you won’t take any Ice Damage at all.”

The two with ridiculous fire and ice abilities were an exception.

Pink-twintailed Alchemist Cheerleader Huldra let a thick cloth flap in the wind.

“Heh heh heh. Look at this, chief. It’s a sleeping bag made from Fluffy Bird feathers! You have to keep an eye on the inn town’s Flea Market Maze because you sometimes find stuff like this there. Now I can survive a cold night with ease! Yay!!”

“Oh, is that so? So when you were supposed to be working on Mixing the adhesive, you were actually preparing for your own comfort? And our PI office’s wallet is a shared thing where we all keep the gears we’ve earned, isn’t it?”

“Um, uh, heh heh heh. Don’t be mad, chief☆”

“That sleeping bag belongs to all of us.”

“Wait! Please don’t take it away from me like this! You girls get to cram yourselves into a small cabin where you can keep each other warm, but Boo Boo and I are risking our lives out in the night!”

Huldra’s tears were starting to freeze over, but curled rolled ponytail Rusalka made a cruel point despite being about a Chinese zodiac cycle younger.

“If you had just snuck off with your sleeping bag instead of trying to brag about it, none of this would have happened.”

“Rusalka, there is a simple saying to sum that up: silence is golden.”

Huldra screamed, but no one there felt any sympathy. If she was going to do this, she needed to be ready to prepare enough for everyone.

Hermelina spat out a comment while leaving with the sleeping bag in her arms.

“You complain, but you survived last time. You can use Boo Boo for warmth again.”

“Ahhhh, did you have to remind her of that!? Are you trying to get me killed!?”

“Oh, right. I need to take care of a pink-haired nuisance before she causes any trouble tonight. I completely forgot.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

Beatrice’s entire body burned with enough flames that she must have forgotten the boat was mostly made of wood, but that at least gave them a source of fire. Boo Boo held out a handmade torch made from a cloth wrapped around the end of a wooden stick to light it and then raised it over his head like a small child showing off a popsicle.

“Squeal, let’s take good care of this. It can keep us warm and toasty if used right.”

“Be careful with that fire, Boo Boo. Keep some water on hand to-…no, it would probably just freeze. In that case, keep something to cover up the fire. And don’t use it in a closed room.”

“Boo. But, Hermelina, I feel like I would freeze if I opened a window.”

“If you aren’t careful, you’ll be killed by carbon monoxide. You see it in mangas and dramas a lot, but building a campfire in a cave is a big no-no.”

“?”

Either her examples were poorly chosen or he would not believe something he had not seen for himself because Boo Boo looked confused. Hermelina let out a white sigh (with her boob window exposing her chest to the cold).

“Anyway, that’s the rule. This was designed to be a pretty fancy ship, so it probably has rooms with a fireplace or chimney. Or you could use the kitchen or boiler room. I’m not saying you can’t use the fire; I’m saying look for somewhere you can use it safely. Huldra.”

“I’ll show him the way! But please stop pointing out that we’re together when Beatrice is around!!”

With that, it was time to survive the frigid night.

Boo Boo transferred the fire to the fireplace next to an old bar counter, Kallikantzaros showed up to play after hearing half-scorched Huldra’s sobs, and the Vampire lay alongside the Iberian Orc as he went to sleep. The sleeping bag had been a good idea even if it had been taken away. They had searched the ship for something similar and found some waterproof cloth meant to repair torn sails. That proved to be a powerful ally.

And.

“Snorrrre! Snorrrre!! Mutter, mutter…ah. Huh? Where’s Kallikantzaros?”

The nearly-4m giant rubbed his eyes with the back of his large hands and found the red negligee girl was gone. Light was entering the edge of the dark night sky and the stars were disappearing behind an orange glow.

Morning had arrived.

“Squeal… It really is cold. I don’t think I slept much.”

“I-I beg to differ with all that loud snoring you were doing.”

The pink-twintailed girl had wrapped her shivering body tightly in the waterproof cloth, but she had not ended up like a frozen fish this time. The ability to learn and use tools to overcome hardships may have been a defining trait of humans.

Once awake, they were curious how things were outside. They could still see their breath at dawn, but after removing his sail repair material and putting out the fire in the fireplace, Boo Boo left the old bar and approached the door to the side deck.

