"I'm sorry I couldn't have been of more help, Climb-kun. You guys were all out here fighting demons while all I could do was lick my wounds."
Brain shoveled up a spade full of debris and moved dumped it into a steadily growing pile. Several men were doing the same thing within the ruins of the business district. Climb worked alongside him.
"N-No, please Brain-sama, I under-"
"—But I really did mess up…"
Brain chuckled ruefully.
"I thought that I would be ready next time I encountered a monster like Shalltear, but I just didn't expect to find one only minutes after finally getting back on my feet. I guess it was still just a little bit too much for me at that time. This world can be so cruel."
Climb nodded slowly.
"How is your sword coming along."
Brain's eyes lit up. He suddenly bowed to Climb.
"I must thank her highness again for paying for the repairs. That sword is my soul. I dropped by the blacksmith's before coming here, It's going to take some time."
Climb nodded and they both went back to silently working. Several minutes passed by until Climb remembered something.
"Do you know what Science?"
"Huh?"
"It was something that Rhamnusia had said to me. He said 'science waits for no one'. It might be something important, or might give us a clue on how to defeat him."
Brain pouted in concentration.
"...nope, I've got nothing."
"I see…"
"But I do know someone who might be more knowledgeable in the subject."
"Who?"
Brain chuckled painfully and rubbed his arm, as if remembering old wounds.
"She's an old crone, but she packs quite the punch. She gave me her address last time we parted in case I ever wanted to drop by and spar with her again, hehe."
"Where does she live?"
"The address she gave me was kind of vague, but she apparently likes to hang around down south. I'm sure I could find her if I just looked around a bit."
Brain planted his shovel down and wiped the sweat from his brow, he smiled.
"Brain-sama?"
"It's a long journey, but perhaps that's just what I need."
He chuckled.
"And besides, as much as appreciate her highness's kindness, the blacksmiths here in Re-Estize probably won't be able to do my katana any justice. Yes, a trip down south is probably exactly what I need."
...
Standing against the backdrop of Moot village, the alien looking fence appeared at first glance to be a somewhat ineffective barrier.
Most fences made of metal used either small latus patterns or tightly arrayed vertical pikes in order to prevent them from being scaled, but the fence constructed on the rims of the volcanic caldera of Moot Village looked like it was almost encouraging people to climb it.
Standing at the height of three meters, it was constructed of two dozen steel cables that ran across its length horizontally like the steps of a ladder. And with no added vertical or horizontal lines other than the steel posts which supported the cables, it looked rather easy to climb, but that was what made it dangerous.
Niven turned to Vera and they knelt down to examine the cables of the fence.
"This is the furthest spot from the alternator, go ahead and check the levels, Miss Vera."
"Right."
What she was about to do would be considered suicide if performed by anyone but her. She focused and gently outstretched her hands. She took a deep breath and gripped one of the cables with both of her hands.
「Current Control」
A flood of charges entered through her hands and ran through her body and into the ground. She focused and guided the flow through her body, steering it away from her vital organs and nervous system, and providing it an external path across her skin. It was a technique she had been trying to master, and even though she had a strong natural affinity was towards lightning, electrons in an alternating current had a habit of being rather unruly.
Faint fractal patterns started to burn into her skin, but she ignored the pain and kept going. She was paying close attention to the amount of oscillating current flowing through her.
Hmmm… That's still quite a lot, I didn't expect that such a simple thing as alternating the direction of the current would be so effective at increasing the voltage and overcoming resistance. I'm sensing that this level of oscillating current would definitely be lethal if given free reign through a body…
She let go of the cable and started to heal her light burns. She then turned to Niven.
"The current here is more than adequate now, I doubt anyone will try to get into the village after touching the electric fence."
Niven nodded and they both started to head back to the village. She watched the back of the boy's head as they descended down the hillside.
What I probably shouldn't tell him is that this is probably a little bit more than just a deterrent... Anyone who grabs it probably won't be able to escape once the current contracts their hand muscles.
It had been several weeks since the demonic disturbance, and after returning to Moot, things had been relatively quiet.
