Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 13 - Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: The Battle of the Masterless 
XXXX Years Ago 
A verdant and vast scenery stretched out as far as the eye could see. The wind-caressed leaves brushed against each other and water trickled through the streams as birds flitted to and fro, singing their songs. The trees were painted in all shades of green, their fallen leaves covering the ground in a blanket of fertile colors, and the sky above was as endless as it was blue. 
It was a scene that seemed completely untouched by the hands of man. 
Surrounded by all this nature, there stood a solitary young man — who could just as easily be described as a “boy.” 
For reasons unknown, he was holding a pocket watch in each hand. 
“Nothing in this scenery is real,” the youth suddenly said. Despite his young appearance, he seemed to have the aura of an aged and exhausted old man. 
The years experienced by his mind far exceeded those of his body. He only appeared young because his flesh had been restored by a particular Infinite Embryo. 
“The air and trees were replicated by Infinite Vicissitude. This sky is presented to me by Infinite Illusion. And even this body that senses it all is yet another creation of Infinite Birth.” 
Like an old man whose grip on reason is finally slipping away, he continued his monologue — though it almost seemed as though his words were directed at the watches in his hands. 
“But that doesn’t mean that nothing here is real. My flesh might be artificial, but my life is not... and so is the power that you wield.” 
The aged youth spoke, still looking at the watches. 
“Ignoring that one, this is the twelfth Infinite Embryo... Infinite Time. The flow of time exists for all things. That makes it impossible for it to be fake — which means that it’s ultimately as real as can be.” 
He paused, exhaled... and put on a wry smile. 
“And it... is what will finally snuff me out. Real as it is, my life seems to have a limit.” 
“...” 
“I will die and you will remain. That is what it means to become Infinite. It’s different for Embryos in their seventh forms or below. When their Masters experience their ultimate death, their Resources are crystallized and leave behind copious amounts of ‘nourishment’... form zero Embryos. Infinites, however, live up to their name and can remain active indefinitely as long as their cores aren’t shattered... Though, unlike when their Master is alive, reconstruction can become impossible for them.” 
Another pensive pause. 
“But even your infinity will end. The time will come when our project will be... complete.” 
“...” 
“...In these final moments, I will talk about myself.” He slumped himself down against a tree. Though he looked like a young man, he moved as if it was a difficult task. 
“This is the only place I know. I was born here, I matured here with you... and I will die here.” 
“...” 
“I’m not displeased with that. We... are all like this. Seeking the end of the line, we walk an endless path as we develop Infinite Embryos. That is our nature. In fact, as one who became Infinite, I’m among the lucky few. My life had meaning, and I was able to live my life to its utmost limit.” 
He sat and talked with his eyes fixed on his pocket watches, but then suddenly his arms became limp. It was as though he was losing his ability to support his own body. 
“There is... one thing I regret, though.” He looked up to the sky he’d called fake as his voice became a whisper. 
“I wanted to try living in the real world someday. I wanted to see a different sky.” 
As if he had never been granted even that much, he looked at the blue sky above with somewhat sorrowful eyes. 
A songbird flew by, and he watched it with envy. 
“But you will remain active forever... You might have a chance to live in the real world.” 
“...” 
“Heheh... I guess... even I became a bit sentimental in my final hours. I never talked to you even once until now...” 
His Embryo was a non-living creature and had nothing that could be called “an ego.” Thus, no matter how much he talked to it, it would never respond. 
“If you are able... to live in the real world... once the project is over... tell me what... the world was like... See it... in my stead...” 
“...” 
“Heheheh... Well... It’s not like I know... if there’s... an afterli—” He stopped talking before he could finish, and his mouth never moved again. 
“...m...a...” The pocket watches began to creak slightly as they tried to make some sort of sound. 
However, its — his — Master didn’t hear him... or anything else, for that matter. 
“...ma...s...ter...” The Embryo that wasn’t supposed to be able to speak called out to him, but received no response. 
Soon after, the birds stopped singing and the color of the sky changed. The clear blue above vanished, leaving behind a ceiling of stark metal. 
With the sole user gone, the false blue sky disappeared and once again showed its true appearance of a lifeless canopy. 
His hands still gripped the pocket watches even as they grew colder. 
“...” 
“Confirmed the death of the twelfth’s Master, Mr. Chrono Crown. Relocating the remains to the appropriate location. Retrieving the twelfth and transitioning to autonomous operation training.” 
Responding to the inorganic voice’s words, someone carefully picked up his remains. 
