Published at 27th of August 2019 9:21 am

Volume 6, Chapter 1: That Red is Like a Natural Disaster

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

Part 1

God created the world in six days and he assigned the following day as a day of rest.

A great accomplishment was carried out on each of those work days and humans were created on the final sixth day.

The dry season had arrived.

The uniqueness of the four seasons was no more. As far as the eye could see, the world was filled with a sun so scorching that even the beads of sweat on the girl’s soft and fine skin evaporated.

“…”

She wore her hair in twintails by directly tying knots in the long black hair instead of using any kind of hair tie. A red party dress covered skin so white it seemed to reflect the light. A small hardware key shaped like a rapier hung from her neck.

The girl was taking a short rest while leaning back against the metal soundproofing wall of a highway located a level above the ground. While it had originally been a highway, not a single car was driving along the cracked and mirage-covered asphalt. A few cars could be seen abandoned where they had crashed into the central divider, so it was painfully obvious that this place was not necessarily safe.

To reiterate, the blue sky above was clear as could be.

Brilliant direct sunlight and unhelpful sudden downpours. The dry season and the wet season. The weather had settled into those two extremes and neither one was kind to human life.

“Phew…”

The girl drank from a small glass bottle of water she took from a small bag hanging from her shoulder and she wiped the sweat from her brow. She knew reusing plastic bottles invited the risk of damage to the bottle thanks to the battered survival book she had found in a half-destroyed bookstore early on. E-books were convenient, but that genre had to be in printed form. She removed herself from the stainless steel wall and began walking again. After walking for a while longer, the silver soundproofing wall ended. From here on, there was no more than a waist-high concrete wall. The dress girl crouched low and cautiously remained below the wall that was as hot as a frying pan.

The twintail girl stopped partway along and pulled a smartphone out from her chest.

It was powered off. In fact, it did not have enough power to power on.

She used the smooth glass screen as a mirror to look above the wall while focused on the location of shadows. She could see the scenery beyond the highway.

She saw a cracked and dried sea of mud.

The same colors as an old Japanese home’s earthen walls filled that scene up to a height of about 3 meters from the ground. The road and sidewalk were indistinguishable and only the car roofs could be seen sticking up. In addition to normal cars, she also saw special vehicles that were probably from the JSDF and had gun turrets or rocket launchers installed. Great masses of mud had gotten into the stairs leading down to subway stations and the intense sun had hardened it. There was no sign of life. No dogs, no cats, no crows, no pigeons, and no people.

Only the colors of mud cracked like a cookie.

As soon as she saw it all again, a raw and oppressive smell reached the girl’s nose.

There were several high-rise buildings made of glass and concrete, but few of them were still standing straight. They were tilted and some were broken partway up. The mud had transformed everything. Not even the solid buildings could survive. Just like a ship’s wave-making resistance, the larger the building, the greater the force of the mud on them. And the force of sticky mud was far greater than smooth seawater. With the foundation itself loosening, it was in fact the larger buildings that crumbled.

The red dress girl tilted her smartphone to look further into the distance.

Even the giant broadcast tower made from countless steel beams had tilted and broken partway up.

This was Tokyo, the capital of Japan.

No, anywhere in the world would be like this now.

“…”

But this was not enough to change the red dress girl’s expression at this point.

In fact, she was being pursued by a more pressing threat to her life.

It was directly below.

There was just one thing in that scene that brought death to all. Below the highway, a large form trudged across the mud that had been briefly dried by the arrival of the dry season. The 4 or 5 meter giant with sinister fangs on its porcine face wore only a loincloth over its characteristic bright red flesh.

It was an Iberian Orc.

The alternate world of Ground’s Nir was a small island that could be walked around in three days. The countless Gates that connected back to the entire Earth were concentrated in that small area. Once they had made their way to Earth after going berserk, their threat had scattered across the entire planet with no concern for the existing national borders or defensive lines. They had rushed out from the center of the important points of every country and region: the cathedrals, the military bases, the secret societies, and the Detached Magic Palace.

There was nothing humanity could have done.

With the leadership suddenly removed, it had not taken long for all the scattered modern military forces to be individually annihilated. It had taken a mere 24 hours. The muddy world created by the two extremes of the dry season and rainy season were a result of the Iberian Orcs indiscriminately devouring plants and animals to meet their great energy requirements. Even the tree roots that had held the fertile soil together had been taken away.

They were in the process of consuming the entire planet.

This showed just how much they had restrained themselves to coexist with the other Nonhumans on that island that could be walked around in just three days.

(…An Iberian Orc…)

That girl had always walked by Boo Boo’s side, but the look in her eyes sharpened. When she focused on it, she breathed a long but quiet breath and had to work to keep her cool and calm her heart which was pounding against her wishes.

Sweat poured from her body for reasons other than the scorching sun.

Red.

The color of the skin was different from Boo Boo’s. These mistaken ones had continually evolved themselves to fight a powerful enemy, but they had failed to restrain their appetite for destruction. Words would no longer reach these Red Iberian Orcs.

She heard the intermittent sound of sniffing. The highway stood a few meters from the ground, but that was not enough to stop that mass of muscles. The twintail girl had only chosen this route because she wanted to avoid leaving her footprints or scent on the ground. The Red Iberian Orcs’ senses were even more extraordinary than Boo Boo’s. If one began tracking her, it could easily spell doom for both her and the shelter she would return to.

The Red held a large hunk of metal in his right hand. It may have originally been the bumper of a dump truck. If he swung that around with his great strength, it could tear a large chunk out of the girl just by grazing her.

Trying to drive him away in a direct fight would be the height of folly.

Humanity’s one advantage was that the Red Iberian Orcs had come from Ground’s Nir, so they were not used to Earth’s atmospheric composition and planetary rotation and revolution. Just like the girl could only spend a few days in that other world, they could only remain active on Earth for so long.

So the only effective method was to wait it out and let time do the work.

No one could use Magic on Earth, so the difference in strength was absolute. Simply noticing the nearly-4m giant’s approach was all the luck she could hope for. She had to throw out her puny pride and focus only on escaping, hiding, and surviving.

The girl waited.

The girl waited.

The girl waited.

A small sound echoed through the silent space.

Then there was an explosion.

The dry mud below the highway audibly burst. The Red Iberian Orc jumped more than 15 meters into the air, which brought him higher than a school building. The red dress girl stayed curled up by the wall with her hands over her mouth to suppress her scream.

He landed on a nearby abandoned building.

A crack must have run through a plastic sign due to the extreme temperature differences. The girl had already seen plenty of solar panels break before her eyes despite how crucial they were as a power source that did not require fuel.

The Red Iberian Orc tore the sign off the wall, tilted his thick head, and then stepped inside through a broken window. Only after seeing that did the twintail girl take a long, long breath.

(I see so many of them here. Probably because Japan is a Gate superpower just like America and China.)

The Reds had arrived from Ground’s Nir, but their distribution was not even. Differences in technological level and economic status meant different parts of the planet had different numbers of Gates. As expected, Japan had a lot of Gates for such a small country, so it would have been exposed to the greatest threat on the doomed planet.

“…”

The red dress girl held her breath and listened for any sounds in the silence.

The Red had left and there was no sign of him suddenly returning.

Just because he would react to sounds and smells did not mean she was dumb enough to throw a pebble or fire an arrow in the opposite direction. The Red Iberian Orcs were known for their clever minds as much as their great physical strength. They would learn a move they had seen once and quickly see through it. Reacting on reflex would only reduce what few cards they did have available.

(Since he’s moved up, the highway will actually be more dangerous.)

If the Red Iberian Orc glanced out an elevated window on a whim and spotted the red dress girl, she could not escape. Without any chance to run away or even beg for her life, that large dump truck bumper would swiftly transform her into a hunk of meat. But this was a highway and she would not just find a convenient emergency staircase or exit ramp. The red dress girl pulled a bundle of black and yellow construction rope from the small bag hanging from her shoulder. She pictured a sailor’s knot in her head and tied the rope around the metal pole of a streetlight.