Niven pulled out a small, leather bound notebook from his side pouch. Written entirely in English. It contained a multitude of plans concerning the development of Moot Village, and with nothing else to do, they had taken the liberty slowly turning it's contents into reality.
The setting sun just fell below the ridge of the caldera and Moot was washed with shadow.
The two of them stopped when they saw the orange glare of the sun descend and turned their gazes to the window of the buildings below them. They were both waiting for something to happen.
Vera turned to Niven, "You remembered to set the timer right?"
He nodded, "Yeah, it should it should go off any mintue now."
There had been several test runs on earlier nights, but the two of them hadn't had very much luck so far.
They waited in silence for a few more minutes. And then finally —
All the windows of Moot Village simultaneously glowed with yellow light coming from within the buildings.
They both continued to watch and whispered under their breath, "...come on...work…"
The waited for a few more seconds and suddenly they heard the cheers of the villagers.
Niven and Vera jumped and smiled.
"Yes! They didn't blow out this time! Lets go check it out!"
They ran down to the village and the villagers were coming out of their houses, faces full of joy. They called out to the pair and congratulated them.
"Nice job you two! The lights didn't explode this time!"
They giggled and Vera turned to Niven.
"I'm going to go check on the generator to make sure everything is alright."
"Alright."
They nodded and went their separate ways.
Niven ran to the building that contained the laboratory. He flung the door open and smiled when he saw that room was glowing not by the light of a candle, but from a glass orb anchored into the ceiling.
He then turned to a small switch that had been fastened into the wall. He flipped it several times and squealed with joy when the light turned on and off again.
"This is so cool! This invention will change everything!"
He trotted up to the back room and knocked on the shut door.
"Master! Master! We finally got the lightbulbs to work!"
There was no reply from the door, but that was to be expected. It had only been opened a scant few times in the last several weeks.
The silence had seemingly no effect on the gleefully smiling boy and he continued to talk with enthusiasm.
"And the alternator worked super well too! Miss Vera said that we have more than adequate current on the fence around the entire perimeter of the village!"
He stopped as if remembering something.
"Oh! Hold on for a second! I wanted a find a way to cheer you up so I went ahead and made the thing you wrote about in the notebook called 'Dr. Pepper'. So just hold on a second."
Niven hurried over to one end of the lab to the thing called the "Kipps Apparatus". A strange piece of glassware that consisted of the glass bulbs that formed what almost looked like an oddly shaped glass snowman with a tube sticking out of its side. The middle bulb contained chunks of a granular white substance known as calcium carbonate.
Niven poured in hydrochloric acid from the top and the clear liquid rushed in to mix with the calcium carbonate.
As the substances were mixing, he then hurried over to the other side of the lab to get a flask of a dark brown liquid that smelled very sweet. He had painstakingly gathered and mixed over 27 different ingredients and flavors over several days to create the liquid.
He brought it to the glass snowman and plunged the tube into the flask. Bubbles of carbon dioxide started to bubble through the liquid and slowly dissolve.
He waited for several more minutes before pulling the tube out.
He poured the now fizzy liquid into a large glass.
He walked over to the door once more.
"Master? I made the beverage."
A hoarse voice came from the other side of the door. It was the first time he had heard it in several days.
"Did you carbonate it?"
"Yes."
The door slowly creaked open. A pair of eyes peeked out from behind and looked at the glass of liquid in Niven's hands. The door immediately shut closed again.
"I remembered drawing a diagram of the container it was supposed to be served in."
"Yeah I saw the drawing, and I went ahead and had Mr. Faber make the container as well, but…"
"But?"
"But polyethylene is valuable and super hard to make...so shouldn't we save it for something super important—"
"—Just...Just put it in the bottle Niven. It's important."
"…Yes"
Niven walked back over to the other end of the laboratory and revealed an incredibly alien object, a plastic bottle.
He undid the plastic cap that had been specifically dyed red and poured the fizzy liquid inside. He then put the cap back on and walked back over to the door.
"It's in the bottle now."
