Tales of the Old World Demon Lord
Chapter 43 – Desperate plea
[Eternum Calendar 1972]
“[Nemesis, if you have ever considered me as your friend then there’s one thing I would like you to do.]”
Nemesis took a deep breath and sighed, disturbing the nostalgic old air around her. Her bright, almost gleaming, blue eyes powerfully shun through the darkness tinted atmosphere that was her long abandoned home. Between the silently encroaching static and the ever-present slow whirling of ventilation blades, all she could register was the loneliness and her own minute presence in this extraordinarily huge underground base.
Left behind by both her time and country, the only thing that still connected her to the two was the small screen before her. The man within that screen looked back hesitantly with an uneasy smile. ‘Friend…?’ the thought never crossed her mind that Testament or any other members of the Upper Echelon were something as trivial to her as merely ‘friends’. Her comrades and countrymen were more than that, almost an extension of her own self.
Witnessing once more the state of this place and hearing the melancholy of Testament’s voice brought her back to reality. As though a part of her soul was being chiseled out, she dryly laughed to herself as she continued watching. ‘Who would want to be friends with you… idiot’, she quietly insulted in her heart, though not really meaning any harmful intent.
“[Haha~ knowing you, you’d probably reject me outright but… well, just hear me out first.]”
Her attention focused, she continued watching the monitor, analyzing every part of detail in its content. From the smallest of movements to every nuance of Testament’s spoken words, she knew that this was the only way to actually see past him front. He had usually guarded himself heavily with that carefree, sadistic façade of his so she had learnt to read past the lines to his true intensions.
Despite the progress bar on the recording indicating that the video was still playing, Testament had not spoken a single word a while. It appeared exceedingly apparent that he was finding it very difficult to put to words his actual request for her. Since it wasn’t as though she could pull him out of the monitor to smack him around until he talked, she simply waited. The longer this awkward silence continued the more irritation and frustration she started to feel, even then she waited for her comrade to speak.
“[Tch, just what is it? Spill it out you bastard.]”
She insulted in vanity towards the emotionless monitor that stared back at her. It wasn’t exactly as though she was expecting any sort of answer, it was just that she wanted to release her pent up anxiety. This was most likely going to be the final mission she ever undertook as a formal member of the USSC; from one member to another.
Testament’s next words could very well become the entire defining point for her uncertain future. Whatever his request was, she planned on dedicating everything she had in fulfilling it; this was both her pride and duty as the 7th ranked member of the USSC’s [Upper Echelon].
As if it had responded to her feelings and resolve, Testament had also found the determination to finally speak his mind. His voice was still evidently shaky and hesitant but in the end he decided to leave her with his final request. ‘Honesty’ was never Testament’s best policy so it came as something of a shock to her that his next words contained just that.
“[Aha… well, you see Nemesis, ‘she’ was my biggest failure… both as a scientist and as a person. Before I explain further I just want you to understand that you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, I couldn’t burden you with cleaning up after my mess. It would tarnish my pride as the 3rd ranked member of Echelon, but still I wish you would as a ‘friend’. Haa~ this is my final request, please take ‘care’ of her for me.]”
“[Huh?]”
Testament was getting too far ahead of himself for Nemesis to properly understand what he was even talking about. ‘In the first place who is ‘she’?’ pronouns and vague requests, these factors made it difficult to determine what it was that he wanted her to do.
“[Sorry, you’re probably getting confused by my words.]”
Testament apologized in sync with her reaction as though he was aware of the vagueness of his own request.
“[Enough. Just tell me what you want. Geez!]”
Nemesis fell back onto her chair, slouching backwards in a manner most inelegant. She sighed, staring up towards the abyssal ceilings of darkness before refocusing her attention.
“[I suppose I should start from the very beginning, when you were first created… Nemesis, you were ‘his’… Sovereign’s greatest accomplishment and from you came a string of many, even grander achievements. So every time I saw your face it only reminded me of my own inadequacies as a scientist compared to him. It was frustrating… even though we started at the same time that guy got ahead of me… it was those feelings that eventually drove me to commit my greatest failure.]”
Testament paused for a moment as he took a small sip of his tea to calm himself down. He contemplated for a brief moment as he savored the taste and flavor of his tea in his mouth before resting his cup back on the table. His eyes went distant reminiscing his past trying to continue his story.
He dryly laughed at himself.
“[Sorry Nemesis, I feel like I should take this opportunity to apologize to you. To be honest the entire reason I first tried to get close to you was in order to find out just what kind of monster Sovereign had created. I wanted to see if I could recreate his accomplishments and produce something similar, perhaps with my own twist. Yet somewhere down the line those feelings changed from a pure scientific curiosity to a genuine friendship… at the very least, I think of you as my dear friend.]”
Nemesis sighed.
“[Haa~ you idiot.]”
She shook her head as she continued watching.
“[However everything changed the moment he was killed. With him gone I think a large void occupied within me, eating me up from the inside with an unquenchable frustration. Even more so than him outstripping me, the fact that he was gone hurt my pride more. I started to emulate everything he would do, thinking that perhaps I could fill that void by myself. That if I acted like him then I could at least come to some sort of a conclusion. Of course, looking back now I can only cringe at how stupid that sounds, but the truth is I really did come to some sort of a closure… after I created ‘her’.]”
