[759] Possibility (1)
Minerva and Jacy, having infiltrated the 48th Military Facility, cut down the garrison without mercy and cleared a path.
Jacy had offered to guide them, but there was no need—no one could get close to Minerva.
"Please, spare me…!"
The soldiers collapsed where they stood under the deathly aura Minerva gave off, groaning and dying in agony.
'One of the Ivory Tower's Five Greats.'
Jacy, proud of her status as an unofficial third-rank archmage, found herself on an entirely different plane.
'I haven't even seen her magic yet.'
Minerva—who had crushed an army with intent alone—moved toward the central bureau's laboratory.
"Wait!"
Jacy shouted, panicked.
"This is where the Garas archetype is kept! If you open it, it'll be chaos."
"Garas don't have a known archetype. Or rather, no one knows the original form. They destroy the systems of living things."
"That's exactly why they're dangerous. They're on a different level from that aberrant singular hound that reached species-level. Whatever they see, they'll latch onto and breed."
"I don't care. Open it."
Jacy couldn't disobey, and finally released the iron door's lock.
Another iron gate revealed itself; when that opened, the prison that caged the Garas came into view.
"Grrr! Grrr!"
As Minerva stepped forward, the Garas' hideous cries echoed from all around.
'I've never seen them this excited.'
Jacy trembled and followed; Minerva stopped in the center of the storage room.
"They smelled a witch. To them that scent is stronger than any aphrodisiac."
"Should we open them one by one and kill them?"
"No."
Minerva narrowed her eyes and swung her staff; her body shifted into the form of a young girl.
"Come now, my lovely children."
The moment she spoke, dozens of iron doors crashed open.
"Kyaaaaa!"
Jacy, who had watched experiments to learn what kind of species the Garas were, went pale.
'I knew she could handle them.'
Unlike the aberrant singular hound, the Garas' lust even surpassed Minerva's murderous aura.
Still, Minerva simply stared ahead with half-lidded eyes.
'Fated to become a witch.'
By the time she realized she could not escape, her body and mind were already shredded.
"If this is my fate, I'll accept it willingly."
Dozens of Garas surged at her.
"Minerva!"
Judging it already too late, Jacy turned to flee—but then something astonishing happened.
"Kraaak! Kraaah!"
The tangled mass of Garas began to bubble like oil and their numbers slowly diminished.
"The witch's breath."
With a long-stemmed pipe between her lips, Minerva exhaled a slow plume of smoke and pushed through the Garas' ranks.
"How did you do that?"
"I let them have their fun. Among themselves."
Jacy knew the Garas' reproductive drive was at the pinnacle of biological instinct, but they never mated with their own kind.
"Is their libido ten thousand times a human's? Then now it must be a hundred million times. At that magnitude they lose all discernment."
"A hundred million times…"
The black, oily mass birthed countless mutants that flickered into being and dissolved in turn.
Minerva watched impassively. "A living system depends on reproduction and feeding. Garas maximize reproductive compatibility so their nature spreads across the entire ecosystem. But if they mate with the same species—"
When Jacy turned, Minerva raised a finger.
"Evolution becomes impossible. After repeating countless mutations among themselves, what they eventually choose is stability. And that means—"
"They return to the archetype."
Minerva said nothing more. Before them, a black sphere about a meter in diameter had appeared.
Like a tadpole egg trapped in membrane, the sphere vibrated; its center split and it bifurcated into two.
"Cells…"
As the division continued, the black spheres shrank even as their number multiplied exponentially.
When the number of cells in the cycle surpassed forty trillion, a human figure finally took shape.
"I wanted to meet you once. Argones."
Father of all life in the cosmos.
The primeval entity—akin to a mother—had once been called Argones a living program.
When Argones' mouth opened, the mucus sealing its throat dissolved and a voice issued forth.
"You wanted to meet me."
The voice had none of the rises and falls of speech; it sounded like someone who did not know language making sounds.
Minerva paid it no mind.
"Anke Ra is gone. That couldn't have happened without your involvement. What are you plotting?"
If Argones truly was a biological program, it would have provided the body for Anke Ra.
"I do not plot. I spread life. I fill space with more beings—even places without a sun."
"How diligent of you, bureaucrat. Soon this world might close completely."
"It matters not, my daughter."
Minerva's brow twitched.
"You are the lowest probability among what I created—and yet a core probability. Kill as you wish; birth as you wish. That is the meaning of your probability."
"I wasn't made for the likes of you."
"Call it what you will. I did not make you either. You were simply chosen by probability."
"You bastard."
A murderous light filled Minerva's eyes.
"Does that justify the pain I endured?"
"Remove the mutant."
Argones' body thinned like porridge and seeped into the floor.
"Danger!"
From the walls, mucus-formed Argones surged out and attacked Minerva and Jacy.
"Mucus."