She dropped the rope over the edge.

Climbing a rope was difficult, but no special technique was needed to descend one.

“There we go…ow.”

She meant to make a slow descent of the 10m drop, but she still felt a burning sensation in her slender fingertips. Perhaps she should have gone with proper gloves instead of these lace ones. She could not visit a doctor, so even a slight wound was a risk. She was worried about the smell, but she pulled a small bottle from the bag and sprinkled alcohol disinfectant on her hands.

The Red Iberian Orc had moved to a position higher than the highway.

That meant the highway would hide her from view if she moved below it. She could not underestimate his senses of hearing and smell, but she could at least avoid complete suicide.

And there was something she wanted to investigate on the surface during the dry season.

If the rainy season returned for some reason, the hardened “mud” would begin moving again. That was not something human legs could traverse and, even if she did manage to force her way across, she would be leaving a blatant trail behind. It would be like asking the Red Iberian Orcs to follow her.

“Now, then…”

A single footprint or hair could be fatal right now.

She was as cautious as could be as she looked around. She needed a long stick, whether that was a tree branch or whatever else. She could not carry something that bulky around in her small bag. Then she spotted a work van’s roof almost entirely buried in the dried mud. She removed the stainless steel stepladder that was still attached to its holder and she held it in both hands like a spear.

Of course, this was not to battle the Red Iberian Orc.

There was a stench that even a human like her could sense. The area in the highway’s shadow was still wet in places, so she paid careful attention to where she stepped and slowly shifted her body weight one step at a time.

She made her way to a pile about as tall as she was.

It was clearly a different substance than the dried mud.

That was only natural because it was Red Iberian Orc dung.

She did not have the guts to investigate this during the wet rainy season.

“…The smell has changed again.”

It was well-known among animal researchers that the smell was very different between herbivores and carnivores. The red dress girl stuck out the silver stepladder and poked at the dung pile to push it open. The smell grew stronger, but she had to bear with it. She regretted not using a stocking or some gauze to create a makeshift mask. There were some undigested materials left inside: some kind of animal fur, chewed-up bones, and something like a horn. The girl frowned at what she saw. She was lucky that she knew how to tell the bones and horns apart.

(So they’ve started eating deer. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before they reach humans…)

That was when she heard a dull explosion of noise overhead.

“Kh.”

The girl ducked down without thinking.

After jumping into that abandoned building, the Red Iberian Orc had apparently jumped back out another window. He landed on top of the highway above. If she had stayed up there, it would have been over for her. For emergencies, the small bag hanging from her shoulder had a metal measuring tape which could be used as a whip and some compressed gas cylinders for portable burners, but she wanted to avoid fighting them at all cost. The twintail girl focused on her pounding heart while she held her breath. She heard another loud leap, so he had apparently gone to another abandoned building.

She thought about the “material” before her eyes once more.

…Those Red Iberian Orcs could mate with any plant or animal to create descendants that incorporated the strong points of those plants and animals.

So after coming to Earth, they had started a selection process.

Through their predatory behavior, they selected the lifeforms to be incorporated into their genes. They had started by consuming the stationary plants, moved up to the simple and primitive insects arthropods, eventually reached the lizards and amphibians…and had finally reached the mammals with much more complexly developed brains.

They were measuring how much of a resistance those lifeforms made.

The powerless were devoured and converted into energy, while the powerful were mercilessly mated with to have their traits incorporated into the Iberian Orc line.

It was a selective consumption.

There were still no reports of the Red Iberian Orcs successfully mating with an Earth lifeform. But if they did succeed, the next generation would be freed from the bonds of the atmosphere and planetary movement, so they would be able to remain active on Earth indefinitely. The current generation was restricted to a few days – a week at the most. If the humans lost that one advantage of time being on their side, there would be no stopping the Red Iberian Orcs. The entire planet would be overrun by the next generation.

They had already reached deer.

How many steps were left before they chose humans as their target?

Hippos, rhinos, bears, tigers, lions…the dress girl was reminded of the TV program she had seen debating which animal was the strongest. Humans were classified as the peak of the primates, but that was only by human standards. It was possible that the trial would reach the humans before some of those ferocious beasts.

What would happen if they stayed silent until that time came? If they were deemed worthy, the Red Iberian Orcs would force themselves on the humans. If they were not deemed worthy, they Red Iberian Orcs would devour them.

Needless to say, neither option was acceptable.

With that clear limit in mind, they had to work out a counterattack plan to ensure the survival of the human race.

Part 2

In a total transformation from before, rain poured down. The other of the extremes – the rainy season’s downpours – had arrived. The motionless mud regained its stickiness and everything on the surface was slowly swept away. The only people who could walk around in that without being swallowed up were the Red Iberian Orcs with their immense strength and weight.

“Nhheee…”

Haruka, youngest of the three maid sisters, made a weird noise in front of a cracked mirror.

She could not use the sweet-smelling toothpaste, but having a toothbrush still meant a lot.

The red dress girl called out to her as she approached.

“Haruka, are you okay? You haven’t given up, have you?”

“Oh, milady! W-welcome back!!” The small animal of a maid looked back and her face lit up. “It started raining without warning again, but were you okay?”

“Yes, I just barely made it, but I could mostly tell from reading the clouds.”

The maids waiting here would have been trying to predict the sudden downpours using a makeshift hygrometer made from around 10 long hairs stretched taut. The heliport would have proper meteorological equipment, but that was no use without a stable power source.

They were in the largest building of Tokyo Middletown, a famous complex in Roppongi, the same district as the Detached Magic Palace. The mud had done a lot of damage here too, but the surrounding art museum and residential buildings had collapsed and acted as a breakwater, preventing this building from collapsing.

It was far from safe against a Red Iberian Orc going all out, but they were staying on the top floor. The program-controlled elevators were not needed to move between the surface and the top floor. With a small gondola, a weight, a pulley, and some wire, they could use analog tech to mimic the elevator.

Around 50 men and women of all ages were sitting lethargically around the area.

Including people commuting from other prefectures, it was said Tokyo used to have 1.3 million people coming and going every day. They had no way of judging how many shelters there were in that scene of mud and abandoned buildings, but the red dress girl hoped there were as many as possible.

Surprisingly, while there was weariness and sorrow in the shelter, there was little resentment or anger. Their normal life had been taken from them by a clear enemy – the Iberian Orcs – but being inhuman must have paid off. This was being handled more like a natural disaster than a war. It may have been like a swarm of locusts.

Then more voices spoke up from the side.

“Oh, Beatrice. You’re back?”

“H-hwehh… The Bills’ Todoroki Tower was a complete disaster…”

The voices belonged to an athletic woman in glasses and a tight skirt suit and to a busty shrine maiden with swirly glasses and soft and fluffy blonde hair. They were the two the red dress girl had worked with in Ground’s Nir. The glasses cow was about to collapse because of the large backpack on her back and the various drum bags hanging from her shoulders. With all the straps wrapped around her, her large breasts were even more of a sight to behold than usual. Comparing her to the flaaat woman next to her made it clear that glasses girls came in many different forms.

The red dress girl and the others were staying in Tokyo Midtown, a giant complex containing a triple digit number of stores, but too much food risked inviting in the Red Iberian Orcs. Thus, they had thrown it all outside and used it as bait.

It may have been similar to the idea of never keeping food in your tent when camping in the jungle where ferocious animals prowled.

“Anyway, Filinion, I see you’re as unathletic as ever.”

“Pant, pant. Th-then can’t you let me use that…?”

“Don’t be stupid. The solar panels keep breaking and the generators are too loud to use, so our power is limited. More importantly, Beatrice, how did your fieldwork go?”