Once more heavy silence overtook and settle down around them, but this time it wasn’t as long as the previous times and Testament continued right away. Perhaps he was forcing himself in order to get the message across, that if he stopped now he wouldn’t be able to continue the recording. The momentum needed to be kept.
“[Like he did with you, I also created a psychic based on the first generation; a pure psychic with no inherent adaptive potential for technological augmentation. That being said the overarching experiment was a resounding success; I can say with confidence that she was an even more powerful psychic than you were at your prime… but the real problem lied in the experimental sample that I was working on… she … was just a child.]”
Testament stopped to mockingly laugh behind his breath as he combed his hair back with his fingers. Reminiscing his failures he too slumped back onto his chair and breathed a heavy sigh.
“[I was too preoccupied with the experiment itself that I failed to recognize the needs of that child. She grew far too powerful too quickly and without the flexible mind of a fully matured adult or guidance from a parental figure, she came to have a lot of deficiencies as a human being. She had no qualms about killing people en masse if they got in her way and the opinions of other people might as well have been white noise to her. Well, the constant environment of experimentation and augmentation probably didn’t do anything to alleviate her suffering either.]”
“[Testament…]”
It was the first time she had seen Testament in such a melancholic state. The kind of person she knew him to be was more of a sadistic figure that would never show such sentimentality. ‘He’s the same but… he’s changed too,’ she thought to herself as she smirked warmly at his development as a person. A mad scientist that may have learnt what it means to be a ‘human’ at the end.
“[… In the end she proved too difficult to control or tame and thus I was forced to seal her away into indefinite Hydrostasis. Even I’m not entirely sure on what happened to her after that and I may never have the luxury or the right to know that information for as long as I live. Since she’s also undergone the [Human Immortalization Project], it could be that she’s still sleeping in that very location… or that she’s being used by someone else to reap havoc… I can only hope it’s the former. Either way, if you ever do get to meet her someday, well, as to what you want to do with her, my greatest failure, I’ll defer that to your judgment.]”
Testament smiled one last time through the monitor.
“[But I do hope you’ll treat her in a manner most suitable. Even if it’s unofficial, she’s the final member to our Upper Echelon… [Symphony], my one and only daughter.]”
…
“Kuh! Just what is with this woman?! Even after all those injuries she just won’t stay down!”
Leon asked with haggard breaths, hunching over from fatigue yet still remaining vigilant for the enemy’s movement just in case. He grimaced as he wiped the slow dropping sweat off of his forehead, turning to Nicholai for an answer to his mostly rhetorical complaint. Alas it was to be expected that even Nicholai, who specialized in information analysis and intelligence gather didn’t have a definitive answer.
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“Who can say? But if I had to guess then it’s more than likely that the reason is probably because the host is actually already dead. To me it looks like it’s the doing of those jagged gold crystals that’s still animating her corpse.”
The fight was mostly over, yet the crystalline zombie woman continued writhing on the floor with enough vigor to put up a decent fight if they got too close. It was a grim sight, to see the dead with so much haunting vigor; they could only speculate on what it was so angry towards. Even rendered immobile after having her limbs separated from the main body, she crawled towards them with her chin with life-mocking tenacity.
“Tch, do her a mercy and just finish her off. I can’t bear standing to watch this revolting scene.”
Leon waved as he walked off to lean against a nearby wooden fence to recover his stamina. His complexion paled, not because of having been in this life threatening brawl, but because of the implications that this zombie woman brought by existing. It was almost a guarantee that more victims like her existed if Nicholai’s previous comments about there being no corpses left behind in the villages that were attacked. ‘Are they trying to amass an army of these zombies?’ killing soldiers who were prepared to die was one thing, but turning hapless and innocent villagers into monsters was crossing the line.
He couldn’t forgive them for doing such a horrendous act, ‘do they think they can just do whatever they want because the gods are on their side? Those bastard…’
“Perhaps you should find more suitable place to rest if you are not feeling too well, Milord?”
Nicholai immediately returned to his side with a satisfied smile. Taking a slight gander behind him there was a disturbing sight that could only be described as ‘total annihilation’. Like a toy that’s been abused, the woman’s disembodied parts laid strewn across the site of carnage, drowning in a pool of her own vile, yellow blood.
“You could’ve cleaned it up a little.”
Leon suggests as he grimaced and sighed.
“I refuse, why do I have to do something like dirtying my hands by touching something that vile? That’s work for the peasants.”
“You… Haa~”
Leon couldn’t find any strength to retort and simply accepted it as it were. As he was about to suggest with resuming their previous plans of returning to the main castle was interrupted by frantic pleas of help.
“P- please! Someone! Please help!”
Running towards the town with a desperate and terrified looking on his face, someone who appeared to be an original inhabitant of the village fell over by the entrance. After seeing what happened with the previous woman the villagers acted a little more cautiously but once they identified that the man was indeed a part of their village they rushed over to help him.
