“What is that……!!”
The Crawler swarm blanketing everything around us.
A black sea — there was no other way to describe it.
And the silver mass coming from the direction of Isvall was repainting it.
The silver wall was pushing back the black tide surging toward it.
And the silver — whatever it was — was multiplying visibly, consuming the Crawler swarm as it grew.
“The replication-types. They’re performing better than projected.”
“……Incredible.”
The replication-types, now swelled in number, spread like a slime and began devouring the Crawlers with a single-minded hunger.
Silver tendrils extended one after another — the sight of it was like watching an unknown invader spill out of the demon realm.
——This is fine, right?
Makina had designed and built them, so they were fundamentally on our side.
Safety measures would have been built in. I believed that.
But watching them rampage was still a little unnerving.
“It’s fine, right?”
“Of course.”
Cornered by the encroaching replication-types, the Crawler swarm began to panic.
They searched for an escape and turned toward the one remaining open space — the mountain peak where we stood.
Like a tide coming in.
Oh no, oh no, this is really bad……!!
“……I miscalculated.”
“Makina — what do we do?”
“I can manage this on my own, but protecting Master at the same time may be difficult.”
“Is this it, then……?”
We were well and truly cornered.
Just as that thought settled in, Makina glanced up at the sky.
“Something is approaching.”
“Something — don’t tell me another monster.”
“No — it appears to be a vehicle. I can see people aboard.”
She shielded her eyes with one hand and squinted.
Then, faintly, a voice reached us.
“Hey——!! Lord Viktor, hey——!!”
“That voice — Alicia!?”
I had no idea why, but some kind of flying vehicle was approaching with Alicia aboard.
Squinting harder, I could make out Misha beside her too.
“Forgive me, Master.”
“Hm — wait, what are you——”
Without warning, Makina scooped me up.
She fixed her gaze straight on Alicia and the others, planted her feet, and——
“Ngh!!!!!”
“Whoa——!!”
She threw me.
——You’ve got to be kidding, I’m falling I’m falling I’m falling!!
I was on the verge of screaming when the arc peaked.
I came down in a perfect parabola — straight onto the flying vessel where Alicia and Misha were standing.
“Ugh——!? Are you alright!?”
“M-more or less……”
The moment I said it, the mountain peak below was swallowed up.
Literally by the skin of our teeth.
A moment behind that, the replication-types — now vastly multiplied — swallowed the Crawlers in turn.
The scale of it had the quality of a natural phenomenon.
“……Did they eat them all?”
Before I realized it, the Crawlers — all those billions of them — were gone.
In their place, replication-types swelled to equal or greater numbers packed the forest.
The churning black sea had become a quiet silver plain.
The crisis had passed, but cleaning this up was going to be its own ordeal.
“Wait — what about Makina?”
I looked around frantically. Part of the massed replication-types shifted and crumbled.
Makina crawled out from underneath.
Level five hundred and above — not so easily finished off.
She moved to the area near the mountain peak and clapped her hands sharply.
“Come back.”
The moment Makina’s voice rang out, motes of light began rising from the silver plain.
Like light blossoming across a desolate, empty wasteland.
The overwhelming beauty of it stole the breath from everyone watching.
It felt like stumbling into another world entirely.
“Wow……that’s genuinely beautiful……”
“That light — is that magic stones……?”
“I can’t believe we got to see something like this……!”
For a short while, we simply looked down from the sky and drank in the sight.
Then the silver plain began to crumble from the edges inward.
The replication-types’ bodies were breaking down, returning to earth.
“Trust Makina to have planned out the cleanup too.”
“Once someone moves the soil, it should be back to normal.”
Alicia looked toward the foot of the mountain.
Buried in soil, but still clearly visible, were the buildings of the village.
I’d been half-convinced they’d been completely crushed — but apparently not.
With everyone working to clear the earth, recovery should be possible.
The forest trees were buried under soil as well, but all standing.
“It appears we came through in perfect shape.”
“Honestly, I wasn’t sure for a moment there……!”
The relief of it hit, and exhaustion came flooding in behind it.
……I really have no idea how I’m still alive at this point.
Running through everything that had happened made the back of my neck go cold.
And then——
“Hmm? What is that noise?”
“An alarm?”
From somewhere, a strange beeping had started up.
At the same moment, the ship we were on began to shake.
“Oh no — we’re almost out of mana!”
“Land it — now!!”
Alicia scrambled to bring the ship down in a soft landing on the mountainside.
And so we managed, somehow, to repel the Crawler swarm——.