As that happened, a third pocket watch fell out of the dead youth’s breast pocket. 
Along with the two that were still clutched in his hands, there were now a total of three. 
Each had a different Greek word carved on them. They were “??????,” “??????,” and “????” — Chronos, Kairos, and Aion. 
All three of them made quiet sounds as time marched on... Every tick and tock feeling much like silent weeping. 
 
Present, Altar-Dryfe Border, Grove 
Claudiah had announced the start of a battle at the peace talks and Zeta had unleashed countless Ideas upon Altea, catapulting the forces of each country into a state of conflict. 
And close to the location of the peace talks, there was yet another clash occurring. 
“Oh boy, I really didn’t think you’d call me using secret comms.” 
“...You don’t know why I called youuu?” Two men faced each other in a verdant forest some distance from the peace talks. 
One was a young man with a plump cat seated on his head and long bangs covering his eyes. 
The other was a boy with metal boots and rabbit ears. 
The former was The Lynx, Tom Cat, while the latter was The Rabbit, Chrono Crown... and both of them were the avatars of control AIs. 
“No. Though, I gotta ask, Tom Cat... Why are you all the way out here instead of doing your odd-jobs or dueling? This is what people call ‘neglect of duty,’ isn’t it?” 
Even this far away from civilization, there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be observed, so Chrono opted to call Tom by his avatar’s name, and Tom did the same to him. 
“...I’d say that you did something pretty arbitrary yourself, Chronooo.” Even as he spoke, he was simultaneously using his true form to gather information about the situation back in the kingdom. 
Due to Chrono’s ambushes, Altar was at a clear disadvantage at both the capital and the peace talks. 
“Arbitrary? Is that why you went out of your way to call me here?” Chrono asked. 
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “Though, I don’t really get iiit. What you did ended up helping Dryfe, but there was no guarantee that would be the result. In fact, it was more likely that it would’ve just made the relationship between the countries even worse.” 
Tom’s words made Chrono tilt his head in confusion. 
Upon seeing that, The Lynx said, “I knew it... You and Bandersnatch don’t understand human psychology at all.” 
That was the difference between them and a creature-type Embryo like Tom... or rather, Cheshire. 
Non-creature-type control AIs naturally had difficulty with this. The two Tweedles were also non-creatures, but their immense processing power, the highest out of all control AIs, allowed them to overcome this limitation. The same couldn’t be said of Chrono... also known as Rabbit, the control AI in charge of time. He was a non-creature-type, and most of his processing power was dedicated to keeping time in Infinite Dendrogram running at the base 3x speed. He didn’t have much spare processing power he could use for humanlike thought, so his mentality was at about the same level as a normal human’s. 
Because of this, Chrono, being Rabbit’s avatar, was somewhat simple and short-sighted. It was also the reason why his role was being a PK — it didn’t require much forethought to be one. 
The other control AIs actually would’ve preferred if Rabbit focused solely on time, but Rabbit himself had insisted on engaging in avatar activities. 
“Human psychology... huh?” Chrono whispered as he looked up at the sky. 
For a moment, his eyes had a hint of bitterness, but then he looked back at Tom... and glared at him. 
“Of course I don’t understand it... THERE’S NO WAY I COULD!” He raised his voice as he blew up at Tom. “Unlike you, I didn’t have the time to learn to understand people as an avatar! I’m the one who’s always been doing nothing but make this world faster so you all could have time to prepare!” The smug boy who’d dominated Altar’s rankers was gone, leaving behind a mess of a child shouting out everything he’d been bottling up inside for so long. “Yeah, I know what you’ll say — the revised project needed more time and I was the only one who could get it! I’m the only one specialized in accelerating time!” 
Tom said nothing and merely listened. 
“But until we started accepting new Masters, THAT WAS ALL I COULD DO!” Chrono’s screaming now bordered on blood-curdling. “I was only able to even move with this body when they showed up and I could reduce the speed to just 3x! That was the first time I ever got to walk in this world! Do you understand how I felt?! OF COURSE YOU DON’T!” His voice was heavy with either rage or chagrin — it was hard to tell which. He was releasing his pent-up frustrations, but it seemed as though his feelings had completely taken control of him. 
“Chrono...” Tom knew what was going on with him. Alice had said that there were two ways non-creature Embryos handled having their own avatars. They either ended up being cold and calculating regardless of how they presented themselves... or they proved unable to control the emotions surging through their new bodies. 
Chrono was undoubtedly a prime example of the latter. 