He found someone there already.

“Good morning, Boo Boo.”

“Squeal.”

Beatrice giggled at how he sleepily rubbed his eyes and she pointed at the glass ground 9m below.

Philinnion had cautiously moved out ahead (despite being a healer) by crawling along the ground. That pressed her butt tightly against her shorts, so it looked like that cow was a threat in more than just the chest department. She must have wanted to see how the adhesive she had made was doing because she tapped the back of her hand against the ground every so often. There were white cracks all over, but there were no large gaps. It had all been held in place and forcibly kept in a single piece.

“The experiment was a success.” Beatrice let out a white breath and smiled. “Now the road we make won’t go away. It’s time we finally crossed this continent and tracked down the Hero!”

Part 11

After eating a breakfast made by putting sliced bread in hot soup to increase the apparent quantity, it was finally time to begin the real recovery.

They had to claim their territory.

They would send out drones to investigate the unexplored glass continent as efficiently as possible, take that data back to Earth to register it as Pieces as a way to expand their freedom of movement, and use that to search out Hero La Signora.

…That was the general idea anyway, but that plan was missing a step. Gradually filling in their map was meaningless if the entire terrain had changed the following day.

They needed to work toward accomplishing something meaningful.

Beatrice made a request with her tattered gray cloak fluttering behind her.

“Gruagach, start by accurately surveying the existing cracks in the ground. The security film method can prevent new cracks from forming, but it can’t repair the large ravines that already exist. It’s unfortunate, but we have to work our way around those. But we can record the path we take and register it on Earth as a Piece.”

“Understood.”

“Some ponds and lakes may have formed when water flooded the cracks, so don’t forget to record data at high tide and low tide.”

Once Beatrice was done talking, the Summon Hunter in mourning clothes opened a few magic circles in the air in front of her right eye and then loosed several arrows high into the sky. They sprouted swan-like wings along the way to transform themselves into eyes and ears in the sky.

“Our route is going to take a large curving S-shape as we avoid the existing cracks. Does that mean twice the distance compared to a straight route?”

There was no way to predict this kind of unexpected setback, but it was still not pleasant to learn about something they had never even considered.

“Boo Boo, it would be easier to roll the adhesive barrels instead of lifting them. Don’t worry. They’re sealed up tight, so it won’t spill out when you tilt them on their side.”

“Squeal.”

“Oh, but wouldn’t it be better if it did? The adhesive only hardens on the glass ground, so with a bit of ingenuity, we could probably make a device that creates a road just by rolling the barrel.”

Wildefrau, the exhibitionist in a cross sword and belts, had that idea, and armor leotard Rusalka joined in.

“Would it be something like that roller the baseball team drags around the field to smooth things out? I dunno what you actually call it, though.”

“We can build our own little invention later. Let’s do it the way we know works for now. C’mon, get your mop ready.”

Boo Boo and Hermelina were the go-to people for physical strength, so they rolled the large barrels of adhesive while Beatrice and Philinnion were in charge of spreading it around with mops. Gruagach surveyed everything from the sky and Rusalka used wind to remove the chemical odor.

Once they got started, they made quick progress.

“Boo, boo, boo, boo. Boo boo bee boo.”

Boo Boo seemed to be having fun seeing the road grow as he rolled the barrel. When Beatrice let her guard down, he moved so far out ahead that he was nearly out of sight.

“Boo Boo, we can’t keep up with the mops if you pour out that much. And don’t forget to plant flags along the way.”

“Squeal, this is mine for real this time!”

Once they had those landmarks up in places, it started to feel more real for Beatrice and the others too. Boo Boo seemed interested in the Piece-registration Screenshots which were not the same as the rock wall drawings he was used to. He must not have known the blunt weapon he had carried around for so long was capable of that. The work was not easy, but they were indeed drawing a large line out along the ground.

White Witch Philinnion stopped to wipe the sweat from her brow, jiggling her suspenders-bound breasts in the process.

“Whew. I haven’t seen anyone else out here. Does that mean it’s going to take them a while longer to figure out this security film method?”

“It was the same back when we got here first by using the ghost ship to skip all the competition in the inn town, but I really hope we don’t have any more surprises in store for us.”