The red dress girl placed her hands on her hips and spoke in a different mood than with the maid named Haruka.

“I’ll explain in more detail after we gather everyone together, but things are only getting worse. By the way, how did the food hunt go?”

“Roppongi Bills was a good supply since it’s only 300m from here, but the place reeks now. Passing the four day mark must have been bad because everything out in the open is rotting. Even chlorine-sterilized tap water only lasts a few days if you leave it out and any food filled with various nutrients will go bad even faster. Refrigerators really were an incredible invention. And with the power out, the back and forth between dry and rainy has meant high temperatures and lots of moisture. We aren’t going to find any non-canned supplies from here on out.”

“The Reds are still as lively as ever, so we need to plan for another 3 or 4 days…for a total of a week. Oh, right. What about the packaged foods?”

“Have you heard how greater wax moth caterpillars can eat plastic bags? It was like peering into hell.”

Had the poor conditions caused an outbreak of them, or had they escaped from an insecticide maker or a health research lab? Given the rich residents of the Bills, the red dress girl guessed they may have been food for reptile pets or the possessions of an insect lover. Tokyo was filled with a surprising variety of animals.

Incidentally, the water in the tank on the Bills roof had similarly gone bad. Tap water remained clean by the constant movement of people opening the tap to use it. If it stayed in one place for too long, the rust and bacteria would get inside it. Now that they had passed the four day mark, even normal drinking water needed to be purified with a filter made with pebbles and sand, with boiling, or with chlorine.

The red dress girl did not normally eat such things, so she looked a bit lost as she asked her next question.

“Even the things like cup noodles and freeze-dried soups?”

“I can tell you didn’t see them. Those preserved foods were already an issue because of the smell that had gotten on them, remember? And in addition to the caterpillars, the plastic containers are not perfectly airtight. …I really don’t want to explain any further, but the mold and bacteria from the rotting fruit had made its way to other sections. Seeing that blackened disaster would kill anyone’s appetite.”

That cow was an incarnation of sloth, so if even she was this dejected, they apparently really were in a pinch. They were relying on stores’ inventory during a power outage, so they had predicted this would happen eventually. But if she was being honest, the red dress girl felt this was too soon.

Haruka the Maid grew pale as she listened in.

“U-um. You three can use the Gates to escape to the other world, right? Then couldn’t you go get food there and not worry about us…?”

They could indeed do that.

They could only stay in Ground’s Nir for a few days, but they would not be exposed to the threat of the Red Iberian Orcs during that time and they would be ensured safe food and shelter. Simply put, they only had to reverse the normal way of things. They generally could not bring anything between the two worlds, but if the human who ate the food could travel between them, then the people who could do that could eat without issue. They could relax while in the other world, return to this dangerous planet when their internal clocks needed readjusting, and then immediately return to the other world. From a risk reduction standpoint, that was the better choice.

But normal people like the three maid sisters could not use that method. They would remain exposed to the threat of the Red Iberian Orcs 24/7.

The girl with black twintails placed her hand on Haruka’s small head.

“Hyah! M-milady?”

“Don’t worry. We won’t abandon you.”

“Um, but…”

The small animal of a maid grew flustered and the glasses duo sighed.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. And staying here is the logical choice. After all, if the Reds take over the entire planet, they will always be wandering around right in front of the Gates. That means we couldn’t use them. We can only stay in the other world for a few days, so we’re goners as soon as we can’t return. We need to join forces and solve this problem before that happens. That’s the best choice.”

“If we draw a line between the haves and have-nots, it could cause infighting on the human side. That stratified stress is the greatest obstacle to overcoming a large problem. …Okay, little kids, Off-Season Santa is about to hand out some treats.”

With that, the swirly glasses shrine maiden with soft and fluffy blonde hair walked over to some small children with a bag stuffed full of something. The self-interested children gathered around the cow with complaints like “treats are for Halloween”, “where are the toys”, and “let’s play a trick on her with some toys”. The red dress girl gently narrowed her eyes as she watched the scene from a short distance away.

“…Armelina, it may be time.”

“Seriously? I would really prefer to get rid of this unease.”

“Everything in Roppongi Bills has rotted and you know how frightening their senses are. At only 300 meters, the wind could carry the smell here. This place will be destroyed if it attracts the Reds’ attention.”

Thinking back to the great leaps near the highway, it was clear that the Red Iberian Orcs could get in anywhere if they wanted to. The girl and the others were staying at the top floor of Middletown Tower because they had wanted the smells and sounds of daily life to be as far off the ground as possible. That effort would be wasted if that rotting smell was blown over to Tokyo Middletown. The stench might make humans want to vomit, but it would only inspire hunger in those Red Iberian Orcs and their much stronger digestive systems.

The beautiful police officer looked annoyed.

“Could we maybe purify the Bills’ Todoroki Tower?”

“How exactly? Using fire would stand out too much. I don’t know how much spoiled inventory they have, but disposing of it inconspicuously isn’t realistic, is it?”

The glasses beauty in a tight suit clicked her tongue and looked over at the children again. She watched their delight at being given bags of relatively odorless cookies and biscuits.

“…Gaining control of this building was a miracle in and of itself. We had to throw out all the food in Middletown Tower to distract the Reds… Doing all that again and while making a mass migration without any decoys simply isn’t realistic.”

“I know that.”

The red dress girl stopped speaking there.

At the children’s insistence, she used the edge of a round can lid to cut open a hard-to-open bag. Once the children had moved far enough away, the glasses beauty in a tight skirt suit opened her mouth again.

“Besides, we still haven’t found another candidate, have we? Even without the Reds, we have no future if we start moving during the dry season and simply wander around at random. We’d just get caught in a sudden downpour and swallowed up by the mud.”

“That’s why I’m not arguing for that. I will not abandon Haruka and the others.”

The red dress girl slowly exhaled.

And she spoke with conviction.

“I said my field work showed things are only getting worse, right? The Reds have started eating deer. With their selective consumption, they either eat you or mate with you. It isn’t long now until that trial arrives for us humans. Either way, we’ve reached the limit.”

“Wait, you aren’t suggesting what I think you are, are you?”

“So we have to stop hiding. …From here on out, we need an actual counterattack plan. Are you willing to hear me out?”

Part 3

The fact that they were all young women came in handy.

They only had to say they were taking a bath to gain some privacy without anyone questioning it. They wanted to avoid an explosive spread of confusion in this enclosed space. Of course, the emergency situation meant they only had a makeshift partition made from a blue tarp and a clothesline pole to hide them.

Misoka, second of the three maid sisters, checked on the pot of hot water. An alcohol lamp could be made by filling a small tsukudani bottle with rubbing alcohol and sticking a rag inside in place of a wick. Placing the lid on top would hold the rag in place with the edge. It could be lit with a simple electric lighter made from aluminum foil and a makeshift battery made from an electrode and fruit juice in a bottle. The friction of a drilling motion was the stereotypical example of starting a fire without fuel, but unlike in manga, not that many people could start a fire with just a stick. Using a magnifying glass or cup of water near the window was also an option, but that could reflect the sunlight and draw unwanted attention.

They of course did not use the hot water as is. They diluted it in a bucket of unheated water to complete their preparations.

“Okay, that should be good for the water. Lady, you can adjust the temperature to your liking. The heat can send the alcohol shooting out, so put it in the bucket.”

“Thanks.”

They called this a bath, but they could not fill a tub with pure tap water. They could only draw some water with a stocking, dissolve a bit of odorless mouthwash and rubbing alcohol into it, and wipe down their bodies with a wet cloth. Tokyo Middletown, where they were staying, and Roppongi Bills, where they had gotten food, were stocked with soap and shampoo, but all those commercial products had strong artificial floral scents that the Red Iberian Orcs would never overlook.