He’d only had an avatar for a few years — only a tiny fraction of the time the others had theirs. 
This outburst was a manifestation of this problem. 
“To live in the real world! That was my Master’s... Chrono Crown’s only desire in life! He wanted to escape this cage and live in the real world! But the destination was too far away and he didn’t have nearly enough time to reach it! THAT HAS TO BE WHY I WAS BORN ABLE TO CONTROL TIME!” 
Tom still said nothing, but he could understand where Chrono was coming from. Tom himself was born the way he was because of his own Master’s wish — a desire for a friend. 
“With his last breath, he asked me to share my memories of the real world with him once my end came! It took so long, but I can actually do that now! I now have his face and I carry these pocket watches! I can finally walk around this place freely... the real world... DO YOU KNOW HOW I FELT?! You were in charge of managing culture... CAN YOU EVEN UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL...?!” Chrono clenched his teeth painfully before continuing. 
“And now, what, we’re gonna have a war? We’re gonna raise the War Boundary?! The last time it was used, everything went back to the way it used to be for me! Once it’s activated, I can’t do anything anymore! I stop being free! I’ll have fewer things to tell my Master once my end comes! Fewer memories to make in the real world! AND THAT’S MORE IMPORTANT TO ME!” 
That was his reason for the focused PK spree. The war would rob him of his ability to do anything, and he hated the phenomenon more than anything else. 
After all, it came at the cost of the time he could spend as himself — the time he could use to fulfill his Master’s wish. 
Thus, he cried, “It’s a waste of time! I’M IN A HURRY!” 
Tears began flowing from Chrono’s eyes — tears of crimson red blood. The Embryo that had once possessed no ego of its own was now sobbing uncontrollably, barely able to contain the wellspring of emotion inside him. 
“If that’s what it takes to prevent war... to prevent that meaningless waste of time... I will gladly destroy one side so thoroughly that they can’t even think of waging war! What’s so wrong about that...? WELL, GRIMALKIN?!” 
“...Chronos Kairos Aion.” The two control AIs faced each other and called one another by their true names. 
Chrono saw Tom as an obstacle and an object of envy who had everything that Chrono so desperately wanted. 
Tom saw Chrono as a colleague who was about to stray from the path and a fellow Embryo who knew well the pain of losing his Synchronizer. 
The two control AIs faced each other head-on. 
“...The situation has changed,” Chrono suddenly said as he removed his hands from his pockets. 
Each of them held a pocket watch. Of the three in total, these were the ones that weren’t his core. 
“I’m going,” he said as he wiped the bloody tears with his sleeves and glared in the direction of the peace talks. “I’m also monitoring the situation there and in the capital. I know that Dryfe will win if the princesses are secured. I don’t have time to talk to you. I will go there and kidnap the princess myself. No one can keep up with me. I’ll then do the same at Altea. That will fulfill Dryfe’s goals... and prevent the war.” 
“...I won’t let you,” said Tom. “This isn’t something that we control AIs should involve ourselves with. Masters are supposed to be free. We shouldn’t arbitrarily influence their actions and their results.” 
“Then why are you in a place like this, huh?!” 
“I wouldn’t have come here... if I didn’t have to stop you.” Chrono’s avatar was out of control. He had to be stopped. 
Despite that, Tom didn’t even think of getting Alice to do it, as she’d done with Tom himself back in Gideon. 
Chrono’s outburst had to be dealt with, but since it was an outburst on behalf of his late Master, Tom thought that it would be wrong to stop Chrono using such drastic measures. 
Thus, he’d decided to confront him directly. 
That was why he’d only asked Alice for one thing. 
“Chrono,” Tom said. “I talked to Alice and told her to deactivate your avatar if you touch an Altarian tian before defeating me.” 
“...What?” 
“You know what that means.” The cat on his head transformed into Tom and multiplied until there were eight of them. All eight then surrounded Chrono. “If you want to pass... you’ll have to defeat me first... Think you can do that as The Rabbit, Chrono Crown?” 
Emphasizing the form Chrono inhabited right now, the eight Toms prepared to fight him. 
Chrono glared at them before chuckling. “Hah! Do you have even a single victory against me as The Lynx, Tom Cat?!” 
A moment later, their battle began. 
Thus began this conflict between two Control AIs — two Embryos who knew the pain of losing their Masters. 
 

 
Type Infinite Legion. The Infinite Multiplication, Grimalkin. 
He was one of the Embryos that had reached its eighth form and became Infinite. Even with his abilities constrained to the limits of the sixth form, he could simultaneously control eight Toms and easily replace them if they were killed. 
