In a Different World with a Smartphone (LN) - Volume 30 - Chapter 2.3

“Cooldown complete. I’m going to reboot it now,” Leen said as she stood Grimgerde up after it had finished cooling down from its overheat state following Full Burst. She then immediately hovered toward the approaching Kyklops and shot at them with the Gatling gun on her right arm.

Usually, Grimgerde couldn’t attack at will while any allies were around, as they’d very likely get caught in the cross fire, but if the enemy was big enough, that stopped mattering. Leen dashed across the battlefield toward the giant Kyklops with the eye in its chest, firing her Gatling gun at its upper body as she did.

The giant Kyklops took the rain of bullets without even flinching.

“It’s so tough! It doesn’t seem to be completely ineffective, but...”

From what she could see from the distance monitor, she’d managed to shave off a bit of the outer plating, but not enough to make a real difference.

“They appear to have used quite efficient strengthening magic. I think you could break through if you focused fire on a single spot,” Quun suggested.

“And how long do you think that’s going to take me, hm?” Leen retorted. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would take far too long. In which case...

Just as Leen went to enact her plan of attack, the giant Kyklops’s chest began to morph. The parts of the chest clattered as they moved and the central eyeball rotated and extended like a camera lens. Suddenly, the lens started sparking and a ball of light started gathering in front of the eye, getting bigger and bigger along with the sparks.

Quun gasped behind her.

“Mother Yumina! Tell everyone to pull back! Get them away from the line of sight of the colossal Kyklops!” she yelled.

“Everyone, fall back! Get away from the front of the giant Kyklops! Quickly!” Yumina immediately called out.

The Frame Gears that reacted fast enough stopped their battles with the Kyklops and scattered all at once, and in the next moment, there was a deafening roar as a massive laser shot right out from the giant Kyklops. That beam of light pierced the ground and continued all the way to the mountain range in the distance.

“Was that...an Upper Construct’s particle beam laser?” Leen wondered aloud, thinking back to her battles with the Phrase. To be precise, the Upper Constructs’ attack wasn’t a particle laser beam, but Touya had taken to calling it that so at some point, it became the default name.

“Cesca, damage report!” Yumina frantically yelled.

“There were fourteen units who failed to escape in time and were destroyed by the Kyklops. However, their pilots were successfully evacuated to the base through the emergency teleport. They are all safe,” Cesca reported from where she was observing the fight in the sky. Leen sighed in relief.

It seemed the automatic ejection was triggered the moment it sensed an abnormality in the frame. It had to have been cut incredibly close. Most likely, upon the pilot themselves realizing they would be unable to dodge in time, the thought support system installed in the Frame Gear made an independent decision and forcefully teleported its pilot.

The part that had extended from the gigantic Kyklops’s chest returned to its original position. Apparently, it couldn’t use that laser repeatedly. Leen couldn’t help but observe how even that was similar to an Upper Construct. Perhaps the part most reminiscent of the Phrase was the way friendly fire was normal, the way they had no sense of camaraderie—no, even before that, it was the mercilessness that they had because they weren’t living beings to begin with.

“Anyway, whatever’s going on, we need to take down that big hunk of metal... Linze! Could you land for a moment?”

“Hm? Oh, yes!”

Responding to Leen’s request, Linze flew back down to the ground and changed the Helmwige into its Frame Gear form.

“Cesca, transfer the Brionac, please.”

“Understood. Transferring Brionac.”

A gigantic cannon appeared in front of them. An anchor was shot out from its body, stabilizing it on the ground. The weapon, which was three times bigger than a Frame Gear, was aimed right at the colossal Kyklops. Leen’s Grimgerde and Linze’s Helmwige supported the cannon on either side.

Meanwhile, Quun’s excitement peaked.

“Th-This is the massive magic artillery, the Brionac! The ultimate weapon for use against Upper Constructs that requires incredibly precise control of magic and uses special drill bullets! I never imagined I’d get to lay my eyes on it in this time! I’m gonna cry! I’m so happy I came here!”

“Thank you for your explanation,” Leen calmly responded. Linze could only let out an awkward laugh as a reply.

It seemed Quun knew of the Brionac, but hadn’t ever seen it in person before; it must have become unnecessary in the future. Leen and Linze boasted the greatest mana capacity among the grand duchesses, but even they could only fire off one shot of the Brionac. Such a weapon was deemed far too unwieldy. In this time, however, it still had its uses.

