CHAPTER 31

A Conversation

I can hear the Killing Machine’s sobbing through the high-quality surround-sound “speakers.” Facing the Killing Machine’s secluded cavern, I say into the mic:

“Hey, can you hear me?”

“Sniffle… Hic! Oh…! Y-yes, I can hear you!”

“I’m Ristarte. You can call me Rista. Do you have a name?”

“No.”

“Then… Hmm… Well, you sound like a girl. So how about Kiriko? We can call you Kiri for short! It’s cute, right?”

And then…

“Waaaaaah!”

She wails even more loudly than before.

“…?! I-I’m sorry! You don’t like the name, do you?! It was probably rude of me to even give a Killing Machine a name!”

“Sniffle… No, that’s not it…! I’m just…so, so…happy…!”

“Huh?”

“I never even imagined I would ever be given a name! This is like a dream come true!”

Th-thank goodness she likes it!

After that, I remind her one last time that the earth serpents wrapped around her are harmless.

“…Well, I guess I should be going.”

“Rista, you’re leaving already? It’s going to be…so lonely without you! Sniffle…!”

She’s gonna cry again! Uh-oh… What should I do…?

“Kiriko, just wait right there for me!”

I return to the surface and create a gate to the flower field in the spirit world.

Under the clear blue sky, I see from behind a god tilting a watering pot over the flowers.

“U-um… Hey, Boros.”

I haven’t seen him since Seiya buried him in the ground and stepped on his forehead.

“Oh, if it ain’t Ristarte.”

Boros mumbles in a deep voice as he turns around, and I am suddenly taken aback when I see his face. While he isn’t covered in hair like last time, his facial hair is extremely long! Not only that, but he has a flattop haircut as well! He looks like a middle-aged biker!

Boros lets out a hearty laugh when he notices my astonishment.

“Rumors spread like wildfire after what happened, so now everyone knows about my hairiness. It’s not like I came out to ’em or anything, but it feels like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. So I don’t bear a grudge against the Hero anymore.”

“R-really?! I’m so glad to hear that!”

“It’s a relief to not have to remove so much hair every day. I’m happy now. When I really thought about it, bein’ hairy is one of the things that makes me me. I didn’t need to hide it.”

“Yeah! I like your new, wild look!”

“Do ya mean it?!”

“Of course I do! You’re absolutely not my type, though!”

“W-wow… Didn’t have to be so blunt about it.”

“By the way, I was wondering if you could help me with something.”

I point at a peach-colored, adorable flower that I’ve had my eye on.

“Can I have this flower?”

“Yeah, knock yourself out. I’ll put it in a flowerpot so you can carry it around more easily.”

“Thank you so much!”

“Don’t sweat it. We’re neighbors, ya hear? It’s only right we help each other.”

It’s almost as if Boros has transformed into a sweet middle-aged farmer. After he hands me the flowerpot, I return to the cave to see Kiriko.

“Sniffle… Sniffle…”

I can still hear her sobbing.

“Kiri?”

“Ah! Rista!”

I link the gate to the cavern where Kiriko is. With grim determination, I crack the door slightly…

“Hmph!”

And I artfully toss the flowerpot into the room before closing the gate quickly afterward.

“U-um… Rista? A flower just randomly flew into the room…”

This was the only way to safely give Kiriko the flower without going through the gate.

I pick up the mic.

“Kiri! That flower’s for you!”

“You’re giving this to me…?”

“Yep! It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

“Y-yeah! It’s so pretty! Just looking at it is so soothing!”

“So please don’t cry anymore, okay?”

“I’ll try not to!”

I place the serpent microphone down and have begun to leave when I hear Kiriko timidly speak up.

“Rista…will you come visit me again?”

“Of course!”

I send her a smile.

The next day, the entire city of Termine is overrun with golems. I turn to Seiya by my side and ask:

“Is it just me, or are there even more golems than before? Just how many are there?”

I wait for a while, but he doesn’t reply.

“Seiya…?”

Seiya may be a very secretive man of few words, but he is even quieter today than usual. After taking a good look, I notice his eyes are locked on to something and he isn’t all there mentally. Something is clearly wrong.

“Seiya!!”

I shake his shoulders, but he doesn’t respond.

“Seiya?! Are you okay?!”

Worried, I violently shake his shoulders, and…

Crack.

…I hear a dry crack followed by Seiya’s arm falling completely off!

“Eeeeeek! Did I just rip his arm off?! I’m so sorry!!”

