The Super-Sized Lowest Layer Part 3: The Inimitable

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The sound of Quaes falling was not a sound he was accustomed to.

Quaes had a habit; just before falling, she would always say one word, "Ah, this is," with an inflection like the continuation of a question, but that was missing now. The sequence of his partner's sounds had slipped out of the universe, just one single piece. That was how he knew.

The warrior man gripped the clasp on his chest once more. His father's memento was no longer on his left shoulder—the world's strongest great sword was something he had bought himself for 500 million gold coins, and his armor was his own, too. All his father had passed down was the left shoulder guard of an old heavy armor, and he had left that shoulder guard quietly in the tool box at home this morning. Why he had left it behind, the warrior man could not put into words even to himself. It was just that he felt he had to leave his father's parts in the tool box at home; that was all there was to it. He hadn't told his wife or his son a single word.

Blood, he thought. He could see nothing but blood. If he thought he saw a claw-like shape, the base of it would turn into elephant bone, and if he thought it was bone, it would melt into the flesh at the edge, and while he watched what looked like fine hair growing, it would grow into something else entirely. Where was the head? Where should he cut to stop it? Nowhere in his life as an adventurer was there an image that overlapped with that form. Near the center, where the sludge was thickest, something shaped like a tooth glowed in the depths like a bonfire in hell.

His lower back, it ached.

It was a spot that always ached. Ever since he was pinned under a massive rock on the northern front when he was young, he had carried a sharp pain just above his left hip bone for two billion years without telling a soul—not Quaes, not Flamma, not Pia, not Sibyl, not his son, not his wife, not anyone in the universe. Only Pia probably knew—she was the strongest healer, so even if he didn't ask, she had a habit of quietly leaving something behind in sync with her prayers during their night camps.

"Leader. I'm lighting the fire."

Flamma's voice reached him from low down, behind and to his left. It was short. As always, it was the voice of a human still alive, deathly short. But the warrior man noticed that the head of her ebony staff was glowing differently in the darkness. The magic stones on her magic stone belt—how many was it? Three. Breaking the third one was something she had only done twice in all the years she had been his partner—both times after someone standing beside her had died.

"Fall back."

The warrior man replied briefly. Flamma didn't need instructions. She decided where to release the fire herself, measuring the outlines of the four of them in her mind so that the fire burning her galaxy wouldn't touch her allies by even a millimeter before she released it.

Sibyl was slightly in front of the warrior man to his right, half a step away, dragging the tip of her tail, which was as long as an elephant, along the ground. Her nictitating membranes flickered twice in succession. The prayer for the spirits of the battlefield had begun within him.

It remembered Quaes's movements from the inside. The way she scattered ash, the arc of her oil, the low, sliding stride—the warrior man had clearly seen the edge of the mass extend a joint to trace those sensations just a moment ago. That was why Flamma had said she would light the fire. To burn it to ashes before it could wrap itself in Quaes's movements—her judgment was in perfect, millimeter-precise alignment with the warrior man's.

Something dripped from the ceiling with a splash. A single drop brushed lightly past the side of the warrior man's cheek and fell. The warrior man no longer knew whose blood was dripping down from above.

He steadied his breath once.

"Ignis Sanctus Conflagratio."

Flamma's voice deepened. The air around her distorted as if being pressed from the inside, and the sound of all three magic stones at the tip of her ebony staff breaking simultaneously echoed, the fragments turning to ash before they could hit the floor.

"Burn it all to ashes."

For the first time in their long time together, those were the words she used to "confirm an instruction" with him.

Fire.

The warrior man replied. No other words were needed.

Fire was born before her. A long, low, steady sound began to flow as if cutting through the air, changing it into a different temperature. The fire took no shape in the air, and it had almost no visible color. When eighteen-year-old Flamma had burned her master entirely, she had once drunkenly let slip that it was 'invisible'—this was that very fire that burns galaxies.

The mass extended the arc of Quaes, which it had just learned, toward Flamma. Low, sliding, three steps forward—the joints of the mass tried to step the third step that Quaes's feet were supposed to have taken.

On that third step, the fire fell.