(I wish we had the shampoos and soaps that zookeepers use, but with the cars and trains down, it would be hard to cross the wasteland all the way to Tama or Ueno.)

The red dress girl took a small cloth from Misoka.

“Nothing could be more obvious, but let me restate the basic premise here: There is no way at all that we can stand up to the Reds. Not with any method here on Earth. Do we all agree on that point?”

“Reluctantly.”

Perhaps because she had prided herself in protecting her nation, the glasses police officer in a tight skirt suit childishly pouted her lips. Sounds reminiscent of thick rubber snapping came from her, but they were likely her removing the equipment underneath her tight suit.

Despite the unprecedented chaos of every nations’ leaders and chain of command being attacked at once, the red dress girl’s conclusion was obvious enough from seeing the fighters crashed into high-rise buildings and armored vehicles being swept away by the flowing mud of the rainy season. Modern military might could not defeat them. And that was not simply an issue of physical strength. Their brains rivaled supercomputers, so their mental calculations had worked out all kinds of codes, from the locks on shelters to the launch codes for ballistic missiles. There had been weapons and bases with great destructive power and sturdy defensive power, but a lot of the trump cards had ended up unused when the Reds reset the targeting locks and a lot of the shelters had been rendered useless when the thick metal doors were opened.

The Gates connecting Earth to the other world supposedly required the support of a Shining Weapon to use, but the Red Iberian Orcs had entirely ignored that as they flooded through the Gates around the world. They could carry out the data processing of a precision weapon all on their own.

That left only one hope for the red dress girl and the others.

“…We bring Magic to Earth.”

The trick to effectively using a single cloth was to start by wiping off your face and then moving to the relatively clean areas. If you started with the bottom of your feet or your privates right away, the rest would be a tragedy.

“If we can’t rely on modern military might, we need to rely on some other power. That’s the only way to solve this problem.”

“You make it sound so simple, but how exactly do you propose we do that? At the very least, that isn’t a trick we know how to do.”

The shrine maiden with soft and fluffy blonde hair undid her collar and used a wet cloth to wipe behind her ears and around her neck while she asked that question.

In Ground’s Nir, they were the Level Cappers who had reached Level 99 and mastered Magic, but that was not something they could use here on Earth.

“There is an exception.”

The red dress girl moved from her shoulders to her hands and then from her bare thighs to her ankles while she let the second of the three maid sisters scrub her back. Even with such a makeshift setup, the warmth of the water was enough for her skin to grow somewhat flushed.

“Demon Lord Tselika used her contract with Gruagach to use Magic here, remember? We have to look to that for hope. We might have been able to rely on Ultimate Weapon Abyss if she hadn’t been destroyed, but I doubt we can expect much from her.”

Technically, Tselika had not crossed between worlds and had only pressed against the barrier between them like a magnet to move the metal clips on the other side (i.e. Earth), but the end result was little different.

The soft and fluffy blonde sent her hand from below her large breasts to her navel as she responded.

“Um, Gruagach is helping provide food in the other world right now, so do we need to call her here?”

There were countless Gates in Tokyo alone.

But an individual could only use one at which they had registered their Shining Weapon.

For example, the red dress girl used the one in the garden of the Detached Magic Palace in Roppongi, the soft and fluffy blonde shrine maiden used the Dragon Palace Chamber of Ushigashira Shrine in Akasaka, and the tight suit glasses woman used a mobile work truck. Unfortunately, most of those were buried below dried mud. Gruagach’s Gate was presumably at a high-class girl’s school in Shinjuku. The mud would not be a problem as long as it was above the second floor, but…

“With the Reds everywhere, we can’t walk all the way to Shinjuku. Even a few kilometers would be a hellish distance right now, and they have even more of an advantage at night thanks to their sharp senses.”

“But the Reds are interfering with the Gates using their supercomputer brains, right?”

“…I had Iroka prepare a hacking tool. We just have to rewrite the internal settings and make sure the closest Gate can summon Gruagach.”

At first glance, they seemed to be taking a shortcut that ignored several hurdles.

But that did not mean every barrier had been removed.

The tight suit woman frowned while tracing her finger along the side of her glasses.

“Hey, the closest Gate is in Roppongi Bills’s Todoroki Tower. It’s on the 52nd floor’s reservation-required observation deck. Which is not good. The food’s spoilage rate wasn’t part of our initial plan. Isn’t the rotting smell going to call in the Reds before long?”

“That’s right.”

The red dress girl quietly nodded.

And she continued.

“That’s why we have to break through.”

“…”

“…”

Even the Level Cappers had to fall silent here.

This meant a head-on battle with those incarnations of violence.

Instead of hiding and waiting it out, they would be pitting strength against strength and pushing back. They had suggested the idea several times before, but they had always shaken their heads. The odds of survival were very nearly zero.

“Todoroki Tower is the tallest building of Roppongi Bills. Let’s plan out how to reach its observation deck, rewrite the Gate’s settings, and summon Gruagach. We’ll probably have to wait in front of the Gate for 2 to 3 minutes. …No one is managing the original girl’s school Gate anymore, so the Reds might be walking around in front of it. No matter what, we need to avoid having our one hope killed instantly in a run-in with the Reds after returning to Earth. So we need to start this counterattack by retaking the Bills Gate. There are tanks almost entirely buried in mud and there are fighters crashed into buildings. We should be able to use their gun turrets and bombs as weapons. We can put up a fight.”

“…That is a hell of a thing to say. We’re starting with the assumption that we can’t beat the Reds without Magic, but now you’re telling us to get by without Magic? We don’t know how many Reds there are, but we have to assume more and more are going to arrive if we cause a lot of noisy explosions as we fight.”

“That’s why we can’t think about winning. If we focus solely on using that firepower on temporarily drawing the Reds away from the Gate, things might change.”

“After all this, you end it on a ‘might’? Ugh…”

The swirly glasses shrine maiden sighed as if resigning herself to what was coming.

They could not use Magic. They were no more than human on Earth. But they were still Level Cappers. If they were choosing a suicide squad for their plan, they had no choice but to raise their own hands. They could not escape that responsibility.

They made the decision so readily that Misoka the Maid grew flustered.

“W-wait, lady! Don’t look so sad. If you’re going, I’m going with you. In fact, you three are the foundation of our strategy here and we don’t need to send our generals out on the front line!!”

“Thanks, Misoka, but this is our job.”

The girl smiled with her dress’s shoulder straps pulled down to reveal her back.

This was a dangerous mission that used elements from both Earth and the other world. Everything would come together more smoothly if they used people familiar with the situation on Earth and Ground’s Nir. Also, keeping the other people away from this conversation was for more than just preventing the spread of fear. They had also wanted to avoid a rush of volunteers moved by momentary emotion.

The current Red problem was a lingering effect of the Underworld incident.

But at the same time, that resurrection process had saved the girls’ lives as well. Since they had benefited from it, they could not look away now.

The tight skirt woman spoke while massaging her legs to get rid of any swelling more than just wiping off the sweat.

“In practical terms, how strong is Tselika? I mean, I remember her spreading terror through Tokyo before, but can she alone defeat all those Reds? In fact, I’m not sure we could beat all of them even if we amassed all of humanity’s forces in Ground’s Nir where we could use Magic…”

They only had to think of Boo Boo.

These greatest and strongest lifeforms had even more strength and intelligence than him and they were trapped by a desire for destruction. Plus, this was a large group of them. Anyone with any sense at all would want to avoid a direct fight, even with the use of Magic.

However…

“Gruagach might come in handy there as well. Her Job is Summon Hunter, right?”

“Doesn’t that let her make a contract with Ground’s Nir’s Nonhumans and then store their power in an arrow? …Huh?”

“The Reds are Iberian Orcs from the other world, so they’re categorized as Nonhumans. If a contract could be made and they were brought onto our side, the strongest enemy might become the strongest ally.”

“You can’t even speak with the Reds, so would that really work?”