The only way to defeat him was to either destroy all of them at once with an AoE attack or cut them all down so fast he couldn’t multiply again. However, both of those things were difficult, as proven by the fact that only two of the many who had challenged him in Altar’s rankings had actually defeated him. 
Still, Chrono Crown was perfectly capable of destroying the Toms with sufficient speed. 
“Gh...!” The moment Chrono vanished, each of the eight Toms suddenly found bombs floating next to their heads. 
The Toms all quickly jumped away, but the bombs blew up only a moment after appearing. Even with their speed, only half of the Toms managed to get away before their skulls were blown to pieces. 
The dead Toms then transformed into cats and vanished. 
That was dangerous! Tom thought. All eight clones shared a single consciousness, and if the first one to notice the bombs had been just a moment slower, they all would’ve died. 
Yeah... this matchup isn’t in my favor! Embryos were all subject to the rules of compatibility, and Infinite Embryos were no exception. All other things being equal, who had the advantage or disadvantage in their conflict would be decided by the nature of their powers. 
Tom knew full well that Chrono could kill him faster than he could multiply. They had trained against each other shortly after Grimalkin had become Infinite. 
Tom quickly activated Octachrome Cat — Grimalkin to make up for the lost Toms, only to lose half of them again in the bombing that followed. 
If his reaction was ever just a moment too slow, he would lose too many of his duplicates at once and be overwhelmed. 
...Bombs, huh? They suit his powers better than I thought. 
The bombs appeared next to Tom as though Chrono had placed them there after completely stopping time. 
Obviously, this was possible due to the power of Chrono’s Embryo. 
The full name of his original form was “Infinite Time, Chronos Kairos Aion.” 
It was an Embryo that could control the speed at which time passed for the target. 
The watches he held in his hands, Chronos and Kairos, were extensions of his being and a remnant of the time before he’d become the Type Infinite World Embryo he was now. Before that, he had been Type World-Rule-Calculator. 
Chronos, held in his right hand, was two times faster than normal clocks, while Kairos, held in his left hand, was ten times as fast. 
That knowledge alone was enough to guess at their abilities. 
Chronos had a skill called “World Time Acceleration,” which was an AoE AGI buff that accelerated the time passing for his nearby targets — such as his own bombs or the air touching around him — by two. 
Kairos, by contrast, possessed a skill called “Subjective Time Acceleration,” which was a single-target AoE AGI buff that multiplied his own speed by ten. 
Together, the two skills multiplied Chrono’s AGI by 20. 
His avatar was specialized in AGI and had it at 13,000 — so once activated, the skills took it all the way up to 260,000. 
Tom himself was AGI-focused and could move faster than the speed of sound, but he had trouble even seeing Chrono. 
And this is just his normal speed. He still hasn’t used his ultimate skill to reach his maximum potential... 
As far as Tom knew, Chrono’s ultimate skill doubled the effects of both pocket watches, bringing his total AGI well above 1,000,000. 
He does have weaknesses, though. 
Tom had known his fellow Infinite Embryo for thousands of years. Though Chrono had only recently begun fighting as an avatar, Tom already knew his flaws. 
There was also the fact that Tom had operated as an avatar longer than any other control AI. He had a great deal of experience and knew his opponent’s abilities well enough to predict such things. 
Among the smaller flaws, you have the fact that both his hands are occupied by the pocket watches. Chrono couldn’t use his hands because he was holding these extensions of himself. That was why his main weapon was his metal blade-boots. 
However, since he could still use things like bombs and Gems by holding them between his fingers, this wasn’t too much of a flaw. 
But there was a bigger one Tom had spotted. 
...It also looks like his avatar form doesn’t actually allow him to make full use of his speed. In terms of speed alone, Chrono surpassed Tom twenty times over. He could actually defeat all eight Toms at once, and there must be a reason why he wasn’t doing that. 
He’s using nothing but bombs so far. I knew it... he has to slow down to use any direct attacks. 
That was the primary flaw behind Chrono’s extreme speed. No matter how fast he was, it meant nothing if he couldn’t actually attack with it. 
After all... 
His avatar is hyperspecialized in AGI, so his END is really low. There’s no way he himself would escape unscathed if he attacked someone at dozens of times the speed of sound. The faster you crashed into something, the stronger the impact. That was basic physics. 
A person’s body could handle the impact of an attack using their own STR; even AGI-based attackers only needed about a tenth of their AGI’s worth of END to withstand the recoil of their super-fast attacks. 