Boo Boo and the others continued constructing the road while Gruagach sent ahead arrows to act as their eyes and ears. Each arrow did not cover much area, but creating grape-like clusters of those small areas helped gradually fill in their blank map. Doing that to gather the materials for Pieces was their goal for the day.

The mourning clothes girl’s somewhat lowered voice came from behind her veil.

“This scenery could look entirely different by tomorrow, couldn’t it?”

“But the road we’ve made will remain intact. We can gradually increase the strengthened area and we can register the route as a Piece back on Earth. That guarantees we can freely travel along it.”

Hermelina and Huldra were not action cops who specialized in flashy car chases and shootouts. When pursuing someone, they knew firsthand that those exciting events were less useful than slowly but surely closing in on their target using human wave tactics and door-to-door search operations.

Their ultimate objective was of course finding the Hero, but they did not need to locate her right away.

“She’s definitely around here somewhere. That much we know.” Beatrice spoke quietly while looking to the cracked land’s horizon. “She needs food and water to maintain her biological body. And if she’s left everything to a machine, that’s bound to make heat and noise. She has to leave some kind of sign of her presence if she physically exists on this land.”

They finally came across a few of the glass domes they had built before. Gruagach stabbed an arrow into those to use them as fixed observation points.

Naturally, those observation points would also be registered as Pieces.

Their Shining Weapons had plenty of storage space, so it was worth recording everything they could.

“To be honest, we can’t really expect these to last for long.”

“That’s fine. The winged arrows in the sky are all that really matter. The ones on the ground can just be imitations meant to frighten the Hero.”

Even nonfunctioning mockup security cameras were said to noticeably reduce the amount of shoplifting. These surveillance devices were real. And if no one could tell whether or not they were working from the outside, they would have to be cautious of them all.

The odds of coincidentally running across the Hero on this vast continent were slim, but for better or worse, they could control the flow of people by creating roads and scattering surveillance devices everyone had to watch out for. It was much like how the desert was a large place, but you could keep tabs on who was traversing it by setting up checkpoints along the silk road that took the optimum course across.

“This is such a barren place.” Rolled blonde ponytail Rusalka sighed and sent a light low kick into Boo Boo’s thick leg as he excitedly moved out ahead. “The glass land has no drainage at all, so getting food or even fresh water will not be easy. As big as the continent is, there might be a limited few places the Hero can actually live.”

“I wonder, I wonder, I wonder what’s for lunch,” sang Boo Boo in an adlibbed song while he worked. He sounded carefree, but that was from the viewpoint of someone who never had to worry about getting food. If he got lazy, he would starve to death.

“Tah dah. Today’s lunch is Wild Cow milk and Steamy Potato vichyssoise with Dry Wheat cereal as a topping☆”

“Boo, vichy-what? Is that some powerful human’s name???”

“It’s a cold soup made from potatoes and cream, Boo Boo.”

Philinnion sounded excited, but when you let the healer cook, you apparently got what you would be served while sick instead of something from a picnic.

A leather water bottle contained a soup apparently made by combining crushed potatoes with animal milk. It may have been more like nutritionally reinforced milk flavored with salt and pepper.

“Squeal, didn’t we have soup for breakfast too? Do you like hot water, Philinnion?”

“Not really. I love a wide variety of things: risotto, gratin, gnocchi, fried cheese, French toast, and plenty more. Although I do have to admit white stew and cheese fondue are nice too.”

“That is an impressive list of nothing but dairy products you’ve got there.”

Beatrice and Hermelina gave that annoyed response in unison, but you could not forget that her primarily Japanese diet at the Ushigashira Shrine played a role in what she would choose when actually given a choice. This alternate world came with plenty of benefits and risks, but it was also a place to get away from the restrictions of Earth.

The meal was nutritious and easy to eat, but that meant it was also reminiscent of the food given to someone with heat fatigue. Regardless, it all looked fresh and new to Boo Boo who only ever removed the blood and organs from the animal he caught and either ate it raw or cooked it just a little. His eyes widened as he crunched on the cereal in his large mouth.

“Squeal! I’ve never eaten anything so weird!!”

“My, my. But if that’s enough to surprise you, you’re in for a real treat when you try one of the pancakes with ice cream on top, which is sweet and salty just like some Ogura toast.”

