Infinite Dendrogram - Volume 20 - Chapter 2.5

Interlude: The Test and the Mechanical Dragon

Caldina

The second-in-command of Dryfe’s Legitimate Government, Lieutenant Colonel Berlin, was currently leading his men on an operation.

This particular excursion was the most common kind of DLG missions—one to secure supplies. The organization had acquired information pertaining to a ship smuggling Magingears and related parts, so they set out to attack it.

Operations like this were not an uncommon occurrence for the DLG. The weapons they used were damaged and sometimes destroyed upon use, so in order to compensate for that, the DLG was forced to acquire any materials leaking out of Dryfe that they could. At first, they’d used the funds they’d brought with them to buy materials, but after Caldina had stopped food exports to Dryfe and invaded it during the war, the DLG had begun seeing that country as a hostile force whose wealth should be plundered rather than purchased.

Thus, this operation really should have been routine.

“What...?”

However, what was currently happening was anything but routine.

“What is that...?”

It had turned out that the ship they’d assaulted was a trap. There was no cargo, and the crew on it had transformed into bizarre creatures that recent rumors had dubbed “Ideas.” These monsters had quickly started to overwhelm the infantry that was supposed to take over the ship.

The Magingear pilots outside the ship were under attack, as well—but not by the Ideas inside.

“What is that?!” At first, Lieutenant Colonel Berlin thought that he was looking at a high-speed sand-ship crewed by either Caldina’s guards or a group of Masters.

However, it immediately became clear that it wasn’t a ship at all.

It looked like a dragon, but while its silhouette had a long neck and tail like a skydragon, it lacked wings. That would have made some guess it was a landdragon, but that wasn’t the case either.

It had a body made of metal, as well as a single sensor-eye. The sunlight falling upon its crimson and white armor revealed a striped pattern all over it.

And finally, its open maw contained not a tongue, but a cannon.

This was no dragon, but a machine that merely looked like one.

The crimson-white machine dragon was sliding on the surface of the sand at speeds approaching sonic. And without pausing in its sliding—or maybe hovering—its headlike cannon fired at the unit next to Berlin.

“Ah...?!” Over the comms, Berlin heard the brief final gasp of a subordinate who’d been fighting with him since they were in Dryfe. The cannon had torn through the Magingear’s heavy armor like it was paper.

The units used by this squad were the Marshall II DC model, where “DC” stood for “Desert Custom.” Optimized for desert environments, they were dust-proof, airtight, air-conditioned, and equipped with the ability to hover. For better or worse, the original Marshall II lacked the attention to detail that characterized many player-made designs, and these DC units were a direct attempt to correct that. Their mobility in desert environments not only surpassed many weapons of their type, but also most AGI-focused high-rank jobs as well.

“Lieutenant Colonel! Lieutenant Colonel Berlin! AHH—!”

But now, these units couldn’t even run away fast enough. The dragon’s cannon fire mercilessly shredded the Magingears’ cockpits, scattering the destroyed remains of both robot and pilot across the desert sand.

The DLG’s pilots hovered in a zigzag pattern in an attempt to avoid the dragon’s assault, but the precision and the speed of their enemy’s projectiles was just too great. On the other hand, their own attacks were all sidestepped by the mechanical dragon. It moved as though it could perfectly track every shot.

Before long, the dragon had destroyed five of the ten units under Berlin’s command—all while the lizard-like Ideas were busy exterminating the infantry on the ship. The losses suffered by the DLG were already dire.

Is that a Prism Dragon?! Who’s it affiliated with...?! Did Dryfe send hunters after us?! But...! Berlin’s thoughts raced as he tried to make sense of the situation. The creature they were fighting reminded him of something he knew about from history—Prism Dragons.

Believed to be pre-ancient civilization technology, the Prism Dragons were among the greatest weapons of their time. Everyone who was familiar with ancient history, including Berlin, knew what they were.

However, this mechdragon didn’t match the descriptions of Prism Dragons he’d found in historical texts.

For one, it was far smaller—only slightly bigger than their own Magingears—and it had no wings to speak of. It also didn’t quite possess the fearsome extermination ability the old writings had emphasized.

And most importantly, the name shown by Identification wasn’t found in any historical records.

Regardless, the dragon still outclassed the Marshall II DCs they piloted.

“Retreat! I’ll bring up the rear!” Berlin ordered, moving out in front of his men.

His unit was a Marshall II HC, where “HC” stood for “Heavy Custom.” Equipped with tough armor and immense firepower, it was a unit that would quickly drain the MP of any ordinary pilot.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Berlin was anything but ordinary. Tians were often limited to certain jobs and had level caps far lower than 500, but he was among the talented few who could reach level 500 solely with jobs related to piloting. He was a battle-hardened fighter who’d fought alongside Dryfe’s strongest pilot more times than he could count.

“Come on, you foul beast!” he roared, brandishing an axe that was nearly as big as a Magingear by itself. This weapon was called Heatsplitter, Meltdown, and it was an MVP reward from a UBM he had felled.

When faced with this threat, the mechdragon fired its cannon, as though testing its opponent.

However, Berlin saw the projectile’s trajectory and cleaved it out of the air with his axe. “TOO SLOW!” he shouted.

This feat of strength greatly bolstered his men’s flagging morale. They let out a cheer...

“Wow, you’re better than I thought.”

...which was accompanied by praise from an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

The sound shocked Berlin and put him even more on edge. The voice was coming through a speaker—and its source was the mechdragon.

“Hmph...it was lookin’ like this shit...was gonna be just target practice... But it looks like...they got someone good enough for an actual test,” said a different—male—voice.

“Master, why do you sound like you’re in pain?”

