Interlude: The One Who Arrives and the One Who Finds
South of Gideon the City of Duels, natural area
Beyond the plains to the south of Gideon, there was a sprawling forest growing out of a vast expanse of hills. Further south than that, there was the Altar-Legendaria border, but it lay within an untamed land inhabited by powerful monsters, so there were no border checkpoints or anything of the kind.
In a way, the area itself was like the dividing line between fairyland and the kingdom.
On this day, inside — or, rather, above — the dense forest, something gigantic was traveling northwards.
It was a pair of objects that looked like upside-down towers. With each of them being about a kilometel in height, the twin objects waded through the forest and left footprints on the plains.
The word “footprints” was quite apt, seeing as the two towers were being used as boots by the lady standing above them.
She was none other than King of Berserk, Hannya — the Superior that had recently been released from the gaol.
The boot-towers were Sandalphon, her Superior Embryo, and she was heading north because that was where she would find her beloved.
However, Hannya stopped once she came across something else of considerable size.
It was a giant tank... no... a land-battleship with a particularly wide hull.
At first, Hannya thought it was just another obstacle and prepared to kick it out of her way, but then she noticed a man in a costume waving at her from the deck.
“Yooo! Haven’t seen you in a beary long time,” he said, making Hannya certain that it was someone she knew — Shu Starling.
“It really has been a while, hasn’t it?” she said. “Figaro said that he had a health checkup and couldn’t come to greet me, so you’d be coming instead. He said you’d be wearing a bear costume, so I knew it was you right away. Sorry for the trouble.”
“It’s fine, I was fur-ree anyway.”
And it’s better to stay close in case you do something you shouldn’t, Shu added internally, not daring to say it out loud. I’m still worried about the other bomb I left in Gideon, but that one probably won’t go off if I’m away for just a short amount of time.
“So, is Gideon far from here?” Hannya asked.
“Two hours away by Baldr. Hop on in, bear-ace yourself, and we’ll be there in no time,” Shu answered.
“I’ll do just that, then. Sandalphon has been doing nothing but walking for who knows how long now.”
...I can tell by the footprints spreading out towards the horizon, Shu thought, looking into the distance.
“Also, it’s so chaotic back there that I’m feeling a bit tired. The moment I came out, I appeared in Legendaria’s ‘spirit capital’ of Amneal, and I was instantly surrounded by tons of players.”
“...Fur-om where did you start walking on Sandalphon?” Shu asked.
“Amneal, of course. Sandalphon is my only mode of transport.”
So you appeared with that thing next to the capital... Of course they’d surround you, Shu thought.
“I didn’t want to waste time with them, so I kicked them away before making my way north.”
“...You said you were attacked by Masters. Did you see a muscled, half-naked, over-bear-ing macho pro-wrestler; an absolute freak in green clothes and a mask; or a fussy-looking, silent guy with a monocle?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t remember... What about you, Sandalphon?”
A certain man was watching them from between the trees.
His left eye was closed, but his right followed the land-battleship.
Going by that Embryo’s form... and the data from Libra, that’s one of the gaol’s Superiors: King of Berserk, Hannya. So you can leave that place, he thought as he wrote something down on his notepad.
There was something right next to him. It was so bizarre that it was hard to even tell if it was a living creature or something inorganic.
The easiest way to describe it was “a balance scale monster.” One dish of the scale held an eye, and the other held a status window with Hannya’s name. The balance was tipping in the latter’s favor.
Once the dish reached the surface, the scale monster vanished, leaving behind six black orbs. The man picked them up and put them in the Embryo crest on the back of his left hand.
I considered going to my little sister in Legendaria and staying there until the war resumed... but this intrigues me somewhat.
In Infinite Dendrogram, Superiors were big names. You could find info about Hannya and what she said at the gaol just by surfing the internet for a bit.
Two Superiors. Figaro and Hannya. Her prior conviction and nature. This is very intriguing, indeed, he processed all this information and cracked a smile. I smell a potential scoop. I might get material unlike any I’ve found so far.
With such thoughts on his mind, the man began walking.
However, right as he was about to leave the forest, something jumped him.
“GHOOAAARRGH!”
It was a Bloody Drag-Tiger — a fearsome, Pure-Dragon-tier part of local fauna that could claw and bite at speeds approaching that of sound, making it a fearsome opponent for many creatures.
The man didn’t even have time to react to the attack that came almost as soon as the roar reached his ears. The beast closed its maw on the man’s head, only to have its upper and lower jaws split continuously.
The upper part, along with the rest of the head and the brain within, fell right into the man’s open left palm, while the lower part and the entire rest of the body passed him by and pathetically collapsed in front of him.
Where they split, both sides were scorched as though cut by something extremely hot.
The head in the man’s hand looked at the miserable pile of flesh in confusion before dissolving into bits of light, leaving behind only loot — its fur.
A surprise attack by a wild beast is a rare occurrence in real life, but I’m already bored of it. Unlike with people, I can’t even capture and examine them...
As he thought this, clearly unamused, a black, floating orb approached from an uncertain direction, and he put them in his crest just as he had with the ones left behind by the scale monster.
Well, let’s go watch this unique event unfold. The tangles between Superiors struck by blinding passion must be something yet unobserved.
The man imagined what would happen next, cracked a smile, and walked towards the city of Gideon.
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