[431] A Chance for Revenge (3)
Underground secret laboratory of the Rebel 2nd Command.
Reysis did not punish Shirone and Plu for sacrificing two members of the special mobile unit.
His subordinates wanted Shirone stripped of his post and the commander's honor restored, but they were more curious about whether he had truly completed the exploration of Babel.
Reysis isolated Shirone and Plu in the barracks and took new blood samples.
The ostensible reason was a possible infection by an unidentified pathogen, but the real aim was to secure the Shirone who had changed after entering Babel.
'The Angel's Tomb. That was Babel? It actually existed? I thought it was just a myth.'
Having seen Babel's reality with his own eyes, Reysis had no reason left to disbelieve it.
And if the myth was true, he had a vague idea what kind of spirit Shirone had found there.
'Probably the Ultima System. If Shirone learned the ancients' language, this is a perfect opportunity for me as well.'
Reysis went to an iron cage in one corner of the lab.
A repulsive creature was ramming its head against the bars.
"Kik! Kiiik!"
Each time the cage rattled, the biologists recording its condition trembled.
Garas, the King of Proliferation.
An otherworldly species whose reproductive drive was 100,000 times stronger than a human's, it could mate with as many as 1,027 known Nor species.
Humans were no exception; although Garas existed biologically only as males, they even regarded men as reproductive targets.
According to academic reports, when Garas attempted to reproduce with human women and human men, the success rates differed by only about two percent.
From tiny insects to colossal monsters, Garas could mate with any species, so it had no singular, fixed form. What it did share was an organ called the Protein Palace that manipulated amino acid sequences, and an ability for rapid cell division that could produce reproductive organs.
Its average intelligence was said to be ten times that of humans, but because it was obsessed only with reproduction, it never developed its own intellectual civilization.
An ultimate amusement of developed intelligence? Or a natural emergence due to an unusual environment? The cause was unknown, but one thing was clear: Garas existed solely to reproduce, and with its power to collapse interspecies barriers it was classified as a highest-risk quarantine species in Purgatory.
"Commander, why did you bring something like this here? If it ever escaped, the command would be finished. No—the whole area would become a Garas colony."
"It's fine. As long as it's managed properly. Without this, we can't produce Shirone's clones, can we?"
They had succeeded in fusing Shirone's genetic information with Nor ova, but implantation failed due to subtle evolutionary differences. It was a headache.
But using Garas's genetic affinity as a bridge would solve the problem cleanly.
The biologist answered with a queasy look.
"Then… we'll start today."
"No. Clone Plu first."
"What? Why… surely you don't mean—"
The biologist went pale.
With the combination of Shirone, Plu, and Garas, they could produce clones explosively. Yet even the most boundary-crossing scientist felt a pang of conscience this time.
He was human, after all.
Made of blood and flesh, hating pain and death.
'Is this woman really sane?'
That was all the biologist could think.
"Commander, is it really necessary to go this far?"
"It's wartime. For victory we must accept small sacrifices. You made your resolution already, and that's why you're helping me, right?"
"But this is—"
Reysis cut him off.
"We don't have much time. If the Babel Shirone explored is the same Babel I know…"
"Why? I thought Babel was a weapon the ancient Gaian made to attack heaven."
"Of course it is."
Reysis fell silent. No need to make a fuss in the command yet.
The one who sealed Babel back then had been the archangel Kariel.
* * *
Niflheim.
A world of the dead where everything was frozen.
Before Gaold and his party lay a vast ice plain and, beyond it, mountain ranges encrusted in frost.
A world so brutal that ordinary beings would freeze solid before encountering anything. If Julu hadn't summoned a tier-2 Salamander to raise the surrounding temperature, their fate would have been the same.
After all, this was the place with the "Wall of Ice That Never Melts," where the giant king Imirr's true body was imprisoned.
The three-meter Salamander lay flattened against the ground, radiating heat from its whole body.
Even so, the ice wouldn't melt—there wasn't even moisture—and the Salamander shivered from the cold.
Whenever its flames waned, the lizard form of the Salamander, normally unseen, surfaced.
Gaold exhaled frost and asked, "How many now?"
Kangnan checked his pouch.
"Twenty-four."
"I see."
They were collecting Black Elixirs slower than expected.
Krude, the Rebel 1st Commander, had said the chance was fifty percent, but the actual probability of killing a wraith and getting an elixir seemed to be under twenty percent.
Of course, even that was an excellent rate, and twenty-four elixirs could buy almost anything on the mainland. But given the hardship it took to obtain them, the haul was meager, and they'd lost a significant amount of stamina for it.
'I'm cold.'
Kangnan exhaled a long cloud of frost.
Wandering Niflheim for six days was madness for a human.
Julu, too, hadn't been able to dismiss the Salamander for a moment in those six days and had been deprived of sleep.
Kangnan's gaze went to Gaold's broad back.
How unbearably cold must he be?
If Kangnan's fingertips were numb with frostbite, Gaold suffered a thousand times worse.