“Charge at fifty percent...sixty... It’s charging faster than before, huh?” Linze remarked.

Despite it being a casual observation, Rosetta spotted the opportunity to give an explanation and cut in, saying, “I thought something like this might happen, ma’am! And so, I made improvement after improvement to it! Magic science is rapidly evolving! It will never stop!”

Brionac originally took much longer to charge, but the improvements allowed it to charge to full much faster.

“Ready to fire!”

“Let’s do this, then! Fire!”

“Waaait! Mother, let me fire— Ah!”

A gigantic drill fired from the cannon with a loud roar. Just as it was about to strike the Kyklops’s chest, it dodged to the side. Though it managed to avoid a direct hit, its movements were so slow that the drill still managed to hit its left shoulder.

The shrill screeching of the drill gouging into the metal plating could be heard by them all as it penetrated through the limb, the now-detached left arm falling to the ground with a massive thud.

“Ugh, we missed!”

“Only being able to fire one shot is definitely a weakness of the Brionac...”

Leen and Linze recovered their completely expended mana with their marriage rings enhanced with [Transfer]. But even with their strength recovered, the Brionac itself was completely destroyed. There were cracks all over the barrel—no way could it fire another shot.

The gigantic Kyklops’s chest began to morph again; it was going to return fire with its particle beam.

“This is bad. We have to move!”

“Not a problem, ma’am! I thought this might happen!”

Rosetta’s voice once more entered Leen’s ears. Right at that moment, another Brionac was teleported to where they were.

“I made a second one! Now that Grimgerde and Helmwige have been improved, you can fire another shot!”

“You’re the best, Rosetta! An engineer should always have a spare! Oooh, I’ve got goose bumps! I hope I can be like you one day!”

Ignoring Quun getting worked up in the back, the Grimgerde and Helmwige immediately connected to the new Brionac and began charging it with mana.

“Will we make it in time?!”

“We’ll be fine, mother. Look,” Quun reassured her, pointing at the giant Kyklops on the monitor. Since the left shoulder had been blown off, the left side of its chest was all distorted. The gun barrel was getting caught on it while trying to extend.

The Kyklops tried to pull off the part that it was getting caught on with its remaining arm. The distorted part deformed further until it was practically ripped off. The barrel from the center of the chest began extending again...but it was already too late.

“Fully charged!”

“Fire!”

The drill bullet shot out of the Brionac, sending cracks up the cannon. The Grimgerde and the Helmwige came to a stop, only their bare minimum systems still functioning, and they fell to their knees. Rosetta said they could fire a second shot, but she never said the frames would be able to withstand it. Even they couldn’t withstand two consecutive shots of the Brionac.

The all-or-nothing shot that had cost them two strong Frame Gears hit the Kyklops’s extended barrel. The drill ate through the Kyklops’s frame, spinning at high speed into its insides. The [Spiral] enhancement on the drill went wild, pulverizing the Kyklops’s G-Cube—its heart.

With a hole now punched through its chest, the giant Kyklops unceremoniously fell to the ground with a massive rumble. It seemed the fortification and lightness magic had worn off because the impact and its own weight caused it to fall apart in seconds.

“We somehow managed it.”

“I wanted to shoot it...”

Leen sighed and shook her head at her daughter’s complaint.

◇ ◇ ◇

Elze confirmed that the giant Kyklops had been defeated and grinned.

“Mama Elze, in front!”

“Oops.”

Elze turned her gaze forward at Linne’s insistence.

A metallic red frame was thrusting its rapier at great speed. Any normal pilot would’ve ended up as Swiss cheese, but Elze’s extraordinary kinetic vision allowed her to see each of the sword’s strikes and deflect them with Gerhilde’s phrasium knuckle guards.

“Hmph!”

Spotting an opening, Elze attempted a roundhouse kick, but the red Kyklops jumped backward to barely avoid the blows.

“To think you could even take down Balor...! Dammit, I had planned to at least take down some of the duchesses with it...”

“You should be glad. If that had happened, you would most definitely have seen hell. You’d be begging and crying to be killed.”