I’m frantically apologizing while still holding his arm when I suddenly hear his voice coming from nearby.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh! Seiya! Oh man!! So, like, I was shaking Seiya when, all of a sudden, I ripped his arm off and— Wait!! What the…?!”

Perplexed, I look back and forth between the two Seiyas until the Seiya with both arms glares at me.

“That’s my body double. I used Transform on a clay doll I created with earth magic.”

“Oh… W-wow… You don’t say… Wait. ‘Body double’?! Why do you have a body double?!”

“Just because I’m in Termine doesn’t mean I’m safe. There might still be someone who wants me dead.”

“Are you saying that you think someone from Termine might attack you?! Th-that’s—”

…That’s actually not outside the realm of possibility. I’ve encountered lots of people who resent Seiya for not being able to save the world.

“My greatest enemy may not be the Demon Lord but someone close by.”

“Now you’ve gone too far! That’s ridiculous!”

Just then, a merchant-ish man approaches us with a smile and herbs in his hand. Sensing his presence, Seiya turns around incredibly fast and grabs the man by his collar.

“Eek?!”

“Who are you? An assassin?”

“N-no! I’m but a humble merchant!”

“Who sent you?”

“Nobody sent me! I was just wondering if you needed any medicinal herbs…”

Seiya doesn’t look like he believes a word this man is saying. Only when I try to calm him down does he finally let go of the merchant.

“You better not sneak up on me from behind ever again. Next time you do that, I will kill you. Got it?”

“…?! What kind of Hero says that?!”

I scream at the Hero for his hit-man-like behavior. The merchant also screams before running away. Seiya then starts walking off as if unfazed by his own cruelty.

“S-Seiya…? Where are you going?”

“To the watchtower. That’s where I was planning on going until I ran into you and wasted valuable time.”

“The tower? Why are you—? Ah! Seiya…! Ugh! Wait for me!”

I follow Seiya to the tower. When we reach the top, Jonde and the queen are already waiting for us.

“Why did you summon us all here?”

Jonde asks this with a quizzical note in his voice. It looks like Seiya asked them to meet him here. Seiya, however, doesn’t answer and instead silently raises both arms into the air.

“…Iron Dome.”

The ground suddenly begins to roar as the Great Iron Walls around Termine extend farther toward the sky. As the walls grow, they curl inward, resembling an umbrella dome over Termine.

““Wh-wh-wh-what…?!””

As Jonde and I watch in utter astonishment, the walls from all four directions connect in the sky, completely cutting off the sun. Enshrouded in darkness, Seiya pulls out a glowstone from his breast pocket and explains:

“I turned the walls into a dome to prevent aerial attacks. While it uses a lot of MP, it thoroughly defends us from attacks from above.”

“You should have told us you were going to do this! The people of Termine are probably panicking because everything suddenly went dark!”

“That’s why I called you all here. Tell the people what’s happening so no one panics when there’s an air strike.”

The dome blocking the sky slowly opens with a powerful roar before the walls gradually return to their normal position.

“Once the threat is gone, I can remove the dome like this.”

“Wh-why would somebody go to so much trouble when they don’t even know if there’s going to be an aerial attack…?”

Jonde quietly mutters to himself in a dumbfounded manner, but the queen smiles.

“Well, it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared if it ensures the safety of the people of Termine.”

Seiya nods in agreement, then walks over to the watchtower room where the queen used to be held captive. When he opens the door, I see a few wooden buckets filled with water lined up.

“S-Seiya? What are you doing?”

When Seiya snaps his fingers, each bucket of water displays a different scene.

“Ack?! What in the world is that?!”

“Using earth magic, I can display what the earth serpents inside and outside of town are seeing. This way we can see what’s happening in various places around Termine.”

The people of this world probably wouldn’t understand what a camera is, but these are essentially security cameras. With these, Seiya won’t be the only one with a bird’s-eye view of what the machine corps is doing.

A steel-solid wall that can turn into a dome in the event of an aerial attack…

Multiple security cameras set up around the area…

Termine is slowly transforming into a high-tech stronghold.

“Rista, open a gate. We’re going to Galvano.”

“What’re we going to do there?”

“I thought the enemy’s second batch of troops would be here by now, but it looks like we still have some time. So there’s no reason not to productively use this time to equip and fortify Galvano just like Termine.”