With her back finished, the twintailed girl took the rag back from Misoka, wiped off her armpits, bent her legs, and reached behind her knees.

“There’s no way to know, so it will be a gamble, but Tselika’s Skill is Charm, right? That allowed Gruagach to effectively ignore the Nonhuman’s will and half-forcibly make a contract with them. If Tselika and the Summon Hunter are working together, they might be able to force more and more of the Reds into contracts. If that works, it will snowball into a victory for us.”

“So they’ll gain enough power to defeat the Reds? Allowing an individual to gain enough power to crush the whole group is a scary thought. It rejects the entire idea of modern war…”

“Also, that method does not require killing the Reds. Assuming they can be bound by the contract and Gruagach can manage their power.”

Once things had calmed down, they could take their time and think up a way to heal the Red disease. The girls did not want to be killed by the Iberian Orcs, but they did not want to kill them either. Boo Boo had done more than enough to teach them how kind the Iberian Orcs really were.

Fear was fine and anger would work.

But they could not let hate motivate them.

“The Reds are clearly in an abnormal state, so the biggest hurdle is whether or not Tselika’s Charm will work on them. Since we don’t have any way of testing it, we’ll just have to go for it.”

“When is Gruagach scheduled to arrive?”

“At 10 tonight. Everything is riding on that.”

To put it another way, they could not wait any longer.

The Reds would be drawn in by the rotting stench before the dawn arrived.

Part 4

They could not use noisy generators and they could not use the solar panels that had broken from the temperature changes. Without a stable power source, simply knowing the time was a challenge. Especially at night when primitive sundials did not work. The wall clocks had run on batteries, but those had all been removed for other uses. The simple batteries made from bottled fruit juice all had different voltages and amperages, so they could not be used for electronics.

To reiterate, they could start a fire with a fruit juice battery and aluminum foil and they could make simple lamps with liquor bottles, but they extinguished all flames after sunset. No one had set that rule; they had all naturally done it in fear of the Red Iberian Orcs’ sharp senses.

So…

(In an age of smartphones, I had thought only old men would ever want to use a self-winding wristwatch.)

Using the faint moonlight entering through a broken window, the tight suit woman checked the watch’s hands and smiled bitterly. Using one with glow-in-the-dark numbers and hands would of course mean a quick death.

Sleeping bags were lined up nearby with disturbing uniformity. It was reminiscent of body bags, but the uncomplaining dead would not work hard to keep the moisture out. Wooden duckboards were placed underneath to keep the sleeping bags off the damp concrete, so they clearly contained living humans.

The glasses woman’s lips formed a smile as she glanced over at the defenselessly sleeping people, but then she whispered into the darkness as if switching modes.

“(It’s time, Beatrice, Filinion. It’s the dry season now, so we can walk around outside. Let’s use this chance to reach the Bills right over there. We need to prepare for Gruagach’s arrival.)”

The rustling sounds of a few people stirring could be heard from the darkness.

They could not use a single lighter to add to the moonlight, so they had to be careful to not step on any of the simple beds made from sleeping bags and duckboards.

Once the three had gathered, they exchanged a nod.

It was time to begin the counterattack. The battle against the Red Iberian Orcs was beginning.

Yet they did not make a hopeless last stand with their full forces. They could not bring any brave volunteers to their almost certain doom and the Reds were Iberian Orcs just like Boo Boo. They had made a mess of this planet, but these three did not want to fight back as if throwing hatred at them.

“(Tanks, armored vehicles, attack helicopters, and fighters… You’ve memorized the locations of the stranded and crashed ones with usable guns or bombs, right? Those are our lifelines.)”

“(Yes, but who knows how far their position shifted during the previous rainy season. Well, we just have to go for it until Gruagach has safely arrived.)”

“(Ahhh, this is really more of a job for you combat types…)”

The tight skirt suit glasses woman grabbed two synthetic fiber bags from the ground and gave one to the red dress girl and one to the soft and fluffy blonde shrine maiden.

“(Changing in the dark might be difficult, but it’s time for this equipment. Everyone sacrificed convenience to give us the batteries for these, so don’t waste them.)”

“(I get that, but how do you put this thing on?)”

The girl frowned, so the glasses woman reached for her own tight skirt suit. She unbuttoned her blouse and unzipped the skirt in the moonlight to reveal…something other than underwear.

Something like thick tape was wrapped around her, following the contours of her muscles. It was a movement assistance suit that used motors and artificial muscles to amplify the wearer’s physical strength.

She raised her hands horizontally and slowly spun around.

“(Look at this and figure it out. I’m not an instructor.)”

“(Uehhh, how am I supposed to figure it out just by looking…?)”

The swirly glasses shrine maiden blushed a bit as she reached for the collar of her shrine maiden outfit. Even if it was dark and the others were asleep, she still had to strip down to her underwear with so many people around.

The red dress girl followed the example as she wrapped the special fiber tape around her soft skin, then she attached the joints which looked like electrode clips with batteries attached. With each solid snapping sound, she felt a constricting pressure, like she was wearing a straightjacket or a rubber suit. …Why she knew what that felt like was a mystery.

“(Nn. Is this really a military product meant to be worn for extended periods of time?)”

“(It’s technically a prototype. Assuming the designer isn’t a pervert, I assume it will be improved from here.)”

Armelina specialized in physical attacks in Ground’s Nir as well. Taking that tactical knowhow – that is, how to swing around blunt weapons – back to the real world and reproducing it with modern technology had been simple enough. This suit had helped there.

“(I was overpowered using this against Tselika. I highly doubt it’s enough to force our way through the Reds, but it’s better than nothing.)”

“(H-hyehh! W-w-wait! Is this joint really in the right place?)”

“(Yes, but your cow body makes anything look like a lewd swimsuit.)”

“(Yes, but your cow body makes anything look like a lewd swimsuit.)”

The other two helped fix the positioning of the tape and they managed finish their preparations. Once the movement assistance suits were equipped, they could wear anything over it, so they put their party dress and shrine maiden outfit back on.

“(Sync with my usage data and you can inherit my control method. It would take too long to set it up from scratch.)”

The tight skirt suit glasses woman had worn her movement assistance suit on a daily basis as something like setting the hands of a clock.

Now that their preparations were complete, it was finally time to head out.

Before grabbing their things, they made sure to check the hygrometer the three maid sisters had made from hair. The red dress girl wore a small bag over her shoulders, the soft and fluffy blonde shrine maiden carried a greedily-large duffel bag, and the tight skirt suit glasses woman carried a practical mountain-climbing rucksack. Those contained their respective weapons and survival goods. Those things would normally feel about the same as something from a child’s secret base, but the equipment was truly their lifeline right now.

While making sure not step on anything in the darkness, they quietly walked between the simple beds made from sleeping bags and duckboards. They did not want to wake the sleeping people. Because they cared for these people, they did not want to get them involved. That was always an option in risky battles.

When they arrived at a primitive analog elevator that used pulleys and weights instead of electricity, they found Iroka, the oldest of the maid sisters, who wore glasses and had a mole below her eye.

“Miss, and you two as well. These tablets contain the hacking tool you requested. There is one for each of you. They are set up so you only need to attach them to the Gate device and the program will run on its own. Even if the Gate has no power, the large-capacity battery will provide temporary power through the cable.”

“Thanks, Iroka.”

The maid looked like she wanted to say something, but she chose to hold her tongue.

Not only was she a data processing specialist, but her personality made her perfect for sharing this “secret” with. Haruka or Misoka would have tried to stop them and caused a commotion. In fact, it was possible those two would refuse the job in order to keep them from leaving.

Iroka would not do that. Even if she thought her job would place her precious master in danger, she would still carry out the task given to her.

The oldest of the three maid sisters slowly bowed her head.

It took all her strength to keep a tremor from reaching her lips as she spoke in a flawless voice.