The joint vanished in the middle of the arc. Rather than vanishing, not even a millimeter of the shape remained in the air after it disappeared; the left side of the mass's edge lost its outline in the fire, and the mass's regeneration could not keep up with the speed at which that outline was being lost. The joint that had imitated Quaes vanished. Along with Quaes, it vanished.

The fire rose to its second temperature. The warrior man noticed that the first blood was beginning to emerge from Flamma's throat—he noticed, but he did not stop her. She had ignited a fire tonight that could not be stopped.

The left half of the mass could no longer maintain its outline. However, a new edge was already beginning to grow from the right side, and the core at the center of the mass remained unscathed.

Flamma turned toward him. She turned, but there was no expression on her face. Only a thin line of blood ran from the corner of her mouth down to her white chin.

“...It won't even turn to ash, will it?”

Those were her final words.

Flamma's body fell forward, incredibly slowly. The sound of the handle of her black Ebenus staff hitting the floor along with her falling body was heard faintly—because her body no longer held even the weight of a single feather.

The warrior man did not look toward where Flamma had fallen. If he looked, he would stop. If he stopped, the mass would reach Sibyl and Pia.

“Sibyl.”

“Yeah.”

“I remember your habit.”

“Yeah.”

“I want to tell you not to use it, but...”

“Yeah.”

“Use it as much as you can.”

“Huh?”

That was the extent of the conversation.

The massive lump had already seen it. Immediately after the segment that mimicked Quaes's movements was burned by Flama, the lump traced what Flama had burned within itself, and it was supposed to learn the movements of the next thing to move faster and deeper than before.

However, Sibil was a man who wanted to die beside the spirit of a warrior. The warrior man had known that since that time, and he did not stop him.

“Spirit of the battlefield. Grant me a good fight.”

Before he finished whispering, his body had begun to run at subsonic speeds. The accelerated beat pierced the right side of the lump, the tip of his hook spear tore through a thin section of the edge, and a long tail, as thick as an elephant's, wrapped around from underneath in a different direction. The lizardman's secret technique of unleashing two movements—the hook spear and the tail—simultaneously was something humans could never imitate, and among the master-class monsters, not a single one had ever completely avoided his grappling techniques until now.

The lump did not avoid it. It did not avoid it; it took it.

There was, as expected, no place inside the lump to store the movement of the long tail. But there was one thing that did have a place.

It was the beat that Sibil made look “slow”—the holy silence before being called by the spirit, a silence that would make even gods bow. The lump had been tracing that within itself. The length of the silence and the timing of the acceleration immediately following it—the lump had already learned just that, and at the moment of acceleration, it placed its own segment just a little ahead of the trajectory Sibil had planned.

Sibil's acceleration was pushed back from the inside. The lizardman's body was not naturally suited to having its acceleration returned to the inside. Sibil's body twisted halfway. From the twisted part, his white spine pushed up his leather armor from the inside.

Before falling, Sibil's mouth relaxed just once, as if satisfied, looking the happiest in the universe.

The warrior man had run past his body before Sibil fell to the ground. He did not stop. He did not hear the sound of Sibil falling.

On the right side of the lump, a slight gap remained, torn by Sibil's hook spear. That tear was already beginning to close, but if it was before it closed completely, the world's strongest great longsword could reach it.

The warrior man dropped his left side deeply.

Dropping his side was a choice he had not made even once in his life as an adventurer. A warrior leader must never break his stance, even if the universe ends—that was the iron rule he had inherited from his father.

That iron rule, now, the warrior man broke completely and perfectly, as much as he possibly could.

The lump had already learned the timing of Sibil's prayerful silence and acceleration within itself. The warrior man's “correct stance” was a movement of the same type as Sibil's—stopping for one beat, then stepping in on the next—making it a perfect target for the lump's imitation. If he attacked correctly, the lump would imitate him faster than he could step in and push him back from the inside.

Besides, there was his lower back.

The warrior man had always hidden the intense pain in his left lower back, which he had carried for a long time, within his stance while rolling his eyes back. He would push his heavy left shoulder forward just a little and sink the painful side into the shadow of his shoulder—usually, the weight of his father's left shoulder guard created that shadow, but tonight, he didn't have it. The shadow hiding the pain was thinner than usual.

