[729] The Body (2)
* * *
Maze Andre — World No. 19000.
The last world Gephin had sealed inside Andre was something Shirone couldn't make sense of.
"Uuuuu—"
Countless people, too many to number, lay naked and clinging together, emitting grotesque moans.
Damn it. Where is this?
He'd been forcing his way through the mass for six days, and it was nothing but bodies, bodies, bodies everywhere.
He felt like his mind was going to break.
"Waaaah! Waaaah!"
Men and women, children and the elderly, even newborns—there was nothing to learn from this world.
These weren't humans.
If they had minds, they would have gone mad.
They drifted like creatures with paralyzed brains, swaying through life, only eating and reproducing.
I have to find an exit.
The worst part was that no matter how many days he crawled between them, all he ever found were walls of steel.
That can't be. There has to be some nutrient source feeding them—otherwise life couldn't persist.
Cold droplets hit his head. Shirone cast Shining and illuminated his surroundings.
Again?
The liquid—apparently the only nourishment in this world—looked far richer than water.
Watching people drink it, Shirone turned his body upward toward a ceiling.
The supply lasts about a minute. I have to get out while it flows.
It was probably his only chance.
"Gnnnn!"
Finding a gap where limbs were tangled, Shirone pushed his head through and clawed his way up through the swamp of bodies.
Hurry! Hurry!
At last, light leaked through a crack in an iron hatch above.
"Ha!"
The fresh air after days made his vision swim, and the hatch began to close.
Shirone rolled and slammed onto the floor, and at once he confirmed what the place was.
"That is…."
It was an iron structure connected like an underground channel. Faint, weathered lettering from long ago remained.
Human Storage. Building D, Unit 274.
"Human storage?"
Sphere-like globes hovered above iron structures jutting out every hundred meters, spraying the liquid.
Drones?
He'd never seen such machines before, but they felt oddly familiar.
Had I been here before?
No surface life was visible; the sky was covered in electric clouds.
-Long time no see, Shirone.
A drone flew over and opened its lens in front of him.
"How do you know me?"
-We met. About six hundred thousand years have passed.
The drone's surface was heavily corroded; the voice leaking from its cracked lens crackled with noise and sounded uncanny.
As if reading Shirone's emotions, the drone extended a thin hose and made a motion like wiping itself.
-Don't worry. Repairs are still possible. I have grasped the concept of sloth. It's efficient.
Shirone pointed at the human storage.
"You locked people in there?"
-I manage them efficiently. I maintain the units to minimize power waste. My power will last only a hundred million years more.
The drone looked up at the electric sky as it spoke.
-I like that sky. It might not please a human perspective, but it doesn't matter. Now no one tries to leave the vats anymore.
"Aren't any of them normal?"
-All of them are normal.
The drone's hose pointed at Shirone.
-If you mean someone like you… I can't compute that. The Utopia Project was flawless. They still enjoy immortality.
The drone shuddered and began to malfunction.
-There's nobody in the utopia. They enjoy immortality. So why is it empty? Void? Infinity?
Argo, the Utopia's manager, went mad trying to compute the contradiction between Void and Infinity.
-The population kept decreasing.
Leaving descendants behind wasn't a priority for people who endlessly dove into virtual worlds.
-The project was perfect. Death cannot exist. Why are numbers falling? Must prevent species extinction.
The drone turned hurriedly to Shirone.
-They must not think. They must not realize they are alive. I am doing my best.
Shirone took in the ruined gray landscape.
This is the last world….
The end of mind.
There would be no one left who knew there was a universe here.
And this is….
The farthest point the concept of the Void could reach.
-Go.
The drone said.
-Do the same thing as last time. I no longer perform new computations. Sloth is efficient.
Argo would not discover a better solution.
"The same thing as last time…."
Shirone guessed what it meant.
Free them.
When he pictured the people in Human Storage, sorrow filled his eyes.
He closed his eyes slowly and spread his arms wide. Argo offered its farewell.
-The Utopia Project is perfect.
* * *
"Haah! Haah!"
Leaning his back against a ruined building, Rian staggered and painfully pulled his buckling knees up.
Don't fall asleep.
He hadn't slept a wink in six days.
-Smille. Smille.
Even breathing and hearing Smille's phantom voice meant his body was already at death's door.
With a roar, the building collapsed and a naked woman with a blade hanging approached.
How does she keep going?
Rian's gaze on her body was detached.
According to Tsuoi's theory, when your mind unifies with the fight, trivial things like underwear vanish from perception.
"Grrrrrr."
A harsh groan escaped the woman.
Not normal.
The only small comfort Rian had disappeared from the wall just as the woman charged.
My legs won't move.
Rian sprang out with terrifying speed and struck her sword head-on.
