Core Keywords (2)
Panier was silent for a long time.
"Panier?"
When Reina called, he finally snapped out of his thoughts and looked at Maya again.
"There was this kid who played guitar on the street. For a street performer, he was pretty good. No—he was very good. I watched him for days and I was certain. This kid had potential."
Panier had been a capable talent manager even then, and now he'd even published an autobiography.
'Who is he talking about?'
None of the performers who'd memorized his life story had heard of that guitarist.
"I signed him, and we prepared for shows. We prepared and prepared. But in the end he never stepped on stage. What do you think the reason was?"
El Kiana asked.
"Was his skill worse than expected?"
"Of course not. If his skill had been lacking, he wouldn't have made it onto the stage. But his skill—no excuse, but aside from not producing results, everything else was fine."
Even now it stung to think about.
"He had a blunt personality. He played aggressive music. People don't really like that. That kid might be the most stubborn person in the world. I thought that after a few falls, after tasting the bitterness of defeat, he'd come to his senses…."
Maya understood that man.
"He didn't."
"I don't want to blame him. Like I said earlier, maybe society didn't need that kind of thing yet. In any case, he failed. Over and over…" Panier's voice rose slightly. "His own kind of art. That's the most dangerous thing. The one making it has fun no matter what—because it's what he wants. But the receivers are different. They have other jobs, or it's just a hobby that makes them awkward, so they leave it to professionals like us."
He said he'd shouted in that kid's ear again and again.
"You can't survive on your own. But he wouldn't admit it. He believed the world would one day recognize him and stubbornly stuck to it until the end. Even as his life rotted away, even as he decayed! He clung to his guitar and yelled his songs at the top of his lungs."
Thinking about it still made Panier furious.
"Still…"
Recalling the time, Panier looked around at the artists with a bitter smile.
"I didn't dislike him. Honestly, I loved him. I wanted to promote him by any means. I dreamed every day of seeing him on stage, playing his guitar in front of countless people. A dream to deliver one satisfying blow to the world."
It was the hottest period of his life.
"In the end, I suppose I was the same. I talk about compromise with my mouth, but secretly I wanted someone to show up and smash everything. A childish, swaggering artist."
El Kiana asked cautiously.
"What happened to him now? Still a street musician…?"
"He left. I didn't give up, but his life was completely ruined. His daughter died of an illness."
"Huh?…"
"It wasn't even an incurable disease, by the sound of it. No, if something like that happens, you ought to tell someone, right? If he'd sought help from me—someone he'd had musical clashes with—maybe he'd have thought compromise was defeat. Sounds crazy, but that's the kind of person he was. Even so… it was his own child."
Panier's eyes reddened and he ground his teeth.
"…a goddamn idiot."
The twisted expression on his face seemed to contain a reason he'd told no one.
"His own kind of art."
He calmed himself and asked Maya.
"Is that answer enough?" Maya nodded, lowering her gaze.
'A difficult question.'
It would be too simplistic to say what should be done here—the lives of humans are too varied.
'Who was he?'
Maya only wanted to hear the recording of the man who remained in Panier's past.
Apocalypse.
Shirone and his group entered the Fairy Biomimetics building and stepped into the elevator.
The elevator, which had dropped underground, moved horizontally and led them to the main system.
'This is taking forever.'
They could feel instinctively that it had travelled far enough to leave the city.
When the elevator arrived, Marsha strode through the labyrinthine underground facility without hesitation.
"This is it."
When the door to the special quarantine zone opened, a gigantic mechanical eye waited for them.
"Digital Ra."
The High Gear managers were stunned by the wires connected in all directions.
"What on earth needs this much power?"
Marsha explained.
"At first it was an energy circulation system. And now it completely dominates this world."
The stick-candy-mark asked.
"A program error? Otherwise it wouldn't treat people like vermin."
"No."
Shirone said.
"There's no error. Digital Ra was performing its mission exactly as programmed."
To maintain the environment—this world.
"…So the problem is humans?"
From the machine's point of view that might be a rational judgment, but they were human.
"Is it malfunctioning?"
Marsha tapped Digital Ra's lens with her hand.
"Is there anything left to do? It covered Apocalypse with Mucus."
When she kicked it, it rang like a tin can.
"Marsha."
"It's fine. This thing's tormented me for so long. Once we inject Ice Blood…."
The lens lit up.
"Ugh! What the—!"
A sound of power transmission roared and a massive vibration rolled down from the ceiling.
An operator shouted.
"Talli!"
The managers all swarmed to open Anke Ra's code and start planting a virus.
"What? Did I wake it?"
As Marsha panicked, Freeman put a hand on her shoulder.
"Stay calm. It wouldn't react just from a kick. It's responding because we came in."
A slimy substance oozed from the ceiling and flowed down, thick like droplets.
Thud—the goo hit the floor and bulged up, transforming into a humanoid form.
Freeman trained a magic grenade at it.
"Mucus Man."