The next day, Seiya tirelessly goes back and forth between Termine and Galvano to beef up their defenses. Jonde tags along at first, but he seems to get bored after a while and instead opts to remain by the queen’s side in Termine. After opening a gate and sending Seiya to Galvano, I stay behind and hang out in Termine as well, since I figure Seiya would be annoyed if I followed him around all day. I use my spare time to talk to the queen and visit Kiriko in the cave.

“…Tee-hee. Seiya sounds so funny!”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you had to be around him all day. He really wears you out.”

I talk with Kiriko through the earth-serpent mic. She smiles and laughs as I tell her about Seiya preparing for imaginary aerial attacks along with other overly cautious things he’s done in the past. That’s when it suddenly hits me.

“You must be having mixed feelings about all this, though. I mean, your dad is the Machine Emperor Oxerio…”

“Y-yeah, I really hope Father and the Hero can talk things out, but…”

That would obviously never happen, though. Feeling a little gloomy, I decide to change the subject.

“So how’s the flower?”

“Oh… It’s actually not doing so well…”

Kiriko picks up the flowerpot and holds it to the wall I’m facing on the other side. The flower is drooping, and the soil has completely dried out.

“Ah…! Water! I forgot to give it water!”

“Water…? Do you mean it needs more nutrients? I could pour some oil from my body onto the flower if that would help.”

“That would one hundred percent kill it! Hold on! I’m going to go fetch some water!”

Flustered, I rush over to a well in Termine to draw some water with a pail, then hurry back to the cave. I open a gate and walk into Kiriko’s cavern space, then give the flower some water. The thirsty soil absorbs the fresh water in an instant.

“Phew! That should do it for now!”

But out of nowhere, I suddenly hear Kiriko’s voice coming from behind me.

“Rista…”

That’s when I finally realize that I went into her cavern even though Seiya told me not to!

Sh-shit! Shit! Shiiiiiit! I was so worried about the flower that I wasn’t thinking straight!!

“We finally…get to meet up close…Rista…”

“K-Kiri…? You’re joking, right? This is a joke, right?”

But her voice is different. She walks over and extends her robotic arm toward me.

“S-stop!”

Sensing danger, I scream…but Kiriko takes my hand, then mirthfully shakes it up and down. With a lively note in her voice, she cheers:

“I finally get to see what you look like, Rista! This is like a dream come true!”

“Huh…?”

“You’re sooo pretty! Your hair is so beautiful, too! I’m so jealous!”

“Y-you really think so?”

Thank goodness! I knew she wasn’t a bad monster!

“But the flower still looks depressed…”

Now that she mentions it, the flower is still wilting even though I gave it water. Was I too late?

“Hold on. Let me try something.”

I use my healing magic on the drooping flower as if I was healing a wounded person, and before long, the wilted flower springs straight up.

“Yes! It worked!”

I’m never going to hear the end of it if Seiya finds out it took everything I had to revive a drooping flower…

I inwardly laugh at myself, but Kiriko cheerfully waves her arms excitedly.

“Wow! It’s a miracle!”

“W-well, I am a goddess, y’know?”

“Goddesses are amazing! That was sooo cool! I can’t believe what I just saw!”

It’s been so long since I’ve been complimented that I feel like I’m on top of the world.

“Yeah! I am amazing! I’m way better than Seiya!”

“I want to be just like you, Rista!”

Ah, how wonderful it feels to be respected again! I can’t believe I almost forgot! I’m a beautiful goddess who can perform miracles!

Right as I regain my dignity as a goddess…

Hiss! Hiss!

The earth serpent wrapped around my chest begins hissing.

“R-Rista?! What is that?!”

“Oh, this? It’s an earth-serpent telephone. Kiri, could you be quiet for a few seconds while I take this?”

I bring the earth serpent’s tail to my ear and its head to my mouth.

“Hello? Seiya? You’re in Galvano now? You’re going to be coming back to Termine?”

Then, in a deep voice, I hear him say:

“You opened a gate and entered the Killing Machine’s cavern, didn’t you?”

“What the…?! How did you know?!”

“You can’t hide anything from me.”

I lower my head over and over as Seiya scolds me.

“I’m so sorry… But, um…she didn’t attack me, so…? …Oh, right. That isn’t the problem, is it? …I’m sorry… You’re right… Yes… I will keep that in mind… No, I promise that next time will be… Yes… Yes, I did say that last time, too… Yes, you’re right… I’m really sorry… Yes… See you soon… Okay.”

After the call ends…

“R-Rista…? Is everything okay?”

I manage to give Kiriko the thumbs-up, but my thumb is trembling, which complements the strained look on my face. There isn’t even a hint of divine dignity left.