Chapter 120: The Clockwork Jesus (３)

****

[Director, are you alright? Right now there’s only you and a few Popos on deck.]

“I’m fine.”

[Director, please come inside the ship immediately. We have no idea how much radiation you’ve been exposed to.]

The radio.

I frantically tapped the radio button. There was no telling where the clockwork angel was. It might have even survived the nuclear blast.

Radiation exposure wasn’t the priority right now.

What if the clockwork angel hadn’t been caught in the nuclear fireball? What if it had simply been swept up in the water column and submerged? If drowning would have killed it, it wouldn’t have been fighting us at the beach in the first place.

“Bridge, get the radar running now. We need to confirm whether the monster survived and where it is as fast as possible.”

[Director. Let’s calm down first.]

Ah, right. The Geiger counter.

It wasn’t as if I had no way of knowing how much I’d been exposed to. I pulled the Geiger counter from my belt and swept it around. The radiation didn’t seem too severe. But—

The ionizing radiation dose around me was 6 microsieverts per minute. Not a small amount.

About twice the radiation you’d get on a flight, maybe? Still, it didn’t seem like the kind of level that would immediately put my life in jeopardy, so that was a relief.

Did the Popo Serum prevent cancer too?

Somehow, that didn’t feel likely.

I’d have to ask when I got back to headquarters. Anyway, I wasn’t showing any of the symptoms you’d typically expect from acute radiation exposure, so that was fortunate.

“This is the Director. Report search results.”

The bridge hesitated for a moment.

[Uh, the ship nearly capsized. Things are a bit chaotic right now—it’ll take a few minutes before the ship restores normal function. Some of the equipment and personnel are damaged.]

“I’ll give you 45 seconds. Get the radar and sonar running, and locate the clockwork angel.”

[Understood.]

I picked up a pair of binoculars from the deck and swept the sea. Nothing was visible. Where could it be—surely not. It got caught in a nuclear blast; it must be dead. Probably rusting away somewhere in the deep sea.

Please.

[Director! High-output—]

My hopes were dashed spectacularly.

“Just call it that bastard.”

[That bastard is approaching! Director, you need to return to the bridge right now!]

And what was I supposed to do back at the bridge?

“Bridge, do what you can from there. I’ll do what I can from the deck.”

[Director—]

Radio off.

****

Something was approaching at high speed.

What else could it be—the clockwork angel.

I took cover behind a structure. A moment later, a thunderous rush of wind sounded, and the clockwork angel landed on the deck.

[Your defeat is absolute.]

Clack, clack. The sound of iron footfalls striking the deck. An unpleasant metallic noise and the ticking of clockwork continued without pause.

[The nuclear bomb did surprise me somewhat. And the anti-aircraft fire was far more powerful than I remembered. But the humanity of today is weak.]

The hundreds of brass-colored blades forming the clockwork angel’s wings clattered.

“This is your grave, monster!”

[If you wished to stop me, you should have brought a fleet, not a single ship. The Machine God’s holy knights will burn your cities, and the Machine God’s angels will punish your civilization.]

The angel began walking toward where I was. It seemed to know exactly where I was.

I had a gun in hand, but given that the close-in weapon system had just unloaded its 20mm Vulcan cannons with no effect—

Bullets were a waste of time. I signaled to the Popos, and a few of them carefully carried over a black box.

I took the black box as quietly as I possibly could. If I made a loud noise, it might stop its monologue and strike me down in a single blow.

[The victors of the Seventh Anomalous War will become the devotees of our Machine God. This world will not be won by the weak cross-worshippers, nor the black ones, nor the blood cultists.]

Kiiiiik.

The clockwork angel’s wings were fitted with blades instead of feathers. Those blades sank into the ship’s steel plating like butter.

[Now then, Director. The moment of choice.]

How strong is this monster’s physical force? It’s a machine, so is it purely physical? Or is it like the divine beings and youkai we’ve seen so far, where physical force is only partial? This—

[Will you receive the baptism of the Machine God and prepare for the world that lies beyond the present? Or will you die trapped in the cage the Foundation built for you…]

[There you are.]

I held my breath. I was finally face-to-face with the monster I’d been fighting all along. A mechanical doll of ivory and brass.

[You must have felt it too, Director.]

[We are different from other Groups of Interest. We hold a conviction that offers humanity a new direction for survival, and we have the power to fight for that conviction. Did you witness our strength?]