Nicholai walked through, parting the crowd of peasants with his drawn sword. He gripped tightly onto the sword’s handle as he crouched down in front of the man with a serious face. Ready to strike down if necessary, he checked for any signs of injury. The previous woman came half dead but this man showed no obvious signs of injury and was in relatively good health; it was unlikely that he would turn into another zombie.
“You, start explaining.”
Nicholai instructed coldly.
"We, we were attacked!"
Far from being scared of Nicholai’s intimidating aura the man crawled up from the ground and tightly grabbed onto his clothes as he cried. He was more afraid of what he had just seen than he was of Nicholai’s deliberately imposing attitude.
“M- monsters! Human monsters suddenly appeared out of nowhere! We couldn’t even hear their movements, like they were completely nonexistent up until the moment they attacked us! You’ve got to help, please! There are still more of us back there!”
Nicholai pushed up his glasses as he sighed.
“Unfortunately we are not a charity case here. Forget about your friends and-”
“Where are they? Your friends, that is.”
Before Nicholai could properly reject the desperate man’s plea, Prince Leon jumped in and accepted it in a heartbeat. Nicholai stared at him for a good few seconds before sighing once more in resignation.
“Right, milord was always this kind of person. However, I really would appreciate it if you didn’t increase my workload so much. If something ever happened to you they’d dock my pay.”
“That’s your primary concern? Well whatever, yeah, I’m that kind of person after all.”
Leon smirked as he got atop of his horse and started to ride towards the direction that the man pointed to.
…
“There seems to be some sort of commotion going on outside. Is it okay to just leave it be like this?”
The West Tetrarch, Aidus asked as he calmly placed down his tea cup, quietly making a small pinging sound as it contacted with the glass tea table. He stared down at the tea then stared back up at Baron Rommel who had not drunk any of his tea; there was no feasible way for him to do so with that metal helmet. He had only laid out tea for himself as a means of formality.
“I suppose it is a little worrisome. Please, excuse me for a moment.”
Agreeing with his guest, Errick Rommel stood up and called for a servant by knocking on his door. After a few moments had passed a knock returned from the other side, opening the door a neatly dressed servant stood waiting for his orders.
“Would you kindly please check up on what the commotion going on outside is about?”
“Right away, milord.”
The servant nodded as he walked away. After several minutes had passed another knock came from the other side of the door. The same servant had returned after completing his mission and relayed to him about the rather disturbing situation that just went down outside.
“Milord, it seems that there was some kind of altercation happening at the entrance of the village. I’m not entirely sure how to put it but, I’m told a ‘woman covered in golden crystals’ had been running berserk until the First Prince and his Knight had slain her.”
“And…? What happened to my son afterward?”
Aidus stood up and asked the servant.
“It seems that afterwards a member of the hunting party returned in distress about being ambushed by similar people covered in golden crystals and that the other members were in trouble. The First Prince and his Knight had just left to attempt a rescue.”
Hearing this Aidus felt uneasiness about the whole situation.
“For now we should go check up on the situation. Would you like to join me, Tetrarch Aidus?”
Sensing his anxiety, Rommel suggested.
…
“This is quite… a horrific sight.”
Aidus commented as he stared down with a grim expression towards the mutilated corpse of the woman covered in golden crystals. The pool of putrid yellow blood bubbled softly around her mouth as she wasn’t entirely dead but only severely immobilized. To be alive even in such a state, she could not even be considered a ‘living’ being. Aidus had the thought that perhaps she was something more akin to Errick Rommel- a ghost or undead.
Errick Rommel stared down in deep silence as the single small red dot hidden behind his helmet glowed ever more intensely. He knelt down to take a closer examination and even went as far as to touch the vile blood spewed on the ground.
As Errick calmly tried to analyze the yellow blood in his hand he tried to think of how she managed to slip through his detection. ‘How did she manage to get in? The detectors that I’ve placed within a 15km radius of this village should have alerted me to her presence… yet somehow she managed to avoid detection?’
Errick tried rubbing the yellow blood around, only to find that it soon crystallized into the same golden crystal that protruded out of her body. As interesting as this was, he wasn’t really concentrating and only saved the images to his storage through his camera lens eyes. It was more pressing to solve the reason why she managed to get through detection than it was to identify her.
The villagers’ safety came first.
‘This world’s residents shouldn’t have access to [Stealth Field] technology so it’s probably not that. Could it be a type of magic that functions similarly?’ he thought but soon shook his head. [Stealth Field] was a tech based ability rather than a psychokinetic one, thus there was no chance for it to have evolved into magic.
“Hmm?!”
His thoughts were cut short as the detectors went off in his head. Someone was approaching the village with frightening speed.
“Is something the matter, Lord Rommel?”
“It seems that someone is approaching the village… this speed, I have a bad feeling.”
“Bad feeling?”
Errick didn’t answer Aidus’s question and simply pondered. The speed of approach was on the level of a bullet train. There were very few entities, that didn’t have origins in the old world, which had this kind of capability. Even to Errick Rommel’s long existence in this world, he had only known of one such person.
He whispered to himself as he raised his head.
‘It couldn’t be… Dagda…?’