Chapter 234: The Story of a Jobber Who Struggled On, Unsightly Though It Was
I was late posting because I was thinking about Hellshake Yano. (Excuse.)
Man, watching robot anime makes me want to write robot stuff... Gaia is whispering to me, "Write NephHolo 2 as a side story"...!
Gaia, you bastard, weren't you whispering "Let's put a talking transformation belt in SLF" just the other day!?
Sunraku: "Emul. Heeey, Emul. You alive?"
Emul: "Numb... nuuumb... caaan't mooove..."
Sunraku: "Ahaha, my bad, my bad. The description said 'inflicts a debuff on the target with an attack,' so I figured just touching it would be safe... Open up. I'll give you a potion that removes status ailments... ah."
Emul: "Glubblubblub... cough! Cough, hack!"
Sorry. My hand genuinely slipped.
Emul: "Drowning at the bottom of the earth doesn't even make sense, waa!?"
Sunraku: "Yeah, this one's just straight-up my fault. It was way more thrilling than I expected; even I got a chill from that."
Emul: "I'm just... just! Just! Juuuuust!!"
Ow, ow, quit smacking me on the head. We're alive, so it's fine, it's fine. You're a rabbit, aren't you?
Sunraku: "I mean, seriously, gufh—when we landed, ghf—I also kinda came to terms with dy—blugh—dying, but-gagagagaga."
Quit shaking your head. You're making my line wobble.
We reached the very bottom of the elevator at maximum acceleration, but dealing with the inertia that hit my body was rough.
Even for me, doing something as ridiculous as drifting along a wall was a first. I did have an emergency measure if things went bad, but, well, I definitely would've died.
Sunraku: "So, Emul, how'd it feel to run all the way from top to bottom?"
Emul: "I never want to experience that again for as long as I live, waa!!!"
The Vorpal Bunny gave a scream of utmost sincerity...
Well, putting that aside.
Sunraku: "Emul. We're at the bottom floor."
Emul: "Whoa..."
Rather than repel us intruders, this space seemed to have chosen to welcome us.
Lights whose workings I couldn't understand came on, illuminating the full extent of the remains of an old fortress... all the way to its far end.
Sunraku: "What... is this?"
Emul: "A-a hole, waa! There's another hole, waa! I don't want to fall anymore, waa!!"
Sunraku: "Emul. Stay."
Like hell I want to do the same thing again either. But what is this place...?
I don't know how far we fell—or descended—but it sure wasn't only a hundred meters or so.
I had assumed a place built this deep underground would have something like a command center. Instead, despite already being hundreds of meters below ground, there was a hole dug even farther down, along with the tools and equipment used to make it.
And that wasn't all. Here and there were other pieces of machinery whose purposes I couldn't really figure out.
Sunraku: "...Feels like we skipped about four steps in the process."
Emul: "S-Sunraku-san! Look at that, waa!!"
Sunraku: "Hm...?"
I looked where Emul was pointing while she patted my head, and saw some equipment of unknown purpose.
Well, it did look vaguely computer-like...
Emul: "Not that! The thing stuck into the top of it, waa!"
Stuck into? Emul, you say it's inserted.
These are separate pieces of equipment connected in the way they were designed to be. The way you put it makes it sound like somebody physically rammed them together... huh. There are three. Actually, they look like they can combine.
Sunraku: "It's the Delta Device!"
Emul: "We did it, waa! We found it, waaa!"
So they really did hide the important stuff in the deepest place possible. This definitely isn't the intended route, but forgive me, devs... It's your fault for not debugging it enough.
Charging over and grabbing it in the heat of excitement is what a third-rate player does. A first-rate player checks the surroundings first... Carelessly touching an item can trigger a trap or throw you into a boss fight... ugh, my head.
Sunraku: "Hold it, Emul. Let's inspect the area before we touch anything."
Emul: "...? Yes, waa!"
First things first... this, right?
Being careful not to end up in some stupid falling gag, I peered down into the hole that had been dug even farther beneath this already-deep underground level.
Sunraku: "...Hup."
I kicked some incomprehensible piece of equipment lying around into it, but this time, no matter how many seconds passed, I heard no impact... Forget a fall-death zone; this is more likely just a straight-up death zone.
We'll leave the hole alone for now. There's no way to investigate it without something like a drone.
Sunraku: "...A drone, huh."
SF stands for science fiction. It can also mean science fantasy, but at its root the motif is "a future beyond the present."
In other words, whether you're making interstellar warps or operating giant humanoid battle robots in space, the roots still trace back to modern technology.
Sunraku: "And SLF is a kind of exploration game, too. So even without a Skill... is this it?"
SLF's Divine Era civilization wasn't built by aliens. The fact that Divine Era Tactical Machine Beasts are named Suzaku, Seiryu, Genbu, Byakko, and even the source-local Qilin pretty much says their roots lie with humanity from Earth.
That means their underlying way of thinking should be pretty similar to ours in the real world. So if I search for something that looks like a power source for this equipment... heh heh, bingo.
Sunraku: "Power's on. AR holographic..."
AR: augmented reality. Unlike VR, which uses equipment to feed information directly into the brain, AR uses holograms and the like to output digital information into the real world.
I get the impression it's used here and there for big-company advertising or popular artists' concerts, but never really made it down to the level of personal entertainment.
A virtual amusement park built in VR versus a real-world amusement park enhanced with AR. Which one survived feels like answer enough.
My thoughts wandered off in a useless direction.
A holographic screen appeared. After an incomprehensible startup process, it politely let me choose between several video files.
Emul: "Wha! Sunraku-san, you can operate that, waa!?"
Sunraku: "Listen, Emul. Things don't just break when nobody did anything. Put another way, nothing progresses unless you actually do something."