As a manifestation of Digital Ra, the creature appeared and Shirone stepped forward to block his party.
The Mucus Man said, "Why are you free?"
"I'd like to ask the same. Why did you lock everyone up? What happened?"
"They regressed on their own. In the soil, in wall cracks, in the sewers—wherever, they were. I gathered those lifeforms and provided them with comfortable environments."
"Regressed?"
The Mucus Man scanned the High Gear managers but found no special reaction.
"Humans could not handle their privileges. They writhed in pain and murdered their kind."
'Emotion Sickness.'
And murdering their kin to avoid pain meant they'd succumbed to the doctrine of Satanism.
"You name individuals, but to me humans are a single species. A foolish species that devours its own flesh."
It was humans reflected in the machine's eye.
"That species, hollowed out by consumption, could no longer find sustenance. Their only way to avoid pain was not to eat."
A reverse evolution into creatures without desire.
"That is the current human. They do nothing now. They desire nothing."
It was the outcome driven by the Satanist creed.
"What about the Mucus?"
Shirone asked.
"You covered this world with Mucus. Now that humans are like that, there's no need to destroy you, is there?" The Mucus Man hesitated.
"The singing."
"What?"
"The singing was too loud; I couldn't stop it. There was too much singing, so I had to cover the planet. Thicker, thicker, ever thicker…"
Shirone didn't understand.
"We cannot let it spread outside. The system will be destroyed. A prison. No escape."
'Sound.'
A signal capable of carrying both information and feeling.
Interpreted that way, the Mucus Man's voice carried fear.
"I stopped it. I locked it all up."
Mucus seeped endlessly through the cracks of the underground facility, swallowing the floor.
Marsha signaled the managers.
'Still far?'
'More complicated than expected.'
Shirone could hear the managers' labored breathing as they fought with gritted teeth.
'I have to buy time.'
Of course, the Mucus Man's lack of movement probably meant he was aiming for something.
"What will you do with us?"
"This planet is closed. There will be no more change. The being who created me is gone, so my existence no longer matters."
Shirone recalled the god's viewpoint.
'A god's effect is the result of human causes. If our cause disappears, the god's effect disappears.'
In the same way, with humans gone, Digital Ra had no need to exist either.
"It's over, humans."
A wall collapsed, and the amount of Mucus pouring in surged geometrically.
'Damn!'
They must have intended to cover every mass piled on the surface—maybe even this core.
As the Mucus Man vanished, he said, "There is nothing."
With a sound louder than thunder the wall fractured and all the surface Mucus rushed in.
"Get behind me!"
Shirone stepped in front of the managers and spread a Miracle Stream to the front.
"Ugh—!"
When it struck, the mass was almost beyond measurement.
Marsha, watching the light barrier that was being pushed back at half a meter per second, shouted harshly.
"Still far?"
"We're pushing it in now! A little more!"
On the hologram window she checked, the gauge bar had just passed the halfway mark.
"Too slow! Press harder!"
"You don't even know what this looks like! Do you think this is some kind of syringe?"
67 percent, 70 percent….
When Shirone gave everything he had and forced the Miracle Stream forward, the Mucus was pushed back about a meter.
The mass felt dizzying; blood ran from his nose.
"Ugh!"
Shirone, finally unable to hold on, exhaled—and the Mucus surged in.
91 percent, 94 percent….
"Faster! Talli!"
The managers stamped their feet, but the gauge stayed stuck at 94 percent.
'Why isn't it working? Is it a failure?'
Shirone gritted his teeth.
"Yaaah!"
The Miracle Stream surged one final time and vanished, and the Mucus rushed in like a tide.
Countless faces of Mucus Men embossed on the surface of the slime sprang out.
'I was wrong!'
Just as everyone sensed the end, the gauge jumped from 94 percent to 100 percent.
"Kriiiiiiike!"
A barrage of noise erupted from the mouths of innumerable Mucus Men, like eardrums about to burst.
Covering their ears, Shirone and the others finally opened their eyes after a long moment.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
Marsha landed on her backside, and Shirone saw the Mucus frozen right in front of him.
"Success."
Ice Blood spread from the core, and Mucus across the world retracted.
An operator leapt to his feet.
"It worked! Of course it did! There's no way my program has an error!"
"We made it! Genius as always! Nice work!" Number Seven hugged and bounced with Marsha, then quickly recovered her composure.
"Ah—?"
The two blushed and turned away. Marsha smiled and said,
"Yeah, good job. How did it end? I thought we were sure dead."
Smile Mark said, "Probably because it busted through the firewall. Anyway, the first operation succeeded. But…."
They looked around and found themselves sealed in by Mucus that had hardened like stone.
"How do we get out of here? Digging would take forever."
"Finally my specialty?"
Number Seven smugly lifted her chin and stepped forward, and Shirone's eyes brightened.
'Ah, right.'
She was the one who'd created all the boss creatures that lived in High Gear's land, sea, and air.