"...That's odd."
Shiomi muttered as he watched the Demon Pillar's body gradually disintegrate after its defeat.
"What's wrong, Master?"
Artoria, who had been scanning the control room for any remaining enemies, turned back to ask.
"Maybe it's just me, but this Demon Pillar felt... pointless." Shiomi poked at the creature's eye, which hadn't yet dissolved into data. "It's like an empty shell."
Its attack patterns and movements felt artificial, as if being controlled—nothing like the Demon Pillars Shiomi had encountered before. It lacked the self-awareness and intellect typical of them.
It was like it had no soul.
"Now that you mention it... yeah." Artoria had sensed it too.
Though it had caught them off guard with an ambush, the actual fight lasted only a few exchanges before they took it down with ease.
So easy, in fact, that Shiomi felt unsettled.
There was no question that the transformation of the offshore oil field base into a Singularity had something to do with the Demon Pillars.
But BB had also mentioned signs of a Beast being present.
Shiomi had initially assumed it was something related to Goetia, but now that didn't seem to be the case at all.
"This Singularity is more complicated than it looks. Even the Demon Pillars are just tools." Shiomi looked around the control room again.
Once a hub filled with seats and electronic consoles, the room was now in shambles. The few undamaged monitors only displayed signal loss.
He checked the control systems. They still had power.
"...No good. All the terminal data has been wiped. We're not going to find a path to the Observatory from here." Shiomi stared at the blank computer screen.
"Not necessarily. Deleting data isn't that simple. The most effective method is to destroy the storage hardware entirely," BB suddenly cut in. "Daddy, please plug the USB drive in your jacket pocket into the main terminal."
"Huh?" Shiomi reached into his pocket—and sure enough, there was a USB stick. "When did this get here?"
"I asked Master to slip it in for me," BB replied.
"...Was it really necessary to keep that a secret?" Shiomi muttered, glancing at Artoria.
Artoria looked a little guilty. "They said not to tell you. In case it distracted you."
"Because if Daddy had known he was carrying something important, he wouldn't have gone all out against Miss Suzuka, right?" BB added.
"What are you even talking about..."
Muttering to himself, Shiomi plugged the USB into the control room's main computer.
In any case, they'd made the right call. If he'd known he was carrying a critical item, he probably would've held back in that fight.
"Okay, the intrusion program's connected to the system..." BB murmured thoughtfully. "Hmm, this was wiped very thoroughly. Whoever did this clearly knew this system inside and out."
"So, we can't recover it?" Shiomi asked.
"It'll take a little time," BB replied. "In the meantime, Daddy can investigate the other rooms. There probably aren't any survivors left, but it's still worth confirming."
With that, Shiomi took Artoria and headed toward one of the side doors in the control room.
The room they entered appeared to be a changing room.
It was a mess—scattered needles and medicine vials littered the floor—but there wasn't a single trace of any people.
"What is this?" Artoria frowned slightly.
"Chaldea had a routine communication scheduled with the offshore oil field today." Shiomi crouched down to examine the labels on the medicine bottles. "According to the intel BB provided, the incident here happened not long after the battle at the Temple of Time ended. That's when the Demon Pillars invaded this place."
Shiomi couldn't say for sure what four or five months in the outside world translated to here.
Maybe at first, they just lost contact and drifted out into the open sea, eventually beginning to sink below the surface—only recently becoming a Singularity.
Either way, after so long cut off from the outside world, internal chaos was inevitable.
Chaldea had faced a similar threat once. But thankfully, they had him, Romani, and the Director.
Everyone worked together to hold things together. While many had mental breakdowns and needed counseling, Chaldea managed to stay stable and made it through to the day the Incineration of Humanity was resolved.
"But as we just saw... the Demon Pillars are empty shells now," Artoria said thoughtfully. "So then—"
Shiomi glanced toward the back of the locker room, about to answer, when unfamiliar images suddenly flooded his vision—
Moments of despair.
A sense of isolation.
Inability to reach the outside world.
A warped flow of time.
And eventually, the inevitable descent into internal conflict and madness.
Life on an offshore oil field, like Chaldea, was isolated. Workers of different ranks had different levels of access to information.
As exhaustion wore them down and they reached their mental limits, the staff relied more and more on the one and only therapist for counseling.
But soon, rumors began to spread—that the therapist was using her body to relieve their stress.
Factions began to form. Some admired the therapist, others loathed her.
The disputes grew more intense.
Violence broke out again and again...
...
"Master!"
Artoria's hand gripped Shiomi's shoulder, her clear and steady voice snapping him out of the chaotic vision.
"I'm fine... just residual thoughts left behind by the dead." Shiomi let out a long breath. "Magus like us often deal with spirits and such. It's not unusual to experience hallucinations in places saturated with lingering energy."
"What did you see?" Artoria asked, concerned.
"Many people struggled to survive here... and died in agony. The one who sent Chaldea the final distress signal vanished in this very place." Shiomi gestured around them. "But even more died because of infighting. It doesn't make sense—something's seriously wrong."
"Could this be the Beast's doing?" Artoria asked.
"At the very least, we have to assume that as the worst-case scenario." Shiomi tapped his temple with a finger. "A single Demon Pillar might be strong for human Magus, but it's not the King of the Demon Gods..."
Suddenly, alarms blared throughout the control room.
Shiomi broke off mid-sentence and bolted with Artoria.
"Get out of the control room, Daddy! It's rigged to self-destruct! The moment someone tries to recover the core data, it triggers the explosion! Countdown: ten seconds! Nine! Eight..."
With BB's panicked countdown in their ears, Shiomi grabbed Artoria's hand and dashed through the exit.
Behind them, the explosion engulfed the control room in a blazing inferno.
...
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