“Until you return.”

“Yes.”

Once the obedient maid had seen them off, the three boarded the elevator made from a modified window washing scaffold and descended toward the hellish surface.

During that short wait time, the swirly glasses girl lightly elbowed the tight skirt woman in the side.

“(If it comes to it, we need to make sure at least Beatrice gets away, don’t we?)”

“(Do you really have to ask? She’s the youngest.)”

“I can hear you. And you don’t have to worry over me.”

The height of the ground changed depending on how much mud had flowed in, but the scaffold arrived on the ground floor. Normally, the first through third floors were an atrium, but this was the “ground” now. The red dress girl jogged through the darkness and left through a broken window.

Welcome to a world of death.

They were less than 300 meters from the Roppongi Bills landmark, but they had no idea when a giant red body would appear. If they were spotted on the surface, escaping would be a challenge. The three girls felt the primitive fear of the dark night burning at their nerves as they carefully walked along the dried mud of the dry season, passed by Roppongi Station, looked up at the empty Azabu Police Station, and continued on to the Bills.

They did not encounter any other humans on the way, which was entirely expected at this point.

“No one in the subway station and no one in the police station. Where has everyone evacuated to?” muttered the tight skirt woman who had likely borrowed various equipment from that police station.

The people could always have been swallowed up by the mud or attacked by the Reds, but she must have wanted to think otherwise.

“Pant, pant. I-I can’t take much more of walking on this unpaved dried mud.”

“Even so, isn’t it a little soon to be out of breath, Filinion? And watch out for the subway exit. We threw a bunch of food in there to lure the Reds.”

Todoroki Tower’s impressive height had been visible from the beginning, but it took an awfully long time to arrive there.

It did not take long for the girls to be hit by the exhaustion of someone pursuing an ever-receding oasis mirage in the scorching desert.

“Almost there…”

“Yes.”

They had crossed a line.

The red dress girl finally stepped inside Roppongi Bills’ large grounds.

The tight skirt suit woman pointed here and there.

“Check. There’s a tank buried there and an armored truck a little further away. They’re both in position to directly target Todoroki Tower.”

“There isn’t as much of a rotting smell in the wind as I expected. Maybe the downpour cleared out the air.”

If so, the current dry season was dangerous. It was possible a large group of Red Iberian Orcs would be drawn in by the rotting stench in the wind. Who could say when that would lead them to Tokyo Middletown where the three maid sisters were?

“Hey, Beatrice. Couldn’t we spread around something that smells even worse than the Bills? There are plenty of options: those cheeses rich people love, floral-scented toilet paper, and so on.”

“It’s not just about the intensity of the smell. They’re specifically choosing the rotting smells and smells of life. You can’t fool a drug-sniffing dog at the airport by wrapping the plastic package in niche cheese, right? Well, this is worse than that.”

“Hm…?”

The swirly glasses girl looked straight up and groaned like a child.

Despite the sun not being out, she still held a hand over her eyes as she viewed Todoroki Tower, the largest building of Roppongi Bills. The name alone may have been known from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south, if not the other side of the globe.

The Gate they were after was on the observation deck at the 52nd floor.

In the moonlight, they could see some giant forms moving near a broken window.

“Um, what do we do now? Since the stench didn’t spread around, it looks like the Iberian Orcs gathered inside Todoroki Tower.”

They could not get inside if the building was infested. Encountering the Red Iberian Orcs outside was risky enough, so it was plain as day what would happen if they tried to break through those monsters who could beat down a 1000m dragon while they were inside a building with plenty of cover and blind spots.

That left only one option.

“Let’s draw them outside,” coldly stated the red dress girl.

This was no time to worry about the fact that these were Iberian Orcs just like Boo Boo. If the counterattack using Summon Hunter Gruagach succeeded, they could be nonlethally restrained. The three girls had to focus all their efforts on that.

“I’ll handle the first attack. Filinion, Armelina, you two maintain a position that lets you set up a crossfire from the ‘stationary turrets’. When the Reds come running in response to the noise, start attacking them.”

“Hold on, youngest girl. If anyone’s playing the decoy, it’s me! These movement assistance suits were borrowed from my station, so I know how to use them best.”

“Why would we use our strongest trump card as a decoy? C’mon, let’s get started.”

By the time she said that, the red dress girl was already moving. Thanks to the suit she wore below her dress, she easily jumped over to a tank with just its turret sticking out of the dried mud, opened the hatch, and hopped inside.

“Oh, honestly.”

“Guess we have to do it. Filinion, you take the north. I’ll take the armored truck to the west. Once the battle starts, I doubt we’ll have time to use up all our ammo, so just scatter the shells around and create an IED minefield.”

“I’m sorry, but that included some muddy camouflage-colored jargon that makes it hard for a college girl to understand. Anyway, whoever has a chance will enter Todoroki Tower with the maid’s tablet, right?”

While they discussed their plans, they ran across the dried mud to reach the scrap metal a few hundred meters away. Meanwhile, the red dress girl chose the shaped charges from the tank’s remaining ammunition, lifted them up, and threw them around the tank. There was of course an art to making traps. If she really wanted to use those as IEDs, it would be more effective to dig a pit in the mud and aim the tip upwards, but she could not spend that much time on it. After spreading them out a fair bit, she ducked back into the hatch.

She put on a headset that was still inside.

Most tanks were meant to be operated by a group of 3 to 5, but she sat in the gunner’s seat. The battery still seemed to be functioning, so the system came to life when she touched the LCD panel with her fingertip. Instead of being like a large crane operated with several levers, it was more like a shooting video game.

(Filinion and Armelina are in position too.)

The tight skirt suit woman had said they did not have to worry about loud engine noises if they only used what could be operated with battery power. The red dress girl hesitantly held down the triangular cursor on the edge of the screen to turn the entire turret and made sure the armored vehicles a few hundred meters away in different directions had their guns aimed her way. Then she moved the turret again and altered the vertical angle to aim at her target. She chose the type of shell on the bottom right corner of the screen and it was automatically loaded.

She aimed at the window on the 52nd floor of Roppongi Bills’s Todoroki Tower.

She switched the camera mode to night vision and IR to check on the location of the Red Iberian Orcs. One was larger than the rest, so that may have been the one the Sage had called the elder.

She slowly exhaled to mentally prepare herself.

It felt like a game to the very end.

She aligned the crosshair cursor on the middle and placed her finger on the giant silhouette.

Even with the specialized headset, the great roar and shock felt like they were splitting her head apart and her vision wavered. Thanks to that, she missed the moment of impact on the screen. After holding a hand to her dizzy head and checking again, she saw the area around the 52nd floor’s window was obscured by gray dust. She could not tell if it had worked or not. The girl decided to change the camera to IR mode.

But just before she did, the sound of blowing air tore through the curtain of dust. It was audible even at her distance. The red mass of muscle had fought back without a moment’s hesitation. The 52nd floor was approximately 250 meters up, but he ignored that height as he descended like a meteor.

(Did he notice the turret’s movement even though it’s running on a battery?)

She did not have time to load another shell and aim at him. The red dress girl used the screen to switch to auto-fire mode to scatter machinegun fire at the approaching foot soldier and then she rolled out of the gunner’s seat.

She heard the sound of bending metal.

The tank was compressed like a suspended ceiling. No, the entire turret was crushed down like an empty can.

The girl just barely avoided being crushed by the thick metal and she chose one of the surviving hatches to leave the tank.

She heard the deep sound of breathing and smelled a bestial odor.

A nearly 5m body had pierced the crushed turret with a thick steel beam. The mass of dark red muscle slowly turned toward her.

She was already within lethal range.

The red dress girl collapsed back onto the dried mud.

A moment later, light flashed in the darkness.

The crossfire arrived from two directions.