The door opened once more and a hand quickly snatched the bottle in a blur of motion before the door closed once more.
…
Stockwell leaned up against the backside of the door and took a deep breath.
He was in terrible shape.
His skin was sickly pale and his cheeks were hollow. He had barely eaten anything in the last several weeks and his limbs were weak with atrophy. His hair had grown out, and it was almost gray in its entirety. He had maybe only a few hairs that were still brown.
He sat with his back to the door, surrounded by half-eaten trays of food and buckets full of excrement.
Jaldabaoth's words continued to echo in his mind.
"Pain."
The demon had done him a great service. He had bestowed upon him an image of absolute power, an omnipotent evil, and an impassable obstacle. He had confirmed Stockwell's hypothesis that the universe was nothing but unending pain.
But it wasn't just the pain either.
In that swirl of killing intent, he saw every evil he had seen before. In it was power, the thing that corrupted people to destroy their own planet. The way the skies of earth had turned perpetually black because it was more profitable. They way how no matter what technology Stockwell invented, it would always be used to cause more suffering than good.
The image of Jaldabaoth bringing his hand to his forehead vividly appeared in his mind. The two gently cocked fingers would flick off his head and grant him a certain death.
So why even try to escape? Why was he even alive? Was it because Jaldabaoth had shown him pity? Was it because Momon had somehow saved him?
He didn't know. All he knew was that he would never be able to defeat that demon no matter how hard he tried. Death had written his name in his notebook the moment Jaldabaoth flicked him away, he was now just living on borrowed time.
"It's just too unfair…"
Perhaps Jaldabaoth's goal was to simply make him suffer in his own powerlessness.
He held up the plastic bottle of dark liquid. It reminded him of home, a place where there was more plastic than fish in the oceans, and where the demons in stories were always defeated in the end.
He chuckled painfully, remembering what Niven had just said.
"...valuable. Mom died making the damn things. Mom…"
He hated that feeling of powerlessness, that feeling that someone else is dictating your life that you have no control over.
"But what's wrong with that!? What's wrong with wanting to regain control!? This unfair! Horrible! Terrible world! Why!? Did you just expect me to just accept it!? To roll over and die in your hands!?"
He began to sob.
"All I wanted was to finish my quest and finally go to rest."
Jaldabaoth's image appeared in his mind once more.
"How cruel of you... to reveal your hand like that for right when I was finally regaining some control…"
He slumped over.
"Was it hubris? Is that why? Was it wrong to try to fight gods with my lowly human body? A 74 kilogram bag of mostly water trying to fight the gods...Haha...I'm so stupid…just let me rest already…."
He looked up to the shelves around him, he was in the storage room after all. Hydrogen peroxide, arsenic trichloride, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, sodium hypochlorite, sulfuric acid. Maybe he would finally be able to find peace at the bottom of one of those jars.
"It would be so easy…"
He realized that he was still holding the bottle that Niven had just given him. The boy's smile appeared in his mind.
A smile untainted by evil, one that reflected a boy whose only joy was learning about the world and proudly reciting his findings to his mother.
It was a smile he had lost at the hands of injustice long ago.
"I…"
He tore his eyes away from the shelves.
"I don't want to loose it again."
They were being hunted down by Renner's secret masters. People associated with that demon, people who've come from Earth and brought a sniper rifle with them. Yes, should he die here, Niven would never be able to smile like that again. It would only be a matter of time until he was cornered and tortured until the end of time.
"Yes, of course, that's the kind of world this is."
And it wasn't just Niven either. Vera, Faber, Galdur the villagers. They all appeared in his mind. They were pleading him to stay.
"But what am I supposed to do against that? And that demon can't be the only thing that god has up his sleeve for me."
Wesley.
He didn't know where his mother's voice ended and Vera's began.
You're so smart, I'm sure you're going to change the world one day,
He leaned back and mimicked a news cast that he had heard.
"Wesley Asimov Stockwell, finder of the first stable ultra heavy element. Inventor and scientist who paved the way to modern unified field theory and lossless fusion reactors. The man who had allowed mankind to start taking leaps and bounds to the heavens. The man whose net worth is in the hundreds of billions, and whose mind is priceless."
