Post-Post-Apocalyptic Deliveryman (37)

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――I launched a charge, driving the engine whose output had yet to recover!
Of course, this was no mere suicide attack. One of the three phase-transition Big Bang/Postal Particle generation engines, Aleph-0, had yet to regenerate, but I synchronized the remaining Aleph-1 and Aleph-2 at maximum efficiency, pushing the output to critical. I unleashed the Yatagarasu's ultimate armament, the Ein Sof Aur, right at the start of the encounter. Compared to a full-power state, there was a slight lag in charging—a matter of a few femtoseconds—but once accelerated, I could surely finish off any opponent at infinite speed――
Or so it should have been.
It vanished again.
Faster than my brain could perceive and issue commands, the arm's emergency judgment neural network took control, and with a subconscious super-reaction, I slammed the control lever forward. The speed accelerated instantly from infinity to an inaccessible cardinal number! Tachibana canceled out all the extreme G-forces that exceeded infinity through spacetime manipulation.
Behind me, a slash of iai that tore through space!
Tachibana immediately analyzed the true nature of that attack, which boasted a range far exceeding the blade of the White Hole Blade that scattered antimatter.
“――Analysis complete. That slashing attack activates gravity manipulation capabilities within the scabbard, creating a loop-shaped de Sitter universe and using the charge accelerated within it for the iai strike. It is estimated that the range likely transcends the observable universe.”
“I understand the logic behind the range and speed, but what on earth is going on with its teleportation?!”
“That is――”
“It is like this.”
“――――!?”
Since the IFFPC (Identification Friend or Foe Postal Code) had been discarded, it should have been impossible to intervene in our internal communications. Unexpected situations were occurring one after another. This is bad, this is bad, this is bad!!
But this time, I succeeded in observing the moment Minerva vanished.
It's a mailbox! Mailboxes that had been kicked up by the slashes were stealth-cloaked and had been placed in the air before I knew it! It kept repeating random teleports from mailbox to mailbox like a free electron, unleashing numerous cosmic-range slashes.
This was the 'Electric-Style Harsh Blade Technique' of the Willow-Post Divine Shadow Style (Hermes Shadow Blade), a specialty of the former Senior Postal Holy Knight Maeshima Hisoka.
The Yatagarasu is a machine capable of accelerating to infinite speed, but against an opponent capable of literal teleportation—teleportation with zero lag—even a picosecond of buildup appears as an 'opening'.
The accumulated moments of delay would eventually converge on a point that could not be ignored, and I would surely be cut in two this time. This is no joke.
“Can't you burn away the surrounding mailboxes with the Yeheor?!”
“It is possible, but have you forgotten that this is the Yamato Imperial Court, Brother? There are countless mailboxes on the ground.”
“But it will buy us time, do it!”
When the ultra-low entropy radiance swept across the entire perimeter, a light explosion scorched space a beat later, dyeing everything in pure white!
As the vortex of destruction accompanied by gravitational waves and dimensional tremors subsided, all the clouds and snow were blown away, and a vivid contrast appeared before my eyes. The dark, bluish sky visible from a height of over 3,000 meters above the ground, raised by the mailboxes! And the red earth dyed by the mailboxes!
In the midst of it all, Minerva floated quietly, its blue armor pulsing with green energy lines, completely unaffected by the surrounding environment. Terrifyingly high-precision gravity control. I certainly hadn't thought I could take it down as collateral damage, but I hadn't thought it would be unscathed either.
But I had managed to reset the situation; I would be the one to initiate!
The moment I thought that, Minerva blurred its outline――and vanished as if soaking into space.
The Ultimate Cub observes the world with multi-wavelength sensors, but what it relies on most is its 'vision' through gravitational waves. Gravitational waves, which are inevitably generated as long as there is mass, were a god's eye that could see through everything and were extremely resistant to jamming. The only exception was an Ultimate Cub capable of dense gravity control, but it was considered extremely difficult to completely cancel out the gravitational waves generated by one's own mass.