Wherever the slime waves rolled, no human remained. Minerva flung herself into a corner and drove her staff into the ground.
"The Breath of Ruin."
Black smoke billowed around Minerva at a terrifying speed, as if time itself had been accelerated.
Jacy, standing behind her, sensed the power and began casting a protective spell—just as the smoke burst forward like an explosion.
Krrrrrrrrr!
From inside the black cloud came the sound of collapsing buildings, and the destruction swelled out of control.
'How far will this reach…'
When the magical smoke cleared and sight returned, Jacy trembled.
The first sorcery she had seen from Miracle Minerva had turned every visible thing to ash.
'This isn't magic. It's a catastrophe.'
Two hundred meters ahead, where the devastation fanned out, nothing stood—only mounds of black ash.
"Tch. What a nuisance."
Back in her adult form, Minerva swung her staff and looked at Jacy.
"Let's go. There's one more thing to check."
Jacy only nodded repeatedly, speechless.
'If it's this woman…'
She could deliver the ultimate vengeance to the North Aimonde Republic that had killed her husband.
* * *
"Let go! Let me out! I want to go home!"
Baseto realized his situation when he saw the only structure before him.
A shabby hut.
The workers called it the Hut of Eternity—once you entered, you never came back out.
"I did everything you told me! Why… ugh!"
A soldier struck Baseto hard on the back of the head with the hilt of a cutlass.
"If we tell you to lie down, lie down. Too much talk. Don't thrash about—stay in there."
Being too competent was a problem.
That was the conclusion the soldiers reached after assessing Baseto's coolheaded performance in a crisis.
"You're assigned here permanently, starting today."
"You bastards! What did I do wrong!"
Another dull blow landed; the soldiers grabbed Baseto by the scruff and tossed him into the hut.
"Count yourself lucky. You get a solitary cell no other worker could dream of—and they'll feed you regularly."
They meant he was to eat like a dog in an isolated cell with no way out.
'Pieces of scum…!'
He'd rather be with the other workers; at least then they could tie his limbs and strangle him cleanly.
"Send me home. Please—send me home…"
Crouched in a corner and sobbing, Baseto felt movement and looked up.
"What…!"
As if a staircase rose from underground, Shirone was breaking through the hut's floor.
"Phew, finally found you."
Shion's Law, which governed the whole world, had holes in it here and there to maximize efficiency.
"Eek! A g-ghost!"
Baseto scrambled back until his spine hit the unmovable wall, legs thrashing.
After everything terrible he'd been through, he thought the reaper had finally come.
"Shh."
Shirone put a finger to his lips to calm him, checked outside, then asked, "Are you Verdi's father?"
Baseto's terrified expression changed in an instant and he lunged.
"How is Verdi? My family—where are they? Answer me! What did you do to my daughter…!"
He seemed to assume his family had been taken hostage.
"They're all safe. I came after Mr. Albas' message. Come with me and we'll get out of here."
"Al-Albas? He's alive?"
Relief flooded Baseto's face.
"I'll take you to your family. Hide somewhere safe until I finish here."
"Finish what? What are you even doing? This place is ruled by Commander Igor—it's a dictatorship."
The Ivory Tower's Five Greats were transnational entities.
"I have a way. First, get out of here. If soldiers burst in—"
Shirone paused and pricked his ears.
"What's that?"
A loud boom outside was followed by screams echoing from all directions.
"Hang on… no, follow me!"
Given the scale of the explosion, hiding inside seemed far more dangerous.
When they opened the door, demonic beasts had overrun the space and were butchering soldiers and workers.
"Honey! Verdi!"
As Baseto stamped his feet, Shirone grabbed him and activated a teleport.
"Danger!"
A fireball exploded.
Shirone turned and saw a woman in a North Aimonde uniform casting magic.
'Why would an ally—'
It was the northern spy Jacy.
"Hah! Not bad…!"
After dodging the fireball, Jacy fixed Shirone in her sights and cast Fly to surge forward.
A spy has no sincere comrades; everyone here was her enemy.
'I'll kill them all! Despicable scum!'
She had spent six years infiltrating, sacrificing her youth, only to return and find her only family—her husband—dead.
"Feel the same pain I did!"
Bearing Minerva on her back and unstoppable, she cast Invisibility right beside Shirone.
If you relied on sight, you were already dead…
"This way!"
Shirone's senses were three tiers above a human's; the photon cannon locked onto its target precisely.
'How could she—?'
Jacy's head spun.
"Press!"
The third-rank archmage's craft compressed the air into a high-strength barrier.
Bang!
The photon cannon's impact struck the press, vibrating it like reinforced steel, and slammed into Jacy's abdomen.
"Kugh!"
When the invisibility broke, she didn't even know where the shockwave had hurled her.
'She's not just a mage.'
It was the first time Jacy had felt such a blow.