Just like thunder, the sound arrived after a brief delay. The shells that the soft and fluffy blonde shrine maiden and tight suit woman launched from the armored vehicles were no different from those fired by the tank. They targeted the Iberian Orc elder’s giant body with an estimated muzzle velocity of more than Mach 5.

With an explosive roar, the dress girl was sent airborne by covering fire meant to protect her.

“…——————!?”

Without the movement assistance suit from the police officer, she might have botched the landing and broken a few limbs. The girl worked to recover by spinning in the air so her dress’s skirt drew a crescent moon shape behind her and landing lightly on her toes, but that was not enough to relax.

They had never thought they could defeat the Red Iberian Orcs with only modern military might.

A copper-colored mass of muscles jumped down from several floors up. Also, the elder appeared from the dust despite being targeted by two smoothbore guns firing from different directions. There were some burns on his red body, but there was not even any noticeable bleeding. The steel beam in his hand, however, had half melted away. He had let the shells hit the beam in order to alter their trajectory and avoid a direct hit.

This monster could react in the world of Mach 5, so mechanical assistance or not, he could not be escaped on human legs.

But the red dress girl had had a different reason for putting some distance between them.

Just as several more Iberian Orcs jumped down to the surface, she pulled a metal tape measure from the small bag hanging from her shoulder. Each of the girls had selected their own weapons and survival goods. The soft and fluffy blonde-haired swirly glasses shrine maiden would have a collection of chemical bottles like hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide, while the tight suit glasses woman would have a handgun or something.

The red dress girl mostly had items for starting fires and triggering explosions, such a metal measuring tape for making sparks and a compressed gas cylinder for a portable stove.

She swung the metal measuring tape like a whip and accurately struck the tip of one of the shells she had scattered around the tank – specifically, the fuse portion.

These IEDs were simple explosives made from existing shells or aerial bombs.

She continued the process.

Explosions and shockwaves scattered about.

“Kh…”

To repeat, they had almost zero chance of defeating the Reds with only modern military might.

Once she had created all sorts of noise and drawn the attention of the Iberian Orcs inside the Bills’s Todoroki Tower, it was time to really get to work.

The crossfire from two directions was still ongoing. It was heavy machinegun fire. The swirly glasses girl and cool glasses woman were apparently sticking to their armored vehicles, so the red dress girl was the closest to the broken windows of Todoroki Tower.

After a large wave of her hands as a sign, she ran across the elevated ground of dried mud. A few of the Red Iberian Orcs reacted, but they were briefly obstructed by an even more intense hail of gunfire.

She half rolled into the building.

She was immediately surrounded by a sweet and sour odor.

She grimaced.

(Is this the stench Filinion and Armelina were talking about? It is pretty strong…)

It reminded her of when the second of the three maid sisters had made rhinoceros beetle traps in the summer. The darkness was even deeper in here, but she did not have the guts to turn on the lights. Just like most resort hotels and broadcast towers, Roppongi Bills’s Todoroki Tower had turned its lower levels into a large shopping mall to bring in general visitors. The black twintail girl found herself in an area that really did seem like a crucible of rotting food.

They had to settle this before the wind carried this stench to Tokyo Middletown where they were sheltering – before the three maid sisters and the other survivors were killed by the Reds.

The girl used the power of the movement assistance suit to run up a motionless escalator. Just as they had planned in advance, she stayed near the windows as much as possible.

But not just because of the moonlight.

A nearby wall came crashing down and a new giant form appeared. Just as she had feared, not all of the Iberian Orcs had been lured out. Some of the Reds had remained inside their den. This one had clumps of bent metal in each fist. The girl was not sure why at first, but she eventually realized they were small single-person cars. In an Iberian Orc’s hands, heavy masses like that could be used like brass knuckles.

(…Haruka would probably faint if she knew I was familiar with violent terms like “brass knuckles”.)

The Red struck his fists solidly together, sending orange sparks everywhere.

The girl had no reason to fight unless necessary.

Her top priority was rewriting the settings for the Gate on the 52nd floor’s viewing platform and summoning Summon Hunter Gruagach from there. Sticking around to deal with every single enemy would be the height of folly.

The Iberian Orc turned his head toward the dress girl as she prepared to ignore the escalator’s height difference by jumping straight up to the next floor.

That was when a hail of gunfire entered through a window.

Hit just before he jumped, the Red with scrapped cars in his hands rolled down to the lower floor while his weight destroyed the escalator.

Once one of the girls had entered Roppongi Bills’s Todoroki Tower, they were to stay near the windows as much as possible. That way they could receive covering fire from the tanks and armored vehicles buried in the mud.

(That said, it’s only if we can. Filinion and Armelina have to be desperately alternating between moving and attacking from turrets in order to survive, so they can’t guarantee me support.)

She could not use the elevators with the power out. There was only a direct elevator to the 52nd floor viewing deck, but she had never been planning to use that. If the Iberian Orcs rushed in while she was in a narrow pit with no hope of covering fire from outside, death was the only option.

But with the movement assistance suit, she could head up at the same speed as an elevator. She still had to go through the nerve-racking process of keeping an eye out for enemies and moving while the Iberian Orcs could make a surprise attack at any moment, but she did have some chance of escaping.

“Kh.”

The red dress girl came to a stop on a stairway landing.

The way up was blocked by a few bent vending machines. She doubted the belligerent Reds would have created a protective barricade, so they may have simply dug out the drinks and snacks before discarding the machines.

She could move them out of the way if she had to, but she wanted to avoid any unnecessary noise. More than that, staying in one place was dangerous.

She slowly made her way back down the stairs.

Such a large building would have more than one emergency staircase. If she cut across the floor, she was bound to find another way up.

The red dress girl tapped her heel on the hallway floor and listened to the sound.

“Good, it’s thin enough.”

As soon as a new Iberian Orc stepped in front of her, its giant form was dragged down to the floor below as if it had been caught in a pitfall. With their weight and speed, a single step created a great burden. It was entirely possible that they would break right through the floor.

The red dress girl used the support of the special suit to just barely jump over the few meters of the hole in front of her and then she continued up. She was fortunate the large building had multiple emergency stairs. A single way up would have increased the risk of encountering them.

The girl removed the lid from a 500mL plastic bottle she carried in her small bag and she tossed it down the stairs she no longer needed. It contained an assortment of fatty meats that had started to spoil. It was meant as a decoy for drawing the attention of unmanageable stray dogs and dangerous pets, but it could also be used to mislead the Iberian Orcs who had excellent noses and who converted rotting stenches into hunger.

(The food here is spoiling, so maybe we could acquire some contagions for use against the Reds: cholera, dysentery, norovirus, O157… No, with conditions as they are, we wouldn’t be able to manage it safely. It’s useless if we infect ourselves with our own demon.)

The red dress girl received covering fire from the windows several more times along the way and she finally reached the upper levels of Todoroki Tower that had once been a status symbol for corporate workers.

Things were going well.

The situation was like a cup of water with the surface tension straining at the limit, but it did not spill. Even if fighting all of the Reds at once was a hopeless endeavor, she could somehow manage if she used speed to lose them and made her way further in. She could almost feel victory in her grasp.

The wall labelled “50th Floor” was cracked and crumbled.

Had the Iberian Orcs made some bold reforms, or had her allies’ covering fire done this? The outer wall and ceiling had collapsed in one area. The red dress girl had been thinking of opening a hole or two with her own power, but now she did not need to waste any gas cylinders. She climbed up onto the slope of fallen rubble.

(Armelina’s movement assistance suit is pretty impressive. Doing this without it would have been more exhausting than visiting a shrine 100 times in a row.)

“Whoops.”

She felt a tug as her long red skirt unleashed a scream. It had apparently caught on a protruding piece of rebar. She had to avoid doing that because it would make Haruka sad.

The large viewing deck was her goal, but it was also a dead end – possibly literally so. She would be forced to stop moving for a few minutes while she waited in front of the Gate. That was a short time, but it meant she could no longer use her previous tactics.