But I must retract that understanding. Maeshima Hisoka, through his transcendental technique, has completely hidden his presence from all wavelengths: electromagnetic, strong, weak, and gravitational...!
But a trick like that was within my predictions. The problem is the opponent's abnormal keenness in sensing.
“Damn it! Again!? Why is it always one step ahead――no, wait. Tachibana, is there some unknown process running inside the Yatagarasu!”
“Information leakage via virus is currently not detected. It is believed that the opponent is reading our movements in advance using an active method, not a passive one.”
“Then why can't we detect it?! Our machine's generation should be higher...!”
“――Analyzing.”
The spherically symmetric spatial plane with a radius of 100 meters centered on the Yatagarasu grew dark and stagnant. What was created was a tiny singularity. It was the micro-black hole attack that Minerva excelled at! The event horizon of quantum size created by gravitational collapse of the surrounding atmospheric molecules――the number is approximately66.6 billion!!Minerva's full-throttle spatial suppression attack, 'Funeral Thought Mythos'!
A downpour of micro-black holes reminiscent of a meteor shower! Due to their small mass, the power of a single hit is not that high, but if it's a literal astronomical number...! I reflexively deployed a vacuum hemisphere (Magdeburg) around me, triggering spontaneous symmetry breaking to guard against the attack. However, because micro-black holes are subject to quantum tunneling, they can only be defended against probabilistically! I intercepted the group of micro-black holes that slipped through the vacuum hemisphere, but scars began to accumulate on the Yatagarasu's golden body. The automatic recovery process kicked in, and the gaps in the armor were quickly sealed, but the resources that should have been diverted to engine recovery began to run short.
Wait a minute...? The recovery process...!
“Tachibana, immediately examine the threads of the Aleph-0 wear-and-tear recovery process and stop any that deviate from the average load! When it cut off our wings, it mixed femto-machines into the recovery process...!”
“Detected. The problematic thread has been stopped.”
The femto-machines were merely tracers and did not transmit any information, so their discovery was delayed. The active sonar fired at the tracers was likely Minerva's gravitational waves. If it had the precision to disguise even its own gravitational waves, it would be possible to send them out disguised as the Yatagarasu's own gravitational waves.
But that was not the only problem. I also had to find the answer to the trick of forcing communications into a machine that had permanently severed its IFFPC.
But as if to say it wouldn't give me the luxury of such thoughts, Minerva's onslaught continued. Minerva, having deactivated its stealth, revealed its form――what was reflected on the all-sky monitor, cleared of the micro-black hole heavy bombardment, was a massive number of Minerva silhouettes filling the far horizon and the other side of the sky.
“This is――!”
It showed off its clone trick in the Sahara too, but this is literally on a different scale.
“It is presumed to be 'visual' and not actually splitting. It is likely emitting deceptive information against our sensors across all wavelengths.”
Tachibana is calm as always, but is there any means of a breakthrough?
“None in particular. I am using about 50% of our computational power to remove the decoys from the sensors, but there is too much spatial noise due to the aftermath of the previous micro-black hole attack. Furthermore.”
Red square target markers were displayed densely on the monitor. Mailboxes depicted in holograms floated up there.
“It seems the previous spatial suppression attack was also to kick up the mailboxes again.”
“Same thing, I'll crush them as many times as it takes!”
I never thought I could defeat this opponent with the Yatagarasu alone. My goal is merely to buy time until Trismegistus is revived.
But Hisoka is likely aware of that as well. He is attacking with all his might, sparing no effort or combat technique, to seize the masterpiece he created: the Yatagarasu.
The immeasurable number of clones each took asynchronous movements, attacking with time differences. Like Trismegistus, Minerva is a machine built at the time of the founding of the Second Campo Knights, a prototype of the Ultimate Cub, so to speak. It is hard to believe it possesses such computational power.