“...’Cause the way you’re pilotin’ this damn thing...is crushin’ my damn lungs...”

“Wait—you’re barely breathing!”

The conversation coming from the mechdragon sounded like a joke. Berlin had no idea why they were letting it run through the speakers.

“Anyway, the rest are only good for testing out our weapons,” said the man’s voice. “Do it.”

“Roger that! Rush Missiles!”

Following that command, sixteen missile silos appeared on the back of the mechdragon. Released one by one, the missles soared upward until they reached a certain altitude, where they changed trajectory and descended at supersonic speeds.

They hurtled straight toward the retreating Magingears and infantry sand-boats—Lieutenant Colonel Berlin’s subordinates—and immediately incinerated every single one of them.

“They all hit!” said the woman’s voice.

“Hold it. I’m pretty sure those were loaded with armor-piercing warheads, so where did the incendiary rounds come from?”

“Huh? I replaced them to make them more deadly.”

“You realize they just turned the loot into burning garbage, right?”

“...Oh.”

“You’re getting penalized later.”

“OH NOOO!”

This exchange between the man’s and the woman’s voices over the speaker seemed as lighthearted as the last, but Berlin—the last one left alive to listen—was in no state to see it that way.

His subordinates—DLG’s limited forces—had been reduced to ash in but an instant. He didn’t know anything about the enemy or their motivations, and yet they were about to take everything from him.

There was only one thing he could do now—and that was ask the question that consumed his mind. “Who...who are you?! Why did you attack us?!”

“Our goal here’s to test this unit.” One of the people inside the dragon answered as though it were nothing.

“To...test...?”

“There aren’t many places here in Caldina where you can fight Magingears. That’s why we chose to practice on you guys—the DLG.”

Caldina was vast, but it contained surprisingly few groups that chose to use Magingears. DLG was more or less the only one, and that was apparently reason enough to target them.

“You’ve probably realized it by now, but we’re also the ones who sent out word about that ship. We made sure you’d catch wind of it, in fact.” The man inside the mechdragon casually admitted to being behind the trap they’d fallen into.

Ideas disguised as the cargo ship’s crew. A mechanical dragon that attacked right after they came here.

It all connected in Berlin’s mind now. Everything so far had been planned from the very beginning, and its sole purpose was to provide a test for that unit—and falling into that trap had cost Berlin nearly everything he had.

Berlin groaned in despair. “You...you don’t...” The defeat in the civil war. The escape from their homeland. The hardships they’d suffered in this foreign land. The constant stream of terrible news from Dryfe. The hope that the DLG would make their comeback soon. The subordinates who had fallen so far from home.

All of that flashed through Berlin’s thoughts in an instant...

“YOU DON’T DESERVE TO STAND BETWEEN US AND OUR GLORIOUS GOOOOAAAALLL!”

...before he spurred his unit into a suicidal charge toward this bitter enemy.

Hovering at full power, Berlin raised his axe high. The attack he readied had enough firepower to rival the ultimate skill of a high-rank job focused on fire magic, backed by the strength and weight of his custom heavy Magingear. It was enough to split open even the thick shell of the defense-specialized landdragons.

Faced with this deadly attack, the pilots of the mechdragon looked at the enemy unit through a monitor and...

“Machina. Final test.”

“Aye aye, sir! Starting melee mode teeest!”

A moment later, sounds of clashing metal rang out in the desert, and the unit armed with a giant axe fell on the sand.

The axe, Heatsplitter, was then retrieved by a control AI and vanished.

There was no better proof that the pilot of that Magingear had died.

◆

After destroying Lieutenant Colonel Berlin’s group, the two people within the cockpit had a conversation.

“Master! We just fought Magingears! Tell me your thoughts!” said the one-eyed girl dressed like a maid—Machina—as she swung around her bare, obviously mechanical left arm.

The person she was talking to—Rascal—was a man in a gray suit and a hat that could have belonged to a gangster. He let out a sigh before answering.

“Using vernier thrusters is fine and all, but it takes a toll on the crew. My avatar’s not as tough as Emily’s or Sechs’s. You gotta be more careful.”

“I made sure to use shock-absorbing seats, though. I guess this baby may be a bit too heavy—or maybe it’s the weight of my love!”

“That so? Then drop the love by at least ninety percent.”

“That’s so mean! Wait, so you’re okay with the remaining ten percent?”

“I got a question, actually. Is it responsive to piloting?”

“Very! It doesn’t buckle even when I’m in control!”

Generally, machines in Infinite Dendrogram were controlled by the semi-sense skill known as Piloting. It improved the piloted machine’s stats and provided the pilot’s mind and limbs with awareness of the actions and movements needed to control that machine. Because of this, even Masters who were very ordinary people in real life could control these exotic weapons without a problem.

However, there were also people who could pilot machines without any skills—sometimes with inhuman proficiency far greater than Piloting could provide—and Machina was among them.

“It’s also got two of the landdragon-type cores I made, so energy’s no problem.”

“I see. And? Assuming we’re the ones piloting it, how powerful do you think this thing would be?”

“About as powerful as a solo battle type Superior, I guess. Not counting the Apices, of course.”

“That’s good enough for some controllable firepower,” Rascal said with a nod before looking at one of the monitors.

There, he saw the mass-produced lizard Ideas—Lacerta Idea—preparing to leave the scene.

“I don’t see any problems. Let’s head to Eltram and secure their core.”

“Roger!”

And so, leaving this battlefield behind, they moved toward another—their stage.

Once they were gone, the remains of the DLG soldiers were swallowed by the foreign sands. The unforgiving environment would soon claim everything that was left of them.

The desert didn’t discriminate against people based on their ideals, achievements, or even their crimes—but whether that was good or bad remained an unanswered question.