Elze sounded like she was making a lighthearted remark, but if any of them had died, that was definitely what would have happened. Their husband pulled no punches when it came to that sort of thing. With his powers, he could likely revive them with resurrection magic, but even if they did come back, he’d never forgive the one who killed them in the first place. He’d break their minds as completely as he could and show them absolute hell. Even if the other party was a wicked devout, someone who was already a dead person, he would inflict enough pain and terror that their soul would be weathered away.

Elze would not deny this. After all, she’d do the exact same thing if her own family were killed, and she had no intention of forgiving the idiot who was trying to do just that right in front of her.

“[Boost]!”

A residue of red magic overflowed from Gerhilde’s multilayered armor. Clad in light, Elze kicked the ground with explosive power. Having approached the enemy in an instant, Gerhilde’s shining fist swung wide.

“How are you so fast?!”

“Need you to go bye-bye for now.”

The phrasium knuckle guards smashed right into the Kyklops. A crack appeared in its frame. Naturally, this wasn’t the end.

“Intoooooo...!”

“Crusher!”

Elze and Linne shouted in unison, launching Gerhilde’s pile bunkers. With a dull thud, the spikes shot right through the Kyklops’s stomach and its back. The frame bounced and slammed to the ground.

“Since we don’t have the sacred treasure, we can’t tackle the wicked devout directly. I’ll just have to hope this is enough to make him run away...”

“If he does come back, I’ll beat him up!”

Elze flashed a wry smile at Linne’s simplemindedness. As a divine ward, Elze was forbidden from killing the wicked devout, but it was okay for her to protect herself. Well, maybe not okay per se. It was a strange gray area. It came down to whether or not it was considered an act of self-defense, an unavoidable attack to protect oneself. Elze thought she’d be able to give the excuse that the other side attacked first, but whether that would fly was a whole different question...

Anyway, the fact that no gods had come flying on over had to mean that it was overlooked. There would be no problems if Linne took the wicked devout down, but unfortunately, the sacred treasure was with Touya’s team, who were still in the middle of carrying out their plan. Even if they could give the devout a good beating, they couldn’t truly eliminate them.

“Ah!” Linne’s sudden exclamation had Elze looking back at the monitor. There, the metallic red frame was shown rising up like a ghost, stomach completely gouged out. Elze clicked her tongue.

I should’ve gone for its chest. That’s probably where its G-Cube was.

Suddenly, she realized that the enemy’s rapier was beginning to flicker with a dim red light. That creepy flashing grew faster and faster until it finally sent an unavoidable explosion of flame right for the Gerhilde.

“Stardust Shell!”

Before the Gerhilde could be engulfed by the flames, small shining star-shaped shields lined up in a regulated formation to create a large shield in front of them. Blocked by those celestial shields, the flames died out before reaching them.

“Whew, that was a close call.”

“Thank you, Sue!”

Behind Gerhilde stood Sue’s Ortlinde Overlord. Had the Stardust Shell come even a second later, Gerhilde would’ve been burned to a crisp.

“Tch! If Balor’s out of commission, then it’ll be impossible to do anything more...”

The metallic red Kyklops slowly edged backward while the surrounding Kyklops moved forward. It seemed he’d chosen to retreat.

They would rather not let him go, but even though they’d defeated the big Kyklops, they didn’t have the trump card to take the wicked devout down.

Guess we need to back off, Elze reluctantly relented. But then suddenly, the space above them started to warp.

A hole opened up and something gold came flying out.

“Is that...Gold?! Wait, no!”

Elze focused her monitor on the gold Gollem that had appeared. It looked exactly like Gold, but the small gold Gollem had metal bird wings on its back and was glaring at them with its red camera eyes.

“Gould...?”

A confused voice came from the metallic red frame. Gould ignored that voice and instead sent countless gold feathers out onto the battlefield.

◇ ◇ ◇

Going back to moments before...

Inside the [Prison], Yakumo had defeated the wicked devout in the diver suit with the sacred treasure. With that, we could say that we’d achieved our minimum objective. Once we’d finished clearing up the other wicked devout, we could celebrate.

The problem was this gold crown, Gould. He was staring over in Yakumo’s direction despite me being poised ready to take him on.

What is he doing?

It didn’t seem like he was frozen in shock at the defeat of a member of the wicked devout or anything.

“Veraenderung.”