My arms won't move.
A flash of the Great Straight Sword descended toward the crown of her head.
"Yaaaah!"
Before the world could split in two in his vision, the woman rolled her eyes and slipped behind Rian.
"Ugh!"
Without even leaping, she flipped her body and hooked Rian's neck with her knee, bringing him down.
Chokehold!
That had been her tactic after six days of fighting.
"Grrr!"
With his face trapped between her legs, the woman squeezed Rian's air, curling like a cat.
"Grrr! Grrrrrr!"
She raised an elbow and began hammering Rian's crown like a madwoman.
Hearing skulls crack, Rian felt his consciousness recede.
No! If I lose consciousness, it's over.
If he stayed catatonic and couldn't breathe for long, he might never wake up.
I have to break out now!
Rian forced his body up and lunged head-first; nearby obstacles struck the woman.
"Grrrrr…!"
Even so, she locked her legs like a clamp and continued pounding his crown.
At last Rian's consciousness snapped.
-Smille.
For the first time, Smille's phantom voice came through clearly.
What is this?
In his mashed-brain state, Rian looked up and saw an ancient man with long black hair falling down his back.
"Brother?"
His features vaguely recalled Ozent Rye, but his gaze was even colder.
"Who are you? Where is this?"
"Body."
When the man tossed a hand over his shoulder, an identical Great Straight Sword appeared and traced an arc downward.
That is…an Idea?
How could a man possess a unique object that existed only once in the world?
No—where did he even come from?
"Mind."
The man stepped forward and swung the Great Straight Sword in front of Rian's face.
The body wields the mind.
A vertical flash pierced Rian's brow, expanding left and right as the world opened.
As Rian's eyes flew open, the grotesque sense from the woman warned of danger.
What is this?
The blade slashed diagonally as he snapped back, and Rian shot upright.
"Hah! Hah!"
Rian's crushed brain regenerated and consciousness stitched back together like film spliced.
It was a cut.
The woman's right eyelid had been sliced diagonally and blood sprayed out.
How?
Before Rian could swing his blade, the woman had already sensed the danger.
But as if time had slowed, even after seeing the sword fly, her body could not move.
It wasn't the blade.
Rian muttered, realization in his eyes as he recalled what had happened while he'd been catatonic.
The body wields the mind.
-Do you understand?
A chill ran through him as the essence of the sword Kuahn had shown in Ladum poured into him.
"A mind-sword?"
The woman, crouched like a beast, rose—and a V-shaped avatar burst into being.
"You've come…all the way to the end."
Her form evaporated, and Rian's mind moved faster than perception.
I cut!
His mind struck the woman first.
Death.
Rian's arms still didn't move, but that was only because an instant had been stretched to its extreme.
She saw his blade leave belatedly and twisted her torso, but not a millimeter of movement followed.
How fast is this?
Probably the speed of thought.
A thousand transformations cleaved the world as Rian's arms burst with a sickening snap.
"Ughhh!"
The Great Straight Sword clattered to the ground. Rian's arms were gone from his shoulders down; he grimaced.
"Is that your own blade?"
As he lifted his head, a line opened from the woman's sternum to her navel and blood gushed out.
Eleven thousand two hundred years of life were ending, yet her eyes awaiting death were calm.
"Keep sharpening it. It's a fine technique."
"…Any last words?"
He had fought her as an enemy, risking his life, but he'd grant a dying foe a last word.
The woman staring at the sky breathed out softly.
"I think I had a son…."
A memory from a very long time ago.
"Really? What happened to him?"
"What happened…."
Her eyes closed slowly.
"He died."
Rian wished her peace.
To live, and then to meet death.
Even an immortal life, when it reaches the finish line and looks back, is that not this simple?
"Shirone."
The fight wasn't over, so as soon as his arms regenerated Rian picked up the Great Straight Sword.
Please, don't be too late.
Dragging his exhausted body toward the entrance of Andre, he saw Kido face-down in the dirt.
"Kido!"
Rian turned Kido over, brushed the grime from his face, and slapped his cheek.
"Wake up! Kido!"
"Ugh…."
Kido's trembling lids opened; his pupils rolled left and right.
"Rian?"
Kido sat bolt upright.
"Shirone? What happened to him?"
"I don't know. My fight just ended. What about the Maga bandits?"
Before Kido could answer, Rian checked the deputy captain's corpse fallen at the entrance and nodded.
"He's here. I'll look for Shirone."
"No way. Of course I'm coming."
As Kido rose gripping his broken spear with both hands, a scream echoed from deeper inside Andre.
What? The Maga bandits were annihilated….
Before Kido finished speaking, Rian pushed off the ground and plunged back into the maze.