If Kangnan groaned from the pain, Gaold endured it a thousandfold more.
'How can he not show it? How does he even bear this?'
"At this rate we'll tire out before we get there."
Gaold looked at the guide.
A Nor with a ratlike face and scars. He could traverse Niflheim because he had spent his fortune to contract a frost spirit.
But no matter how valuable a spirit, if your magic is poor you won't even break even—such was purgatory. The job that actually earned him a living was likely a Niflheim guide, a profession with a high risk of death.
Because he staked his life, the conditions were strict.
He would never join a fight, but he demanded fifty percent of anything harvested here.
Gaold would normally refuse such an unfair deal, but after their first hunt in Niflheim showed the Black Elixir drop rate was lower than expected, he changed his mind.
Niflheim was vast, and wraith encounters were surprisingly rare. If they wandered, they'd either collapse from exhaustion or freeze to death before collecting what they wanted. It was better to strike directly at the domain called Hel and hit the jackpot.
"How much further to this Hel place?"
"Oh, just a little further this way…"
The guide, who'd been pointing ahead, finally seemed to break and shut his eyes tight as he shouted, "I can't! I can't go any further! Let's turn back!"
He was fed up with Gaold's party.
Though none normally approached the land of death, there were occasionally lunatics chasing a windfall. The guide had followed such people into Niflheim six times—about once every two years. Even one Black Elixir made it worth the trip; two would cover two years of idleness.
Before meeting Gaold's group, he'd only managed to kill wraiths on the outskirts and pray for a Black Elixir drop. These clients were different. From the start they ignored the outskirts and ran straight toward Hel for six days, slaying nearly two hundred Grim Reapers.
Grim Reapers were Triple-S grade wraiths even by mainland hunting standards. When the guide saw a five-meter-high black horse with a reaper swinging a giant scythe, he couldn't help but gasp.
He'd been lured this far by the thrill of rare Black Elixirs dropping from time to time, but honestly, he wanted to go home.
"Fine. If you want to quit, go ahead."
Gaold agreed, but added one condition.
"Only if you break the contract and go on your own."
'You vile bastard!'
The guide ground his teeth. He couldn't fight forcefully anyway, but the bitterness cut deep.
Twelve Black Elixirs would let you live in luxury forever. No—marry a hundred mainland beauties and father a thousand children. A mad fantasy born of frustration, but that was the value of twelve Black Elixirs.
"All right, let's finish this then! But my part is only to Hel. I don't know the way past that!"
"Fine."
Gaold turned and continued across the ice.
Though he was a mountain to everyone, his face had gone gaunt.
Julu stopped nursing his pacifier and pointed ahead.
"There's something."
The guide's face lit up with professional excitement as he scanned forward.
'So I've come this far after all.'
In Niflheim's flawless wasteland, the corpses of foreigners who had invaded over ages served as markers. As Gaold's party approached, well over a thousand frozen bodies stood like statues.
Their eras and species varied, but each wore an expression of terror.
"Is this the entrance to Hel?"
"Wait. It's my first time here too. According to my notes…"
The guide pulled out his notebook and checked his memo, turning his body as if to hide it.
A true mainland expert on Niflheim, his notes were dense.
"Well, when you find a Katesis body frozen with one eye closed…"
Glancing around, the guide approached a bipedal reptilian creature with a long tail and a lizard face.
"Follow the direction the left index finger points."
The guide frowned at the left hand.
"Damn it, it only has three fingers. Which is the index?"
Assuming the middle was closest to an index, he pointed about fifteen degrees off the direction they had come from.
"If you go that way you should reach Hel. Well, I'll— Eek!"
The guide staggered backward and fell onto his butt, turning to face Gaold in shock.
A murderous intent poured from the party.
"Th-that's…!"
A dense fog rose from the ice plain.
Everyone knew the sight, but this time the situation was different.
A dark, spectral black horse emerged across the ice, wailing in a pitch higher than a woman's scream.
On its saddle sat a Grim Reaper shrouded in black smoke, holding the reins and slinging a four-meter scythe over its shoulder.
There were forty of them.
The number was the maximum for a single engagement.
"Damn it! Damn it! Dying over twelve Black Elixirs!"
The guide wept as if he had already surrendered his life, despair carved on his face.
No one could comfort him.
Even Julu thought this was a different level of difficulty from before.
"I'll dismiss the Salamander."
They were already considerably exhausted; it would be too much for Gaold and Kangnan to handle both.
But Gaold dismounted Kangnan and strode alone toward the mass of Grim Reapers.
"Wait here. You'll get dragged in too."
"You're crazy? What do you plan to do? And I'm not so weak I'll be drawn into a fight!"
"I know. But…"
Gaold leaned as if about to collapse and looked at Kangnan.
"This time it'll be different."
Sensing something, Kangnan's face hardened like stone.
The hair on Gaold's head, starting at his forehead, was rapidly losing its color.