“It is hard to believe, but,”
Tachibana stated the analysis results in a flat voice. Basically, the AI connected to the Ultimate Cub has no impatience. This is because its reason is supported by immense power and staggering computational ability.
“That is due to the power of the Deliveryman (Prelude). It is performing gravitational many-body calculations, non-linear control calculations, and various other computational processes by 'human power'.”
“So Hisoka himself is the best external――no, internal part, huh.”
The engine has not yet fully recovered. I continued to keep it in check with a barrage of vacuum hemispheres, which have a relatively low load, but so far I hadn't even grazed the main body. Since I couldn't tell which clone was the real one, I couldn't afford to let even one slip by, and our response capability was about to reach a danger level.
“I am not thinking of taking your life. If you just hand over the Yatagarasu, you can disappear wherever you like.”
Hisoka's voice echoed inside the machine again. The method remains unknown. But every time he speaks to me like this, I gain clues for analysis, and it is possible to drag out time, which is more precious than water in the desert.
“Whispering tactics, you really have no shame.”
“My enemy is only one――the Absence Notice (Absencian).”
“You've got a lot of nerve saying that after beating up Try.”
“Hand over the machine.”
He's not listening――no, wait, this might be it. Tachibana immediately extrapolated the fact I noticed to the analysis engine and returned the results. I knew it.
“You're pulling some pretty underhanded tricks...”
“Brother, Level 1 warning. Engine output will drop, but when I scrutinized the surroundings with a Postal Particle scan――”
“Did you find the main body!?”
“No. I did not find it. All of those infinite clones are the 'main body'. I detected traces of existence probability fluctuation.”
Existence probability fluctuation. A technique and art that makes all physical processes 'never have happened' or allows for short-range teleportation without mailboxes by causing the wave function to diverge even in an observed state, and allows for omnipresence in every location in space. It is one of the technologies that even Post-Humans could not achieve. It was used in the armor parts of the Yatagarasu, and it was bought to raise its immortality by one level.
Maeshima Hisoka is bridging the gap between machines not with courage or guts, but with transcendental knowledge and isolated skill.
“In other words, I have to defeat all the surrounding Minervas, right?”
“Affirmative, Brother.”
An overwhelming saturation attack by a single unit――the name of this technique, which seems to embody contradiction, is 'Infinite Martial Law'. And it leads to the 'Sword Parade March', an all-army draw-and-strike offensive by just one person――!
The way the White Hole Blades held by the countless Minervas scattered antimatter light was as if all the enemies of heaven had become stars!
“It is over.”
“That would be you.”
Without caring about the opponent's reaction, I released the Postal Particle power fully charged from the two engines. Ein Sof Aur.
All the Minervas exploded and scattered, staining the contrast of blue and red with the explosive light of seven colors gone mad due to the gravitational lens effect!
The reason Hisoka was able to send communications to me. Once I understood, it was a simple story. It was also the reason he targeted Aleph-0 first.
From the stage of its manufacture, a communication device had been built into the hardware of Aleph-0. A truly roundabout function was incorporated where the communication device would turn on
by receiving damage.
It was likely installed as a communication means for emergencies, but the fact that he even used a creator's privilege cheat is proof that the opponent has no carelessness or arrogance. The communication was one-way, not two-way, which is why he didn't react to my words.
Minervas exploding, exploding, and exploding! In the center, only one out of the immeasurable number had succeeded in parrying the Ein Sof Aur, which was unbelievable. Willow-Post Divine Shadow Style, 'Singing Sword'. It is a secret technique that restores CP symmetry through maximum antimatter radiation and gravity control from the White Hole Blade, nullifying all attacks. The probability of being able to defend against even infinite heat and infinite speed should be infinitesimally small, but perhaps the concentration of Minerva's 'Infinite Martial Law' was greater. Or perhaps it had mastered the way to defend completely within infinite trials.
“I would prefer it not to be the latter...!”
“Brother, wishful thinking is not suitable for battle.”