For the first time in several weeks, he smiled.
He twirled the bottle a little and then gently loosened the cap. He listened to the hiss of the carbon dioxide escaping. The sound brought an inexplicable peace that made him chuckle.
"Hehe, Wesley Asimov Stockwell, also a pavlovian dog who's conditions to the sound of CO2 escaping a bottle."
He brought the bottle to his lips and drank. He downed it one go.
His small burp escaping his body brought along with it any remaining hesitation.
"Fuck it. Bring the pain."
He made a point of disgracefully throwing the bottle into the corner.
The only way he knew how to fight against the very nature of the universe that conspired to destroy him was with technology that would destroy the world in turn. It was lose, lose, and he had no choice but to at least attempt to embrace that.
He opened the door and walked out into the lab.
"The first thing I did after buying PepsiCo was dig up their secret recipe for Dr. Pepper and commit it to memory. So either my memory is waning a bit after all of these years or you simply mixed the ingredients incorrectly my boy. It tasted like shit."
Niven jumped out of his chair in response to the voice. He smiled with glee when he saw his master standing in the doorway.
"Master!"
He ran towards him but stopped halfway. He pinched his nose, but he was still smiling.
"You should probably take a bath."
Stockwell laughed tieredly
"Yes...I've a mountain of things that could use a good cleansing. Also, get me some parchment and some pencils."
...
Vera lazily swung her legs back and forth as she sat atop a workbench in Mr. Faber's workshop. She often found herself bumming around the blacksmith's workshop and Galdur's workstation over the last several weeks whenever she and Niven weren't working on something.
The blacksmith came over to her.
"If you're not doing anything at the moment lass, could you go ahead and coat this for me?"
"Hm?"
The blacksmith placed a bucket of clear-brown liquid on the bench along with a brush. He then placed in front of her some kind of large wooden item. She realized it was the stock of a firearm.
She gestured to the bucket.
"What is it?"
"It's varnish, it'll extend the life of the wood."
"Sure thing…"
Vera nodded and picked up the brush. She began to coat the wood as directed. The blacksmith gave her a nod and went back to his work.
I don't know much about smithing, but that has to be pretty amazing, right?
She was watching how well Mr. Faber was boring out musket barrels. He was using a mechanical lathe in conjunction with his 「Shape Metal」 to efficiently make the holes.
"Say, Faber."
The blacksmith responded without looking away from his work,
"What is it lass?"
"Why do you work for Wesley? I'm sure you know what these are capable of and what they're being used for."
The blacksmith continued his methodical work pace.
"I could ask the same question of you lass. Why do you work Mr. Stockwell?"
"I…"
Vera stopped her brushing for a second and thought.
"I guess I had my own personal reasons at first, I thought he was...well... I'm not so sure now…"
The pair continued to work in silence, listing only to the soft mechanical hum of the lathe.
"But I think now...now it's more like I just want to be there for him. I've seen first hand what he's been through and also what he's capable of. Or maybe I just simply have nowhere else to go or that I simply feel like he'll kill himself If I don't keep an eye on him."
She then let of a wry smile and shivered a little bit.
"I'm discovering new powers every day because of the knowledge and weapons he's shared with me. Maybe...maybe all it is is that I'm just secretly selfish and just want to see how powerful I can get."
The blacksmith nodded silently.
"An honest answer."
He completed the barrel he was working on and took it off the lathe. He examined it and blew out the metal fragments.
"As for me, It's much the same reason. I also want to see how powerful these weapons can get."
"Even if you know that your creations are killing people?"
The blacksmith chuckled and continued.
"I've been making tools of killing long before Mr. Stockwell showed up. If I had a moral dilemma every time I made a sword, then just where would I be? No, weapons are just weapons lass, without them, people would still try to kill each other, only that they would then be using rocks, now how horrible would that be? At least this way there's a little more dignity and a little less suffering."
Vera nodded after contemplating the blacksmith's words for a while.