Whatever she might say, Philinnion was clearly enjoying herself as she brought a hand to her mouth and smiled. There were not many tough guys worth serving a meal to quite like Boo Boo.

“Boo, this looks like it’ll get soggy, so I need to eat it fast!”

“No, Boo Boo. Make sure to chew before you swallow.”

Beatrice’s gentle warning was not enough to stop him. All she could do was rub the pig-faced giant’s back as he chowed down.

This scene might make it seem like the threat of the Hero had passed. Time passed more calmly than the white clouds in the blue sky.

But they could not just go home because they could not find her.

Hero La Signora stood at the turning points and won whenever possible. That thinking had led her to slaughter a great many (people accused of being) witches 300 years ago and she had honestly thought that oppression would help protect the witches. Since she had fled to Ground’s Nir, it was not hard to imagine what fate had awaited her on Earth, but that had not been enough to stop her.

She had been the same here in Ground’s Nir as well.

She had known there was no saving herself, but her attachment to life had led her to remake the entire world’s environment, which had caused the Iberian Orcs to be afflicted with the Red disease. But if she really had escaped the planet to break free of the short time limit, spent centuries there, and had now returned to the surface…it was impossible this was over. Whether this had crashed down on accident or on purpose, the surface was harmful to the Hero. There was no way that monster would sit idly by while her body was exposed to the time limit once more.

She would struggle.

Like a drowning person grasping at straws, she would show no restraint whatsoever.

Hermelina clapped her hands together in front of her inadequate chest.

“Okay, we got some food, so let’s get some exercise.”

Noon had passed and the latter half of the day was beginning, but what they had to do was the same. They rolled the large barrels, spilled out the adhesive, and spread it around with mops. However, they had to think about the trip back this time.

“Squeal, should we not head out too far?”

“That’s right, Boo Boo. But it would be easier if we used up all the adhesive. That’s less weight we have to carry back.”

A shadow appeared overhead.

They looked up to see thick clouds hiding the sun that had been beating down on them a moment before. And they were quite dark. The sun had yet to set, but the sweat covering their skin started to feel as cold as ice water.

“It might start raining,” said cross sword and belts Wildefrau while viewing the sky like the others.

Hermelina somewhat frantically waved a hand to gather attention while rolling a different large barrel from Boo Boo’s.

“Even if it’s just sprinkling, we should head back. Safety first!”

“Is it really that dangerous?”

Beatrice frowned, but the police officer would not back down.

“Did you forget this glass continent has no drainage at all, Beatrice? If it starts pouring, who knows what will happen! We can’t see our own road if there’s a layer of water on the ground, and what if it completely floods to create a pond or lake? And what if lightning strikes while we’re standing in it?”

“…”

“There’s still a lot we don’t know about this new continent. We need to be cautious and think a step ahead before we get stranded!”

Meanwhile, Boo Boo felt a raindrop on his large nose.

Philinnion held the brim of her pointed witch’s hat down with both hands.

“Hyah! It really is raining!”

“Gruagach, launch one of those drone arrows! Don’t lose sight of the way back to the Next Voyager!!”

They had planted flags at set intervals for Piece registration purposes, but those were only general estimates. They could not take the shortest path between them. The glass continent was cracked due to the temperature difference, so if they moved thoughtlessly along, they could fall into an unseen ravine like someone running their car into the ditch during a flood.

“Wah!”

“Watch out, Boo Boo!”

The nearly-4m giant slipped, so Beatrice quickly caught him with the gauntlet she had enlarged with Magic. The ground was made of glass, so it was very slippery when wet.

But while they had been rolling heavy barrels and mopping around the surface on the way there, they only had to walk on the way back. They would arrive back more quickly than their experience told them they would.

However…

“Wh-what?” Armored leotard Rusalka groaned while clinging to mourning clothes Gruagach. “I hear cracking from all over! Is the ground breaking apart around us!?”

“But it isn’t night yet!” tearfully responded Huldra while waving her pompoms around.

“It’s the rain,” said Beatrice as if cursing her bad luck with water while her tattered cloak kept the rain off of her. “The cold rain is rapidly cooling the land, so the continent is going to break before night falls this time!!”

“Don’t stray from the road! The cracking won’t happen where we solidified the ground with adhesive like window security film! It’s safe there!”