There are two reasons I was able to get behind Minerva. The blocking of information provision to the opponent by discarding the engine that had spyware installed, and future prediction.
The Yatagarasu approaches sub-light speed even in normal maneuvering, and slightly exceeds the speed of light during combat drive. In a world where causality is broken, one cannot do something as leisurely as 'seeing and then moving'. Therefore, it mimicked the function where the human brain decides on an action seconds before the decision is made by consciousness, and the machine moves before the deliveryman takes action. The Ultimate Cub 'Yatagarasu' is the brain itself! The pilot and AI are merely consciousness that gives meaning to the brain's work. It was the application of time manipulation capability, the treasure of Over-Post-Human technology. This is truly the realm of man-machine unity that can only be achieved by the Yatagarasu, which assumes conceptual address sharing!
Tachibana and I released the limiter on that precognitive ability――which is originally just machine operation assistance――and the Yatagarasu exceeded Minerva's predictions by following the results of a few minutes ahead.
The single surviving Minerva took a stance of mist with the sword in its hand.
Minerva can no longer peek at our information. On the other hand, the Yatagarasu's Aleph-1 also overheated due to the recoil of firing the Ein Sof Aur twice with an incomplete engine. Even so, the golden light of the Big Bang leaked out from the one remaining engine.
At that moment――Minerva's White Hole Blade underwent further deployment. A white hole is a celestial body that exists as a solution to the Einstein equations with time reversed. In other words, it is no different from a black hole gravitationally. Therefore, matter that flies out of a white hole falls back into the white hole and annihilates, but the true nature of the White Hole Blade was that it kept releasing it constantly through gravity control. Hisoka cut the gravity control acting on that blade.
Antimatter piled up on the blade to form a layer, was compressed by super-gravity, and eventually it collapsed――a black hole coating was applied on top of the White Hole Blade. That strange blade, like a yin-yang pattern, the Black and White Blade!
With dual opposing singularities dwelling in the blade, the area around it grew dark as if it had gathered the mass of the entire universe.
The Yatagarasu's future prediction returned 'null' for all results.
I am going to be cut by Minerva.
“Please escape, Brother. I will hold it off with just me and the Yatagarasu.”
“Don't talk nonsense. You're planning to self-destruct anyway, aren't you?”
“――Why that...”
“Everyone is like this! Do you get a self-destruct habit when you become an AI?”
If Tachibana had a little more experience as an AI, it would have hacked the machine's life support system and forcibly ejected me, just as Try did in the Sahara.
“I will never abandon you again. So, don't you give up on me either.”
“――Yes!”
The rhythm of Minerva's green power line blinking increased its BPM toward the coming moment. Should I move from here before the power is fully charged? No, that possibility has also been crushed. I have no choice but to bet on landing a counter in time with the opponent's attack.
The mailboxes floating around fell one after another. It was pouring even the gravity control it had been diverting to them into the next strike.
The green light was already blinking so fast that it was in a constant state of emission, and its brilliance increased like a supergiant star!
And!
The slash that Maeshima Hisoka and the Ultimate Cub 'Minerva' put their whole soul into――did not reach me!
Because!
“Eat this――too000000!!”
Something that had burst out from splitting the red mailbox earth below had launched a body slam against Minerva!
Because I was extremely focused only on the Yatagarasu, I couldn't dodge in time and took a direct hit! Minerva was blown away in a tailspin while shedding several parts, stopped in the air higher up, and looked down at us.
Us? Yes, us!There was a machine standing side-by-side with the battered Yatagarasu! Its majestic appearance, approximately 12 meters in total height. Its godlike presence was truly like Hermes, the god of mail manifested in this world!
Ultimate Cub 'Trismegistus'!

“Sorry I'm late, Yamato.”
“Seriously. I almost died.”Ahaha, the Deliveryman (Prelude) of Trismegistus, Kaneya Natsuki, laughed and looked up at Minerva.“Second round, start!”

【To be continued】