"I see…"
"And besides, much like you, I'm always interested to see what new fascinating project or tool that scientist will place in front of me. I must say, it is rather fun to test my limits as a smith. Hahaha!"
The blacksmith let of a hearty laugh and moved on to the next cylinder of metal that would eventually become a musket.
They continued to work in silence for a long time, meditating on the methodical sounds of varnish being brushed across a wooden surface, or the soft hum of a mechanical lathe quietly spinning away.
She looked up when she noticed the door creak open. She nearly dropped the piece of wood when she saw who came walking in through the open doorway.
"Wesley!"
Stockwell gave her a nod and she rushed over to him.
"Wesley! Are you okay!? How are you feeling!?"
The blacksmith turned and smiled when he saw the man back on his feet.
Stockwell politely pushed her off of him and continued.
"I'm fine now, thank you for your concern."
He revealed several rolled up pieces of parchment.
"We can talk of pleasantries later, right now I'm in the mindset of getting right back down to business."
The blacksmith started walking over and gave him a confident nod.
"Vera, I think it's about time you really started getting serious about learning about electromagnetism."
"Hah!? Then are you telling me that—"
She was recalling all of the intense lecturing she had received about the subject regarding the true nature of electricity.
"Yes, you have only begun to scratch the surface. So far you know what electrons, protons, charges, and ions are and how they act for the most part, and you also know about the relationship between current and magnetic fields and can manipulate them."
"How much more is there!?"
"Lots actually. So far you've been relying on your affinity towards lightning to sense and manipulate electrons and their corresponding magnetic fields which is all fine and dandy, but It's clear to me that you're still missing a lot of things that should theoretically be within your field of expertise. I imagine you would be a lot more precise and efficient with your control if you really started to internalize this…"
He handed her a piece of parchment and she unrolled it. She was horrified at what she saw. She couldn't even begin to guess at what the markings meant.
"What…"
Stockwell saw her face and chuckled.
"Are physics equations really that scary? Those are just the five simple ones too. They're the four Maxwell equations along with the Lorentz's force equation, it should be a good start for you."
Vera stared at the tiny piece of parchment. It wasn't just a matter of her not being able to read English, in fact, he had the feeling that even those who could read English wouldn't even be able to understand the five strings of alien characters.
"Don't worry, it really is simpler than it looks. I'm sure you'll understand what they mean after a good month of tutoring."
Vera simply gulped and nodded.
The scientist then turned to the blacksmith.
"As for you, Mr. Faber, I've got a couple of projects I'd like you to take a look at."
The blacksmith nodded and waited.
"The first one is pretty simple, you'll probably be done in half an hour with your skills."
He handed him the hilt of his broken dagger.
"The blade was completely shattered, I'd like it if you could replace it."
The blacksmith took the hilt and nodded.
"No problem at all, what's the second project?"
Stockwell flashed a fiendish smile.
"This project isn't for the faint of heart, It'll probably take a year and we'll likely fail many times."
Faber let off a hearty laugh and smiled.
"Those are the best kind of projects!"
"Then I wish you luck. Here are the plans to project dragonfly."
He handed him a large piece of parchment and he unrolled it. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he say the sketches. He then started to laugh lightly.
"Project dragonfly indeed."
On the night of the Demonic Disturbance
After teleporting a short distance, Evileye weaved through the corridors of the compound, retracing her steps to the entrance. She suddenly saw dozens of ex-adventurers and mercenaries, she recognized them as Raeven's men.
She called out to them.
"Don't come this way! Rhamnusia is here!"
"We know."
She suddenly realized that they were holding muskets and pistols.
"What—"
Bang-B-B-B-Bang-Bang-B-Bang.
The vampire fell backwards.
The men exchanged glances.
"I think we just killed an adamantite adventurer…"
One of the men approached the body. He prodded it with the barrel of his musket. And after it didn't move, he knelt down to examine Evileye's corpse.
The other men approached him from behind.
"She is dead right?"
"Yup."
Evileye's body was littered with bullet holes and her blood was drained out onto the floor. They took note of her face.
