"With my strength, shouldn't it be like this?"
Facing Yukino's question, Hayashi spread his hands. A crimson fungal carpet spread from beneath his feet, devouring the soil and the steel walls of the command room. Immediately after, massive soldiers, three meters tall and clad in interstellar armor, rose from the fungal carpet.
Although they proliferated slower than the crows, it didn't take long. Soon, eight hundred towering soldiers stood behind Hayashi.
"..."
Her gaze falling upon these terrifying soldiers, Yukino fell silent. She suddenly felt that Hayashi's words made sense.
'An emperor, after all, is one with strong soldiers and horses.'
Clang! Clang!!
The sound of steel colliding rang out. It was Jeanne striking a soldier's interstellar armor with her cross-shaped spear.
"Hiss, what kind of steel is this? It feels even harder than U-alloy!"
Jeanne asked with some curiosity.
"I researched it."
Hayashi said earnestly.
But in reality, these 'Space Marines' were completely superficial. Perhaps when he met the Emperor again and obtained genetic modification technology from him,
After devouring it,
He would be able to proliferate true space marines.
But at this moment, the seemingly incredibly powerful Space Marines before Jeanne and the others were actually sustained solely by his exceptionally high flesh-and-blood strength.
After all, an ordinary person's flesh-and-blood heart would find it very difficult to support a three-meter-tall body.
Referencing the tallest person in the world, Robert Wadlow, who was 2.72 meters tall but suffered from multiple health problems, including leg support issues, requiring braces to walk, and died at the age of 22.
As for the Space Marine armor that Jeanne asked about, which was harder than U-gold, it was actually just a discolored cellular keratin layer...
"Amazing!"
Jeanne exclaimed.
"Oh, it's nothing; there's still a lot of room for improvement."
Hayashi said 'modestly.'
"Alright, stop being modest! What about the situation in Itomori Town?"
"Hayashi, can you control these crows all the time?"
"If not, these stone sculptures will be difficult to deal with."
Putting away her playful expression, Elysia brought up the serious matter. As for Hayashi's affairs, someone would naturally negotiate with him after the generals reported.
Peace or war? She couldn't control that.
But she thought it should still be peace; after all, Hayashi was a bug.
"Dealing with them is very simple."
Hayashi said with a relaxed expression.
He could even rewind time from the beginning, returning to before the incident occurred, and save everyone in Itomori Town.
The reason he went through this series of events was merely to first find SCP-173, contain it, acquire its abilities, and then go back and deal with it directly.
And also to test Elysia and the others' attitude towards his ascension to become the emperor.
After all, in modern society... parliamentary systems, constitutional monarchies, and electoral systems are the mainstream.
He was, in a sense, reversing the course of history.
But now it seems... the resistance isn't too great...
"Simple?"
Elysia looked at Hayashi with curious, beautiful eyes. If she remembered correctly, Hayashi should have previously used the authority of Mad Gambling to exponentially increase his strength.
Only then could he control so many crows, but that authority wasn't always effective.
"Yes, let's first go see the source of all this!"
As his voice fell, Hayashi turned and led everyone to Miyamizu Shrine.
Passing through the shrine's torii gate, stepping over Mitsuha's stone sculpture and Makoto's stone sculpture, and past numerous crows.
Hayashi stood before the shrine's altar.
There, before a stone statue that was distinctly different from the surrounding sculptures—its neck not twisted, but rather ugly and possessing a sci-fi, alien feel.
"It's the culprit behind this tragedy?"
Although Jeanne used a question, the moment she saw this bizarre thing, her usually calm and unperturbed revelation, which seemed to not have noticed it,
—was now frantically warning her!
Her revelation was telling her that the thing before her was extremely terrifying and dangerous!
If she were to face it alone, Jeanne would very likely die.
"It should be!"
The answer came not from Hayashi, who was standing closest to observe SCP-173, but from Elysia. Similar to Jeanne's revelation,
Elysia also sensed the horror of SCP-173 with her keen intuition.
Her authority, her power to make the impossible possible, was useless against it.
To deal with it, she could only stare at it!
Compared to Elysia and Jeanne, Hayashi was looking curiously at the Foundation's mascot, the original creation.
It was just like in the Foundation's photos, except it was covered with pictures of SCP-096. If he hadn't contained SCP-096 beforehand,
He would now have to deal with another contained object.
But how did it manage to turn people with twisted necks into stone sculptures?
The original SCP-173 didn't have this ability.
Thinking this, Hayashi suddenly noticed a very small object tied around SCP-173's neck.
It seemed to be a memory card?
"A chip? A memory card? How does it have something like this on it?"
Looking at the object Hayashi took from the alien stone sculpture's neck, many conjectures flashed through Elysia's mind.
For example, perhaps this monster wasn't from another world but from outer space.
Was it a silicon-based 'virus' weapon spread by aliens?
"It feels like something alien, very likely dangerous!"
Jeanne stepped forward, asking with some concern.
"It should be fine."
Hayashi shook his head at Jeanne. Jeanne and the others didn't know about SCP-173's situation, but he did.
SCP-173 was sent by the Foundation to destroy humanity.
And why would the Foundation want to destroy humanity?
There might be clues in this memory card.
Of course, it's also possible there's a trap, as Jeanne guessed, like memetic contamination.
But Hayashi wasn't afraid of these things; at worst, he could just start over.
Under Jeanne's worried gaze, and after Elysia offered to look first but was refused by Hayashi,
Hayashi asked Yukino to find a computer, told them to wait aside, and then, alone, inserted the memory card.
Soon, Hayashi found the only video file on the card and opened it.
Sizzle—
First, a chilling static sound.
Then Hayashi heard sounds that seemed to come from an interrogation room.
One person was being interrogated by a group of others.
"O5-11, do you have anything else to say?"
The calm, questioning voice of what seemed to be a middle-aged woman rang out, causing Hayashi's spirits to lift.
O5-11!
O5!
If Hayashi remembered correctly, the Foundation's highest council was composed of O5s; they were the Foundation's brains, the most important decision-makers.
And here, an O5 member was being interrogated?
The Foundation's O5 councilors were not useless figureheads; it was not easy for the Foundation to cultivate O5 councilors.
O5 councilors have always been in short supply at the Foundation.
And now an O5 councilor was being interrogated.
What happened?
Did he release some terrifying contained object?
Logically, an O5 councilor would not do something that threatens humanity; otherwise, the Foundation's so-called O5 councilors would become a joke.
With doubts, Hayashi continued to watch.
Sizzle...
As the static sound rang out, the voice continued to speak.
"O5-11, did you conceal very important information after your resurrection?"