She found a large, donut-shaped floor used to enjoy the night view of Tokyo in all 360 degrees.

Now, it was a chilling sight since the view was as dark as a great forest. She could not even see the Detached Magic Palace. She slipped through the partition that was now just a large frame and searched for her objective. The other world was more of a prized product than the view of Tokyo, so the Gate was placed in the very middle of the floor.

(Honestly, and you can get to Ground’s Nir all the same no matter where you Sign In from. Why do the Japanese love geographical status symbols so much?)

She pulled out the tablet given to her by Iroka of the three maid sisters.

She also pulled out a generic cable that could transfer both power and data and she connected it to the control panel attached to a corner of the square pedestal, like the temperature control of an electric carpet. Iroka must have been thoughtful in how she set it up because the tablet’s screen did not light up in the darkness. But the small green light on the Gate’s control panel did flash irregularly.

(Okay, looks like the auto-run program is running. That just leaves…)

The sound of shattered glass being crushed underfoot reached her from multiple directions.

She only had to wait until the appropriate time.

But that simple task was transforming into a hellish ordeal.

“…”

The red dress girl picked up a shard of glass while making sure not to cut her fingers and she waved it near the window. She used the moonlight’s reflection to send a signal down to her companions on the surface. That would tell them she had reached the 52nd floor and the operation had moved to the next phase.

Then she reached for her prized weapon.

The red dress girl pulled out a metal measuring tape and several compressed gas cylinders for a portable stove. She did not have to think about winning. She had to buy time. They would keep the Iberian Orcs flinching back with her explosives and the gunfire from the windows. Everything would change once Summon Hunter Gruagach arrived. She could use Demon Lord Tselika’s Charm Skill to forcibly bind a contract with the Red Iberian Orcs, suppress their rampage, and allow the humans to borrow their strength.

However.

An unpleasant sensation surrounded Beatrice’s entire body. Especially her long hair. When she realized what was causing the slight straining sensation in her hair, the worst premonition of all ran down her spine.

Now, a question.

What had the three maid sisters been trying to predict using a makeshift hygrometer made from this same hair?

The change to the situation was truly sudden.

The many sounds fused together into a giant mass of noise.

It was the beating of a great many water drops.

(Oh, no…)

What this meant gradually sank in for the red dress girl.

Unpleasant sweat poured from her body.

(A downpour now? The dry season has switched to the rainy season!?)

The surface changed greatly between the two seasons. What had been dry and solid ground would absorb the water and become a muddy torrent that swept away trees and houses. The two companions providing covering fire from armored vehicles and tanks would not escape this unscathed. Only the Red Iberian Orcs with their overwhelming weight and muscles could move through that torrent.

“Filinion, Armelina…!?”

She did not have it in her to look down.

No, she could not afford to look away.

She heard low, rumbling snorts. And they entirely surrounded the dress girl. The large viewing deck was a wide open area, but it did have some cover: the elevator, the guidance counter, the bathrooms, and the shops. She could feel her chest tightening. She clicked her tongue and threw a gas cylinder, but she knew all too well she was no match for them on her own.

The Gate’s control panel still had the flashing green light where the tablet was connected by a generic cable. The work was not yet complete. There was no chance of Gruagach arriving quite yet.

It was time for the selection.

The Red Iberian Orcs forcibly attacked all lifeforms to test their strength. If the lifeform proved too weak, they would eat it and convert it into energy. If it proved strong enough, they would mate with it to acquire in its strong points. Either way, the target’s fate would be unilateral and unreasonable.

Humanity’s turn had finally arrived.

There was no escape. No convenient savior would arrive.

A powerful pressure focused between her eyebrows, like a bowstring being slowly drawn.

A burning impatience sizzled at the nape of her neck.

Just then, a brilliant bolt of lightning stabbed down into the lightning rod at the top of Roppongi Bills’s Todoroki Tower.

“!?”

(Oh, no…!!)

The red dress girl began to move, as if pushed on by the blinding light and deafening boom, but then she realized she had jumped the gun. She had been so fearful of her fate that she had started moving at the wrong time. That was blatantly obvious to her.

Her metal measuring tape bent like a whip and solidly struck the portable stove gas cylinder she had thrown onto the floor. The side of the cylinder ruptured, orange sparks scattered, and then a large explosion erupted out.

But she already knew how it would end.

The many Reds ignored the curtain of flames and shrapnel as they charged straight toward her.

She should have made her explosive attack now, not when the lightning struck.

Only the tail end of the attack tore into the porcine giants. The red dress girl tensed up and tried to take a step backwards, but then something horrifying happened. Something flashed in the darkness. By the time she realized it came from an Iberian Orc’s hand, a powerful high-voltage current was piercing her entire body.

“Kah!?”

Unable to handle the unexpected attack, she rolled backwards. She could not get back up from the glass-strewn floor. She bent backwards like a shrimp and her tensed limbs would not listen to her commands.

She wondered if the high-voltage current had damaged the movement assistance suit, but that was not it.

Her tongue and lips were also convulsing irregularly, so she could not even scream properly. It was her body that refused to move. The movement assistance suit would amplify even the smallest strength, but it would do nothing for her if she could not give it any commands.

(Elec…tricity? Wait, no…that was Magic!? Oh, I get it. We can earn Experience Points and learn Magic in the other world, but Earth is another world for the Reds…)

The Iberian Orcs were strong enough already, but now they had learned Magic too.

She had known their minds possessed abnormally high processing power. They had messed with the Gates without using Shining Weapons in order to reach Earth from Ground’s Nir.

But even then, could they really take it this far?

Did they have to steal the one advantage Earth’s humans had?

“Ah, ah, ah gwaaaahhh…!!”

She desperately tried to get up and grab the metal measuring tape, but her irregularly twitching hand would not move properly.

The girl could not resist at all as she lay sprawled out on the floor.

The Red Iberian Orcs ignored the slight burns and lacerations as their large hands approached her. She saw nothing more than hands, hands, hands, and more hands that did not belong to Boo Boo. She had the metal measuring tape and the explosives, but they were useless when she could not move. The odds of success had been near hopeless once she had lost the covering fire, but now they had truly closed off.

Yes, closed off. The despair was like having a set of double doors slowly closing right in front of her.

The light vanished from before her eyes and only darkness ruled her vision.

(Boo…Boo…!?)

The overwhelming masses approached all the same.

The test, and the tragic fate to follow, had begun.

Between the Lines 1

The strategic VR simulation using Ground’s Nir Abyss’s processor core has been ended.

The simulation participants’ sensory information, primarily pain, have been forcibly shut off and scrubbed. The mental health standards were manually altered from the recommended settings, so the memories of any unrecommended results will not be scrubbed and will be retained. Please use them for reference.

(Click for details.)

The result was defeat. During the 108 hours, 23 minutes, and 49 seconds of simulation time, which was cut off from real time, all of the participants were incapacitated and unable to complete their objective. Numerous alternate patterns can be considered, but in all of them, the Red Iberian Orcs’ selection process will reach the human race within 120 hours and their descendants will gain the ability to remain on Earth indefinitely.

(Click for details.)

Based on the above data, none of the available options will allow a comeback if countermeasures are taken only once the Red Iberian Orcs become active.

They are currently in a dormant state.

Not only did the Iberian Orcs place their own bodies in a dormant state out of the fear of going berserk, but several of the Level Cappers assisted using Magic to freeze and tranquilize them. However, this is no more than a temporary stalling tactic and this dormant state will not last forever.

(Click for details.)

If a drastic countermeasure is not found during this waiting period, there is no hope of resolving the problem. The Redness infecting the Iberian Orcs must be analyzed and a method of removing it must be found.

(Click for details.)

All participants will now be disconnected.

Goodbye for now, everyone.

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