Chrono, however, fought at speeds that were far too great for his body to handle. His avatar’s AGI surpassed the insane level of 260,000, but his END only barely made it into the quadruple digits. 

That was why he only dealt direct attacks with his blade-boots after first using his great speed to enter the enemy’s blind spots, then slowing down enough that he could talk to his opponent. 
Otherwise, his legs would be destroyed by his own kicks. 
This also explained why Chrono was so focused on indirect attacks using bombs. 
Kashimiya the Kingdom’s Fastest also fought by boosting his AGI, but he used the Blade Speed-Through skill which removed as much of his opponent’s END as he had AGI. This completely nullified any resistance that might hurt him as he sliced off an opponent’s head as though it was nothing. 
As a control AI avatar, Chrono had no job skills like that — in fact, there was no way he could even get them, making them impossible to incorporate into his strategy and leaving him with no offensive options other than simply slowing down before attack and or approaching indirectly. 
That was Infinite Time, Chronos Kairos Aion’s greatest flaw. 
Though, that flaw only exists for him as he is right now. This weakness was only present because Chrono’s power was currently limited to that of a sixth form Embryo. 
If Infinite Time was in his seventh or eighth forms, it would be as though that flaw had never even existed. 
At his current power level, he can’t even use his main weapon... the blade “Time-Breaker.” I thought I could overcome or stand my ground against him because his firepower was low, but... 
It seemed that Tom was wrong — Chrono was starting to overwhelm him, even now. He was forced to fight a defensive battle, evading the explosions and running while replacing any Toms he’d lost. 
Tom had far more experience in avatar fights, but Chrono had developed an item-based strategy that worked really well for him. 
That was why he used bombs and Gems, and why he’d made it so he could jump around in midair. 
...He’s probably using an accessory with something like Air Skip. He might also have some equipment on him that reduces the impact from landing. 
It was worth noting that Chrono hadn’t had a body at first; he’d only developed this power once he started traveling around Infinite Dendrogram just a few years ago. 
He might be better at fighting than I am, Tom thought. Well... then again, I’m basically just brute-forcing most of my battles with my multiplication powers. This reminds of something the King of Kings told me once. Rockfell said, “I see no end to you. You are inexhaustible, I assume? This is nothing to fear, though. In fact, it’s quite boring. Tiresome. Show me something different.” 
During The Era of the Peerless Three... when Tom was “The Lynx, Schrödinger Cat,” he had the output of a Superior and could have a maximum of 800 copies of himself. 
...Despite that, King of Kings had exterminated all of those Toms and had proceeded to scold him in those words that he still remembered to this day. 
Though, as far as tians went, King of Kings was far outside the norm. 
...I guess it’s also a matter of how our processing power is implemented. 
Tom was focusing on both battle analysis and recollections of the past, yet his movement in battle remained flawless. Because he was adept at parallel thinking, he could easily ponder such things while controlling eight bodies at once. 
I’m specialized in pure volume, so I can’t improve my battle technique by that much. 
If each of the Toms were like some of the absurd battle experts he’d seen here in Infinite Dendrogram, he could easily dispatch Chrono despite his enormous advantage in speed. 
But since that was impossible in this situation, he had to take a different approach. 
“Tom Cat! Is this your idea of stopping me?! To go on the defensive and stall for time?!” Chrono said, slowing himself down. 
“Who knooows? Maybe I’m actually just in the middle of setting up a trap for you...” one of the Toms replied, a moment before a Crimson Sphere Gem went off behind him and he was instantly incinerated. 
This started a chain reaction, and a few more Toms were reduced to ash. 
...He has so many consumables. Did he go around buying up any that appeared on the market or does he have ties to people who make them? Regardless, I’m impressed he built all this up in just a few years. 
This battle seemed to be a tug-of-war between Tom’s multiplication speed and Chrono’s item supply. 
However, Tom didn’t intend to be locked into a battle of attrition like that. 
But Chrono... You’re using items made by tians living in the present. 
Tom was well aware that when it came to tools of war, the era that had turned the entire continent into a battleground — the era when Cheshire had operated as Schrödinger Cat — was far more terrifying than the current one. 
However, all those things were of an age Chrono could never know. There were countless weapons he had no knowledge of, since he had been forced to focus solely on the world’s time acceleration... countless nightmares that had faded into history. 
“...It’s funny to think about,” Tom muttered with a wry grin. After all, he was the one who’d gone around destroying such tools to prevent them from breaking the balance when the time came. 