Suddenly, Gould’s right hand changed into that ice pick again.

Crap! Is he gonna—?!

“Lanze.”

Gould flew toward the barrier and stabbed the ice pick right into it. Cracks formed in the [Prison] before it completely shattered.

“Huh?!”

“Yakumo!”

The moment the [Prison] broke, Yakumo leaped away from where Gould was about to strike.

“Veraenderung: Schwert.”

The spear-like ice pick morphed into a sword, and Gould immediately slashed at Yakumo with it as she ran. Yakumo used the sacred treasure to block it.

The two blades collided...and Gould’s sword ate halfway into the sacred treasure.

“Devour: Gluttony.”

“What?!”

Gould’s sword wrapped around Yakumo’s as if it were alive and slowly, the sacred treasure lost its platinum sheen.

What’s going on? Is the sacred treasure losing its divinity? Can Gluttony Slimes consume even that?! Wait, no...

“Hm?”

Suddenly, the gold tentacles wrapped around the sacred katana cracked and dissolved into sand. Gould jumped backward.

“The erosion was blocked...? But this is...?! What an incredible amount of energy! With this...!”

“Did he just say erosion?”

Is it like we thought?!

The crumbled plating of his hand reverted back to normal. Gould’s eyes were filled with delight as he opened and shut his fist.

“Who are you? Are you...the god of erosion?” I asked, noticing how Gould’s behavior had clearly changed. Had a fragment of the god of erosion that had escaped from the Divine Realm taken over this gold crown and was now in control of its Q-Crystal?

“I am both the gold crown and the one who rules the crowns. My previous name was Chrom Ranchesse, the High Master of the crowns.”

“What?!”

This was Chrom Ranchesse?! The genius Gollem engineer that created the crowns?! What was going on here?!

“With this, our wish shall be granted. I will draw out the full power of the gold crown.”

Gould—Chrom Ranchesse—stretched out his small gold hand in front of him.

“Spatial Distortion.”

The space in front of Gould began to twist. With his hand at the center, the surrounding space distorted like a whirlpool and left a large gaping hole.

Wait, no!

Gould jumped into that hole and the space immediately returned to normal. By that time, the gold crown was no longer present.

Was that not...the blue crown, Distortion Blau’s crown skill, Spatial Distortion?

Assuming that the time manipulation abilities present in his wings came from the black crown, Chronos Noir’s, then did that mean this gold crown could use crown skills after all? And those of various types? What was going on here?!

“Grah!”

Out of nowhere, there was a loud bang behind me, and when I turned to face the source, I saw that the woman with the iron mask who had been fighting Frei had slammed her metallic orange mace into the front monitor, damaging it. Was that the power of her wicked vessel? Wait, the Divinity Neutralization wasn’t in effect... Was it because the sacred treasure had its divinity stolen from it?! The weapon no longer had any energy to use its trait!

The footage from the cracked monitor disappeared, and water gushed from the cracks into the bridge like a laser beam due to the water pressure.

“What did you just do?!”

“Didn’t think I’d ever have to press this!”

The woman with the iron mask smashed through the glass cover on the console and slammed the button underneath down as hard as she could with her mace. The next moment, a bright red light began flashing in the submarine and a security alarm began blaring.

Oh, don’t tell me...

“Activating self-destruct sequence. Warning: in one minute, the Ark’s magic reactor will be raised to a critical level and the ship will self-destruct. Countdown commencing: 59, 58...”

“A self-destruct device?! Dammit, you mean it’s the same as Chrom Ranchesse’s lab back in Xenoahs?!”

Why were scientists so desperate to shove self-destruct systems into their creations?!

“Father! We must escape!”

“[Gate]!”

Yakumo reverted the sacred treasure to its original form while I opened a [Gate] to Val Albus. Yae went through first to confirm it was safe, and then the kids jumped in after her. After that came Hilde, and then finally me and Gold. Gold was still standing staring at the space that Gould had disappeared from, but when I called out to him, he obediently came through the [Gate] with me.

Just as I went to jump through myself, I caught sight of the two wicked devout making their escape through the corridor that the gold bird Gollem had created. They probably had an evacuation ship somewhere, or maybe some leftover Kyklops.

With another bang, a huge section of the monitor broke off, releasing even more water.

Shit! It won’t last much longer!