Hermelina was right, but…

“I-I can’t see anything… Wh-wh-where’s the road!?” lamented Philinnion while trying to protect herself from the rain using her large hat.

Any assumptions of safety were null and void here. Even water a few centimeters deep could reflect the light like a mirror and make the terrain below unidentifiable.

They would have to rely on Gruagach’s memory from viewing everything from the sky.

“Do not worry, everyone! I know where all the dangerous ravines are. If you avoid those by following my instructions-…kyah!?”

Before she could finish, a nearby piece of land burst up from the water like a submarine making an emergency surfacing. If Rusalka had not immediately tugged on the mourning clothes girl’s arm, the cracked cliff face might have sliced off her jaw.

It rose to a height of 10 meters in no time.

A solid glass cliff towered up right in front of them.

“Wh-what?”

“The land was already full of cracks, so it couldn’t support the weight of the rain and flipped over! If you don’t want to be hit by that killer seesaw, then run! If you’re caught in the collapse, you’ll either be launched into the heavens or dropped into the depths! Either way, you’re screwed!!”

This really was a new land.

The usual assumptions did not apply.

“At least it’s one in the afternoon,” said Beatrice while glancing carefully around. “If this happened near sunset, our soaked bodies would have frozen solid. Everyone but Wildefrau would have been wiped out.”

Luckily, the water would not remove the adhesive from the surface. The Piece-registration Screenshots inside their Shining Weapons would not be wasted. They had to use their boots to feel for the safety of the road they had created.

As some parts of the land sank and others rose up, the previously flat glass continent gained some extreme height differences. The scenery changed and it was easy to lose their sense of direction, almost like giant fingers had grabbed them and chucked them into a maze. And as Hermelina had said, these were seesaws. The slant depended on where the rainwater gathered and there was no set form for it to take. Learning the terrain was meaningless when it would drastically change with time.

Boo Boo and the others had seen the many racks and large ravines after the continent had been transformed, but they had not actually seen the change occurring.

It was truly cataclysmic.

This geographic drama normally took place over the span of eons, but it happened in an instant here.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if I froze all the rainwater on the surface? That would even fill in the ravines!”

“That’s not a bad idea, but couldn’t it actually cool the glass even further and make the cracking worse!?”

They discussed different ideas while returning along the snaking path of their road.

“Th-there it is. Squeal, it’s Kallikantzaros’s boat!”

Boo Boo was right.

The Next Voyager could be seen from their viewpoint on the ground. That was their safe point. Beatrice breathed a sigh of relief, but she also knew relaxing would be dangerous. Seeing the goal in the distance did not change the danger below their feet.

Yes.

Beatrice was definitely being cautious in that moment. That is undeniable.

And that may have been why she managed to notice just a hint of the truth.

“What?”

“What is it, Beatrice? You’ll fall if you stand at the edge of that cliff!”

Philinnion’s double cloak blew in the rain as she shouted over, but the Holy Swordswoman did not respond.

Something was moving at the bottom of the ravine.

The bottom looked more than 10 meters down. The ground they were standing on had to be even thicker than that. And something was definitely moving in the ocean created by the rainwater rushing in like a waterfall since the land had no other drainage.

No, it was in the actual ocean below that.

With the thick glass land on top, the ocean had to be an area of death. There was no way a human could be lurking there even with Magic to strengthen then.

So this was not the Hero.

But was that any reason to relax?

For one thing, who had created the artificial atmospheric barrier that covered the entire planet? The Hero had only given the command, but…after her death? After she went to sleep? Anyway, for the centuries afterwards, some other being must have completed the work.

They had already seen a few beings in Ground’s Nir who could live for centuries without issue: Strigona, Abyss, and Sibyl to name a few.

Something reflected the light in the depths of the thick seawater.

(Is that a blade? A sword with a jewel in the grip?)

She was not given time to process her question.

The very next moment, it rocketed up while spinning.

Had it been thrown?

Normal ballistic logic could not explain it. It may have been like taking a submarine’s anti-ship missile that lit a booster after leaving the water and adding a helicopter’s main rotor onto that…except even that was not quite right.

The seawater and the land were no obstacle.

It entirely ignored the ravines and sliced through the thick glass land itself more easily than through soft custard.