And now I’m about to use them... that’s pretty bold. But he believed that there was no other way to stop Chrono’s rampage. 
“It’s been a while since I’ve worn this.” Reaching into his own inventory one Tom took out a transparent cloak with the texture of silk and wrapped himself in it. 
The next moment, that Tom vanished — along with every trace of his presence. 
This was a magic cloak called “Nobody Whisper,” and though he had many such artifacts, this was the most important piece of equipment for his current strategy. 
Back when he’d been operating as Schrödinger Cat during The Era of the Peerless Three, he needed something that would help him stand a chance against everyone else, so he’d brought the necessary materials to a particular Superior Job and had that person create this item for him. 
It had incredibly high-level Presence Block and Optical Camouflage skills, letting it conceal the presence of those who wore it and hide them visually. 
It only seemed good for hiding, but since Tom only needed one of himself to create more, it was an incredibly valuable item for him. This piece of gear had been Schrödinger Cat’s close friend during The Era of the Peerless Three. 
However, he didn’t use this cloak very often these days. 
It was too powerful to use in duels, and it was known that something like it had been used by the late Schrödinger Cat, so Tom Cat using the exact same item would raise uncomfortable questions. Also, he had avoided using it against Prism Soldiers because their senses weren’t based on sight or even presence. 
But there was no problem in using it against a colleague who knew his entire history. 
There’s also this... I planned to keep it gathering dust in my inventory forever, but if this is what it takes to stop you, I have no choice. All seven Toms who weren’t in hiding reached into their inventories all at once. 
All Toms shared inventory between them. Thus, it was impossible for them to remove something that another Tom had already taken out — like Nobody Whisper — but there were enough of this for all of them. 
The seven Toms took out some... collars. 
They all exuded a miasma, obviously marking them as deeply cursed items. 
As three of the seven Toms died to Chronos’ explosions, they equipped the collars on themselves. 
A moment later, Chrono’s bombs killed all the ones that were left... 
[Murder-Suicide... activate] 
...And the collars all produced a twisted, unsettling sound. 
 
The center-west land which was now the kingdom had once been a land of conflict, where many small countries had vied for dominance. That chaos eventually spawned the King of Kings — that anomaly of a man who subjugated almost every country into one great nation. 
That was the beginning of The Era of the Peerless Three — King of Kings, Draconic Emperor, and The Lynx. 
The era ended with the sealing of the King of Kings, the death of the Draconic Emperor, and the disappearance of The Lynx. The vacuum they left behind only led to more wars. Until the Sacred King — the first Azurite — united the center-west to form the Kingdom of Altar, there was no peace in this land. 
During these conflicts, many weapons were created and many grand strategies were woven. One of the latter was the suicide tactics of Death Soldiers. Slaves with Death Soldier jobs would be sent into enemy grounds to crack open their defenses with the force of their final exit from the world. 
This strategy had a few flaws, though. 
Though Last Command allowed the user to move even with 0 HP, they still needed limbs to move with. On the battlefield, it wasn’t uncommon for people to receive wounds that rendered them completely immobile. 
There were even some unusual cases when the bombs they were wearing detonated too early, blasting them into bits that had far worse problems than mere lack of mobility. 
Even the country that used this tactic felt it was suboptimal. They had no moral objections to letting their slaves die, but they did see it as a waste of resources. 
They believed that they had to make their Death Soldiers’ deaths count and give them ways to kill their enemies more efficiently. 
The people in charge were so focused on not letting their slaves’ deaths go to waste that it would be darkly hilarious, if they weren’t completely serious about it. 
The one who finally provided them with a solution was a single High Alchemist — not even a Superior Job. He didn’t have any transcendental skills, nor was he a genius like Grand Artificer Flagman of the pre-ancient civilization. The only thing unusual about him was that he had Lich as a sub-job. 
However, because of this build... or perhaps because he was the kind of person who would choose such a build at all... he was adept at controlling grudge. 
He was among the best minds of his time when it came to crafting grudge-based, or rather cursed items, but that certainly didn’t mean that he was respected. Most of the things he’d made were useless in almost every situation, after all. A good example was CBR Armor, which granted Bleeding, Doom, and Weakness to all who wore it. 
He was an artificer who specialized in devices that tortured their wearers. He’d made a living by primarily selling torture devices, but one day, he developed something that drastically changed the course of his life. 
It was a collar-like item called “Stone Equals Gold.” 