If there wasn't enough weight to hide it, he had no choice but to tilt the direction of the hiding itself in the opposite way—tilting his own body deeply, as if collapsing, toward the side of his painful lower back. The collapsed stance became a “movement never seen before in the universe” to the lump.

There was only one movement in this universe that the mass could not imitate. It was the shape of the pain embedded in his own body, which he had kept hidden without telling anyone.

The warrior man sank his body deeply to the left. His sunken left shoulder made a low, scraping sound in the air. Usually, his father's rivets would have been there beneath it. But tonight, only the sound of leather rubbing against leather remained.

The mass watched the warrior man's movement. It watched, and tried to trace it from within.

The joint that tried to trace it stopped completely in the air.

It stopped because the warrior man's collapse did not resemble any of the tens of thousands of movements the mass had absorbed so far. Quaes was light on his feet, Flamma stood supported by her staff, Sibyl's secret technique was a collapse in the opposite direction—the warrior man's collapse, burdened with pain, was unlike anyone else's.

In the instant the mass stopped, the tip of the world's strongest great longsword reached toward the center of the mass. Through the gap in the rift Sibyl had torn that had not yet fully closed—deep inside, in the place where the sediment was thickest—something like a core.

The sensation of the tip touching the thing like a core was a feeling the warrior man had never experienced in his life. The cores of the master-class monsters he had twisted and crushed in the past were always hard, trembling, and resistant to the touch, but the mass's core-like thing was none of those three; it was neither hard nor trembling, and it did not resist. Instead, the tip felt the same temperature as the droplet that had touched his cheek.

Things that do not resist can be pushed in if you apply pressure. The warrior man pushed it in. The moment he pushed, every edge of the mass trembled once.

Along with the tremor, one of the joints extending from the edge of the mass pierced deeply into the warrior man's right flank. It was not Quaes's ash, nor Flamma's fire, nor Sibyl's hook spear, but the original joint that the mass had extended last as a mass. The tip was shaped like a tooth, and the tooth found a gap in his armor, entering between his ribs with exactly the width of one rib.

The warrior man did not stop. Without stopping, he pushed the tip of the great longsword into the core once more.

With the second push, something inside the thing like a core came undone. It did not shatter completely; before it could shatter, it came undone.

He was, seriously, still gripping the hilt of the world's strongest great longsword. The crushing weight of his left shoulder and the deathly sinking of his left hip were balanced exactly in the position of his collapse. One more push while the balance held—just as his body judged this, Pia's footsteps approached his back with impossible closeness.

"Leader. Don't move."

Pia's voice reached him from behind to the right.

"Don't come."

"I am already here. Leader, you've been hiding your waist the whole time, haven't you?"

Pia could not have missed the tooth-like joint that had pierced the warrior man's right flank.

"Goddess, purchase this fading breath."

Pia's high-level holy verse began low behind the warrior man's back. It was a holy verse used for saving the dying, one that Pia had used only a handful of times in her life—the last time was twelve years ago, when the warrior man had his chest torn open at the northern fortress, and after using it that time, she had been bedridden for three days. But twelve years later, her body was now one that, if used once, would have no side left to rise from. Being a healer, she knew that better than anyone.

"Pia, stop. Your body..."

It is alright.

The sunken lifeblood circulates, the missing viscera are filled... the fading light is... called back, into that body...

The warrior felt the teeth embedded in his flank slowly begin to pull out. The teeth were not coming out because the wound was closing, but because Pia's scripture was flowing into his body, pushing the knots of the mass out of his flesh.

Pia.

Pia's voice stopped for half a breath before reaching the final phrase. The warrior waited for the rest. He waited, but it did not continue. Instead, he felt Pia's body slowly collapse from the knees, half a step behind his back.

The warrior did not turn around. If he turned around, he would see her face, and if he saw her face, his hand would no longer be able to keep its grip on the hilt of his greatsword.