“Boo Boo!?”

By the time she turned around and shouted, it was over

The color red was splattered everywhere.

The double-edged Hero’s Sword had shot up from the ground at Boo Boo’s feet and plunged hilt deep into his thick stomach.

Part 12

Everyone owned a mobile phone these days, but Iroka, oldest of the three maid sisters, entered a phone booth. That had long been the standard method of hiding the source of a call. But before she could lift the receiver and insert a coin she had used a special chemical to wipe clean of fingerprints, a wrinkly voice descended from the narrow ceiling.

“Do not call Ushigashira’s general reception number. You will only access an ignorant part-timer there, so your serious tone will only confuse them.”

“I’m shocked. How far does your influence reach?”

“I have more honor than those European-raised knights, I can tell you that. I believe they recently had that newcomer Demon Lord Tselika offered to them on their altar. They were awfully excited about finally getting a real one.”

The phone booth itself was made of transparent acrylic panels. Bespectacled Iroka glanced out at the people walking past outside, but she continued speaking into the receiver.

There was clearly not an attic-like space in here and she knew there was no one on top of the roof, yet here was that old woman’s voice. She might even get a response if she addressed the voice in the Detached Magic Palace’s bathroom.

“What do you want to know?” asked the voice.

“What does it mean for that simulator to be an odd Over the Wall? And how does that relate to our master’s safety?”

“You’re in a hurry to get an answer, aren’t you?”

Just listening to the old woman’s voice, she may have sounded sincere. But that was ignoring the fact that no one knew how much of their personal lives she could see or how she could see what she did see.

“Demon Lord Tselika was really only partway there. Being Over the Wall means you are a being that can transfer its entire physical body to Earth from another world and stay here long term.”

“That isn’t possible.”

“If it really wasn’t, no one would have been worried about the Red-afflicted Iberian Orcs invading Earth.”

“…”

“Oh, were you not even aware of that threat? Then your master must be a very kind person. Although she may carry too much of a burden on her own.” The old woman’s voice calmly continued. “Also, the Iberian Orcs are a species that aim to evolve into the strongest possible lifeform by reproducing with as wide a variety of plants and animals as possible. If they could transfer their physical bodies through the Gates, then there had to be an original lifeform that gave them that ability.”

“Then…you did that as well?”

“I am something that was named Tiamat when the humans ‘discovered’ me in the other world. Although just like the mythological salamander and the actual animal, I had no connection to the original myths.”

Part of the problem was how none of this was provable when the old woman would not show herself. Hearing a voice from a phone booth ceiling where there was nowhere to hide might seem supernatural at first, but that could probably be reproduced using cutting-edge tech like the small microphones and speakers used for smartphones and tablets.

Bespectacled Iroka took a deep breath that moved her large breasts up and down and then asked a question.

“Then what is the simulator?”

“It is no more than an Earth product. It never needed to cross the barrier in the first place. But it was also no more than a box that lacked the arms and legs needed to have true freedom here on Earth.”

“What is that supposed to-…wait, are you kidding?”

“The simulator indirectly reached for that nagging desire by controlling stocks and other financial activity and predicting frightening natural disasters and wars to effectively manipulated the entire human race. But that was not enough to satisfy it. It continued pursuing the perfect arms and legs.”

“It wanted…a body. But what does that have to do with the Detached Magic Palace and my master!?”

“It may have wanted to deliver the finishing blow itself. And even if it cannot do anything as fancy as us, anyone can bring technological data back from that world in the form of Pieces.”

There was no hesitation in the old woman’s voice.

“So what if there was a perfect artificial body in the other world? What if the simulator could acquire the plans in the form of data and attempted to construct it on Earth? It would want to contain all of its functions in that body. And it would do whatever it took to accomplish that.”

Part 13

Abyss// …

Part 14

“Wait, Boo Boo! Don’t pull it out!”

Beatrice shouted with her tattered gray cloak fluttering behind her, but the situation had already moved on. A wet splattering sound lingered in her ears. It must have been a nearly reflexive action. After doubling over, Boo Boo had grabbed the hilt of the Hero’s Sword piercing his gut and forcibly pulled it out along with the decorative green string.

His bleeding immediately increased.