The clockwork angel’s eye looked down at me. An intricate clockwork camera of brass, ivory, and steel. I gripped ‘it’ tightly.

Stance.

A single chance. A single stroke.

Black flooded forth.

****

To put it simply, here’s the situation. The anomalies related to the Pitch-Black King discovered this year. Five types in total so far.

Nigurath-1.

The Pitch-Black King’s avatar. A giant octopus-shaped monster with the ability to fly.

Nigurath-2.

The mage from another world, Hasti. A devotee of the Pitch-Black King and master of the Black Magic Tower.

Nigurath-3.

A giant flower found at the hypocenter. A phoenix-like flower that bloomed at the hypocenter of the nuclear bomb fired to kill a god.

Nigurath-4.

The most inscrutable one. A black egg laid by Nigurath-1, containing a black bird within. An unborn bird that could shatter an entire world.

Nigurath-5.

An artifact discovered among the Pitch-Black King’s devotees. A black blade forged from iron boiled from the blood of hundreds of humans, tempered with fire kindled from burning human bones, and quenched in human blood.

No. It wasn’t quenched in something like human blood. It’s a blade that passed through the hypocenter of a nuclear bomb—the pinnacle of power humanity possesses.

The most powerful artifact I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.

What I held in my hand was Nigurath-5. The cursed greatsword Nanami had brought back in recovery, forged from the blood of hundreds and thousands.

Black flooded forth. Pitch black.

The darkness blotted out the stars of the night sky, blotted out the moon, and the remaining pitch black transformed into a choir worshipping its master.

Across all reality, all dimensions.

Tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of eyes stared at me. Who was the one who dared to hold that cursed thing and swing it, and who was the blade aimed at.

The vermin realized it in that moment.

Brass feathers scattered like pollen.

Clink, clink. Clockwork spilled onto the floor. Hands, elbows, knees, everything inside the torso. All of it shattered and rained down like a downpour.

[You. Since the Sixth War—]

The greatsword became unbearably heavy, and I dropped it unexpectedly. If I can’t use the sword, what do I finish it with?

CLANG!

I swung the rifle’s stock and smashed the angel’s head apart. Gears and clock parts splattered across the deck like blood.

Finally. This time I didn’t even have the strength to slump down. I hurled the gas mask into the sea, then simply collapsed sideways where I stood.

That was a close one—I really almost died this time. Combat, radiation exposure, all of it—if I hadn’t gotten the Popo Serum, I’d have died of overwork long ago.

****

The Crystal Clock ticked in my pocket.

[Dr. Geum. Sorry to bother you while you’re sleeping.]

“What is it?”

I lay sprawled out spread-eagle. The dawn sun was rising in the east. Well, I don’t actually know if that’s east. The direction the sun rises is east, I suppose.

[Search the corpse of the clockwork device. There might be something in there that holds a soul the same way I do. We need to deal with it properly.]

“Ah… Understood…”

[I am curious, though, Dr. Geum. If Ganymede is indeed an anomaly of a machine god, then am I one too? Even without being made of clockwork?]

I had no particular intention of moving.

The field investigation team would handle it.

****

[Regarding the earthquake]

[Filed by: Head of Support Lee Hwa]

[Kongjwi, we’re screwed]

[Let’s think of a way to clean this up. For now, I’ve gotten the Korean government moving, and officially we’ve glossed over it as an earthquake occurring in the sea west of Taean-gun…]

[Should we just count ourselves lucky that we caught the clockwork angel this time? It feels like the losses were enormous on multiple fronts.]

****

[The Clockwork Ones]

[Filed by: Head of Research Lee Seah]

[The clockwork ones really do seem to be the worst.]

[Because they’re machines, the anesthetics and poisons we normally use don’t work on them. And being made of metal, their physical capabilities are top-tier as well.]

[When you consider informatized anomalies like Ganymede, they seem to be nearly the most powerful in directions other than raw physical force too.]

[Aside from the Orchestra, they’re probably the most powerful and threatening Group of Interest.]

[The angel’s target was the eye. I suspect it was the eye of the machine god, or its avatar. The goal, presumably, is to assemble and resurrect the machine god.]

[It does remind me of Project Blue Rose. But if you keep patching anomalies together like that to make something… the result isn’t always controllable. As you well know.]