"I thought she was just a small person, but she's actually just young, she must've be only twelve years old."
One of the men scrunched his face in confusion. "But hasn't she been an adventurer for a while? She's had to have been casting magic for quite some time, right…?"
His eyes started to grow wide and his voice became alarmed. The others were suddenly realizing what was going on as well and they started to back off from the corpse. Someone was still poking it.
"M-Morgan, get away from her."
He continued to kneel over the corpse and poke at it.
"What are you guys so worried about, she's dead."
"Y-Yes, we know, and she probably has been-"
"Whoa! Guys! Look at this! She got some crazy lookin' teeth."
Half of them started to run away, as if by instinct.
"For the Gods' sake Morgan! She's a—!"
The vampire opened her eyes. They were the color of blood. She shot up and wrapped her arms around the man, sinking her teeth into his neck.
"AHhHHhHHHHhH!"
「Life Drain」
His screaming shriveled up along with his body as the vampire engorged herself on his blood. Her wounds began to mend.
"Get her while she's feeding! Aim for the head and the heart!"
The men drew their blades and charged her. She opened her jaws and the man's shriveled body dropped to the ground.
"Ahhhhhh!"
One of the men stepped in and thrusted his blade towards the vampire's heart.
「Animate Dead」
The man's shriveled corpse stood up to intercept the blade.
"What!?"
The tiny vampire used her size to dart around the zombie. She grabbed ahold of her next attacker's leg.
"Get off of me!"
The man tried to kick her off, but she slithered up on him like a snake and planted her fangs into his neck. He screamed as she began to suck his blood.
「Life Drain」
Seeing this, the men dropped their swords and firearms and ran for their lives. Mana or no mana, they couldn't hope defeat the vampire without any kind of silver or enchanted weapons.
Evileye continued to suck the blood of the man dry until most of her wounds were healed. She couldn't heal all of the hp she had lost in the fight against Rhamnusia, but she could at least repair the physical damage done to her body.
She needed to keep moving in case the sniper was following her.
She focused as she drew upon the last of her mana. 「Fly」
She rose off the ground and rocketed out of the facility, flying in the direction of where Lakyus and Tina were supposed to be.
…
What's going on with this city? Is this also Rhamnusia's doing?
She flew high over the burning city, circumscribed in green, ghostly flames.
Demons prowled beneath her indiscriminately attacking citizens. She desperately wanted to intervene, but her combat ability at the moment was too low to get involved.
The action that would lead to the most people saved she reasoned, was to reunite with Lakyus and Tina and inform her of the situation.
There!
She recognized the shape of the streets as shown to her before on a map.
She descended lower to above what she assumed to be the Eight-Fingers gambling department that Lakyus and tina should've been clearing.
Her nose was immediately met with the scent of death.
As she scanned below her, she saw what looked to be a demonic feeding frenzy. She saw the bodies of Raeven's and Zanac's men being devoured by hell hounds and large, bulbous demons the size of trolls.
Evileye tried to hide her presence. She couldn't fight that horde in her current state.
Lakyus, Tina. Where are you?
Her eyes scoured the bodies.
Eventually she found them.
She saw what looked to be Lakyus. From their distance. It was unclear whether she was dead or merely unconsciousness.
She was currently being carried in the arms of a unique looking demon.
The demon looked lke an obese clown wearing pure white garments and a black mask with a long beak like-nose. Various scalpuls and other surgical tools were arrayed in a pouch at the front of his garments.
They're taking her!
The demon looked to be exiting through a portal, Lakyus in tow. Tina was no where to be found.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Evileye cursed bitterly and bit her lip.
Based on the strength and number of enemies below her, she could do nothing to retrieve her.
Curse you Rhamnusia!
She quietly flew away into the night sky.
I can't go to her highness. Rhamnusia was ready for us, so It's likely that he's already infiltrated her intelligence network. I need to take matters into my own hands. For now, it's best that Evileye dies along with Blue Rose. This way, he won't be able to predict my return.
Keno Fasris Invern flew away from the city.
I wonder if that old hag is still bumming around down south… I need to do something.