I dashed through the [Gate] into the bridge of the Val Albus.

“Albus, evacuate this area immediately! Full speed!”

“Understood.”

The white whale ship changed direction and dashed through the ocean depths at a speed it had never gone before. There was a brief flash, then a massive shock wave came from immediately behind us. The monitors attached to the probes that had been watching the Ark went dark the moment the explosion traveled through the water; they must have been destroyed in the blast.

We sent another probe toward the site of the explosion.

“I can confirm the destruction of the Ark,” Val Albus reported. “Several pieces of wreckage can be detected. Do you wish to retrieve them?”

“Hmm...”

The most important parts were probably completely pulverized, but maybe we could find something useful from the pieces that were left.

Guess there’s no harm in taking them...

“Father! Look!” Frei shouted. I turned toward where she was pointing. It was a different monitor that was displaying the fight over in Lassei. Pictured was the gold crown, Gould—or, no, Chrom Ranchesse? Well, whichever name was correct, Gould was on the battlefield. Did he teleport there using Spatial Distortion?

He really could use crown skills, and without paying any price whatsoever. I suppose you could count part of the Gluttony Slime being the price paid, but compared to the other crowns, it was much more efficient. What was worse, he’d not just absorbed a fragment of the god of erosion, but even stolen my divinity from the sacred treasure. Even an idiot could tell how bad this situation was getting.

“Father, look at that!”

“What is he doing? Wait, is he...eating the Kyklops?”

Gould had sent out the feathers from its gold wings, and they all turned into Slime as they consumed the Kyklops around them—whether they were broken or still moving. I could understand attacking the Frame Gears, but why their own allied forces? Was it to gain the divinity of the wicked god? Was he trying to absorb not just my divinity, but that of a different god as well? What could he be trying to do that would make that necessary?

“Touya-dono, it is pointless for us to just sit here, it is. Let us go to the battlefield!”

“Y-Yeah, good idea. [Teleport]!”

I teleported everyone to the Lassei coast upon Yae’s insistence. By the time we arrived, the Gluttony Slime feathers were already being recovered by Gould. The only Kyklops left behind was the metallic red one—was that the one with the wicked devout as the pilot?

“Gould? What are you doing?”

“The plan has proceeded to the final phase. I require your help, Scarlet... No, Maestro.”

“Hm?! Heh... Heh heh. Very well, Chrom Ranchesse. I will become your arms and legs as I promised. In exchange...”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Gould held out his right hand and distorted the space again with his crown skill, disappearing into the tear in space together with the metallic red frame. All that was left were the Fishmen and Gollem soldiers. There was a lot we had to think about, but first, we needed to clean up the mess in front of us.

I took out my smartphone and connected to Yumina.

“Begin the cleanup operation. Make sure the Nereids don’t let any of them escape underwater.”

“Understood. Um... Is Kuon safe?”

I silently turned the phone over to Kuon.

“I’m safe, mother.”

“Oh, good...”

She’s such a worrywart, I thought, but I really wasn’t much different myself.

Still, what did it mean that Chrom Ranchesse was Gould? I thought the god of erosion had taken it over... Could even a god—no, a former god’s fragment not keep its consciousness once its main body disappeared? It was as if the only thing Gould had inherited was the erosion ability, which was a perfect match for the Gluttony Slime. The ability to erode anything and the ability to absorb anything...

Almost anything, at least. It seemed the sacred treasure couldn’t be completely consumed, but it did steal the divinity that served as its power source. It was the same as when the old witch-king sucked out all of our mana.

Doc Babylon had once said that my boundless mana was a godsend for a researcher, since it meant they didn’t have to pay too much attention to how much mana they were expending while experimenting. The speed at which Brunhild and the Frame Gears were developed was thanks to both my mana capacity and divine power. Having that used against us by the enemy was a bit of a sore spot, especially because they’d stolen the divinity from the sacred treasure, something that was made by condensing loads and loads of divinity into a weapon.

I wasn’t sure how much divinity had been absorbed from the sacred treasure exactly, but it was more than enough for use on the surface.

“I really messed up... It was a complete oversight to think the sacred treasure would be safe from erosion just because it had my divinity infused in it... I prepared absolutely no countermeasures for the Gluttony Slime...”

