"Ah... ugh..."
It hurts like hell.
I barely managed to hold onto consciousness as my body was wracked by the horrific pain of being hurled around.
If I were being honest, I'd want to just lie here and fall asleep like this...
But then I'd have no face to show the Dante who's saved me so many times.
...So now's the time to get up.
Splash... splash...
I stood, stepping through a puddle of blood.
How many more minutes could I hold out?
Well, whether I had a few minutes left or not, it wouldn't change what I had to do next. A pointless thought, I suppose.
"Uraaaah!!"
Just as I was thinking that, Mr. Heathcliff leaped high and smashed the thing's head-like part to pieces.
Crack!
"Hah, how do you like tha— huh?"
Shrrrraaaaa—
But even with the head-like part shattered, it didn't stop moving and instead burst Mr. Heathcliff's head apart.
Even as his flesh sprayed everywhere, I thought:
Now.
This is the time.
The best possible opening to attack, while it was still reeling from killing Mr. Heathcliff.
The moment I realized that, I grabbed the spear lying on the floor and ran.
"Aaaah!!"
"[Stab the body!]"
"Hup!"
At Dante's command to me, Mr. Meursault smashed the shell of its body with his fist.
Thud
I drove the spear deep into its torso.
Then, at the signal of my spear, the prisoners all began attacking it at once.
Some struck the roots, some the remaining arm, some the place where its already shattered head had been.
How long did we keep attacking without giving it even a moment to recover?
At some point, its massive form vanished.
What?
For a brief moment, I wondered that—but then I felt the peculiar pressure it gave off disappear.
Which meant...
Ah.
It was over.
The instant I realized that, the tension left my body and I quickly lost consciousness.
...And not long after, the clock turned back.
**
"What. That's it?"
"I heard [Abnormalities] are powerful enough that they can't be subdued so easily..."
"It's because of the Qliphoth deterrence."
Ms. Faust casually brushed aside Mr. Heathcliff and Ms. Ishmael's questions.
"What? Coffee pot?"
"...It's a force that weakens [Abnormalities]. It's used in containment units to confine them more safely."
So, in other words, Qliphoth deterrence was some kind of safety mechanism for managing [Abnormalities] securely.
"The more [Golden Boughs] we recover, the weaker that deterrence will become. For now, this is all it amounts to, but..."
"Later on, even dying and coming back a hundred times might not be enough."
Ugh, that's not great.
"[...But where did the [Abnormality]'s corpse go? I thought we just killed it...]"
"Its breathing was certainly stopped. Thanks to the Manager's excellent command."
"[It didn't fly up into the sky or anything...]"
"Indeed, Manager. We can't entirely rule out that possibility."
Ms. Otis, that's a bit much...
"...You don't see the solid-looking underground ceiling above us?"
"...Quite so, Mr. Gregor."
While I was doing my best to ignore Ms. Otis glaring at us with a terrifying expression, Yuri spoke to us.
"...Look over here."
She was pointing somewhere with a drained expression.
She must be under a lot of stress... is she really okay?
"...An egg."
Just as Dante said, what Yuri was pointing at was an egg.
The egg looked like the roots of the [Abnormality] we had fought had been wrapped around and condensed into the shape of an egg.
It gave off an eerily similar feeling, which only made me more uneasy for no reason.
"It's the core of the [Abnormality]. If subdued properly, it reverts into this egg-like form."
"...And it'll hatch. If enough time passes in this space."
Huh?
"What? That's some bullshit..."
"You're saying these things don't die?"
"[Abnormalities] don't die. That's part of why L Corp's energy production was so enormous."
So that was the secret behind old L Corp's absurd energy output.
...But then how the hell did it go under?
"My job used to be taking a core in this state back to the containment unit... now it's the opposite."
At that, Ms. Ishmael made a complicated face and said, "Hmm... So what are we supposed to do until the egg hatches again?"
"Limbus Company has a separate department that handles these [Abnormalities]. They'll come retrieve it."
"That... after-team? I remember hearing about them during the briefing."
I don't know anything about that.