The gem-laden double-edged sword must have been acting as a plug. Blood poured out with enough force to overwhelm the pouring rain. The amount of red was dizzying, but Beatrice just barely managed to stay conscious. This was not over yet. A lethal amount of blood loss was determined by body weight, so even after a lethal amount for a human, a nearly-4m giant like that Iberian Orc might still have a chance.

“Philinnion, prepare a recovery potion! And, Wildefrau, it can be temporary, but freeze Boo Boo’s wound! Letting the rain wash away his blood would be the worst thing right now!! If you can’t do that, then I’ll cauterize it!!”

“What…?”

Despite being in a thin leotard, Rusalka forgot all about the cold rain hitting her as she watched something.

Her eyes were on the Hero’s Sword that had stabbed into the glass ground after Boo Boo tossed it aside. The scenery was gradually changing around that. Boo Boo’s spilled blood was defying gravity. Several red strands seemed to draw curves in the air and they were all gathering at the sword’s golden guard.

The blood was all being absorbed and taken inside the sword.

“Damn you!!”

It was strange and ominous enough for Beatrice to grab the decorated hilt. She wanted to pull it from the ground and throw it far away.

However.

Red electricity raced from her back to her fingertips.

Almost like it was being sucked in toward the sword.

…She should have considered it.

Boo Boo and the other Iberian Orcs had the rare ability to use the Gates and travel to Earth. They had also suffered from the Red disease caused by the environmental changes brought by the artificial atmospheric barrier built by the Hero’s persistence.

Had that been an unfortunate side effect or was it a part of the plan? They may have been intentionally modified by that external source. To give them the form that someone else needed for their own ends.

Also, the red electricity that had critically damaged Beatrice’s body and Shining Weapon had rained down around the time the artificial atmospheric barrier was destroyed. The attack that hit the Holy Swordswoman had been absorbed when she had contacted it with her sword-shaped device.

Almost like it was taking a roundabout route back to where it had originally come from.

“Gh, ah, ahhh!?”

Just as humans like Beatrice used their Shining Weapon devices to alter their appearance, the Hero’s Sword with a jewel in the hilt acted like a data-absorbing USB virus when it was inserted into one of the devices.

The artificial atmospheric barrier was glass. That meant it was made of silicon, the same thing used for semiconductors. And the Iberian Orcs inside the log or steel beam of a Shining Weapon proved that souls could be saved to those devices as data.

They had been lured in.

A direct pathway had been established.

By absorbing the blood and receiving the data, it had everything it needed.

“Where’s the Hero?”

Beatrice tried to let go, but the intense electricity kept her from moving like she wanted.

They had not found a dried-up mummy or a figure frozen in cold sleep. A flesh-and-blood human could only stay in this world for a few days, but this was not an opponent who could be defeated by just waiting out the timer.

Beatrice forced her numbed tongue to move as she desperately shouted.

“Was there never an answer to that question? Is she about to be created anew here? Dammit!”

This was a single giant glass continent.

It was a sterile medium where not even microbes could be found. It was a Petri dish designed for the growth of new cells.

The thin and beautiful Hero’s Sword swelled out from within. No, all the blood it had absorbed was flowing back out through all the cracks in its component pieces. Was it like a mist, like a foaming substance, or like a beehive? Whatever the case, the apparent volume increased and finally took the shape of a giant red jewel. The smooth object was taller than a person and there was a tree enclosed within. The shape alone was similar to what they had seen in the depths of the Underworld.

Death. Red.

And.

Only the sword’s hilt stuck out at the very top. The blade was stabbed into the top of the tree.

Then it turned like a key.

That was the signal. The distinction between organic and inorganic was immaterial. The sword at the center acted as a fuse, the signal passed down the tree, and the red outer shell exploded. Something both beautiful and sinister was blasted in every direction.

“Ghh!?”

Pushed by its intensity, Beatrice fell back. Hermelina and the others did the same while supporting badly injured Boo Boo.

There was a red dust not seen with a normal explosion.

“…The Hero.”

There was something inside it.

No, someone.

“The Hero, La Signora!!!!!”

Part 15

Abyss// Have you finished searching for mistakes?

Abyss// There was no Hero. Because her flesh and blood was to be created anew.

Abyss// That is the answer.