Her address was dripping full of sarcasm, instead of deep affection.
While Nihilo didn’t loathe Viga for creating her, she had no respect for her, either.
Viga the Clamor was far too removed from the minian races. Almost certainly even more so than Nihilo herself, naturally born to be a weapon.
“Yup. You were a huge help there!”
Viga said with a mellow smile, paying no mind to the appalling scene in front of her.
She was a tall woman with long greenish-gray hair.
“In the end, you really are my one true masterpiece, Nihilo.”
“Your masterpiece, hmm?”
Nihilo touched the suture mark that extended in a line around her neck. Blood seeped slightly from the scar.
When she was just a head, she was burdened with constricting and contracting a frog’s stomach with her nerve tendrils to talk, but being a revenant, there wasn’t any need to rigorously connect the organic nerves and blood vessels together.
Nevertheless, it was makeshift stitchwork, with only a fifty-fifty chance of being able to hold out through an intense combat scenario.
Yukiharu had brought Nihilo’s neck all the way to Viga’s side. However, without the wurm’s sudden interjection, Viga would have likely been disposed of by Ozonezma as well, without ever having the chance to revive Nihilo like this.
“How does your new body feel? I’d think that, functionally speaking, it’d be far superior to your previous body.”
“Not quite a minia’s body, is it? Sorta feels like a vampire.”
While the body below her neck was somewhat different from what it had been previously, the spine and the nerve tendrils extending out from them appeared to have been transplanted from her previous body. Through Viga’s personal stitching work, Nihilo had quickly regained her bodily functions.
Even Nihilo’s own creator Viga wouldn’t have been able to conveniently grab a body with such an easy adjustment period out of thin air. The body, from the very beginning, had been prepared with the intention of sewing Nihilo’s head to it.
“You knew I wasn’t dead, huh?”
“Of course. Helneten’s carcass was inspected by yours truly. But then, I seriously doubt any of Aureatia’s Word Arts casters understood that the shared curse was still unbroken.”
“…Did you know Yukiharu was coming, too?”
“…”
“All Yukiharu was thinking about was investigating the National Defense Research Institute when he forced his way in here. That’s just how he was, really.”
He wanted to find the truth of his “story” that could move the hearts of the people.
The words had been said from the heart, there was no doubt about it.
Despite that, he had brought Nihilo inside the institute with him, downright forcing her to come along on his dangerous story-gathering mission.
Maybe part of his purpose had been to return Nihilo’s body back here.
“…Yukiharu.”
Yukiharu remained collapsed on the floor, completely motionless.
He had been that way even after Viga finished treating Nihilo.
“Far too late for him.”
Viga cordially declared.
She was almost maddeningly calm.
“There’s no Life Arts caster out there who can bring the dead back to life.”
“I know, I know… Still, he and I, we made a pretty good team…”
Nihilo the Vortical Stampede was a weapon, far removed from the regular minian races.
Even though she tried to conduct herself like a minian, she didn’t feel any sadness when she witnessed a death right before her eyes. Nihilo’s personality was little more than an incidental afterthought to her function as a weapon, and she was truly unable to imagine what those who weren’t like her thought or how they lived their lives.
Yukiharu the Twilight Diver was the complete opposite of Nihilo, who had longed to conduct herself like a minian despite not being one herself. Yukiharu was a monster in minian skin—the person who had gone around with Nihilo the Vortical Stampede the longest while she was rendered unable to function as a murderous weapon.
“…It is what it is, though.”
“You’re right, I waited for him to deliver your head to me. I got the information from a collaborator of mine, Enu the Distant Mirror.”
“Enu? The one on the Twenty-Nine Officials?”
He was Aureatia’s Thirteenth Minister, secretly connected to the National Defense Research Institute.
In the midst of gathering material on the Institute, Yukiharu had made contact with Fifteenth General Haizesta just once and informed him about the suspicions surrounding Enu. After that, Haizesta had been erased while following Enu’s trail.
Through Enu, Viga had learned of Yukiharu’s visit—in which case…
Yukiharu made contact with Enu without me knowing. Enu then told Yukiharu about the National Defense Research Institute’s location. If there had been someone to act as an intermediatory between the unrelated men, then…
“For now, let’s escape from this siege, shall we?”
It appeared Viga had already finished preparing for their departure.
She let three frightening revenants, who appeared to be minia crossed with amphibians, out of their cages.
They were weapons meant to charge into the Aureatian forces and buy the two of them time to escape.
A single glance made it clear that no consideration had been given to their barest minimum level of life-support functionality.
“Did you revive me for that, too?”
“Yes.”
Nihilo had nothing resembling love or affection for the woman she could call her parent.
Given that she was a revenant of Viga’s creation, she couldn’t disobey her. However…
“As a readily controllable weapon, Vikeon may have been a wonderful revenant, but… Still, he was nothing compared to my Nihilo and Helneten. Instead of creating a new revenant, it really is much better to repair the one that already achieved such a high level of perfection, don’t you think?”
“…”
Nihilo was not a soulless construct merely forced to labor. She possessed a unique heart capable of understanding Word Arts.
If she had a minian body and was capable of the same line of thought as a minia, would it be possible for her to lead a minian existence, completely divorced from battle and combat?
Minian or weapon?
When she walked, the soles of her feet pulled up strings of blood and sinew from the Aureatian soldiers’ corpses.
So long as Nihilo had freedom, she would kill like this without feeling any guilt for her actions.
Weapon or minian? No matter how much she struggled, it was perfectly clear where between the two Nihilo’s true nature lied.
Thus, Nihilo believed the motive behind her fruitless endeavor stemmed from nothing more than her curiosity toward acting against her own nature—like a child trying to see how long they can go without breathing for fun.
“…Fine, then. I wouldn’t mind protecting you for just a little bit longer, Mom.”
Nihilo replied with a smile similar to her creators’, the true intentions hidden behind it an enigma.
It wasn’t that she had decided to battle as Viga’s weapon.
She believed that she needed to fight against Aureatia.
For now, joining Mom’s plan here is totally fine. I mean, Aureatia are the ones who killed Yukiharu. Besides…
She passed her pale, lithe arms through the laboratory’s plain patient’s gown.
A minian life. Enrollment in school.
…I need to make sure Hidow keeps his promise, too.
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