It sounded like something an Alchemist would make, but also far from it at the same time. The name, however, was just something chosen by whoever made it — what mattered most was its function. 
This collar only did one thing — upon the wearer’s death, it passed on a curse to the closest living creature. 
That didn’t seem like much, but the curse — Murder-Suicide — was extremely potent. Even if the target was much stronger than the original wearer, it could kill or at least incapacitate them. 
That made it possible to exchange the life of a slave — worth as much as a pebble — for the life of a hardened warrior that was worth their weight in gold. The Death Soldiers’ lives would never be wasted again. 
Some were worried that if the skill targeted the closest people, it could set off chain reactions that would obliterate the whole legion of Death Soldiers before they made it to the enemy lines, but the alchemist took care of that by developing an accessory that excluded people from being targeted by the Murder-Suicide curse. The leaders who used the suicide attacks endlessly praised the alchemist for his work and quickly decided to mass-produce the items for use in actual battle. 
However, Stone Equals Gold never saw any official use. The very night it was decided they would be mass produced, the alchemist that developed it and the military officers that planned to use it were all killed by a certain someone. 
On top of that, the completed prototypes and the research documents had completely vanished. With everyone who knew about it and the relevant documents having disappeared, this invention was forgotten by history. 
And never was discovered who, exactly, had killed them all and took the prototypes... 
Now, this was mostly irrelevant, but the alchemist in question... the horse-man alchemist had left behind research documents pertaining to the manipulation of grudge. These documents had been stored somewhere unrelated to research on the collars, and they were eventually found by one of his descendants. 
The descendant in question used the documents to become a Necromancer and develop original necromantic magic of his own... but that was a different story. 
 
Chrono’s bombs killed off four Toms, and the collars they were wearing — Stone Equals Gold — all activated. The four curses released by their deaths all homed in on the closest target — Chrono. 
“Ah...!” He gasped and threw a bomb at the roiling miasma of curse heading towards him, but it seemed to be unaffected. 
He instantly realized that this was the kind of curse that would follow him forever, and that its presence wasn’t affected by explosions or physical attacks. 
Compared to Chrono, the floating curses were extremely slow, and he could easily put some distance between him and them. 
In that case...! Chrono considered using someone else as a shield that would take the curse in his stead. 
“Huh...?!” 
But he quickly realized that wasn’t an option as he recalled Tom’s words came back to him. 
I talked to Alice and told her to deactivate your avatar if you touch an Altarian tian before defeating me. 
“That little...!” Chrono now understood that Tom had said that not just to force him to fight, but also make it impossible for him to escape this curse. 
If he as much as tried making a tian take the curse for him, he would instantly be immobilized and the curse would kill him. 
He then thought of using Masters, but the only ones remotely close by were bodyguards who, naturally, had tians they wanted to protect. Monsters might have been an option, but Chrono didn’t sense any of those in the area either. 
They ran away... wait, no! This wasn’t an area where any powerful monsters lived, so he first assumed that they had been driven away by the sound of explosions, but then he quickly rejected that idea. 
Almost masked by the scent of the surrounding flora, he could just barely detect another scent in the air. That was enough for Chrono to understand that Tom had spread some sort of concoction that repelled monsters. 
Tom was the one who’d called him here originally, meaning that he’d planned all of this. He’d actually come here to prepare for his plan not after the Altarians had arrived here in the morning, but last night — when Ray’s group were talking to Altimia. 
Since Tom could be in several places at once, it was child’s play for him to “leave” without anyone noticing. Plus, he could split up to do his preparations even faster. 
He’d done all of this just to call Chrono here today and force him into this situation. 
This was all planned...?! As if demonstrating his immense experience, Tom had led Chrono directly into a trap. 
However, there was more to this trap than that. 
As Chrono ran away, the surrounding surface and trees exploded and scattered debris into the air, forcing him to slow down and dodge. 
“Gh...!” Small pebbles and pieces of wood. Normally, such things would be meaningless. 
However, Chrono moved at 26 times the speed of sound, so they could easily pierce his body. Therefore, he had to either change his trajectory or slow down to the point that the impact wouldn’t hurt him. 
However, the more he slowed down, the closer the curses came to him. 
Eventually, the distance between them dwindled... 
“Ah...!” 
...Until it became non-existent. 
The curses released a black light — the mark of their application. There were four flashes — one for each curse — and once they’d dispersed they left nothing behind... except Chrono, lying on the ground. 
Upon seeing him, the last Tom — the one in hiding — approached him, still wearing the Nobody Whisper. 