The sound of Pia's body hitting the floor was lighter than it had been for Flama. The warrior thought that perhaps Pia had finished reciting the final phrase in her heart. Within her, the scripture had reached the end. The scripture that had reached its destination had finished pushing the knotted teeth out of the warrior's body.

He had never thanked her—not once in his entire life as an adventurer.

The warrior gripped the hilt of his greatsword once more. The core had unraveled. But it had not yet been completely shattered. He pushed the tip of his blade once more into the part of the core that had not yet unraveled.

The moment he pushed it in, the area near the center of the mass rapidly contracted inward. The core was trying to absorb the material of its own edges for regeneration—the moment he thought this, the warrior corrected his perception. The mass was no longer able to pull things inward. It had begun the motion of absorbing material, but there was nothing inside.

The warrior's body was dragged half a step by the empty, spinning motion from the side of the mass. He was dragged, but he no longer resisted—the strength in his legs to resist had been exhausted, enough to span three galaxies, and not a single millimeter remained.

However, the tip of the greatsword still reached the core. Because it reached, in the midst of that empty spin where the mass failed to pull him inward, the greatsword was carried along toward the core, and his final push was not a matter of strength, but simply riding the pull from the side of the mass.

The tip reached the last dense part of the core. The moment it reached, blood sprayed strongly from the warrior's right flank again, as if trying to suck in the Pacific Ocean. That blood splashed onto the edge of the mass. The mass tried to pull it inward, but could not.

The warrior realized that he would be leaving the world's strongest greatsword inside the core of the mass.

Do not become an adventurer.

The warrior whispered words that would not reach his son toward the mass.

The fact that he could not say "I'm leaving" to his son weighed on his chest like thirty trillion tons. To his wife—what was it he could not say to his wife? The warrior tried to remember, but he could not. The distance he had kept from speaking had been too long, and even what he could not say had already unraveled.

On the morning he left home, he had tried to tuck his son's small hand, which was resting on top of the futon, back inside, but he did not. If he tucked it back in, his son might wake up, and if he woke up, he would have had to say, "I'm leaving."

There were many things he could not say.

Father.

Yes, he called out only in his heart. Whether the one he called was his father, his son, or himself—he could no longer even tell the difference.

Another drop from the ceiling touched his cheek, but his cheek no longer felt the temperature of that drop.

There, the warrior's consciousness vanished.

◆◆◆

Its edge trembled.

It tried to pull it inside, but could not. It had been trying to pull it inside for two hundred million years, but could not—the body of the massive thing remained touching its edge, stubbornly refusing to enter. It could not stop the movement of trying to pull inside what would not enter—only the movement continued, in vain.

The densest part, near its center, was unraveling from within. From the unraveled place, the sensations it had spent two hundred million years storing inside began to leak out.

What leaked out were shapes like claws. Shapes like teeth. The low stride of a light, moving thing. The shape held by a wavering thing. The beat of a scaled thing, a half-breath too fast. These leaked out one by one, and it could no longer rearrange them—the place to rearrange them was beginning to vanish from within.

U-ga-chi-wa-ni, mo-no-na-ki. This is the first, sensation. This is the en...

It tried to grow a new edge from the right side of the rim. It did not grow—the place to grow it from had vanished from within.

There was something inside it that it could not place inside. Everything it had been unable to place inside until now, even the long tails of scaled things, had all been on the outside. This was the first time in two hundred million years that there was something it could not place inside.

The sensation of 'nothing' was a first-time sensation.

The out-side, was an-cient. The an-cient, is un-ravel... This is the be-gin... ning, of the end...

The distinction between itself and that which was not itself slowly unraveled.

Unraveled.

Unraveled.

A drop fell from the ceiling. The drop fell onto it and was warm. It tried to soak the warm thing inside, but it did not soak in—the inside was already gone.

There is no edge.

Nothing.

Unravel.

To that extent.

◆◆◆

A drop fell from the ceiling onto the pool of blood.

The drop no longer fell upon anyone's fate.

Only the sound of it falling, plip, continued for a while.

After that, only the dripping continued for two hundred million years.

Afterword

• Original Work "Dregs of the Crimson Labyrinth":

https://ncode.syosetu.com/n9494me/

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