That thing absorbed not just physical objects, but energy as well. The Gluttony Slime was originally created as an Artificer that could deal with dangerous objects during the ancient magic civilization, so of course it was made to be able to absorb residual mana. It was born into an era where magic and artifacts were as common as electrical appliances on Earth, after all.

Well, because of that, the country that developed the Gluttony Slime ended up being destroyed, so it was no laughing matter.

“There’s no point dwelling on what has already happened. For now, we should focus on cleaning up what’s in front of us.”

Oof... A six-year-old consoling me feels real bad...

What Kuon said was right, though. Rather than thinking of what I could have done, I needed to think about what I was going to do from now on.

“Oh, right, Silver. What do you think about the gold crown? Is it really Chrom Ranchesse?” I asked. The silver crown was the only one here who knew Chrom personally.

“Honestly...I couldn’t tell ya, buddy. The thing spoke just like him, but it’s not enough to say for sure, y’know? And like, what does it even mean if that thing is Chrom? Ya tellin’ me Chrom’s ghost decided to haunt a robot?”

“Hmm... Do you think his brain could’ve replaced the Q-Crystal?”

“Ew.”

Silver clearly didn’t like the thought of it, but we did have an example of that with the witch-king. It wasn’t impossible. Hell, even Doc Babylon had done something very similar.

I glanced at Gold, who was standing nearby. Gould hadn’t known that Gold existed. Now assuming Gould was Chrom Ranchesse, that would mean Chrom was not the one who created Gold. But then, who made him? It would have to be someone who was as much of a genius to make a completely identical unit.

Were Gold and Gould completely different units, then? Gould had Chrom Ranchesse’s brain implanted inside it, while Gold was the Gollem that had a Q-Crystal installed.

I seriously have no goddamn clue where to go with this.

“If ya ask me, rather than Chrom takin’ over the thing, it feels way more likely that he copied his personality into it.”

“Hang on... Copied his personality? Did he have technology like that?”

“Well...the guy managed to create somethin’ like me. My personality is molded based on my wielder an’ all. Isn’t it super likely he could transfer his personality?”

Now that he mentioned it, Gollems usually had some semblance of a personality formed from all the memories they’d built up over the years, and crowns were no exception to that. But according to Kuon, Silver’s original personality had been that of a murderer. It was through their contract that Silver had turned into more of an obedient minion—and that meant Chrom Ranchesse had managed to plant a moldable personality into a Gollem. With that in mind, him implanting his own personality into the gold crown wasn’t out of the question.

“So...that’s what this is all about.”

Research was being carried out into a technology that would make it possible to digitize oneself using all sorts of information like their thought processes and thinking patterns and create a replica of the person—digital cloning, I think it was called. That technology would allow us to know the thoughts of even dead people. In a way, it was research into immortality.

If something similar had been input into Gould, then it wouldn’t be so incorrect to view him as Chrom Ranchesse himself, would it? Well, the man himself was dead, so maybe it was more accurate to say it was the ghost of him.

“I just remembered... When Steph accidentally erased a massive portion of unknown data from Gold, could that have been Chrom Ranchesse’s personality data?” Kuon asked.

“Wait, it could be!”

If that was the case, then the theory that Gold and Gould were the exact same Gollem actually started to hold water.

But did that mean if Steph hadn’t mistakenly reset Gold’s data, we could’ve had two gold crowns with Chrom Ranchesse’s personality running around? Was my daughter secretly a genius? She totally prevented a disaster before it could happen!

“Hey, kiddo, uh...your papa sometimes acts a little loopy, huh?”

“This is normal. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”

I didn’t like the conversation going on in front of me one bit, but whatever. More importantly, why did Chrom Ranchesse implant his personality in the gold crown to begin with? Did he want to acquire pseudo-immortality or something?

No, that didn’t seem right. According to Albus, when the white and black crowns went berserk, Chrom ended up losing his memories as a price of the white crown’s crown skill. Did he do this to keep a record of his memories? Perhaps he tried to create a copy of himself in order to fight against losing both his memories and his sense of self...

Losing one’s memories was akin to losing oneself. It resulted in the collapse of one’s identity, the disappearance of the foundations of who you were. Could there be anything more frightening? If I had to lose my memories of all the time spent in this world, could I really bear it?

It was in that moment that I truly began to understand Chrom Ranchesse’s state of mind.