He was wearing the accessory that he had retrieved alongside Stone Equals Gold. 
He hadn’t used any more Toms to make sure that the curses focused solely on Chrono, and it ended up working out for him. 
The curse definitely targeted Chrono, he thought. Chrono’s corpse lying on the ground was all the proof he needed. 
The four curses were fatal, too, as proven by the bits of light that soon began to rise from his body. 
This was a bit aggressive, but if it stopped Chrono’s rampage, then... Hm? 
Tom had noticed something strange. 
Though there were bits of light rising from Chrono, his remains didn’t seem to be vanishing. He was a control AI avatar, of course, but his disappearance and Resource retrieval after death should have functioned exactly as it did with Masters. 
“There you are, Tom Cat.” 
The next moment, Chrono’s prone body vanished, and countless bombs and Gems appeared all around Tom. 
“Kh?!” As Tom jumped back, he realized his failure. 
He’d created a wall of pebbles and pieces of wood to keep Chrono from escaping. 
They had fallen to the ground by now, and as Tom — still invisible — stepped on them, he’d unwittingly given away his position. 
Though Chrono didn’t know exactly where Tom was, he was able to seed the items all over his approximate location. 
But the curse hit him...! How is he okay...?! Tom thought in shock as he evaded the items and multiplied again. 
However, before he could find his answer, the bombs all went off at the same time, scattering all the Toms to the winds. 
“Gh...!” Only a single Tom was left alive. However, he was far from unscathed. Though the explosions didn’t take his life, he’d defended against them using all four of his limbs, and they had all been seriously wounded. It was difficult for him to even move anymore. 
Chrono slowed down and stood before him. 
“Just like you know me, I also know you,” he said. “Your multiples are created based on the healthiest existing one... There’s only one of you now and all your limbs are hurt, so any clones you create will be the same as you are now.” 
Tom could certainly create more of himself still, but since they would all have wounded limbs, it was nearly impossible for him to keep fighting. 
It was difficult to even equip more Stone Equals Gold. 
“...how did you dodge the curse?” Tom had been certain that the curse had landed. Besides specialized MVP special rewards, there was no gear that would allow anyone to survive Murder-Suicide, and even then, weathering a whole four of them would be next to impossible. 
Also, due to the curse imposed by Juliet, Chrono was unable to switch gear. 
Tom asked this question because he knew without a doubt that his attack was unavoidable, and instead of responding, Chrono merely glanced at the place he’d been lying on the ground. 
However, that was the answer. 
Following Chrono’s gaze, Tom saw a few things that were turning into bits of light as they vanished. 
They were... 
“The corpses... of birds?” Four songbird-like monsters were lying on the ground. Tom hadn’t seen them at first because they were under Chrono, and they were what made him falsely believe that Chrono’s avatar was disappearing. 
Murder-Suicide was a skill that launched curses at the closest creature. It didn’t even have to be human — any creature could work as a shield against it. They just had to be closer to the originator of the curse than you. 
However, Tom had preemptively driven away all wild monsters to prevent exactly this. 
But then... where did these songbirds come from? 
“My Master yearned for the real sky... He also loved the songs of birds.” 
The one to answer Tom’s question was Chrono himself. 
His voice was thick with nostalgia. He was remembering the death of his Master, looking up at the sky and listening to the songs of the birds in the natural scenery created by Infinite Illusion. 
“Because of that, I kept a bunch of songbirds of my own in a Jewel.” 
“Ah...!” Chrono himself had monsters, and right before the curse landed, he’d released them to take his place. 
This was truly ironic. If Chrono had kept battle-focused monsters on him instead, Tom would’ve instantly noticed. 
But because they were small and powerless songbirds, he was unable to realize that the curses had missed or that Chrono was faking his death. 
“...I guess I should apologize, then?” Tom asked. 
“It’s fine. I just kept them inside... Honestly, I was never able to understand what was so good or bad about their songs, anyway.” 
Tom said nothing. Chrono’s voice had made it rather evident that he was most bothered by the fact that he had failed to understand something that his Master had loved. 
However, he then composed himself and looked down at Tom with cold eyes. 
“...It’s over, Tom Cat. You can try buying time by creating more powerless clones. I’ll just spread some consumables and burn them all up again. I used a lot of them on you, but I still have enough for that.” 
He then took out his hands out of his pockets. 
Between the fingers of the hands holding the watches, there were several Gems. 
Tom still said nothing. 
“Goodbye, The Lynx, Tom Cat,” Chrono said, throwing the Gems over Tom.