[534] The Final World (2)
Woodga didn't bother to call a name; he just pointed in a direction.
"Now we have to harvest from the Life Tree. If you want to live here from now on, you'd better do as I say."
When the boy didn't understand, Woodga clicked his tongue.
"Well, once you receive Ra's blessing you'll understand. Anyway, let's move. There's no time."
The boy looked back at the ruined world with a troubled expression.
'No matter how you look at it, for it to be destroyed like this…'
From fragments of memory before hibernation, even the greatest disasters hadn't left the world in this state.
'Don't get anxious. Memories will come back with time.'
Woodga's face grew grimmer as they neared the city center, and finally he stopped walking, pale.
"Brother… it's a contaminated zone."
The sight of buildings dozens of stories tall still holding their shapes stood in stark contrast to the rest of the landscape.
More striking, though, was the slime covering not only the buildings but the ground.
It was overall reddish, but mottled with colors—like vomit.
"Mucus…?"
"That's right. Mucus. If you touch it—hmm?"
Woodga realized belatedly the voice wasn't Hamei's and turned to the boy.
"You know mucus?"
The boy didn't answer; he frowned.
He had no memory of this ruined scene, but the red slime felt oddly familiar.
- The aftermath of resource depletion from nuclear war…
- It maximizes the efficiency of biomass.
- Eliminate the mucus! It's destroying the ecosystem!
A few memories flashed through at once.
"Ugh!"
The boy winced again, but the Children of the Sun couldn't afford to linger.
"Go. I'll go first, follow me."
Woodga walked along a winding path like a watercourse the mucus hadn't yet swallowed.
'This is bad. The path's narrower than before.'
No one knew where the mucus originated or whether there were multiple sources, but it was clearly spreading.
Its average rate of expansion was one centimeter per hour.
Extremely slow, yet more than half the world had already become contaminated.
"Brother, there!"
In the sky Hamei pointed to, five lajets were blasting jets as they fled, a predator on their heels.
When the carnivore closed in on its glide, the mucus coating the building stretched like a frog's tongue and snatched at its ankle.
Kieeeeek!
Pulled by the powerful tensile force, the monstrous bird screamed as it slammed into a wall; its body contorted and was quickly engulfed by the mucus.
Though the distance was great, watching its body twist into unnatural shapes every second made it sound as if bones were snapping.
That was why, in an apocalyptic world, most creatures abandoned the ground for the sky.
"Brother, what if it comes after us too…?"
"No. Mucus doesn't react to slow-moving creatures. So just move slowly. Got it?"
He said it, but Woodga didn't look reassured.
The path was about a meter across—ample, but each step felt as heavy as crossing a precarious plank bridge.
"All right. From here on it's safe."
They left the contaminated zone and walked for about an hour along the road out of town.
At last a dense forest came into view.
Seeing green for the first time since waking from hibernation, the boy felt a faint, aching stir inside him.
"There's the Life Tree in that forest. From now on you need to listen carefully to what I say."
Woodga quickened his pace and looked around at the forest entrance.
"Hamei, do you hear anything?"
"I do. A humming, a vibration."
"That's Ra's warning. Only the Children of the Sun can hear it. When that sound is on, you must never enter the forest."
"What happens if you go in?"
"I've never been in, so I don't know, but the elders say it gives an awful headache."
Ignoring their conversation, the boy shivered as he stared at the fresh foliage.
'A forest. It's a forest.'
Not a memory from before hibernation, but another recollection hovered at the edge of his mind.
'Why are my memories so jumbled?'
He wondered if he'd dreamed during hibernation, but given a state like minus 273 degrees, that seemed impossible.
"Brother, the sound stopped."
"Good. Then let's go."
Inside the forest there were no creatures except plants.
A forest without a single insect was strange, but the boy's rational questions were crushed by the irrational scene before him.
"This is…"
A gigantic tree rose in the center of the clearing.
Could it even be called a tree?
It writhed at regular intervals, as if it had a heart. Brown at a glance, but up close the trunk and branches were braided fibers like muscle.
What shocked the boy most were the "fruits" on the tree.
They were at various stages of development, and what hung from the branches were not fruits but fetuses.
Humans born from a tree.
Those were the Children of the Sun—the masters of this world.
"Remember, Hamei? You opened from there too. The brothers collected you."
Hamei simply stared at the Life Tree.
"The Life Tree can be accessed only twice a day. Only when the sound I mentioned disappears. The elders say the Tree's power keeps other creatures away. That's why the mucus can't encroach this far."
The fetuses hanging from the Life Tree were connected by stalks to the crown; once they took on a clear human form the stalk lengthened almost to the ground.
Woodga crouched and approached a chubby fetus whose bottom floated just above the soil.
"All right, once it's nearly down to the ground we can harvest. So—"
He left about a hand's width of stalk and clipped it with scissors. The fetus let out a startled cry.
"Waaah. Waaah."
"Haha! Cute little thing. Hamei, you take it. This harvest is your duty."
Hamei wrapped the child in the cloth she'd prepared and cradled it gently.