A touch-panel keyboard. It looked futuristic as hell, but the basic key layout hadn't changed all that much.
This is probably Enter... Judging by the layout, is this select? No, maybe I move my hand over this... Wait, two of the three files have corrupted data? So there's effectively only one.
Sunraku: "I've made my way through countless SF worlds, from the edge of space to other dimensions. This much is child's play for me."
Obviously I don't know how to repair files the SF way, so let's just watch the one final video that survived.
Recording — ???: "I did it! I did it! I've finally reached the root!"
Oh, wow. A nasty-looking face, a scrawny body with no apparent physical power, and a way of celebrating that screams he hasn't been up to anything good.
He's the most stereotypical possible mad scientist who is probably responsible for all of this.
I don't know what happened in the first two corrupted recordings, but at least as far as this recording's mad scientist is concerned, he seems to have gotten a result he can call a success.
Recording — ???: "Down on the surface, the foot soldiers are probably still being consumed even now... heh, kukukuku... I suppose I can praise them. They became the foundation of my great achievement, after all...!"
Emul: "...Sunraku-san, I don't like this person, waa."
Sunraku: "Easy, easy. Calm down."
You shouldn't judge people by nothing but their looks and behavior. Sure, I feel like those decide eighty percent of your impression, but your final evaluation should be based on what the person actually does.
Even if somebody looks good, if their behavior and deeds are trash, you get someone like Fuckaria.
Recording — ???: "What 'succession'? What 'next generation'!? I'll admit Setsuna Amatsuki's theory has merit... but them? Them!?"
Oh? What's this? Could it be...? No, let's keep watching for now.
Recording — ???: "Ridiculous! If we, the people living in this very moment, die, then there's no point! Alice Frontier, too! Julius Shangri-La, too! Those people are insane!"
Recording — ???: "That's right... yes. Humanity's savior is me..."
Wait wait wait wait. You absolutely reek of jobber and yet you're just dumping serious setting lore everywhere. Cut it out!
Uh, hold on. I should have bought one because I had money to spare... Wait, it's a recorded video. I can just play it again.
Recording — ???: "We came from the sky. The sky is our domain... There is no god in heaven. God is below...!"
Oh, I actually kind of like that phrasing.
They came from the sky, so they know there isn't a god in heaven. Also, you reek of jobber, but are you actually a pretty important person?
Recording — ???: "I would have preferred to conduct the experiment farther west... but never mind. The connection is fine. I'm no pessimist like they are... This root of the calamity... I will... with my own hands...!"
And here's the static. Ah. I see.
The three-dimensional holographic image cut out, but apparently the audio was still alive. I could hear something like screams, metal being destroyed, and a roar that clearly came from something inhuman... Ah. I see.
Recording — ???: "N-no! Nooo! I... I am...! No, I didn't... damn it...!!"
Emul: "W-what!? What's happening, waa!?"
Sunraku: "Who knows... I can make a pretty good guess, though."
So what now, jobber? Is this where you give your death cry? Or...
Recording — ???: "Damn it! Damn it! Daaamn it! I'm not dying for nothing, you bastard! A record... yes, that's it, a record! Listen to me, I don't care who you are! Listen! Everything is down! Look up at the sky and all you'll see is the same old universe. It's nothing but a waste of time!!"
Recording — ???: "M-my arm...! You monster... are you trying to drag me in...!? Damn it, activate the excavation arm! Buy me time!!"
Recording — ???: "I don't want to die... damn it, ngh... listen, it's down! Ziz is... no good. If it's Leviathan and Behemoth, then yes... yes... ga—gwaaaaaah!!?"
Only the clattering sounds of flesh and metal colliding echoed on. Something seemed to burst a short distance away; an explosion rang out... and the video feed recovered.
Emul: "Eep!?"
I couldn't blame Emul for screaming. The man who had been radiating jobber energy a moment ago was now, in real time, having half his body eaten by "something."
It moved like an earthworm, like tentacles, somewhere between rotting and writhing, invading the left half of the man's body.
One look at his face, twisted as tears and snot poured out, made it clear the experience was bringing him no pleasure whatsoever.
And yet the eyes of the man I'd judged to be a jobber weren't dead. Deep in pupils painted over with despair, a flame was undeniably still burning.
Recording — ???: "At this point I don't care whether it's Julius or Alice! Listen, what you're trying to do is no more than spraying deodorizer over shit and piss! It doesn't solve the root of the problem! I put my program into the Delta Device. It pisses me off, but I'm entrusting it to you!"
Recording — ???: "It hurts, it hurts, it hurts...! Damn it! You useless piece of junk! You can't even manage a tug-of-war properly!? Not yet... not yet!!"
Recording — ???: "Ahh, damn it... You can't let something like this get outside...! Damn it, why does it have to go like this...!? But even so, I...!"
Recording — ???: "Activation code: Antimatter's Finale: Nakima Sukue Sude! I have to get as close to that thing as possible... eek!"
Recording — ???: "Mgh!? G-gogegih! G-oooooaaaaaaah!!"
After a tentacle-play scene no one asked for (R-18G), the jobber... no, the scientist whose name I still didn't know was dragged into the hole.
For a while, I could hear wet, slithering sounds. They grew more distant, and after light and static... the recording ended.
Sunraku: "How do I even put this..."
My overall assessment was "spectacular self-destruction," but even so, that scientist settled the score for what he himself had done with his own hands.
Sunraku: "This might actually be pretty bad."
Information-wise, isn't this the kind of thing you're supposed to learn right before the final dungeon?
Edward Oldkring
There is no praise for him. Clinging to the old ways, his actions did nothing more than hold back the saviors advancing a new succession.
And yet, even so, he was unquestionably a savior of "humanity."