"Then why not stop wasting time and call them already?"
"Contact is... possible from the Mephistopheles."
"...Well, that figures."
"There's no need to worry too much. Once we find the [Golden Bough], we'll be going back whether we like it or not."
"Th... then doesn't that mean we'll have to deal with this thing again when we return?"
"Correct."
Ms. Faust answered my question like that, then turned away as if she had nothing more to say.
How unfriendly.
"...So, shall we move out now?"
Seeing that our conversation had more or less ended, Yuri said that.
Well, if it revives, we can just kill it again. There shouldn't be a problem.
Probably.
"[Let's go.]"
At Dante's command, the prisoners began moving forward.
Thud, thud
Many footsteps echoed through the dark, damp corridor where every sound rang out.
Our current position was roughly on the second floor, having crossed one level from where we'd been before.
"I never thought I'd come back here."
Was this the first time we'd gone this deep into the company since the Wings fell?
"Lobotomy branches are generally made up of multiple floors."
"And each floor will have [Abnormalities] that act as its masters."
"Eeh?! You're saying something like that showed up again?"
Surprisingly, Ms. Rodion's reaction was intense.
Was it because the earlier battle had left an impression?
"How do you even know that kind of... combat intel? How the hell do you know that?"
"Faust knows everything."
...That was true?
"The briefing said the before-team does advance reconnaissance."
Eh.
"...You just know because you're one of the people in charge."
Mr. Gregor said that, sounding utterly fed up.
"I never said anything false."
Honestly... that mysterious first impression of hers was starting to crack apart.
"In any case, that means there's one major enemy on each floor."
"We can't do something stupid like advance with an enemy behind our backs, so in the end we'll have to clear the [Abnormality] on each floor..."
"Faust has had her line stolen."
"If intent can be conveyed without speaking, is there anything more ideal than that?"
"...Dante, it's time to look at the star."
Ah, she ignored me.
"[I'm starting to think you're using me a little too conveniently...]"
"But they do respect you, don't they? That's better than people who ignore you even after you've gone to the trouble of reviving them."
"...What did you just say?"
Shit, he heard that?
"Huh? I didn't say anything..."
"Tch..."
Mr. Heathcliff clicked his tongue at my words, apparently having nothing to say back, and turned away again.
"[...You're pretty shameless yourself, aren't you?]"
"Thank you for the compliment."
A person should know how to be shameless sometimes. Yes, indeed.
"[...Let's keep moving.]"
Dante looked at me for a moment, then said that to the prisoners.
I should probably walk a little farther away from Mr. Heathcliff.
**
Thud, thud
In any case, we kept walking.
But then...
Hm?
I felt like something was flickering at the end of the corridor.
Was someone there?
The moment that thought crossed my mind, a member of old G Corp emerged from the darkness.
He seemed to have held a fairly high rank in the past, since he had an old but still polished badge attached to his clothes.
"...Mr. Gregor, Chief?"
"Your face looks familiar somehow. Why do I know it?"
"...He was your superior."
So he was a boss.
"Not only did you run away alone, you've now killed your old comrades and my subordinates too."
"Hey, the war ended ten years ago. Still can't get out of soldier games?"
Mr. Gregor spoke in an aggressive tone, as if angry at the man for still being unable to leave the war behind.
"Ended? Nothing ended."
"Noth...ing... ended..."
"Maybe your war ended when you ran away from G Corp."
"But we're still standing right in the middle of it."
...PTSD is a pretty common condition here.
Especially since the Smoke War hadn't been over for all that long.
"I didn't want to have this kind of sense of kinship, but..."
"I'm not all that different."
"Then you should understand, Chief."
"The conclusion for a traitor on the battlefield is always the same."
Execution... so battle couldn't be avoided, huh.
Mr. Gregor seemed to sense that too, and laughed lightly as he said, "You're putting it nicely, but... summary execution for revenge is against the rules, boss man."
And then both sides took up combat stances.
...We'd only just finished a big fight, and now this?
Looks like my body and Dante's clock weren't going to get any rest.