It was a Child of the Sun, born from the Life Tree's absorption of sunlight.
"Hehe, it's so cute."
'This can't be real.'
The boy couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Even if other organisms could arise ten ways, humans sprouting from a tree was impossible by natural evolution.
"What kind of mechanism…?"
As he stepped toward the tree, a chill crawled over his senses.
A thick string seemed to vibrate—a tone or a feeling.
'Magnetic field…?'
His senses sharpened; things outside his line of sight came into focus.
If he willed it, he felt he could even count the fetuses on the Life Tree.
"Hey… do you hear something?"
Woodga frowned.
It was clear the ancient human they'd just taken wasn't in good shape.
"Step away from the Life Tree. And stop doing weird stuff. You're coming with us anyway."
After confirming that Hamei had wrapped the child and held it safely, Woodga hurried them on.
"Let's go. We must be out before Ra's warning returns."
When they re-entered the woods, the stream of information rushing into the boy spiked even higher, and yet it still felt insufficient.
'What's happening to me? Why is this sudden?'
As his mind grew more acute, the radius of sensation expanded, until everything within fifty meters came through as synesthetic impressions.
"Heh heh heh, so you've come here after all."
Seven undergrounders who had been posted along the route spotted Woodga's party and loaded their rifles.
They didn't have the special organ to hear Ra's warning, but they knew the Children of the Sun came here to collect fetuses.
'If they scatter it'll be a mess. Let's finish this at once.'
At the leader's signal, the undergrounders waiting in the trees nodded.
"Now!"
As the target entered range, the leader grabbed a branch and dangled like a swing.
But Woodga and Hamei, pushed by the boy, had already plunged into the undergrowth.
"What…?"
How had they known to avoid them?
'Did they notice an ambush? No—if they had, they wouldn't have come this way at all.'
"Boss! What do we do?"
The leader's face tightened.
"Blow them away!"
"Kyaaaah!"
The undergrounders screamed like monkeys, leapt from the branches, and opened fire.
Bullets rained through the bushes; Woodga screamed where he'd fallen.
"Aaah! Help me!"
"Keep calm! We have to get out of here!"
The boy hauled Woodga and Hamei to their feet and ran ahead with a fluid, unhesitating motion that betrayed no uncertainty despite being new to the place.
'What the—he's a completely different person now.'
Seeing the boy remain composed under attack reminded Woodga of the regent who ruled their settlement.
"No, he's just a slave. Hamei! Run!"
The Children of the Sun could match the boy's speed, but the undergrounders' physical prowess surpassed them.
"Yahoo! There you are!"
A branch-mounted undergrounder pulled the trigger; the boy twisted and hid behind a tree.
Tutatatatata!
The trunk rattled from the blast, but the boy's eyes swept the scene coldly.
The enemies moved with such agility he couldn't get an accurate count.
'I can't let fear take over. I have to assess the situation to survive.'
You're not dead until you're dead.
Focusing as if about to step off a cliff sharpened his senses further.
'Seven enemies with physical abilities beyond normal humans. They have long-range weapons capable of smashing trees. Escape will be difficult.'
"Brother! Help!"
Turning toward Hamei's scream, he saw three undergrounders running at her.
Woodga stepped in front to block them, but no matter how he thought about it, he didn't have the durability to stop such lethal firepower.
'What do we do?'
Splinters flew from the trunk; the boy's head snapped back.
"Damn!"
They were burning through whole magazines instead of conserving ammo.
'So inefficient.'
It showed the undergrounders were less cold soldiers and more hot-blooded warriors.
'We can't get out that way…'
When the expected shots didn't continue, the boy turned his attention to Hamei.
The undergrounders were keeping their rifles at a distance.
'Why aren't they shooting?'
The undergrounders hunted only to eat. If prey was helpless, not wounding it preserved more meat.
"Kikiki. Come on, I'll put one in the head."
"Wait! I like heads! Shoot the heart instead! Hearts are tough and not tasty."
"Are you crazy? The organs over there are so delicious. Just blow the head off!"
"I'm starving! I'll do it!"
Unable to resist hunger, one undergrounder leveled his barrel.
'No!'
The instant the boy resolved to save them, his body became a flash and he flew forward.
When he came to, he was already blocking Woodga and Hamei.
"What—what are you doing? Shoot!"
Startled, the undergrounders pulled their triggers—and at the same moment the boy's eyes snapped open.
Berserk!
A curtain of light pulsed with explosive sound; the bullets' trajectories twisted wildly and slammed into a distant trunk.
The cacophony drowned out the infant's cries, and after emptying a magazine, a ringing filled the forest.
"Wh—why did the bullets—"
The boy simply stared at the ground, accepting the new memories that echoed in his head.
- Spirit Zone. An extremely sensitive mental state.
- God particles. Mass is energy.
- Collide thoughts. That's what you call force.
"Ro—Roshine?"
At Woodga's voice the boy came back to himself.
"…I'm not Roshine."
He walked toward the stunned undergrounders and said, "Shirone. My name is Arian Shirone."
Shirone information recovery rate:
48 percent.